Fire Cracker

[Saiketsu]

Something made him shift. Coy and ignored, it was something that he dared not put his finger on, just in case it made his mental companion angry. The discomfort of his comfort wasn\'t outwardly evident, yet invaded each thought like the search for a heartbeat of something dying -- desperate for equilibrium.

They had done exactly what he had said they were going to do -- the drugs, the run, the money. They had terrorized that nameless town miles off somewhere else and damned near burned it to the ground, the streets littered with limbs and discarded carnage from the Queen having her way with dozens of humans. The papers would call it something like \'The Massacre of South Brockton\' or ignore it all together, and let the local officials sweep under the rug to avoid inspiring panic.

The remainder of the night he had spent splattered in human blood, his thirst satiated and his clothing stained. Dried human life crackled along the newly-warmed flesh of his face. Had it not been for the blood all over him, he could have passed for a human.

Sonya was in a worse condition. Her hair hung in clumps dictated by the amounts of blood she had coated herself in. Her face, gazing at him from the seat next to him as he drove, was smeared with fresh, dripping carnage that briefly changed the whites of her eyes bloody. She was soaked to the bone and his hand on her thigh told him how saturated she was, bubbling out of her clothing and onto his skin. Her flesh too was warmed by her blood-lust, yet he felt a cold distance in her eyes when they fell on him. A caution, something that seemed like anger without its familiar bite.

It wasn\'t the blood that bothered him. It wasn\'t her eyes piercing him as he drove back towards her house in complete silence. It wasn\'t even the knowledge that he would be staying the day there. There was something else nagging him, something inward-facing and cowardly, something that tried to strip him of his solidarity. Of himself.

And the deeper he dug into it, the less he really wanted to know.

He parked the car in a familiar place of the driveway and got out. He didn\'t wait for her, but went into the house like he owned it and retrieved a number of towels and cleaning supplies. As he passed her, he said rather obviously, "You got blood all over my fucking seats," and smirked at her, knowing all of her possible responses.  

[The Cedar Witch]

Sonya had gone with him before to see to his business.  It made her feel a little more like herself to torture and tease the boys - Vincent specifically.  He thought that his immortality meant he had right to whatever woman crossed his path.  She thought that by now he would have learned that she was not one of their whores and that the more he pushed her, the more she would fuck with the inside of his mind.  Well, that she would fuck around with his mind even if he thought about pushing her.  Of course, the fact that she hadn't fed in nearly a month must have made her appearance (and age) that much more intimidating - particularly to a younger vampire.  Quite amusing.

The blood had helped.  At least, that was what she insisted on repeating in her own mind like a gory mantra.  They spent almost an entire evening feeding - or at least she had.  There was very little that she specifically remembered, her memory clouded by the instinctual blood lust that pushed her thoughts away.  She fed without remorse, taking blood straight from the hearts of many.  She took far more than she needed to, far more than would have been safe to do under the watchful eye of the Oligarchy.  Every body she took from, she drained until there wasn't anything left to take.  Somewhere beneath the rawness of need, she wanted to drown the burning that had pushed her into this state to begin with.  To return to that state of normalcy the two had established before lines began to blur.

Her head finally cleared as they were driving back to her house, full of blood.  At first, she was only vaguely aware of her ruined clothing, seeping onto the seats of the Camero.  It was lucky, she supposed, that she had decided to wear only dark clothing that night.  Next she became aware of the condition of her hair and the strong scent of blood hanging around her like a heavy fog.  It was as though she had bathed in blood, like she had so long ago when her sanity was much thinner.  Another thing that she could scarcely remember.

She felt almost human, warm enough to feel the difference in temperature between her skin and the air.  At least for now until the blood had enough time to seep into and feed her dead flesh.  For now she enjoyed the feeling, the mental detachment that she would enjoy until the car stopped in the driveway.  She needed to shower.

"What else is new,"  there was a light smile on her face as she made her way through the house, upstairs into her own bedroom to shower and change into something clean.  The bloody clothing would be taken to the dry cleaners sometime during the day and reappear in her closet before she woke.  She was in and out of the shower by the time Nikolai finished cleaning the blood from his leather seats. 

[Saiketsu]

The black leather interior hid the puddles of blood better than he had expected. While part of him was thankful for the lack of obvious stains to the material as he scrubbed it methodically off, the activity only agrivated him. Had his will to keep the car perfect been any weaker, Nikolai wouldn't have even bothered, knowing that it was going to happen in another day or so.

If he stuck around, that was.

The thought struck him funny and he paused on his hands and knees, leaning into the car. A swirling of black distracted his eyes as Judas again made himself known. Unfortunately, the blood hadn't sedated the demon's thirst for attention, a fact that Nikolai found extremely frustrating. As he returned to his patterns of blotting and rubbing the blood out of his car -- which had once been a common occurence, especially since he had started fucking Sonya -- there was a sort of sobering feeling when he became aware that the Queen was no longer near him physically. It was accompanied by a laughing that he had spent his entire memory with.

"You're fucking weak."

His arms moved rather mechanically, his attention not absorbed in his current task, but spending time in introspective conversation about the decisions he was making by being there. Eventually he had been able to convince himself that he was still at the cunt's house because the sun was about to rise - even though he would have plenty of time to make it back to his apartment  had he just left. For now, it was enough for the monster to allow his attention to return to the clear patch of leather he had been scrubbing clean for the past few moments.

When he was done, he locked the car and returned to the house, the skies turning purple and turquoise with the onset of the morning. She was still inside, doing fuck knew what, though he could smell that she was upstairs, fresh from the shower. He returned the cleaning things and followed the flight of stairs upwards to the room they had slept in the past day, which had been - unsurprisingly - dressed in new sheets. He also undressed and showered, though he didn't bother to dress himself afterwards, preferring the feeling of his warmed skin against the blanket on the bed where he sat smoking a cigarette.

[The Cedar Witch]

She also did not dress, moving naked through her room and down the stairs.  Sonya paused for a moment to look through the open door at Nikolai, saying nothing as she passed through the door to take a cigarette.  Her hand moved across his back lightly as she walked around the bed, tracing his skin with her warmed finger tips.  After lighting the cigarette tip and taking a single drag, she walked through the room and down the last flight of stairs.  Part of her expected him to have left by now, the other part of her relieved that he hadn't.  She pushed the thought from her mind, focusing on the heat that she could still feel radiating off her skin from her night of gorging.  That was the point of feeding, to break past the burning feeling.  She wasn't about to let it creep back into her mind again.

The queen made her way to the piano room where the scent of the Italian boy had faded from the few nights before.  Her eyes watched the rising sun through the tinted glass as she moved the cigarette up to her lips slowly.  She would watch the sun rise until the vibrant colors would have faded from the sky.

What now?

[Saiketsu]

She stole his cigarettes nightly (when he hung around long enough) and had gotten over this source of annoyance after a while. It used to be that whenever he saw her filching his  cigarettes, he'd try to pull them out of her cold dead hands -- only to have her try to pull out one of his piercings in retaliation. Now he just let her and actually took it into consideration and always carried a back up pack in his car. This time, however, her touch was more than welcome across his shoulderblade and up over his tattooed flesh of his arm and collarbone. Her fingers were warmer than he remembered and she almost felt human. When her naked frame leaned over him to take a stick from the pack, his green eyes moved over her with a lingering hunger that her fingers had illuminated. He didn't react to it, but let it heat his groin as she did what she wanted and then left.

He watched the horizon stain with pastels and slowly become lighter. When his cigarette had gone out, and the sun was high enough to ensure that any vampire was a pile of ashes on the ground like those under his cigarette hand, he stood and wandered about his room. He strolled aimlessly towards the dresser in the room. Nikolai pulled out a fresh pair of jeans and pulled it over his naked body, letting the waist sit within the plow of dark brown plow of pubic hair. He chose no shirt, shoes, or anything else to wear, feeling quite content in just the pair of jeans. In the pockets he shoved a lighter, his packet of smokes, and a few packets of fire crackers that he had found that night.

In the midst of their blood feast, he had tried to tell her what the little packet of sticks was after they had found some kid throwing them out their window in an alley in Brockton. She had said that she had never heard of them before. When he had tried to explain to her what they were, fighting with the excitement within himself over finding a good supply of them (because after all, it had been nearly ten years since he had even touched a pack), she told him never to bring them near her. So, obviously he had picked them up to do just that.

With the fireworks in his pockets, he took the stairs two at a time and landed on the lower landing with a content thud. She's was at the piano, but he didn't care, and chose to stroll with a rather boyish bravado right up next to her and took a kiss from her, without explaining himself or what he wanted.

Without waiting for her response, he stepped back and gave her a devilish look as he drew the lighter and fire work from his pocket to taunt her. He watched her eyes go steely, as if there were a bit of fright behind them, something she would never admit to. He flicked the flint and started the flame, inching it closer to the wick, just to spite her and make her angry.

[The Cedar Witch]

When he made a rather loud entrance, she narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him, letting her cigarette burn without touching her lips.  She watched him saunter toward her and responded hesitantly to his kiss.  He was up to something. 

Oh, fuck no.

"Put that away."  Each word was emphasized and accented.  She flicked her cigarette and did not budge, expression narrowed into a glare.  If it wasn't for the fact that she saw them set off in the city streets, she would have been more nervous to have something burning in her home.  Despite the low possibility that the firecracker would set her home on fire, it still made her nervous.  Besides, she didn't want any damage done to her floors and the noise in a closed area would be extremely unpleasant. 

"Don't" She hissed, subconsciously backing away from him as he inched the flame closer to the fuse.

She was going to fucking kill him.

[Saiketsu]

Some part of him liked to watch her flinch from him. He knew why, of course -- not every vampire liked to fuck around with the one of the only things in the world that could horribly disfigure and kill them for shits and giggles like Nikolai did. It was the sense of the primal fear that he felt, as well as watching others panic. That's why he had originally gone out with Sonya when she fed. But when it was Sonya herself panicking over a little fire cracker, well, that was comedy.

As fast as he could, he brought the fuse and the flame together and before he knew it, there was a fizzing sound coming from the wick as if burned rapidly. Nikolai held onto the thing for as long as he could before the wick had reached the miniature stick of dynamite, which he then threw quickly towards Sonya's bare feet. The thing landed with a loud snap and burst of light about two feet from her. Nothing had struck her, of course - he was very skilled at this sort of thing - but her reaction said differently. It was her reaction that made him start laughing at her, however.

[The Cedar Witch]

If she could have seen her own face, watched her own reaction, she would have been ashamed.  She nearly leaped back as soon as he lit and threw the firecracker, hissing at the object as though it would deter it from exploding.  Even though she was expecting it, the noise made her start and she bared her fangs, tensing up her hands as though she were preparing to attack.  She flinched away from the small amount of heat coming from the brief fire of the explosion.  Nothing life threatening, just a nuisance that played on her subconscious drive to avoid burning objects.

Pathetic.

Her eyes flew from the soot on her floor to the grin on the Prick's face.  Through clenched teeth she called him a little shit and various other things in a handful of different languages - none of them English.  She lunged at him.

[Saiketsu]

He had obviously expected her reaction, having been in similar situations like this one. He continued to laugh at her curses - none of which he understood, but he obviously interpretted correctly - despite her hissing and lunging. Had Sonya been human, she would have never caught him as he tried to dodge her, but alas, the bitch was quick. He tried to evade her nails and her full weight and power coming at him, but she was too old for him. She caught him square in the hip, her face hitting his shoulder and her hands gorging themselves on his naked tattooed flesh as his hands fought to light another one. He responded to the blood pouring like wine over her fingers in his muscles wiith a grunt of pained laughter, something he had come to enjoy about their horseplay. She fought to free the lighter from his hands, to shred the fireworks with her long nails in the attempt to stop his folly.

Nikolai tried his best not to let her, fighting his hardest not to let her win. She was at least ten times his age and he was slow compared to her, and he knew it. As quickly as he could, he lit another one, throwing it with a twisted arm as quickly as he could at Sonya's feet to try to shake her off of him. When he had managed to get one lit past her guard, he threw it somewhere and seconds later, the pop would send a jolt through Sonya's lithe frame, giving Nikolai the edge.

Her hands reached for blood, or tried to get his piercings out of his body. When she had finally gotten one - his left nipple ring - she gave it a strong tug until it pulled clean out of his flesh. A drilling pain echoed inside of his chest as he dropped the lit fire cracker near his own feet for the sake of covering his oozing bloody nipple. He yelled loudly as the white hot pain raced into his body. A loud pop nearby had caused him to stumble backwards, away from Sonya, who was holding onto his bloody nipple ring with a sort of shocked victorious look in her eyes.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" The younger yelled at her. "Do you have any idea how much that fucking hurts?" He then took to cradling his healing nipple which hurt more than any amount of tattoos or piercings combined.

[The Cedar Witch]

She blinked a few times, watching him nurse his wound.  It took her a few seconds to realize exactly what she had done, and when she did she walked toward him, holding the bloody ring out to him - almost like some kind of apology. 

Well, at least it got him to stop acting like a child.

Of course somewhere she enjoyed it.  This play-fighting was refreshing.  Usually it happened when they were in bed for the evening, fighting for who would occupy the most mattress space.  Usually she yanked a lip ring out of his mouth with her fangs in a ferocious kiss.  She never even thought of tried to rip a ring from his nipple.  That was just cruel.

Some kind of smile formed on her lips.  It was almost funny watching him like this.  Of course, she could have easily overpowered him faster than he could have realized or imagined, but where was the fun in doing that?

"I told you not to light those fucking things in my house."

[Saiketsu]

"So you rip out my nipple ring?!" He shouted at her, losing control of the volume of his voice. Judas laughed in his ear, saying that this was only a taste of what he could expect from playing with fire. Nikolai didn't really feel like hearing it. With impatience, he snatched the ring back from the Queen and held it painfully against the healing skin so that it might heal around the metal. There was nothing more annoying than repiercing his nipples, and nothing more painful - that he had ever experienced any way - than having that tiny little ring tearing through the undead sensative flesh of his nipples. With a grimace on his face he held the ring to the skin that was quickly healing and folded it into the shreads of skin. His teeth set tightly together, he hissed as he moved the flesh together, slitting his finger for a bit more bondage fluid. He was tempted to tell her to cut her tongue and lick his nipple. Losing a nipple was never part of the fun.

"Mother fucker," he murmured at his left breast as it finally closed tentatively around the ring. He looked up to see the blank look on Sonya's face and lit another fire cracker out of anger - though not without a touch of laughter attached. "You fucking cunt!"

[The Cedar Witch]

Oh, so he was actually angry.

She made no additional move toward him as he took the ring back, watching him with no expression on her face.  Sonya didn't feel that bad.  After all, it would heal.  Granted, she had never experienced a nipple being ripped, but he could deal with it.  Obviously.  For a moment she thought their game was done, until he lit another fire cracker.  She tensed up like last time, unable to stop herself from hissing again like she expected him to throw it at her.  The ancient did not move until the thing left his hands for the floor in front of her - only then did she lunge at him another time.

This time, she would take the lighter. 

Fucking fireworks.  In her house.

[Saiketsu]

He turned his back to her as she came at him, making sure that she had no access to his nipples or anything else she could use against him. He felt her familiar force at his waist, trying to claw at his hands, pulling at his elbows to get her way. "Yeah, come here, I'll set your fucking hair on fire." He caught the elder in a head lock and tried to flick the flint with a shit-eating smirk, only to have her slither out of his grasp and dig her claws into him elsewhere. The more she squirmed away from him, the more he would try to set her ablaze.

"Don't!" She yelled at him, sending an elbow hard into his ribs, knocking the air from him.

More than once she brought him to his knees and got that lighter away from him. Nikolai, however, was stubborn, and despite the obvious age and ability difference, he would still fight her until he had his way. As a result, he was flipped onto his back, bitten, clawed until his flesh was raw and bloodied, his hair pulled. But Sonya suffered a similar abuse, and he would never let her forget it. He pulled her hair, grabbed at her neck, kissed at her to distract her. Out of everything he tried this was the most useful tactic, their antics calmed for a few seconds while their tongues clashed and their hands found a bit more tenderness for each other - but only briefly. Sometimes he would bite her mid kiss and take the lighter back, and set another one sparking and spinning around on the floor.

[The Cedar Witch]

Internally she sighed.  She was getting sick of the firecrackers, even if she was becoming used to the noise.  But they were beginning to stink up the house and dirty her floors.  If she could just get the lighter from him and distract him enough for him to lose interest in setting of fireworks indoors....

She waited for enough time to pass until she thought she had an opening.  When he was least expecting it.  With her hand around his fist balled around the lighter, she pressed her lips to his again in another display of ferocious passion.  She smirked through the kiss - the only hint for what was to come.  After she had given him just enough to desire her more, she hooked her fang through the hoop of his left lip ring and yanked her head back - simultaneously taking the lighter from his hand when his guard was dropped.

[Saiketsu]

Her impressive display of passion had not been lost on Nikolai - though he knew what her intentions were. Despite knowing that all she wanted was for him to give her the lighter, he protested against her lips for only moments. He succumbed to her mouth, putting his hands on her naked hips as she pressed herself tightly against him. His balls stirred once again as she worked him over, the idea of fucking her quickly becoming something more distracting than setting off fireworks.

That was, until she had slipped past his guard and yanked his lip ring out.

She was right to step away from him quickly, because his claws aimed for skin as quickly as he could, obviously hitting nothing. A richeous pain ran through his face and down his jaw. It wasn't his nipple but, fuck!, did it hurt like a bitch. Her usual habit of ripping his jewelry from his body usually consisted of his lip rings, especially when he had pissed her off too much. So the pain, while pulsing in his mouth and almost numbing his tongue, was a more tolerable sensation than her wrath towards his nipples. Nikolai just looked at her for a moment, the taste of his warm blood filling his mouth and dribbling down his chin, dotting his chest. "You are fucking dead," he hissed at her with only a hint of a smirk.

He rushed at the woman, but aimed for her knees at the last second to prevent her from really fighting back. She caught his mass of wet black hair with her hand, but Nikolai caught one of her knees. With Sonya off balance, he kept charging until she lost her balance and she was - more or less - over his shoulders as he plowed her into the nearby couch. He was a bloody mess from her nails by the time their lips found each other again. The elder sucked furiously on his open lip - after she had spat the ring at him, which hit him just beneath the eye before bouncing off and circling on the ground three feet away. He bit her hard, making her moan into his mouth, urging their kiss farther into ecstasy, their bodies now parallel on that leather couch. It wasn't long before he was thrusting hard and grinding into her willing hips and he had forgotten about the fire crackers and lighter altogether.