CHRISTIAN CALLAWAY
Hunter
Posts: 90
Played by:
Julia
“There's nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Last seen Mar 18, 2024 17:56:07 GMT
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Post by CHRISTIAN CALLAWAY on Feb 8, 2021 16:35:00 GMT
━ let death fear you ━ Finally, Christian’s hands had stopped shaking.
After Emelia, the siphoner, the girl he’d killed, they would often do that. Tremble while he was talking to students in his office, and especially when he was alone and filling out paperwork. He reminded himself that this was for a good cause━getting rid of the creatures that made this town unsafe. He willingly took a smaller cut of the money, because it wasn’t about that, either━and because Alix was doing a lot of the work. It wasn’t as if he needed it, but she had earned it. He did what he could to be helpful and learn from her, though her experience made it only reasonable to take home more of the money.
Even with this target━she’d given him her blessing to go at it alone, but helped him with a lot of the research. Dr. Theodore Damasca, professor at Whitmore College, and a banshee. Christian, at first, didn’t know how much damage a man without claws or fangs could do, but apparently he’d aided a siren with homicide. A partly-dismembered body found in a garbage bag at the bottom of a nearby body of water, kept quiet by officials, or whoever was running this bounty hunter-style ‘event’ in Mystic Falls. It seemed that, harmless abilities or not, supernaturals stuck together, aiding one another in whatever screwed up life they lead. He’d learned that the target had a twin brother as well, one who didn’t have any evidence of harming others━other than in the army. Christian thought of his own brother, how they could be so close and yet lead completely different lives, though he was sure Dylan wasn’t out helping creatures of the sea gnaw on innocent, young boys, and Christian was no veteran. He was doing his best, though━they both were. Better than this man.
A twin brother added another task to the list, another thing to account for. He’d have to make sure that he was coming face to face with Theo, not Frank.
So, Christian chose a day where Theo was working later than his brother, hoping to ensure this went smoothly. This was going to be close range, too, so he left his crossbow at home, opting for a pistol with a silencer attached, and two bowie knives━one concealed at his waist, the other tucked lower, near his boot. He wore all black, nothing distinguishable, as well as a hat to hopefully shield himself from the cameras around the school. He and Alix had mapped out where each of them were and their suspected range, taking absolutely everything into account.
It was dark out by then, thanks to the winter season and the length of his last class. Christian waited until the burst of students lessened, and saw his target walking out of the building and towards his car, just as he had the last few times Christian had surveilled him. He emerged from behind the building, running towards Theo with a look of shock on his face. “Dr. Damasca?!” He called out, panting as he slowed down once he’d reached Theo, pointing over his shoulder. “There’s a student in our afternoon class━I think she got attacked by somebody or something━just by the trees,” He let out the pieces in between laboured breaths, presenting himself as a student in one of the man’s lecture classes. “I can’t lift her myself━I can call an ambulance but we have to get her inside, she’s practically turning blue.” Christian was already pulling out his phone from his pocket and taking a few steps backwards, as if to present this as a time-sensitive issue, so much so that the man asking for help wouldn’t even wait to hear confirmation.
THEO DAMASCA | can we just not and say that we did? thanks
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THEO DAMASCA
Banshee
Posts: 169
Status:
Married
Partner:
Freyja Damasca
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen May 4, 2024 19:00:27 GMT
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Post by THEO DAMASCA on Feb 8, 2021 20:48:13 GMT
It used to be the students sitting there watching the last ten minutes click off the clock second by agonising second as the last of the day started to tick down. At this time of year it had been worse. The sun dipping below the horizon before he’d even started his class, the clinically bright lights that were meant to prevent accidents lighting that clock up so none of them could miss the fact that it was almost six.
They weren’t the ones watching it this time though. Theo pressed his lips together as he perched on the edge of his desk, hazel eyes bouncing up to that clock even though he’d just checked the time on his phone. Yeah, the time. Not that he was watching out for another message from Freyja despite the fact that this was gonna be one of those cold and lonely nights when they were divided across Mystic Falls. Her at her place, him at his thanks to some stupid work thing he was gonna have to be back here for in a couple of hours. Group marking on projects that were handed in, not planned to wrap up until gone midnight. By which time he was likely to have lost the will to live.
Two hours to grab dinner somewhere off campus, to thumb his way through a dozen text messages to Freyja or to sit in the roadside diner off campus with her voice buzzing through his headset, drawing those goofy grins out of here while he was sitting there all on his own with what was meant to be the state’s best ribs and mac and cheese. A single night, he could get through it and when he blasted out of here at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon he was heading straight to the Daily to kidnap her early. Gabriel was gonna have to put up with it.
And he was gonna have to put up with tonight. Another tick, the minute hand sweeping one notch closer to six and that final bell that would send them all scattering like rats from a sinking ship. Getting to his feet like he’d timed it to the second, Theo stuffed his phone in his pocket. ”Lids on the experiments. Leave your notes where they are. We’ll pick this up first thing in the morning, see how many of you managed to isolate your cells then. Enjoy your evening.” Right to the second. The bell went and books went back in bags at the sort of speed you only ever saw in classrooms.
Snorting, Theo grabbed his own coat and bag, bundled up to prepare for the bite in the air once he got outside. Maybe he’d grab a beer or two to go with the food, anything to dull the misery of hours on end with Nixon instead of shutting out the frigid world around the town and hunkering down at home with Freyja for the night. He slung his bag over his shoulder, locked the door to the lab as he stepped out with the last of the students. One caught him as he walked, started pumping him for information on the second half of the experiment due to be completed the next morning. ”No spoilers,” Theo told him with mock censure as they stepped out into the … oh yeah it was cold. ”Honestly, Tracy, take the night off, there’s nothing to try and cram for overnight. You’re gonna ace this.” She probably would too, she’d been one of his best students all year.
Theo stared towards the lot, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of the padded jacket he wore over his fleece shit. The cold bit at his face, well, what was exposed above his beard. It’d burn when he got into his car and cranked the heater, life coming back into icy flesh. He curled his fingers around his phone again, anticipating it when the yell went up behind him. ”I wasn’t kidding…” he started as the panic in the voice struck him. He turned, brows drawing together, that cold biting deeper at an unfamiliar face pointing behind himself, back towards the woods that surrounded the campus. ”Someone got hurt?” Picturing the siren who’d dismembered a guy not 200 yards from here and who’d almost killed him, Theo felt that tremor start in the pit of his stomach again.
He sucked in an icy breath, felt tears start to burn at the back of his eyes. A student hurt. Down. Her. All spinning around like a tornado in his mind before the guy started backwards, his phone already in his hand. ”How … how badly is she hurt? Show me the way and make that call. It’s too cold to leave her out here. Is she bleeding?” He pulled his hand free of his pocket, closing it around the guy’s upper arm as he broke into a jog towards the rear of the building, where this guy had bolted from in the first place. Nixon was gonna have a ball with this, crowing about his missing the meeting, likely in the name of that little blonde vixen whose photo he was shoving in everybody’s face in their office. The vixen who was gonna start asking how the hell he kept getting himself in these situations on campus.
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CHRISTIAN CALLAWAY
Hunter
Posts: 90
Played by:
Julia
“There's nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Last seen Mar 18, 2024 17:56:07 GMT
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Post by CHRISTIAN CALLAWAY on Feb 8, 2021 22:32:57 GMT
━ let death fear you ━ Christian had figured that his best course of action was to pretend as though he was a mature student. He was older than Theo by a few years, but that didn’t matter. If he presented himself as one of the many faces in a lecture hall, it tied this all together and made him easier to trust. He’d seen the professor interact with students on several occasions, and his outward appearance seemed to be one of a helpful, kind man with nothing to hide. Obviously, though, that wasn’t true. He was somebody else behind the scenes, leading a double-life of sorts, Christian supposed. He didn’t know how this man could put on a dress shirt and go into work every day pretending as though he was nothing but a simple, kind, straight-laced professor━he was an accomplice to murder. There was no grayscale to this in Christian’s mind, just black and white. And he couldn’t see the parallels between his life and Theo’s.
As Christian backed away, the man put closed his hand around the hunter’s arm━another image of kindness. A veneer that was beginning to sicken Christian to the point where he nearly drew his weapon right then and there. He saved it, though, faking a call to 911 instead. He answered quickly as they began to move towards the woods, words still somewhat broken up by his heavy breaths. “Yes, she’s bleeding. I could barely see her in the dark, though she seemed to be in a lot of pain. I don’t know how bad it is,”
Christian pressed the phone to his ear while he led Theo to the treeline, finding their way over the snow-covered grass quite quickly. He asked the operator for an ambulance and stated their situation; a girl was wounded at Whitmore College, and they would meet the ambulance by the east exit. They reached the edge of the woods as he came to the end of his false statement, drawing Theo in a few feet. Far enough to be barely visible, only the yellowish lights from the parking lot casting shadows around them, highlighting fractions of their faces.
He moved away from Theo once they were in deep enough, turning to face him. Christian drew his pistol from where it had been holstered under his jacket, simultaneously putting his phone away. He raised it, the end of the extended silencer only an inch or two from Theo’s forehead. “It’s over, banshee. You won’t hurt anybody ever again.”
THEO DAMASCA | no notes.
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THEO DAMASCA
Banshee
Posts: 169
Status:
Married
Partner:
Freyja Damasca
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen May 4, 2024 19:00:27 GMT
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Post by THEO DAMASCA on Feb 9, 2021 19:19:52 GMT
Fucking Frank. If his brother wasn’t getting him over his head or scaring the shit out of him by getting himself in over his head then he wasn’t around when he needed him to be. He could’ve asked him to stick around a couple of hours after his last class, to give up his booty call or whatever he was calling it with the ass groper who was gonna end up getting him fired if all of that came out. Frank would’ve been here now, pulling on his cape over scarred shoulders to do all the hero shit that he lived for.
Twins. Like hell they were in that way. Bum ears and that shiver of fear that had his gut turning to water as he grabbed for the guy’s arm to drag him towards the woods. That was what set the two of them apart … that and their taste in who they fell in love with. God, Freyja was gonna kill him if he tripped over out here and broke his neck trying to help out another student. She’d already seen him falling apart supposedly after the last one he’d tried to help. She’d held him together as he’d tried to shake apart then but tonight she was already meant to be in bed by the time he got there. Not wrapping herself around him like a band aid for a soul dented and cracked by the things that lured him in to nightmarish situations.
That was the only blessing now as he jogged into the dark, long legs having an easy time over the rough ground. No voices. No death out here. A blessing. Small mercies that let him suck in a breath. ”Don’t worry we can stop it. We’ll get her inside and by the time the ambulance gets here we’ll have her all patched up, promise.” It was one he trusted he could keep just because there’d been blissful silence in his head all day, the image of Freyja at work with her headphones plugged in, his own love for her played out in the tinny buzz of music through them that was probably driving Gabe and the rest of her coworkers insane.
He slowed down as he reached the treeline, brows drawing together as he scanned the ground ahead. The guy was already on the phone, talking to the 911 operator, repeating the same story he’d told him and telling them they’d get the girl to the east exit. It was a couple hundred yards from the science building but between the two of them it was manageable, especially if they could get the bleeding under control. Hazel eyes scanned the ground as the guy led him a few feet past that first stand of trees. ”There’s no blood,” he said hoarsely, eyes still on the ground. He knew the smell by now, could feel his stomach flip at the tiniest hint of it. Theo shifted, sweeping the ground. No dark patches of it, no hunched body. ”Where is she?” That sense of unease grew as he looked up.
The guy had moved off a little, his dark clothing helping to blend him in with the near black trunks of trees gone bare for the winter. The thin plume of breath in the cold air would’ve given him away if the gun he was pulling out from under his jacket didn’t. Legs suddenly gone limp and numb, Theo stumbled back. One leg gave out, spilling him down into the cold wet of snow as the first gasp of air was sucked into suddenly burning lungs. He scrambled, got himself to his feet with his hands up. His chin trembled, teeth clacking together in the cold in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the fear that had his eyes burning as hot as his lungs. ”You’ve got it wrong,” he wheezed. Inside his now wet jeans his legs shook violently, Freyja blissfully unaware in his head again, concern drawing her brows together in the way they had when he’d come home unable to stop shaking. Her hands would’ve been warm on his cold cheeks, the promise of safety with her right there.
His warrior princess, his safe harbour, were miles away. He was here with a gun pointed at his forehead, the muzzle looking huge and deadly and terrifying. Theo blinked, tears welling over his lower lashes as he shook his head. ”I don’t hurt them. I … I give them a voice … I make sure someone finds them and they get a decent end. If … if someone’s hurt out here, I can help. I can find them … it’s what I do. Y-you don’t have to use that. Please? Man, j-j-just let me find h-her. Let me h-help.” Let me get back home, let her piece me back together. God, don’t let me die out here. The words pinballed around his skull, tearing apart that image of Freyja wrapped around him, slowly pulling those shards of his sanity back together again. God let him get back to her.
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CHRISTIAN CALLAWAY
Hunter
Posts: 90
Played by:
Julia
“There's nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Last seen Mar 18, 2024 17:56:07 GMT
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Post by CHRISTIAN CALLAWAY on Feb 9, 2021 20:56:21 GMT
━ let death fear you ━ Christian found himself growing cold as a hunter. He’d always been empathetic, even as a young boy in his private school uniform, taking in another boy who’d had less than him. His mother had always tutted him for it, told Christian he shouldn’t waste time on people like that, and to focus on himself. All throughout his life, Christian had done anything but. He was a guidance counsellor━all he did was listen to other people’s problems and guide them through.
But after his brother and wife had been attacked, Christian couldn’t find any way to empathize with supernaturals. They weren’t right━they were dangerous, and caused anger and turmoil wherever they went. While he’d convinced himself that the professor was leading a double life, he sure did put on a good show. Falling to the ground, acting as though Christian was double his size. They were matched up pretty evenly in about every regard, except for the fact that Christian was holding a gun.
His jaw clenched while Theo clambered up, beginning to beg for his life. Telling Christian that he could help, his words pulling a sharp and unamused laugh from the hunter. That boy had begged for his life, Christian was sure, and he planned to show Theo the same mercy he’d given the body that had ended up in a garbage bag. Taken out like trash when he was really nothing but a boy trying to better himself through his education. That, Christian could relate to. And one day, he hoped that he could watch his own child leave for college and not have to worry about him meeting the same fate. Christian was doing this for all of the people with families in Mystic Falls, and for the one he hoped to build.
“Nobody is going to be hurt out here except for you.” Christian bit back at him, voice as steady as he could make it, though he couldn’t help the anger that drove it. This act disgusted him━he didn’t understand how this man could pretend to be so innocent of his crimes when they both knew the truth. “You make sure somebody finds them? The siren who killed that boy━you helped her find him so that she could rip him apart. That boy’s name was Jake Wright, he had a little sister who will never see him again, and he will never see her grow up. Jake ended up in a garbage bag, dismembered and decaying by the time somebody found him.” The gun had been loaded, cocked and the safety switched off before he’d put it into his jacket.
Christian wasn’t going to talk much longer; he wanted this over and done with. He wasn’t going to waste his time with a piece of shit like Theo, somebody who aided in the murder of children. “This is justice.” His voice was a growl, the sound of the gun firing about as loud as his voice as he pulled the trigger. It echoed around the trees, but had been adequately suppressed. It barely sounded like a gunshot whatsoever; something Christian had thoroughly planned out during his training.
THEO DAMASCA | no notes.
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THEO DAMASCA
Banshee
Posts: 169
Status:
Married
Partner:
Freyja Damasca
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen May 4, 2024 19:00:27 GMT
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Post by THEO DAMASCA on Feb 10, 2021 20:34:42 GMT
Had he become so reliant on those voices in his head that he couldn’t see the danger without them? The fact that he was standing in the woods, a gun in his face, held by a man cold to the bone who laughed at his naivety seemed to scream a definite yes. For more than a decade those voices had been the breadcrumb trail leading him to true horrors. They had landed him in nightmares, shaken him to the core more times than he could count. Flesh shivering, his mind jagged shards that he desperately tried to reassemble into the whole each time. He’d managed, barely, each time before Freyja. Finding the ground solid enough under his feet after each fresh hell to keep stumbling on. She’d been the concrete though, the solidity that let him see a future with something more than those periodic soul crushing nightmares.
Now he had neither one. No voices to tell him that he was going to be OK or he wasn’t. No fierce blonde flashing teeth and swinging with surprisingly bruising fists.
Just him.
Theo saw the man through tear blurred eyes. They burned as bright as his the fire in his throat, the one that wanted to unleash his scream on the guy. Fingers shaking in the air, his own breath puffing out in unsteady plumes, momentarily bathing the guy’s face in it as he glanced around. Still looking for the girl like she’d appear as some gut wrenching pivot point this situation could divert around.
With each passing heartbeat the hope that there’d been some truth to the guy’s initial words faded. Theo’s lashes fluttered, those tears breaking over them to burn down his face as he shook his head. He hadn’t done anything to deserve it, he’d tried … ”Please,” he breathed again as he opened his eyes back up. ”I’ll give you anything … just let me…” Walk away, promise to keep all of this quiet the same way he had done with the siren. He’d learned by now not to open his mouth over what he’d seen. It stuck in his throat every time but even if the authorities would believe any of this how did you guarantee that something wasn’t going to come back to turn you into that if you whispered about their existence to anybody that would listen.
The siren.
His mind fixed on the word even before the derision started to fall from the guy’s lips. The siren. She’d let him go, had disappeared into the dark of the campus with that garbage dangling from her fist like she was just taking the trash out. Evidence of what she’d done staining her skin, etched indelibly into his brain. Helped? Hysteria had started to take shark bites out of his thoughts again but the moment the accusation fell from the guys lips Theo was laughing, caught firmly in its grip again. Misery etched itself deep into the lines of his face as he opened his eyes again and fixed them on the guy. ”Helped? Was that what she told you. I was too late. He was gone when I got there, she’d already…” Torn the boy to pieces, had been gnawing away at him like a turkey leg. Bile rushed up the back of his throat, filling his mouth sourly as he shook his head. ”I’m sorry. I couldn’t do anything for him, I didn’t know about his family. They have my condolences … but p-please, I didn’t…” He’d just heralded his death, hadn’t he?
The scream had torn out of him with no control then, the banshee shriek that marked every single one of them. A life lost in the bloodiest ways, etched into his memory like a memorial to them all.
This time it was from fear, from self defence. Pouring out of salt tanged lips even as the word justice was tossed at him with such venom and the gun coughed in the guy’s hand. Not a bark, not ear shattering the way it was on TV but enough at a squelched frequency to have Theo clutching at his own ears as he dropped like a stone to his own knees again. Ice and snow biting through denim as that wall of sound flew at the man who was obviously either a hunter or a vigilante, fire punching a line through the meat of his shoulder as he hit. In the shattering sound of it all, in the pain and the cold and the desperation, he saw her. Freyja. His love. His heartbeat around her throat flattening with a deafening beep as he scrambled to get away.
Blood in the snow now, a steaming red line in imitation of that stopped heartbeat as he tried to get back to her.
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CHRISTIAN CALLAWAY
Hunter
Posts: 90
Played by:
Julia
“There's nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Last seen Mar 18, 2024 17:56:07 GMT
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Post by CHRISTIAN CALLAWAY on Feb 11, 2021 4:49:48 GMT
━ let death fear you ━ Christian wasn’t bending. He didn’t feel remorse while the banshee begged for his life, he continued to think of Jake, and of how his screams had most likely been drowned out by the banshee’s awful wail. One he’d never heard before, and wasn’t prepared for.
“She didn’t tell me anything. I know what happened. You are just as much at fault as she is.” Fingers tightened around the pistol, ready to unload on this man. The one who obviously had no heart, who laughed at what he’d done; who couldn’t even be a simple creature like he was meant to. From all the folklore that Christian made himself familiar with, banshees were never supposed to be this way. They were supernatural alarm bells, and yet this one had taken it upon himself to hurt others. To be the reason a son and a brother did not return home.
Filth.
“I don’t want to hear your apologies now. He never had to die, that was your fault.” Fault. He repeated it, made sure the banshee had heard it. Fault. This was Theo’s━he hadn’t done anything to stop it. He’d let it unfold before him, a change within his grasp, and then he’d let it go━slip through his fingers as if that life meant nothing. For a man who screamed each time a soul passed on, Christian thought he should’ve known what each meant; that they were all important.
Justice.
The words were uttered, but the wail came, and Christian was more surprised by it than he ever thought he could be. The shriek shot straight through him, raising every hair on his arms and the back of his neck, causing his body to shudder and shake while it rocked him. He’d pulled the trigger then, more fear in the action than he would’ve liked. The shaking started next, and Christian thought of Sofia. This was for her, for their baby, if he didn’t destroy himself in the process. Seeing a man break down in front of him was pulling apart each fibre of his being, making Christian rethink each of his actions. This could’ve been him.
But it wasn’t. He wasn’t a monster. This was right. Justice. The echo of the word laid heavy on his tongue, in his heart, puffing it up and reminding him of his good deeds. This was a good deed, trembling limbs be damned.
It felt like his boots had been cemented in the snow, but they’d eventually moved when he needed them to. Taking two quick steps away, he stumbled and fell backwards, landing on one elbow, gun quickly aimed at the banshee again. Christian saw the shadows form the scene before his eyes. Blood oozed from the wound and coated the snow, but he was still worried about the man lunging at him━did they get power from the scream? Was he going to take advantage of this position and come for Christian? This had to be finished. He’d missed.
The hunter passed his gun to the other hand and drew the blade from where it was tucked at his side, not waiting to be overpowered. He threw himself at Theo, rushed and unsteady, clambering onto the man in an attempt to pin him to the ground. The gunshot had been loud enough, but that scream would surely attract unwanted attention. Christian couldn’t have that. He needed this over and done with as quickly as possible. The clock was ticking, adrenaline running dry, his fingers feeling like ice curled around the blade, ready to help reset the balance━an offer of peace to the lives this banshee had helped take; for Jake Wright, the final soul Theodore Damasca would be responsible for snuffing out.
THEO DAMASCA | no notes.
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THEO DAMASCA
Banshee
Posts: 169
Status:
Married
Partner:
Freyja Damasca
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen May 4, 2024 19:00:27 GMT
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Post by THEO DAMASCA on Feb 11, 2021 21:48:29 GMT
She’d told him the guy had been persistent, a more than willing participant … until he’d pushed too far, probably in some kind of over-exuberance brought on by those abilities that had smothered him like a cloying blanket, choking, alluring, held off just far enough because he’d been clinging on to the mental image of Freyja. Fighting to get back to her, more concerned with getting out of there alive than stopping her from taking the body with her. Revolted, nauseated, desperate. Just wanting to get away and get back to where he could haven’t to see those images fresh behind his eyelids.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of the man since but each time he had done he’d held onto that belief that in some way that guy had deserved what had happened to him. Theo’s throat burned all the hotter as he realised that he’d fooled himself into the belief. Desperate to hold his own guilt at bay but this guy had cut the cord that had been holding it above his head and let it fall like an anvil to crush him.
If the pistol hadn’t been on him, a pin holding a butterfly in place, he’d have been down on his knees retching, bringing all of that guilt and revulsion back up in a hot rush. Eyes brimming with hot tears and stormy with that grief met those boring into him. Could he deny it with the tick back and forth of his chin. No. That anvil had crushed the part of him that might have argued. ”I tried,” Theo breathed, hearing the weak lie to his own words.
His fault.
How many others had he failed like Jake?
None. It wasn’t his job, he wasn’t brought there and it was a dragging through the world, like a choke chain around his neck. He couldn’t break away from it, couldn’t tear the voices from his ears. He was a dog doing everything his master demanded, without an ounce of freedom. ”No,” he growled, the word raw and bloody in his throat. ”She killed him. I marked his death, it was all I could do. I couldn’t stop her, you couldn’t have stopped her…” The blind faith this man had in his guilt, no matter how misguided, was so strong that he knew pleading wouldn’t shake it. The siren wasn’t here, the boy was gone, there was nobody here to plead his case.
It was down to him and that thing inside of him that drowned him in the agony of others. His voice the only way out and back to Freyja. Tearing out of him to knock the hunter back, cut off as the bullet had hit. The fire inside of him narrowed down to that hole in his shoulder. A burning coal beneath his skin, in his lungs as he scrambled away on hands and knees in the snow.
Getting away. If he could get up, get back to the parking lot, scream again and bring them all running. Maybe. All those lessons Frank had taken him through fled, froze in the cold, whoofed out of him in an explosive breath as the hunter thudded down on him. Theo hit the ground hard, a roar going up through him as agony lanced through the bullet wound. He clawed at the ground, threw an elbow back at the guy’s head as he rolled. Trying to crush him, trying to bring a leg up and kick him away, just trying to get enough space to run. Theo didn’t know. He got his arm up, tried for the guy’s throat to hold him off as the moonlight that streaked through the trees glittered on the blade in his hand. ”Freyja.” Her name rolled out of him like a prayer as he saw the weapon slice down towards him. Not justice. Damnation. The death of all the hope and love he’d had with the most incredible one he’d ever met. The one who had his heart in this world and every one beyond.
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CHRISTIAN CALLAWAY
Hunter
Posts: 90
Played by:
Julia
“There's nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Last seen Mar 18, 2024 17:56:07 GMT
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Post by CHRISTIAN CALLAWAY on Feb 13, 2021 3:13:01 GMT
━ let death fear you ━ Christian had thought of everything━or so he hoped. He didn’t want to put the gun in his non-dominant hand, but he didn’t have time to safely holster into his jacket again, and he wouldn’t leave it on the ground for the banshee to grab. That was the last thing he needed. What he needed was to get back home, slip into a shower to wash away all the evidence of that night, and curl up in bed with his wife. He knew what he was doing was right, but ending a life━supernatural or not━always left him shaken. He’d be trembling for weeks, just like with the witch. Emelia.
He wasn’t like them━he couldn’t kill without permanently damaging his conscience.
But it was what he had to do. This was Christian’s job now━he’d started this for a reason. The reason that was probably getting ready to curl up in bed and watch a show until he got home from his “meeting”. He hated lying to her, but it was necessary.
Once the hunter was on the banshee, they were a tangled mess of limbs, grunting as they both attempted to gain the upper hand. Christian hadn’t expected this to be easy━everybody would fight for their lives in the end━but it had been smooth sailing until this point. An elbow jabbed backwards and rocked Christian’s jaw, making him dizzy for a second as Theo rolled over. He tried still, no thought process to his movements, just wild desperation. He tossed his gun to the side to give himself a free hand, latching onto the wrist that was choking him. Somehow, he’d shifted his weight on top of the professor again.
It happened quickly. A blur, like how vampires moved. Hazy. Struggling to breathe, trying to rip away the hand curled around his throat. The knife. His way out. He drove it deep into Theo’s side, stabbing him once more in quick succession. It was out of fear, defence, and it worked━the banshee’s hold loosened, and Christian lifted the blade, sending it into Theo’s chest next. The muscles in his upper arm, where Theo had grabbed him moments before, being led into the woods━into this━quivered, protesting against the strain and all the strength it took to kill a man this way.
‘Freyja.’
The blonde. A woman who’d gone to this very college, where she’d met Theo━Christian had assumed. The one who he kept photos of in his office, who was constantly wandering in and out of his apartment. She lived in a building near the high school, a place much too close for comfort. Would she be waiting for him━just as Sofia was? A man who Christian had prevented from coming home, whom he’d just killed in the snow. It could’ve just as easily been the other way around, and while he didn’t know Freyja, he knew how Sofia would feel. How her heart would break when she’d become a widow so young; before they could even build a family together. Christian had met her while she’d been a student, too, and though their stories differed in some ways, it was all the same in the end.
They were the same. Theo had a woman he loved, whom he wanted to get back to━something Christian couldn’t convince himself was just an act any longer. Christian would’ve never murdered anybody who didn’t deserve it, but he was still a murderer. He’d still killed when he thought it was right.
Christian cried out, jabbing the knife into Theo’s chest a few more times, fear and desperation driving his actions again. He was losing control.
A shaky breath huffed out of him as he fell back, landing in the snow on his backside, cold wetness immediately seeming through the fabric. He’d killed... again. Another life gone; another family broken because of him, supernatural or not. He’d done this. Theodore Damasca’s blood was on his hands━splattered on his sweater and jeans, covering him completely.
He sat up quickly, snapping into action after a moment to sit with what he’d done. The gun was snatched and holstered inside his jacket again, blade stuffed back into its concealed spot. Christian pushed himself to his feet, glancing at the body again before he rushed away. To his home, to his bed, to his wife━a privilege he had over Theo that night, one he would cherish forever.
THEO DAMASCA |
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FRANK DAMASCA
Banshee
Posts: 121
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Apr 9, 2024 17:20:15 GMT
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Post by FRANK DAMASCA on Feb 13, 2021 20:53:21 GMT
It had hit that part of the term again. Post-Christmas tests had been rolled out, end of semester assignments handed in. Practically every professor at the college was neck deep in marking. Gatherings were going on all over campus, mostly unknown to students. The poor bastards who had to hand out the grades pulling together in packs to get it done, to work through the second marking that would make sure that every assignment and test that was handed back had been graded fairly.
Frank stared at the pile of tests on the desk in front of him. Weariness had settled heavily into his shoulders an hour ago, slowly making them slump before the continual tick-tick-tick of the clock on the wall reminded him of where he wasn’t right now and ratcheted them back up tightly again. Stifling a yawn, he eased back in his chair. The pen clattered from his fingers as he swallowed the tiredness back. By now Theo should’ve been neck deep in his departmental meeting. A torture he’d escaped at least, although he had some sympathy for his brother over it. Once this pile was done he could call it a night – only an hour later than he should’ve done. He could toss the pen down on the desk, stuff the tests in his bag and head home.
Cold beers, a couple of steaks tossed on the grill depending on who was hanging around the house, the rest of the night spent putting all of this out of his mind until the morning. Later he’d message Theo, crow about his freedom. He snorted through his nose, stretched his legs out under the desk as he let his head back for just a moment. Hazel eyes slipped shut, the tick-tick-tick of the clock almost white noise now that he could see the freedom that lay out of the other side of a dozen different versions of the reasoning for the start of the Six Day War. Theo would kill him for it, tossing back the fact that he’d had to go a whole evening without being wrapped up in the girlfriend.
Freyja. A white elephant in his brother’s life given that he hadn’t met her yet. She was a presence on Theo’s phone, photos shoved in his face to be met by threats to show what he’d been up to that weekend if his brother really wanted to play that game, a whisper of a voice on the other end of the phone calls he got to half hear. The woman Theo was obviously head over heels in love with.
He couldn’t … not just because he’d never been into women … but the idea of being that enmeshed in somebody’s life? Frank swallowed, a breath emerging in a low sound that seemed distant to his own ears, he couldn’t imagine…
Had never felt, had he?
Sound drifted. Voices humming busily in the background as he seemed to drift off. A nap wouldn’t hurt right? Ten minutes. The voices continued to buzz, like a TV in another room or being in the middle of a train station. Noise in the midst of a silence. Buzzing, right on the edge of his awareness.
A shudder rolled through him, shaking him half out of it. The cold that bit at his skin had him curling his fingers into his palms as he sucked in a breath and opened his eyes. Snow crunched beneath his boots, his feet dragging him inexplicably into the thick stand of trees. Frank glanced around himself, his heart jamming hard into his throat. Dreaming … he had to be. It wasn’t the first time but usually it was the throat burning heat of the desert, the earth seeming to rattle beneath him as they’d driven over roads barely worthy of the title.
This was blinding in a different way, everything cast in stark black and white as he stumbled forward, unsure where he was. The voices that had been a quite mumble in his head before were sharper now, the static hissing, one of the shrieking, leaving him clutching for his ears and almost going down on one knee, right into the streak of red that ran across his path. Frank’s chest heaved, his eyes burning with the cold, with that feeling of pressure that started to come down on him as he turned to follow its line. A crumpled shape in the snow, blood like a set of scarlet wings around it.
Stumbling forward, he dropped next to it, a sob ripping at his throat as he tried to turn them over. He expected it to be one of his team staring back up at him, maybe Kit, maybe Jake. Maybe … oh God. The body rolled, boneless and already turning cold, the head lolled and it wasn’t one of his team staring at him it was his own face.
Let him wake up, oh please God, let him wake up. Frank slammed his eyes shut, the sob catching at him again as he prayed that this was a dream. It was still his … no God, no, please. Not his face starting up at him. Theo’s ID was still around his neck, his face splashed with blood on there and over that skin so pale above the dark scruff of beard. Pounding his hands against his brother’s chest Frank tried to will the blood back into him, the life into him. ”Theo, Theo, please!” The desperation burned, caught. Throwing his head back on a sob, Frank felt the scream tear out of him. Powerful, splitting the air, rousing the whole campus to the fact that his twin was dead.
The other part of himself was gone.
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