Who: Dominic and Aiden What: Dominic goes looking for a book. Where: Aiden's bookstore, Arcadia Unbound When: Now Warnings/Rating: None.
One more of those dry, empty days in Vegas, another morning brought around with a blazing sunrise that wound up casting long shadows off buildings and heat mirages on the streets. Even in the winter it was warm out west, and even after five years of living there, Aiden always found it refreshing not to wake up to an overcast sky promising either torrential rain or a snowstorm to rival the heralding of an ice age. Even when he complained about the heat and the stuffy air and the godawful crowds that he had to manhandle his way through every single god damned day if he wanted to go out and try to get something to eat, it was still novel and different enough that he was willing to (grudgingly) put up with it.
Above all, it was bearable because his shop had air conditioning. The majority of his electricity bill was made up by either that, or the heating during unseasonably cold weather. And thus the shop was keeping the potential heat out with a low buzz just within hearing as Aiden settled back behind the counter with a box of old paperbacks. They needed to be checked over for damages and … personalized editing. More than once he’d paged through a copy of something on the shelves only to find the dialogue “improved” by someone’s alcohol-driven humor. If it was in pencil, he could almost fix it. In pen, it made him want to set fire to the casinos.
It was close to noon, but he figured he could put off lunch for a few hours yet. There’d been enough left over from last night’s dinner to supply a more than adequate breakfast. Aiden shifted, set his feet on the counter next to the register, and leaned back to do his work.
One of the things Dominic had made a conscious decision to spend more time on now that he was in Vegas was reading. He'd always liked to read. He wouldn't have gotten a degree in journalism if he didn't like to read. More importantly, though, reading seemed to quiet the uneasy, ongoing, fuzzy clash inside him, the slow, steady sensation of being subsumed that on bad days made him feel like everything inside him was being washed away. It was a little like the tides - on bad days, the high tide came in, and he was overwhelmed. On good days, it lapped at low tide, and he could breathe and feel almost normal.
Reading struck a middle ground. It kept things quiet, and it didn't require him talking to anyone, which sometimes felt like a herculean effort lately. It also distracted him from it all, and gave him a quick escape. Dominic's world had recently pulled back the curtain and revealed itself to be a weird, fantastical place in ways he never could have dreamed. He liked running from it between the pages of books, to places whose fantasy had nothing to do with strange, unknowable urges, and journals that wrote themselves, and driving all night through the wash of Vegas lights. Reading was a balm to him.
Dominic had spent part of his advance on a modest apartment, but he had enough left over to live on for a while, and to buy quite a few books besides. This was his third visit to Arcadia, and when he walked in he recognized the man behind the counter immediately. So far, he was the only person Dominic had seen working in the place. Their conversation hadn't extended much beyond the usual brief small talk of commercial exchange the last few times he'd stopped in. He considered wandering aimlessly through the stacks again, but then stepped up to the counter instead. There was one book, of course, that he'd been thinking about buying for weeks. He'd managed to resist the urge to peruse it thus far, but, at this point, what did it matter? He might as well find out, and it would give him an excuse to talk to the man at the counter. Dominic's interest in meeting new people, at least, remained unsupressed.
"You're the only person I've seen working here," Dominic said, by way of introduction. He hadn't had a chance to fully augment his wardrobe for his new climate, so he wore a long-sleeved button down with the sleeves rolled up against the impossible warmth. His eyes were dark, his voice quiet and politely inquisitive."Is it yours?"
Aiden wasn’t too far into the book when the bell rang over the door. Automatically, he tensed - he hated the sound of that bell, but for some reason had just never managed to get rid of it - and glanced up. The man who came in quietly was familiar, which in itself was unusual. Most people who came into the store were one-time visitors, occasionally one-time customers, the sort who looked at the fading white and gold paint on the windows and automatically associated the word ‘quaint’ with his store. He supposed it could be called quaint. It did have the sort of old-world air, if by old-world you meant a paint job that hadn’t been updated since the mid-70’s. So he appraised the other man, no name yet associated what with their cursory pleasantries. Anyone willing to come back more than once, not ask annoying questions, and actually buy something was as close to being in Aiden’s favor as possible.
It was rare enough to find people who enjoyed reading for reading. Not that he was against reading for academic means; he still took his time to analyze and interpret some novels, or read other people’s interpretations with a sneer. But most people assumed that once they were no longer required to try and understand a book they didn’t have to read anything ever again. Reading for the sheer calming, pleasant effect of it, to pass the time in a way unburdened by anyone else or requiring anything but a light source, was a growing rarity in this day and age. Given what he vaguely recalled the man buying, he probably wasn’t making his choices strictly for a class.
And that appraisal helped a bit when the man approached the counter instead of moving off among the shelves and boxes. It kept Aiden from his initial acidic responses. He looked evenly at the other man, pushing the wire-framed glasses further up on his nose.
“Yes,” he said, tone relatively calm for the time being. It hadn’t been too bad of a morning. “The original owners sold it to me a few years back, and I don’t get enough traffic to need another employee.” Nor could he ever imagine needing one. The most people he ever got in his store at one time was around five, and they were usually together. And usually drunk.
Dominic nodded. "I like it," he said, with the sort of clear-eyed honesty that bespoke a calm surety in his own opinions without any real intensity associated with them. There was the sense that he would not fight with someone who disagreed with him, just quietly consider their point of view and likely stay true to his own thoughts. "I'm new in town, and there aren't enough bookstores here. I guess people don't really come to this city for books."
Dominic slid his hands into his pockets. Right, he had meant to ask something. "I'm looking for a specific book," he said. He glanced down the aisles. This felt risky, more like acknowledging what was happening to him lately than he really wanted to skirt close to. "It's called Drive. Written by James Sallis. Do you think you have it?"
That was an oddly straightforward appraisal. Aiden himself wasn’t overly fond of the cramped lodgings and the fact that there was more dust on the first floor alone than in most of the casinos of Vegas combined, but he’d been there so long that he was innately possessive of it. And anyway, some days the sun hit the windows well enough to make the dust look appealing in the sunbeams, rather than the allergy attack it really was. He shifted, slightly taken aback, and shrugged at the comment about bookstores.
“No, not really. And if they want something, they go to the chain stores on the strip.” Which sold at irritating retail prices and sold food and crappy magazines near the registers. As if people could only be tempted to buy literature if there was something else nearby to reward themselves with.
Then the request for the book. There were so many books in the inventory that Aiden could never remember them all, no matter how hard he tried, so he kept a number of files on his laptop to sort out what he got. With a quick ‘let me check’ to the other man, he pulled his legs off the countertop and picked up his laptop; a search through one or two of his various spreadsheets turned up a number of possibilities for the title ‘Drive’ and handful for Sallis. One, fortunately, matched, which was somewhat rare in the advent of Arcadia, especially given the publication date.
“Looks like there’s a copy somewhere in here,” he said, closing the laptop with a snap. “Fiction’s on the left wall, usually by author. If you can’t find it, I’ll check the stuff I haven’t put out yet.” There was at least half a box upstairs he’d managed to put into the files but not on the shop floor.
“I don’t read a lot of airplane books,” Dominic said, an explanation for why he hadn’t gone to one of the chain stores instead. “Terrorist attacks and female detectives who chase dashing criminals...” He paused, contemplating the possibilites for a moment, then shook his head with a small smile.
Hearing that the book actually was in the store gave Dominic strangely mixed feelings. How much did he actually want to know? He’d only figured out what he ought to be looking for by reading other people on the journals (weird) and coming up with enough facts about the silent presence in the back of his head to put two and two together. He had no idea if he was going to like what he found in the book, but he had to at least read it.
Dominic searched the wall that Aiden had indicated, which left him still within sight of the desk. “Is it always this quiet?” he asked, as he scanned down the rows. He looked for The Catcher in the Rye - it would have to be around Salinger somewhere.
“Fortunately.” Instead of going back to his work, Aiden leaned on the counter and watched Dominic start to peruse the bookshelves. He looked along the rows of books himself, eyes glancing over faded spines and the occasional glint of flaking gold lettering. He didn’t remember what the book looked like. He barely remembered where the ‘S’ section began, these days. It was too much work to reassemble the entire stock just to make room for one more book, so things had started to pile in strange places. The boxes on the floor were evidence enough of that. “I’m far enough from the strip to keep most drunks and tourists away, but not far enough to be out of reach when the night’s excitement’s died down.”
The downside to being out of reach, though, was that money was constantly a problem. His profit margins were the lowest outlier on the Vegas graph of businesses.
“Drunks love books, if authors are any clue,” Dominic said. There was the book, a crisp movie tie-in that had barely cracked its binding. He stood looking at the cover for a moment, at the picture there, and felt a flutter of familiarity, pointed and intense, the sort that was starting to get more and more familiar. It faded, and he walked back to the counter. “Do you sample the stock?” he asked. Dominic slid the book across the counter to him. The owner of the strange, out-of-place bookstore had officially captured his imagination. Dominic liked people, liked learning about their lives, and the sort of life that would lead one to a place like this had to be extraordinary, in its own way.
At that, Aiden snorted, nearly laughing outright. It was true, wasn’t it? The number of authors who were also raging alcoholics was almost unbelievable, but then again, Aiden had never bothered much with the publishing business. Maybe that could drive a man to drink. Hell, some of the time going through the inventory drove him to drink. Not often, but it did happen. So much irritating prose.
“Sometimes,” Aiden said in response to the unusual question, picking up the book and pulling out a spiral notebook. Sales of the day in here, update the inventory files at night, have double copies of everything. It had served him well, generally. “You go through as many books as I do a day and some of them are bound to catch your interest. And since they’re not exactly flying off the shelves, I’ve got plenty of opportunities to read them. That’s three bucks for this.” He set down the book again and reached under the counter for the mostly-empty cash box.
Dominic fished his wallet out of his pocket and extracted three singles from it. He handed them over to Aiden. “Did you grow up in Las Vegas?” he asked. It was a thoughtful question, apparently asked for a reason, though he didn’t voice it immediately. He was itching to get his hands on the book, which was a weird feeling - excitement combined with dread. It could wait, though.
The question made Aiden look up, slightly suspiciously, at Dominic. He didn’t know this man, or anything about him, other than the fact that when he came in he said very little and was in and out in a matter of minutes once he had the books he wanted, which was always a plus as far as Aiden was concerned. This sudden interest seemed somewhat out of place. It was an innocuous enough question, but where he would answer almost any question about the shop, a personal question about him was a little less comforting.
“No,” he said slowly as he took the bills, “I lived on the east coast growing up.” Among terrible weather and horsepath streets and more vegetation in one square block than was naturally growing in the entire state of Nevada. Under the counter the cash box clicked, and he slipped the bills inside.
Dominic followed Aiden's hands as he opened the cash drawer and put the money away. He took the book off the counter and held it loosely in his hands, but didn't turn to leave just yet. It seemed as though he may have asked a question too many, and he didn't want to leave with Aiden feeling uncomfortable. "You just don't seem like a native," he said. "But you don't seem like someone who lives here because they love it, either. I'm not a native," he added, unsure if that would help. Social situations had felt a little more difficult to navigate for him lately. He found himself staying silent too long, or not saying enough, and sometimes he overcompensated as a result.
Aiden relaxed very slightly at the awkward phrasing of the words, or at least of the last, hastily-added sentence. Whatever interest Dominic had, it was probably some sort of small talk, or him trying to expand an interest in the store to its owner. Not someone prone to just asking whatever questions came to mind, then, like some of the people who picked up the tiny hint of Boston accent that occasionally slipped into a word or two and took that as an invitation to talk like they knew anything and everything. He let the box shut and leaned an elbow on the counter with a shrug.
“I don’t love it here, really. But California was a little too … far, and anywhere else was too backwater.” And so he swept the entirety of the Midwest, the South, and the Rocky Mountain area into one unfair description. “I’m not fond of Nevada in its own right, and even less of Vegas, but it has its appeals. No snowstorms to screw with traffic.” Not a native either? “Where’re you from?” Normally he wouldn’t have asked, but it didn’t feel entirely out of place, and if he wanted this guy to come back and keep buying books, it wouldn’t hurt to at least get to know him a little.
“Chicago,” Dominic said. “I’ve been here as long as I’ve been coming to your store.” Only a few short weeks, then. He still didn’t feel totally settled. He was glad that Aiden hadn’t just given him a look and sent him on his way, though. He wouldn’t want to feel uncomfortable coming in again - he did like the store, it hadn’t just been so much small talk. “You had to go somewhere,” Dominic observed, sharp eyes appraising. If California was too far, and everything else was too something, that meant he’d been evaluating where would be best to go - which meant he’d needed to go somewhere, for some reason. “Why?”
That was a question Aiden had never given an honest answer to, no matter how many times people asked. His eyes narrowed, though the question had been asked politely, and he felt his jaw tighten. It wasn’t meant to be prying, he was sure. It was just curiosity. But he’d run into this sort of curiosity before, and he had practiced answers for it - ones that seemed as honest as they were lies. He hid the slight anger by looking down and making a mark in the spiral notebook that Dominic had paid in cash, rather than the elaborate credit card marking process.
“I needed a chance of pace and scenery.” Aiden gave a half-shoulder shrug with the answer. “Things weren’t working out, and my family suggested I take a road trip, since it always worked for them.” True for a given value of true. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was enough, and it would suffice. “I ended up here, and it’s worked out for almost six years, so it wasn’t a bad choice, I’d say.”
Six years sounded like a very long time to be in Las Vegas to Dominic. He hoped this thing that was happening to him wouldn't require he stay here that long. Maybe he'd come to like it, or it would grow on him, but somehow he doubted it. The baking land of casinos and brothels, bright lights and glitz and glam layered over the misery of people seeking escape in a world of fantasy, all of it left him feeling depressed. It was part of why he liked Arcadia, actually. The store felt like a small island of honesty in a shiny, false place.
Dominic could tell he'd stepped in the wrong direction again, so he duly didn't press further. Part of being good at getting people to open up was knowing when to push and when to let things go. "What's your name?"
It was an odd jump of a question, even if it did back away from questioning Aiden’s life movements, and he felt his lips tighten in a near-grimace. But, hell, it wasn’t as if it would be hard to find out who owned this place. Though he almost never bothered advertising, the internet knew where Arcadia was and who owned it, and it only took a little googling to turn that up. Besides, a repeat customer was rare enough. Even if he might not be a repeat customer for very long.
“Aiden Shepard,” he answered, keeping his voice casual. “And you? If you’re going to come back, it’s only polite to know a frequent customer’s name.” He didn’t make any mention of discounts, because the books themselves were already discounted well enough, but he wouldn’t mind handing over a book or two for a reduced price for someone actually interested in reading them.
“Dominic Hunt,” he said, clear-eyed and unapologetic for the quick leap between topics. He considered him for a moment, then nodded to him, and turned to go. “You also don’t seem like the kind of guy who worries a lot about being polite,” he pointed out with a small smile, as he moved toward the door, book tucked under his arm.
And Aiden almost snickered at that, because it was absolutely true. It wasn’t hard to see through a thin veneer of forced politeness, it seemed. He shrugged and leaned back in his chair again; if Dominic was going to be that kind of honest, then so would he.
“Then me getting your name is making sure I know exactly who’s going to ask questions about my entirely unmentionable past.” Aiden raised an eyebrow at Dominic’s retreating form and picked up his set-aside paperback. “Not that I don’t appreciate you coming in and buying books, of course. Vegas could use an extra dose of literacy.”
Dominic shrugged. “I like unmentionables, Aiden,” he said, smiling still, letting him infer whatever puns he liked. “And I’ll make sure to ask about them again.” He left with a polite nod, and every intention of returning to do just that.