<span style="font-size: 15px">He tossed, he turned, pacing around hallways, avoiding the sliver of sunlight that broke out from between the smallest crack of the curtains whichever way he went. A fretful woman trailing after him and trying to calm her regnant down to rest. To say MacClery was troubled would be an understatement, he felt like a tortured man, as soon as he shut his eyes to sleep, each dawn, he'd feel the backdraft of bodies pass him by, their voices echoing out from the pillows beneath him. Every hour he made the foolish assumption that a short stride through the house would rid him of these festering ails. The repetition of his failures only brought harm, and many a restless day ended the same.</span><br/><br/><span style="font-size: 15px">"Please stay down, Andy..." Softspoken was the voice behind him, the only one that spoke from an organic form, breathing and beating and so very frail. She pulled at his arms, weak even if she wished to turn around any normal man, let alone a monster such as him. And in turn MacClery acted as if he felt nothing, heard nothing, moving back on his own volition for what he could only hope be the last time he tuck himself in for bed. The woman tended to his needs regardless, as if the behavior wasn't a bother. Once MacClery sat on his mattress she skittered away just long enough to restart the record, it's scratching halting for just a second too long. But it wasn't a minute until her attention turned back to the tired, weary man who seemed to wilt each morning.</span><br/><br/><span style="font-size: 15px">He seemed stoic, though she could only imagine what he heard that she could not, talking at no thing, giving her nothing but empty replies addressed to the dead. MacClery had managed to try to rest again within the hour, the woman ghoul watching, eyes lit with an obsessive, maternal pain. He of course, writhed, and not even a pillow held over his ears kept those ghosts at a distance. Panicked, paranoid ramblings of a deceased wife and the cryptic, cruel teachings of a sire far out of his own head.</span><br/><br/><span style="font-size: 15px">Loretta sat with dry eyes from having stared at the moving form under the thick covers for what felt like hours, and whether it was her own madness or the stress of a sleepless day she surged forward as soon as she could comprehend MacClery shifting to rise, mindlessly committed to his own cycle. She pushed him back to lie down with both hands. "Please! You're losing energy, you have to sleep..!" To be honest with herself she didn't know the rules that her regnant had to live by, but it seemed the less rested he was the more lost and dazed, she couldn't have worried less if she tried, as if she were bred to assume the worst for him. Quickly she moved aside to rummage through the drawers of MacClery's vanity, coming back with a pair of sewing scissors, with the thought that if her voice did naught then her blood would suffice. No amount of pain stilled her as she buried the sharp blades of the pair of scissors down into her arm, wrenching open the wound with a tug and crawling up next to her regnant like she were trying to distract a dog with biscuits. It was enough to bring the man half out of his illness, meeting her halfway and grabbing her by the wrists almost angrily. "Loretta, dear-- what are you doing?"</span><br/><br/><span style="font-size: 15px">It delighted his nostrils and made him wish he could salivate, triggering an instinctual hunger in him, but he refrained long enough to push aside the sounds of his own demons to hear a faint "Please sleep, you have to sleep, please." The woman spoke her mantra, struggling with a need to bring her arm closer to MacClery's face. He lowered his weary eyes to the running wound, before indulging in her offer and dragging his tongue up the red streak on her arm to suckle the puncture. The sting of it was strong enough to bring hot tears to her eyes, but it seemed to calm both, bringing a much needed moment of silence aside the crackling of the blank record.</span><br/><span style="font-size: 15px">---<br/>
MacClery began his night like most others, sitting in his chair as a timid young man worked at making him presentable, shaving away the hair on his lip he'd somehow grown back over his short sleep. The only oddity was the blood on his sheets, something he struggled to remember clearly, but was an event at least familiar enough that he understood what happened by context alone. Loretta, thankfully, was alright. For her small bones and weak limbs, MacClery often wondered if he'd accidentally kill her during one of these stunts she pulled, sometimes just not content to sit and watch as he fought to keep his eyes closed. And he never asked for her company during these times, she was free to leave as morning came, but making her go home was harder than most of the ghouls who visited him. The pitiful darling was bound too strongly, and wound up too tight. Despite the prior night's meal, the torturous wake of each long, grueling morning was enough to make him feel starved.<br/>
<br/>
He was for all intents an purposes, a sophisticated gentleman on the outside, mistaken for the haughty and kempt Ventrue by many. But the blood of his sire held a sinister ailment, and the sun was quick to reveal MacClery's utter lack of self control.<br/>
<br/>
On the vanity was a letter that had been sent to the house, likely picked up by Loretta after he managed to slumber, the location that Mr. Wilde had prepared for them, from what he could guess, a private little residence for rent. The man seemed like a romantic, so he could only dread having to turn down a drink for the hundredth time in his unlife.<br/>
<br/>
His schedule ran as clockwork. Face clean and body suited up, the same driver dropped off Loretta to switch places with him for the night and care for the house, this time her forearm visibly bandaged under a loose sleeve. They exchanged wordless glances, before the monster that held the reins rushed him off to his destination.<br/>
<br/>
He was on the steps of what appeared to be a boarding house, case in hand again, questions that had been jotted down the night before were answered, though the scrawling acted primarily as notes for a verbal meeting. The building itself was a bit stuffy, tenderly used floors and furniture, a receptionist who looked like she was just about ready to turn in from her shift whom he quietly asked the residence of a certain Mr. Wilde. She was tired, the night having come to a close for her, but kind enough, deigning not to snap at him for stalling her any longer. It wasn't long before MacClery stood at the door of their private room, or at least as private as his client could manage. He questioned the integrity of the walls, though they weren't ugly at all, he expected things to go awry and didn't want to draw attention to himself. But, if Wilde had anything in the back of his head that MacClery suspected, that wouldn't have been an issue when reserving the place.<br/>
<br/>
MacClery lifted a cold hand to politely knock at the door, refraining from running fingers back over his hair and trusting the work of his ghoul.</span>