milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Eric is at the Bar. In a blue track suit.

Looking down at his hands, folded on the counter, without really seeing them.

He'll ask Bill Compton to borrow his pet telepath, Bill will say yes, because he cannot be stupid enough to say no, and then he'll figure out what is going on in Dallas.
It's a good plan.

He doesn't believe in it.

{ooc: Eric is entering from the start of season two. Potential spoilers, definite callousness regarding events in Bar that he considers water under the bridge}

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"Trying to look harmless?" Father Harman asks, coming to the bar to get a cup of tea.

Due to the warm weather, he's also not wearing his black shirt and long coat -- instead, he wears a black polo shit with an odd red logo on.

Eric looks up at him. Blankly.
Then he curtly says, "No," and then says to Bar, "May I have a glass of blood, please?"

The blood arrives in a tall glass.

He doesn't touch it straight away.

"Good," Father Harman says. "Because you don't look harmless, you look silly in that old age pensioner from Surrey sort of garment."

Eric turns and glares at him.

"My clothes got - dirty," he says. Deliberately.

"And of course, there wasn't another option than stealing some old man's favourite clothes?" Father Harman says.

The vampire looks oddly beaten, which is as interesting as the thoroughly unvampiric clothes.

"Things went wrong for you, did they?" Harman enquires, sipping his tea.

"No," Eric says.
"I just ripped someone a little more apart than I had originally planned. That's what happens when people attacks me. And the clothes are mine. They are very comfortable."

He may be striving for casually sarcastic but there is a tightness in his voice.

"And here you are, trying to sound proud of having killed a person," Father Harman says. "In Milliways, you could be Gilles de Rais or Elizabeth Bathory and just frolic carelessly as long you don't bathe in the blood of the local virgins. It takes some getting used to."

Eric amiles.

"He might have been a virgin. But he was also a killer who'd burned at least three vampires . And he was stupid enough to attack me with silver. I might not even have killed him if he hadn't."

"So silver works against you," Father Harman says. "Pity I didn't try that."

"As you can tell, it was nowhere near as efficient as he had hoped," Eric says. Smiling,

"But if you're trying to attack anybody, you can be held at the end of a silver fork until somebody fetches Melaka Fray and her scythe," Father Harman points out. "Good to know. Thank you."

"Oh no," Eric says."I might feel pain, but I can ignore pain. As the idiot in question just had time to realize before he left this existence."

There had been plenty of pain in his mortal life too. He had been good at pushing through it even then.

"Two silver forks, then," Father Harman says.

There must be an amount of paint Eric can no longer ignore.

Eric shakes his head.

"Two very large silver serving forks," Father Harman ponders.

Something is definitely up with this vampire in a tracksuit.

Eric shakes his head again.

Mutely.

He doesn't feel like engaging in verbal sparring tonight. Or any other kind of sparring for that matter.

"Whatever is the matter with you?" Father Harman says. He sips his tea, calmly.

Eric glares at him.

"Nothing. And if there was it would be none of your concern, priest."
He sounds snappish.

"It's obvious that the first bit is a lie," Father Harman, "so I'll guess the second part is one, as well. What have you done, eh? Finally drunk Jay dry?"

Eric's eyes narrow.

How does he know anything about Jay?

"There is an issue at home. Vampires have gone missing."
One has, at least. And it's the only one he cares about anyway.
"So it really is none if your concern."

"I'm sure vampires go missing all the time," Father Harman says. "It's not as if they'd leave regular corpses when people put paid to them, do they?"

"Vampires like this one do not go missing," Eric all but hisses.
"He is old and powerful. Whatever has - happened to him i s a threat to us all."

"Your maker," Father Harman says. "What happens when a vampire's maker dies? Do you lose your contact to the neural network of vampirism?"

Eric's eyes flash, and he snarls, "You have no right to even speak of him. There is no network, there is no disease. Get it through your petrified skull!
There is honor and there is the sanctity of the blood passed down through millennia. But you cannot understand it with your tiny, human intellect."

His whole body has gone rigid. He is really working on not hitting anyone right now. Or tearing their face off.

His idea about sitting here to find some calm before going to see Bill Compton is out of the window, it seems.

"I have the right to speak of whatever I may want at the moment, including your so-called 'maker', which is actually the monster that infected you and now holds some sway over you through means I would really like to find out about," Father Harman says.

It's very interesting to see the vampire's reaction.

"So I'm right: something happened to him."

"And I have the right to ignore any and all words coming from you," Eric hisses and gets up, knocking the blood over in the process.

It slowly spreads on the counter. Dark red and shining.

He ignores it, pointing a finger at Father Harman.

"And you are wrong. Nothing has happened to him. I would -"

He cuts himself off, loathe to give the priest any more information than he already has. And unsure of whether he actually would know if anything had happened to Godric. He would feel it, wouldn't he? He stalks off, before he looses his temper and kills the priest outright.
Leaving the pool of blood to be death with by a waitrat.

"... you would know, as you're connected," Father Harman muses, picking up his teacup to keep it away from the spreading pool of blood on the counter, and then stepping back as the blood cascades onto bar stools and splashes onto the floor.

A neural network of vampirism, one was or another. Seems his ideas aren't so far off.

{ooc: perfect. Thank you.}

[[OOC: He will keep poking. That's what he does, among other things.-]]

"You alright?" Jay asks, coming in from training with two busted sparing 'bots. "You look like you're miles away."

Edited 2014-05-29 02:32 (UTC)

Eric looks up from his hands.

"I'm fine."
He's really not.

"Trying to figure out how to make Bill Compton hand over his little telepath."
Yes, that is a person he is talking about. No, it doesn't sound like he cares.

"What do you need her to do?" Jay asks, joining him at the table.

"A Sheriff has gone missing in Texas. I'm going to take her with me. If any humans know about it, she'll be able to find out," he says.

"My first suspicion was that it was drainers who had somehow managed to get a hold of the Sheriff in question, but that does not seem to be the case. I've - investigated that avenue."

He sounds really unpleasant when he says that.

"Godric." Jay whispers. Eric's mentioned Godric's location before. "Oh shit. What do you need?"

"Nothing. I've got a handle on this."

He so doesn't.

"I don't doubt it. But if you need gear, I can get it."

Eric doesn't know how to respond to this.
So he doesn't.

Instead, he says, "It'll be fine."
Trying to convince himself.

"I hope so." Jay means it. As much as Eric would dislike it, he worries for his friend.

"So, how will you talk Bill Compton round? Or do you go to her directly? She seemed like a compassionate soul, easily swayed and you're a very good actor." As Jay is well aware.

"She's already made promises to help out, but I have to ask him. Out of curtesy, as she is his."

He looks like the words taste bad.

"And he is difficult to persuade. He - ended up killing another vampire (Eric had obviously nothing to do with this - at all) for her sake and rather than taking the help I offered in making it go away, he choose to be tried for his crime."

There is no admiration for facing the music in Eric's voice. Only scorn.

"And she hates me. In fact, I think she may detest me more than your little, pretty friend."
Sunshine.

"Play her." Jay answers simply and with an unspoken the way you play me. "Give her reason to see past her hate, give her something that makes her want to help you. Honestly, as much as it hurts, give her Godric. The slightest implication that it's personal, that the matter means something to you and she'll rally to you. Once you have her like that, she'll bring him around for you."

At mention of Rae, Jay looks away, making an effort not to flinch.

"He just needs to be reminded of the way hierarchy works," Eric says, not addressing Jan's suggestion.

He will not speak of his Maker to humans. Not at home. It is beyond their comprehension.
And he cannot.

So he changes the subject. "Let me guess. Miss Seddon visited your sickbed and expressed her-" He seems to consider what her reaction would have been.
"Horror and disappointment? "

"Good luck with that." He answers, taking it as a dismissal.

Jay's expression tightens, along with his shoulders. "Something like that." The wound is still fresh and clearly bites deep.

It is a dismissal. Much as Eric wants to seem in control of the situation, he can feel the illusion slip when he speaks of Godric. Because he cannot comprehend how, how anyone can have captured him?

When he told Lafayette, that Godric was ten times the vampire he himself could never be, he was not exaggerating.

How?

He will not entertain those thoughts here. No.

As for Jay's spat with his bosom friend, well -
"That can hardly have been a surprise? Her reaction? "

Edited 2014-05-29 07:09 (UTC)

Jay shrugs. He wants to talk about it about as much as Eric wants to talk about Godric. "No, I guess it shouldn't have." But it did.

"Anyone else upset with you?"
For if there is, he will likely hear about it sooner or later. And he likes to be prepared.

"Not enough to make a deal of it." Jay knows Eric's not asking out of concern for Jay's feelings. "But Rae may."

"Yes, she might. Oh well. That's manageable ."

His face returns to its previous, brooding look.

He is worried.

"I'm going to talk to security myself, before anyone can make an issue of it. Less risk it gets blown out of proportions that way."

Jay watches Eric's face, wondering if he can help and whether Eric would let him even if he could. Brooding is a solitary thing after all. "If you need anything, you know how to find me."

Not that he's going far. He pulls up at a table not far away and drags over the busted 'bots. Might as well start on repairs.

And Eric sits there for a long while, just staring at his hands. A silent, solitary presence.

When you are a vampire, you are essentially alone.

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