Friends is never something we should have been.

Flood

Again Flood's hand goes to his black wool fedora, tipping it back to reveal his face in its grim glory. His smile grows more full, revealing white teeth framed in blood, gums rimmed with it still welling up and dyed with the stuff in a gruesome and beaming expression of one in utter delight.

It is his response to the growl from her.

"No concern of mine. For now. Nice hunting with you," his response in her wake, and he turns back to Nathan, moving toward the bench.

He bends at the knees, so that his own face is level with his, crouching with his hands on his lower thighs. "You have to understand, the two of you on her, it would've been like cornering a wolverine, and she would've torn you to bits," and when he sees how Nathan is breathing, the way his eyes are coming in and out of it, his hand reaches out to slap him soundly on the cheek.

"Are you listening to me?" He sounds impatient.

Nathan Marszalek

It's still hot out even with the sun down but Flood couldn't smell sweat on Nathan when he had him by the hair or locked in his arms. Now the young man is slick with saltwater and trembling like the temperature has dropped forty degrees. He'll live but he's going to be fucking miserable for more than a few days.

As long as he avoids going to a hospital and nobody touches him he can pass it off as influenza or food poisoning. He's clammy as hell but isn't running a fever.

Barely reacts when Flood cracks him across the face. He flinches but that's it, and it's a slow flinching.

"Wolverine," he says in a dull voice. "Yeah."

He frowns like another thought or a question is going to follow on its heels but nothing happens.

Flood

"Yes. A wolverine. A dangerous animal. Not the most dangerous of animals, but her, well, she's close to it. You know, she was right on your tail before that big brute spoke up," shaking his head as he straighten himself again, rising to his full height.

Flood turns on his heel and steps backward, ending up sliding into the seat beside Nathan, even crossing his one leg over the other knee and throwing his arm so that it runs along the bench's back behind the peaked man.

"A Good Samaritan and you, the superhero, going to return the favor," nodding to himself before looking over at Nathan again.

"Wasn't that a thing? You don't see a brawl like that every day, now do you-" a pause, and then, "I'm sorry, I don't think I got your name."

Flood

"Yes. A wolverine. A dangerous animal. Not the most dangerous of animals, but her, well, she's close to it. You know, she was right on your tail before that big brute spoke up," shaking his head as he straighten himself again, rising to his full height.

He reaches into his pocket to retrieve a handkerchief, as if he might offer it to Nathan, but instead he lays it out on the ground. Flood turns on his heel and steps backward, ending up sliding to sit beside Nathan on that grass, even crossing his one leg over the other knee, hands atop where their lines intersect.

"A Good Samaritan and you, the superhero, going to return the favor," nodding to himself before looking over at Nathan again.

"Wasn't that a thing? You don't see a brawl like that every day, now do you-" a pause, and then, "I'm sorry, I don't think I got your name."

Nathan Marszalek

I don't think I got your name.

"That's okay."

Shadows stand out beneath the young man's eyes and in the wan light of a nearby lamppost Flood can see they're the sort of brown that looks void-black. His attention siphons off into the distance again and he focuses on absolutely nothing now. Maybe the ghost-trails of the departed part of combatants. That's unlikely though.

He wants to just lie down and take a nap but that would be rude. Flood put down a handkerchief and everything.

Flood

This gets a chuckle out of Flood who lifts a hand up to slap it against the undead flesh of his leg.

"That's okay? Your parents must've been very accommodating. And I see it's a name you've grown into," Flood says, his heel kicking out toward Nathan's bag, he hoists himself up onto his hands for a moment to extend his leg's reach, finally grounding his heel into the path and dragging the satchel closer.

"And your profession?" Finally grabbing hold of its strap and standing it up before him.

"Are you a mail carrier? You see so many men with purses on the street these days. But I guess it's more convenient than a briefcase," flipping its flap back to allow him to view its contents, about to look through it unless Nathan interrupts.

Lux

Lux is: just too late or just in time, depending on one's perspective. There is a fountain over that-a-way, a few slender trees, shadows between: Nate is on the grass, a bench just over there that he couldn't quite make it to. The dirt is disturbed, but Lux isn't going to notice that. It's fucking dirt. Or turf. Or grass. Or weeds. It's there to be disturbed, there to be walked on. Nate is not alone, because he has a scrap of darkness masquerading as a creature with a man's face and a fedora tipped low sitting next to him. Lux is alone, cutting across the park not as if it's a shortcut to somewhere else but because it's a somewhere she has currently decided to inhabit. She is not pretending to be easy prey, and she is not more come hither than usual: a beautiful thing, and fine. Perhaps that is enough; perhaps she is hunting in the park.

See, look at her: through those trees over there, casting a negligent look at the two young men who are sitting on the ... 

Works like a hook, snags her eyes or under her breastbone and pulls up hard.

Nathan Marszalek

"Dude..."

Exasperation bred by fatigue. Nate's satchel is heavy for the weight of the equipment he's hauling around in it. He reaches out to snag the strap of the bag but he has no strength left in him. All it serves as is a warning that he may be laid out on his ass but he's not in a coma or anything.

"I write stuff. And I go to grad school. I'm gonna teach fucking journalism. Shit. Lemme have that back, I'm tired."

Doesn't notice Lux at all let alone right away.

Flood

"Just recovering it for you," flipping it closed again as Nathan reaches out for it, Flood's own fists ball up, an implacable force,on the strap of the satchel before swinging it so that it plops down in front of him.

He looks up to see Lux advancing on them, "A night of nights," he says, more to her than Nathan.

"Another think you don't see every day. Or at all, in the daylight," the last bit as an aside, standings up with that handkerchief trailing behind him like a tail before he stuffs it into his jacket.

"I'm sorry to have left him in a state. I'd offer you a refreshment," a glance down at Nathan before looking back to her. "It's so good to see an old friend," and again his grin is a spiderwebbing of blood, in the lines of his teeth and the valleys of his gums.

"How long has it been?"

Lux

[You'd offer me refreshment? La Self Control.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (5, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Lux

This would be the moment she flushes warm (usually). Dredges up the ghost of humanity, and lets herself breathe in and out and doesn't it feel good to breathe to remember what it feels like to want that. But instead this is the moment when Nathan reaches to snag the strap of his bag, and it's pathetic, and it's the moment the Lasombra stands up from the grass, looks down and then back up, blood in his teeth. There is blood in his teeth and she can smell it in the next second: her nostrils flare, and something savage in her moves. And is restrained, though not completely: see how bright her eyes have grown, how her pupils become pinpricks of black in a cold [illuminated (tarnished)] sea, how focused and how intent. See how her fingers curl into talons, how tension slicks up her spine and informs the prowly hate of her.

"You would offer me refreshment. You would," her voice lifts into the audible equivalent of a knife-jab: "No. Were you going to kill him?"

Flood

[ Perception + Empathy. Why you trippin'? ]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )

Lux

Because she is near frenzy, you see: singing in her chains like the sea. Because the young man on the grass is hers, you see, she cares, and you do see it if you look at her, because Toreador are eloquent creatures, they always mean something, passion neath the surface whether feigned or remembered or true. The way she looked from Nathan to Flood, the way her gaze fixated, that moment of understanding -- all that.

Nathan Marszalek

Nate doesn't fight Flood for the bag. He wouldn't have won any more than he could have freed himself from his grasp. His curly hair is mussed now and while Lux has seen it flattened from his motorcycle helmet before it doesn't usually look like someone grabbed a handful of the stuff and held him by it.

And the last few times they've seen each other he's been pleased to see her. Even drunk he was pleased to see her and he recognized her. Now his eyes follow the dark-haired man as he stands and they loll a bit in his skull before he decides his messenger bag will make an excellent pillow and slings it sloppy onto the grass beneath his head before lying on it.

His blood pressure lurches like a ship tossed about in sloppy waters and he closes his eyes to stop the ground from spinning. In the slashes of silence Lux can hear the young man's rapid breathing.

Flood

"That was not the plan," he begins, a steady cadence after he looks up at her verbal lashing with narrowed eyes. Making his intentions very clear.

"Now, I thought maybe your more humane proclivities might've waned after all these nights, but has that foundation instead settled?" Another look down at Nathan as he curls up to sleep.

"There was a savage on his tail, a bit of a brawl - oh, you missed an entertaining fight, what I can only guess was an outlander or a lunatic having it out with a Big Bad John of a man," amused at the recollection.

"She chopped that tree down, though, and then lead him off to who knows what. I held him back when he wanted to jump in, and since it took the Kiss to calm him down, I thought I deserved satiation for my efforts to preserve his life," and with that, with his words, he begins to gather himself. His faculties and his armaments brought to bear, setting his stance as he see the other monster's anger rising.

Contained, but he would not assume for how long. So, he prepares for its release.

And finally...

"Viol, is this how you greet an old friend?"

Lux

[Even though I think it's another turn of calm before this is needed again: Do not frenzy. You might inadvertently eat Nate who looks so appealing, breathing there on the ground like a snack. STAY SHARP. Willpower, too.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Lux

That was not the plan. Lux takes a breath because she can. Because, by taking a breath, she readies herself, finds a rhythm: because breathing is a tool, when it isn't a need, and for her it is not a need. His eyes are narrowed; hers are still fixed, and she drifts closer across the grass, having been still as a lick of salt, her fingers still curled into talons. The Beast wants to kill him. Lux wants to kill rip out his throat and to take his tongue in her teeth and rip and see his green eyes widen and feel him fight and then she wants him to be still: she wants to pluck the teeth out of his mouth and wear them around her wrist. They're fine things, a vampire's teeth: lovely as rattlesnake fangs, and they'd set off the veins on her own wrist nicely, they'd look so good against her pallor, and she -- but Nate smells like a living thing, and she wants to eat him too.

She is too, too distraught to think about weighing Flood's words for truth; she is too, too distraught for anything except for drifting closer, and restraining herself.

She has always been strong willed; see? She stops, and her lashes sink down to kiss her cheekbones; when she opens her eyes again, her pupils are larger, although there's still something cutting about the beauty of them, something that wants to be a fish-hook and wants Flood to be an open human eye and wants to

Her mouth is a compressed line. Control. "Is that what we should be tonight, Flood? Friends? Were you my friend this winter? Do I owe my preservation to your efforts?" Beat. Then, "You saved him? Was it a dirty outland--no, that doesn't narrow it down. Did she look like Mrs. Rochester from Jane Eyre, but the woodland edition?"

Flood

"Friends is never something we should have been," a smile that narrows his eyes again before he continues.

"No, you owe your survival to no one, but yourself," he begins, but then reconsiders. The flippancy is in his tone now: "Or maybe Charles? How was the winter for you and yours? We'll have to compare notes," and the whole time there's a detachment to catching up with the Comtois, because he's considering her last question.

"The very same," he says. "I believe Mercy is her name. Should you wish to seek retribution, or at least make your claim more clear, I'm sure she would oblige you a challenge," nodding a few times, his lips pursed at the idea.

"You still have the Ivory Tower's backing, don't you? They close ranks quickly, if only because it's easier to stab one another in the back. I'm sure you have someone to help in redressing the misunderstanding," as if it's the only thing keeping him for offering his own aid.

Lux

[I... Am not as clear as glass? Manip + Subt.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )

Flood

[ Perception + Subterfuge. ]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 4, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Lux

[Again.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Flood

[ Again. ]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Lux

Lux brings her hands together, presses palm to palm as holy palmer's do, fingers steepled, and presses the edge of them against her mouth. Her shoulders round, drifting into an insouciant slouch, something carelessly elegant although here it is not careless, there is something precise and careful about it, a relief touched by an echo of anger. Her mouth was a firm line, but now behind her fingers it's curving, sweet as the dew that gilds white honeycomb growing on Olympus, you know? A sweet thing, though the expression in her eyes is somewhat wryer. "Charlie?" the name sounds like a reverence she has outworn. "Hmm. I'm sure she would at that, if I'm thinking of the same creature whose name I didn't bother to care about."

And there it is. Her throat works like she catches herself mid-scoff, or like she's hiding a scoff and doesn't quite manage to, doesn't quite restrain that instinctual dismissal of the Ivory Tower.

"I don't know why," she chooses to say, avoiding her current political leanings, "you think you know so well what it's like within the Ivory Tower's halls, as anything other than Hannibal in Trebia of course; it hardly hurts at all to be stabbed in the back. It's annoying, at worst: interesting, at best. But having your head ripped off and your soul drained? That sounds like a shit shindig, man."

"Maybe you should turn turncoat; they make those coats in all sizes. You'd look smashing. You do look smashing. Like a man from an age where men still cared for tailors."

Flood

"Not 'like', but thank you. I could always count on you for a sincere compliment," and then, he looks around, hands out feeling the night air.

"As for coats, I found the winter more mild than most, but when you've seen as many Denver snowfalls, it's all relative," a shrug. "Tonight, no, there's no need for a coat. I get to bare my soul on a wonderful night like this," a glance down at Nathan, he looks like he's going to be changing the subject.

"Get some stew in him. He'll be fine. There use to be a place over on York," reminiscing. "Me, I'm off to tear off head and suck down souls, and with the abundance of options... Well, there's no need to cannibalize my brethren. And strength in numbers."

"Don't tell Charlie you saw me, and I won't tell him I saw you," his last hint at what he got out of her, the places where emotions had bled through to saturate that pristine muslin - no, white silk, that's the way he looks upon her flesh. Something luxurious and beautiful. A mockery of predation, like he's the star of those bedtime stories sires told their childer in the opposing Sect.

Lux

[What? I'm not paranoid. What? Hint? Percept + Subt.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )

Flood

[ Manipulation + Subterfuge. Because. ]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

Lux

A line etches itself between her dark eyebrows, and if she were living, her pulse would no doubt be beating a quick tempo. As it is, she flushes warm now, because she is going to try and touch Nathan, drag him up onto his own two feet without much work from herself. Who knows how much of this he's going to fucking remember? The thought of it keeps her edged; makes her smile when she drops her hands a scimitar thing, in spite of the illusion of warmth and soft and well illusions all Art is illusion. The line between her eyebrows stays, though: she gives Flood a look like she's trying to see something clearly, and she since she can't she shakes her head, and her earrings (she's wearing earrings, and they're long, perfect for pulling in a cat-fight) gleam and glimmer and cast lattice-work shadows.

"I wouldn't dream of it." Brief pause. She exhales as if she really needs to, and going to the ground next to Nathan to check his pulse and try to rouse him for real. "And, Flood," a quick glance, laughing (still angry, but laughing), "there are only sincere compliments. Any other kind is a lie." Laughter fades, and this is sincere enough: "If this is owed: Thank you," each syllable is given weight, given its due, "for keeping him from joining an unwise fight."

Flood

Flood stays when his name is said, then, having given a nod and a slight bow at her thoughts on compliments, he smiles again at the thanks and turns the way he'd already been going down the path. Past the fountain. Further through the park. And on elsewhere. Probably someplace past or amidst the shadows.