| What This Means |
[08 Feb 2008|08:36pm] |
It was gone six in the evening by the time Joseph got back in after doing various rounds with various people, collecting information and strengthening business and working relationships that had deteriorated over the time he'd spent in New York. The more people you knew in Vegas the more likely you were to get the information and things you wanted. Joseph knew the value of networking.
Granted not all of those people he'd seen had been friendly and he had himself a split lip from the end argument with what had once been a good friend and close confidante. How times had changed. He shrugged out of his leather jacket and tossed it out over the nearby couch, reaching up to stem the blood before trailing through to wash blood from his open knuckles; he was sure the guy had a jaw made out of steel.
Joseph glanced up and looked at his reflection, scrutinizing it the same way he did anyone and anything else. Hmm, dark circles had gotten bigger under his eyes. Great. He ignored them and simply combed his hair away from his face, securing it at the base of his skull with an old tatty band that had obviously seen better days. He wandered out of the bathroom and returned to the living room, crashing down onto his couch before leaning forward as he picked up his Desert Eagle. Fine piece of equipment, shame he had to leave it mid clean and assembly.
Such was life.
Joseph lit a cigarette and allowed it to hang from the corner of his mouth as he poured all his time and effort into the gun itself and the maintenance that went right along with it.
‘You’ll see me soon.’
Rhiannon left the text message vague. It wasn’t a ploy to make herself seem mysterious, when she considered herself anything but. Complicated, maybe. But not deliberately mysterious, not with him. Joseph had known her in ways that most would never. He saw her in three-dimensions.
No, she left it vague because she wasn’t certain of her bravery. If Rhiannon said she’d drop by his apartment, then she’d be stuck with it, because any reneging would paint her as a coward. This way, she could run into him at his favorite bar, or at a game of cards, or alongside his car on the street. Places that were public, where she managed to keep a shield up with better results.
Just in case.
In case he took it back. In case ‘I can’t stop thinking about that kiss’ took on a negative connotation. It was unlikely but paranoia had a habit of creeping into Rhiannon’s brain when she was alone and over-thinking and smoking too many cigarettes.
In the end, she was more worried about running into him on accident and getting caught off-guard, so Rhiannon made a plan. Get to his place around six p.m. A little too early for dinner, definitely before he went out for the night, and not so late that it implied anything. Just in case.
They were logistics… there was nothing in the plan about her heart. In the back of her mind, Rhiannon knew there was a reason she hyper-focused on Joseph’s mindset instead of her own, dissecting it like a laboratory frog. It took the onus off her. But standing outside his door with a fist half-raised, the onus was back on in a very real way.
“Oh my g—“ Backing fist away, she cradled it in her open palm instead and took a breath. Quickly, as if she were doing last-minute cramming for an exam, Rhiannon forced her brain to imagine for a moment that Joseph wasn’t going to back off, and to examine that scenario beyond the immediate gratification of losing her mind to his mouth again. She needed to see all the ugly, razor-sharp angles. The possibility of future desertion… the inevitable awkwardness with Whistler… the unavoidable distraction from her calling... the fact that Joseph made her a woman instead of a hunter… the atomic bomb that would go off if her pride took another hit… and the fact that loving someone made them a convenient target.
The brunette pressed her palms together and touched her thumbs to her mouth. Know all this. Really see it, Rhiannon. Fuck, I can’t knock on the door.
She pulled out her cell phone and brought up a text message screen.
‘Lurking outside the door. Too chickenshit to knock. Need you to open it. Kthx.’
Send.
( Scared )
( What Dreams Say )
( Achingly Slow )
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| Vampire, Encased in Amber, Preserved for All Time |
[08 Feb 2008|10:52pm] |
So fragile, the ego. One childe lost to an enemy, a second expelled from her loving bosom. Deanna wanted to punish the world at large, but she didn't. She wanted to rape the landscape, set fire to children and expel fire from fingertips.
But she couldn't.
She was adrift, lost in a sea of purposelessness. It wasn't so much the world outside that defined her as it was how she affected the world. And that came from who she created. Reflections in her cracked mirror. Celine was polish and scorn; Victoria soft and gentle (if vampires could be such a thing). Two sides of a coin that she just couldn't get in amalgam. There was a third once but that was not to be spoken of. And Leatherneck and his ilk didn't count. They were means to an end that fell off the earth just as the small-minded had hoped Christopher Columbus would when he set sail for the new world.
The world was round because people wanted it to be so. The darkness hid unspeakable horrors because people didn't want to see.
Deanna lived in the darkness because it was comfortable.
But now a light was shining through the cracks. And it came on cardstock, with raised embosed lettering.
Someone wanted to make her into something new. Reflected as something else.
She had a lot to think about.
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