WHO: Adrian Ivashkov and Phoebe Halliwell WHAT: A random meeting WHEN: Early Wednesday (before dawn) WHERE: By the river WARNINGS: TBD STATUS: Closed/Ongoing
This was Adrian's favorite time of evening. Well, evening on a Vampiric schedule, anyway. Humans would call it early morning, since they rose with the sun. Sun didn't kill Moroi vampires, but it was unpleasant enough that Adrian avoided it whenever he could. He sometimes wondered what it would be like to be out in it, enjoying it like the humans seemed to do, but it wasn't worth making himself stupidly sick over. Vampire magic and sunlight didn't exist together well. And anyway, Adrian was still on a nocturnal schedule, since he'd only been in Palm Springs a short time.
Sitting on a bench by the river, the darkness didn't bother him. His eyes were made for it, and he saw everything with the clarity that humans saw things during the day. He smoked a clove cigarette as he sat there, watching an early morning barge float down river. It was peaceful, but he couldn't find any peace in it. He hadn't been able to find any peace since he'd brought Jill back from the dead. Since Rose had cheated on him and left him for Belikov.
Spirit was a part of it. He'd been in bed, deep in the throes of depression, for three weeks after he'd saved Jill, and while he was now able to function (for the most part), he could still feel the darkness that Spirit brought. He didn't regret saving Jill, and he never would, but that didn't mean that he wasn't terrified. Eventually, the insanity would come. As far as he knew, he was the oldest Spirit user who hadn't gone insane. His time was coming.
The other part was that he felt things so deeply. He always had. He wasn't sure if that was a symptom of Spirit, or if Spirit just chose sensitive individuals. Maybe it was both. Either way, it didn't matter. He couldn't stop thinking of Rose. He dreamed about her every night. Her dark eyes haunted him. At least she wasn't here. That was the one thing he had going for him.
Sighing, he turned his head when he heard footsteps nearby. He saw a woman coming down the sidewalk towards him, and raised a hand in greeting. She didn't need to fear him.