Who: Dominic and Vivienne What: An unfortunate meeting via rear-ending. Where: Vegas street. When: Recently. Warnings/Rating: None.
Vivienne was late. This wasn't entirely unusual as procrastination came naturally to all of the Kings, it was sworn into one of the helix of their cursed DNA. Punctuality was something that one really had to work for when at such a genealogical disadvantage. All kinds of strange talents arose through decades of trial and error. Like driving at high speeds with the window down as a means of drying your hair, or steering with your knees while simultaneously fighting your way into clothing.
It wasn't yet the blistering heat that Vegas was notorious for, and the wind that whipped dandelion hair into her eyes carried with it the threat of a rare, desert chill when she raced through an underpopulated street. There was a toothbrush crammed in the corner of her mouth and Billie Holiday was on the radio. It might have seemed like an unfitting choice for morning music, but it fit the girl in the ancient Datsun when she pulled up behind a line of cars at a red light. The window was still down, and Vivienne leaned out it to spit some toothpaste before swishing with a can of cherry coke. In the distraction of morning ritual, her foot slipped from the brake and just as Billie was cresting with her jazzy sorrow, Vivienne rolled solidly into the car in front of her. The metal screamed.
Dominic was on his way to talk to a local publisher, and though that place wasn’t particularly far from his new apartment, walking hadn’t even crossed his mind.
His car was comfortable, an old model chevy that he’d been driving for years, but he didn’t feel entirely happy with it anymore. It ran better now than it had in a decade thanks to the work he’d put in on it over the last few weeks, but he wanted something better, something more...aesthetically appealing. He’d been ruminating on it, and while he had yet to come to a decision, he knew one thing - he definitely needed a new car.
So maybe it wasn’t as disheartening as it might otherwise have been to hear the screech of metal behind him and the jolt forward. The Driver had him immediately on guard for a threat, and he whipped around in his seat to see who had hit him. It took a moment to focus through the wan sun, but then it was just a harmless looking girl, He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, exactly, but every vital sign had sparked anticipating danger. The girl in the car didn’t fit the part.
He gestured to her to pull over, and there was something of the steel of the man inside him still lingering in his looks. Running away would probably be ill-advised. He pulled smoothly onto the shoulder and got out to survey the damage.
Well. At least now he had the insurance claim to get him part way toward a new car.
She hadn't been going very fast, so the chance for injuries was pretty slim. It was with a begrudging exhale that Viv pulled over rather than swerving around the man for a swift escape. His car appeared to be as big a piece of junk as her own, but she still wasn't much for pushing her luck in quick getaways these days. She noted the severity of the dent in his rear fender as she slid the Datsun into park. Before getting out, she tossed a sweatshirt that'd been camping on the passenger floorboard onto the case of in transit jewelry lying in the backseat.
Outside the car, she lit up a cigarette in the same manner that a soldier might polish their medals before venturing into battle. Her t-shirt was a thrift store throwaway boasting a silkscreen name for some local elementary school. It was a few sizes too small while her jeans were a few sizes too big, knotted onto anemic hips with an Apache beadwork belt. She shielded her eyes against the glare of sunlight bouncing off the hoods of oncoming cars and moved toward him, cautiously gauging his level of pissed-off-ness. "You really came out of nowhere.." You know, while he was just sitting there minding his own business.
On the plus side, Dominic had never been the sort of person who was inclined to jump down someone’s throat, even with reason. That had changed a little lately with his situation, but not by much. In the grand scheme of things, the car wasn’t a big deal, and he would likely be able to spin it to his advantage. He was dressed plainly in a worn pair of jeans and a close-fitting shirt that he’d bought as part of his ‘moving to vegas’ wardrobe, exchanging heavy Chicago cotton for lighter stuff that would deflect the sun and the heat. The cool of the morning raised goosebumps on his arms as he walked toward the driver of the other car, looking considerably calmer than he had any right to. He looked her over, his eyes lingering briefly on the intriguingly eccentric beaded belt.
“I don’t know about that,” he said, but it was a mild disagreement, not the beginning of a shouting match. “If you told me you had insurance, though, it would make my morning better.”
He didn't seem very mad, and she looked disappointed for a moment before diverting her eyes to the dent in his fender once more. Viv was a hologram overlapping a Rubik's cube, and most of her expression were just a cover for some other expression. It was a secret skill she'd developed at the age of nine, when she'd decided that she was going to become a government spy. Rather than disappointed, Vivienne was suspicious, and she meditated in a moment of silence while judging the dent. Despite the fact that she did not have insurance, and the fact that she was running late, Vivienne was a firm believer in karma and delicate balances in the universe. It's why she hadn't resorted to full-tilt criminal escapades as a means of monetary gain, and also why she pulled over rather than fleeing. Being an almost-good person hadn't failed her yet in this culture experiment.. but there was a first time for everything. She bared her teeth in a grinding wince of contemplation, and the bottom row was revealed to be a little bit crooked just before she crammed the cigarette filter back onto her lips. "Well.." Looking at him, her eyes were muddled olive green. "..I have a checkbook?" Viv shook some hair out of her face, and even damp it was the color of pulled cotton. Her smile tried for friendly, but failed admirably and only appeared wary.
Dominic surveyed the dent, and behind his eyes there was a quick judge of the severity of the damage, the parts that would be needed to fix it, and the amount of time it would take to do it that added up to a price tag including enough to cover Shannon. Shit. “That’s fine,” he said. He measured the distance between friendly and unsure in her expression, but didn’t wonder at it. He’d be nervous too, in her position. He tried to smile a little himself, so that she didn’t look quite so off put by, what, the fact that he hadn’t flown into a rage? Admittedly, he was so calm about the whole thing that she probably thought he was going to throw her over his shoulder and kidnap her or something. “You live around here?” If she was a tourist, then he didn’t know how likely the check would be to actually cash.
With a maraschino red thumbnail pinched between her teeth, Viv advanced on the dented fender and measured the width of it's damage by lifting a tattered, black Converse for size reference. Her free hand flicked some ashes loose from the smoking end of her coffin nail because she had a strange habit of moving instead of speaking. She idly wondered if her checkbook was in the car, and a moment later realized that such a thing was fairly unlikely. Nobody took checks anymore, but Viv couldn't keep a debit card in one piece to save her life, so she was trying like hell to re-implement the lost system. His question surprised her because she didn't immediately infer the reasoning behind it. Her dustbowl eyes pierced him, skeptical. "Why?"
Her suspicion was almost more interesting than watching her judge the width of the dent and move rather than speak. Dominic could more than empathize with that, especially lately. “I wanted to know if I could count on the check,” he said, finally stringing more than a few solitary, mournful, lonely words together, “Or if you’d be driving back to where ever you came from after this.” The more he watched her, the more his guess leaned in the direction of not getting anything out of this whole thing, whether she was local or not. Something about her felt to him like she might take off at any second at a good clip.
Irene was all for knocking this man with the lonely eyes into a ditch and heading off. While Vivienne could see the merit in that kind of winner-takes-all mentality, she was currently in a locked down mission of resistance as far as Irene's point of view went. Ignore the lacquered nails, and ignore the elegance that was beginning to seep into her posture. She was on a slow IV-drip of couture and class, and Viv didn't care for it at all. She took a harsh drag off of her cigarette as the wind whipped some sugarcane fringe into her eyes. "Look, I'ma be honest.." For the first time since whatever shocked curse she'd whispered under her breath in the driver's seat upon hitting him, Viv's tongue lapsed into something faintly Southern. But even with the deceptive sweetness that soaked through like dark molasses, there was something else that didn't quite fit. Australian wasn't a common tint to the modern American tongue. "I'm drivin' on somebody else's insurance, and I really don't need the police in my business. So, if we can work something out between us, that'd be real fortunate. Could I.." There was a confused, reaching shrug of white cottoned shoulders. ".. give you something to hang onto? Like collateral?"
Dominic hung a moment behind on comprehending her words because he was busy trying to decipher the extra flavor in her accent. He gave up by the time she was done talking, and there was a moment’s pause while he ran back over what she’d said. The words weren’t exactly what he’d wanted to hear, but he’d already decided the person saying them was much more interesting, and he found himself agreeing before he could muster up too many objections to what was bound to be a regretful decision. “Alright,” he said, looking over to the car, guessing at what might be inside. His gaze went back to her. “What’s the collateral?”
While it would have been very easy to have pulled something out of the case in her backseat, Viv didn't really have the pull or leeway to account for missing merchandise. It put her in a hard position, because the only true item of value she had was laden with sentimental value. She looked the young man over, trying to dig loose some clue to the ever brewing question. It was always in his eyes, but she finally said it, "Can I trust you?" From the collar of her shirt, she pulled loose a long, silver chain. Dangling from it's middle was an engagement ring, simple and small, but real and therefore more than enough to cover his dented fender should she fail with the money.
Dominic might normally have been inclined to doubt the ring’s veracity, but the fact that it had been hanging against her skin displaced worries that it might be a prop. There was, too, a strong feeling that women, particularly those in a vulnerable position, ought to be trusted without question until something happened to prove otherwise. It was a feeling he couldn’t entirely own, but it was there all the same, whether he liked it or not. “You can trust me,” he said. He’d never been inclined to take advantage of anyone, and he felt even less so now. In fact, there was a strong likelihood that even if she never came back for it, he’d be unlikely to pawn it if he really believed its significance to her. He put out a hand for it, but didn’t close the distance between them, remaining indomitably planted beside the car, the faint wind ruffling his clothes.
Viv drew the necklace over her head and shook it loose from it's snag on a flaxen ponytail. She stepped forward, with gravel crunching like poprocks under flat shoes that made Irene roll her eyes. She closed to distance between them with no distrust, just a forced quickness that reminded her she was already late. Vivienne kept the ring clutched in her palm with that silver chain dripping down, and she extended it to him after a moment's hesitation. Her reluctance wasn't a distrust of him, but rather a distrust of life as a whole. It was the grim reality of a woman hardened by circumstance, where things very rarely worked out in her favor. Despite the youthful and Vegas-bright nature of her clothes, her eyes were sage. "Where can I find you?"
Dominic took the ring on the chain from her, examined it briefly, and tucked it into his pocket. If it really was hers, what did it mean? A broken engagement or marriage, someone else’s promise? She looked like she’d been through enough that it was impossible to say, and she also looked like she had somewhere to be. “I’m at Sunshine Cafe almost every morning,” he said. “It’s on the west side of town.” He shrugged, with a laconic smoothness that he couldn’t entirely lay claim to. “If you miss me, the coffee’s good.”
"Sunshine Cafe?" She tilted her head and her delicate expression twisted into something contemplative. For a woman so full of secrets, her features showed a lot. Vivienne tried to recall if she'd seen the place, and ultimately realized that she had, although it wasn't the kind of place that drew too much of her interest. Her smile came easily, and despite the somberness of those algae-flecked eyes, it's curve was half-cocked and a glimmer of something once wild. "I won't miss you. A week from today, I'll be there." That was long enough for her to work something out for a quick few hundred bucks. "Don't be late," and with a quick wink, she was already backpeddling toward her car.