Arrow (arrowroro) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-11-18 19:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | jd cartwright, ~ro clark |
Who: Ro and JD
When: Now
Where: Outside a coffee shop
What: Bumping into each other 20 years later
Warnings: Discussion of Ro's powers so some adult themes
There were a few things Ro appreciated in particular about modern life compared to when she was young. Uber or smartphone anything really. Women wearing pants. And the fact that it was perfectly normal to buy a cup of coffee that was essentially caffeinated candy. She wrapped her hands around a tall pumpkin spice latte with an extra shot. Basic her ass. This was the best.
Sipping happily on her sugar coffee, she stepped past a dark-haired man at the door and headed outside.
The dark-haired man did a double take, his head turning to look again at the young woman who’d just walked out past him. He wasn’t in need of caffeine that badly that he didn’t follow her back out into the street and, after checking again, call out, “July?” as he took a few steps closer.
Ro stopped in her tracks. She didn't like it when old names came back up. It meant the past was catching up to her and she preferred past to stay behind her where it belonged. That man she'd brushed by in the coffee shop was following her. He looked...vaguely familiar in a way she couldn't place. "Yes?" she said cautiously. There were plenty of people who might have had a grudge against July.
JD blinked when she turned around. She didn’t look a day older than when he’d last seen her, at the end of the week he’d arrived in Las Vegas for his 21st - a week he would never forget.
“It is you,” he said, closing the distance between them. Unlike her he knew he didn’t look like his 21 year old self, and followed with, “it’s JD, we met when I first came here, and uh, yeah, we had a pretty good week celebrating my 21st.” He couldn’t stop the smile from curling the corners of his mouth, even now.
"Officer Birthday," Ro said slowly. "I remember." They'd met on one of her passes through Vegas years ago. They'd spent a week celebrating his birthday and then falling into bed together. He'd caught her trying to steal from him and somehow hadn't minded. It'd been fun. And then the week ended, JD had to start his new police job and she skipped town. Just another pleasant memory in a life of them. Now here he was.
"Sorry," she said. "I didn't recognize you. You grew up." She smiled and waited for the inevitable questions on why she hadn’t done the same. The only difference in her appearance now was more tattoos and brown hair instead of blonde.
He laughed at the moniker and looked her up and down, shaking his head as he replied, “and you didn’t!” His head angled and eyes narrowing slightly as he studied her face. “Except for the hair you look just the same as you did then. You’ll have to tell me where you get that ‘fountain of youth’ juice. It definitely does the job.”
"Few new tattoos too." She shrugged and remembered she was holding a coffee. Ro sipped from her cup before continuing. "I have my ways. You look less surprised about that than I would have thought."
JD eyed her coffee, remembering that’s where he’d been headed. “Takes a bit to surprise me these days,” he murmured in reply, then added, “are you heading somewhere in a hurry?”
"I have time," Ro nodded. "Somewhere private is better if you have questions. Prying ears can be awkward."
He nodded, “my car’s just around the corner, let me grab my coffee.” A few minutes later he rejoined her on the sidewalk and they started walking toward where his vehicle was, filling the time with small talk. Once they were in the car he looked across at her. “OK, so what’s the go?”
"My name is Arrow now," she started. "Arrow or Ro is fine. July is an identity I had to let go and I don't like to muddy things up by answering to an old name." Ro looked across at him, studying the way he'd changed in the last twenty years. Face broader now than it was then, more weathered, a hint of lines next to the eyes.
"You don't seem shocked to see me the same age and you're not spouting about angels and demons. I'm going to assume you know a few things about the world, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm an etheric vampire. That's my fountain of youth."
He listened, eyes fixed on hers, taking in what she said. He wasn’t sure of the reference to angels and demons, had had a little experience of the latter, hadn’t really considered if the former could also actually exist but had never met one. His brow furrowed at the mention of vampires, not having had particularly good experiences with their kind. “An etheric vampire?” he repeated, the lift at the end turning it into the question. “What’s that?” he asked, trying to think if Tasha had ever mentioned them, but shaking his head, and adding, “haven’t heard of them.”
Humans weren't always great at understanding the supernatural. They often rationalized through the prism of religion. Didn’t have much to do with her. "You might be thinking of the bloodsucking vampires. Etherics are different and more rare. We feed on the energy generated when a person is feeling a specific emotion. In my case, lust."
"Lust?" He might have been twenty years older but some things could be recalled as if they had only just happened, and that week was one of those things. "You feed on lust instead of blood…" He glanced down at the cup she was holding, the aroma declaring it was one of the sugar-laden sweet drinks now served as 'coffee'.
"So when I was so … that was you?!" So many questions now dissolved into the 'ether', and JD shook his head, laughing at himself.
"I'm not really sure if it's feeding on lust or just your energy when you feel lust." Ro shrugged. "Questions like that are above my pay grade. But yeah, that's why you were so tired. I can also make you more aware of pleasure so it's more intense. Not a bad trade."
"No, I guess not! And that's why you kept insisting I eat," JD stared at her for a moment before looking out through the windscreen, huffing a laugh and shaking his head. "This explains so much!" he murmured to himself before taking a swig of his coffee, then looking back across to her. "So how old are you?" he asked.
"You're taking this very well," Ro offered. JD at 21 was all eagerness and hands. Him in his forties seemed to have grown out of that. She was distracted by his question though. Her fingertips drummed on her cup lid. "Twenty-seven according to my ID. But you mean really? At a certain point you stop counting. Seventy or eighty something? I was born in '46."
JD did the math. "So 74 now, 54 back then," he contributed, looking across at her, turning in his seat a little. The numbers helped a little. Even now there was a physical attraction to her that was heavily tempered, automatically, by how young she looked. JD was not a lech, regardless of any primal instinct. Right now that automatic tempering was doing battle with the new-found knowledge that she wasn't, and in fact never had been, younger than him at all, let alone than by a lot more than a dozen years.
"Sorry, I'm just…" His smile widened as he shook his head lightly at himself as his phone vibrated in his pocket. "Maybe we can catch up later, if you're not busy?" he asked, fairly sure the message would be that the results of a forensics report were in.
"Sure. Give you some time to wrap your head around things." Ro could feel a low level of attraction from JD and she saw no reason not to get in touch. "I'll give you my number. Text whenever, I live here now."
He nodded, his face expressing his approval of this information. "That's great, I'll message you later, when I get a sense of how today's going to turn out."
He pulled out his phone, opened the contacts list and added in her number, sending a text straight away so she had his. A quick glance at the incoming message confirmed his guess. "Can I give you a ride somewhere?" he asked, shoving his phone back in his pocket.
Ro tapped at her phone with much more familiarity than the typical person in their seventies. "I'm parked up the block actually. I'm good. Thanks though."
His brain was still negotiating with his body about her age, and watching her use the phone like she did added fuel to the fire. She was the hottest 74 year old he'd ever seen, no doubt about it.
He drained the remainder of his coffee and tucked the disposable lid inside the cup as he squashed it and dropped it into a box behind the passenger seat he kept there for rubbish. He was about to ask her whether she was working when his phone rang, the theme for 'Hill St Blues' echoing around the car. "Sorry, this is what happens when you let a rookie update your phone," he sighed, adding, "this will be the boss wanting to know what's going on in a case… I'll message you..."
Ro nodded, laughing at the ring tone. "Go do your thing, officer." She gave a little wave and then exited the car, taking her coffee cup with her. And well, if she extended her stride to add a little extra sway to her to hips as she walked away, it was only a bit of fun.
JD answered the phone, his eyes following her and a grin spreading across his face as he watched her saunter away, enjoying the show she put on. It was the rather clipped tones in his ear that broke through his trip down memory lane, and he cleared his throat as he answered, "Yeah Chief, saw the report…"