shellyharmon (shellyharmon) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-01-03 13:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | john abbott, shelly harmon |
WWJD?
Who: John/Shelly
What: A Favor
Where: Las Vegas, Shelly's Apartment
When: Christmas 2020
Ratings/Warnings: High, Death/Blood/Fangs/Etc.
Shelly had not felt like this since her father died. That uncertain numbness, wondering when the other shoe would drop and emotion would kick in, knowing it would be almost unbearable when it did. She flinched at every noise, clutching her phone close. The blonde had covered Porter’s body with a sheet, and a dot of blood could be seen near the lump that was his head.
She had called John. She had calmly explained that she needed help, though didn’t get into details over the phone. Just that she needed assistance at her apartment, and could he kindly come over. It was oddly genteel. Shelly wandered over to her windows, flicking the drapes aside just enough to see outside. Night had fallen thickly.
She didn’t even realize she was still wearing her coat.
John was in his condo when he got the call. At just past sunset, it was morning for him, a time when he typically sat at a wooden desk, idly flipping through the day’s papers with a mug of something to drink beside him in the lamplight. The vampire let one corner of the heavy drapes slip open, a makeshift sundial of golden light passing over the nearest set of bookshelves, light crawling lazily along the spines of his books until it faded and he knew it was comfortable to go out for the evening. He stuck his arms through the sleeves of a button-down shirt, picking up a jacket not because he’d be cold, but because it was expected of a man walking around in December. As he was grabbing his keys and wallet off a tray by the door, the phone buzzed.
He had listened calmly, said little, and hung up when Shelly finished talking. In the silence of his condo, John took a moment to think. The phone slipped a bit in his palm. When he was ready, he left and locked the door. Later, he took the concrete steps to Shelly’s apartment slowly, then knocked with some discretion. No need to alert her neighbors to an arrival. While he waited, John looked around and listened for some clue as to what was happening inside. He trusted Shelly, but there was an unusual pitch to her voice when she called. Things weren’t entirely right there.
She felt that knock in her nerve endings. Shelly crossed the living room, into the little hallway, and threw open the front door quickly and ushered John inside. “Hi,” she said quietly, her voice nearly a whisper for no particular reason. The blonde cleared her throat and spoke slightly louder. “Thank you for coming.”
Shelly led him into the living room and paused, standing over the sheet-covered body. “So...something happened.” It was a surreal situation, and for a split second, she thought she was having an out-of-body moment. In her head, she could see herself standing there absurdly, completely out of her depth.
John had closed and locked the door behind himself and followed Shelly into the apartment, his nose picking up the faint scent of blood, which pricked his curiosity. The living room was familiar, however this time, there was something more startling than green paint on the walls.
“I should say so.” John looked from the person-shaped lump under the sheet to Shelly’s face, and the absurdity of the tweed coat she was wearing. He subdued the urge to ask Shelly if she was on her way out for the evening. It didn’t seem the time for dry humor. He looked round for a weapon. There was a bottle of, to put it kindly, economical wine nearby. John had both struck and been struck by glass bottles before. It took a surprising amount of force to bludgeon one open.
“Um-- May I?” He pointed at the body.
“Go ahead. I don’t think he’ll mind.” Shelly looked down at the carpet beneath her feet. What she thought was a blood stain was actually spilled wine, upon closer inspection. She would have to get a new rug. Possibly a new apartment. And Las Vegas wasn’t particularly a renter’s market, at the moment.
“He broke in here while I was out,” the blonde explained to the vampire, crossing her arms protectively. “We had met before, years ago. I sort of…” She used the words Porter had, earlier. “Destroyed his life.”
John knelt and folded back the sheet to inspect the body. No perceptible pulse, no respiration, sightless eyes. Oh yes. Definitely dead under there. With his mouth watering slightly, he leaned closer to study the bloody wound for no particular reason other than morbid interest. From the looks of it, Shelly had a mean swing and was probably right-handed, a set of facts he ought to take note of.
“He broke in here?” he asked, searching for how the man might have gotten into the apartment. “You could play it for self-defense, if you wanted. Jilted ex-lover, beautiful girl… There’s a good chance the police would believe it. Depending upon how much of your ‘life destroying’ you want them sifting through.” John spread the sheet back into place. He got off the floor and looked her over for injuries. He was flattered that she called him, but didn’t know how much support to offer since they hadn’t spoken a while. He was aware there was a certain convenience to him. A vampire was unlikely to tell tales.
He took off his coat and set it aside.
Seeing John take off his coat made her realize that she was still wearing hers. She shrugged out of the garment and slung it over the back of a chair. “I don’t know if I want to involve the police,” she said, taking a step toward him. “He’s...he was well-connected, and I’ve done this to a lot of people.” Her eyes widened.
“Not this,” the blonde added hurriedly, gesturing vaguely to the bottle of wine. “The blackmailing, I mean. This is the first time I’ve ever…” Shelly trailed off as the full impact of the situation suddenly hit her. “I killed a person.”
“Is it the first time one of them broke into your apartment and made you drink a bottle of Fish Eye?” John asked. “If so, I call fair play.” He leaned an elbow on the nearest piece of furniture, at ease with the body on the floor. There were so many questions to be asked that he didn’t know where to begin. Should they start with the cover-up or why murder was necessary in the first place? Perhaps he should leave that decision to Shelly.
John pulled at his earlobe. “Do you suppose someone’s looking for this fellow right now, or do we have time to talk?”
Shelly suddenly felt exhausted. Like she could actually fall into her bed and knock out, even after what happened. Even with Porter still there. It was disturbing. Maybe she needed coffee. The blonde drifted toward her kitchen area. “This is the first time anything like this has ever happened,” she answered wearily. “And I don’t think anyone is looking for him. I don’t think he would be the type to tell someone what he had planned for today.”
She opened her cabinets. She was out of coffee. Out of everything, really. Shelly leaned against the counter and closed her eyes. “He talked about my dad. It made me angry. I don’t think he was going to physically hurt me. Does that still count as self-defense?”
The vampire took news of the blackmailing in stride. Yet another reason to stay on Shelly’s good side, though if he strayed from it, a good blackmail was only as effective as a person’s bad behavior. On some level, he’d own up to deserving it.
“To a jury, probably not, at least not in Nevada. To me?” John weighed an imaginary scale with his hands and appeared to consider it. “I’ve killed people for less, though I don’t think I’ve ever properly... raged out on someone. But self-preservation is self-preservation.” He moved to an open spot on her very clean counter and hoisted himself to sit on it near where Shelly stood. After a moment’s pause, he leaned closer. “What did he say?” he asked, his tone kind.
She stopped what she was doing and looked up at him. “He said that I’m lucky that my father isn’t alive to see who I am now.” Shelly smiled bitterly. “I think that’s when I decided to hit him.”
So that had hit a sore point. He remembered something about the framed poster on her wall, the one with Grace Kelly and James Stewart in Rear Window. It belonged to Shelly’s father. The vampire caught his eyes ticking there automatically, then back to her. “Did he know your father?” John asked.
“No, definitely not,” Shelly answered quickly, visibly uncomfortable with the idea. She drifted closer to John, fingers loosely grasping the edge of the counter. Her gaze settled on one of the buttons of his shirt. “He died when I was 8.” The blonde brushed her hair back, and it was then that she noticed a small amount of blood on the side of her hand. She turned the hot water tap on at the kitchen sink.
“I don’t like people knowing things about me,” Shelly explained as she scrubbed at her hands with some Palmolive. “Except for you, for some reason. I think because you’re not judgmental.”
“No.” John watched the scrubbing of her delicate hands, the scent of the dishwashing liquid overtaking the blood and other olfactory triggers of her apartment. “I take you as you are. It doesn’t mean I’m not curious.” As the suds rinsed down the drain and gurgled in the pipes underneath, he allowed himself to engage with Shelly’s profile again, his arms remaining loose on his lap. “He said what he knew would provoke a reaction, but he underestimated you. How you’d feel when cornered, what it would be like for someone to discover intimate details of your life that you didn’t share and invade your home. He made a massive miscalculation, Shelly, but it was his.”
John reached for a towel and readied it for her. “People don’t like being made to feel foolish, but they rarely possess the presence of mind to recognize their own part in it. Now he’s the fool with a ruined life and a traumatic brain injury.” He gave her a closed-mouth smile.
Shelly took the towel with a grateful glance up at him. She dried her hands thoroughly, perhaps too thoroughly, just to give herself something to do. “You can be curious about me,” she told him. “If you asked me something, I would answer it.” The blonde set the towel down and glanced back toward the living room. “I feel bad for his family. I told him I didn’t feel bad at all, just before, but...I was lying. He has kids.”
Her stomach swooped at the thought of them finding out. She knew how it would feel. It would sound like a lie at first, and they’d be angry at the messenger. In Shelly’s case, it had been her mother. She had always kind of hated her a little just for that, as irrational as it was. “How are we going to get him out of here?”
This was precisely why he never bit anyone in his residence. John got off the counter and gave the problem of body removal some consideration, walking back to her living room, one hand rumpling his hair. “I may be overdressed for this,” he observed. “Well, it’s a remarkably clean crime scene, which helps. We could start with how he could be tracked here: Are there security cameras outside, does he have a phone on him, did he drive or was he dropped off… But that still leaves us with the problem of where to put him,” he admitted, thinking of his own ability to simply walk away from a corpse when things went down that path.
“You know,” John hedged, arms crossed. “The police are less motivated to track down a killer when they think a monster might have done it. I mean, what’s the fun in case that’ll have to go cold? Those never lead to a promotion.” He peeked at Shelly to see what she thought of where this was headed.
Shelly quirked an eyebrow as she trailed after John. She looked down at the sheet, then back up at the vampire. “So, what’s the narrative? I was having a wine-filled evening with my...gentleman caller, and a vampire broke in?” The blonde paced in a half-circle around the body, thinking deeply. She could call the police, feign shock, that much she was confident of. Add in a dash of ditzy blonde.
“Or...I came home to find said gentleman caller entertaining a vampire in my apartment. And then things went south. Everything happened so fast.” Shelly placed a hand on her forehead. “Too much?”
“Never. But let’s account for what others might have seen. And your phone records.” John eased into the living room, tapping his mouth with an index finger. “Your old flame returned. Surprise visit!” he said. “You came home, you opened a bottle of wine, you caught up on old times, and then you decided, two’s a good time, but three... three is a party. So, you called your new acquaintance John Andrews... Definitely change that in your contacts. John came upstairs. And then…”
In his head, he began to run through various options by which the man on the floor might have met a bad end, leaving Shelly legally unscathed. Perhaps one involving sharp teeth.
“What if…” Shelly crossed her arms, looking down contemplatively at the body. Her gaze fell on the spot of blood that dotted the sheet. “He clumsily hit his head, and when you saw the blood, you couldn’t help yourself...fangs came out, and you just…” She trailed off, her hand in the air.
“And I didn’t call the police right away because I fainted. From the shock of it all. And you ran off.” The blonde looked up at John with a slow smile lifting the edges of her mouth.
“Perfect,” John said. “Now let’s hope they send the city’s most inexperienced cops.” He picked up the wine bottle and took it to the kitchen where he cleaned the blood off the bottom of it and found a third glass. When he returned, he set them in their places and knelt to peel back the sheet one more time. John stared at the cooling body. Time was of the essence here.
In all his wildest imaginings, this was not how John had fantasized that Shelly would see him using his fangs. Even though the blood was right there in front of him, it was nowhere near as appetizing as it might have been in other circumstances. He sighed and gave his own jaw a light slap. “Come along, then, John.” Bending down, he let his fangs descend, knowing that if it was going to be believable, he had to drain quite a bit when mild livor mortis had begun to set in. At least he hadn’t eaten much. John grabbed the man — what even was his name? — by the head, wrenched it to the side, and took a bite.
Shelly watched with morbid fascination as John knelt over Porter, his fangs poised sharply. She tilted her head slightly with raised eyebrows as he bit. Was it embarrassing for the vampire to do this in front of her? Then she realized that was probably a nonsensical thought and busied herself by picking up the sheet and taking it into her bedroom. She stuffed it to the bottom of her laundry hamper, then returned to the living room.
“I wanted to say thank you, again, for helping me,” the blonde told him awkwardly. “I appreciate it. And if you ever need a favor from me, I’m around.”
John was still drinking when she came back into the room and began the gratitude spiel. Blood wasn’t as easily extracted without a heartbeat pumping it, and there was the knowledge that he was draining an already-deceased corpse just to save them the trouble of dumping it in the Mojave desert, all of which slowed him down and dulled what might have been an enjoyable meal. He backed away and wiped at the excess blood with his thumb, frowning. Even with all that going on, John was still struck by the formality of Shelly’s words.
It was, what was the word he was looking for? Transactional. Not relational, but completed like an exchange of services between two people who knew one another. Perhaps they had once exchanged business cards over drinks.
“Did you say, if I ever need a favor, you’re around?” John put up a hand. “No, nevermind. That is… that is what you said.” Huh. Hands at his waist, he appeared to be working a mental puzzle, one that was solved when he spotted where he’d left his coat. Mind on the tasks at hand. He’d need a new burner phone; he’d need to keep his head down in the parking lot in case of cameras; he’d use cash only if he required money anywhere between here and home.
Shelly realized her hands had gone numb and shook them out, like trying to get water off of them. “I’m not used to this,” she admitted, frowning, and resisted the urge to pace again. She looked down at Porter, the twin drops of blood on his neck, the stain on his starched collar. It was oddly stylized, like it could have been an edgy photoshoot for a new perfume. She shook her head; she was venturing into the nonsensical. “Even just asking someone for help, let alone for something like this.”
The blonde sank down onto the armchair that held her coat. “You’re not just someone. That’s what I’m trying and failing to say.”
John stuck his arms through his jacket sleeves. “I appreciate that, but it’s not favors I want. It’s your company, in whatever form you like.” John shrugged the fabric onto his shoulders and let himself relax for just a moment. “That includes figuring out what to do with a body because I can’t share your company if you’re in prison.” He did a pat-down of his pockets, uncertain if he’d taken out his phone, wallet, or keys when he arrived. It appeared he hadn’t. “There may come a time when you find me so distracted that it’s like my mind has flown the coop, or I’ll be the sad, sloppy drunk in the corner, and you’ll think, aha!. Here it is.” John’s voice came down to a near-whisper. “The moment when I get to save this ass from himself.”
“You can have my company,” Shelly told him, watching him methodically getting ready to leave. Part of her didn’t want him to go, even though the whole premise with the police relied on him doing so. She stood slowly, crossed the room to where John was standing. One hand reached up to touch the side of his face. The blonde leaned in and pressed a kiss against his cheek. She would have gone for his mouth, but she didn’t really want to taste Porter’s blood. As if that were the weirdest part of the whole situation.
“Next time, you host, okay?”
He stopped to lean down for the kiss and to touch her hair and chin with affection. “I promise. You know... I’ve never had a dead person in my place.” John allowed himself a self congratulatory smile at Shelly’s expense. “Look at us, subverting expectations.” He wiped the look off his face before checking out the peephole and opening the door. The theatre wasn’t in his background, but he was fairly sure he’d have to rush out of the place for this narrative to work.
The vampire hurried down the stairs and took off at a clip on the pavement beyond. It was fortunate that the lighting in her small residential area wasn’t that good.