All's Fair [Sloan]

[Skoll]

S L O A N
The evening before had gone by in a whirlwind. Sloan could only remember bits and pieces of it like fragments of a vase that had been hurled across a room only to shatter, some pieces recovered but others lost to the elements, waiting just on the fringe to be discovered. He remembered he'd taken Denver from the party and they had left, remembered being unable to fully tell the worried man what was wrong, only managing to get bits and pieces of his scattered thoughts out into the open, none of it all too clear to be discernible. Denver Lane still had a solution though; it was his tried and true method. If you have a problem, beat it up. It was the sort of advice that correlated perfectly with the rage Sloan felt bubbling up on the inside, brimming and threatening to overflow. The violence was preferred over tears and fears. His energy was channeled, exerted, purged.

They'd gone to the slums where Lane lived along with the rest of his crew. Naturally, the spill of Sloan's blood caused a flare of a commotion in the small area but Lane wasn't too fazed. When the less sympathetic of the gangsters surrounded them, Lane simply told him to let it be his first lesson. 'Think of it as a test… or maybe a blessing. Now you can take your anger out properly.' It was an interesting silver lining that Sloan hadn't considered. But once he was in the heat of the fight, his adrenaline and wrath took over easily. He didn't leave the brawl unscathed but that had been expected. What was unexpected was how he'd gone right from fighting with goons right into physical training with Lane. And the man was no pushover. They trained until every muscle on Sloan's body ached and he'd bled out half of the blood he was able to carry before eventually, literally, passing out on Denver's futon.
S K O L L

The aftermath of the party was a mobius strip, looping endlessly without beginning or end. The sequence of events shuddered and wavered like film caught in an old projector, brittle teeth dissecting the image frame by frame. He’d pulled away, as breathless and reeling as a patient surfacing from anesthesia. He barely remembered fumbling for the door handle, letting himself into the hall as the noise of a hundred thoughts crowded his head like static. Like bubbles in warm champagne; rapid and countless. The twist in his gut soured as he stumbled, faces looming like paper lanterns and falling away.

“--Wrong with--?

“Doesn’t look too good. Should we do some--?

“--Just saw Caitlyn’s thong through her stockings, man --”

It had accumulated with his knees hitting the tile of the bathroom floor, white knuckled as he gripped the sides of the toilet, a bitter, anemic trickle of vodka and saliva issuing from his lips, tinged faintly pink. If pressed, he couldn’t have identified whether it was the alcohol or the taste on his lips that triggered it; the wrongness of it leaving him gasping, spine curving with each dry heave. By then, of course, Sloan was gone. Skoll had focused; rifling through the thoughts of partygoers with impunity, desperate for glimpses of the path he’d taken through the polaroid's of their mind’s eye.
He barely remembered leaving the party, wiping at his lips with the back of his knuckles as if he bled. As if he could scrub away some stubborn stain and absolve himself. He walked when running only served to draw the attention of a handful of military personnel who watched him the with the remote and pitiless stare of lions left at the bottom of a concrete enclosure, restless and made hungry in the lean season that had descended in the face of HR’s uneasy peace. He paused when it was needed - piecing together fragmented memories from humans and vampires alike to form a creased roadmap, the lines thin like veins. At times, he found nothing at all, and would be forced to double back, wandering aimlessly.

The sky had begun to lighten by the time he reached Newborough, and, exhausted, he sought refuge in an old, crumbling apartment complex. The stairwell ended abruptly, jagged as a gap-toothed smile. He made himself comfortable on the landing, amid stained cardboard and the guttered remains of a boxspring as the tendrils of dawn began to stain the sky. Tomorrow, was the prevailing thought as the familiar heaviness settled over his limbs. He’d keep looking tomorrow.

S L O A N
The next evening was a new day. So to speak. It was a fresh start to a new routine that Sloan figured would become his new constant, something to rely on to make time pass. He'd passed out by a window where a sliver of the rising sun grazed his arm, searing it from the back of his hand up to his shoulder. That, of course, was a rude enough awakening, forcing the vampire to retreat under the futon instead where he eventually passed out and was recovered by Lane at dusk. "Jesus, kid. What the hell." He had pinched his nose at the smell of burning flesh to which the Shadow shrugged and Lane was forced to sigh in submission and send Sloan off to his first set of tasks.

His job was easy enough; fight rivals, rob them blind and bring everything back to the apartment. (Lane called him Magpie.) It was only easy because he was, as a vampire, somewhat stronger than his opponents. A little faster, a little more skilled. Plus, it required very little talking, which he could appreciate even if running from the cops all night wasn't ideal. Other than that, the slums were an interesting place with interesting people, always something new around the corner. He was starting to grow fond of the area.
Most of the evening had felt like a game. Like Grand Theft Auto or something. The weight of the glock on his hip was heavy and tangible but dodging bullets and beating down gangsters felt surreal. He couldn't take it seriously and the crimes had become like second nature. He felt little remorse for his actions, like he was entirely detached, dissociating from the crimes for what they were, heinous. At some point, he became aware of this and it terrified him a little. For only a handful of seconds before a bullet ripped through his leg and he had to duck into a crumbling old apartment building for cover, slipping into the shadows, having come to realize they were more his friends now than any person ever was.

[Sloan (DELETED 9994)]

S K O L L
Skoll was roused by thoughts of hunger. Not his own, he realized, as consciousness returned slowly. There was something unsettled in the stray thought; the baser emotion tinged with anxiousness. The thoughts, while invasive, were skittish, half-coherent. Maybe that was why he was slower to feel the hands that tore at his clothing, their violent shaking slowing them, making the youth’s fingers tangle in the fabric of Skoll’s skirt, catching at the hem with an unsteady jerk. His eyes opened to a pair that glinted like a fox’s in the dark. The youth was gaunt, his eyes a muted hazel shot through with a color that edged towards the murky blue-green shade of lichen and the green of oxidized copper, framed by a pair of lashes that were nearly startling in their length.

His skin was jaundiced, slightly pockmarked by acne scars that still held the faintest blush of pink at their centers. Skoll’s fingers curled around the boy’s wrist before either of them realized he’d moved. “Hraefugl.” The word escaped in an exhaled hiss, low and guttural. The youth froze, eyes wide, fingers listlessly plucking at the air uselessly, not unlike the open beaks of the scavenger Skoll had accused him of being, frozen by his astonishment that the corpse he’d tried to roll - skin as cool to the touch as the underside of a pillow - was alive and well. Alive, at the very least. Skoll was tempted to draw him closer, to sink his teeth into the thin, graceful column of his throat and be done with it.

But something about the rangy teen gave him pause. There was something familiar in the delicate sweep of his jawline, the curls that gathered just short of his shoulders, curling against the nape of his neck. He paused, eyeing him for a moment before slowly reaching towards the back pocket of his jeans. The boy stiffened, muscles going rigid, lips peeling back from his teeth in a grimace of unexpected rage. Skoll kept his movements slow and deliberate, gaze locked with the doe eyed stare of the half-starved human in front of him. His fingers caught the edge of his wallet, tightening around it a split second later. It was then that reality seemed to distort. The dim interior seemed to ripple, the darkness seeming to swell for a moment.

He released his grip on the wallet, throwing it in an arc, not like a human plying a guard dog with a rarefied cut of meat over the garden wall. It was hardly a shock when the boy scrambled after it, leaving Skoll to make his way down the stairs, steps rapid and graceful. He could be mistaken. That’s what he told himself, as his chest tightened with a brief pang. All the same, he reached out with his thoughts, sighting along that faint connection, sniper-precise. The scent of blood - sharp and strangely oily - hit his nostrils as he reached the landing. His nostrils flared, breathing in the scent and its subtle chemistry that was so unlike a human’s. He traced it to its source, steps slowing, growing wary, thoughts stretching to nudge against the edge of Sloan’s own.

Let me explain. Curt, and to the point.


S L O A N
It was the last of nine bullets he been perforated with through the evening. As it unsurprisingly turned out, the coppers of HR didn't appreciated gang violence. Who would have guessed? This one though hit him right below the kneecap, rendering his ability to move nearly useless. Sloan hissed quietly as wisps of pitch black rose from the wound like curls of smoke, dispersing into the air soon after. He hesitated for a split second before tearing the denim that had been binding his leg so he could get a better look at the hollowed flesh. Even in the dim light, he caught sight of a glint wedged in his flesh, a piece of shrapnel left behind on impact. This time though there was no hesitation. He was a vampire, one of the undead, what was the worst that could happen? He sank his fingers inside the wound, inhaling sharply as the pain from the dig was powerful enough to send a wave of nausea through him.

Nonetheless, he bit his tongue and stared past the teary film over his gaze, gripping at the shard of metal before briskly ripping it out. No sooner had he done so, did he hear something familiar. Or was it a feeling? Something… something told him what was near. Or rather, who was near. His instinct was to run. But then. He did also want to send a bullet through his skull. Sloan scrambled to his feet and grabbed his gun from the ratty holster on his hip, stumbling onto his feet before leaning his weight on the leg that hadn't been gored out, holding the Glock up with both hands, gripping until his knuckles blanched, thumb turning the safety off.


S K O L L
The scent was stronger now more pronounced. It made the fine hair along the nape of his neck pricle, drawn to attention by the heavy smell of it. It assaulted the senses with the cloying scent of it, sharp and rich, like graveyard soil. And just as suddenly, there he was. For a moment, he hesitated, his gaze sweeping over him as if committing every curve, every plane to memory. "Easy."

It was painfully cliche, the soft word. There was a tension in his voice, beneath the softer tone, underscoring his calm composure like heatlightning. He wasn't oblivious to the play of light against the barrel of the gun, gleaming in the blurry sodium of the streetlights. Skoll paused, not so much in surrender but as a concession. It was difficult, when the impulse to reach out, to tangle his fingers in his hair and drag him close, muting the hours of anxiety with his lips against the curve of his jaw rose up with an unexpected, aching violence.

"Ten minutes. Then, whatever you decide..." He shrugged. "Is your choice. I won't resent it."

[Skoll]

S L O A N
There had been something in him that, when he was turned, broke. It might have been the moment his foot slipped off of the edge of the roof, when that quaking feeling that made his heart drop to his stomach, that fear he so rarely felt engulf him the way the pavement was about to. Or maybe it was as he felt, his mind racing but empty at the same time; twenty four stories and yet not a single tale. Or perhaps it was as his body hit the ground below, the impact of flesh and blood against cured concrete, the way his jaw was nearly knocked out of its socket, neck mangled and bones shattered. It could have even been when he rose again, at the mercy of his maker, pulled back from Death's welcome mat but having been close enough to it to have picked up a sliver of that emptiness.

Whatever the case was or whenever it was that he'd contracted it, there was something that didn't feel quite right about Sloan. Standing by the vampire was akin to a void; like his presence alone sapped away at the vivacity and life energy around him. There was something in that feeling that also amplified fear and dread. It was like everything he'd felt in his death had stuck with him, was absorbed and was now emitted by his shadow, affecting those in his immediate presence.

So it came as no surprise that as Skoll got closer, as Sloan's emotions grew less controlled and more erratic, so did his grasp on the void. The invisible force ebbed out of him in ripples, hungry as carrion, until the entire lobby of the crumbling complex felt like a intangible minefield. His grip tightened around the gun as he heard the voice again, hands trembling, shaking in a way they hadn't even when he was faced with raining bullets from thugs and cops alike. He didn't reply. He wasn't sure if he could. His throat had suddenly become blocked with a lump that seemed to have collected out of nowhere and his chest ached, stomach knotted and invalid like all of his internals were having their own reactions.

As Skoll appeared, no matter how much Sloan had been preparing since he heard him in his head, everything seemed to get worse. The void grew stronger as his own body seemed to grow weaker. He could have blamed the blood loss but he knew better. The muzzle of his gun remained pointed at Skoll and though his instinct was to shoot, he didn't. Instead, he waited to hear him out.

S K O L L
Skoll wasn’t immune. The sensation was almost violently tangible, the effect not unlike a bird striking the glass of a closed windowpane. It left him dazed, vaguely conscious of the way it tugged at him, creating a collapsed feeling under his skin. It was like the gravitational pull of a collapsing star, this twisting nothingness that eddied around them. Astonishing, really, that something so beautiful could hide such ugliness, like an otherwise perfect, ripe summer apple that, when sliced, didn’t reveal creamy white flesh, but mealy innards, black as pitch. Skoll was similarly afflicted. He had the ability to force hallucinations. Hellish ones. Lingering horrors that were the warped reflections of every private fear a person had ever known.

He’d reduced a human to a drooling mess once, the front of their pants dark and smelling strongly, bitterly, of piss. His gaze was drawn to the way Sloan’s hands shook, the tremors enough to loosen his tongue. “When I was turned,” he began lowly, cautiously, “I left behind Ari. My girlfriend of nine years.” It wasn’t where he’d intended to start, and the words felt wrong, heavy, as if he were balancing a bullet on the tip of his tongue. “She asked to visit…” He drew in a steadying breath, “I said no. I kept telling her no, because I was…” His gaze never wavered from Sloan’s as he spoke, “Because I didn’t think I could trust myself.” The explanation was clumsy, given haltingly. He was conflicted; torn between his heart - which recoiled from the memory, and the rational part of his mind that instructed that he press on, ripping the bandaid free of an old wound in one clean, fluid movement.

“She showed up three months after. I wasn’t...fair to her. I lied to her. I told her that I was sick. It was easier to let her believe I was dying, because I was too vain to tell her the truth. But she was stubborn. She stayed. Insisted she’d help me through treatment. My decision to hold her at arm’s length is why I lost her.” He cleared his throat, did his best to speak through the prickling heat that seared the back of it, swallowing roughly. “I don’t want to repeat those mistakes. Sloan…”

He took a cautious step forward. “I care about you. I want to love you, and that isn’t something I’m used to. I’m not ******* good at it. Obviously.” He lapsed into silence for a moment. “I didn’t **** him,” he said, abruptly. “You can think I’m full of **** if it makes this easier, but I didn’t. I heard you.” He moved closer, steps slow and measured. “I’m asking you to return the favor.”

S L O A N
His chest rose and fell and the ebbing of the draining energy around him seemed to mimic what would have been his heartbeat, the unseen chaos rippling outwards in tendrils, grasping at bits and pieces of debris left behind, crawling forward towards the figure that had entered the lobby as if aiming to wrap around him and drown him. It was an uncontrollable thing as it were but with Sloan's current state of mind, it was as if the void had developed a will of its own. The closer Skoll stepped into the room, the more erratic the atmosphere seemed to get until Sloan fired a shot aimed at the crumbling tiling in front of the Telepath's feet. He wasn't sure what he was more perturbed by; his Maker making contact with him or him making contact with his Maker. Or rather, his shadow, the void, making contact with the older vampire.
"Get back!" he managed to bark out, accent thicker in the moment. His hands were getting clammy, making it harder to keep a hold on the grip as his sweat-slicked palms threatened to drop the gun. His fingers choked around the width of the grip as he paced backwards, keeping the distance between. Sloan wasn't sure what would happen if the void touched a vampire and he wasn't about to find out just yet. He'd seen what it could to do a human.

His expression was hard as the man began to speak to him. The recount of his girlfriend was admittedly distracting. He didn't know about Ari but then again, Skoll was anything but an open book. There was an effort being made, an explanation that he was trying to draw out for the younger vampire, who could only decipher bits and pieces of the story told in his non-Native tongue.
“I care about you. I want to love you…"

Sloan's throat tightened and his gaze narrowed. He thought for a second to let go of the tether, that sliver of a hair-thin control he still had, let it all rush forward. Or he could take the easier route and just send a couple of bullets hailing down on the other man.
"I heard you."

Did Sloan believe it? Not necessarily. There was a pause in which everything around him froze, his jade gaze searing through Skoll before his stare dropped and he pinched the bridge of his nose. <<****…>> He muttered finally with the weight of self-loathing lingering on his tongue, skin prickling as he turned the safety of the gun back on and holstered it. His eyes lifted again to study the other vampire.

"You don't have my trust. But. You are… all I have." he scowled.

[Sloan (DELETED 9994)]

S K O L L
The self-preservation instinct existed in nearly every organism on earth, from the apex predator to the blind worm. For Skoll, the notion was like a candle wick buried beneath a sea of molten wax. He didn’t recoil as the shadows unfurled. There was an awareness to their movement; a sentience that could fascinate and sicken in equal measure. The sense of grasping hunger was almost off putting as the tendrils crept forward. Skoll’s gaze was drawn by their agitated writhing, the way the tendrils seemed to leave an oily residue in their wake as they took root, sinking into the tile at his feet like something viral, blindly rewriting the code of what it touched, strangling the resistance - the life - from its unwilling host.

The sensation was not unlike the one he'd experienced on the roof of his penthouse the night he discovered Ari. What remained of her, at least. What he remembered in vivid detail wasn't the insidious way the chill of the alleyway crept into the thin weave of his trousers. It wasn't how curiously light she'd felt as he cradled her against his chest, looking, in the moment, like a bereft child with a toy three sizes too large to comfortably hold. She'd always been a slight woman. It was her presence that towered. It wasn't, even, the slow bleed of awareness that she hadn't yet cooled; that her cheeks were still slightly windburned to a pale shade of pink that, in that moment, made her seem younger than her 23 years.

It was the memory of standing on the ledge of his penthouse roof, staring down into the negative space between buildings, inkwell black, briefly illuminated by the flashes of white and red of passing cars. The sensation that emanated from Sloan was familiar in its draw. Comforting. He'd thought of easy it would be to step forward. He thought it as the blood crusted around his knuckles flaked away and drifted upwards, like ember colored funerary ash.

He stepped away from the ledge only physically. Some vital part of him had not. It had stepped over the ledge, to shatter and reforge itself. It had been a slow process, gathering those fragments of himself. He paused, ears ringing, as the sound of gunfire barked, leaving him dazed, ears ringing, and the tile split at his feet.

“You're…” He began. “All I w--have, too. I know I haven't given you much reason to trust. I'm trying, but it's...difficult. But I'm willing.”

He studied him for a moment. “Come here.” It was phonetically correct. But it sounded much closer to ‘come home.’


S L O A N
"Come here."

Just like that. Like it was that easy. Come here. like he hadn't just been trying to do exactly the opposite for the past day or so. How could he even think that such a command could sever the distance he'd been trying to maintain? Was he expected to all his caution to the wind and walk into the arms of the man that wounded him? The dark, reverberating atmosphere of the room seemed to still as Sloan's gaze narrowed and several emotions played over his bruised features before coming to rest on something akin to loathing. Two words, two syllables. That was all it took. Was that all Skoll thought it took? Did he think he was that easy?

Maybe he was. Because with those words came a tone that made the tension that had stiffened his spine melt away, leaving behind a veil of exhaustion that ultimately made its presence known by dragging at the scorn on his features, weighing them down to soften them to something more accepting.

Much like the force of the energy around him, the one that ebbed and thrummed, Skoll had an energy around him too. When they had met, it was immediately present. Unlike Sloan's, which deterred and disheartened, Skoll's was something of a magnetic force. One that drew you towards him, not away. He carried with him the sort of a charisma that belonged to a socialite that had spent decades polishing themselves to have that allure. And yet. And yet it came so naturally to him. He could remember being livid (but what else was new?) and he remembered having every intention to chew Skoll out when they had met. Those were things that his memory provided, as facts, as evidence. But he couldn't remember that annoyance, the anger to where it truly mattered. It was like the second he was within the man's orbit, those feelings had been wiped clean.

A part of him wondered if that was what made him angry now. That Skoll had this ability to be all together soothing and frustrating. That Sloan couldn't control what he felt and how he felt around him. The lump in his throat seemed to double in his throat and he felt heat prickle the backs of his eyes. It made that void's gravity less of a force and more of a gentle pull. He balked for a second where he was, jaw tightening before he made a running start for Skoll, only to dive for his arms as he neared him.


S K O L L
He’d been bracing himself for Sloan to recoil, for a muzzle flash in the dark, accompanied by the tearing of flesh to serve as punctuation. Instead, the teen broke into a run. For a split second, he was suspended between two emotions, each vying for control. One, purely instinctive, overrode his better judgment, his posture dropping into something that wasn’t so much defensive as...hungry. A spark of a familiar hunger, as coiled and ink colored as the shadows that had pooled at Sloan’s feet. Insatiable in its need for violence. But the moment Sloan collided with him, it evaporated. His arms rose almost involuntarily, wrapping around his shoulders, tucking him against his chest.

His eyes slipped shut briefly, a sense of gratitude sweeping through him. “I’m here.” He managed, the words escaping in a low, hoarse murmur. He drew back slightly, one hand lifting to smooth over Sloan’s hair, fingertips brushing over the curve of his jaw, before curling to cup his chin. He studied him in silence for the space of a heartbeat - gaze locked with the striking green of Sloan’s own, magnified by the thin shimmer that caught what faint light there was. “Home?” There was a waver to the question. His voice lacked its usual confidence; there were hairline cracks running through the charm that came so naturally to the taller of the pair. Fractures that let the seething uncertainty take hold.

He glanced down a moment later, reminded of a certain practicality. For a moment, his gaze narrowed as he took in the state of the other vampire’s leg. It would knit, given time, though not quickly. Certainly not quickly enough to necessitate a hasty exit from the slums without drawing unnecessary attention. He drew him closer, briefly stooping to as one arm wrapped around his waist, the other coming to rest behind his knees. He rose a split second later, effectively cradling the slighter Sloan against his chest. He took an experimental step forward, cautious about jarring the youth, before stepping over the threshold of the crumbling building and into the remains of the evening.