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 Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2015 8:40 pm
Inwardly he rolled his eyes as though Peyton were an unruly child. Of course she had to be obstinate about this being a scuffle.
The blind swing bit his shield but he didn't flinch then, nor did he react at first when the second dagger bared itself like a fang; even with the extra length, it was more comical to him than dangerous that she could just barely reach his neck at all. Hell, her struggle to make this into another full blown fight was hilarious to him. Jack let her have a few seconds to enjoy her position--he did say he was being nice after all--and then he snapped into action.
There wasn't a savage joy fighting with two weapons. He wasn't the shrieking and medicated patient a breeze could knock over from last time, he was Jack ******** Hawthorn: and if he said he was going to carve his name somewhere, then he would be damned if she tried to stop him. Not a word was spoken as he fought to put her back under control, his weapon used more to restrain and block while the faster dagger slashed repeatedly in the same section just under her arm. What hits he took were endured stoically, or as stoically as one was when one wore the hint of a smile still, as he never wavered from making sure her shield broke.
It was the game again, but the rules were different and so was the goal. Peyton's rebellious reaction was just another excuse. He had more staying power this time, more determination to get what he wanted, and none of the heavy baggage she had to carry. She saw this as another moment of abuse; he saw it as necessary. For what value was his word worth if he didn't go through with it?
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Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2015 8:57 pm
It wasn't over confidence this time that lead to her folly. Peyton just didn't have it in her, not today, and Jack just plain wanted it more. Both played equal parts in the systematic shredding of her shield. The first strikes were easy to ignore, and she'd give as much as was given, but when she realized what he was doing the close proximity that had a moment before seemed like an advantage was suddenly a trap. He hadn't so much as flinched as she'd sliced at his arm, his neck, his face. Smiling cooly, stoically, while the heat of her temper drained away and left something dangerously close to panic in it's wake. It was starting to sting, that repetitive dig of the dagger against her side, and she pushed at him, her weapon flickering out as she shoved hands against his chest. Even a knee came up, the heel of her boot sliding over the gravel littered concrete beneath them. < Do something, he's break it!> Her fingers found his throat, circling around it.
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Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2015 9:32 pm
Distantly he heard Owain's alert about his shield strength. Something about it getting close now. (Dangerously was no longer necessary to tack on now that the definition had been skewed.) He felt the punctures but dedicated no thought power to lingering on them; his skin was practically a second armor with how little those wounds affected his actions.
But Jack wasn't immune to physics, and the combination of a push and a knee knocked him back against the brick wall of a half-done home with a wheezy grunt. When she saw fit to try and pin him there in her grip, low laughter bubbled up from beneath her fingers in spite of himself and he was surprised again to taste blood. Cute. But strangulation would take far too long to take any real effect, even if she really had the energy to see it through; he saw the last ditch effort for what it was.
Two swift actions: one last dig and twist of the dagger, pushing Peyton to the side and towards the wall, and one single thrust down with his weapon towards her foot to keep her there.
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Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2015 9:49 pm
Even now, even exhausted, the sight of blood was it's own little rush. Pale eyes snapped up to his mouth, the spot of red on his lips, but there wasn't much to see, only the sweet metallic riding the air between them as he laughed at her. It didn't slow the press of fingers around his throat, he would laugh on his way down the road to hell.
What did work was the pointed stab of the dagger into her side, blade digging with enough force to knock her back, throw her even farther off balance, so when he shoved her towards the wall she couldn't stop him. The impact started a grunt from her, and she hissed against the painful press of the dagger against her ribs, but that was trivial to the shooting, agonizing pain the shot up her leg from precise thrust of the tip of his sword through the top of her foot and into the concrete below.
Now she'd scream for him, a long, high pitched shriek that hitched in the middle as she made a foolish attempt to jerk the limb away, only to cause herself worst pain. Her shield was gone, blood welled up around the blade, staining the leather of her boot, and she sagged against the wall, knees threatening to give out.
Too much. Too. ********. Much.
She couldn't hear Warrick over her own voice, the ringing in her ears and the frantic hammering of her pulse.
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Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2015 10:40 pm
He answered Peyton's screaming with a liquid cough and a bloody spit to the side. Now with a free hand he could keep her pressed to the wall, and after allowing the noise to continue a few seconds longer for old time's sake, Jack forcefed her his hoodie's sleeve as he covered her mouth with his arm. Biting was expected.
The dagger kept pushing, pushing, pushing--and then it found its mark.
At once he paused the assault and wormed her top up (no sense in slashing perfectly good ones after all) enough to expose more skin. Truly it was a shame: Peyton had a nice body, even if the personality accompanying it was absolute s**t. A discreet area to place his mark was his generosity showing again, even if the b***h wasn't going to thank him for his consideration. Not everything was brute force and animalistic about him: intelligence was what marked them as different from beasts.
He added more weight, made sure Peyton didn't struggle more or crumple to the floor before he was finished. Carving into her flesh was easy after the mess that was hacking away at her shield, but the motions to make an actual letter were met with resistance. It was a balance of making it clear without being too deep, with blood spilling out as a sort of timer. How long would it take him? Not as long as it seemed but longer than he thought. A simple H would do. Four straight simple strokes. (Four, he repeated with black satisfaction. Marked for death.)
"A scarlet letter from Hawthorn," he thought aloud as he pulled away, the first words he spoke since Peyton initiated the fight, and began to clean the blood off his dagger. The sword in her foot returned to its leather bracer form as an afterthought, its green fumes fading into thin air.
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Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 9:41 am
Fabric filled her mouth, muffling the sound of screaming before it stopped abruptly, startled. His arm was against her mouth, holding her up, and against she tried to push at him, but there just wasn't enough strength left, and in the end, when she felt his other hand against her stomach, pushing up her shirt, she did bite him, sinking teeth in as hard as she could. Worrying at his sleeve covered arm like a dog with a bone. She even through a right hook at him, felt her knuckles connect, but whatever sliver of satisfaction that might have won her left in a rush the tip of the dagger's blade pierced her skin. More shrieking, panicked squirming, but there wasn't anywhere she could go, and eventually, as he sliced slow and deliberate lines into her skin, the fight started to leave her. She had been true to her word, she hadn't made this easy on him, but more to the fact, he'd been true to his. If she'd been at her best; not tired, not anxious, not compromised, things would have been different, she knew that, but Jack had picked the absolute best opportunity to inflict this particular bit of hellish possession over her. After a couple of lines even the biting stopped, and she sagged against the wall, held up only by the press of his arm, and tried to breath around the pain radiating from both torso and foot. The worst was that part of her that responded to the force, the pain. The part that savored these sorts of instances(even if this was among the more extreme). Numbness had been encroaching, but it wasn't there now. She felt ever milometer of flesh separating under the point of the dagger as it slid across her ribs. Every drop of blood that flowed down her side and the flat of her stomach, soaking into the top of her shorts. Resigned, half a appreciative, too spent to hold onto her rage. When he finished and drew away Peyton dropped, crumbling against the dirty concrete and crying out as she landed. Her breathing hitched, every breath hurt as air filled her lungs. His voice barely registered.
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Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 11:26 am
He gave himself a pat on the back as he surveyed his work: just enough to do the job without causing her to black out immediately. Self-control. Could a monster exert that? The view was also something else--beating someone into submission and having them accept the fact themselves were two wholly different pleasures--so Jack enjoyed it while he could.
At length he stepped forward, the toes of his boot stepping onto her injured foot in passing (payback for her right hook). He crouched down and tilted his head, savoring the image and sound one last time (one last click of his phone's camera) before scooping Peyton into his arms with a pained grimace; only then was it starting to become apparent to him that both of them required some bandaging. At least she was a small thing; it wouldn't be like carrying Chel or Ian. Shame he'd have to get blood out of this nice hood though.
He was met with a roll of the eyes and a distracted nod by two co-workers he explained the situation to upon arriving at the infirmary. A sparring accident: when weren't these idiots fighting after all? (You know where the supplies are, Hawthorn.) (Pay up, I called it. Wouldn't even make it a month into the new year.) In a cot all their own he cleaned the cuts and unrolled the bandages and pressed down against the two worst areas, stemming the flow of blood until the runics kicked in and scabbed them over. His own particular wounds weren't worrying; already he could feel some of them burning and sealing up on their own thanks to Owain's propensity for fast healing.
Not every wound was attended to. Peyton was allowed the blessing of a few nasty bruises as souvenirs until her weapon took care of them. The lingering pain was practically a gift.
Passing it on to someone he trusted, Jack left after the preliminary work was finished. She'd get checked on eventually.
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Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2015 2:23 pm
She felt him there standing over her, the weight of his stare pressing down on her, pushing her into the pavement, and just then she'd have welcomed the sun-baked sidewalk swallowing her up. Peyton wanted to crawl away to some dark, safe place so she could lick her wounds. She just couldn't move yet. But she could scream, and she did so when Jack stepped on her injured foot. The weight shifting boken bones and torn skin. She shrieked for him, pulling on her leg, but the pressure was gone as quick as it had come. A whimper crawled up and out from between clenched teeth, and an attempt was made to crawl away from him, but she was in a sorry state and it wasn't exactly hard to scoop her up. And for him it would be effortless. The Sun was a waif of a thing, not even a hundred pounds, and he had hunter strength behind him. "What are you doing?" The question came weakly as Jack carried her away from the crumbling town, and it occurred to her that she should have been more concerned, but she just didn't have it in her to muster up that level of adrenaline required to be scared. What sounded the best, right that moment, was just blacking out. It would mean sleep, it would shut out the worst of the pain(because even this was too much), it would make her brain shut up for a few blissful hours. Her question was answered as they reached the infirmary. A bleary, bewildered look was aimed up at Jack as he explained away her injuries as a mere accident, she actually managed an ironic laugh before it was cut off by a wince as he set her on a cot. The care that followed was surprisingly tender. It left her frowning up at him as he pressed gauze into the sliced mess he'd left on her ribs. She didn't know what to make of it, and he wasn't talking. Not even as he got up to leave, leaving her one someone else's care. After that there was nothing, exhaustion finally winning out, and Peyton got to enjoy a few uninterrupted hours of sleep before she was being kicked to the curb with a bottle of pain killers and a warning to stop causing trouble. The latter of which she resenting, considering that, for once, she'd been trying to avoid a fight.
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