It was dark outside, but warm enough to open the windows for a breeze. Balmy air swept through the small house, rustling coupons magnetized to the fridge and a sheaf of papers on Rhiannon's desk. In the yellow lamplight, she stared at her laptop and held a pen captive between her teeth. Near the mouse pad, a cigarette waited in a glazed ashtray. It wasn't lit. According to plum-colored stains on the filter, she had considered it at least once.
She consulted the manual for a computer graphics program and compared it to the screen. Sometimes Rhiannon couldn't remember how to manipulate the designs she created for the tourism bureau. Chunks of Rhiannon 1.0's memory were suffocated (maybe overwritten) by Rhiannon 2.0. Since her paychecks depended upon being able to resurrect or recreate that knowledge, she spent hours pouring over books and online tutorials.
"Ugh." Leaning back, Rhiannon stretched her legs beneath the desk and rubbed her forehead. Maybe monsters couldn't wait. The world could be on the verge of apocalypse and need her... right?
Connor was glad it was dark when he got back to the house, because the neighbor across the street was out in the yard with their two kids and a dog. He knew what his face had to look like, because he could feel the swelling. The bags rattled as he let himself in, and the screen door slapped shut in his wake. He could still taste the faint tang of copper on his tongue.
"I'm back." He was still out of sorts, but not as much as he could have been. There had been no death, that counted for something. The Destroyer touched the bruise on his forehead. "Grocery shopping was a little more physical than I thought it'd be."
Rhiannon tossed the pen on the desk. "Oh yeah?" Grateful for an excuse to abandon her project, she saved it and got up. She pulled a lightweight hoodie off her doorknob and padded down the hallway to the living room. "Somebody challenge you for the last box of Captain Crunch?" She zipped up and fiddled with the cotton strings.
When she saw Connor's eyebrow, she frowned and came in closer. "Whoa."
"More like a challenge for a piece of street corner." Connor was already making his way into the kitchen, where he put the groceries on the table. There was chicken salad in there, he hoped it wasn't room temperature by now. He fished the container out of the plastic bag, tucked it into the fridge among the other stuff on the shelves. "Damn vampires think they can just hang out anyplace."
He methodically put away the rest of his purchases, then turned on the tap at the sink. He let some water run into his hand, rinsed his mouth. The water came out pinkish as it washed down the drain, but it seemed to have stopped actively bleeding. The bruises would probably fade by tomorrow. He'd hate to have to go see his advisor looking like this.
"How's the reading coming along?"
"Boring as shit."
Brushing off the reading for the moment, she tapped the underside of Connor's chin. "Hold still so I can look." Rhiannon scrutinized the vampire's handiwork. Puffiness from a couple of punches... Nothing time wouldn't quickly heal. Still, she knew he was going to campus tomorrow, so she dug around in the freezer and pulled out a bag of peas, which would probably never get eaten. It had seen its share of minor injuries.
She put it and a clean dishtowel in Connor's hand.
"I don't see any vamp dust." Rhiannon backed off and hoisted herself onto the counter.
He folded the dishtowel around the frozen contents of the bag, touched it to his forehead. Winced. "I didn't get the chance to finish it," he said, picking up the empty bags and wadding them up in a single ball. "He grabbed a bystander, a girl who'd been getting an eyeful, used her as leverage. He walked away."
He put the icy container of peas against his brow, hooked a chair with his foot so he could sit down. "I'll see him again," he told Rhiannon. "Guy like that, he doesn't pick a corner and hide there, not when he was right out in the open."
Rhiannon's feet swayed in front of the cabinet doors. "In vamp-face?" God, if demons were getting that bold, things were worse than they seemed. She wrapped her fingers over the lip of the counter and watched Connor, trying to figure out if he was more disgusted by the demon or himself. It wasn't always easy to tell with him.
Lately, his emotions were a mystery to her in general. Connor made the transition to another life look easy, but there was something indefinably different about him. Rhiannon had been watching, debating if she was imagining things or not. Her findings were inconclusive.
"Only where nobody could see it," the Destroyer answered with a headshake. "He wasn't even that good of a fighter. I guess I got a little ahead of myself." The twist of his mouth stung, and he lowered the erstwhile icepack to his jaw instead. Thank God for fast healing.
He watched in silence while Rhiannon's feet swung back and forth for a couple of minutes, and his eyes eventually drifted away from the Slayer's dangling shoelaces to focus on her face. The eyebrow without a bruise above it raised.
"You're staring," he observed placidly, and his eyebrow lowered again. "It isn't that bad, is it?"
"Would you run to a mirror if I said yes?" The corner of Rhiannon's lips quirked. "No. It's not that bad."
She looked along the counter instead and searched out an item to focus on, so that she wasn't staring at Connor. Bowl of fruit. Toaster full of burnt crumbs. Rhiannon pulled an old twist-tie out of the bread basket and wound it around her finger. The tip turned purplish. "I'm being pensive about how come you're so pensive lately." She loosened the tie and shaped it into a spiral. It had occurred to the Slayer that the changes in Connor were in her head. Or that maybe she was projecting. But if they weren't, she didn't want to be in the dark. He was her best friend long before her boyfriend, and it paid to know what went on in his head.
"I don't know." Connor's shoulders lifted, and his expression altered into something that might have been sheepishness. "I guess I've been waiting for something bad to happen. You know me, Mr. Glass Half Full. But I think I'm taking more full breaths now."
His shoe scraped across the worn linoleum of the kitchen floor. "Thing is, I think that without the...shift, or whatever word you want to use for it, I wouldn't have found myself in school. I know I talked about it a lot before, but I never got around to it for one reason or another. Maybe this is the universe's way of kicking me in the ass about it, who knows?"
He ran the back of his hand along his jawline, testing the iced-down skin for swelling. "If I seem like I'm navel-gazing too much, you can say something. You're almost the only one who can pull me out of my own head. I need somebody to do that for me once in a while. Okay?"
"Yeah." She nodded. Rubbing her lips together, Rhiannon straightened the little wire and twirled it in a lopsided circle. Back in Chicago, her cat went nuts over twist-ties. She batted them around until they disappeared under the refrigerator. The brunette's stomach tried to tighten on her, but she tossed the tie back in the basket. "You know... Something bad always happens, Connor. And I'm not saying that to be Doomsday Girl, but if you think about it, there are more neutral days, and even good days, than terrible ones. We just let the terrible ones tower over the rest. We spend our good days anticipating shit. It's screwed up."
She chewed on her lip. "I don't want us to be more content when there's something to fix. That's the kind of thinking that leads people to fuck up their lives intentionally." More like led me to do it, repeatedly. Here, in Key West, it almost felt like Rhiannon had a clean slate. She didn't want to dirty it up on purpose.
"C'mere."
He put the bags of peas aside, held his hands out for her. He'd never been the demonstrative sort, at least not in public. But if she was worried about anything, he didn't want it to be him. Scooting back in the chair so that his spine aligned with the plastic backrest, Connor wiggled his fingers in a beckoning gesture.
"I know that I'm not very good with words," he said, making what he felt was a grand understatement. "Never have been. But bitching to you isn't a problem I've ever had; even with the 'new' memories I know that much. If you start thinking that's changing, give me a poke. We should always be able to gripe to each other."
Rhiannon hopped off the counter and went to him. Still standing, she straddled his lap and laced their fingers together, so she could see how they fit. "I know." She kissed the top of his head. Her mood was off; it always got off-kilter when she wasn't sure how her partner was feeling.
"Tell me we're gonna be okay if the world doesn't end," she said, sifting through the brown, shaggy pieces of Connor's hair. Her fingernails scratched on his scalp. "If the monsters are ordinary, and all we've got to worry about are bills and going to work and whose turn it is to wash dishes."
He leaned his head on her shoulder, his nose wrinkling as her hair tickled his cheek. It felt strange to be the stable one, even if it was only in this one small instance. Maybe it was because he'd been through this before and had eventually found his feet. Maybe it was simply because of Rhiannon, who had buoyed him up as a friend long before she'd ever been his lover. With her, even a mediocre day was better than one without her.
"If the world doesn't end, we'll be fine." His arms went around her midsection, fingers linking together at the base of her spine. It might have been dangerous to feel this safe, this content, but he could afford the risk now. If he didn't trust her, who could he trust?
He pulled her closer, his deceptively thin arms easing her towards him more fully. His mouth wandered towards her ear, making its way through soft brown hair. "No matter who ends up washing the dishes."
His breath was warm and damp. She smiled. "You." Rhiannon bent her knees and let her weight settle on him for a moment. "My pout works better than yours." Her lips opened for a soft kiss, going extra easy since the corner of his mouth was swollen. It felt good to trust him so much, not in the usual sense between a boyfriend and girlfriend, just... trust him to always let her in. To cave if she nudged him and tell her the truth about whatever was going on.
Speaking of...
"So hey. I need to tell you something. A couple things." Rhiannon maintained her place on his lap. "Both of them will probably make you scowl."
His left eyebrow went up, and his index fingers hooked through her belt loops. He liked the way her weight balanced on his thighs. "All right," he said, arranging his expression into something that was suitably attentive. The way she said it, he wondered if it was something he'd have to worry about, if that was the reason she'd brought up the whole subject of something to fix.
"I'm listening. Scowl on stand-by."
"Good to know." Rhiannon gave a curt nod.
"Okay, item one." She laced her fingers behind Connor's neck. "After my hospital stay, I went looking at all the hotels. As it turns out, Deanna is in Key West and she helped me that night. She remembers Chicago. The weird thing is, she's got a soul. Which is great, because it keeps her from going on a revenge kick, but the reason why you might scowl is... I kind-of agreed to help her stop eating people. Become a demon fighter." Rhiannon cringed.
Connor's mouth wasn't sure what to do with itself. It opened, then closed again, and one corner lifted in what might have been a smirk. But that just as quickly disappeared, leaving his face a blank. His eyebrows puckered together, and one finger disengaged itself from Rhiannon's belt loop so that he could use the hand to rub his forehead. He poked at the cut on the inside of his mouth with the tip of his tongue. Let out a breath through his nose. It wasn't quite a scowl, but it was in the same zip code.
"It'd be stupid to hope that's a joke, wouldn't it?" he asked with a sort of annoyed perplexity. "I mean, are you kidding me?"
"No. Sadly." Rhiannon put a thumb against his eyebrow and smoothed the furrow out of it. "Look, I can't stake her. She's got a soul and she apparently asked for it. Plus she saved my life. So it's either let her wander around the island bleeding people dry or I dunno, try to help her. Try to stop her. However you want to think of it." After the explanation, Rhiannon rolled her eyes and breathed out. "I know, okay? It's insane, I'm aware."
Despite being able to 'logic' through it, Rhiannon knew logic occasionally meant little to Connor. It had always been easy for Rhiannon to go gray area, as long as she could justify things by her own moral code. Connor's was more rigid. Probably more sensible, too.
"Can't stake her? Or won't? She tried to kill you."
He remembered the time the Slayer had disappeared, gone without a trace. His terror that he'd never see her again. Connor did not forgive even potential losses, and in another reality he'd gone out of his way to thank Victoria Foxworth for helping to spare Rhiannon, no matter how accidental it might have been. His fingers plucked restlessly at the legs of her jeans. "You're really wanting to let someth--someone like that close to you because she's looking for a merit badge in demon-slaying?"
Rhiannon thought about it. Shrugged. "You're right. I should've just walked away... Not staked her, but not offered a hand, either." She wet her lips. "I can't... Okay, truth? It's partly my responsibility, her being back. That subconscious wish, you know? So now I feel like I've gotta make sure she's not a mess, since I inflicted her on the world. Good luck to me, right?"
Hearing Connor doubt her choice weighed heavily on Rhiannon. She tried to ignore the knot of anxiety in her chest. "Ready for item two?"
He was prodding the inside of his cheek harder now. It stung, but he didn't mind. He fumbled the icepack back to his jaw. "I'm listening." Might as well go whole hog with it since they'd already started. He could stand it if she could.
"I ran into alter-Joseph," she said. "I accidentally interrupted a fight he was in. He didn't know me or anything, so... It was just... weird." Rhiannon's bottom lip twisted in her teeth. "He was different. Darker." She omitted her suspicion that he was up to no good, since she had no proof, and what did it matter? They dealt in demons, not people. "I didn't know how to bring it up, but I didn't want to omit it, either, because that would seem sketchy of me. So yeah."
His eyebrows drew back together, and after a second the hard line he'd set his mouth into softened. He knew there were times he could come off like an ass, that he could be unbending to the point of ridiculousness on certain subjects, but for Rhiannon? He was happy to bend.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, and his hands settled more firmly on her thighs. "I guess that really must have been a mind-fuck. I can't imagine it. But I'm glad you told me. I know that you've been struggling with this, so anything I can do to help, I'd like to at least try." The chair creaked a little as he shifted his weight.
"As for the...other thing," and this was harder for him to say. "Even if I don't trust her, I trust you. If you start thinking that she's taking less well to her new way of 'life' than she's letting on, then we'll work that out together too. I know how it is feeling responsible for something, even if it makes no sense. If you think she's going to become a problem, we'll take care of it."
"Really?" Rhiannon waited a few seconds to see if he yelled, 'just kidding, are you nuts?' When he didn't, she kissed Connor's forehead and wrapped him up in a hug, forgetting that he might be sore. "God, you're so good to me. I love you." She squeezed a little longer and polished it off with a brush of her knuckles against his head. "Okay I'm getting up." She lifted herself from his lap and backed up to give him space.
"Are you hungry or anything?" He had put the groceries away already. Rhiannon was poised to pull them back out, if he wanted to eat.
"Nah, I'm okay." He'd probably been hungry before his earlier encounter, but he wasn't hungry now. Vampires tended to sour his appetite. The chair scraped across the linoleum as he got up. There was a worn patch on the floor under the chair's rubber-tipped feet, as if he'd made the same movement over and over again since they'd lived here. Like a carbon footprint, just different.
He took the two and a half steps necessary to close the distance between them, rested his brow against hers. He had to let Rhiannon make her own decisions. They didn't see things the same way sometimes, and while he could be a second pair of eyes - and in this case, he would be - the most he could do otherwise was caution her against too much trust. He drew back, kissed her forehead. "I have to see my advisor tomorrow. Wish me luck?"
"Wishing you good luck." She rubbed his upper arms. "Although, generally speaking, I think those are supposed to be good people, so you'll probably be alright." Rhiannon vaguely remembered years in art school, and a dark-haired instructor behind a green desk who doubled as an academic advisor. Anna Morris, her borrowed memory supplied. Her glasses were on a chain. She kept cigarettes in a drawer and cranked the window to smoke them. There was a quote by Cooley taped to the wall. 'An artist cannot fail. It is a success to be one.'
"I'm proud of you for it," Rhiannon said. "The whole college thing. You could've just dropped out and written it off."
He shrugged one shoulder. "It feels like I have to at least try, y'know? Even if the game design stuff doesn't agree with me, I'll never know if I can hack it if I don't find something I can stick to. Hopefully I won't look like I've been street brawling tomorrow, even if I was street brawling."
Rhiannon smiled. "Say you're into mixed martial arts. It's not exactly a lie." She picked up the bag of frozen peas and tossed them in the freezer. They settled in a crook between the broccoli and the ice cream. "Just don't get roped into one of those computerized surveys that suggests careers. All the sudden, you're supposed to be a fur trader or postal worker or something." She poured herself a glass of tap water and determined she'd put another half-hour into the graphic design project, then call it quits for the night. Maybe crash in the living room with Connor and search for a decent movie on TV.
"Back to the grindstone," she said. "Meet you on the couch in thirty?"
"Yeah. I need to see if I've got my notes and stuff in order for tomorrow, but I'll be there after that." The palm of Connor's hand had gotten numb from the peas, and he wiped it on the leg of his jeans. Television tonight, school tomorrow. For just a minute, he felt like his life was normal. He'd try not to get used to it.