Sen stared at the ceiling and grit his teeth as agony continued to shoot through his body. Now the pain extended to his lungs and he started to have difficulty breathing. Each inhalation caused razor hot needles to sieze his lungs, and he had to struggle to take another breath. Was this the end? So some worthless girl put a curse on him to eat his insides and that was that? No, Sen Inoue was not destroyed so easily. He would not be taken like this. Worst of all, Blake left to go fight his battle for him and that was something Sen would not live down.

The only problem was that he did not have enough strength to sit anymore. Fuck. God, no, I can't die. He groaned as he attempted to push himself up into a sitting position despite his body protesting and with no energy to do so. "Fuck," he whispered and fell back on the bed, his next breath particularly laboured. "Elisa, stand me up." Though his voice was a low whisper, he made it as commanding as possible. She was his and would do what he said - Blake should no longer have any sway over her actions. Sen's hand reached out to grab her and she was now in the blurry center of his gaze. Most of all, he did not want to die lying on a bed.

"I need to stand." It took a great deal of energy and breath, but he needed to say this.

He had no choice but to wait until night fell again to go back to where he'd left Jen chained to a table. Time was running out, quickly, but getting there in the daytime meant that he was courting getting fried by the sun. Not his style at all. There was no reason for him to risk going after her during the daytime when he was weaker and tired.

This gave him a chance to wash and change clothes. So when he walked back into the room, he was completely at ease with everything. She was still there because she hadn't been strong enough to get out of the restraint that he'd attached her to the table with.

Walking in, he sat down on the table, practically kicking his legs like a child. Of course, he could do something overtly violent now, but that would take all the fun out of her getting a chance to look at him again and trying to figure out what exactly he might do to her.

"You realize that I'm going to kill you, right, darling?" It was easy and conversational, exactly the kind of thing that Blake could and would say no matter what situation he was in.

Sen looked for all intents and purposes like a bloody rag doll. Emphasis being on the rag doll part of that description. Blake cradled him to his chest carefully, all too aware that Sen was, despite being unconscious, undoubtedly in a lot of pain. That was just a given. Few people managed to get out of being strapped to a table and tortured without feeling a great deal of pain. That was the point of torture after all.

( Read more... )

Blake left Elisa sitting in Sen's apartment, his stalk soundless but to anyone who knew him, he was royally pissed. There were few things that upset him. Perhaps the only thing that he really disliked was someone mistreating his toys without his permission. Or in this case, arranging a kidnapping without his say so. Everything required his say so.

( He was a control freak after all. )

After this.

Elisa was surprised by the sound of someone walking into Sen's apartment. She had been sitting in front of his couch, her arms wrapped around her knees, crimson tears running down her face. Then suddenly there was someone there. Easy, confident footsteps in Sen's apartment. At first, she thought it might be him. That Sen had come back. But the scent was wrong. Those cigarettes weren't Sen's cigarettes. That smoke wasn't Sen's smoke and he didn't smoke much in his apartment anyway, not willing to deal with the way that it saturated into the fabric of his things.

( No, this was not Sen. )

Sen awoke to find himself lying on a table and when he tried to move his arm, he saw it was anchored to the spot and attached with a chain. What the fuck, he thought and attempted to shrink his hand in order to slip it out of the restraint. Nothing happened. That had never happened until now, the loss of ability and he thought at first he hadn't been concentrating. So he tried again.

( Still nothing. )

Sen left the apartment of one of his bandmates and a dull sickness gripped his stomach. That meeting accomplished nothing, and his first two attempts to steer the others into productiveness failed, irritating him enough to stay quiet the rest of the meeting. He walked down the stairs of the apartment building to head towards the parking lot. His trusty black car was parked towards the end of the lot and he unlocked it, getting into it and drove off in the direction of his own apartment. Getting there was a twenty-five minute drive, all of which he spent in silence. This day had gone downhill quickly and he returned to the underground lot of his apartment in a worse mood than when he left.

Sooner or later, he was going to become a has-been and that unnerved him more than he cared to admit. Elisa had managed to distract him effectively before although the worry had not disappeared completely. He wanted to control his career as much as anything in his life, even if it seemed impossible to most people. No, Sen thought, he needed to stop feeling sorry for himself and take matters into his own hands. So his band was fading. He'd create a new song to bring them back to the top. Usually he remained the moody lead guitarist and that was about to change. Sen had never sung before despite his voice being fairly good and maybe that was the key he needed. It had to be it!

He thought he heard a sound in the distance. Sen turned to look around him, but his search proved fruitless. Thinking he heard something made him on edge, and it was with cautious steps that he continued forward. Just as he was about to reach for the doorknob, a sharp pain hit the back of his head and everything became black.

A little while later, a note fell to the ground in front of Elisa's door.

He'll never ruin your life again.

A place for every thing and every thing in its place. Blake fucking hated coming to visit Sen at home, even if it gave him some curious pleasure to move little things. Moving them so that Sen would find it necessary to move things back. Petty, he knew it completely, as he walked from the living room into the bedroom a cigarette unlit between his fingers.

The message had said that the time of skulking was over. And they were supposed to meet at the usual place. Well, that would be about now and Blake was no where near the usual place. No, he was walking around in Sen's apartment making himself comfortable. Sen would be coming back soon enough, probably as soon as he realized that he'd been stood up. And Blake would be waiting for him, just waiting for him to get home.

Cold fingers ran long the top of the bed sheets before leaning over to get a good whiff of the bed. Sterile with just a slight undertone of sex. Hm. He had been sleeping with someone apparently. Maybe that yummy little bit Elisa. She'd been good when he had her. Delicious when he'd drained her and nearly left her for dead. Perfection.

He put his cigarette between his lips and lit it, taking a deep breath and then blowing the nicotine loaded smoke onto the bedclothes. His presence would be obvious when the shapeshifter came back into his home. After all, they didn't smoke the same cigarettes. Then he took of his shoes and climbed into the bed, lying out and waiting for his friend to return. This was going to be an interesting evening.

Text message to Blake; morning:

Enough skulking. Time to play.

Sen tapped the last letter of his text message and sent to Elisa. He preferred them as they were less personal although they were just as telling. He drank too much, hoping that he'd get some inspiration, but the muse was being flighty. 'Come over now,' he wrote to her. 'with camera.' His band was experiencing a lull in popularity and he figured that he needed new hype to tell his publicist. Since Elisa was the best photographer he knew and was under his control, she was the perfect choice to put together something interesting.

He knew that it wouldn't take that long for her to get to his place and so he sat on a chair in the living room and waited. In actuality, it wasn't that long, but it felt like ages. His irritation grew to anger and he stood to pace across the room, stopping in front of the mirror to change his hair a multitude of colors to help his mood. Finally, he stopped at a dull purple color and heard the knock at the door. Yes. Sen walked over to the front door and opened it just long enough for Elisa to slip inside his place. Without preamble, he told her, "Need new publicity shots. It has to be something interesting." He didn't want a normal, boring picture of himself and if he liked the style, he'd show it to the other men and tell them that was going to be their new thing.

Too much drink. He could feel something start to break inside of him; his restraint cracking. Sen curled a hand into a first, wanting to rip off her clothing and pin her against the wall. No, he had to wait - he needed to control himself otherwise, who knew what would happen?

Javarium stood on the corner of 100 and Harm, the street name had once been Harmon, but the on seemed to have worn off of nearly every street sign that bore the name. Hence the locals calling the street "Harm" and finding it fun to play tricks on the out of towners by telling them that they were on the wrong street. It probably didn't help that this place wasn't exactly the kind of place where even the locals wanted to be caught in the dark. Most of the shops had bars on their windows or reinforced glass. The cops came down when there was an emergency, but otherwise allowed the place to fester in its own degenerate juices. Blake loved the place and he was meeting his 'sweetheart' in that little coffee spot.

Sitting at a back table under the lights, he had a little present for her, wrapped up in paper with a bow. It was a bracelet, probably worth more than both of her parents made in six months, it was a silver piece with a pair of intertwined hearts on it. Very cute. Very innocuous. Like poisoned candy, it was just one more little hook for him to get into this girl.

She'd been the one to find him, being so brave trying not to cry when she'd been put out on the street by a family that no longer seemed to find it necessary to care for her and Blake, well, Blake was an opportunist among opportunists. He smelled the underlying sweetness like any true predator would and immediately set about snaring the little redheaded rabbit.

First the soft words. Are you okay? Concern in his eyes that he didn't feel, but knew well enough how to fake. She'd shied away from him and he'd played the good man's part keeping his distance but offering assistance. Eventually, she had followed along. Such was the manner of all little weak ones. They were always looking for someone stronger to take care of them. It was pathetically amusing. Yet she was pretty, he'd managed to keep a few strands of that perfect hair and let it curl through his fingers some nights when she wasn't there. Chuckling to himself, he'd have her soon. It never took long.

Yet he was waiting there, just waiting to see if she would come. She had said she would and his dear little Beth wouldn't disappoint him for the world.

The dry ice curled and drifted upwards towards the multi-colored spotlights, which shot from side to side in the dim room of the club and the music played so loudly that it thumped in one's body like a heartbeat. Sen tossed back his shot and draped his arm along the back of the booth. His friend so kindly dropped off a fresh patch of pills and he tucked them into the inner pocket of his leather jacket, watching the other people in the club dance. Grinding and sweating and pressing their bodies together. Far too much intimacy and too messy. He hated stench, found it intolerable, and prefered to have a clean smell hanging about him at all times.

He checked his watch and saw that it was almost time. Elisa would have to get him another shot and she was sure to consent if he gave her some of his candy. This past year had been an unusual but fascinating one and he believed that now he slowly earned her trust. It was a dangerous world, even for a young vampire, and he'd make her well aware how necessary it was for her to need his help. There was hardly anyone who benefitted from his very useful ability and she needed to be grateful.