Vampire The Masquerade RPG
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The Times
The Kindred Chronicle
Key Figures
THE MONSTER OF EALING
Last night, several people reported the sighting of a "screaming red monster" in a quiet neighbourhood of Ealing. After a power shortage in the area, a building caught fire. It was then when, what was described as a "man shaped, footless creature" emerged from the flames, leaping, running, and screaming. One woman has told our reporters that the man had "teeth like a wolf, and the face of the devil". Police officers are still trying to get to the bottom of this; neither the power shortage nor the fire have still been explained. A spokesperson from Scotland Yard has stated that the "so called monster" might be a wounded person, escaping the fire.

TRAGEDY IN TOOLEY STREET
The police has found the bodies of three TFL workers in the construction site at Tooley Street. One of their colleagues raised the alarms last week, when the three workers didn't attend their shifts. The bodies of the men have been found in a deep hole, uncovered by the refurbishment works that are taking place in the area. According to the Police, the bodies were horribly mutilated, which has led to the wildest speculations. The names of the three workers are being kept anonymous, following the wishes of their families.

HOROSCOPE
MARCH 8 - PISCES
You are used to making sacrifices, to prioritising the happiness of others before yours. Even though that is a noble attitude, there are times in life where the only healthy alternative is to embrace your own selfishness and allow yourself some enjoyment. Reserve one hour per day to do something you really like. Treat yourself! Your colour for this month is blue.
Echoes from the past ring back into London. Their intensity increases until they are deafening. What once was a faded memory of a glorious time, now becomes a shocking reality. The consequences of actions taken decades ago ripple into the present, altering the lives of everybody in the City. Unguided and blind, Kindred wander around, trying to make profit out of the reigning chaos.


The appearance of four mysterious figures turned the city upside down. Mistrust and jealousy became the official currency of London. Serpents and fiends rise to power, misdirecting the blaming eyes of the Camarilla towards imaginary enemies. Only those with clear vision and the ability to trust each other strive, while the rest run towards a shallow grave.



Across The Board
Current Chronicle: Dragons and Lions; Pride and Fire
Current Season: Spring
Controlling Sect: Camarilla



Index
Getting Started
General Information
Central London
North London
East London
West London
South London
Miscellaneous
Out of Character


Population: 31

Camarilla
Anarchs
Other
Ventrue: 1
Toreador: 5 (6)
Brujah: 2 (3)
Malkavian: 7
Tremere: 2
Nosferatu: 3
Gangrel: 1
Ventrue: 1
Toreador: 0
Brujah: 2 (3)
Malkavian: 0
Nosferatu: 1
Gangrel: 1
Setites: 5
Sabbat: ???


THE CAMARILLA

Prince

Nobody

Sheriff
Meredith Furlong
Hounds
Robyne Sheridan
Rosella Marie Allain


Keeper of Elysium
Davvad Bisset

Grand Harpy
Catherine Wilke

Primogen
Ventrue: Marcus Antonio Russo
Brujah: Thomas Krusen
Gangrel: Alexa Mallik
Malkavian: Ellora Reese
Tremere: Hannah Sundling
Toreador: Arsenio Pozzi
Nosferatu: Dogan Khojak



ANARCHS

Baron

Khoza

Baronets
Enfield: Leslie
Haringey & Barnet: Clarice Harris
Harrow: Jelena Korolenko

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Welcome To The Night

You find yourself in London on a dreary, foggy night like any other. But what lurks in the shadows is the stuff of fantasies and nightmares, far from mortal reality.

This game uses the cursed and immortal vampiric condition as a backdrop to explore themes of morality, depravity, the human condition, salvation, and personal horror. We are a writing and roleplaying community dedicated to telling complex and engaging stories.

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Don't forget your key, baby.; [Closed]
Topic Started: Wednesday, 12. March 2014, 07:50 (824 Views)
Aguirre Efrain Maddox
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* * * * *
Upon awakening, Aguirre had the nagging need for something familiar; not the kind of familiar than had so quickly become normal in the last short span of time, but more along the lines of all those years spent in isolation--so often spent at the Night Tripper, drinking just to regurgitate it later on in a pool of blood while a sharp pain tangled her stomach into such tight knots it would never come undone. It honestly wasn't so different from her human years, was it? This was the same cycle of self abuse and mindless indulgence. What was strange about this compared to getting black out drunk and spending the rest of the next day in an army crawl between her dorm and the community washroom? Boy, apparently Aguirre had also given up on any sense of shame, too.

She found herself in wanting, but of someone she wouldn't allow herself go after. Maybe this was why the rail thin Brujah perched at the bar top, staring into a scotch and soda as though there were some hidden meaning written into the bubbling amber liquid, guidance frozen into the ice cubes. It didn't make sense anymore. Why had Aguirre come back to London? A sense of obligation?

Guilt, more like.

Yes, more than likely. She had always been a slave to guilt and would always ever continue to be, though perhaps not long, if she managed to have a future at all.

What future are you talkin' about? There ain't no future here, just a whole lot of misery, blood, dirty politics, and fire.

A slender hand shot up to her hair at the thought of fire, though grasped at thin air where the rest used to fall. Even while cutting it night after night for the last few weeks, she still wasn't used to having it hang unevenly at jaw length. It made the creature of habit feel uncomfortable at first, leaving her shoulders and neck uncovered, but it was better than remembering how easily it might catch fire--and how easily it could be used as a device for control. Now Aguirre hoped she would be harder to catch a hold of, harder to burn. Such drastic change was never without reason.

The untouched glass before her, however, was a different story. And definitely without reason.

Scotch's only friend was the addict, and while she was under that category, she'd been of a different sub group of fix since '84. All this time she'd denied it; she had tried to pretend to be someone else, someone better than the soulless shell she felt like now. There was a hole in her chest that couldn't be filled without overflowing with red, thick, vaguely copper-flavored substance. It was still difficult to embrace the fact completely, but her ability to keep control seemed to dissolve with the moon. In the land of discipline, she was now a waxing crescent, a tiny sliver of light almost eclipsed. It wasn't far off now, the day when she would feel so numb that she couldn't understand the importance of equal treatment. The shitty thing was that Aguirre was completely aware of the change, aware of the difference between how she had gone and how she came back. Like knowing one suffered from dementia, slipping away more each evening.

The one thing that remained the same was the fact that the Brujah had no idea what or where she was going with unlife if she planned to avoid her loved ones throughout. She knew at least that her feet had carried her to this stool, and for the first time in ages, she entered with sober eyes. The upholstery needed work, the frame of the office was splintered and lacking a door; she noticed the odors of stale beer, rot, and sanitizer. No sign of Nora at least, which would never cease to be a blessing. Conversation was woefully lacking between patrons, limited to the last match and whose friend had gone to prison on which continent.

What happened to this place?

Before the walls could begin to close in on her, Aguirre pressed her forehead to the cool and sticky countertop; she closed her eyes, tried to tune out the static in the room. Her leather jacket crept halfway up her back to reveal a circle A T-shirt, the waistband of black jeans showing beneath. She couldn't have looked anything but pathetic at this rate.

What the hell do I care?
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Sawyer
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* * * * * *
It felt like ages since he’d last wound up in Enfield. Ever since doing his civic fucking duty and leaving Mac exposed, he wasn’t going to risk the ire of Church. There was no point in hanging around here with her gone, anyway. He wasn't the type to enjoy self-flagellation, so when every step deeper into Anarch territory felt like a punishment, he usually took it as his cue to turn around.

Life had been in a strange sort of stasis since Aguirre had disappeared. He’d found a studio flat in Hammersmith, not too far from Parson's Green, a cozy little place with a landlord that didn't ask too many questions. He'd plunged himself into deputy work, into details and minutiae and routine. Usually that was enough to keep him sane. Tonight, though... something had drawn him out here, back to the Tripper, where he knew nothing good ever happened.

Only one patron took much notice of him when he walked in. Some boy- blond, slight, far too young for a place like this. Blue eyes seemed to never leave Sawyer's back, and with a strangely bitter feeling, the Nosfetatu figured that he'd found his prey for the night.

"I remember you."

He glanced up at the bartender as a voice shook him out of his thoughts. One clawed hand was wrapped around a glass of whiskey, but he had no intention of drinking it.

"You were that kid that stood up to Miss Nora back 'n September, yeah? Never did see anythin' like it. You 'n the mousy girl, the pair of ya. Right crazy bastards."

Sawyer nodded slowly.

"Haven't seen the girl around like she used to be."

"She isn't."

"Hm."

Cool eyes rested on Sawyer as the man's rough hands rubbed back and forth with a rag on the insides of a glass. There was something strangely calculated in the way he stared at the Nosferatu, before finally a sad little smile creased his plain face.

"Reckon it goes this way, kid. Sometimes you love a girl, you chase 'er to the ends of the earth to keep an eye on her. Other times, you know 'er well enough to trust she'll take care of herself. And you know she needs to."

It almost seemed as if the man would keep talking, but just as suddenly as he'd opened his mouth, the bartender was turned back around, glass and rag in hand.

Sawyer stared at the ridges and knolls that covered the old oak bar. Scratches, bloodstains. A heart and initials carved with a pocket knife.

Suddenly, he rather didn't want to be sitting here.

He knew the little song and dance that came next, as familiar to him as the lining of his leather jacket or the pale, soft throat of his favorite Brujah. He caught the eye of the boy in the corner with a wink and a false smile, promising mischief. The kid could only blush back, following in a strange trance as Sawyer headed for the men's room.

"You're here for a girl, mate?" The voice was shy, slight, but decidedly interested, perking up as soon as the door swung shut behind him.

"No." Another smile, as false as ever.

"Oh, I-"

He silenced him with a fierce press of his lips, broad hands pinning the guy's wrists, roughly shoving him against the wall. Sawyer had no interest in talking, not when the only appeal this man held for him was pumping dark, hot, and sweet beneath his pale throat.

Only appeal? A little voice nagged him from somewhere within the confines of his skull. You always were a dirty faggot, Flint, give up on that act.

Furiously, Sawyer sank fangs into the boy's neck, jagged and rough, like a shark clamping down on the leg of a careless swimmer, drowning himself in an ecstasy that silenced all his unpleasant thoughts. He sucked with no concern or care for the moaning boy, drank long and deep. Perhaps a bit too long.

Finally, he dropped him, leaving the stunned man to crumple to the floor. Suddenly uncomfortable, Sawyer stuck a cigarette between his jagged fangs and struck a light, flame flaring up between cupped hands. The bathroom was dim, and the mirror was grimy. If he ever needed a backdrop for a descent into careless, numb self-loathing, this was probably it.

He'd been doing so damn well until now, he thought as he studied his own ghostly reflection, blurred in the dirty mirror. It was easy enough to pretend everything was normal if he kept his distance. But here? Her shadow might as well be lurking around every corner. Out of sight, but most certainly not out of mind.

He glanced away with a subconscious shiver. The blond was still slumped against the wall, entranced and only semi-conscious. Little kitten wheezes fell from parted pink lips, and with every audible breath, Sawyer took another drag on his cigarette, staring at his own horrible reflection in the dirty mirror.

Just another night of shitty decisions. This was nothing new.

He flicked the remnants of his cigarette back towards the toilet and headed back into the quiet, smoky bar. No sense in staying around when he'd gotten what he came for. Heady liquid comfort was flowing through his veins, and it wouldn't be long until he was just as wasted as the kid on the bathroom floor. It had been a mistake to come here, and now he planned on hitting the streets and making even mor-

Wait.

Sawyer stood shock-still, rooted to the spot. If he had a face, it would've blanched. As it was, he could only stare stupidly at the narrow shoulders slumped beneath a familiar leather jacket at the bar.

"Aguirre." He blurted out the name more loudly than he'd intended. Dear god, he was seeing things now. How far gone was he? Golden eyes, blue eyes, shut tight as he tried to blink away the apparition. His feet were stuck, and none of his limbs seemed to be cooperating. He could only stare and gasp, gasp and stare, suddenly feeling far more lost than he had all night.
Edited by Sawyer, Wednesday, 12. March 2014, 16:22.
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Aguirre Efrain Maddox
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* * * * *
"Aguirre."

There was a time when I wasn't such a coward; a time when I wasn't so stricken by minute confrontation, when I wasn't sessile to fear like a baby at its mother's breast. I was without a single care in the world, unafraid to die so long as I died doin' somethin' I enjoy. It's as though death took away the permission I gave myself to be free, regardless of the consequence. It instilled an omnipresent sense of trepidation in me that I'd never experienced before until unlife, forcin' me me into tenebration when I should have thrown myself into the sunlight instead. The same thoughts have crossed my mind in one sense or another for the past three decades, became worse when people cared and I ran the risk of hurtin' them. Especially him.

The split second it took me to realize who was droppin' my name, the man I'd be so afraid to see since I got my happy ass back to London and despite how numb I felt in comparison to just about everyone else, I thought in the resulting moments that this might be a trick played by the Beast; the whisperin' Serpent had been busy permeatin' not only my dreams, but also my wakin' hours with illusions of the macabre and miserable, feedin' me my own insecurity on a platter of flesh and bone. Curious as my own illusions might have been, I couldn't imagine that Sawyer would ever come back to this place--although perhaps he didn't remember it for the collapse of the East, but certainly he remembered it for Nora and the dwarven fire starter who threatened to burn the 'eaves of her house'; if I recall correctly. It wasn't enough to keep me away but this was my side of town, my home among the livin' dead of London. So what was his excuse? Why was he stickin' his neck out?

The first assumption on my part, of course, was that he wasn't actually there. He was an illusion, a cardboard cutout manufactured by my mind to provoke--well, what else but fear? What else but guilt and shame and panic? For even as I drew my face away from the sticky bar top, peered over my shoulder at the motionless figure in my periphery, what I most wanted to believe was that he wasn't there. And so I did, because I couldn't stand the thought of him seein' how dead I looked now, how truly lethargic I felt. He could read the old me like a picture book if he really wanted, and I didn't want him to expect that to remain the same.

It was as I began to feel that incessant pull that was so deeply ingrained, a pull originatin' as deep as the platelets of blood in my system and as firm as the sway it held over me in the past, that I came to the true North of the compass; he was here. It was him gawkin' at me from across the room drawin' the silence and raised brows of the pub's other inhabitants. It wasn't my mind makin' me miserable, mutterin' sweet nothin's in my ear that I didn't want to hear. It was at that I stood, almost quickly enough to knock the stool over behind me, and hurried out the door of the Tripper.

Ideally, it would have been nice if he didn't follow me in the direction I was pacing--opposite home, toward the closest metro station. But again, that was the ideal, and I knew better than to think I might get so lucky--especially when Maddoxes always got the short end of the stick. At least if he did follow, he wouldn't be talkin' in a public place; rather, he would be shoutin' in a public place, because I did fully expect and deserve the hollarin' for not tellin' him I'd come back. I knew it was wrong, but I wanted him--and myself, if I'm being honest, to break away. We'd been stuck like glue since we met almost a year prior, even after I got him booted from the Warrens and shamed by his own Primogen. Even after beatin' him bloody every night for two weeks, and what sort of eternity is that, to spend around the master of negativity and terrible decision makin' when he was nothin' but a ceaseless optimist and good Samaritan himself? I didn't deserve him before, and certainly didn't now with the shaky moral ground on which I was standin'.

I took a sharp turn down an alley just before the end of the block, hopin' I'd disappear into shadow. The same way I always disappeared into my mouse hole. It was a stupid thought, especially considerin' the fact that I was tryin' to hide from a Nosferatu, for fuck's sake, but where else could I possibly run besides home to another man with questions? It's not as if that would have stopped Sawyer anywho.

Edited by Aguirre Efrain Maddox, Sunday, 6. April 2014, 13:55.
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Sawyer
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* * * * * *
Why did he follow? Because she was a goddamn force of nature. Magnetic, hypnotic. Because every step she took echoed in his skull, and every step took her farther and farther away from him.

"Aguirre."

He hated her for walking out that door, for playing the part of the faint apparition. I'm a ghost, Sawyer. You don't need to follow a ghost. They don't lead nowhere good.

"Aguirre!"

He hated her for being a deaf mute, for the cotton in her ears and the wool over her eyes. For being so much stronger than he ever could be. For having the strength to walk the fuck away.

"AGUIRRE!"

He hated himself for what she'd become in his mind. Weak and pale, shoulder blades sharp as knives as she hunched over amidst a tangle of sheets. One sad dead girl, tendrils of dark hair against translucent skin, the absent rise and fall of her chest. The image plastered itself to the back of his eyelids, flashing every time they closed, an echo of a memory, branded into him. She was never weak, never fragile, at least not until the frenzy had stolen something from her. Why did that Aguirre have to haunt him?

That Aguirre was only one timid step away from a shallow grave, a pile of ashes. That Aguirre was someone he could never save. Someone who wanted death.

Since the bond, the lines between them had disappeared further and further, blending together until he had no idea where his vulnerabilities ended and hers began. Somehow both of them had ended up fragile, cracked and shattered, a million pathetic pieces that really ought to just be swept into a dustpan and forgotten. Was it a mistake to ever know someone that well?

His only hope was that the Aguirre who sat in his head, who curled up in the hollow spaces of his chest and played with his ribcage like a marimba, who fucked him up so badly and so absolutely wasn't real. She couldn't be real- he couldn't believe that. He'd let her go because it was the right thing to do, because she needed her space, because she was, in the end, so much more than an extension of him. She'd come back from the states a different person, sure, but she'd come back a better one. She'd wrestle her demons, find her peace, move on. Wouldn't she? Hadn't she?

In front of him, shoulders hunched, never rising or falling with breath. A wave of tangled dark hair curtained her face. She didn't know him. She didn't want to.

It wasn't her leaving him that scared him- it was the thought that the Aguirre he'd fallen in love with had already left long ago.

One clawed hand shot out as she ducked into the alleyway, clamping down on her wrist like a vise, yanking her back with a vindictive venom he'd never known he had in him.

"It's not fair," he said, voice cracking as he pulled her towards him. Always the victim, as if this life was ever fair. Stupid, selfish Sawyer. Desperation twisted around his words like kudzu, choking them out, leaving them raw. "Why are you still runnin' away from me, Aguirre? You told me you never would. I knew that wasn't the sorta promise no one can keep, but damn it, I'm right here, you can't keep hidin'. I waited for you. I trusted you. Can't you do the same? Whose blood's runnin' through your veins, darlin'? What changed?"

His grip around her wrist tightened, crushing and insistent, bruises sure to blossom beneath his fingers. Good. What else was he supposed to leave her with? He'd thought the scars they'd left on each other's insides were enough, but even those seemed to fade. With every dawn she became another person, skin wiped clean and smooth. Bruises couldn't stop that. There was no mark that Sawyer could leave on her forever. Their very nature defied permanency.

He wasn't supposed to matter to Aguirre.

Blue eyes stared at her hollowly, like a stray that expected nothing but a swift kick.

"Come home."
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Aguirre Efrain Maddox
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Whether Sawyer knew it or not, Aguirre didn't walk away to be callous--at least not without a good reason to be. Not without a just cause for hurting him, because each time he called her name she heard her heart more loudly, like new wood crackling on an existing bonfire. She had the impulse to turn and face him, to grovel like the pathetic welp she used to be; only because old habits die hard, if at all. Smoking was easier to give up than the vitae of her former lover, and cigarettes had been involved far longer in her life than he. Nicotine had absolutely nothing on vitae, especially of a creature she was convinced she loved then and now and still managed to feel for despite her best efforts. This was tearing her apart inside, it would continue to rip chunks out of her psyche, as her beast was already doing from within. Two forces worked against her simultaneously, breaking away from her and into reality.

Not only did her color chip away like old paint, but it threatened to reveal exactly what state of mind she was in to walk out on someone she'd promised to stay close to over and over again. It wasn't as if staying close was good for anything but his addiction, and she knew addiction better than he would have given her credit for. She'd done nothing since meeting him but ruin his unlife. The only logical reason he was still after her, even now, was because he felt that addiction coursing through his own veins. They made a piss poor pair of decision makers, and she knew it would someday be the end of them if she let the rose colored glasses remain between his vision and the facts. Their relationship had been strained and desperate in the best of times, a false relationship based on mutual impulse and a hope that maybe they were meant to fit together like puzzle pieces. The brunette's personality was apparently habit forming.

The moment she was caught, she stumbled backwards at the unexpected pull--his touch much like being submersed in tepid water, enough to produce the smallest gasp. It made her flinch upon impact, which didn't aid in the finding of her feet, wiry knees knocking together and tripping one another while she nearly ran dead into his chest. She was restrained like a child whose parent found them wandering outside the courtyard, as though Sawyer was her keeper. Resistance was ever present, never quite touching any part of him besides the flesh that connected with her wrist like a leather strap. She didn't want to be this close, didn't want the connection at all superficially. The pain caused as he squeezed was just as superficial, something familiar and uncomfortable--a pressure to which the Beast whispered back menacingly, rising from her chest into her throat at the chance to see the shadow of evening. Aguirre didn't have the same strong reins on her beast as she used to, and the tight lipped fear on her face was mostly concern for Sawyer should he provoke her to lose control of herself.

'Fair' was, as far as she was concerned, a nonentity. It didn't exist, had very little meaning in the world of kine and even less in the World of Darkness. Now that she was steady in footing, stood before the Nosferatu like there was no other place she could have ended up tonight, she was able to look him defiantly in the eye; with her jaw jutted out slightly, because it would otherwise tremble in response to the guilt she was so loathe to experience again. Aguirre wouldn't allow Sawyer to that weakness anymore, had resolved to replace self hatred with hatred of everyone and everything else instead so she wouldn't be plagued with such a familiar sickness at the drop of a hat. The only emotion she wanted on her sleeve was apathy, and if that failed, anger. In this instance, specifically. The Brujah knew if he saw that sadness on the thin features face before him, he'd use it in his favor. He'd feel for it. He'd think things could go back to the way they were before. Maybe they could at this point, but Aguirre didn't want that. She had no intention of dragging Sawyer into the undoubtedly shallow grave she'd end up in, no intention of letting him die for her inevitable mistakes.

If she were to explain, he would only argue, follow stubbornly like the lost puppy he always claimed to be when they met new people. The only solution now was to make him hate her even more, to make him want to purge her from his system. She could have done them both a favor and waited for the sun, but she also had no intention of dying so immediately--not until she'd raised Hell in the pseudo-peace of London. So, with a heavy heart that would only harden after tonight, she would deliver the very kick that he'd been expecting.

"My own god damn blood is runnin' through my veins. More and more every night. That's what's changed, and what's more, 'home' is entirely subjective. Let me go 'fore you make a mess of my arm."

Make him hurt. Make him cry. Wouldn't you love for him to weep at your feet?

Shut the fuck up. This ain't for my enjoyment, it's for his own good.


Whether he let her go or not, it didn't matter. If he did, she'd turn around and walk away as planned. If he didn't, and she assumed that was the case, she'd keep this dim bronze eyes eyes on him--continue to put on a convincingly hateful act and hope he'd leave before he beat her to a pulp for it. In either case, she could only hope she'd be successful in her attempt to make him go away willingly and leave her be. Aguirre was still a weak person at her core... She wasn't so sure that she could draw out the process of alienating him without breaking, herself. She couldn't let on to the fact that, despite not wanting to be near him on the surface, she would have gladly followed him home. It was easier that way, to keep him close despite how much he might resent her. The easy thing, however, was almost never the right thing. Not now.

Not ever.

Life was not a reward for her, it was a burden. She didn't want to carry it through eternity, and didn't want to bog anyone else down with the colossal weight of it.
Edited by Aguirre Efrain Maddox, Friday, 11. April 2014, 05:56.
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Sawyer
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He didn't let go.

After all, he'd spent the last weeks letting her go little by little, committing himself to burrowing back into the routine of being alone. With every sunrise, it had become more and more expected to wake up without her arms around him, without her fingers tracing the lines of his cheekbone in fascination. He had begun to accept a truth he should've figured out a long, long time ago- namely, that nothing in life was permanent, that people drifted in and out as effortlessly as actors ducked into the wings of a stage. Out of sight, out of mind. He knew he'd lost her for now, but the tantalizing image of her behind the curtain, only a costume change away, made him believe so fervently that this couldn't be the end. She'd come back. She had to.

Sawyer Flint was a master of faith. Faith in humanity, in the essential goodness and fairness of the universe, faith in the power of fate. He knew on some level how weak and pointless faith alone was, but he even had faith in faith itself, in blind and desperate belief, like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver, salt water already in his lungs. Now, the weight of his faith was placed on one set of narrow shoulders, one pair of amber eyes. A compass would always spin back to magnetic north. And Aguirre would always come home. Wouldn't she?

He couldn't let go. Not when he'd tried his hardest to believe this moment would come. It was imperfect, cracked and shattered and wrong, bitter and uncomfortable, but it was her. And that was the only thing that mattered.

"It's amazin' how easy it is to start forgettin' people, piece by piece. What the exact color of their eyes were, or how their laugh sounded, or the way they drove you nuts when you apologized for things that weren't their fault." His voice was hesitant and low, fingers still curled around her wrist as if he was convinced she'd dematerialize the second he moved them away, like she'd crumble to dust if he didn't keep a firm and concrete hold on her. "Soon enough, there's nothin' left but their hair stuck in the drain and everything, everything tastes so bitter. Soon enough you don't remember them- you just remember how it felt to lose them, to have that loss perch up on your shoulders like some goddamn vulture. And it never goes away."

"Three months, Aguirre. Three months without so much as a word. I don't know how you did it. Don't know how you manage to turn all those feelin's off. Only thing that kept me sane was how much I missed you." He smiled a pained little smile, aware of how bizarre that sounded. "Every time it hurt, I didn't mind. How could I? The fact it kept hurtin' meant you were still out there somewhere. Still alive. Maybe even still okay."

It was as if she'd wound a string around his heart, and every tug and pull made it skip a beat, cut the bloodflow to his brain, left him dazed with a pounding headache. But with each pang, he knew the other end of that string was still safely attached, that the person yanking him around was still there. As long as he kept feeling something, everything was okay. It was real. It mattered. "It was only if it stopped hurtin' that I'd really know somethin' was wrong."

These nights, he was never sure how genuine that sensation was. Faith was the only thing that kept him trusting his own feelings, too. He didn't want to believe that every moment he spent with his heart jammed in his throat was artificial and manufactured. He didn't want to believe that the ties that kept him bound to Aguirre were little more than the strings of a marionette. But who knew? Even faith had its limits. Tonight, looking into a gaze colder than the bitterest January blizzard, he had to wonder.

Who was Aguirre now? Who was it that he still cared about? And how on earth was he supposed to make her snap out of... this?

"You're still so goddamn hung up on this life, like you don't deserve to be happy, like you'd rather be some fuckin' martyr." A lump was settling in his throat, bile rising against his tongue. He couldn't help but feel sick when he looked at her. He was tired of sugarcoating his words. There was nothing sweet left within her. "But it ain't noble, Aguirre, it ain't grand and tragic. It's just fuckin' stupid. You know I'd do anything for you. But watch you destroy yourself, watch you run away from your life just 'cause you think that's the only way you can fix it? Fuck no. I... I'm not that strong. Not that brave."

The tips of his fingers grazed her cheekbone gingerly, fully prepared for her to shy away and drive the truth deeper into his rapidly-cracking heart.

"What happened to you, darlin'? The fuck you tryin' to atone for? Existin'?"
Edited by Sawyer, Monday, 14. April 2014, 07:58.
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Aguirre Efrain Maddox
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From the moment Sawyer had decidedly gone against her request to let go of her wrist, the moment he started speaking, Aguirre's eyes started to drift more and more downward toward her boots. Same old Mouse, unable to speak up despite how much she wanted to, despite how much she wished she could clock him one right this second and walk away before he tied her up with his words and dragged her sorry ass back into a relationship she was absolutely convinced was detrimental to both of them, but it wasn't happening; more and more, guilt was creeping into a ceramic heart contained in a dead body that was more than a little frustrated with the fact that she couldn't 'forget' the emotion of guilt in the first place. Why couldn't one just purge themselves of the ability to feel like the worst person on the face of the earth for past actions? For current actions, for wanting to walk away from someone who she was sure she was only linked to through blood despite a distinct doubt of that theory in the back of her mind?

The bitterness of the moment was mutual, if nothing else; She didn't want to hear about how much pain he was in, because she could feel her heart strings being hung on like monkey bars just as well as he could. She didn't need a verbal descriptor to tell her about the constant pain felt in her chest all the way to Colorado, or the constant worry about what would happen if she never went home on the way back. She didn't want to hear about the fact that she hadn't given him so much as a phone call, even when the trip ran longer than it was supposed to and she no longer had a phone with which to make said call. because she knew. She knew she'd fucked up, and that stupid little grin on his face viewed through a short glance only made her want to push his head into the alley wall even more because of how much it reminded her of the initial mistake. Leaving. Leaving, because she knew how much she needed to get away and how much Sawyer needed to get the fuck away from her. Still, even as the elephant in the street got even closer and louder, all she could do was hide her face under a cloak provided by the alleyway's abysmal lighting. Her eye sockets filled with black as though she had nothing but empty holes there, only lowered eyebrows giving an indicator otherwise.

Anger started to swell up in her throat like a bullfrog's as she heard an utterance of martyr on Sawyer's lips, something she refused to accept in application to herself. She wasn't some Christ figure set on a cross for the whole world to see and mourn, and even if she was, it wasn't for nothing, not the way he made it sound. 'Grand and tragic', for fuck's sake. She wasn't some fantasy novel hero, had never planned on being anything more than a pawn in someone else's game if not dead by sunrise--with the second one being more likely. She didn't like being controlled, didn't like dealing with how it felt to take orders or to feel like shit on demand. It was the same reason she could never hold down a job back home, could never take authority figures seriously, and couldn't deal with the fact that she was bound to him regardless of whether she liked it or not. She would swallow all that down, of course, because there was no way she was walking away from him tonight in spite of how much she really, really wanted to go home and hideaway in the usual manner. Then again, he knew her hiding spots. He knew that she'd move her bed out some nights and stay sat behind it for the remainder of the evening when she felt overwhelmed. He knew that she would sometimes close and lock the bathroom door and stay there for as long as it took to feel comfortable in her own skin. He knew how pathetic she could be... and that knowledge had carried over through their time apart, showing more and more in the fact that he thought her restraint in seeing him was stupid. The real kicker was that she was just as pathetic as he remembered, because at the moment there was nothing she could do but wish she hadn't cut her hair tonight so she could hide under it.

As much loathing as she felt for the moment more than any other moment she'd experienced since meeting Magda, she was rooted to the spot. She wasn't going anywhere, couldn't, because she felt the automatic need to appease for what she'd done to Sawyer even though he still had that bone crushing grip on a wrist whose hand was now limp-- though whether from the pressure or the lack of motivation in her body language was a valid tossup which would only be confirmed after he let her go. If he let her go, which there was no guarantee of at this point. The scrape of fingers across her skin only served to make the fact that she was going nowhere the Nosferatu didn't want her to more and more solid, especially when the response she seemed to have to it was none at all. The Brujah may have even leaned very slightly into his touch, more of a reflex than an intentional moment. She was done. There was no arguing, regardless of the fact that resentment already blossomed at the back of her mind. The energy she had a moment ago was completely gone, replaced with lethargy the likes of which she'd never felt before.

"I ain't tryin' to atone for a fuckin' thing, go fuck yourself," she replied in a small voice.

Predictable Aguirre, a disappointment to herself at this point. She was convinced at her core that parting was better for both of them, but as always, she caved to addiction that kept dipping her head back into the pool water like the apartment complex bully.

"Let the hell go. I ain't gonna ask again, nor am I gonna run off. My hand's numb and this certainly ain't the place to have this conversation."
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"No," he said softly, loosening his grip only by the slightest fraction. "I don't trust you anymore, 'n I don't believe for a second you'd stick around."

That hurt to admit, but as soon as the words came out, he realized it was true. Once, he would've taken her words and never questioned them, content in the knowledge that her loyalty was something he could take for granted. That was gone now, but the tendrils of blood that had wormed their way into his mind weren't about to allow him to let her slip away again.

"Listen, damn it. You'll never move on unless you realize that the shit that happens in this world is not your fault- and I ain't talkin' about your friend. Even with her on your conscience, you were different in the summer, and I ain't dumb enough not to know exactly what changed."

How could one night in the sewers have destroyed every brick of the carefully constructed happiness that they'd shared in those brief idyllic weeks between his confession and disaster? He could still feel her blows like an amputee remembered phantom limbs; bottled up within him was the cringing, broken wreck he'd been on those nights, open wounds seeping blood onto the sheets as he huddled alone and dazed. She'd never get near him after a caning; he wasn't sure he even wanted her to. Like a reflex, he had shied away from her every touch, as terrified and pitiful as a kicked stray. He'd never truly considered that those weeks had left her every inch as broken as he was; his scars, at least, were visible.

"But my choices are mine, goddamn it, and no matter what you asked me to do, I chose to do it. I chose it as freely as I could, knowin' what could happen, knowin' what it could cost us." He exhaled, chin thrust forward in defiance as he spoke, every word ringing with sincere conviction. "And like it or not, darlin', after that we made a choice together. Maybe things would've been better if we never had, but we don't get do-overs. We committed to this bullshit. You wanna cause me real pain? You wanna make yourself suffer? Then leave again, 'cause that's the only thing leavin' will do."

Don't ever leave again. Please don't push me away.

"I let you go, I know that. I knew you needed it. I thought maybe it'd fix things, screw your head back on straight. I didn't chase you down no matter how much my mind was screamin' at me that I ought to. But you were s'posed to come back, Aguirre. Not just back from America, but back from all the shit we've been through, back from the warrens, back from the fall. You were s'posed to leave all of that behind you. An' lookin' at you now? I don't know where you are, but you sure as hell ain't here."

As he spoke, her gaze drifted lower and lower, chopped locks of dark hair falling in her eyes like the curtain she so often drew around herself. It was Aguirre's way to retreat back into her shell, to hide from the world the moment it began to threaten her. He couldn't stand it. Not now. Not here. Not after everything they'd been through together.

Why was he even bothering to talk so much? He had no control over the words that left him, as insistent and rambling as they were. But he had no idea if any of them reached her- she seemed to cocoon herself in silence, spinning a layer of protection out of her own brooding hostility. Why would she listen to him anymore anyway? He had no idea what he was saying, or how to help her, or even who the woman in front of him really was. He knew she was afraid of whatever was at her own core, was convinced she was nothing but a bundle of mistakes. Was it even possible to love someone who loathed themselves as much as Aguirre did?

Silence from the slouched, defeated figure in front of him.

How could she be so willfully numb? Was it so fuckin' hard for her to do more than mutter a few bitter sentences back to him? It dawned on him like a lead anvil that he had no idea what she'd been through, no idea what might've changed her on the other side of the pond. And with her like this, about as expressive as a marble statue and twice as cold, he'd never know. She'd stay like this, frozen and impassive, forever. And there was nothing he could do.

And he couldn't stand that thought.

In one sudden, fluid burst, he shoved her to the ground, not bothering to hold back his potent strength. With brutal efficiency he straddled her hips, pinning her with his weight. She was more than equipped to throw him off, he knew, but was she even capable of fighting back anymore? He wasn't sure, but he'd sure as hell make her before he let go. There was nothing words could do anymore, and he was so far past using them. He'd spent this whole time begging and pleading with her, groveling and proding and believing that maybe, just maybe he'd say the right thing someday. Sawyer wasn't sure what was worse about the months they'd spent together- was it the silence that seemed to linger over them, the words they'd left unsaid and buried beneath a mountain of fears? Or was it the things he had said to her, and how little they'd meant?

Cruelly he tightened his hold on her arms and forced her down into the filth of the alleyway's asphalt. Shards of broken bottles glittered like gems in the dim yellow light from the distant streetlamp, but in the shadows there was only pitch black, his face inscrutable and rimmed by a sodium-vapor halo. In the midst of his strange and maddening rush of emotions, Sawyer's concentration had been completely broken, and no mask hid his ravaged features as he snarled at the girl beneath him.

"If you'll never let yourself be happy," he growled, fangs bared, "then you might as well die right now. Why keep goin' if this is how you're gonna treat yourself? If you're gonna spend every goddamn moment wallowin' in the past?"

He barked a pained, twisted laugh. What was he supposed to do now, huh? Show her how worthwhile she was, how deserving of happiness she was by beating the shit out of her? A two-fold realization was washing over him now- one, he was a profoundly sick fuck. And two, he was far beyond caring.

"I should smash your fuckin' head in," he said, his voice utterly strange, as if his words surprised even himself. They might as well have been spoken by someone else; they tasted like ash in his own mouth. The gentleness in his tone was edged with hysteria, gnawing on the corners of his eerily calm facade. "Is that what you want?"

Would she even lift a finger to stop him anymore? Would she defend herself, or would she just accept that, like some sick punishment that she thought she deserved? It was a miracle that Sawyer somehow kept his hands from trembling as they encircled her head, thumbs brushing against her cheekbones. There was an inherent threat in the way he gripped her, only one movement away from leaving her brains in a splattered mess on the pavement.

"Tell me to do it," he begged, cupping her cheeks between his claws, eyes wild and desperate. "Tell me, and neither one of us will have to feel anythin' again."
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Trust was a very funny term, especially applied to a situation like this one. Aguirre would have thought that trust, as flimsy and conditional as it was, would have been lost between them back when she wandered into the warrens despite clear instructions not to go in alone--Or maybe the time that she almost broke his face over a notebook that she didn't trust him enough to see. Or the time that sagged like rotting fruit from both of their minds, when she was the one who beat him to a pulp every night for weeks. One would have thought that in the time they'd known each other, in the time they'd spent fucking with one another's livelihoods, something else would have broken the trust between them. Then again.. Sawyer didn't know the details, didn't know why she came back so late or why she hadn't at least dropped him a text message at some point. Three months. That's right. One of which she spent trying to shake off the weight on her shoulders, another one spent hoping to survive, and another spent solely on getting back home after the things she'd taken to America with her were taken; among those things were any sense of self worth, personal security, a few of the less important material objects she'd been clinging to for so long... And even though she didn't actually plan to run away, one of the first honest things she'd said to him all night, he didn't believe it. She wasn't necessarily surprised, but it did bring a bitter taste to her tongue.

Bitter taste or not, she didn't have very much to say in response; Making excuses was a cop out, lying was impossible since Sawyer knew when she was trying to manipulate the situation in her favor, and trying to explain what had delayed her for so long brought a kind of dread to the air; it hushed her into a disconcerted silence. He was trying to share blame in the stupid things she'd done to cause him pain--and in that, there truly was no pay off. If Aguirre had learned nothing else from the embrace, it was that she had a long time to think about things; she also had a long time to pay for them, and even someone with old age to fear would need time to reflect on their ability to make the right decisions after something of that nature. She wasn't as positive as the Nosferatu tried so hard to be, hadn't even been at the height of her depression, let alone now that she'd come back from Hell. Of course, apparently the term 'come back' had taken on an entirely new meaning; now, it meant coming back from unyielding guilt and a sense of responsibility. This, unfortunately, was even less likely to happen than Aguirre somehow finding it in herself to become an optimist in the face of what would absolutely be chaos.

What he didn't understand is that it wasn't the inability to feel that was driving the slender Brujah into silence at the moment. Her whole life, Aguirre had been taught that one was to take a lecture respectfully--to give in to the consequences of her actions with quiet conviction, without argument, without trying to weasel out of what would inevitably end in picking her own switch out of the field behind her childhood home. Parents would divvy out punishment, and the event would be over, nothing more or less. It was the exchange rate for being a child, for being a teenager, for being an adult, and for being a walking corpse. This moment in particular was the past due payment she was finally getting for being reckless to the point of masochism, and for that recklessness reflecting on the life of the man she still cared for, manufactured or not. This moment was for leaving him in the dust the way she had, and even as a device to spend more time with Cadence before they went their separate ways, it was wrong to leave him behind. At the very least, Sawyer should have been invited to visit back home and reminisce. They had talked about taking a trip home once or twice in the past and she'd gone and done it without him. This was for the few but significant wrongs she'd committed, and she accepted it the way a religious woman accepted the fact that her husband wasn't meant to survive the collision with that eighteen wheeler on I-10, and that God had a plan for her that would have to continue without him.

This was a kind of reverence he didn't understand, the lashing of each word on her conscience leaving deep gashes that she would rarely allow him to see; Aguirre couldn't put this into words that he would ever really hear, a feature of the woman he would have to learn rather than change. The bottom line was that retribution didn't come in the form of the torture she presented to herself evening after evening, but from an equal dose of misery presented to her by the person she'd made miserable. The mind of a Maddox was a terribly conflicted thing, something that a Nosferatu whose sanity was rapidly coming unraveled wasn't able to comprehend when he was already reading the situation in a way that thick-skulled woman wouldn't foresee. Maybe she'd just miscalculated the price of running from life for so long.

She didn't register what was happening until she connected with the ground, a hit that, if she still had air in her lungs, would have forced it all out with an audible whoosh. Under slightly different circumstances, Sawyer would have been correct in his assumption that the Brunette laying in a bed of broken glass would have simply wallowed in it, would have stared back in anticipation of final death when he offered it. The Aguirre he'd learned to coexist with before would have given him the permission he needed to kill two birds with one stone--those two birds being the problem of survival, and the bond she wanted to free him of in the first place. Whether to selfishly appease her own guilt or to give him the freedom he had before she was involved with him was relevant, although one could say the reasoning was a mix of both. The Aguirre who came back to him, however, was more than a little startled by the sudden rise she'd (finally) gotten out of him. Her beast, as a result, skittered very suddenly from the pit of her stomach to the back of her throat, waiting only for her to open her mouth so it could jump out into the realm of the living and rip him to ribbons. The mention of death to the Beast was highly offensive, made it hiss and snarl at the Nosferatu from within the confines of a Brujah who was terrified that it might escape what little control she had over it. However much she may have wanted him to leave her grey matter on the pavement, the Beast was hesitant to allow it's reign to end quite yet. Without a vessel, there was no way for it to sate it's appetite.

Thin fingers grafted over the pavement in search of something substantial, something with sharp edges or the weight a blunt object could sometimes deliver to a person's skull in order to crack it open. It was a desperate reach, lacerated palm rolling over the neck of a bottle no longer connected to it's body. There was a primal satisfaction in the moment that Aguirre gripped the makeshift weapon and attempted to plunge it into the back of the Nosferatu, hollow tool hopefully slicing through like a cookie cutter through dough--in which case, with all the force a supernatural body could muster, she would try to project him farther down the alley and get to her feet as quickly as possible. The Beast would buzz with subtle laughter, muttering within the vast emptiness of its vessel's mind, "What do we say to the God of Death?

Not tonight. "


No one ever said the Beast knew the meaning of the word 'originality'.
Edited by Aguirre Efrain Maddox, Monday, 28. April 2014, 18:47.
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Her balled fist connected solidly with his upper back, plunging the shard of glass a fraction away from his spine. With one hand she drug the jagged edge back, leaving a deep and brutal gash behind. The force of the blow drove him closer to her, his chest suddenly against hers in a mockery of an embrace. His hands still cupped her face. When her blow hit him, his right hand shot out to steady himself. The other, though...

He reacted in a spasm of pain with no idea what he was doing. His hand was forced forward, vicious talons raking against the softness of her cheek. One clawed thumb plunged into her right eye socket, splattering his face with gore as the vitreous humors spilled forth from the mangled remnants of her eyeball.

He was deaf to her screams; his entire vision became a sanguine haze as his inner monster roared between his ears, bloodlust overpowering him and thrusting him towards the very edge of frenzy. The sudden sight of so much of her vitae whipped his beast into vicious excitement, screaming at him to tear into her further, rip her apart, claim all of her blood for himself.

Everything she is belongs to you. Fuck her 'til she's bloody. Leave her here for the sun. She's yours to destroy. Do it.

No, please-

He leaned closer to her, jaw snapping and salivating like a ravenous wolf as he went for her thro-

Wham.

The potence she retaliated with sent him sprawling; his back hit the pavement hard, driving the neck of the glass bottle even farther into him. The shoulder that had taken most of his weight seemed to crumple, leaving his right arm screaming in protest and pain. Keen yellow eyes widened, black pupils contracted. They were feral and blank, without even the faintest glimmer of remorse, burning with a determination to get back up.

Limb by limb, he scurried haphazardly to his hands and feet, and there was nothing even remotely human in the way he barreled back towards her, charging on all fours with all the murderous intent of a furious rhinoceros. He'd do his best to ram her into the brick wall of the alleyway. There was nothing refined in his movement anymore- it was pure brute strength, dumb and devastating.

Whether or not he managed to sweep her up with him was secondary to the fact that when he finally hit the wall, he hit hard. The sudden impact of bricks on flesh and the audible crack of bones- who knew where?- was enough to pull him back from the maw of the beast. The voice that roared in his ears was suddenly far more distant, shouted from behind the fog of war. Dazed and broken, he sagged against the wall, collapsing to his knees with sudden exhaustion and pounding pain.

Sawyer opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out were thick clots of black blood. The glass must've hit his lung, he realized in a daze. With dawning awe and horror, he looked down at his gnarled hands. The left was blood soaked; time seemed to stand still as he raised it to his lips, licked flesh and viscera out from beneath his claws, and finally stuck his thumb in his mouth like a little boy, desperate for the blood his beast had promised him.

And then, still prone and helpless on the pavement, he looked up.
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This was, by far, the most pain Aguirre had experienced in all her years of living. It was a moment after the initial puncture and the feeling of a viscous fluid running down the side of her head, before the deep cuts from his claws flared, that a rush of the purest agony fell upon her like so many bricks. The vision left in her other eye went white for a split second, jaw clamping shut hard enough to produce a loud click of teeth. No relief came from successfully throwing Sawyer off of her, and her own movement upward was a slow process when taken in stride with the pulsing, ragged fire shooting through the right side of her skull, lips parting just enough to release a horrified, half-hysterical sob as one hand reached to touch the eye socket and came away dripping an unknown ooze running down the back of it.

The Beast began it's ascension into madness, something in her mind snapping at the handicapped vision of the liquid on her fingers bringing to life a blood lust that she still tried to haphazardly contain for the sake of not losing herself in public. It was, however, for naught, and only extended the detriment done. The time she should have spent running was instead spent in a state of shock, and when she eventually came to her senses... The Brujah was being delivered directly into the solid surface of a wall that would leave every single rib securing her upper half broken into tiny fragments of the original architecture. The base of her skull dribbled blood down her neck and back, a section of skull softened by the brick. Another flash of white interrupted her vision for a moment longer than the previous one, lips and teeth staining with blood as the sense was knocked almost completely from her. The beast didn't growl anymore for the simple fact that it didn't have the ability, thrown quite effectively back into it's confines. The state of collapse her torso stood in was visible under the old, ratty t-shirt she wore.

Without the support of her rib cage to hold everything up, she couldn't will her arms to move without fire erupting throughout her body. Aguirre was just about helpless, couldn't even scream if she wanted to, the absent wheeze of attempted inhalation a testament to the collapse of lungs as well as bone. As her vision came back--blurry, afflicted by a need to crawl under a rock and lie there still until the end of time--the surrounding sounds of the alleyway came flooding back as though under water. She heard the gurgling noise of a desperate animal on his knees before her, eye rolling back into the socket again before she could make it open and focus with the destroyed tissue of her right eye trying to mimic the action. The macabre scene was that of the Nosferatu sucking her vitae from his fingers with a result akin to that of a dissatisfied toddler.

When his wide yellow eyes drew up, Aguirre could gaze back for no more than a few seconds before being overcome with the urge to plant her boot between them. In one last excruciating movement, she would draw her leg up quickly to deliver an admittedly weak blow to any part of him she could reach--although the handicapped and woefully depth-perspective-lacking aim was at his head, the most satisfying target if she hit where she meant to. The movement would subsequently lose her any semblance of balance she had left and send her dragging slowly down the wall, a heap of a person with no more will to fight. Her head fell forward, and she found it very difficult to bring it up again. Her body screamed in place of her beast.
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The toe of her boot solidly forced his head backwards as he collapsed against the wall, cheekbone cracking with the force of the blow. His face was lopsided, ruined, the entirety of the bones shattered where her kick had struck him. Only exposed muscle remained, blackened and twisted, covered insufficiently by tatters of decayed skin. Body utterly battered, Sawyer whimpered in pain, the cry of an animal, not a man.

All the same, he managed to stagger to his feet. He was drunk, he knew, and perhaps that kept him from feeling the full force of the pain. Or maybe he was just numb to many things now. Any more nights like this, and he'd have to be to survive.

When he looked down, his heart leapt into his throat.

What had he done?

In a crumpled heap, Aguirre lay against the broken, battered bricks. Half of her face was an unrecognizable mess, splattered with gore and trails of some dark, thick fluid, and beneath her worn-out t-shirt was a crater where her chest should've been. Eyes wide with shock, Sawyer stumbled to the side and did the only thing he could do- vomited the night's meal.

When he came back to his senses, he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and knelt near Aguirre's broken body, still whimpering like a child.

He wasn't sure she could even move her arms, so instead he moved them for her, as gently as he could. Her limbs were white and frail as a ball-jointed doll's, and with expert care he arranged them so that her palm was open and facing upwards in her lap.

Task complete, he sat and faced her, watching as her one good eye drifted in and out of focus, her chapped lips open and close like the gasp of a fish on dry land. Solemnly he eased back onto his knees, still taller than her as she slumped against the brick wall. Two gnarled hands went for his own mangled face. Two gnarled hands peeled apart leathery eyelids. Two clawed fingers plunged into the depth of his own eye socket, behind the orb of the retina, and gave one vicious yank.

A white flash of crippling pain, but he didn't have the strength to scream. Instead, he could only snort weakly, air whistling through the exposed bone as he tried to make himself focus on each labored breath. In, out, in, out. It was the routine of things, not the things themselves, that had always kept him alive. He held up the plucked eye with a mix of fascination and horror, watch as the gold-flecked yellow of his irises caught the light.

I've never seen my own eye before was the nonsensical thought that somehow managed to swim to the front of his otherwise blank mind.

"Here," he grunted from in between gritted teeth and the dark, clotted blood he coughed up with every exhale of unnecessary breath. "Take it."

He dropped the eye into her open palm, its optic nerve streaming behind it like the tail of a comet, blood collecting in the crease of her heart line and head line as it dripped off the bundle of viscera. He'd heard that old gods had demanded blood sacrifices. Isaac on a mountaintop, bound by his wrists. Jephthah's daughter on an altar, curling up in smoke. He had one god, and every drop of blood within him was screaming that he had wronged her, that he owed her, that she owned him. This was a start.

"Anything," he stammered out hoarsely as black blood streamed down his chin. "I'll do anything for you."

With that solemn vow, he turned and slumped against the wall beside her, utterly broken. One hand absently went for her free and empty one where it laid against her thigh, and gingerly his fingers curled around hers as he let his heavy eyelids close. The pain was white hot, blinding and maddening, but as long as she was beside him, there was only her, her, her.
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* * * * *
This was not what she wanted. It never, ever had been. Aguirre didn't need his self sacrifice, and certainly didn't want his eye--but there it lie, like a peeled grape in the palm of a hand she had no power moving instead of in the socket where it belonged. She'd seen how painful it was for him to lose an eye before, how close a length of glass in his eye drove him to frenzy, and managed to focus on him long enough to see him pluck it from it's home and place it in her carefully arranged grasp--like that was the obvious thing to do, the natural course of things. As selfish as she'd been, Aguirre never intended on this kind of low for Sawyer. She wished she could just let him be happy and free to make his own decisions. Instead, she drove him insane.

For the small fragments of time she could remain lucid, she kept her attention on only two things; the eye, and trying to course enough blood through her dead veins to mend the broken parts of herself. There wasn't much she could do with what little she had, but if she could as least keep from falling into a permanent sleep, that much would be miraculous. Another source of distraction became known to the pile of flesh slouching against the wall, fingers winding around her own as though that was where they belonged after everything that happened to and between them. It made no sense that they could attempt to kill one another and simply come back from it, but as with everything, they seemed to heal--even when their bodies wouldn't. Sawyer could at least be secure in the fact that Aguirre wasn't going to try to run away again, even if only because of a fear she wouldn't shake anytime soon, although that was only a tiny portion of why. She had this coming for such a long time she could hardly fault him, almost felt a relief to be so near real sleep. It was absolutely a relief to know she didn't have a debt to pay anymore, although that perception would more than likely change when she came to a full understanding of Sawyer's own state.

Things would never be normal again, but at least she wouldn't be so much of a fool as to push him away. Situations like this... They never needed to happen. No one deserved this much torture besides those who earned it, and Sawyer had not.

Aguirre stared down fixedly at the pooling ball of tissue in her hand, finally managing to at least keep her head from lolling up and down in the struggle to keep consciousness. She go the intent. It might have been funny if she hadn't watched him pull it out. As it was, she began to feel a sense of remorse the likes of which she hadn't known until she met the Nosferatu and ruined his life. What had happened to them? Not so long ago, the two would have used a night like this to sit under the stars and wonder how they'd gotten so lucky.

They weren't lucky anymore.

A few tiny red droplets found their way from her good eye and down her nose, only to drop from there to the asphalt. He'd feel a weak squeeze in response to his touch; if she could have forced herself to create the words, she would have told him she was sorry. so sorry. She'd never meant anything for him but the best. This was not her dream of their future, and only presented a worse torture than the events of her American vacation.

She would have told him he deserved more than this, but it wasn't like he would have listened anyway.
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Sawyer
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* * * * * *
Silence. Blessed silence. The faint squeeze of his fingers was enough to bring Sawyer to the edge of exhausted tears. Surely resolution couldn't be that simple. How could she ever forgive him for tonight? How could he ever look her in the eyes again?

Rain was beginning to fall in fat clumps, and the light reflecting off the clouds gave the early morning an eerie orange glow. Would it be better, he wondered, if they could see the stars? At least the water could begin to wash away the gore that covered both of them. He closed his only eye as his skull rang with throbbing pain, and focused on the coolness of each rivulet of rain that made its way past his forehead, the ruin of his face, the curve of his jaw.

He should die right here. He deserved it. Or was that just the coward's way out from a situation he knew he had no hope of ever fixing? Like the rat he was, however, he would scurry away from the sun's rays. He would survive another night.

"Aguirre," he said quietly, unsure of whether she was still awake or not, "We have to get out of here."

A wheeze in response. She must still be lucid, or so he hoped. Limbs aching, he dragged himself up and farther into the alleyway, each movement animated by nothing more than desperation. The sewers. He'd go to the sewers. The only refuge his kind would ever know.

The manhole cover yielded easily, and he pushed it aside, leaving a gaping, dark hole. Rusted iron rungs led down into the murky depths below. Better this than the open street. He knew he had no hope of bringing her home. And if Church saw her like this? Church would kill him. Church should kill him. But for Aguirre's sake as much as his own, he was aware of the necessity of living another night.

Aguirre. He knew there was no way in hell she was getting out of that alley on her own two feet. He approached her with slumped shoulders, muttering feverish apologies before he'd even touched her. One arm slipped beneath her bent knees while the other supported her back best he could. Every touch near her shattered ribcage must be agony, he realized with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. His fault. And for what?

As he lifted her up, his goddamn eye rolled out of her open palm. With a quick drop of his boot, Sawyer stepped on it, unperturbed by the sick squelch that followed. No animal could carry it off that way, and when the morning light hit the gory remnants in a few hours, it would be nothing more than a pile of harmless dust. Forgotten.

He leaned forward, clutching the girl in his arm weakly, and tried to figure out how the hell he was supposed to make it down the iron rungs of the manhole's ladder. Grunting, he shifted her weight to one shoulder, pleading with whatever higher power was listening not to let him drop her. Each step was a trial, and the pained wheezes that came from the Brujah only sent Sawyer further and further into a spiral of numb despair.

What had he done. What was he doing.

The sewer passageway here was wide and empty, and a constant steam of fetid water flowed between each raised edge of the concrete floor. Only a few sodium vapor lamps lit the way, burning low and yellow from the ceiling above.

Each step echoed through the wide vaulted arches of the passageway, and Sawyer was pathetically unsteady on his feet, weaving like the drunk he was, occasionally sending a splash of foul liquid up with each misstep. The sewer was a labyrinth, each corridor identical so that the passage of time and distance was impossible to measure. Bricks formed honeycomb after honeycomb, dimly illuminated by the occasional bare bulb. Beneath it all, Sawyer stumbled on, clutching Aguirre with a blank face, stunned into mute shock by pain and circumstance. Only his destination was real; only his fear kept him moving forwards.

He couldn't say how long it took to reach safe haven. Nestled in a section of disused water outlets, perched in the empty space of an abandoned bomb shelter from the days of the Blitz, was one lonely hideout that he'd claimed as his own before.

The room, if it could even be called that, was low and damp. A spigot and bucket formed a makeshift sink in a corner; nearby was a dented minifridge, cord unplugged and curled neatly beside it. Against one wall were rows upon rows of incubators, all of them unplugged and empty. He'd spent whole nights in here during the late summer, hatching Myrtle's previous clutch of eggs. But after that same gator had met a grisly end courtesy of a certain Toreador, there had been no hatchlings to care for, no eggs to keep warm. It was clear from the cobwebs and mold that no one had been in the room for months.

A stack of mildew-covered blankets rested on top of the mini fridge. Sighing with exertion- when had she gotten so heavy, and he so weak?- Sawyer laid Aguirre down on the concrete floor, and quickly gathered the blankets around her in a makeshift nest. He doubted she could feel much of anything by now, but it still seemed right to at least attempt to make her comfortable.

Next, he ran the spigot, letting the edge of an old towel soak in the bucket of murky water. Gentle hands pressed the cloth to her cheek. The water was cold as he wiped the blood away, before moving on to the area around the wreckage of her eye. His own claw furrows tore the pale flesh of her cheek; it was the least he could do to wash them, to try to clean her best he could. It wasn't as if she cared, but he had to do this. He'd done so much else wrong.

Her shirt was already in tatters, he noticed. Gingerly he peeled the wet cotton away from her battered skin, leaving her in only a simple black bra. A fresh wave of regret rose in him as he daubed the blood on her chest away best her could- that crater where her ribcage should've been was his doing. Limp and bruised, she was nothing more than a corpse, with the same purple-tinged pallor that marked his own flesh. Inhuman, decayed. Beneath her translucent skin ran the thick, stark lines of black veins, crisscrossing like roots across her thin arms. With every wipe of the towel, he wished so badly that he could wipe away more than the blood and dirt- couldn't he bring back her rosiness, the blush of life? She'd lost so much, had so much stolen from her. Please, couldn't he at least make her whole again after all the wrong he'd done?

Useless. It was useless. Glancing back at her, clean and white and so very dead, he set the towel aside and laid a thick woolen blanket across her still chest.

"You're... you're probably gonna slip into torpor soon." The words echoed in the tiny concrete room. He had no idea if they registered.

So will I, he realized with profound weariness. Was that an obligation or a choice? He wasn't sure. The only thing he could process was how very, very tired he was. The weight of this night hung around his neck like a millstone. With his heart in his throat, he laid down beside her, nestling around her and gathering her up in his arms as if physical closeness could solve anything.

"Don't be scared," he whispered hoarsely. He was terrified. "It's just like fallin' asleep. I'm here. I'm with you."

What if she didn't have enough blood to heal herself? Who knew when the last time she'd fed was? Despite all the blood he'd lost tonight, he felt more or less whole, at least in comparison to the broken girl wrapped in dirty blankets. As if he was in a trance, one wrist made its way to his mouth, and he tore into his own withered flesh with wicked fangs. He willed the blood to flow to the surface and pressed his wrist to her closed lips, parting them by force. The blood dripped down her throat, and he held her, still and silent, his free hand seeking out her own ice-cold fingers. Over and over words repeated in his head, the only mantra he had left to believe in.

I'm doing the right thing. I'm doing this for the right reasons. I'm still a good person. Still good. Please.

As he slipped into blackness, into oblivion's welcoming arms, no one answered.
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