Performance--RP with [livejournal.com profile] badass_charger, <lj site="livejournal.com" u

Aug. 29th, 2008 08:16 pm
fey_fire: (NOM)
[personal profile] fey_fire
Takes place after this post.

Why do you keep on hiding from me
I know how it feels to hold you and just how it ought to be
My memories burn and taunt me
Your eyes so softly haunt me
But I'll still wait patiently
If you need to be
hiding from me.


The final harmonies drifted out over the crowd, followed by cheering and applause. Outwardly the scene looked like any night that Breaker Street played at Last Call. Inwardly the band's front man was struggling to put on the performance of his life, when what he really wanted to do was scream.

When Tadhg told him what was in the latest gift from "your newest fan", he'd nearly done just that.

Her finger. The filthy bastard had taken shears to Pippa's finger and then sent it to him. Sick. Hideous. Obscene. No word in any of the three languages he knew could encompass the thoughts sending horror and rage pounding through his gut. Tadhg had refused to let him look in the box, and this time Rory hadn't pushed. Anraí had also been shaken by the now too-vivid picture of Pippa screaming his name while some cac who shared his face cut a piece of her away. And Tadhg -- he'd not seen his little brother look so grim since their mother died more than two decades ago.

But they couldn't give in to emotion, not now. Anraí wore a glamour that changed his features to something unlike himself as he moved through the crowd, searching faces and keeping a sharp eye on anyone who approached Rory or the other members of the band. Tadhg had slipped away to weave the box and its contents into his ever-narrowing search spell, but would be back before the second set. And Rory had the toughest job of all, to marshal his strength to get back on that stage and thrill the crowd, to draw their hearts and minds and belief into utter focus on him in a musical ritual that would fill him with the energy they'd need to heal Pippa's wounds.

If they found her in time.

No. No. They would find her still alive; he had to believe that or lose it completely. A flicker of energy from his ward drew his eyes to the bar's entrance to see a glamour-clad Tadhg returning from his errand. Anything? he sent back.

Nothing yet.

For the love of God, how long was this going to take? Rory started at the feel of a hand on his shoulder, looking up to find a sympathetic Junie. "Rory, are you sure you wanna do the second set? I could take it on if you'd rather head home."

"No, it's okay, a chara." The entire band cared about Pippa as more than just his girlfriend; his heart sank at the thought of the information he was keeping from them. "I can manage." He gave her hand a squeeze as he got up to return to his guitar and mike. When Breaker Street swung into "Done by the Heat", he poured every ounce of his turbulent emotions into setting the place on fire.

Date: 2008-08-30 03:54 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] badass-charger.livejournal.com
It was Saturday night and as much as Larch wanted to be at Last Call when his latest treat for Stone arrived and was opened, he had other things to tend to. He had his own show to put on for the club members in a far seedier part of town. A crowd far different than the likes of what Breaker Street probably commanded. That fact suited Larch just fine, he didn’t want to be anything like Stone. This game the shorter man was playing was all they ever need have in common.

The Green Fiend spent the early part of the evening doing what most people assumed he did best, being the DJ and whipping the young, rough crowd into a frenzy of dance and body grinding. He got into the show as much as the audience, dancing, smiling. Laughing. Occasionally, he’d even give in and flirt with a comely woman or two. He enjoyed toying with them, loved their clueless behavior. If it weren’t for the wrecked body of Pippa Kerr cluttering up his bathroom, he’d have likely taken one, if not both, of them home with him tonight.

Well, after tonight he could do just that again. Playing with Pippa and her boyfriend had been entertaining and new, a shake up of his usual routine. It was even interesting to watch the very different ways you could break people down. The woman, the physical destruction—that was easy. The man, well there was more finessing there. It was subtle and slow to build. He’d see what would hopefully be the culmination of his efforts tonight.

Queuing the computers and premixed tracks at his station, Larch nodded to himself. He’d get over to Staten Island, to Last Call and check out Breaker Street’s second half. He had just enough time to do that. He took his own car, took the bridge route across the water, even went so far as to park in the lot adjacent to the bar. He smirked and set the alarm on the Charger, even spent a moment admiring the vehicle, stooped to wipe something from the vanity plates that announced “BADASS 25” before heading into the establishment.

He could hear Stone’s voice while paying the cover charge, picked up the sights and sounds of the rest of the band as he maneuvered through the crowd, edging closer to the stage. Close, but not too close. All he wanted was a good look at Rory’s face.

Date: 2008-08-30 04:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fey-fire.livejournal.com
"Done by the Heat" ended and "Take it and Go" began. He was taking refuge in Breaker Street's more forceful songs tonight, he thought grimly, able to deliver them as the audience expected. The crowd resonance stirred up by the few tender love songs he'd sung had come too, too close to breaking him down; he hadn't been able to even face the thought of singing "Believer Girl".

The current song's driving rhythms couldn't disguise the fact that something was raking along the edge of his nerves, fraying them with its touch. A dissonance, a wrongness ... he tried to write it off as a product of his own fears, only to feel it strengthen the more he fought it. Something ugly.

What was it? Normally he tried to at least partly shield himself from the energy of an audience, knowing that the overload of sense impressions, needs and desires could leave him disoriented and high as any drug. But for Pippa's sake he'd thrown his gates open wide tonight. Was this nails-on-chalkboard sensation the result?

His eyes sought out his brothers, still circling through the audience ... whatever this was didn't seem to be touching them. Restless and uncertain, he tried to pick out faces in the crowd. Where the hell is it?!

Date: 2008-08-30 05:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] badass-charger.livejournal.com
Larch didn't know what he was doing to the lead singer of course, but if he did...the thought that his intense focus on the man at the mic could actually physically affect him, Larch would find that very enjoyable. As it was, Larch contented himself with scrutinizing the performance. The way every note was played, every bar sung.

He ducked his head and chuckled into his curled fist when he noticed Stone's restlessness on stage. The way his eyes scanned the crowd wasn't that of an artist trying to connect with fans. Someone was getting paranoid, Larch decided.

He moved closer to the stage, leaned over to murmur a quiet question of one of the other patrons. "Do they take requests, from their own song list, of course?"

Date: 2008-08-30 05:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fey-fire.livejournal.com
The young woman he'd asked turned, then smiled artlessly at Larch. "Sure they do," she said. "Rory's real good about that. They'll even do covers sometimes, but really their own stuff is the best."

She nodded in the direction of a wiry young blond man, monitoring the boards with a single-minded look on his face. "Just get it to Morrie there, and he'll get it to one of the band members."

Date: 2008-08-30 05:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] badass-charger.livejournal.com
Larch gave her the most charming smile he could muster, dimples deep and eyes bright. With a playful wink, “Thank you.”

Leaving her smiling herself, he headed over to this Morrie. Larch scoffed at the make and model of the monitors, the board the blond man was running. Had to give the band credit for not sounding like complete shit if this is what they were working with. But his task wasn’t to critique, no he had something else in mind.

“Hey, you’re Morrie, right? Sweet set-up there.” Larch nodded at the board, offered him a few more words of praise that hinted at being someone who knew sound on a professional level. Then he offered a bit of a hapless shrug and smile. Nodded at the woman across the bar that he’d just spoken to. “Ah, this is sort of embarrassing but…is there any chance you think the band might play Silky Touch? My girlfriend really wants to hear it.”

He lied so often and so easily that it came out sounding perfectly natural. Just a guy out with his girl; trying to keep her happy—even if it meant she was currently making eyes at the man with a guitar. Anything to get what he wanted.

After he made the request, he went back to stand next to the woman, make it look believable that they were together. Just until Breaker Street played him the song. He might have been standing with her but his thoughts were elsewhere. He was thinking about what he’d done to the woman still at the Circe. Her screams and the fear she held in her eyes every time he came near her. The look on her face when he played Rory’s music for her.

Larch wanted that particular song, he enjoyed the fact that Stone would likely think about the redheaded bitch as he sang about all things sensual. Her touch, the one he’d forever altered when he relieved her of one digit. The touch she was never going to give again because once he left here…oh, he was going to touch Pippa Kerr one last time. Cut off more than just a finger.

Date: 2008-08-30 08:12 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fey-fire.livejournal.com
"Yeah, the lady with the blond braid at the far right of the bar. Her boyfriend requested it for her." Morrie gave a slight shrug of his own as he passed on the request, a little hesitant about adding even so small a concern to the lead singer's load just then.

For his part, Rory was just able to keep a wince off his face. Silky Touch wasn't Believer Girl or Word is Tender, but it still ranked near the top of the list of songs he'd rather not play tonight. But it was a request. He could handle just one.

One thing he wouldn't do, however, was sing it directly to the woman in question. Light flirtation was so often expected of musicians, especially those at the front of the stage, but he couldn't find it in himself. Not now. He murmured the request to Nil to pass on to the others, then stepped back to his mic.

But from the very first bars, the raw rasp of irritant came back redoubled and built even further. Someone out there was taking the twining melodies and voluptuous lyrics and twisting them into something -- something Rory's brain tried to pull away from, and couldn't.

Sweet like sugar on my tongue, light as misty morning rain/Burning slow and strong as whiskey fire, slipping through my veins. In an effort to distract himself for long enough to finish, Rory sought the blonde Morrie had pointed out, standing and swaying with a delighted smile on her face. And there next to her, her b--

God ... NO!!!

It only took an instant of eye contact to hammer down the last of Rory's defenses. He barely even saw the close resemblance to Anraí as his mind's eye was flooded with grotesque imagery laced with perverted triumph. Pippa, bruised, battered, screaming and then still and silent-- no! --broken on the altar of this man's loathing and then tossed aside to die ... and if she happened to live, that was easy to fix as soon as he left ...

PIPPAAA!!!

And still Rory couldn't pull away. Other scenes followed the nightmare images of Pippa's torment, other women, other violent deaths found only after every kind of torture their captor could think to inflict. Burned, dismembered, impaled, electroshocked, all by this monster ... this hideous disease in human form, who looked on suffering and laughed ... oh, Rory knew him now, a depth of knowledge he would have torn from his mind if he could.

Stupid sack of shit. Here I am, relieving you of your biggest weakness, and you'll never even see that I'm doing you a favor. Hell, you'll probably collect another one before long; your kind always does. Pa-thetic. Should probably kill you too, Rory Stone--

"Rory?! Rory!!!"

With a shuddering gasp, Rory yanked open his eyes to find himself on hands and knees, staring at the stage beneath him. His mic was gone, sparing the crowd the sounds of him trying to retch up a meal he'd never eaten. He looked up to find a circle of frightened eyes, Dave, Kreske, Sascha, Nil, Junie -- Junie, she was speaking ...

"--does it! Rory, you're going home right now, and no arguments! I shouldn't have let you back on stage to begin with ..."

He could barely find the sense of her words in the tumult of his own mind, but one thing cut through the chaos: his brothers' fear coming through the ward under his shirt. Finding the medallion with his hand, he pressed it into his chest.

Anraí, Tadhg -- he's HERE! No need to look to confirm where he was, he could tell the bastard's location as surely as he could feel the direction of an icy wind with his eyes closed. He'll kill her ... as soon as he leaves, he'll kill her!!!

Date: 2008-08-30 08:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] badass-charger.livejournal.com
His eyes met Rory's, just for a moment before the taller, more slender man crumpled to the stage. Did he know him? That there might be some instinctive sort of recognition made Larch's hazel eyes light up with a wicked gleam. Oh, yeah...puke. Right there on stage in front of all your adoring fans.

He definitely chose the right song to ask for. Larch used the moments of chaos to start mingling through the crowd, meandering back towards the exit. He'd seen what he wanted.

Stone broken.

Date: 2008-08-30 09:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gifted-hands.livejournal.com
Rory's panicked identification hit Tadhg like a chill slap of ice water, followed immediately by the hot fury of Anraí's recognition. Even as his own eyes picked Pippa's torturer out of the crowd, he automatically plotted how close the man would come to him and what angle to take to come up on him from behind ...

Wait for it. Collecting an abandoned beer bottle on his way, he affected the slightly exaggerated movements of someone a few swallows past a happy buzz. As he approached his target, he let out a cheerful "Heeyy, Joey!" in a voice that sounded far more California than County Galway, slapping his free hand down on the shorter man's shoulder at the same time.

Date: 2008-08-30 09:31 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] badass-charger.livejournal.com
Larch set his jaw and clenched his fists until knuckles popped. He tolerated the random pats on the back, fist bumps and other idiotic pleased-crowd behavior when he was working a show, it was part of the job. But this? No. He didn’t like unanticipated touch, he certainly didn’t like being pawed at while he was trying to make his exit. He had things to do.

He turned around and finding the assailant to be taller than himself, tipped his head back. The posture might have made some people think Larch felt inferior or threatened, but the dark, cold hatred in his eyes as he glared at the other man said something else entirely. He didn’t say anything, just continued to stare before knocking Tadhg’s hand from his shoulder abruptly.

Drunk asshole.

Date: 2008-08-30 09:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gifted-hands.livejournal.com
Tadhg's stomach muscles tensed at the bile in the hazel eyes, but the blond, buzz-cut muscle-boy he was playing was slightly too drunk for the glare or hand slap to have full impact. So he took a step back that was not quite a stagger and took on an air of boozy, cheery contrition.

"Sorry, dude! You look just like a buddy of mine from the back. Well, kinda." With a shrug and a beer-bottle salute, he melted back into the crowd, leaving the other man to continue on his way.

Date: 2008-08-30 10:05 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] badass-charger.livejournal.com
Dude? He made a disgusted noise as the drunk idiot stauntered away. Fucking tourists. It was bad enough when there was local garbage in his way, he didn't need some surfer dude from who knows where wanting to hang ten on his evening.

Larch did pause again, turned back towards the stage. Rory Stone wasn't taking the mic again. In fact--oh, that's beautiful. The pansy-ass was putting his guitar back in its case. Just can't go on any more, can you, lover-boy?

The singer's wrecked performance only made Larch all the more eager to get back home, back to his current project and finish the matter. He didn't know where Stone lived, but he had Pippa's address. He'd be sending at least one part of her back home. Hopefully, Rory would find it.

Larch had to admit it wouldn't be such a great parting gift, after all, Pippa's face wasn't quite the same without all those long red curls to frame her pale face.

Date: 2008-08-30 10:28 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gifted-hands.livejournal.com
Once assured that the bastard was watching the stage and not him, Tadhg angled toward Anraí. As they passed each other, he slipped his older brother a stray hair he'd just collected from his doppelganger's collar and kept walking.

Stick with him and stay in touch, no matter what. And if you can buy Rory and I some time--

Anraí had banked his anger with pure determination. A tail just bad enough that he spots me a couple of times, but good enough that he takes me seriously. He won't want to lead me back home, not with Pippa there. You let me know when you've gotten her out.

Rory. Tadhg turned to see his brother collecting his motorbike helmet and waving aside Morrie's opinion that someone else should drive him home. I'm headed for Pippa's. Join me there as soon as you can. We've got all we need now. As Rory looked in his direction, he fingered the remaining two hairs he'd appropriated. The bastard's ours.

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