An Encounter at the Murder Club
Characters: unnamed OFC, C.F. Ofdensen
Summary: During his nine month absence, Charles Ofdensen uses his newfound anonymity to hunt down members of the Revengencers. Slight Ofdensen/OFC pairing
Rating: M for coarse language, sexuality and violence. Nothing worse than what's been on the show.
Disclaimer: Dethklok, Ofdensen and the Revengencers are property of Brendon Small and Cartoon Network. I'm making no profit from this. It's all done with love and admiration.
It was another typical Friday night at the Murder Club, a tired but still popular watering hole on the south end of the city. Local metal trio BloodCrypt had been given a chance to open for yet another no-name collection of jack-offs passing through on a national tour. She didn't know who the headliners were, and she didn't care; the only reason she came to these things with almost ritualistic frequency was because of her boyfriend, George, whose guttural rumblings passed for the lyrics to BloodCrypt's tired rotation of death metal covers. Somebody, after all, needed to work the merch table. The task usually fell to the girlfriends.
The months had not been particularly good to the band, but every week like clockwork the group gathered their gear into the back of a rusted-out Dodge Ram van to head to one of three clubs in town that supported their dark and misguided art. The same collection of sweaty metal-heads would show up, wearing their black concert t-shirts and studded wrist cuffs, thrashing their heads and swinging their greasy hair to whatever noise poured out from the stage speakers. Frankly, the whole scene bored her, but she had at least taken the effort to look the part: knee high platform boots laced up with blood-red ribbons, a black mini skirt which left precious little to the imagination, a torn and well-worn BloodCrypt band t-shirt two sizes too small. Metallic skull earrings hung from her earlobes, and her dark chocolate brown hair was loosly swept up into a messy updo, held in place by two metal hair sticks topped with pentagrams inlaid with red crystals. She and George both knew the best way to work the merch table was to put the goods on display.
Not that any of these goons would know a good thing when they saw it. The jack-offs in attendance at the shows BloodCrypt would play were an even mix of fat basement dwellers who conflated dark fantasies of brutal existence with a viable alternative lifestyle and grown hulks of men who never got past their middle-school-borne angst and anger issues. None of them would know true brutality if it spit in their faces and pissed on their shoes. She couldn't take another Friday night like this.
She needed another drink.
The young woman made her way along the edges of the club walls toward the dimly lit bar on the other side of the dance floor. In the glow of a handful of 40 watt red light bulbs against the bar, a few men huddled together downing shots of Jager, growling and grimacing against the sting of the liquor, struggling to find an outlet for a rage manifested from no apparent cause. She recognized a few of the faces from the months and months of returning to the Murder Club, listening to George and his band play the same set over and over. The locals gave her a knowing nod as they slammed down drink after drink. Only one man at the bar stood out.
He sat perched on a stool with his back to the bar, amber bottle in hand, head slightly bobbing in time with the music instead of violently banging and thrashing like the men on the dance floor. He wore a dark leather jacket over a black t-shirt and jeans; his short chestnut hair brushed back, sticking together in some places from small beads of sweat. His expression was tight, almost scowl-like, and his eyes darted back and forth, fixated not on the stage but on the writhing mass of humanity in the crowd.
She leaned into the bar over stool next to his, resting the girls on the smooth dark wood of the bar, but he didn't seem to notice. She signaled to the bartender to bring over two bottles of cheap domestic beer; when they came, she took a large swig from one and placed the other at the mysterious stranger's elbow. He turned his head slightly toward her, glancing at her sideways.
"Are you, uh.... looking for something out there?" she asked coyly.
He turned his head further toward her, beady hazel eyes pulling a quick once-over on the girl. "Something like that," he said. She noticed a long scar slicing down the left side of his face. Brutal, she thought. Much more metal than a tattoo.
"What's your name?" she asked.
He finished off the beer in his hand and picked up the one she had left him on the bar. "Charles," he finally said.
Charles, she thought to herself. Buddy, if you're going to make up a name, at least make it believable.
She spun around on the barstool to watch the band with him. "Well, Charles, I hope you're not here scouting for talent."
"Hmm?"
She gestured with her beer at the stage. "They suck. Have ever since the guitarist went back to college." She knew she could never say that directly to George; honesty was too brutal for his fragile ego.
"Hmm," came Charles' disinterested reply.
She made short work of the rest of her beer. "Yeah, they picked up some asshole to replace him, but the kid's fretwork is all over the place. It's fucking sloppy. Doesn't stop them all from thinking they're going to be the next Dethklok, though."
Once more he turned and looked at her. The corner of his mouth twitched briefly into the barest hint smile before settling back into the faint tight-lipped scowl. "You a big fan of Dethklok?" he asked.
"Shit yeah. Who the hell isn't? You ever been to one of their shows?"
He another took a swig from the beer bottle. "Yes. Yes I have."
"They're fucking epic," she said. "We went back in '05. That's the show where some of George's friends got too close to the speakers up front, and the sound waves liquefied their insides. But it was so worth it. Dethklok is totally sexy. They're just so ... brutal. So intense.
Charles nodded, craning his neck as he surveyed the clubgoers. "Well, they do put on a very high-energy show," he said.
She playfully pushed on his shoulder. "I wouldn't have pegged you as a big Dethklok fan."
His grip on his beer bottle tightened further. He continued to furtively scan the crowds. She could sense his discomfort, his focus. His own intensity was palpable; it mystified her that she found it strangly compelling, even erotic.
"Come on," she said. "You don't look like you belong here." She shifted closer to him, trying to catch his eye, twirling one of her skull earrings idly between her thumb and fingers. Charles' focus remained on the audience, his head still slightly marking time of the thunderous sound emanating from the stage, but purely as a force of subconscious habit. His body tensed and his gaze narrowed impossibly further. Perhaps it was the beer going to her head, but to her he looked like an animal, lithe and ferocious, poised to strike. He set his half empty beer on the bar and pushed off the bar stool, producing a leather billfold from the back pocket of his jeans.
"We should get out of here," she purred.
He wordlessly rifled through his wallet, producing a handful of ones which he unceremoniously dropped on the bar for the bartender. His eyes briefly fell on the girl before he began pushing his way through the sweaty crowd toward the exit at the front of the club. She took it as an invitation to follow.
Outside of the Murder Club, the street was bathed in the orange wash of the overhead streetlights. A few cars, mostly taxis at this time of night, rumbled down the main drag. The scratched and battered metal door of the club swung shut behind her, containing the cacophonous din of the metal show within. Her ears rang a bit from the change in ambiance. Near the roadway under the streetlight a collection of burly men had gathered to smoke cigarettes and exchange unpleasantries -- the metal-head's version of grabbing a breath of fresh air. Charles had turned away from the group, opting to duck down the side alley instead. She was all too happy to follow along behind him.
The side alley was sheltered from the clatter of passing cars and smokers and drunks in front of the club. BloodCrypt's battered old Dodge van was crammed in back here, along with what looked like a hastily painted black short-bus, most likely the touring vehicle of the headlining band. Otherwise, the alley was a pretty barren spot. Aside from a lone roadie sneaking out the back entrance, they were completely alone.
"Ugh, it feels so much better out here," the young woman said while fanning herself. "I can't fucking stand how disgusting..."
She didn't have time to finish her sentence before he pushed her up against the brick wall, lips pressing eagerly against her mouth. His body fell into hers, his fingers slid along her neck and up to her face, tracing along the contour of her jaw line. Silky tendrils of her dark brown hair slipped free from her updo.
A small gasp escaped her lips, and she closed her eyes to meet his kiss. He tasted only faintly of beer, and his lips were soft but unyielding, greedy in the ferocity of the stolen moment. His knee pressed in between her thighs, pushing her impossibly short mini skirt up a few more notches. Her head was swimming. Through the blood rushing in her ears she could hear the footsteps of the roadie, but she didn't particularly care. Let the old lech get an eyeful, she told herself. Hell, let him tell George, for all she cared. This was the attention she needed: to be treated like a real woman, to feel the hunger and yearning of someone truly passionate, even if it was a stranger. Her hands roamed over the buttery smoothness of his leather jacket, fingers tracing along the faint curves of toned muscle just underneath. She felt his hand slide further up her neck and into her hair, tugging at the crystal pentagram rods holding her tresses in place. The sticks slid out from her hair, sending tumbling locks cascading down her back, spilling across her shoulders and pooling down around her breasts. For a moment, their lips parted, and the warmth of his body subsided from her.
She opened her eyes just in time to see him drive the point of her metal hair sticks straight into the neck of the roadie walking by, tearing his carotid artery wide open and spraying blood across them. With his free hand, Charles reached around the man's neck, gripping his chin with a white-knuckled firmness, and pulled hard. The bone-crunching snap echoed through the alley, and the roadie made a series of gurgling sounds before collapsing in a heap onto the asphalt, blood rhythmically spurting from the gaping hole in his neck. It happened so fast, she hadn't even had time to scream in horror. She had forgotten how.
Charles wiped the bloodied sticks on his dark jeans. He turned his attention back to the girl, still frozen against the brick wall, and calmly place the hair sticks back into her hand. Not once did his expression changed from one of almost surgical concentration. He reached up and gently caressed the side of her cheek one final time before fleeing down the alley and into the night, leaving the young woman startled and spattered, a pool of blood collecting around her platform boots.