psychoshenanigans | Goodnight // AU

And Coil only inspects the scene long enough to judge how hard it will be to get Zhas' attention, and how much damage he might be doing if he interrupts.

He quickly decides that the risk is worth it, and that he doesn't have time to flag Zhas down silently. He's in a rush. Urgency is in every bit of his body language as he sweeps into the room, knocking the back of his knuckles on a filing cabinet with good resonance as he goes.

As soon as Zhas' eyes are in his direction, he hastily--and ambiguously--forms the sign for 'blood.'

He's got the blade away from the subject when he looks up. He doesn't get much further.

Hell, he barely moves. What about blood? Is he bleeding? Is there blood somewhere? He stares in his dead-eyed way at Coil, and doesn't plan to move until he gets some kind of a clarifying statement.

Coil is in a state of urgent impatience that he very rarely ever approaches. As he gets closer, he repeats the sign--and then jabs a finger to point at Zhas, followed by the clipped gesture of 'now.'

Come on, come on, he doesn't have much time.

Zhas at least has the sense to put his scalpel down.

But his next gesture is to open ups palms up to the air like, what? What does Coil expect him to do, here? What is he on about?

He's within arm's reach now, and looks like he's half a minute from just grabbing Zhas and dragging him somewhere. His hands hover between signs like he's fighting with the urge of it. At this proximity, Zhas can see the slick of stressed sweat he's got going on his face and in his hair.

'Blood. You. Now.'

The motions are sharp and frustrated, and he flaps his hands. Urging, beckoning.

'Hurry!'

He glances over at the various tools and medical devices on his table. There are syringes there, and he knows it. But despite Coil's obvious anxiety, he still can't bring himself to go jabbing something into his arm just yet. Blood's kind of important.

"Why."

Since he's in such a hurry.

'Important,' he signs with as much emphasis as he possibly can.

And then he half makes a move for one of the syringes himself, as soon as he spots it--but changes it to a hurried gesture indicating Zhas to do it, at the last minute.

'Hurry. Hurry!'

If he'd had a voice to use, it would probably be getting noisy in here. And if Zhas hesitates any longer, Coil will aimlessly grab at his arm, begging him to listen.

It's for the best. Zhas would probably punch him if he tried suddenly stabbing something into his arm. When his arm is grabbed, he finally gets the point, yanking his arm back and quickly pulling the sleeve up to somewhere manageable.

He takes the syringe, finds a spot, and goes for it. He does a pretty good job of not fucking it up, assuming Coil isn't going to make a grab for it or try to get him to go faster.

He doesn't make a grab for it, but he does make flapping motions that insinuate that Zhas should somehow make blood pour out of his body faster. He's having trouble even standing still kind of bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet.

And as soon as that syringe is about full? He frowns at the amount and grabs a second one, holding it out insistently.

He feels a little woozy after the first one. Zhas is a tough guy, but blood loss is blood loss, and he's trying to remind his animal instinct that he's not in any danger.

So when Coil demands he fill up another one, he growls and hesitates to take it. What does he need all this for? Can't he just take some from storage, or something?

But he swaps them out, takes a deep breath, concentrates on another one. This had better be good.

Calling what Coil's doing 'waiting' is too kind of a word. He's only standing there doing nothing because he has absolutely no other choice. He's poised on every nerve; Zhas can practically hear a clock ticking away in Coil's head. Though, by the way he's acting, a silent alarm has already gone off, telling him that he's more than out of time.

If it had been anyone other than Zhas, he'd just snatch the syringe out of his arm without waiting for it to be handed over.

Instead, he busies himself with brushing his hair out of his eyes with the back of his wrist--in that way you do when you don't want to get whatever's on your hands on the rest of you.

Give him a little more time, and he'll hand over a second one.

Coil better not hand him a third one. If he didn't already fee--oh okay he's going to lean over on the table now.

As soon as needle has cleared flesh, the second one gets snatched up, and both are held close as Coil turns on his heel. He doesn't wait to see if Zhas is alright; he doesn't wait for questions or orders or anything else.

Once the blood is his, he's darting out the door and down the hall. Not a moment to waste. He's gone in a second.

Hey-- He just-- Ugh, Zhas stands there, staring at the doorway where Coil is very distinctly not standing, trying to fight off a rising nausea.

... The vampire next to him makes some kind of a groaning noise, and he just shoves the splash guard up over his face. He'll deal with him later, eventually.

For now, he wobbles to the door. And out into the hallway. And slowly makes his way down towards Coil's room, because he would like to know what Coil is using his precious blood for.

By the time Zhas gets down to Coil's room, the little necromancer has had some time to get back to work. His room is shut up tight and locked, and he's not planning on answering it if someone comes knocking.

Ugh, again. He hisses under his breath and stares at the lock, as if glaring at it might scare it off it's latch. When that fails to work, he reaches down and pops the thing off its latch anyway.

That gets thrown somewhere down the hall. He pulls the door open, leaning against the doorframe as soon as he's got the room.

The last time he'd visited Coil's room, it hadn't looked like this. The whole space has been more or less transformed, giving the impression that Zhas has somehow opened a door into the wrong place entirely. The normally cold, grey, bookish and utilitarian space has turn a wet shade of red.

There's blood everywhere. That's the first definite thing. An elaborate circle covers the floor in tarry crimson, it's all over Coil's hands and painted in drips over the vampire frozen kneeling in the center. Even the ambient light seems to radiate the color, despite the distinctly white flames of the candles. It's in the air. It sticks to Zhas' skin as he breaks in.

And if Coil notices, he doesn't show it. He is focused on his work. The vampire is on his knees, looking dazed and only half-aware but not moving an inch, with the little necromancer standing behind. A wide band of scalp has been shaved clean across the back of the vampire's head, and something appears to have been carved all the way across the skin there. And it is across this wounds that Coil is drawing a blood-soaked paintbrush. Making sure to get it in every little crevice.

... Okay.

To his credit, Zhas doesn't really do or say anything. No sense in interrupting a horrible necromantic ritual. It already feels like it's eating at his skin, he doesn't want to trundle in and make things worse.

All the same, he's pretty sure that he's going to murder that thing as soon as Coil is done with it.

There isn't much left in the little fingerbowl when he's done with the bloody scrawl across the back of the vampire's head, but he's not done with it yet. Stepping around to the front of his subject, he sets the bowl on a nearby stand and wets both thumbs.

Those thumbs then get jabbed into the vampire's eyes.

It breaks the creature out of some of its daze, crying out in startled pain while Coil grips it there--thumbs dug in, with his other fingers wrapping tight around the sides of its face. It gets to stay there and squirm until Coil is done with it, while the young necromancer matches its grimace. Focused and aggressive, he holds his subject still while he silently mouths the words.

And whatever he's saying, it's working. The air shudders with it, heat drains from the air, and everything human about Zhas really doesn't want to be there anymore.

That's about when Zhas stops thinking about how he's going to kill that monster to actively trying to convince himself to stay put and not kill the horrid abomination immediately.

He only looks away for a second, to chase something at the edge of his vision--but it's just a firefly, summoned from blood loss, not the evil rituals in front of him.

He hopes, somewhere at the back of his mind, that Saoirse doesn't notice.

Luckily, the ritual is almost over. Coil isn't making a sound, but something is hissing. Unless it's in Zhas' head. It almost seems as though the magic is burning into the vampire's eyes, sizzling away wet tissue, but the creature blinks just fine when Coil finally lets him go. It's obviously in pain, writhing around on its knees but unable to go anywhere against the binding magic, but there aren't smoldering holes in its skull.

When Coil turns toward the bowl again, his shoulders are set at uncomfortable angles and he seems short of breath. Stoic during battle and training and pain, but this has him visibly strained.

He's still rushing, but he takes enough careful time to paint both palms with the last little bit of blood in the bowl. With a tiny brush, matching red symbols are drawn out--there's hardly enough blood to form clear lines, but its apparently enough. The shapes are present enough to matter.

And this is the final step. Zhas can feel it. As Coil crosses the couple of steps back to his subject, everything that he has so painstakingly constructed in the room gears up as a great unholy machine. He mouths through the beginning of the final mantra, and the engine begins to roll.

The vampire can sense it too. It throws into a fit, fighting against whatever is keeping it rooted to the spot. A panicking, cornered animal. And it's only now, as Coil is filled up with the energy in the room, that he finally finds a level of calm again.

He's got it now. For a few moments, he is the conduit that he's supposed to be. The practice has been paying off.

Stepping up to the vampire without hesitation, he grabs its face--searing it, sealing the spell.

And after several final throes, it's suddenly done. The energy breaks, the vampire lolls with vacant eyes, and Coil slumps.

He continues to stay on his feet, leaning heavily in the doorway, staring at the scene and waiting for the feeling of dark magic to finally wane out. He knows what it is, instinctively, but that doesn't make him feel better about it. Some part of him is still waiting for, you know, an explanation.

He will, out of impatience, knock on the doorframe.

Hi. Hello. What's going on.

It takes him a minute. He staggers back like he's lost feeling in his legs, and droops until his hands prop heavily on his knees. There's a minute there where he needs to do nothing but breathe and collect himself again. He needs to come back from wherever he'd gone.

And then, when he finally looks up toward the door--exhausted and grime-covered and stinking of unholy magic--he looks so subtly proud of himself. Whatever he's done, he's pretty sure that it worked, and he can't wait to show it to Zhas. Weakly, he waves him over.

Zhas breathes in, lets out a big sigh. He's not happy with the idea of walking over there, getting close to that... thing. He's still ready to kill it. He still half-expects it to lunge up and attack or something.

But he does wobble forward, carefully swaying over the blood marks and around the candles and eventually standing very purposefully next to Coil with a less-than-pleased look on his face.

"This better be good."

Coil is ready and eager to show off his work. He lifts his hand to knock the vampire's bloodstained chin up, and it stirs. A little more life lights in its eyes as it wakes, staring at the two of them... but it's lacking all trace of fear, and likely whatever shreds of personality it'd had before.

It's awake, alert, but a step or two farther along the road of undead erosion--only, instead of leaning more toward animalistic savagery, it's sunk into a quieter loss of will.

It stares at Zhas with unblinking, blood-rimmed eyes.

Expectantly, Coil points to Zhas, signs 'talk,' and points at his creation.

He doesn't like it. This thing is unsettling. His only instinct is to destroy it.

But what Coil says is... intriguing. Sickening by implication, but... He tries to shove his exhaustion to the side, to somewhere else. He, momentarily, tries to forgive Coil of taking his blood and using it for some horrible creation.

He looks at the creature. He thinks for a moment, and then orders.

"Stand up."

The creature struggles for a moment and gives a soft groan of frustration, until Coil draws a big line through the sigil on the floor with a very particular piece of chalk.

And once it's free, the vampire shoves itself up to its feet just as instructed, and waits. Simply standing as still and alert as any of the most obedient of his army. By all appearances--if you ignore the unholy scrawl and smear of blood over most of its body--it's so far acting as if it's choosing to obey instead of being obligated.

Coil gives a little motion of his hand, either prompting Zhas to give more instructions, or tell him what he thinks.

And he is thinking. He's thinking very hard.

Zhas isn't stupid; his eternal hatred aside, he can understand the use that something like this might have. In the spirit of the moment, he leans down, produces a knife from his boot, and flips it to hold it out towards the monster--grip-first.

"Cut off a finger."

If Coil really wants to impress him so badly.

It turns out that necromancy is different from simple mind-bending magics, and that commandeering something undead and already complex is different than trying to reanimate something from scratch and into something high-functioning.

Apparently, this is nothing like the zombie chicken.

So, as Coil gasps in audible shock and dismay, the vampire snatches the blade out of Zhas' hand and immediately swoops forward to complete its orders.

Coil is lucky that Zhas thought this one through.

It's the kind of thing that Zhas only sometimes pulls on him at practice. He strikes suddenly, almost inhumanly fast. His hands fly out of the way, he turns on his heel, he pushes on the vampire's back and sends him stumbling forward.

Barked immediately, "Sit!"

Blood starts to well up out of a slash on the back of his hand. He holds his fingers, more out of a fear of getting more blood all over the unholy necromantic symbols that surround them.

The vampire responds immediately, ignoring any sense of reason or urgency or scent of blood in the air. It simply stops everything and sits exactly where it happens to be when it hears the order.

And breath wheezes hard out of Coil--again, quite audible. He jitters where he stands, still riding high on the sudden rush of adrenaline. It takes him several whole seconds to realize exactly what just happened, and the fact that it's already over.

The look is clear on his face, why would you do that??

When he notices that Zhas is bleeding, he goes to reach for a nearby stack of clean linen rags, but stops short of touching them. Whatever all he has on his hands, he apparently doesn't want to risk Zhas getting it in that open wound.

"That's good," he says, unable to sign. He likes the idea of something that will bend completely and utterly to his will. He's tested very important factors, like how clear he needs to be, how fast it moves, and whether or not its primal instincts would override whatever Coil has done to it.

Despite his blood loss, it's Zhas' turn to look... well, happy is never the right word, but he's not frowning.

A considerable amount of wind has drained from Coil's sails. He is indescribably exhausted, the wake of the shock has left him rattled, and his triumph has kind of been cut short with a jolt.

He really wants a shower.

And this all puts a delay on him really hearing what Zhas comments with. At first, it just hits him as a general statement of acknowledgement, while he's busy trying to think through the next steps of 'now what'... but then, after a second run-through in his brain, it sticks.

It's good?

Belatedly blinking, he glances up--cautiously, questioning.

He nods. Yes, he thinks this is good work.

Only after another moment of contemplation does he really bother to look down at his hand and see that it's bleeding more than he'd initially imagined. He should really probably wrap his hand. And now that the adrenaline is draining away, he remembers that he feels sick and... kind of dizzy.

"More warning next time," he dryly notes, starting to pick his way back towards the door. And hopefully a sink.

Goodnight // AU

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