Private Finished Well would you do it again, again, And count backwards from ten?

Actually, William alone would not be able to kill Lochlann. If he hadn't been able to drain the boy when he was overdosing and weak, he certainly wouldn't be able to drain him enough to kill when he was at full strength. Willing or not Lochlann would stop him before it went that far. The boy still didn't seem to realize that it wasn't feeding that stopped the cravings.

But Maria was stronger than the wraith, or at least she was when she was tangible. If they worked together, perhaps she could hold the fae still long enough... It was a risky plan. The demon was still only about as strong as a normal human and the doctor had no idea how strong Lochlann was physically, outside of his endurance. Plus, in all the years he'd been stuck with her, they'd never agreed on anything. The only time he'd ever accepted her help had been when he'd resisted long enough he was practically a ghost, starving and unable to help himself.

In fact, she'd only helped him then because she wanted to keep him alive for more suffering... This was out of character...

William had second thoughts about killing the boy. Lochlann was clearly desperate and incredibly annoying, but he was willing to help someone he had to know was a killer by now. The wraith had no capacity for hope - he would not be rescued by one person, but he did not want to give Maria the satisfaction of killing someone who wasn't a terrible influence on him. "I wish it were that easy. It-" The doctor leaned forward in sudden pain. Maria was making her move in spite of him. It never got easier.

Of course, the demoness wasn't going to give up her plans that easily. She was dangerous in her own right, and not under the doctor's control. And she could stop the boy without his help if she had to or at least chase him away. The fiery woman appeared between them, already heating up her flames to a dangerous level.

William refused to stand by for this. Even if he hadn't changed his mind about draining Lochlann, he offered a painless death - he was not going to watch someone be burned alive even if it would simplify matters. There wasn't much he could do to stop her, though, except get some distance and wait. He backed up a few more steps, but he wasn't very fast, and she could do a lot of damage before her time was up. "Run."

At least Lochlann wouldn't need to run far. But unless he ran into the lake, he'd have to go 10 feet into the forest. William hoped the demoness had enough sense not to burn it down. He suspected that she at least wouldn't chase him very long - she'd want to save enough flame to burn himself alive instead. The doctor wasn't looking forward to it, but at least one person wasn't going to die because of him.

William was actually trying to stop Lochlann from getting killed for once, and the idiot wasn't moving! He hoped the boy would at least run when he felt how hot Maria's flames were. The doctor had been on the receiving end of them enough to know that even five minutes of her full temperature might be deadly.

But he was frozen in indecision as well - should he back up enough to get her out of range? Or should he just move in between them? It wouldn't stop her very long - If she was going for flames it meant she was still intangible - but maybe it would give her pause or jolt Lochlann enough that he would get out of the way on his own. Or maybe he should just let them be - he had said to run...

Maria just laughed giddily, the doctor's mind still an open book to her, though she couldn't taste the fae's fear while she was out. Mockingly she repeated the boy's question to William, "Yes dear, what did you do? What did you do?!" Momentarily distracted by her amusement.

The pain mostly past, the doctor was able to give a better warning, "She is not under my control. You will not get any explanation if you do not survive. Move away!"

Then he did something that might have seemed out of character for someone who didn't know how stubborn William could actually be, especially when it came to defying his demon. He stepped forward and embraced Maria, burning himself badly, but holding on. It was more to distract her than to keep her still since she could just move through him, but he knew she was generally more interested in hurting him than in attacking someone else.

And it did hurt quite a lot, more than it would have hurt Lochlann, except William was just regenerating from the burns, and he doubted the boy would be able to. Besides, she'd done worse than this to him before. "Will you please get back?! I am trying to help you here!"

At first, when Lochlann dove, William thought he was finally diving for cover. He still wasn't getting far enough away, but at least he was doing something other than just standing there.

Although, as the doctor half turned to catch Maria, he couldn't tell what it was the boy was actually doing. Why was he digging at the ground? When the doctor saw the notebook come out, he thought maybe the boy was looking for some sort of holy symbol, which would be effective in getting Maria to poof back in, but would hurt William himself quite a bit. He had no idea why there would be anything like that buried there, but the clothes and notebook didn't make much sense either.

And then Lochlann held up the vase. What? Why? For a moment William was afraid his demoness's fire had finally scrambled his mind from the pain. He turned to fully face the boy in surprise, still sort of keeping a hold on the intangible demon. She felt the wraith's shock and turned to face the boy as well, her flames dimming a bit in reaction.

The dirt and cigarette butts that were dumped over the demoness mostly ended up smoldering on the ground, although some got on the wraith as well. And then the taller boy crashed through Maria, and sent both himself and William to the ground, pinning the small man beneath him.

Maria's heat died out as she fell back into a giggle fit. Too thoroughly entertained by this sight to keep her concentration up. But William didn't notice. He didn't even hear Lochlann's question, too caught up in the fact that he was stuck underneath someone and could not get away.

The wraith shivered with memories, but he couldn't find his voice to scream. At least the demoness was so distracted she couldn't manipulate his emotions into other things than fear. And for once he wasn't so defenseless he couldn't fight back. William lashed out, grabbing at Lochlann's arms and draining the moment his hand touched bare skin. His eyes shut tightly, and he tried to focus on the energy instead of on the fact that he was trapped. It almost worked, though he still couldn't stop trembling.

Technically, what Lochlann did had worked - he hadn't trapped the demoness in a vase, but he'd stopped her from killing him and now she wasn't even attacking. Her giggling fit had mostly passed, but she was just watching, amused by William's terror. She did start to giggle again at the boy's comment, even though the doctor himself didn't grasp the humour of it.

William heard what the boy was saying, but it didn't make sense. Nothing was right. He was feeding, and he wasn't going to stop, but he could still feel Lochlann on top of him. Too close. The cold energy wasn't calming him at all. Agitated and tense, he was still shivering and couldn't force out a scream.

Fortunately for the doctor's fragile mental state, there was no desire or the confusing conflicted emotions he felt around certain other people. Although now that Maria was paying attention again, she was keeping his fear at high intensity. The wraith was torn between hunger and the need to escape.

"No." It was little more than a squeak. He didn't have the leverage to shift, and the wraith was nowhere near strong enough to push the fae off anyway. The fact that he couldn't bring himself to let go of the boy's arms wasn't really helping matters either.

For him to get away, Lochlann had to move. He couldn't think straight, equally determined to feed and get Lochlann to stop touching him. Trapped again trapped and held down and - He didn't know why he did it. It hadn't exactly worked out the other times, but he needed to do something.

So. William bit Lochlann's shoulder - hard.

That should work, right?

When Lochlann pulled his head back, William whimpered in the back of his throat, but didn't fight it - he hadn't intended anything more than a quick bite to get the boy to move, and any excitement he might have felt at the rough treatment was drowned amidst his fear. He also was not attracted to men, certainly not to Lochlann anyway. He refused to stop draining the boy, though.

Maria danced closer to the two of them, moving so that she was on her stomach and eye-level with Lochlann. "As amusing as all this is, Will's probably going to be stuck underneath you if you die in this position, and that would just be boring. Plus he's terrified that you're gonna take advantage of him like the other guy, so keeping you around might be funny. Ah - I can't believe I'm gonna use up my time on this."

The demoness went solid just long enough to push Lochlann to the side, so he wasn't crushing the doctor, but she didn't interrupt the feeding. Then returning to her incorporeal state, she ran her hand almost tenderly along William's arm, burning to her highest heat, concentrated on the places her hand touch, so hot that Lochlann could probably feel it even though it was completely directed through the demon's hand to the doctor. Then she vanished.

As she left, William's whole body tensed at the pain of Maria going back combined with the searing burn that still hurt quite a lot, though it healed quickly.

Hungry and mentally exhausted from Maria's use of her powers and still very afraid, the wraith dug his fingers in as if he was trying to press them into Loch's arms. He was beyond being talked out of anything, yet still not strong enough to stop the boy if he were to rip his arms away.