InsaneJournal

Who: Hazel Dodd and Gulliver Mills
What: Hazel gets off work and she meets someone.
When: Late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning (Reposted cause Lissa's a ditz)
Where: Outside Eden to start
Rating: TBD

Hazel was still getting used to being stuck in this town. She'd already tried to run once and would never try that again. Nearly two weeks of being stuck in the dungeons was enough to keep her from running. Though she supposed that was what they wanted. Scare people from trying by saying they can't leave and those who defy it, throw them in the dungeons. That will teach them. It was the perfect communist tactic. And even though she was a full believer in the vampire aspect now, she still believed them to be communists. Communist vampires.

She collected her tips for the night and walked out the back door of Eden, saying goodbye to the co-workers still in there, then started off toward Kaira's apartment. She had been staying with her friend since her release. Staying alone didn't really comfort either of them. Even with the gold bracelets they both wore. The ones that told the town that either of them could be mothers anytime.

Hazel's hand moved unconsciously to her stomach as she walked, the same question running through her head since her first insemination. Was she pregnant? How long would it be until she reached that fateful point when she would know, without a doubt, that she was stuck in this mothering thing? It wasn't real yet, even with the insemination attempts. The pregnancy tests were currently saying no, but that didn't mean it wouldn't happen soon. It just wasn't showing up yet.

She shook those thoughts as she walked, trying to get her mind off her eventual fate. That wasn't terribly hard when she heard footfalls behind her. Her breath caught, sudden flashbacks of the night she had been arrested. You're not doing anything wrong, she reminded herself. She was just going from work to the place she was staying. She wasn't breaking any rules.

So who was out there? She whirled around quickly, but it was too dark to see anyone. "Hello?" she asked, trying hard to keep the fear from her voice.

Vampires were supposed to be one with the night, to be at home in the shadows lurking in alley ways and frightening people but, and probably not surprisingly either given that he was really a poor example of a vampire, for Gulliver Mills that couldn't be further from the truth. He was uncomfortable at night. Sometimes, as a vampire, he was so silent he felt like he could sneak up even on himself. And the worst part was, whenever he talked to any human after sun down, he was convinced they always thought he was out there for the sake of feeding.

So sue him if he just liked to walk. It wasn't his fault if, even though he was over thirty years a vampire, that the sunlight still bothered him to the point that he didn't want to go out before dusk. Hazel had turned a corner right in front of him and he couldn't help but grimace when she did and didn't notice him on the sidewalk behind her. He felt like a total creepy stalker following behind her and almost considered crossing the road so he wouldn't have to but decided, at the last minute, that there wasn't any real need for that. Why couldn't they walk together? Crossing the road would only make him feel like he was doing something wrong as opposed to an innocent stroll.

He reached out to...to what? To touch her? To stop her? That certainly wouldn't be creepy. His hand withdrew only about part way though before she turned and caught him. Or at least he felt like she caught her. "Uh..." he answered, another brilliant response from the eloquent lips of a writer. "H-hey. Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

Hazel had never minded walking out late in New York. Yes, there were muggers, there and a lot of them, but she knew how to handle them. For a girl who was considerably short, she was surprisingly tough. This mostly came from her childhood fights. Her parents and the police may have hated her for it, but once she moved to a busy city where anything could happen, it had become her saving grace. Here, it was different. She couldn't just fight off vampires like she could muggers. Here she felt weak.

And there was nothing she hated more than weakness. Or fear. When she had turned, she first saw a man whose hand was reached out. To her? Was he planning to grab her? She backed up a few steps before she heard his stammered words. She paused. Never the trusting one, she wasn't entirely sure she could believe this wasn't an act. He could be pretending to be shy to gain her trust. Too bad for him, her trust wasn't gained that easily. Or easily at all. Only one person in this town had ever had it and that person lost it as soon as they left New York. Kaira still didn't have Hazel's complete trust, though she had a lot more than she had had before.

This guy, however, had none. "Yeah, I'm sure," she responded with a roll of her eyes. "You were going to grab me. What? Did you think you could have me for dinner?" She held up a gold bangled wrist as though that was the answer. And it was. She could possibly be pregnant, and as much as she hated that idea, it did have one perk. Vampires weren't allowed to cause her any harm, even drink from her. "Sorry, you're not taking a bite out of me." But it was obvious from her tone that she wasn't at all sorry.