To My Favorite Liar

It was almost life or death.

Lochlann needed that necklace. They told him that much in the hospital when he went back for another patch and again they threw statistics about malnourishment and self-control, which he ignored. He wouldn't freaking have a problem if he had the necklace.

He'd had less headaches since he lost it, but he'd come dangerous close to making a mistake the other day when he was leaving the showers and a girl found it necessary to flirt with him in the hallway while he was dripping wet and wearing nothing but a towel.

So it was almost life or death, and since Guin wasn't willing to give up his amulet, he was just going to have to get in there and take it. He was on his last patch, which was tucked under the service jacket he'd borrowed and used to convince the security to let him into Guin's apartment because he needed to check the wiring. It was the easiest trick in the book, and it only worked because Lochlann wanted it to work so badly.

Now that he was in her apartment, Loch didn't know what to do. He'd never robbed anyone before, and he didn't know where to start. He didn't know how soon Guin would be back, and he didn't want her to know he was here, so he'd have to be careful. He tried to think like a girl would, which was impossible, so he started to think where he would hide things. He checked in her fridge, under the doormat, and finally he lifted up her mattress.

Something pricked his finger.

He ignored it and sucked the small bubble of blood that came up, setting the mattress back down when his search was fruitless, but then Loch realized he felt funny. His legs felt like they were both made of sandbags and his fingers were tingling. He felt..he couldn't..

Oh.

And Loch crashed onto Guin's bed, immobile and barely conscious, with his only thought being I'm so screwed.

"Oh, it's you....What the hell are you doing here, Lochlann?"

He was pretty sure that was the voice of the devil. Once, he'd listened to an entire Cradle of Filth Album, and there was a voice that was supposed to be Lilith. Loch found the idea of being completely in the hands of a woman he couldn't kill intoxicating at the time. Now that he actually met one he found the entire situation...troubling. He eyed the gun through half-lidded eyes.

"Dying, I think," or at least, he think that's what he said. His voice was somewhere between a mumble and a slur.

Whatever he'd jabbed himself with was not mixing well with the chemical cocktail of painkillers and sedatives he already had in his system.

Loch had his ass kicked a few days earlier. He had a black eye and bruising along the side of his face, though the swelling had gone down, and both his sides were mottled black and purple beneath his t-shirt and jacket. The skin on his knuckles was torn and raw. The signs were all there and someone with even a third of Guinevere's perception would notice them and read the meaning highlighted, underlined, and bolded: Loch had been fighting, and badly. He was getting desperate.

And now?

Now he didn't give a shit.

His heart was lagging so slowly it actually hurt in his chest.

"If you could just give me that necklace, I'll be taking my leave" he slurred. He was barely comprehensible.

Decide to do otherwise and I will take you to the nearest woodland and shoot you in the skull. Do you understand?"

Her voice was empty and hollow in a way that would have given him goosebumps if he didn't feel like he was burning up. His heart wouldn't catch up, it kept tripping over its own two feet and stopping to rest, and Loch felt...woozy.

Her plan sounded good though.

"I'd rather you just shoot me and save me the trouble of doing it myself later," is what he wanted to say, and maybe he did say it, but he wasn't sure. Things were going black around him, his vision tunneling in and out.

He recognized the churning in his stomach.

"Guin-evere...can I please have the necklace?" The please was a groan. Loch tried to push himself up off the bed, but only succeeded into falling off onto the floor at her feet; his limbs still beyond his control.

This was it, Loch realized, he was dying.

One way or another, he wasn't going to make it through this night. He had too many chemicals in his body, and if he survived that, Guinevere would probably kill them, but if that failed, too, his family would rip him to shreds the moment he got expelled.

He really did feel like he was dying though. He wasn't sure what it felt like--and it certainly was no where near as bad as the pain the first time he'd met Guinevere during that rainstorm-- but it was the burning on the inside.

He coughed, and choked, and then coughed again, and then before he could help it he retched right there on the floor; blood, bile, and sharks teeth dripping off his chin and at the floor.

He was just glad he hadn't been facing Guin when he retched, but he didn't think it mattered. His heart lagged again. She was definitely going to kill him now.

"I can't have anybody paying attention to me. And nothing draws more attention than a corpse on somebodies bed. He heard this right before he fell off the bed, which was some good news at least, because at least now when she killed him it wouldn't be in her bed. Although, if Loch was conscious, there'd be a great deal of irony in him dying in a woman's bed.

"No, Lochlann. Not until you tell me about everything...I'll torture you if I have to. I'm not afraid."

He would have spilled everything to her right then and there if he didn't throw up. As it was, Loch was barely conscious. His thoughts were worse than trying to watch a youtube video on ReD's computer; he'd just get up to speed and have to stop and buffer again. He didn't realize he'd thrown up until after the thought, and the biggest indication he had that he wanted to apologize was a fluttering of his eyelashes.

He was conscious, he was unconscious, and then there was Guinevere's fingers brushing gently across his skin and her fingers at his belt loop, which is how he knew he was dreaming.

But then he was moving.

He was average height, maybe a little on the tall side, but it's not exactly like Guin was going to carry him, and Loch's first semi-conscious thought was oh sweet neptune she didn't finish killing me and now i'm going to be buried alive.

Despite the bruising on his face and up his torso where his ribs were broken, despite the torn skin on his knuckles, the marks on his arm and the patch on his shoulder, the feverish skin and strange pallor, Loch still looked remarkable screwable.

His sister would argue that it was an evolutionary advantage. Having a sexy body meant they'd be more desirable as a mate, and it was easier to lure their intended prey if they mirrored something highly valued. But it wasn't only a camouflage; this was as much of a part of Loch as his horse shape. And right now, stripped down to his boxers, Loch looked the most comfortable.

Relatively speaking, of course, because there was nothing comfortable about being drug across the floor while your heart was struggling, and by the time Loch realized the direction they were taking he had enough energy to dig his nails into the ground in a loose attempt at protest.

That was about it, and it wouldn't do much except snag the skin at his nails until his fingertips started to bloody, but he was desperate.

not the bathroom.
the bathroom meant water.
Loch would rather die than show her what she was.

"Guinevere, please, no," he even used her full name, desperate to stop, and there was a waver in his voice that he couldn't mask.

She said she was going to torture him, but he wasn't sure if he could handle this.

[ooc]Kyros I have ideas for shenanigans. [/ooc]

He didn't move, but whether it was because he was obediently listening to Guinevere or because he was lapsing in and out of consciousness was to be decided.

He didn’t notice her hands, but he did notice the way her butt moved up and down while she scrubbed at the carpet. The visual helped his heart beat a little faster as it tried to send blood somewhere, but it just hurt instead, so he groaned and buried his face into his arm and the floor.

That was the last movement he made for quite a while.

He did finally get to mutter, ”I’m sorry,” but it was slurred and muffled by the carpet, so what came out was more like m’orrie. Whatever was in his system made him pliable and weak. It was worse than being drunk because his skin burned. She could ask him anything right now, and if he managed to answer, it would probably be the truth.

She pulled him by his hands so he drug his feet into the carpet instead. It didn't do much, but it was his feeble attempt at resisting.

"You are going to get in this shower whether you like it or not,"

and there he was,laying at the bottom of the tub, crumpled and folded like a soggy drugged-up piece or origami.

He stared at her with glazed eyes. He still slurred, but there was an icy undercurrent to his tone even with the lack of lucidity.

"If you turn that water on, you will have a bigger mess to clean up than vomit and blood." He looked her right in the eyes.

He was taking a gamble. It was a gamble that she'd turn on the water and see what he would turn into, but he was hoping she wouldn't take that option.

Guinevere was a predator. She'd already told him she didn't want a body in her room, in her bed, meaning she'd had one before. He'd already made a mess of her apartment...she wouldn't want a bigger mess, would she?

It was a gamble he wouldn't normally make, but its not like he had a choice.

"Killing me wouldn't even make as big of a mess, so you could shoot me now, Guin, or take me out to the field and do it there. But either way, someone will come looking, and they'll come here eventually." He looked her straight in the eye and signed his own death warrant. "People saw me kiss you, after-all, and from what I hear, you're a stone cold bitch. Connect the dots. Or give me my necklace and let me go and we'll pretend the whole thing never happened."

It was an awful lot of words for someone on the brink of dying. He was starting to come to again, and there was feeling back alongside his ribs and his bruised face and all the other places that hurt, but the effort of talking exhausted him and he made no indication of moving.

She grabbed him by the throat and he was at first powerless to resist, but he did manage a slight "nuh!" sound from the back of his throat.

The sound basically translated to oh shit shit shit to match the expression on Loch's face. He writhed briefly in her grasp but it was too late.

The water hit him on the face and dripped down his chest and he went limp in her arms. The water was drenching her, too, and he had to shut his eyes because he was starting to--

--fuck it, he thought and he wrapped one arm around her hip and ran the other up her back to the base of her neck.

He kissed her. He didn't care if she didn't want it. He didn't want to be drenched in nothing but his underwear with this woman across from him. All he wanted was his damn amulet.

So he kissed her and it was the kind of kiss he used to kill. It was a kiss filled with lust and want and left little to the imagination. It was a kiss that made other girls go weak in the knees.

Loch knew Guinevere wasn't like other girls, but it was his only weapon. He was shaking. In another moment, he was going to collapse or change, but either way it was going to be a mess for Guinevere.

"I'll do more than kiss you," he promised. His breath caught in his throat. The water was streaming over him in full now that Guinevere had pulled herself back. He was going to say, "I'll love you" but he doubled over instead.

He grabbed the edge of the tub, his breath coming in shallow bursts. His stomach tightened. He ached again and he was so, so tired of this ache. He'd feel better if he let go.

So he did.

He stumbled out of the tub but it didn't matter because the air around him was rippling. Loch wasn't a werewolf--there was no twisting of limbs or elongating features. Rather, it was like something around him had finally been washed off.

The last thing he would remember was looking Guinevere straight in the eyes and saying "Fuck" in Welsh.

He was a stallion, an exercise in darkness; black eyes peeked out from a too-long mane and his tail flicked behind him. He was beautiful in an eerie way, but he'd be more beautiful if his skin wasn't stretched across his frame.

He was hungry.

He made a clicking noise in the back of his throat and took a step towards her, but his legs wouldn't cooperate and he stumbled onto the floor instead, his nostrils flaring. There was almost something comical about a massive horse in a tiny apartment bathroom next to an even smaller girl. She looked like a doll, part of his brain mused, but the other half went looks delicious. It was lucky he was drugged.

When She pulled out two knives from what Lochlann previously hoped would be the result of her taking off her shirt, he reared back and collided with the wall. He flared his nostrils but instead got a huge whiff of moisture and her girl smell, so he wasn't able to tell if the knives were steel or iron.

Either way, he didn't like them. He gnashed his teeth.

She backed out of the room and Lochlann felt a sudden twinge of claustrophobia. Without her, the room seemed smaller, or maybe it was just because without her to focus on, Loch realized how close his head came to the top of the ceiling. If he reared up, he'd slam into it.

She left.

She left him in here.

Loch gnashed his teeth again.

The girl was dangerous. It was clear she had plans for him.

What if she shut the door--

Oh. Hell. No.

He was to sluggish to gallop out, his muscles still resisting his movements, but Loch still managed to clop his way out of the room, his wild eyes darting for an escape.

The window. It was small, but if he could get enough momentum going, he could jump out that way.

Shit.

Where was Guin?

The window.

Kelpies don't lose their ability to think in their natural form; it's what makes them cunning predators. But Loch? Loch was single-minded, and right now his only thought was window.

He took one shaky step, two, three, faster, building up speed, charging right at Guin. He didn't see her.

He jumped.

His legs brushed up against hers and then buckled beneath him. A strangled shit flew right out of the horse's mouth, only it didn't belong to a horse for long. Loch always had a lot stolen from him: his home, his mother, his heritage, his faith. But in that brief moment Loch brushed against her, Guinever stole something besides his necklace.

Suddenly human, Loch's face bashed into the window and sent him reeling back where he collapsed, soaking wet, in nothing but his boxers, right on top of Guinevere.

Because he was unconscious, he really couldn't tell, but when he woke up he'd have a nagging feeling that something was missing. Like, maybe, his heart.