Alyssa Smith (sweet_vixen) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-08-01 23:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2009-07-22 |
Reunited and it feels so good
Who: Mael and Alyssa
Where: Grocery store (they’re avoiding festival crowds)
When: Noon-ish
The supplies Alyssa had managed to round up on her first day in Scarlet Oak appeared to run out surprisingly quickly and she had found herself that Wednesday morning without the bare necessities she needed to get by with. She wasn’t a fussy eater and did not need lavish delicacies for meals or expensive hair or beauty products. She did need milk and meat and bread, though, they were what she considered essential.
After rooting through her bag for several moments, Alyssa pulled a rather crumpled piece of paper out and frowned at it as she stepped into the grocery store. She identified it easily as her shopping list - she didn’t keep many scraps of paper in her bag, only important things that she needed to remember and most of those were printed across the back of her hands and wrists - but had more than a little trouble reading what was on it. She assured herself that she had written it in a hurry, yet she knew half of it’s unreadable nature was due to her ridiculously scruffy writing. It looked sort of like chicken scratch on crack, though Alyssa had no idea what that looked like and possessed little desire to find out. She steered clear of chickens. They disgusted her - eating daft amounts of them raw at full moons does that.
While the entire town seemed to love Berry Days to attend it, Mael loved it for a different purpose. He was genuinely pleased that the streets were empty enough that he could walk without fear of being touched or accidentally touching someone. Nevertheless, he took the necessary precautions by wearing his usual covered-up attire. He wiped the sweat off his face as the air conditioning in the grocery store hit him. He grabbed a pushcart and started wheeling towards the bread aisle. He had not gone shopping since he had arrived in Scarlet Oak and he was starving for a proper meal. The encounter with Hedda had been enough reason for him to find his footing again and resume his life. He had seen all the blood she had shed, the children she had sired...it was dark and dismal and he realized that he was going to die one way or another. He might as well live what he can properly instead of in shadow. The reason he had come to Scarlet Oak was to start anew in a place no one knew him or cared about his parentage and background.
His shoes made no sound on the ground as he walked, though the wheels on his shopping cart were sufficiently loud enough. A packet of gris-gris hung against his cheat underneath his clothes. He wasn’t entirely sure if his kitchen magic was going to help him, but it was all he had and all he believed in. There was no time to throw that all away now. And Maman Odile had been casting some form of magic. Mael wheeled to a stop in front of the breads. There were so many kinds. He just wanted a loaf that wouldn’t flash memories of a baker’s hands when he put it in his mouth.
Once she had spotted the sign above the aisle telling her it contained breads and pastries etc., Alyssa began navigating her way over. She glanced briefly at the man on the aisle with her, though lost in her own thoughts she did not see him properly, before turning to frown at the shelves in front of her. Shopping for perishables was easier when she was the only person around or when nobody could see her because she tended to just pick them up and sniff them. What the “use by” date said or not, food that was closer to becoming off than others was easier to detect with were-senses. Sadly sniffing bread wasn’t really appropriate behaviour when food shopping, though the inconvenience did bring something else to light for Alyssa.
There was a familiar scent in the air and it wasn’t the bread. It wasn’t food in fact, though she did link the memory of it to food. She tried to place it. It was so distinctive, and yet she couldn’t place it. It smelled... like what Alyssa would say magic smelt like. Her frown deepened - there was only one person that she associated with that smell. Trying not to look overly shocked or melodramatic despite the fact her heart was trying to pound it’s way through her ribcage, she turned her head a little to take in the man standing a little way from her properly. Mael! Her eyes widened. She tied the smell to food because she had seen him so many times in the general store back in Baton Rouge when she was working, spent so many times trying not to watch him whilst she was supposed to be serving other customers. She bit her lip. What was she going to say to him? Would she think she was in Scarlet Oak because she was stalking him? What if he didn’t remember her? What if he had been glad to get away from her? So many questions and worries whirled through her mind as she tried to think of something to say. She’d been so brave the past few days, talking to people and making friends. This was different though - this was Mael.
Steadying her breath back into its natural, even rhythm, Alyssa tried to turn as casually as she could. “Mael?” She’d seen this been done on television shows lots of times, when the main character pretended they had only just noticed their old flame just then in the book store or grocery store or cafe. Alyssa was no confident heroine of a television series. She wasn’t glamorous or interesting or captivating. Still, she could try mimicking the scene, at least. “Is that you?” She had one of those questioning smiles on her face, like the kind off television, but she didn’t step forward to embrace him. She didn’t have that kind of courage.
He’d been too shy to ask her name but cleared his throat a half a dozen times every time he’d seen her. Mael reached to brush back the hair he didn’t really have as he looked at the girl that had just called his name. He couldn’t remember her name, but as if he could forget that brilliant red hair or those haunting blue eyes. Mississippi. Baton Rouge. The store. Her name. It was like a scene from a movie. Mael was almost turn around to look for the director. Have him yell ‘cut’ because he’d forgotten his leading lady’s name. Not that she was his leading lady. Exactly. Well, for this scene...but not anything else. Mael cleared his throat. His through process was running away from him again. And he also realized he had better say something before the silence became any more awkward than it already was.
“Hello,” he greeted with a smile. “I never expected to see you here. When did you arrive?” he asked calmly, faking a sense of serenity he did not feel. He walked around the cart, pulled his left sleeve back carefully to expose the slightest bit of the skin above the edge of his gloves as he pretended to check the time and casually brushed it against her cart. He had done this a couple times before at the mayor’s and senator’s charity events. A series of visions ran through his head but he had learned to pick out the important things. He pulled his hand back, while keeping his face towards her, betraying nothing of what he’d been doing. He let the cloth slide back in place. Alyssa.
Alyssa had been too lost in the moment to even vaguely notice Mael’s moment with her cart. She was too busy trying to remember to breath evenly. Hyperventilating was bad. She did manage to keep up her smile, though, a small blessing. She’d had a lot of practise smiling in the last few days, even in the situation with her landlady when she didn’t want to smile, she’d wanted to bite her though she hadn’t much clue why. The event had given her the opportunity to react to a, well, bitchy woman and maintain a relatively friendly facade. Alyssa thought of it as something to be proud of. And now, talking to the man she had been, and was still, undoubtedly fixated with back in Baton Rouge, she was more confident in herself to at least appear a little more comfortable in her skin.
“Well, hey there,” she responded, doing her best to cover up her unnatural breathing pattern with a chipper tone. “I got here on the Saturday, if I recall right but I ain’t done much in the way of explorin’ the place. Lookin’ around an’ all.” So far she’d worked and slept. She’d visited the sweet shop once, but that was about how exciting things had gotten. In all fairness, however, she had met some interesting people whilst she wasn’t exploring. “Have you been here long then?” She wasn’t planning on tell him that half the reason she was in Scarlet Oak in the first place was because one of his friends had mentioned he was Michigan-bound after he had disappeared or that she was so much happier about everything now that she knew he was here and not in some other part of the state.
Mael’s smile admittedly turned a little wry when he heard Alyssa speak. The girl herself was adorable and a part of his past he did not mind revisiting...wait, what was he even talking about? She was the girl at the convenience store. Attractive, but nothing more. He couldn’t have more. It wasn’t his fate. He turned his attention to the wheat bread in front of him for a second as he composed himself. Her accent was the same one he had heard all his life. The sounds of his youth...and anyone who knew him knew well enough that his childhood was something he had wanted to escape. A gloved hand ran over the side of his face. Seriously, if Mael kept thinking so hard before he talked, the entire conversation would be punctuated with several awkward silences.
“Almost a month now,” Mael nodded, almost not believing it himself. In a single month, he had made acquaintance of two vampires and two witches...oh, and a talking panther. Well, mostly it growled, but it - she - had clearly been able to communicate with Bia. He rubbed his neck. It had healed over, but the bloodletting and the images that Hedda had left behind were still weighing heavy on him. “Do you have family here?” Mael asked. For a brief (and stupid) second, he had the wild notion that she came for him. But nobody knew he was moving to Michigan, so that was just a singularly idiotic notion.
It had taken Alyssa about a month to plan and execute her move over, though she guessed Mael had the benefit of being better off and having a more extensive knowledge of the world in general. It had been a tiring adventure getting here but it was becoming more and more worth it. “All my family’s back in Baton Rouge,” she told him, though maybe her father wasn’t much of a family, “Not that there is much of them at all. I’m just here for all the, uh,” Why was she there? She couldn’t very well say the-- “Um, supernatural... things and... whatnot.” Apparently she could. Alyssa bit her lip, that sounded really, very silly. If she hadn’t come so far in the hopes to see him and if the conversation hadn’t only just started, she would have made up some excuse and scooted away quickly with her cart. Alas, she couldn’t.
For a moment she considered grabbing the bread she needed whilst she was talking, but thought better of it. Even if getting the bread now would mean she could hurry away faster later, she was far too used to the sniffing process of selection to change her ways now. She’d have to wait until she was on her own to get her shopping done to her satisfaction. Though maybe she could smell the loaves discreetly from where she was stood... Besides, she needed focus to get through any ordinary conversation and even more to get through this one. Focus that she was apparently lacking in. It really didn’t do well to get lost in your own thoughts in the middle of a conversation. Well, it didn’t do well to make a fool of yourself by saying stupid things in a conversation either, but she’d already done that. Swallowing, she tried to regain her composure. “What brings you out here then?”
This response came quickly for once, having been rehearsed several times (in his head, at least). “The office was downsizing due to the economic downturn. Unfortunately, I had been affected by it and was let go, being one of the newer hires. I pursued a possible chance at working in a legislative office here, though that seems to have fallen through. I’m simply waiting for a job offer before I move again,” Mael answered almost mechanically. It had been the public response to his sudden disappearance and he saw no reason to deviate from the press release of his office. Of course, they had a harder time explaining the other supernaturals that had been fired. He hadn’t put up a fight. They had.
Mael then took a step back and walked over to the breads idly, selecting a loaf of regular, machine-processed bread. He gestured to the loaves. “Can I get you anything?” he asked, hand hovering over a loaf of sourdough. She seemed like the sourdough kind. Maybe potato rye. There were an absurd number of kinds of breads. Mael wondered what the need for it was. All bread tasted like bread and it all ended up the same once it had been digested anyway. Well, it could be said about all food, he supposed. “Wheat?” he verbalized, gloved hand still poised over a loaf of sourdough, unmoving.
Alyssa had wondered why Mael had been “let go” a few times since it happened. It seemed bizarrely timed what with the Light of May and all, but she figured that had just been coincidence. She did her best not to outwardly show disappointment when he mentioned moving again. She hoped that wouldn’t be soon, or at all. Maybe another job would be opened soon and he would stay and everything would be alright. Or maybe she was just being naive.
She eyed the loaves. “Oh I’ll jus’ have the same as you, please.” Hovering awkwardly around her trolley, she wondered whether she should go over or just stay put. She stayed put. It seemed safest. Instead she looked over him quickly, whilst he was busy with the bread. He was the same as always, gloves and all. Alyssa frowned very slightly. He always wore those gloves, though he didn’t seem much like the OCD type. Not that Alyssa knew anything about obsessive compulsive disorders. She shook herself and looked away. It wasn’t as if it were any of her business.
Mael reached for two loaves of the 9-grain variety. Manufactured on a conveyor belt. Will taste of metal and steel for him. Whatever. It wasn’t like he could grow everything in his backyard (though he tried) and he was probably going to stay away from the river for a while anyway. He rubbed a gloved hand on top of his head as he placed one of the loaves in her cart and the other in his. He bristled for a moment as the silence extended until he finally nodded and decided it was time to go.
“Perhaps I should get your phone number,” he suggested calmly. “It’s always nice to know someone in town. Maybe we can get lunch sometime,” Mael said in about ten seconds and on one breath. Okay, so he wasn’t exactly Mr. Suave, but he was trying here. He rubbed the side of his face again and tried to smile reassuringly. If he were honest with himself, it’d be good for him too. As much as he’d rather remain anonymous in town, being around other people would be good for him.
Nodding with a smile in thanks, Alyssa dug a hand into a bag and spent a moment or so rooting through it. Finding her phone wasn’t in there, she went through the usual process of patting every part of her clothes that could have a pocket. She found it eventually, stuck in the back pocket of her shorts, and wriggled in order to retrieve it. That had been an embarrassing few seconds, so her eyes fixed themselves on the phone, avoiding looking at Mael, as she went through it to find her number. She didn’t use the phone all that often because she had no one to ring or text with it. But she kept it anyway, for emergencies. She held it out once the number was up on the screen. She didn’t want to get the number wrong and miss out on the chance to have lunch with him. Lunch. With Mael. Her heart fluttered at the thought of it. “I would sure like that,” she told him, a little breathlessly, with a grin. She hadn’t even noticed the way he had said it. What he actually said was the important thing.
He took her number down, saving it into his own phone. Alyssa. He nodded, pushed his cart in the direction he was originally going in and waved goodbye. “A plus tard, Alyssa,” he said politely before walking off to continue his shopping.