→but monsters are always hungry, darling.

[nocharmingman]

They had sedated him first, slipping the needle into his neck and strapping him to a hospital bed; and he had bitten at them-- strong, cursing words, staring into all the ridiculous human faces; the doctors, the government heroes. Sick, they'd said he was sick-- not a murderer even, though the word lies thickly beneath the implications. He sees

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[walkingthegrid]

The man they had captured was not what Charles had expected. After the number of calling cards and the gruesome nature of the crimes he had expected a man to match, a man that looked as twisted on the outside as he must be on the inside-- though the logical part of Charles' brain had always corrected him on it. The Killer--Erik-- had to look normal; strange looking people were more noticeable, and he had slipped through from place to place without too much ado. If Charles were perfectly honest, Erik looked like he every bit belonged on the movie set of some Hollywood back lot as he did in the heavily guarded cell. Still, there was no disguising the heavily predatory way he moves, the snap of his head, the look in his eyes-- but Charles keeps his own look unaffected, bored even.

"No thanks, I'll stand." Sitting would force him to look up at Erik, something he didn't care to do. While the man was obviously taller than him, the distance left their gazes more level and Charles didn't want to fall into that trap. If things got too aggressive and he stood to level them out it would be a sign of weakness, same as sitting would be one of submission, he refused to look up to him. Especially when Charles wasn't the one in a cage.

"I'm not going to try and persuade you with promises or lies, or trick you-- we both know you know better than that." He stares through the glass with that ever calculated gaze. "I want you to tell me where she is."

[nocharmingman]

It was apt; the looks-- gifted to him as if to a predator disguised to draw people closer, to be the alluring, dangerously luminescent thing that they'd hover about, intrigued and bewitched by. He is absolutely conscious of them; how his cheeks are hollowed just enough to be striking, the rare auburn shine of his hair, his sharp grin; boyish, and iconic. He languishes while he eyes Charles, the glance more than exploratory, enjoying the image of someone who is not one of his horrifically stupid captors. He wants to toy with this man, to lure him in-- because to possess something so intelligently bright; as alive as he can see that this man is-- it ignites some collector's spirit in him, as if to own and keep a first edition of a beloved novel, rare and familiar. Erik stands from the bed, uncurling long limbs, and walks to the glass-- his approach is sudden, out of the cell's darkness, the white of his eyes catching in the overhead florescent lights and gleaming, hungrily at Charles.

"Come a little closer and let me look at you," gaze turning tender, he beckons to the detective, so intrigued by him-- that this man could accurately have profiled him, understood him to a degree that would allow for capture, "my darling, I can't tell you anything, surely you know that. You know me so well, after all." Erik eyes him, still with an element of hunger behind the curl of his mouth-- a gentle but simmering need, "She's going to die, eventually, of course. Sadly I can't be there to oversee it all, but it'll happen regardless," he continues to stare, hands tucking into the pockets of his uniform issue white pants and shirt, "Don't look so concerned, I can almost see the gears turning in that skull; are you analyzing me? My movements?--

Come closer."

[walkingthegrid]

He forces himself not to startle when Erik comes out from the dim lighting; there was no way the man could get through the tempered glass and Charles was admittedly tired. It had been a long evening full of paperwork and press and all the things he didn't enjoy handling. The city was saved, delighted in the capture of another killer. If only they knew how much more likely they were to get killed by someone they knew than a serial killer they might have changed their tune a bit.

"Now, Erik, why would I do that?" He raises one of those thin brows, eyeing Erik for a long few seconds, but he doesn't move outside of sliding his gloved hands into the pockets of his coat. His hat is tipped backward on his head, and he seems more amused than anything else at the request. "If you're not going to give me what I want, I see no reason to give you what you want." His teeth scrape his lower lip thoughtfully before his expression rides back to dull, he doesn't want to provide the man with too much-- not if he could help it.

"Tell me where you've got her and I'll come as close as you like," At least as close to the glass anyway, he wasn't going to get within reaching distance of the killer. He was a thinking man, not a fighter. "I know she's still alive."

[nocharmingman]

"You see," Erik begins, leaning a shoulder casually up against the glass-- gazing out at Charles, savoring the detail of him for the moment, because as soon as the detective left he'd be forced to contemplate the cell walls again, and the dour faces of the two unremarkable guards, "I'll never tell you where I'm keeping her. That'd make it all too easy for you. You enjoy a challenge, don't you Charles? You like the chase as much as I do-- we've got some things in common, how else would you know how to track me, what my intentions, my motives are." He turns to consider the other man more directly, that feral intensity having been absolutely concentrated on Charles now, "I wonder, sometimes, if that scares you-- that you're not so different from myself. And another thing--"

Smiling again through the glass, the light catching each sharp jut of bone in the angles of his face and throwing shadows into stark, mask-like contrast, Erik taps a finger against the cold surface-- as if it's not him, but Detective Xavier who is on the wrong side of it, "you can't tempt me with anything. I'll have you eventually, my dear detective, and no amount of batting those eyes or clever reasoning will prevent it. There's no need to try to bribe me, you have nothing that I want." He's ignored each profiler and investigator that had come to attempt to incite a confession, smirking at them until they'd cleared off and sent in Xavier. He's quite enamored, loving the game between them and hopelessly entertained by the man.

"Got anymore tricks up your sleeve for me this evening? You look sick. That FBI of yours been making you do all their dirty work now?" He's bored by the questions about that idiot girl. She'd die with the other three; the bunch that the police didn't know about as of yet. Turning the questioning towards something slightly more personal is gratifying, he likes the frown, the pursed mouth.

[walkingthegrid]

He doesn't answer the questions directed at his own person-- at the ease in which he could cross the line into unhealthy-- a case like this could easily do it to a man. Break them if they didn't step back from it, center themselves; it wasn't easy to do but thankfully he had an annoyingly persistent sister to come over every few evenings; force him to eat something other than take out and clear his coffee table of files and make him choke down some of her decorative coffee and watch a movie about whatever male star had currently fascinated her. It wasn't that he enjoyed those sorts of movies, or even her cooking all that much, but he did value her company and the reminder that he can't step over that line because it wasn't just his life and relationships on the line.

"See, there's a flaw in your game and logic, Erik, if you've got nothing to offer I've got no reason to stay." As much as he wanted to know the answers to every little detail of the case that had alluded him, every little quirk or question-- he also knew standing around and playing bait was doing nothing but satisfying the killer and bringing him no real answer. "They tell me we've got a way to find out where your keeping her, whether you like it or not." There's a small, taunting, upward curve of his mouth as he makes clear and direct eye contact. He isn't lying, not in the least bit, and that's what he finds most satisfying.

"So, if you've got nothing else to offer I suppose it's best I leave you to your thoughts; it's going to be cold tonight, or so I hear, you ought to bundle up." The detective tips his hat, never once faltering in that smug sense of accomplishment he managed to round up for the simple sake of taunting him; perhaps into saying something, perhaps just to return that sensation if annoyance, he hasn't decided which yet-- not that it matters. Turning he heads back toward the heavy door he had been buzzed in, peering through the shatterproof glass at the blurry figures pacing behind it.

[nocharmingman]

"You do give up quite easily, my detective. Am I too perplexing for you? Proving to be more of a challenge than you had expected, well, darling, don't put down your blazing guns yet, this puzzle--" and the man is walking away from him; the sheer cheek of it incenses him for a moment, and he's furious, fuming at the back of the detective's head, "bring all your tricks, Xavier, you'll never find the rest of them-- they'll rot. They'll rot--" voice turning ragged, snarling, Erik's fingers curl against the glass, "and I'll find you. If it takes twenty years, darling, I'll have you. Can't keep me in a glass cage forever, it'll crack before you've run far enough."

Through his myriad seething emotions (uncertain if any of them are quite his own or just machinations of feeling) there remains, alone amongst the borrowed, and the second-hand-- as pure as that terrible drive from which he is still in flight; hunger.

"Come back here, Charles, come back here--" Not quite a yelp and not quite a command; he's angry, fingernails digging for purchase on the window-like surface. He's too proud to beg, voice still carrying a note of authority; because he's the one who's superior here; another species entirely from these idiots, and Charles is a respite from the typically dulled faces of the staff; he has such vitality, real life in him-- and Erik wants it, wants something more from him that he cannot name and will not examine. Lust, death, they're all meshed together so intricately for him that there is no more distinction, and the young detective would either make an ideal victim, or muse worth of infatuation. His eyes follow the detective's back, feasting on the details.