Making a date to talk about vampires Who: Connie and Felicity Where: Phoneland When: Around 10PM
After the lovely conversation with Officer Nox-- it was probably Officer de Roux or something, but he liked Officer Nox better-- Connie decided Heme would wait for another evening, and he hurried home, tail wrapped around his waist to keep from flapping in the breeze, to consult Rebecca about potential vampire families, retreat to his guest room, and flop down on the floor with his cell phone and the number written on his hand. He had a social worker to call, before she decided she needed to sleep, or something, like so many living people did when it got late.
Hopefully she would be expecting him.... Or, you know, at least wouldn't be pissed he was calling after official hours.
Felicity didn't really have official business hours. She couldn't in her business. At ten at night, she was making herself some nice herbal tea and telling Brutus he couldn't have any of her egg and bagel sandwich. Which of course, he wasn't listening. When her phone, she had to go to the other room to get it.
Which Brutus took as an opportunity to steal some egg from her sandwich. Take that, human!
"Hello?" she answered. She'd spoken to Nox earlier about the vampire who needed help and said she'd try to find him a vampire mentor. Which Felicity thought was an excellent idea. There should be a vampire and were mentorship program. So many of them were turned and infected and abandoned, they needed help.
Hmm. She turned and that's when she saw Brutus raiding her sandwich. "Brutus!" she scolded, forgetting she was on the phone. "Bad kitty! Down!"
Ooops, she was yelling into the phone. "Sorry, cat got into my food. What were you saying?"
Any trepidation Connie might've felt at the idea of calling a social worker, omg, went up in smoke as she interrupted his greeting to yell at her cat. When she got back to him, he was giggling. That was pretty cute, and not at all intimidating-- why he found calling a police officer non-intimidating and a social worker intimidating, he had no idea, but there it was. At least he didn't feel like that now.
"I'm glad I'm not Brutus!" he told her when she came back and he'd gotten his amusement under control again. "I'd hate for you to yell at me like that! Is this Felicity Jones?"
Felicity sighed and gave up the rest of the egg to the sneaky cat. He was named Brutus for a reason. She laughed at the person on the other end. "Yelling is the worst he gets," she admitted. "And I don't even know why I try it. He just looks at me like I'm the one who's wrong and does it anyway."
"Yeah, I am," she said. "What can I do for you?"
"I'm James Constantine Nim-- feel free to call me Connie, everyone does." And he preferred it, really. "I got your number from one Officer Nox de Roux? About a fledgling vampire who needed instruction, or maybe just a friendly face?" He assumed she'd know who he was talking about, since he didn't have much more information than the poor guy's name.
"Oh yeah," she said, leaning against the counter and watching Brutus savor his victory over her crusade to stop feeding him table scraps. Darn cat. "Nice to meet you, Connie."
She sighed again and nodded. "Yeah, from what Officer de Roux said, he's had a hard time since he was turned," she said. "I don't work much with vampires, so I'm more than happy for the help. Really, there ought to be more programs for vampires. Weres get a lot of support, but vampires have that whole Dracula stigma. It's terrible."
"And even those who don't think we're all creepy or creeps assume we teach and mentor our own, since so many of us do," Connie agreed, his tail curling around his crossed feet and twitching against his shoes. Which he decided spontaneously to take off, since he was home for a while, and all. He sat up again and started untying bootlaces. "The officer didn't tell me much about this guy's situation... just his name, not even his house. His family. Do you have anything you can tell me, before I face the beast and see just how much he hates me?"
"Well, some bloodlines probably do," she said. "It makes sense, in the survival sense. Also, I'm sure there's some sort of emotional connection between sire and fledgling or whatever the proper term for newly changed vampire is. Or I'd hope there'd be. Like I said, I don't usually work with vampires. But I'm more than willing to and probably going to need to lean heavily on you for information. If you don't mind. I assure you I'm an apt pupil."
Felicity sobered. "Very little and none of it good," she said. "Missing person's file for him. He just up and disappeared from the local hospital shortly after his sister's fiancee and his best friend died in an accident. He left them messages a couple of times, telling them not to look for him. Other than taking apart those five guys who attacked someone, there's not much. I know Officer de Roux said his sire was quite a piece of work. You might ask her about him. I didn't get a chance. Another call came in while we were talking."
"Oh, no, I thought you'd talked to him already." Connie made a face, tossing a boot aside. "Damn. Well, I'll be glad to help you out and talk about vampires and stuff--" Like correct that misconception about connections between sires and newly turned. Not every house had that, after all. "--once we've got this guy sorted. Do you have an appointment with him?" He'd offer to be there if she did, but he didn't want to overwhelm the guy, either. Social worker-- who he might categorize as "shrink" and be uncomfortable with, to begin with-- plus vampire? No way, that'd throw anyone's circuits off. Though maybe right after... hmm.
"Nope, he hasn't called," she admitted. "I doubt he's in a terrible rush to. Can't really blame him. I'll call Officer de Roux if he doesn't contact me in a couple of days. I'm not going to pressure him right away. I'm sure he was expecting much worse than a referral to a therapist and social worker and a vampire mentor. He did kill three people and drain one completely dry. Although from what the report says, it was self-defense. They stabbed him multiple times and shot him once in the chest. That had to have hurt."
"Ow, shit, yeah," Connie agreed with a wince, easily imagining that. He would probably go berserk and kill somebody if he were being stabbed and shot. "Er, pardon the language. I've gotten out of the habit of censoring myself with the ladies.... Rebecca-- the vampire I'm staying with? She cringes every time I swear. It makes me feel horrible, and I bet I get back into the habit right quick, with her around."
Off-topic and rambling! Connie got himself back on track. "Well, if we've got a potential several days before this guy contacts you, much less me, I guess if you've got questions, we can talk about them before then. Do you want to meet someplace?" He liked talking face to face more than the telephone, hands down. "I mean-- not necessarily tonight, but sometime!"
Felicity shrugged, even though Connie couldn't see it. "I'd rather you not censor yourself," she assured him. "The more people censor themselves based on societal norms, the more they repress and repressing never leads to anything good." Then she laughed at herself. "Sorry, I do that sometimes. I'll put away my couch, I swear."
"Not tonight," she agreed. "I was about to go to bed actually. Let me go grab my planner and see when I can squeeze you." There was shuffling of papers and various other searching noises. "Okay, I am booked solid until seven pm tomorrow. Maybe after that?"
Connie grew up in the 80s-- the 1880s-- and while he'd definitely moved past his upbringing, sometimes it still came back, especially with a lady who sounded at least somewhat cultured. He couldn't imagine that voice on the other line swearing. Though hey, at least she wasn't cringing! "Considering the sun doesn't go down until, like, nine around here in the summer-- sometime after seven works for me!" Given the whole undead, disliking of sunlight, etc thing. Being out in the sun reminded him too much of the days around the new moon, so he avoided it as much as possible. "So tomorrow evening, then? Maybe closer to sundown? I'll buy you dinner or something, it seems pretty awful of me to keep you out that late when you're booked solid all day... when do you rest?"
Felicity could swear and did so at times. Her parents had been extremely liberated hippies, and never censored their own expression. Because she grew up in an educated world, she tended towards more educated forms of expression. Really, being shot and stabbed repeatedly was certainly an 'Ow! Shit! situation.
"After nine is fine," she assured him. "And don't worry about it. I don't mind at all." She laughed. "I get at least seven hours a sleep at night and spend time in my garden. I get plenty of me time." Okay, so she didn't, but she didn't really need all that much her time. "So where shall we meet?"
"Well, er." Connie considered, frowning, and found he couldn't think of a single place they might go. Besides Heme, and he wasn't going to do that to her. "I only just moved to town a couple days ago, and while I looked around some, I didn't really pay attention to places to eat. For obvious reasons." As in, his not having to eat. "Do you have a favorite restaurant? We could go there."
She wouldn't have minded Heme. She was rather curious about the place, really. "Hmm, there a great organic coffeeshop just down the street from Heme. We could stop and get you something, then get me something at the coffee shop and sit outside if the weather is agreeable?"
"Well, I should be good, I ate a couple days ago, but if it wouldn't gross you out or anything, sure, I can come prepared to actually 'share drinks', even though we won't actually be sharing." It sounded like fun, actually. Go out with a normal human woman, who wasn't out to get bitten or laid-- though he usually didn't mind obliging them, either, if they deigned to consider the geeky vampire with the tail-- and talk shop, so to speak. "So want to meet at the coffee shop, then go for a walk from there?"
"Sounds good to me," Felicity agreed. She saw no reason to treat Connie any differently from any other business associate just because he was a vampire. That just seemed so silly. "Yeah, we can meet at say, 9:30? Will that give you enough time?"
"That'll be plenty of time," Connie said with a grin. "So I'll see you, then, miss Jones. Or may I call you Felicity?" The grin got bigger; he was teasing, mostly, since he was pretty city Felicity was going to be the address of choice.
"Please, call me Felicity," she assured him. "I'm not big on titles or formality. And I'll see you then, Connie. Thanks for calling me!" As she hung up, she was already thinking about the idea of a vampire mentorship program. It was so very needed, it seemed.