Verna Is A Vampire

cruor
Exit, Verna. The lights went out. And nothing, and Nothing, and then this on her tongue, this wanting in her veins, this thirst. Enter, Verna.

The murdered immortal all come back to the world to the same impossibly wonderful taste on their tongue the same impossible need. This is, some would argue who know more than poor Verna Gardner rest in peace (there will be no rest, and likely very little peace), the only point in common vampires have one with the other.

Verna tastes vitae on her tongue, and the air is very cold. And her back is very wet. And someone's hard hand has her by the back of the neck, her hair caught between thumb and palm, and that someone's rings are colder than that someone's hands, and that same someone is holding a bony wrist to her mouth and it is cut and that is where the fucking nectar of the gods is coming from.

The someone is that young man who wanted to walk her to her car, the one who stuck a stick in her heart and killed her. The night didn't go according to his plan. The air is cold, but it is not the outdoors cold of an unvaulted heaven; rather, it is the cold of some cement box, with a smell of the river -- should Verna be able to smell anything that isn't the line of darkness dripping from the man's wrist.

The pair (and it is only a pair, or it would seem so for the moment) are inside what looks like a basement, gutted, something bomb shelter close. The only light is yellowing, tallow yellow, and doesn't fill the 'room.' It comes from a small lamp, something scrounged from a bar, maybe, something that could use a few watts. Or not. Beyond the circle of light, there are shapes, but those shapes are still in the darkness.

Verna Gardner
[Self Control, diff 7!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (1, 7) ( success x 1 )

Verna Gardner
They call it the Embrace, as if to say 'it's not that bad, really'. Perhaps for some, it isn't. Perhaps for some, it was something that they knew of and longed for, and when the night finally came were swept away in the sensations of pleasure and joy and wanting. And when they woke, hungry and dazzled, they understood why.

Verna has not been so lucky.

Through the blinding hunger, her mind restarts to screaming panic, not exactly forgetting the events leading up to this. Hunger wins out, as it claws at her and grips her, forcing her just as much as David is.  She knows that his blood is her fountain, that it pours a trickle of water into the deep, cracked-earth well that is her stomach. Her mouth feels too wide, her teeth too large, like her body's desperately trying to become something more suited to getting this stuff inside as fast as possible.

The dark red is a shocking electric color -- a color she's never seen or noticed before. And getting it inside is comforting -- like someone you trust running their fingers through your hair, telling you it will be okay. But then, they grab your head and shove it where they want it to go. Into the dirt. Her mind is screaming so loud. That's blood. That's blood, Verna. Why does it feel so good? What happened? What happened?

What happened?

Why is she so hungry?

Why is she doing this?

She tries to pull back, shuts her mouth to what is life, and immediately the hunger objects, wants, craves...

Dead muscles twitch back to life, and she struggles. Mouth closed, there's a noise in her throat -- a muffled cry.

Verna Gardner
[Strength/Brawl = escaaape! 7 diff because no brawl.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (7, 9) ( success x 2 )

cruor
[Strength/Brawl. No stay still.]

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

cruor
His fingers tighten just enough to keep her in a hold, though she struggles to escape. Too late, Verna. Too late. His blood stains her veins now, occupies her unbeating heart. She struggles well; perhaps one night (no more days) that will be a consolation,

He doesn't take his wrist away; she can feel the blood on her lips as he presses his wrist close against them. His hand has a tremor, and his own mouth is stained; his throat is stained; his cheeks are fucking stained, all with the ghost of blood, as if he tried to wash his face but did so imperfectly. He did try to wash his face. He doesn't want to terrorize her.

... Any further.

"I know you're probably scared and pretty pissed, but you've, you've gotta listen to me, you've gotta take more. You're a survivor right you're tenacious so you've gotta take more."

There's a whisper of an accent in the man's voice which wasn't there before, something unfamiliar and slightly thick; the closest to it now-a-days is deep Maritimes accent, but once it was accounted Irish. It's only a whisper, it's only a bastard.

Verna Gardner
[Self Control! Try not to do what the murderer tells you, Verna!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (3, 4) ( fail )

Verna Gardner
She gives it a good effort. She tries to keep her mouth closed, but there's his wrist, there's his blood, and it overwhelms her senses. It pools between her lips, and she can almost taste it right before a muttered "No..." opens her mouth slightly, and...

Oh, it's like the heaven she's never believed in.

As much as she doesn't want to do what this man tells her, suddenly she's straining against him in the opposite direction, tries to wrap her lips around his wrist, and the voice in her throat changes to a groan of pleasure.

cruor
The Beast. That's what they call the force (the drive [the need]) which pushes her forward though she wants to pull back. The Beast can be frightening in and of itself, because it is a loss of control; because it wants terrible things. So Verna drinks, and the blonde who killed her winces and his brow wrinkles as he nods in time to her swallowing, counting his strength. He was nice and full, after all: he'd drained her dry; it's fitting, isn't it, that he give a lot back?

So Verna drinks, and Verna drinks, and the haze begins to fade though the pleasure of the drink does not fade (indeed no; it wants to be her breath, her reason yet for living, her moon and her heartbeat and the marrow of her bones; it wants her, that pleasure), and at some point she is no longer driven to keep drinking

although she is not yet full.

Verna Gardner
Finally, finally, she manages to push away again, to stop doing what should be disgusting. What if he has some sort of disease?

"Stop!" she cries, though his wrist is still in the way, his blood slicking her lips, dripping from her chin. "What are you doing?"

She tries to escape his grasp again, writhing through the grip he has on her. Oh, what next? What can he think to do to her? She doesn't want to find out.

[Strength/Brawl = escaaaape! Diff 7 because no brawl]

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (6, 8) ( success x 1 )

cruor
[No escape, why don't you like me?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

cruor
Stop! she cries, and he stops. He stops forcing her to drink of him, pulling his wrist away and putting it to his own while he watches her unblinking over the line of it. His eyes are still rather sorrowful, but the stillness of them takes their expression away from the quite human. He doesn't release the back of her neck, though she struggles and nearly escapes. His grip is not implaccable, just as David does not quite get how to be an implaccable monster. This night would be much easier if he was better at that, but c'est la vie (c'est la mort?).

What is he doing?

What a good question.

He licks his own wrist, and when he is done, there's no wound at all. Just more ghosts of blood, staining his otherwise pale skin. Speaking of wounds, her chest -- it hurt when she woke but now it feels different.

 "There, see?" He holds his wrist up to show her: look, Ma, no wound. "What I'm doing is trying to help you. We've gotta do something about your chest. I'm fucking ... I'm really sorry, okay? I know you're probably not gonna trust me right away, but I really need you to. You really need you to. I'll let you go," a gentle squeeze of the back of her neck, "if you promise to listen."

Verna Gardner
[Perc + Empathy = I'm listening because you have me by the neck... What was that?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

cruor
He sounds sincere. He looks sincere. Verna thinks he's sincere. She's been fooled before. The skin around his eyes and mouth is taut with stress, with no little fear, and there was a tremor to his hand the one the wrist he held to her mouth something he forces away though his fingers are sure on the back of her neck he really seems to want her to listen ayup.

cruor
And she'll notice that he's not quite looking at her chest, like he can't bring himself to.

Verna Gardner
"I was trying to do something about my..." chest. Which feels strange now. The pain is gone, and that makes her panic, makes her try to touch her breastbone cautious. There's a hole in her sweater, blood everywhere of course -- hers and his wound together in a mess of red soaked into blue yarn.

"My chest. You stabbed me. You stabbed me!"

She's frantic, close to screaming in panic, having been caught by the man who randomly, violently attacked her. It seems as though she doesn't have much control over that listening part. Too much of her is wrapped up in replaying events in her mind, trying to figure out what is going on.

She's terrified of him. A sorry isn't going to fix this, David.

"Somebody help me!" She screams, though not to him. To whoever. To somebody, out there, who won't come. They never come. She still tries.

cruor
My chest. You stabbed

"Yes," he says, trying to speak over her.

me. Somebody help me! He's still speaking, but her scream is loud. He winces.

"I thought you were a -- "

The walls drink up her voice; his fingers have loosened, but he hasn't let her go.

" -- vampire. I see now that I was ... mistaken." Frustration bleeds into his voice and his fingers want to tighten on her throat again, shake her; what is she, that he saw what he saw? Was it an omen? A foretelling?

He can't grow pale.

"Jesus Christ. If you need to scream out, go ahead. I'll wait until you're done."



Verna Gardner
She doesn't have any more breath at the end of that scream, but there is no need in her to draw another. Just fear's need to let itself out the noisy way.

Jesus Christ. If you need to scream out, go ahead. I'll wait until you're done.

Oh, of course. He's dragged her to a place where no-one will hear her. He says to scream it out, even as his fingers grow tight on her throat again, and she just stares, wide-eyed, shaking.

"What are you going to do to me?" she asks, and for once it seems the fight has left her. Her voice shakes as much as she does. She doesn't want to know.

cruor
"That depends on you. I'd like to teach you how to take care of yourself. Teach you how to survive. Teach you how to be a better Ventrue than I am."

The young man (monster) lets her go. He slides back across the floor. The floor is cement. And cold. Everything is cold now; everything will always be cold now, because this is a grave. This takes him out of the direct circle of light, pale butter yellow, and gives his face more shadows; makes him look older, though he'll never look very old, gives him an air of distant introspection.

"If you concentrate on your chest healing, it'll get ...better. But you've gotta try You should be able to do it now just by thinking about it. It's like a muscle flexing. It's a strange sensation. I remember it being a strange sensation."

Verna Gardner
As soon as he lets her go, she starts searching in the shadows for the door. Of course she does. Verna is a fighter, and she just doesn't want to do what her murderer says to. Who would?

"You're crazy! Crazy! I've got to get to a hospital!"

Verna Gardner
[Wits + Alertness! Diff 7]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 3, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

cruor
"You're not going to a hospital," David says, and that's all. "Christ." Now that he seems to have decided to let her flutter around and tire herself out (that's what you're supposed to do, right?), he seems calmer. Had he seemed lacking in calm before? Under strain? Nothing close to the lack of calm of his poor victim. His pants whisperrush against the cement and he hauls himself up one handed.

There isn't a visible door, per se. But there is a doorway, a flight of five stairs and then more darkness, so it's safe to presume the door is in that shadowy recess. David's heading for those stairs. To leave? To lock her in here until she dies (oh, but didn't she already)?

Verna Gardner
She looks down at her chest, at the hole in her, at her bloodied self.

"Why!? I need help! You did this to me, you should take me to a hospital!"

He said to concentrate on her chest healing, as though that would actually work. The man is mad. Twisted. Schizoid maybe. Why does she feel so strange?

This is a tomb. Her tomb, she thinks. Panic threatens to overwhelm again, and she rushes for the stairs, to try to push him out of the way.

Verna Gardner
[Init! + 5]

Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (6) ( fail )

cruor
[+6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

Verna Gardner
[Dex + Ath -1 wound penalty!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (7, 8) ( success x 2 )

cruor
[Dex + Ath, I catch you around the waist. My hair is already turning gray.]

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

cruor
"You don't nee -- " whoosh. Verna rushes past David. Verna is just a little bit quicker, just a little bit sharper, even injured, even confused and hungry and a fledgling immortal, Verna's drive gives her an edge.

Unfortunately for her, David, though slower on the uptake tonight, is uninjured and is no slack when it comes to the physical arts. As she rushes by, just after she rushes by and reaches one of the stairs, he catches her with an arm around her waist. He pushes, too, pushes blood the way he wants her to, though not to heal himself; to make himself stronger, so he is better able to hold her.

"Shh! Stop it! Stop it!"

Verna Gardner
"No! No!"

Again, she's caught, again she cries out. Oh, it's still hard to get enough of a breath to actually make that cry last long, but she tries.

And then, finally, she tries to calm herself, even in the arms of this animal of a man.

"Why should I stop? Explain to me why I should listen to the man who tried to murder me! Why won't you let me get help?"

Tried to. She doesn't think herself dead.

Her voice changes then, from the wild, unrestrained panicky thing, to just barely in control.

"Look. I won't tell anyone. I won't get you in trouble. Just let me... Let me get medical attention. Please. I'm going to die. You don't want me to die, do you?"

cruor
"Of course I don't!" David yells. His voice can fill a room; he has the potential to make it a thunder clap, to make it resonate, to make it a presence. He can, occasionally, summon up a ferocity that has nothing to do with the Beast taking over blotting out who he is leaving him with horror.

He ends with a bitten-off sound, something halfway between a groan and a snarl. "Look," and he's still facing the door, still has her around the waist with his arm, just lifting her like so see. "You want to make deals? Just do what I said. Concentrate on healing your chest. Really do it. Mind over matter, Verna. If you do that, we'll see about the hospital."

Verna Gardner
Verna doesn't believe in mind over matter. She doesn't believe in it so much. But still, her mind has been on that wound, on how the stake had felt going in, how much pain.

Her hand goes to her chest. Why doesn't it hurt? It's just a mass of strange, spongy, wet...

Her mind goes to the image he wants her to think upon, of her chest healing up. It's like telling someone not to think of a purple rhinoceros. But she doesn't actually think it will work.

"Look. I tried. Please? Just, let me go? I'll get there on my own. I swear I won't tell anyone."

Verna Gardner
[Stamina!]

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

cruor
Verna might not really think it will work, but she's young (new), and her new body works somewhat by instinct. As her mind turns to her broken chest, as she thinks about the pain (oh, it throbs), the throbbing gets more intense. And the bone reknits. And the muscle becomes whole again, unbruised. And the edge to her hunger sharpens up, as if she'd just run it over a whetstone. But her body feels better, and if she goes on touching her chest, she'll feel the flesh become whole again beneath her fingertips; if she touches her chest again after letting her hand fall away, why, it's as if she never was injured. Using blood, purposefully, the way she just did has a certain feel; it is an effort, and she feels the effort, though she may not understand it. Even babies have flop over and try to crawl at some point.

"You really tried?" David sounds disbelieving. "Lemme see the wound."

Verna Gardner
She doesn't even hear what he's saying. She was touching her chest when it healed under her fingers, and that. is. not. possible.

"Oh... what... what?" Her eyes wide, her mouth open, she tries to make some sense of a world that has just gone senseless.

"This isn't possible. I can't. I can't. I... no. No. I have to get out of here. I can't."

Babbling, the last refuge of the brain when it slams into the wall of reality.

cruor
David may or may not be prepared for this, but he can understand it at least. Every new vampire has a moment of mental break, of disbelief unsuspended. He doesn't breathe out in relief at finally being given something in the script he can understand, because he doesn't need to breathe, and it isn't always his instinct. It often is. It isn't always.
He settles himself on the stairs, arms folded ready to block her if she tries to rush for the door again.

"I thought you were supposed to be brilliant," he doesn't repeat the caveat which usually accompanied that assessment, when he was tracking down leads. "A scientist. Are you arrogant enough to think you know what's impossible? You don't need a hospital. You don't need medical attention at all. You need, uh..."

Nervousness makes that last sentence very brisk.

Verna Gardner
He lets her go and sits on the stairs, ready to be her roadblock, and Verna staggers back, prodding at her flesh and disbelieving everything. He stabbed her in the heart. There was so much blood and pain. Now her flesh is knitted and her sweater isn't -- a fact which causes her to start and draw the hole closed. She doesn't want to let her clothes unravel in front of him. Already that ragged place where the stake went through is in a bad location, showing off a pink, bloodstained bow attached to her bra.

Funny how modesty seems to be a requirement now, when the world is falling apart. She'll let her mind go, but not too far. Calm down, Verna. This isn't real.

David insults her again, and there are many many angry responses to that one.

Impossible? Perhaps not. So improbable, it's composed of trillions of individual events that by themselves are unlikely to happen naturally in the course of an age of the universe? Yes. What's more likely here? That somehow she has developed regeneration superpowers, a thermodynamic miracle unexplainable by science, or that she's been slipped LSD? Probably by that fiend?

This is how she puts things to rights again, piecing together a world that makes sense.

She licks her lips, finds some traces of his blood there, so delicious. It's hard to ignore how utterly blood-drenched she is, especially with the hunger within gnawing again.


"A bath," she says, in a small voice.

cruor
The new vampire's sire rubs his forehead with the pads of his index and middle finger, and his expression skitters over to a corner of the basement, beyond (of course) the weak lamp light.

"Oh. There's a shower."

Time to examine the shadows in greater detail.

There is a leather chair, rather nice. A wardrobe box. A pile of magazines and newspapers. A table with a sheet thrown over it, equipment beneath. A chair with a sheet thrown over it. A metal sink. A shelving unit, also metal. Everything is very sterile. There are boxes, not very dusty. There's a small refrigerator, the kind that college students use. An old first generation IBM home computer, an even older arcade game. A number of tables with sheets covering them, to tell the truth.

And in a corner, one of those industrial floor showers, which upon examination would show rust around the drain, a bar of Dove Men, and some hotel samples of shampoo. There's no door. There's just some tiling, the drain, the shower head.


The basement doesn't look lived in.

Verna Gardner
Suddenly, it becomes more obvious where she is. This tomb has furniture and a disgusting shower with no privacy to it, and Verna realizes with horror that she is intended to use it. In front of him? The look she gives him after is full of a different kind of fear. Before, she was worried about dying. Now she's worried about living through whatever it is David plans to do to her in this room.

"Oh," she says, distant, while her eyes trail off of him again, to the shadows of this decrepit 'living' space.

He means to keep her here, doesn't he? To drug her and torture her to drive her crazy, making her think she's dying, making her think she's drinking blood. She looks like she might be ready to cry, if she weren't so focused on not doing that. And she keeps glancing in his direction, looking, pleading...


Waiting for an opening.

cruor
Whether or not the blonde can guess at the fears running through Verna's mind, the denials and the hopes and the horrors, he does not now seem moved (though he winces, once, as she gives him that look with the big eyes).

The time stretches, a thread unsnapped, David by the stairs as if they need to be guarded as implacable as he can make himself, but now that she's not screaming or dying in his arms his mind keeps wandering away.


And then he clears his throat and says, "I have no interest in watching you in the shower. I'm not gonna cut you up or or anything like that. You can shower or not, just like you can scream or not."

Verna Gardner
What an utter peach of a man. And he wondered why she didn't want him to walk her to her car? But what little care he shows her -- the assurances that he isn't going to kill her, that he doesn't want her to die? Those little winces of contrition? She wants to hang on them -- to bottle them up and keep them safe. They're her little glimmer of hope.

Part of that is the blood talking. Everything about him is important, for all its unsavoriness. After all, at this particular point in time, he owns her.

He says he's not going to cut her up, and she just stares at him.

It's then that she realizes that she hasn't been breathing. It's the first time they've spent in silence since she drank from his wrist, and with no need to talk, she just forgot. There's the hiss of an inhale that doesn't seem to do anything, no relief of pressure or need. Still, she starts consciously breathing again, looking rather concerned at the floor.

Still, she asks him no questions. What would be the point in asking about a hallucination?


Eventually, she moves -- walks slowly toward the corner with the shower in it. She's not going to undress in front of the man, but at least she might be able to wash her face and hands.

cruor
One shower knob is coated in green rubber, the other in red, and they require a small effort past the sticking point to work, but the water when it comes will come harsh and fast and needle-sharp and cold for about a second before hot water comes -- if it comes.

David doesn't interfere with Verna at this moment in time. He stays by the door and watches her walk toward the shower, then he drops his head and puts both hands up in the air, from the air to his spiky hair, then from his hair down across his face, from his face into his back pocket.


Verna's phone is gone, but he has one, and he glances at Verna to see what she's doing, taking a step up the stairs before he dares open it. 

Verna Gardner
She tries the green knob, wrenching it when it doesn't budge at first. The water should hurt, shouldn't it? This cold and sharp? But she carefully rolls her sleeves up and washes her hands in it, trying to remove the worst of the caked-on dried blood. Is that even blood? Or is she actually washing bare skin? She doesn't know or care at the moment. She just wants to feel clean.

She grabs the soap off its little rack and starts scrubbing, and then goes after her fingernails, all meticulous. It's hard to see how much of the stuff she's getting off in the dark, and that just prompts her to keep at it until she's sure. And then it's time for the face. Even her hair is caked at the ends, though. It's going to take more than a bar of soap to really do the job, and she's not keen on stepping into the stream fully clothed. So she tries to lean carefully into the water and scrub with the soap. No towel. And her sweater's so stained, she'd probably make it worse if she tried to wipe her face with her sleeve. So dirty. She's not satisfied. But then, she won't be, until she can get a proper shower and a change of clothes, and, oh yes -- away from this place.

David might notice how she keeps an eye on him, always looking at him with blank, wide eyes, never speaking. He goes to make a phone call, and that is noted. That's him getting distracted. For now, she tries to act docile. Just resigned to her fate over here -- washing up like a good girl. Definitely not planning on bolting again, no sir.

When she walks back into the light, you can see now how pale her face is, how bloodless. She looks as sick and exhausted as she feels.


And again, there's a sharp intake of breath as she remembers how important breathing should be.

cruor
David doesn't know exactly how much of herself Verna put into fighting for her life, but he doesn't find it questionable (or even objectionable) that she should be too wrung out to keep fighting and fighting and fighting. Even the worthless rabble believe in the power of someone's will, that a will is as good if not better than a soul if there's even any difference between.

He makes a phonecall. Maybe Verna tries to hear some of what he says. It's not impossible, though the water is loud and it blocks some of his words. His voice breaks once, on the word done it now. Handle it. She hears her name and then he lowers his voice, cupping his hand around the receiver.

He even puts a hand to the back of his head, turning once on the step; quickly, like he doesn't want her at his back, not as if he's afraid per se but worried -- yes; worried, concerned. When she leaves the shower corner, he looks more deliberately in her direction. He'd avoided it while he was on the phone and the water was running. When he sees that she's dressed, etc., he says, "Gonna sit?"

And Verna can hear the low sound of somebody's raised voice on the other line.

Verna
She shakes her head, eyes the phone, eyes the stairs and the door. Whoever he's talking to, he's told her name. So maybe they know what happened and don't care? Instead of having a seat, she goes over to wander near the wall.

Thing is, David, she's not too keen on doing anything you say. Has she ever been?

In this silent treatment, she runs over the visions she's had so far this night, and tries to pinpoint where it all went lopsided and terrible.

cruor
Verna doesn't want to do what David says. This is going to make their relationship going forward rather awkward, especially once the fuzz gets wind of her existence. He can't say he blames her. He doesn't interrupt her wandering, around and around the basement, poking toward this wall and toward that. Maybe she thinks this is what the next ten years of her life is going to be like. There are many stories about women who are kidnapped and kept for years, only to escape by sheer chance.

David takes a step up another stair and plops down, spreading his legs wide planting the boots firmly on the ground one hand on his knee taking up all that room, and Verna can hear him finish his conversation, but he keeps it to a harsh and harried whisper now.

An hour passes like this. At some point, David takes the battery out of his cell, and puts that in one pocket, puts his cell in the other pocket, folds his arms across his chest and watches Verna pace.

It's a meditative experience, in some respects. He can't believe he killed her. He can't believe he fucking Embraced her. He scrubs at his face a few times.

Another hour passes like this, and dawn's not so distant any longer.

They've still got time to kill. He clears his throat and says, "So. How's the chest feeling? Better?"

Verna
"Who were you talking to?" comes her answer, only it is not an answer to his question. She doesn't want to talk about her chest. That didn't happen. Obviously not. Or she'd be dead right now.

She's busy investigating his ancient computer. Maybe this is where he stores the things he doesn't use anymore? And this thing hold some kind of sentimental value? She wonders how long she'll be stored here...

In a place with no books, and an old video game to keep her company. And her kidnapper.

She looks to him, noting how he doesn't move off of the steps he's occupied since the last time she tried to bolt for them. Surely there's an easier way to keep her here than his being a watchdog.

cruor
"Somebody with the power to keep us both alive, I hope," David replies.

The ancient computer is a functional one. Verna could plug it in and turn it on, if she's interested in museum pieces. Sentimental value might be the right word for the junk he has here.

Verna
"What do you mean?" Verna says, confused. Up until now, she considered David to be pretty much her only threat. What is he going on about now?

Just breathe, Verna. Literally -- remember to breathe. And remember that this man lies. Remember that he's insane. Remember that no matter what he says, it might be a hallucination anyway.

cruor
David bites the inside of his lip and puffs out his cheeks. It's a not very flattering thinking pose, and he pushes his jaw askew too. Then he lets his breath out in a puff.

"You're not freaking out about drinking blood or healing your chest any longer, so going forward I'm going to assume you're in shock or denial or something. I don't know, maybe you're biding your time. Maybe you think you're dreaming. That's just fine, keep thinking you're dreaming. I'm going to explain some shit to you anyway because it's got to be done."

"You're a vampire now.

"You died. I'm sorry, it was a mistake. You're a Ventrue. Ventrue is the name of your clan, of our clan. It's the strongest, most noble. I'm what you'd call a black sheep. Not fucking literally, but I'm not exactly the stereotype. I turned you because I didn't mean to kill you. Unfortunately, uh, that's not exactly the way things work, so there's the possibility that we'll both get in trouble."

Euphemisms for children. Childer.

"I'm your Sire. I'm responsible for teaching you how not to murder people on the street when you get too hungry and for keeping you from going around shouting oh em gee I am totally a vampire look if you cut me I will bleed but not that much and then I'll heal."

"The person I was talking to can help with all that. I'll owe them. So will you, once you're fit for society again. I don't remember how long it took me to adjust. I didn't have any warning either, but uh... It was different."

What a liar liar liar.

Verna
Verna blinks at him. Stays silent.

You're a vampire now. You died.

Oh, my. He's worse than she thought. There's one thing -- he called somebody. And hopefully that somebody isn't as crazy as he is. Hopefully they realize what really happened and are coming to free her from this lunatic.

"Is that why you came at me with a stake? This... vampire thing?"

Vampire thing. And note how she is no longer saying she was stabbed. She does think she's dreaming, David.

cruor
"Sort of. I thought you were already a vampire. A bad one, like that woman with the shadows; do you remember the woman with the shadows, and her friend?"

David starts chewing on his thumbnail, so his voice is a touch muffled. He briefly examines his cuticles, a nervous flicker flash of gaze, anxious and dolorous and that's just going to be Verna's memory of David's face if in the future she ever tries to recall it. Anxious, dolorous.

Verna
Verna shakes her head. "You saw them too?"

No. No, don't go there. Don't start believing him.

She recovers quickly. "So. You came to the conclusion, after talking to me for a few minutes, that I was a bad vampire and needed to die. So you stalked me with a stake and kidnapped me," Verna says, speaking slowly and carefully, like she's talking to a rabid dog.

"Do you realize how... I'm not saying you're insane. It just.... doesn't sound good. Don't you think that... perhaps.. it might be a good idea to stop doing things that sound... that bad?"

"I mean... hah. You're now holding a young woman prisoner in your basement. See? It sounds like a mistake, doesn't it?"

cruor
"Verna." David makes a gesture with his left hand, as if he'd reach out to her, though he doesn't get up from his spot on the stairs. He sounds gentle: "No."

"A mistake was made. You weren't a vampire. I don't know why I misread what I saw so badly, but if what I'd seen in your aura was true staking you was the only honorable option. Then they came, the woman with the shadows and her packmate, and I lost control, and I drained you.

"I drained you, and I'm sorry, god I'm sorry," his voice cracks again and he covers his mouth with his palm, turning his head slightly to the side. Regains his composure, "So I carried your body away from that place, and I didn't want you to die, so I turned you here where I could deal with your fear and panic and doubt without endangering anybody else."

"Right now, you are a danger to everybody you love and everybody you dislike. Right now, you could kill someone so much more easily than I killed you. You have no control. You don't even believe you're hungry! I can see it god."

The accent has thickened, too; so at the end it's more difficult to understand him if one doesn't have an ear for accents, the old Irish coming out.

"You're not a young woman any more. You're a Ventrue. If anything happens to me, remember you're a Ventrue," he sounds like he has qualms, along those lines. "Anything's better than being a Caitiff."

Verna
"I am... hungry. I'm very hungry. I didn't have any dinner tonight, I was working," she says, careful again.

"A mistake was made," she nods. Slowly. "But you don't have to keep making them."

She sighs, walks over to one of the not-so-good chairs and sits. She doesn't want to get blood all over the nice chair.

"Look. I just want to go home, get something to eat, take a shower, change out of these dirty clothes. I'm not going to hurt anybody."

Denial is strong in Verna, isn't it?

cruor
He nods with fervor when she tells him he doesn't have to keep making mistakes. He doesn't have to. He can't. Oh god, he can't. He can't go pale but the sentiment is there, has been there, will continue to be there, the shadow marks of strain around his eyes.

"Do you live alone? What's your favourite color? There's..." He hesitates; then swallows. "There's the refrigerator. You can have whatever you want from the refrigerator."

Verna
Do you live alone? "Yes. I do. And my favorite color is blue."

If David knew that her favorite color is blue because it reminds her of a Tremere Ancilla's eyes who she once loved because he forced it on her? What would he think? Perhaps: how much worse could it get?

She smiles a little nervous twitch when he says she can have anything she wants out of the fridge. Normally, eating strange things out of a stranger's beer cooler would be about on the bottom of her list of things that are cool to do. But she wasn't lying when she said she was very hungry. So she stands, and walks over to it -- pulls open the door. What's inside?

cruor
The refrigerator isn't very full, it is true. There's a jar of jelly, for some reason, and then a few bottles of dark red liquid, and some string cheese.

If Verna looks in the freezer, she'll find an ice cube tray with little homemade popsicles. They're also a dark red, the color of blood, frozen cherry.

"I'll get you some clothes," David promises. "And some privacy. You won't be down here forever."

Verna
"Ohh," Verna says, and smiles. "I'm glad. I hope, hah, that I won't be down here forever, no. That would be... a mistake, right?"

A part of her really wants that dark red liquid. It must be what he drugged her with. Is she addicted now? It felt so good. But she's not going to fall for that easily again. She goes for the string cheese, breaks off one of the logs from the package, and peels it.

She gives David a nod. "Thanks."

She remembers what string cheese is supposed to taste like. But when she bites into the apparently good cheese, it tastes rotten -- like she'd expect this suspect this stuff to be full of worms rotten. It's disgusting. She spits it out into her hand and makes a noise of revulsion.

"I'm terribly sorry. I think your cheese has gone bad."

cruor
He watches her with something like apprehension, just kept in check; apprehension or fascination, and then she chokes on the string cheese, and he rubs his knee and stares at his knuckles before he flicks his unblinking gaze back at her.

Her stomach is upset now, Verna, wants to roil up; she must be thankful that she didn't swallow anything as it settles.

"Sorry," he says. "I keep that for the ghouls. You might try the popsicle."

Sure, David. 'Popsicle.'

Verna
For the ghouls. Right.

With her back to him, and her head back in the fridge, Verna winces. How long has that cheese been in here? He doesn't eat it. She doesn't even want to check the expiration date, because she stuck that in her mouth.

She lays the cheese on top of the refrigerator, and pulls open the freezer door to find his homemade popsicles. They're red. She's apprehensive of that bit. They're not wrapped. They could be made of anything.

"They're not... drugged are they? We were talking about not making more mistakes."

cruor
"They're not drugged," David says. "I don't know how, er, nutritious they are, but you can try them."

Verna is new. Verna is so new. New, and Ventrue, blueblooded Camarilla aristocracy, and Ventrue have very refined tastes.

It's a mystical quality, and while she can fill herself on David's blood without problem, David's taste was not necessarily passed down. They have a small grace period for 'experimentation,' before their blood-weakness manifests itself.

When that window shuts, it's a shame.

Verna
Okay. Just some popsicles. From a vampire-obsessed crazy-man's basement beer cooler. Verna sighs. Is she really this hungry? This desperate?

She takes one of them by the stick and wiggles it free. Apparently, yes. She does stare at it for a while first, though. It looks... like cherry. That's what it is. Cherry. Not drugged. He said so. She closes the door to the fridge, with her potentially tainted treat in hand.

He lies, Verna. He's not a nice man, and he's crazy.

But, in the end, her stomach decides its had enough, and she goes for it. When she bites into the thing, her mouth feels wrong, and her sense of taste says it's all right. She takes the whole thing at once, and tries to swallow it before it's fully melted even. And once she's done consuming the thing that does not taste like cherries at all, her hand goes up to her lip, her tongue feels for her teeth -- they're...

She starts again, at the sensation of her fangs.

"You... you lied."

cruor

"What?" David's voice is taut.

He'd watched her consume the popsicle without comment. He didn't have much access to blood-on-tap, but like his own sire always used to say, better to have something on ice than find you're coming up short. The other clans may mock the Ventrue for their civility, their rigid adherence to law, may call them soft; but it's harder for Ventrue. Fuck those other clans. Ventrue are the truest hunters: instead of being satisfied with hitting the target, they go for a bull's eye. He runs his fingers across the knuckles of his other hand idly, forehead creasing.

"Oh. I did not," firmly. "Your body has gone through changes. Your fangs are coming in. They retract, but they'll help you make a cut to suck from when you're ready for that kind of responsibility."


He's not ready for this kind of responsibility. His face is about as long as somebody's face who looks so much like an elf or goblin could get.

Verna

She'd just managed to get some semblance of control back, and now this. He's doing his vampire thing again, and her mind is playing tricks with the suggestions he plants.

"There's something addictive in those things," she says, and in the absence of a trash can (or at least, one she can see) puts the stick of the bloodsicle on top of the fridge to join the half-chewed string cheese, shaky-handed. "I could tashte it."

Her fangs -- she's not used to talking with her mouth full of teeth. She closes her eyes and wishes them gone -- wants her normal teeth back. They scare her. They're just more evidence that she's losing her mind. And so, they retract as David says.

She could get angry again, try to rush the stairs, ask him why -- why would he keep doing these horrible things. But it wouldn't help. And he'll just keep sticking to his ridiculous story. He lies, oh he lies. And she tries to convince herself that she'd rather starve than take any more of what he gives her. She is hungry, and it gnaws, but -- would that vampire-obsessed freak actually feed her blood? She remembers drinking from his wrist, how good it felt. It was impossible. It could not have actually happened, could it?


Her face is stuck in a fear-pose, wide-eyes and mouth slack. It's the default that she goes to whenever she's not pretending at civility. And all the while, clutching at her chest like someone might clutch at pearls, but no -- she grasps the blood-drenched bull's eye of her death blow. Yeah, David -- you certainly hit a target. She's staring at him like that all the way away from the fridge, to go join the shadows at the opposite side of the room. Silent.

cruor

And so the night will go.

The blonde with tattoos ghosting under his shirt will stick to his story. He'll stick to his story and he'll stick to his stoop his patch by the stairs and he's a self-professed black sheep a gangster a thug a Ventrue sure but she doesn't yet know how much he sticks out and maybe she'll never know.

He sticks to his story. He evidences guilt and remorse, but he sticks to his story like it's glue and he's a fly.

I'm sorry. You're a vampire, kindred as we say. There's nothing addictive in those popsicles. Nothing addictive in that refrigerator. You're probably going to have to get a new identity, maybe we'll have to leave Denver. Ha.

He laughs at that. He laughs the kind of laughter that means something's so unfunny it's transformed. Transfigured. He wipes his eyes like they tear up.

I'm sorry, he says. And then he talks about the Masquerade. He talks about the mystery of the thing. He talks about a friend, who'll help him make it okay. He says he's sorry. I'm sorry, he says.

And there's a lot of blank space, when he doesn't talk and she doesn't talk. He offers her books. He doesn't have very many. Most of his books are on his kindle, tyvm, which he does not have down in this lair, so Verna has her choice of a Ulysses a la James Joyce, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, or a book on Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution by Deborah Harkness.


He takes a pen from a pocket and makes notes in a moleskine journal, keeping a wary eye on her. Questions she might ask, he tries to answer. Toward dawn, he says, "You should get comfortable. The sun's going to come up and it's going to make you awfully drowsy. You're going to fall asleep. Me too."

Verna

He still sticks to his story, and she still sticks to hers -- at least, inside. There might come a night soon where she accepts what's happened, but that's not quite yet. Let the shock wear off. Let her meet others besides this single man whom she does not trust. Maybe then. Maybe after she performs experiments on herself (Try not to breathe. Cut your hair. Take your temperature again and again and again) it will be easier to believe. And then? Well, that's a breakdown for another time.

For now, she keeps her old world cobbled together out of the need to hold on to reason and keep herself sane. She needs to survive. She needs to escape this. Looking closely at the truth won't help with that right now. David is not her kind of person. That makes it easier to blame him for everything from drugging her to kidnapping her -- everything but killing her.

In the blank spaces, in between his apologies and his explanations, Verna will stare at him from the shadows of the opposite wall. In these times, she thinks of nothing other than escape, lost cause as that might seem. Some time now, he'll get up, he'll get distracted, she'll charge the door. But he never does.

She declines a book. "Do you honestly believe I want to read right now? I've just been kidnapped. I've got... blood all over me, and you want me to read a book? I'd get it dirty." She's been killed. Kidnapped. Buried. Embraced. Reading just isn't as high on the list right now as it might otherwise be.

He says the sun is about to rise, and she will fall asleep. She doesn't believe that either.

"I doubt that very much. I doubt I'll sleep for days," she says, even though she feels it. Like the adrenaline is finally crashing, she thinks, in calming rationality as the earth rotates and the sun creeps towards the horizon.


Verna doubts, but she sleeps eventually. She tries to keep standing, but the drowsiness kicks in and she slides down the wall to hug her knees. Then, she slumps over -- decidedly uncomfortable, but at this point it doesn't matter much. One thing, though? She keeps her arms crossed over the hole in her sweater. The memory of that hallucinatory event won't go away for anything.

cruor

Every vampire can feel the ebb and flow of dawn's approach, if they think about it. Verna doesn't know, and perhaps will never know, how unusual these current nights are, when it doesn't matter how far from humanity one has sunk, everybody sleeps at the same time: when red smudges the horizon, when the sun first appears. Not before.

And then there is nothing but silence. As she struggles to stay awake (and her limbs won't obey her, and her eyelids are so heavy), she can see David going through the same struggle, but even David becomes a fixed wax effigy, and...


Hello, darkness. Until she rises again.