Strife [Tag: Xavier]

[Katya]

 The day had been.. utterly uneventful. That was what Katya could sum it up as, and as she walked through her parking garage and to the elevator, she could only imagine how wonderful her couch would feel. She had been to see her publisher, and she had finally finished the last book she'd be writing for a while. It took a lot out of her, the writing did, but Katya was over-sensitive and it seemed like even the regular world could wear her down.

  It was pretty sad, actually, that for a vampire she had such human traits. She passed rows of cars, unwrapping the scarf around her neck slowly as she walked. Her pace was in no hurry, though she was a little excited about being able to rest for a while. Her apartment was completely empty, and Sasha was off... doing whatever the Hell it was she did. Katya prayed silently that the vampire was finding no trouble, or at least, manageable trouble.

  She stepped into the elevator after a man that she did not recognize, and continued to mull in a fog through her day. She had errands that she'd done, but things she'd skipped. She pulled out her Blackberry and began quickly adding and subtracting off of the list of things that she'd need to take care of later in the week as the elevator doors shut. She was so lost in her own though that she almost hadn't realized how heated the man's aura had gotten, until she slowly put her phone in her purse and glanced behind her.

  Katya still had those big, warm brown eyes - being old got you that privilege. She was actually beautiful by most standards, despite her more plain appearance against her sultry sibling, Sasha. She managed only a faint smile, one that she would give to any stranger on the street, but she instantly realized that the man was a feline shifter. Her smile turned almost into a worried frown; clearly, he could feel her pull. You'd have to be a moron, blind, and a zombie not to feel it; but his reaction was quite odd.

  "Are you okay?" she asked him, her tone carefully concerned. Katya wasn't doing much of anything except existing in that small space with him for the moment, but she was getting the impression he was very emotional about something. She figured she could help, if nothing else. She was always able to calm other felines down, so why should this be any different?

[Xavier Rush]

He had the smallest errand to run in this building that it wasn't even funny in retrospect.  He was always aware of his surroundings, so it wasn't like he didn't see the petite brunette approaching the elevator, and he even held the door for her without even thinking about it until she was inside and the door had shut.

That's when he noticed.  Really noticed.

GOD, how had he MISSED it?!  It was like her very presence was trying to draw him in and suffocate him!  He found his eyes flicking back to her no matter how many times he looked away, and it was taking a severe effort not to inch towards her, which was NOT something he did.  He didn't 'inch'.  He either did something, or he didn't, and he HATED that he felt like trying to appeal to her.  That wasn't how he worked, especially not with strange little women.  What the fuck WAS this shit?!

Then, she made the mistake of talking to him.  As if her LOOKING at him with those big brown eyes hadn't forced him to tense into his own side of the elevator more than he already was, she had to actually utter words.  "Yes.  I'm FINE," he growled out, harsher than he would ever have offered some random lady on the street, but he wanted her GONE.  He wanted this little woman who made him want to rub his face against hers to be AWAY from him IMMEDIATELY.  YESTERDAY.

How long could this elevator take?  It felt like years already.  Damn it!  Was this Victoria's doing?  It must be.  She'd found a way to get back at him for rearranging her insides, and he didn't understand it, but he was going to kill both of them for it!

Or, maybe he wasn't going to kill the little brunette.  He made the smallest attempt, thinking that all he had to do was get a handful of hair to wrench her head around and break her neck, but the barest touch, the tiniest brush, was soft and nearly broke his resolve right there.  He wrenched his hand back, and he was done.  He was getting OUT of that elevator, and he was getting AWAY from this bitch.  Period.

[Katya]

 Elke could have guessed about a million things that could determine which way this scenario was going to go - like it always did, usually, where she'd have to shake a cat off at her door or else they'd come in and want to live with her forever. His reaction, though, was definitely not what she'd anticipated, and she was stunned - literally, speechless - as she watched him heat himself up further with whatever he was thinking.

  She wasn't going to invade his thoughts, but she really, really wanted to - he smelled unfamiliar to her, and she couldn't help that she was dying to know why he had suddenly reacted so angrily. He seemed to make his mind up about whatever he was thinking, though, and barked at her through clenched teeth that his well-being was just dandy, which told Elke obviously that it was the furthest from.

  "Are... you sure?" she asked, her brows raising.

  And then he moved - his hand moved, anyways - and he - he touched her hair. She jerked back, feeling the curiosity and genuine gentleness of his touch suddenly change into... absolute boiling and smoldering rage. She actually gasped, and the shock sent a wave of her power out - not the kitty kind, but the vampire kind. The "Hi, I'm a well-aged Kendra" kind. The bolt of energy was enough to do more damage than she had, though.

  The elevator jarred to a stop and the emergency lights came on.

  "Ohhhh god," she said, her voice betraying her nerves. Really, Elke should have just stayed human. "Oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said, holding up her hands. The more anxious she became, the higher her own aura rose, until - well, if Darren had been there, he'd have been positively chewing on her hair by now.

[Xavier Rush]

Yeah, that thing about being fine?  Sooooo not true, holy crap.  He'd thought he might be fine, since it was only an elevator and couldn't possibly take THAT long to get him where he needed to be, but she wasn't making it easy on him.  Besides just existing, she had to question his answer, asking if he was sure at about the point that he reached out to grab at her hair and failed to do more than brush his fingers over it.  He never failed.  This was a fucking retarded situation.

Even worse?  She proved herself to be a vampire by sending out a wave of power that tore itself over him and grated over nerves that already felt raw with anger.  She was a vampire, and she was strong, and this whole situation was confusing the shit out of him.  Then, the elevator coughed and shook them around, which wasn't an issue for a guy with cat balance and reflexes, but those weren't going to save him from her.

"Fucking FUCK!" he hissed, his eyes widening as he took advantage of the chance to slam at the control board and put the slightest bit more distance between himself and the little woman.  She was talking again, apologizing and nerving out, which...oh god.  God.  It was like suffocating on something as soft as a breath, feeling her power rise around him, and he gasped through it, unable to draw a breath that didn't feel like it was poisoning him with whatever this madness was.  He couldn't escape it, not in here, but he would NOT succumb, no matter how hard she tried.  He wouldn't!

God, but that was hard.  His hand curled in against the metal before him, fingernails more like claws than any human had a right to have and his eyes taking on a golden hue that wouldn't quite betray his breed, but certainly were far too bright for what he'd been sporting when he first got in the elevator.  All he wanted to do was just let go so that he could love her like he was supposed to, just because she was herself, so why was that so hard for him?  How stupid of him, to suffer like this when he didn't have to, when---

FUCK that shit!  He really did adore Verity, and she didn't get this kind of reaction.  No strange fucking vampire got to trap him in an elevator and think she was going to overwhelm him.

"STOP IT," he growled out, and even that was a fight.  Part of him didn't want her to stop, just wanting to give in and let her do whatever she wanted.  She wouldn't hurt him, not her, because she loved him like he loved her, right?  Right.

No.  No, not right.  Wrong.  She was a vampire, he didn't know her, and this was some trick.  How was she even doing it?  He turned around, wanting to snap at her, threaten her, do something and anything to get her to stop it, even if it meant killing her, but just looking at her made it that much worse.  He pressed himself backwards, which had to be rather comical if there had been an outsider that wasn't losing their shit in close quarters with THOSE two, but he couldn't be near her.  Looking at her had made him want to go to her, and going to her would completely undo him.  As it was, he was only barely maintaining his human form.  This shouldn't have been so easy for her, but it was, and that was frightening.

He hadn't been frightened in a VERY long time.

[Katya]

 Elke backed away from him as he hit the control panel, no doubt making things worse. She kept moving until she was pressed against the back of the steel box that caged them, her things abandoned on the ground. She wrapped the cream silk scarf she'd had around her neck around her hands, wrapping and unwrapping, trying to calm herself down. When he began spitting hatred at her and demanding she stop, she held a hand up to him.

  "I can't if you keep freaking out," she protested, her voice full of concern. Why won't you let me help you? That's what it sounded like she was saying, but that wasn't what she had said. He was a cat, so he inferred differently, whether he wanted to or not - although his brain knew that he did not, and so it fought, which was causing an... adverse reaction. It suddenly dawned on Elke why this was happening quite like it was.

  "Listen, listen," she said, trying to talk fast, but softly. "If you can calm down, I can just fix this, and we can both get out of here, okay Does that sound good?" she asked, her eyebrows raised in anticipation. She hated to reach out with her power when she was trying to clamp down as hard as ever and he was reacting so horribly, but - he was going to end up hurting himself. Right?

  Please, just calm down, just calm down, I'm not going to hurt you, I promise, I promise... she thought, squeezing the scarf in her hands like a nervous housewife watching a child take its first steps.

  "Just let me fix this, okay?" she offered, voice still shaky. She put a hand out again, dangerously attempting to touch his arm. If she could just... touch him... she should be able to end this.

[Xavier Rush]

When she told him she couldn't stop if he kept freaking out, he couldn't even put her words together immediately, having heard her but also heard her asking why he wouldn't let her help him.  It didn't make sense, her saying both at once, so why had he heard it?  Why did he want to let her help him?  She was going to drive him mad, and all he could think was that it would be easier, and so much more pleasant, to just let go.  Stop fighting.  That's all he had to do, and he couldn't do it? 

No.  He didn't want to.  He embraced being a tiger, loved it, and that was working against him whole-heartedly.  He was a cat, so as much as the man didn't want to be controlled and submissive to this little woman, the cat already loved and trusted her.  In a way, it confused him further because the tiger had never led him astray, but he knew better this time, didn't he?  The tiger was being duped, and his human rationale was all that was keeping himself safe.  He knew that, but she was talking again, and everything he knew was up for questioning all over again. 

Her voice was sweet and lyrical, her nervousness only adding the saddest tinge of bitter to the honey and making him want to remedy it.  She shouldn't sound like that, not her, never sad or nervous or upset.  He wouldn't allow it!  It was his fault, all his fault, he could feel that in the back of his mind, telling him he needed to calm down, that she wasn't going to hurt him, that she could be trusted, and he was almost as though it were in her voice, sweet and warming.  He just had to calm down. 

It would all be okay.

His last ounce of ability to fight with himself and her influence tried to rise up screaming and fighting in the instant before she touched him, the claws that he'd been fighting to hold back pressing into his palms in an attempt to ground him against her obviously evil influence, but he'd done limited damage and not endured enough pain to bring him back to himself once she touched him.  It was the victory blow for her, and that showed in his entire body.  He just couldn't fight with her anymore.

The breaths that he'd been pulling in so harshly seemed to escape him in a long, almost relieved sigh, and everything in his body language relaxed with it.  It was as though all of his troubles were released in that sigh.  "Okay," he murmured, to what he didn't know, but he did know that it all really was okay.  Everything was okay, because she was here and she was going to fix everything.  It was okay.

It was so okay, in fact, that he reached to touch her hair again, this time just because it looked soft and nice.  The violence of before was stomped down beneath the feline's love for her, and when he brushed his rough fingers against her soft hair, it wasn't enough.  He had to brush them, carefully and almost as though he were afraid she would break beneath his touch, over her cheek.  Her skin was nearly as soft as her hair, and that extra little bit of skin contact initiated by him this time was just the last straw.  The tension in him relaxed so completely that it not only affected his body language, but what remained of his hold on the cat.  As that last shred of control slipped away from him, so did his human form, and all the blue tiger wanted to do was love her.  It now had the chance to rub its face against her like it had wanted to all this time, and it didn't care that it was just her hands and arm that it butt its head against, as long as it was her.

My, how things had gone downhill.

[Katya]

 Thank god. Once she'd calmed him down into his tiger form, she could do what needed to be done and not have to worry - obviously, this man wanted to rip her face off, and at the moment, given the circumstance, she couldn't say she entirely blamed him. She felt incredibly guilty about the entire situation, and she kept a hand scratching at Xavier's head 'til she could exhale a shaky breath and steady herself more.

  With a measured thought and a moment of clarity, she was able to pulse out another bolt of energy, enough to kick the elevator back into gear. It shuddered and groaned and lurched down before slowly beginning its originally scheduled ascent to the destinations they'd chosen. She had no idea what floor he'd selected, or if he'd even gotten around to doing it before she got there - but it stopped at her own floor, and the doors opened, revealing Elke and the tiger.

  She slowly moved around him, trying to get to the door. If she could... leave him in the elevator, he'd clear up on the way back down. That was a big if - he was already following her out the door. She had to debate as to whether or not she really wanted to indulge this situation any further. If he suddenly broke out of animal form, she knew her life was going to be in danger for certain - the feline mind was something she understood better than his human one, and she, even without being invasive, got glimpses of his capabilities. She didn't want to test his patience, or charity.

  "I'm really sorry about all of this," she said, kneeling down to put her forehead against his muzzle. As long as she kept that power flowing, he wouldn't scratch her eyes out. "You have to believe I didn't mean for it to happen. You do, don't you?"

[Xavier Rush]

Fortunately (for her, anyway), all he needed was for her to keep up the aura of power she'd been putting out and keep scratching at his head.  That's all that was necessary, and in that exact moment, he was okay with it.  All cats loved Elke, it was just a fact of life, so why should he be any different?  Exactly, he wasn't.  He could feel a lot of the nervousness and tension leaving her as she rubbed his face, as well, which was a small source of pride for him.  See?  He could do good for her, too.  Obviously, he was doing something right.

Contrary to how he'd been feeling a moment before, he didn't mind so much when the elevator lurched again, finding himself mildly interested by it, but unconcerned.  Elke wasn't concerned, so there was no reason for him to be.  When the door opened and she moved to leave, naturally, he followed, completely oblivious as to how bad it could have gone if there had been someone outside the doors when they opened.  A tiger in an elevator was wrong on so many levels, starting with the fact that elevators generally weren't made to carry that kind of weight out of a single creature and how BIG a tiger was in a small space, but since it was only Elke, it was all okay.  She was far more comfortable with that massive tiger than with the smaller, more volatile man. 

She was talking again, and though tigers didn't purr like some of the smaller 'big cats', he growled softly to let her know that he didn't mind.  Well, that part of him didn't mind.  The part that DID mind didn't have a say in this, so that didn't matter.  Of course he believed her.  She wouldn't do anything bad for him, and he didn't mind, anyway.  He hadn't shifted recently, so it felt good, and he liked her.  A lot.  It was all okay with him.  It seemed strange that she thought it wouldn't be.

[Katya]

 "I wish you could stay this sweet forever," she murmured. She stood up and pointed at him. "Stay right there, okay?" she said, her voice still as sweet as possible. If the tiger had any idea what was about to happen, he sure didn't look it. She backed the few feet down the hall that it took to get fully away from the elevator, and then hurried to her apartment door. She turned back around and looked at him.

  "Stay," she said again.

  She went inside of the apartment, shut and locked the door, and then backed away from it. In a breath, she released the hold she had on him, and the magic just dissipated like dry ice fog as it rolled out of a tub during Halloween. She had her hands to her mouth, waiting in fear as she would no doubt hear the angry man that the tiger would leave behind.

  She supposed she could just teleport out of her apartment if she needed to - but why hadn't she thought of that earlier? She was so dense! She literally face-palmed herself as she backed away from the door and then entered the comfort of her living room. She would have to be ready, but somehow she doubted he'd be quick to run after her.

[Xavier Rush]

He had absolutely no clue what was about to happen when she told him to stay right where he was, and there was an instant of distress when she parted with him, but it was eased by the fact that she still looked at him, and asked him to stay again.  He sat down on his haunches, tilting his head at her as though he were wondering what kind of game this was (because it was totally reasonable to him that they'd be playing some kind of game), and then she was inside her apartment.  He could hear the elevator door close behind him and glanced back that way for a second before returning his gaze to her door.  Where was she?  Wasn't she comi---

Oh.  OH!

That happy, foggy feeling of general well-being rose up and away from him in a matter of about 45 seconds, and it was like the rug being pulled out from underneath him.  Painfully.  What that fog had kept from him before was an internal pain like razors running along his insides that shocked him right back into his human form, which was probably for the better.  It meant that when he doubled over, there were human fingers instead of tiger claws, and when he screamed in pain and rage, it was a man's voice instead of a tiger's roar.  It didn't carry as far, and this was an apartment building.  He leaned on the closest wall, just riding out that agony of a forced shift with thoughts of what he was going to do to Victoria to tide him over. 

It did pass, and though it felt like it took hours to him, it was really only a few minutes before he was breathing hard and sweating, but relatively okay.  He pushed away from the wall, wincing at a lingering ache, and glared down the hallway at her door.  He remembered it, remembered it all, and he wasn't going to forget it anytime soon.  The problem was just that it didn't make sense.  She hadn't felt evil, or like she meant him harm.  She'd said she didn't mean to do what happened.  He'd thought he believed her.

He didn't fucking like this, but he had to understand it.

Fuck if he was going to try to talk to her about it face to face, but he had to talk to her.  He thought about just leaving and trying to kill her from afar, which should have worked, but there was a small ache that formed somewhere in his gut at the thought of putting a bullet between her eyes.  "God fucking damn it," he hissed, hoping THAT was something that would pass.  He wanted to talk to her again, but he wanted to be able to think this time. 

He shook himself, trying to push away the incident, and moved to return to the elevator, but hesitated after pressing the button.  He halted a moment, cursed himself for being a moron, and then reached into his pocket.  A short walk down the hall, and he'd slammed something into her door before returning to the elevator and his errands in a dangerously dark mood.

There was a note pinned to her door, with the pen he'd used to write the note sticking nearly an inch into the wood, that read:  Call me.  X and a number.  He hadn't even had the foresight to give her a disposable number, and did it matter?  If she asked, he'd have given her his real one, anyway.  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he preferred giving her the real one.  He didn't know why, and he didn't think about it, but he had. 

[Katya]

  She didn't actually go to see what was on her door for quite a while - it was nearly thirty minutes, actually, before she managed to get up off of the couch and out of her fuzzy and warm chenille through. She crept toward the door, glancing over to her rumpled brown leather purse on the coffee table. She could see her Blackberry peeking through, and she picked it up instinctively and held her finger over the send button with Sasha's number highlighted.

  She opened her door slowly, peering her head around the corner. Her apartment was the only one on this floor, and the hallway was quite long. He didn't seem to be anywhere in sight, and actually, she couldn't feel his presence in the building anymore - she'd chosen the Penthouse with empty floors below it. The benefit of being wealthy was that if she wanted to, she could have bought the damned building - but she just paid the money to maintain the floor below hers. It was a sound buffer, mostly - for the large cats she sometimes had in her company.

  She twisted her fingers around the pen and tugged it out of the door, looking incredulously at the number he'd left. Really? He'd left his number? She furrowed her brow, and lifted her finger on her phone to dial the number he'd provided. She didn't even know if this was serious, really -

  "Hel - hello?" she said into the silence. Someone had picked up, the other line had stopped ringing, but there was no sound.

[Xavier Rush]

He'd done his work quickly and quietly, with a level of viciousness that he hadn't really been planning on.  Nobody had cared if this one lived or died, but Xavier had been intending to leave him alive, just in case he was needed later.  By the time he'd gotten some distance between him and that woman, all he'd wanted to do was make someone else's insides feel the way his had when she'd left him.

Poor fool didn't even know what was coming.

Xavier had been in and out within five minutes, but he'd been thorough.  In fact, he was nearly at Kimber's place by the time his phone rang, and though he didn't recognize the number, what wasn't terribly uncommon.  When he picked up and her honeyed voice slipped into his ear, it was a different story.

He didn't even respond immediately, pulling the car into a spot that he was quite frankly lucky to have found, wondering the entire time why he liked her voice the way he did.  She wasn't there to force her influence on him, so it wasn't that.  What was it?  "What did you do to me?" he demanded bluntly, his voice surprisingly controlled for as angry and confused he was over the whole situation. 

"I'm around vampires constantly and a lot of them would like to do that, but they can't.  What makes you so special?"

[Katya]

 She stood in the hallway, listening to the background noise on his phone. He'd been driving, so he wasn't near her anymore. That was good. She walked back inside and shut the door, locking it behind her. For a moment she leaned against it, as though she were contemplating what precisely she was going to say to him. This was always incredibly difficult to explain, for some reason.

  "I didn't do anything," she said. "Well, not at first. But then you - you started freaking out and I had to calm you down so... I asked you to calm down, and you did." She paused. She was so utterly neurotic that to be having this conversation seemed almost impossible to her. As she pushed away from the door, she wandered to the back half of her living room where the scene overlooked the New York skyline. It was just after dusk and it was utterly beautiful outside, if not a little cold. She stood by the window, her arms folded mostly as she held the phone to her ear while still keeping the blanket around her shoulders. It was fashioned almost like a cape.

  "I'm not like those other vampires you've been around, it seems," she said, punctuating her words with a wistful sigh. Elke still did human things like that - sigh, or hold her breath, or exhale angrily. It was something that set her apart from many of the others. "I have this... thing. Animals - well, cats. They like me. They're like.. my totem animal? I don't really know how to describe it. My sister does it, too, except it's with snakes. It's really bizarre, we didn't - we didn't ask for it, it just is."

[Xavier Rush]

He didn't believe her when she said that she hadn't done anything at first, because he certainly remembered feeling it, but he heard her out before he argued.  He could give her that much, especially since he didn't really think she'd finish explaining if he cut her off too quickly and he needed this information.  If he didn't have it, it might waylay him in the future.  What if Raphael got to her?  What if Victoria did?

When had he decided that Victoria hadn't?

Besides the fact that he was still alive and didn't think he would have been if Victoria or Raphael were behind this, he believed Elke.  Mostly.  He knew that there had been something happening before he started freaking out, but the rest rang true.  It was stupid, because just blindly believing her could get him into some serious trouble, but he didn't think she was lying to him. 

"You did something, or I wouldn't have started freaking out as soon as you walked into the elevator," he pointed out, but even thinking over everything that had happened, that was all he could dispute of what she'd said.  She hadn't exactly told him to shift, he'd just reached a point that he couldn't endure anymore without it.  He sure as hell knew that he didn't like being someone's 'totem animal', though.  "They like you because they don't have a choice.  You know that, yeah?  You know how bad that shift felt after?"

It was cruel to point out, because she really did sound sorry when she'd apologized before, and she felt like a good person, but he was still angry that for whatever reason, he wanted to spare her that guilt.  Since when did he care?  Really, he needed to forget about her poor little feelings and find a way to kill her before Raphael or Victoria learned what she could do.  He didn't like how easy that could make killing him, if they got hold of her.  She was a threat, even if she didn't intend to be.

[Katya]

 Elke had opened her mouth to say something, but his remark about how awful changing back had been was a jawbreaker. She just stood there, looking at her reflection in the glass against the black and twinkling backdrop. "I didn't actively do anything," she said finally. "It's just my energy. It's how it works, that's how it's always been. I didn't intend for you to experience any pain; I have no idea why you do. I've never seen it happen before, and I don't mean for it to happen again."

  She wanted to tell him to stay the hell away from her, because Elke didn't like trying to fix people who didn't want to be fixed. "Why are - why are you so pissed off? I mean, you were the moment I stepped into the elevator. I was just standing there, going through my phone. It isn't like I even glanced at you, or gave you a second thought, not until you started raging out. God, you make it sound like I wanted to hurt you - I've never hurt anyone. You can check with Therrayans, I'm not that kind of a vampire," she insisted.

  Well, that was a half-truth. Elke had hurt before, but it was always in defense. She never had actively attacked anyone except Raphael, and he always deserved it.