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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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Heartaches By The Number; (Aguirre, Closed)
Topic Started: Friday, 2. May 2014, 05:06 (797 Views)
Sawyer
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Friendly Neighborhood Vampire
* * * * * *
Two weeks had never felt so interminable.

Outside, spring came to London's streets. Weeds pressed through cracks in dirty sidewalks. Pear trees blossomed into new life. Puddles seemed omnipresent on every drizzly evening, every foggy morning. And beneath busy streets and the footfalls of pedestrians, Aguirre slept.

He'd awakened long before she had, confirming the fear he'd harbored since the frenzy so many months ago. She was no longer as human as he'd like to think, no longer close to the illusion of life. At first, he had hoped he was wrong, that she would awaken at any time, and that everything would be made right again. But with every fresh sunset, she slumbered on, dead to the world.

There were questions, of course, when he rose from his own torpor, questions he dodged and deflected and smiled away. But even as he tried to keep his outward life as normal as possible, even as he spent day after day reading memos in Blythe House's dreary depths, every morning brought him back to the lonely room where Aguirre lay. He watched as her skin began to knit itself back together, her bones rose fresh and solid from her chest. He brought her pillows and tulips in a vase, dressed her in a clean t-shirt and faded jeans, spoke empty apology after empty apology to her unhearing ears. With every morning, she healed, but he became stranger and stranger, more and more firmly entrenched in self-loathing. By the end of the first week, he'd begun to ask her questions constantly, questions he knew she couldn't answer.

Where did you go?

What happened to you?

Why did you ever come back?

In the pit of his stomach, the knowledge that he'd finally committed a wrong he couldn't fix curled up and weighed him down. It twisted his insides, infected every thought. He'd believed that he loved her once, and hadn't he? But love meant putting another person first. It meant caring about their future, their well-being, their soul. But Sawyer had broken every promise he'd ever made to Aguirre. He kept her here out of selfishness, out of fear. He needed her, like a drowning man clung to a life preserver. But with every wave that crashed against her, he drove her further and further down. She'd drown for his sake. How could that possibly be love?

Loneliness had driven him into her arms. He'd been alone, truly alone, for most of his life. Even Esperanza had only cared for him because of the blood, and it had been a mistake that killed her. The moment he'd freed her, she'd ended up ruined, like a baby bird against a plate glass window, twisted limbs and sightless eyes. But Aguirre had chosen to care about him. And in his stupidity, he'd believed that made them different. He'd believed they were meant for each other, fairy tail bullshit, even when he should've been old enough to know better. He'd believed happy endings were possible, that good things really could happen to good people.

There were no more good people in this world. Every person was nothing more than a collection of scars left by them on others. And he'd driven the knife far, far too deep into Aguirre for him to ever be able to pull it back out.

This hell was theirs to share. He'd made his decision. She would make hers.

Tonight would mark a month since the night everything had broken at once. She'd barely spoken three sentences to him that night, but every word rang in his head, over and over and over again. Endless dialogues, endless circles.

"I ain't tryin' to atone for a fuckin' thing."

But weren't you? Weren't you? This life was always a curse to you, one you couldn't unravel, couldn't press a meaning to. What even kept you movin'? Was it something more than fear and guilt? Why didn't I ever see it?

"My own god damn blood is runnin' through my veins. More and more every night."

If you don't need me, who ever could? Why am I still here? I should've died back in Vegas. I should've never lived to ruin you. But I did live. And it's gotta mean somethin'. We've gotta be together for a reason. Don't we?

Perched on a concrete ledge, legs folded, eyes keen, he watched her, silent and consumed by his own confused misery.
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Aguirre Efrain Maddox
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* * * * *
For the first time in fifty-three years, Aguirre had become truly acquainted with death. Not that she knew it at the time, or that she would even remember anything from the last few weeks, but a loss of the concept of time came with going into a slumber that turned her into a double for a carcass. This wasn't like the sleep she used to experience during the day, because she swore up and down in those days that she could still at least dream--but this, this was an absence. Not of anything in particular, of course, aside from perhaps everything that made her appear alive in one way or another, an absence of anything that could be mistaken for a soul occupying the body. One would have been doubtful that one ever really existed there. The only indicator to anyone that she would wake up eventually, especially to those with a mind for the World of Darkness, would be the second second-hand blood running through her system, courtesy of the Nosferatu who broke her down just to try and build her back up again. Wasn't that how loyalty was built among soldiers?

The nonexistence of an afterlife made itself readily apparent to the corpse who lay on the floor of the sewer refuge; not a single time was there a pair of pearly gates tempting her to enter them or a fiery pit dragging her downward into the flames, even in the first weeks of recovery when survival would have been highly unlikely for a creature with less resistance to final destruction. Nowhere in the stretch of the month did she encounter a near death epiphany or an 'out of body experience'. There was only the inside of one eyelid until there were eventually two of them again, and then the darkness was infinite even while her mind couldn't yet comprehend it. The days before Aguirre was finally able to wake, though, sparks would appear in slow spurts, gradually more and more often, easing the slow ascension back into the reality she had learned to positively loathe. At least the darkness had been simple--no thought involved, no decisions to make, no one to hurt or be hurt by and no regret. It was a comfort, a kind of peace that she hadn't been subjected to before and wouldn't feel again without being reduced to ash.

Consciousness was a slow burn in the back of her skull, the appearance of colors behind the same eyelids that had begun to adjust to the dark. Hushed indigo followed muted purple which eventually lead to the warmth of something bright, turning her perception a soft orange; for a few drawn out moments, Aguirre didn't know what life she had come back to. There was a brief and ridiculous delusion of waking to the hot sun shining through the open window of her bedroom so many years ago, but it was quickly enough beaten down by the smell of the bunker, the image of wilted tulips, and the machines lining shelves that she didn't recognize. Memories were unwillingly recalled, such as the split second before a jagged claw invaded her eye socket, and the peripheral view of a heavy boot falling on one large yellow eye--not to mention Sawyer tearing that same eye out of his own stupid fucking head and putting it in her useless hand.

The lanky woman's sudden awareness of her surroundings, coupled with the fact that she didn't know the room at all or remember how she got there, made for more than just a startling awakening. She sat up sharply as one hand shot to the normal ol' eye where a gaping hole used to be, which had apparently grown back. Another dawning realization was that she could move both arms without biting her tongue out of shock. Her chest wasn't a crater anymore, but fully formed, and the entirety of her figure was clad in clothing that wasn't her own. The thing that actually seemed to bother her the most once she noticed, though? It wasn't Sawyer, although he was a fairly alarming person to be so close to after their tangle in the alleyway--if you could call the flagrant, grueling agony on behalf of both parties a 'tangle'. No, it was the combination of feeling unsafe in the current surroundings and the awareness that her hair had grown out and stayed that way for however long she'd been in torpor. Admittedly, she could have been out for less than a week, for even one night, and it still would have caused the false feeling of a heart attack in the rotten muscle.

She was on her feet immediately, going to work to gather the waves of dark fiber into something manageable and to search the room for anything that was sharp enough to cut through it. One hand held lengths of espresso while the free one adjusted incubators to look behind them, searching each nook and cranny she could find despite the fact that Sawyer wouldn't have been asinine enough to leave himself alone in a room with her and a pair of scissors. This awful little room contained nothing more than what could be seen on the surface; mildew, broken machines, and a cocktail of stinking stagnant water and rapidly producing bacteria. Still, she couldn't allow the potential fuse growing from her scalp in this state--she felt uncomfortable in her own skin, insecure, threatened by the fact that it could have been left for months and she wouldn't have known about it. She didn't believe that she was safe in the mazes of the underground, especially with a person she didn't trust. Speaking of Sawyer--

She turned promptly from the shelf she was taking apart to face him, glaring through an unnervingly maladjusted expression. She didn't want to talk, really, but the memory of the Swiss army knife she'd borrowed from him on so many prior occasions had her hoping like hell he had it on him despite the very real risk of being stuck with it tonight.

"Where's your knife?" she asked flatly, a demanding, uneven edge in her voice. This wasn't a game of twenty random questions, it was a severely pissed off Brujah with a high maintenance nightly routine.
Edited by Aguirre Efrain Maddox, Sunday, 4. May 2014, 16:56.
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Sawyer
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* * * * * *
As soon as her amber eyes sprung open, his entire attention was riveted on Aguirre, watching with the sort of scientific fascination he might've reserved for a coral snake once upon a time- something beautiful, venomous, and rare. A strange feeling was choking his throat, a sort of breathless distance as if he were viewing the scene from far, far away, floating somewhere around the ceiling her, watching her with tired eyes.

This was, in many ways, a relief. She was awake; that must mean there was some hope for her, that she wasn't as far gone as he had feared. He should be glad for that chance. There was still enough human about her for him to believe that they could wind up with a better future, as little as either of them deserved it. Why, then, was he not feeling much of anything at all? Cold had settled in the pit of his stomach, infecting sluggish limbs. Cross-legged, he watched her from his place on the hard concrete floor, still as a statue as she jerked around frantically.

"You gonna stab me?" Sawyer asked dryly, eyes humorlessly blank. He slipped one hand into the pocket of his jeans, pulling out the knife and sliding it across the concrete towards her feet with a gentle nudge. He wasn't going to begrudge her anything. And besides, if she was going to, he probably deserved it. "Take it."

The fistful of hair implied she had something else in mind. With the same passive numbness, he watched her attack it with the knife, flicking it open and chopping until long tendrils littered the ground. Her gaze was manic, blazing, furious as the knife ran back and forth, back and forth. His own narrowed in confusion. What the hell was she doing? This wasn't a ritual he remembered, and certainly not with this sort of possessed urgency.

"Good to see you too," he muttered, flipping a cigarette out from the crumpled pack of Marlboros in his back pocket. He rolled it in between claws, back and forth, staring at it. Anything to stop him from having to look at her. "I thought we could... talk. For real, this time."

Maybe it was worth a try. There was so many things unanswered by her disappearance, and he wasn't sure he could ever bridge the gulf of the last few months. Had America changed her? If this hair thing was any indication, it must've. But the rot went so much deeper than the surface, and that held true for both of them. As desperately as he wished that words could fix that, he knew it was perhaps the stupidest hope he'd held since he sat in a room deep within the warrens and kissed one unlucky Brujah for the first time. Sawyer was full of stupid hopes. He had wanted so badly for this to be significant. What on earth would he do if it never had been at all? It was a mistake for anyone to believe that life was any less fragile on the other side of death. Only hope had kept him going thus far. And she had been his greatest hope of all. But had he ever really known her?

"I'm sorry." The words slipped out unbidden, barely more than a whisper. Apologies meant nothing. Even if they did, he doubted it was anything she wanted to hear.
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Aguirre Efrain Maddox
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* * * * *
"Oh, you're fuckin' hilarious. Gonna quit your night job and go into a comedy career?" Aguirre spat; it wasn't even the words that were offensive, but the tone--as if he hadn't been prepared to crack her skull open on the cement like an egg before she hit him with the neck of that bottle in the first place. Still, at least he gave the knife up, especially considering how poor her judgement would have to be to incapacitate the only asshole in the room who knew his way out of the sewers. She didn't have to leave the room to know they were too far in to find her own way out; she'd have to wait until he was willing to take her back to the surface.

You'd do well to avoid pomegranate seeds.

Hacking through lengths of hair was a pain without a pair of proper scissors, but the result was the same; even if there were a few especially short patches cut, most of it didn't reach past her earlobe this time. Seeing the unwanted appendage spread around her feet was just as satisfying as it had been when she cut it off the first time. It was just extra weight, physically and mentally, off her shoulders. One less thing to worry about in a world full of threats and cruelty. Maybe it would alleviate a small portion of the hostile mood she'd woken up in, but circumstances being what they were... This wasn't likely to be a pleasant evening.

Even after displaying such odd behavior and finishing the job she'd found so urgent, Aguirre kept the knife in one hand, clenched until the knuckles turned white. She'd give it back if he asked for the simple fact that she had to, but for now, it felt better to have the cold metal of the hilt against her palm. It was better to delude herself into thinking she had a line of defense, but it was only half realized regardless of whether she had a weapon or not. There was no way she'd be able to get out of here on her own, and if tonight turned out anything like the last time they tried to have a conversation, there would be nothing keeping him from reducing her to nothing if he so pleased. As always, the problem had to be emphasized by putting words to it. Meaningless, hollow words put out into the ether with hopes that the other party would grasp them. The Brujah had never been good at verbal confrontation.

Her attention was even less affixed to the Nosferatu as he brought out a pack of cigarettes; didn't seem like he yet noticed that what little color remained on her features drained away at the sight, slightly widened eyes flitting between each hand as though she expected him to pull a lighter or a match book from his pocket at any moment. Whatever it would be, a source of fire was a bad one and something she certainly couldn't handle right now.

"Look, talk all you want, but do me a favor and don't light that. Ain't got nothin' to be sorry for so long as we got that outta the way."

She'd trade words for an absence of anything that could light her up, even trade his apology for it. Didn't mean she wasn't livid, and anyway, they were far beyond false sincerity at this point. An apology was just another set of hollow words that she'd spent most of her life abusing in one way or another. She still caught them crossing her mind and her lips at times, which caused her to be more sick to the teeth of them with every passing night.
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Sawyer
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* * * * * *
"Huh?" Confusion colored his voice as he quickly tucked the cigarette back in the pack. She'd never minded the flick of a lighter before; it was an old human habit, a holdover from better days, and the two of them had shared that vice. Where did that obvious fear come from? He glanced up at her finally, noting with surprise how much paler she'd gotten just from the suggestion of a flame.

"What happened to you?" The question was more rhetorical than anything else, asked with a hint of morbid wonder, as if he already feared what the answer might be. Did Sawyer really want to know? Yes and no. The possibilities were worse, he decided, than the truth. Better not to wonder- the uncertainty was bound to eat him up inside, corrosive acid in the back of his brain, like moths to a sweater in a dusty attic. How many nightmares could he put her through? Too many. He couldn't explain his protective instincts towards Aguirre; they didn't even make sense after what he had done. And it wasn't as if she was the sort of person who needed protecting- he would've never fallen for her if she was. That didn't mean he wasn't ready and willing to rip the fucking heads off of anyone who hurt her.

But you hurt her.

Well, he had never claimed to be anything other than a bundle of contradictions. If only London had figured out the half of it. Still, he knew where his loyalty laid. Sort of.

"I'm not tryin' to put you on trial or nothin'." Sure, that sounded convincing when she was essentially his prisoner, locked up in a sewer dungeon with no hope of leaving on her own. "I just wanna understand. I promise. I... I can't do better for you unless I understand."

And I know that I absolutely gotta do better than this.

"Please."
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Aguirre Efrain Maddox
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* * * * *
"Stop askin' me 'please' like you're actually givin' me a choice in fuckin' anything. You know damn well this ain't group therapy, you ain't gonna pat me on the back and say 'naww that's okay, we can try again tomorrow', unless it's 'cause I don't get to leave otherwise. You're just comfortable in the fact that you ain't gotta be down here if you don't wanna be, but I'll still be here when you feel like comin' back. How long's it been? How many nights have I been down here? How many people still got no idea I'm even back?"

Aguirre was clearly starting to lose her temper, indicated by the growing impatience in her voice with each word that leaked from the Nosferatu's face like a cyst. She couldn't believe that, after what happened, he had the balls to play this situation so calmly. Suddenly he wanted to talk and gush and cry about her feelings instead of kick her ass into a hundred tiny fragments. Hell, of course he felt better about it now that he was in control of the situation, a reality that made Aguirre's jaw clench with the kind of unabashed anger she hadn't felt since.... God, since ever, and it just continued to bubble up as she thought about the few words he'd said in comparison to his usual rants. Even those few words stuck more than the ones he usually bounced off her exoskeleton, always trying to penetrate a mind whose confines belonged to she and she alone. The more he tried to squeeze through the cracks, more she resisted, though apparently he wouldn't ever see that. He'd continue to seek answers until it drove them both insane.

"What happened to me is none of your goddamn concern, Sawyer. Neither is tryin' to do 'better'. What the fuck is 'better' anymore, anywho? Tryin' not to tear each other's throats out in public? Pullin' that 'eye for an eye' bullshit like mutilatin' yourself makes everythin' okay? It doesn't. It just makes us more twisted than we already are and you know it, somewhere in that thick skull of yours. The capacity to understand, however, ain't there. Even if it is, I ain't gonna give you the opportunity to feel shitty on my behalf. That's not your right and certainly ain't your business. You don't get to see my scars anymore, not unless you're the asshole causin' 'em. "

Despite the conviction in her voice and the abnormally straight posture she donned, it might have been apparent that all the jaw-jutting and hurtful words were the prey's way of fending off the predator. While Aguirre did wholeheartedly believe that this situation was one of the more fucked up things she'd experienced since meeting Sawyer, certainly a side of him she wouldn't have expected until the night they met again, that wasn't her only motive in hoping she'd offend him enough to make him leave her alone. She truly didn't want to talk about what happened in the states, didn't have the strength, and didn't want the pity. She didn't want to remember her last goodbye to Cadence as a trip into the most abysmal part of her life since Magda, wished he didn't even know about that. it felt like a whole lot of leverage he had over her, knowing her deepest darkest secrets and internalizing them on top of his own. It felt like a lot of information she wished he hadn't found, yet another part of her life that wasn't his business but somehow ended up in his hands anyway.

Arms crossed tightly across her chest, Aguirre stood awkwardly, eyes cast downward as she bit her lip to keep it from rattling off everything that had happened. Aside from the fury she felt like there was a hurricane of fire in her lungs, something was different. She was thirsty--but for the Nosferatu in particular, a thirst she thought she'd managed to curb while she was away. Once an addict, always an addict, and she felt a relapse coming on. Yet another reason that the flames she felt grew higher along the walls of her insides, wondering why she wanted to rip him the fuck apart and safeguard him like a precious gem at the same time. The Brunette was so tired of losing every battle; this was yet another loss, this empty feeling in the pit of her stomach, a rumbling that worked in the wrong direction to make her significantly more hostile. On top of everything else was underlying confusion. Why the conflicting thoughts? Why did she feel like she was losing her mind? Being underground again.. Why did it feel like the walls were closing in? She wanted nothing more than to go back to her apartment and lock all the deadbolts behind her.
Edited by Aguirre Efrain Maddox, Thursday, 8. May 2014, 06:58.
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Sawyer
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* * * * * *
Stunned, Sawyer stared at her blankly. He’d never see her meet his words with anger of her own, flare up hot and bright and scorching. His own confidence blackened and curled, turned to ashes in the face of her reaction. He wasn’t hurt, persay. Wasn’t angry in turn. He was just numbly amazed that she was capable of lashing back at all. It wasn’t lost on him that those were probably the most words she’d spoken to him since before the first evening snow fell on London and blanketed the two of them in the longest winter he could imagine.

” ‘Course it’s my concern,” he managed to stutter back. ”Everythin’ about you’s my concern. That ain’t somethin’ I can stop, even if I wanted to.”

It was all well and good for her to play the it’s personal card, but he already knew that, didn’t he? The line between them had been erased a long time ago, like a heel grinding into sidewalk chalk. The blurred boundaries that remained meant so little to him. Every scar she carried ended up mirrored on his own skin. Why fight it?

His voice was still oddly calm as he continued, even and neutral and probably quite infuriating for the Brujah to listen to.

”I used to think I’d leave anytime you needed me to, and that someday you’d want me gone for good, ‘n when you did I’d be okay with that, I’d respect it, I’d understand.”

He paused. He'd wanted so badly to believe he was a good enough person to let her go; that had been in the back of his mind since the night he started all this nonsense. He'd known there was no way that she would put up with him forever; everything had an expiration date stamped on it in stark black numbers. But he could accept that, couldn't he?

”I was wrong.”

Hands trembled as he stared at them, laying in his lap. He wouldn't touch her. Wouldn't look at her. Wouldn't move.

"I can't let go. I won't. I know I’ve already lost you. I know there ain't nothin' I can do to change that. But I can't stand to see you lose yourself.

"You spent thirty years hidin' from the things you’d done. I don't want that to ever happen again. You ain't gonna lock the door and hole up in that goddamn apartment and torture yourself with the past. You ain't allowed to hide yourself away from the things you're afraid of and the thing that've hurt you and from me. You ain't that weak. I won't let you."


With every insistent word, his voice grew stronger and stronger. It had to end somewhere. He'd thought, perhaps, that going to America might be her breaking point, might force her to wake up and live for once instead of drowning in her own mistakes. But whatever had happened had only plunged her further into her own shell. He couldn't let that happen. Not to her. She was worth too goddamn much.

"I know I've fucked everything up now. I'll never ask for your trust again. But before you left, I... I just thought we could still be happy."

Finally his gaze came back up, the thousand yard stare of someone old before their time. That sounded so stupid when he put it into words- he wasn't capable of making someone else happy, not anymore. Had he been blind to his own faults this whole time? Why had she run so far away and shut the door in his face? Why had she hidden from him like he was just another of her past failures, another Magda? Sawyer's voice finally broke as he asked the one question that wouldn't let him be.

"What did I do wrong?"
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Aguirre Efrain Maddox
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* * * * *
"It was never about you. Ain't a single decision that was made because I didn't want to be around you, not directly. There was so much more to it than that."

Frustration was just as evident in her features as before, except with the additional element of confusion on top of every other conflicting emotion she was feeling. She didn't like being here, in this room, and having this conversation. Nothing about it fit, made sense, and neither did the creeping guilt that she'd left Sawyer thinking he'd done something to make her disappear. Of course, he'd done something wrong now--very wrong indeed, whether he actually agreed or he was just pretending to acknowledge the mistake. Aguirre didn't know. She didn't care, and she didn't enjoy feeling bad about it when she'd already paid her penance for it in blood.

"I needed a break. You needed a break from me, too, whether you admit it or not. S'far as losin' myself goes?"

She stepped forward a few paces, within arms reach of him, sullen for a moment as her eyes rested on him. She wasn't concerned with hiding from anyone else, specifically, but with avoiding those awkward confrontations and keeping her head low. His case, however, was a different story. She had a different pretext for avoiding him, a reason for doing things the way she had instead of leaping into his arms immediately after departure from the cargo vessel.

"I ain't worried about lockin' myself up, Church wouldn't let me anywho. Hidin' ain't how I lose myself, it's how I stayed in a preserved sense of naïveté for so long. I had good fuckin' reasons for stayin' away from you when I got back; I ain't the same as I used to be, ain't the person who cried on your shoulder at the drop of a hat or wore frilly dresses just 'cause you wanted to see me in 'em. I don't give two shits about banquets and keepin' up appearances. The one thing I did care about was disappointin' you with what I became, because I know bein' a neurotic, unpleasant cunt ain't gonna make you happy either. I didn't want you bonded to somethin' you didn't bargain for.

Quickly, a hand shot out; it balled into the collar of his shirt, roughly pulling his line of sight upward to make sure he was listening with completely open ears and experiencing the fact that, even while she wished she could tear him apart, every ounce of energy she could muster was focused on him alone. That was significant.

"It ain't your fault that I left, and I get why you were so... upset," she said with some sarcasm in regards to the obvious understatement.

"But what you think you will and won't let me do is irrelevant, and so is happiness. We're dead. Our happiness is only skin deep, if even that."
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Sawyer
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"We're not dead." It was the first time all night his voice had shown much in the way of real emotion, real anger. Sawyer couldn't exactly explain why those words in particular riled him up- they just seemed like the ultimate cop-out, the excuse of someone who'd entirely lost faith in the future. "I don't know what the fuck we are, but if you still believe that bullshit, then there really is no savin' you. I know what death is, real death, the kind nobody comes back from, and we sure as fuck ain't crossed that line. Who the fuck are you to say what we do and don't deserve? What the fuck else is existin' like this worth if we can't be happy?"

He knew what death meant. He'd killed someone he cared about desperately, watched the light fade from her eyes and come back different, fiercer and terrified, alien and inhuman. And then he'd lost her again, lost her behind a veil he couldn't penetrate, cut like a phone line. That was death, a place that the living couldn't ever reach, a place Sawyer couldn't touch or see or feel, an endless mystery past an endless sea. This? Maybe it wasn't life. Maybe it was fucked up beyond recognition. But it was different.

This life wasn't an end. The curtain hadn't been drawn, the house lights hadn't gone out. They'd been given a chance, an opportunity, and the fact that he didn't have the faintest clue what that chance might be for didn't change a thing. He was no nihilist, and even in the midst of self-loathing and shame and the awareness of just how pathetic he'd become, he still had hope, flaring like a bottle rocket behind his mad yellow eyes.

"It has to mean somethin'. Why keep goin' if it don't?" There was a note of hysteria in his voice; limply, he hung in place as her grip tightened around his t-shirt's collar. "I thought I'd found that meanin' in you."

What a pathetic confession. A lovesick teenager thinking that the meaning of life lay in other people, believing with all the fervor of a death row inmate on his last appeal. But Aguirre hadn't been enough. How could she be? He'd never known her, never given her a real chance to define her own self. He'd never appreciated her for the person she actually was, and that truth was only beginning to dawn on him.

Kneeling like the penitent idiot he was, his eyes begged her to understand, even as rust-colored tears gathered in them, black and shining in the dimness of the sewer dungeon. Every word was loaded with emotion, half-way between loathing and adoration, between accusation and apology. Even his tone couldn't commit to a single intention. She was too big, too important, too goddamn confusing for him to have any idea whether the things he wanted to say were coming out anywhere near sensible.

"An' every day you tried to make me regret that. You're still tryin'. You put me through hell again 'n again, you left me bloody 'n broken night after night, you left me terrified of you, an' you expect me to give up 'cause you're yellin' at me?" A bark of sick, desperate laughter as he nearly laid down at her feet, trails of darkness running down the harsh lines of his awful face. "I didn't leave back then. I'm not goin' anywhere. I'm not givin' up on you. An' you can walk out of here right now without tellin' me a damn thing, an' it won't matter one bit. You can't get rid of me. I ain't got nothin' else left to believe in 'sides you."

The tears kept coming and he couldn't keep from laughing, laughing, laughing at the absurdity of this goddamn moment. She still thought he'd taken her here as his captive, but they'd both been prisoners long before tonight.

"Darlin', you're my sunrise. You're my end. You're everythin'. And if that ain't enough for me to have a goddamn place in your life, then there ain't nothin' left for me. There's just you, it's you, it's all for you. You think you can change that by leavin'? You think this fixed anythin'?"
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Aguirre Efrain Maddox
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No saving her? In what universe was it possible to save a walking corpse? Why would she have wanted to embrace his idea of what being 'saved' was? The thought itself went against his whole blindly optimistic argument here, but being blindly optimistic in the first place was enough to make Aguirre inwardly scoff, an automatic dismissal of his opinion. Being happy was a delusional goal they'd fooled themselves into thinking they could achieve, when in reality, happiness hadn't been an element in their relationship in a very long time. It had never been contentment that kept them together, but fear, and the need for assurance that one was as miserable as the other. He wasn't that slow, he could recognize codependency when he saw it but chose to keep his blinders on instead. That was one of the most infuriating things about this debate; there was no arguing with a man who refused to see what was right in front of him. That, as well as the assumption that he was the only one who had ever seen death.

Aguirre's introduction to unlife started with the resounding snap of a golden thread which withered away into a black wire, not to mention the screams she caused before reducing the originators of that awful noise to ash in the states. Sawyer may have had more experience in that area of expertise, but that didn't mean she wasn't familiar. She knew what permanent death looked like, was acquainted with the moments before the light was extinguished from a person's eyes--the latter, a more recent development that was associated with satisfaction rather than guilt, especially when applied to those who caused her pain. Sawyer had caused her pain, and though it was in response to the Brujah committing the crime herself, in her own mind she was only doing what was best for him. She was pushing him away for his own benefit. Now, she was pushing him away for the same reasons, with a generous helping of resentment.

The point of existing was simply that--to exist. To survive, to thrive if possible. She'd learned to appreciate her status as a demon only for the fact that she could still walk, talk, and breathe if she chose to do so. There was the circumstance of instinct, as well, but she didn't want to dwell on her basic animal impulses. Most humans could never even achieve happiness in the short, mostly useless life span they were given, and time only made that bitter fact worse--not better. As a creature who had lived years beyond her original intent, who had seen time pass so quickly behind orbs that spent decades trying to understand the significance and finally finding that there was none, the idea of contentment was just that; an idea, and one that she hadn't ever truly grasped, even as a child.

The fact that he thought he found meaning in her existence--Truly flattering, but irrelevant, all the same. For once, Aguirre had to agree with the nagging voice in the back of her mind, who had been howling for blood since the moment she woke up. The tears that gathered in ducts that were still surprisingly operational were pathetic, anatomical fascination aside, and Aguirre let go of his stretched shirt in a lethargic movement as she turned away to search the room for her boots. This was enough. There was no reasoning, no resolution to be found in this sewer subbasement. If there were resolution to be found at all, she didn't want to go looking for it right now. She had better things to do than to spend the night trying to hold herself back from beating the emotional Nosferatu's face in.

She found her boots near the back of the room, near a bucket of stagnant water and a towel that was stained brown, and went about fastening them back to her feet. He'd started with the hysterical laughter she recognized from their trip out of the warrens after sentencing, throwing the very thing she'd been punishing herself for since it happened back in her face like a rejected apology. His rant only gave her more motivation to get away, as if a place in her life had ever been beneficial to the people who knew her. He was clouded by his own agony, the same agony Aguirre was willing to put herself through until he had his freedom back. It was so difficult to give freedom to a man who didn't want it.

"Leavin' would have fixed plenty if you'd given it time," she muttered, shortly followed by another quiet response.

"But now we've gotta start over. I want outta this hole."

She didn't face him, didn't want to. She was on her haunches, went to work tying the second boot, looking forward to getting back to the surface and away from Sawyer.
Edited by Aguirre Efrain Maddox, Wednesday, 21. May 2014, 01:56.
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Sawyer
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That was it? That was all she could manage to say? Loving her was exhausting, pointless. It was impossible to care about someone who cared so little about themselves. He wondered how it was that she could turn her feelings off so easily. All his ever did was consume him.

His beast whispered insidiously, echoed from the corners of his mind, whined and hissed in feral howls. Fuck her, it urged him gleefully. Hold her down and fuck her. Tear her throat apart, bury your claws in her back. Make her remember who she belongs to. Mark her so she never forgets. She wants to start over? Then show her what submission means. Her veins are full of your blood. Take it back.

He couldn't help but feel sick to his stomach, unsteady as he rose to his feet and tried to shake that strong voice from his head, tried to penetrate the crimson haze that had begun to cloud his vision. No. This was wrong. This was all so wrong.

It was better, he decided, to drive her away on purpose, to send her fleeing with her tail between her legs, than to see her confirm what he already feared: that she'd walk out of here of her own free will, that there was nothing he could offer her to make her stay, and that as soon as she hit the pavement above, she'd disappear off into the night once more, and he'd never see her again. And more than that, she'd be right to do it. Better to drive her away, make sure it was his fault, than go through that. She didn't love him anymore, he knew, but having that confirmed by her quiet apathy hurt worse than any blow.

"The door's open." His voice echoed off the concrete, dull and oddly flat. "I ain't keepin' you here. If you wanna start over on your own, start now."

Her narrow back was still turned, hunched over her boots as she laced them up, the knots in her spine visible beneath the thin fabric. In a daze, he reached out for the pile of thick, dark hair that lay forgotten on the floor. The way she'd held those scissors and hacked was like a priest performing an exorcism, desperate to purge herself of whatever demons were following her around. Now he could only twist the tangled strands around his boney fingers and wonder what on earth she'd been through. Sawyer had always had an uncanny knack for doing the exact thing sure to annoy Aguirre the most. And with a strange numbness, he realized he knew exactly what to do now.

She'd hear the flick of the lighter first, then smell the acrid burning of hair as dark smoke curled upwards. It was all he could do not to drop the hair himself and cower away from the open flame, but a perverse sense of purpose was inflaming him.

Maybe he wanted to see her fear. Or maybe this was just more palatable than realizing she was afraid of him.

Two cold words. "Start runnin'."

She'd find her way out of here herself. Or not. Perhaps she might never emerge from the labyrinth of tunnels. There were plenty of things inside willing to give her the final death she seemed to want. If only he'd been strong enough, cold enough to do the same.
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