Sid S can't promise not to (renage) wrote in repose,
Re: [Log: Dahlia/Sid]
There was a good goddamn reason Sid had picked Dahlia's place instead of hers. They were crummy digs, over the hunting store where the smell of old mouse and damp wood stubbornly persisted and the power situation was better but the heating situation was still terrible. The hot water came by dribbles and the radiator oozed a thin trickle of heat and the only warm spot in the place was the bed. And Sid wasn't subtle but a move made on account of desperation wasn't a move at all. Nah, not her place. Combination small space and that this close to the moon she wanted out instead of in. Training coupled the waxing moon with long nights spent cold and fighting sleep outside, because dad's paranoia was written on his back in claw-marks. Training meant every time the moon got fat, she got an antsy expectation of spending after-dark with the wind down the back of her neck. Thanks for the memories, dad.
Speaking of. Hadn't expected Dahlia to be in a spot so much as passing through. Sid's memories were strung-wire limber and bruised and bloody, the kind of chick that shoved through instead of sat still. But hey, Sid back then had been all wrists and elbows, the kind of thin that was hungry all the damn time. There was a whole damn hieroglyph on where she'd been on her back, what she'd done since the undercity and the kind of fights that were a whole lot more fun than legal. Dad's paranoia was scar-tissue mapping her shoulder and the chewed up look of her leg all the way down, the rip-work a new vampire made of flesh shredded like silk across one collarbone and curled down. Didn't go any lower and blame the new vampire for fucking with food: a little more finesse it would have been her carotid rather than her colletage.
Sid wore shearling against the cold, a coat so old and comfortable the leather was splitting in places over buttoned henley and a vest underneath that, denim over the ragged map of her calf and knee. Hit the roadhouse about ten minutes after cold had burrowed down the back of her neck and snaked closer than most people bothered. The snow was soft but it was wet and Sid could take cold so long as it didn't stick her hair to the back of her skull and paint her skin sopping. Snow wasn't sugar-dusted on a Christmas card, what she could see was just the light and she didn't take in the architecture or much of the abandoned gym as she hit the stairs.
Boots on metal. Listen good, and you could catch Sid didn't put her whole weight on her fucked leg but the boots were good and heavy and the stairs were metal so you could hear much nuance in all of that, you were doing better than Sid herself. Wet, with snow sticking to her hair and crystalizing on her eyelashes and her jeans plastered under her coat, she hit warmth and candlelight and the sinuous curl of music with the same kind of reaction she'd given breakfast after one of her dad's famous three-day survival training sessions.
She shrugged the coat down her shoulders, still holding onto the bottle and chill water dripped down the back of her neck and soaked the collar of her henley. The dog - she'd gotten a dog, Dahlia was stay put, huh? - snoozed and Sid's face, sharp and wet and the inbetween color of having no ethnicity anyone could take a guess at and get right first time, took in the loft, the dog, the woman and the booze and the candles.
"Hell of a lot of effort for an old friend, doll. Hey, kid," she reached out knuckles for the dog, the plink-plink-plink of water riding down her coat as the smell of damp leather entered the loft with her. "You're gonna have to make some room by that stove, dog."