After the altercation with Pearly

[onceaviking]

He feels heavy and sluggish.
He looked down as he sat down on the bed and lifting his face feels like more of a chore than it ought, but he manages, looking at Pam.

His cheekbone seems to have righted itself, but it is still fully visible.
His flesh is torn, red and charred. His skin is white as paper.

He blinks slowly a couple of times.

Comments

[lazy_but_loyal]

She nods and shrugs as well, and she reaches over to rub his knee.

"Well, you're my Norse god, whatever the case."

Her lips may twitch in a faint smirk but the way she looks at him through her eyelashes belies her devotion to him. If coming to her defense and fighting for her is old-fashioned, then she's fine with that.

[onceaviking]

He smiles a little at the smirk. Despite the way it makes the pain flare up again as the muscles of his face move.

And he places his large hand on hers. His thumb stroking her cold skin.
Slowly. Feeling the delicate bones of her wrist, the graceful curve of the fleshy part beneath her thumb.

[lazy_but_loyal]

She's about to tell him not to smile, that it would hurt, but the notion makes her smile, and she shakes her head, lowering her eyes.

His hand almost completely covers hers, dwarfing it. For all the gruesome violence he can perpetrate with those hands, he has always been gentle with her.

She glances back up at his little smile that must hurt right now. And for a split second she sees herself leaning in, kissing him. But it would probably be even more painful.

So she quickly dismisses the thought.

She wants to pull her hand away, but...

[onceaviking]

He isn't looking at her.
He is looking at their hands. Hers so small beneath his. Hardly visible. Elegant. Fragile.

He knows she isn't, not when she is not compared to, say, him. Physically. And he knows her inner strength, her core of steel. And yet, he cannot help but want to protect her. Shield her.

His thumb strokes widen, move a little up her forearm. Just above her wrist.
Her skin is smooth. As his.

He looks up at her. Her hair. Her high cheekbones and the shadows cast by her long lashes.
The delicate spot where her earlobes join her jaw, the stillness beneath where a human would have a beating pulse. Visible to any vampire.

Her lips. Perfectly shaped, but no longer perfectly painted.
He won't mention that.

Her eyes. Huge. Deep.

[lazy_but_loyal]

The way he looks at her hasn't changed in the century since they met, and that is what still gets to her. She can feel his eyes drift to every part of her, as intimately as if his glances were kisses.

He meets her gaze, and she falters, lowering her eyes with a rapid flutter of lashes.

She hadn't realized it but her hand had slid higher up his leg to just above his knee.


--There's an abrupt knock on the door, three short, sharp raps.

It startles Pam, and she turns her head, her touch tense.

It was just a lapse into sentimentality. That's all.

[onceaviking]

"Just a moment," he says, raising his voice a little.

The door's locked.

He starts getting up from the bed.

[i_am_your_host]

When the Master of Ceremonies had entered the bar tonight, it was at the end of a show, so he was in high spirits, flushed with adrenaline and the rush of hearing laughter and applause and catcalls. His only intention was to have a drink and perhaps a frivolous distraction, but upon going up to the bar, he receives a note.

The words, so formal and cold, yet written in such a feminine hand, and with such a cryptically urgent tone, is a little disconcerting. Emcee stares at it for a few moments, his demeanor the complete opposite of when he came in.

What could Eric possibly want? ...Well, his blood, yes. But why the note?

Pamela De Beaufort.

Eric had warned him not to approach her on his own. He had sort of laughed that off, but right now the danger is imminent.

Surely she can't be that dangerous.

Then again, Emcee is about to enter a room with two vampires in it. Yes, he is about to do this.

He folds up the note and slips it into his coat pocket, and with a bold and determined step, he heads upstairs.

After knocking on Eric's apartment door, he hears him call out. A little anxious, he glances up and down the hallway, waiting.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Eric starts to try to get up, but Pam stops him.

"Just sit up. I'll get the door."

She won't have him lying down and looking incapacitated because that's not what he is.

Standing, she straightens out her dress, her expression devoid of any emotion, and crosses the room toward the door.

[onceaviking]

He would prefer to get the door himself. But she is right.

He sits up, scooting back to rest against the headboard, and turns his head a little, so the first thing a Emcee sees will not be his ravaged face.

Trying to ignore the pain.

[i_am_your_host]

The door opens.

And the first person he sees is a beautiful but quite imposing blonde woman wearing a tight red dress and a stone-faced expression.

He blinks up at her. Then recovers.

"Fraulein De Beaufort?" he says evenly with a small bow and a polite smile. "Good evening. I am the Master of Ceremonies. I understand that Herr Northman has sent for me."

[lazy_but_loyal]

What.

Seriously.

This guy?

Really?

(He does have fabulous eye makeup, though.)

Nonplussed, Pam starts to internally question the company that Eric keeps here, but he has his reasons for everything, so this...person must have some value to him.

"...Yyyyeah."

She steps back, opening the door wider.

"Come on in."

[onceaviking]

"Good evening, Emcee," Eric says, and you have to know him well to be able to tell that the smooth calm of his voice is an act.
But then there is the way he holds his body. The way he sits.

"I had a little run in with one of the resident psychopaths and everything isn't healing quite a a well as it should."

Emcee is smart enough. He'll figure out what is expected of him.

He likely already has.

[i_am_your_host]

When Emcee walks in past Pam, he has a feeling she might be able to smell his fear of her, but it's only a wary, controlled sort of fear, and not out of panic. The healthy sort.

And then he sees Eric. His face.

"Scheiße," he gasps with quiet horror.

He does indeed already know what's expected of him, and he starts unbuttoning his coat without a second thought.

"What happened?"

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam, meanwhile, has locked the door and hovers between it and the Emcee, even though he doesn't show signs of bolting. He's actually quite willing to be here. Almost comfortable with it.

Thing is, he doesn't have that fangbanger undertone about him despite his willingness. That's maybe why Eric picked him.

She says nothing, however, and moves closer to the bed.

[onceaviking]

Eric pats the bedside lightly.

"Come sit here," he says. That way he doesn't have to move.

"I had a disagreement with someone who was, unfortunately, carrying silver. And I haven't fed properly the last few nights. I asked Pam to leave you a note."

His eyes flicker to her. Briefly.

[i_am_your_host]

He shrugs off his coat and lays it on the foot of the bed, then obediently sits down close to Eric. As he unbuttons his white tuxedo shirt, he also glances over at Pam, then back to him.

The exposed bone and torn and charred flesh on Eric's cheek almost makes his stomach turn. He can't look at it directly, but it's obvious he still wants to help. So he sheds his shirt, laying it aside, unbothered by Pam's presence.

"I had no idea a burn from silver could be this awful."

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam meets the flicker of Eric's eyes and says nothing.

She looks over the Emcee. He's a soft little thing, as Eric had described him, almost feminine but for the sharper angles of his arms and shoulders. But he's warm, and smells rich, his heart and blood pumping fast.

She might be considering a taste, but she'll leave him to Eric first.

"The asshole burned me, too, but not half as bad. Eric just needs your blood and he'll be as good as new."

That might have been her way of reassuring the Emcee? Maybe?

[onceaviking]

Eric reaches over and takes Emcee's hand, turning it over, vulnerable inner wrist up.

"Normally, the reaction wouldn't be quite as - spectacular," he says. "But Pam is right. It is easily taken care of."

Running his thumb along the strong pulse of Emcee's wrist.
He pulls his lips back and lets his fangs come down.



l{ooc: bedtime}

[i_am_your_host]

Eric's fingers are cold, very cold, possibly the coldest he's ever felt him.

He's never bitten him on his wrist before. Perhaps it's a less...personal way of being bitten. Emcee doesn't mind either way, but Eric might want to keep things a little more formal with Pam here.

But there's nothing restrained about his reaction to Eric's fangs coming down. He's still mesmerized by them even as they still inspire the thrill of fear. He tenses up in Eric's hold but doesn't pull away.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam smells his fear. It's like Jemma's fear, healthy as it should be, and the fight-or-flight tension keeps things interesting.

She likes that.

But really, what a strange little man he is. He's not her type, and she certainly never thought Eric would give him a second glance if not for his blood.

[onceaviking]

Eric lifts Emcee's wrist to his lips.
It's not visible. But Emcee will be able to tell that his fingers are trembling.

He bites, trying to be careful, and presses his lips to Emcee's skin. He's so warm.
There may be the tiniest whimper.

He tightens his grip, closing his eyes. Completely focused on the blood - and the pain as his own body reacts.

Bone to bone, flesh to flesh, skin to skin, as if glued. The women used to say that when they tied your wounds with crushed plants and cloth.

[i_am_your_host]

He has never felt Eric's fingers tremble like that before, but he assumes it's because he's not well. Or because he's very hungry. Or both.

Either way, the bite hurts, and he winces in pain when his fangs break his skin. But it's not a vicious bite, that much he can tell (and appreciate). And still he doesn't pull away, even as Eric tightens his grip.

He watches, breathing deep but fast, as Eric drinks, and with astonished fascination as his damaged flesh slowly begins to mend itself right before his eyes.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam is also watching -- and listening. Listening to Emcee's heartbeat in case Eric drinks too deeply. And he'll have to drink as deep as possible to heal completely, but without damaging the man. It looks as if his blood is already working, though, and she steps closer to watch.

There may be relief in her eyes, even if nothing else shows in her expression.

She can still feel Eric's pain and discomfort, but it won't be long now until he is rid of it. That's all that matters to her.

[onceaviking]

Eric's free hand moves up to rest at the nape of Emcee's neck. His fingers burying themselves in his hair.

Just like he would with a woman.

It's soothing, stroking someone's hair.

His mouth moves as he suckles the wounds, his grip on Emcee still tight.

He trusts Pam to pay attention to his prey for all he can sense is the blood filling his mouth and the pain as the wound on his own face finally, finally, close, the skin stretching white and whole across his bones and flesh.

He moans loudly against Emcee's wrist.

[i_am_your_host]

Now two sensations stand out, Eric's fingers in his hair and his lips on his skin, stroking him almost in tandem.

His eyelids flutter and he leans slightly into his touch. It's as soothing for him as it is for Eric. And it gives him something to brace himself against as he begins to feel faint.

He fights it for a while, keeping himself alert by watching Eric's skin regrow over the exposed bone and flesh, becoming smooth and flawless, with no scars whatsoever. It's amazing.

But not amazing enough to keep his eyelids from drooping and his shoulders from slumping.