#o: d.dömötör

[reidhalstead]

There's no doubt she's too proud to see herself anywhere below him. And it's a ghoulish sight, to watch the way their bones shift like living entities in the springy flesh of the undead. Reid goads because he wants to see the monster; it makes it easier when he does this — justifying the twisted use of his suppressed abilities.

It isn't about survival or revenge. It's punishment, really. He'll never atone for his crimes or his sins by ashing this woman. But it will make the blood spilt taste a little better on his tongue when he inevitably has to cave to basal urges. Maybe it's spite that fuels the insanity that he might remember how to be a hunter, in the body of something else. He's danced this routine before and it doesn't always end in his favour; a broken neck and a long day witnessing the devious eyes of his sire; they still forever haunt the back of his gaze.

The other creature recovers in another fast flash, Reid has to focus intensely to be able to track the movements. His senses prickle, locking onto the awareness that he needs to use them and not neglect them. Spending so long pretending they aren't there, has done him no favours.

Another snap echoes in the alleyway when his cheek cracks under the weight of her blow. Then, as he goes to step back, his knee goes too — shatttering. It's impossible not to cry out in pain that reverberates louder in the confined space. He drops onto his good knee and the one that's in fragments trembles with spent energy as it slowly begins its healing process; resetting the nerves around the ivory within. Fuck. You. He wants to say it, but he fears if he opens his mouth, he might just release agonised noise in pissed off plight that she's hit well.

Teeth gritting, her words are a sword in themselves. Cutting at his resolve, adding to the frustration that burns in his body as he stays knelt at her feet. Any passerby might take the scene as something else entirely — on one knee, head nearly bowed to fight the too-long felt sensation of discomfort. It feels like forever before he might be able to stand again.

Head wrenched back to look at her, he hisses, bending into her grasp to ease the pulling on his hair.

"Are we done already?" He spits the words at her, right before he grabs her wrist and twists it sharply with a snap. Reid forces her to loosen the vice of a hand she has on him so when he dives forward and slams her back against the dilapidated bricks. He burrows a fist in her stomach with a jagged undercut and his mouth sharply darts to tear and bury in her throat —

The way he nearly goes down is satisfying, a rush of adrenaline pumping through her veins like the warmth of blood from the man she had just drained. But this guy? This fledgling with a big mouth and a pathetic game? He won’t go down so easily, he offers more distraction. More fight, and she can see the flame of it in his eyes. Vampires never went down easily.

They’d fight and fight no matter how hard you hit. Fight until they crumble to ash as their head detached or their heart was ripped from their body. How a heart could still hold so much weight when it no longer beats is a fascinating fact. Maybe she’d do his sire a favor and crush his, leaving the traces of him blowing in the autumn wind. Fist raises back like a well-oiled engine, ready to strike a third time. He catches it this time though, prepared for another blow, his block enough to catch her at a miss.

The sudden burst of pain at a boot to the chest, she feels something crack as she smacks into the wall of the other side of the alley. She breathes through it as it heals as fast as it has cracked and blue eyes narrow as he tells her to get up. ’Fucking death wish’ she thinks to herself as she does just that and nearly rips her coat off to loosen her movements more.

“Gladly,” she grits out, moving as if she is about to swing at his jaw again only to uppercut with the opposite fist into his side, snarling in her anger as her foot is pulled back and reconnects with his knee in a shattering blow. “A self-loathing vampire, how fucking original.” she bites out. It feels good, hitting something with resistance, exhilarating. It makes her feel alive, the violence of it. The way it makes her forget when it is, what is coming. The way it sparks a joy she should be scared of. Something she’ll wonder about later. Wonder if she’s truly broken at this point, She grabs a handful of his hair and yanks his head to the side. “Fucking pathetic.”

[reidhalstead]

He doesn’t care to hear the cackle of a corpse drawing its last breath. Because she is a beast justifying a murder through the skin of her teeth. It couldn’t be proven one way or the other — because their witness is dead; no words to disparage the claims of a woman speaking so foul.

Reid hardly wonders what they could possibly say that might paint the creature as anything else. But he knows this isn’t some self-gratification in reliving glory days. Because he could never be that, like this. Hungering for justice, in a way that’s feral and wanton. A dead, infectious thing that claws and scratches until he bathes it in blood — til he feeds his body’s anguish, in the only thing a creature like them could.

Halstead almost dares to pick up the pace when she turns, he braces for her to move in a way only the rapidity of dark gazes could follow. But he should have known she would never run.

She desires to chase blood in the same way he does. He can repress their nature, but he knows the rewiring of his mind is agonisingly deep. It has melded to more than his mind and his soul; it festers beneath every ounce of flesh, screaming for him to use what it can offer.

In this, he might. Morals, and pride — gone.

Reid captures the smirk in a flash but the sight is suddenly snatched from his vision. Her fist shatters the side of his jaw, and he groans in protest to the pain that erupts across his face. He stumbles, made off balance. It’s a quick blow — almost as fast as the healing process. He goes to rise, but another blow cracks as if she’s trying to put him down, and his knee tempts him to cave under the sheer tenacity.

But he won’t fall.

And he won't let her strike a third time when a rapid hand flies up to block her assault — his leg lifts in retaliation and he harshly lands a sharp boot to the woman’s chest to send her throttling backwards.

Even he knows when his combats land against a rib that her strength carries every promise she’s made him. He’s not surprised, given she’s freshly murdered a man. She's fuelled on human life and he's thinking about the last rat he disgustingly drank from.

Reid rubs his jaw, testing the bone again; it’s numb, but the sensation is there. Enough of it repaired that he can hiss at her. He’s straightening again, battling with the part of him that he refuses to like. But it’s instinct that follows with the power. “No I don’t mind,” he mutters, darting forward to meet her in the shadows again. “Get up,” he urges, as if she can’t do it in a blink. “Show me my place.”

Arrogant, a liar, she can sense it in the body language. His sire had gotten the better of him and that fact hurts him. His pride. And his very will to live. But something holds him back from ending things himself. Something pulls him to remain, perhaps someone. Or an unwillingness to bend a knee to loss altogether. His eye roll is frustrating.

Pigheaded. He’ll learn as time goes by, it’s hardly her business to turn his mind, to help a dead Hunter learn more past his skewed morals. Daniella squares her jaw and lets out a humorless laugh at his attempt at a comeback. Clearly, he hadn’t been much of a conversationalist, probably a stab-and-run kind of guy. All brute, no brain. It explains the way he clings to his past. He thinks he was honorable for putting monsters down. People like her. And she supposes for some Hunters she had become somewhat of a boogieman.

Something that lurks in their shadow, a curse, something to attempt to vanquish. She can only hope so at least. The bloody stain on a generational vendetta. But her word is her will and how close she is to being finished. She’s ready to turn and leave, let him wallow in his own pity and shame over not having been able to stop her before she’d killed the one that had started this whole conversation.

His words, make her turn back to him though, catching him advancing. A small smirk catches her lips. So this is where he wanted this to go. She meets him, fist already balled and not hesitating to swing, reflexes faster than the human eye as it collides with the side of his jaw in a sickening crack. “Mind your elders fledgling.” she hisses, another cracking hit. “Learn your place.”

[reidhalstead]

Often, monsters quickly find the weakness to drive a dagger into; the magicless mark that stains his hand and exactly what it used to represent. Reid hasn't yet come up with a good comeback, or excuse that tells someone differently. Yes. He's beyond upset, furious— bitter, a tome of unspilt wrath that has its pages set only to eradicate curses like this one. Better served as fertiliser for some strain of parasitical plants — he imagines Kiri would have something witty to say about that. If death didn't take that from her too.

"Not before I watched them crumble to dust," He utters back — a terrible lie, that he knows his sire would laugh at him for. Reid's hand brushes over the tattoo on his hand, like it itches; an old tic that sometimes has him believing the phantom sensation that it prickles with magic again. Wanting to warn him, to be wary — to be smart on this. But it's not magic or the faded swirl of a hunter's mark.

It's all the other senses he's denying are there. Recognising power in a different way than before. The woman spins a story —

"You can tell yourself whatever you want, if it helps you sleep," He'll assume the lie. Because that's easier too. Liars. The pair of them. Vampires. Full of monstrous traits that Halstead bitterly represses. He's still spitting his assertions, as noble as ever: "The answer still remains to be, you."

A pair of vigilantes in an alley, bickering over morals. Reid hates himself enough as it is. He doesn't want this to be all its mercies if that is what she is biting for.

I've known men like you for centuries. She hasn't even finished talking, and Reid's rolling his eyes into oblivion — Puffs his chest, once, at her speech. He doesn't have one so well prepared, as apparently she does.

"Were you once a budding-poet?" It's frank, dismissive. She can think what she likes. "You're terrible at it." Political speeches of hierarchical divides, of monsters and men. He is done with the memories of what he once was, is, and the former life he's trying to remember for its fractured parts. "You're slow with this dirt beneath your boot stuff, because if I'm not going to be that. Then you will be." And he's closing the distance between them.

His bark of laughter would startle her if she weren’t so focused on his every move, she wasn’t looking for this tonight. She never really does, despite her charm and willingness to socialize, she wants to go home. This time of year is always hard. A deep sadness in her aching for the loss of true connection. This bastard with his vicious, loathing words. The way he looks at her. It’s then that it clicks, she knows what it is. Knows what he is. At least what he was, perhaps one day he’ll pick up his flag of hatred once more. Maybe he’ll take a stroll in the sun. Whatever it is, she hopes it serves him well. It’s clear he isn’t happy, that he is pushing past judgments on others. that he thinks the corpse in the trash would have stood by him if he confronted her and marked her as the villain.

Hunters…they’re all the same at the end of it. No, not all, there was a difference between protecting and taking care of one another and mindless violence. An honor to a true soldier. This man is just a reckless thrill junkie who had thought himself better because he had a heartbeat and pulse. Because he was normal. Her eyes dance with delight as she looks at him, lips turning up in a mocking smirk. “Upset because someone got the better of you, Hunter?” she sneers the title, he’s less than shit beneath her shoe. He sees the other side and yet clings to a life of bloodthirsty violence. He doesn’t know her, and yet like them all he passes judgment. Assumes. Thinks he knows better because just like anyone in any walk of life there were bad ones.

“His name was Aaron Miller, he had a bad drinking habit. Would get real violent with his girlfriend after a bottle of scotch. The witch in question, Amelia Greene, daycare teacher. Makes healing potions in her free time. Tell me, who deserved to die tonight?” she asks him, watching him, daring him to pick one because of who they are.

“You never think of anything but yourself, even when you are on the other side. So don’t pretend to know anything about me or what I do. I’ve known men like you for centuries. Thinking you’re above anyone else because you have a knife, a gun, an axe and a vendetta against anything you decide is unnatural. I’ve watched your kind burn houses and villages. Watched you hang innocent women. All for what? Your great crusade? So yes, this hunter pissed me off. For beating a human. For stalking innocent witches like they’re lambs to slaughter. He got his. What he deserved, Treated like trash, shit beneath my heel. That’s the reality of where you come from. I will tell you there are Hunters who aren’t addicted to the hunt. But the kind like you? The ones who think they are above it all, well ask yourself who the true villains of the stories are.”

[reidhalstead]

Baby, is a moniker that falls off of him with disdain. In a past life, he would have acted by now, less talk, more wood and ash. But he's still denying relearning all his former qualities, with newfound capability. It feels like if he accepts he can, then he complies with the idea that he has become just the same as the ones he once prided himself on hunting.

Reid's bark of a laugh is genuine if only because she strikes close to the mark that he could only dream of. If he could solve all his issues by running, he would have done that on day one. But he doesn't run, (he might hide, and bide his time) but his cowardice is not for monsters stalking the night. His gutlessness has always come hand-in-hand with his self-loathing and all the things he will never commit to.

"Ask them, why don't you?" Why would he care about the sire that is plague enough in his life? Vampires and their sirely bonds and loyalties. Halstead would spit on it all if he thought that the woman across from him would know the depth of his hatred. "You've got your wires crossed." He says, moving into the lane, so the shadows keep the pair of them a little more hidden. Reid won't let innocent collateral on the street behind him get in the middle of their spat. "I bet it wasn't that hunter that pissed you off, was it? But another, you're having a grudge match," It's a guess because Reid knows what it's like to smear an entire world with the same brush. And she speaks so certainly of hunter-kind that it sounds like him, a decade ago. All confidence and assurance that he was the most dangerous thing in the dark.

Where one does something beastly, it suddenly means the whole lot of them are capable of foul deeds. So he's always preached the act of putting a stop to them before they have the chance to maim their next victim. Undeath shows him the grey-world, instead of the black and white.

But this vampire, with her attitude and her vengeful tone. She's one of those with the black souls, and better served as ashy fodder for the earth to devour.

Whoever he belongs to needs to teach him manners, she gives him a bored expression as he riles himself further, as his eyes trail the blood on the cement. Maybe he was just hangry, maybe he has a death wish. Whichever it is she really doesn’t like the tone coming from the man's mouth. The accusation that this Hunter was doing a service to the people of this city. The way he looks at her as if she’s a bloodthirsty criminal when the actual murderer is in the dumpster he had belonged in all along. What kind of lowlife paints the victim as the one in the wrong, and who was he to question her judgment when he’d just happened along at the end of her work? He smells fresh, new-age fucking kids thinking they knew better.

“It’s none of your business what I do, and if you have any sense you’ll keep walking, baby,” the usual pet name is spit out like an insult, maybe Hunter wouldn’t be the only thing on the menu tonight. She may have had a soft spot for witches, werewolves, and on occasion vampires. But she has no soft spot for insolent pricks with a superiority complex.

“Or you can stay here, join your godly Hunter in the trash. Another stain removed from the planet. I’m sure your sire would thank me, or did the piss baby run away from them too?” she bites out, eyes darkening. “You have a lot to learn, and this isn’t some bullshit lesson about pecking order and the circle of life. Listen really closely, big guy. Mind your own fucking business.”

[reidhalstead]

The rattle of an industrial bin opens — a weighty thing is dumped inside, crushing and crinkling the trash inside — and it closes. Just like that. A life, gone. Infuriating that he sees the carelessness of the act on her features, even when offering up an explanation like they were old friends; educating him on the finer details of murder and bloodletting. He finds himself scoffing with disdain.

Hunter. She says it as a foul thing on her tongue. It provokes him to bend the fingers of his tattooed hand — knowing the intricacy of the faded ink; magicless and shaming as his thumb rubs the side of his index finger, a tic he hasn't kicked yet. She doesn't see him as that — and rightly so, because he isn't. Why would she?

It still causes the stabbing pain in his chest, nonetheless.

"Maybe that witch deserved it." Who was she to decide the dealings of a hunter, as a vampire? "Perhaps that witch is planning on doing something foul, and you just aided in something sick."

Maybe even, the vampire wouldn't give a shit. Holding such bitten animosity for hunters implies she knows that witches are the last maimed in the pecking order, for their usefulness; their mortal closeness. The rest of them? Fair game.

Reid follows the path of blood that's carved into the concrete, staining the pale of the napkin in her grasp, washing away the life she's stolen. It makes him nauseous, to know he's the same as that, in monster-biology. Unforgettable, in the way that he roots himself to the spot, for fear of getting closer and chasing the scent of drying blood; he will not let loose the chains on his repressed hunger.

Halstead nods his head in her direction, circling back to the derision he reserves for his incredibly bitter moments: "And yeah, take offence, I meant it that way."

He speaks again and she rolls her eyes, going about to start cleaning up the mess, leaving bodies out in the open isn’t really her thing. What a prick though, questioning her as if he were better than her, like they weren’t the same species. The body is hoisted up easily and deposited in the nearby dumpster. It seems a suitable enough grave for the piece of shit that dared to stain her shoe. At least he had been useful in satisfying her hunger for the night.

She glances back at Mr. Mysterious in his hoodie, looking like he’s about to mug a lady's purse. “Cute, you might want to watch who you talk to that way. I could have taken offense.” she bites. Body cleaned she turns fully to look at him again, taking him in fully. He really does look like a mugger.

“He’s been stalking a witch for the evening, hunter. Looking for an easy kill, unlucky for him I was around,” she answers, not that it is really any of his business. “He made his choice to act like scum, so he was treated as such. Not that it’s any of your business why I did it. But there it is. Is there a reason you are so concerned, pretty boy?” she asks, because it is interesting why another vampire would even care.

Pulling out a handkerchief from her inner pocket she starts going about finishing wiping blood from herself, he’d been a messy meal. Someone she’s been watching for a while, she isn’t blind to the disappearance of witches in the city as of late. She figures the only other species to give her kindness can use the help. She pushes away the idea that the witch in question had reminded her of Emily.

[reidhalstead]

It’s difficult to keep walking, when every fibre of Reid’s being screams at him to pursue. A hoodie isn’t enough to block out the scent, even as he draws it up past his mouth, like a mask of citrus cotton might ease the sudden desire that erupts from the depths of his blackened soul. The way his teeth ache yearningly for something other than rodent, or hare has him cursing his intermittent bouts of fasting.

Even the hunter part of him is telling him he cannot simply walk by when blood seeps into the concrete, and a finger-width’s of a stream waters by his boot. He’s standing right there, and there’s hardly a drop left that isn’t devoured or wastefully staining the ground.

Reid has a bad habit of putting himself in complicated scenarios of — whose side are you on?

Whoever’s it is, it’s not on hers.

“What would be really helpful, is if you fell on a stake,” Save him the job of taking anything on, filled with stale animal blood and a terrible bout of refusing to embrace a shred of vampiric power. Reid can stand there and play the reasonable; You didn’t have to kill them. But not once has that ever worked in his favour. He doubts it will now.

Halstead steps forward into the shadows of the lane where she stands, querying his irritation at the maimed individual: “What’d they do that deserved that?” And he doesn’t want bullshit on the circle of life, or the eat or be eaten chain. Not when Reid’s evident struggle to temper himself is visible in the way his jaw locks.

@reidhalstead - [ CAUGHT ] for one muse to discover the other in the act of killing someone.

She stands back up fully, fingers coming to her mouth, blood-coated digits slipping between her lips briefly to clean them. It’s then she realizes his presence, head turning to take in the male, eyes still draining of the deep crimson they had been. “Got a staring problem, bud?” she asks him as the body slumps further down the alley wall, chest cavity split open. Turning to him fully she tilts her head a bit, sizing him up, vampire. She’d known it since before even acknowledging him. “Really baby, can I help you with something?”