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"Clarence." He repeated. Absentmindedly, wistfully into the air. “Nice to meet ya.” His words starkly friendly while his eyes were watching Clarence’s hand wrap back around the reins. Their internal strings effortlessly showing themselves to him. Popping up when joints were bent, the thinned skin making their grand reveal intoxicating. He watched the man’s neck, never moving from his curled pose his eyes did all the work. This way and that. When the cattle subsided he turned them onto the flora of the land. They certainly were drinking well this cold dark night. Though he knew even this amount of rain wouldn’t last forever and it would be a matter of time where the inconvenience of the storm would be longed for once again. He too would long for it. But not the water.

A long ride made miserable. Being mounted wasn’t nearly as much fun as it looked. Dieter jostled in odd ways and couldn’t rightly settle into the horse’s rhythm, even though Tice made it look casual. It seemed even if a horse would tolerate him it still wouldn’t be worth it. The time going no faster for him as he made no attempt at conversation to ease the time’s passage. Then he saw it as the horse’s gait gained on it. Buildings. Geometric shapes in the distance that were unmistakable. Tiny faint lights Dieter could guess were in the windows. The rain and distance obscuring what his vision could normally see. He sent his eyes around those wooden shelters wondering about how many people lived in town. His eyes, only for the time being, bigger than his stomach. Starvation would do that to one. Making its victim all consumed with their lack of consumption. When their next ingestion would be, and in Dieter’s case, whom. Yet as he was at its whims, he couldn’t understand it in the least. This inseparable thirst. At least when men were thirst they could quench it for a few hours. Whatever afflicted Dieter wasn’t as easily dealt with. It constantly was at his thoughts, yelling at him, whether he had just drank or not. It had plagued him since taking back his mortal form, or rather it being given back.

Dieter slid off the horse, being sure to land as far as he could from it. Clumsy, again, he wondered if this form was ever his to begin with. Yet the poor coordination slept well with his unassuming identity. More mud onto his bare legs. As if it could dirty him anymore. But the ability to get off the rain slicked ground and into shelter was well welcomed. Soaked wooden boards elevating him from below. Dieter hesitated at the threshold. A moment no longer. Strange regulations ruled him and Dieter was at their unperceived mercy. Had what the man said counted as a proper invitation? The rules were vague and as hard to pin down as air itself. None of the them making any sense. How he sizzled in the sun, or threw back up anything other than blood. He only could just test it. To try and minimize what consequences laid there. Hesitantly dipping his toes over the invisible line of the doorway, as a ballet dance would, finding no resistance.

He stepped through. Hoping in that Clarence was too busy to notice his strange ritual. Bringing the last of the rain’s stragglers inside with him as they fell off the coat, a hall of darkened wood around where he stood. He wished to shed the coat, and shuck the last of the water for good. But kept it on at least as long it took before the sheriff wanted it back or he somehow got at least a pair of pants. Dieter kept it clutched closed and took in the new surroundings. Iron bars he could see with the help of moonlight bleeding in after them. He ran a finger along their stuttering pattern, the tip of his finger cresting the circumference then falling sharply in the gap to go back up again over each bar. Faint bumpy textures of rust giving each their own individually. He was in a jailhouse. “I uh, hope you don’t plan on putting me in here, Sheriff.” He spoke looking at the cot inside. How the window, barred as well, send sun directly into him. Delivered hesitantly, as even outside of his little alter ego, he wouldn’t enjoy being stuck in here. Never mind his nagging voice piping up with its own grievances. “I’ve never been in one.”

Dieter watched them. Around them. Their horses and how the rain poured off them in continuous sputters. Icicles still in movement, smooth and bulbous the riveted off the two. Till the Sheriff took his leave. The horse shicking off more in it's wake, not that it mattered. He could see it visibly release its tension the further it got from him. The man was not as easy to read. Those nerves stayed within their little circle though, now given to Dieter at the mention of a farmer who's animals he had just slaughtered.

A potential witness. The rain and thunder could only do so much. He wondered if that was the one he saw in the field. Who stood before him as Dieter, behind his black eyes, watched the human's veins and vessels constrict in fear within his limbs. Trying to make sense of the sight in his chiropterologic mind. If he wasn't, who was he? Who did he tell? Only these two? Was he in the presence of his hunters? He had to be. A horse stepped closer, a hand beckoning him from his thoughts. Which gave him the perfect feigned lost lamb look. One he didn't try to hide looking up at the other, Tice.

Tice didn't like him, Tice had the constitution of his horse. Even as Dieter made himself meek for the time being. Still he invited him onboard. The other man's wishes taking priority over his personal opinions Dieter supposed. But he took it, an unsure look on his face as he hoped his grip would stay in the rain. Becoming one with his new fangled role. Re-marrying the two hems of the jacket over himself once properly sat. He pushed his hands cross themselves, one inside the interior of the fabric the other buried between elbow and armpit. He looked down from the new height.

Back to the cattle mounds scattering where the rain would let him see, then over to wherever the Sheriff was last seen going. The rain concealing him as well. It was as if he'd never been on horseback before. Which was a quarter truth. No horse would let him on, not for very long, those stagecoach steeds were the closest he got to proper riding. Yet even they detested him and tried to kick him from the driver's perch any chance they could. Those too becoming food after their purpose was served.

"How far is town? Tice? Is it?" Asking in earnest, as the longer he was kept on the horse the easier it was for suspicion to mount. Some may have started. He was figuring his story out already. Something easy, dumb, and he needed to appear too drunk or simple to think of anything more as he explained it. Whenever that was going to come. For now he just braced himself against the winds, pulling his shoulders to his ears.

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The answer he got struck him. A little dismissive, but that was only a side affect of the realization that swept him. Remembering the drinks were alcoholic. Obviously. Though a century of not being able to eat even warm bread let alone taste its fermented counterpart would allow one to forget about their existence at all. Furthermore forgetting how strong those wine mugs were. Humans loved to make celebrations and up the alcohol by volume content, an adulatory mistake, disgusting overestimation of his own ability. To think it was his own doing. His persuasive skills finally blooming on an unsuspecting night to full power.

He lashed himself silently for assuming such. Even as the thought of it all still working in his favor, he hated that he touted himself so reflexively. But that was a quiet struggle he gave no inference punishment was taking place behind closed door deep in his mind. He could still work with this. Drunks were fun to be around, once he found a way to be around them. Amusing subjects in which he had more time to endure them to himself. Sober victims are flighty and skittish, if he didn’t take them by force soon enough they were always liable to slip away, or draw attention to them both. Drunks, as his experience serves, would stand before him scrutinizing his teeth and just sniff, wipe it away with the back of a hand clamped around a bottle then point down the street to the dentist.

Assuming they lived, anomalous in its own right, he would only be remembered in their nightmares. The exact trouble he churned up. Terrorizing people, how Dieter loved to desolate the light and hope out of eyes before his teeth took the rest. All the ghosts of those pilots, walkers on the street, those in the wrong place at the wrong time. They could attest for the trouble.

”Trouble,” He repeated. A soft contemplative hum. “How keen.” Dieter drawled before turning back. Looking over the Russian again as if with new eyes. The other’s sharpened gaze not lost on him. He continued walking, giving every indication he'd like Voronov to keep with him. The stalls with their twinkling lights, shop keepers drowned in patrons to take their wares off their hands. They all passed into relative thinning. Churning into themselves the lights seemingly drawing them back. "Well, if it ever strikes you. I'll buy you a third cup.” Talking along his shoulder as mischief crept into his smile. "Provided you are correct of course." Giving the killer caveat.

With a cocking of his head in a sly inference that Voronov might’ve asked despite knowing why already, “I would not have assumed ill intent if you did, curiosity demands sacrifice…something about a cat.” As quick as his moods changed, Dieter was not utterly unaware of his behavior. Quite to the contrary, he was hyper focused on it. Which is why his hands stay clasped within themselves, only his eyes get free rein of the world for they can only see and not do. Still his fancies on occasion grabbed him, and after a century of life one learns those little outbursts are not the be all end all as his parents instilled in him. Also, partially why he had assumed pain might be involved, his forwardness upon meeting, forcefulness earlier. Any sane man with a pension to hold a grudge would’ve seen it as a golden opportunity to exact something of revenge upon him. As disadvantaged as that would be for either of them, it was still an option.

Warmly he asked, “Do you have to be anywhere? I wouldn’t mind someone to walk with tonight.” His curiosity still brimming, yet sated at the same time, he couldn’t pull himself to leave this man yet. There were many more questions he’d love to ask, and be asked. But just as the other had been longing for the wine, Dieter longed for his own warm drink. Options popping up here and there out the edges of his senses during their entire talk. He started off on a back foot, deeper into the thick of the crowd, merely looking as if he may of wanted to reach the other side. The Swede’s intentional eyes ever long holding Voronov’s face within them till he too followed. It was ever so graceful, as graceful as it was compelling, trailing his words behind him as a subtle string. “In truth most of my memories are, yellow with age.” As that is how they are in my mind now. “That one—“ Pausing, as if composing how he wanted to word it. “It is important, but not for what it is.” Diverting into next question. “Some men were, some men weren’t. Most didn’t survive the war either way. We were a secret.”

In a casual way Dieter let his attention wander as he spoke. As though the words weren’t all too important to him. He was reconciling how, and how much he was willing to say rapidly before speaking. Occasionally turning back to Voronov to instill he was full putting genuine effort into keeping their interaction going. Keeping aware of him and while actively, hunting in a way, he wanted to give the man his due. Looking into stalls and through the wares hanging from the overhangs and racks within the warm interiors of the sell’s little worlds. Flitting glimpses of rushing red in compact lines holding decorated heart shaped cookies and concise crisp showings of more substantial veins underneath scarves and collars scattered about.

Then he came to a halt. Slowly but still just as suddenly as if a thought had just occurred to him. Dieter gave his eyes back over to the other, his body following their orientation, their lead. “Humor me one more time,” his direct manner of asking blunted, or at least he assumed that much. “What do you think, like me, entails?” His voice still kindly, but an undercurrent of clear cut curiosity slipping through. Still colored in friendly bold and highlighted in the diplomatic conduct that continued from being impressed upon his memory’s recollection through the eye of another.

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he's so cute. i just want to bite him. and bite him. bite him again. bite him. bite him. bite him. let me sink my teeth on him.

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[on the verge of defeat and delirious with lust] i could be a wound in your heart that will never heal

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//Dieter hums this ever now and then. It’s not a normal occurrence or habit for him to hum at all. He really only does it alone and in a particularly good mood.

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Jack O'Connell as Remmick

SINNERS (2025) dir. Ryan Coogler

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Dieter watched them. Around them. Their horses and how the rain poured off them in continuous sputters. Icicles still in movement, smooth and bulbous the riveted off the two. Till the Sheriff took his leave. The horse shicking off more in it's wake, not that it mattered. He could see it visibly release its tension the further it got from him. The man was not as easy to read. Those nerves stayed within their little circle though, now given to Dieter at the mention of a farmer who's animals he had just slaughtered.

A potential witness. The rain and thunder could only do so much. He wondered if that was the one he saw in the field. Who stood before him as Dieter, behind his black eyes, watched the human's veins and vessels constrict in fear within his limbs. Trying to make sense of the sight in his chiropterologic mind. If he wasn't, who was he? Who did he tell? Only these two? Was he in the presence of his hunters? He had to be. A horse stepped closer, a hand beckoning him from his thoughts. Which gave him the perfect feigned lost lamb look. One he didn't try to hide looking up at the other, Tice.

Tice didn't like him, Tice had the constitution of his horse. Even as Dieter made himself meek for the time being. Still he invited him onboard. The other man's wishes taking priority over his personal opinions Dieter supposed. But he took it, an unsure look on his face as he hoped his grip would stay in the rain. Becoming one with his new fangled role. Re-marrying the two hems of the jacket over himself once properly sat. He pushed his hands cross themselves, one inside the interior of the fabric the other buried between elbow and armpit. He looked down from the new height.

Back to the cattle mounds scattering where the rain would let him see, then over to wherever the Sheriff was last seen going. The rain concealing him as well. It was as if he'd never been on horseback before. Which was a quarter truth. No horse would let him on, not for very long, those stagecoach steeds were the closest he got to proper riding. Yet even they detested him and tried to kick him from the driver's perch any chance they could. Those too becoming food after their purpose was served.

"How far is town? Tice? Is it?" Asking in earnest, as the longer he was kept on the horse the easier it was for suspicion to mount. Some may have started. He was figuring his story out already. Something easy, dumb, and he needed to appear too drunk or simple to think of anything more as he explained it. Whenever that was going to come. For now he just braced himself against the winds, pulling his shoulders to his ears.

He could see the animals shuffling in place, clearly not liking his presence. They knew. The first to know. If only a horse could speak in a tongue man could make sense of. But lord knows they told. They screamed it without uttering a whinny. The eclipses of the whites of their eyes, stuck on him. Fortune giving Dieter the upper hand. To keep it, he’ll act, with the mediocre skills he’s picked up over these lands. He’s never had to act for very long. Only to play a weary traveler, newly kicked off his horse and lost. Or a stagecoaches driver trying to just get to town after being robbed, he briefly had the get up for that rouse. Having robbed and drained the very man he pretended to be. But it always only had to last until the one he was fooling was gone or dead.

He never anticipated being found in the middle of a field under a thunderous sky.

“Oh sir, you’d laugh me right off the plains, wives-tales you know. Not that I saw much at all.” Dieter’s voice becoming tense. Feigning fear, but it wasn’t the whole story. Reflexively, playing into the nervousness of a man being confronted so suddenly in such vulnerable presentation, cracked a crude smile. One that didn’t stay long once appeared, and had to be shoved back out to beam up at the two. Sheepish, meek, standing slowly to take the coat his thin frame made him look woefully out of his depth in all this. And yet, the horse spooked. If the coat had been shorter it would’ve surely ripped the fabric from his hands completely, his ginger grip still slack enough to let it slide away.

He waited till the horse was brought back to acceptable behavior. Giving the horse a look of thin shock and confusion. Don’t give me up yet. His hands gingerly, but distinctly digging his long nails into the fabric. Maybe remembering how slippery things are, how hard it was to get up from the grass, and wanting to keep a hold. Leather was easy to rip. He didn’t even notice putting it on. Drenched cloth onto drenched skin, how was he supposed to know? With a bent frame he slipped the arms onto his own. The silhouette giving him the modesty of a clergy member. He looked now as if he had some semblance of the weather. He passed his eyes between the two bundling the front of it over himself. There was a better angle of light to see their faces now that he was standing, semi straight up. “I sure owe you both.” Letting his gaze linger on them. Settling on their features, the tension in their posture, the faint glowing lines underneath their skin. Too bad he had effectively binged to do much about them now.

His eyebrows turning up, as if unsure his rational request would be honored. As if he was too insecure in his own ideas. Tired of being rained on in all actuality. Wanting to see this new town he assumed they had come from. He spoke to the one who offered the coat. “If it’s all the same to you maybe we could get out of this storm for me to tell you? It’s a little loud out here.” Shaking again, he kept the coat closed by keeping his arms folded over themselves across his front.

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Alexander is not strong enough to pick up and fling Dieter across the room (not with his hands at least) but what about human!Voron? He certainly can. How would Dieter feel being thrown around by a bird?

//He's not picky, he can't be because it's such a rare occurrence. He would he taken so off guard by Voron considering Dieter has only seen him as a bird. Just being able to hold as much power as Dieter has and still gets tossed like a rag doll is a secret enjoyment. ( a-bit of a turn on ngl) As much as he visibly enjoys leveraging his own abilities.

It would change his opinion on them both, favorably so. (As long as the encounter isn't life threatening) It'd make him more feral, as if he wants to fight back (as usually one does) to just be overpowered again. All his actions would be as one would expect initially, but theres a look in his eye thats so obviously showing his enjoyment of it. He would also give the biggest smiles, Dieter cant help himself there. It'd show before he realizes. Those ugly off kilter candid smiles people give when they're wrapped up in the fun and jot worried about how they look. (So he's partially transformed or on his way there and having the time of his life, feral and free.) He's very much having fun because this entity is obviously stronger than him, he likes the challenge and he doesn't have to hold back. Thats a rare occurrence as well.

As if theres a weird connection he makes when his secret little wants get fulfilled without having to say it. As if who does it knows somehow and did so on purpose. It's illogical, and he knows he can't expect it, and that its unrealistic, theres just little glints of hope (?for lack of a better word) of vulnerable connection he's not open enough to give.

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Hyvää Juhannusta. Merry Midsummer.

coming out to a blazing sun, blocking himself from it with the door half asleep, confused as all hell because this first thing he hears is Finnish. “Glad Midsommar to you as well…”

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//*mun in a circle of candles in the dark chanting* let Dieter be picked up and flung around please it’s good for him, he’ll like I swear. Force him into submission it’s enriching for him.

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I mean surely we all grew up feeling like there was a wrongness inherently deep inside us that will endure for the rest of our lives

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With a cocking of his head in a sly inference that Voronov might’ve asked despite knowing why already, “I would not have assumed ill intent if you did, curiosity demands sacrifice…something about a cat.” As quick as his moods changed, Dieter was not utterly unaware of his behavior. Quite to the contrary, he was hyper focused on it. Which is why his hands stay clasped within themselves, only his eyes get free rein of the world for they can only see and not do. Still his fancies on occasion grabbed him, and after a century of life one learns those little outbursts are not the be all end all as his parents instilled in him. Also, partially why he had assumed pain might be involved, his forwardness upon meeting, forcefulness earlier. Any sane man with a pension to hold a grudge would’ve seen it as a golden opportunity to exact something of revenge upon him. As disadvantaged as that would be for either of them, it was still an option.

Warmly he asked, “Do you have to be anywhere? I wouldn’t mind someone to walk with tonight.” His curiosity still brimming, yet sated at the same time, he couldn’t pull himself to leave this man yet. There were many more questions he’d love to ask, and be asked. But just as the other had been longing for the wine, Dieter longed for his own warm drink. Options popping up here and there out the edges of his senses during their entire talk. He started off on a back foot, deeper into the thick of the crowd, merely looking as if he may of wanted to reach the other side. The Swede’s intentional eyes ever long holding Voronov’s face within them till he too followed. It was ever so graceful, as graceful as it was compelling, trailing his words behind him as a subtle string. “In truth most of my memories are, yellow with age.” As that is how they are in my mind now. “That one—“ Pausing, as if composing how he wanted to word it. “It is important, but not for what it is.” Diverting into next question. “Some men were, some men weren’t. Most didn’t survive the war either way. We were a secret.”

In a casual way Dieter let his attention wander as he spoke. As though the words weren’t all too important to him. He was reconciling how, and how much he was willing to say rapidly before speaking. Occasionally turning back to Voronov to instill he was full putting genuine effort into keeping their interaction going. Keeping aware of him and while actively, hunting in a way, he wanted to give the man his due. Looking into stalls and through the wares hanging from the overhangs and racks within the warm interiors of the sell’s little worlds. Flitting glimpses of rushing red in compact lines holding decorated heart shaped cookies and concise crisp showings of more substantial veins underneath scarves and collars scattered about.

Then he came to a halt. Slowly but still just as suddenly as if a thought had just occurred to him. Dieter gave his eyes back over to the other, his body following their orientation, their lead. “Humor me one more time,” his direct manner of asking blunted, or at least he assumed that much. “What do you think, like me, entails?” His voice still kindly, but an undercurrent of clear cut curiosity slipping through. Still colored in friendly bold and highlighted in the diplomatic conduct that continued from being impressed upon his memory’s recollection through the eye of another.

Eyes widening, an eagerness filling them and pushing his lids apart. You’ve seen what I thought. You’ve seen! He wanted to lean in. Seizing the man in a strange shaking revelation. Yet his hands remained as they were. In the long anxious pause Dieter stood with his hand perfectly placed where a Voronov moved it to, he had seen. He wondered how vividly. Was he shown around like Scrooge and his phantoms? Was the bird that was shaking off the energy it inhabited while upon Voronov’s shoulder his own phantom? Or was the scene shown as if the vampire’s recollection was the film reel. How much did he see? How vividly? The hand used to gain access to the show slowly given back to its twin, who embraced it like osmosis. A movement as if he was in slight shock. Slow and focused on who stood before him rather than the hand itself.

And although it wasn’t the direct confirmation, commenting on what laid on the other side of that jovial memory, it was confirmation nonetheless. Slow realization giving to a burst of excitement, what a discovery! In antithesis to the sentiment Voronov was exhibiting, Dieter was overcome with a rare smile. One of someone who had been those same horrors, and the only one to enjoy knowing so as much as the fact itself. Churning up tiny smile lines, a bright focal point to his face while his ears, cheeks, and jawline subtly sharpened in the wake of it all. Features that vanished as soon as his teeth were hidden back away. Though the pep in his movements and voice stayed, obviously impressed. “Well that is something!” Keeping with his good mood, Dieter was more apt to plainly answer. And do so with all the same casual inflection as anyone else being posed a question at this night market. The likes of which probably along the lines of which ornament did they like more. For the moment he looked in full enjoyment of the attraction, being of the mass of people who attended and less so separated from it but still in attendance. Still keeping his composure but in a looser tone. “Let’s just say, I succeeded where Bathory failed. I’m not doing half bad for someone born in eighteen ninety five.”

Before another word could be spoken, he was turned to repeat. Making good on the proposition he proposed. Another cup being given to him immediately from the stand tender, who seemed to not want to keep him waiting as a customer. She’d take his transaction quickly then back to the line as if he didn’t disrupt the flow. Ignoring him, but noticeably uncomfortable upon seeing him linger over her hand, immediately slipping it away. The mug she left behind was piping hot without any wait of the mug on the counter before getting paid for and taken, another lonely mug. It’s deep red murky look steaming from the rim. A bloody bath. In this kind of cold, blood would surely steam up initially as well, the body temperature staying close within it till it was left too long outside its veins. It never rejuvenated him as one would expect just splashed across the skin, only ingestion had those effects. It was just fleeting heat in liquid gold. Even vampires were at a loss, as strict rules were in play with being what he was.

“You’re very surprising.” Giving over the mug to Voronov. “I thought your magic meant I was going to get frostbite.” Referencing the sacrifice of his pinky finger for the sake of the demonstration with its brief reappearance. What else was he suppose to assume? The man was so cold, it was hard to tell if the night itself plunged or if being this close to him was still chilling him, but chill be damned. “So, what did you make of it? That snippet of my life.” Readjusting his stance to toss his hands behind him and look at the Russian quizzically, chin tilted ever so slightly upwards but with a more noticeably softer intonation. As he genuinely wanted to know. Especially with all the details which were noticeably left unsaid.

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blood is so beautiful. I forget bleeding is bad sometimes