[tCotR] - Oliver Chadwick

[Lancaster]

Roxette was never the kind of girl who cared to have a purpose, or a goal in life. Even when she was living on the streets, or drifting from home to home, from couch to dingy mattress, she didn’t really crave anything better. It wasn’t because she was some kind of masochist, who enjoyed the squalor she found herself in. It was only that she’d had all optimism and hope beaten out of her. Life threw too many curve balls, and she was a crappy batter. She always struck out, and soon enough she gave up trying. Better to make the most of what she had, rather than suffer the disappointment when she didn’t get what she wanted. Better to want for nothing—and then she could live a happy life.

And then along came Elliot Lancaster—charming, awkward, socially adept musician with one hell of an accent. There was something alluring about him, something that she couldn’t very well resist. She’d watched him play, on several street corners. She’d convinced him, one night, to come to a bar for a few more drinks. Although she got drunk, he seemed to hold his own.

Roxette didn’t remember much. She remembered that she wanted something from this man; she wanted to roll around in the hay with him, as it were. Of course, she wasn’t thinking of anything long term. She didn’t get what she wanted. Instead, she got a whole lot of something that she hadn’t bargained for. She found herself waking up in a room in the sewers. Elliot Lancaster was there, soothing her. And then he asked her to stand up; he asked her to take a knife, and hold it to her wrist. He did this with a tremor to his voice, and a desperate gleam to his eye as he kneeled in front of her. At first she’d scoffed at him. As if!

And yet… and yet she found herself doing exactly what he asked her to do. He tested her—asked her to do a bunch of other things, and she couldn’t resist. He had some hold over her, something magical. He apologised, over and over. And then he explained everything to her. Explained what he was, and what he thought he had done to her. He had enthralled her. She was now part of a whole new world that she’d never known about. And she was told to keep it all secret. Under no circumstances could she tell anyone about anything that she would ever witness. And to apologise for what he had done to her, Elliot Lancaster gave that sewer dwelling to her. And he made sure she was well fed, and never wanted for anything. If she ever needed money, he’d give it to her. And in exchange, every now and again, she would help him out.

Mostly feeding his newborns.

Oliver was one of his newborns. Kind of. Oliver, whom she had loved like a brother. Who may as well have been her brother, the way they had stuck together. They’d been in the same foster care system. They shared all the horror stories about the foster parents who’d kept them. So of course he would ask questions. Of course he would confront her… she still cringed at the thought of that fateful night, all those months ago.

And now, oh, now… now he was privy to that same world that she was. And yet Elliot Lancaster did not have the same power over Oliver as he did over Roxette. Oliver hated what he had become—he hated it more than his sire did. He hated it with loathing vehemence—and Elliot could not reason with him. Obviously. And Roxette could only watch as Oliver went off the rails. At first, nothing much happened. He told a few people who didn’t believe him. He killed without mercy. He didn’t tell Roxette about his plans. Didn’t include her in his madness. But she could see, even from a distance, and it worried her.

Because, even though the bond between herself and Elliot Lancaster was forced, she knew the guy was good. She knew he wasn’t evil. And she was worried the fallout might harm him and his own. And so she didn’t wait any longer.

A train trip and a short walk found her at the doors of Lancaster’s. She pushed her way inside, weaving through the crowd to the bar. She leaned over it, looking left and right. She didn’t see him. She cursed under her breath. She walked to the end of the bar and rounded the end of it, heading for the staff room door. A bartender shouted at her, and she flicked him the finger. Through the door she finally found him, sitting at the computer, looking completely out of place in that small room.

“Lan, I need to talk to you,” she said, closing the door behind her. She flopped into the chair opposite him, small hands clasped between her knees.

“It’s about Oliver. I know you probably just want to forget he exists… but I don’t think you can ignore him anymore. For your own good?” she said. “He’s been—“ here she paused. The noise from outside swelled as the door opened. Roxette held her tongue, and glanced over her shoulder. It was only Pi. She waited for the door to close again, before continuing.

“He’s been doing some really awful stuff. I really think he’s trying to… to you know, give the secret away? Or… hell, I dunno. Maybe he’s just gone insane. But he’s up to no good,” she rambled. She bit her tongue to stop, her knee bouncing anxiously. She glanced between the two of them. Elliot had a deep frown etched into his brow, blue eyes inquisitive as he turned to Pi. Roxette could almost see the cogs turning in his mind.

She was afraid, then, that she might have done the wrong thing. She might have done wrong, begging Lancaster to save Oliver’s life. She might have done wrong, coming here. Because Oliver had been saved. But for how long? She was certain that Elliot was a good guy. Would he? Could he? No. But what else could he do?

[Attire:: Elliot | Roxette ]

[Pi dArtois]

It was unusual for Pi to be working the bar.

Lately her and Elliot had taken to other projects, her the restructuring of their lineage, and formalising plans they had conceived, Elliot with his other two businesses, the veritable mogul throwing open the doors on other enterprises. Tonight was that exception, although she tried to make it into the place at least twice a week. It was a busy night with Pi behind the bar. Her attention caught by the sharp call of the bartender, the quick glance of Roxette entering their office. She followed , hanging back in the shadow of the door, closing it behind her with a soft click but not interrupting as the distraught female continued. The sounds of the bar filtered through the walls, but barely, the soundproofing working to muffle all but the loudest of crashes and booms from busy nights fully packed and a live band.

Roxette had been a part of their family landscape for a long time. Elliot had eventually told her the details of Roxette coming into being and of his guilt. Always that guilt, worn like a hair shirt of his own making to castigate himself of all the real and imagined wrongs he had committed since his turning. Yet Roxette, despite her beginnings had become an integral part of their lives. She was a presence that Pi had accustomed herself to and with her brand of service came with a quirky sense of humour and a wonderfully eclectic feistiness. Tonight she looked ill kept. Pi figured stress did that to a person. It made your eyes rounder and your skin just that little more pallid. Her movements were jerky, as she punctuated her sentences with sharp movements of her hands.

Of course it had to be Oliver.

He hadn’t been long in this life but already his name could inspire the same Pavlov reaction as Pi’s very own Robert Pratt. Pi shook her head and looked askance at Elliot, catching her lover’s eye over the head of the human. The movement was meant to silently express her reluctance. This situation was rife with things that could go horribly wrong. The city sat precariously poised on a precipice, the very structure which underpinned the whole eaten away by real and imagined oligarchy. The will of the many dictated by the rules of the few. This New Code jacking tension across all bloodlines, factions and individuals to a feverish pitch. Even the fake Monarchy with their ridiculous rules contributed to the tension of the city. Farce though it was the comparison was easily reached and the parody easily read and between them both Elliot and Pi had decided they didn’t want a part of it. One meeting had been more than enough for them both to realise that the city’s politics were not their own. Nor did they want them to be and they neatly escaped being embroiled in these new rules and the skepticism surrounding the Crow.

Until Oliver. Until now. The news delivered to them by Elliot’s thrall in an agitated rush felt like a death knell.

Moving forward, Pi stepped around the desk so her and Elliot both faced the younger female. She didn’t look any better from the front and Pi’s suspicions were confirmed, Roxette looked worried and drawn. There had been something about the male from the beginning, something shifty and off balance. He had the hardened eyes only those in the system got. She recognised it and knew the kind of apathetic neglect required to cultivate such eyes. It was a survival mechanism. You aged out of the system with eternal optimism or ingrained mistrust. And as much as she would have liked to find a common ground with the man she realised quickly that he had past the point of salvage. If she were human and a female who needed to rely on her instincts those instincts would be going off right now, firing all cylinders telling her run the hell in the other direction. Actually, she was female and she did rely on those instincts and they were firing just fine. He was demanding and those demands bordered on blackmail as he used his relationship with Roxette to guilt them all.

“Check the crow Elliot….” She said softly, perching herself in a casual lean on the corner of their desk, “We need to know if he’s drawn attention to himself. Again. And how much attention.. this time.”

History was repeating itself and she couldn’t look at Elliot for fear her expression gave away what she was thinking. They had come so far, her and Elliot. Their animals worked in a wordless simpatico mirroring their human counterparts. It seemed inevitable really, that they would find themselves here. Before it had been Robert. Then they had been faced with the constant doubt and frustration of being the ones who had sired such a being, who called him their own. And here they were again and this time it was Elliot. Under the New Code he would be held responsible for the acts of the young vampire and Pi’s jaw clenched and released at the thought.

Over her, dead body.

“Once we know, we can…. Plan.. … something.”

Pi's Attire

[Lancaster]

As soon as Roxette mentioned the boy’s name, Elliot wanted to unhear it. He wanted nothing to do with it; he wanted to forget that it had ever happened. There was a part of him, even if it was small, that hated Roxette. He hated her for not giving him fair warning. After the siring, he’d asked her about Oliver Chadwick. He’d discovered that she and he had near grown up together. Surely, she must have had some inkling, some vague idea of his personality. Surely, she’d have predicted this outcome—she could have warned Elliot from the very beginning that Oliver would be difficult.

Of course, he knew that he couldn’t blame Roxette, not really. In the moment, all she could think about was her childhood friend dying. Of course she would ask for it to be otherwise. Of course she wouldn’t think of the consequences. Elliot had often put himself in Roxette’s shoes, and had often concluded that he would have done exactly as she did. And even were they to relive the night, if they were to relive the circumstances, he might do it all over again. Because he just couldn’t say no. Not when being pleaded, the girl down on her knees, sobbing like her heart was being torn, ripped mercilessly from her chest.

In that moment of silence, when the three of them sat or stood, absorbing the information Roxette had given to them, Elliot contemplating telling them both to forget about it. To just pretend as if Oliver had died—and he may as well be dead to Elliot. He did not know whether to be desperately sad or desperately furious. His heart and his mind see-sawed between the two. Numb, he did as Pi suggested.

The computer was already in front of him; his long fingers manipulated the mouse to open a new screen, to navigate the internet until he found the bounty list. The arrow hovered over the last link. He was uncertain, and still considering telling them both to just leave it. There were those out there who hunted bounty offenders. Somebody else would find Oliver. Somebody would deal with it. But then Elliot remembered that meeting—that ludicrous list of rules that Tytonidae were set to apply to all vampire kind. Wasn’t there something on there about not siring those one cannot control? What if this all came crashing down on their heads, if they did not deal with it themselves?

With a clenched jaw and reserved determination, Elliot clicked the link. The list of bounty offenders opened up in front of him. He scanned the list—he never looked at this list. He didn’t know whether the number of offenders upon it was normal or not. He did not know whether he hoped for Oliver’s name to be there or not. Either way, it wasn’t something that they could ignore.

But there it was. Right there, bold as day. Oliver Chadwick. Perhaps it would be better if his name was not on the list. This sudden sense of urgency wouldn’t exist, then. They could deal with this problem in their own sweet time. But if he’s there, on the list, they weren’t going to be the only ones looking for him. Elliot took a laboured breath. He didn’t look at Pi. Didn’t dare catch her eye. He knew that she would be able to come and see the result for herself—to see the screen over his shoulder. Instead, he focused on Roxette.

”Do you know where to find him?” he asked.

Roxette’s face fell. She’d been sitting there, waiting with baited breath. But she, too, knew that whatever the verdict, the outcome wouldn’t be great. She cast wide, fearful gray eyes between Pi and Lancaster. She, too, chose to focus her attention on Lancaster. The one hope that she had was that he might be able to find Oliver first. That he might be able to talk to Oliver, one more time. And that this time, he might be able to convince Oliver to curb his ways. To reform. To… goddamnit, to stay off the ******* bounty list and keep his elbows clean. She licked her lips. Seconds dragged on. Before she finally nodded. At first, it was a tentative nod. Near indecipherable. But then she nodded again, this time with a little more determination.

“Yeah. I mean. Maybe? I don’t see him as much these days but… but he swings by the old haunts every now and again,” she wavered. In the very least, all their mutual acquaintances thought Oliver had finally just lost the plot. Though some of them… no, she wouldn’t mention that. Not just yet.

“I can tell you… where those haunts are. I can ask around,” she said, though the words slipped out reluctantly, like fish out of water. Her lower lip tugged between her teeth. She risked a glance at Pi, looking up at the woman through lowered, anxious lashes.

[Pi dArtois]

Pi remembered Elliot telling her about Oliver’s turning and about the choice he had made. How many times had she been in the same situation, where life or death hung in a precarious balance and only the choice you made determined how it would end. She didn’t blame Elliot for his choice anymore than Elliot blamed her for hers. They were as susceptible to hubris or weakness when it came to the things they decided, or good reasons or bad. Elliot more than most suffered from an overwhelming need to balance the scales of his humanity. As if each act was a weight on either side of the scale that tipped and slid one way, then the other as Elliot fought the internal battle between his two natures.

There had been a flashing neon sign above Oliver’s head, one that Elliot had ignored to save a man who had meant so much to Roxette. He had lived hard, and he’d died hard. The choices Oliver had made as a human culminating in a situation he hadn’t been able to talk himself out of.

The quick buck and the easy make; that’s what had defined Oliver’s life. Pi had learned bits and pieces after Oliver had become a part of their small family. His own story told rarely by himself and only with urging, only to be quickly closed down, the subject changed and his attention diverted (purposely). Most of the man’s story had come from Roxette, the tough woman with the sharp mouth and quick wit who, in her own way, had always looked out for the male who thought of her in the same way. Except Oliver’s affection had been self serving and singular. Roxette’s needs always a second to his own, but in his way, it was as close to family and connection he had ever given anyone. Roxette was as much as his person and he was hers, but his was a selfish connection. A connection he used to cajole her to do what he needed and used guilt on to get what he wanted and who he smiled at and charmed when he knew he’d stepped over the line.

But they were children of a system that cut loose their inmates at 18 assuming that the age of majority meant they had everything they needed to live a normal life. It had seemed absurd to Pi as well and she had been one of the lucky ones. Or unlucky ones. She had found her niche and she had carved a place for herself and wedged what part the system had left over into that mold. She can’t say what had been spat out was normal or properly adjusted but she was still alive and she had found love and family and some sort of normal in a world that hadn’t been normal since she was a child.

If it hadn’t been for Robert Pratt or the ultimate choices she’d been forced to make because of him Pi figured she’d have looked at Oliver much like Roxette did. As a co-survivor; a veteran of a government program very few had a chance to experience and those who had, wished they hadn’t. They were the forgotten statistic that was easily discarded after the obligation to offer program funded succor had concluded.

But she had experienced Robert Pratt and because of the lessons learned there she couldn’t ignore the ripples Oliver made in their lives, neither his small indiscretions or his large ones. Pi remembered the day she had first met him, with his confident swagger and dimpled smile. She imagined that smile had extricated him from all sorts of sticky situations and he wielded the expression as one would a gun, it was a tool aimed for best effect and deliberate purpose. He’d touched her hand with his own, lingered one second too long. It hadn’t been a serious move but a testing of the waters, to check her reaction, to gauge her response and filing it away to use later. In that touch he compartmentalized her, sucker, hard nut or another allocation he labeled people with.

She wished she hadn’t felt dread at his turning or reluctance at the fact he was now a part of their small little family. But she had. She hadn’t told Elliot her fears right away, although she suspected in those early days, when unlife had been so new to the hard eyed man, that Elliot shared the dread and reluctance but both had been so eager to believe in the better outcome. They would be proved wrong, over and over until this announcement brought to them by the panicked Roxette had come as no surprise at all. In fact it had taken on the same inevitability as the last time they had been brought here.

Six months earlier:

He had a hard smile and eyes a green so rich they spoke of lush fields and summer sun and they sparkled with a sharp edged humour, as if discovering he was a vampire was a joke that had been played on him. Cruel and sadistic. He was lean male, young but not so young he didn’t know how to swagger into a room and take it over. His cap of auburn hair was a shade too dark to be called red and a shade too red to be brown and he kept it just a tad hair longer than the norm. He walked towards her and held out, his hand his movements confident and easy, his body moving smoothly to close the distance between them.

He watched her, scrutinising her reaction. She had wondered in that moment if there was a test she was being put under and just how she was doing. His whole stance demanded she look him over, and she did. He was wearing new clothes and Pi wondered if that was courtesy of Elliot, they looked like they’d been meticulously picked out and that didn’t strike her as Elliot at all. But this man, this man looked like he knew how to put himself together and when her gaze finally raised to his face the expression she found there was predatory. As if the test given, was passed with flying colours and some signal had been given to the young man with the hard smile.

The hand he’d pressed to hers had lingered a shade too long and squeezed a touch to tight. He was a man who was pushing at the parameters of his new world and Pi took no notice of the signals of displeasure. Sure his eyes were glacier but no one could be expected to take this new life with unaffected aplomb. And his tone might have been shy of insulting but how could anyone be expected not to be overwhelmed by what was happening to them.

And just like Elliot, Pi allowed her trust in Roxette to transfer to the male who she called her friend. The man called Oliver who was now the newest addition to their family. Pi had welcomed him, and offered her aid. She had told him about the masquerade and the need for secrecy and squashed the twinge of suspicion as he too easily waved them off. He had a hard edge and with a cutting look he closed down, barely registering her words.

Pi had looked to Elliot then, her silent question reaching the distance between them. It had been a beginning, that night, their beginning with Oliver Chadwick and she had wondered in that moment if they would always find themselves wading through this murky responsibility of sire to childe and bloodline to masquerade. It seemed, that they had just resolved one, only to be faced with another.

[Lancaster]

Six Months Earlier

The night had begun like any other. Slow, indulgent, syrupy in the way time moved, like a slug overfull and lolling in contentedness. Elliot was lost in whatever it was he was going—he couldn’t quite remember. The events following the beginning of the evening eclipsed everything that precluded it. He might have been up on the stage, lost to a languid and easy song, neither melancholic nor upbeat. He might have been behind the counter, laughing along with his customers who, for some reason or another, were all perfectly well-behaved and perfectly interesting. No one too drunk, no one too rowdy, no one too offensive. He might have been settled in one of the booths, mindlessly working through some of the finer details of the business—doing the rosters, or paying the bills.

Whatever he’d been doing, it had been completely discarded, forgotten, when Roxette’s frantic and bloody face swam into view. Whatever contentedness he’d indulged in, however normal the night might have been, starting out, it was now shattered, completely beyond repair.

Elliot had immediately come to attention; bright eyes scanned Roxette’s body, looking for the wound. What had happened to her? Who had hurt her, and why? It took him a couple of seconds to focus, instead, on what Roxette was trying to tell him. Her warm, small hands had closed around his. She was tugging at him, telling him to hurry. To Please, Ohgod please!

He didn’t have the whole story, but he couldn’t resist. He couldn’t not go with this girl, so much like a little elf, her eyes wide and her normal, hardened demeanour reduced to frantic, blustering desperation. The blonde dragged the musician from the bar, and then she began to run. She sprinted, her conversed feet scuffing and thudding on the hard pavement. Elliot loped along behind her. Calling out to her – For ****’s sake, Roxette, what’s wrong?!

But she didn’t explain. Not until they were standing over the boy; his ruffled hair was matted with semi-dried blood. His grass-green eyes were dull, and he might have been dead, except for the fact that his chest rose and fell unevenly. Blood curled from the corner of his lip. More stained his shirt, thick and dark, a blossomed flower over his gut.

“He’s like a brother to me, Elliot! Please… please, you have to help him,” Roxette. She never called him Elliot. He was always Lancaster, or Lan. Never Elliot. The girl clutched at her stomach, the mascara running down her cheeks. And then she was crouched beside the boy, fingers fluttering against his forehead, sucking air through her nose to hold back the mucus, the sobs barely restrained.

“What do you want me to do, Roxette?” Elliot had asked. Of course he knew. He just didn’t want to. Not again. Not like this. Oliver—he knew who this was. Roxette didn’t share much about her life, but this much, at least, Elliot knew. Oliver, the one she was closest to. The one that Elliot had most to fear from. He trusted Roxette, though. She’d got this far without sharing his identity or their secret with anyone. She hadn’t tried to disobey, hadn’t struggled against his dictation. In fact, she’d done everything he’d ever asked of her, with barely a complaint. She never asked for anything in return – not that she needed to. She got most of what she required without having to ask. She stared up at Elliot, then, incredulous. Her lip trembled.

“I know you can do it. I know you can… you can save him. Please, he’s… he’s nearly dead. I know you can…you can,” she started to ramble. Elliot’s heart broke. Oh, if only he weren’t so susceptible. If only that heart of his didn’t bleed so easily. The woe that he would avoid if he weren’t so ******* charitable!

And so, trusting that Roxette was not leading him down the wrong path, he did as she asked of him. He did it, because he couldn’t let her hate him if he didn’t. Didn’t want her to hate him. He wanted her to be happy. And if he had to do this for her—then so be it.

The boy had lost enough blood, he didn’t need to lose any more. Making sure there was no one else around, making sure they were not being watched, he tore a gaping hole in his own wrist. He held it over the boy’s mouth, and told him to drink. Forced him to drink. Roxette continued to rock and coo at his side, her sobs subsiding, a lunatic gleam in her eye as hope replaced the darkness that had started to rope its way around her heart.

__________

Present Day


“Yes, Roxette. Please – we need to find him, before he does anything else. Before he makes it worse,” Elliot said. He didn’t tell her what he intended to do when they found Oliver. Of course all Elliot wanted to do was talk to him, reason with him. Of course, he had that hopeless, stupid optimism that it would all be okay.

Roxette wasn’t so sure. She hesitated, before she stood. But then she nodded, unable to resist. Elliot had asked her, even if kindly, to help them find Oliver. And she would do it, because she was bound to do it. Her heart clenched in her chest, but she nodded, mouth set in a hard line, grim and full of regret. She left the office. Elliot turned to Pi.

He too was grim. Fearful.

[Pi dArtois]

Elliot looked at her and she kept her expression purposely neutral.

But it didn’t fool anyone, least of all the man who knew her better than anyone else. He could read her non expression as well as she could read his grim one. They had approached the issue of Elliot’s problem childe from two different, gulf stretching perspectives. But even knowing that he knew what she was thinking she was still reluctant to give words to her thoughts. She didn’t want to be the one to tell Elliot what was on her mind. She didn’t want to be the one who argued with him about where this should go and what the best ending was for this sad damn story but she knew she would be. Pi returned his look and considered for just a moment not saying exactly what she was thinking.

They had been here before, more times than seemed possible for a vampire who had only been a vampire for six months. Before Oliver she wouldn’t have believed that one person could possibly undertake the complete disintegration that this man had accomplished in such a short time.

Pi and Elliot had argued for the first time about Oliver only a month after his turning. He didn’t listen, Pi wondered if he ever processed what they had told him in those first days. What the masquerade was, why it was important that he protect their secret and to use the powers he had gained wisely, and under the thin guise of humanity they wore to stave off detection. He had discarded their warnings and teachings as if he hadn’t heard them at all. Not even Robert had undertaken such a single minded undermining of what their lives were… quite so quickly.

Oliver for his part, just didn’t care. Not about d’Artois, not about the masquerade and he sure as hell didn’t care about the opinion of other vampires. He had no urge to get to know anyone else and barely gave nodding acquaintance to either Elliot or herself. It was as if he had been given this boon of immortality as a due for his crappy childhood and he had no other thought but to use it to get as much as he could, as fast as he could, with very little consideration of the consequences of what that would mean.

Five months earlier

“What is he doing?” Pi asked, staring over the bar, her hand stilling in shocked immobility from its slow movement across the already clean bar. The wood gleamed, the act of her cleaning it an automatic inclination as traffic to the bar tapered off.

It was a slow night in Lancaster’s. Business was a bit different on this side of the city. The clientele was a little rougher, a little less festive and there was a sharper edge to the people who now came through the door. Pi liked it better than the Gullsborough location. This was just far enough off the beaten track and just that far out of the respectable neighborhood that even the law abiding citizens who entered kept their gazes carefully averted. There was still laughter and after five drinks with home heading work mates but the tone had a cautious tone to it. Or on busy nights, the tone took on the desperate edge of people who were trying to forget. Pi was comfortable in their new location and it seemed, so was Oliver.

Too comfortable.

He had set up shop in the far corner of the bar, over by the fire. It wasn’t lit, because it was summer and no one wanted a fire in the middle of summer. The air con hummed, barely heard as the piped in music took over the ambiance and pulled people’s attention to popular bar songs. It was evening and the music was louder than the hum of discussion. It wasn’t busy, because it was a Thursday night and only those who planned to pull a sickie on the Friday camped out in dark corners or leaned over the pool tables with their long cues and longer necked beer bottles.

Oliver had women fawning all over him, four if Pi counted correctly, potentially five if … dammit five and that fifth one has kneeling on the floor in front of his lounging figure. He had a leg thrown over the side of the Queen Anne high backed chair the woman on the floor in front of him staring up at him with eyes glazed over in zombie like adoration.

Spinning on her heel Pi searched out the low lit interior for Elliot, the cloth in her hand discarded in place on the bar as she left service to the other staffer.

People were watching him, men with those hard eyes, women with jealous ones and other vampires Pi recognized but couldn’t name. Oliver curled an imperious finger at two females who sat at a near table, power hummed like low watt electricity as he pulled them towards himself, marionettes to his puppet master. Pi’s gaze scanned the room and she counted eight different humans staring at Oliver like he’d grown two heads. How many people had witnessed that use of power, how many had witnessed the other times he’d indulged himself to bring to him the five females who already hung on his every word.

Finding Elliot she hissed at him, her gaze glacial. “Do something … or I will. You need to get him out of here… contain him!” She knew it wasn’t Elliot’s fault, but someone had to take responsibility for their young, someone had to train them, even the ones, who didn’t want and actively avoided being trained at all.



Present

The door closed behind her as Roxette left.

“Are you going to try and save him again Elliot?” she asked, chickening out of confronting him with her thoughts on the matter.

It was a coward’s question or a baiting one. It threw the gauntlet down at his feet and demanded he pick it up and make him take a stance where his childe was concerned. Oliver’s bounty was ridiculous, his antics something that couldn’t be ignored any longer. Pi had never seen the crow do this. She had never seen it give so much information about one individual or a bounty that high.

A point was being proved here and they would both be blind and stupid if they didn’t sit up and take notice of the warning that it was. There would be others in the city that were already sitting, already taking notice and they would be looking in their direction.

Nothing had happened yet, but it would, it was inevitable. If a vampire could be sent to the fade for something as small as a bounty of $1,500 what then would be called down on their heads for what was posted to crow about Oliver. How in the hell had crow come to decide that Oliver, among so many who didn’t always protect the masquerade, required this special sort of spotlight.

Hooking her leg in the chair he sat in Pi pulled it towards her, swinging around the desk so Eilliot’s seated self trundled right up to her. Leaning forward she pressed a soft kiss along his brow, scooping his hair to the side. They were going to argue again, she could feel it. They were going to argue again and she knew this time, this time she had to make him see reason and she took comfort in that kiss knowing that he’d push her away when she said what she knew she’d have to say.

[Lancaster]

Roxette’s hands were shoved deep into her pockets; the frown on her face was etched deeper than any pocket could go. For all her reluctance, however, her stride was strong and determined. Bright eyes swept over the cobbles of the streets, over familiar buildings, over all those different nooks and crannies of a city she had grown up in. Every corner had a story, or so it seemed. And most of those stories involved Oliver, in some way or another.

Roxette. It wasn’t her real name. It was just the name she told everyone, because she liked it. She’d modelled herself after Roxette. Well, not Roxette, per se, but the female half of the band. Marie Fredriksson. She was Roxette’s hero, growing up. The woman she aspired to be. Strong, and sly, and completely and utterly sexy. The kind of woman every man might want, but if he tried, she’d break his dick. But she didn’t feel very foxy. Not right now. She didn’t feel strong at all. She felt torn between old loyalties and new ones. Yes, she knew where Oliver might be. She knew exactly how she could track him down—it wasn’t hard to follow his trail of destruction, regardless. But she was unsure whether she wanted to lead them to him.

Maybe…just maybe she could reason with him herself. Maybe, if she appealed to him from that place deep in her heart, that place from the past, maybe he would listen. Of course he wasn’t going to listen to a couple of strangers who thought they could lord it over him. That wasn’t his style. He was always that kid who would do what he wanted regardless of the consequences. Never, never did Roxette think that he would so blindly rebel against reason, though. Though she knew, with a deep and immovable shame, that she would still have asked Lancaster to bring Oliver back to life. Even if she knew this was how it was going to end.

Because it didn’t have to end.

Her jaw clenched. Her eyes hardened. She headed for Barry’s—Barry always knew everything. He was the king pin at the middle of it all. King Rat, they used to call him. Fat and satisfied in that old warehouse of his. That’s where Roxette would go. Barry would know which path to set her on. And he wouldn’t hesitate to tell her where Oliver was, surely. In his eyes, the two of them were thick as thieves.

________________

Coincidentally, at the very same time that Roxette’s jaw hardened, so too did Elliot’s. Molars ground against molars as he was forcefully turned to face Pi. This was a repeat of that incident in the bar, five months ago. There was threat, right there, evident in Pi’s features: Do something about it, or I will. Even then, he knew exactly what she meant. Even back then, Elliot knew exactly what Pi wanted to do about it. She wanted to eradicate the problem, in the only way she knew how.

Deep down, Elliot knew that she was right. They had tried. He had tried. He had defied her wishes once before—he had done something about it. Five months ago, in Lancaster’s, he had approached Oliver. He’d talked to the guy—with superior prowess he’d dismissed the women that his wayward fledgling had gathered around him. Elliot had attacked Oliver, not with weapons, but with vicious rhetoric. At the time, it seemed like Oliver had listened. The guy even seemed sorry, but it was all an act. A clever ruse, to sway Elliot into a false sense of security. A security that was now shattered beyond repair.

Perhaps the kiss to his brow was meant to sooth him. Maybe it was one last show of affection before all affection was lost—at least for a while. Trying to reconcile need against want was like trying to push two magnets together from the wrong ends. Either that, or it was like running one’s finger along the length of a piece of hair in the wrong direction. It just felt wrong. Unnatural.

When he pushed Pi away, it wasn’t because he thought her disgusting or deplorable. It was because he knew that she was right. To protect the family—and that was the only reason he cared one iota about protecting the Masquerade, because it protected the people he cared about—Oliver had to be eradicated. They had to do it quick, before anyone else, to avoid any undesirable attention.

But it wasn’t in his nature to give in. He was stubborn, in his own way. Just as the Dingo fought against the White Wolf, so now Elliot Lancaster was fighting against Papillon d’Artois.

”No. Roxette’s going to try that,” Elliot said, tone hard and feigning calm. He knew Roxette—even from their brief interview, he understood what she was feeling, as if it were billowing from her, sending signals across the invisible ether. She was just as desperate as she was that night she asked Elliot to save Oliver. She hadn’t come to this office so that Elliot and Pi would kill Oliver. She had come to this office in the hope that Elliot would help her to save Oliver again. And she’d left this office, knowing she’d made a grievous mistake. If you don’t do something, I will, Pi had said. Roxette was not stupid. And Elliot could guess what she was about to do.

He pulled the brown leather jacket off the back of the chair and pushed his arms into it. He avoided eye contact while he donned the jacket. But when finally he did turn back to Pi, she would see all the fiery reluctance in his eyes.

Of course, on the surface, he intended to save Oliver. And yet he was anxious. He had a bad feeling. He wanted to follow Roxette, even if at a distance. Wanted to make sure that she wasn’t putting herself into danger. He would not confront Pi in that office, because he did not want to confront the hard and brutal truth. Not just yet. And so he pushed past her and slammed through the office door, heading for the pub’s exit.

[Pi dArtois]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

‹Pi dArtois› Pi stalked into the office when Elliot was done, she watched from a distance, didn't interfere but she fumed. When he followed her she rounded on him her head shaking. "He's trouble.. big trouble and we shouldn't wait for him to get worse. Did you see... what he was doing?"

There was a hint of fear there, of being caught, of embroiling their family in the same mess they had just avoided with Robert and here they had another and she had no inclination to give Oliver any benefit of the doubt. Pi wanted to see him pulled up short, his rope shortened to something that didn’t give him any freedom, not to hang himself or them in the process.

“We can’t not… do something about him. With him? He needs… limiting.”

‹Elliot dArtois› The situation, in Elliot's mind, had been dealt with. Oliver had left, the women had dispersed, and the revellers had gone back to their revelling. When he walked into the office, however, he was reminded quite quickly that Pi did not agree. At first, he could only stare at her; it dawned on him, what she was saying without saying anything at all. But, as per usual, Elliot liked to give the benefit of the doubt. Calmly, with no judgment whatsoever in his tone--with only inquisitive curiosity, he asked: "Limiting. What do you mean? What do you think we should do?"

‹Pi dArtois› She slid him an annoyed glance as if he was being purposely obtuse. "This feels... like a fall out waiting to happen." she answered instead, sidestepping his direct question and avoiding the straight answer. "I'm not saying we do anything drastic right away... just... consider it might be something we'll need to do... if he keeps this up."

‹Elliot dArtois› Elliot nodded. He could be stubborn and set in his ways when it came to these things, but that did not mean that he was not open to suggestion. Pi didn't answer his question, and he assumed as to why. She knew him better than anyone else in this city. She didn't answer his question because she knew it was an answer that he would not like. That was the impresion that Elliot got, anyway. Still. "Well, yes. I talked to him. I explained to him that it wasn't right. I threatened him - he knows what the consequences are. He didn't ask for this. He's just taking it a lot worse than I did. I mean - he's acting out. Just give him a chance to adjust, okay?" he said, tone hopeful, ever the optimist.

‹Pi dArtois› Pi fidgeted and had to stop herself from pacing the office. Oliver reminded her too much of her youth and of the hard eyed kids she'd grown up with. He wasn't going to change, and he wasn't going to heed anyone's warning. But she couldn't rationlise that fear to Elliot because he'd see it as unreasonable and the force she'd want to use an unnecessary extreme. "He reminds me too much of Robert... and of Ivy Elliot. And I don't want to see us back where we were with those two... given no choices, backed into a corner... not if we can... take care of it ourselves." There, she said it, as much as she could, as much as she dared, pulling the rabbit out of the hat slowly, easily as if revealing it in bite sized pieces wouldn't make the man in front of her explode.

[Lancaster]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

‹Elliot dArtois› Elliot had been calm - still was, to a certain degree, and only remained so because of Pi's reluctance. He knew exactly what she was getting at. Yes, he was being purposefully obtuse. "Just because someone reminds us of someone else doesn't mean we should treat them the same. Everyone's different," he said. There was a hard edge creeping into his voice. This ideal of eradicating someone before they've even caused too much of a problem - it was the easy way out. Easy for Pi, anyway. "I couldn't forgive myself if we killed him for no reason. It's just the easy option everyone likes to fall back on - punishment via murder. It's just not right. Just not yet," he said. And he wasn't being completely stubborn - there was an undertone of pleading, too.

‹Pi dArtois› Standing still Pi dug her hands deep into the pockets of her light jacket, hunching her shoulders forward. He was right in his way, just like she was right in hers. They danced around each other giving and taking ground as they searched for the other to understand. And Pi knew they did, in their way, find that space where they could both inhabit. Pi knew he needed to try and he knew Pi needed him to see that ultimate choices might need to be made. Her pessimism and caution was the polar opposite of his optimism and forgiveness. She could have pushed it but she didn't. Instead she nodded once. "I know... and I couldn't forgive myself if he does something that puts the rest in danger. Not if we could have done something about it." She heard his tone and left it at that, let the subject drop and only gave him a helpless shrug.

‹Elliot dArtois› The last sentence pulled at Elliot's heart. Of course she had a point. But at the same time, they were talking about a man's life. In the grand scheme of things, if one were to get philosophical, he should have died anyway. To kill him now would just be adding a balance back to the universe, that precarious balance of life and death. And he could always come back, shamed and fully aware that the threats were not idle. Still, though... still. Elliot clung. "We won't let it get that far," he said. And that was the only concession that he could give, for the time being.


‹Pi dArtois› Pi nodded and let it drop. It was as good as she was going to get and more than she expected. She hadnt pushed too hard and he hadn't needed to push back. And maybe that's just the compromise they were learning to come to. It didn't stop her fear at the danger Oliver posed or her suspicion that they would be back here and the discussion would be entirely different. But for now, given how young he was, Elliot was right. It wasn't fair to judge him without giving him a chance to.... change. "No." she agreed. "We won't." Where Elliot's voice held a hopeful tone, Pi's didn't. Hers was a statement and an agreement of where she was. Oliver got his chance to prove he wasn't a danger to them all. And Pi hoped, really hoped he didn't take that rope they strung out for him and hang himself with it. Or as she feared. Hang them all.

[Pi dArtois]

Five months ago

They’d left it at that. Nothing else had to be said and nothing else was. Oliver disappeared off the radar as if he’d flipped a switch and what descended was a poignant silence. They didn’t hear or see Oliver. Elliot tried to make contact but was stonewalled by Roxette’s protective nature and Oliver’s unavailability. And Pi, for all her guilt, was glad of it. As long as there was silence there was no danger. As long as they didn’t hear or see what he did, that meant that no one else did either.

For a while Pi watched crow thinking that something would blip, some sign that Oliver’s actions (though her and Elliot knew nothing of them) but nothing happened.

And for a little while, she hoped it would stay that way.

Present Day

Elliot pushed her away and she let the sting hit. She swallowed the rejection, the taste of bile overwhelming. They’d talked about this, sure it hadn’t ended as well as either of them would like but neither had they wanted to throttle one another. But that had been five months ago and five months ago wasn’t today and what Pi got today was the silent treatment and the cold shoulder.

Pi slid her gaze away, dropping her hands to her side, letting them fall naturally on either side of her hips, resting on the desk beside her butt. Her posture didn’t slump but neither did she move as he pushed his chair away.

She stared at a point over Elliot’s shoulder and then to the wall behind him and not meeting his gaze as he stood. She knew from her periphery that he pulled on his jacket and she didn’t raise her eyes from their middle distance stare. She didn’t catch the look he gave her and instead sat there without expression or movement. She didn’t have to look at him to see what was there. The barely hidden accusation or the slash of anger at the situation, and as much as she wanted to fight him on this she just didn’t have the energy. Words needed to be said and she was so tired of being the one who had to keep saying them. She felt like a metronome her repetitive words said over and over and over until she had become numb with it.

They weren’t being heard or they didn’t want to be heard and she was asked to bear the brunt of the unpopular decision. She acknowledged his words and let him walk behind her, towards the door Roxette had just left and winced as the door slammed as he left.

For a moment she considered saying the words that would help him, ones that would absolve him of any need to make the hard decision. Ones where she would take ownership of the deed that would see Oliver taken out by one of his own bloodline. But she was tired of shielding Elliot from the dirty under belly of what they had become. He had taught her to be kinder but that didn’t mean they could become what they had been when they were human. It wasn’t possible to turn back the clock and expect wishful thinking would set their world back to what it had been. Pi wondered if Elliot would be happier if he’d never been turned, as if the life she had shoved him into might not ever fit. He had taught her to be softer, but she worried that the darkness he fought so hard against in others and himself would never be something he accepted.

No, nothing wasn't an option and if for nothing else and no one else Elliot still needed her there and she wanted to be there to help him. She might be frustrated and annoyed and hurt but that didn't mean she wouldn't help him with his childe, just like he had helped her with her own and had stood by her as she was asked to make hard choices.

Wiping her clammy palms down her hips she sought to calm her nerves and turned; following him silently out. The bar thrummed with a low hum of life, and sweeping the space she caught a glimpse of him leaving out the front door and followed there too.

The night was cool when she reached the street. Fall was coming and with it the colder evenings. She was glad for her light jacket and glad for the cover of night. Her gaze remained a neutral as she approached Elliot catching up with him. This part of town didn’t smell as good as Gullsborough, as if low end store fronts with their peeling paint and older worn signs had a different scent to them. Poverty had a grittier feel, a desperation that couldn’t be replicated in the subtle affluence of the Mall District.

Her hands found her pockets again and her words were simple. “Where are we going?”