Rhiannon Lee (rhiannon_lee) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-10-13 16:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | rhiannon lee, tasha sloan |
Hunter Hard-Wiring
Who: Tasha, Rhiannon
What: Beer, Talking, Confessions
When: Present
Where: Apartment
Warnings: Language, Some 'Mature' Convo
Rhiannon pulled a string and lifted the living room blinds. “Do you ever actually go in the pool?”
The question was directed to her new roommate, Tasha, and it referenced the chlorinated swimming hole in the center of their apartment complex. Its rectangular shape and diving board betrayed the age of the facility. Modern-day complexes didn’t design their pools for diving or swimming laps, but for lounging by the teal-colored kidney beans with your adult beverage in a plastic tumbler that said ‘it’s wine o’ clock.’ Thank you, litigation.
She opened the window to get air circulating. The paint fumes coming from her room had overtaken the two-bedroom apartment. Rhiannon had put up a color called ‘satin ancient burgundy’ and married it with new bedding and thick curtains in peacock blue. A new place called for new things. She looked forward to hanging shelves and nailing items to her walls so she could stop tripping over them left and right.
Tasha returned from her short journey to the fridge — why did all Vegas apartments come with open plan kitchens? — with two beers from Banger Brewing and handed one to Rhiannon. “I’ve gone in like once or twice,” she told her new roommate, peering down at the pool before resuming her perch on the slightly battered papasan chair she had picked up from World Market ages ago. “But then someone told me that if a pool smells really strongly like chlorine, that actually means it’s dirty.” The hunter took a sip and leaned back.
“They were talking about indoor pools but…” She trailed off and shrugged. “I wonder which kills more brain cells,” Tasha mused, holding up the dark bottle. “This, or those paint fumes.”
“I dunno, but if paint fumes kill a ton of brain cells, I’ll be a vegetable any day now. Do me a favor and make it quick.” Rhiannon plopped on the couch and propped her feet on a trunk doubling as a coffee table. Every ounce of storage counted. She examined the label of the beer, an El Jeffe, and took a sip of jalapeno wheat. It was not a flavor she expected to work but it did. “The manager came by earlier to remind us that the water will be out between the convenient hours of 9 AM and 3 PM on Thursday. Ration your hydration accordingly.” Rhiannon had another sip and pulled over an old metal and cork drink coaster.
“I’m just looking for the sweet spot between severe brain damage and constant overthinking,” Tasha told Rhiannon dryly, tucking her feet beneath her, her fingers curled around the sweaty neck of the bottle. “At least he didn’t text us,” she pointed out, rolling her eyes. “I can go a good month or so without my phone buzzing.” The big info leak of 2021 still had her feeling pissed off and emotionally drained, though she had definitely fared far better than some others. To be honest, though, Tasha didn’t harbor very many secrets. She talked way too much for that to be the case.
“How are you doing…after?” Tasha asked the other hunter tentatively after another long pull.
Rhiannon dropped her head against the back cushion and fixated on the ceiling. “I dunno. There are things I almost wish I didn’t know, and with my thing… I definitely didn’t want that to get out to people I don’t trust. But there are worse secrets. For instance, did you know my family got paid to hunt Cian back in Chicago? That’s a winner and that feels worse to me. I mean, the whole ‘Corrigan Clan Takes Vegas’ event probably tipped people off, but when you put it in such stark terms… ”
Her thumb traced the grooves in the bottle neck. “Also I’m seeing the guy I banned from Searchlight. I’m sure they would’ve loved that.”
Tasha snorted behind the bottle before leaning forward to set it down. “I didn’t need to know a lot of that stuff,” she agreed. “But if I didn’t make it clear, I don’t judge you for yours. Anyone who knows you should also know that you’re capable of critical decision-making.” At the mention of Cian, her expression softened slightly. “Shit. That had to have been rough. And awkward…” Her eyes dropped down to her beer and there was a beat of silence.
Rhiannon put the cold glass against her forehead. “This should be my new litmus test for doing anything. Would I be comfortable with this getting around in a group text?”
“If that was my litmus test, I would never do anything fun,” Tasha commented with a half-smile. “So I wouldn’t worry about it too much.” Tasha glanced at the window and tapped her fingers against the bamboo frame of the chair before turning back to Rhiannon. “Marsh’s secret bugged me,” she admitted. “It didn’t really hit me until later why.”
“Which one?” Rhiannon used her inner wrist to dry the moisture from her forehead. “Sleeping with his patient or reading people’s minds? I don’t think I’ve ever met the guy, but I’m not in love with either one.” Thinking back, she may have ordered a drink from him at Lucky’s and not thought anything of it. That was a chilling idea. As loath as she was to dial up James, maybe she could ask his partner, Celeste, if a ward could be created to guard against that sort of thing, especially during hunts.
“Oh, yeah, I’m not a fan of the secret mind-reading, either,” Tasha agreed. She thought back to the time she and Marsh had a pretty lengthy, weighty discussion at Lucky’s and the empathy she felt at his situation. Meanwhile, he might have heard every single vulnerable thought that was going through her head. And then when the hunters came to visit, how did he not know what was about to go down? So many questions. “But mainly the thing about his client or patient or whatever.” Her fingernail clinked against the glass bottle.
“After the whole near death thing happened back home, it was kind of a rock bottom moment,” Tasha told Rhiannon, shifting awkwardly in the chair. “And unhealthy coping mechanisms followed, because that’s how I roll. Anyway, I went to NA meetings and long story short, I did what I do best and fell in love with my sponsor.”
“Oh god.” Rhiannon cringed, knowing the convoluted implications in a dual role like that, especially given the vulnerable timing of it. “I guess that happens. Was it trauma-bonding or…” She shrugged. “You met the right person in the wrong situation?” The level of her beer went down by half. Outside, in the distance, a person’s voice called out across the concrete landscape.
Tasha brought her shoulders up toward her ears and then let them fall. It was less a shrug or cringe and more of a body reset. “Something like that, yeah,” she told Rhiannon with a wry expression. “But the issue was that she seemed like this totally together person on the outside, and I really craved that. It just wasn’t true. She might have been an even bigger mess than I was, or am.” The hunter paused the conversation to drain the rest of her beer. Maybe there was something about being exposed that made her want to continue, like part of her skin had started to peel and she was compelled to keep pulling. An emotional sunburn.
“And then she started using all this ‘recovery-speak’ against me, even though she was breaking the rules by being with me, too. But somehow it was all on me.” Tasha shook her head slightly. “Anyway, long story short, she convinced me to move here and then I found out she was a serial cheater. That was my last real relationship.”
What a nightmare. That kind of subtle manipulation crept into the deep parts of your subconscious, especially when it came from someone you trusted to pull you together when you were flying apart at the seams. “Listen.” Rhiannon used her coaster. The metal scratched at the surface of the trunk. She propelled herself off the couch and sat on the carpeted floor. “I am not opposed to kicking a woman’s ass, even retroactively. I won’t break any bones or cause permanent nerve damage.” A hand went to the hunter’s heart in solemn promise. “But it might sting a little.”
She watched Rhiannon get closer with a curious look that turned into a smile with her words. “This is the advantage of being friends with another hunter,” Tasha replied, and there were equal parts gratitude and amusement in her voice. “But it’s cool, because I know the truth about her now. And she’s probably way worse off than I am.” Her fingers toyed with the chain of her necklace, idly running the silver links between forefinger and thumb. “The most hurtful part was the fact that I confided everything to her. And I was proud of myself for opening up. I couldn’t help but think about this Tina person, and I could see myself in it.” There was another beat of silence in which a door slamming down the hall could be heard, and heavy footsteps passing their apartment door.
“How do you do it? Like...have one relationship end and not want to lock your heart in a drawer?”
“Have you ever had people lock their hearts away from you?” Rhiannon thought of the real loss of her mother, and the functional loss of her father that resulted from it. She opened her hands and looked at the lines of her palms. “I’m an emotional person. I don’t know how to shut that down or compartmentalize it, so for me, the idea of being with someone, whether we’re sleeping together or friends, and not giving them my heart…” She raised her shoulders. “It’s hard. I think I’d lose my mind trying to navigate that and if I did manage it, I'd probably feel as good as dead. But it’s also the reason I’m not friends with everyone, because I don’t know how to modulate it and being that vulnerable is exhausting.”
“Good point,” she replied, thinking about the hunters she used to know, including some in her own family, who believed that emotional vulnerability was weakness. Tasha never understood that, and always felt the opposite to be true. Some things would have been a lot easier if she couldn’t feel. She leaned back and brought her knees up, wrapping her arms around them as she listened to Rhiannon. “Part of me thinks that’s a good thing, and part of me finds it pretty scary. God, why do some people have to be such dicks?” Her eyes swept over the apartment, then back at her roommate. “Though I guess it worked out in the end.”
“I mean, yeah. You’re here, you’re hunting.” Rhiannon ran her fingers inside one of her bracelets and tugged gently at the cord. “Your roommate can help bury the bodies. As an added bonus, I won’t even tell if you let another civilian catch teeth marks.” The brunette broke into a wide grin and peered through the side of her drink to see how much was left. “Do you want another beer?”
A deep sigh followed the reference to her secret. “Oh, right. That.” Tasha disentangled herself to stand up, shaking out the slight pins and needles in one foot. “This might be a big, shocking reveal but I can be an asshole sometimes. And does it help any if I say it was just the tips?” And then she shuddered visibly and shot Rhiannon a regretful look. “That was awful, please strike that from the record while I grab them.” The hunter returned to the fridge, its silver surface decorated with various magnets from Vegas institutions and her car insurance company. Holding the neck of both beers in one hand, she grabbed a pizza place menu with the other and returned to their spot.
When Tasha closed the refrigerator, Rhiannon was hiding in her t-shirt, having pulled the neck up to her eyeballs. “I can’t believe you said that.” She let the material fall away and watched the other hunter approach with a folded paper advertising local delivery and carry-out. To say that the city girl had missed that option when living in Searchlight was an understatement. “Did you ever think it was just the tip but that was all of it? No, don’t answer that.”
Rhiannon polished off the remainder of beer number one and started on the sequel. “So, who’s next? Is there a Tinder profile?”
Tasha laughed and set the menu down in front of Rhiannon before taking up her former seat. “I can’t believe I did either,” she admitted, the mouth of the bottle hovering near her lips, “but then again, that’s true for a lot of things I say.” At the mention of Tinder and dating, she tried to suppress the warm flush she could already feel sprouting in her cheeks. “I don’t know, I’m not really… casting a wide net these days,” the hunter answered, her voice breaking the slightest bit in the middle of her sentence. And then, avoiding direct eye contact, she asked, “You’d be cool with Brian coming over sometime, right?”
Rhiannon stared at Tasha.
“Brian. As in, the werewolf my uncle tried to have knocked off at the bar? Oh that’s right… you were there!” She lobbed the nearest object at Tasha, which happened to be a shoe. “Screw whoever you want, but you should probably ask if he’s cool with me.” She leaned back against the frame of the couch. “Who knows, maybe it’ll work out and you two can do an acoustic duet of Hallelujah.”
“You know, I wasn’t going to be the first one to bring it up,” Tasha admitted, deflecting the shoe while protecting her precious beer. “But that’s honestly the least of the awkwardness that I’m feeling.” Top of the list would be her Issues with a capital I, which she felt more protective of than any secret that could be revealed about her. “And first of all, how dare you? We would never.” She flipped some hair over one shoulder and then smirked. “I was actually thinking of an ironic, tuned-down version of 'Islands In the Stream'. You know, the kind that would play over the action sequences in a movie trailer for some weird reason.”
“Ugh, that song sucks.” Rhiannon made a face. She took an enthusiastic pull of her beer, as if washing a particularly bad taste from her mouth, then she stretched her bare legs out in front of her and searched them for bruises. “So what are some of the awkward parts? Are you afraid he’s going to start growling if you make a move, because honestly I wouldn’t rule it out.” Finding nothing of interest on her skin, Rhiannon bent forward and draped her arms over her lower legs. Her hamstrings and calves put up a light protest as she flexed and pointed her toes.
Tasha gave a half-horrified laugh, covering her face briefly. “If that was revenge for the ‘tip’ conversation, well-done,” she conceded to Rhiannon. “But no, that never crossed my mind...until just now.” She looked down at her nails, the chipped metallic red polish that she would paint on and immediately began to scratch off with her thumbnail whenever she didn’t have anything else to do with her hands. It was as good as anything else at reflecting the current state of her life. “I’m worried about what happens if it starts to go well, which I realize is the very definition of both overthinking and counting my chickens before they hatch,” the hunter confessed. “Basically I’m worried about me, not him.”
Rhiannon straightened and brought herself into a cross-legged position. “Do you do a deliberate crash-and-burn?” This was a topic they had not engaged in before as friends. It was easier to shoot the shit about hunting, or even generational trauma, than the intricacies of romantic affection. The couples that Rhiannon had known well in her life seemed to function more on explosive sexual energy than any kind of comfort or companionship. She wondered if Tasha had subconsciously gravitated towards her NA sponsor because it was messy, but it didn’t seem like the time to float that idea.
“That’s part of it,” Tasha agreed, glancing up from her cuticles to look at Rhiannon. She had past friendships with hunters before, of course, but they had been pretty lock-step. Floating the kind of thoughts she had in that circle resulted in blank looks at best, and at worst, someone would go and talk to her family about her. But talking to Rhiannon felt safe, validating. Still, it wasn’t always easy to say some things out loud. Sometimes, her inner world felt a lot like a temper tantrum throwing toddler who didn’t want to face the harsh reality of daylight. “Sometimes I think being a hunter fucks with our brains. I mean, no, I know it does. And no amount of compartmentalizing will change that. Because fighting releases certain chemicals in your brain, right? And you get used to experiencing them.”
Tasha cleared her throat slightly and shifted against the tufted cushion beneath her. “But we do it so much, what if...what if it makes ‘normal’ relationships dull and boring? Like my parents have been married for ages, but I would never look at them and say, ‘those two people are really in love.’ I think it was more like a pact for them, you know, the party line of producing more hunters, better fighters. I don’t know what the middle ground between passion and single-minded focus looks like, or how to live in it.”
Rhiannon stared across the living room, her lips popping together in that universal sound of ‘welp.’ Her fingers dug into the carpet, the deep hue of OPI’s Lincoln Park After Dark on her nails shining in stark contrast to the neutral shade of the flooring. “I wouldn’t know how that feels,” she mused. “I only fall in love with Weres I’m pledged to kill and pyromaniac assassins. The ushe.”
As she contemplated this new prospect, Rhiannon thought back through her previous entanglements. “It’s an impossible situation,” she concluded. “Non-humans, tricky for obvious reasons. So what do you do, get involved with a regular human who’s vulnerable, that you can’t tell about your life unless they’re the rare specimen who can handle that kind of stress? And how do you know that ‘regular human’ can be trusted? Because they’re not in your circle, so… what if they’re trying to get close to you for the wrong reasons?”
God, she wanted a cigarette. Instead, Rhiannon combed her fingers into her hair and made a makeshift bun. “I used to hate this when I was younger and I needed to have sex. Nothing else, just the sex, because you know me and my heart. And I didn’t trust some random in my house, but I didn’t want to make a habit of sleeping with hunters. Those circles are small, and they’re just as messed up as we are.” She shook herself. “This is far afield of the original topic. You’re saying we’re addicted to toxic relationships.”
“Oh,” Tasha mused, reflecting on what she knew about Rhiannon’s current and last relationship, respectively. “So what you’re saying is someone should hire me to kill Brian. Because I don’t think he’s the assassin type. Unless…that’s exactly what he wants us to think.” She shook her head to avoid falling into that tangent. “Maybe we are, but that also feels too reductive. I think we’re addicted to how certain things make us feel, and it doesn’t help that we’re the kind of people who would rather take a physical punch to the gut than an emotional one.” God, she wanted a cigarette. She went for the consolation prize of polishing off her second drink.
“Even when I moved here, quit hunting, I didn’t stop thinking like one,” Tasha admitted. “Even if my ex wasn’t a cheater, it was destined to fall apart simply because I never stop looking for the advantage, the high-ground. And compromise was only something I did until the enemy was dead.”
“If it makes you feel better,” Rhiannon said, letting her hair slowly unwind, “I feel more alive just talking to Noah than I’ve ever felt with anyone society would deem ‘normal,’ and I think it’s because... I can tell him anything.” She lowered her arms. “I used to do it because I didn’t care what he thought, but then I genuinely wanted to know what he thought. He’s willing to face me and see all the dark corners, and when he does, he says I look complete. Not fucked up, not in need of fixing. And he’d still tell me if he thought I was on some bullshit. That kind of directness feels more exciting and more alluring than any fight ever could.”
Rhiannon took up her bottle and drank a lot of it. “I guess I’m saying, it’s okay that we need to be addicted to something, as long as it’s the right thing. Maybe it’s a cute but awkward werewolf who’s secretly an edging aficionado. Or it’s someone you meet next week.”
Tasha had been about to tell Rhiannon something along the lines of being happy for her when something snagged on her brain and she paused with her mouth still slightly open. She held up an index finger, the somewhat universal gesture for pump the conversational brakes. “That was oddly specific, but I’m afraid to ask how you would know or if this is strictly hypothetical.” Instead, she picked up the menu and thumbed through it. “That sounds great and all, but I worry that a lot of my appeal is ‘affordable fixer-upper,” she half-joked, while wondering if the other hunter was pro- or anti-pineapple.
“What do they say on House Hunters? I have good bones.” Tasha paused, then snorted at her own statement. “Ha, yeah I do. You hungry?”
Rhiannon had shrugged off the almost-inquiry. It was amusing to let Tasha think it could be solid intel. “Strangely, yes.” Eating was a thing she often forgot. She got onto her knees and crawled to a table where she’d dropped her wallet. Rhiannon tossed it in the general direction of her roommate. “Please don’t say you’re one of those people who orders cheeseburger pizza. If you want a cheeseburger, just get a damn cheeseburger.”
Climbing to her feet, Rhiannon picked up their empty bottles and headed toward the recycling bin. As the glass clinked into place, she called, “Hey, fixer-uppers have character. Just don’t get gentrified.”