Her shift over and Sid, agitated and moody, disappears into the Ladies' loo. Taking a shortcut from there, she phases through the wall to end up in the back alley, thus avoiding contact. Leaning to flaking brick and mortar, boot up against the wall, she pauses for what might seem a simple breather.

And waiting with anticipation for the Trueblood's knock off time, Alain keeps watch on the loo's hallway. Ever the observant detective, he had noted a slight widening of her eerie glass blue eyes when he had released his "little teaser". He knew she knew he was carrying. Tapping fingers to the bar he looks over the commons. She's been in there too long.

It's the window he calculates her escaping through, and so with purpose he pushes open the alley door and marches out to catch up with the Ancient. If necessary, he'll give her the stash at gunpoint.

Sid looks casual enough, right arm held loose and lengthwise atop a raised leather-clad thigh. Yes, seemingly casual but she is staring straight ahead, her gaze unseeing and dizzying in what is occurring within the depths of that glamoured blue.

Alain is too inexperienced and mortal to recognize what he gets a glimpse of " too sane or not sane enough to truly see. "I needed to see you, and you ran out on me," he says to her, making his way closer.

His heart is pounding and he's not nearly as drunk as he'd like to be. If he was he would've lost track of her, wouldn't he, and then he'd be a dead man.

Uncharacteristically, the lank tender gasps at the sound of the Detective's words " a tiny, vulnerable noise. Then it is gone and she is once again street savvy and standing tall, foot to the ground. Taking a look up past Alain's head she hitches thumbs to front pockets and strides away from the bricks and the Inn's back door.

"Aye' Canna imagine wha' for, Detective. Why dun we walk" Got somethin' I can be doin' for ye?"

Joining her at her side, drifting close, he looks back to the Inn and the windows of the Red Dragon, saying quietly, "We both know what you smelled in there" and my cover may depend on you indulging it tonight."

Frelling crap! Oh, the dilemma! Breath catches in her throat and is let go in three small pants. Still, she walks well away from the Dragon and in the direction opposite the rebuilding of the DCH offices, into the nightlife and the city clamor. Silent.

Alain remains silent also, saying after a spell, "We'll go to my place," and he heads on a bearing for the Silver Mark.

"Forward, much, Detective?" A coy smile and brush of fingertips along his shoulders as all the while magiced blues remain ever alert to their surroundings.

"I like to get to the point," Alain replies.

The Silver Mark Pub & Brewery is not in the most fantastic neighborhood, but it's still upscale enough for the Detective to be more concerned with spies than muggers. 'Lanta has closed up over an hour ago, so he unlocks the front door.

She hesitates well before the Pub entrance. It can be assured that the leeches are watching Alain and all his holdings, whether public knowledge or not. DCH was nothing if not thorough. Myriad thoughts are barreling through her head at an incalculable rate and of content " emotions, feelings, and responsibilities " so unfamiliar to the Ancient as to make her eyes lose focus for a moment. What he spoke could quite likely be truth. In all probability it was.

Soothing sibilant tones in the background of her mindscape told her if she just stepped through the door He would take care of the rest. Long fingered hands shove deep to the pockets of rider-worn jeans and she hunches; elflocks cascading over slender shoulders and ringling like shattering crystal.

Jean snoozes by the fire and opens one eye lazily to peer up at the Trueblood, tail thumping against the rug a few beats. Finally in the Pub, Sid nods once to dog and master and begins to check for unwanted eyes and ears.

Stretching out her energy she notes the wards. They are impressive, especially for a mortal. Though, to be honest, if she and Bel had not been impressed by Alain he, and subsequently now she, would not be in this current predicament. Quirking one silvered brow, she watches the male as he pats his leg twice for the hound.

As Jean yawns indifferently, Alain rubs him behind the ears a few times and leaves him be. Shutting his eyes, expression controlled but still pained, his voice cracks slightly. "They said you were" very addicted to this drug. That you'd gotten over it, somehow" and they want me to get you back on it."

He appraises the Trueblood carefully, crossing the room to the bar and taking up a lean near. Pulling out a cigarette, he lights it. "Hate that it's come to this. Kind of makes me wonder if they know." His lips twist into a scowl. "But if I protect you, then they'll know for sure."

The only signs of the internal war taking place within the Ancient are slight, subtle shot-quick moments moving across pallid features. Fey features perhaps a tinge more pale than normal.

That you'd gotten over it somehow"

Saliva gathers to her mouth, and yet she is thirsting. Tongue so thick as to barely be able to move; mouth parched despite the glut of moisture flooding it. There is a cold wash all over her body, a tingle in her extremities that makes her hands want to tremble and her feet wish to move. Breath struggles and rags through her shell's lungs and every unconscious fiber of her being wants, desires, craves, needs, will kill for, will die for what Alain holds.

Her words carry all this and more as she responds with slow and deliberate speech. "Ye 'ave nae idea wha' ye be askin' o' me. Askin' o' yeself an' any whose paths mingle with me own. Ye hate tha' it be comin' to this" Ye canna 'ave the vaguest clue, Alain."

There are prickles at the backs of her eyes, harbingers of that damnable water, and she gains her feet striding quickly from his side and across the floor" pacing.

"I know they mayhaps be thinkin' they know the outcome o' this they ask o' ye. Still, I wonder?" She does wonder, not having given fully into her addiction since before Lankyn's spell, since the bairns were set to growing.

Once again her hands drive deep into the pockets of rider-worn jeans and she hastens the pace before the hearth, elflocks a shattering sound, a mournful wail as they flip and flop along her shoulders and back. Alain watches, and then has to look away, down at the floorboards puffing a bit harder on his cigarette, smoke rising listlessly to the ceiling.

He rubs slowly at the back of his neck, opens his mouth to speak and has to shut it again. Whatever he can offer feels useless.

At last he manages, "Do you think we can dupe them?"

"Nae," such a small, curt reply. Her head shakes violently with a clattering of painful noise. Inside, the Ancient is being double-teamed though she remains oblivious to the second's influence. Masked as it is by what has ridden Sid since time before time.

"Yet?" she hesitates. It is a fool's plan, but how else to save him' "Mayhaps the takin' o' the smallest quantity can be enough," greed, plain and simple and deadly dances in those glamoured eyes. Spinning about-face hard, she pins the Detective with a yellow-tinged look and is leaning against that stool beside him before he can bat an eyelid.

Blinking at her sudden appearance, he recognizes that feeling before the look itself. He frowns, resting his hand on the jar in his pocket. "Maybe I should" hang onto it. Make sure I only mete out' the smallest dose."

Alain knows the position he's putting himself in, between an addict who is ancient, powerful and dangerous" and the object of her addiction.

Fingers strike out like a viper, curving loose yet insistent around the wrist of the hand reaching to his pocket. "Ye canna, they be knowin'. An'?" She withdraws her hand slowly, turning on the stool to face the room. Hands to knees, those 'locks curtain the shame written all over her face.

"I canna allow ye to come to harm." On the surface it sounds like such a straightforward phrase.

Finally, she lifts her head to meet his blue eyes, left hand stretching out to him. "Ye should be watchin'. Keep it at the fore o' ye thoughts so they can be sure ye be doin' wha' ye be tasked to do."

Resignation.

We think this must be the worst of all.

Somewhere in the darkness of Sid's mindscape sibilant laughter rains down, pleased and delighted beyond measure. He did not have to push, after all. All it took was applying to her sense of duty and she willingly walked over that edge entirely of her own free will. He must thank these "leeches" when He is able.

?"I'll kill them for this someday," Alain murmurs, and then offers that jar to her, looking into those unnatural blue eyes. She must be able to feel his heart breaking from here, he thinks. He believes he is destroying her, one of the most beautiful creatures he's known, and he may very well be right.

Her beauty isn't in the nasty lust Howe insists this will inspire. It's not that part of her that drives him to want"

His lips tighten and curl in self-disgust and the Ancient takes the container, watching what flows through his thoughts as if she reads pages in a book. The backs of her fingers rise to brush light and tender along the line of his jaw.

There is concern for the male " mortals are such brilliant, bright and fragile things " and she marvels at the splendor of his soul, boring into the depths of his gaze for one extra long minute. In that singular moment there bursts a glow of moonwhite blue around the edges of her being, but as with much of late the Trueblood seems oblivious.

"All be as it be meant to be, sweet. Trust in tha'," her hand dropping, she opens the jar with a deep inhale before spinning about to lean elbows on the bar, the vessel set to the wood between.

Nodding, he can't bring himself to believe her. All he wants is for the nightmare to be over, but if he wakes up now people will die, likely himself among them.

The paste is white, whiter than the purest snow with an oil-slick rainbow that dances it surface " lethal in its loveliness. Reaching down, Sid pulls forth a folded straight razor from the inside of one jackboot. She extends her right forearm atop the bar, the razor opening with the snap of her thumb.

Watching her work, cigarette puffed on from the corner of his mouth, he holds it aside. Moving to her, he places a hand on her arm as she brings the blade to faultless flesh, turning her face to his. Leaning down and kissing her softly, it is a kiss of caring, of concern, and of promise.

"When this is over, if you and I both still live" I'll do everything I can to make things right with you."

She tastes of Spring, of hope and promise and new beginnings; of sweet innocence and first loves; of beautiful blossoms and cotton-candy clouds; of rain and fire " Passion's fire, the fire of creation and destruction; hot and sticky, yearning and burning.

She is possibility, potential? She tastes of dreams.