Horse Guards Parade (Let the Games Begin)

The cold kiss of flesh against his hand served as a sharp reminder that she was no typical grief-stricken woman. A wounded predator was far more dangerous and unpredictable than the healthiest of beasts. Rod remained vigilant, and shaped his face into a perfect picture of stunned surprise. Pause for effect. Then the melt into sympathy.

"Oh, Sansa, I am sorry. And here I am babbling about sports. I'm a blind fool."

Slowly, he rose, and settled onto the bench beside her. Now that she'd stopped crying, local interest evaporated, and the small cluster of people nearby dispersed, affording them a fraction of privacy. Since she was swift to pull away from him a moment ago, he made no effort to invade her personal space, and instead simply clasped his hands in patient thought.

"I assume this happened recently."

"Yes," she said simply, the outburst from moments before carefully put away, leaving her more like an empty shell. "I -"

Movement caught her eye, and she turned to see Liam Dunsirn pushing his way out of the event, his head on a swivel. Sansa sighed. "My babysitter is arriving."

Rod tracked Sansa's gaze across the road to where he spotted a large shaggy man bound onto the street. The expression on his face betrayed every manner of agitation, giving Rod the immediate impression of a man with whom not to trifle, and also of a man not best suited to babysitting. Hence the deflated tone in Sansa's voice, no doubt. Eyes locked on the stranger, who was but moments away from discerning his quarry through the heavy traffic of people, Rod said:

"One of your kind?"

"No, though he is part of the...Giovanni clan? A Garou." Sansa shrugged. She really didn't know much about vampire politics, other than the obvious Sabbat/Camarilla split. Gabe had always diverted any questions she'd had, and it had brought him pain to think of the time when he'd been Prince of London. She'd stopped bringing it up long ago. "The Giovanni have Kinfolk, he calls it, in their blood, though having the ability to actually Change is - this is fascinating I'm sure but can we just get out of here?"

She impulsively grabbed Rod's hand, pulling him off the bench and walking briskly at a ninety degree angle to where Liam was looking.

"Bloody werewolves," Rod muttered, "Well, that complicates things. This way."

Sansa was led from Horse Guards Road with a tug of the hand, and the pair retreated into St James's Park, where the thinning crowds were replaced by ranks of thick folliage. In the distance, haunting orbs of light wove deep into the park where the paths were lined with lamps. Occassionally, Rod glanced over his shoulder to the entrance, as they scurried along the gravel path. And then he appeared, a hulking silhouette framed in the brilliant stadium light. He paused for a moment to scrutinise the gloom, and then suddenly advanced, lumbering toward them at speed. Ahead, the path forked.

"Don't run. We go right, here. Say nothing."

She forced herself to match Rod's sedate pace, turning her head slightly to see Liam getting much closer. His face was creased with what could be described as worry. Ewan would chew him out for losing track of her, she was sure, but she had no where else to go. She would return to their flat before dawn. Maybe.

Liam was nearly caught up, but he paused at the fork and hurried down the left path, quickly moving out of sight. Sansa visibly relaxed, expelling a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"Ic astyrian faerblaed wawe fram supdael," Rod whispered, then he glanced at Sansa, "Now we run."

And without another moment's notice, Rod departed the footpath and started to dash across the park, pulling Sansa along with him. Behind them, the wall of trees stirred and groaned in the wake of a sudden torrent of wind. The ceiling of canopies hissed angrily at the disturbance, thousands of jostling leaves like a million tiny raindrops; it was an apalling din. The wind pushed them onwards, over a long shadowy stretch of grass towards another path. Beyond, there was a fence, where the warm golden haze of the Mall peaked through in flecks. They were almost out. In an instant, all was once again calm, and the looming folliage whispered in the gentle summer breeze.

Breathless, and feeling somewhat exhilerated, Rod spilled out onto the pavement with Sansa in tow. It felt like being back at school, hiding from angry teachers in the atrium, and he was grinning like a schoolboy.

"See? What did I tell you? Five minutes in your company and I'm already on the run!"

She grinned in spite of herself, running her hand through her now tangled locks. "I hope you've been working on your cardio, then." Sansa flagged down a taxi - there were literally hundreds of them swarming around the Olympic venues - and soon they were both safely ensconced within.

She didn't know where to go, so Rod supplied a destination to the driver, releasing her hand as he did so. Sansa sat back, watching the dark skies out the window as the taxi pulled from the curb, melancholy settling around her like a blanket.

After his sprint through St. James's Park, Rod found it stuffy in the back of the cab, and opened a window to chase away the stagnant air. It was a beautiful evening, and it was nice to be afforded the scenic route home, past Buckingham Palace and onto Constitution Hill. It would be ten minutes until they arrived at their destination, and by then the scenery would have changed dramatically, so he enjoyed it while he could. Sansa was silent, but something told Rod it wasn't the view that was leaving her speechless. He gave her a gentle nudge.

"So, why does a big girl like you need a babysitter in the first place?"

She started at his touch, her attention abruptly returning to the inside of the cab. "Oh, they just worry that I'll go mad with grief and try to off myself."

She rolled her eyes, remembering her outburst at the game. "Obviously I have it all together, of course." Sansa leaned toward him a bit, the car jostling them closer together, her eyes meeting his. Suddenly she was very aware of just how she'd been neglecting herself, the Hunger rising up inside her like a wave.

Her eyes remained locked on his, her Presence starting to come into play like a snake mesmerizing its prey.

"Your eyes," he uttered softly.

Rod drooped heavily against the headrest but found himself incapable of breaking his gaze. A pleasant warmth spread throughout his leaden limbs. His surroundings; the taxi, the buildings, the growling traffic, the strobing street lights, and the cool evening breeze; it all melted away. And where his peripheral vision grew dark, Sansa was positively incandescent. He smiled.

"They're so... blue!"

She hardly paid his words any attention, all of her senses straining toward that faint throbbing like a drum beat under the skin of his neck. Sansa dipped her head closer, mouth opening as she tilted his head to the side.

The taxi lurched to a halt at a red light and she jerked back, her fangs merely brushing his skin without breaking it. Suddenly embarrassed, she huddled against her side of the vehicle, a hand over her mouth to hide her predicament as the effects of her Presence quickly wore off.

Rod scanned the floor in a drunken sort of stupor, his head rocking in time with the lurching cab, and then he became still. In one breath, his placid features turned rigid, and he seemed to swell up in his seat. Blazing wide eyes snapped on Sansa and there they remained as his hand plunged into his trouser pocket.

"This is fine," he said, addressing their driver.

"We've got a ways to go-"

"I said this is fine!" Rod snapped, and slapped a ten pound note in the tray beneath the driver's partition.

Wasting not another moment, Rod practically rammed the taxi door open and ploughed through into the street, where he paced with long manic strides, waiting. His trembling hand, even after being drawn heavily down his face, was unable to iron out the creases of outrage and disgust.

Sansa stepped out of the cab, her every move graceful thanks to the Toreador blood in her veins. She felt sick at her own actions, and ashamed. Rod was a friend. Friends don't bite friends...unless asked to.

With effort her fangs retracted, and she watched Rod carefully, trying to figure out what to say. As he paced toward her she said, "I'm sorry. There's no excuse for ...that." She closed her eyes briefly, stepping back as he continued to approach her, and then started looking for street signs. "I'll find my own way home. I'm so sorry."

Her voice cracked a bit at the end as she felt the now familiar surge of panic beginning to rise. With effort she squashed it down.

"I'm not your fucking supper!" Rod snarled, closing what little space remained between him and his would-be predator, "If you ever attempt such a thing with me again, mark my words, I will kill you where you stand!"

Under the harsh amber glare of the sodium lights, Rod appeared animalistic, transformed with rage. His eyes were wild, his teeth glistened, and his entire body rose and sunk with every ragged breath. He considered Sansa a moment longer.

"Get out of my sight."

She stared at him for a moment, and then turned and ran. Using celerity to get out of his sight was, most likely, a bad idea when she was so Hungry, and she was soon slumped against a brick building a few blocks away, her body near exhaustion.

Sansa stared with unseeing eyes across the road, her focus gradually turning from the bright lights of a Starbucks sign to the people within. Her Hunger stirred what Gabriel had referred to as the Beast, and she slowly straightened, smoothing her hair and walking toward the street.

In a matter of seconds she was gone, an indistinct blur vanished into the dark. And in the silence that followed her departure, Rod had only the company of his own boiling temper; the iron tension of his muscles, and the sharp adrenaline buzz. He was alone again, and free to go home and put this whole ugly episode behind him with a glass, or two, of Johnnie Walker. It was a rare luxury to survive vampire dealings with clean hands, but Rod had managed it, somehow. He stepped from the gloom unscathed, and he would, most definately, sleep soundly that night.

"Shit."

Rod took off at a sprint, and as he did he recalled Sansa's off-handed remark about neglected cardio, and found himself making a desperate silent plea that the sudden pain was but the sting of regret.

Traffic was relatively light, but she still had to pause to wait for an appropriate break before stepping into the street. Sansa walked briskly across the street, part of her brain telling her that a jolt of caffeine would help curb the Hunger while the other half was simply calculating which person she would grab first.

She stepped up onto the sidewalk and pushed open the door to the Starbucks, entering the warmly lit store like a shadow.

After two minutes, Rod was done. Propped up against a postbox, gasping, he concluded the stabbing ache in his side was decidedly not the pang of regret. Although he felt that too, and in buckets, as he staggered onto a brightly lit street. This was where she'd disappeared. Hermetic mages of his particular persuasion were gifted in the Sphere of Forces, a handy side effect of this was the innate ability to discern the presence of all objects within a limited range; some called this Magical Radar but Rod called those people morons. Moving objects create ripples in the fabric of matter itself, akin to ripples on a pond as opposed to, say, blips on a radar. The faster the object, the more prominent the ripples, which, even after a distance of six blocks, made his runaway vampire easy to follow. But this was where Sansa stopped and she was nowhere to be seen.

Bolstered against his wheezing fatigue by what was, in all likelihood, some imagined sense of responsibility, Rod pressed on. In his search, he approached a smartly-dressed middle-aged couple, along with a group of boisterous teenage girls, all of whom were quick to dismiss him in their own special way, although to give the old couple their due, at least they didn't spit cider at his feet. Perhaps it was to be expected, he thought - a strange man approaches, breathless, and glistening with sweat, declaring himself in pursuit of "an attractive young woman with dark hair and pale skin" - alarm bells will ring. Nevertheless, the hunt went on, for what he lacked in success he made up for in determination.

Shortly thereafter, he passed the warm glow of a coffee shop, and with a heartbeat skipped, he spotted a familiar face within.

She was clutching a paper cup filled with hot coffee, holding it in front of her on the little table as though it was a lifeline tethering her to reality. In a way, it was.

The door opened, the little bell chiming, and she looked up from staring at a woman who was texting away on her phone to see Rod step inside. Sansa's eyes widened, and she stood up abruptly, ready to flee once more.