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Tweak says, "CAPSLOCKERS DO IT BETTER"

LUCY. (amongbriars) wrote in audeamus,
@ 2008-07-16 04:27:00

Entry tags:

fairytales

[Tales & Horrors]
Who: Lucy Williams and Jared Mirado.
What: Lucy isn't dealing well with a few things. Jared's worried.
Where: Lucy's apartment.
When: About two hours or so after the Stoughton/Barr, uh, proceedings. BACKDATED.
Status/Rating: Complete log/ Come on. With Lucy, you're betting R. For language and ~mature elements~.

JARED: The fucking wings hadn't gone yet, and after watching three men die, Jared needed a shower, wings or no wings, so they just ended up wet. Soaked, actually. Besides the problem of a dripping wet ten foot wingspan, wet feathers did not smell great, and just because the rest of Las Vegas didn't see the wings, it didn't mean they weren't there, waterlogged and a pain in the ass. Obviously, Jared didn't have any shirts that he could fit over the wings, so he just ended up pissed and bare-chested with a reverse jacket over his shoulders.

Knowledge of others, affinity with shadows, fine. Wings? Pain in the ass.

He would've liked to have a cigarette, maybe work on one of a hundred sketches lying around his temporary apartment. Instead, he had to go find Lucy. Lucy was a pain in the ass too, because one minute she was asking for help and the next minute she was telling him to fuck off. The last part was no surprise, but in combination with the first... something was seriously wrong with her, and it worried him. Getting involved with Malham, he wasn't surprised, and it pissed him off. Maybe he should take Deric's example and go after the guy. There might be a way to get him without getting killed. Maybe.

Jared ended up at Lucy's place a little later than promised; he knew Malham gave it to her, and he didn't want Malham knowing he was there. He was also a little conspicuous without a shirt, and so he had to get creative with his entrance. Fortunately anyone with a brain took the elevator. He knocked on the door and called her name, waiting until he heard a sound within, then standing back. "Lucy."

LUCY: Jesus Christ. Lucy was never sure what to think about Jared: he was weirdly straightforward, uncomfortably so, so when he'd said he was coming for her -- something that would have been an idle threat with anyone else -- she had something of a panic attack. She could handle guys. She could always handle guys. At least, she thought she could, until Sunday night. The feeling of hands on her throat, her arms, her legs, came back in a rush, and she found herself running for the bathroom for the second time that day. Her head ached, and not only from the bleeding cut at her temple. She found herself looking for Jared's handwriting in the journals just so she could tell him to keep his distance. At least she could control that.

At least, she thought she could.

She was still wet from the third shower that day when he called through the door. Three showers -- no matter how hard she scrubbed, she still felt the sweat from the back of that kid's car, the grease from his fingers, the dirt on the back seat. She felt, however fucking impossible it was for Lucy Williams to feel this way, vulnerable, and it made her just as sick as everything else. Who the hell was she, asking for help? Swallow it down, Lucy. Get over it. It wasn't like she was some ickle virgin, her ~blossoming flower~ plucked or some shit.

Jared knocked. Lucy knocked a glass off the counter on accident. Her fucking hands were still shaking, Jesus. "Go the fuck home," she said, just loud enough he could hear her, and made a decisive move towards the stereo, turning whatever was in there on at full blast. She couldn't really hear what it was. Whatever.

JARED: The shattering of the glass scared the hell out of Jared. His tone went up, alarmed, and the knock became one quick pound. "Lucy!" When he heard her voice, at least, the panic went out of his voice. "Christ," he said at the door, letting out a slow breath. There's only so much pointless violence you can handle in one day without having a fucking heart attack. Especially if you're a smoker and you can't get enough fucking air in your lungs when your idiot friend won't open the goddamn door.

The music went up, and he knocked a few more times. "Lucy. Damnit, Lucy, don't make me stand out here in the fucking hallway." The music kept blaring. Jared sighed, and looked down the hall. At least it was indoors, though it was going to be interesting to watch someone try to pass him in the hallway. They'd run into the wings they couldn't see.

Jared stepped back and then sighed again. "Shit," he muttered. Another step back and he was against the wall. He dug out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his jean pocket.

LUCY: Speaking of cigarettes--Lucy had left the stereo after it went into the next blaring track (she knew what it was now: some fucking twangy shit John had left over; what the hell did that idiot listen to?) to rummage about in, well, every sort of container she had lying around. Where the fuck where her smokes? She could do with one right now--keep her hands from shaking--she knew she had a pack around here somewhere, in her jeans pocket, on the table, in a drawer--where the fuck where they?

She let out a noise, halfway between groan and shriek, frustrated and hurting and agitated and Jesus Christ, could one thing go right? The jeans she'd discarded a few nights before went flying onto the floor, along with the magazines, beer bottles, and glasses she'd let accumulate on the table. Before she quite knew where her feet were taking her, she was across the room, and the door was open. Someone would be complaining about the noise, soon. Jesus. Might as well let the fucker in.

"What. What," she said, holding the doorknob and doorframe in either hand, like she could block whatever help he was offering just by standing in his way.

JARED: The flame cupped in Jared's hand went out with a click and a flicker. He let his hand fall, and it took the cigarette with it. The man and his wings took up the entirety of her hallway. By now the feathers were just damp and heavy, and lazily he let them droop to either side of his shoulders. He'd shoved the hood of the jacket into the back of his jeans because he didn't want to light it on fire, and he was whipcord lean and thin enough that he looked like some bizarre combination of just-hooked junkie and drowned blackbird.

He looked up and took a step forward simultaneously, a little too quick for comfort, frowning directly into her eyes. Once he was close enough he looked from her eyes an inch up to the purpling cut on her hairline. "Jesus, Lucy."

LUCY: For a second, she forgot the cuts on her face and the discomfort in her hips. Since when had this weedy fucker had wings? Her hand fell from the doorframe. "You've got--those are--Holy shit."

JARED: "It's the horror thing," Jared said, like she was pointing out his hair color. His eyes went down to the nasty bruises on her neck--unmistakable for what they were, grasping fingerprints--and then down over the rest of her body, even if there was nothing to see. Concern darkened his eyes further until they were almost opaque. "What the hell happened?"

LUCY: Her eyes fell, and that brief glimmer of surprise faded into the dark blue cynicism she was used to. They rolled back slightly, irritated, exasperated, and she stepped out of the doorframe. "Ran into a door," she said sarcastically, perfectly aware what that excuse was most often used for. "Help me find my fucking cigarettes and you can stay." Never mind that there were books and broken cups and shoes all over the floor. Tossing things off tables and countertops ahd apparently been something of a habit over the past couple days.

JARED: Jared, moving with that same boneless grace he always had, came in after she left the door open. He caught himself staring at her in horror, waited a moment for the anger to build up, and then breathed out as slowly as possible so it didn't screw up everything he did. His eyes trailed around at the wreckage. "Jesus, Lucy," he said again, this time soft.

He blinked. The hand that was still holding the cigarette came up and he offered it out to her. The lighter was in the same palm, and he offered that a moment after. The endless geometric parabolas inscribed in black lines kept going up his wrists and over his arms, tracing the edges of the muscles and flaring out; they were very much like feathers, at a glance, even if they were nothing like the flexing, breathing black wings he was now making an effort to pull up and away from the floor.

LUCY: She stared at the cigarette and lighter for a second, as if they might be poisoned, or explode in her hands. But she took them, keeping her twitching fingers as still as she could when she shoved the cigarette in her mouth. Lighting it was a different story. One try. Two. She swore under her breath, glared down at the lighter like it would make a difference. "Jesus--fucking--could have a shitting working piece of--" Her hands trembled harder and she tore the smoke out of her mouth, moving over to the kitchen. Every move, every step, was as forced as it was necessary, like stopping for even a breath would just be the end of her, she'd fall, collapse, break. "Didn't want a fucking smoke anyway."

She sniffed awkwardly and ran a hand through her hair, tugging a hairtie from around her wrist and throwing the tangled blonde mass up into a messy ponytail. "I've got vodka," she said flatly. And then, almost in the same thought, "How long have you had those?"

JARED: Jared watched her move back and forth, feeling like he was watching her leave pieces of herself behind every step. Finally he couldn't stand it any longer and pursued her into the kitchen, making sure not to move to fast, and not to come toward her in a blind spot. He let the wings hang in the air above his shoulders, and as she looked they wilted a little under her inquiry. "They come and go. Here." He reached for her hand and the lighter, sliding it out of her shaking grip. The lighter was a silver zippo, and scratched to hell. It suited him. He lit the cigarette for her and then dug for another out of his pocket, shifting sharp angles and long lean lines. The lighter disappeared and he exhaled slick tendrils of gray and backed a couple steps away from her, closing his eyes. "Malham do this?" he asked, abruptly, opening his eyes.

LUCY: Lucy wasn't a smoker. She held the cigarette oddly, in a practiced sort of way, as if the only time she ever smoked was when people expected her to, or when she didn't know what else to do. But the steady motion of inhaling and exhaling kept her hands that much steadier, and she managed to pull a bottle of Stoli out of the freezer. No cups or shot glasses followed, but her elbows suddenly settled on the counter, her whole body too heavy to move much though she didn't seem to want to admit it. She only nodded at the explanation of his wings--she'd heard stranger--and scoffed at his question.

"Sure," she said, in that tired, dry way. "Malham thought we'd have a little fun, paid me a visit. Christ. Nothing so fucking glamorous, Jared." She paused, and for the first time some of that anger and hurt she'd been flailing with on the journals came filtering into her face. "That why you came? Looking for Malham?"

JARED: His expression stilled, and remained still. The wings did not. They stretched low on the primaries at the mention of Malham's name, ready to flare, but then her bitterness and her anger filtered through, and where Jared did not show the pang, the wings did. They made themselves small and long against his back. He said, "No. I came to see if you were okay." But you're not, went unsaid.

Jared smoked so much it was a wonder he wasn't on a slab somewhere being dissected to show would-be coroners what lung cancer looked like. He didn't puff, he just tasted, and smoke slithered out from the sides of his mouth in long sighs. "If I want Malham, I know where he is." Then, after a short pause, "You want me to beat him to hell for you?"

LUCY: She gave him a flat look. His face--not the wings. Whether she was over the shock or very carefully not looking at them was hard to say; she'd long learned how to keep a poker face. "Going to track him down on a white horse, fight for my honor?" You could almost hear the tildes around the last word. Whether because she found the thought ridiculous, or because it was fighting for something she knew, deep down, she didn't have, it was hard to say. "Because I bet it's real fucking easy to bust in on Malham and knock his teeth in." A short pause. A long drag. "Not that I fucking need it, anyway, Christ. Keep harping on about this ohmigod-Malham bullshit, I'll kick you the fuck out."

JARED: Jared looked back at her. His face was calm. The wings stayed put. His voice was quiet and hoarse around the cigarette smoke. "Actually, I wasn't talking about Malham." He gestured with two smoking fingers at the cut on her head, meaning more than just that. His eyes returned to hers. "And I was going to do it to make me feel better. But if you got some honor you want me to fight for, I'll let him know."

LUCY: Her face hardened, lips and nose twisting in irritation and distaste. "Leave it," she snapped, and set about screwing off the cap of the Stoli. Her hands were trembling again; she turned to lean her back against the counter and use a corner of the shirt for traction. "There are shot glasses in the cabinet," she said after a moment, setting the cap on the counter. "Not fucking mixing drinks, sorry."

JARED: "Lucy, babe, after the day I've had, you can give me the fucking bottle when you're done with it." He closed his eyes and rubbed them with the heel of his hand, then looked around for something to tap ash into.

LUCY: There was an empty soda can on the counter and she handed it to him; she didn't have any idea where the fucking ash tray was, and she didn't want to have to deal with stepping in ash at 3 am when she came out for a drink. The bottle, however, she kept for herself. Filled the shotglasses, took hers without waiting, and then, giving the glass a considering look, tossed it in the sink. She made her way over to the couch without waiting for him to follow, not even sure he could sit down with the wings there. Anything to avoid the topic at hand. "So what the fuck happened, anyway?"

JARED: Without much pause for consideration or delicacy, Jared took what he could get, emptying the shotglass. The whole point of a shotglass was getting whatever was in it down without actually tasting it--sort of a pointless formality, because after all the fucked up things he'd done to his body and the smoking he'd picked up in exchange for less pleasant habits, Jared couldn't taste much anyway. He took the can (portable ashtray, decent) and followed her into the next room before the vodka even had a chance to burn.

"Fucking Barr went off the deep end and got himself a glock," Jared said, sounding like L.A. and not caring. She was right about the wings and the couch; there was no chair around and the couch was more trouble than it was worth, so he stood and leaned over the back of the opposite end of it, weight on his elbows. He pulled his fingers through tangled hair, but he did it backward from the nape of his neck. It just ended up messier.

LUCY: "Christ," she said, an exhale around the smoke and vodka burn. "They're really fucking gone, huh." Of course they were fucking gone. Jared wouldn't be hanging around (and shirtless, too, what the hell was that?), looking after some chick who he thought Malham roughed up if they were still holding a murderer in some guy's basement or what-the-fuck-ever. She took another drink, wincing slightly, and handed it over the back of the couch. Her eyes flicked up to the wings and back down to his face.

"Do they hurt," she asked after a heavy pause, eyes somewhere in the vicinity of the couch arm. She looked suddenly tired, worn. It was an honest question.

JARED: Jared just nodded slowly. "Took a guy with him, someone living at the ex-cop's place. Almost got Cal--" for some reason, the edge of Jared's mouth flickered here, "and the loud-mouthed kid is in the hospital, but he'll get back out again." Jared shrugged, and the right wing readjusted to compensate. With his shoulder blades flexed backward, they folded neatly away, just like an old crow's wings when he was busy with something else.

He looked back over his shoulder at them, considering her question. "If I forget they're there and run into a fucking doorframe or some shit, then yeah. Otherwise, they're just..." Now he opened them just a little, and tensing and flexing his shoulders experimentally. "...heavy," he said.

LUCY: Lucy coughed slightly, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. "Don't know who the fuck those people are, but hey--" a small shrug--"'long as the fucker is dead." She kneaded her shoulders slightly, like something had just loosened in her back and she wasn't sure how to go about carrying herself anymore.

It took a long moment for her to say anything else. Carefully, awkwardly, she got up on her knees and turned around to hang over the back of the couch, her elbows by his. Her face was surprisingly cool. "Can I touch them?"

JARED: "Stoughton too," Jared said, off-handedly.

He watched her come, worry lines drawing dark between his brows. The request didn't especially bother him, it just surprised him. Typically there was a lot of staring at the wings (this was the rare time he ran into others who could see them, not every city was as teeming with tales as Vegas), and generally Jared got the feeling they weirded people out.

Shit, they weirded him out for a long time, too.

"Sure." One wing gently withdrew from its fellow and then spread to its full extent along the back of the couch. Just the one had to be five or six feet long from joint to the edge of the primary, and the bones and feathers were interlocked in neat rows just like those of the carrion crows all over the states. The feathers were not just black, but a peculiar heavy bluish color when they caught the light just so.

LUCY: "Barr killed my friend," she said simply, and kept her focus on the wing as it spread out in front of her. Gentler than even she thought was possible, she reached out with a hand bruised around the wrist, and touched the feathers a few inches from the couch. It was like touching something alive -- unsurprising, really -- and she shrank back almost immediately. But Lucy was never one to back down from damn near anything, and pursing her lips, she reached forward again. It was soft and wet, a little bedraggled for feathers; but considering the only feathers she'd ever touched had been ones dropped from pigeons in her yard back in LA, she was surprised by the things under her fingers. It was a good distraction, in and of itself, and her hands were steady as they ran vaguely over the feathers and bones in her reach. "This doesn't hurt or anything, right?"

Said in a rare moment of calm, it was probably the first unselfish thing she'd said to anyone since entering the Vegas city limits. Congrats, Jared. Broken and hiding it, she managed some degree of concern.

JARED: He was surprised that she had said it, and that was clear on his face even if she wouldn't look up to see it. It wasn't that he didn't know already, because he did; it was that Lucy made a point of never admitting anything, and the reversal was just... just strange. It would have worried him, except he couldn't be more worried than he was already.

He held the wing out and steady. It wasn't as heavy as he said. (Bird bones don't weigh much.) He just liked to bitch about them because when they were around, they were nothing but trouble. "No," he said, as her hands went over the long, finger-like feathers, a little rough against her palm if she stroked them the wrong way, "Can't feel anything, just kind of a tickle." As she got nearer to his shoulders, however, that changed. The feathers became short and soft, the muscle under them thicker, warmer, and the bone a little wider. She hit some invisible spot and a little tremor went through the wing and then Jared himself, through his back and down his spine. "Ah," he said, trying not to smile and failing. "That, I felt."

LUCY: "Sorry," she said, an old reflex, and scrunched her face up immediately after. "Fucking over-sensitive." But her hand stayed where it was, oddly considering, head tilted to the side to watch the fibers of the feather shift and catch the harsh ceiling light. Her eyes were focused inward, or somewhere else entirely, and after a minute her fingers stopped on top of the shoulder joint -- hesitantly, like she'd tear them away any moment.

"He hit me in the head," she said, eyes still in that strange in between place. "Had a fucking ring on, got concussed. Knocked me in the back of his car. Ripped my dress and--everything else. It hurt, I guess," she added, almost as an afterthought. Her eyes remained conspicuously dry, and her fingers started twitching again, but she shook her head and pulled her hands away in one uncomfortable moment, shaking off whatever she might have been seeing. "Wasn't Malham. Just some guy."

JARED: Wisely, Jared said nothing. His smile faded away, and he listened with an air of total patience, like he could stand and lean their forever waiting for the next word she was searching for. Inside, there was anger, but it was compact and controlled, like the inside of a pressure cooker. He would deal with it later. The dark eyes watched her without staring, and he managed empathy without condescending pity.

The feathers and bone shifted gently under her fingers, and by the time she'd pulled her hands away the wing had curved around and toward her, just a little, just so, without touching her shoulder. Jared didn't say anything. All he could think of to say where things he already said, and they wouldn't help.

LUCY: She rubbed at her eye like she was tired, but they both knew better. "Didn't fucking come here to hear my life story or some shit," she said after a moment, but the words were hollow, without the usual heat she had when comfortable enough to swear freely. Her chest was tight under her tee-shirt, like a spring or something shrinking in on itself, and she knew exactly why. Fuck all if she let it happen in front of anyone but her shower drain.

JARED: "Why not?" he said. "Put up with your shit all the time." There was a quiet smile in his voice, and the feather touch weighed cautiously on her back, comforting. His hands were still in front of him and interlaced, his head tilted toward her, and a slight reassuring smile to match his voice lingered on the edge of his mouth. A moment ago he had dropped the stub of his cigarette into the can, but white tendrils were still climbing out of the tin and sliding over his inked arms toward the ceiling.

LUCY: "Christ, I'm fine," she said, anything but. Her voice was thick and heavy, and it hurt to talk, but she was adamant about continuing. "This shit happens all the goddamn time--not like I'm a fucking invalid, just got the best of me--fucking fine." Each word came out with an effort, and by the end of it, punctuated by little gasps. Dry sobs, but she couldn't keep them down. Her head slumped, and she wanted to get up, to move away, get more of the Stoli in her and move on--but there it was. There it fucking was, all out on table, and Jesus Christ, if she just had more vodka her chest wouldn't feel so tight and--

She felt her hands on her face, but Lucy fucking Williams didn't ever fucking cry. She sniffled and coughed and wheezed, wiped her eyes and ducked her face away--but she didn't fucking cry.

JARED: He didn't argue with her. In fact, he didn't say anything at all. He just let the wing curl around her back gently in a sheltering hug that smelled of musty drying feathers.

LUCY: It was, to be perfectly honest, the first time Lucy had been hugged since she was a teenager. The men she pressed against walls to reach into their pockets, the occasional time she felt the urge to be close after she and John drunkenly hooked up post-con--it wasn't the same. This was intended comfort, and nothing else. Intended comfort for a crying girl with her arms dangling over the back of a couch she didn't own, in an apartment that wasn't hers, who suddenly felt ten years younger than she was with a man she could never quite define. Lucy breathed raggedly, stopping in between breaths as if holding it in would make it stop. Her head sank into her arms on the back of the couch and sobbed piteously, halting and loud, an action she was long unfamiliar with.

It took a while to stop, though it seemed almost as soon as it began to Lucy. She kept her head down, ashamed perhaps, embarrassed perhaps, and spoke, muffled. "Why the fuck aren't you wearing a shirt?"

JARED: Jared just waited, trying to think about nothing at all as the feathers draped around her shoulders dried and his elbows got stiff from leaning in the same position for so long. The gentle weight on her shoulders lifted a little. When he spoke again, it was with self-deprecating amusement. "Can't get it over the fucking feathers."

LUCY: Lucy scrubbed a hand across her face rougher than was necessary. If she had been wearing make-up, it would have been heavily smeared by now. "So you just wandered around fucking Vegas without a fucking shirt? Christ." Her voice was still thick and she wasn't looking up. Keep your eyes down; eventually shit would just go away.

JARED: "I don't think too many people noticed," he said seriously. "It's not like anybody can see them and I tend to... blend in when they're around." He shrugged a little and then took his weight off his elbows, gingerly stretching the joints. The feathers slid gently off her back.

LUCY: As soon as the wings were gone, she was off the couch, taking the Stoli back towards the kitchen, not entirely sure what she was going to do with it. Moving helped, even ineffectual movement. By the time she was in the other room, she'd wiped her face semi-clean, and managed to shove some of the muffled weakness out of her voice. It was still headier than expected, a little difficult to handle than a voice ought to be. "How the fuck do you make them go away? Don't know how the hell you're supposed to crash here if you can't even fucking lie down." A short pause. She turned around sharply, an empty tumbler in one hand. "And none of that creepy fucking sleeping-standing-up shit either."

JARED: Jared laughed. When he was younger, it was probably lighter with only a low finish, but now it was thickened by smoke and disuse. "I can't. They're around until they stop being around." He turned as she left and then stretched both arms up, rolling his shoulders to loosen them in their sockets. The feathers swept out low and separated as every muscle extended. "Mmmph," he said, rubbing his face. The wings flopped back and he hauled them back up to folding. "Just sleep on my stomach," he said, grinning at the thought of sleeping standing up.

LUCY: Ice in the tumbler, vodka on top; a couple moments of rummaging around in the fridge got her orange juice, and Lucy had herself a doubleshot screwdriver. It would do for the moment. "Not like I'm doing much sleeping anyway," she said vaguely, returning with the glass and the bottle, the latter of which she handed over before flopping back onto the couch. If it weren't for the red in her eyes and drawn lines of her shoulders, she would have looked just the same as ever, if a little worse for wear. "You can sleep wherever. I gotta watch a movie or something," she added, taking up the remote without waiting for a response on his part. No, Jared, you didn't really get a choice in the matter. "Batman Begins or--I don't know, whatever the fuck else I have tivo'd."

JARED: "Sounds good to me. I don't sleep too good after I get shot at," he replied. Jared tipped the bottle up and had a gulp like the stuff was water, neither enjoying nor ignoring the burn. He put it down against the couch so it didn't get kicked over and took the floor, stretching out lengthwise and leaving the wings where they were. Between them and Vegas itself, there wasn't a chill. He put a fist under his chin, turned just enough to pop his back noiselessly, and then flopped. He looked impossibly comfortable.

LUCY: As promised, she didn't sleep. The movie started smoothly and Lucy didn't say much, drumming her cracked nails against the edge of the cold glass, occasionally shifting as Jared popped a bone in his back, or fluttered his heavy wings. Her fingers drifted down her waist every so often, to the sore spots on her hips and the drawstring of her sweats, then back up as soon as she realized where they had gone. After a while, Jared dropped off, exhausted by the events of the day and whatever else was on his shoulders, she didn't know. But Lucy stayed awake, as she had the past two nights, her head cradled in her arm on the couch while her ears filtered out the sounds of the city outside her windows. She could recite almost every line of Batman Begins now, she thought.

The film ended. She pressed play again, and the ominous silence started behind the opening credits. At least the room wasn't as empty as it usually was.