expunger | accidental video;

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[Gray. The opening shot is all dim gray and dusky, a boring shot of a concrete wall stained with black ash, before too-bright blue-white light knifes through the picture again, causing horrible screaming static for a brief moment. Everything whirls before the PCD lands, now pointed up at a derelict ceiling. From far off, noise can be heard: footsteps, crackling electricity, a low electric tinny and hard breathing. After a long minute the picture shakes again, lifting and turning around to show Raphael's face.

She looks, for lack of a better word, like shit. For an angel she looks exhausted, with faint circles under her eyes. Her skin has a papery quality that is strongly evocative of Lucifer. Face rot dots her hairline and a small spot on one side of her jaw, again very like what Lucifer suffers from. Despite coming out of a terrible event (for which she was a complete hermit, speaking to and seeing no one), there's obviously something else on her mind.]

The Archangel Michael is gone. You would do well to never speak his name again where we can hear it.

[ooc note: anyone going to find her will find her in the Wastes. Yes, even if they poof to her side immediately, angels. She can hustle.]

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[That's when Raphael grabs him by the throat and lifts him easily off the ground with one hand.]

Do not lie to me.

[Silver flashes again in his eyes as she grabs him by the throat and hauls him off his feet, but any anger Thomas would have displayed is mitigated by the skin to skin contact, and the demon's silken whisper against his thoughts of desire. Hunger, denial, need for the unthinkable, survival, the cessation of pain, for just a moment.

A slow, knowing smile spreads over Thomas' face as he peers down at Raphael. The demon's touch skitters along her skin, calling to that desire that it can feel. It's familiar enough to call to it, for the demon to whisper to give in.]

I don't keep count.

[Not any more, at least.]

[Raphael's arm is shaking slightly. That never, ever happens where people can see- certainly not Thomas. Her grip tightens on his throat like a vise, like maybe if she can squeeze the life out of him this incessant hunger will stop. Logically she knows he's now affecting her on purpose, but it doesn't change the fact that she can imagine it, imagine cutting him open and can practically taste relief. Anything, even the most disgusting action, is better than corroding her vessel from the inside. Her black eyes look right into his silver ones, too intense and scarcely seeing.]

You should.

[In a flash she brings him to his knees, coming around behind him to bend him over a bucket that wasn't there before. In an instant he's leaned over, head yanked back by the hair, throat exposed to the knife suddenly in her hand before she's slitting his throat over the bucket, holding him down so he can't escape.]

[She's fast. Far faster than he had really thought possible, lulled by the obviously human feel of the body. The only thing that saves him is that he'd recently fed, that the Hunger is already close to the surface. If either of those had not happened, he'd have been dead in seconds as the hot sting of the knife at his throat.

As it was, the wound begins to knit back together as soon as the blade parts it, but not before spilling fat drops of thick, pale blood into the bucket. For once, there is genuine fear in his eyes as he struggles against Raphael's grip, and his eyes shine even paler as he draws on the demon's borrowed strength, hastening healing as best he can. Blood drips from the wound, slowing as the wound heals, but he can feel the blood loss already, the fear of actual death staring him in the face, holding him down.]

Eight that matter.

[So it can be hurt. Interesting. Raphael's eyes shine glitter dispassionately at the dark pink blood. Thomas' struggles barely faze her, the pallor and fear in his eyes strangely thrilling. She lets the knife clatter to the floor so she can touch the wound lightly, forcing the healing to slow in some twisted perversion of her Angel of Healing patronage. Gently, with surgical care, she puts thumb and forefinger on either side of the cut and pinches, forcing out everything she can get from the still-closing wound.

In her position, it's easy enough to murmur in his ear.]

Tell me what you think matters.

[Whatever she's doing to him burns like molten steel and living fire, and the demon's strength wilts in its presence. The wound at his throat closes with agonizing slowness, the warm wet slick of blood creeping down his neck.

Thomas flinches from the breath of warm air at his ear as she murmured, and the motion shoots a spike of raw pain like liquid fire down his nerves. He manages (barely) to suppress a scream, but not the sharp inhale and its accompanying whimper of pain.

But the fact that he's not dead helps. As does dark thrill that the demon, so near the surface, can feel from her skin. Desire for something besides death, something that would soothe pain and quench the fire...

The fear doesn't exactly fade, but he makes a visible effort to force it aside, to master it, and there is little of it in his voice when he manages to speak again.]

The innocent matter. The ones that didn't wrong me or mine but died for it anyway.

The ones who suffered for your monstrosity.

[She yanks his head back viciously, too hard to be reasonable and enough to rip at the wound anew, just so she can look down at him harshly, face inches from his.]

You should be ripped to nothingness in the fires of Hell for your indecency.

[She lets go of his hair and seizes his wrists, yanking them behind his back and binding them together with a chain coming from nowhere, tying it to the floor behind him so he's trapped on his knees. Then she comes around him and dips a cup she suddenly has into the bucket of blood, starting to down the entire glass.]

[Bile rises in Thomas' throat as he watched Raphael dip a cup into the bucket and begin to drink the thick, pale blood. The action sickens him even as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. He might not have known why it was happening, but he knew now the object of that desire.

Which... was really nothing to go on at the moment.

He jerks on the chain pinning his wrists to the ground, wrenching his shoulders in an attempt to pull himself free. The chain rattles and he feels give in the links, not much, not enough, but something. Thomas glances at Raphael, feels his stomach rebel, and looks away again.]

Never said I was otherwise, darling.

[But he doesn't deny her claim.]

[If he looks back, he'll see her finishing the glass with a gasp like she's never tasted anything so perfect in her life, pressing the empty glass to her forehead and taking huge gasping breaths. Then she dips it in the bucket again and downs another glass, and if Thomas is watching he'll see her skin start to heal. The little sores and decay at her jaw, her hairline, and her cheekbone close before their eyes, her skin tone changes, the papery, unhealthy quality melting away to smooth, healthy skin. She looks more alive in a very real sense.

She feels alive. The demon blood (that she knows isn't like real demon blood, that she suspects will work differently) is filling her veins with liquid fire, the kind that soothes and fills with life. It is perfect.]

[The chain rattles again as the noises coming from Raphael attract Thomas' attention again. He gags as she downs another glass, and her flesh begins to heal.

Well that explained why. He tests the chain again, knowing it's unlikely he'd get free and out before she wanted to refill the bucket, but he has to try.

Until a thought hits him, about what blood means. What White Court blood can do.]

Oh, empty fucking night.

[She lets the inexplicable... profanity? hang in the air a moment before responding without looking his way.]

Despite what give the chains seem to have, you will not escape before I allow you to.

[She sips at the rest of the glass slowly, appreciating the warmth curling deep inside her. It's spreading through her whole body, chasing over her vessel's skin, licking soothingly at the burnt edges of her Grace, curling hotly in her vessel's body like fire. She lets herself take a moment to exhale slowly and appreciate the relief to her vessel, the doused flames, and the pure good feeling of it.]

[He watches her carefully, ignoring his own still rising bile at the way Raphael savours the glass of pale blood. The demon, already close to the surface, stirs against his skin with restless hunger, having expended its stolen life to heal him before he died.

And it can taste it, the slow, almost imperceptible work of blood on its prey, the curl of its influence, working in flesh and blood, stirring desire.

Ignoring the Hunger's influence and its whispered knowledge as best he can, Thomas curses, with every heartbeat becoming more creative.]

[It's working fast: his blood pumps with her own, spreading through her body until every inch of her is warmed through. Her skin feels flushed and warm, she's suddenly very aware of the fabric of her clothes against her skin and cool air on her face. Curious. Demon blood does not do this to Lucifer- or, if it does, he does an excellent job of hiding it. Clearly, Thomas' blood has vastly different properties than Sonneillon's.

That would explain her vessel's heart rate, her mouth going dry for little explicable reason. Raphael polishes off the glass and takes a little more, just a few mouthfuls until the Hellfire's pressure against her vessel is all but gone. With a shaky indrawn breath she sets the glass down and turns to look at him, eyes lingering on him for a long, drawn-out moment. What a peculiar beast he is.]

[It takes a while for Thomas' self-preservation instincts to kick in, to work through all the smartassery and buried self-destruction. But when they do kick in, they kick in hard. Thomas continues watching Raphael, watching as the heat rises, as her skin flushes with warmth... and tries his best to bury the demon and its influence as deep in his tainted soul as he can manage.

Raphael had already demonstrated a complete inability to take a joke, and coupled with the thirst for blood and the fact that he could feel said blood's effects on her already, Thomas didn't want to think about just how many pieces he'd end up in if the Hunger brushed up against that growing lust and sparked action. So he kept that part of him leashed as tightly as he could.

See, he thought. Sometimes.

He looks and sounds more human than he usually did, with eyes storm grey and free of metallic silver] Looks like that blood's disagreeing with you.

[He is presenting as more human, and it catches her attention quickly. Nothing like that ever changes without a damn good reason for it. She walks over to him and grips his chin in one hand, tilting his head up to stare at him inscrutably.]

No. It simply has different properties than blood of my world. The healing is already in effect.

[His eyes are simple gray, with no inhuman glints of silver at all. Voice gentler, more human around the edges, the inhuman sharpness blunted with fear. It does not fool her: she can see the pale blood just under the skin, his pupils, dilated and scared, she can discern the precise effects of adrenaline on his monstrous thing. Which part is which, she wonders. How long would it take her to dismantle him, peeling back skin and pulling him inside out, before she found the part of him that makes him a monster? He is a sinner with seeming awareness of that fact. How long before he crumbled and begged for forgiveness of sins she has no authority to forgive? She holds his gaze for a long, long time.]

It would be so easy.

[A look of understanding flickers over Thomas' face and is gone as quickly as it came. He shifts slowly, not testing the give on the chains again, but settling warily lest he tip himself over.]

To what, gut me like a pig? I'm getting that.

[She's still holding onto his chin and tilts his face first to one side, then the other, just to get a better look at him. Her penetrating gaze can find nothing but imperfections, nothing but flaws, but... strangely enough, nothing worth destroying.

How strange, when only minutes before she itched to erase him from the face of this wretched earth.

Something calls in her, something urgent and foreign. She wants to take him apart, to find the seams where monster meets man and unravel them, to see how many ways and in how many pieces she could put him back together. She wants to sink deep into yielding flesh and warm blood, to pick through a mind that can't help but give under the pressure, to tease the fear from his grey eyes and a beg for forgiveness from his lips.

The Hellfire isn't bothering her anymore. She has no reason to be here.

And still, she doesn't let go of him.]

To destroy you. To make you afraid once more. You pretend to be so superior, but I know the truth.

[Desire waxes and wanes, and this close he can almost feel hers ebb, the heat of molten living rock and fire receding from the impenetrable wall of glacial ice. Strange. Thomas can feel that there's knowledge there, that there's something he and the Hunger were missing, but it's hard to tell what it is, as if the language of lust and desire that he breathed with every breath no longer quite applied.

And so it fell back to words. Words and the knowledge that the body holding him captive had his blood working in its veins, whispering of physical desire to flesh. With whatever shreds of self-preservation he had left, Thomas kept his words low, his eyes focused somewhere beyond Raphael. There was truth in his words when he spoke again, a truth that those who knew him knew Thomas never let into the open unless there was real fear in his heart.]

You can try, darling, but I promise you won't do a better job than I'm already doing.

[The Hunger still calls to her, but it's different than in a normal human: there's desire, yes, there's a kind of lust and a kind of need, but it runs through different filters than humans feel, different emotional processes that affect how she feels it. Or at least how she perceives it. There's desire to break him apart in her hands, lust for him in a vicious kind of physical sense, as a lion lusts for its prey and hunts its next kill. If she were a little more human, a little more emotionally sensitized she'd be feeling this in a more typical sense, something more sexual that Thomas would expect, but she is an angel and the heat flushing her skin red feels to her like the roaring heat of battle, the dark thrill of a righteous smiting.

Of course, it's nothing like either one in the slightest. But it's the only basis for comparison she has.

Raphael adjust her grip on his chin unnecessarily, noting the abrasion of skin against skin. A minor detail she usually overlooks, but not today. The look in her eyes is a special kind of hungry.]

I invented torture. Do not underestimate me.

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