Having been back in town for about a month, Ven was feeling like he needed to get business up and running. For most people, having a bar up and running would count as having this one settled. Not so much for him. For him, the bar was just… something to do. A place he could operate from and get less hassle from the owner by dint of being the owner. It made life easier that way.
Despite it just being a front, though, the amount of work to get it up and running smoothly was pretty staggering, even with the staff lending a hand. Still, everything had reached the point of ticking over nicely. The place where Ven didn’t actually need to do all that much to keep money rolling in and to keep people coming back. All in all, it was exactly where he wanted it to be.
Which, as previously mentioned, just left getting down to business.
An opportunity had presented itself almost immediately. And almost immediately upon leaving the bar. Right around the corner, in fact, there was another bar. A little Irish pub called Lancaster’s. Ven had dropped by a couple of times, lurking in the background, scoping the place out. Seeing how the place worked, who the movers and shakers are. Working out where the angles were and how they could be played.
The pub itself was hardly competition. It’s a more upscale establishment, classier and likely more reputable. Not that that’s especially tricky when you consider that the Handle Bar’s core clientele consists of blood thieves, masquerade violators, paladins and gangsters. To Ven’s mind, they were an untapped market. For everyone else, they’re the untouchables.
No, this opportunity was more about the principle of the thing. The cut Ven wears day in day out was clear - Redwood is his. Anyone else wanting to operate any kind of business, legal or otherwise, in the area needs his okay first. Or there would be issues. The kind that involve fire and flying bullets. Going right to the dark place off the bat, though, would be madness. Which brings us nicely to tonight.
***
The glass in Ven’s hand was clean. It had been clean when he’d picked it up, twenty minutes ago now, and gone to work on it with a cloth. He’d done it absent mindedly, not really thinking about what he was doing. It helped him think, helped him plan for the future. Einstein had his job at the patent office, Ven had cleaning glasses and wiping down the bar. Different strokes for different folks and all that.
A sharp rap on the counter roused him from his pondering and he looked up with a toothy grin.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“I’m waiting,” came the fairly obvious response. “For you to get my order,” the guy continued when he saw that his first comment wasn’t about to get any sort of reaction from Ven.
Assuming that, as it so often was, the order had simply been for a beer, Ven pulled a pint for the customer, slid it across the bar and held his palm out for payment. Once received, he slipped it into his pocket.
He put the glass back on the shelf, dropped the cloth on the bar and made his way to the back room. Scribbling a quick note for Kenlie to take over when she got in, he grabbed his jacket and wandered out the back way, making sure his gun was secure inside his cut. The glass had been a great help.
It really wasn’t far to walk, just round the corner, and he was in front of Lancaster’s. He’d met the owner at the opening night do he’d thrown for his own bar, and had honestly been fairly surprised to see her there. He had been able tell without too much effort that she was out of element. Dressed in a sharp suit, made up and looking professional; surrounded by leather and denim clad lowlifes. He grinned at the memory, peering through the windows of his ‘competition’.
With a quick look round, he pushed the door open and slipped in.
He headed to a table at the far wall, facing the door. Sitting there for a few minutes, he thought on how best to make his presence known, felt. Well, more that it was already. He doubted that this place got many people wearing MC colours through the door, let alone someone who wore their vampiric nature on their sleeve quite like Ven did. He made no secret of it, flat out told the humans he worked with what he was. He liked to think it kept them in line.
He sat there, grinning, at everyone who came close, being especially careful to show a bit of fang. He wanted them nervous, on edge, customer and staff alike. They were more likely to call a supervisor, a manager, that way. He spent the next little while this way, putting people on edge, before reaching to his boot and pulling a knife from its hiding place there.
Twirling the blade absently through his fingers, he graced anyone watching with a cold smile, making sure to make eye contact, before beginning to absently carve into the table top. He looked up from his work only to get the attention of a member of staff walking past his table with clear unease.
“Yes love, there is something you can do for me actually. You didn’t even need to ask,” he smiled, winking disarmingly, “Woman in charge. French lass, pretty sure her name is Pie or something like that. I want you to tell her, in these exact words mind, that Mkvenner from the Night Lords MC is here to meet with her about her impending donation to our good will fund. Do me a favour and repeat that back to me, yeah?”
When she’d done that and he was content with her recall he sent her off with a wave of his hand and sat back to wait.
It wasn’t her norm to be swayed by impulse. Pi was a staid sort of personality, preferring the structure and routine of her daily life. She had spent a good amount of time as the Under Secretary not because she had any wish to indulge in the politics of this city, but as a way to .. make up for the wrong she’d lived in her life. Becoming a vampire, in her early days, had become the second chance she never knew she wanted, to be something different. If she’d had cause to examine the inclination closely she would see the irony in it, her belief that being undead was a chance to rectify the flaw in her personality. A chance to be better. But there it is, her sin, her arrogance, was her need for that to be true. She didn’t want to be worse in death than she’d been in life and if she couldn’t fix herself with this gift of eternity, then what sort of monster would she eventually become.
Pi knew, if given free reign, she could become a very ugly, and very dangerous monster in truth. And she didn’t want it.
She didn’t know if that was because of Elliot. She wondered if her very need to be better was the reason she’d been attracted to his inherent light to begin with. What else did the very monstrous of people do when they tried to turn over a new, but surround themselves with the brightest, the best, the honourable and trustworthy. All of those things Elliot was, but it was also all of those things that Pi didn’t think she could be.
It tempered her though, and she welcomed the buffering. She hadn’t killed another in … a year or more. She hadn’t wanted to. Even her clothes reflected the change in what she’d become. Gone were the monochromatic jeans and black shirt (tank for summer, long sleeves for winter) and gone too was the brown leather jacket nearly worn thin in the elbows she’d worn it so often. These days she chose clothes that suited the publican she was. Softer, matching even.. skirts, which were an anathema to her before, were regular items she pulled on for a night at Lancaster’s. Like tonight, the knee length bias cut, flowing over her hips and down past her knee. She didn’t wear her clothes to be sexy, but as a reflection of her increased comfort in her own skin, in being… female. The shirt she wore was still black, still a tank top, but softer too, with a playful slogan she’d never have worn previously.
Pi knew how dangerous she was, she knew she was no less a monster because she no longer dressed like one, but sometimes, the clothes, the feeling that she wasn’t as much of one, made all the difference. Made it feel, or just a moment, that she was… different.
She was on her way to Lancaster’s when she got the call, about a foot away from stepping into the portal that would transport her directly into the office. It was Jessica, from Bunk. It wasn’t a surprise to hear the other woman call her from the Pub’s main line, staff being what they were they tended to float between both places. Those in the Bunk more often pulling time at the pub to earn a bit more money to travel. It was a convenient arrangement for everyone.
It was her voice that alerted Pi, inlaid with Irish was the high pitched tone associated with fear or anxiety, the words she spoke next confirmed Pi’s fear.
There was no using the usual portal tonight, spinning on her heel, phone still at her heel she took the Training Room one instead, swinging past the pool to step into the portal that would take her to the door to their Pub, a less innocuous entry for an owner who was not meant to be on site. “I’m here.” Pi said to the nervous woman. “I was already on my way over.”
Using the training room portal Pi found herself at the entrance to the pub the words she spoke a credible excuse for the fact she had just walked through the front door. Pi nodded to the Irish woman standing with the phone against her ear, disconnecting her own cell and following the darting gaze Jessica threw towards the table, and the man who sat there.
Impending donation to their good will fund? Pi considered the statement as she closed the distance between herself and Ven. She wanted to pretend ignorance about what that could mean but it was hardly likely the man who owned a biker bar and was obviously the leader of a gang was also the head of an altruistic bent charitable organisation. He, had not struck her as the altruistic kind.
Then again, he hadn’t struck her as all that menacing either. He’d been jovial to people on the opening night. In that sphere he seemed almost benign, however as Pi moved closer she wondered at her own perception of that evening, because he certainly wasn’t looking that benign right now. The whole place was lit with a nervous tension. She could feel the stares like darts in her back as patrons watched her approach the man, menace, like a cloud leeching into the air around him to infect the patrons with his presence. This, sort of atmosphere, would not promote a positive influence on their business.
Sliding herself into the seat opposite him her hand flashed out to take the knife from him, failing to grasp the hilt as she intended her slim fingers grasping at air before slapping down hard on the grooves he’d sliced into the solid wood.
“It is not polite to … ruin, what you do not own.” She stated quietly, her eyes narrowing on the man before her.
K I L L E R || E L L I O T ' S CANIDAE || d'ARTOIS
He saw her come in and grinned. It had not been long since the waitress, or whatever else she was, had made the call and he couldn’t help but wonder how she was going to explain how promptly she’d shown up. Unlike him, who didn’t bother to hide what he was from the wider world, he suspected that Pi might actually hold true to those arbitrary guidelines. Teleportation via fade portal probably wasn’t within them.
She walked over to him, casually dressed but retaining a smart edge, somehow, in her sleeveless top. He shook his head slightly at the kitsch slogan emblazoned across it. For the life of him he could not see the appeal of stuff like that. And, on top of that, clothing such as that was easy to identify which tended to do him no favours in his own particular line of work. It was hard enough with the scars, he didn’t need to make things any trickier for himself.
That being said, she did look more comfortable than she had when she’d walked through the door and into his bar on opening night. At some point, he’d really need to ask what had made her drop by for a visit. It was probably just to check out the competition, but it could also have been more along the lines of rampant curiosity. An urge to see how the other half drank. Despite leaving early, she’d seemed to enjoy the place, so there was that.
“Please, sit,” he said sardonically as she slid into the chair opposite him, “It’s your place after all. No need to stand on ceremony for me.”
Ven snorted when she failed to take his knife from him. It wasn’t polite, he knew, but neither was trying to snatch stuff from other people - his dear departed mother had taught him that one as a kid and it was a wonder to him that Pi didn’t seem to know better. Some people. With a slight sigh he slipped the blade back into his boot.
“Well now, let’s hope that’s not a sign of things to come, eh? I’d’ve stood, seeings as you’re a lady and all, but you didn’t exactly give me a chance,” he smiled broadly, making sure his fangs were in view, “You want anything from the bar? My treat, love.”
He laid his hands flat on the table, palms down.
“As for what’s polite and what isn’t, I think we’re even on that count. I cut into the table, you tried to steal from me. Twice, actually. ‘Twice?’ I hear you say. Once with the knife, twice ‘cause I’ve yet to see anything in the way of… let’s call it remuneration for operating a business on my turf.”
He waved the waitress back over at this point, ordering a whiskey. He’d not be able to drink it, be he liked the smell. The way it looked in the glass. The way it moved. It reminded him of a happier time when he was able to drink… well, anything. A bittersweet memory, considering, but one he enjoyed regardless.
“See,” he continued, once he’d received his glass, tapping the patch on the left of his cut, “This little feller here says ‘Redwood’. It’s where we are right now, ‘case you’ve forgotten, and more than that it’s mine. The gangsters know it. The paladins know it. Hell, even the blood thieves know it and have you tried telling those guys anything? It’s like talking to a brick wall half the time. Makes me wonder how we come across to humans, always looking at ‘em like they’re food, y’know? I mean, they are, but you never see a person talking to their burger like that. Or generally, really, but you get my meaning I’m sure.”
He closed his eyes, taking a sniff of the whiskey, his lips curling in a smile at the scent. Unsurprisingly, given the locale, it was Irish. His preferred variety. Things were already looking up.
“Anyway. Point is, they all kick me a little something out of respect. Respect for the fact that in Redwood nothing happens without my say so. Drugs, guns, car parts. Breaking and entering. Fencing. Legit business.”
He gave her a conspiratorial wink, eyes twinkling.
“That’s you, sweetheart, if you were wondering. Well, not you personally. But this place.”
He paused again, taking another sniff of his glass. He kept it in his hand, swirling the liquid. He shook his head, wishing he could drink. Wishing he was able to warm the liquid like he’d been used to do. Being the blood drinking undead came with some perks, but the downsides were also pretty steep, to his mind.
“Very nice, this. The whiskey I mean. Place ain’t bad either. Nice tables, nice chairs. ****, even the walls look nice. I figure, place like this, you’re making a decent turnover per month. Something in the six figure range. Now, I’m not a greedy man, I don’t especially want to do anything… drastic. I just want what’s mine. Let’s call it twenty each month on the first of the month, that’s thousand by the way, and we can be friendly and nothing needs to happen to you, your lovely staff or your really very pleasant decor. You’re an intelligent woman, you know where I’m going with this.”
He grinned.
“‘course, you’ve been behind on your payments for a little while, haven’t you? So we’ll call this first one a hundred large and we can part ways happily. I prefer cash, if you were wondering. And don’t worry, I got all night. I can wait. Just, y’know, not for long.”
He levelled his gaze on her, his grin fixed but humourless.
“From what I’ve been able to make out, the office is that way. I’ll be right here.”
Pi wasn’t an innocent, far from it. But she had sat comfortably at the quasi-top of the food chain in the city so long she had long lost the concept of anyone attempting to do anything to her. There were groups that could take her en masse and she largely ignored those, or tried to join them and failed, but even then, they largely left her alone too. Because she wasn’t one to rock the boat, rarely did much to attract attention and was happy with that.
He spoke and his words at first weren’t clear and she listened, her eyebrow arching as his point crystalised. And then her mind caught up with what he was attempting to do.
…let’s call it remuneration for operating a business on my turf.”
Remuneration. That was a nice way of putting it. For extortion, a racket she wasn’t unfamiliar with, but only as a concept that she’d seen in movies or books, but not one she’d ever thought to apply to herself. She was tempted to look behind her, to ascertain if there wasn’t someone behind her he could be talking to, because she wasn’t entirely certain he hadn’t got the wrong person. Shock, it must be it, the unmitigated shock of being the person he was obviously attempting to get money off.
Did he not know who she was? She stared across the table at him, her expression blank, killer blank, the sort of hard stare you only gave someone when you were about to make them eat a bullet. She could end him, she could reach across the table rip out his throat and leave him slumped where he was bleeding out on the wood floors. She let the image movie reel in her head, finding satisfaction at the dead eyes she’d created by her bloody imaginings and she could happily sit there and watch him bleed. She could drag his male *** out of this pub, into the back alley and pummel him to an inch of his life, or all the way to the end of his blood capacity and send his sorry as to the fade. She wanted it so much her hands clenched.
But he couldn’t know the thoughts as they played through her mind, instead he kept speaking, speaking as if he hadn’t a care in the world, as if they sat there discussing the weather and he was but a magnanimous benefactor bestowing a benign comment on the inclement conditions. Except he wasn’t. He wasn’t and she was in no condition to attempt a coherent reply that wasn’t slice first, ask later.
Anyway. Point is, they all kick me a little something out of respect.
She wanted to laugh, not in merriment but with a cruel sort of intention. Each sentence he spoke, jacked her irritation a little higher, her thoughts tumbling about and each of them narrowing to a point where he was bleeding at her feet. She could do it too. She could take this man, and rip out his spleen and wave it at his face before she crushed it under her foot. Inside her, the gall of his attempt festered and boiled, she’d sat when he’d offered, had shook her head at his offer of a drink, and with each word he spoke she’d held herself back only by sheer will.
I will end you her eyes said, even if she refused to let move to make it a reality. I could end you here and what family you boasted would look for you and not find you until you returned from the hell I’d sent you. her inner thought finished.
Except she couldn’t. Because she was different wasn’t she? She wasn’t the sum of what her past had made her.
Elliot had taught her that she was more than her instinct to shoot first and ask questions later. He had asked her to think about what she was doing before making the leap into maiming people because maiming people had always been her first inclination. It had only bee a few nights before, not far from this very table where he’d grabbed her arm and hissed into her ear when she’d done nothing more than … threaten his childe. It was only that thought that held her back, that Elliot wouldn’t approve of this man’s blood leaching across the bar, of the mayhem that would ensue because she couldn’t keep a lid on her destructive nature.
It was only Elliot that stayed her hand and kept her rooted to the chair opposite the man who had shed the benign skin he’d worn at the opening of his own establishment. Gone was the man who had merrily introduced her to those in attendance, jovial and playful. Gone too was her own sense of connection, of bar owner to bar owner.
But Elliot was right, she was more than a reaction, she could be more than the woman who could squeeze the life out of something as a way to resolve the issue. Even this man, with his obvious leathers and equally obvious scars and his assumption he could make her do what he wanted. In this moment she used Elliot as a gauge to how she should react and it was only thoughts of the man she loved that held her back from doing exactly what she wanted to in her mind.
She couldn’t bring this **** into the pub with her, and it had only arrived here because of one night and one impulsive decision to enter a place she had no good excuse to enter. She could bleed the man, she could, she could have him eat lead but it wouldn’t be what Elliot wanted of her, not here in this place he used as his second home, where he made music and filled it with his soul.
And she just couldn’t be arsed fighting it. What did she care of money. She didn’t. What did she care of this man and his assumptions. Nothing. Not a damn bit. He rated as much as a mosquito and she couldn’t give a flying fig about his words, his extortion, or his attempt to get a promise of something more out of her.
“There is no money here, but I’ll transfer it tonight.” She said easily, leaning back in her chair and shrugged.
“But mind me Mkvenner.. it will be the only money you get out of me, because right this minute, I can’t be arsed dealing with you misogynist crap… for a second longer. Don’t come back. Or if you do… come back with friends. Because you will need them.” Leaning forward, the French of her heritage weighed heaving in her accent. “And prepare to die when you do.” She whispered. “Because I. will. End. You.” Or go to the fade trying. “Are we clear? Now leave your account and leave my bar.”
K I L L E R || E L L I O T ' S CANIDAE || d'ARTOIS
It was hard to miss, to ignore, the way she was staring him. With a history like the one he was in possession of he would have been ashamed of himself had he not recognised the cold, emotionless stare of a killer. A person who wouldn’t think twice of separating him from limbs he was particularly fond of and, indeed, still had a use for. Hell, he could almost imagine her playing out how it would go, an in depth movie screening in the quiet confines of her mind.
He grinned, spreading his arms slightly. As if to say ‘with all these humans around? Go for it. See where it gets you’.
It was at times like this… well, most times, really, but especially at times like this that that Ven was glad that he set no real store in the notion of the masquerade that the other members of the undead community seemed so concerned about. As he’d mentioned in conversation with his associates, it’s not as though anyone would believe a human rambling on about spirits, zombies or vampires. On top of that, it gave him the leeway to do things that others simply couldn’t countenance. Use the powers that came with their blood in public, for one thing.
It made extorting them easy. It was a weak spot, the tender underbelly that was always, always exposed. Threats of violence could only ever get a person so far. At the end of the day death was not the end, not for them, and vampires could shrug off most wounds that could be inflicted upon them with relative ease. Being ‘outed’ as the immortal undead was another thing entirely, though. They really didn’t want that and seemed to go to great lengths to avoid it happening. Almost to the point of utter distraction. It was kinda cute.
And clearly something Pi had issues with, judging by the look she was still giving him.
It was almost ironic, he reflected. Here he sat, attempting to extort the woman who owned the place. A place she should have been most comfortable in, most in control in, and yet he was the most relaxed of the pair. He was entirely in control of his emotions, his choler firmly in check. His humours aligned. He made a mental note of every reaction that Pi gave him, every sign that betrayed her emotions, her inner turmoil, and filed it away for later use. After all, this was merely the first approach. The first go round. This dance would, if he had his way, continue for some time yet.
“That’s fine,” he nodded, “No-one in their right mind would keep that amount where anyone could just walk in and take it. I hear there’s quite the undesirable element in this part of town, after all.”
What she said next, though, stopped him almost in his tracks and his grin faltered. He had come in here with an open mind. Hadn’t judged anything about the place or Pi herself before first experiencing either. No preconceptions existed past the fact that they probably had money spare that someone like him could put to use. And yet, the same level of respect had clearly not been extended to him. His gaze grew cold. Hard. The mirror of her own. He chose his next words carefully.
“Now wait just one goddamn minute,” he began, not quite as carefully as he had originally intended, “You think this is some ‘misogynist crap’? Love, I honestly could not give a damn that you’re a woman. It makes no difference to me. Not in the slightest. And I need you to hear that, to understand it. Let it sink the **** in. This has nothing to do with your gender. I’d be doing this if you were the most manly man that had ever walked the planet, you get me? This isn’t about gender. It’s not about a single ******* thing more than you running a business on my turf.”
He paused, collecting himself.
“The threat though… that’s a touch far, don’t you think? I came in here, all friendly, and suggested that you pay me what’s mine. No need to go off like you did. There’s a lot of ways this could have come down, none of them showing you the respect I did by coming here alone, keeping this thing low key and under the radar so as not to upset your more mortal clients. Because I’m pretty damn sure that that’s the last thing you want, when you really think about it, isn’t it? It’s why you’re not busy tearing my throat out right now. You do that, and I’m going to do something that leaves you no choice but to show them what you are. Me, I don’t care about that. You, though, I’m thinking you do. So sure, come after me. Come after my friends, after my club. But know that I have the edge and that at any time that edge can come down.”
He pulled a pen and a scrap of paper from his jacket, scribbling down a string of numbers.
“My details. I’ll be waiting. You know where to find me if you want me.”
He stood from the table and almost made it to the door before he turned.
“So I guess I’ll be seeing you soon either way, then, eh? I look forward to a profitable relationship, mon cherie.”
He stressed the last two words with a grin. With a wink, he pushed the door open and was gone.
“This, was in no way anything resembling friendly.” She replied with barely covered disdain to the back of the man as he walked away.
She shouldn’t have come on so strong, she knew that. She should have played it cool somehow, thought about what she’d said for five whole seconds before the words came out of her mouth and thrown down on the table like a heavy metal gauntlet just asking to be picked up and used to slap her upside the head. If she’d taken those five seconds and mulled over her reaction for longer than a nano, she’d have realised that was the case. Instead she was left with an awful dread at what her unconsidered words would wrought and belated realised the damage she’d done but she couldn’t take them back.
Not that she didn’t mean them, she did. But she’d shown her hand too early, given him too much warning of what she was really feeling, and how she wanted to take his little smirk and beat him senseless with it. She didn’t like bullies, and despite the easy talking facade this man put on his words, he was exactly that. A bully. Not a senseless and unthinking one, but an intentional machination of intent that pursued its goal until it had it in its claws. Pi felt those claws wrap around her, giving her little to no wiggle room, trapping her as easily as her own response had.
There had to be another way out of what was being said at this table, but for right now she couldn’t think of one. She had already said she’d pay and taking that back too wasn’t an easy proposition either but like all blackmail schemes, one payment (despite her rather bravado filled words) would never be enough. But at least, one payment, the 100k would give her time to come up with a better working alternative.
It was sad really, because she’d liked the people she had met in that bar. For the few moments she was there, she’d genuinely felt welcomed into their little party (despite the obvious differences between them). She wasn’t a motorcycle gang sort of female (although her favourite mode of transportation was one) and she wasn’t tattooed to nth degree (although she was considering ink and had been since she’d seen Victor at the auction) but what she had enjoyed was a new set of people to talk to, despite those differences there had been an oddly comforting sort of welcome she’d let herself appreciate.
This meeting with Mkvenner dispelled whatever notions she’d had of potential acquaintance she’d entertained from that night. She couldn’t tell Elliot about that impromptu meeting now, or of the opening night and the people she’d met. She couldn’t tell him about the motorcycle bar or the incongruously dapper owner with the scarred face and leather jacket who exhibited an old world flair she found interesting. Because telling him about her night there would be forever marred by what came after. Except she had to tell him, and would, all of it, laying it out because this was as much about him as it was hers. But she dreaded the conversation. She'd brought this to their bar and she was determined, whatever was needed, that she would fix it too.
She watched him walk out the door and sighed, leaning back in the chair she was seated in and tried to figure out what to do next. Send him the money, but it wasn’t going to stop there, she knew it, and so did he. But she didn’t really want to be a business owner paying blackmail to the local gang, because that, would never end well, not for anyone. She also didn’t want to try and kill the man because that would help, no one. Slapping her hand against the hardwood surface she growled, the staff who had been watching the events roll out all staring at her with wide eyes. She’d have to tell Elliot though, because leaving him in the dark wasn’t an option, but much like her emails back and forth with Hamlet she couldn’t figure out how to tell him that didn’t make her look like an idiot she felt she was. When would she stop falling into these situations and making a hash of them? Probably never, because her skills at navigating anything that involved other people were obviously … defunct.
Pulling out her phone she made the transfer, quickly, like ripping off the band-aid and getting the deed done before she could sit there mulling it over for the next century and still not coming to a satisfactory resolution. It would buy her time, and after that, after talking to Elliot, maybe they could figure out what the hell to do .. next time.
You transfer $100000 into Mkvenner's account.
And there would be a next time, she didn’t fool herself into thinking otherwise. She just needed to know what to do when that next time happened.
K I L L E R || E L L I O T ' S CANIDAE || d'ARTOIS
--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--
‹Pi dArtois› Pi was a light sleeper. Always had been, and since she had daywalker, she still was. Unlike the lump on the bed next to her who hadn’t yet made any wiggles that indicated he was about to wake up. It was getting later, in more ways than one. It felt like the last month had flown by, without her realizing that it was winging away from her as fast as it had. After her meeting with Mkvenner, she thought she’d have plenty of time to talk to Elliot about what she’d done. What Mkvenner had asked her to do. But as happens, life interrupted. She’d gained a ring and a promise and for the life of her nothing short of a nuclear disaster was going to distract her from that progression in their relationship. Slumping herself of his still chest Pi played with the wedding band on her finger, her thumb reaching underneath to worry the thick silver band, the row of diamonds on top twinkling, reflecting the light from the bedside lamp she’d turned on as she waited for Elliot to open his eyeballs.
No, she hadn’t wanted to think of anything else after that. Then Christmas came, like a tidal wave, sweeping her away without her realizing she was being swept. The mini-cyclones that were Skylar and Klara, nudging Elliot and her both off their comfortable perches in search of a tree and decorations until the Den had taken on a festive feel to it. Despite themselves and she’d enjoyed it, immensely. Except here they were, the new year and Pi knew she was only a few days away from receiving another precipitous visit from the tattooed biker guy and she needed to know how she would handle the next time. Because she was pretty sure she hadn’t handled the first time well at all.
Her hair was a mussed up mess around her face and clothes hadn’t been a requirement for bed, not last night and still weren’t. Not most nights they spent together. And this time she had changes in the drawers that lined the opposite wall of his bedroom. She’d shuffled around his stuff and made herself room for her stuff, because not having spare undies in a place she found herself naked in quite often just wasn’t the thing. Absently she smoothed over the smattering of hair on Elliot’s chest, barely there, a small tuft here and there, smoothing, smoothing. The smile she wore was almost feline, her chest still draped over his and her gaze shooting to his closed eyes to wait for his reaction. With a wicked grin she plucked one particularly long chest hair out, short and sharp.
‹Elliot d’Artois› Life was a thing that always moved on. To say that because they were immortal and they would not age was not to say that they were not subject to time – because time is the be all and end all. Even if they themselves do not change, the world changed around them. And, with the changing world they were forced to react. Elliot had learned this; they couldn’t sit and do nothing and relax, and be content. And when a few months passed where relaxation and contentment were all that could be felt, then he knew something had to happen, soon. Something bad was always bound to happen, whether it be big or small.
The bed was comfortable and the crypt dead silent, but these days Elliot was deprived of waking up with a stretch of the arms the legs, able to say boy, that was the best sleep I’ve had in a long time. Because regardless of his stress levels, regardless of whether he was in a good mood or bad, whether he was excited or furious, he slept the same every single night. As soon as the sun came up, he was dead to the world. He slept as many hours as that sun would allow him to sleep, according to the season. On his back, with one arm wrapped around Pi, the other limp at his side; one leg crooked and one leg straight.
When finally he did blink his eyes open, there was a stinging sensation upon his chest, and Pi was sitting at the edge of the bed. There was no ‘waking up’, either. It wasn’t a process. He wasn’t tired until he had that first cup of coffee. He was asleep, and then all of a sudden he was wide awake, alert as if he’d been awake for hours. He rubbed at his chest idly, scratching at the small itch, before rolling over and up to brush the hair away from Pi’s back – to press a kiss to the back of her neck. “G’evening, love,” he said, idly.
‹Pi dArtois› “Morning Sleepyhead.” Pi replied with a smile. She knew it wasn’t morning and she knew unlike the rest of the world, neither of them woke up with a stretch and a yawn and an incessant need roll over and go back to sleep, burrowing their heads under the pillow in the hopes that they could carve out another fifteen minutes to fall back into slumber. That luxury was long gone, for both of them. But she liked the greeting anyway. It wasn’t morning, but it was their morning and if they were to be forever denied sleepy yawns and drawn out sleep ins, then by golly she could keep her good mornings. Curling herself along his side she pillowed her cheek on his shoulder and slid her leg along his.
“I think your cat is dead.” Pi said simply, her hands still making lazy trails along his chest, fingertips curling around his nipple then smoothing down his chest to the dip of his belly. That wasn’t exactly what she wanted to say, or how she had planned to open the conversation, but she wasn’t entirely certain how to broach it. Instead she procrastinated. She liked to touch him, run her hands across his skin and watch it play under her hand. It was hypnotizing, watching her hand play Richard Attenborough along the plains and valleys of his body. She didn’t dip below the sheet slung across his waist, but smiled at what lay there too. “I’m here all the time.. and its food bowl hasn’t been touched in… weeks.”
‹Elliot d’Artois› Elliot lay back down with Pi. No, they didn’t have the luxury of snuggling back into the sheets to find a few extra minutes of blissful slumber, but they could still have this. The quiet snuggles with each other, the few minutes (or much more) of just being together before they had to get up and get dressed and go do all the things that they needed to do for the night. At least, Elliot knew there was always things to be done. Always things to be preoccupied with. He’d done it on purpose, with all his businesses now thriving. Maybe he had spread himself too thin, and when Skylar had said she never could catch up with him, there was a legitimately good reason.
As Pi explained about the cat, Elliot frowned. There were other people who sometimes used this crypt, and he himself hadn’t seen the cat in a while. People shouldn’t buy him pets – he wasn’t used to them. Didn’t have the same love for them as other people seemed to. How had he ended up with that cat, anyway? He couldn’t even remember. “Maybe Reilly or Skylar took it back to their place,” he said. Did Reilly have his own place? Must do. He wasn’t staying here, that was for sure – and Elliot had done away with the decoy left in this very bed. It had felt wrong, almost, to skewer that dummy through the heart but he had done so; the thing had fizzled out of existence and had left Elliot feeling a little frazzled for the next couple of days.
“Or maybe it slipped out. And is now running wild in the catacombs,” he said with a chuckle, though more correctly, if that had happened, it had probably been eaten by the zombies. The chuckle dispersed, and the frown returned. How could he forget about the cat? Really?
‹Pi dArtois› Reaching up she smoothed away the frown lines between his eyes. She’d have pressd her lips there too but she really didn’t feel like moving her head, it was quite comfortable where it was, and so her fingers would have to do. Massaging away the frown with the soft pads of her slim fingers. “Yes, you’re probably right. I’ve left Dingo with the guys at Lancaster’s and he seems to love being doted on there. Once in a while I take him out with me to run with the wolf and he likes that, but .. well, animals. Sometimes, they need as much love as little children… and the guys at the pub love him to pieces. But I haven’t seen him for a while… I wonder if someone has taken him home with them. Felt sorry for the poor mutt.” Pi felt a little bad about that, having a pet and not being a very good owner for it. But it didn’t seem like their life was conducive to having animals, not really. As the cat was a good example of, you look around and they’re gone, or in the case of Dingo, you look around and someone had felt sorry for them and taken them home to have a better life.
Except, talk of animals was always an act of procrastination on her part and she really should stop wasting time and get to the point. At some point (soon) Mkvenner was going to come calling about that second installment and no talk of their ability (or inability) to properly care for household pets was going to solve her immediate issue. With a sigh she spoke then, her lips moving against the side of his chest. “I had someone visit me at Lancaster’s just before Christmas. I’d have told you sooner but.. well, it got so busy with the holidays. But I need to tell you about it.”
With effort (cause she still really wanted to keep her head down) she lifted herself up onto one elbow, resuming her earlier position on his chest so she could look at him properly, gauging his reaction. “I think.. well, no I’m pretty sure… positive I’m being blackmailed.” She said baldly. “And I paid him…. A lot of money. To go away. I just don’t think he’s going to stay gone.”
‹Elliot d’Artois› Elliot sighed when he felt Pi’s fingers massaging away the frown; they were animals, right? Just animals. Elliot could of course have started some complex discussion about animals, and whether they had souls, and whether they really knew what was happening to them and why. Elliot would never be intentionally cruel toward animals, and of course was against hunting them in areas where they were going extinct (like with the lions in Africa) but at the end of the day, humans had been killing animals since the get go. It was the way things worked. Maybe not domestic animals, but still…
All discussion of animals was moot, however, as Pi changed the subject. Elliot remained where he was, shifting his head only so that he could look up at Pi, her face bathed in the dim, warm light of the bedside lamp. There was no way she could keep the frown from his face now. No way. He had to let the words sink in, first, before he could summon a proper response. And only then did he force himself up, and Pi with him. Up, into a seated position, because this conversation seemed like one that should be had while upright. This wasn’t just pillow talk. It was serious.
“What?” he said, wanting more details. “Who was it? And… you paid him? Why would you do that, Pi?” he asked, not accusatory, but genuinely curious. What circumstances could have led her to think it was okay to pay someone money? Someone who asked for it? “How much, and for what reason?” He stopped. There were more questions, but he would wait for Pi to explain properly before pressing on.
‹Pi dArtois› Pi rolled of his chest as he sat up, catching the sheet and wrapping it around herself sarong style, her legs tucking under her butt cross legged so she sat facing him. Yeah, this was about the reaction she’d expected, maybe worse actually. She thought he’d yell a little bit, maybe even growl. He was actually taking it quite well. All things considered. “His name is Mkvenner. I met him a week or two before he came to Lancaster’s. He’d just opened a bar across the street and I thought I’d drop into the opening night. It was nice actually. They were nice, a weird mix of vampire and human but social. I liked it. I liked them.” And wasn’t that the biggest dig of all. She’d finally found some people she rather liked and then the raging dick had to come to Lancaster’s and attempt to extort her. It was the cruelest of irony’s because she rather liked the idea of meeting new people. Even if they were of the heavily tattooed biker variety. Even bikers needed friends right?
“Apparently, his side business now that he has a business down the street is to require area businesses pay him an honorarium once a month out of ‘respect’.” She continued, giving extra emphasis to the word respect, vocally, without having to lift her fingers and make quote bunny ears in the air. “A transferred a hundred thousand into his account.” It didn’t seem like much, but it was. That was half of someone’s house, two years of someone’s income and a worse still, it was blackmail money, paid to a man she knew wouldn’t go away just because she’d paid it. He’d said as much. In a month, he’d be back, for his regular installment. She. Was a chump. And she knew it.
“It was in the middle of the night, all the staff were looking on like we were a car wreck waiting to happen and I thought I’d pay it to get rid of him. I’d have killed him if I could, but there’s no way to kill a man in the middle of a pub without a million witnesses and no good alibi.” Not that Pi hadn’t lost control like that in the past. She remembered clearly losing her **** with Irene was at the pub. She wasn’t sure what had set her off, but she remembered that she hadn’t cared about the scene, or whether authorities were going to be called. She’d wanted to kill something, so she’d acted on it. Maybe it was a sign she was growing into something less volatile that she hadn’t reacted that way. Had considered the consequences before acting. Except, what she’d done to solve the issue was pay a blackmailer. That was hardly going to stop the situation. She rather thought, it wound her up here, trying to explain to Elliot, why exactly she’d paid the man at all.
‹Elliot d’Artois› “Then you should have waited until he left and killed him in an alleyway,” Elliot said. Out loud. Without thinking. It even surprised him, the heft of it. The truth of it. He wasn’t joking around. Once upon a time the same statement could have been inflected with accusation or sarcasm – because he expected that was something that Pi would do, and a thing that he might disagree with. But that was his first reaction, and it hung there in the air waiting for explanation. But he didn’t explain. He didn’t know who Mkvenner was but he knew of the bar that Pi spoke of. Could see it in his mind’s eye. His fingers pushed into the mattress as he shifted, his whole body reacting to the news as if he wanted to get up right now, get dressed, and go do exactly what Pi hadn’t done.
A few other things were sinking in, too – the good things. The fact that Pi had hung out at a place where both vampires and humans mingled. They do that at Lancaster’s all the time, but the way she said it, made it seem as if the humans knew what was going on. Knew that they were hanging out with vampires. Was that the case? Was she really becoming more lenient, as far as the Masquerade was concerned? And why didn’t she kill the man? Elliot realised again that his own opinions must have influenced Pi in some way; the fact that she might have opted for the peaceful route because it was something that he might have done softened Elliot’s anger somewhat. But only a little.
One hundred thousand dollars. To Elliot, who not had 1.5 million in his bank account (which grew every day), one hundred thousand dollars wasn’t much. But he knew Pi. He knew that she didn’t have much money – and every now and again he would send her some because he wanted to. “Where did you get one hundred thousand dollars?!” he asked, and then shook his head. It didn’t really matter. “That was stupid. You know that right? Paying him? Of course he’s going to come back, and next time he’ll ask for more. He’ll think you’re a ******* pushover and he can get what you want from him. Did you think about the consequences? About how it would make us look?” he asked. The pub was named after Lancaster himself. People already thought he was weak. This would only confirm it, even if he wasn’t the one to have paid the money.
And, just like that, Elliot was up and out of bed. Stark naked, as he went to the drawers to rifle through them and find something to wear.
‹Pi dArtois› Here was the reaction she’d been waiting for all along, that combustible volatility Elliot had inside him, waiting to explode. For many in his circle he seemed like the placid sort, laid back, easy, floating along happily playing his music and tending to his businesses with nary a cross word. But hidden beneath that skin (a skin that was exactly who he was) lay this man. The man with the darkness and the shadows, who could say something like ‘kill him later in the alley’ and mean it. It was this man who had called to the darker Pi, the one who she felt an affinity for, even if it was the laid back singer who she really coveted. The way he loved effortlessly, and cared deeply. They were the same person, these two people she knew and loved, but rarely did many people see this man, with his dark temper and harder words.
“Yes, I knew paying him was a bad idea almost as soon as I did it. I put us into a mess but I think I know how to get us out of it.” Spinning around, to watch him rifle through his clothes she stayed put, the sheet now floating around her until it looked like was dressed in a flow of white cotton, leaving her shoulders bare. Her arms stayed down, keeping the illusion of being dressed in place. “It was the money we earned from the auction.. I still have… about five hundred thousand in my account.” She said with a shrug. That amount was unheard of for her. She never had that amount on her, wasn’t good enough with making money that great amounts of it ever built up in any appreciable way. Until right now. When she’d blithely paid out one hundred thousand of it to a blackmailer.
Rolling her shoulders back she stared at his back, appreciating the curve of it as it rounded to the even nicer curve of his ***. The same back she wanted to throw something at for calling her stupid and a pushover. She wasn’t either of those things, she’d just made a bad call. She hadn’t wanted to get the pub into deep water and sure, maybe she should have followed him out and slaughtered him in the alleyway behind the pub but she was rather impressed she hadn’t. Sort of. On hindsight it was certainly the easier option and then she wouldn’t be here trying to explain to Elliot why she wasn’t a pushover and stupid.
“I’m not a push over.” She said quietly, her eyes narrowed on that back he was starting to cover up with clothing, undies and pants, then shirt. “What I wanted to avoid, I avoided… I want you to help me figure out what to do next. I thought, I could go to his place and reason with him… if that didn’t work. Well, I thought we could then go together. But I didn’t want to try it before I talked to you. Either I can talk some sense into him.. or I can’t. And it annoys me that before… this mess with him, I really rather liked him. He was nice …. To me. Well, before… he was nice.” She finished lamely, knowing she sounded more put out that the nice guy she’d met hadn’t been backed up by the second meeting. In fact, she felt really let down by the fact he’d tried to blackmail her at all. “Throw me some undies and shirt would you… top left drawer.” She said, her voice as crisp as his had been.
K I L L E R || E L L I O T ' S CANIDAE || d'ARTOIS
--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--
‹Elliot d’Artois› Elliot snorted. “I know you’re not a pushover Pi. I didn’t call you a pushover. I said HE is going to think you’re a pushover,” he said. He still couldn’t digest it properly. Couldn’t believe that his Pi had sat there, mute and tame, and had allowed this man to extort one hundred thousand dollars out of her. That didn’t sound like the Pi that he knew. And for what? Because this fuckhead thought that they should respect him?! What was he trying to do, take over the city? Become some kind of mafia boss? **** that. Elliot wasn’t going to stand there knowing some asshole thought he had him under his heel, to do what he wanted. Elliot could be an easy going bloke, but there were some things he just would not do. Giving in to this crude dictatorship was definitely not something that he would do.
“Who the **** does he think he is, really?!” Elliot fumed, pelting the underwear and shirt at Pi – picking two things at random. He was more angry with Mkvenner than he was with Pi. He was more confused by Pi’s actions than he was angry. He softened, only when he thought about it. When he digested the entirety of Pi’s rebuttal. He turned around – now dressed in jeans and socks, and buttoning the dark blue shirt over his torso.
“Did you do it because you thought he might be a friend? Were you in denial?” he asked. He could have softened the questions, really. Maybe Pi had done what she had done because all she really wanted was to get along. Elliot could sympathise. There were plenty of things he’d done in the past just to placate people; because he didn’t want any drama or violence. Oh, how he had change. The soft palate of his soul had shifted, like tectonic plates. Now the volcano was there, primed and ready to erupt.
“What should we do? Yeah, we’re going to go to the bar. We’ll go together. I have a mind to demand he pay back every single ******* cent you gave to him,” he growled, top button now done up, his hands roughly tucking the tail of the shirt into his unbuttoned jeans.
‹Pi dArtois› Catching the undies and letting the shirt fall onto the bed she dropped the sheet, pushing it down and off her body so she could jam first one foot, then the next into the scrap of cotton he’d tossed in her direction and scooting her bum off the bed to pull them up the rest of the way, not caring at all that her boobs were flopping about (and really hadn’t given it much thought since… well, nudity in front of Elliot had become the norm rather than the exception and she’d stopped thinking of being naked in front of him at all). “I’m annoyed that I liked him.. that night he was nice and he was friendly and it really pisses in my wheaties that he’s .. BLACKMAILING me…” she finished with an annoyed growl, grabbing the shirt, something with kermit the frog on it, and jabbed it over her head and roughly pushed her arms out of it.
But all of that had taken way more energy than her bluster could keep up with. It fizzled out and instead of moving she flopped back on the bed like a star fish to stare at the ceiling. “Okay.” She replied, her gaze narrowed and fixed on the light fixture. There were dead bugs in it and it needed to be cleaned out. Apparently it didn’t matter where a light fixture was to be found, some bug attracted to the light would find it, and then commit hari kari buzzing around the source until it died and left its carcass on the opaque glass that enclosed the light bulb. Stupid bugs.
“Okay, we’ll go together.” She agreed again, deflated. Had Pi thought he could have been a friend. Yeah, she rather thought she had. And unlikely friend, someone you saw with someone else having coffee and thought to yourselves. That there, those two people sitting together, there’s a story there. Slight Parisian with the tough looking biker. Friendship found odd places to bloom and after her visit to his opening night, she had liked him. She’d thought him charming and solicitous. And it had been a while since she’d felt connected to someone in friendship like that, (well someone she wasn’t sleeping with or connected to family wise). So yeah, she’d been stunned, angry and shocked that it had turned out like it did and she had to admit that her idea of meeting him alone one time before Elliot did is she wanted to find that other man she rather liked, the one who had charmed her and made her feel welcome.
“And maybe I did.. I liked him quite a bit. He was nice to me.” The fact she repeated ‘nice’ again as if that was an appropriate basis for potential friendship was telling. In this city where so few people were nice to one another she supposed she let herself get suckered into a false sense of connection where there obviously wasn’t one. “And I thought…” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “I rather thought we could be friends… two bar owners, not far from one another. Unlikely friendships are made from less right? Or maybe not.” She sighed, pressing the soft pads of her hands against her eyes. “I guess not.”
‹Elliot d’Artois› Elliot could have been angry that Pi hadn’t come to him about this sooner. Although Pi had bought the pub for him, she was not the sole owner of the place. They had equal share and thus something like this – paying out one hundred thousand dollars on behalf of the business just because it so happened to be in the same area as another, newer business, she should have talked to Elliot. Not just because they were married, in the loose sense of the term, but because in this, they were business partners. The money earned from the auctions was not money that Elliot felt he could lay claim to. The Auction had been Pi’s baby and she had worked hard to organise it. Any profit should, by rights, go to her. That the money wasn’t actually taken out of the business was only slightly better. But she had said it herself – Mkvenner had come to claim money from all the local businesses. The money had been paid on behalf of the business, on the surface of things.
And though it did rankle, it wasn’t something that Elliot brought up just yet. Not yet. Not with his normally-feisty Pi suddenly deflated and laid out on that bed like someone had stuck a knife in her heart and twisted it. The buzz of that emotion hung heavy in the atmosphere between them, and it didn’t take long for Elliot to pick up on it; to have his sympathy rear its head. She was hurt. Now dressed, with his shirt tucked in and his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, Elliot approached the end of the bed. He laid a hand on Pi’s knee, squeezing it reassuringly. As angry as he might be, they were still a unit. A cohesive unit – not as cohesive as they had potential to be just yet, but they were getting there.
“He’s just one man in a city of hundreds of people. Be glad he showed his true colours in the beginning,” Elliot said, tone softer though there was still a hard edge to it. Now, he didn’t want to go and just talk to this ******. He wanted to leap over the bar and sever his head from his body simply because he had hurt Pi. Emotional hurt is far, far worse than any physical damage that he could have managed. “You made a mistake because you wanted the friendship to be true. And now it’s not – so it’s about time we went in there and showed him your true colours, hm?” he said, pushing at Pi’s knee in a bid to get her up and out of the bed – and at the same time infusing her with energy, with what he hoped was a greater purpose via his nightly inspire.
‹Pi dArtois› He touched her leg and she ignored him, he wiggled it and she sat up, crawled forward until she stood beside him. He always made her feel tiny, stretching up until he towered over her. He was her protector, in his way. Just as she was his greatest ally and together they had weathered nearly everything together, (good and bad) and they’d weather this one too. “I really am an awful judge of character aren’t I?” She said, her hands yanking the sheet off the bed and flicking it out once, then twice until it fell smoothly. She didn’t really want to make the bed, she used it as something to do with her hands so she didn’t have to look up at the man and he could see how much she was annoyed at herself.
“We can go together then..” Moving around him she heads over to the draw and pulls out the second from the top and yanked out a pair of black skinny jeans. She hardly looked intimidating in what she was wearing right now. Without shoes and with her hair mussed she looked a good five years younger (Kermit on her T-Shirt didn’t help any) and maybe that was good. Maybe Mkvenner would get the guilts when he sees her and realizes what a big mistake he’d made. Pi scoffed and dug out a light jacket from the bottom draw, corduroy, with strategically placed patches on the elbows (for effect, not my necessity). She had shoes somewhere and she looked under the bed for those, yanking them on too.
She wasn’t saying much because she felt embarrassed. Elliot standing over her, watching her, it felt like she was being sent to the principles office after being cause out smoking in the girls toilets, with a disapproving teacher glaring at her. Except that wasn’t really true. It was her own guilt at work, drumming up emotions. She was wrapping the scarf around her neck when she finally turned, her gaze eventually finding his. The various shades of blue of the scarf brought out her eyes, making them richer, darker, stormclouds. “If you have time.. we should do this.. tonight?”
‹Elliot d’Artois› Elliot did watch, while he himself found his brown leather shoes and his brown leather jacket. And then, with his hands tucked into his pockets, he watched his other half continue to get dressed; he judged her mood not just by what he could feel flinging across the space between them, but by the bow of her head and the aversion of her eyes. The way she did not look at him, the way she failed to respond or say much until she was fully dressed – as if she’d needed that small amount of time to bolster her nerves and face him. She shouldn’t feel that way, he thought. He wasn’t judging her – not anymore. The judgment was done and over with; he had slapped her with it, and rather than react against it, she had accepted it. The guilt that Elliot felt was only in part his own; the majority came from a different part of the room. From the woman wrapping the scarf around her neck.
“You judged me okay,” he said, brushing a kiss to her temple. There was always a risk of hit and miss when it came to other people. And maybe, amongst his own group of people, this Mkvenner was of a perfectly sound character. It depended on opinion and world view. As far as Elliot was concerned, however, he was a conniving snake with grand schemes for power and control. Someone who liked to pick on people weaker than he was. Elliot had no idea who strong this man might be, or how many people he’d have backing him up. But he’d always been taught to stand his ground – to fight back when necessary.
“We’ll go tonight. Right now. We’ll go together. We’ll fight him with vicious rhetoric, first, and maybe we can kill him later,” he said. As much as Elliot wanted to stalk into that bar with his sword withdrawn and draw blood due to this man’s maiming of his lover’s emotions, Elliot was still, underneath it all, reasonable and rational. Talk first, fight later. It had always been his philosophy and he wasn’t about to flush it down the drain now.
‹Pi dArtois› She finally smiled and this one was hard one but genuine, closing her eyes briefly when he touched his lips to her skin and tried to let it go. Yeah, she wasn’t all bad at character judgement, about the same as him really. When it was all said and done people were just hard to read, until you knew them so well, it was like knowing yourself and even then she sometimes got it wrong. She shouldn’t be so hard on herself, but she usually was, her own worst critic. “Okay. Lets go”
Pi hadn’t been good with words. She usually let Elliot lead in situations where it required a little more diplomacy than she could muster. It was ironic how, in this situation, it felt like their roles had reversed and the usual shoot first and ask questions later role had slipped to the man in front of her. Running her hand along his waist for a moment she held still, enjoying being close before pulling away to pick up the gun on the bedside table and the sword she’d left on the floor. It was likely they’d need weapons, and even if they didn’t they’d be fool not to take them. You didn’t go into a potentially (and the potential was pretty high) hostile situation without being prepared.
Slipping the gun holster into the waist of her jeans she dropped her jacket over the top concealing it from view. The sword would be harder to hide but she managed it anyway, stowing it in the holster that would hide it along the curvature of her spine. Under the jacket too, but over her shirt the grip barely showing under her hair which she left down to conceal even that too.
Leaving the bedroom she collected her phone off the kitchen bench, along with her motorcycle keys, which she shoved into the top catch all drawer. She wouldn’t be riding tonight. She rarely used it these days, her preferred mode of transport being the portals, but every now and again she took the crotch rocket for a spin, enjoying the freedom of the open roads that bordered the forestry reserve around the hunting grounds. Tonight they would use the portals. Into the Den, Lancasters and then the short walk across the street. Easy. Efficient. “I’m ready”
[At the Handle Bar]
‹Elliot d’Artois› He stepped into the pub first; normally the first thing he would notice would be the music, but it was only a background noise, here. The place was quieter than he expected. Only a couple of bikes out front, and a few lone rangers smoking at the bar. One guy was drunkenly playing pinball, while a scantily clad woman with short denim shorts and a men’s t-shirt tied tight around her waist, leaned over him to watch.
Where Pi had retrieved her weapons from the bedroom, Elliot had retrieved his from the hallway. His own gun – less used than his sword – fit into a holster beneath his arm. The sword was thin but deadly, and was nestled into a sheath fitted neatly to Elliot’s back, as straight as his own spine was in that moment. Sometimes, given his height, Elliot had the tendency to slump. It was a subconscious effort to fit in, or to be nice – to accommodate the people around him who were generally much, much shorter than he was. Now, however, so full of livid rage and preparing for possible hostility, his shoulders were straight, and his full six foot six inch height was reached.
Elliot’s hard, blue gaze swept over the occupants, and narrowed at those working behind the bar. He turned to Pi, not looking at her but inching his head in her general direction. “Is he here?” he mumbled. He himself had no idea what this Mkvenner looked like, and he would have to wait for Pi to point him out.
‹Pi dArtois› The place was as she remembered it, except empty. Well, empty of the crowd that had been here the opening night. Not that she’d expected that level of activity or crowd but they must have caught it at an hour hardly anyone was there. There were staff on, generic bartenders Pi didn’t recognize from that night either and who barely gave them a second glance. She watched the other two at the pinball machine and shook her head at Elliot’s question. “No.. he’s not. I don’t see him anywhere.”
Considering what they had planned for tonight it was a let down that the man in question wasn’t on site. Now that she’d told Elliot and they had a plan to deal with it, she wanted it done with, the situation resolved. Considering the man they had come to talk to wasn’t there, the likelihood of them sorting this tonight seemed slim at best. She frowned, looking around again just in case she missed him.
But how could you. He seemed the type to have people around him often, the gravitational kind that had people hanging off his arm. He certainly had that night at the opening, crowds of people wanting to talk to him, coming up to him, but right now, none of those people were present. “No… I don’t think he’s here.”
‹Elliot d’Artois› Just because they didn’t see him didn’t mean that he wasn’t there. On his initial assessment of the place, Elliot noticed several doors that led to other parts of the establishment. Whether or not they were open to the public was of no consequence. They didn’t have to go looking, either. Elliot nodded and strode toward the bar; he didn’t take a seat, because if it turned out that the man in question wasn’t there, Elliot wasn’t about to hang around. They were two bars down the street from one another, quite different in their demographics. They could be opposed to each other, or they could have worked together seamlessly. The way this Mkvenner had gone about things, however – trying to force peace by putting chains on everyone – it was the wrong way to go about things.
That kind of behaviour didn’t inspire good will. If you oppress people, it might work for a while. But sooner or later they would rise up against their oppressors. They would outnumber their foe. Out power him. Didn’t this guy know anything about history?
Elliot leaned up against the bar and waved over one of the bar staff. Upon his face was plastered a genuinely nice smile, and toward the girl he pushed all the charm that he could muster. He was going to get nowhere if he went around looking like he was about to turn into the Hulk. “Hey there. Just wondering – would the owner happen to be about? I co-own the bar down the road, just wanted to have a chat,” he said. No harm no foul. Where Elliot could not utter a lie in his words, he could lie with his body; he could look like a simple man who just wanted to have a chat, rather than someone who meant to sever heads from bodies. The girl shook her head. No, the owner was not around – and she didn’t know when he would be back.
‹Pi dArtois› She watched as Elliot turned on the charm, unsurprised that the woman behind the bar gave him the information he requested without so much as a blink. Not that what had been asked was anything top secret, but the man oozed trust, it seeped from his pores, and leeched from every part of his body and despite the fact she knew underneath that polite veneer was a man who roiled with anger she didn’t hear it in his voice. The one was inquisitive, questioning without being intrusive. He gave the woman a smile and even that seemed open too, just another bar owner come to meet and greet another publican. Pi was impressed.
But Mkvenner wasn’t there. The woman had no reason to lie and even if she was lying it would be something said because she was told to, like a secretary told to hold all calls and to tell them the boss was out to lunch. Either likelihood meant that them seeing their target tonight was unlikely and she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed. She wanted it over but she wasn’t sure she really wanted the outcome.
Despite it all, she couldn’t forget how different it had been that first night. But really, how much did she know about that man, nothing really. Which one was the real one and which one did she think she could be friends with. Weren’t they all filled with duality. What their natures were and what nurture had raised them to be. Could he not just be like the rest of them? But there she went, trying to rationalise her way into a friendship with someone she hardly knew. Stupid. Maybe she was just that stupid.
Placing her hand on Elliot’s sleeve she smiled at the woman herself. It didn’t hurt to be nice, it wasn’t like this woman had anything to do with Mkvenner’s plans. “We’ll come back tomorrow night.” She said, before turning to walk to the door.
The night was still cold, wind chill dropping the temperatures outside to something below zero. Enough below zero that she would much prefer to be indoors. When Elliot stood beside her on the stoop of the biker bar she let her gaze fall to the two motorcycles sitting outside, wondering who they belonged to. Also wondering if they liked to ride like she did, feeling the crisp wind against her cheeks until she knew the wind and cold had chapped them a rosy pink. Running her hand along his arm she placed it in the hollow bend on the other side of his elbow, leaving it lightly there. “We’ll come back tomorrow night..” she said quietly, “Finish it then… and every night if we have to. Until we catch him.”
C U R E D || siren - enhanced empathy - sweet blood - liar liar some things just don't add up
i'm upside down i'm inside out
When Ven woke up that night, the first thing he could think of was that today was a day to take care of business. Time flew by all too quickly, he mused, leaving him with precious little of it to do the things he needed to do to keep his world turning nicely without his direct intervention. For instance, it had already been a month since he had dropped by Lancaster’s and had his chat with Pi, a profitable conversation in both senses of the term.
Of course, in that time, he had also been made aware of certain things that upset the balance of the deal he had negotiated, if that were the right word, with the woman.
For one thing, he had been allowed access to the area of the vampire CrowNet set aside for members of the Grigori bloodline - a group which, until then, he had no idea he was part of. Upon reflection, had he ever known who it was who had made him a vampire it would have made his life considerably easier. As it was, however, he did not and there was less than no use crying over spilt milk. Besides, they seemed like a fairly decent bunch of people.
The issue, the real issue, came with the way that he had had no idea that Pi was also part of the same bloodline. Whilst some others may not have been phased by this, Ven was to quite some degree. Despite all outward appearances and no doubt what Pi thought about him at this point, the man cared deeply about family. To him, a family was what made life living. His club, to him, was his little, dysfunctional, mildly psychotic family. His lineage, though new to him, was right up there with that. These people shared the same blood that now ran through his veins, how could he not hold them as such?
The crowning irony was that, not only were two of the members of his club, Kenlie and Dominique, members of both the MC and the Grigori line, they were also directly related to Pi through their shared sire, her spawn Doc. With the benefit of hindsight, he rather found himself wishing that someone, literally anyone, could have pointed this out to him before he’d taken the short walk down the road to speak to the woman about how she needed to be paying him protection money on the regular.
That really was all that it was, too. It wasn’t, as far as he saw it at least, blackmail. Or even really extortion, as far as that goes. It was simply remuneration for a service he was providing whether she knew it or not. It was bad for his business if people came sniffing around other bars, other businesses in the area after rumours of misdeeds, unnatural disappearances or the supernatural in general. It made his life easier if this did not happen, so he made sure it did not happen.
And for that he expected to be compensated. It was only fair, after all.
It really was the furthest thing from personal it was possible to get, he kept telling himself. Not that it especially helped. He had, after all, coerced a large payment from a member of his family - a thing that had mortified him when he found out the particulars of how they’re related. On top of this, he rather doubted that Pi would see things the way that he did. For most people, paying out a hundred grand to an almost total stranger in return for a nebulous service they might not even particularly want tended to rankle somewhat. Perhaps even infuriate.
He rose, trying not to disturb Kleo as he wandered from his room and into the main body of the club’s Church. He took his seat at the head of the table, throwing his cut over his shoulders and reaching for an ashtray. These two important parts of his morning ritual triptych undertaken, he reached for the pack of cigarettes he kept in the lining of his cut to complete it. As he sat there in the semi-darkness, he savoured the smell of the smoke as he thought through what he needed to do to make it so that everyone could go home happy. Or at least whole.
It was, to say the very least, a complicated situation. If Ven were to back down and return the money, he would lose face with his contacts in the area, let alone with the club. When you lived life outside the law, any law, you were only as good as your reputation and he had one to uphold. On the same token, though, if he did not at least appear to back down in some way, then relations with his wider lineage would most likely become decidedly strained. Which could, in turn, make business in general much trickier in the future. With anyone.
He tapped the ash from his cigarette carefully.
He needed time, more than anything else. Time to work out what to do next, time to properly formulate a plan that would both see him gain and lose face, depending on how people looked at the situation. And, typically, time was the one thing that he did not have. The deadline he himself had imposed on the situation was fast approaching and if he did not keep his word when it came to that, his reputation would already be crumbling around him by the time anything got done about the thing with Pi, by which time it would already be too late.
He stubbed out his smoke and reached for another. Just the one could hardly be called breakfast.
He got up from the table and moved back into his room, trailing smoke as he walked. It was far past time he got dressed properly. Kleo was still sleeping soundly, so he quietly grabbed a pair of jeans and a shirt, pulling them both on before walking back out into Church holding his boots. His smoke finished, he dropped the dog end into the ashtray and took his seat again to push his feet into the boots. Everything in place, he pulled his cut back on to finish the ensemble.
After checking his email and responding to the ones that needed responding to, Ven thought it was about time to head downstairs to check on the bar. Make sure Kenlie and co hadn’t done anything too out of the box like repainting. Or switching out the liquor for water or something. When it came to pranks there wasn’t much that he’d put past them. Going down there of an evening was always, for him, a lot like a horrifying christmas morning.
Or, y’know, christmas morning.
It turned out, though, that the place was still pretty much in order. Sure, there was some new incredibly offensive graffiti in the staff area and someone had been at the little plastic tubs of ketchup again (seriously, who keeps stealing them). Other than that, though, everything was pretty solid. He pushed through the door into the main bar, nodding at a couple of regulars in the booths against the wall. That done, he took up his usual position behind the bar.
He hadn’t been there long when one of the temps he had working the floor, collecting empties, wandered up to the bar.
“Evening boss. Couple of people were in here looking for you last night,” she said with a smile.
That in itself wasn’t too surprising.
“Yeah?” he asked, “Don’t suppose you got any names or asked what they wanted, did you?”
“Not really, but the guy said that they owned the bar down the road? Lancaster’s or something, I think it is? The Irish place anyway.”
That part actually was a little surprising. When he’d gone in there originally, he had had no idea who owned the place, let alone that more than one person had a claim on the place. He’d just walked up to the bar and asked to speak to the person in charge; and then the girl behind the bar had pointed him in Pi’s direction. Naturally, he had assumed it was her place. The incongruity of a French woman owning an Irish bar in Canada was not lost on him, but hey, each to their own, right?
“Cheers for passing it on, I’ll keep an eye out,” he replied, “Let me know if you see them before I do, yeah?”
“Sure thing boss.”
It seemed that the other side of the business arrangement had realised that it was about time for their second payment. This, to his mind, could either be a good thing or… well, or the other thing. Ven had literally no idea which way it would go. If it had just been Pi that had come in looking for him, he guessed that they might have been able to talk things through rationally. He would be able to explain that he’d learned some new things in the last month and that as a result their deal would be different. A family discount, obviously, not a free pass. He wasn’t insane.
But her co-owner turning up as well? That gave the whole thing a totally different complexion.
When it came to business, especially the type of business that Ven most usually found himself conducting, wild cards were never, ever a good thing. Due to their nature, they added elements of the unknown into every interaction. You can never predict what they’re going to do, how they’re going to react to anything. How they might mess up the deal for everyone involved. When they came back, if they came back, he would need a whole new plan of attack.
