i, i, i will battle for the sun, sun, sun, sun.

[kingofrooks]

Who: Eric Northman [vampingitup] and "Matches Malone" [kingofrooks]
When: Night of the 18th
Where: Fangtasia
Summary: New drug is in the market. Eric is not pleased. Matches takes a gamble. This will not end well.
Warnings: Identity porn, vampires, drug use, graphic violence, and now sexual themes and consent issues. Eric Northman and Matches Malone. This is not going

Comments

[vampingitup]

Eric had been nursing V for months, giving it several new names and circulating it by its new method of distribution. Stamp books, each with a printed spot of blood in the center of them. They were even circulating here, but the circulation was still small, exploratory, and with Godric's appearance Eric wanted to keep it even more under the radar.

But he didn't much appreciate people cutting in on his business.

Whatever this new drug was, he wanted to find out how it worked, and establish whether or not it was a threat to his business. V could cause very different side effects depending on who took it and what their mood was like. If this drug were any more steady...

But he had established, through experimentation, that it had no effect on him. Whether it was because he was a vampire, or simply a very old one was questionable. He needed a human subject; someone who would do anything for money. He lifted an envelope high enough over his shoulder to be seen--stark white in the darkness.

"Your bonus, Malone."

[kingofrooks]

It was a game the two of them played, staying and circling within their boundaries, their secrets tucked beneath their own cloaks and shadows. Eric had never asked Matches what he did on weekdays; why he was never once here in the club on weekends- why he simply disappeared then. In turn, Matches never asked what was the real ingredient in those little stamp books that was distributed throughout the club.

This was the dirtiest part of his business. To allow for drug sale and atrocities to happen so that he could stop the worst parts. It was why Matches Malone was the least-used of his personas; why he kept him on the down low and only broke him out sometimes. The only reason why Matches had a steady job was because he needed one to not appear suspicious; to not appear and disappear at will.

That, and extra income was useful. He had never really knew what it was like to lack money, and he was learning it quick and sharp and bitter, like medicine injected on his tongue

[vampingitup]

"Can't a vampire reward his most useful employee without being questioned about it?"

He liked Malone. Most of the time. The times he didn't like him were for precisely the same reason as the times he did like him. He knew. He wasn't as dumb as he looked; he knew when to ask questions, when to shut up. He knew what Eric wanted to know. He knew when he was wasting his time.

It was dangerous, but it was useful. Like having an attack dog that might just as well turn around and bite the hand that fed it.

But it was a daywalker in his employ that Eric could trust to be capable, even if he couldn't always be sure he could trust him.

"I'd like you to have a drink with me. Discuss...business. I just thought we'd get this out of the way first."

It was a downpayment. Matches knew it as well as Eric did.

[kingofrooks]

'Most useful employee'. Get this out of the way first. Oh yes, Matches definitely knew that it was a downpayment. Downpayment, and blackmail at the same time - because Eric was lying down his expectations, and if Matches retreated, if he backed out now, what little trust he had managed to gain from this man would be taken. It was all or nothing, this game - it always had been. Interacting with Eric Northman was akin to stepping on a tightrope

[vampingitup]

"Whiskey, imported in off the mainland. It's thirty years old. Not as old as I am, mind, but old enough to get you so drunk that you don't care. On the house."

The bottle had cost him at least $120 alone, and it came out of a case at the back of the basement. It took little more than a second for Eric to speed away, and speed back, a glass dangling from one hand, the bottle in the other.

"You can remind me what it's like. If I drank alcohol I'd start to pickle, from the inside out. Not a nice thought, is it?"

Again the liquid smile.

"If you'd just hold that, I'll pour. A whiskey like this--you have to give it a moment to breathe." Or so he's been told. He didn't even catch his breath between the proposal and carefully opening the bottle - a well burrowed cork that he pulled free with seemingly no effort at all. Throughout, he kept his eyes on the other man's.

As much as he tried to hide it with laziness, there was wicked intelligence there. He could see it. He looked like a man who could survive, no matter the odds

[kingofrooks]

Matches held the glass languidly, his wrist soft. But the grip was steady as Eric poured the whiskey, and for a moment he curled his lips up into a smirk as he watched the golden liquid. Once the liquid was in the glass, he lifted it, in a toast.

"I would tell ya how it tastes, but yer wastin' such good liquor on me. I ain't the type ta know the difference 'tween a thirty-year-old and a thirty-day-old whiskey."

Of course not. Matches Malone travelled within the seedy underbelly of Gotham, a single freelance agent, floating in and out of shadows and barely seen. He didn't have the time or the reputation to start an empire, and only dons and bosses have the vanity to spend drug-blood-sex money on expensive alcohols. Besides-

Besides, it would be unwise for even Matches Malone to get drunk, wouldn't it?

He wet his lips on the alcohol, drawing it into his mouth. The taste was strong, and he could literally feel the alcohol content right here, heavy on his tongue. It was good quality. There was no reason why Matches would know that,

[vampingitup]

Like hell he wasn't. Matches could clearly tell that a more expensive alcohol would get him more drunk, because one sip later the quality drink was put down on the table, and he leant languidly back to address him. Keeping a clear mind. That was why Eric liked him. But tonight wasn't about keeping a clear mind. Matches Malone was to be his test subject, and because he had been paid, he was simply supposed to accept that.

Eric was much too old to do anything in a straightforward manner, besides which he enjoyed the power; Matches was his employee, his errand boy, essentially, and it had never occured to him not to play with his food. He enjoyed it far too much. He enjoyed it when they challenged him, like Sookie. And this man... This man was a challenge

[kingofrooks]

Eric wasn't breathing.

That was the first thing Matches realised about him- the lack of warm breath against his own skin, at this proximity. He wasn't breathing- the only breath (cold) he felt was when Eric spoke. Cold breath. Like a corpse's. Like a vampire's

[vampingitup]

The thrill of power; the excitement of making a man who was of such perfect bearing that he thought he could deceive a vampire jump and freeze like a corpse himself under Eric's almost-touches. Very little was ever new. A thousand years some things got boring. But people could still sometimes surprise him.

Matches Malone was 1950s New York; the kind of true grit gangster that defined a generation. He was a taste of the past, alongside a lick of the present. Because in 1950, it would be a rare true grit gangster who would even consider Eric's suggestion, no matter the hypnotic flicker in his eyes.

"I've always preferred the basement. That way you can scream as loud as you want to, and nobody will ever hear you." Was that a suggestion or a threat? Eric leant forward - as though to kiss - closed his teeth around the match and plucked it cleanly from the man's mouth, retreating again. He spoke around it easily.

"Close your eyes."

There was a part of him that doubted Malone would. But then he always had a backup plan.

[kingofrooks]

Of course he wouldn't. Only a fool would close his eyes in front of a predator, and Matches might have chosen this life, but he was no fool. His teeth felt bereft without the weight of the match between them, and he hissed out a soft, soft breath between his teeth, the air whistling in the thick silence around them.

He kept his eyes open, fixed half on Eric's eyes, half on the match in the other man's mouth. Close your eyes. The weight of the money in his pocket. The new drug. The pieces were coming together, because he knew men like this one and he never did seduce without good reason.

(There was a separate, cold part of him that noted that Matches should be reacting about that. About such close, intimate- sexual contact with another man. He should have, as Matches Malone- but that would be spoiling the act, ruining the game, and Matches was already a terribly malleable person.

He made himself into what he needed to be.)

Lurching forward suddenly, his hand clenching hard on the arm of the chair, he snapped his teeth around the

[vampingitup]

"No?"

Backup plan it was.

Really, though, he was pleased, despite the fact that he'd been effectively turned down. The match snatched back, the denial. He shouldn't enjoy it as much as he did, but the fact was that it was the challenge that he had been looking for ever since he'd come here. And if he'd sleep with a loathsome, squirmy worm of a vampire just to kill him, he sure as hell had no compunction here. He'd get what he wanted one way or another.

A slight of hand. Eric brushed his lower lip thoughtfully with his thumb, tucked the tiny pill into the corner of his mouth, out of sight, and he smiled.So be it

[kingofrooks]

He caught it, that movement, that sleight of hand. Eric Northman was not a man (a vampire) who made any movement without a purpose behind it. Like recognized like, the voice in the back of his head prodded, but Matches ignored it for the sudden flare of instinct, the tension that rippled and resonated throughout his body when he felt the cold breath against his skin again.

Then- lips. Tongue. Matches's mouth parted without his thoughts controlling his joints, and he breathed in and felt the tiny pill lying in the back of his throat. His back arched, hands death-grips on Eric's wrists, but there was inhuman strength there and vampires did not have as convenient a weakness as kryptonite.

It had been- far too long since he had kissed anyone. Jet. Selina, that night. Far longer since he was kissed by a man, though it wasn't a surprising or unpleasant sensation, viscerally. Eric Northman had a thousand years or even more of experience in this, and Matches couldn't help another inhale, and felt the pill tumble down his throat. It was

[vampingitup]

Yes, he was good at kissing. And yes, he always got what he wanted. This occasion was no different. When Matches froze beneath his kiss it didn't save him from it. In fact, even if unappreciated, it made it easier. The fight was shocked out of him

[kingofrooks]

Not fear. But anger, and anger always had the same taste of fear when it came to men like Eric Northman, didn't it? Matches looked at the smirk, at the match dangling from his teeth, and he breathed out shakily- shakily?

The drug was already metabolising within his body. Breaking down. Funny; he could feel it less than the cold air that Eric had blown into his mouth, the chill spreading outwards as if the man had shoved his entire hand down Matches's throat instead. It was far less subtle, far less invasive than the other man had thought-

(Wait, wait. There was a part of him that was still rational, that wasn't affected by his rapid, shallow breaths; by the clenching of his fingers. And it was saying:

How do you even know what he's thinking? Get a hold of yourself.)

I can hear it, Matches told the voice, and he didn't know if he said it out loud or not. (You didn't.) He took a step forward, then slammed the matchbox close, slapping it down on the table, on the side of Eric's hip. He looked at him, and there was danger in Matches'

[vampingitup]

It was impossible to tell what kind of changes were happening behind those ice blue eyes. The pupils dilated, then there was focus, and the voice dropped down to a whisper, a hiss. Threatening. The smile, the deepening of the accent, until it was perfectly accurate and not just believable; until there was nothing to see through

[kingofrooks]

A wolf, a lion, a predator holding him down, all warm, heavy weight and heavy breath- no, no (wrong). There was no warmth. No breath. Only weight. Only words, cold against his skin. Teeth, scraping against his own skin. His heart beating so fast that his pulse was jumping, leaping, punching against his own skin, as if reaching up towards Eric's mouth. The skin trying to break itself against those too-sharp too until he bled and bled and bled.

He throw his head back, his lips drawing back against his own teeth. He had no fangs, but he had canines, and Matches saw nothing in front of him but an enemy. Faceless, voiceless, enemyenemyenemy, perhaps a hint of (green); perhaps a flash of (black, bat ears, a strong jaw-. Perhaps there was the barest glimpse of a skull, blackened with wide staring eyes, all the whites shown.

And Matches was already snarling. It was a mix of everything he hated most, and he knew- knew that there were things missing. But they were there, at the corners of his eyes, somehow embodied into this one man. The