viv (solitairey) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-04-08 21:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | irene adler, mycroft holmes |
Who: Viv & Noah, unbeknownst to each other.
What: Anonymous meetings.
Where: An abandoned house on the outskirts of the city.
When: The evening of this conversation.
Warnings: These two fail horribly at anything lighthearted.
It was the first address to come to mind, as she'd made a few collections in the week before. The house was abandoned now, with lingering signs of methamphetamine production scattered about the kitchen. Some plastic tubing and stained mason jars in the sink. It was a pretty fail safe modus operandi as far as cooking drugs was concerned, Vivienne never saw them stay at any one location for more than a month. It might not have been that financially beneficial, but it kept the cooks out of jail and the money rolling in.. it's not like Vivienne was one to ask a lot of questions, anyway. She was no criminal mastermind, and she didn't give a shit about the mechanics of a methlab(so long as she didn't explode upon lighting a cigarette near one). From the outside, one wouldn't have known the house for what it was. It sat in a row with all the others, of similar make and model. Cookie cutter suburbia with fresh paint on the wood panels and a dormant sprinkler stretched across the lawn.
It wasn't so much that Vivienne thought he'd come, she was just bored. Perfectly understandable. It's not like she had anything else to do anyway, and it's not like she was doing him a favor or throwing him a bone a even meeting him. She just wanted to see if he would do it, if he'd come to the door, something in her wanted to test the limits and Viv chalked it all up to Irene, but Irene was strangely silent tonight.
Mycroft spent the entire taxi ride attempting to convince Noah that this was a terrible idea. It was, Mycroft felt, a rather terrible time for the boy to develop a spine and the ability to block his wishes. There was little he could do in the end, as Noah procured a gun (which he was fairly certain the boy had no idea how to shoot) and a black hoodie and ski mask (which, perhaps, might actually safeguard his identity somewhat).
Noah asked the driver to stop a block away from the address the girl from the dance had given him, and he approached the house cautiously. He slipped the ski mask on at the last moment, with the hoodie overtop, zipped and hood raised and pulled low over his obscured features. The gun was in his pocket, loaded (or so he was told) by the seller. The safety was on, and Noah kept his fingers entirely away from the trigger, as he was quite worried he’d shoot something off. He had no intention of killing anyone, despite his bravado, but he wanted to ensure the man stayed away from the girl he’d traumatized. Noah hated bullies, and he viewed this man as merely an extension of the all those who had made him suffer through the years.
He approached the house with none of the skill of a criminal, sneakers bright white and jeans perfectly clean and pressed. Even in the low light of the moon, it was quite obvious he was young. A man in his twenties, but no older, and he stopped in front of the door and tried the knob, as if he would be lucky enough to simply stroll inside and say his piece.
She didn't expect him to come, and for some reason she kept reminding herself of that as darkness crept in through the wide-peeled blinds of the kitchen window. She stood at the sink and watched the night form in the sky, smoking a cigarette or four while she admired the robotic synchronicity of the street lights as they surged to life. Such a well-oiled machine, electricity. Made her kind of wish that she'd had more of it growing up, but she understood now what she hadn't understood then: sometimes food and electricity can't coexist, not on the kind of government checks her mom would pull in, anyway. Of course, there'd always been money for scratch offs and six packs, but what the hell.. it was hard to hate someone you admired so much. The jiggle of the door handle surprised her, because she'd been standing at the sink for the better part of a half hour, watching the street and thinking softly to herself about more lighthearted things, like her brothers. It put her in one of those diamond rare good moods, but Viv's soft smile faltered at the sound of the door. Somebody was twisting on the locked knob, and she set off with quick curiosity around the corner. No way..
Up on her toes, she satiated her interest with a long glance through the peephole. A ski mask and a hoodie? Be still her criminal heart. Irene might have offered some insight into minor details, like the obvious youth that could be supposed from the man's build and height.. but Irene said none of that. Just one lone, self-amused comment about how she'd always suspected that date rape couture was Vivienne's type. Viv wasted a roll of her eyes, as if the other woman would see or care, and then she sank to her knees. Dirty jeans on linoleum tile, skinny fingers lifting the narrow flap of the mail slot. Not that it offered any kind of view, but she supposed that it unmuffled her voice. "Nice ski mask, prince.."
Noah didn’t immediately realize where the voice was coming from, likely because the beating of his own heart in his ears was a percussion session all its own, and it was quite loud. Fear augmented every noise, even the one from around his knees, and he backed up and fumbled at the gun in his pocket before he realized that it was a woman’s voice. That was the first thing that registered: Female. The second was the word prince. Then, and only then, did he realize it was a test to see if he’d come. Had it been anyone but the girl at the party, Noah would have reacted poorly to this realization. Like being set out of the car in boxers, it would have reminded him of countless false invitation in school, ones that led to him being beaten bloody. But this was her, and he was so thrilled that she’d wanted to meet with him, that she was there, that he didn’t devolved into anger at all.
Instead, he slid down to his knees, so he could talk to her through the door slot, and he didn’t insist on her opening the door. He assumed she’d planned this to maintain her anonymity, and there was enough of the boy in him not to want to push her, for fear she’d run and disappear into the night. “Did you think I’d come?” he asked her, tips of blunt fingers through the mail slot and his voice decidedly British in the dark of the night. He didn’t mention the gun in his pocket, though he suspected the ski mask gave away his intentions, but there was no need voicing them. “I’m glad you’re here instead.”
Even if British accents weren't too terribly common in this city, Viv had one chirping all fucking day long in her head, so she barely noticed his at first. When she did notice, she tilted her head, thinking that an accent like that suited a prince. She didn't recognize his voice. She didn't even really remember the sun scorched day with the boy down to his boxers, he just hadn't been that important. "No, I didn't." It was a soft confession, brought after a pause, but spoken with all the honesty required of an evening at church. That's what the mail slot was, her confessional screen. She pulled her hand back briefly, and the mail slot creaked in a cry for oil on it's tiny hinges Her fingers curled in, no nail polish tonight, and it seemed like she must have been afraid he would reach for her. Not that he could pull her through or anything, but there was a brief hesitation in recalling what a touch of her hand could do at the masquerade. But that hadn't been real, and she had to remind herself of that for many reasons as she sat on the other side of the door from him, lapsing into silence. Nothing that night have been real. Not her and not him and nothing in between. Her fingers unfurled, sliding to the right side of the mail slot. "What were you going to do?" Because she was curious now about his intentions for the missing man. Her words were few, and in that, her accent was so thin that it was barely there at all. A single drop of sweet tea.
“But I did come,” he reminded her gently, when she said that she thought he wouldn’t. He watched the approach of her fingers in the darkness with greedy eyes, their blue depths hidden in the darkness of the Las Vegas night. The sounds around them began to find their way into his consciousness as he waited, and he realized the neighborhood was a dangerous one, but he didn’t care. He watched her fingers unfurl, and he just touched her knuckles with fingertips calloused from strings and keys. He had musician’s hands, which was noticeable, even in the darkness, and he slid those fingertips along her knuckles as if he was playing the most delicate instrument. “I was going to-” He paused, because was he sure? “I was going to ensure he never harmed you again, that he paid for what he’d done.” It didn’t sound frightening when he said it, with no anger behind the words and only a desire to please her wrapped up in the consonants and rounded vowels.
She knew nothing of musicians or what their hands felt like. The callouses made her immediately suppose that he was older, and such tough skin was strangely juxtaposed with the gentle graze of his fingertips. He didn't sound particularly tough, reciting his plans. Vivienne rested her temple against the door's wood, trying to imagine the different scenario in her head. "You could have been hurt," likely would have been hurt, really, if the guy she'd once known was on this side of the door instead of her. But still, the prince had come, and she couldn't really fathom why except that he seemed to want to help her. Made all the stranger by the reality that he did not even know her. She still couldn't fathom what he'd been thinking. Maybe he wanted to look tough, and even that wasn't as eye-rolling as it should have been. It was kind of endearing, and it made her laugh. Viv never laughed. "You're crazy," she said softly. She didn't make it sound like a bad thing.
Noah laughed in return, a rich laugh that promised to one day turn into a much stronger one. Still, even through the door he sounded like no child. His gestures generally made him appear younger than his twenty-two years, and here there was none of that; only a low voice, cadenced and rich. “There is rather a good chance I would have been killed, yes,” he replied, unable to sound disturbed by it when she was there, and she was laughing like she liked him. A good laugh, not the kind bullies wielded, and he moved from his knees and sat against the door, a shoulder against the wood and his long legs along the cement and dead grass in front of it. He didn’t move his fingers, through, leaving them where she could touch through the mail slot. “Perhaps I’m crazy,” he conceded, “though I’ve never been before. I quite like it.” He went quiet a moment, a still lull filled by sounds of the neighborhood and distant stirrings of Las Vegas. “Tell me something you like? Nothing telling, no names or anything identifiable. Merely something you enjoy.” He liked her voice, and he wanted her to keep talking, regardless of mail slots and, he suspected, drug houses.
She could appreciate recklessness, it reminded her of herself. Vivienne could hear him shifting on the other side of the door, getting comfortable. After some hesitation, because she really shouldn't stay long, she folded her legs beneath herself. She watched his fingers, where they breached the painted bronze, knowing that she could touch them, but refraining. She sighed at the question and went silence for a long moment. It wasn't that she disliked the question, she quite preferred the anonymity of it, but she found it quite difficult to answer. Something. She. Enjoyed. "I don't know," it was a cop out, but a somewhat honest one. "I haven't really thought about anything like that in a long time."
“We’ll need to give you an opportunity to remember,” he said once she’d settled, once he was certain she wasn’t going to fly into the dark of the abandoned house and disappear into the Las Vegas night on him. He kept his fingers still, curled around the lip of the mail slot, even when she didn’t touch them, and there was a smile in his voice when he continued. “I’ve quite a few interests. Perhaps I can share one somehow, somewhere dark and safe and with a mail slot between us,” he teased. It was an unhurried teasing, with no rush to make her show herself. He was, after all, concerned that she would not care for what she found on the other side of the door. “Something general, perhaps, to start. Evening or daylight? Preference?”
She liked the secrecy of the door between them. Not because of some illusion of safety, she'd always been fearless, but it allowed Viv to pretend she was somebody else. The veil of anonymity was a powerful thing, it let her make believe she was different. Someone who would touch a hand through a mail slot, someone who would answer such innocent questions. "Night time," she said. The answer seemed obvious to her, and the words coasted on a tone that said of course. "Everything's better in the dark.." She reached for examples, "Fireworks.. swimming.." As she spoke, her fingers brushed his, moving in free gesture with her words. She was one of those hand talkers. "What about you?" Part of her was a little surprised that she cared to ask.
He was so lost in her voice, comparing it to notes in a melody in his mind, already plotting out a composition for later, something that never spiked terribly high, and that never dipped terribly low. He hadn’t composed in months, hadn’t wanted to, but that was all changed now. He looked down when her fingers brushed his, only just able to see the movements through the mail slot. He thought they felt like silk, her fingertips, and he realized that sounded terribly romantic, perhaps even adolescent, but it was true. He’d no girlfriends beside his stepmother, and that relationship came with none of the infatuations of a first love. “Evening,” he agreed with her. “Though I’ve never been swimming at night, and the only fireworks I can recall seeing are the ones they set off in front of the Treasure Island nights. But, I love the sounds of the evenings, like so much music, and think I’d rather like to go swimming with you.”
"Night swimming is the best." This was confidential, something not to be shared outside the sanctity of the mail slot. The secrecy was made evident by the way her voice went a little wistful. "Especially in the ocean. They say that's when the sharks come out, but I dunno know." That obviously never seemed important. "The water gets all dark, so you can't see the bottom.. and the sky is dark, too, so it's like swimmin' through the universe. Just the black and the stars." She could almost taste the Gulf of Mexico, all salt and seaweed. "I guess there ain't really much ocean around here, though." She sighed, then shrugged, and the little metal mail flap jostled.
“I’ve seen the ocean,” he admitted, because that was true, unlike the fireworks. “But never in the evenings. Your description is lovely,” he added, because it was, and it just put more music in his mind to hear her refer to the water and the night sky in terms of sky and universe. Had he his flute with him just then, he would have played something for her, but he didn’t, and he was left only with the desire to share his music with her. He’d find a way, he decided, just as he’d found a way to speak to her again after the dance they’d shared. “We can find water. It might be a poor substitute, but we can pretend,” he offered, and he sounded too old for pretending, but it was the kind of night when anything was possible. “I would say we could find a door, one with an ocean, but it wouldn’t be us going through it,” he added. “Promise me you’ll consider it, if I find us somewhere dark, somewhere with a pool.”
"I don't know," she said softly. There was a deeper uncertainty lurking in the alleys of her syllables. She shouldn't have been wasting his time like this, pretending that she was the type for such idle conversation. She wasn't, but even she got bored with hating everybody, everyday. She tried to imagine the look on Irene's face if she signed her up for some beyond door night swimming, and it made her snicker softly. Drawing a deep breath to center herself, she regarded the ceiling before answering. "I'll consider considering it." It wasn't a promise, and she wasn't saying yes, but it was still a step in the right direction.
“I’ll take that,” he said of her offer, accepting it as much better than refusal. He’d heard that deep breath, the one she’d dragged in only moments earlier, and he couldn’t help but smile, but feel optimistic about it all. It was an indication, he hoped, that she did truly like spending time with him, which was all he wanted at the moment. “Do you know, at the dance, I liked you because you were real. No pretense, nothing false, and while I realize that may not be who you are on the surface, it’s still somewhere, that woman that spun in circles and didn’t hesitate before sending a man into a heap to the floor. I thought you were spectacular,” he told her, because he could do that here. She could hear him, hear the truth in his words. “I quite liked what was inside you.”
She didn't know what to say to that, and she was silent for some stretch of time as a result. She didn't see how she was anything like the girl at the dance. Maybe a complete lack of appreciation for psychology was to blame, but she just didn't see the connection. "I'm not a good person," she said. Finally, her words pierced the quiet and crawled through to him. She didn't want him getting the wrong idea, thinking she was anything like that delicate girlchild of dancing and heartbreak.
“You’re as good a person as I am,” he said with conviction. “You danced, and you hurt people. Good and bad, and I think you’re divine.” He didn’t think she was an angel, and he didn’t want her to be one, he found. “If you were all good, you wouldn’t be able to understand me,” he said, and it was selfish, that statement, but true. He’d never have told her he’d killed someone if he didn’t see something of himself in her, something that might understand that part of him. “I’ve never told anyone before, about killing someone. Only you.”
"I won't tell anyone." It was easy for her to assume that was why he was so partial to anonymity. "Was it an accident?" She asked because she knew it was a strong possibility. Accidents happened, they said that's how she lost her daughter. Just an accident. Such a simple word, it hardly seemed to qualify. She wasn't sure what to think about being the only one to know this secret of his, even if she did not know him. She could share something of her own, she knew.. but the only thing she never talked about was also something she was in no way eager to bring up.
“No,” he admitted, after a very, very long span of silence. The only sign he was still there before he spoke were his fingers, which never moved from their post in the mail slot, never pulled back. “I suppose I could pretend it was, but no, it wasn’t. I was angry, quite angry, and hurt, and I’d finally had enough, you see. I shoved someone out a window, and I knew the window was there, knew how far up we were. Not an accident. Perhaps a crime of the moment, but I didn’t trip and fall against him.” He took a very long, very deep breath. “I’ve been hiding, you see, for a very long time. New name, new life, new identity. The entire world changed around so I would not pay.” He paused. “He deserved it. He was loathsome.” He smiled then, and it was audible in his voice. “My name’s Ian, truly, though no one living knows that any longer. There you have it. My biggest secret.”
She could imagine quite easily the amount of anger and hurt that would be required to push somebody out of a window. She very nearly felt the required amount even today, all these years later.. but it was reflected toward herself, so it wasn't of much use. She'd been the one that was gone, remember. That was a bit more difficult to forgive than some drunk teenage boy out of his element, trying to silence an infant. Still, if she'd known then, she would have killed him. There was no doubt about that. "I slept next to the man that killed my daughter, for four days not knowing. For four days, he held me while I cried and he said nothing.. he slept just fine." Her voice went a little hoarse thinking of it all. But that was a long time ago, and she didn't cry about it any more.
He was quiet stillness, dead nothing on the other side of the door. If there was any belief that the anger, the one from his youth that had sent a boy plunging to his death, was banked, then it was now a shattered belief. He wanted to find this man, to break him for her, and it was clear in his voice when he spoke, even with the refined and clipped tones of England and rainy places. “During those four days, what did you believe had occurred?” he asked her, needing to know all of her pain, to have it fuel the hatred for the man who had done this to her. “I will find him for you, if you wish it. I will put an end to this.” God help them both - he meant every word.
"I didn't know," her voice was soft, trying to recall those days. The way anguish could be simultaneously chaotic and numbing. She could remember everything with perfect clarity, but recalled nothing of the emotions at the time. That night there'd been screaming, crying, fighting the police when they'd tried to put her little girl in that black bag.. but her voice conveyed none of that now. The words swung low on a sigh, and she wanted a cigarette badly, but she'd left them in the kitchen. Her fingertips fidgeted, playing nervously with the metal rim of the mail slot, digging at the screws that maintained its position. "I thought maybe she'd gotten sick, and I hadn't noticed. But then the cops came and started askin' me things, and I realized they thought it was my fault. They'd never thought real well of me, ya know. They asked me if I'd given her honey. Turns out babies can't have honey, and I hadn't known that at the time, and I couldn't remember if I had or not. So for that first couple nights I thought that mighta been it, that I'd poisoned her somehow, or that she'd been allergic to something. But then the tests came back, and they started investigatin' me about hittin' her, about shakin' her.. and that's when I knew the truth." She shook her head, then realized that he couldn't see it. "Wouldn't change much of anything if you did." Besides, she knew that if revenge had ever been the healing element, one of her brothers would have taken care of that a long time ago.
Her fingers on the mail slot were music, a painful dirge of remembering, and he watched their symphony and listened to the sound of the screws being pushed at. He slid his hand over, the side of his pinkie just touching the outside of her thumb, and he left it there. The touch was compassion, and it was you’re not alone, and it was understanding. Not her loss, not that, but of that general feeling of things ending, of there being nothing left worth knowing. “No, it wouldn’t change anything,” he agreed, because it wouldn’t. He couldn’t bring her daughter back from the dead, no matter what he did to the culprit, but that hardly mattered just then. It was about her his offer, about letting her know that she was not alone. That he’d do anything to help her, even if it didn’t help very much at all in the end. He sighed. “I only want you to know I’d do anything, anything at all if it would make you hurt less,” he admitted. “I know harming him wouldn’t change anything, but perhaps knowing someone would do that for you, maybe that can help.” Because she wasn’t alone, you see. Not anymore, and she’d have a hard time convincing him otherwise. As far as maturing moments, this was a rather jarring one, but he didn’t shy away from it. “I am terribly sorry,” he finally added, emotion and honesty in the words.
Her hand stilled when his own brushed near, remembering herself and the lack of appreciation for human contact that naturally came alongside that. Even from a young age, she'd had a problem saying thank you. An issue with accepting gifts, or tolerating hugs. It wasn't quite distrust, but discomfort. She'd grown so unaccustomed to the gentle side of human nature that she refused to expect it, and now found herself confused and apprehensive of compassion. It was a forgotten language that only succeeded in making her feel alien and utterly fucked up. She didn't say anything for a moment, wanting to argue, but also knowing that he would likely not see her reasoning. This too was strange, as Viv loved to argue. He didn't know her, not really, he shouldn't be here, shouldn't be saying these things. He couldn't mean them, because fathoming that he did was more upsetting somehow. Finally, after that lull of quiet, her fingers began to draw back through the slot, and she spoke. "I should go, it's getting late."
He let her pull her hand back, allowed it without any childish attempt to keep her there, though he very much wanted to insist she remain and never leave. Instead, he stood, and he brushed off the thighs of his jeans and securely tugged the hoodie back into place. “You promised to consider considering,” he reminded her. That’s all he said, and he knew he’d be attempting to contact her before the week was out, even if she didn’t contact him. “I’ll look for somewhere dark, with water,” he added, touching a hand to the door that blocked him from her. He splayed his fingers against the wood and then, a second later, he turned to leave, so that she could safely follow without being observed. He stopped mid-way down the walk, and he turned. “If you need anything!” he called out to her, hands cupped against the black of his ski mask, then after another nod, he melted into the Las Vegas night.
She watched him through the peephole, giving no sign that she was still standing there even as he pressed his hand to the door and lingered. There was no response from her and no sign of life or light from within the house when he called out, or when he vanished down the street. Viv returned to the kitchen sink for a few moments longer, smoking a couple more cigarettes and considering the evening at length before shaking her head. A self-amused smirk led her to the garage door, where the Datsun was parked quietly inside, ready to whisk her away for another night of work.