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

[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.

He stepped away from the door, closing it behind him before stepping it down. The basement was lit, less a dungeon than the other dark underground cavern he frequented. Matches stepped down, raised an eyebrow at the envelope, and automatically let himself be half-swallowed up by the shadows even though he knew that Eric would be able to see through them.

"You ain't the type for easy money, boss," he drawled, cocking his head to the side and back, eyes narrowing slightly. "What do ya want me ta do this time?"

[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.

But Matches was used to tightropes. Even if he had never worked with a vampire, Eric's capriciousness and danger was no more dangerous than the Harley Quinn, Harvey Dent, or any of the crazies he had worked for. He smiled around the match between his teeth, reaching out and snatching the envelope out of Eric's hand and pocketing it.

"Once given can't be returned, boss," he drawled softly, then pulled out his chair and dropping down onto it. His posture was all indolence, arrogant and insolent fearlessness. He tipped his head up, looking up to Eric, his gaze sharp.

If he didn't do things like these, he didn't think Eric would be interested in him for long. But he let the stereotype of the greedy mobster hold, his fingers stroking against the envelope as if subconsciously- that, at least, would throw Eric off his trail enough.

"What drinks are there, boss? Ya know I don't take anything but yer best."

[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.

Like him. The Eric that Godric had seen, all those years ago. A warrior.

[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, but he did.

And he swallowed.

"Yer ain't wasted yer money, boss," he said, drawling softly. "Now, I can sit 'ere all night ta talk, but I ain't thinkin' the money's in my pocket just for ordinary talkin'."

The glass was dropped on the desk. He lifted his legs, as if to drape them on the desk- then changed his mind.

"Whaddya need from ol' Matches this time?"

[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.

The vampire was between Matches and the desk within a blink of an eye, and for a moment he remained there, looking down on him, slightly relaxed backward, his hands on the very edge. He cocked his head to one side, then, all serpentine movement and tempered strength, leant down into Matches space, his hands moving up to cage him into the chair, eyes half closed, mouth a mere inch above the other man's, tilted fifty degrees over to the left.

There was something else about him.

The strong, almost alluring scent of blood, a fragrance. Like Sookie. He was injured, albeit those injuries were concealed. He always smelled like this. Up close it would have been distracting for a younger vampire--he wouldn't be able to think of anything else but that smell. But Eric had plans in motion.

"And if the money was for a different kind of talking altogether, Malone?" His head turned back the other way, chin rising so that his lips almost brushed the other man's. Almost. "What then?"

[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.

His body had tensed instinctively, and his hands were tight around the edge of his chair. The match between his teeth was gritted tightly, half-digging into his own gums, and his smile was suddenly, tightly stiff. Frozen on his face. He breathed out, and slowly licked his lips, careful to not move back- and at the same time not touch Eric's.

There was a part of him that wasn't Matches Malone that was already running calculations, flipping through the possibilities. Matches listened to it with half a ear, focusing his attention upon Eric, holding his gaze in the silence between them. He could laugh this off, he knew; he could even push his chair back and slam down the envelope onto the desk, stalk out of the basement, reestablish his boundaries. That would be the wisest choice.

But no, no - Eric was planning something. He was doing this for a reason- and this close, Matches could pick out the tiny little tells. The flared nostrils, the slow-expanding pupils. Want, there was want here, and the part of him in his mind slowly let go of his body's autonomic functions. His heart started beating faster, harder, a growing thunder in his ears.

He tipped his head back. Parted his lips and let out a low, quiet breath, wet and warm against Eric's cheek.

"Ya ain't the type ta pay fer that, Mister Eric," he rolled the name around his tongue, tasted every corner, and gave it back to Eric in one roiling exhale. "'sides, if dat what ya want, the couch in yer office be a better choice?"

It was dangerous, to make suggestions like these. Matches smiled, white teeth around the pale wood in his mouth.

"Don'cha think?"

[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 match- and stayed there, for a moment. A second passed, a single heartbeat, and he let himself fall backwards, his jaw still tense, clutching his prize.

He smiled. "No."

[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.

When he leant forward this time it was with the same snake like twist of his head, pausing an inch away from Matches' mouth as though to take the match back. As though to keep playing this game. The game, though, was already up. It took no effort at all to lean past it, to press his lips to the other man's and with vampire strength and vampire cunning kiss him hard enough to bruise, to force his lips open and drive the tablet to the back of Matches' throat with the very tip of his tongue.

At the same time he caged him in the chair once more, arms like steel girders, trapping him in place.

This probably counted as some kind of offense. Sexual assault in the workplace. But Matches had already been paid, and who were they going to believe? The man with the envelope full of money, or the reputable business owner?

The match clattered to the ground.

[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 merely- unexpected. Strange. He had no real response, staying stock-still, his breath hissing out through his teeth into a cold, cold mouth.

So this was what he was planning. The new drug; he needed a test subject. (Seven-eight percent chance.) Matches tipped his head, slammed himself back, and broke the kiss. The clatter of the match was loud in the room, the sound amplified, echoed by the walls of the basement.

No one could hear him scream. Right. The drug was like a rock in his throat. Down, down,

down.

"Ya could've," he smirked a little, but his hand was trembling, just so slightly. He slipped out a match, slipping one out and flipping it such that the wooden end was against Eric.

"Ya could've just asked," he said, and it was surprisingly difficult to try to place the damn thing in Eric's mouth.

[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.

The reaction--the power contained, the way the man arched beneath him and closed his hands around his wrists, then froze like that... Was it fear? There was a little fear there, he thought, in the way his hand shook once the kiss was broken, in the deliberate grip of thumb and forefinger around the fresh match. The fear was from either the drug or from the kiss; though more likely it was fear of Eric himself. The cracks were beginning to show in the careful facade, and the hesitation made the vampire smile.

Eric Northman 1, Matches Malone - or whoever you are - 0.

His fangs were in his smile.

"I could have, but this way was more fun." He snapped his teeth down on the match, willingly, and the biting force of the predator's maw snapped it straight in half.

"The drug doesn't work on me. I needed a test subject. Someone I could rely on to be objective." And Matches could certainly be objective. "Tell me what you're feeling. Don't leave anything out."

[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's eyes- a danger that should have never been there.

"I can hear it," he whispered, his voice barely above a hiss. His lips were twisted into something like a smile- except much darker.

"Yer thinkin' dat yer won 'gainst me, Mister Eric," the drawl and the brogue had become even more pronounced, and Matches licked his lips. He wasn't hearing anything except Eric's voice, saying-

words

(What words?)

He ignored it. He was Matches now.

"But I ain't so easy." He reached out a hand, and the smile widened as he brushed against the tip of Eric's cheekbones. Suddenly, he could see it- a skull, underneath. He stilled, tipped his head.

"I ain't so easy."

[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.

He wished that he could pick apart the drug's actions more accurately than that, but he had to rely on what he saw. That was why when the man stood and reached out for him the vampire didn't retreat. He was still the alpha here. He was not afraid of a mere human and never, ever would be. He refused to back down. More importantly if he did there was the smallest possibility that he would see no more.

His hand rose, fingers sliding across the back of Matches' hand, closing his palm against his cheek. Then he moved. At speed.

All power, all wicked speed, he span then both on the spot, kicked the chair so hard against the wall it shattered, and drove the man down against the desk, arched over it, hip to hip, pinning both hands down above Matches' head.

Mouth mere inches away, fangs still bared, Eric tilted his head. He leant close to his throat, deliberately exhaling as he spoke soft, cruel words.

"If you expect me to believe you, you'll have to be a little faster than that, Malone."

Teeth nicked skin, drawing blood, but that was all they did, as Eric leant back, stepping away, and let Matches make his move. He wanted to see how the drug worked--he wouldn't be able to do that with him flat on his back, now, would he?

"Show me."

[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 problem was- the problem was that-

He had no words. No names. Matches Malone had no archnamesis. Matches Malone had nothing he hated with the fires of a thousand suns. Except- except-

Ears. Darkness. The rapid flapping of a cape in the wind, like wings. White lenses in the darkness. A gun. A muzzle flash.

Gunshots. Gunshot. A god falling over.

His lips formed the words. His enemy takes form, and he simply didn't see Eric anymore. Matches snarled, sharp and rough and hard, leaping forward to slam him to the ground, hands tangling in his shirt. And his voice said, growled and half-unintelligible, thoroughly mangled by his accent:

"Batman."

[vampingitup]

Eric was ready. Ready enough that when Matches leapt onto his chest, hands clawing into his clothing, he went down without delay. The force and the strength was werewolf like--the last time he'd fought with anything that wasn't pure vampire, and still had strength on its side, if not advantage.

Matches Malone, for all his slender form and light bone, was in combat experienced, compact, all muscle beneath the smothering outfit. Close to him, feeling the impact and the force behind it, Eric was finally able to see it.

He wasn't just cunning, he was wickedly strong, too.

Batman.

Him? No, surely not. He burst out laughing, unable to restrain himself, uncoiling so that he lay quiet and flat against the cool, swept concrete of the basement floor. What was going on in that mind, he wondered? What was he seeing? What had the drug done to him? Surely not something that Eric had expected from the descriptions. Not unless there was something deeply, psychologically wrong with Matches Malone.

How deep did the disguise go, and what was it hiding?

"Better. Faster. But you still aren't strong enough to keep your advantage, are you?"

They rolled, and a moment later it was the vampire pinning Matches into the ground; the cold, hard concrete below, the cold, hard vampire above.

"Why Batman, Malone?"