Security

[Saiketsu]

reserved for CK

On Damien\'s command, Pierre had been given the equivalent of two humans per night every night since the attack. It was far above the standard operating procedure but, then again, so was Pierre\'s importance to Damien. Once the Laurent\'s damage was surveyed, everyone in Damien\'s immediate ring of "elders" knew that a burn like the one Pierre received during the fight wasn\'t life-threatening. And yet a burn, whose effects would ripple on for years until the mark healed itself, was the exact reason that Pierre was to be treated with greater care and concern than usually was necessary. No one, including Damien, could afford to have Pierre off of his feet for more than a few months. And while may have been a hearty soldier with a high tolerance for pain, he was still a son, a father, an advisor, and the closest thing to a brother that Damien had ever had. He needed Pierre, but more importantly, he needed Pierre to be well.

Camille sighed as the vampire shifted into fourth gear. It had been so long since he had driven a standard. The scent of adrenaline filled the car and Damien couldn\'t stop himself from glancing over at his passenger, strapped safely into the seat. They both should have been used to driving like this by now.

Damien\'s mind flickered over the past nights, the accomplishments rather than the hills they would have to face soon.  He had managed to take Storm hundreds of miles outside of the city in such a looping mess that no one could have possibly kept up with them. They had eluded any following psychopaths for more than a week and the feeling was a like a small bit of relief for the vampire. For the first few nights that had jumped from hotel to hotel, leaving tracks and loops all around the state. But even he had become too aggravated with constant stopping and moving, the constant act of running. They had landed themselves in a small city, travelling away from the shore for hundreds of miles.

Damien would pace. Storm would draw. He would watch her anxiously, unmoving. She would keep her eyes downwards, away from his. His phone would ring every hour of the night with some kind of news from the city. Her skin would change from the bruised black and purple, to the sickly green-yellow. And by that last night they spent trapped in that hotel, her skin had changed back to its original color. Conversations throughout their time together were brief, rather pointless, but they were something to keep their minds off of the idea of running. And as long as he didn\'t think of Nikolai, or of Pierre, or of Laurent, he could smirk at her human behavior, her silent ways. Hell, they could even make simple, corny jokes of the things that they had both gone through at one point or another. He would maintain a perfect vigil, even in the daylight hours, for three days at a go. And when she slept, he would push himself to maintain a perfect vigil (for they never slept at the same time), an expression of anxious concern for her well-being. She would sleep restlessly, a few hours at a time, murmuring things he couldn\'t (and didn\'t want to) make out. He watched her awaken with a pale face and a visible shake, and felt his stomach churn every time; he had seen what hideous things she dreamt of. And her pressing silence afterwards always convinced him to forget his own thoughts for the sake of hers -- to get her to laugh, or even just smirk, was his goal for hours.

He had begun to understand that they were both stuck in this. There was no separation between his problems and her problems anymore. Not when Pierre had been so seriously injured. Not when Storm was almost taken away. This one problem that they couldn\'t rid themselves of yet was something, if nothing, that they shared whether they liked it or not. Damien threw another look over at Storm as the city limits came into view.

Back in the city, nothing stopped. Regardless of Pierre\'s physical state, things kept moving forward as planned with little to no variation. Jenella had been entrusted with the task of buying the house on Alcott Road. Finny was charged with Pierre\'s health. Monique had been sent to gather fledglings throughout the city. Jack and Elias had tracked down the lost bank accounts from the shores of Panama, retrieving the money to hand over to Jenella not three nights after the attack.

The house, 3106 Alcott Road, was to be paid in full to the owner, Damien Toulouse.

He down shifted and felt the anxiety lift from the car. Damien couldn\'t help but smirk as the car slowed to a lively forty miles per hour and Storm sighed under her breath. It had been nine nights since shit had hit the fan. Back at the hotel, Damien had packed up their few belongings into Camille\'s trunk, paid for their room in cash, and left for the house on Alcott Road that was to be their -- both Storm and Damien\'s -- home, with Storm strapped safely into to passenger side. They had left only an hour after the sun had set, driving slightly faster than the speed limit typically allowed, making no stops over the journey.

By 4:37 they had pulled into the ice-slicked driveway of 3106, their hopes rising together with no words passing between them. They were both tired, physically exhausted from trying to stay awake for nights on end, so the sight of familiar cars in the driveway of the hugely unfamiliar house was more than a welcomed sight.

It was the first time he had laid eyes on the house in person (Pierre and Jenella had done most of the finagling for the house itself), but his reaction was only something that mirrored Storm\'s. Something that read quietly, unobtrusively but clearly, home.

[The Cedar Witch]

Storm had fallen asleep twice after the night Pierre had been injured. The first time was out of a necessity that had been acknowledged, rather than the second time where it had been an accident. Both times she had awoken in very much the same way: with a gasp and almost a cry, covered in slick, cold sweat with terror in her eyes before the slow recognition of Damien\'s face calmed her heartbeat. No matter how many times he told her that she was safe, that whatever horror had just occurred in her mind was only a dream, she was still left with a sickeningly bitter unease. Despite this, his ever-watchful presence undeniably meant safety. As long as he was there, the girl knew that she could not reasonably be taken. At least, she hoped. And that small amount of doubt that existed, the presence of the \'what-ifs\', was what possessed her nightmares.

The tension that filled the nine days that followed was only occasionally broken by conversation that had nothing to do with what they were running from. And she had even laughed, though whatever smiles the vampire seemed to magically make appear on her face scarcely touched her eyes. She was obviously jaded and weary, fearing when the care-free period of peace would be ruptured, leaving her scrambling to pick up pieces again. To the Akari, the cycle of peace being broken by something terrifying was inevitable. She would always be running and hiding from him until he either caught up with her or she perished in the act of fighting him off. To Storm, there was rarely any peace from this.

Guilt plagued her still, despite the fact that Pierre would survive-- "As if a mortal could kill him," Damien had said with a smirk that was familiar, tinged with bitterness or not. And since that night she had been told of his improving condition and had overheard enough phone calls to know that he would recover. Of course the girl knew that he would recover, that he was strong enough to survive such an attack. But it was because of the fact that Pierre--or Damien, for that matter--had little to do with her demons, her past, and the shadows that lurked behind every corner, ready to spring upon her at her most vulnerable times. Because they shouldn\'t have had to concern themselves with things she should be able to handle on her own. After all, the army was more important.

The realization that she had friends, people who cared enough to look after her despite the inconvenience that might present, had not yet fully dawned on her. Storm knew that she didn\'t hate either of them, especially and more surprisingly Damien--the one who had seemingly dragged her from her own solitude into a world that was far more confusing than what she had been wandering in before all of this. And yes, there was that level of comfort that she had in knowing that she wasn\'t disposable, that when she spoke she was heard, and that he had taken the time on more than one occasion to make an effort to ease her mind after a bad dream, that he was actually there for her when she woke up from any sort of dream. Friends. It wasn\'t exactly something she was used to.

She had been instructed not to watch where Damien was driving. He didn\'t think it would be wise for her to know exactly where the house was--because of the connection that his shadows evidently possessed--and she didn\'t either. Her gaze remained fixed on her shoes, objects she had memorized every inch of because she had spent a great deal of time staring at them instead of somewhere higher. As usual, she felt uneasy with the sound and feeling that switching gears and acceleration (as well as breaking) would present no matter how smooth of a driver Damien thought he was. No matter how much time she spent in any car, she would still be acutely aware of the smallest changes in speed and they would still make her nervous. And the shattered passenger-side window still had not been replaced.

Shivering slightly from the cold, Storm looked up finally as the car slowed. A mixture of feelings had seized her gut as she set sight on the house for the first time. Damien hadn\'t told her much about the new house--mainly because he hadn\'t seen the place himself. She knew it was in a wooded area, that there were two floors, that she had her own room and private bathroom (with locks), that there were special windows that blocked out the sunlight (not that she had to worry about that kind of a thing), that her room was purple, and the house would be under Damien\'s name.

Still, she was taken aback by the size of the place, which by her standards was huge. The trees, even though she knew about it before, caused a warm comforting feeling to wash over her. It was a beautiful house, and the fact that she would be living there still seemed a little unreal. The fact that Storm could finally call a place \'home\' still seemed a little unreal. Home meant safety. Home meant security. Home meant...well... It meant home.

Even when the car stopped, the girl\'s eyes were still locked on the house with an expression that could only be described as weary and relieved. And even though she knew that it was more than likely that she would fall asleep sometime over the course of the morning, Storm still felt that familiar warmth of peace pass over her.

It wasn\'t until the sound of the closing driver\'s-side door reached her ears that she broke her gaze away from the new house and opened her own door. Still, almost in a daze, she stepped from the car, closing the door behind her, and instinctual searched for Damien. They were home.

[Saiketsu]

Without a word and without forcing either Damien or Storm to slow their pace, Finny and Jenella turned on their heels and, with a grace known only to his kind, opened the house to them. Greetings were unnecessary; spoken with wearied eyes and understood glances. There would be no small talk, nothing to calm fried nerves unless it had something to do with the house, Damien’s first son, or the whereabouts of the bastard that had caused the shit to hit the fan.  And yet walking into the house was much like a plunge into cold water, into the unknown. And with all the elements and contents of the house being told to him over the phone, Damien found himself wishing he had been able to buy the house himself.

The house was a fortress, stone-shielded walls on the outside of hard woods. The enormity was almost overwhelming to him, to know that he had been able to purchase such a house with so little money. The foyer was impressive to say the least, furnished just as Jenella had told him. Neat and orderly, the way he needed it to be. Yes, for once things were looking promising.

“The previous owners were mortal,” Jenella said as Damien shut the door, letting her blue eyes wander around the foyer, her heels clacking against the ceramic tile as she lead the way through the room. “They up and left before anyone really knew why. The real estate company suspects that it had something to do with too many family deaths in the city. They were only here for four years, a family of five.” Her voice carried on, explaining what changes had been made to make safe every vampire that walked into the house. The clacking of her heals echoed over the stone flooring as the four of them made their way into the family room.

The tour continued throughout the house, tidbits of information which was never shared over the phone. The sun room was bigger than he had thought, the windows even bigger. Curtains of rich fabric blocked any escaping sunlight. Had it not been for the dim lighting of the first floor, Damien doubted that Storm would have ever been able to see the house. Storm was following with a leaking fatigue that was washing over him and Finny, who happened to be giving her odd looks every now and then. It wasn’t until they reached the top of the stairs did she perk up slightly.

The upstairs was pitch black without lights, no one really in need of such artifice. Jenella lead them into his room. Already a settled feeling was seeping into his bones, relaxing dead flesh. The scent in the room was distinctly his own, mixed with only the faint touch of dust that no amount of cleaning could get rid of, something of a personal touch thanks to Jenella’s beautiful insight. It made a smile almost flicker across his mouth. The bed from the apartment was sitting against the wall, facing a large screen hung on the wall. The room looked as if it had been lived in for years, complete with shades, pillows that smelled like him and the same comforter that he had bought only two years ago. Everything, right down to the tee was just as Damien had wanted.

"It\'s flawless," he responded to her questions about his thoughts. He heard both fledglings smile. "Now show me the rest."

[The Cedar Witch]

The girl didn\'t move far from Damien, even when they were both safely inside the house, and she moved hesitantly as though she were extremely reluctant to go anywhere without him. Despite the warm feeling slowly moving into her mind, the fear was still present lurking in the back and waiting for the perfect opportunity to arise. So with weary, guarded eyes, the akari silently looked to the other vampires--who she could only assume were Finny and Jenella--she had never seen before. Weather they met her curious gaze or not, Storm looked back to her feet, feeling more self-conscious than shy. She must\'ve looked a mess: hair wind-blown, expression weary, face haggard and eyes sunken in. Thank god her bruises faded by now. What a wonderful first impression that would have made.

The only detail that stuck in her mind about the house as Jenella gave the tour was how large it was. Storm\'s eyes scanned each space vaguely, as though she were uninterested but going along with the tour to be polite. But this was far from the truth; she was excited. The tiredness plaguing her features clouded any delight that she otherwise would have taken in knowing that this was to be her home. She felt safe, that fact was undeniable, but even more so she felt utterly exhausted.

Storm was scarcely aware of the fact that they had ascended the stairs until the door to a room was opened. By the time her eyes adjusted to the extremely dim lighting, all of them had set foot inside Damien\'s room. The sight of his things occupying the new space that confirmed the fact that it was indeed his room made Storm feel self-conscious. She averted her eyes to the floor, feeling as though she shouldn\'t look around. And she made a visible effort not to do so. She had invaded enough of his space over the course of their...friendship.

The girl was the first out of his room when it was indicated that the tour continue. She waited for the others to lead and did not move until Damien had gone ahead of her. Jenella moved them across the hall and Storm tailed the group shyly, wondering just how many rooms this house did have. Through another door, the hesitation and weariness remained with her even as Jenella switched on a small lamp. So that Storm could see her room.

Her room. The soft lighting cast a gently glow on the warm-violet walls, reflecting on the slowly brightening expression of the mortal. This was her room. Her very own room. She walked forward hesitantly, almost in a daze, toward her bed. As she touched the purple comforter, a small bitter smile crept onto her features. Well, if she had wanted to sleep, at least she\'d be comfortable.

Hungrily her eyes took in every detail of her room, from the curtains to the carpets to the book case. She noted, with muted excitement, that the book shelves were full of books that were undoubtedly left behind by the previous owners. Books whose authors she had never really heard of that were now gathering dust. Books she would have to look at later because Jenella was moving the group out of the room.

The smile--however small--had faded from her face, back to an expression of weariness.

[Saiketsu]

He couldn\'t help but watch for Storm\'s reaction upon entering the room. And when a bit of life filled her expression --  no matter how small of a showing -- a sense of relief and a bit of happiness filled his own expression, making his steps lighter for a few brief minutes. She was tired, yes, but somewhere there was pleasure at having her own room. He had been worried that she would be disappointed with the room, knowing that it was so close to his -- as if they hadn\'t spent enough time together over the past few months. He had worried that she would hate him for it, hate being so close to him for the majority of the time. But, in Damien\'s eyes, it was all necessary. He needed her close by in case Laurent had finally found them and chosen to surface his disgusting face. He needed to know that he could take proper care of her, take charge is things went south.

But in her expression there was no anger. No bitterness directed towards him. In fact, he doubted that she had even thought of any of this since seeing the room, even while they stepped out and entered the guest bedroom.

The tour continued: into the blue guest room, down the hallway, into the large spare room upstairs, down the extra stairs into the kitchen. He was satisfied, ecstatic about the house. And if he had had any more energy, he would have expressed this to Jenella and Finny right then. But there wasn\'t much time left to celebrate their wonderful finding.

"So that\'s the house in a nut shell," the red-head concluded, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she turned. "I figured anything else you\'re curious about you\'ll either find out on your own or call me with. We don\'t want to keep you guys any longer than we have to."

Damien nodded with eyes wondering. "I will, thanks. But before you go, I\'d like to get a feel for the basement."

The air soured immediately and all heads turned towards Storm. All of their immortal ears had heard her heart skip a beat and start pounding at a frightening pace. Her small face had visably paled and her eyes flooded with color. Brown, yellow, red, everything, wide and staring directly at him. The breath was audiably caught in her throat, a most curious thing. Fear, plain and simple. And they could all smell it.

Phineas opened his mouth as if to speak, a questioning look on his face, something that seemed to be directed at the oddity that had just happened within Storm\'s health and well-being. But before he could say anything Damien had chimed in with an order for Storm, softly put and friendly in tone. "Storm, why don\'t you go make yourself comfortable upstairs in your room? We have a few more things to go over, ok?" There was a small, stiff smile on his face to indicate that there was option for her. After a moment of grateful nodding from the human, They all watched and listened silently as the footsteps travelled up the stairs and into the second bedroom that was Storm\'s.

"What was that about?" Finny turned to Damien with a barely audible voice, one humans could never hear. Appearantly locked somewhere in that tumultuous past of Storm\'s there was something about basements that she didn\'t agree with.

"I\'m not sure," Damien responded in the same, low and nearly-silent tone. "Anyway, the basement, Jenella?"

------

He had watched two car doors close in the very early dawn before closing the door of the house -- his house -- for the first time. Home. It was finally setting in on him. Damien locked both deadbolts and set the alarms, just as Jenella had showed him, before taking the stairs back upwards.

It was still foreign to him, without a doubt. His bedroom was nothing like how he had had it for so many months -- or was it years? So much of the furniture wasn\'t his, borrowed from the previous owners and shifted into current position. A bed frame, large enough to fight his bed. A table large enough for a gun, and whatever other things he needed by him during the night. A large screen television with too many chanels of digital cable that he would never watch all of. A bureau of beautiful polished wood with all of his normal clothes. The piazza. The bathroom and walk-in security closet. It was everything he had ever wanted in a bedroom. Well, almost...

Damien sighed, neglecting thoughts of a life lost before he shut his bedroom door again. Only faint sounds of life echoed from Storm\'s open door, the flipping of pages and deep breathing audible. A moment of awkwardness, unforeseen, washed over him just as he was about to enter the room. Should I knock?

He rapped his knuckles on the frame and found her jump at the noise, something he always felt slightly guilty about, even though it was a bit funny. "So what do you think? It\'s a little big, but I figured it\'s nice to have your own room with plenty of it, right?" He gave her a weary, awkward look and smile but stood perfectly still outside of her room.

[The Cedar Witch]

Basement? The girl froze at the word, visibly pale and throat clenched tightly for no more than three seconds.  There was a memory flitting through her already exhausted mind, causing the tension in her body to multiply tenfold in preparation for something awful. Of course, with a house as big as this, there would be a basement.  She should have seen that coming, at least enough to prepare herself mentally for hearing about it.  Prepare herself for knowing that it sat two floors beneath her room. That it\'s cement floors, musty drafts, and darkness lurked beneath her. Waiting for footsteps...

No, it wasn\'t something she had necessarily wanted to show to anyone.  Especially not two strangers.  Especially not Damien.  Not even for the three excruciating seconds before he offered her an escape that she took hungrily, nodding curtly and exiting the area before Finny could ask the questions that were quite obviously on the tip of his tongue.  No, that was supposed to be a secret, locked away with all of the other unspeakable things that both her and Damien danced around in any given conversation.  Her own footsteps as she walked away from the group seemed horribly loud, almost embarrassingly so, and Storm wished for a moment that she could calm down enough to walk as quietly as they did.

Her heart was still pounding wildly, body prepared to flee or fight at a moments notice.  And as the akari ascended the still-unfamiliar stairs, the absurdity of her fear worked on melting the tension of her shoulders.  What harm could possibly come to her here, in this house? In Damien\'s house?  Especially under the protection of two other vampires (for the time being)? It was nearly as foolish of being afraid of monsters in the closet or under her bed, knowing that they aren\'t there and irrationally wanting to make sure nonetheless.  There was a monster. It just wasn\'t under her bed or in her closet.

The door opened almost silently, causing a flood of comfort to pull her into the warm-violet room--her room--melting away any anxiety that her memories brought her not moments before.  A weary smile passed over her features and faded almost instantly without reason aside from the fact that she was exhausted.  No-longer-anxious footsteps were cushioned by the milky carpet beneath her, immaculately clean, as she moved further into the room.

Her curious eyes fell first on the bookshelves and she felt herself drawn to the unfamiliar titles, mind eager for distraction.  The books weren\'t as old as she expected them to be, but they were old enough to have gathered dust and that \'library smell\' that reminded her of high school.  The girl\'s fingers ran passively over the bindings of the row at her eye level; over Jane Austin\'s Pride and Prejudice, C.S. Lewis\' The Chronicles of Narnia, J.R.R. Tolkien, Steven King\'s Salem\'s Lot, The Holy Bible, and finally stopping on Anne Rice\'s Interview with a Vampire.  Smirking, she took this book from the shelf, switching on a lamp and gently sitting in the armchair in the corner of the room beneath the provided light.

As much as she hated her high school English class and whatever books the teacher decided to inflict on her students, Storm was a fast reader.  At least, when it came to a book that she liked.  So well before either Finny or Jenella left the house, the girl was already engrossed in the words of the vampire, Louis.  She was entranced by the time Damien had even begun to walk toward the stairs that led to their rooms.  Spellbound and locked in the very moment where Louis was describing how he was claimed, almost listening with his ears to the words that Lestat whispered so close to his throat, lips feathering against the jugular;

[INDENT]"Be still. I am going to drain you now to the very threshold of death, and I want you to be quiet, so quiet that you can almost hear the flow of blood through your veins, so quiet that you can hear the flow of that same blood through mind. It is your consciousness, your will, which must keep you alive."[/INDENT]

Storm held her breath, eyes scanning each line and listening hard to the beat of her own heart, just as Lestat had instructed Louis, though she did so subconsciously.  Even if Damien were as loud as a human, she couldn\'t have possibly heard him coming.

[INDENT]I wanted to struggle, but he pressed so hard with his fingers that he held my entire prone body in check; and as soon as I stopped my abortive attempt at rebellion, he sank his teeth into my neck.[/INDENT]

Her eyes widened with wonder, almost with desire, and she would have never admitted to wanting to feel what Louis was feeling.  Wanting Lestat at her throat.  She wouldn\'t have ever admitted that.  Not to Damien, anyway.  She didn\'t realize that he had closed his own door, or that he was even anywhere in the house at the moment. Not while Louis was about to become a vampire, not while Lestat was...

[INDENT]"Listen, keep your eyes wide," Lestat whispered to me, lips moving against my neck. I remember that the movement of his lips raised the hair all over my body, sent a shock of sensation through my body that was not unlike the pleasure of passion..."[/INDENT]

The abrupt knock at the door caused Storm to bolt upright, closing the book in the process, face flushed with emotion, desire and embarrassment.  Her gaze finally brought Damien into focus and she scarcely could absorb his question, still lost in the romance of...

"Yeah," she answered a little quickly after an awkward moment of hesitation while she hurried to figure out what the words he spoke meant, "it\'s nice." Storm offered him a shy smile, face still hot with embarrassment.  And for a short moment, her mind subconsciously attempted to put Lestat and Damien on the same level, only because they were both vampires.  That image was almost an accident, something she hadn\'t intended to conjure but it was done innocently, and it made her flush deeper.

Damien was nothing like Lestat.

[Saiketsu]

Even from his place at the door frame, he could see her face flush deeply with color as she feigned normality. The scent of her blood shifting around in her veins from their previous places which Damien would have rather not noticed struck him with such a force that it made him blink in a sort of confusion. His throat began to itch with four-day-old Thirst, something he had a hard time swallowing as she answered him. His body had hardened again, posture resembling something like stone. The awkwardness of knocking on his ward\'s door that had so overwhelmed him seconds before had now melting to form the awkwardness of smelling something intimate that she was trying to pass off as non-chalance.

Without meaning to, Damien rose an eyebrow and sternly looked at her with an expresion that resembled a parent\'s who had just been told that their daughter was headed out to a movie with an intolerable young man. A moment passed between them where Storm blushed deeper and Damien blinked back his Thirst with a dry swallow.

Leaving the blushing, private moment alone and unquestioned, Damien\'s tone tipped a bit more seriously. "You are going to sleep tonight?" His tone was weighed down with gravity, something more curious then grave. He had spent countless nights watching her fight sleep -- and eventually always fail. He was expecting her to sleep tonight; they were both to weary not to.

[The Cedar Witch]

The question brought her face-first with the present reality, causing any sort of smile that was on her face beforehand to completely melt away into a more serious expression.  The pull from the world of Lestat and Louis, into her own reality was so abrupt it left her mind with a bit of whip-lash that left her stumbling for the breath that she hadn\'t realized had stuck in her throat.  Sleep. She was exhausted. They were both exhausted.  There was no way that Storm would be able to get around sleeping at all, no matter how much she tried to put it off.

Out of all the nights, tonight was the worst night to sleep.  Moving into a new home brought her such a feeling of peace and security that would only be shattered by any horrors that awaited her in her slumber.  If she could put it off for another day, she would. And she would try her damned hardest to.  But she was accustomed to this type of battle. She never won.

"Probably," she said with a sigh, adding quietly "not that I want to." There was a slight hint of fear to her voice, something that whispered behind the words that she spoke. Her eyes moved to the floor for a moment, as though in half-thought, before flitting back to Damien\'s face.

[Saiketsu]

Something inside of him ached at the look in her eyes. The previous moment was simply forgotten as both of them tried to keep their own private fortresses well armed for the other one\'s sake. Private moments, private thoughts, with nothing too personal revealed. It reminded him of how terribly human she was, how irrevocably fragile she was in her mortality. He could see her shuffling herself to close herself down before she even noticed she was doing it. Self-consciousness taking over. It pulled at the humanistic side of him, the side that wanted to look at her as nothing more than a friend.

Damien sighed inaudiably, something she would never catch with her mortal eyes or ears. In vain he knew, he asked, "Is there anything you need me to do?" And, as per usual she responded with the typical "there\'s nothing you can do" response. A smile full of pain and an aching mind. A laugh to shake up dead bones. He sighed again, this time a bit more loudly, looking into her eyes with the appearance of a father-like figure, offering his words as a sense of security.

"Well if it makes you feel any better," he began with a tone that was fully protective of a rescuer to a victim of some war, "this house is like a fortress. There are cameras and alarms everywhere. Nobody\'s getting in here first without me knowing it. You\'re safe, Storm. This is the safest place in the city for you to be."

He was met with little change in expression, including the smile. She shrugged and said nothing more than "I\'ll be fine." It was as if he knew that she were still on the front burner of the worry stove in his mind. It was disheartening for him.

"Alright," he said, giving in at last. The pull of the sun was creeping into his veins and the lack of fresh blood was becoming more and more obvious in his throat the longer he lingered around this creature with a heart pumping blood into warm, live veins. "Well, I\'m right here if you need me," he offered, throwing a thumb back towards his room, letting his eyes wander around her room, to the book in her tightened hands. "I\'m probably going to sleep, but I wake up fairly easily, so...just... yell, I guess. Or something." If he had the ability, he may have turned red with the awkwardness of his words and the way he was almost willing to offer them so easily. "The house is lockked and alarmed so don\'t open any windows or whatever. And whatever you do, don\'t set the house on fire." A shared faint, odd set of smiles. "Other than that, the house is pretty much yours to do whatever. Okay?"

[The Cedar Witch]

"I\'ll probably just stay here, " she offered quietly as the vampire made his way back toward his room.  With each step she watched him take, the colder it seemed to get in her room and less friendly. As if the room itself were preparing to swallow her up into a world of darkness and nightmares, that hellish sleep that gave her no rest. She could deal with nightmares, she had dealt with them every night since she could remember. But it was the fear that he would shatter the newfound security, newfound peace, adding reality to something that was only a dream. It wasn\'t exactly something that she was looking forward to.

Peace was meant to be shattered.

It was something that made her feel so incredibly lonely. As much as she had been thrilled at the aspect of more privacy, more distance between her and any potential anger, misunderstanding, and awkward situations that Damien seemed to spark, the girl felt uneasy without him so close by. After spending nine days in the close confined walls of various hotel rooms, it left Storm with an aftertaste of anxiety that was only intensified when he left for his own room. What if something happened? What if--? She glanced quickly toward the window, curtains drawn tightly over them almost mockingly, as if to boast the secrets that may or may not have been waiting just outside.

But that was ridiculous.

Storm sighed, walking without haste toward her bed. Her fingers traced the comforter lightly before she sat, book in hand. Somehow, Louis and Lestat seemed to have lost their spell on her mind. And despite how many times the girl found herself reading the same sentence over and over again, it could not hold her attention. There was something more tangibly in reach that overshadowed the magical world of literary vampires. The fact that she must and would sleep tonight no matter how she fought not to. Weather it be in a chair, on the floor, or in her new and comfortable bed. Sleep always came.

Still she fought, reading each word carefully from her place upon the bed, flat on her stomach. And she didn\'t even realize that she had nodded off until her head jolted up, as if repelled by the pages it rested so gently on, with a gasp caught in her throat. Again, she took up the book anew as though wielding a sword against the weariness pulling at her eyelids. And as before, she found her face against the cool, dusty pages before she had even flipped to the next one.

It took her an hour to admit defeat, when the book had fallen to the floor and she had curled into a ball on top of the comforter with her feet to the pillows. She hadn\'t realized that she had left the door a crack open no more than she realized that a dream had immediately taken her when she left the realm of the waking.

[Saiketsu]

A complicated sense of what he could only refer to as guilt took over as he closed over the door. It was reluctant, the motion of leaving her to sit there alone. The house was safe, he was sure of that; nothing was getting in. What bothered him as he walked back across the hallway to his own unfamiliar room was that he could open his bedroom door and know that Storm would have been on the other side doing something quietly. There was privacy here in every sense of the word. And it was something he wasn\'t exactly accustumed to having with Storm.

He could feel the guilt and reluctance start to rattle him as his own door closed, the same apprehensive feeling he had developed because of her. His eyes flittered vaguely about the room, covering objects with onlly the slightest of interest. Yes, he was happy to be in his house, his own house. Yes he was happy, ecstatic really, to have space away from her to think private thoughts about the life he had wanted once upon a time with a woman completely different and so similar to Storm. Yet he still couldn\'t shake the shroud of unease settling heavily on his shoulders as the sun rose and the natural and completely humanistic rhythms of the girl\'s body slowed and drifted off into the steadiness of sleep. It disrupted his own weariness as he settled himself onto the bed to sleep. And even though the sun pulled at his eyelids and tried to slow his body into an even more death-like state, he found himself stirring restlessly in his blankets so oddly unfamiliar. Damien\'s mind drifted away and returned to Storm and her heat beating irregularly in the next room, falling places he didn\'t want it to go.

How similar were they really? When Storm passes by him, he could have sworn that it was her. But she was too different. Regal. Proud. Beautiful. A queen. Storm was none of that. Shy. Naive. Humble. And even though the beauty hadn\'t dimished since the Middle Ages, Storm certainly had a different was of wearing the same kind of beauty. And if they were so similar, what could Storm\'s life experiences tell him about his wife\'s? Was she ever in the same situation, a prisoner of war, a key to a puzzle that she never understood? Was she ever raped, tortured in her sleep even while she slept next to him during the day?

Despite the seriousness of the questions in his head, the over-tiredness pulled a smile up to his mouth as the thoughts morphed into memories completely unrelated to death, or torture, but to the subject of sleep. Intimate, passion intercourse with the most beautiful woman he had ever known. Flowing blonde hair falling on his shoulders, hands moist with their blood, kisses to lips between mountains of the day light hours, crescendo, decrescendo and sigh.

And before he knew what he was doing, he had forgotten Storm\'s anxious sleep for memories of a life that he had given up to the sun long ago with a smile on his face. She was kissing his face all over again.

[The Cedar Witch]

Don’t struggle.  There was something crawling. Crawling around in the skin of ankles and wrists. Biting and burrowing deeper into flesh.  It was too quiet, the scurrying.  Silent bugs tearing, biting, nipping.  Crawling in a frenzy.  Legs tracing circles around wrists and ankles.  Tiny legs like fire, tirelessly moving.  Scraping.  Itching.  Reaching to scratch.  To rake at her skin with aching fingernails.  But the bugs became snakes with raw fiber-like scales.  Squeezing.  Setting fire to raw flesh of limbs.  Eyes searching the dark air, disoriented.  Wide open and gaping.  Unseeing, scrambling for dim light that was coming too slowly.  Pulling at snakes again.  Biting harder.  Biting thirsty for bone.  Panic cutting through the fog to find nothing.  There was nothing.  Nothing but silence.  Silent movement of fiber-scaled snakes.  Silent eyes slowly adjusting to dim light.

Naked.  There was sudden realization. Almost completely naked and cold.  Vulnerability without the memory for explanation. Terror gripping lungs. Confusion stopping heart. Eyes still frantically scrambling to adjust to dim light. And out of the darkness came suddenly a pressure. Invisible tar seeping into mind. Into thoughts. Into secret wishes. Secret fears. Shadows pressing against walls. Trying to scale them. Leaving sticky trails of darkness. An invasion. An attack. Rendering the body unable, paralyzing the mind with fear. Tight snakes smiled, holding limbs fast.  Walls. Layers built in response. Frenzied counterattack to the invasion. Tight snakes held tighter with limbs pulling to brake free. Tight snakes digging through flesh to find bone. Tight snakes quickly gorging on blood, making fiber-like scales slick with crimson. Blood permeating the air, staining unfamiliar sheets. Pushing bile up toward the throat. No screaming.

Tighter snakes.

Something shifted. Thick with lust and power. The source of the tar. Something moved forward. Something stopped  the lungs, forcing the heart to do double the work. Something pushing fear into stomach, urging bile up again. The key to amnesia. The confusion had vanished, a blanket ripped from the cold fingers of the shivering mind. But the mind didn’t want to remember. Something moved closer. He moved closer. The terror in women’s eyes. The fear in their minds. The dreaded name on their lips. Death—or worse.

Laurent Craiton. He laughed.

“Hello, Princess,” voice thick with lust. Eyes struggled against light still too dim. Eyes that strained to see the source of terror. Of fear. The snakes smiled with their rough teeth. Naked. Naked and seen. Trembling. Vulnerable and ashamed. Get out. You have to get out! With new fire limbs struggled against snakes. Snakes tightened unbearably. This time there was a cry. For pain. For deep terror. For the fire where limbs met the flesh of snakes. Something laughed again. He laughed again. Closer now. If eyes looked left they would see. Eyes didn’t want to see. He said something. Tar moved against the mind again. Fighting for access. An angry snarl pushing past lips. Eye contact. Pulling against snakes who became more vicious against aching flesh. She would fight. Something laughed again. He laughed again.

Angry, black eyes fought with the dim torchlight. Something moved again. He moved again. Inhumanly dark against the fire. Battle scars on muscle glistening. Empty, icy-blue eyes. Eyes fixed, gazing at nakedness. Almost nakedness. Delicate, trembling flesh hidden safely in cotton. A small cotton wall. Two small cotton walls. Walls dividing inside from outside. The only remaining safety. Something moved to the bedside. He moved. He stood directly to the left. Too close. Always too close. Hiss escaping past trembling lips. As if to be intimidating. Intimidating to the man with unnumbered scars. Terror in eyes. Fear in minds. Death on lips. Something laughed again. He laughed again.

Something moved. He moved. Powerful arm cut through the dim light. A scarred arm. Unwanted fingers brushing the line of a hip. Where one of the cotton walls stopped and skin began. Rough fingers, accustomed to battle. Not to gentle touch. Never to... Only to hate and power. Knowing well how to overwhelm and invade. Something spoke. He spoke. Voice like velvet. The snakes smiled as limbs pulled more deliberately for freedom. Anything but comforting.

There was no escape.

She would not scream.

Animalistic snarl rushing past trembling lips. Words, profanities, threats. Tears leaking by accident from corners of black eyes. Something laughed. He chuckled, mocking comfort. Speaking as an inhumanly powerful hand pressed down against her gut. As if to keep her still. As if she would cease to fight. Don’t struggle.. Powerful, rough hands tracing trembling ivory skin. Steady despite the fury of movement presented by the struggle. Snakes reaching slowly for bone. Something else felt like fire. His hand felt like fire. Foreign and unwelcome. Tracing lines. Exploring what had been untouched. Slowly moving toward cotton walls. Seconds were like hours. Snakes biting past muscle constricting veins. Blood.

Something. He. Rough hand enclosing around soft fabric, softer flesh. Cotton walls too thin. She would not scream. Unwanted touch. Struggle. Rougher. Frantic struggle, reaching to fight. There were still cotton walls. She would not scream. She could still fight. Something was too close. He was always too close. Teeth reached for his exposed skin. Something laughed. He pulled away, grinning. Speaking. Mocking again. Words that were left without being understood. Something came closer to her face. He pushed his mouth against her angry lips. Rough. Unwelcome. Anger. Fear. Slippery tongue fighting the gap between her lips. Powerful hand holding her head to his. Fangs. She had fangs. She was not weak. She would not scream.

She could fight.

Blood filled both mouths.  His blood. Thick and dirty, filled with lust. As if he enjoyed it more. Rough hands at cotton walls moved behind. Breaching sacredness. Cotton walls falling. Ripped from skin. Dissolving purity. Rougher hands. Rougher mouth. Devouring. Dirty hands. Unwanted. Unwelcome. Moving down. Hands moving to breach second wall. Lips moving to throat. Did snakes find bone? More weight on the bed. Cotton walls torn.
She had fangs. She would fight. Three times in the shoulder. Dirty blood. Impatience. She would never cooperate. After the third time rough hand clasped throat. Pressing to the bed. Breathing ragged. Her breathing difficult. His breathing thick. Eyes wouldn’t look. Eyes wouldn’t see. Leaking angry tears. Never leaking screams. Something was against her. He was against her. Something unwelcome. Something unwanted. Something. Hands moving with acid lust. Tracing paths cut into ivory with unwanted fire. Twisting legs. Twisting to seal off what cotton had failed to protect. What was left that was not dirtied by fire.

She would not scream.

Get out. Numb. Where snakes met flesh.  Slick with blood. Black with hatred. Hand releasing her throat, moving down. Rough hands pressing against skin. Rough. Searching. Hands moving to brake seal. Powerful hands. Separating legs. Gripping hips. Weight pinning down wasted struggling. Get out. Dirty. She would not scream. She would not cry. She could fight. She couldn’t fight. Words thick with acid lust. Something moved in the dark.

Movement.  Practiced. Connection. Breach. Unwanted. Expected. Unwanted. Unwelcome. Unknown. Blood. Mouth. Quiet. Hush. Stubborn. Silence.
Thrust. Groan. Pain. Lust. Fear. Nausea. Silence. Muscle. Tight. Hard.
Thrust. Groan. Pain. Lust. Fear. Nausea. Silence.
Thrust. Pain. Lust. Fear. Silence.
Thrust. Pain. Lust. Silence.
Thrust. Pain. Lust.
Thrust. Pain.
Thrust.

There was blood. Was there supposed to be blood? Is there supposed to be blood? Is it supposed to hurt this much? Was there supposed to be blood? Is there supposed to be fear? Is there supposed to be this much pain? Hot tide. Was that supposed to happen? Clench. Is it supposed to hurt? What happens now? Is there supposed to be blood? Emptiness.

Is there supposed to be blood?

Numb.



((OOC: if you want me to split it up I can. I wasn\'t sure how many posts you needed before she woke up.))

[The Cedar Witch]

his blood was hers. Hers, his. They were one being all other again, dancing on the night of their coronation as the rulers of dozens. She was born for the position. She looked stunning on his arm. Lord Damien. Her smile was never brighter than it was that day. Perfect lips pressed against his temple, a budding rose of plump flesh. He loved her. She loved him.

A blood red dress stained with the ink of dying flowers. Hair wreathed in flowering gold woven with strands of silk. Cheering. Smiles. Relief. She loved him. He loved her.

The cuts had healed and the blood stained hands of perfect marbled flesh. Fingertips touching and eyes sharing words without the interruptions of mouths. Her hair always billowed behind her with the greatest of power. They all wanted her but she had chose him, and him alone. He loved her. She loved him.

And they danced again in the privacy of their own dwelling. Silken sheets long stained with blood and the gifts of their bodies. Kissings of skins hardened with age, hardened with passion. Lips trailing across vast, unchaste skin to land within the valleys of her body, her breasts, her neck, her thighs. tongue swaying with measured practice down his chest, his ribs and stomach. Fingertips used to dance now skimming surfaces he had long since forgotten about, supplemented with brushing kissing and sensual teeth. He loved her. She loved him.

Hips hot with pressure from the easy of the weight above. the gliding of their motion as their minds connected and she cradled him into the great vastness of her mind. The ease of crescendo, the need to become one. Her hair tickling his chest as she smirked at him, red lips and gums. alike a fine wine he could remember tasting long ago. talons slicing into tender skin as her voice filled the air around him. Private, so only he could hear her. He loved her. She loved him.

Crescendo. Mezzoforte. Decrescendo. Sigh.
Crescendo. Mezzoforte. Decrescendo. Sigh.
Crescendo. Mezzoforte. Decrescendo. Sigh.
He loved her. She loved him.
Crescendo. Mezziforte. Decrescendo. Sigh.

[Saiketsu]

His blood was hers. Hers, his. They were one being all other again, dancing on the night of their coronation as the rulers of dozens. She was born for the position. She looked stunning on his arm. Lord Damien. Her smile was never brighter than it was that day. Perfect lips pressed against his temple, a budding rose of plump flesh. He loved her. She loved him.

A blood red dress stained with the ink of dying flowers. Hair wreathed in flowering gold woven with strands of silk. Cheering. Smiles. Relief. She loved him. He loved her.

The cuts had healed and the blood stained hands of perfect marbled flesh. Fingertips touching and eyes sharing words without the interruptions of mouths. Her hair always billowed behind her with the greatest of power. They all wanted her but she had chose him, and him alone. He loved her. She loved him.

And they danced again in the privacy of their own dwelling. Silken sheets long stained with blood and the gifts of their bodies. Kissings of skins hardened with age, hardened with passion. Lips trailing across vast, unchaste skin to land within the valleys of her body, her breasts, her neck, her thighs. tongue swaying with measured practice down his chest, his ribs and stomach. Fingertips used to dance now skimming surfaces he had long since forgotten about, supplemented with brushing kissing and sensual teeth. He loved her. She loved him.

Hips hot with pressure from the easy of the weight above. The gliding of their motion as their minds connected and she cradled him into the great vastness of her mind. The ease of crescendo, the need to become one. Her hair tickling his chest as she smirked at him, red lips and gums. Like a fine wine he could remember tasting long ago. Talons, like those of a hawk, slicing into tender skin as her voice filled the air around him. Private, so only he could hear her. He loved her. She loved him.

Crescendo. Mezzoforte. Decrescendo. Sigh.
Crescendo. Mezzoforte. Decrescendo. Sigh.
Crescendo. Mezzoforte. Decrescendo. Sigh.
He loved her. She loved him.
Crescendo. Mezziforte. Decrescendo. Sigh.

[The Cedar Witch]

Blood. Blood. Where did all of the blood come from? Was there supposed to be blood? After thrashing around in tangled sheets, the dream finally ended.  Unseeing eyes flew open, the momentum of held-back screams tumbled past the girl\'s lips in a choked gasp. Wide eyes tore about the unfamiliar room, searching for any glimpse of the damned black-feathered bird. She scrambled to the edge of the bed, away from phantom bloodstains and nightmarish bonds. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Each intake of breath came in a choked sob, followed by a frenzy of lung-shaking coughs. Trembling hands gripped and pulled at the wrinkled sheets beneath her, trying to cover her vulnerability. The nonexistent nakedness.

Can’t breathe

Fire. There was fire at her wrists and ankles. The rawness of her skin raged as though ropes still tore at her flesh. Burning like fire. Her hands moved to scratch at them, as if to scratch off the ropes that had bound her so fiercely in her dreams. She left long, red marks running up her arms but the burning still persisted. There were no raw-fiber snakes biting and scratching. No hot weight pressing down against her. No slick, unwanted flesh invading. She whimpered.
Fuck
 She could still feel it. The invasion. The attack. Unholy breach. Heat, sweat. The hot flesh unwanted, hard, pressed against…

Dirty. So dirty

She wanted to scream. Aching lungs were racing with the speed of her heartbeat. The air couldn’t catch up. Each breath came in short, shallow gasps and left in shuddering coughs and choking sobs, whimpers caught somewhere between her stomach and her throat.
Fuck. Fuck.
Breathe!

Pressure from the urge to scream pushed up at her throat, increasing the frantic pull of her lungs. Don’t wake him. Don’t wake Damien. It was the last thing she wanted. They had their privacy now. He shouldn’t have to deal with her nightmares anymore. Especially after spending so much time forced to be too close… Exhale. Pressure was pushing bile up her throat. Her knuckles were blanched, gripping frantically at the blankets. She was going to be sick.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Clumsily she nearly fell out of the bed, pulling the bed covering with her as she stumbled toward the bathroom. Quiet moans escaped her lips, tears pushing past her frantic eyes. She could still feel the tar in her mind. In her memories, searching through her secrets and wishes. Gripping the blankets tight to her, she ripped the bathroom door open and flicked on the switch. Lights cruelly illuminated the almost unreal bathroom and she nearly tripped over to the toilet, kneeling in front of it in a mess of blankets and sheets. A shaking arm gripped the side of the seat as her stomach churned. She could still feel it.
Dirty.

Each cough rattled her entire trembling body, her stomach unable to produce anything more than spit. She hadn’t eaten in days. Between gags, quiet sobs shook her, streaming hot tears down her pale cheeks.
“God. Fuck. Oh, god,” moaning, Storm hoped in vain that Damien hadn’t heard anything and was still sleeping. That everything would be fine at sunset. That her horror for his sick pleasure would go unnoticed.  After all, she was safe.