[In better health, Alucard might have caught that stake before it drove into him. As it is, his hand moves to catch Trevor's wrist before he can remove it from said stake, and the pressure that Alucard begins to apply is...well. He's going to break something.
His free hand simply removes the stake from where it has been embedded. Throws it aside.
[ Fuck. Missed the heart. Maybe coming here drunk was not the best idea.
But on the other hand, good. This might not be Dracula, but it's one of his generals. Something like that. Good enough. There's no cry when the bone cracks, barely anything other than a twitch of the lips baring blunt teeth. ]
The Belmont has finally come to America. [ He corrects. ] I thought you fuckers liked counting.
You have not been a thought on this doorstep for centuries.
[Which is true enough. Alucard's grip on Trevor's wrist gives him leverage, and now with the stake removed and thrown to the side, there's only one thing left to do: grab the man's elbow as well and just slam him onto the front step.]
Your kin are in Texas. Dracula is as good as dead. Your family's work is done.
[Good as dead. A terrible, horrible true statement, one that makes his heart hurt to utter. He'll deal with that once this matter is dealt with.]
I know- [ He's interrupted by his arm hitting the step. That gets a noise of pain out of him this time, but it's dulled by the alcohol and the adrenaline. ] -I know what the remains of a Dark Inferno look like, vampire. I know it was him.
[ They look, in truth, a lot like the remains of an early use of the B-1E Elektronbrandbombe. Any sufficiently advanced technology, and all that. ]
We let you live for centuries. Dracula restarted this fucking war, and it doesn't end with his death. [ Knife. He has a knife at his belt. He takes it in his still functional arm, stabbing it at Alucard. ] But it can fucking well start with yours.
[It's a decent stab. But it also means that Alucard is in close range, and is quick enough to seize Trevor into a terrible grapple. He's hissing, his fangs are bared (he's so going to get in trouble with Sypha when this is done, Alucard knows it).]
The Great War was the thing of men, not all the creatures that live outside of their realms, Belmont.
[He grabs Trevor's hair all too roughly.]
You're drunk and you have a death wish. I have no intention of obliging.
Not that fucking war, this fucking war. My fucking war.
[ One arm is useless, the other is successfully grappled, and his knife is stuck in the vampire. He really should have brought the silver one, but he wasn't really intending to live long enough to need any of this. ]
Not hungry? [ He sneers, despite literally nothing here going to plan. Not to either the 'kill the vampire' plan or the 'get killed by the vampire' plan. ] I don't think you can stop me without obliging, you pompous bloodsucker.
[It's probably a low blow to just use that hand in Trevor's hair to smack it down onto the ground and do it as hard as possible. Right now, Alucard's not interested in playing fair. He is only interested in removing this feral cat of a man off of his doorstep and then returning to bed.]
I probably can't. But it's more humiliating if you live, isn't it?
[ The world seems to shift to one side when his head hits the ground, and he has to check for a moment to be sure he's still on the step and not on a slope of some sort. But no, everything is where it ought to be, it just all feels wrong. ]
Fucking kill me, vampire. [ His words were already a little slurred, now they're more so. ] Or I'll remind you why you all fucked off here in the first place.
[That's done what it needed to do. Alucard rises, and he drags Trevor along with him by the hair. Digs nails into scalp to ensure that the Belmont doesn't fall out of his grip, and at that point, he's dragging Trevor along the ground.]
With a failed stake and pitiful knife. Yes. I am reminded of what you were.
[ He still has his left hand. He takes the charcoal from his pocket, trying to scrawl on the ground as he's dragged, but that's no use. Magic doesn't need good handwriting, but it does need better than this. Even if it didn't, he can't focus on anything right now. ]
[Incredibly pathetic. Which means there's no response from Alucard at all, not as he drags Trevor off the property inch by inch, knowing full well that that plea makes what he is doing much, much more effective than anything else.
His father never quite had a garden of impaled skeletons lining the front way. What he has is a set of gates make it clear exactly whose property this is, disguised as a thick tree line to all other eyes.
Trevor is tossed with no ceremony across that threshold, back into the world itself.]
[ He hits the ground and rolls. His head is still spinning even after he's stopped, but he pushes himself to his feet with his good arm and stumbles forward, trying to get back through the gates before the protection spells he broke to find his way in here take effect again. He can't break them a second time, not in his current state. ]
Fuck. Fuck.
[ He doesn't reach the gate in time. There isn't a gate anymore. Just trees and an invisible line on the ground that he can't pass without suddenly needing to turn around and forget he was here.
It’s a few weeks before Trevor shows up next. And it’s not in the way anyone might expect.
Which is to say that he doesn’t bang on the door before trying to bewitch the castle. Because in fairness, there isn’t much of a ‘what anyone might expect’ to work with when it comes to Trevor. He’s calm, he’s quiet, and that long blue coat is meticulously cleaned and repaired, though it seems almost too large on him. And he isn’t alone.
The chain isn’t visible from the road, but the glamour fades away as they move through those gates. It’s around his neck and looped through itself in such a way as to tighten when pulled. He stumbles forward when he's dragged, eyes unfocused.
The vampires leading him, two of them with one clearly leading and another following, don’t knock. Because of course they don’t fucking knock. They, unlike their prisoner, know there’s no need for it. The castle won’t have allowed them to arrive without announcement. Instead they simply stand at the door. ]
My lord. [ The first vampire speaks. He’s local. Known only as Damian in recent years, he hasn’t been Giovanni Damiano or John Damian since he came to America. Older than many, an alchemist who became a vampire to fulfil a prophecy about a flying man and who had posed as a priest and a surgeon both for centuries before he was driven out of Europe by the Belmonts. His voice is soft and cool and absolutely the kind of deferential tone that could mean that legitimately be deference or that could mean ‘actually fuck you’. ] I bring tribute.
[After getting rid of the Belmont, Alucard retreated inside the house. Turned the radio off in the library, carefully folded his damaged shirt and coat, hid them from Sypha, and went to bed. It had taken too much energy to deal with a simple visitor, and he knew his judgement was fogged from exhaustion even before he lay down in bed. He stayed there for four days and the world moved on.
Sypha never found the damaged clothes. He repaired them next he woke, far away from her eyes, and they continued on this...this weird dalliance, whatever it was to be. It kept the house less lonely, it forced Alucard to do things like make sure there was more than a pitiful meal for himself. (The dutch oven was used a lot for stews. Low effort plus leftovers.)
He's in the library again when the castle tells him there's someone approaching. The viewing mirror fills in the rest, and once the sad sight of the Belmont getting led around like a war prize is reflected in it's gaze, Alucard can do nothing but sigh. He did make the wrong judgement that night. He should have kept the Belmont and told the Morrises to come pick up a feral cat from Europe. No one would know that there was a Belmont in the city to begin with, and he would not be dealing with...oh ugh, whatever that one was going by now.
Sypha's out taking care of errands, which means the castle has not another soul within. He lets the doors open, meaning that they can come in but go no further than the main hallway.
When Alucard descends the stairs, he has on the same clothes as before, hole in his coat patched. His eyes look at the entire little group, and there is such disdain. The Belmont, that goes without saying. The other two, oh, this is a ruse.]
[ Trevor does not look at Alucard. He doesn't look at anyone or anything, just stares outward, taking just a little too long between blinks. He's cleaned and shaved and made presentable in every way that he could be made presentable, but he's too pale. Far, far too pale. There's a tug at the chain and he stumbles forward. ]
The newest pride of my collection. And more of a rarity than ever these days, it would seem.
[ Damian smiles, and it's the kind of thing that might look genuinely pleasant. Which means it's entirely not real. ]
I had thought to see if a conservation effort might be made. One last kindness to old rivals, after all these years. Breed it, see the Belmonts flourish in captivity. But I had it interrogated, of course. One cannot be too safe with these sorts. Imagine my shock to learn that it had escaped from you!
[ The turn of the vampire's lips indicates that yes, the misunderstanding of events here is deliberate. He's daring Alucard to admit that he turned a Belmont loose. That's what his companion is here for. He's a witness. ]
[There are several things going on here. The first is that obviously the Belmont is a) an idiot and b) been fed from too many times because men should not be that pale. Basic fact. The second is that Damien is trying to hedge into power he doesn't have at all, and he thinks this is a fun and exiciting way to go about it. Third is that this is going to require being much more clever than he feels up to being at the moment.
Alucard is yet to even descend the stairs in full. That's on purpose. They still need to look up at him.]
And I imagine you were just as shocked to see that this man was a wreck craving death, and so the greatest response to that is to curse such a thing with more life.
[The words are careful and deliberate. Considered.]
Something that you've built on, I see.
[No fucking misunderstanding. He made a choice. Alucard can only own it.]
But you've already used the word tribute, and so where do you stand in relation to myself to question judgement? Beyond age, that much need not be said.
[Alucard's face remains cold and impassive, even if his instinct is to just tell Damien to go fuck himself for treating Sypha as anything but her own person.]
This is a house of modernity, as you well know. My interest in those things is passing at best, and I think them tiresome when my elders believe they're being cute for using them to needle at me.
[ This does not seem to be going the way Damian would like. There's no visible clues to that effect, but he's quick to try to bring that topic of conversation to a close. ]
Am I to assume that my gift is unwelcome, lord? Fear not, I do not mean to let such a precious rarity die regardless of your answer.
[Alucard's eyes go back to Trevor. Damage assessment beyond the bloodloss. This is probably compulsion, which means it will have to be broken. He has no desire to deal with this man again, but it is a far easier thing to harbor him here to play this bullshit game that has been invented, then pass him along to the Church Ladies until something can be done properly.]
I believe you called him tribute, did you not? You cannot use that word in front of me and then take it back.
[ It's difficult to see any damage right now, though that in itself is probably answer enough. He's wearing gloves and a thick, long coat despite the fact that the night is not a particularly cool one, and he's holding himself in a way that's normal enough, if listless. That, again, is not necessarily a good sign - either the wrist has somehow healed completely or the fact that it's not being held in a way that's at all unusual means that the compulsion isn't allowing him to take pain into account in the way he's standing and moving and he cannot be relied upon to give anything away by limping or favoring one side. About the only skin below the chin that can be seen is the front of his neck, where the chain is looped around. That's a mess of yellow and green and purple bruises ]
Of course, my lord.
[ It's clear from that sugary sweet tone that Damian considers this a victory. He drops the leash to the ground and looks to his witness, who watches impassively. The story is clear enough - if the Belmont is seen again, then Alucard has failed to bring an old enemy under heel even when given every opportunity. A sign of weakness. A sign of placing the value of even the most detested of his mother's kind above is father's. And, should the Belmont cause chaos when released, a sign of dangerous incompetence. ]
[There is every likelihood that the second the compulsion is dropped, the Belmont will make to attack Alucard again and where shall they be? This time throwing the Belmont out the door isn't an option. This is a poisoned cup he has accepted, because to refuse would...ugh. Alucard's not thinking about that, because murder attempt or not, senseless death is not an act he ever wishes to commit.
So he'll plan to knock the Belmont out cold and then actually look at the injuries. Blood transfusion, that's easy enough once he can determine the correct bloodtype. (Not hard, not with him unconscious.) But after that then...then he'll have to talk to Sypha. She understands the peril of this, but she's more human. More clever than Alucard, if he is being honest.
That neck's been fucked up ten times over. But that's leverage.]
Take care that next time you feed, you're much more subtle. You know very well how things are handled if there are too many suspicious bites on the city's population.
[My father's rules apply. Because continuity. Because stability. Because Damien can go fuck himself with this little ploy.]
Of course, of course. I took from this one before I realized he would be leaving my home. A terrible mistake, I admit.
[ The mention of Dracula's own rules knocks him off balance just a little, but he's quick to respond. Because that rule was never made for love of humanity, even if it started being enforced far more strictly after Dracula met his wife. It was made for secrecy's sake. As long as it's someone who won't be missed, and as long as they don't return to the city for those suspicious bites to be seen- well, there's no problem there.
Damian gives a dramatic bow. His companion only nods his head and gives a terse thanks for Alucard's valuable time. ]
If you have no need of me, my lord, then until we meet again. I pray you find my gift to your liking.
[No thank yous. No farewells. Only Alucard's gaze as the two leave. He will know when they are off the property in due time. The castle communicates in all it's little ways.
But once the doors are closed, once Alucard is sure he is out of earshot, he simply sighs and looks over to Trevor with the greatest and most pained look of total exhaustion on his face.
The Belmonts cause problems wherever they go.
He doesn't move towards Trevor quite yet though. The compulsion will either wear off slowly or all at once. If the latter, he does not wish to be close.]
[ The bad news is, it's all at once. The good news, so far as there is good news at all, is that the order to stand and walk was the only thing keeping him on his feet at all. Without that, his legs fall out from under him and he tumbles to the ground with a soft thud and a rattle of chain.
He's awake, barely. He's awake but there's not much more he can do about that than to try to drag himself toward Alucard by the fingertips of one hand, snarling as he does. ]
There's nothing of value gained by lingering on the stairs. All Alucard is being faced with is a half-dead feral cat, which means it is going to hiss and scratch and bite no matter what. He walks down, coming around from behind Trevor because Alucard's not an idiot.
And at that point, he can do nothing else but haul Trevor up by the back of his coat, more like a scruffed kitten than a human at this point, and dangle him just enough so that his feet are off the ground.]
Your instinct was right the first time, I suppose.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cryptsleeper) wrote2018-11-10 11:26 pm
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His free hand simply removes the stake from where it has been embedded. Throws it aside.
Alucard's skin is cold. His demeanor is ice.]
The Belmonts have finally come to America then.
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But on the other hand, good. This might not be Dracula, but it's one of his generals. Something like that. Good enough. There's no cry when the bone cracks, barely anything other than a twitch of the lips baring blunt teeth. ]
The Belmont has finally come to America. [ He corrects. ] I thought you fuckers liked counting.
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[Which is true enough. Alucard's grip on Trevor's wrist gives him leverage, and now with the stake removed and thrown to the side, there's only one thing left to do: grab the man's elbow as well and just slam him onto the front step.]
Your kin are in Texas. Dracula is as good as dead. Your family's work is done.
[Good as dead. A terrible, horrible true statement, one that makes his heart hurt to utter. He'll deal with that once this matter is dealt with.]
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[ They look, in truth, a lot like the remains of an early use of the B-1E Elektronbrandbombe. Any sufficiently advanced technology, and all that. ]
We let you live for centuries. Dracula restarted this fucking war, and it doesn't end with his death. [ Knife. He has a knife at his belt. He takes it in his still functional arm, stabbing it at Alucard. ] But it can fucking well start with yours.
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The Great War was the thing of men, not all the creatures that live outside of their realms, Belmont.
[He grabs Trevor's hair all too roughly.]
You're drunk and you have a death wish. I have no intention of obliging.
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[ One arm is useless, the other is successfully grappled, and his knife is stuck in the vampire. He really should have brought the silver one, but he wasn't really intending to live long enough to need any of this. ]
Not hungry? [ He sneers, despite literally nothing here going to plan. Not to either the 'kill the vampire' plan or the 'get killed by the vampire' plan. ] I don't think you can stop me without obliging, you pompous bloodsucker.
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[It's probably a low blow to just use that hand in Trevor's hair to smack it down onto the ground and do it as hard as possible. Right now, Alucard's not interested in playing fair. He is only interested in removing this feral cat of a man off of his doorstep and then returning to bed.]
I probably can't. But it's more humiliating if you live, isn't it?
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Fucking kill me, vampire. [ His words were already a little slurred, now they're more so. ] Or I'll remind you why you all fucked off here in the first place.
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With a failed stake and pitiful knife. Yes. I am reminded of what you were.
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Just fucking kill me. Please.
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His father never quite had a garden of impaled skeletons lining the front way. What he has is a set of gates make it clear exactly whose property this is, disguised as a thick tree line to all other eyes.
Trevor is tossed with no ceremony across that threshold, back into the world itself.]
Go.
[It's a command, but not a compulsion.]
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Fuck. Fuck.
[ He doesn't reach the gate in time. There isn't a gate anymore. Just trees and an invisible line on the ground that he can't pass without suddenly needing to turn around and forget he was here.
It’s a few weeks before Trevor shows up next. And it’s not in the way anyone might expect.
Which is to say that he doesn’t bang on the door before trying to bewitch the castle. Because in fairness, there isn’t much of a ‘what anyone might expect’ to work with when it comes to Trevor. He’s calm, he’s quiet, and that long blue coat is meticulously cleaned and repaired, though it seems almost too large on him. And he isn’t alone.
The chain isn’t visible from the road, but the glamour fades away as they move through those gates. It’s around his neck and looped through itself in such a way as to tighten when pulled. He stumbles forward when he's dragged, eyes unfocused.
The vampires leading him, two of them with one clearly leading and another following, don’t knock. Because of course they don’t fucking knock. They, unlike their prisoner, know there’s no need for it. The castle won’t have allowed them to arrive without announcement. Instead they simply stand at the door. ]
My lord. [ The first vampire speaks. He’s local. Known only as Damian in recent years, he hasn’t been Giovanni Damiano or John Damian since he came to America. Older than many, an alchemist who became a vampire to fulfil a prophecy about a flying man and who had posed as a priest and a surgeon both for centuries before he was driven out of Europe by the Belmonts. His voice is soft and cool and absolutely the kind of deferential tone that could mean that legitimately be deference or that could mean ‘actually fuck you’. ] I bring tribute.
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Sypha never found the damaged clothes. He repaired them next he woke, far away from her eyes, and they continued on this...this weird dalliance, whatever it was to be. It kept the house less lonely, it forced Alucard to do things like make sure there was more than a pitiful meal for himself. (The dutch oven was used a lot for stews. Low effort plus leftovers.)
He's in the library again when the castle tells him there's someone approaching. The viewing mirror fills in the rest, and once the sad sight of the Belmont getting led around like a war prize is reflected in it's gaze, Alucard can do nothing but sigh. He did make the wrong judgement that night. He should have kept the Belmont and told the Morrises to come pick up a feral cat from Europe. No one would know that there was a Belmont in the city to begin with, and he would not be dealing with...oh ugh, whatever that one was going by now.
Sypha's out taking care of errands, which means the castle has not another soul within. He lets the doors open, meaning that they can come in but go no further than the main hallway.
When Alucard descends the stairs, he has on the same clothes as before, hole in his coat patched. His eyes look at the entire little group, and there is such disdain. The Belmont, that goes without saying. The other two, oh, this is a ruse.]
Do you now?
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The newest pride of my collection. And more of a rarity than ever these days, it would seem.
[ Damian smiles, and it's the kind of thing that might look genuinely pleasant. Which means it's entirely not real. ]
I had thought to see if a conservation effort might be made. One last kindness to old rivals, after all these years. Breed it, see the Belmonts flourish in captivity. But I had it interrogated, of course. One cannot be too safe with these sorts. Imagine my shock to learn that it had escaped from you!
[ The turn of the vampire's lips indicates that yes, the misunderstanding of events here is deliberate. He's daring Alucard to admit that he turned a Belmont loose. That's what his companion is here for. He's a witness. ]
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Alucard is yet to even descend the stairs in full. That's on purpose. They still need to look up at him.]
And I imagine you were just as shocked to see that this man was a wreck craving death, and so the greatest response to that is to curse such a thing with more life.
[The words are careful and deliberate. Considered.]
Something that you've built on, I see.
[No fucking misunderstanding. He made a choice. Alucard can only own it.]
But you've already used the word tribute, and so where do you stand in relation to myself to question judgement? Beyond age, that much need not be said.
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[ He's very clearly studying Alucard's face as he says that. ]
Forgive me, I thought perhaps that you shared my fondness for the old stories.
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This is a house of modernity, as you well know. My interest in those things is passing at best, and I think them tiresome when my elders believe they're being cute for using them to needle at me.
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[ This does not seem to be going the way Damian would like. There's no visible clues to that effect, but he's quick to try to bring that topic of conversation to a close. ]
Am I to assume that my gift is unwelcome, lord? Fear not, I do not mean to let such a precious rarity die regardless of your answer.
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I believe you called him tribute, did you not? You cannot use that word in front of me and then take it back.
Drop your leash.
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Of course, my lord.
[ It's clear from that sugary sweet tone that Damian considers this a victory. He drops the leash to the ground and looks to his witness, who watches impassively. The story is clear enough - if the Belmont is seen again, then Alucard has failed to bring an old enemy under heel even when given every opportunity. A sign of weakness. A sign of placing the value of even the most detested of his mother's kind above is father's. And, should the Belmont cause chaos when released, a sign of dangerous incompetence. ]
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So he'll plan to knock the Belmont out cold and then actually look at the injuries. Blood transfusion, that's easy enough once he can determine the correct bloodtype. (Not hard, not with him unconscious.) But after that then...then he'll have to talk to Sypha. She understands the peril of this, but she's more human. More clever than Alucard, if he is being honest.
That neck's been fucked up ten times over. But that's leverage.]
Take care that next time you feed, you're much more subtle. You know very well how things are handled if there are too many suspicious bites on the city's population.
[My father's rules apply. Because continuity. Because stability. Because Damien can go fuck himself with this little ploy.]
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[ The mention of Dracula's own rules knocks him off balance just a little, but he's quick to respond. Because that rule was never made for love of humanity, even if it started being enforced far more strictly after Dracula met his wife. It was made for secrecy's sake. As long as it's someone who won't be missed, and as long as they don't return to the city for those suspicious bites to be seen- well, there's no problem there.
Damian gives a dramatic bow. His companion only nods his head and gives a terse thanks for Alucard's valuable time. ]
If you have no need of me, my lord, then until we meet again. I pray you find my gift to your liking.
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[No thank yous. No farewells. Only Alucard's gaze as the two leave. He will know when they are off the property in due time. The castle communicates in all it's little ways.
But once the doors are closed, once Alucard is sure he is out of earshot, he simply sighs and looks over to Trevor with the greatest and most pained look of total exhaustion on his face.
The Belmonts cause problems wherever they go.
He doesn't move towards Trevor quite yet though. The compulsion will either wear off slowly or all at once. If the latter, he does not wish to be close.]
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He's awake, barely. He's awake but there's not much more he can do about that than to try to drag himself toward Alucard by the fingertips of one hand, snarling as he does. ]
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There's nothing of value gained by lingering on the stairs. All Alucard is being faced with is a half-dead feral cat, which means it is going to hiss and scratch and bite no matter what. He walks down, coming around from behind Trevor because Alucard's not an idiot.
And at that point, he can do nothing else but haul Trevor up by the back of his coat, more like a scruffed kitten than a human at this point, and dangle him just enough so that his feet are off the ground.]
Your instinct was right the first time, I suppose.
[He's mostly just annoyed.]
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