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The brighter the lights, the darker the shadows; and tonight: the lights are blinding.
He likes it, loves it: laughs as he dances fast and free to Jenny’s mix blaring over the club speakers—the darker the shadows, the sweeter the blood. The drugs in his system feel like the warmest of embraces, the softest of bed sheets, the rarest of wines. Endless decades, ever-changing trends, but this: this might be his favorite: decadence, pleasure, inhibitions discarded for the allure of drugs and sex.
It’s just like the 1920s, just... without all the bullshit.
The dance floor is the only thing he has interest in. He dances, dances, dances until the beat feels as if it’s embedded in his chest, pushing long gone blood through his veins. This is life; he is alive, and—hands, hands on his hips, terrible, intrusive, uncomfortable, painful like the burn of a thousand suns.
A vibe killer; he doesn’t even bother acknowledging whoever the hands belong to before he’s maneuvering through the crush of bodies to find his way back to the bar. It’s crowded, absurdly so for a weekday night, but he finds a space next to Gale, who sits with a too-purple drink complete with a straw, turnt towards the dance floor instead of the bar.
Just a hand wave, a shout, and Karlach has a drink in front of him before the vibrations in his body slide on out through the soles of his feet. Watered down swill, but it’s enough to get the ashen aftertaste of violation off the back of his tongue.
“Dance floor looks lively tonight,” Gale comments. “Looks like a swell time.”
He rolls his eyes as he sips his drink too fast to be proper.
“Would be better if people stopped thinking it was okay to put their filthy hands on me,” and Gale smiles, blinks as he adjusts his coke bottle glasses back up his nose.
“You are the Disco Queen, after all.”
“I’m no ones damned queen,” he hisses, glares despite knowing nothing’ll phase Gale—nothing ever does.
The last of his drink, down in one gulp. Futile, useless: misplaced anger directed towards a man who’s in a constant state of delusion. If only they could all be so lucky.
“You wouldn’t happen to have the time, would you, darling?” he says, sighs, pushing the empty glass away from him. There’s a headache trying to form, just there, behind his eyes: the pull of compulsion.
Gale pulls out his golden pocket watch, barely looks at it before he snaps it shut, tucks it away.
“It is precisely forty-five past two,” Gale says, and he curses.
Half an hour until curtains drop, and it’s... it’s been a good night, all things considered; it’d be a shame to leave, but the compulsion, it pulls, yanks and really, it’s unbecoming to be one of the last ones leaving the hot spot.
It’s been a good night, but there’ll be more.
He stands, wobbles, adjusts the fine satin of his shirt as he glances at Gale: “I suppose I’m off then,”; but he might as well be talking to a wall: Gale’s eyes, attention: elsewhere, up there, locked on Lady Mystra as she dances above the crowd in her hanging cage.
A lovestruck fool, Gale is; but he can hardly fault him. The ring on his finger burns—love is a dangerous, tempting thing... one can only hope it turns out better for Gale than it ever did for him.
Melancholy joins him as he pushes past the crowds on his way to the coat room. Lots of fur coats, but none as fine as his. A cautious glance: alone; he slips his hands into different coats until he finds what he’s looking for: a lighter, a tightly rolled spliff and a few crumbled dollar bills.
He makes his way outside of the club. The stolen lighter glows in the dark of the night and he waits for the spliff between his lips to take the flame before he tosses the lighter down on the sidewalk. An effort, getting his feet to move, but one step turns to two turns to five. While it may be approaching 3 AM, the city thrives, undulates with unspent energy that resonates at his core.
A car passes by, passengers shouting, laughing as the music on their stereo system catches the ear of anyone half-sober enough. He walks, eyes half-shut, and thinks about :
New York City, all those decades ago—skylights, fine jewels, designer clothes and Broadway shows; he thinks about:
London, all those centuries ago—cold Aprils, the clack-click-clomp of horse-drawn carriages on cracked cobblestone, dear sweet Sebastian; and now:
Now, he has:
Los Angeles: home to real stars, real wealth and the city’s own brand of filth that lives in the putrid grime buried beneath the glitz and glamour.
In theory, he walks alone with nothing but the scuff of his fine heeled shoes on pavement and dwindling spliff for company. In practice: it’s impossible to be alone in the city, and most nights, he basks in it; but nights like tonight is when the liveliness transfigures itself into a curse.
As soon as he reaches the hotel, pushes through the heavy glass doors and into to the empty lobby: silence, and he’s more alone than ever, with nothing but the compulsion throbbing in his skull.
From the outside looking in, it’d be something to be envious of—the grandeur, the fine architecture that covers every inch of the interior, exterior: but to him, it is nothing more than a mausoleum, a resting place until circumstances deem it necessary to relocate.
The elevator takes its time descending; when it arrives, the doors open to wrap him in cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, vomit. Ascension, slow: he focuses on the polished tile underneath him, on the elevator lever as it drags by each floor—up, up, up and then, it stops.
Doors slide open without a sound, and despite the hallway being brightly lit, the slow walk to the penthouse doors settles on his shoulders with the weight of an omen.
There’s no need to reach for the house key settled deep inside of his fur coat’s pocket; the strength of the compulsion lets him know: the door is unlocked, and Cazador is home.
He takes his time removing his armor—his boots: toed off by the door, his fur coat: back in the closet to wait, his keys: dropped carelessly into the porcelain bowl on the entrance table. The burnished, jagged silver ring with the blood red ruby: it stays on his finger; it always does.
And then, he turns to observe the crimson red staining the baby pink of the lounging room carpet, the body that lies motionless in the center of it.
His feet are silent as he approaches, circles it, no, her.
The smell of a fresh kill... heady, mouth watering, yet underneath: the stench of decay: ripe like summer fruits that are just breaths away from flies and maggots as it languishes in the sun. Forever stuck in a state of stasis, she is; he tilts his head, looks at her, really looks at her: blue eyes, the slightest bit of brown painted in the middle like a stain, hair so bleached it touches the edges of white underneath the glow of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, a strong jaw, a cute little button nose.
She’s pretty... was pretty. It’s always sad seeing the aftermaths of Cazador’s thirst; but better death than to be another one of Cazador’s eternal pets.
The bar calls him with a compulsion that rivals Cazador’s and he answers the call. A finger of gin, downed, another, again, and the air shifts like a winter’s breeze when Cazador steps into the room.
It’s not until he feels the weight of Cazador’s steel stare that he turns, not until the compulsion slides its fingers up his throat to grip his jaw and physically move him; and there: Lord Cazador, in all his frightful, beautiful glory; a quick shift of his eyes against Cazador’s form: still in his evening suit, but not a drop of blood in sight, not a single mused hair on his head or beard.
He fights the compulsion, tilts his head—openly defiant, and Cazador’s gaze burns.
“Did some entertaining while I was out, did you, darling?” he asks, doesn’t ask.
“No one and nothing you should concern yourself with,” Cazador murmurs, eyes hard. “Boy.”
“Who in the devils said I was concerned?” he laughs, fake, too loud for his ears.
The compulsion lets him go, and he only stumbles a little as he steps past Cazador, head down.
It’s only a blessing that Cazador doesn’t reach for him, but the relief that seeps into his bone marrow when he’s a safe distance away is welcomed all the same. He spares not one glance to the girl on the floor as he leaves Cazador for the comforts of the bedroom—but even that: tainted; the sheets, bloodied, lamps, vases: shattered.
There’s nothing he’d love more than to just crawl in the damned thing regardless, but even aside from the mess... it wouldn’t do for,
He jabs the service button on the wall, feels irritation mount as he waits and before long, a weedy little voice answers: “Yes?”
“We need a cleaner,” he says, curt and unhappy as the drugs and alcohol start to wear off. “Just. A bit of a spill again. Terribly clumsy after a night out, you know how it goes.”
It shouldn’t take the help too long to clean it up, but typical of Cazador to make messes he refuses to clean. By now, it’s hardly a secret: what they are, even if the specifics aren’t clear. It’s proof of Cazador’s power, that he can just—
Do these things.
Always.
Never with consequence.
If he stops to think about it, it’s enough of a spiral to do his head in, so he just: doesn’t; does: move from the bedroom to the en suite bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him and ignoring the stiffness of his jaw, the tension twisting his shoulders.
Hard to tell if it’s from all the drugs he takes just to cope or a prolonged effect of being bonded to Cazador for so long—though, it’s hard to argue that the two aren’t related.
He walks to the vanity nook; avoids eye contact with himself as he slips his clothes from the night off and into a pile on the floor to be dealt with by the hotel help later before he sits.
Below, the city still breathes, and he mourns: but not for long—the bathroom door clicks open.
No compulsion this time as Cazador enters, expensive shoes echoing off pink marble and shifting the fragile nothingness occupying the bathroom into razor-edged silence. If he had any breath to hold, it’d be stuck: choking, paralyzing as the scent of jasmine tea and incense, blood and malice envelope and possess him. He avoids the eye contact he knows Cazador wants, but the pillars of anxiety push self-preservation to the front of the line instead of the defiance he’s so desperate to keep close.
He meets Cazador’s eyes in the mirror: dark, bottomless; a monster in every sense of the word.
Only those intimate with Cazador would know that he has different looks for different things.
There’s the look that settles over Cazador when he sees prey: fresh blood, someone desperate to forget their troubles in the illusion of a wealthy man, someone desperate to be saved. It could almost pass for pleasure in certain instances and he supposes, in a way: the hunt is pleasure for Cazador. There’s the look that turns itself into a lackadaisical benevolence when Cazador makes a new ally: the powerful ones, influential ones—contemplative, resourcefulness.
Then, there’s the look Cazador only gets when looking at him.
It’s worse than disappointment, worse than revulsion and disgust. It’s void of emotions yet carries centuries of vehemency, contempt. He sees it now, reflected in the mirror attached to the wall and he;
Turns. Waits. Watches, as Cazador’s steps come close, closer. Waits. Watches, as Cazador’s hand comes up to grip him by the jaw, no compulsion needed, forcing the eye contact.
Cazador’s touch has never been warm; it has never been inviting, but now, in the midst of the Californian summer, it carries the frost of a thousand London winters.
“I care not where you take your joys,” Cazador murmurs. “But I refuse to let your... indiscretions interfere with business.”
A pause: “You smell like a whore,”; cutting, cruel, truth.
He’s many things, but he’s not a fucking idiot. He keeps his eyes stuck at a halfway point between Cazador’s eyebrows, keeps his face relaxed, obedient.
“Six sharp, you are to be in the cleansing chair,” Cazador continues, sharp and loving like a knife to the neck. “You will not be a minute late. I will require a feeding before leaving and I will not have your disgusting filth circulating throughout my system.”
He gives a ghost of a nod—but it’s not enough; nothing ever is for Cazador.
Cazador’s grip tightens and the sharp tips of his nails puncture the soft of his skin just so; but he is Cazador’s most favorited spawn: his first one. This is nothing new to him.
He keeps his face sculpted in the perfect mask of indifference, servitude, even as Cazador shakes him enough to make the room dance.
“Am I understood?” Cazador hisses.
“Yes, master,” he answers, and bitterness lingers like necrotic blood.
It’s only when Cazador’s grip loosens and steps back that the air in the bathroom thaws, gets a little warmer. There’s no parting words when Cazador leaves him, finally, but the tension holding him up snaps like a fishing line gone past its prime.
He’s able to keep the contents of his stomach down long enough to get to the marble toilet: nothing but alcohol and cheap finger foods Karlach insists on feeding him, but it’s just as terrible coming up as it is going down.
Night lends him the only freedom he can claim as his, and as he makes his way back to the vanity on shaky legs, it’s times like these where Cazador gives him the not so subtle reminder that freedom is an illusion lended to placate. Within these penthouse walls, he is no one’s Disco Queen: he is a concubine, he is a slave, a fucking cow. The only reason he even exists outside at all is simply because Cazador allows him to.
To his left, a small package of make-up removing wipes. As he grabs it, opens it, he thinks of tomorrow:
Tomorrow, his blood will be filtered.
Tomorrow, he’ll enjoy a few hours without Cazador.
Tomorrow... he’ll go out again,
dressed in his disco best,
ready to forget, ready to indulge, live—
because nighttime, it’s for the freaks: nighttime, it’s all for him.