Re: Outside: Clementine & Rudy
These days, Rudy wasn't interested in making an impression. Any impression. For the most part, he had lost the bloodlust and appetite for watching others cower before him, the stench of their fear as strong as piss. On the other hand, getting in good with others had never interested him. Mostly, he just wanted to get by. He stayed out in the woods, where there was no one much, and maybe that sounded boring for someone apparently immortal, but it was what he did. All that drenching sweetness, hiding rancid meat or fangs, it was too much work for him, too much involvement. (He'd done it once. Hide the sharpness of his teeth—to get what he wanted, and it had earned him nothing more than a bellyful of stones and this form. That was the last time he'd done that.)
Dignity was lost on him too. As the woman smiled, sorghum, treacle-lipped, peering through the bottom of the glass, he just watched her, not understanding what was amusing about it. Him, he killed people with no cups involved at all. How's that for undignified?
The mention of consummation earned Clementine a longer, almost-interested sort of look of steady, yellow eyes. It wasn't a word he'd heard in years—it wasn't something he thought anyone cared about either. But, maybe that was the money too.—With one more glance, he took that glass she proffered with Southern smile. He passed his cigarette off to her, and, saying nothing, he went back into the flood of scents and sounds to get them both another splash of bourbon.
He reemerged a few minutes later, his relief obvious and the shots deeper this time, ochre vibrant before the door shut out the light again. Rudy held out the damn glass and waited for her to give him back his cigarette.
"It's because he left." He scratched at his face with a thumbnail. "That's why you're—" He looked at her in muted confusion, head tilted to the side. "—angry?"