a_twilight_sky (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} a_twilight_sky) wrote in ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} free_form2,@ 2008-04-24 11:14:00 |
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Cheese Fries
In the month of April, the supernatural underworld was beginning to know a lifestyle of panic. Word spread quickly about the Federal offensive. Descriptions of initial raids were inflated, of course. It only heightened the sense of fear that crept into conversations. Already, some demons had begun to stockpile weapons, while others had begun to change their nightly patterns, and some considered packing up for smaller towns, more out-of-the-way.
Despite that climate, there were those amongst the supernatural that seemed unaffected by happenings. Even oblivious. Star Tomlin fell into that category. While some stockpiled blood in secret storage facilities, she simply browsed summer shoe sales.
"Do you have these in a seven?" She dangled the slingbacks by a hooked index finger. While the sales attendant went to check, the wiccan slurped a cherry coke and ignored anything that wasn't footwear. The saleswoman came back empty-handed, though, so Star dropped the shoes on the display and headed back into the mall.
It wasn't that he'd meant to start following her, it was that he couldn't help it. Crowds were good to hide in, and he'd been careful to keep out of sight while the rumors and gossip about the men and women from D.C. spread through the supernatural community like the plague. Besides, the mall was air-conditioned and there was a movie theater. If he was to be run out of town on a proverbial rail, he could do it with a little bit of comfort.
It had been the radio earpiece that tipped him off, and Connor had fallen into step behind the man in the non-descript black suitjacket and paced after him once he realized that he was not out to steal the waifish blonde's purse. There were enough people milling around in the enclosed area that it was easy to pull the operative into a phone enclosure and leave him there to wake up with a monster headache and his cameraphone shattered into about a dozen pieces. The Destroyer sprinkled the man's white shirt front with the remains before stalking back out into the walkway.
He wondered what they wanted her for. He vaguely remembered seeing her at the mass meeting at the air force base. She looked like half the girls he'd taken classes with in college. Connor put his hands into his pockets and caught up with her on her left.
Yeah, she was definitely waifish. Almost elfin. "Excuse me, do you kniow what time it is?"
"Five o'clock somewhere," she responded on autopilot. Star had been browsing through a rack of shades at Sunglass Hut when the guy approached. As oblivious to Federal presence as she'd been, Star didn't miss a beat now. Within seconds, she had him cased. Average height. Lanky frame (which would undoubtedly make his jeans hang off his hips like a cologne ad). Slouchy dresser. Shaggy hair. Haunted eyes. Oh yeah...
Every guy fit a type. This was the Lost Puppy.
Star pushed the shades on her head, and their tag swung back and forth in her peripheral view. "Actually it's about four, but who's counting?"
"Huh, I thought it was later than that. Guess its hard to tell in here. Thanks." Connor also looked at the display of sunglasses, but he kept her in his peripheral vision. Blonde hair, narrow shoulders, upper-level clothes, legs that went for miles. Pretty. Beautiful, even. She probably worked as a hostess somewhere. Why did the Feds have an interest in her?
"Your boyfriend's probably going to be pretty mad when he wakes up. I hope I didn't hit him too hard." He said it in a low, almost offhand voice, removed one hand from a pocket to pluck a pair of shades off of the display rack and put them on. The price tag dangled ludicrously from the nosepiece, and he took them off after a second to look at it. A hundred and fifty dollars? Seriously? Not unless they picked up radio signals.
He put them back, dug around in his pockets for some money. Lunch needed to happen soon. Hiding out was hungry work.
"Uh... pardonne moi? Is that a weird pick-up line?" Star untangled a strand of hair from the glasses and put them back on the turnstyle. She was giving Connor her best 'are you for real?' look. "A) I don't have a boyfriend, so there's no one to knock out, and B) I wish I did, because if some guy wanted me bad enough to deal a K.O. to my man, I'd be impressed."
The wiccan's weight shifted onto one hip.
He turned and looked at her more fully, one corner of his mouth threatening to lift in a smile. "Sorry," he said a little gravely, as though he were giving her words serious thought. "I guess I assumed. He was taking pictures. I figured he wanted them for something."
He showed her a fragment of the camera, since he'd kept it as a fidget, then tossed it into a nearby trash container. He pushed hair out of his face, straightened his posture. "Either that or you're famous. Are you famous?"
"Not yet." Star finger-combed her hair to one side. "Who's 'he'? You're making it sound like I've got paparrazi tailing me." She looked behind her. "Do I?" So far as Star could see, there was nothing but normal-looking mall stretching for yards and yards. When her visual scan didn't turn up anything unusual, she zoned in on Lost Puppy. "Speak plain English. I'm ten percent wigged out, ten percent intrigued, and eighty percent apathetic."
Something about the way she looked at him made him quit smiling, and he shrugged as he also looked down the concourse. "Those government guys," he said to her, unsure now about the wisdom of approaching her. "One of them was trailing after you with a headset thing on. I was wondering why."
He paused, frowing at the inoffensive light brown tiles the floor was made of. "I didn't...don't mean to freak you out. I guess I just wanted to see why they were following you. You look..."
He waved his hand around, unable to find the word he needed. Harmless? Elfin? "...Normal." So lame.
"Oh. OH!" As was frequently the case with Star, the lightbulb merely took a moment to flicker on. Despite Connor's explanation about knocking out the Agent, the blonde craned her neck and searched the concourse above them, perhaps expecting to see a sniper. "You're kidding me. Already?" The gears in her head continued to turn. She grabbed her pocket book, unzipped it, and began to rustle through its contents. Here and there, items stuck out. The handle of a hairbrush. A wand of brown mascara. The plastic wrapper of a spare tampon. She shoved that one back in hastily and pulled out her wallet.
She looked at the contents, as though they could speak. "Jesus, they might've cut off my credit, too." That would be bad. She was in dire need of supplies. Star nudged her bangs back and gave Connor a helpless look. "Well this blows. The whole thing blows giant... mule dick. I'm just a Wiccan, what am I gonna do, hex Congress with a bad case of genital warts?"
Connor laughed under his breath without really meaning to. Wiccan. She was a spellcaster? He thought he remembered something about the woman who had put his father's soul back also being Wiccan, and his posture straightened out of its customary slouch. Maybe she wasn't a bad example of a magic user. If they were after her for something, she couldn't be all bad.
"Do you need some help? I could do... something for you." Becuase he'd been at loose ends since walking out of the Lighthouse, feeling a little helpless himself. Lacking a purpose had always made him agitated. And because...well, because she was pretty, only there was no stress in it for him. He pulled himself up another notch. "Would you want some help?"
"You already knocked some guy out and disposed of the body." Star tipped her head to the side, and in doing so, allowed her hair to spill in a soft-looking, brown and gold curtain. "What else do you do?" He was looking familiar to Star. She nw knew he was at the federal meeting, but his face nagged deeper in her brain. Like an extra who'd been in one too many films, and had ceased to be part of the background. Star bet he tried impossibly hard to get lost in the fringe, but it didn't work.
She chewed the tip of her straw. "Is there an underground railroad for Wiccans?"
"I know how to hide. To hide myself, mostly, although I've never tried it with another person so I guess I wouldn't know." It was true, even if he'd been out of practice lately. And Las Vegas was a much different environment than Los Angeles. But he liked to think he was managing.
"I don't know about an organized effort," he elaborated. "I've heard that some vamps are holing up, and that a bunch of demons have banded together for protection, but I don't know about people actually leaving." That was true too, even if it was only because there were doubts that anyone could make it out, but he didn't want to tell the blonde that. He liked the way her hair fell in a curtain like that. "Do you...you've probably already got a place to stay. Is it safe there?"
Star scrunched her nose. "I dunno. My roommate's a succubus. I doubt the power of seduction's all that useful in a raid. Unless she can..." Star dashed her hand back and forth. "Spray hormones like a skunk cloud. Maybe sticking together just makes us a bigger target." She worked her straw up and down in its drink lid. "Actually I haven't seen her lately. I hope they didn't snatch her up already. I bet you twenty bucks she's completely brainwashable. Next thing I know, Leah'll come barging in the apartment in a tear-away business suit... She'd totally sell me out."
Tired of fiddling with her drink, Star tossed it in a trash recepticle.
"I wouldn't sell you out." Thinking about Rhiannon now, whom he hadn't allowed to cross his mind in days. He was still angry at her, but having to think about other things -like hiding - was keeping it distant. He wondered how long it would be before they ran into one another again, this time with her carrying a badge. Ah, life.
"My name's Connor, by the way." He took his hand out of his pocket and offered it to the woman, using the other to push the hair out of his face again. "I was thinking they'd be after me by now too. Guess they decided that can wait."
"Lucky for me. I'm Star." She gave his hand an assertive shake. He had rough, warm palms, like Tyler's had been. "Are you a demon hunter?" she asked. Belatedly she remembered they were standing in a mall, beside a rack of sunglasses no less. Discretion was a quality she lacked in spades. But the salesperson was half-asleep and drooling, and the other shoppers were too busy bustling around, buying tacky t-shirts, to pay attention.
When she got done squeezing his digits, Star crossed her arms. They appeared fragile and long, like a dancer's. Hours of pilates had added a little tone here and there, but Star wasn't into heavy lifting, and that was obvious.
Star. It fit her, a name that was bright and sparkling. Connor looked down at the hand she'd just shaken, then nodded, a little self-conscious. "I've been called that. I've been called a lot of things."
His stomach suddenly growled, and he looked down at it in disapproval. Lunch still hadn't happened. Having something that resembled a normal conversation with someone had made him forget that for a second. "Are you, like, meeting someone?" She had already said the thing about no boyfriend, but still. The Wiccan looked delicate and he'd already knocked someone unconscious. Might as well keep it up. "I need to eat something. You wouldn't mind sitting down with me, would you?"
"I'm fashionably solo..." Star said, twisting her torso back and forth idly. "I could kill for some cheese fries." The woman must've had a fierce metabolism, because she didn't shy away from eating. "With bacon. Who gives a rat's about cholesterol, when you've got Guatanamo for the Supernaturally Delinquent looming on the horizon?" She rolled her eyes, letting him know that despite the severity of the situation, Star was not one to make it a buzz kill.
Turning on her heel in the direction of a food court, she cocked her head to make sure he was coming. Star looked ostentatious by Connor's side. The new acquaintances (friends?) were about as far apart on the spectrum of personalities and looks as people could be, but their mutual disobedience had lumped them together for the moment.
He trotted after her, his battered tennis shoes making noises on the waxed tiles. He would probably have cheese fries too, something heavy to keep his stomach full for a while. Maybe a milkshake too, a chocolate one. There was an empty table near the edge of the food court, and he marked it visually as he got in line.
"Is being Wiccan different than just doing magic?" he asked Star once the two of them had taken their chairs. "I don't know much about it, I guess, just that magic isn't always...reliable. Or safe." He made a slight face as he lifted his milkshake cup to his mouth. "Is there a difference?"
"There's a huge difference," she said, managing to be mildly indignant, but not angry. "So you know a magic spell, so what? That's like getting the answers to a test, and getting an A on it, but you've got no clue what you just passed, or why; all you wanted was the A." She squeezed a packet of ketchup on her tray and dipped a fry in it. "Wicca is a religion. Magic is stealing from it." She popped the fry in her mouth and sucked the ketchup off the side of her finger.
"And yeah, you can completely mangle it," she went on, talking out of the side of her full mouth. "But shit happens. Sometimes demon hunters accidentally beat up a person." She shrugged. "I'll say this and I'm off the soapbox, for real. Magic doesn't have a code of conduct like Wicca. 90% of the time, that's how bad things happen."
He was listening as he ate, his head tilted to the left in an attentive fashion as Star explained the fine line between good and bad magic. Obviously things went wrong, he knew that much, he just hadn't realized there could be actually rules to it.
"Sometimes demon hunters beat up a person," he agreed with a nod. "But sometimes that person's interfering with someone they don't know anything about. LIke somebody who has rules and lives by them." He looked at the Wiccan across the tabletop, inclined his head in a nod. "You don't mind, do you? That I did that? Is that against the rules?" He blinked at her guilelessly, his mouth threatening to smile again. "'Cause, y'know, I'd probably do it again. Even if you don't have a boyfriend."
Too late, it occurred to him that that could have been a mis-step. But he hadn't been thinking anything much when he said it, not really. He picked at his cheese fries, put some of them in his mouth. Gave her a hesitant little smile and hoped she wasn't the sort to slap an almost-stranger.
There was a strand of cheese suspended between two ends of the fry Star had just bitten in half. She paused and looked at Connor, eyebrows arched. Thinking to herself, uh huh...
"I don't mind." She jogged her shoulders up and down. "I said there were rules. Didn't say I always obey them." She offered a smile, sweet as pie. "Besides. You know what would happen if Agent Smith got me alone in the parking lot. It'd be like an after-school special. Pretty, dumb girl gets hauled into a van with spraypainted windows. No thanks."
She sipped her fresh soda. "What were you doing at the mall? You don't look like a mall rat."
"Hiding, I guess." Connor returned Star's smile, although his was only a quarter as sweet. "I ignored the grace period. I guess I keep waiting for them to try come getting me. Supposedly they were going to, it just hasn't happened yet." He shrugged one deceptively narrow shoulder, sampling more of his super-thick milkshake. "I guess it's not really paranoia if they really are out to get you."
Compared to the Wiccan's pragmatic acceptance of things as they were, he probably sounded way melodramatic, but that was how he felt. "Guess you were just shopping and minding your business," he said, gesturing back in the direction of the sunglasses display. "Some way to have a shopping trip interrupted."
Star made a slide-whistle with the cherry coke in her straw. "I need the drama. My life's a snooze right now. I used to own a club... The Witching Hour?" She checked his face for recognition. "That kinda fell apart. So now I'm working at a salon until this new acting gig picks up. A friend of mine's opening a film studio. Not porn!" She pointed her finger at him. "I get to star in it. I know I should probably be packing my bags and moving to Arkansas, but..." She didn't have a particularly good excuse. "I guess I just thought, no way they're serious. And even if they were, I'd be way down the list."
His face blanked deliberately, because he didn't need to be connecting porn and Star in his head when he barely knew her, and the headshake he gave her was emphatic. "I wouldn't dream of suggesting it," he said, hoping he wasn't blushing even as he made his denial.
"And you're not dumb," he added almost as an afterthought, addressing the remark she'd made earlier about vans with spray-painted windows. "A little unaware of your surroundings, maybe, but not dumb." He glanced back at the line, wondered about finding something that resembled dessert. "What kind of movie, then?"
"You wouldn't dream of suggesting it." Star nodded, eyes narrowing in on his. "Why the hell not?"
She waited a few seconds and jabbed him with a sharp elbow. "Just kidding. So the movieeee..." She gulped a big breath of air and held it in her cheeks. She blew it out slowly, trying to decide what she could tell him. What if Connor had seen the virile advertisements online? 'Carmilla's in Development Hell'? She didn't want to leak a cast member. So she decided to keep it simple. "Gothic vampire romance. Pretty ironic, considering."
[Thread: Open to Star and Connor]
In the month of April, the supernatural underworld was beginning to know a lifestyle of panic. Word spread quickly about the Federal offensive. Descriptions of initial raids were inflated, of course. It only heightened the sense of fear that crept into conversations. Already, some demons had begun to stockpile weapons, while others had begun to change their nightly patterns, and some considered packing up for smaller towns, more out-of-the-way.
Despite that climate, there were those amongst the supernatural that seemed unaffected by happenings. Even oblivious. Star Tomlin fell into that category. While some stockpiled blood in secret storage facilities, she simply browsed summer shoe sales.
"Do you have these in a seven?" She dangled the slingbacks by a hooked index finger. While the sales attendant went to check, the wiccan slurped a cherry coke and ignored anything that wasn't footwear. The saleswoman came back empty-handed, though, so Star dropped the shoes on the display and headed back into the mall.
It wasn't that he'd meant to start following her, it was that he couldn't help it. Crowds were good to hide in, and he'd been careful to keep out of sight while the rumors and gossip about the men and women from D.C. spread through the supernatural community like the plague. Besides, the mall was air-conditioned and there was a movie theater. If he was to be run out of town on a proverbial rail, he could do it with a little bit of comfort.
It had been the radio earpiece that tipped him off, and Connor had fallen into step behind the man in the non-descript black suitjacket and paced after him once he realized that he was not out to steal the waifish blonde's purse. There were enough people milling around in the enclosed area that it was easy to pull the operative into a phone enclosure and leave him there to wake up with a monster headache and his cameraphone shattered into about a dozen pieces. The Destroyer sprinkled the man's white shirt front with the remains before stalking back out into the walkway.
He wondered what they wanted her for. He vaguely remembered seeing her at the mass meeting at the air force base. She looked like half the girls he'd taken classes with in college. Connor put his hands into his pockets and caught up with her on her left.
Yeah, she was definitely waifish. Almost elfin. "Excuse me, do you kniow what time it is?"
"Five o'clock somewhere," she responded on autopilot. Star had been browsing through a rack of shades at Sunglass Hut when the guy approached. As oblivious to Federal presence as she'd been, Star didn't miss a beat now. Within seconds, she had him cased. Average height. Lanky frame (which would undoubtedly make his jeans hang off his hips like a cologne ad). Slouchy dresser. Shaggy hair. Haunted eyes. Oh yeah...
Every guy fit a type. This was the Lost Puppy.
Star pushed the shades on her head, and their tag swung back and forth in her peripheral view. "Actually it's about four, but who's counting?"
"Huh, I thought it was later than that. Guess its hard to tell in here. Thanks." Connor also looked at the display of sunglasses, but he kept her in his peripheral vision. Blonde hair, narrow shoulders, upper-level clothes, legs that went for miles. Pretty. Beautiful, even. She probably worked as a hostess somewhere. Why did the Feds have an interest in her?
"Your boyfriend's probably going to be pretty mad when he wakes up. I hope I didn't hit him too hard." He said it in a low, almost offhand voice, removed one hand from a pocket to pluck a pair of shades off of the display rack and put them on. The price tag dangled ludicrously from the nosepiece, and he took them off after a second to look at it. A hundred and fifty dollars? Seriously? Not unless they picked up radio signals.
He put them back, dug around in his pockets for some money. Lunch needed to happen soon. Hiding out was hungry work.
"Uh... pardonne moi? Is that a weird pick-up line?" Star untangled a strand of hair from the glasses and put them back on the turnstyle. She was giving Connor her best 'are you for real?' look. "A) I don't have a boyfriend, so there's no one to knock out, and B) I wish I did, because if some guy wanted me bad enough to deal a K.O. to my man, I'd be impressed."
The wiccan's weight shifted onto one hip.
He turned and looked at her more fully, one corner of his mouth threatening to lift in a smile. "Sorry," he said a little gravely, as though he were giving her words serious thought. "I guess I assumed. He was taking pictures. I figured he wanted them for something."
He showed her a fragment of the camera, since he'd kept it as a fidget, then tossed it into a nearby trash container. He pushed hair out of his face, straightened his posture. "Either that or you're famous. Are you famous?"
"Not yet." Star finger-combed her hair to one side. "Who's 'he'? You're making it sound like I've got paparrazi tailing me." She looked behind her. "Do I?" So far as Star could see, there was nothing but normal-looking mall stretching for yards and yards. When her visual scan didn't turn up anything unusual, she zoned in on Lost Puppy. "Speak plain English. I'm ten percent wigged out, ten percent intrigued, and eighty percent apathetic."
Something about the way she looked at him made him quit smiling, and he shrugged as he also looked down the concourse. "Those government guys," he said to her, unsure now about the wisdom of approaching her. "One of them was trailing after you with a headset thing on. I was wondering why."
He paused, frowing at the inoffensive light brown tiles the floor was made of. "I didn't...don't mean to freak you out. I guess I just wanted to see why they were following you. You look..."
He waved his hand around, unable to find the word he needed. Harmless? Elfin? "...Normal." So lame.
"Oh. OH!" As was frequently the case with Star, the lightbulb merely took a moment to flicker on. Despite Connor's explanation about knocking out the Agent, the blonde craned her neck and searched the concourse above them, perhaps expecting to see a sniper. "You're kidding me. Already?" The gears in her head continued to turn. She grabbed her pocket book, unzipped it, and began to rustle through its contents. Here and there, items stuck out. The handle of a hairbrush. A wand of brown mascara. The plastic wrapper of a spare tampon. She shoved that one back in hastily and pulled out her wallet.
She looked at the contents, as though they could speak. "Jesus, they might've cut off my credit, too." That would be bad. She was in dire need of supplies. Star nudged her bangs back and gave Connor a helpless look. "Well this blows. The whole thing blows giant... mule dick. I'm just a Wiccan, what am I gonna do, hex Congress with a bad case of genital warts?"
Connor laughed under his breath without really meaning to. Wiccan. She was a spellcaster? He thought he remembered something about the woman who had put his father's soul back also being Wiccan, and his posture straightened out of its customary slouch. Maybe she wasn't a bad example of a magic user. If they were after her for something, she couldn't be all bad.
"Do you need some help? I could do... something for you." Becuase he'd been at loose ends since walking out of the Lighthouse, feeling a little helpless himself. Lacking a purpose had always made him agitated. And because...well, because she was pretty, only there was no stress in it for him. He pulled himself up another notch. "Would you want some help?"
"You already knocked some guy out and disposed of the body." Star tipped her head to the side, and in doing so, allowed her hair to spill in a soft-looking, brown and gold curtain. "What else do you do?" He was looking familiar to Star. She nw knew he was at the federal meeting, but his face nagged deeper in her brain. Like an extra who'd been in one too many films, and had ceased to be part of the background. Star bet he tried impossibly hard to get lost in the fringe, but it didn't work.
She chewed the tip of her straw. "Is there an underground railroad for Wiccans?"
"I know how to hide. To hide myself, mostly, although I've never tried it with another person so I guess I wouldn't know." It was true, even if he'd been out of practice lately. And Las Vegas was a much different environment than Los Angeles. But he liked to think he was managing.
"I don't know about an organized effort," he elaborated. "I've heard that some vamps are holing up, and that a bunch of demons have banded together for protection, but I don't know about people actually leaving." That was true too, even if it was only because there were doubts that anyone could make it out, but he didn't want to tell the blonde that. He liked the way her hair fell in a curtain like that. "Do you...you've probably already got a place to stay. Is it safe there?"
Star scrunched her nose. "I dunno. My roommate's a succubus. I doubt the power of seduction's all that useful in a raid. Unless she can..." Star dashed her hand back and forth. "Spray hormones like a skunk cloud. Maybe sticking together just makes us a bigger target." She worked her straw up and down in its drink lid. "Actually I haven't seen her lately. I hope they didn't snatch her up already. I bet you twenty bucks she's completely brainwashable. Next thing I know, Leah'll come barging in the apartment in a tear-away business suit... She'd totally sell me out."
Tired of fiddling with her drink, Star tossed it in a trash recepticle.
"I wouldn't sell you out." Thinking about Rhiannon now, whom he hadn't allowed to cross his mind in days. He was still angry at her, but having to think about other things -like hiding - was keeping it distant. He wondered how long it would be before they ran into one another again, this time with her carrying a badge. Ah, life.
"My name's Connor, by the way." He took his hand out of his pocket and offered it to the woman, using the other to push the hair out of his face again. "I was thinking they'd be after me by now too. Guess they decided that can wait."
"Lucky for me. I'm Star." She gave his hand an assertive shake. He had rough, warm palms, like Tyler's had been. "Are you a demon hunter?" she asked. Belatedly she remembered they were standing in a mall, beside a rack of sunglasses no less. Discretion was a quality she lacked in spades. But the salesperson was half-asleep and drooling, and the other shoppers were too busy bustling around, buying tacky t-shirts, to pay attention.
When she got done squeezing his digits, Star crossed her arms. They appeared fragile and long, like a dancer's. Hours of pilates had added a little tone here and there, but Star wasn't into heavy lifting, and that was obvious.
Star. It fit her, a name that was bright and sparkling. Connor looked down at the hand she'd just shaken, then nodded, a little self-conscious. "I've been called that. I've been called a lot of things."
His stomach suddenly growled, and he looked down at it in disapproval. Lunch still hadn't happened. Having something that resembled a normal conversation with someone had made him forget that for a second. "Are you, like, meeting someone?" She had already said the thing about no boyfriend, but still. The Wiccan looked delicate and he'd already knocked someone unconscious. Might as well keep it up. "I need to eat something. You wouldn't mind sitting down with me, would you?"
"I'm fashionably solo..." Star said, twisting her torso back and forth idly. "I could kill for some cheese fries." The woman must've had a fierce metabolism, because she didn't shy away from eating. "With bacon. Who gives a rat's about cholesterol, when you've got Guatanamo for the Supernaturally Delinquent looming on the horizon?" She rolled her eyes, letting him know that despite the severity of the situation, Star was not one to make it a buzz kill.
Turning on her heel in the direction of a food court, she cocked her head to make sure he was coming. Star looked ostentatious by Connor's side. The new acquaintances (friends?) were about as far apart on the spectrum of personalities and looks as people could be, but their mutual disobedience had lumped them together for the moment.
He trotted after her, his battered tennis shoes making noises on the waxed tiles. He would probably have cheese fries too, something heavy to keep his stomach full for a while. Maybe a milkshake too, a chocolate one. There was an empty table near the edge of the food court, and he marked it visually as he got in line.
"Is being Wiccan different than just doing magic?" he asked Star once the two of them had taken their chairs. "I don't know much about it, I guess, just that magic isn't always...reliable. Or safe." He made a slight face as he lifted his milkshake cup to his mouth. "Is there a difference?"
"There's a huge difference," she said, managing to be mildly indignant, but not angry. "So you know a magic spell, so what? That's like getting the answers to a test, and getting an A on it, but you've got no clue what you just passed, or why; all you wanted was the A." She squeezed a packet of ketchup on her tray and dipped a fry in it. "Wicca is a religion. Magic is stealing from it." She popped the fry in her mouth and sucked the ketchup off the side of her finger.
"And yeah, you can completely mangle it," she went on, talking out of the side of her full mouth. "But shit happens. Sometimes demon hunters accidentally beat up a person." She shrugged. "I'll say this and I'm off the soapbox, for real. Magic doesn't have a code of conduct like Wicca. 90% of the time, that's how bad things happen."
He was listening as he ate, his head tilted to the left in an attentive fashion as Star explained the fine line between good and bad magic. Obviously things went wrong, he knew that much, he just hadn't realized there could be actually rules to it.
"Sometimes demon hunters beat up a person," he agreed with a nod. "But sometimes that person's interfering with someone they don't know anything about. LIke somebody who has rules and lives by them." He looked at the Wiccan across the tabletop, inclined his head in a nod. "You don't mind, do you? That I did that? Is that against the rules?" He blinked at her guilelessly, his mouth threatening to smile again. "'Cause, y'know, I'd probably do it again. Even if you don't have a boyfriend."
Too late, it occurred to him that that could have been a mis-step. But he hadn't been thinking anything much when he said it, not really. He picked at his cheese fries, put some of them in his mouth. Gave her a hesitant little smile and hoped she wasn't the sort to slap an almost-stranger.
There was a strand of cheese suspended between two ends of the fry Star had just bitten in half. She paused and looked at Connor, eyebrows arched. Thinking to herself, uh huh...
"I don't mind." She jogged her shoulders up and down. "I said there were rules. Didn't say I always obey them." She offered a smile, sweet as pie. "Besides. You know what would happen if Agent Smith got me alone in the parking lot. It'd be like an after-school special. Pretty, dumb girl gets hauled into a van with spraypainted windows. No thanks."
She sipped her fresh soda. "What were you doing at the mall? You don't look like a mall rat."
"Hiding, I guess." Connor returned Star's smile, although his was only a quarter as sweet. "I ignored the grace period. I guess I keep waiting for them to try come getting me. Supposedly they were going to, it just hasn't happened yet." He shrugged one deceptively narrow shoulder, sampling more of his super-thick milkshake. "I guess it's not really paranoia if they really are out to get you."
Compared to the Wiccan's pragmatic acceptance of things as they were, he probably sounded way melodramatic, but that was how he felt. "Guess you were just shopping and minding your business," he said, gesturing back in the direction of the sunglasses display. "Some way to have a shopping trip interrupted."
Star made a slide-whistle with the cherry coke in her straw. "I need the drama. My life's a snooze right now. I used to own a club... The Witching Hour?" She checked his face for recognition. "That kinda fell apart. So now I'm working at a salon until this new acting gig picks up. A friend of mine's opening a film studio. Not porn!" She pointed her finger at him. "I get to star in it. I know I should probably be packing my bags and moving to Arkansas, but..." She didn't have a particularly good excuse. "I guess I just thought, no way they're serious. And even if they were, I'd be way down the list."
His face blanked deliberately, because he didn't need to be connecting porn and Star in his head when he barely knew her, and the headshake he gave her was emphatic. "I wouldn't dream of suggesting it," he said, hoping he wasn't blushing even as he made his denial.
"And you're not dumb," he added almost as an afterthought, addressing the remark she'd made earlier about vans with spray-painted windows. "A little unaware of your surroundings, maybe, but not dumb." He glanced back at the line, wondered about finding something that resembled dessert. "What kind of movie, then?"
"You wouldn't dream of suggesting it." Star nodded, eyes narrowing in on his. "Why the hell not?"
She waited a few seconds and jabbed him with a sharp elbow. "Just kidding. So the movieeee..." She gulped a big breath of air and held it in her cheeks. She blew it out slowly, trying to decide what she could tell him. What if Connor had seen the virile advertisements online? 'Carmilla's in Development Hell'? She didn't want to leak a cast member. So she decided to keep it simple. "Gothic vampire romance. Pretty ironic, considering."
[Thread: Open to Star and Connor]