undergrounds | Now we're bound to linger on (May Catch-All)

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Now we're bound to linger on (May Catch-All)

1. Guilty Pleasures
"Welcome to Guilty Pleasures!"

Kenzi wasn't going to slap some cheesy tagline on the greeting like she should, she wasn't in the mood to be anything more than fake-chipper like a fast-food register worker: disdainful but faking it anyway. She wasn't hungry, thank God. She'd learned that showing up to the club with a hankering for some Type O would lead to bad things.

Like almost eating someone in the club bathroom.

Yeah, that wasn't the smartest thing to do. Not that she'd admit that out loud.

"Drink, Private room?"

She'd just do her job - ugh- and get through the night. Without a drink. Fuck.

2. Bloodfest
Maybe it was the fact that she'd been eating as little as possible because she wanted to pretend she was still human. Maybe it was the scent of blood so thick in the air she could practically taste it. Maybe she just wasn't equipped with the self-control to be a vampire.

Maybe she wanted to just give into the animal instinct to hunt and kill that she still wasn't used to.

Whatever it was, the first night of the Bloodfest Millicent sanctioned was going to get a little more bloody.

As she walked out of the latest bar with Nancy by her side, Kenzi's smile faded in increments as she began to feel....rather strange. Like something was pushing at her head from behind.

"Oh, fudgecicles. I think I'm gonna be sick again," is all she gets out before she makes a beeline for the alley just on the other side of the bar. She isn't sure if she's going to hurl or not but...well. This was too weird for this not to be sickness and it was getting worse quickly.

3. Wildcard
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It was stupid to be out during the Bloodfest, as it was to be called. But Nancy and Kenzi had had plans to go out tonight for weeks to celebrate the end of the elections (and a successful rigging of the vote) and Nancy was nothing if not incredibly stubborn. So here they were, alcohol in Nancy's blood, and hopefully Kenzi's, too.

She'd been blissfully unaware of the way Kenzi was feeling, how little she'd been eating, otherwise maybe she wouldn't have stuck to her plans. Regardless, she was here now, following Kenzi into the alley like she'd done a thousand times. Immediately, she made to hold Kenzi's hair back if she was going to vomit.

Not the first time they'd done this, and certainly not since she'd turned.

"What's going on? You didn't drink that much, I thought"

Kenzi swallowed reflexively against the feeling that she'd be sick, hands braced against a wall as she stared at a trash heap.

"I don't -- ugh, it's not that."

As Nancy swept her hair away from her face, Kenzi could hear the steady thrum of her blood coursing through her wrists, she could smell the richness of it; like a fine meal she wasn't allowed to eat but wanted so badly...

Kenzi's head listed to the side as she turned her slightly open mouth towards Nancy, eyes closed and moaned, as if in pain.

"Oh, Nancy..." you smell so good.

It was times like this when Nancy completely and totally forgot that Kenzi was a vampire. To her, she was just her best friend, usual old Kenzi. So she thought nothing of, when she heard her friend moan in pain, stepping forward to gently reach for her friend.

"C'mon, then. Maybe coming out tonight was a bad idea. Let's get you home." She could hope, at least, that Kenzi was down for this. So far all their nights out were something less-than-spectacular. Probably best to stick to nights in.

Maybe just a little...

That thought echoed and stuck to the walls of her mind like glue and she found herself shutting out the very human and very Kenzi protests that Nancy was her best friend, her sister, she couldn't ...

she couldn't do this.

The fight with her instincts was clear on her face as she squeezed her eyes closed and held her breath so she wouldn't smell Nancy - not that she had to breath anymore anyways.

As Nancy reached for her Kenzi's eyes flared open and went straight to Nancy's wrist as she reached for her.

She didn't know it, but her fangs were bared in an open mouthed inhale.

"Nan..."

If Kenzi was screaming on the inside not to do this...it didn't show.

"Yeah?" She offers, her hand now on Kenzi's shoulder. She should have been on her guard, she knew. If it had been any other night, any other person, she'd have clued in almost immediately that she was in danger. But Kenzi was Kenzi, and would never hurt her.

She looks up at her friend, and it's only then that she notices the fangs.

"Kenzi..." She lowered her hand slowly, calmly. "Kenzi, don't do this." She kept her hands up in a protective, placating gesture. She could talk her out of this, she knew she could. Because right now, magic wasn't an option. it would only escalate things, and between the two of them... Kenzi was faster, and stronger.

Kenzi's jaw worked like she had something stuck in her teeth. She tries to breath, suck in air and be a person again but it's too thin, it's not right. Her mouth waters and she can't look away from Nancy's wrist, Nancy's throat, Nancy's pale, pretty skin with the blue veins underneath that are practically screaming for her to rip them open and drink and just be satisfied for once.

I'm so fucking thirsty. It's the only clear thing in her mind as she stalks after her best friend. Her throat is so dry and water won't do shit for her anymore. It's just blood now.

Kenzi groans and tries to look away from Nancy, her eyes falling to her own wrist for just a moment. It's a moment long enough for a crazy idea.

"Go. Leave me alone please," she moans and lashes out on herself instead of Nancy.

Her lips nuzzle the inside of her own wrist for just a moment before the points of her canines touch her skin and that's it. Helplessly she digs into her own skin and helplessly she starts sucking as ferociously as she can, yanking blood up into her own mouth. Are vampires even allowed to drink their own blood? Is it going to kill her? She doesn't know.

Kenzi doesn't even know if it's supposed to taste like shit or not because she's too blissed out as blood pours down her throat, coating it and cleansing away any pain she'd been feeling. Kenzi leans up against the wall, eyes fluttering closed as she holds her wrist to her lips and sucks loudly.

It's a chance to run, for Nancy. Kenzi hopes she takes it because after this she's going to be high on blood. Maybe.

It's a chance, and Nancy should have taken it. But she'd never been one for common sense, and her loyalty was surely her tragic flaw. When Kenzi tore into her own wrist, Nancy let out a small muffled scream.

No- she couldn't stand here and watch her best friend mutilate herself. She couldn't. She didn't know what would happen, but if she had to find out, Nancy did not want it to be tonight.

"I can't leave you like this," she says, bile rising in her throat as Kenzi feeds on herself. The act seems so... This isn't Kenzi. "I won't leave you like this," she says, a bit stronger. But what can she do?

Let her best friend starve, let her best friend attack some poor innocent person? Or let her best friend feed and attack her instead? "Let's get you to JC. He'll be able to help." Help with what? There was nothing to do. But it was safer, safer for all of them.

She keeps her distance, though, hands out towards her friend.

She snarls at her best and only friend like an animal and Kenzi knew something was wrong with her but this is a new low for her and she just wants to stop.

But it's too good. Her blood might not fill her gut but the taste alone practically has her laughing with relief.

"You don't listen, why don't you ever listen?!"

Her wrist falls away from her mouth - which is covered in her own blood now - and the skin slowly stitches itself up as she stalks, with purpose, towards Nancy.

There's a small noise that escapes from Nancy- wounded, small- and she realizes that with that sound she's started to cry.

But Kenzi is hurt and she takes a step towards her, because she wants to help her more than anything in the world. That's what she needed- and if Nancy could deliver it, she would.

"It'll be alright- I'm going to help you. We just have to get you to JC, his club isn't far." She tries the same tactic again. Truthfully, she knew nothing of what Kenzi was experiencing. How ravenous, how mad for blood she was, and the idea hadn't even crossed her drunk mind. She'd never known a newborn before, only heard of them and their tempers. But Kenzi was different. Kenzi could resist. She knew she could. She believed in her.

Kenzi didn't slow in her advance and was on Nancy in a moment. If her friend didn't try to stop her with magic, Kenzi would press her up against the wall and have the snack she'd been craving.

"I don't want you to help me!"

Her back hit the wall, and she knew she was done for. she couldn't use magic- not her best friend that couldn't use magic. and to be honest, it was the last thing on her mind.

"Kenzi- please-!" she begged before she felt Kenzi's teeth puncture her vein. Unprepared she let out a small scream.

It's not exactly luck that Natasha is on the scene. For all that she'd intended to stay in and out of the way, when the bloodshed started, Natasha hadn't been able to look the other way. What's happening here? That's just what she's had her eyes and her ears open for--the only real surprise when she responds to a scream and the smell of blood is that she knows both the victim and her attacker.

That recognition doesn't hold her back though. The scent of blood jangled her senses, but Kenzi makes a good surrogate for the aggression that it stirs up, and Natasha pulls her off Nancy and whirls her up against the wall with all her strength. At this point, she's not worried about being gentle.

Evie wasn't the sort of person who would ever come to Guilty Pleasures for, well, guilty pleasures. No, when she came in, it was always on business. Today, her business was supposed to be for Jean-Claude. Having just arrived back in town, she was trying to reestablish her old contacts, and having one such contact in a place like this was highly valuable. Before, she'd been friends with women that ran brothels, hidden people there, and gotten all sort of information from them. Now the closest thing to the brothels she could really find were the strip clubs.

"Excuse me," Evie said, approaching a young woman that appeared more fully clothed than your average stripper. "I'm looking for Jean-Claude." She had no idea he wasn't actually supposed to be at the club that night, but had been hoping to catch him on the clock.

Ever since the Millicent dancer fiasco, Kenzi was sure they'd be getting a 'cease and desist' any day now. The strange woman that spoke to her was a vampire, that was for sure and she seemed...old.

Kenzi bristled only slightly and smiled all plastic again.

"Who are you?"

Certainly not the customer service she was supposed to be giving. But Kenzi wasn't sure she was a customer...

Old, sure, for human standards. By vampire standards, Evie was only in her mid-100s. She hardly considered herself old. But she did keep a lot of her mannerisms, rather than changing with the times. That's what happened when you kept to yourself, often enough.

Hearing the sass from the young vampire at the desk- she had to be young- Evie raised a well-groomed eyebrow. "I see customer service has gone to the wayside." She offers a tight smile, but fine, whatever she needed to do. "My name is Evie Frye."

Kenzi's mouth puckered and swept to the side as she considered the woman before her, like she was trying to place her. Kenzi had not, unfortunately, been in the vampire business long enough to place the name or it's significance. If she had, she might be a little less abrasive. Maybe.

"Am I supposed to know who you are?"

The question, at least, is genuine.

Her lip twitches in the smallest facsimile of a smile. But only barely.

"No, ideally." If newer vampires knew who she was, well, then there was a bit of a problem, wasn't there? "But Jean-Claude certainly does." Casually namedropping the boss, no big deal.

"Well, he's not here. I'm his ... chiild?"

Kenzi seems as if she's realized telling a perfect stranger that her maker wasn't here was...inviting trouble...just as she said it. As a result, she crosses her arms in a facsimile of What Adults Do in an effort to appear more authoritiative. It probably doesn't work well.

"He's my sire so you can talk to me."

Well that explains some things.

"No, I'm sorry." Evie said as patiently as she could, offering a small, reassuring smile to the young woman in front of her. "I'd like to speak directly to him. We're old acquaintances- you don't happen to have his mobile number, do you?"

Kenzi bristles visibly as Evie dismisses her. She hated people thinking they were better than her, for whatever reason. Her lips pursed in consideration and contempt as she shrugged.

"I don't really chat with him while he's out."

Which was a lie. A big one. She had his cell memorized at this point.

But this chick didn't need to know it.

"Of course. You don't speak with him. No texts from your sire, or your boss." Yeah, sorry, Kenzi. She didn't believe that at all.

So, she'll just reach over and take a piece of paper and a pen and start to write a brief message to Jean-Claude. Her handwriting is elegant without trying, too easily practiced.

"I trust you can deliver him a letter." She'll be sealing it.

After the Bloodfest, Kenzi was left with the certainty that she had to get control over her appetite. And that it wasn't something she could be taught to do. Never mind that she'd only been doing this for two months now; this was something she would do on her own. Like she did everything else. In a way, Kenzi wanted to prove to JC she could take care of herself instead of relying on him.

She came to the party under false pretenses. Snagging a fake invitation from a friend of hers, Kenzi managed to get a verbal invitation inside as well by one of the staff after flirting him up a bit.

The temptation was to just go to the staff entrance and have a nibble of him and go home. But that wasn't why she was here and frankly she didn't just get all dressed up for a waiter.

As she moseyed inside, Kenzi made a beeline for the bar and smiled prettily at the tender behind it before asking:

"Can I have some champagn -," oh wait, she wasn't drinking that. Not when she was getting routinely sick because of it. "no. Nope. Nevermind."

She looked thoroughly peeved.

God this sucked.

Edited 2016-05-13 22:19 (UTC)

It's the smell that attracts him. The sense of death. Because, well, as far as he knew, he was the only vampire who was supposed to be in attendance. He watches the girl for a few moments then approaches her when she nears the bar. At hearing the change of her order--

"Two glasses of Cabernet," he says.

Then, to her, he offers, "The texture's better. A bit more palatable."

Kenzi starts slightly as Coward seemingly just appears by her side and orders for her. She's left standing there with her mouth hanging open for a moment before she snaps it shut, afraid she's showing off her fangs when she knows they're not out.

"Uh...thanks."

She can smell the death on him same as he can smell it on her. She knows what that means for him and she's doing her best not to offend him because he seems so much older than she is.

"I'll have to take your word for it. I haven't really been holding my liquor lately."

Everything just tasted like dust.

Jean-Claude is not happy with the state of things. Not only have the streets gone wild, but Zane has just given him some news that he could have done without tonight. And since Kenzi is there at the club tonight, since she's his progeny and employee, he supposes that she has a right to know.

So when he approaches her, the look on his face is as blank as it ever gets, which doesn't bode well. She will have perhaps learned by now that when Jean-Claude goes all vampire, it means that something is amiss. "I would speak with you," he says, pointedly. Preferably not in front of anyone else, in other words.

((ooc: let me know if this is alright? i can change if needed, i just thought why not combine with his plot besides c:))

((ooc: of course this is lovely!))

Kenzi has been a little listless and honestly hostile since last night she nearly ate her best friend. This Bloodfest bs was not her favorite thing in the world, and it was incredibly pervasive. She was happy it hadn't managed to worm its way into the club at least - this place was becoming something of a refuge for her.

Tonight, she couldn't even fake a smile as she helped out guests. When Jean-Claude came to her with a similar expression, Kenzi's sour demeanor turned worried. Did Natasha tell him she went out last night? Did she tell him she had to pull her off her best friend before she ate her?

Thinking the worst, Kenzi swallowed reflexively and nodded. Not saying anything was terribly uncharacteristic of her, but she would follow him silently to somewhere more private.

Jean-Claude leads her aside and into the employee's only section of the club. Though he does not go so far as to take her into his office -- such a gesture would be perhaps misconstrued, given the tension in the air this evening. So he stops once he understands they are mostly out of earshot of the rest and turns to Kenzi, his dark blue eyes grave and piercing.

"One of our dancers has gone missing," he says, without preamble. As is his way sometimes. Sometimes all theatrics and misdirection and sometimes preferring to keep things straight to business.

"What?! Who?!"

Kenzi was a little less chill about this than Jean-Claude was. Or at least, seemed to be. Her own icy colored eyes widened in shock and perhaps even protectiveness?

She tried to do a mental headcount of everyone here tonight and ...everyone who was scheduled to work seemed to be present from her memory.

Oh, most definitely 'seems'. He is far less chill about it than he is letting on, but most of what he is feeling is guilt for the fact that this is his fault, and that is not something that he would let show to others, definitely not.

"Cherry," he replies, and he knows that she worked that night. He knows that she knows that she was his 'Millicent', even if it might take a few moments, even if she might not make the connection at first. She will. She was right, after all. Having a Millicent dancer was risky. But Jean-Claude had been willing to play the game. And this is the cost. "She's been gone since yesterday."

"Oh cheesebiscuts."

Kenzi usually swore colorfully but apparently the idea of Millicent taking a dancer who insulted her just by doing her job was terrifying enough that she was scared out of that particular habit.

"We're gonna go find her right?"

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Now we're bound to linger on (May Catch-All)

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