Rehabilitation

[Saiketsu]

"You haven't needed her since you were a fledgling, Nadia," Pierre said, almost impatiently. "Even then she gave you less than you needed." He couldn't understand why she was so adamant about defending Odessa. When they had been lovers, Nadia had told him herself that Odessa had given her a week of comfort through her death.

"She's offered you nothing but judgement and self-doubt your entire existence! She's left you holding her baggage more times than you can count," he said thinking of the thin-blood that Sonya had made and abandoned in Nadia's care, a thin-blood that he was not supposed to know about. "And now, when you finally have the chance to walk away from her as she's walked away from you so many times before, when you clearly want to walk away, you convince yourself to stay? Why, Nadie?" He took a step away from her unable to be that close to her anymore, finding another section of railing to look out over and running a hand through his hair. The entire situation was maddening, and Nadia, as always remained stubborn in her pursuit of pleasing Odessa. It was the one thing that he fucking hated her for.

[The Cedar Witch]

Black churning waves.
Smiling wrinkles in the corners of sharp green eyes. 
No--buryitburyitBURYIT make it gone itneverexistedletitgo
Musical laughter.  Masks of goats, peacocks, plague doctors.
Roaring fire.  Searing flesh and ash.
The echo of trotting horseshoes on cobblestone.
Bouncing blonde curls-- моя маленька лялька
Pulsing necks.  Blood pouring like raindrops.
The crushing weight of the sea.

Eyes shot open.  There was pressure--ties--around chest, legs, arms.  The remaining blood from the bags connected to her arms drained into her flesh.  Odessa tore herself from the restraints, ripped the needle from her arms, and sat up.  She seemed for a moment, lucid.

“Where have you taken me.  What is this--what are you doing?  Where is my daughter?”  She spoke darkly with a snarl, increasing the weight of her aura in the room as much as she could.  ‘Damien’ was not given the chance to answer.  The Ancient reached for him with her mind, magnetically with a force she had never wielded against him, intent on dragging him into the gaping hole of madness in her mind.

[Harlequin]

The hurt did not show on her face as Pierre walked away from her, but it cut like a cold, sharp knife. Her voice held just a trace of it.  "Imagine what she'd become without me."

Escape? A world where Odessa just let her go didn't exist. Maybe it had once; maybe even in Paris, but now ––

And then the madness crashed through her like a wave, the force of it physical, drowning, causing her to rock back on one heel.

Nadia's head whipped toward the door, ponytail swinging. Her hands balled themselves into fists. "She's awake." The words came out strangled, heavy with dread, and maybe, maybe, the faintest hint of loathing.

[Saiketsu]

Pressure struck him first, like the floor dropped out from under him. Then there was the Blackness again, the void, the squeezing of his mental strength. It treated him like taffy, pulling, stretching, trying to tear at everything, to drag him down into madness like he had never known. And the pain, Christ, the pain. Blades ripping through flesh, cracking of bones. He was blind, deaf, and dumb, scrambling to cling to things as they fell past him. There was no difference between real and imagined, only what was stable enough to hold him down from being dragged into that deep darkness, and the inevitable force pulling him in.

Damien was afraid.

---

Pierre was about to respond to her comment when he felt the air between them change.

"She's awake." Nadia said in a voice that confused him. He looked back at her and noticed her focus. His heart sank a bit, wanting more time with her alone - why could they never be alone together? Immediately he left the railing, dropping their conversation for now, and walked briskly back into the house and to the cellar door. Unlatching it, he opened the door, expecting that Nadia would be right behind him, and descended the stairs with apprehension.

Until he heard Damien cry out in pain, followed by a sound of a body falling on tiled floor. Pierre rushed into the room with as much speed as he could muster in such tight quarters.

His Sire was on the ground, crumpled. Damien had taken out the IV stand that had been stationed near Sonya on his way down. Now, Pierre could see that bitch leaning off the table, surveying her damage. A new flavor of rage filled his chest as he watched Sonya climb down, Damien remaining unmoving at her feet.

[The Cedar Witch]

Satisfied, she withdrew her mind to conserve her strength.  Now to deal with the Other.  And find her daughter.  Nadia--the clearest image in her shakey mind--she would not escape without her.  If they had done anything to her she would be bringing these men their second death.

With excellent timing, the Other had appeared in the room.  Odessa took advantage of the shock of the scene she had left behind and charged full speed, claws outstretched and fangs bared.   

[Harlequin]

Pierre was right; Nadia was not two steps behind the entire way. But still too far.

"Odessa, stop!" Nadia shouted, with her voice and her mind, as her mother descended on Pierre. She tried to shove him out of the way, but fast as she was, she was desperately slow compared to her sire.

 

[The Cedar Witch]

Nadia's voice pierced her mind like the sharp tone of a bell.  And Odessa did stop, though not before her arm shot out, fingers burying themselves in her daughter's arm.  She stared at them for a beat, spellbound, before hastily retracting them with a mildly horrified look on her face. 

[Saiketsu]

There hadn't been time to react as he was pushed roughly and suddenly to the side, off balance and ungracefully clambering against the tile for traction. He went down hard onto his hip and elbow, cradling himself away from re-injuring his burn on his abdomen as best he could. Pierre was on the floor before he even knew what was happening, looking wildly back up to where he once stood.

But then he smelled Nadia's blood in the air, fresh. He remembered his anger and was on his feet again as Sonya reeled in her surprise. Pierre found it convenient in that very moment to rush the Ancient and twist that gorgeous little head right on its axis, breaking Sonya's neck.

He marvelled at how good it felt.

[Harlequin]

Nadia caught the better part of her sire's brutal attack, the older vampire's claws sinking into her flesh and stopping only when they hit bone. Her mouth dropped open in a wordless cry.

Odessa had never wounded her before. Not even in the deepest parts of her madness. She'd struck her daughter, certainly, but these wounds would take days to fully heal.

She staggered backwards, clutching her arm as Pierre fell upon Odessa, and the riot in her mind shut off with a sickening crack. Nadia watched her mother sag again to the floor, looking the wrong way over her shoulder. Blood dripped through her fingers.

Her mouth remained open, matching her blown-out pupils.

[Saiketsu]

He took a deep breath and pulled Sonya's body from the floor, tossing her indelicately over his shoulder, her arms slumping down his back. Without speaking to Nadia, he carried the Ancient into one of the other rooms, one with a bed and a sink. It was a simple set up, no furniture or homey touches like Damien had upstairs. It was perfect for her.

With about as much grace as he picked her up, Pierre dropped Sonya's body a bit too roughly on the bed. He did her the courtesy of aligning her broken neck for better healing, resting it on an extra pillow to keep it from rolling too extremely. The situation struck him as funny and very cathartic.

Without speaking to Nadia, he closed over the door and attended now to Damien on the floor still, stirring now.

---

He was blind, the world a charcoal grey and figureless around him. There was a buzzing in what he assumed was his head, but it was the pain like bleeding wounds that made him aware of the presence of his body. Something cold was holding him, and he could remember the fear of falling into the Madness. Panic made his muscles move, restricted and heavy. He was on the ceiling, about to fall.

A noise that was too familiar, one that he couldn't hear well. His head hurt too much. Another noise, like language. He groaned at it, unable to move for fear of Falling. A name. His name! Someone was saying his name. What was his name now?

"Damien." That's right! He was Damien now. But who was calling him now? "Damien." There it was again! The heaviness in his limbs was fading and the grey was lightening around him. He found muscles pulling tendons, pulling bones. He found his body and realized he was on the floor, the weight of gravity holding him there. "Damien."

"I'm okay," he murmured, not really sure if that was true. Strong arms pulled him up and Damien's newly remembered stomach churned weakly. Feet stood and wavered and hands grasped for the other's arm. "I can't see. Where's Odessa?"

"She's fine." He heard, a callous voice. "I put her in the other room. Sit down already." Damien felt himself guided backwards a high table. "What the hell just happened? Where are we? What year is it?"

[Harlequin]

When Pierre returned, Nadia was mostly composed again. Not that he noticed. She shut her mouth with a clacking of teeth and huffed a short breath through her nose.

Typical. Did he truly not see the similarities between this situation and the one she'd walked into at the bar? It was practically the same conversation she and Sonya had had.

Circumstances count for something. She buried the thought, though her mind was already well-guarded.

She let Damien and Pierre have their moment, instead going about searching the room for bandages. Pierre could damn well clean up her bloody handprints later.

[Saiketsu]

"We're in your house in the basement, and it's 1974," Pierre placed Damien's hands on a high table behind him and watched him jump to sit on the edges of it. His Sire's eyes were glazed over, but Pierre had seen this before with him. Damien had over extended his mental reach only once before in Pierre's memory - the night Lucretia and their entire family died. It was the first and only time that he had heard Damien's voice in his head, trickling through their blood bond. He had recovered fully over weeks, but had some partial sight by the end of the first week. This was all temporary, Pierre knew, or at least it better be. Damien was older now and fed regularly. With a regular dosing of blood and enough mental rest, Pierre anticipated that his sire would be seeing fully within two days.

It was not business as usual, however, and Pierre's demeanor made that plain. He slapped a bag of blood into Damien's outstretched hands. "Richard Nixon just said he was 'no crook' and Muhammed Ali just killed George Foreman." He banged the items he was putting away a bit too loudly to show he was being sarcastic. "Drink that and stay here." He continued to watch until Damien did what he was told. Good boy.

He crossed the Blood Room to Nadia who was leaving bloodied hand prints everywhere he looked. He sighed and took her good hand, pulling her towards him. "Okay, come here." He had turned her to face him, some loose gauze in his hand, some bandages on the counter next to them. It was a strange moment to be playing caretaker to her again, and he found himself unable to look up at her face while he took care of her wound.

It looked worse than when he had first seen it. The wound was open and oozing with blood everytime she moved. A flap of flesh hung  and exposed the muscle and tendons beneath. The sight sobered him in his anger. "Why did you do that?" he spoke lowly to her still not looking at her face while he tucked her muscles and tendons back inside the red cavity that was in her arm. Nadia bled more but at least the soft tissues would heal better now, faster. "You know I could have handled her."

[Harlequin]

She hissed in a breath through her clenched teeth as he worked on her. Nadia had grown unused to physical pain, and that was the way she preferred it.

Unlike, apparently, Pierre. "Could you?" she asked, with an uncharacteristic gentleness. While he avoided her face, she looked at him intently, "When Kerr merely bumped into you at that party, it was enough to send you sprawling."

I didn't want to see you hurt like that again. Not for the first time, she thanked Damien for Pierre's inability to hear thoughts. It was her turn to look away. 

[Saiketsu]

He searched her face, caught unaware. "That's different," he said softly, his voice thoughtful. Pierre looked back down at his work, the first pad of gauze that he pressed into her arm stemming the bleeding, but not stopping it fully. He had forgotten that she knew about his burn. "That was years ago now, and it's healing fine. Lift." He took her hand and put it gently on his shoulder, trying his best to not disturb her as much as possible. Concentrating on his work, he hoped that his pathetic reaction to having her touch him went unnoticed. Gingerly, he placed the backing of the bandage on the underside of her arm and began to wrap her arm as best he could, applying slight pressure to keep it secure on her slender arms.

"Besides," he said with a characteristic smirk that clearly read of a poor excuse for downplaying the situation, "she wasn't aiming for my abdomen."

[Harlequin]

Nadia did as she was told, moving her arm to give him better access. A moment's resistance to touching his shoulder; clearly a carefully conditioned response that she was choosing to throw out now. She snorted through her nose. "Healing? Still?"

"She was aiming for whatever pretty part of you she could reach," Nadia shot back, "She may have been out of her mind, but if there's one thing she'll always know, it's how to hurt people. Everyone she's ever met."