Closed RP Hemorrhaging

[Arcane Eye]

Hm. Maybe she should’ve had a question prepared when she asked.

She hadn’t thought she’d make it this far, to be honest. She wouldn’t have been able to do anything with a hard ‘no’. But… Obsidian wasn’t looking well. Hazel brought herself to look into his eyes, and she could see it, behind the mask of blood and youth. The exhaustion. He was done. Spiritually and mentally. For just a moment, it tugged at something in her heart. He looked a bit like Isaiah did, a lot of the time.

But this wasn’t Isaiah, she reminded herself sternly. And then she took his advice. Closed her eyes, and practiced a breathing exercise. Twenty seconds to think.

It didn’t take long to come to the conclusion of what she wanted. Just a question, just an answer. But she had to phrase it right. This was extremely delicate. If she pushed her luck, she could still be history no matter how tired Obsidian looked. He was still a monster. And worse, he was a monster protecting his family. She wasn’t sure she bought that, but the sentiment helped her get over her high emotions.

When she opened her eyes, Hazel glanced at Cain’s body, then quickly looked back at Obsidian.

“For my own… peace of mind,” she said, as if she was making it up as she was going along. Which she was, but it was usually better to pretend to herself that she wasn’t. “And– the agreement is I’m not telling anybody anyway. But… I’ve got one question.”

She almost looked at the corpse again, then didn’t. Couldn’t. Genuinely, which frustrated her, but she tried hard not to let it show.

“What the heck was that? What did you do to him?”

Now, Obsidian could lie. Or just tell her to fuck right off. But that definitely wasn’t killing someone instantly with a touch. Unless Cain was an outlier, everyone was completely wrong about Obsidian’s powers. And even if it wasn’t necessarily a scoop since she wouldn’t be sharing it with anyone except Isaiah, it might genuinely settle some of her anxieties. At the very least, it’d settle her curiosity.

 

[Slate]

There it was. That was the question he knew was coming. He nodded his head, then ran his clean hand up his face, slipping it under his glasses to rub his eyes. He winced as he realized he was starting to form a headache. Meds didn’t work on him, so he was going to be stuck suffering for the next however long it took to clear up. He dropped his hand to the table to rapt his fingers against it in rhythm.

Ethan looked Hazel over one more time. Her purple hair against her dark skin and her surprisingly green eyes. He bit the inside of his cheek and gestured to Cain’s corpse. “I didn’t do that. At least, not the blood part. I killed him, that part is true. He was going to kill Raphael if I didn’t.”

He scratched the back of his neck. His fingers pushed through the short hair and he sighed. He needed to trim back his undercut again. That was frustrating. He didn’t even know why that was something he had noticed, but now he couldn’t stop noticing it.

“The easiest way to explain this is that I’m an energy vampire. Everyone’s nervous system is powered by energy, both parts of it. Everything in your body requires energy to run. Food is broken down into parts and those parts give your body the energy it needs to function, right? I don’t have to eat. Instead, I have to eat people’s energy. I don’t always kill them, but people like Cain I feel… no remorse for.”

That was a lie. Ethan felt it eating him up, could feel the death weighing him down. After the last hunt he had been on, with Todd, the idea of killing people had left him feeling uneasy. Something about that night had changed him, and he wasn’t sure what it was. Not really.

“Whatever happened with all the blood, that was all him. I have no idea what that was. God, I need a drink. I’d offer you one, but given you’re underage…” Ethan stood back up and started walking through the blood, uncaring about his shoes as he moved. He made it toward the bar, his clean, gloved hand ruffling his hair.​

 

[Jackal]

Rowe stood up slowly when the enemy went down. Obsidian reminded everyone why he could be considered the scariest monster in Pittsburgh and beyond. The blood was new – more likely an aspect of the enemy’s abilities rather than the boss’s.

He took stock of the situation. Sulphur, injured, but alive. He’d survive until the boss said the situation was over. Hematite, steel, intact. Cain, terminated. The boss, attending to the girl, Hazel Beauvais. Rowe wouldn’t have recommended doing that, but he wasn’t being paid to make recommendations. He was being paid to keep Obsidian alive. And the girl wasn’t a threat, especially not after what she’d just witnessed.

The boss finished with her and walked back to the bar. With his assessment done, Rowe had looked back at the corpse in the middle of the room. Something wasn’t right. He trusted that feeling without question or overthinking, and just focused on the enemy on the floor.

That’s when he realized he could hear the whir.

By the time he clocked that, the body began to beep. Rowe had lots of experience with suicide missions – low-life drug lords would do anything to get a shot at each other. And then there was his military experience to add to that. So he didn’t hesitate. He reached across the counter, grabbed the boss by the collar of his coat and the small of his back, and dragged him across the bar. He could ask for forgiveness when the boss survived this. Then, he ducked, his back to the bar that might turn into lethal shrapnel if the bomb was powerful enough. He put one arm around Obsidian’s back, and tucked the younger man’s head into his chest to prevent any trauma to the skull.

Then he waited. He waited through the sound of two hard compressions, and then a pause, and then a… heartbeat. And then more compressions.

And it processed what was really happening.

He let go of the boss right away, once again without giving the thoughts time to do more than form. He was on his feet, the Sig drawn. The heavy gun required two hands to shoot accurately, and accuracy was important right now. He waited until the target rose to his feet, letting him get his comments out before taking aim to shoot him.

Thirteen rounds, one after the other, right in the smartass mouth.

 

[Slate]

Ethan wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. He’d been at the bar, pouring himself a whiskey, and then he was suddenly on the ground. There was a moment where he could see, and then a moment when he couldn’t. It wasn’t until he realized that Rowe’s body was on top of his that he realized he could hear a strange whirring sound. Several things dawned on him then, all in quick succession.

One. Rowe had yanked him over the counter and had thrown his body over his. Rowe was protecting him, because two, Cain’s body was attached to a bomb. There was a bomb in his fucking bar, and Rowe was using his body to protect Ethan. Which led to three– Ethan didn’t want Rowe to get hurt. He wanted to roll over and cover the man with his own body and protect him instead.

But he didn’t have time to address any of those things. He didn’t have the time before the– was that a thunk? What kind of bomb went thunk?

After a moment, Rowe popped up over the edge of the bar. Before Ethan could process what was really happening, Rowe unloaded thirteen shots, all in quick succession. He groaned and pushed himself to his knees. His back and ribs screamed at being dragged over the counter, but he was more than happy for the reason. Rowe was doing his job, and Rowe had tried to save him, and he didn’t want Rowe to die. Plain and simple.

On the other side of the bar, Hematite looked up from where he had thrown himself over and around Hazel. There was no explosion. He had run, as fast as he could, when the whirring had started. He had let his skin phase back to metal, and then when he had arrived at the table, he had pushed her into the seat, knocked the table up and over them, and turned it to steel as well. It would have proven a good barrier for whatever bomb was about to go off. But nothing went off. Instead, he counted thirteen shots being fired and colliding with something hard. Small cracking sounds, like stones being fractured, resonated through the air and through his metal skin.

He let the table fall and sat up, getting himself off of Hazel. Then, with an apologetic smile, he offered her his hand and helped her sit up. Then he turned to see that Cain was upright, looking toward the bar. And Rowe was standing, the Sig in his hands. And he already knew Ethan was on the floor, but as he watched, the tall man stood and groaned, looking over the counter next to Rowe.

“You have to be fucking kidding me.”​

 

[Slate]

Ethan glared at Cain as the bullets bounced off of him. For a moment, he did nothing, said nothing. And then he turned to look at Hematite where he was protecting Hazel. He gave him a small nod in Cain’s direction, and the big man nodded, the rings and beads in his dreads knocking together loosely, making a small chiming noise.

The man stood, rolling his shoulders back to give the full impression of just how big he was, and made his way toward Cain. He picked the man up, slung him over his shoulder, and carried him to the front door. Hematite kicked the door open with his foot and then dropped Cain outside the door and onto the sidewalk. He gave him a narrow-eyed look before turning back and walking back into the building.

“If I ever see him again, it will be too soon. He’s not going to be stupid enough to come back around, is he?” Ethan’s voice was clipped and full of frustration. Not only did the man try to emotionally manipulate him, he was also a fucking cockroach. Somehow, Ethan knew that he’d see Cain again, after today. He knew that Cain wasn’t done with him.​

 

[Jackal]

Rowe lowered his Heckler & Koch HK45 as Cain cleaned the whiskey off his fingers. He kept himself just off to Obsidian’s side, ready to step into the way if the man decided to make himself more of a problem. His face was cool, neutral, but there was a sharpness in his eyes that stood in for any warning of body language. He didn’t take that look off the cowboy until he was back out the front doors, and waited a few more seconds before holstering his gun.

He looked at the boss. He was checking for injuries, but he was also checking for something else in the younger man’s face. Just to make sure the hollow flirtation didn’t land. Then, the side of his normally straight mouth curled just a touch in a smile.

“You can take that outta my paycheck, boss.” He took a deep breath, then glanced back at the table, where the shaken green-eyed girl was just staring at them from behind a table Hematite had turned to metal. Something about her made him uneasy. He looked back at Obsidian, his next question only expressed with a tilt of his head. What about her?

 

[Slate]

Ethan was unnaturally still and quiet as Cain pulled his stunt. He didn’t flinch or so much as breathe when Rowe shattered the glass his drink had been in. His expression didn’t waver when the man flirted with him, and he didn’t watch him as he left the building. He waited until Cain had disappeared outside the building and was gone, until he could no longer see the man walking on the sidewalk out front.

Only then, after Rowe nodded his head toward Hazel and made a comment about taking the glass from his paycheck, did Ethan reach out and grab another of the glasses– a highball glass by the feel of it– and hurled it at the wall. He didn’t scream, he didn’t shout, and he didn’t yell. He didn’t make a single noise. The glass shattered when it hit the wall, and pieces of it flew across the booth underneath it.

He stood still, body still held tense in the after-throw position, for just a breath longer than would be normal. Then, as if nothing had happened, he straightened out and smoothed his clothes out. He fixed his hair, pushing it off to the side of his face, and resecured his glasses on the bridge of his nose. Then, very slowly and very silently, he smiled at Rowe.

“I’ll deal with her. Hazel and I will come to some understanding. Don’t worry about the glass.” He moved toward the booth Hazel had been sitting at but caught sight of Hematite. The younger man was already moving away from the stool he had taken a seat on to clean up the shattered glass. Ethan paused when he saw this and slowly nodded his head at his youngest pack member. The man gave him a friendly head shake and started cleaning. Ethan looked at his shoes for a moment before moving again.

He slipped into the seat across from Hazel once again. He took a deep breath, and the only sign of the anger that had caused him to throw glass showed. A slight tremble, at the end of his breath. The flirt had gotten to him. Just not the way he was sure Cain wanted it to. It just reminded Ethan of how he could never trust anyone, how he could never let anyone in. He couldn’t risk the ones he loved for the off chance of something working out. And he especially wouldn’t risk anyone for Cain.

"Hazel. Where were we?"​

 

[Arcane Eye]

From Hazel’s perspective, everything happened in a blur. The whirring and the beeping and the heavy thunks were amplified by whatever listening device was on Cain’s body. Even the heartbeats played in stereo.

She couldn’t see what was happening, however. When the beeping started, someone heavy had thrown himself over and around her. The cameras were still off. Between those things, Hazel was effectively blind. That’d be her excuse when asked why she flinched so hard when the gunshots started.

When it was all over, Raphael finally got off of her, and she took his hand to accept his help up. She returned his smile until her eyes drifted past him, and she realized Cain – the dead man – was standing.

She watched numbly as Raphael picked him up and threw him out. There was a ringing in her ears that had nothing to do with her headphones, although once they crossed her mind, she reached back and pulled them back on. The pressure was reassuring. “Safety blanket” didn’t really cut it; it was more like… well, she didn’t really know. But she unmuted both the mic and music. She only knew Cain tramped back in because his device came back in range, but she made herself busy gather up lost papers and inspecting her poor (but miraculously intact) laptop. The Italian Creme, or what was left of it, now pooled in the remains of its glass. She sighed ruefully at it, then flinched as another shot rang out and Cain tramped past on his exit.

She looked up at the counter, and saw the blond man [not Sulphur] looking at her. She quickly went back to stuffing papers in her backpack, her laptop set aside on the booth seat. She was pretending, very hard, not to notice that after Raphael moved the table it wasn’t wood anymore.

She flinched, humiliatingly for the third time, when her headphone mic picked up glass shattering. She glanced up again to see Obsidian facing a wall that had shards near the floor. He was mad, then. Maybe not at her. But he was mad.

She slipped back up onto the seat of the booth like the table was still there, and waited for Obsidian to join her again. It was a lot harder, without the cameras. She’d known days when they’d been off, but this… wasn’t like any of those. This was the first time she’d actually been in the middle of Slate’s business, and despite the tight knot in her chest, she really didn’t want it to be the last.

So she smiled as Obsidian sat down across from her, though her eyes stayed wary. “I was about to agree not to mention anything I saw here today. And… you were going to let me go home in one piece?”

Hope, in the last question. Childish and nervous, despite the way the first half brushed on confidence. Her heart was racing like a rabbit’s in her chest, and she really wished she could make it slow down somehow. She hoped she didn’t look too flushed, and that it didn’t show in her breathing.

 

[Slate]

Ethan sighed and nodded. He could feel how frantic her energy levels were, buzzing against her skin. Hazel was scared, maybe, or at least panicking beneath the confidence. He licked his lips, a quick flick of his tongue as he sat quietly, thinking. All of this would be so much easier if he just killed her. I had almost been a full week since his last meal– that he had let go once again, god damn it– and she was here, and the cameras were off.

Certainly, that would be easier.

Instead, his tired eyes looked down at the table and he shook his head. As much as it would be easier, and as much as he could feel Hematite’s and Sulphur’s eyes on him, he wouldn’t be doing that. Hazel had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there was no evidence that would back her up. There was no crime scene because Cain had taken back all of the blood that had covered the floor. There was some property damage, but nothing they couldn’t fix easily. He looked up at Hazel with heavy eyes.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Hazel. I need you to understand how much danger you could put my family in if you told anyone what you saw today. It would paint huge targets on our backs. Metas aren’t exactly welcome in most places. And I care very deeply about this family. If anyone were to hurt them, I wouldn’t be as kind to you in the future. Do we have an understanding, dearie?”​

 

[Arcane Eye]

There was just a second where she had to wonder if she’d be fast enough to bolt. If she was willing to abandon laptop and notes, she might be able to reach the doors – but calling Isaiah would be out of the question without her phone. Her wallet was in her bag, too, and– and her keys. There was no way she was running far enough on foot.

But she could see the exhaustion in Obsidian’s eyes. He wasn’t going to want to chase her, or even attack her – even if it was just a touch. He just wanted today to be done, and confirmed that in what he said next. Based on tone alone, she kind of tuned out what exactly he said – something about his little crime group being a family, and her endangering them, as if they weren’t already elbow deep in trouble like –

She took a four-second inhale, and then nodded a little. Right. Nobody would find out – except Isaiah. It wasn’t like she could prove anything anyway. Not yet, at least. The ability to come back and observe again was a blessing in its own right. She exhaled, three seconds, and then nodded. She didn’t trust herself enough for words.

When he made a vague gesture for her to go, he didn’t need to ask twice. She took her backpack and left without so much as a word.

 

[Slate]

It was almost one am when Ethan pulled the Rover into the back lot and drove it up to the garage. He flipped the switch down from the roof and opened the door, driving the big car in and perfectly parking it, backward, into it’s spot between the Jaguar and the Civic. It had been a fucking day, but it seemed like every day had been a fucking day for a while now. He’d gone out and hunted that night, and while he had killed the one he had hunted right after the incident, he had fallen, in crippling pain again, as he let that one live. He felt just fine. His body was doing fine, was strong, and maybe that was the reason he had let that one, a small man with dozens of tattoos and who wore minimal clothing even in this weather, go alive. Maybe it really was just Todd’s fault.

He got out of the car and walked out of the garage. He tapped out a cigarette– Dunhill, as usual– and caught it in his teeth as he used his free hand to punch in the code by the door, locking the cars back up. He returned the carton to his pocket and pulled out his lighter, rubbing his fingers lightly over the engraved O on the side. He flicked it open and lit it, lighting up his cigarette.

Then, he paused. He took a deep breath in, catching the bud alight and returning the lighter to his pocket. He breathed in a curl of smoke and looked around the parking lot. Something felt off. He looked around, looking for signs of energy. Then, he caught it. Uneven, unflowing, blocked passages. Ethan tipped his head back and groaned. He looked down at his hand, still scabbed over thick under his glove.

“What the fuck do you want, Cain?”​

 

[Slate]

Ethan sighed as the man spoke, and he felt himself subconsciously reaching for his gloves, as though to take them off and deal with this right now. But that hadn’t worked last time and was unlikely to work this time. He shook his gloved hands out and shook his head. “What exactly are you proposing, Cain? I’m busy and don’t have time to play games right now.”

He looked back at the man, watching his approach with stiff shoulders and narrowed eyes. He didn’t trust this. And he trusted Cain even less. He knew some things now, and those things weren’t promising. He knew about the Saturn group, and he knew what Cain was allegedly hired to do. Hell, what Cain had told him he was there to do. And no matter how attractive and charming the guy was, Ethan wasn’t about to roll over on anyone. No matter what this bastard did.​

 

[Slate]

There was a hair’s breadth between them, and Ethan found himself back where he had been before the fight last week. With his eyes languidly moving over Cain’s face and shoulders before resting on his lips. He hated that this was affecting him like this. Ethan prided himself on his willpower, on his emotional strength. He had built walls that only the Pack ever saw behind. Well, the Pack, and Todd. And this, this was pulling on his heartstrings, leaving something sharp in its wake.

He wanted to take a step back. He wanted to put space between the two of them. He wanted to tell Cain to go fuck himself and then go inside, and pretend like the man had never existed. But Ethan was tired. His heart was tired. He’d been through so much, and so much of it had been his own fucking fault. He was tired of it all. So as Cain made his “offer”, Ethan sighed, shakily, and then found himself whispering in response, “And tell me, Cain… in what way do you want to get to know me?”

He leaned in toward the other man, his head tilting to the side, his curls tumbling over. His golden eyes were softening at the edges and held a kind of sadness that he couldn’t explain. Was it that he knew he was being taken advantage of? Maybe. Maybe. It didn’t stop him from taking a step forward, so they were almost chest to chest.

Ethan would not make the first move. Not again. Never again. He couldn’t bring himself to drag anyone else down to his hell with him. Even if they were smug bastards with eyes like drying blood and stupid mustaches. But if Cain wanted to crawl down into the open gates of his own volition, if he wanted to risk his life at Ethan’s touch–

He waited, his eyes falling half closed as he looked into Cain’s eyes.​

 

[Slate]

The moment that Cain’s hands tangled in Ethan’s hair, he returned the favor and buried a hand in the man’s blonde, slicked hair. His other hand grabbed Cain’s collar and pulled on it, pulling him closer. He felt and tasted Cain’s lips on his and flicked his tongue over them. The taste of his cigarette mixed with Cain’s natural taste. Iron, like blood, and the strangest sweetness that Ethan hadn’t been expecting.

He started to undo the buttons on Cain’s vest, pushing it open so his hands could trace the other man’s muscles. Defined and strong. Fuck, that did things to Ethan. The idea of strong arms holding him again, the idea of a strength he didn’t truly possess supporting him, was so appealing to his tired heart. It cracked through his defenses and let itself into his vulnerable center.

He pulled back, breaking the kiss with a silent gasp. He breathed in Cain’s scent and trapped it in his lungs as his hand searched behind him for the door handle, keys twisting to fit in the lock. He didn’t even remember pulling his keys out. But they fit into the lock easily. He thought for just a moment and remembered that the Civic was parked in the garage. So Rhody and Hematite were home. But their room was on the second floor, and Ethan’s was on the third. There shouldn’t be any issue with sneaking Cain in and the couple wouldn’t hear them through a floor and being on opposite sides of the house.

He got the door open, and he pulled back just enough to look Cain in the eyes. And then, in a voice rough and thick with emotions he didn’t want to address, Ethan whispered, “One night. Then you fucking leave.”

He grabbed the front of his collar and pulled him into the house with him, closing the door behind them.​