[justify]If I retreat, words, wars and symphonies
Make room, we're taking over here
You're the gallantine
Cold and alone, it suits you well
Won't find me perching here again
( M A K E A N A M E F O R Y O U R S E L F ) Kaelen Arthur Dempsey
( B O Y S W I L L B E B O Y S ) Male
( A N O T H E R ' X ' O N T H E C A L E N D A R ) Eighteen
( F I N D Y O U R O W N W A Y B A C K H O M E ) District 1 Wanderer District 13

May your feet serve you well, and the rest be sent to hell
Where they always have belonged
Cold hearts brew colder songs
Fate will play us out with a song of pure romance
Stomp your feet and clap your hands
( T A L K T O T H E M I R R O R )

She's had her eye on him ever since he walked in.

This bar isn't one of the classiest or most prominent establishments in town and as a result she doesn't see too many attractive guys through the smoky haze, but cheap booze is cheap booze and they all start to look a bit prettier after about half a bottle of whiskey. But this one...

He's been lurking along the back wall for a full half-hour, a head of honey-brown hair, straight and immaculately styled, that falls to about the bottom of his ears visible over the rest of the clientele crowding the small, dim space (if she had to guess she'd say he was around six foot five or six, impressive height accentuated by the almost painfully skinny state of his form, maybe a hundred and sixty pounds or so, give or take). She's usually a fan of the bulkier, more well-muscled ones, but across the room and over the rim of her drink she watches him yawn boredly, stretching out long, spindly arms that match his legs until his slim-fitted white button-up rides up enough to reveal a narrow stripe of smooth, deathly-pale skin that hovers over the waistband of tighttight jeans, and she decides that maybe with another Scotch or two this one will be more than good enough.

She smiles with deep-seated pride thrumming through her veins when he finally looks at her and abandons his wallflower activities, moving over to her table with a gait that's surprisingly graceful given the lanky awkwardness of his frame and folding himself into the empty chair across from her. Her teeth flash chemically-altered white in the half dark of the room and bleached-blonde locks fly over her shoulder in a carefully choreographed toss that sends a wave of shampoo and cheap perfume cutting briefly through the oppressive haze of stale smoke. "Hi."

"Hello," he replies with a polite nod, his voice a smooth tenor that gives off eloquence, intellect, and something distinctly colder that she can't identify in the space of two syllables. Up close, she begins to think that she might not even need another drink to justify her going home with this one (she's well over half-tipsy already); he's easily the nicest piece of eye-candy that's set foot in this dive for almost as long as she can remember. His face is all sharp angles and defined features, chiseled jawline and cheekbones that could be called delicate if they weren't combined in such a way with the rest of his attributes to contribute to the appearance of intensity and an allure that is a bit more than slightly dangerous in the most quiet of ways.

Wide eyes gleam a deep, tawny shade of amber into her own watery blue from across the short distance and she shudders involuntarily - there's something in them that sends a shot of frigid cold straight down her spinal column even as the realization that they're accentuated by a smoky liner applied with expert precision makes her quirk an internal eyebrow as she covers the faint shiver by continuing to nurse her rum and coke. Continued study reveals smaller, more detailed aspects, a nose that has a slight bump along the bridge but is otherwise proportional, defined brows that seem permanently arched into an expression of bored aloofness, lips that are somewhat thin but otherwise smooth and a light pink hue with a definitively curved cupid's bow, a prominent Adam's apple along the slender, pale column of an elegant neck, but she continues to be drawn back to those eyes, dark and brooding with a calculating intelligence shimmering in their depths that drapes him in an air of something deep and mysterious. Yes, this one will do just fine, she decides, flashing him another grin (among flashing a few other aspects of herself when she leans forward to offer him her hand, she's never much understood the point of modesty or high necklines). "I'm Irina."

His hand is steady against hers although not particularly warm or reassuring, the slender structure of his palm and almost abnormally long, thin pianist's fingers wrapping around her own and shaking once - up, down, release - as he studies her intently, not so much like any other guy in this heap looking for his next few hours of entertainment but more akin to a scientist carefully selecting ingredients for a vital experiment. There are several moments of silence as his eyes travel from the makeup that covers her face in a thick masque to the drink in her hand to the sinfully low dip of her dress before he seems to come to a decision, meeting her gaze again and offering a smile that can only be described as unsettling, straight, white teeth glinting in the dim lighting beneath a subtle curvature of his lips that makes something crawl uncomfortably along the surface of her skin despite the initial attraction from afar.

"Kaelen. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

They make small talk for several minutes (or rather she talks and he surveys her with that same calculating gaze, nodding where applicable and throwing in a few quiet, measured words of his own) before he offers to buy her a drink. She agrees with a playful smile and a heavily weighted assertion that she'll find some way to repay him later. She thinks she might have seen him roll his eyes as he turns around and shuffles through the crowd up to the bar, but she tells herself that she must have been imagining things as her attention is drawn to the way his bony but comparitively broad shoulders taper into a whippet-thin waist and well formed, slender hips that give way to mile-long legs showcased in the smoky silhouette that presents itself for her viewing pleasure as he waits briefly before returning with another rum and coke for her and a glass of ice water for himself. Odd, she thinks, but gratefully accepts her glass nonetheless, going through it rather speedily is he sits across from her and drinks his water in measured sips, glancing at at his watch every so often. She takes this as a cue that he's ready to get out of here, and anticipation hums along with accomplishment through the haze over her mind that seems a bit odd after only a few drinks compared to her usual. "So, your place or m-"

"Well, it's been grand but I really must be going. Good evening, and keep in mind that it will be quicker if you stand up or move around." And just like that, he's gone in a flurry of spindly limbs that melt through the crowd with effortless agility until he's watching her from the opposite side of the bar, that analytical look still shining deepdeep amber through the darkness that's eating strangely at the edges of her vision. Blinking slowly in sluggish confusion, she stands from her seat and takes a breath, making to call after him - only to discover that air refuses to come.

She sways dangerously on her too-high heels, lungs heaving uselessly as her head swims worse than any drunkenness she's ever felt before. She finally crumples to the grimy floor, glued-on nails clawing at her disabled airway as her face turns redpurpleblue and the world begins to fade. A million miles away, the screams finally start and people begin to rush towards her in efforts to help that are all too late.

The last thing she sees is his smile as he turns and slips quietly out the door.

Let's kill tonight, kill tonight
Show them all you're not the ordinary type
Let's kill tonight, kill tonight
Show them all you're not the ordinary type
Let's kill tonight
( H E ' S S L I G H T L Y C L E V E R T O J U S T A C E R T A I N E X T E N T )

"We've got to nip this in the bud, Wilson," Detective Taverson growls, tossing the thick file folder down on the table where it lands with a loud snap that echoes through the cold, filtered air that circulates through Peacekeeping headquarters. The ever-present worry lines on his face are thrown into even sharper relief by the harsh lighting of the room and the deepening of his scowl as he shrugs off the white overcoat of his Investigative Corps uniform and shoves the sheaf of papers in his partner's direction before jamming a finger emphatically into the top of the pile. "Thirty deaths. Thirty deaths in the past year and all by the same method. You think the big cheeses in the Capitol are gonna make nice with us when they find out we've got a serial killer on our hands that we can't catch?"

Wilson shrugs noncommittally, opening the folder and flipping lazily through its contents as he takes another long pull from his sub-par coffee. The stuff they serve out here in the Districts is like drinking tar, but he needs the caffeine and if the look on Taverson's face is any indicator, it's going to be one hell of a night. "Well, what are we supposed to do? Whoever it is, they've wormed their way out of every trick we've thrown at them, avoided every operative we've put in the bars. Not much to be done at this point."

"'What are we supposed to do?' he says. We're supposed to utilize our training and profile this crazy fuck, you dunce!" Taverson snaps, looking like he has an intense desire to smack his partner upside the head (he wants to, he really wants to, but he's more professional than that). "So while you've been sitting here going through half the district's supply of donuts, I've been doing my homework and figuring out what makes this guy tick. First of all, it's definitely a guy, probably young and good-looking, someone an unsuspecting girl in a bar would take a drink from without questioning it."

Wilson groans and lays a thick palm over his face, wondering why the higher-ups had to pair him with the most tenacious, go-getter cop on the force. "Yeah, Taverson. We've been over this a thousand times. Serial poisoner. Male, young, attractive. Mainly targets young females in bars. But we got nothing beyond that. No motive, no trace of any psychology behind it. Just the fact that there's some guy running around the district who likes to slip chloroform into the cocktails of pretty girls and kill them. That ain't much to go off of."

"There's plenty to go off of if you look past the surface. We're dealing with a complex individual here, Wilson. If we only look at the observable data it will never be enough. Poisoners as a breed of killer aren't dumb by any means. He's intelligent, exceptionally so to have escaped detection for this long. Trust me, we're only seeing what he wants us to see, and if we don't look past that we'll never nab him."

Another sip of coffee and a moment of tense silence as Wilson turns the idea over in his head, nodding slowly. "So he's playing a game with us."

"Exactly!" Taverson crows, gaze shooting skyward as he thanks the forces of the universe for letting Wilson at least see part of the big picture. The wheels turning in his head are practically visible as he snatches the file back from his partner's hands, pulling a paper-clipped bundle of photos and files from it and spreading them out one by one across the table's surface. Twenty faces, most of them female, the most recent one dated two weeks previously, blonde hair and blue eyes, Irina Varndell scrawled messily along the bottom of the frame. "Look at these. What do these people have in common? How did they die? There are a million connecting factors that waltzed right under our noses."

Silence. Wilson's gaze travels over each file and contemplation dances behind his eyes. It takes him a few minutes to get it, but when he does, there's almost an audible clicking sound and he looks back at Taverson in awe. "They all died with a drink in their hands. Most of them have a record of some sort of legal violation involving alcohol; DUIs, public intoxication... we've got ourselves some sicko with a god complex who has it out for alcoholics."

The taller of the two detectives nods solemnly, work-rough fingers tracing the bleached-white curve of Irina Varndell's smile as he turns and begins to contemplatively pace the length of the room, hands clasped behind his back as he draws ideas out of thin air. "Now put yourself in our perpetrator's shoes. If you were going to go out and kill a bunch of substance abusers, what would be your reasoning behind it?"

"Some negative life experience related to alcohol," Wilson offers with a shrug, lips pursing as he surveys the photos, evidence of twenty flames snuffed out too early, Ripred knows how many more that they aren't even aware of. "Probably something involving a parent. He fits the profile of someone with major daddy issues. Probably had some abusive deadbeat drunk for a father and now he's taking it out on society."

"My thoughts exactly. Which is why I started getting a hunch when I found this."

Taverson yanks yet another file from his briefcase and slaps it on the desk triumphantly, grinning like he's just won the lottery and is waiting for the shock to sink into his partner's consciousness. Wilson smells another wild goose chase coming and sighs, reaching for his coffee as he pulls the paper closer and flicks his gaze over it tiredly. "Todd Dempsey. Yeah, I remember him. Deadbeat drunk, all right. Used to run drugs for Rocciano before he jumped the fence. What about him?"

The taller man looks like an excited puppy, jamming his finger into the bottom line of the paper with one hand while rifling around in his briefcase again with the other. "What about him is that he was found dead in his bedroom 'round this time last year. Nasty mess, they found him in, looked like he'd hemorrhaged internally and bled to death as a result of some kind of poisoning. Poison, Wilson. It all fit too well, so after a little digging..." Another file hits the desk, considerably smaller, just basic information attached to a standard school picture. Whoever it is, they haven't done anything to necessitate them having a rap sheet. Wilson's eyes widen and then narrow as he pinches the photograph between his fingers, staring at wide brown eyes and fine-boned features as Taverson continues to ramble. "Kaelen Dempsey. He's Todd Dempsey's son, and if my hunch is right..."

"Taverson, really. This is a eighteen year old kid you've got me looking at," Wilson mumbles disbelievingly, running a hand through his receding hairline. "You've got a good lead with this whole Dempsey thing, but there's no way a high schooler could... Maybe the wife is -"

"Kendra Dempsey's been dead for thirteen years. Killed herself. Morphling overdose. No one else in the family except the kid." Waving his hand flippantly as if his partner's interruption was an ridiculous afterthought, Taverson finally pulls out a chair, folding himself into it as he snatches the photo from between Wilson's fingers and examines it carefully. "I been doing my homework on this kid all day, Wilson. Talked to neighbors, teachers, classmates. Everyone seems to have a different perspective on him. Teachers said he's remarkably intelligent, top of his class since grade school, but he's smart and he knows it, ain't afraid to tell it to you, either. Classmates followed that up, most said he was kind of odd-like, didn't have friends or nothin'. Standoffish, y'know? But somehow he was still popular with the girls, he's got himself a girlfriend from what I heard."

Another photo hits the table, this time of a classically pretty girl with wavy blonde and sea-green eyes. "Dahlia Widower, age seventeen. They've been together since sophomore year, and from what the kids say she's way more invested in the relationship that he is. One of 'em hit the nail right on the head, what did he say? Oh, said he was cold. Icy, all the time, like he didn't even know how to love her. Just sort of put up with her. But a pretty girl, right? Nice-looking? And if she's as mad over him as people say she is, I bet he's turned her into an accomplice and that's how he's gotten the males.

"Neighbors were where I got most of the skinny on him, though. Mostly bunch of poor old widows and even poorer druggies that live out that way. Old ladies said he was a charming young man, well-spoken, witty, had a way of getting what he wanted from people ever since he was a kid. The others didn't give such glowing reviews," Taverson chuckles darkly, flipping through his notepad in search of something. "Yeah, here. According to this one, he's, and I quote, 'a goddamn stuck-up hipster douchebag with a superiority problem. Carries that Hemingway book around with him everywhere and quotes at people like his shit don't stink.' What eloquence from our lovely district's seedy side."

Wilson snatches the photo back, eyes combing over spindly bone structure and eyes that look quick, intelligent and a little dangerous from inside the smoky lines of kohl drawn around them (he tries to ignore that the makeup could be another part of the god complex they're looking at in this case, a way to separate himself from the masses and elevate himself if only on a personal level), scrambles for another explanation because for the love of Ripred he's just a kid, just a scrawny kid with no parents and no one that young deserves to get dragged through that kind of hell, sighs when he realizes that Taverson has made too many good points to be wrong. The hell is the world coming to? "You sure about this? I mean, Taverson, he's a kid. Maybe just a really smart kid who's off the deep end because he grew up in hell. Plenty of those lurking around the district, it don't mean that they're out killing - Well, I'll be damned."

Taverson starts, looking at the sight of his partner staring owlishly at the file in front of him, the one he'd been thumbing through before he'd had a case solution thrown in front of him. Run of the mill stuff, typical bureaucratic filing, theft claims and such. "What? You finally get it through your skull that I got a solid lead?"

"You got more than a solid lead, Taverson. And we've been had." Wilson looks about a million years old as he pulls a single sheet from the paper, looking up at his partner with hollow eyes. "I got a disappearance report here. Kaelen Dempsey and Dahlia Widower went missing two weeks ago."

May your feet serve you well, and the rest be sent to hell
Where they always have belonged
Cold hearts brew colder songs
Fate will play us out with a song of pure romance
Stomp your feet and clap your hands
( T H I S W A S A T H E R A P E U T I C C H A I N O F E V E N T S )

"How much longer until we get there?" Dahlia groans, lowering her slender form made even more slight by weeks of hunger onto a nearby stump. She hadn't packed light leaving the district, and even after discarding half of her things along the way her load is still at least twice the size of that of her companion, who carries only a medium-sized backpack and the rather nice set of throwing knives clutched in his hand.

Kaelen rounds on her with a look that she could swear turns the sweat lying in a thin sheet over her forehead into pure ice, the sardonic arch of his eyebrow as sharp as a razor. "I don't know. I'll have to figure that out when I have time to sit down and calculate how far we've traveled. But for now can you focus on not scaring off our dinner? Unless, of course, you prefer to starve?"

She clutches her hands in her lap and murmurs an apology, trying to ignore the persistent ache of her muscles and the way her stomach feels like it's gnawing away at her backbone. As much as he loathed it Dahlia knows that the years of career training Kaelen's father forced him into is the only reason they've been able to get any food at all. They left on short notice and left as little of a trail to follow as they could, which meant that neither of them had ransacked their kitchens before leaving. He'd at least had the forethought to bring the knives, though, with which he's managed to snag one rabbit and a few squirrels over the course of the past two weeks. Barely enough to feed one person to the point of survival, much less fuel two bodies on the run from dawn till dusk. Dahlia isn't about to complain, though. Not when she sees the gaunt planes of his cheekbones protruding against pale skin and can count each one of his ribs when they curl together for some vestige of warmth at night. They're both starving to death, but she guesses that's okay. At least they're together.

He hadn't wanted to bring her. She wouldn't have even known he was leaving had she not walked in on him packing his things, and when she realized what had happened in the aftermath of a short conversation involving Keepers and investigation and getting out while the game's still afoot she had steadfastly refused to let him go without her. The argument had been long and drawn-out with tears and pleading on her part and icy glares and glacial stubbornness on his until she had brought up the point that they could always torture her for information, and oh, did she have it. It's the one time she's ever beaten Kaelen at any sort of logic and she treasures the memory in her heart, because this is a sign that he's keeping his promise. If he's a god in this all-wrong world then she is destined to be his goddess, brought down the path of enlightenment by aiding his hand in the punishment of sinners. The fact that she's already rivaling his wisdom can only be a testament to her own growing divinity.

Her musing is interrupted by a sharp, victorious whoop from a few feet away, and she looks up just in time to see a familiar, lanky form reentering the clearing with a plump, freshly-killed rabbit clutched in his hand. Something feral and animalistic stirs in the pit of her stomach, driven by gnawing need for sustenance, and Dahlia makes a high, keening sound in the back of her throat and all but lunges for the poor creature, stopped dead in her tracks by a chilling glare that sends her fixing her eyes to the ground in shame as Kaelen takes up residence on the stump she just abandoned, setting about cleaning the kill. "Really. Savagery doesn't become you, Dahlia. I'm every bit as hungry as you are, but I have no desire to contract any of the nasty things that come from eating raw meat. Do try to think with more than your survival instincts."

"Sorry," she says dutifully, a word she utters more than any other but does so happily because it rings a mantra of devotion in her ears. She is his and he is hers and together the two of them will reign over the rest of the lightless masses, beacons of what it truly means to be righteous, and such a fate is more than worth putting up with Kaelen's inherent moodiness. Matted blonde hair tangling around her fingers when she tries to comb them through, she sets about gathering up dry branches for a fire, cobbling together kindling the way he taught her and using one precious match to slowly nurse a tentative flame up to a merrily crackling blaze that burns bright against the setting sun. He'll gripe later about them being visible to hovercraft, but for now both of them are hungry enough to overlook the breach of camouflage as he stands up and puts the spitted rabbit on to roast. "Why are we heading for Thirteen anyway? Even if the rumours are true and it does exist, what's to say that we'll even be able to -"

"I already told you, assimilation into another district is tricky for one person, nearly impossible for two. Besides, I have reason to believe that an old friend made it to Thirteen and -"

"Oh Kae, you can't be serious. That rumour about the Roccianos might not even be true in the least and you've got us hiking across the whole country when we could just head south now?" Dahlia is being unusually bold for herself, but she doesn't know whether to blame it on the hunger or her growing status as a newly-formed deity. She moves to where he huddles over the fire, wraps willowy arms around his whippet-thin waist and whispers into his shoulder. "Go to the ocean? Get a nice little cottage on the outskirts of Four where no one will ever bother us? Oh, I've always wanted to see the ocean, Kaelen. They say it's beautiful when the sun sets."

Perhaps she's been too bold, because he stiffens beneath her touch and she can almost feel the blood run cold beneath his skin. "No one's stopping you."

"Oh, don't be that way. You know I'll go where you go, even if where you go is chasing the ghost of Alyssa Rocciano all the way across Panem on nothing but some whispers and a -"

"Don't even talk about her like you have the slightest clue, Dahlia. You have no idea." His tone of voice is one of those rare ones that is simultaneously flat and sharp, even and volatile, the look in his eyes one of the few that can actually make her shiver in trepidation. Dahlia backs off immediately, her arms shooting back to her sides and eyes fixed on the shoes that have been falling apart for days now.

"Only because you never told me," she whispers, hurt heavy in her voice. "You never talk to me. You never tell me things. You know my story front and back and you're still a mystery to me, Kaelen. It's no wonder I say the wrong things all the time, I don't know you like I should."

He sighs dramatically, waving a slender hand through the air as if batting off a troublesome fly. "Fine. Although my life story isn't really pleasant dinner conversation.

"Alyssa was..." he pauses, mulling the terminology over for a few seconds, eyes darting off into the shadows and sparking excitedly as he lunges after something nestled among the roots of a tree. Some edible plant he knows from his training, she guesses, her assumption proved when he rolls the leaves between his fingers and adds them carefully to the roasting meat on the fire. "We grew up together. My father and her father were business partners of a sort. Her house was a secondary home to me. After my mother passed... When my mother killed herself, I might as well say it. She was weak and couldn't handle my father's wretchedness and she took the coward's way out and left me with him. Anyway, Alyssa's mother was always coming at me with plates of food screeching about how I was too skinny. I was like a son to her father, who knew that my own father was a useless, vile piece of filth but worked with him out of necessity. I suppose you could say Alyssa was like a sister.

"They left when I was six," something Dahlia has never seen before ghosts across his features, an echo of hurt that's gone as quickly as it came. "The Roccianos got into some money problems and ended up hopping the fence to stay alive. Rumour has it they headed for Thirteen. Lyss never said goodbye.

"After that I had nowhere to go. Hell was home and there was nowhere else I could run to. My father was constantly in varying stages of drunkenness raging from docile to violent, half the time the bills didn't get paid and we had no power or water, I lived on crackers and snack food for three years until I learned how to use the stove, when the gas was on." Dahlia, who grew up on the wealthier side of town, cringes at the recount, unable to imagine living in such squalor. She's only seen Kaelen's house at the peak of functionality and even then it isn't stellar, but listening to his words paints a picture of dank, dirty rooms littered with empty bottles, a wide-eyed little boy shivering under too-thin blankets in the dead of winter, and her heart breaks for him. "School was the only thing I had, so I threw myself into it. I went after knowledge with everything I had in me. Education's the way out of generational poverty, so they say, and I was determined to not turn into my father at all costs. Training came later, of course, after I started taking tesserae, and that was where I first started learning about them." A pause, one of those unsettling smiles that makes her heart flutter and her veins freeze all at once. "Poisons."

He touches the bundle of cloth at his hip lovingly, the folds of linen piled to capacity with plants he's been stocking up along the way. He'd made do with choloroform back in One because it was easy to make - equal parts nail polish remover and pool cleaner produced a vial of manmade death - but putting him out in nature for weeks was like putting a small child in a candy store, and she can't help but smile at how elated he looks when he reaches in to touch the various stems and blooms, naming each in turn. "Oleander, nightlock, belladonna, rosary pea, nightshade, jimson weed... We step on so many of the things that have the power to end our lives. Which of course is a metaphor for me, the meek shall inherit and whatnot, but I'll save that tidbit and wax extemporaneous at a later date. The fact that garden weeds could send a full-grown man twitching and gasping to his death... it astonished me. And suddenly I couldn't learn enough.

"I spent my afternoons researching, learning all the different things that can turn someone's insides upside down," Kaelen smiles almost gleefully at the memory, and Dahlia remembers him in middle school, constantly bent over this book or that encyclopedia, his nose almost touching the paper like he wanted to inhale the words right off the page. "Acetone and calcium hypocholrite makes chloroform. You can refine pure morphine from the opium poppy. Human beings are such fragile things, really. So many things that can go wrong."

The way he says it, conversationally with a smile that is almost serene, this is the Kaelen that she loves so deep and wide that she could swear that her heart was the ocean she's always dreamed of. There is always that side of him that gleams with cold wrathfulness that can never be satiated, the Kaelen that taught her how to slip the icy hand of death into an unwatched drink when no one was looking, but then there is the one who would read to her under the shade of the old tree with the tire swing on the odd summer day when he was feeling generous, the one who would guide her down the halls at school with her books under one arm and his free hand wrapped securely around her shoulder, and even in the middle of the wilderness starving away to nothing, Dahlia feels lucky.

"The first girl was named Nora," he says, still grinning nostalgically. "And she was wasted. It was all too much when I walked into the bar, you see. The sight of so many people slowly poisoning themselves. And then it hit me. I'd be doing them a favor by speeding up the process. She didn't notice a thing until she stopped breathing. I realized it then. In those few seconds, I could give or take their worthless lives according to my whims. In that moment, I was god. And after figuring that out, I couldn't just stop there, could I?"

He chuckles somewhere low and dark in the back of his throat, eyes alight in a way she's rarely seen them as he looks intently into the heart of the fire. "It was too easy to make my father a special mixed drink with a little bit of drain cleaner added in. It was very entertaining to watch. First he started to gag when the base of the chemical cleaner reacted to his stomach acid. Then started throwing up blood, along with some somach lining, that bit was a little unappetizing, I do admit. He started crying blood after his eyes hemorrhaged, then wrapped up with an unstoppable nose bleed. All in all a bit more messy than my normal waste removals, but family deserves something special, don’t they?"

The laugh that comes out of him is something decadent and layered with a delight in something far more dark and intricate than most can understand. As a divine being his humor transcends that of the plebeians, she knows this, but she still can't fight back the chill that creeps up her spine as he takes one half of the rabbit off the spit and holds it out to her with a grin that flashes icy-white in the fire's glow. "There, bon appetit."

She sinks her teeth into the meat with more ferocity than she means to, murmuring appreciation as the first taste of food in days floods her mouth. Despite the fact that he is an immaculately-carved idol of ice, Dahlia remembers in this moment why she would follow him to the ends of the earth. He didn't have to bring her with him, but he did. He didn't have to tell his story, but he did. He didn't have to share the rabbit, but he -

Four or five swallows in, her head begins to swim. Dahlia tries to reach up and rub the dizziness from her eyes only to find that her very limbs seem filled with lead and that her breath comes shallow, too quick and light for her sedentary state. A soundless wh-why? forms on her lips only to be met wth impassive tawny eyes and a subtle twist of his mouth that is a half-grimace-half-smile, like he would have rather not done this but is still luxuriating in watching his art in motion. Annise crumples to the ground, and the last thought she has before she slips beneath the impending sea of blackness is a realization that shatters her final seconds of consciousness.

Kaelen Dempsey has never, not once in three years, told her that he loves her.

Let's kill tonight, kill tonight
Show them all you're not the ordinary type
Let's kill tonight, kill tonight
Show them all you're not the ordinary type
Let's kill tonight
( I ' M A D I S A P P E A R I N G A C T D O N E P O O R L Y ) Odair

Let's kill tonight, kill tonight
Show them all you're not the ordinary type
Let's kill tonight, kill tonight
Show them all you're not the ordinary type
Let's kill tonight
( S T O P T H E R E A N D L E T M E C O R R E C T I T )

Faceclaim is Ryan Ross? I'm going to check with librarians and see if I can split the FC since it's mine to begin with. If not, then he has no FC and will just be Ross in my head.

Let's Kill Tonight - Panic! At the Disco. Also used Panic! lyrics for section headers.

Template ripped off from Lalia, ripped off underlining and form ideas from Chaos.

[/justify]