Moriarty
It wasn't that he particularly liked tattoo parlors, but rather, it was that he liked the clientel in tattoo parlors. People that didn't have a fear of needles and people who didn't shy away from a little bit of pain before something ecstatic.
He'd been cultivating Morena for the last month and a half. Wining and dining. Coming to her tattoo parlor, sitting down and talking. Flirting. She wasn't into strings. That was just fine, Alan wasn't into strings either. Not unless those strings were-
Well, now, that is not the time to make a lurid joke about bedroom escapades. Alan Moriarty mised sex. More importantly, he missed missing sex. He rmembered enjoying it. He remembered having an abundance of it, and he even remembered the various names of the starlets and gutter trash he'd cavorted with because one always needed to know who may or may not sue the family over matters of paternity, but Alan? Darling Alan, didn't have sex anymore. Not for the carnal joy of it. Not because he wanted to have sex, but rather because it was a means to an end. Something he could do (or, rather, some acts he could perform and not expect his partner to reciprocate) so that he could actually eat.
He didn't remember the names of his prey.
He remembered Morena because she had the kind of hair that was coarse and curly and wide. He didn't particulalry like tattoos, but she had them. He'd come by the shop that night, though and Morena was nowhere to be seen.
He bid his farewells, leaving some Rockabilly babe to giggle under her breath and check out his butt on the way out. A new seed, something later, if Morena was agreeable. He goes through the motions of being lascivious, but his heart isn't in it anymore. Nothing is in it anymore, his heart fails to beat. He is empty, but he is eternal.
Not alive, but living none the less.
Moriarty
[per+aware]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Moriarty
int+occult!
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4) ( botch x 3 )
cruor
One night, he was murdered. This begs the question, did Caine kill Abel under cover of darkness, or did he kill Abel when the sun still shone, and that is why God took the sun from him? One night he was murdered, our darling Alan boy, and ever-after he found he did not crave things like food and sex for both were simply means to an end to the Hunger to the best most euphoric blissful dangerous sensation and is it not human to want and does he not still want can he help but want? We stray from the point. Ever-after he found he did not crave things in the way he once had,
and he also found himself skimming portents from the aether, seeing what others don't, True Visions which could leave him almost panting, could leave him on the edge of frenzy, could parlay his position from that of nothing and no one and worthless and whipping boy to almost respectable to tolerated to accepted, just barely, as long as he keeps being useful, as long as his commodity doesn't become extant,
and sometimes he struck by visions; sometimes he simply sees portents; perhaps he feels differently, when he does.
He sees one now, as he is walking away from some Rockabilly babe suicide girl hopefully she's into pain so he can give her bliss but not without a razor blade or a pin or some sharp fine thing to unzip her skin. A moan lifts through the street, riding the wind; it is the wind, and it aches with emptiness, and he spies with his little eye three strands of hair carried before his face fine as gossamer tangling in a slow ballet catching the light and twining, dropping, falling into a sudden dark. The long moan carries on much longer, and he tastes blood on the air, vitae in the sky; look up, Moriarty, look up for a shadow passes across the clouds, and the clouds are boiling red as of victorious forces clamoring as of heaven passing a funereal parade by just before a battle as of some hero's hearse gone by just now.
The three strands of hair dust dervish devil at his feet, catch on his toe; he is tangled, he is wanted, he knows without a doubt he is closely bound with what is coming hard on his heels just around the corner victory in a death he knows this with a stone-sure certainty even as the appearance of headlights a car coming around the corner chases his shadow away,
as if it is blown out, nothing, nothing and nothing,
and his swallowed-up-shadow points to an alley between one gallery and another tattoo parlor, Blue, twinkle lights shivering in the breeze and in his vision it is later than it is or that much time has passed and now it is late and emptied and empty and five of the twinkle lights have gone out must burn again are separated by their disbelief he knows
oh, he knows.
He knows, even 'ere he hears the sound of running feet hard behind him and notices another shadow thrown across street just so someone else running just before him coming from around a corner and why don't people drive any longer and why does the air taste more strongly of vitae?
Moriarty
One night, he was murdered. He wasn't so different from Abel, except for the points that he was different. So damnably, damnably different. God did not prefer his sacrifice, he brought no lambs nor grains. Truth be told, Alan didn't even believe in God until he died. Until he became painfully, painfully aware of the fact that there was some heavenly host and said host was a Vicious and Spiteful creature.
He didn't realize he would miss the sun.
His life ended under cover of darkness, because it was the way. As long as he kept being useful, as long as he kept Seeing, then he would have his way, but at that juncture he saw nothing but the truth. Laid bare and it is the mind that fails, the shaman's error in failing to understand the portent, or only finding the message too personal. Too visceral. Too clinging-to-the-slickness in his dead, dead lungs.
Sometimes he pushes, spends himself so he can falsify that living spark, if only for a moment. If only because it makes him feel less like a puppet and more like a man. What good is eternity if you are nothing? If you have nothing If you will be forever nothing... but he wasn't nothing. So long as he kept Seeing, he would be Something.
The lights twinkle twilight sparkles and he stops, just for a moment, just for a moment because there is a moan in the streets, riding the wind. A moan that catches in his ears and then on his tongue and there is blood. Something that would have scared him had he felt it when his heart still beat. Alan was young, he still could frame his references around pre and post mortem.
He did not have visions when he was alive.
No, that was a gift. That was a courtesy. That way leads madness, says those children with the broken mirror. It was not his birthright, he'd heard, but it would come none the less. They were all afflicted, poor Cainites. Only so few embraced it.
Alan was not one of those few.
The clouds go red, vicious and violent and he is torn and he is tossed and he is caught. Does not move, but instead briefly opens his arms, accepts his fate, they are all afflicted- only few embrace it. So he struggles, dear darling, to move, to compel himself as he would compel others, compel himself to takes a step towards the corner, out of the way, to sate his curiosity because if there would not be blood, then there would be satisfaction.
cruor
Nobody's breath is panting, nobody's breath is steaming into the cold night air. The object of his curiousity does not wait for him to move toward it. Around the corner, before him, a man comes loping, low to the ground like a hound his skull fine his bones hispanic his skin paler than it should be but still touched by the colouring of life. Moriarty knows him by sight from Richthofen, a brujah with domain down around the outskirts of riverside and colfax. He is running hard, and at Alan's feet the hair untwines, one streaks through a puddle leaves a reflection like a garrot can he not feel the tightening at his throat? What's his name? Luke? Lukas?
He knows that he himself is the key to victory, here; that such a victory will change heavens, and it is tiny things, grain of salt, the single ant, the flea which carries the black plague, all these little things that change the course of history; this is why the moon watches with some solemnity, such Hallowe'en fervor.
But behind Alan, those footsteps seem to him to pound hard right by but no movement stirs his clothes. The footsteps behind him are phantom: they veer toward the right, and they go down, as all things will go down; the hair-strands shiver that-a-way, light catches on a poster, curling, so that the letters look like a spider: that-a-way, that-away.
"You!" the brujah says, with the sparest recognition that there is; first speaks in Mexican-Spanish and then in accented English, "A girl? You see her?"
A blonde, Alan knows, can taste her blood; that melancholy transformation on his tongue, and the portents know.
That-a-way, that-a-way, where the blood is still seeping.
If only portents, and visions, came as clear as maps; if only heady short-sighted Victory did not set her cap at darling Alan everybody's darling darling Alan.
Moriarty
This is how it ends, how it has ended before, another death- another thousand, tiny deaths. Another thousand, tiny insults. Just you and accented English. Alan doesn't speak Spanish. He doesn't say anything, but there was a girl, asks if he's seen her.
Does he knows where she is?
He does, he thinks. He does know where she went, but if he was going to have such a rough night of hunting why not let someone else have the joy as well? Luke or Lukas or something like that, stays on his tongue with the vitae and bright blue eyes go to the Brujah. Doesn't make eye contact but he's been around vampires, been around Ventrue, knows better than to make eye contact lest he find himself ensnared.
"Nah, man," he says, "nothing but ghosts tonight."
cruor
Brujah are a short-tempered bunch and so, say the racists who have made Denver their home since it was first incorporated, are the untrustworthy southern neighbors, get them the fuck out, make them go the back fucking home, and Luke or Lucas or Lucy the brujah's name could be Lucy curses with a rising violence and the taste of blood leaves Alan leaves him wanting. He can read his own death before him, and the Tower standing strong; he can read his own inevitable sacrifice when a pebble skids out from the brujah's step.
"Useless puto," Luke says, "You see girl with harp tattoo on the neck you tell me," and then the brujah's running past, not following the ghost trail the suggestion of blood because that's only Alan's gift only and ever and always Alan's.
Even the Malkavians, with their cracked mirror minds, their prophetic blood, their broken tongues, must own to Alan's clarity, must bow to it sometimes, must discuss it when the moon is full and the night is full of whispers enough to drown the bats.
Moriarty
Nah man, he said, with a voice that would defer. And he does defer, knows not to press a Brujah's buttons except, of course, when he wants to press the rabble's buttons because it's funny. Because it's hilarious sometimes. Because, sometimes, he has moments. Brujah are short tempered bunch. Have lifetimes of oppression to rage against because how could some rich white boy know anything about oppression that he didn't learn from dying?
"Always," he saidm he replied. Always he said, to assure the man- who had more status just by the virtue of having been Somebody's Once instead of Nobody's Ever- to assure that he was good for his word. Assure that he wanted to survive. Keep going.
Because he would survive his final nights, indefinitely.
Always useless or always helpful?
He doesn't specify.
omen
Luke the Brujah doesn't wait. He wouldn't even wait if it was to be baited to be the bait. He doesn't stay. He's just gone: around another corner, in the wrong direction; leaves Alan behind in his knowing, his clarity, his tangled up in events coming right now to a crashing halt because if there would be blood there would be satisfaction. He knows what he came to Denver to find again and it is not his missing life, it is not the living man he was once upon a time a very long time ago. Nah, man, nothing but ghosts tonight, indeed; those three hairs tangling against his shoes, the lights burnt out just so no longer twinkling; even Luke's shadow, flung hither-thither is just followed by another groan following the wind.
Nobody else hears it, because it's a dream: he knows that much; he knows what a waking dream is. He knows whatever's happening down that other alley and around the corner whatever's making the air clot as if with old blood ancient blood addictive blood murderer's blood whatever the heavens boil towards whatever conclusion it's his conclusion too it's his, personally, ah yes: path to reclaim an identity.
It's late at night, but there are still people out. Somebody honks at him because he's standing in the street, or because they're assholes and they're just honking to honk. It breaks no spells.
Moriarty
Those three hairs are tangled against his shoes and Joseph Berryman wouldn't have cared. Wouldn't have noted the significance, but he hadn't been Joseph Berryman in almost fifty years. It was one of the first lessons he had learned: Joseph Berryman had to die. Had to disappear. Had to cut ties and become a ghost hanging tight to fetters like those passions would give him purpose. Best guard your fetters, Grayson East had told him, lest some necromancer scoop you up. Put you in their servitude. He didn't understand what that meant until later. Knew that, in their own way, all kindred worked their magic on the dead as well as the living and knowing someone's passions, knowing someone's pleasures made you vulnerable. Gave them power.
Joseph Berryman had been dead for a long time. Alan Moriarty had been alive just as long. Met up with some ragged young-old woman with dark, dark skin who looked at him fond and sweet and said Joseph, you haven't aged a day,, talked about old times and how she'd missed him. How she'd always missed him, wondered if he'd missed her too, if he'd (loved? No, she never said that. Her voice trembled and it came clear in her eyes)... well, now. Right proper boys didn't have no feelings for colored women back then.
He assured her she was wrong, said that he had loved her even though he knew the truth but could make someone believe a beautiful lie. Because Missus Anna Gentry was not long for this world, and with a husband dead in the ground and children who never visited he wanted someone to believe in their last fleeting moments that they were loved, because he may have been a liar but he wasn't a monster. He may have been a predator, but he wasn't cruel. Not anymore.
He isn't a monster. No matter what fate brought him into, this was a new life. A new leaf. He had something he had to do, a path to reclaim because Alan Moriarty was an unassuming bastard. Kept his head down. Did his job and put up with a thousand tiny wounds that Joseph Berryman would never have endured and his truth was down that alley. So, he follows, or almost, but someone is honking because he's in the middle of the road.
"Fuck off!" he yells, flips the guy the bird and continues on to the path towards blood, towards that new future, towards that old future. Something. But, innocuously aggressive, has no patience for asshole drivers.
Moriarty
[Per+alert, what did I just do?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (3, 3, 4, 4, 4) ( fail )
Moriarty
Auspex
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (2, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
omen
He's had his vision. He's interpreted it, too.
Now he's on his own. That's what only some people who come to him with requests for an augury ever understand. That it's not enough to have who knows what drop hints/spoilers about the future. One has to do the legwork if one is going to make use of that information. Alan goes in the direction the omens have pointed. The truck honks again behind him but Alan doesn't care. Asshole drivers. Alan's on his way. He goes in the right direction and then all he has are his senses to rely on and the hints he read the images caught in the sieve of his prophetic mind.
His senses fail him. He knows he should be near, once he's a block away, once he's outside a furniture store and a language school. He knows he should be really close. There's a bus idling, empty with the lights on. His senses fail him, but the senses blood-gifted blood-dredged do not fail him:
Auspex is the Discipline of Augury, of True Vision, of Perception. Auspex gives hunches and gives hints. Auspex tells him that what he's looking for is inside the furniture store, with its unlocked door and its lights out.
Auspex tells him not to go in by that open front door.
Moriarty
Auspex is what he was built for, what his unlife has taught him will keep him safe, being aware without having to rely on his own senses but instead something stronger. Auspex was the reminder than his blood was powerful, that blood was power. It made sense when the visions didn't.
But the door is open and unlocked and he knows better, never take the front door when it shouldn't be time for you to walk in the front door. no, he chooses the side door. No, he chooses the service entrances if he can find one.
Because he's never been a front door guy.
Moriarty
(dex2+larceny2)
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Moriarty
[wits+alert!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )
omen
The Caitiff knows his way around a locked door. The side entrance is locked but it isn't a complicated lock. It might take an amateur some time to pick, but even if he doesn't have his kit on him, a brief survey of the alley the side entrance is located in gives Alan the tools he needs to make that lock open to sing his praises, and he's in.
If there was a security system, it's already off and no alarms start to scream intruder intruder intruder.
The side entrance opens up in the 'kitchen area.' Appliances aren't sold at the furniture shop, but there are tables gallore and islands, too, and some old-fashioned cabinets, some vinyl stools from a 50s diner, all these little micro half-rooms, a zigzaggy maze to get through in the gloom.
The store isn't pitch; it's just not very well lit right now.
Beyond the 'kitchen area,' and all those tables, there's an island of couches and coffee tables of all different kinds and sizes with the occasional art piece between, some ramps as the floor levels up, and finally stairs leading up up up to another full floor.
There. He sees somebody lying on one of the beds in the particularly still fashion people lie in when they're not ever going to move again. He sees a standing picture knocked askew, sees a carpet not as it should be: and he sees movement on the second floor. A struggle.
Here is where he'll find answers.
The universe is a strange place.
(But don't all vampires know that?)
Moriarty
He crouches, knows that he needs to move quickly because he needs to know what this struggle is about. Makes a pit stop by the body- because in his mind he thinks of it as the body, wonders who that poor murdered soul is and feels a kinship with because he, too, has had his life stolen. Death means something different to kindred.
He'll find his answer in a furniture store, on the second floor, there is a struggle and he knows that he may need to find assistance. May need to find himself playing the hero but heroes die one death. It doesn't matter how many a coward dies, because one death is all you need to make it final, make it permanent and he was committed to continuing. Committed to being.
But he wasn't a monster.
He knew he wasn't a monster, even though he had been. Even though he could be, and oh heavens he could be- the pursuit of blood did not afford him kindness. He was a predator, though, not a murderer. He'd killed, but it was in the hunt. Would it be macabre of him to use every part of the kill? Was it wasteful not to? It's what separated them from the true monsters, pulse or not, it wasn't cruelty. It was commitment to existence. It was not cruelty, it was selfishness.
The brief trip by the body aside, he then heads to the second floor, seeming not unlike any other flesh and blood creature.
(-1BP, breathe!)
Moriarty
[wits+stealth!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
omen
The body is a young man in his late twenties. The young man is as dark skinned as some of the gals Joseph Berryman sleazed all over in his life, darker freckles across his nose and soft curly tight hair. His neck looks broken and the smell of blood is faint, has all to do with some blood spotting his parted clay cold lips. He looks like he could still be alive, almost. Almost. But he's not, he's very dead.
Up to the second floor, Moriarty.
His wits are sharp enough that he manages to broach the furniture maze without tripping, without skidding, without getting caught by carpet or corner, and his wits are sharp enough that once he goes up the stairs keeping low he can figure out how to make it toward that struggle while mostly keeping furniture between him and whoever it is there.
As he breathes without thinking, in and out, in and out.
As a pulse drums, steady. Always steady. Turn it on, but it doesn't race- there's no clock to beat any longer.
--
Up there on the second floor, the struggle is this: a punk-looking blonde woman in her mid-thirties, her face hard and under strain, because her hands have been bound to a bed's post (a four poster) and she is trying to kick out toward a gun that has skidded off the bed and out of her reach.
The smell of blood is strong, here.
The smell of vitae is strong, here.
There is a cup on one of the nightstands. The cup is of cold iron and it looks old and it looks as if it would bite someody if they reached for it. Beside the cold iron cup, there is a chalice - something lovelier, but the loveliness is ruined by the rank-sweet smell of it, which is rotten, though it looks so soft to the touch: soft and yielding.
And there, not panting because why would he pant (well, perhaps he is human after all?), is a woman apparently fresh out of college, who has just managed to get the thirty-something blonde tied, and is now surveying her work.
The front of her tanktop is black with wet blood.
Here are your answers, Alan?
Moriarty
(-1BP to have Dex 3. Get a gun! Dex+stealth!)
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
omen
[Ava Per + A]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )
omen
[M Per + A]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )
Moriarty
{Charisma+NOTHING- Presence 1]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5) ( botch x 1 )
Moriarty
There is a gun and a situation that he has to be aware of.
Joseph's father taught him how to use a gun, once. Had him hold it loose in his hands and chastized his son for when he felt his hand shake because no officer would have a son who couldn't shoot. Wouldn't shoot. Because if there was danger, god damn it all, his son would know how to handle himself. The only son of the Berryman family, he would be something to be proud of.
Nobody's pride now, was he? GRayson thought he stuck his neck out too far. Grayson thought he had too much pride. Grayson didn't realize what blood truly coarsed through his veins, and what refined palate was never truly cultivated and maybe that flaw would come some day. Maybe it's what would mark him as truly wicked, because he has never been ravenous enough to try anything to see if he had a taste for it.
No, or maybe he just always had a taste for garbage. The colonel never much cared for his taste in friends. His taste in women. Though it was all sowing wild oats and maybe it was, but...
But...
Now was not the time to work out daddy issues half a century old.
"Please tell me you don't have intentions of burning this place down whenever you're done?" he starts, "because they have a really nice dinette set on the first floor near that nice dead young man that I'm really tempted to buy after tonight."
omen
[M AAAGH]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 3) ( fail )
omen
[SC]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
omen
He startles the young twentysomething woman in the bloody blacked tanktop something fierce. She jumps and snarls and the snarl is wet with the promise of a savage end, it is edged in a lacery of fear; the jump has her turning in a quick circle with a protective wide-eyed glance toward the cup and the chalice, fingers spread wide like a cat's, the sinews thrown in sharp relief as tension comes wicking.
Alan tries to make the Best Impression, too, to wick that blood of his into the shaping of impressionable minds, but it rebounds, recoils, and instead he finds that part of his Discipline all untethered and loose: it won't be working for him tonight, not on this creature in front of him staring at him with wide eyes.
Behind those wide eyes, the beast surges and seeks to escape. Her fingers flex. Her face is very still, very avid. Very hungry. Hunger crawls across her eyes like a fevered man might crawl toward his death: in fits and starts. But she has enough control right now.
"What the Hell is a fucking dinette set? Who are you?"
Moriarty
"A dinette set," he starts with a voice infuriatingly patient, "is a dining table and a set of chairs for an informal dining room. This is opposed to a formal dining set, which is much more cumbersome and won't fit in my apartment. And it has fallen out of favor in recent years, I don't have formal dinner parties."
On account of not needing to eat food. H ewas uncertain if he could have a formal dinner party without having to kill some of his guests or being crass. It would be more like a wine tasting, favored vintages but no one would be able to bring something delightfully aged. He'd wondered what Cainite blood tasted like, flirted with the idea in the back of his mind but knows he shouldn't. Flirts with a lot of things he knows he shouldn't, but we digress.
"Moriarty," he says, hands comfortably on the gun. Not shaking this time. Not afraid this time. "Did you do all of this on your own?"
omen
The stillness is a predatory stillness, a just-leashed stillness, and it is not going away to lend the creature a mask for humanity; she doesn't bother. She stares at Moriarty, then says flatly, "What are you."
"Some jumped-up Satanist."
The gun is heavy in his hands but it's certainly loaded. It's not a lady's gun but something to pack a punch or a hole in the head of an undead monster, no, not a lady's gun at all, and meanwhile something in the chalice flutters like a pulse. Silkfleshcolored thing.
The punkish blonde on the bed is quietly trying to slip from her bonds as Alan distracts the vampiress. Her rapid labored breathing is the only sound when neither Moriarty or the vampiress are speaking.
Moriarty
[per+medicine?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Moriarty
int+occult
Dice: 7 d10 TN9 (3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Moriarty
per+aware!
Dice: 5 d10 TN9 (1, 2, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Moriarty
Int+occult again!
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )
Moriarty
"My, that's a complicated and rude question, isn't it?" his eyes move slow to the cup, to the chalice, to the sickly feeling in his stomach and his strangelycalm breathing.
His breathing.
Breathing.
Something that comes naturally, unnaturally so, because he remembered to put up the ruse. Because he insited on keeping up that damn masquerade even if he was going to shatter it to pieces. He had to play it safe, play it cool.
"Is that the question you ask to figure out if I'm a comrade or a liability? Another neck you have to snap?" his eyes went to the chalice, pinned it. Something fluttered there, but he doesn't move. Doesn't go to investigate it because something tells him that he does not want to know. "I'm just another hungry ghost. We aren't that different."
omen
[SC continued]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
omen
Alan gives the scene a look. A close look. He can tell the iron cup is just an iron cup. He can tell the chalice is alive. That is skin. That is skin flushed with blood. That pulse is its breath and its heartbeat. He can tell the chalice is alive: it was a child -- it was a child when it was wrenched from some pregnant woman's belly, too soon, too small, all those little bones, all that malleable flesh: how lovely it is now that it has been cured into this. This chalice. He knows that it is alive. He knows the iron cup is just a cup. He knows more, too.
As he studies the scene, the Moon or her minions or his blood or Something gifts him with another vision. He thinks he interpreted the other one well. Let him continue thinking that, that somewhere here is an answer to the question which has driven him back to Denver, that he was destined to be intimately bound up in these events: but this time his interpretation is better.
The iron cup is for the hard physical world. The chalice is a special chalice. The chalice is a chalice for ghosts to sup from for ghosts to catch on. The chalice and the iron cup together will catch a demon, a devil, and the woman on the bed must have vitae running through her (15th generation? or a ghoul?) must be connected somehow to vampiric society to the night to the society of murdered murderers because when the woman on the bed is cut is opened the chalice and the iron cup together will set the feast for something else
[The moon will boil black, and people will die,
will die without rising, the streets will run with blood]
which will fill her up, a child, a monster.
All three things together. That iron cup: old, old, old, one of a kind. That chalice: specially made, and recently: it will die soon -- god help it, hopefully it will die soon. He can envision the tanktop vampiress crumbling it into the woman's mouth just after.
Heartbeat ticks slower, slower, slower; he hears it all around him for a moment, lifting him up, a billow, a bellow - he remembers that sound from his own death.
And so.
The woman before him struggles to restrain herself, struggles to keep herself (protective) from ruining the tableau from wrenching Moriarty's throat out. She takes two three four paces from the bed. She eyes him, like she's planning best how to pounce him. Is he breathing?
"That wasn't the password. You're a fucking Cammie. Aren't you."
Moriarty
That cup is just a cup, but that chalice is a child. Not was, that chalice is a child. That chalice was once breathing, that chalice was robbed of potential, crafted into something fine and he knows there is blood and knows it must feast but he hopes, he hopes it will die. That it will be given peace, god damn it all just give it peace and his eyes go distant in that way that only seers know.
He has visions, this one, he sees things and he KNows. He knows because it is what keeps him in his place, it is what kept him from being scourged from this blessed earth because he had use. He had purpose. Better deal with one who was worthless than to cut one's self on that broken mirror of a clan and find their truths. For as much disdain as he felt, he did not envy Malkavians. Wondered if their madness really did bring clarity.
No matter, because his sanity was suspect sometimes. One does not live long without losing some vital part of themselves. One does not become powerful without first becoming a sociopath. He'd never met a prince who was humane.
"Don't say it like it's shameful," he says, "anybody who thinks they aren't an elder's pawn is just deluding themselves. I like continuing to exist."
He cocks the hammer back on the gun, and something in his voice breaks, "just let it die."
He gestures to the chalice, his breathing still even because he has forced himself to breathe, some reminder that he was human once. That those days are no more, that a heart is beating, ticking slower.
"The moon will boil black, people will die-won't rise, the streets will run with blood- just let it die."
omen
[Ava, Dex + Escapistry! Escapology? Whatever that secondary skill is.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
omen
The blonde twists and pulls and contorts. Her wrist pops or clicks as if it does the bone swallowing a sigh and then she has one hand free, and is freeing the second. While the heartbeat washes over Moriarty, washes away. While he can feel the darkness in the world nibbling at his psyche delicately, as fish might nibble at something, a clot in water, a clot dissolving in water, water is the world, the world is fluid. The vampire continues pacing toward Moriarty. Not directly, but going sidewinding; eyes a flash of light brown, alien and fixed, on his handsome face; shoulders rolling, the stickiness of blood on the tank a sound because stickiness can be a sound when one's senses are sharp and. Moriarty's voice breaks and the creature curls her lip, contemptuous; her fangs are already out, fingers are flexing again, and then he gestures toward the chalice with the gun.
"DON'T YOU DARE," (The moon will boil), "you fucking shit that boy down below he tried get in the way too you aren't totally alive you're just a fucking corward sucking the vitae from some elder's dusty shrivelled labia," all rapid fire and quick. "You like continuing to exist - "
And the woman is about to lunge for Moriarty, her wide eyes still fixed, almost glassy. This isn't the beast: this is human calculation.
Moriarty
[odds tanktop, evens chalice]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )
Moriarty
This is human calculation.
This is another.
He moves, quick and intentional, sees the blonde getting herself free and he thinks he can buy her time. Thinks he can interrupt. Thinks he can do a lot of things, but right now he's not going-
"Just. Let. It. Die."
And he points the gun at the woman, quick and intent, and he fires, because he can't bring himself to kill whatever that thing is now. Not yet, doesn't have the heart to put it out of its misery.
Moriarty
{Dex2+wits3+1d10)
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
omen
[He's got that extra dot of dex, so his Init is actually 10. Woo.]
omen
[Ava +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
omen
[M +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
omen
[M: Brawl + Dex -1 for the split]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Moriarty
[-1 BP, DEX 4?]
Moriarty
[and shooty shooty?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Moriarty
[6 (damage) +1 success]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
omen
[M]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6) ( success x 1 )
omen
M for Murderess for Em for Malice for Malevolence for, truth, Maleficent: M lunges forward. M is faster than Moriarty. Ava could've been faster than M, but what good would that have done? Ava finishes freeing herself. He bought her enough time for that, at least. And M lunges at Moriarty, grabs him. He's still holding the gun, even though she's holding him.
He's still holding the gun and he squeezes it wildly makes it go off and it hits her, strikes her, would've torn through vital organs if she were a living woman, if she weren't a vampire, if flesh and tissue didn't reknit as soon as the bullet tore through: now she laughs at him, and -
Moriarty
{Dex4+wits3= 7 +1d10]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
omen
[Ava +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
omen
[M +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
omen
He's breathing but he's not alive so there's no percentage in crushing his ribs or strangling him. He's breathing but he's not alive so there's no point in holding him so tight he just can't do anything. M means to hold him by one arm while she plunges her other hand into his gut, tear out his intestines; M is ready to summon (for the first time) glinty claws from her fingertips, talons to make it easier - maybe now, at last - maybe Caine will smile, and so it will be -
[1a. -1BP for Protean 2. M hasn't actually done this before, so even though this doesn't require a roll in the normal course of things, I'm going to roll Stamina + Animal Ken to see if she makes it. Even if she doesn't, the action is:
CLAW THROUGH HIS BELLY.]
omen
They're in a furniture store. They're surrounded by wood.
Theoretically.
There's nothing wooden nearby in the exact shape of a stake, however there is a night table on the side of the bed. Ava is burning the small reserve of blood (vitae [someone else's]) she is able to, aims to kick off one of its legs, and if she manages, she aims to use that leg in the way it was never meant to be used:
See her, wild blonde hair wild blue eyes big fucking boots KICKsmashLUNGE. That's the plan.
[-1 bp for celerity.
1a. BREAK TABLE.
1b. GET STAKE.
Celerity round!
1. GET TO M&M.]
Moriarty
He panics. He definitely panics, because the only time he can remember being in a fight where he was genuinely afraid for his existence was in the eighties when he had the misfortune of pissing off a Brujah within the same week he'd not given the keeper of Elysium a particularly auspicious message of things to come.
There is a point that you can beat someone to the point of wishing for death. He hadn't found it yet, but knew the poin t where he would curl into a ball and wish for it to stop. Taking it was worth the satisfaction of seeing a rival so duly punished for such poor manners in Elysium no less. A rough gambit, but worth it.
For someone else, that is. Worth it for someone else.
But he's burned through vitae, burned through resilience, and he hungers. He breathes but he doesn't need to, turns his head and places his teeth- perfectly human teeth- at her neck. Bites down, hard, because he knows it will take a lot to break the skin. KNows there is a moment of pain before ecstasy, but it is the ecstasy he is chasing. It is the ecstasy that is debilitating.
(declare: ohnomnom- kiss attack? -1BP for strength)
Moriarty
[dex+brawl]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 8, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
omen
[M: SC DON'T KISS ME.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (8, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
omen
[Claws? Stam + AK]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (2, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )
omen
[Ava: STRENGTH (+athletics) SMASH I NEED A STAKE. -1 die for picking the damned thing up.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
omen
[SMASH but with 1 die]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
omen
[CLAW.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 2, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
omen
[Damage. Strength + 1 + 1.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 6, 6, 6) ( success x 4 )
Moriarty
[Soak?]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 4) ( botch x 1 )
omen
[Celerity. SMAAAAAAASH!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
Moriarty
[Dex4+wits3+1d10]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
omen
Ava: +6
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )
omen
+5
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )
omen
The ghoul (Brujah [blonde as ice]) who was going to be a sacrifice was going to fill up with whatever it is M was summoning brings her foot down on the table's leg hard: it cracks, splinters, but doesn't come undone; she kicks it again, but her foot glances off; she's fast, though, isn't she and -
But meanwhile, Alan. Alan's bite is dull but you'd never know it now. He digs his half-formed not-sharp teeth into the woman's shoulder or her neck or whatever part of her he can reach and pierces flesh and begins to Kiss her, to suck, and she could easily be overwhelmed, could easily be stilled, be still -
Helpless, because it is ecstasy; it is euphoria -
But she isn't. The young Cainite wants to do good and manages to control herself, manages to wick wicked little pointed blades from her fingertips, to dig them into Alan's gut and find those intestines and pull and pull -
He can feel himself opened. He can feel himself in agony.
He has never been this injured.
--
With Alan's intestines on her claws, M decides now is a great time to growl out a threat. She should push Alan off, push him away, make him stop taking her vitae; but it feels so fucking good, and let's be real, it hasn't effected her performance adversely, so she's just going to pull another length of his intestines out -
She's going to fling them toward Ava. Did that blonde bitch move?
[1A: PULL ON INTESTINES.
1B: Throw them lasso-style at the ghoul!]
Moriarty
[btw: don't frenzy]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Moriarty
He isn't hungry, he's filling up, filling back, it feels good, it feels fantastic and yet... and yet he has to keep going, it hurts worse than anything he's felt. He thinks he might cry, he might cry out, because oh god, oh God, it fucking hurts and he's not too much of a man to think he can't succumb to pain. He feels things, his nerve endings are still flayed and bright and he thinks just let it die.
He doesn't know if Ava has left, doesn't know her name, but he keeps drinking. Keeps his position solid and amidst the pain he reaches up, hand trembling, body weak and slick with his own blood, and he places the gun to her temble.
Clicks the hammer.
Pulls the trigger.
[-1BP for Dex 5!]
[Split 1: Shoot her in the heeeaaaaaad]
[Split 2: keep drinking. You don't need this much blood, but keep drinking.]
[Split 1: Shoot her in the heeeaaaaaad]
[Split 2: keep drinking. You don't need this much blood, but keep drinking.]
omen
Ava has the table leg now, jagged splinters at one end of it. Ava has the table leg and Ava huffs out a breath, and of course her attention is drawn to the vitae in the air, fresh vitae, new vitae, Alan's vitae, the vitae and M dragging his intestines while he drinks from her and it is a strange, horrifying tableau they present to the ghoul. Her wrists are raw-red, and she tries to close the distance between them now.
Close the distance, quietly so M doesn't hear.
Close the distance, carefully so she's not in the way of any fucking bullets she can't shrug them off like some people can.
Close the distance, and aim that piece of wood right against M's heart.
AND PUSH, in the moment Alan's gun goes off. Please.
[1a. Close distance.
1b. STAKE. But we're holding this roll 'til after Alan shoots.]
Moriarty
[Dex5+firearms2= 7 - 2(ouch) -1 split = 4 dice, diff 5]
Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (4, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Moriarty
[6 (damage) + 3 (success) = 9 (ouch)
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
omen
[M's soak!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4) ( fail )
omen
[Ava, staaaake her.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN9 (4, 4, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
omen
[Damage?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
omen
[M is immobilized.]
omen
He drinks. And he drinks. And he drinks, to distract her, to rob her of her strength, and perhaps if she'd cared she would've been wise enough to move away. But M is a Cainite; she doesn't fear fucking human toys, fucking pathetic weakass mortality sticks, and maybe it's the glee with which she's turned (turned on tuned in) this fight into a show of her own strength, but she's just a shade too slow to react to Alan bringing the gun to her head as he drinks and he drinks and-
There's no silencer on the gun. It's loud. It's loud and it blows half of M's head off, fragments of skull and air and brainmatter spraying wet-thick plip-pop.
She is not dead. She snarls in surprise; snarls though the back of her head is ruined, though one eye is too damaged, though her ear is gone; she is not dead. And she snarls, terribly, and -
Does not see Ava coming at all. Doesn't hear her coming, either.
And Ava takes that stake, aims it carefully, and pushes in. It's willpower alone has her hitting the target (perhaps because M jerked, just so; jumped in her bones), but it's sheer strength has the stake going in and in and far enough in that flesh will not mend and -
Alan's intestines slip from M's claws as M, a ruination, goes still.
Immobile.
And falls, if he doesn't hold her up.
Moriarty
He knows how many yards of intestine he has, knows not how he will keep them in and he can hear a second heartbeat, can feel a flutter soft and distant and all he can think is just let it die, he pines for it, wishes, he knows there is a moment when he will wish for death. KNows that this moment might come
He aches. Oh god, just let it die. (just let me die)
He was murdered once. He would not be murdered again, would not have his life stolen again,would not be thrust into obscurity, into nothingness, into an abyss. Not whent here is so much to do. Not when there are questions. Not when he still so desperately wants to be alive.
He's still breathing. He doesn't need to breathe, but he's still breathing, the false glow has slipped from his cheeks and he looks like death in a very human way. Alan Moriarty wants to live. Alan Moriarty is dead, but Alan wants to live. Has wanted to live for a very, very long time. Takes this ageless eternity as a consolation prize for not being permitted the right to grow old. Not being permitted the right to have what he thought he deserved, what was stolen from him because it was his potential that was stolen.
All because someone thought him better than a sewer rat. He should thank his sire, should he ever meet him again. (Malcolm loved him, he does not know. He does not know that Malcolm loved him in a way that he had never loved, had never known himself capable of love, so smitten that he could not stand the idea that such a being would perish. Stuff of poetry, that, but poetry was for Roses and not rulers.)
he doesn't move just yet and he's shaking, there's blood on his cheeks and he can't tell if it's because he's crying or because he's splattered in gore but he isn't hungry. He isn't a lot of things. He isn't alive.
Joseph Berryman wants to live. This is a consolation, pain is a reminder that he is here. This intensity is a reminder that he is dead, that this should have killed him, but you can't kill something that is already damned.
he slides out, slow and laboured and his breathing is ragged. He can stop any time he wants, but he doesn't want to.
"Just let it die," he begs, looks to the chalice and begs.
Moriarty
[Self Control: GOD DAMN IT I HURT.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
omen
Ava isn't holding the stake any longer. Alan hasn't dropped M, so she just lets go of the stake (don't shake it loose don't shake it loose) and looks wide-eyed at Alan.
He's pointing at something. His mouth is a bloody mess.
Those are his intestines on the ground.
Ava's seen some shitty stuff, but this is pretty god awful. "Just let what die?" she says, and, "Uh, thanks for coming. We'll get you out of sight. I can help. So no one sees... uh..."
She clears her throat, rubbing her wrist. Then, "Can I have my gun back?"
Moriarty
He reaches out and his hands are shaking. He drops the gun and his hands are shaking. He has to think, and the only thought in mind comes from needing to keep his damned intestines in his body so he can move but it hurts there are nerves everywhere and...
"That chalice," he says, voice ragged and blood everywhere, he might throw up. He feels like he might throw up, but she might see his actual stomach retch if he did. He shudders and shuffles for the chalice. To do what must be done.
"It's alive... it is still alive, it-" he lets out a sound, it might have been a laugh but it smells of hysterics, "I don't know if it was a boy or a girl. Life as an it."
Oh bitterness. Who would have thought him sentimental? But he goes for the chalice, gun on the floor, to do what must be done. (Goodbye, goodbye, what was your name?)
omen
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )
omen
Expression sluices from Ava's face when Moriarty explains himself. The gun clatters and she jumps because it could've gone off it could've gone off and hit her but it doesn't. M clatters to the ground and the stake is loosened is jarred but thankfully M fell forward and to the side rather than back, so the stake stays lodged, the ruined head and its one still-perfect eye frozen in a oh she can't be alive still can she but she is there's awareness there, frozen as it is, frigid as it is -
He goes for the chalice. When he touches the chalice, it feels soft. Baby's skin. Baby's skin before the world has got to it. It feels warm in his hands; he can feel the little heartbeat fluttering, he can feel the delicate little bones. How is it still alive at all? It has no mouth, no nostrils; how does its lungs get air?
The Fiends are terrible.
Even when he lifts the chalice (warm, living, alive, soft, as fragile as an egg), he can feel something cold emanating from the iron cup.
Moriarty
He sits, sinks to his knees and his body aches and something in him is broken. Something in him is broken and he marvels at the horror of it all- how could this be alive? It had no lungs, no mouth, no wonder its life was fleeting, but he can feel its tiny heartbeat.
"Hello," he says, with a voice that is gentle and only for a child. The kind of voice that one reserves for their own young, and it is a child in his hands. It is warm and he can feel it soft and can hear the heartbeat, feel it beat sympathetic against his own cold, dead chest. Feels it pulse against his fingertips.
"Don't cry," he pleads, his voice breaks. He is crying, but he doesn't realize it. Doesn't realize it's a waste, "it'll be over soon. I promise."
He squeezes. Prays he has the strength to do it quickly, that he won't lose his nerve and let it suffer, but he can feel all its tiny bones and he laments, he pleads, just die, just let it die.
"Shh."
Moriarty
[self control: oh god, please...]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Moriarty
[squish.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
omen
[Soak?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
omen
He squeezes.
He pushes. The bones snap. They are fragile: glass, snip! shatter. The blood vessels rupture. The skin tears. It tears and he can feel what went into the chalice push between his fingers. He squeezes.
And it breaks, and it dies.
And there is blood, some.
And that's all.
No more chalice.
Moriarty
No more chalice.
He stops breathing. Can't force his ungs to do it anymore and with the chalice, something dies and he can't... he just can't, not tonight. There is the remnants of somethinginnocent and fragile on his skin, and he reaches for the iron cup.
"Can you call someone and get a van?" he asks, "we're going to need to burn this place."
There is something cold in that cup.
omen
"Yeah, I can do that," Ava says. "Did you have someone specific in mind?" Pause. "Because if not, I might even know somebody who can do the, the," waver. She clears her throat again, wide eyes firm on Alan's face, "the clean-up. Look, why don't you sit? We're going to need to- your... you've got to pick your intestines up and hold them."
He touches the iron cup.
He touches it, and it feels like the end of the world. No visions; just a great, yawning coldness - numbness which spreads over his fingertips.
Moriarty
"My sister is worthless in these situations," he said, "but if your guy- generic guy not sexist guy- needs cash I can figure something out."
Because if there is one thing he know, you can throw money at a problem until it goes away. He holds the cup in his hand, and numbness spreads over his fingertips, might claim his hand if he isn't careful. He pulls his hand away, "we need to take this."
He looks down, realizes that this might be disturbing, still feels like he might throw up, and he pulls, looks about as disconcerted as it is, and carefully starts to shove himself back together. It's easier coming out than going back in, and all he can think about are cassette tapes.
omen
"Okay," Ava says, because she doesn't know what else to say. Because why not? "What's your name? Who's your family? Can I borrow your phone?"
Family. He used to have one. He doesn't have one now. The Caitiff have no family. They don't even have each other, because it's every Lick out for himself. Ava tries not to look at what he does with his intestines. Can't look at that. Her gorge wants to rise and she's supposed to be stronger than that.
When he hands his phone over, she'll nod. Step a few paces back and lean against the four poster, breathing long and slow great gulps of air like she's just realizing she's not dead. She's not whatever it is M wanted to do to her.
And she calls her guy. Alan can hear their conversation: I need a van at More Furniture. Yeah. [pause] Yeah. [pause] No. [pause] Yeah. [pause] No. Yes. Two. Three? Three. [pause] Shut the fuck up. [pause] Yeah. [pause] Thanks. Wait! [pause] Might need to set the place on fire. [Questioning look at Alan.] No I'm not kidding. Yes, it's one of those. Yes. Yes. No. Bye.
Click. And she hands the phone back.
Moriarty
[LIE! -2 (oww)]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Moriarty
"How much is this gonna run me?" he says, laments like it is fixing the engine on his car and the mechanic is about to bend him over a barrel on the prices.
He puts the phone back in his pocket, and it's slick in his hands. There's blood on it, and the warmth from the battery reminds him of the warmth on the chalice. He has things he could say. Who was his family.
"I introduced myself to the Prince as Alan Moriarty, I figured that if I was going to be alive forever I wanted a cooler name than Kevin Davis."
A beat.
"I'm gonna take her to Elysium and..." he loses his train of thought, his body still aches, and he looks at her cautiously, "hey, do you have a harp tattoo?"
omen
"...Yes." The word comes out slow; it's like a tooth pulled by somebody inexpert when it comes to pulling teeth, like it leaves behind a sore-spot and maybe some shrapnel in the gum. "Why?"
Moriarty
"Luke-Lukas-Lucy-fuck... angry fucking Brujah is looking for you," he said, "if you don't want to see him, I never saw you tonight, savvy? Told him all I was seeing were ghosts, called me a useless puto, and I can roll with that if you need."
Doesn't ask for anything in return. He knows better than to ask.
omen
"Luke?" Ava's face grows very still at the name, and for a moment she is grass-slender grass-careful. Then a smile, and it's got something of a spring-thaw warmth to it, "Thanks. Okay."
Pause. "Maybe I can get you some... tape or a bandage or something from these fuckers."
--
No bandages. No emergency kit. Duct tape, though, and paper towels: surely something can be rigged together. Ava introduces herself by name. Ava. Tells him she's a Brujah ghoul, though she doesn't specify which Brujah. Tells him she was pretty fucking scared. Tells him she's only seen one thing grosser than his intestines hanging out like that.
Asks to hold the iron cup; if he says no, she lets it be. Asks him how they should transport it. She's a ghoul. She knows to listen to the gentry, eh? The nobility, which he is.
And then her guy comes, in a van. The guy doesn't ask any questions at all. He just calls Alan's phone and when somebody answers he says I'm outside come on. Ava carries the staked vampire, but it's easier if Alan helps her. Easier to keep the stake from dislodging, and doesn't he want to help her? It's very important, to Alan, that he be involved in the staked vampire's body; that staked womanthing is important to him. Deeply. He feels real emotion for her.
Maybe that real emotion is hate, but he feels it.
And once they're all settled in the van, Ava walks up so she can say to the driver, "Ricthofen."
"Are you sure?" he says.
"Yeah."
A glance at Alan.
Are you sure? the glance says.
Moriarty
Oh, how he hates her. Oh, how it brings passion to his chest and it felt so good. So fucking good to hate her, and he did. He hated her, but it felt real. More real than anything he'd felt in ages. It was a hate-filled infatuation. He would do anything at that moment for to her. And he wanted to. Oh god, sweet merciful Caine, he wanted retribution.
He wouldn't get it, though, never does.
He helps as best he can, and tries to keep his intestines in because it's disgusting. It's really, really disgusting. He knows it is. He is not ashamed or embarrassed. Except he probably should be.
He does let her see the cup, isn't afraid of it, but he does seem... concerned. Concerned is the best word for it. He's pretty patient, doesn't give his real name but he's happy to be just Alan to her. Or Moriarty, but he knows it's pretentiouys when you have a name like Moriarty to go by it.
Eventually there is a paper towel and duct tape holder. He... he tries to do most of it on his own. Has the decency to turn around so she doesn't have to stare at it.
Before they go, before they leave, before when they just have a bit of dead time together when it is just the two of them- the ghoul and the clairvoyant, he asks.
"Do you know anyone named Malcolm? From around here?"
---
AND THEN (lost scene snippet/email work out) THEY PARTED WAYS.
FOR NOW.
FOR NOW.
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