Thursday, August 21, 2014

hunger

Elijah
[Nightmares for the day]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (4, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Hunger
And lo, there was a scene!
1: This scene is going to involve violence, which I'm sure you're both prepared for. Nonetheless, if either of you get uncomfortable or upset by anything, do please let me know.
2: If either of you have any questions about mechanics or anything else relevant to the scene, ask away. If I'm typing I might not respond immediately, but I'll get to it as soon as I can.
3: Since it's just the two of you, I won't bother putting time restrictions on posting. Just keep efficiency reasonably in mind.
4: Once we establish a post order, I prefer we stick to it. If I ever want you to skip me, I'll let you know. Otherwise, if I'm quiet, assume writing is happening.
5: Have fun! And good luck! ;)
Hunger
Hill-top tavern was one of the more popular dive bars in Denver, its primary claim to fame being that it was a favorite hang-out of a certain famous actor and comedian. The bar itself stretched from wall to wall, and even early on a Friday evening it was already close to packed with a wide variety of locals, from hipster college students to grizzled bar veterans. The smell of hops and sweat permeated the air, and pitchers of beer flowed freely. Someone was playing a David Bowie song on the jukebox, and the sounds filtered through the noise of the exuberant drinkers.
Serafíne
Sera looks like she belongs here but she looks like she belongs everywhere.  Friday night at the Hilltop, Sunday afternoon at Versailles.  So the bar is packed and there's noise everywhere, people thronging, drinking, Bowie on the jukebox and someone slinging retro cocktails at the bar.  Maybe it's retro cocktail night.  Maybe that's why Sera has paired tonight the world's shortest cocktail dress with beneath a too-large men's suit-jacket that has been patched with pieces from her favorite Public Image Limited t-shirt (Johnny Rotten's fucking face and all that jazz) after it disintegrated for reasons about which she is still unclear.  One sleeve is pushed up her arm and only stays up because of the wealth of bracelets she is wearing.  Seen from behind (as now - she is leaning in at the bar, flirting with the bartender and laughing at some goddamned joke a stranger is telling her, badly) she looks as if she is wearing nothing but fishnets beneath that patched up retro sportcoat. 
Her heels are ... remarkable, but they almost always are.
She's starting the night off with shots and seems to have ordered buttery nipples for half the people at the bar from the way the 'tender is lining them up.
Elijah
Monsieur Poirot was not a grizzled bar veteran. No, no he was more like one of those college hipster kids and finding himself lacking in partner to go out with that night, Elijah decided to hit up a local dive bar in the hopes of sight seeing and imbibing the local culture. Preferably of a high proof and of a suitable flavor. Like he really cared much about the flavor, so long as it was deliciousness. His attire was comfortable. Jeans, a shirt that buttoned down half way and hung close to his frame, and a vest. A vest because he had to find some place to put his pocket watch. He had on a couple bracelets, and a necklace that had tucked into his shirt when he moved wrong. Something small whose knot he couldn't quite untie since Jenn "I was a girl scout forever" Laurent had tied it on for him.
Elijah was a year shy of being able legally pour back shot after shot, but that was unimportant. The beauty of dive bars were that the people at these types of establishments didn't care if his ID was fake, so long as his money was real. And it was. His money spent gorgeously at this particular establishment and it was generally a great time to be had. He followed the line of buttery nipples to -
"Sera!"
- she's hard to miss. 
Elijah
[per+aware]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 3, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Serafíne
Perception + Awareness
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Hunger
Sera was hard to miss, and Elijah noticed her as soon as he arrived. The bartender was lining up shots of buttery nipples and so far everyone seemed to be having a brilliant time. A few seats down from where Sera leaned into the bar, a group of UCD athletes (probably football players, from the looks of them) were laughing at some ridiculous story that one of them was telling about this time he got chased through the snow, drunk and naked, by his ex-girlfriend. One of the jocks, a tall blond who sported a striped tank-top and jeans and reasonably impressive biceps, left the group to go grab his wallet out of the car. From the looks of him, flushed and shiny-eyed and a little less than graceful, he hadn't wasted any time getting a few drinks into his system.
But it wasn't the jock who she and Elijah felt when a faint ghost of resonance echoed at the edge of their senses. It wasn't even anyone actually in the bar. But it was there, hovering just out of reach - beyond the much sharper and stronger sensation of Sera's own visceral resonance and Elijah's chaotic tumult.
There was something out there in the alley beside the bar. Something that felt ravenous. They noticed it right about the time the jock walked outside, like a scent brought in on the air.
Hunger
[Edit: It wasn't the jock who Sera and Elijah felt]
Serafíne
Serafíne has been in Denver a long fucking time.  She knows people.  She knows people who know people and more importantly, people know her, have seen her somewhere, maybe at a show, maybe a party, maybe at an opening, maybe at a happening, maybe with a goddamned priest or maybe naked, who can say?  Elijah is not the first person to call her name tonight and her senses - preternatural - are not as sharp as they often are but she still knows him from behind and blindfolded (she is not blindfolded, just tossing back a shot, oh! which she slams down, laughing, calling for "Another!" before she has paid for the first) and Sera turns around, laughing, opens her arms for Elijah because Why Not? and then he sees that she is indeed wearing beneath the men's suit jacket (suitably altered and plastered with Johnny Rotten's fucking face along the back) the world's shortest and tightest cocktail dress.
Her hair is a loose whirl of blond curls, except for the dark fuzz of her undercut, which is freshly shorn, though she has a chain of some sort threaded through the curls like a punk princess's version of a tiara, and an armful of bracelets on her left arm, and when she flings open her arms for a hug Elijah might note the rather scandalous cut-outs framing the flanks of the dress. 
Tumult.  She buries herself in it, and she is all around him, gut-wrenching and compelling and also, somehow, tip-of-the-tongue, not-yet but-becoming, all the things that she is.  Forehead against his shoulder, braced, inhaling him when she feels something else in the back of her throat. 
Something else,
something new that makes her inhale, sharp.
--
That makes her remember:
hunger.
--
Nudgenudge, her hands tighten on the silk facing of Elijah's vest. 
"Feel that?" she murmurs, glancing a little bit (not much: thank you, high heels!) up at him.  Seeking confirmation.  She's not hallucinating, right?  A glance at the door; enough to catch the jock's frame as he leaves.
Elijah
She's a full body experience, something visceral and gripping and lovely wonderful and Elijah adores every second of the hug and the familiarity in contact. She is a sensory experience, the press of fabric, the hints that there are, in fact, clothes underneath that suit jacket and damned if it wasn't a treat to see. He's in a moment when he feels it.
Feels it in his stomach, in his ribs, that coming ache that lives there.
What was Elijah going to do with himself?
He knew better than to walk outside when something let sharp and positively ravenous on his skin- something that devoured and clawed and left a person feeling hollow if there was anything beyond hunger. This was not simple hunger, and something about it made his blood run to cliches and left Elijah Poirot, slender of build and lacking in any kind of physical prowess, wondering what would become of that man who just walked out the door.
No, no he couldn't just let something happen. Not when that feeling was out there, not when the young man was blissfully unaware of that seething, all abiding hunger that gnawed and would pick his bones clean. No, no Elijah couldn't abide by that, and even if all he could do was bear witness, he would.
She straightens his vest, murmurs something that requires his attention and at first all he does is nod. Realizing, of course, that this isn't a verbal affirmative and that he had more to say, the young man clarifies, "I don't think that guy should be out there with it."
Serafíne
(BRB)
Hunger
Feel that?
Yeah, they felt it. And that kind of hunger brought to mind all kinds of terrible nightmares. Creatures lurking in the dark, waiting to pounce. Waiting to devour.
Sera and Elijah were not hunters. But they didn't know yet what was out there. Perhaps it was even one of their own. Perhaps the ravenous thing would let the college kid walk by without event.
Perhaps not.
Either way, Elijah wasn't comfortable leaving him out there.
And Sera? The lingering aftertaste of butterscotch and Irish cream on her tongue gave way to something else. Something thick and coppery. Blood. Her mouth was full of it.
No. There was nothing there. But the taste...
The crowds in the bar were loud. Happy for the chance to cut loose after a long week. There was music and laughter and outside there was silence and hunger.
Serafíne
"Don't be foolish," Sera is saying to Elijah.  Is starting to say to Elijah.  Don't be foolish.  Don't think you have to be a hero.  Don't assume that feeling is anything except another one of them.  And even if it isn't - what the fuck do you think you are equipped to do about it, darling boy?
And her quick little mouth is starting to skim into a half-smile that could swing indulgent or loving in turn and she's pulling back from him, her expression hard to register in his peripheral vision, more felt than seen, lifting her chin to glance over his shoulder at the room, all bright and loud and lovely in that way that Sera is ever-so-willing to allow to wash over her and into her and through her.  It feels so lovely in here.  The crowd-sounds like the ocean, something about currents and tides in the way strangers move, and groups shift, and patrons edge through, from one end to the other, holding drinks up above the level of other peoples' elbows and forearms until they are past the worst of the crush. 
Then her voice catches. 
Then her shoulders hitch and the change in her is immediate and remarkable because she is both pulling away and somehow still holding on to the sides of Elijah's vest, white-knuckled, looking more than a little bit nauseated. 
"Shit."  Sera says low, strained.  This suggestion of a sob subsumed in her voice.  "Goddamnit." 
And she rises to her fucking tiptoes and pulls back and kisses Elijah, full on the mouth - visceral, hungry, raw.
Sera does not pull back until she is panting
--
"You should stay here.  Or at least, stay the fuck behind me." 
Sera pulls away from Elijah then.  Lets him go.  Steps around him and cuts her way through the crowd, heading out of the bar.
(During the kiss: Life 1 / Mind 1.  What's out there?  Life and mind scan.  Difficulty 4 -1 (practiced.))
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Elijah
It's an apprentice's lot to not know what is going on. Don't be foolish, and it seems that is his default, but for what it was worth, he looks at Serafíne like he was going to listen to her, or at least consider listening to her (no, no he probably would listen to her, but there was the chance of Something out there) But she exclaims shit, like it's an inevitability, like it strains on her senses.
Elijah cocks his head to the side, confusion written plain and clear across his features. Soon enough she's kissing him, visceral and raw like it's a force of nature and he isn't yielding but rather vital. Rather, he tastes like chaos and the unrest of men's hearts before revolution. And, for once, he's in a bar and his lips don't taste like tequila.
It's in these moments that he registers the nausea before, the white knuckled grip on his vest, the tension in her body that was more than standard tension and-
Goddamnit, he remembers.
Elijah follows along behind Sera, taking her order to at least stay behind her. He has no idea what is going on; it's an apprentice's lot.
Hunger
When Sera opened the door, there was nothing remarkable there to greet them. Only the road, and the traffic, and the dusky-hued sky. The sun was going down, but it was not yet night. Surely no one would be stupid enough to make an attack in a public place while the light was still visible?
Sera knew better though. She knew that someone had.
The blond jock was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he was in the parking lot.
Briefly, the flow of traffic slowed, and the air grew quiet. And then they heard sounds. Motion. A struggle. Someone moving against the ground. And then this horrible gurgling, choking groan.
Serafíne
They have to slip through the bar, find fissues and cracks through which to move and while they do so Sera senses something out there and Elijah - behind her - well he can read the tension in her body if he wishes to read it there, and also the kind-of-abandon about her, the way she gives herself over to the sensing-of-things, the way she leaves her goddamned body to do any of this at all.  And she reaches back at some point to grasp his hand, see, just before she opens the door, and he can feel something vibrating and vibrant about her and she's humming beneath her breath and finding her way through the interstitial pieces of the interstitial moments, the blood still staining the back of her throat and a bright wound of panic in her gut and her mouth is open and a little bit slack and Elijah can maybe make out a handful of the lyrics she uses to wind her magic around her, to open up her both: her own boundaries and the edges of someone else's mind. 
(and there in the square he lay alone / without face without crown  // out of the air / out of nowhere)  are the snippets of the son he overhears, a thread of Mark Kozelak's song Duk Koo Kim, if he knows it, and near-nonsense if he does not. 
Sera does not have time to tell Elijah not to be rash, and not to rush as she starts to lead him cautiously toward the dying jock and the ravenous man. 
She has to sing beneath her breath.  She has to transcend her body.  She has to focus.
(Mind 3: Targeting Mr. Ravenous.  She is going to suffuse him with a feeling of satiation.  He has all he needs / all he could want.  He has never been so full.)
Serafíne
Roll: Difficulty 3+3  (6)  -1 for focus.  -1 for resonance.  + WP.
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (5, 8, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Elijah
Elijah Poirot has always been on who flirted with death. Their relationship was casual, like that girl you text every Friday and she texts you every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday because her attentions would not be rebuked so readily. He was accustomed to hearing the dead, familiar with the concepts behind grief and learning to let go and move on, but for all of that he'd never seen someone die before. He'd never heard the sounds of what he was fairly certain was someone choking on their own blood-
His mind went to worst case scenarios, and his approach to the alleyway was a little less than the cautious his brain told him that he needed to be. This was not staying behind Sera. No, it was more like being a couple squares adjacent to her. He inhaled deep, hoping to find something sentient there. Something thinking and reasoning and not something that was going to mindlessly devour him the minute he got too close to the alleyway.
Exhale.[Mind 1- Knock knock, who's there? diff 3+1 (sphere) = 4]
Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Hunger
Elijah does find what he is looking for. The ravenous creature in the alley is all too human. When Elijah touches the man's mind, what he finds there is overwhelming hunger. This deep, insatiable need for more. more. more. Like an addict jonesing for a fix. But then Sera's effect hits and... that hunger melts away. And there is a person there beneath it. And he is... not horrified, as he should be. But he is confused. He doesn't know why the hunger has stopped.
(Perhaps human and monster are not mutually exclusive traits.)
Hunger
They rounded the corner of the building and stood gazing into the slim alley between the bar and the hardware store next door. There was a rusted trash bin against one of the walls, and lying on the ground beside it was the blond man from the bar, his shirt torn and stained with blood from multiple knife wounds he'd taken to the chest. One of his arms pushed against the ground, trying to scoot away from his attacker while he pressed a hand tightly to the side of his neck. There was another fresh wound there: a bite mark, and blood flowed freely between his fingers, falling in thick drops onto the pavement.
His attacker crouched over him, oddly still in the wake of Sera's effect. He couldn't have been older than 21, with wild curly hair and bright blue eyes. He was probably half the size of the man he'd just attacked. It shouldn't have been that easy. But he had the bloody knife in his hand, and a crimson smear of blood painted his mouth and chin.
He'd just ripped a chunk of flesh from the side of the athlete's neck. And eaten it.
When the attacker saw Sera and Elijah, he looked up in dazed confusion, as though he hadn't heard them approach. And he glanced between the dying man on the ground and the mages and... uttered this quick, hysterical laugh. He rose to his feet and brushed the side of his hand over his mouth, smearing blood down the side of his wrist. He looked like something out of a horror movie.
He wasn't hungry anymore. But there was a fucking knife in his hand and Sera knew that he was stronger than he looked and maybe it was two against one but fuck if this kid wasn't likely to go for it anyway. You could see it in his eyes, like a predator pondering the urge to attack. But predators seldom attacked when they weren't hungry.
He smiled, and blood dripped from his teeth.
Then he ran.
Serafíne
Once again Serafíne makes a noise beneath her breath.  This time there is something urgent to it, and something wounded, and something beating-bright.  In the alley, her dark blue eyes are even darker, more shadow than like, and she is still trying to fucking sing as the attacker sits up from - yes - tearing a chunk of flesh out of a stranger's neck. 
Oh, Christ, that noise is more than beneath-her-breath.  The attacker runs.  Sera lets him go and somewhere in the middle of all this she has stepped out of her ridiculous heels and is automatically substantially shorter and she is now near-barefoot on the cooling pavement and she runs, you see - she runs not after the attacker but toward the victim, nearly bites it when her feet slide in a slick pool of blood -
- and then Sera is straddling the jock, which is perhaps not precisely First Aid protocol, sinking to her knees over his chest, leaning forward with her hair all atumble around him, generous, generous, cradling his head in her hands, bending forward as if she were a supplicant at prayer, brow to brow, nose to nose, mouth to mouth. 
"Shh," she's murmuring, heedless of the blood that is being smeared all over her.  " - shhhh.  Shhhhh.  Shhhh.  It's not as bad as it looks."  Her fingers thread through his head, her thumbs are cool on his temple, she is all concern, urgent, undulent, shaking.  "You're going to be fine."
And she kisses him,
muttering against his mouth.  "You're going to be just fine."
[Life 3 / Prime 1.  Vulgar with Witnesses.  Difficulty 8 -1 (focus)  -1 (quint).  + WP)
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Elijah
He touched something, reached out and felt something in the other person's mind and found himself faced with a strange sensation, a strange understanding that Elijah couldn't quite put a finger on. Something that wasn't quite human, something that he knew wasn't real and while Elijah felt he should follow, there was a man who was dying in front of him and he didn't know what to do, he didn't know to hold his hand or call an ambulance or-or-
Sera knew what to do. Sera, who was in the world's tiniest dress and who was so goddamned real, who was in the moment and shaking and-
It hit him that something was going on. It hit him that he needed to be sure she was okay, needed to be certain that Sera was going to pull away from all of this because something told him she was pushing herself hard and fast like she needed to transcend but what happened to her body when she came back to it? What happened to the rest of her?
[per+aware, Sera + blood = ??? You okay, Sera?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )
Serafíne
Extension!  Difficulty +1  (Spending another quint but spent it before so still +1)  Also, WP.
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 6) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
Serafíne
Paradox!
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 4) ( fail )
Hunger
Matty Spencer wasn't the kind of guy who'd ever put much stock in religion. He'd been in church a total of maybe five times in his life, most of which had been weddings or funerals, and although he wasn't a hard-line atheist, he was fairly sure that God was just a story made up by people who wanted to explain things they couldn't understand. And if you'd told him this morning that he was going to experience an actual fucking miracle, he would have laughed and rolled his eyes.
He wasn't a dumb kid, Matty. He didn't always act like it, but there was more going on in his head than sex and football.
But then he got a little drunk on the wrong night in the wrong fucking place and something terrible happened to him. And then something amazing. And it was all way too fucking much for him to process. His attacker was gone, but then there was Sera straddling him, and in any other set of circumstances he would have been thrilled. But he was dying. Blood was pouring from his neck and he couldn't breath and the world was blurry and unfocused. And then there was this woman... this beautiful punk angel looking down at him and threading her hands into his hair and pressing her face to his. And Matty shook with confused terror because he knew that he was going to die.
But then something impossible happened. Sera's Will flowed over him, and his wounds stopped hurting. And the flow of blood slowed, and then stopped. And then the torn flesh in his chest and his neck began to close, knitting itself back together again.
And he didn't feel drunk anymore. He felt crystal fucking lucid.
Matty blinked, and stared up at Sera, and then he sat up and looked down at his chest, feeling the places where his wounds had been. Where now there was just smooth and healthy muscle. He could breath again. He could talk. And he sucked in breath like breathing was the most incredible thing he'd ever done.
"Oh fuck..." he said, both terrified and amazed.
And in that moment, Matty Spencer began to question everything he'd ever believed about anything.
Serafíne
There is blood on Sera's hands and blood in the back of her throat and blood has painted the errant pieces of her hair as they spiraled down around Matty Spencer while she kisses him and she's inhaling for another kiss when she feels him breathe, not the sick, wet smear of a wounded, clotted, choking breath, but a real one.  So she inhales and sits back on her haunches which also means that she sits back on Matty Spencer's torso, breathing hard, panting as he wakes up.
Elijah is watching her: concerned that she's not okay, that something else is going on here, that she is perhaps spending too much of herself and the latter may be true but the universe does not punch her in between the eyes (this time) and the blood - everywhere - does not disturb her as much as the brief  momentary hallucination of the vision Elijah does not know she had, back in the bar. 
She's okay, yes.  There are layers, of course, a kind of exigent physical panic, fear, which is wrapped around the elation that comes from exerting her will on the world. 
"This fucker attacked you," Sera is telling Matty, smiling, tears in her eyes.  She holds up a hand expecting Elijah to help her stand.  "Threw you down on the ground and you slammed your head against the asphalt, but I knew you were okay.  Bet you most of the blood is that weird dude's.  I don't think it's even worth going to the police - "
Elijah
She's okay.
The guy's okay, Sera's okay. They're both okay and everything can be considered right with the world, for the most part.
He offers Sera a hand, and while it does not have the perfect timing and positioning that Dan has cultivated over time, it does have the presence of being well enough timed that he knows when to offer and how to offer. No right and proper southern boy doesn't know when to offer his hand to a blood soaked lady.
"Fuckin' bath salts, man… don't stress, you'll probably have worse hangovers than this."[manip+sub, because that seems like a good call]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Hunger
Maybe it really had been some kind of drunken hallucination. But Matty hadn't been that drunk. He'd felt the knife. Felt the kid bite his neck. He was sure of it.
...Wasn't he?
Maybe he'd hit his head and dreamed it. People didn't just heal. Miracles didn't happen.
Matty looked between Sera and Elijah. Briefly, he reached up to touch the place where Sera's lips had pressed against his. He could still taste the butterscotch from her breath.
"Thanks for chasing him off. Wonder what the fuck he wanted?"
(He'd wanted to eat you, Matty.)
Gradually, Matty got to his feet. When he reached back to feel for his cell phone and his keys, he found them still present in his back pocket. There was an awkward moment when his gaze lingered on Sera. Something a little more than gratitude. Attraction and awe and wonder and a little fear. He was confused. But he didn't look like he was going to rush inside and tell everyone what happened.
"I think I'm gonna walk home. Thank you. Again."
Serafíne
Sera might've gone home with Matty if Elijah weren't around.  If she hadn't just chased off a madman with - or under the influence of some sort of magic, which felt dark, consuming, hungry, angry, in a way she had not felt for -
- well, for quite some time. That awkward moment might not've been quite so awkward if she'd returned the glance with a direct one of her own and invited herself home and taken his hand to walk right alongside Matty - but she doesn't and it is and she is glancing away when he looks at her, into the darkness down the alley, and then she looks back to him and wants to kiss him, on the mouth again, to steal away the hint of fear and replace it with something else. 
But this isn't that moment and Sera is not going home with him and she gives Matty a little wave and a sayonara and waits and waits and waits until he's gone and out of earshot, then looks back to Elijah. 
Holds out her hand. 
"I'm gonna see if I can look back, glean what I can glean.  You wanna give me a hand?" 
Time 2 (look back) / Mind 2 (surface thoughts): -2 for merit  Just checking out recent history
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (4, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Elijah
t wasn't awkward, but he was still standing there reeling, trying to process what he just saw and how it was even possible until Elijah finally settles on Well, duh, magic. Because magic made things possible, magic literally saved that man from the edge of death. It calmed a force that was ravenous, savage hunger that was hard to put a finger on. It soothed a predator, even if Elijah didn't know where that predator had fled to or if he would see them again.
He takes Sera's hand, and the other hand carefully went for his pocket watch. It was grasped with the sort of delicate care he'd afforded so few things in life that were not fleeting. Elijah inhaled like he was going to dive in, and his mind jumped.

[Mind 1/Time 1 - I can totally help!]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
Hunger
Sera and Elijah joined hands, and though Elijah didn't yet possess the skills that Sera had, he still had some talents to offer. And so the two of them looked back together, searching through time for the moment when that ravenous boy showed up at the bar.
The sky was a little brighter then. The traffic heavier. But it wasn't much earlier - only a few minutes before Elijah arrived to join Sera at the bar. The boy crept up like some kind of animal, slinking in through the back of the alley. He had a hooded sweatshirt on, and the hood was pulled up over his head, partially obscuring his face. His thoughts were a roiling mess of hunger and anticipation, excitement and aggression. And yes, fear. But mostly that ravenous need. The force of it was so strong it nearly washed out everything else in his head. But Sera and Elijah would get a sense that he was looking for something in particular. Not just any random person. Someone healthy. Someone strong.
He was alone. There was no-one there with him. Whoever he was, he seemed to be acting on his own, though that did not mean that there weren't others out there like him. Something about the interplay of guilt and taboo pleasure in his thoughts might seem to suggest that he wasn't supposed to be doing what he was doing. That he did not have permission.
And then he saw Matty. And his thoughts jumped with delight. And he was so hungry. He snuck back and pressed himself against the wall, and the moment Matty rounded the corner, the kid jumped out and stabbed him three times in the chest. He was very fast, and the knife went very deep, and poor Matty didn't even have time to register what was happening before he was on the ground bleeding out.
Sera and Elijah knew the rest, but it was still hard to watch. They felt a surge of ravenous need, and then the kid jumped atop Matty and ripped a chunk of flesh out of Matty's neck with his teeth. It was the best tasting thing he could imagine.
The vision faded, and they were once more looking at a vacant alley with Matty's blood stains drying on the pavement. Matty was gone. The kid was gone.

It was entirely probable that none of this was actually over. But for now, there wasn't much else they could do.

Serafíne
It hasn't been long since they walked out of the bar.  They can't see the doors from the goddamned alleyway that stinks of piss and something slow-rotting and blood now, assuredly blood, the sharp stink of the victim's fear as he lay dying on the pavement. 
Sera has blood on her.  On her hands and on her thighs and smeared on her dress though the dress is black so the blood is less visible.  She lets go of Elijah's hand and expels a long, slow breath. 
"I've gotta get out of here - " she says, beneath her breath, reaching for the phone in the pocket of her suit jacket.  " - fuck.  You okay?"
Elijah
He's taking off his vest, pocket watch still in hand and he hands it over to Sera like having the fabric might help her clean herself up, but there was blood everywhere and this was going to look really, really bad and someone was going to notice someone who was that kind of gorgeous in that state of disarray.
Elijah took a kick look round to see if they could get to the parking lot without anyone thinking anything weird.
"I… how the fucking Hell did you do that?" he was in awe, but now was not the time. Elijah shook his head quickly, "We… uh… we can't stay here, is your place close to here? Mine's not far."
Serafíne
Elijah hands over his vest and there is Serafíne, barefooted on the filthy asphalt, and he's handing it over so she takes it because there is a kind of rhythm to almost any human interaction.  When someone offers you something, you accept it.
Her hand is shaking just a bit, from the excess adrenaline or -
Well, shaking just a bit and she balls the vest up and she doesn't know why he has handed it to her, doesn't understand that he intends for her to maybe try to clean herself up with the slick, glossy back, the tailored suiting on the front and it seems so absurd, in the wake of all of that, to have a vest in hand. 
So she breathes out something like-a-laugh and gives him this quick, taut, close-mouthed little smile and looks down at her hands, his crumpled vest, and then up, a swinging glance up and down the alley. 
"Magic." Is Sera's only reply in that moment.  Magic, magic.  He can feel it still, the sensation of her resonance so heady that it almost feels as if they are drowning in it.  "And I took a cab, no idea how long it would take to walk.  I was gonna have Dan come pick us, but if your place is close, he could get me there."
Elijah
"that works," he says.
He looks still, his breathing shallow and his hands weren't shaking but he had to remind himself at that juncture that he needed to breathe and that they needed to get somewhere and that this was going to be awkward. Elijah needed something to do with himself, so he looked for her shoes. Because they were fantastic shoes.
"I… I wanna learn how to do that, you saved that guy."
HIs mind was blown.
Serafíne
Elijah finds Sera's heels near the mouth of the alley just where she abandoned them.  One is on its side  The other is standing upright, just as it was when Serafíne stepped out of it.  Sera is still (absurdly) holding on to Elijah's crumpled vest, though she has carefully tip-toed out of the dark, slick pools of blood and is looking up, up, up, past the dark frame of the buildings flanking the alley, up toward the still-dark sky. 
And she is still like that when Elijah returns with the shoes. 
Her sharp profile in swimming silhouette against the dark smear of the alley, the dull and acid glow of the dim bulbs hanging over the back entrances to the street's storefronts obscured here and there by the hulking shadows of oversized dumpsters. 
When he comes back, she takes the heels from him.  Tucks her fingers into the leather and takes the heels and hands Elijah back his vest reaches out to brace herself against his shoulder as she lifts first her right foot, then her left, to slide her shoes back on. 
"I told you," Sera says then, breathing out quietly.  " - magic.  It's just - it's hard to fucking explain.  It's just something you do, you know.  You start by listening to heartbeats.  Feeling for living things, you know.  The quick in them - their patterns all charged with - fuck. 

"It's hard to explain.  Now c'mon.  Lead the way."

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