Catching Up Who: Brianna/Derek Where: Las Vegas When: Prior To Samhain Content Warnings: Low
It was a good night, and Derek was in a good mood. He had finally convinced his boss to let the vampire feature some of his newly conceived designs at the t-shirt stand, and some of them had already sold. They had agreed upon a cut of the profits going directly to Derek, and if it was enough of a success, maybe he’d be able to set up his own little business. His mind drifted excitedly to selling the items online, growing a following, and actually finding what his parents called ‘direction’. He tried not to appear too eager as he watched a tourist gaze at one of his shirts.
The vampire had come up with a series of the garments, which featured classic tarot cards reimagined as Vegas landmarks. The potential customer was eyeing a black t-shirt with the words ‘Wheel of Fortune’ beneath a graphic of a roulette wheel. Next to that was ‘the Tower’, which was represented by the Stratosphere, and ‘the Magician’ was a likeness of David Copperfield holding up a deck of cards. They were all kitschy and colorful, and Derek was proud of them. He was even wearing one of them now beneath a half-zipped skull-print hoodie, in honor of the upcoming holiday. The woman selected two ‘Towers’ and brought them over to the vampire, who rang her up cheerfully using a work-provided iPad with a credit card reader attached, and thanked her for her purchase before slipping a card into the shopping bag with his new design-related Instagram handle on it: Odd-i-Tees.
Content, he settled back onto the stool that sat behind the counter and watched the stream of people flow past him.
She’d been standing back a little, watching the transaction from the shadows, and smiling to herself. Her arms were tucked into the sleeves of her faux-fur dress jacket, the collar folded down on what was a cool, but still night. She didn’t need to use any of her powers to tell Derek was happy, and the sale was indicative of how people were starting to see his designs as something they wanted. She could imagine how good that would feel - something created from his own imagination being paid for by someone wanting that creation. When he’d first told her he was going to show a few designs to his boss there had been a vague hint of nerves, covered by a lot of enthusiasm, and she’d been really excited for him, hoping the boss would be willing to at least listen and look.
After the customer had left, and it appeared she wouldn’t be interrupting any other potential sales, she pushed off from where she’d been leaning lightly against a wall, booted feet beneath red jeans now crossing the distance to where the edge of the lighting would identify another potential client approaching, her face hidden behind a display of t-shirts.
“What sizes do you have these in?” she asked, trying to disguise her voice, reaching up to study one of his t-shirts, keeping it between them.
Derek had been doing some quick mental math in his head, trying to tally his cut of the sales for the night and figuring how much he could toss into savings, when he detected the sound of purposeful footsteps against the concrete. He leaned forward at the sound of the voice, then ducked his head to look beneath the counter where excess product was neatly folded in cubby-like shelves. “It depends on the design, honestly,” he answered with a friendly smile, despite the barrier between him and the potential customer. “Some of the more popular ones sell faster so we might be out of stock in certain sizes.” The vampire caught a flash of a fancy-looking jacket, a hint of familiar perfume in the air. “If you tell me which shirt you’re interested in and the size you’re looking for, I can see if I can rustle something up for you.” Derek’s smile turned into a grin.
“And just between you and me, this is the only place in Vegas where you can find the exclusive Odd-i-Tees line, and the holidays are right around the corner.” The vampire was enthusiastic, settling into the pitch he had rehearsed a couple of times that evening. “Perfect for Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, non-denominational gift-giving…you name it.”
“Non-denominational gift giving, huh?” the disguised voice repeated, an attempt to keep the threatening laughter only just managing to succeed by the narrowest of margins. “That sounds so enticing! Just perfect for those who are anti-everything seasonal and fun, huh? Do you have anything with, say, an aquatic design? In blue?” she asked, adding in the appropriate size as she suddenly thought of how perfect it would be to give Gabe one, because after all, what do you give a wealthy wizard with a wardrobe as varied as his. Her disguise had slowly slipped the longer she’d spoken, the broadening smile having done most of the damage to her attempt.
“Oh, just the opposite. It encourages everyone to get involved with the spirit of giving without having to subscribe to any particular label,” Derek answered, leaning down to retrieve a ‘Suit of Cups’ in the requested size, the only aquatic related one he had so far. It was depicted by the Bellagio fountain on full display, jets of water spraying up toward the heavens in perfect synchronicity. What was more Vegas than that? He unfurled the shirt and moved from behind the counter of the stand and around to the front, holding it up in front of him. “Hi, Brianna. Nice to see you here,” the vampire added, still grinning.
“This is the most Water-y one I have,” he explained, gesturing to the shirt. “I could try to design one around the pools at Tao, maybe,” Derek mused. Then something occurred to him and he raised an eyebrow slightly. “Wait, is this for Gabe?”
She laughed and nodded, giving him a quick hug and light kiss on the cheek in greeting, then taking a hold of the bottom corners of the t-shirt he was holding up to study it then looking up at him and nodding. “Why yes it is, how did you know? He’s almost impossible to buy a gift for and I know he wouldn’t have ever had one of these special, exclusive designs,” she said as she looked from the t-shirt to Derek.
“The aquatic part and the thoughtful look on your face gave it away,” he informed her with a knowing smile. “Or maybe some of your power is rubbing off on me.” Derek took the t-shirt and arranged it neatly. There was a trick to folding shirts and he was unusually precise about it, tucking the sleeves behind and turning the garment into a neat square so that it still displayed the design on the front. The vampire leaned over the counter to grab a shopping bag and slid it safely inside. “On the house,” he told Brianna, presenting the package to her with a flourish.
“Why thank you kind sir!” she returned, not fighting on the concept of him giving it to her, she would mark the card from the two of them when she gave it to Gabe.
“It’s good to see you out and about,” Derek remarked, leaning against the stand and studying Brianna’s face, that smile still present. “I was actually just about to close up for the night. Got any plans?” The vampire had been considering checking out Player 1 Video Game Bar, and those types of places were always more fun with a friend.
“Other than seeing how my favourite vampire is, and checking out these new designs? No, nothing really planned,” she replied. She looked across the street and gave a small wave to a driver standing next to a car, the individual nodding and climbing into the driver’s seat of the vehicle. “Can I give you a hand?” she asked, looking around the stand with a ‘management’ eye, unaware of her actions appearing as such.
Derek looked in the direction of Brianna’s wave and spotted the waiting driver. “Now that’s service,” he remarked, flashing her a grin. He gestured vaguely toward the stand. “I already made the last cash drop for the evening before I started my shift. My boss doesn’t exactly acknowledge that I’m a vampire, but he knows I can be trusted with the money in case anyone tries anything. So there’s not much else left to do besides put the iPad in the safe and lock up.” He pointed upward to a slot above the awning where a sheet of corrugated metal could be rolled down like a mini garage door and secured using an industrial padlock. “Easy peasy.”
He went back to his spot inside the stand and grabbed the tablet, kneeling down to key in the code for the safe so the door swung open and set the device inside before using the code to lock it. Derek grabbed his phone and slid it into his jeans pocket before securing the side door with a key on his chain and coming back around to the front. “I was thinking about checking out this video game arcade that’s also a bar, and I think they have food, too,” he told Brianna, reaching up and easily pulling the metal gate down. “Have you ever played foosball?”
She watched the way he efficiently closed up shop, her manager eye again appreciating the economy of movement and easy actions that were streamlined and minimal. “You’ve got that down pat!” she said as he pulled down the final shutter.
“Is that the one with the big table and lots of handle things with the figures on them, and you need to hit the ball with the figures?” she asked, looking a little blankly at him, as if trying to remember it.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Derek laughed. “There’s also air hockey and a bunch of other games.” Once the padlock was in place, he put the rattling keychain back in his other pocket and turned to face Brianna. “Are you interested? We can catch up over a drink. They have this thing called a Sailor Moon, it’s sake mixed with pineapple cider and I’m intrigued.” The vampire took out his phone to text his boss that he had closed up before going to the bar’s website and pulling up a picture to show her.
She couldn’t help but smile as he showed her the picture, nodding. “That does look… intriguing!” she agreed. After visiting the school-themed restaurant with Brian she’d discussed some more ideas about the expansion for Le Breeze, proposing a few ideas, which were still being considered. While she knew the Le Breeze name would be associated with a certain style and class, she was also keen to see them look at embracing other areas, other types of establishments, and where better to do that than the holiday capital itself, Las Vegas!
“So what’s this place called, and where is it?” she asked, stopping herself from touching his phone screen to look for the name. “And do we walk there?”
Derek took a peek at Google maps. “It’s called Player 1 Arcade Bar, it’s not too far from the Strat,” he informed Brianna before tucking the phone away. The top of the tower could be seen from where they were standing. “I think it’s a nice night to walk and it’s not too far, if you don’t mind?” The vampire glanced down at her boots. He didn’t know much about women’s shoes but they looked reasonable, at least for a couple of blocks. “You can have your driver follow us in case you get tired,” he joked with a grin, slipping his hands casually into his hoodie pockets. “I won’t leave a comrade behind.”
She rolled her eyes at his comment on her boots, and looped her arm through his as she lifted one foot to display the cuban heel, much lower than her usual footwear in the brasserie. “These boots are made for walking!” she told him, laughing. “It actually feels a little strange, the heel being this low, but I’ve decided that Las Vegas pavements were designed either for no heels, or for boosting the business of the shoe repair industry, because those grates? They are killers on a good pair of heels, I don’t know how they get away with it!”
They had started walking once she’d lowered her foot back to the ground, her arm remaining looped comfortably through his as they strolled. “Count yourself lucky your legs and tush are cute without the expectation of you having to put a stack of height under part of your foot!!” The types of footwear on fellow pedestrians was varied and in some instances, spectacularly demonstrating what Brianna was saying. She subtly pointed out the damage on one of the heels of a pair on an individual walking the same direction, in front of them. “See? That’s what I mean!”
Derek was momentarily flummoxed by her complimenting his…er…tush, his eyes dropping down to look at the pair of shoes that Brianna was referring to. They did look a little beat up at the tips, some of the shiny black scraped off by one of Vegas’ many obstacles. Then his eyes widened slightly and he tilted his head to look at her face. “Wait, that’s why some people wear high heels? I thought it was just cuz they were, like…” He waved a hand in the air vaguely. “Fancy.” The vampire glanced back down at the footwear once more. His older sister had once explained the ‘male gaze’ to him, and at first he thought it meant he couldn’t check people out without being thought of as a creeper, but he had come to realize it was a lot more nuanced than that. He wondered if this new piece of information fell into that realm.
“Well, here’s my two cents. Life is too short…unless you’re a vampire or immortal…to wear something that hurts just because some people think it’s attractive.” Derek nodded sagely, then a moment later, his face fell slightly. “Oh, no. Am I mansplaining?”
“A little?” Brianna laughed, giving him a sideways look and patting his arm with her free hand, the bag with the t-shirt dangling from her wrist. “Women have suffered for fashion for centuries,” she went on, being something that had been of interest to her for a large portion of her life, deciding to reveal a few other tidbits. “You know those dresses they used to wear? With the whalebone corsets and the huge skirts? Well they used to actually damage internal organs with how tight they would be drawn in and laced up, and led to the whole fainting spell epidemic, causing women to be seen as the weaker sex. And when it came to when you needed to go to the bathroom? Well that just wasn’t on as it literally took hours to do up and undo the laces so apparently they’d stand over a pot. And of course we won’t go into the fact that as far back as in the days of the ancient Egyptians they would make their skin white using lead? If you think about it it explains a great deal, really, and they didn’t know until only a century ago. So much toxic rubbish, all in the name of ‘beauty’. And of course that’s still being perpetuated today, by magazines, though the industry is slowly starting to realise that there are a lot more people in this world than those who have a certain symmetry and specific facial features, and they’re just as beautiful.” She paused, eyes darting up to his face.
“I’m sorry, I’ll just get down off my soapbox now. It really bugs me, even though I do dress in accordance with what’s expected, I am also tired of being treated like an airhead or just a face sometimes, just because of how I look.”
“Oh,” Derek replied, slightly surprised and also feeling somewhat guilty, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. “I mean, I don’t know if it’s worth anything, but I think it’s…” What was the right word he was looking for? Silly felt dismissive. “It’s unfair what women have to go through and I know I don’t always have the best understanding of it. All I know is that people are beautiful in all sorts of different ways.” As they walked, something occurred to him for the first time, and the vampire nearly had to come to a halt, he couldn’t believe he had never thought of it before. “Oh, I just realized. It must be even harder for you, because if someone is thinking like that about you, you would have known. And you wouldn’t even be able to complain about it because you’re not supposed to know.” He certainly knew he wouldn’t be able to compose himself if he experienced that.
She matched his pace, realising her rant had probably made him uncomfortable, and wanting to apologise. But when he started to follow along that track she sighed. Both privately and in general life she’d been thrown curveballs that had left her either shattered, or stunned, or on some occasions completely devastated. Being able to hear and feel exactly the truth of what people thought had been isolating. She’d kept trying, but had eventually given up, and spent most of her college years on her own. Astronomy had been her saviour, her escape, and she remembered with fondness the nights she’d spent there, looking at the stars rather than watching them on the small screen with supposed friends.
“Yeah, you got it,” she told him, giving his arm a squeeze as they continued down the pavement. “It’s a bit hard to tell people you know what they’re thinking, and that they’ve been lying to your face, and they are sleeping with your boyfriend who’s also been lying to your face…” She stopped talking, colour rising in her cheeks when she realised what she’d said.
“Sorry, TMI,” she said, changing the subject. “So this place, the Video 1 Player Bar, have you been there before?”
“No, don’t be sorry,” Derek assured her. “We’re friends, you can talk to me about anything and I’ll listen, and occasionally I might even know enough about the subject to chime in,” he grinned. He didn’t want Brianna to think she had to censor herself, and there was a part of him that liked seeing the more opinionated side of her. “I’m sorry that you had to go through that. My old high school girlfriend cheated on me with a close friend, too, and then basically told me it was my fault. I know I can be a little too much sometimes, but I don’t think that justifies what she did. The worst part is her parents are friends with my parents, and my mom does that totally mom thing where she updates me on this girl’s life. Andrea just married a doctor. Andrea’s son just started Little League.” The vampire realized he was ranting a bit and decided to change the subject.
“No, I haven’t been there before, but it looks cool. Apparently it’s a chain? There are locations in Florida and some other places. I like video games, and I like drinks, so combining the two is a no brainer to me.”
She couldn’t help but smile, realising they’d both had similar things happen to them in the ‘heart’ department. It also made her remember the night they’d had dinner, and everything had changed. Or at least it had felt different for her, and it was her fault. That memory made her smile falter a little, a sadness washing over her as a lightshow on a building facade burst into life, making her blink and look up at the huge billboard. By the time she looked back her smile was in place again.
“I remember that night at your house warming down in Searchlight and there was quite the tournament going on in the lounge room! How is Ronnie? Is he still with that guy, what was his name? Mikey?”
“Oh, he and Ronnie are no longer...well, I think it was a mutual thing,” he told Brianna. Break-ups were awkward, but his friend had seemed to handle it well. “Isn’t he working for you part-time now at Le Breeze, doing the pastry thing?” Derek checked the map on his phone; they weren’t far from the bar now. He made sure to pay attention to the places they passed. Sometimes things could all blend together into a blur of neon. “Besides that, he’s busy running his food truck. I was just eating there the other day, there’s a burger named after me.” He grinned and tilted his head, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Apparently, I’m a popular choice. It has garlic, which is the type of vampire irony I find amusing.”
Brianna nodded, not usually in the habit of checking her staff’s private lives, unless they seemed to be ‘bringing them to work’ and it was affecting them. “Ronnie’s with us part-time, yes, but I hardly ever see him. And the kitchen is not really a place to bring up a person’s private life, I find, mainly because it makes it difficult for it to remain private in that environment. Chef has ears like … well pick whichever has the best hearing, and that’s him! I’ve learned to never bring up anything that should be kept quiet,” she explained as they continued down along the pavement.
“And that is rather ironic, did he do that on purpose?”
“That makes sense,” Derek agreed as they finally reached their destination. He held the door open for Brianna and gave a small bow and an ’after you’ gesture before following her inside. The place would have been dark if not lit up by strips of bright neon in various colors. The electronic sounds issuing from the arcade games filled the air, mingled with the combined chatter of happy patrons. “Chef has ears like a vampire?” he suggested with a knowing smile. “Anyway, Ronnie has pretty much mastered the art of appearing cheerful at all times, so I don’t fault you at all for not knowing,” he assured her. “And I just like garlic, though I try to keep the consumption to a minimum out of consideration since I do tend to talk a lot.”
There was a host stand in the front along with a pricing guide affixed to the podium. “Ooh, we can get ‘all you can play’ passes,” he pointed out. It would be 10 dollars for both of them, which seemed like a steal. He fished out his wallet. “I read online that this place is 10,000 square feet and they have original Atari systems you can play. I used to play Asteroids with my dad, it was like the one thing we bonded over.” Derek looked over at Brianna. “He’s a Silicon Valley computer nerd,” he explained.
“Really?” Brianna replied as she pulled the money from her purse and held it out to the attendant. She was glad she’d followed her mentor’s advice and had started carrying cash when she’d moved to Las Vegas. Before she’d only ever bothered with a card in case her phone went flat or a premises didn’t have the technology to manage the simple wave of her phone for payment.
“That’s almost a little funny, our dad was a science nerd, his favourite place was his lab and he used to take us there whenever he was allowed, show us what he was doing, it was his ‘happy place’.” One of her favourite memories of her father was him singing ‘When I’m 64’ to the two girls then spinning them around in the chairs. “Is that why you love playing video games?”
“Sort of, yeah,” Derek told her with a half-smile as they stepped into Player 1 and began to explore the almost overwhelming amount of options. Maybe the best bet was hitting the bar and starting off with a drink before they decided which games they were going to play. “Except I never went to work with him. I would have probably been too distracting, and he tended to zone in on whatever he was doing, anyway.” As they walked, his eyes drifted upward, as if searching for the answer to whether he should share what was really on his mind or not.
“But honestly, the real reason?” the vampire began, glancing over at her. “It felt like the only thing I was really good at, and I could be anyone I wanted. And I could focus on them without my brain ping-ponging in multiple directions.” As they reached the bar, he grabbed two laminated menus and slid them over, one for him and one for Brianna.
“I don’t think he knew what to do with a kid like me. He had already practically finished raising my sister when I came along, she was a teenager when I was born, and it was like someone had built her in a factory, she was so…well-behaved. And like, I tried to be, but,” Derek shrugged ruefully. “Do you ever feel, as much as your father loves you and Juliet, that he chose science over you guys?”
“Well, if I’m honest, if it wasn’t for Dad and his love of science, Juliet and I wouldn’t exist,” she replied softly, remembering when their father had told them how they’d been conceived, and the surrogacy. He’d done it in such a way the girls had understood, and not freaked out or felt anything was different between them and anyone else. But it had left questions in both their minds about their abilities. And who the surrogate was who’d carried them, whose egg they’d come from. “So I guess in a way his love of science and wanting us, wanting children, was what gave us life, rather than his, by then, almost completely extinguished love of the woman who trapped him in marriage.” She couldn’t hide the bitterness in the end of that sentence, so quickly took a deep breath and picked up the menu.
“So what are we having?!” she said cheerily, eyes a little brighter as she blinked rapidly a few times, reading the offerings. “Oh, hot dogs! That’s something I don’t have often, unless Chef is having one of the apprentices make sausage, then we get something special, but not like this, or we could have pizza! And I think I’m going to try a Fruit Ninja!”
Derek recognized that look on her face, however brief, and felt bad for leading them down that particular conversational path. He placed a hand on her shoulder for a moment, a gesture of comfort and understanding before his characteristic grin returned and he followed the lead for a change of subject. “Well, I don’t have a drink yet, but cheers to science then. I’m glad you’re here.” His eyes scanned the menu, and while pizza did sound good, something portable like a hot dog seemed more practical. Oh, they had nachos. Then his eyes widened in excitement. The vampire looked back up at Brianna. “They have a beer that tastes like those chocolate oranges that they sell around Christmastime. You know the ones that come apart like slices? Sorry, Sailor Moon, but I am definitely getting that.” He set the menu down and scanned down the length of the bar for an available bartender and gave a wave of greeting. When someone came over to take their orders, he put in a request for the Chocolate Orange and a Fruit Ninja.
As their drinks were being made Brianna looked around the venue, taking in the entertainment, noticing the staff activities, and how the games were being managed. She couldn’t help herself, it was what she did wherever she went, and the discussions she’d been having with various property owners and venue licensees of late had her always keen to learn more about what made a successful operation. And this clearly was one, with its niche market identified in the signage - video gaming geeks. She smiled to herself as she glanced across at Derek, the theme of the place right up his alley.
“So which of these games should we try first?” she asked when their drinks arrived.
“Hmm, let’s seee…” Derek drew out the last word in a playful drawl, casting his gaze over what games were visible in their current vicinity. There was one that immediately caught his eye, and he turned back to Brianna with a mischievous grin as their drinks were set before them. “You said you liked stars and astronomy, right?” he asked innocently, picking up the beer and examining the label before taking a drink. It really did taste like a chocolate orange, though less sweet and more...beer-y. It was like drinking Christmas, which put him in an even better mood. The vampire slid off his stool. The game he was thinking of took place in a virtual reality-type pod mounted on a hydraulic system that allowed it to rock back and forth and up and down with the movement of the graphics. It contained two theater-style seats placed side by side, in front of which were two matching blaster-style guns that aimed at a giant flat screen. The object of the game was to shoot at incoming enemy ships while jumping through hyperspace loops, galaxies, and other sci-fi elements. It was an immersive experience and one of Derek’s favorite types of arcade offerings.
“What do you say?” he asked her. “Wanna go to outer space?”
The fact that Derek had even remembered she liked astronomy was a surprise, a delightful surprise, and she nodded, keen to see what it would be like. “How could any girl say no to an offer like that! Being swept off to the stars… is this like Aladdin’s magic carpet ride?” she teased, fairly certain it wouldn’t be anything like that, that it was sure to involve guns, and shooting and blowing things up.
“I’m not sure magic carpets have that kind of FAA clearance,” he told her, grabbing his beer and waiting for her to do the same with her drink. “Especially so close to McCarran.” Derek cheerfully led the way to the game as its two previous occupants exited, clearing the way for him and Brianna to go on their space adventure.