tampered | Log: Complete

Log: Complete

When: Sunday night
Rating: R as things get bloody
Characters: Walter Dornez

dark_butler and The Corinthian

bitingnightmare
Summary: Waste not, want not. A vampire has no need for eyes from his prey, why not share?
Log:

Walter lounged by the fountain, watching the people go by, gauging them. Healthy, healthy, ill and unpalatable, healthy, healthy, intoxicated....

Healthy and sober were his preferences tonight. Someone with interesting eyes, since he would be sharing that portion with the Corinthian.

Someone was going to die whether the virtual stranger accompanied him or not, why not share? If Ophelia still craved guts, he'd share that portion with her as well. In the end, in a strange, inhuman sort of ethics, it was better that way.

He lit a cigarette and leaned against the railing that kept people from randomly dancing into the water. It was a fundamental disconnect that he would fight to the death to protect some people, but randomly predate others on a regular basis - people who were no more or less deserving of their fates than those he took under his wing.

And it wasn't going to disrupt his sleep, nor bring him nightmares.

Nightmares. Right. Now where was the nightmare?

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The white nightmare entered the fountain area on silent cat's feet. He wore his usual attire of jeans and a t-shirt topped with a motorcycle jacket. He didn't appear particularly palatable, at least not to blood drinkers and flesh eaters should they have the sixth sense to detect that the Corinthian was a man who was not a man. His body was glass and sand. Perhaps that would deter Walter from wanting to feast on Cori himself.

"See anything you like," asked the Corinthian as smoke blew from his eyemouths. He glanced aside to the intoxicated quarry. Not much in those bloodshot yellowed eyes. He too preferred someone healthy, someone to share.

Walter wasn't there to have the Corinthian as a snack anyway. It was terribly impolite to invite a chap out to dinner and then make him the meal. Just because he was undead, there was no reason for him to forgo all manners.

Add in the complete lack of... sensory appeal on a food level, and the thought of eating Cori was far from his mind.

The eyemouths were certainly intriguing, but given Alucard's favored alternate forms, they didn't faze him.

He raised his chin, indicating a young man was looking no more harried than much of the rest of the City after the extended curse. He looked sober, in good health, and his eyes had caught Walter's attention. Not that he would consider himself anything like a connoisseur of eyes.

"That one? Do you have some specific preferences for eyes?"

"Clear and healthy, live," answered the Corinthian with a brief adjustment of his sunglasses. He wore them at night, just like the old new wave romantic tune he hated. "Dead's fine too," Cori said with a shrug, "color's a non-issue. Blue, green, brown, grey."

He gave Walter a brief grin then upnodded in the direction of the young man who had yet to notice their casual stalking. "Male," he added, though he had taken eyes from females before. The nightmare's taste for the male gender bled over into his ocular palate. He glanced to Walter once more, noticing his eyes, "ready?"

[ooc: Sorry slow tag, but guests be gone so now I'll be up to speed!]

Grey eyes met the sunglasses, a flicker of red passing through them as Walter considered his imminent meal. They'd bleed fully red soon enough, but for now the vampire's control won out over his inhuman nature.

"Ready." He pushed away from the railing and started to stroll in the same direction as their agreed upon prey. "And if you prefer them live, there's no reason you shouldn't take the eyes while I feed."

[ooc: No worries. I'm planning a nap shortly, so I'll be slow on pinging for a couple of hours.]

"One fresh, one post-mortem, so he isn't denied the privilege of you being the last thing he sees before he dies."

The nightmare uttered to the vampire in a low tone. He even gave Walter a brief wink of his toothy eye before directing his walk along the right flank of their prey, still several paces behind. It was a classic example of a pack hunt for two. His boots were silent across the pavement, gaze intent on the selected victim's back. The Corinthian waited for Walter's cue, he being the one to invite him on this hunt. it was a courtesy to follow the old vampire's lead.

Hn. Alucard would appreciate that sort of sentiment. Walter felt little need to terrorize his meals. Perhaps it was his relative youth as a vampire.

Still, hot blood was mere moments away, that promise bringing a sharp immediacy to his hunger.

He caught the logic of the Corinthians's movement and angled his steps to the left, his own footsteps equally silent.

For this sort of hunt, subtlety was not a concern. A quick snatch and grab and a few minutes out of the public eye was all that was needed. An open alley mouth would provide the somewhat clichéd, but nonetheless useful opportunity.

He nodded toward the alley in case his companion missed what was coming next, then made his move. A silent blur of black and white, one moment their target was walking home, or to an assignation, or just out for a stroll, and the next he was deep in the alley with a hand clamped like steel over his mouth.

The Corinthian had noticed it.

He waited as the vampire became a quick blur of motion. Within the blink of an eye he had their quarry pressed to the dirty bricks, hidden in the shadows and forced speechless. The nightmare appreciated Walter's efficiency. Out of his pocket came his favorite sidearm; the hard gun metal gray balisong which he flipped open effortlessly, as quickly as the other man had struck. Cori threw his own weight into the equation, taking their victim by the forehead and hair to pin him to the bricks. That blade kissed the underside of the young man's jaw.

Don't fight, mouthed the Corinthian, teasing their victim with the (non) prospect of possibly being released should he cooperate.

Walter could taste the man's fear, smell it, hear the racing heartbeat, the panting breaths forced by adrenaline and a frustrated flight or flight response.

And when their prey decided that not fighting was his only chance, Walter struck, pressing in against the man to hold him now with his body weight and strength as he tore into the man's throat, not with a dainty pair of fangs, but with with a mouth full of teeth suddenly turned sharklike.

That was something Cori didn't see everyday. Most of the vampires he'd met, or known by proxy, were those with sharpened canines, similar to lycanthropes. This was different. This was unique and dangerous. He liked Walter's teeth, even when blood flicked across his own face from their bite, spattering on his sunglasses. Neither ever said this would be a clean job. Without missing another beat Cori dug the tip of his knife into the man's eye, minding his proximity to the brunette as he quickly worked the soft organ out of its socket.

It was caramel brown, a warm and inviting color, wide in fear. The Corinthian managed to leave his eyelids unmarred, each lash perfectly in tact. Still, it was a fucking bloody mess down that man's face, the more for Walter to lick up.

The elongated canines were usually there, but there was a definite visceral satisfaction to a bit of savagery. And tearing into the man's throat that way yielded hot gouts of blood he had to almost guzzle to keep from letting it go to waste.

His eyes had bled to a red glow, but he could see little of what Cori was doing with his face buried against his victim's throat.

This was the best time, warming with stolen heat, tasting the man's soul as it came unmoored, that constant hunger easing for a transient moment.

But it was also an exposed time, letting someone he didn't really know witness him in this least human of moments.

Cori let the caramel brown treasure roll into his bloody palm, able to wield both knife and eye in one hand. He was rather good at multitasking. His other hand helped to keep the young man pinned to the wall, for Walter's convenience. That savagery aroused him, the Corinthian usually one for subtlety and silent kills. Another piece of him, a fragment of the first, enjoyed release in absolute lack of restraint. He was seeing that in the vampire now.

Hrrrschhh... his teetheyes sounded.

What he had failed to tell Walter was that the moment he consumed the live eye of a human being, he could experience them in all their unraveling glory. It was like orgasm without the mess... a white mess anyway. Cori pulled his sunglasses off and pushed the eyeball onto the tip of an eyetongue. He reveled in its taste and the empathic stimulation of being devoured.

Walter drew back at the strange sound, something never human that pulled his attention away from the rapidly slowing flow of blood from their unnamed meal's savaged throat.

He hadn't expected to see the eye being consumed in quite that... unusual a manner. The vampire tilted his head, more curious than appalled, the man in his grasp already fading out of consciousness, his life soon to follow as contagion spread through his body. He'd be a ghoul soon.

The eye went down quickly, and blood along with its vitreous fluid trickled from his teeth, like tears on his cheek. The nightmare smiled at Walter, toothy and just as savage with a sleek knife's edge. His tongue slithered out to lick at the red and sickly white staining his eyelids. Cori's breaths were shallow and short from elation. Eventually he gestured to their victim with his knife.

"It's going to go cold."

"I can't drink a whole human anyway," Walter said dismissively. More than five and a half liters of blood - he could consume it, but he was rarely prone to gorging.

"And it's not going to be human in a few minutes. You may want the other eye before then."

He wanted to see the Corinthian at work this time.

He nodded once, hardly an authority on matters of the undead. A vampire was a ghoul was a bain sidhe was a vodoun zombi. Far be it for the Corinthian to argue Walter's expertise. He raised his knife once more to gouge the other eye from the man's face. This time he had the space to work carefully, wedging the sharp blade flatside between his pink bed of flesh and his white sclera. Cori cut the nerves and tendon in silent concentration, popping the organ out with ease.

The nightmare held it up to show the vampire, the eyeball itself unscathed, beautiful and brown. Then he let go of the bleeding eyeless man to push the delicacy into his other mouth.

Mouths where his eyes should be. There was a certain unholy symmetry to those mouths consuming stolen eyes.

Walter didn't look away until the eye had disappeared into the Corinthian's mouth, then turned his attention to the remains of their meal where it half-dangled from Walter's grip.

Messy, messy. Ghouls were always a bother. Walter was doing the corpse a mercy. A twist of his fingers, a barely visible flash of wire, and the body slid the ground, neatly separated from the head still in his hand.

Ah. Delicious. Warm with stolen blood and enjoying the brief period of satiation, Walter looked back to his hunting companion and grinned.

The fluids running down his face broke the symmetry lest his unholy hunger appear too perfect and staged. Sterile. Cori liked the purely organic taste of the eye, the unpredictable run of blood and humors, the facet of each color, and the memories held because of one reflective disc in its tiny organ. They were unique, powerful, and the Corinthian didn't have them. Even when he'd been punished and exiled from the Dreaming, his blue eyes had felt synthetic.

The nightmare watched Walter sever the man's head from his body in one clean cut. Such finesse had him licking the corners of his mouth, his natural one. Not many vampires in the City were like this one, was Walter equally unique in his own world? Cori found himself looking the man straight in his eyes. He remembered they had turned red at one point.

"His name was Thomas Switch," he remarked, upnodding to the eyeless head. "He had a job interview tomorrow. You reminded him of a sex dream he had when he was fifteen." The Corinthian mirrored Walter's grin.

"He likes video games and has been in the City for just a few weeks," Walter added, sticking with the present tense, since Thomas would be up and about in twenty-four hours.

"And I may have reminded him of a wet dream in his teens, but you and I have just given him the stuff of nightmares for years to come."

He bent down and settled Thomas' head on his lap.

Up and about in twenty-four hours, but how much of Thomas prior to this attack would remain with the Thomas resurrected after the attack? Cori's grin remained as Walter set the man's head in his lap. He imagined the poor boy waking up to completely healed neck wounds, forever having to carry his own head on his shoulders.

The nightmare rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "In two years he'll have killed five boys in an attempt to relive his traumatic experience."

This time he spoke of morbid speculation. The eyes alone couldn't tell the future at all, but his prediction wouldn't be far from the mark. Not after having his throat ripped open and his eyes gouged. The Corinthian shivered briefly, remembering Thomas' feeling of consumption. It was a nice buzz to Cori.

The prediction earned a quirk of an eyebrow from Walter. From the blood, he could learn much about the person, but predicting the future? No.

He didn't know whether to believe the prediction or not. Perhaps he'd check in on Thomas now and then. Have him for a meal and if the man really was doing as the Corinthian said, Walter would leave him as a ghoul next time.

But that was a future concern. Now he was fed and warm and feeling much better.

"He'll be better off keeping with those banal games he likes so much," he commented as he drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped blood off his face.

"You're welcome along again when you've a mind."

"I'm bullshitting you," the Corinthian admitted as he placed a hand on the wall and leaned against it. He didn't bother to clean up the blood from his face yet, choosing to first point out that Walter had missed a spot under his chin. Cori gestured the area on himself. "You missed one," he said to the vampire then smiled three ways, "thanks. I'd like that."

He licked the edges of his own teeth after saying it.

"It's efficient," Walter said and wiped where Cori indicated before releasing the handkerchief to disappear in a flutter of shadow. He fished his cigarette case out of his waistcoat and held it out open to the white-blond man.

"Do you only eat eyes or are they more of a treat?"

The Corinthian accepted Walter's offer and plucked a cigarette from the case, regardless of its brand, its make, whether it was poisonous or not (he trusted the vampire not to pull such a stunt, and even if he did Cori could process the toxin). Still he preferred Mild Sevens but he could smoke anything, just as he could eat anything besides eyes. The ocular organs were his treat of choice. He spoke before sticking the cancer stick between his teeth.

"They're a delicacy, sometimes a tool," explained the nightmare regarding his ability to 'read' eyes. "I can eat anything; alcohol, food..." His teeth eyes narrowed again, "a load."

Cori produced his own light from his pocket for the cigarette dangling from his lips. "It's all the fucking same, you just don't get Hepatitis B from it," he shrugged once.

Subtle as a heart attack, the phrase went.

As to the cigarettes, just your run of the mill Dunhills. Walter had a definite prejudice in favor of English cigarettes. It hadn't been easy to find a shop in the City that carried any he found palatable.

"I don't get hepatitis from anything," he commented as he pulled out a cigarette.

"But I also can't eat just anything." Although bodily fluids were on his short list.

The fact that they were an English brand reminded him of those fucking Silk Cuts, but the nightmare kept his composure. Not even a flicker of anger or remorse across his stained face when he lit the end and took a drag. The smoke wisped out of his teeth eyes. Subtle as a heart attack but not quite an emergency, yet. Cori tapped his ash over Thomas' disembodied head.

"Well whatever fits in that mouth of yours," remarked the nightmare. He looked at the other man's teeth, assuming they'd shifted back to normal else he'd be having a speech impediment problem.

Somehow the elder Alucard managed to speak easily enough with a mouth full of razor teeth when the mood struck him, but Walter's had returned to "normal" with just a pair of elongated canines to mark him as a vampire.

"That," words coming on a cloud of smoke after he lit his own cigarette, "only applies to liquids, no matter what I can fit in my mouth."

The Corinthian puffed on his cigarette silently, watching Walter and considering him. They'd just shared a 'meal' together, sustenance for the vampire and a (voluntarily) rare treat for the nightmare. It made him horny, he couldn't deny that, and if Walter was anything like the few other vampires he knew he could probably smell the synthetic pheromones off Cori's skin. He covered Thomas' head with ash again.

"I'm in the mood to fuck. You're welcome along, if you've a mind," he offered using the brunette's diction.

Well, that was one of the more direct propositions Walter had received in a decently long life. Barring one very direct individual, of course.

He could say no. He could say yes. He could go home smelling of the nightmare and lay things even with Alucard after what had happened with Richard. Making him the bitter old queen the elder had accused him of being?

He took a drag off his cigarette and shook his head. "Tempting, but I will have to decline tonight."

Cori shrugged again, unfazed by Walter's civil rejection of his proposition. At least he was upfront and honest, both of them. At least the Corinthian still had his own two hands.

"All right," the nightmare nodded to the vampire, blowing smoke up into the cool air. No harm in asking. He smirked at Walter again. "Thanks for the run, and the smoke," Cori raised the cigarette to the other man in an appreciative gesture. Civil.

Somehow he had expected nothing less. It had been the sort of direct proposition that said, "Itches need scratching, nothing personal." And another time after another hunt, Walter might take him up on the offer.

"You're welcome." He drew on his cigarette again and nodded to Cori. "Next time, I'll take you by a pub after. Ask you pushy questions about men with teeth where most people have eyes."

Nothing personal at all, though he couldn't say the same for Walter's significant other. His vampiric partner in crime. Cori was direct that way, thinking Walter would much prefer a frank proposition over one dressed up with flirtation and pretense. The older one got, the more pretense got boring.

"And I can ask you about blood sugar content," the nightmare smirked.

He tapped ash on Thomas' head one last time then ground what remained of the filter against the brick wall. Cori used his finger to wipe up the blood from his teeth, licked it away from the tip with his tongue then rubbed the rest with his t-shirt. At night it was a little more difficult to see the stains. He gave Walter a nod as he stepped over Mr. Switch's legs.

"Let me know the next time you want company."

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Log: Complete

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