Not intending on this fic being very long, but hopefully someone will enjoy it!
One thing of note: I'm playing with the idea that Malkavians are attracted to people who are already not 100% sane and that most Malkavians had some kind of mental health issue before they were turned. The fledgling in this scenario had schizophrenia while they were human but essentially was a functioning member of society while medicated for it. I'm not going to go into much details in the fic because I'm definitely not an expert on the field and I don't want to offend anyone, so just putting it out there. Anything that the fledgling says or does after they are turned is completely due to their Malkavian blood and not their schizophrenia.
Also playing with the idea of blood bonds between ghouls and their 'masters'.
One
How was it that time seemed to slow down on a Friday afternoon when all anyone wanted was to go home? The ticking of the clock felt like it was stagnant, refusing to move past 4 o'clock. Miriam had been staring at it for at least five minutes, her dark brow furrowed underneath her fringe as if her displeasure at the work day not being over would somehow will time faster. Predictably, it didn't, so she sighed and went back to trying to write that email she'd been procrastinating over for the last hour.
Finally, no way near soon enough, home time came around and Miriam shut down her computer, stood up and grabbed her things from her desk a little faster than might be considered strictly necessary. She shrugged into her blue jacket, and then grinned as she caught sight of the thick curly hair of her colleague and friend, Samantha, approaching her.
"Ready for drinks?" her friend asked with a grin as Miriam buttoned up her jacket.
"Are cats assholes?"
Samantha frowned. "What?"
"Never mind, where do you want to go?" Miriam kicked herself mentally for not keeping a better check on her mouth. Spouting off comments that she thought were funny rarely seemed that way to other people and was probably why most people thought she was more than a little quirky.
"Well, I was thinking we could go somewhere different," Samantha started as she held the door open for her friend, the thick noise and bustle of downtown LA filling their ears as they began down the street. "I'm getting kind of sick of our usual Friday haunt, plus I keep seeing Andrew there. Ugh."
"I told you he was a tool when you started dating," Miriam replied, linking her arm with her friend as their high heels clacked on the concrete pavement. "He had that creepy look in his eyes, like he goes home every night and pulls the wings off butterflies."
"Yeah, yeah, 'you told me so'." The curly haired woman gave a snort of derision and then quickly changed the subject. "So I was thinking that place round the corner from the office, think it's called the Last Round?"
Miriam shot her a look of surprise. "The place that looks like it's a front for a drug cartel?"
"Oh, don't be so dramatic it doesn't look that bad!"
"It absolutely does! I bet you $50 we'd get kidnapped, killed and left in a dumpster within ten minutes of walking into that place!"
"Please?" Samantha whined. "We can give it a go and if it turns out too seedy inside we'll leave and go somewhere else, or go back to your place and get pizza and watch a crappy romantic comedy on TV."
"Fine, fine, but it's your turn to buy."
Samantha grinned, tugging her friend around a corner towards the bar that Miriam really hoped wouldn't end up with their bodies being found by the police.
o0o
"Creepy..." Miriam muttered to herself as they navigated their way through the decent sized crowd of people inside the bar.
The music inside was deafeningly loud, a thick haze of smoke in the air and more than a few patrons wearing black gothic clothes and heavy makeup. Samanatha and her looked more than a little bit of out of place in their smart office clothes and hair. Her friend dragged her towards the bar, jumping onto two free seats and grabbing the attention of the man serving drinks.
"Two ciders, please!" the curly hair woman requested, a pleasant smile painted across her features while Miriam glanced around, taking in the scene before her.
There were booths on the other side of the bar, filled with couples, more than one of whom seemed to be getting quite enthusiastic with each other. One of them had an oddly dressed man in a top hat and feathery white coat, whispering in the ear of a blonde girl. In the corner, by an old tatty pinball machine was a small group of people, a woman with bright red lipstick, a man with an impressive beard, another with golden earrings, and third with piercing blue eyes that were staring right at Miriam and her friend beneath a furrowed brow. But staring wasn't really the right word, calculating fitted that look better, reading, judging intent and more than a little disapproving. This wasn't a welcoming place, that much was plainly obvious.
"Here." Samantha nudged her, pushing a cold bottle into her hands.
Miriam took an absent minded sip, and then frowned. "How old is this?"
"Not sure," her friend replied, following her gaze around the room. "Huh. This place is weird."
"I told you we shouldn't have come here-"
"Oh, shush you."
Miriam rolled her eyes, nursing her drink while trying to ignore the man in the corner who was still frowning at them, his lips whispering to his friends words that she couldn't hope to hear over the heavy din of the music. Perturbed, she glanced away and her eyes found the man in the feathered coat again, whose mouth was covering the neck of the girl beside him. Kissing her, perhaps? But the closer she looked the less it seemed like it, almost as if he was- but no, that was crazy, his lips were just tinged red from the girls lipstick. Tearing her eyes away, she caught the sight of the blue eyed man in the corner moving through the crowd towards them with a cold look painting his face, and Miriam knew then this had been a terrible idea.
"Sam, we should leave," she started with urgency in her voice, "we don't belong here."
"What-"
"Just trust me, we need to go," Miriam interrupted and she grabbed her friends hand, dragging her away from their unfinished drinks and through the crowd towards the door.
A quick glance over her shoulder and she saw the man worryingly close, how did he get through the crowd so quickly, so easily? She hurried, pushing people out of the way and ignoring the annoyed responses she got until the door was within reach. Slipping outside, they started down the street, confused protests coming from Samantha until they rounded a corner and Miriam obliged slowing down to a stop.
"What the hell, Miri?" the curly hair woman asked, more than a little out of breath and flustered.
"Someone was following us," Miriam replied, glancing around the corner to where they'd come from.
"There's no one there, just some bums at the end of the street," Samantha added and she was right, the blue eyed man wasn't behind them and neither was anyone from the bar, the street was quiet and as far as Miriam could tell, completely normal. A frown pulled at her brow, she'd been so sure he was following them, did she overreact - or had she slipped up taking her medications that day?
Samantha tugged on her hand. "Come on, let's just go back to your place, I'm starving."
Miriam obliged, the frown on her features refusing to abate while she continued to glance behind her every few seconds as they walked through the streets to where her apartment was.
o0o
"Idiot kook!" the woman with the red lipstick growled, glowering at the man with the feathered jacket and blood stained mouth in the upstairs room of the Last Round. "That stupid kine saw you feeding!"
"It was within the walls of Elysium, it should expect the sharp fangs to be biting the neck flesh and drinking the red nectar!" the man protested, his top hat flopping more than a little outrageously as he crossed his arms over his chest, irritation evident on his features.
"Fucking Malks, can't you just talk normally-"
"Damsel, enough," the blue eyed man interrupted softly, pursing his lips before turning to his two other companions, the darker skinned man with golden earrings and the older man with the beard. "Who let the kine in?"
"I did," the man with the earrings replied, irritation evident in his voice. "I thought they were someone's ghouls or feed for the night, not some random kine off the street." He sighed. "What idiot girls walk into a bar like this? It doesn't exactly look friendly from the outside."
"'Splains why they came in here asking for fucking cider, hah!" the man with the beard mused with a chuckle at the end. "Fucking kine, man, walking into a bar full of Anarch vamps like it's some sissy Toreador's club."
"We need to take care of them before the Camarilla get their pants in a twist." The blue eyed man turned to the one in the feathered coat who was wiping his mouth. "You, Wyatt, you're coming with me. We'll find the kine and you'll dementate them into forgetting what they saw."
"We have another tricksy plan for the Nines," Wyatt replied, a somewhat mad grin pulling at his lips. All Nines did was raise an eyebrow, the disinterest obvious on his features. "We turn the black haired one and kill curly!"
"Are you fucking mad?" Damsel blurted.
The Malkavian stared at her as if the answer was obvious. "Yes?"
All it earned him was an annoyed glare from the woman as she added, "You'll bring LaCroix down on our necks if you go turning anyone you want without his goddamn 'permission'."
"But the black haired one, it is as mad as we are," he protested. "We can hear it's voices within it's skull, dulled down by pesky doctors but still there, whispering, murmuring, still there, still there! JUST AS MAD AS US."
"I'm going to fucking kill him, I don't care if he's an Anarch." Damsel rolled up her sleeves, her fists balled and eyes flashing with fury before a growl tore from her throat when the darker skinned man put an arm in front of her, restraining her.
"I may just help you if he doesn't clean up this mess," Nines muttered, the threat obvious in voice as he narrowed his eyes into a glare at the Malkavian who huffed and crossed his arms across his chest.
"Very well, we will dementate the breathing ones for the Ten minus One."
Nines nodded, his features set with a grim determination at the task before them.
o0o
They were being followed, she knew it but Samantha didn't take it seriously, perhaps her friend had drunk more than she realised given the giggling coming from her lips. Miriam didn't find the situation funny, she kept glancing behind her, seeing two of the men from the bar metres away, then less and less until they could have reached out and touched them. And she definitely wasn't imagining this, she hadn't hallucinated once since her doctors brought her erratic mind under control with the right medication. No one knew these days that there was anything amiss with her bar from the pills she had to take to keep her thoughts in check.
Should she break into a run, then, she wondered? But Samantha wouldn't follow, and she couldn't leave her friend, and would she even be able to outrun the men anyway? They were fast, they'd closed the distance between them remarkably quickly. Perhaps she could phone the police, she doubted she had any other option so she slipped her hand into her jacket, closing her fingers around the cool plastic of her mobile.
Samantha moved to cross the street and so she followed, but while her friend moved to the pavement on the other side, Miriam stopped in the middle of the road and turned to face the men, showing her phone to them and pointing her finger with her free hand.
"I don't know why you're following us, but-" she started but the words died in her throat when the sound of rubber screeching on cement filled the street.
A car swerved around the corner, knocking into her and the man with the blue eyes and throwing them to the ground before smashing into a powerpole further down the street, steam billowing from the hood and onlookers screaming at the sight.
Miriam groaned, pain wracking her body were gravel had embedded into flesh, bones contorted out of joints and broken, blood seeping out of wounds. Her head was spinning, the bright lights of the street lamps blurring before her eyes but she tried to pull herself up, a hand clutched to her chest coming away stained red. Heart beat thundering in her ears, she caught sight of the blue eyed man beside her, still, unmoving, his eyes closed and panic filled her.
Instinct took over, that one first aid class she'd done so long ago and she forgot in her delirium that he'd been following her because did that really mean she shouldn't care if he was dead? Fingers bloody and trembling she grasped at his wrist, tried to find a pulse but there wasn't one – and his chest wasn't moving either.
"God," she croaked, her voice raspy before she added, as loud as she could, "Sam? Sam, call an ambulance!"
"Miri!" her friend shouted and she was beside her in seconds, brown eyes desperately trying to take in the situation, assess her wounds as if she actually had any medical training and could help her. "Oh my god, you're bleeding, your arm-"
"He's dead, Sam," the black haired woman interrupted, a choking noise filling her throat as her emotions took hold, unable to process the situation with the pain wracking her body.
"What? Who cares! He's a creep following us like that, we need to get you to a hospital!"
"But that doesn't mean he deserved to die," she replied and Samantha stood up, fingers fumbling over numbers on her phone as she frantically called for help. All Miriam could do was stare at the body, shocked and wracked with pain and she couldn't believe someone had just died before her very eyes.
Blood loss brought delirium to her within moments and her vision blurred, her arms too weak to support her so she collapsed to the ground, her breath and pulse racing as the sounds of sirens filled the air, but she knew somehow she wouldn't make it. She must have really been hallucinating then because the dead man beside her opened his eyes, as clear and piercing ice blue as when he'd been alive and he sat up as if he was completely uninjured, as if nothing had even happened. A moment passed when she felt her life ebbing away, the ambulance too far away but then he turned to her, stared for a moment into her eyes with lips parted as if considering, weighing up choices and consequences.
It happened swiftly, his bloody wrist pressed to her lips and she was too weak to protest, to even ask what the hell he was doing or if any of this was even real. Blood filled her mouth, flowed down her throat, metallic and cold on her tongue for some reason yet it should have been warm while it was fresh from his cuts.
Unconsciousness claimed her moments later, her world spiralling black and the last the thing she remembered was the sound of the paramedics trying to save her life.