Who: Pike and OPEN Where: The beach. When: Night. What: Smoking. Rating: TBA Status: Incomplete
The fact that the bar was Pike’s second home should probably have bothered him. Maybe it would have, once upon a time when his greatest quest in life was to not be like his father. These days, his greatest quest in life was surviving each day, and alcohol played an integral part in the overall gameplan for that particular quest. Sure, physical survival wasn’t a problem, not like it had been once. He didn’t have to dumpster dive for food, like back in hell, or gamble in some pool hall to make rent because one of his out-of-town gigs kept him busy with monster trouble a little too long that month. It was the other sort of survival he was worried about, and alcohol helped smooth that particular razor’s edge a little.
Tonight was not an alcohol night. Maybe it was some holdover from when he’d been human, some niggling little piece of the little kid that swore he’d never be a pathetic drunk like his old man. Maybe they were little tests his brain administered to the rest of him without warning. Maybe it was just a certain odd fickleness. Some nights, Pike just decided not to drink. Not that he usually got drunk – it was hard to keep being a demon a secret if you were drunkenly blurting it out to anyone who would listen – but he usually spent a good while drinking.
So instead he was pursuing a different vice. After work, he’d picked up a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the grocery, and then made his way to the beach. He could’ve gone back to the cabin, but he wasn’t sure how Bella and Jo felt about smoking, and the time for figuring that out was not when you really wanted a smoke. He certainly didn’t feel like standing around outside the Ice Room smoking, and he didn’t want to risk some of the guests that were there being those violently anti-smoking types. An altercation was not what he needed right now. So the beach it was! He’d staked out a little spot away from the typical flow of traffic and plopped down. His right leg was bent at the knee, serving as a brace for his arm while it held the cigarette, and his left was splayed out in front of him. Next to his left leg, his black bandanna was spread out like a cloth, and on top sat his pack of cigarettes and cheap lighter. He didn’t need anything fancy, even if he did like the sound a zippo made.
He wasn’t really doing much of anything. He was just sitting there, raising the cigarette to his lips for a puff at regular intervals, and otherwise staring out at the ocean and the night sky. His face was his usual stony, unreadable mask. Truth was, he liked the view. It calmed him a little. He’d seen how fast it could all be ripped away. Even with these peculiar and not entirely pleasant circumstances, he couldn’t help enjoying the view.