The longer they spent together, the more sure Joshua grew of two things: 1. he needed to make time to sit down with Derek to actually catch up. 2. she was a beautiful being. All pointed at her concern for his fellow vampire to be sincere, even if different from Joshua’s. The confidence that irradiated from her melted smoothly into a firm kindness that the vampire had seen throughout history in some of the most influential individuals. Noting certain changes in her vitals, the vampire furrowed his brow. “Miss Martin… I assure you I’m no danger to you, neither will he so long as I’m here,” he felt it necessary to be said, seeing how he couldn’t think what else was wrong with the human.
Her announcement, however, confused him for a moment. By the time he even realized what was going on, Joshua was doing as she asked, intrigued. The white noise caused him to blink repeatedly, a blank expression on his face. “Uhhhh, if this is necromancy, I would rather we didn’t? That’s like…. my biggest fear—-”
…. “In the end, only one thing stands true: iudex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur,” Joshua spat into the darkness at a small, grinning figure that disappeared into the shadows.
…. “Longinus?” the child laughed hysterically as the vampire sipped blood from a mug.
“That was the name I engraved onto my weapon. It’s name… after… an inappropriate joke that you’re too young to appreciate just yet, Joshua. Perhaps in a few decades,” Titus teased, laughing at his ward’s pouting. “Doesn’t matter anyway… I’m Henry now, uncle of Joshua… we’re just being human, right? You’re cooking though, kid.”
“What?! I’m but a little boy,” the human child teased, still wrapping his arms around the vampire in an embrace. “Thank you, Titus.”
…. “—it was INCONCLUSIVE!” Joshua was screaming into a pay phone, every word stained in wrath. “I trusted you and you used me! You took my life’s work and prostituted it—YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP AND YOU LISTEN!” His fangs had extended, screaming at the tops of his lungs as he ached for the wendigo’s life. “Fuck money!! It’s unnatural and cruel to force this on others. Especially when you do not have my permissi– hello? HELLO?!” Joshua ripped the phone off with a hiss, dashing away from the scene.
…. ”Joshua had been playing Battlefront 2 on his Xbox at his Beacon Hills loft when he hopped to his feet, discarding the controller and approaching the stand that held all the DC Funko Pops. “….” He stared for a few more seconds before pulling his phone and texting Alicia until he noted the date. “Oh shit, it’s almost February 14th… I wonder if Derek is going to that carnival thing…” Dismissing the thought, he focused on the most important thing, texting Alicia:
Did you take the Martian Manhunter funko? :sus:
The file hit the floor, Joshua’s fangs extending instinctively as he went into the defensive. “Who are you?!” he hissed threateningly, reaching out to grab her throat in order to subdue her and prevent her from doing whatever she’d just done again. Whatever she was, his instincts were going haywire, and for the first time in a millennium, he had the urge to bite. The vampire on the table began to thrash violently at the commotion, causing Joshua to coldly snap his neck with his free hand—rendering the vampire unconscious until they healed— so that he could focus on the main threat: the one who claimed to be Derek’s packmate…. yet had somehow gotten to the memories he had long locked away in the basement of his soul.
Lydia noted the man’s kind assurances, but focused on pushing her powers onto the vampire patient. Normally she liked explicit consent, but given such a thing was impossible in the being’s current state, Lydia reluctantly tried it.
The first she learned about the vampire, the doctor, was that he was old. So, so old. Not as old as the Nogitsune had been, but still of an age that Lydia couldn’t have fathomed. To be as old as he seemed impossible to comprehend even for her brilliant mind; the violence shown, the changing mannerisms and experiences shown to her by the will of her powers and the man’s own subconscious, told a story of what happened when Humans not designed to live so long were forced to do just that.
Warlocks with their demonic blood in them had the framework for centuries of life. Humans turned to vampires were excluded from that luxury.
He’d suffered. This man had suffered in a different kind of way to what Lydia had herself known, and to see it so intimately had her eyes stinging with tears of empathy.
The Banshee was torn from her tumble into Joshua’s mind by the vampire breaking free and lashing out. She had just enough time to breath in a deep gasp as his hand came to her throat. With her wind pipe closed, no true scream could be released, and she was forced to watch helpless as their patient was murdered by him.
Anger filled her seeing it, and as much as she know understood much about Joshua, the death of the vampire on the table was beyond unnecessary.
A concussive blast exploded from her body, freeing her neck, and the moment she could Lydia let out a powerful, deafening scream alongside her blast. An infant Banshee she was no more, and she’d had years to learn about her capabilities and practice them. Attacking her neck brought back far too many awful memories for her to hold back.
The table screeched along the floor as it was thrown back by her power, with pieces of papers and bottles on desks flying away and shattering.
“Don’t you ever touch me again.”
Her pack would have heard her scream. Any supernatural in town would have. If anything happened to her, they’d know where it came from; who the culprit was.