Who: Rekha & Patrick Where: Crimson Delight, late night When: Backdated to February 2021 What: Immovable object meets irresistible force
It was a late night. Rekha had wandered away from an early shift at the Church and found herself too restless to return home. After wandering the streets for a while she’d landed at Crimson Delight, mortal eyes wandering the room as she pulled another puff off a cigarette. The dance-inducing frenzy caused by the thump of music at her workplace was absent here, allowing her to sit with her thoughts and observations idly.
What did vampires see when they looked around at the mortals here? Was it akin to a cheeseburger? A milkshake? Rekha stretched her legs out in front of her with a bored sigh. She was sure, at the very least, she’d qualify as a steak. If she ever let a vampire feed on her. Already she’d turned away several hungry beasts, annoyance rising with each denial. None of them seemed to interest her. They were either too tall or too desperate or too eh.
Stubbing the cigarette out, she unfolded herself from the plush chair she’d been lounging on and headed for the washroom. The frustration of listlessness grated on her as she pushed the door open. She should have just gone home. What was she even doing here?
Tripping over a body, it seemed. A girl was curled on the tiles, hair strewn over her face.
It was a warm body, upon further inspection. Alive, but asleep. Drunk, most likely. Rekha gave the girl an exasperated, angry nudge with her foot and only got a soft moan in response.
“For fuck’s sake,” Rekha mumbled, frustration giving way to full on vexation. She hauled the girl up by her arm and marched her inebriated new charge out of the bathroom with a huff. She hadn’t known how she wanted to spend her night, but it certainly wasn’t this way.
A familiar, rugged-looking blonde man was lurking at the perimeter of the room. Rekha recognised him as an employee, albeit one she usually saw outside. Deciding he was the unlucky chosen one, she dragged the girl over and let her collapse in a heap at the man’s feet.
“You. You work here. You should do something about this,” Rekha said plainly and pointed at the girl between them. “It was on the bathroom floor.”
A snore floated up from between them. The girl had already passed out again. Rekha rolled her eyes.
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Patrick had been technically off work for an hour and yet he was still here. He was annoyed and restless and, sadly, neither emotion was unfamiliar to him. There’d been nothing of interest going on here tonight as far as he was concerned: no fighting, no one to toss out on their ear for being an asshole. Boring. If he was this bored now at 118 years of age, he could only imagine what could happen in two hundred years or more. He should go home, but he might be tempted to make the rounds of the few distant family members he had left in this area, peering in at them where possible.
No. He’d been reported for being a window creeper before-- although he was too fast to be captured-- and he had no interest in that happening again. He’d find something else to do with his time.
With that thought in mind, Patrick was about to push off from the wall when a woman dragging another one approached him. His nostrils flared, the scent of excessive alcohol permeating his senses. He gave the conscious woman a suspicious stink-eye, a snarl automatically rising to his lips. “Why didn’t you just leave her there?” he wanted to know. His voice was raspy, making him sound like someone who had smoked five packs of cigarettes and chased them with a bottle of Maker’s Mark, but no. The guttural lower register was his normal voice. “What d’you expect me to do with her? Why the fuck are you makin’ this my problem?”
He shifted his weight and twisted the heavy lapis lazuli ring he always wore on the third finger of his right hand. Habit. That ring had been with him since 1935 when he’d bargained with a witch to make it for him so he wasn’t restricted to the darkness of night to move about.
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An eyebrow arched at the ragged tone coming from him. Had she ever heard him speak? Possibly not. She might have remembered such a gruff voice and demeanour.
“Because she was a fall hazard to anyone who went in there. And you work here. As an employee,” she said evenly. Slowly. As if she were explaining things to a child. “And I don’t care. Throw her out. Put her on a couch. Take your pick.”
Sighing through her nose, she tilted her head and gave him a once over. His general rough appearance was familiar enough, but she hadn’t taken much notice of him before. He seemed all prickles and sharp edges with his wiry beard and messy hair. The urge to immediately damp down all his flyaways came and went, replaced by another layer of annoyance. Why did he have to argue? Why was the universe turned so against her this night?
“You don’t care where your food comes from?” She reached out, attempting to brush her fingertip against the blue stone he wore pointedly. “You’ll just eat off the floor? Come on now.”
She motioned to the den behind them and the many softer places one could lay instead of the floor. “Come on, tiger. Pack in the sass and put your snack somewhere else.”
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Patrick always had to argue, or at least express his extreme displeasure at the inconveniences he encountered. Most especially when said inconvenience was something he considered not necessarily his issue to deal with. It was the principle of the thing. He crossed his forearms, his eyebrows slowly lifting at her tone. It was a tone he could remember using way back in the day with his oldest son, who had often been obstinate and a little slow-minded at the same time in his opinion. He wasn’t a fan of that particular intonation being used on him, and his deadly blue gaze probably revealed that even if the expression on his face didn’t change.
“I’m off-shift,” he said finally, not moving so much as a hair. Now that he thought about it, he’d seen this woman around occasionally, both here and at other areas of the night market. He didn’t know her name and he didn’t care about what it was. His plan was to stand here and emanate surly vibes until she left him alone, but then she brushed her fingers over the stone in his ring and made a crack about him eating his food off the floor.
Well, he worked in a blood den, so it wasn’t a big surprise that someone knew he was a vampire. He was more irritated that she’d assume he partook of unconscious guests. “I ain’t desperate enough to eat off some chick who can’t hold her liquor,” he said, then unfolded his arms with an exasperated sigh and bent to pick her up by the waist, tucking her against his hip as if he might be holding a child’s doll that weighed nothing at all. Patrick stalked over to the nearest vacant couch and dumped her before turning to face the bossy girl again.
“There. Satisfied?” His lips curled in a smile that looked more peeved than amused.
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Rekha watched the transformation from stalwart statue to petulant obedience with a slow blink, unphased by his attempt to stonewall her. It only mattered that he’d listened, the huffing and sighing were secondary.
“I never said you were desperate,” she said, sidestepping neatly to allow him a clearer path to carry the unconscious girl. “Only lazy.”
She watched the girl’s body bounce as it hit the cushions. He could have been a little gentler, she reasoned. Her gaze went to him again, trailing over his face and the false bend of his smile.
“Almost.” Seeing him stomp around had done wonders to sap her own anger. Now all that remained was curiosity surrounding this rumpled blonde man and his heavy stare. “I have two questions.” Looking away, she dug into her bag to pull out her cigarettes and removed two.
“Got a light?” she asked, slipping one between her lips and offering the other to him. “Maybe a name to go with all that posturing?”
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Patrick was feeling curious too, although he had no interest in showing it. His cool gaze didn’t change as he stared at her, wondering why she was here. He didn’t get a vampire feel from this one; also, he wasn’t accustomed to a fairly small woman showing no reaction to his bluster and ire. Often others were afraid of him on general principles and it was interesting to see a lady who wasn’t even hiding fear. No, it didn’t seem like she had any. He didn’t get his kicks out of frightening people unless they’d done something to deserve it, but it was nice to use his prickly outer shell to repel those who irritated him. It hadn’t worked in this case.
“I don’t know why the fuck you think I’m here to answer your questions,” he grated, but he didn’t walk away although he could have. The sight of cigarettes detained him for at least a few moments; Patrick was still a heavy smoker. He had been in life and he was in undeath as well. He was freshly out of smokes, which may have been why he plucked the offered cigarette from her hand and stuck it into his mouth. A deliberate pause and he fished out the heavy metal lighter he kept in the depths of a front pants pocket. He lit his cigarette, blew smoke out his nose and only then did he extend the lighter to strike it for this thorn in his side.
“I don’t posture,” he said, conveniently ignoring her request for his name. It wouldn’t be like Patrick to be too compliant.
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Rekha took note that he didn’t readily charge off to glower at someone else, instead coming straight back to her. Perhaps it was the Ben Franklin effect—wherein asking someone a favour unconsciously made them more pliable—or maybe it was the cigarette. She watched him produce a lighter and light his own cigarette, waiting silently for him to offer her the flame with the same flat stare.
“Then what do you call it?” she asked once she’d lit her own cigarette. She leaned back against the wall, now occupying the spot he had previously. What she lacked in comparative size she made up for in ease: one foot pressed flat against the wall, arms loosely crossed, and smoke curling lazily from her mouth as she spoke.
The fact he’d withheld his name wasn’t lost on her. She put it aside for now. Pressing the issue would likely make him stick his growly heels in. She instead watched the way smoke moved from him when he exhaled and how he held his cigarette. It was all with an air of practice. She wondered how many centuries he’d been doing it.
“I’ve seen you outside before. You’re never this cheerful out there.” Rekha tilted her head, one corner of her mouth lifting playfully. “And it seems to me like you don’t have anywhere else to be if you’re here when you’re off. So you might just be here to answer my fucking questions.” She took another easy drag and looked him over once again, then glanced behind him at the outline of the couch that now held a sleeping drunk. “But thanks for doing the decent thing.”
Looking back to him again, she rubbed her bottom lip and shrugged. “So. Am I right?”
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“I don’t call it nothin’,” Patrick said with a half-shrug. He was aware she was trying to provoke him and he decided not to take the bait. Sometimes he did; it all depended on what mood he was in at the time. Despite the fact that he was an enormous grump fairly often, he was doing better than he had at one point in his vampirism. He’d spent fifteen years in the forties and fifties with his humanity turned off, honing the sharpest edges of his personality, killing with impunity, snapping necks at the slightest frustration. Getting clear of that had been a struggle unlike any other. Maybe it was the nicotine, but now he decided to relax a little. Shifting his weight, he braced one shoulder against the wall next to where she stood.
“I never saw you,” he said when she told him she’d seen him outside the Crimson Delight. It was a lie, but why would he want her to think he’d found her noticeable in any way? Patrick liked to keep his cards held close to his chest always.
His response to her assumption that he was here because there was nowhere else he wanted to be caused him to smirk in a manner that was more sardonic than angry this time and exhale smoke from his nose again. “You’re somethin’ else, ain’t you?” he asked, not acknowledging her thanks for relocating the drunk instead of stomping on her with his heavy, well-worn boots. “Are you a psychologist?” Yes, he was mocking her, but for him it was good-natured. She was interesting, even if he’d never tell her he thought so.
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“Yes. And no. I’m much worse,” Rekha answered coolly, smile growing to be something more symmetrical. “A bartender.”
She tapped a bit of ash to the ground and recrossed her arms. The man next to her cast a long shadow, but she felt primarily at ease. He was gruff but not immovable. Bad-mannered but not entirely rude. Rumpled but not—well, no, he was absolutely scruffy. Her night was finally taking a turn for the interesting.
“At the Church.” She jerked a thumb in the vague direction of the night club. “Too loud there to decompress after a shift. So I come here, sometimes.”
She couldn’t remember seeing him at the club. However, given his shit kickers and general sour demeanour she could guess that it was far from his scene.
Rekha cast a glance around the den and then fixed the stranger next to her with a sharp smile. “Tonight the mood seems kind of dead though,” she said, then laughed at her own joke. Feeling a little more spirited now, she nudged his middle with the point of her elbow. “I’m Rekha. Who are you?”
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Patrick had wandered into the Church on occasion but he’d never stayed very long. He tended to not be a fan of the loud clubs, pulsing with lights and discordant music and scantily clad performers. It was overstimulating and uncomfortable to his enhanced hearing… although he knew there were a lot of vampires who wouldn’t mind it. Patrick was more in the damn kids get off my lawn school of thought, unsurprisingly. He liked jazz, soul, 60s and 70s rock. In his opinion the music of today sucked balls.
“It’s loud there for damn sure,” he agreed. “Passed through there a couple of times.” And he had nothing else to say about that. The atmosphere here was much better.
When the girl’s elbow came at his midsection, Patrick grabbed hold of it with one hand, the movement too fast to be seen. He didn’t squeeze, didn’t do anything adverse, which was different for him; normally he didn’t like people he didn’t know to touch him. After a few long moments of blue-eyed stare, his face expressionless, he said, “Patrick.” Finally he let go of her arm, his fingers dropping to his side.
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Rekha stared back at the touch, a blank stare for a blank stare, but she said nothing about it. There had been no malice in it. Or warning, really. It was possibly the most respectful thing he’d done to her all night. A simple expression of a boundary. She could—and would—respect that.
“Patrick,” she repeated, and touched the same spot he’d held her elbow before recrossing her arms again. “That’s an old name.”
Her gaze flicked to his hand again and the warm stone she’d touched earlier. He was very obviously a vampire. If the ring hadn’t given it away, the ease with which he’d thrown a girl around and speed he’d grabbed her with. There was the rub: Rekha never knew what the hell vampires wanted. Deference to their old age and experience? No reminders of their dead condition?
Patrick seemed the type to prefer nothing at all, if his prickly exterior was any indication. “You’re cranky enough to be old. Or maybe it’s just when someone interrupts your brooding.” She held up her free hand briefly, expecting a huff of protest. Or a complaint that she was analysing him again. “If I’m wrong, then just prove it. Tell me a joke.”
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Patrick ashed his cigarette, his expression almost contemplative. “Irish Catholic,” he said of the name’s origins. “There were ten of us kids and we were all named for Catholic saints.” He wasn’t sure any of them had been worthy of sainthood, although he’d by necessity cut ties with all of them once he’d been turned and essentially forced to disappear. It was an old name but he was an old dude. Relatively speaking, that was. He knew he was still fairly young as far as immortals went.
He eyed her when she accused him of being cranky, something that was close to a faint but natural smile on his lips. Yes, definitely cranky, but he’d learned a long time ago that his demeanor served as a defense mechanism, a shield, a discouragement to anyone who tried to get closer to him for God only knew what reason.
“One, I don’t brood.” Another lie, because he did sometimes. Who didn’t? “Two, I don’t tell jokes. You know how humor is relative? What I think’s funny, you prob’ly won’t.” He took another drag, exhaled through his nose. “Three, what the hell kind of name is Rekha?” He probably couldn’t have spelled it correctly if he’d had to, but it was easy enough to mimic her pronunciation of it.
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So he’d been meant to be a saint? Rekha’s smile grew as she listened dutifully to his list of reasons why he was not, in fact, exactly what she assumed he was. It was lucky he’d never get wrinkles from frowning, his face at rest was nicer to look at than the scowling version.
“Everyone broods,” she said, holding up a finger. “I think you’re just better suited to it than most, maybe.” Another finger. “There’s plenty of jokes everyone likes. You just don’t want to try.” And a third finger. “From my mother’s side. Nepalese.” She paused and then shrugged, waving her hand in the air in a gesture of eh. “I think. I never met her. Can’t ask.”
She very nearly poked him in the chest next but then remembered his look from before and let her hand drop completely. “But you’re here, so I’ll keep asking you questions. Do you do anything else besides watching the door and holding up the wall here on your time off?”
Rekha took another drag off her cigarette and ran a hand through her hair, watching him curiously. “And I’m still waiting on that joke.”
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She was right about the fact that he had no interest in dredging up a joke. Patrick was very much a product of his early environment, no matter the number of years he’d lived. He’d been the second oldest of ten kids and by the time he was four he’d known how to change a diaper and how to feed a younger sibling porridge. There’d been very little time for levity until he’d been mostly grown and away from home and able to make his own decisions.
Patrick scrutinized her face when she told him at least half of her heritage; he could have never put a finger on her specific origin. Something exotic would have been his best guess. He himself was Irish to the bone, probably not hard for anyone looking at him to figure out.
He noticed the very slight movement of her hand and was gratified that she’d heeded his unspoken request not to poke at him as if he were an underdone loaf of sourdough. With a faint snort of laughter, he ashed his half-smoked cigarette again and said, “What d’you think a broody vampire does on his off hours? I stalk… I lurk… I feed on unsuspecting strangers.” The last part was somewhat true. Often he’d chat up a human woman and convince her she wanted to share some of her blood with him. He got bored with blood bags, although he had a good stock of those in his refrigerator, as well. “Far as jokes go? You’re gonna be waiting a long, long time.”
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The look Patrick gave her was one she’d seen before, and one Rekha had given herself countless times growing up. Looking for any sort of resemblance to any culture that she might belong to, information that was more than a Google result about her name alone. Each time she’d only been able to glean the obvious: not white, but not quite non-white enough to be something.
Definitely not a scruffy and pale blue-eyed Irish boy. She briefly wondered if he had freckles somewhere, then decided if he did they were probably in the shape of a frowning face.
“Sounds right,” she said, then shook her head and tilted it with a sigh. “I thought maybe you did something else in your spare time that might surprise me. Like worked at a dog shelter caring for puppies.” Mouth pulling to the side in a smirk, she looked him over again and shrugged. “Or maybe a part time lumberjack.”
Snickering a little, she turned her attention back to the rest of the den. It was quiet. The air felt heavy. Even the drunkards and partiers who’d come in to get one last shot of adrenaline seemed to be winding down.
“I’m a patient person. Generous, too. So...” Rekha’s half-smile returned as she took a slow inhale from her cigarette and watched him, drawing out her pause. “Is it true that to kill a French vampire you need to stab him with a baguette? Sounds painstaking.”
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“Puppies don’t like me,” Patrick deadpanned. “Maybe it’s the fangs.” She’d probably be surprised that for the most part he didn’t do anything unusual at all with his time when he wasn’t here. He had a few friends he spent time with, he liked to read and watch movies at his apartment, he did a lot of wandering. When one was immortal, life felt different. It had taken him a minute to come to terms with his situation; that space in time when he’d turned off his humanity had been part of it all.
His gaze was pinned to her lips when she did that slow inhale, and he honest to God had to fight off the urge to smile when she told her terrible joke. What the hell was up with this girl, and why did he kind of like it? It was rare that he found another person he actually didn’t mind talking to.
“Not just a baguette,” Patrick said, everything but the gleam in the depths of his eyes making it seem like he was deadly serious. “Has to be one shaped like a fleur de lis. Ya know the Frenchies are into that. Fleur de lis gets ‘em every time.”
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Rekha let out a laugh when he responded, glad he’d played along instead of groaning or snorting or some other sound of grumpy derision. Privately, she was triumphant. Perhaps preening a little at her own magnetism. He’d gone from cursing wildly at her to what seemed to pass as his version of amusement.
“Mm. So you do have some funnies in you. Shame though. Doesn’t count if I started it.” Smothering a smile with her hand, she resisted touching him again. For someone as distant and flat as she presented, Rekha was still a tactile person. She touched people all the time in her day job. It was how she dispensed enchantments, channeling energy through spare brushes or pats when someone wasn’t paying attention. If Patrick hadn’t stopped her she’d have probably touched him several times by now, all of them probably infuriating for the gruff looking vampire.
Still, now that she’d moved him from snappish to pliant she was intrigued. What else was he capable of besides growling?
She took one last pull from her cigarette and flicked the rest into an ashtray on a side table nearby. Hands on her hips, she gave him one last thorough once-over and decided that yes, she would like to continue scratching at the surface of him. She wasn’t intimidated by his prickly exterior. If anything, it made her more curious what soft places he was hiding.
“I should get going. I’m only a witch. Not immortal.” She fluffed a hand through her wild hair with a shrug. “We still need sleep. But I’ll be around.”
A brow raised as she considered her next words carefully, gaze skating the breadth of his shoulders and lines of his hands and fingers. Rekha held out her hand with another sly smile. “Give me your phone. Let me give you my number. For the next time you find yourself all broody on your time off.” She inclined her head slightly. “And when you finally have that joke ready.”
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A witch. Patrick had wondered why she was here, had known she had to be a supernatural being of some sort. He had experience with witches; he’d encountered many over the decades since he’d been a vampire. They weren’t easy to pinpoint, necessarily. Instantly his curiosity increased, and who knew? Someday he might actually indulge his curiosity by asking questions about it. Not tonight, though.
Her request for his phone shifted his expression to contemplation as he decided if he was going to comply. He took his time with the last bit of his cigarette, eying her stance as he inhaled, exhaled, pinched out the butt and tossed it into the same ashtray where she’d put hers.
“The idea of brooding is that you don’t want to be around other people,” he said finally, as if giving her some terribly important bit of instruction. His brow furrowed. “How long do witches live again?” Heavily implied was that she could easily finish up her lifespan before he came up with a joke for her. Still, it was something different, and she was interesting enough that he produced his phone and placed it into her hand.
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“If you didn't want to be around me you would be gone by now.”
Rekha took the phone from him with a very obvious, very triumphant smirk. She looked down at the phone to input her information, snorting. “And it depends on how spiteful we’re feeling. We’re capable of immortality easily enough, if you’re thinking of trying me.” She tapped in her name and number and held the phone back out to him.
“But I generally get what I want,” she said, brow arching again as she looked up at him. “I’m not worried.” He’d text her eventually. She was sure of it. And then she’d go about figuring out what was the best way to peel off his grumpy exterior.
And maybe peel off a few other things, too, she added mentally.
“Have fun lurking and stalking in the meantime.” Rekha wiggled her fingers lazily at him in a wave before she made to leave. “Goodnight, Patrick.”
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Patrick rolled his eyes, but she had a point. He had no problem walking away from someone when they were in mid-sentence if he was bored or simply irritated by their very presence. He was still standing there because he wanted to be… for whatever his perverse reason might be.
“Mm-hmm,” he said in response as he tucked the phone away again, not looking at it. “You keep tellin’ yourself that.” Maybe he was still here because sparring was fun. Not like he got a lot of that in his everyday life. He snorted to himself as she turned away and then went in the opposite direction, deciding to leave through the employee entrance like he usually did. Nothing like a good dark alley. He might just go home and pop a blood bag instead of stalking around all night like he did sometimes. Might as well.