tampered | Log: Ongoing

Log: Ongoing

When: January 24, just after midnight into Dirty Little Secret Day, pre-dated for slow play
Rating: PG for now, no clue how it will end up
Characters: Walter Dornez (

dark_butler) and Vincent (

snarky_padre_v)
Summary: Out of curiosity, Walter agrees to meet with Vincent at Automatica.
Log:

Walter paid more attention to the club this time. Last time he'd been there, he'd been a bit too focused on following Vincent and Henry to really notice the ambience.

It was not the sort of place he'd ordinarily visit himself, but he was there. He scanned the tables for the familiar face and not seeing Vincent, took a table where he could see the entrance and accepting a glass of white wine from a cocktail waitress. Red would have been cliche for something he wasn't going to be able to drink anyway.

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Vincent arrived a little late, and seemingly restless. Of course, it was after midnight, and he had no idea today was a curse day.
All he knew was the things he had told himself not to think about were all he could think about, and there seemed no way around those thoughts save to voice them.
Somehow, voicing them to a veritable stranger made more sense than to those he knew and trusted.

Veritable was the keyword here. He did not know Walter, but he knew what Walter could do, and worst of all, to Henry.

In spite of himself, Vincent had never completely shaken his crush on Henry. And now that he had performed the ceremony that should, in essence, make Henry strong enough that he neither needed Vincent nor would have the capacity to want him anymore if ever he might have, Vincent worried for him all the more.
Henry was The Conjurer now. Both more than and less than human. He had all the makings of becoming a monster.

But Vincent had made him so, and so Henry was his monster. He cared about him moreso than ever.

But no matter....
Vincent saw Walter there, and went towards him.
This vampire had come to this club with the intent to attack and, had he been successful, kill Henry.
His friend- girlfriend?
Girl friend, anyway. Rayne had killed Vincent that night.
So why on earth was the crazy priest feeling compelled to talk to Walter of all people???

There was Vincent. Someone he'd hated on the basis of his associations, although the man had been... almost conciliatory at times.

In many ways it still didn't matter. He'd not forgive anyone with associations to Pyramid Head, nor would he forget, but he should take this opportunity to learn more about his enemies.

Lacroix had done that much for him, that he was able to think past his rage. It still burned, but it was banked for now. He owed Lacroix for that and everything he would learn from the elder vampire. He wouldn't speak of his teacher, of course.

He waved Vincent toward him and pushed a chair out with his foot. "What did you want to talk about?" he asked without preamble.

The first word out of Vincent's mouth was the last thing he wanted anyone to know about. The City curse was working it's nasty wonders....Vincent did not know he was compelled to this conversation. He truly believed this idea was his own.

"Aglaophotis." he said, "what do you know of it?"

"I've never heard of it. Maybe Lacroix would know." The vampire was nearly 2000 years old, it would make sense that he'd know. Right?

"That's what you wanted to talk about?"

Vincent blinked.
Well, yeah. Wasn't this what everyone wanted him to talk about??

"I expect if anyone would be able to tell you more about it it would be Heather," he said, "but, as you may have guessed, she's not altogether crazy about me.

I. Am the very last of the actual traditional Order of the Halo of the Sun. A reluctant joiner, never much of a believer, and often either prisoner or patsy to the whims and wishes of the rest of the group.

I hated the Order. I found it as stifling and dangerous as everyone here believes it to be.

I was killed by a woman named Sister Claudia. She wanted to raise the God and bring back paradise; at the time I was very much opposed to this.

When I was pulled back fromt he brink of death and woke in hospital wondering why or how I'd been spared, all I wanted was to stop this from every happening again...and until I blundered into this City my pursuit to obtain any of this rare and unusual potion had been my lifelong pursuit.

Well. I found it. And I've kept it...but I don't know how much longer I can do this, because keeping this most deadly secret is driving me out of my gourd.

Everytime.Alessa snubs me or makes some slighting remark, or in fact takes Henry and Xuchilbara to her bed, leaving me to sleep alone. Everytime Xuchilbara flirts with some other person after he empthatically told me not to prostelytize... I feel this burning urge to use it. Sometimes I even take it out and look at it... so much death in such a little bottle.

But then...you're a vampire. You must know what that is like.
To hold the end of all things in your hand and yet... stay that hand at times..."

Walter frowned, perplexed by this sudden flow of information. Vincent had wanted to tell him that he had a means of destroying... everything? Or just others in his order?

And what did this have to do with Lacroix?

"I accepted Lacroix as my teacher, or he accepted me as his student, or we accepted each other. Yes, that's it. We accepted each other as teacher and pupil.

"He's almost two thousand years old. He would know about this aglaophotis of yours if anyone would. I don't know what it does.

"He's why I'm able to be sitting here speaking with you instead of killing you slowly. You should thank him."

"I'd like to meet him, actually.
I keep hearing whispers of this- of an old vampire, older than any of the rest of you.

If anyone would know something of the origins of the Order, he might.

I need to know what it is I'm doing here... what I've pledged myself to.

Is Xuchilbara truly Xuchilbara? am I being duped yet again?
And if he truly does love me....

shouldn't I have rid myself of this vile poison some time ago? If I let it slip into the wrong hands everything I have now would come crashing down.

But if I keep it, and He learns of it, He'd destroy me without even asking how or why I got it. and it had nothing to do with wanting to hurt him...I didn't even know him then."

The curse was running full force. Vincent wanted to talk about his aglaophotis, and Walter apparently needed to divulge about his relationship to LaCroix.
Here's hoping no one was eavesdropping...

"Will it kill anything? Everything? Will it kill things permanently even here?" Walter leaned forward, interested despite or maybe because of the information's source.

"You wonder about Xuchilbara," and that just naturally led his thoughts back to his own life. "I wonder about Lacroix. What is a vampire as old as he doing showing such interest in me? Helping me?

"You should understand. What is an ancient being doing taking interest or intimacy with those of us who haven't even seen a century of life? Not that there's been as much intimacy as I might like, but that may come with time."

"The Order's god can only be raised by means of a child being born of a chosen woman," Vincent replied, "or so I was taught in my sect. There was a second sect who believed She could only be raised by a chosen male, a Conjurer. I...only just came to realize we needed both. So I found a way to infuse Henry with those powers. But...he's so new, so raw. Hence his saying the dumb shit he's been saying...like that crack about you.

The aglaophotis could destroy the baby in Alessa's womb if and when she conceives.
It could draw the power right back out of Henry I worked so hard to put into him. I'd know because last time I touched the bottle I felt it trying to draw at the power I stored for myself- Xuchilbara never even thought to ask me what the wording on the top corner of the sigil said!

The aglaophotis could probably destroy Him if he truly is what he says he is.
And that is why he would destroy me if he knew...
oh I do understand. I was the least of our Order, and I hated it. I've always been out for myself, you see, and I think anyone can see that.

But I did- I do love Xuchilbara. I am amazed and honored such a creature would deign to notice me, let alone have given me love...when he did.

he hasn't been, of late. and the more he pulls away, or goes to others, the more I DO wonder if I could use the potion to weaken him... make him reliant on me.

But that would be so, so wrong..."

Wrong, sure, but if Vincent was so hard at work trying to keep secrets from Xuchilbara, it had clearly been on his mind...

More than anything, even more than the curse's urgings for him to focus on Lacroix, Walter still burned to see Alucard dead. Hearing Vincent say that he possessed something that might be able to destroy Xuchilbara immediately raised the question of Can it destroy Alucard?

"Why do you keep it? Against the day when your love turns to hate? I know how that feels. It rules my life. I find myself wondering if that is what Lacroix finds interesting, that he could have a tool who hates a possible competitor as fiercely as I do."

"I guess because if I do not hold onto it I fear becoming even more helpless than I already am. I know I'm no fighter- sure you saw that; your lady friend took me out without so much as a thought. But I have knowledge, and that knowledge is important enough that I feel it deserves to be guarded.
And I've enough of a sense of self worth and a hedonist's enjoyment of my life that I wish to see it continue. So do I seek power? I do. But... I think perhaps the time to be rid of this particular item must be soon...before I misuse it. I am only human, and in that way vulnerable to making human mistakes. Yielding to temptations or fear..."

Well. He wasn't exactly as human as once he was. But at least his worries were out there on the table.

Walter was at a complete loss in the face of Vincent's revelations. They were so open from a man he neither knew, nor - from what he did know of him - liked.

"I would take it from you. Not to use against your Xuchilbara, or even Pyramid Head, but I don't trust those who would use me - Lacroix, Millennium, Hellsing. Any of them may make me dance like a puppet on a string."

He hated that more than anything. To be a pawn. Again and again, a pawn.

"If I were to have what you have in your hands, I would use it immediately against Alucard before any of those who have some hold on my soul would have a chance to make their moves."

"Would you? But perhaps you do not see how precious a thing it is.
It took me over 5 years to find out anyone who knew anything about it, let alone find some.
I wound up all but enslaved to a mage in Tangier, and barely escaped with my life.
I would neither use it nor give it on to another lightly. I'd want to know it was going to a good, good use."

"It doesn't matter. I hardly expect you to give me anything that doesn't have a curse attached. I gave up everything I was for a chance to destroy Alucard and it wasn't enough."

God, he wished he could actually drink. Now would be a good time for it.

"I'll just study with another vampire. An older one. I'll learn from him. You can't live nearly two thousand years without picking up a few tricks. Alucard may be Vlad bloody Dracula, but he's a child compared to Lacroix."

He waved the cocktail waitress over to take Vincent's order, since he assumed the man wouldn't want Walter's wine.

"What will you do, then? Hold on to this until Xuchilbara finds out and destroys you?"

"Oh, I understand that. No one likes me. My 'family' doesn't like me, because they know I know so much more about why we have come together than they do. Because we are cursed, all of us. Infected with the curse that is Silent Hill itself.
BUt I guess they can sense that I was able to rise above it for awhile...and that I'm not about to let anyone in on how I did it.
I break from them, now and again. But I know no one in this City trusts me because no matter how much I say I've nothing to do with what they do, I am the last fuckin' priest. If anyone could destroy the curse, it would be me.
But I'm not going to do that, either.
Brandy, please..." that to the waitress, "actually. I'd been sort of thinking of giving it to Integral Hellsing. Or possibly Rosiel.
I'd really debated fobbing it off on Agent Mulder when he was amnesiaced. He'd have either not known what it was or, had he used it, I'd feel there was no way I could be implicated.

But I didn't have the balls. I don't want to see Xuchilbara destroyed, just weakened. Weakened so badly that he won't be able to stray from me..." Even Vincent wondered why he was saying what he was saying, but the curse compelled him to keep saying it.
"I want to meet your Lacroix because I want to find some way if there is any to gain power. I am so so sick of being weak...of being accused of leading our little group when in fact no one listens to anything I say.
If I'm to weather such accusations, why shouldn't I lead? I'm smarter and more rational than any of them..."

Your Lacroix.

Walter considered that phrase, trying it on for size. Not his Lacroix. There was no one who was his.

"Introduce yourself to him, then. I don't think he spends a lot of time being friendly with humans, but who knows what he might see in you that I don't."

"I'll certainly try. You can understand why, with my track record I'm a little wary of meetings with beings that might eat me."
he shrugged, sipped his brandy,
"I assume you were dead before arriving at the city. I wasn't. Came close but..." Vincent stopped, considered a few things,"that girl who wrote about it recently. I found her view on it very sobering.Maybe I'd just thought I was the only one, what with Xuchilbara replacing my various lost parts with ones he gets...I don't know. Elsewhere, certainly.

I may need to do this soon. When your friend killed me, she damaged my heart.
The one I have now...I always thought the idea feelings came from and of the heart was poetic. But I feel less and less like I once did...almost as though I'm just saying the words, but not really feeling the feelings anymore.
Anyway.
Thanks for the talk. And...well, not killing me or anything. I had better head back soon..."

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Log: Ongoing

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