John Abbott (john_abbott) wrote in v_nocturne_rpg, @ 2009-07-18 14:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | john abbott, sophia jay |
A Walk With Sophia
Let it not be said that London was a quiet city. Though the level and type of noise varied by neighborhood, as well as the architecture that amplified it, London's was a discordant orchestra of sound, particularly in poverty-stricken areas. On those narrow lanes, vendors hoarsely barked at strangers in a quest to hawk their wares, while organ grinders and drummers struck up songs to draw attention. Horse hooves and carriage wheels thundered on the cobblestone. Young children screeched and zigzagged between adults while mangy household pets yapped at their heels.
It did little to soothe an aching head. John's felt like a miniature blacksmith was at work between his ears. He turned into a residential street, which took him out of his way but offered a temporary respite from the chaos. He walked under two criss-crossed lines of laundry and ignored a woman who stood on her doorstep watching, a toddler on her hip.
It wasn't drink causing the headache. It was a particular kind of dehydration, which he should've taken care of hours ago, when it was dark. The night would've afforded him anonymity, but what had he done? Gone to yet another inn, drank himself stupid, and passed out in a rented room, his arm around a serving girl he intended to bite, except that she smelled like baking yeast and liniment, a peculiar combination that put him in mind of his grandmother.
He pressed a thumb and forefinger against his eyes and progressed blindly along the street.
Sophie had been exploring these streets for about an hour and a half now, looking for interesting places or people. Or just whatever she could find. She might have a new room, and even one of her own, but it certainly wasn't home yet, and felt as if it would never be. And these streets looked busy and interesting even if they had more carts than she was used to or comfortable with. But it might possibly become somewhere she could find home. Unfortunately for Sophie, walking glancing around didn't always mean she looked where she was going. Which normally wasn't a problem as most people (including her) did most of the time. But in this case she bumped straight into someone, and was almost knocked off her feet.
"Sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going. Are you all right?"
Out of ordinary reaction, John latched onto her forearms, trying to right both of them before they took a nasty spill on the cobblestone. "I'm fine," he said and had a disoriented look around. His shin stung from where her boot struck it, and it felt as if his head contained an iron pendulum, but he was otherwise fine.
John frowned and let go. "If you mean the horrible expression on my face, I think I was wearing it beforehand," he mused. Two fingers rubbed the bridge of his nose, then gestured out to her. He sniffed. "Besides, you're the one I've nearly crushed. You shouldn't feel the need to apologize for taking up room." Behind him, a door slammed shut. He peeked over his shoulder to see the mother had left her doorstep, then focused back in on the girl. Through the haze of his headache, he noticed first that her hair was brown and curly, and second that her eyes were big.
She looked up slightly, blinking as he caught her, and noted absently that he had a firm grip. Fortunately his words made him seem relatively nice; the firm grip in her experience wasn't always a good sign. "No. But I shouldn't bump into people. And you at least look hung over. I have no excuse." She stepped back, slightly shrugging his grip off, and then forward hastily almost into his embrace as someone large and rough-looking would have stepped on her. "And if you're my size you learn to avoid that." Her wry glance showing who she meant.
From this distance she had to tilt her head almost upwards and arch her neck to look him in the eye, and smelt as clean as anyone did in London, just a hint of milk and garlic in her natural scent, and that from her diet.
John cast a look at passerby. He was a bear of a man in soiled clothes and last week's beard, who smelled like the rear end of a horse. One of the downsides to being a vampire was a heightened sense of smell, which couldn't be tuned to particular circumstances or scents. The odors of the city were a small torture, at times, and he'd struck entire streets off his list of old haunts, just to lessen the experience.
"We all learn to avoid that," he said, watching the man lumber to the far corner.
When there was nothing left to see of the stranger, John looked at the girl again, and it suddenly seemed as if she was made of throat and vein. All other parts of her blurred into the backdrop as he heard the familiar whoosh of his head swimming. Her proximity was in danger of becoming a problem, despite the mid-day light and the probability of an interruption. He blinked at her and tried to gather his wits to say something benign, while his imagination supplied an entire story in pictures. Her skirt snagging on a wall as he pulled her into a corner. His fingers pressing into the lower half of her face to keep her quiet. The bending of her spine over his arm. Her curly hair viewed in close range as he sank his teeth into her neck.
He cleared his throat and pointed along the street. "Are you on your way home?" he asked, his eyebrows knitting together in what looked like concern.
Her eyes widened. She knew that look (or thought she did anyway). And the gentleman seemed fairly considerate, intelligent, and well educated, if absent-minded, and had enough wit to veil any direct statements. He was, from the look of him, possibly even an academic and a more senior one than most of those she knew. There were certainly worse things to find. Still, she stepped back slightly, wanting at least a little room. Something about him made her shudder (if slightly pleasurably).
"I hadn't planned to be for a while, Sir." Her eyes were wide and trusting. She'd soon find out whether she'd read him correctly.
"Oh," he said. "I see."
He looked at the doe-eyed brunette. She hadn't shuffled off. It was an opening, but one that needed to be snatched up fast, if at all. Rubbing his mouth, John looked around, as if not entirely sure which block he was on.
Truthfully he was distracted, trying to block out the pounding headache and quickly weigh up the risks and rewards of taking advantage. Empty street, the mongrel of a man that had walked by, the mother who had disappeared from her doorstep. Coming to a decision was like solving a mathematics problem that should've been simple, but the numbers had been rearranged by his state of mind.
Keep it together, man.
When he was mortal, John's charm was in short supply, only brought out on certain occasions, like a family's best set of china. He used it when courting girls, tapdancing through a lesson for which he'd arrived in the classroom unprepared, and convincing review boards of his professorial merit. The fact that he could successfully employ it was a source of frustration for his family, who had seen that John was just as capable of bungling opportunities with a sour mood and his mind flown to God knew where.
Don't fixate. See all of her.
Suddenly, there was clarity in his face. "I hoped to offer you an escort home, except," he took a breath and blew it out, "You... aren't going there." He smiled. Then he cleared his throat behind a fist and waved off his own lack of conversational grace. "Please excuse me. I don't often run into good-looking women on streets like this, and I'm afraid you've pegged me on the hangover. Dreadful business, drinking too much," he said ruefully.
Sophie smiled. He seemed like a gentleman, and his slightly odd behaviour was consistent with having a hangover and possibly being raised to be one of those twerps who thought that condescension was polite and was learning. (Had she thought he wasn't, he'd have had an earful). And he looked much better when he focused. She had been exploring, and had found something or rather someone interesting.
"I was actually just exploring." Her smile widened "Do you know round here any better than I do?" He looked handsome, interesting, and as if he was interested in her. And not as if his ulterior motives were other than obvious. She wasn't planning on going anywhere dangerous with him, but it might be interesting (and useful) to get to know him better. And somehow she doubted he would turn the opportunity down.
"I do, actually." John nodded and gave the surrounding buildings an appraising look. In the afternoon light, his eyes were closer to green than hazel. The more he talked and got into character (that character being his old self), the more his headache relented, as if it sensed relief on the horizon... A painkiller in the form of an impish girl, who had a slightly coarse pattern of speech that marked her as a member of the lower class. "It's on my way. Halfway between home and a tavern I like. I'm John, by the way."
He pocketed one of his hands and pointed vaguely up the street. "If you don't mind, I think I'd like to walk with you a ways." He wanted to see if he could make her laugh, both to put her at ease and to see if the specks in her eyes danced. "If you walk beside me, there is less chance of you walking into me. It's safer for both of us."
She grinned, and her eyes danced. "Then lead on. And I'm sure you'll catch me again if I walk into you. I'm Sophia." She put her arm through his.
It crossed her mind to wonder whether he was going home or to the tavern, as in his state either would be possible. But asking would be impolite. She tilted her head on one side and looked at him as they were walking. "So what does a gentleman like you see in a neighbourhood like this?" She was deliberately playing with the local accents to amuse both him and herself; the first few words were in the pure Oxford student dialect she'd picked up, and the last few were in the thick cockney of the Old Nichol in which she grew up (the neighbourhood wasn't that bad, but she was exaggerating for effect).
"Are you so sure I'm a gentleman?" he asked, as he tilted his head and mirrored Sophia's look. He held eye contact for a few steps before sighing and facing forward as they walked. "You're right, I suppose I am. It's so boring of me, really." John thumbed the side of his nose and maneuvered them around a pile of muck on the cobblestone. Farther along the road, there was a narrow alley between two buildings. Inside it, John knew, the shadows would obscure them and cast just enough doubt on the situation that, if anyone passed, they wouldn't interrupt.
"This neighborhood has better conversation," John said, strolling as if they had all the time in the world. "I'd rather be here than wiling away the hours in a front parlor, watching everyone play games and sing songs around a piano, all of which are about bawdy things they've never actually done. It's reprehensible." Up ahead, the darkness of the alley sliced across the ground, a shadow whose cool air he could almost feel.
Sophie grinned impishly. "Better a gentleman than bourgeois. Have you seen Bowdler's Titus Andronicus?" She smirked, remembering her shocked awe when she'd read it. "And I don't think anyone has done everything in The Good Ship Venus. Or would want to!"
John's steering her round the muck hadn't gone unnoticed. She would have reflexively stepped over it as a matter of course. But was pleased he was paying attention. Especially as it and his brightening demeanour meant that he probably wasn't suffering as badly from the hangover as he had been. People were much more interesting when sober and not hung over.
"Oh, so you've heard that one?" He was surprised and gave her a wide-eyed look. Most ladies of the upper class wouldn't admit to familiarity with such a tawdry song, unless inebriated at the time. Plenty of bar maids knew it, though. "Impressive! Maybe I should inquire about what taverns you like best."
John smiled and rubbed his right eye. "Anyway, I'd tell you not to be over-broad, but I've just remembered the lyric about the dog." He was about to laugh when a ripple of pain bent his posture. John came to an abrupt stop and pressed a fist into his gut, where his stomach muscles had clenched again. Hunger came in waves and this one was particularly bad. Looking up, he judged the distance to the alley to be three of four steps. As unexpectedly nice a distraction as their conversation was, he couldn't make it to the next one; he had to take her there.
"I'm sorry, Sophia," he said, recovering himself and glancing around to make sure they were alone. "Normally, there's more of a prelude, but I'm afraid I can't wait."
One of John's arms was already hooked through hers. He tightened it to keep her wrist pinned in place at his ribcage. Then he reached across and grabbed the other. Once both were caught up, he hauled her towards the shadows. All the while, his fangs strained against his gums. Once in the dark between buildings, his eyes reflected like a cat's.
Sophie gasped and twisted. Her judgement wasn't normally this bad. And she really hadn't thought he meant her any harm, let alone to rape her. On the other hand she had not exactly grown up in a nice neighbourhood and wasn't entirely defenceless, even if she doubted anyone would come if she screamed. In shock, her voice dropped into the cockney she grew up speaking rather than her more normal and more respectable working class accent. "John! Wha' th' ...?"
It's almost impossible to hold someone's wrist if they know what they are doing. And she'd learned to escape grabs playing when she was tiny, and been shown how to do it properly by her father. She twisted her wrist hard against his thumb and although he was massively stronger than she was, it was thumb versus bicep. As she stepped back her left hand buried itself in her hair, coming out with a very long and sharp hairpin (her right was still caught against his side, it having no such escape route). She knew she could have brought her knee up or tried to smash his instep, but also knew fighting back like that would go very badly for her if she couldn't win or at least break away to run. So talking would be her best chance.
Catching sight of him she continued, "You be a ... vampire?" By the time she finished the word vampire, her shock seemed to have died down, covered by a level of curiosity. And she suspected that her shallow breathing was not going to help anything.
John kept a wary eye on the hairpin. He was in no real danger from the little weapon, other than great pain, if she were to stick it in his palm or face or... worse. He swallowed and watched it, as if debating how best to swat a fly. "Better a vampire than bourgeois," he said, his fingers striking out with the agility of a cobra, attempting to get hold of her wrist again. He found himself exasperated by how nimble she was and tried to decide if he should catch her by something else -- like her neck -- and simply deal with the inconvenience of a stab wound. At least his teeth would be in her throat.
He used his weight to nudge her into the building and brace against her, so she had less chance of breaking free and darting into the street. "I wasn't planning to kill you, Sophia" he said, catching hold of her sleeve. "But if you keep... wriggling, I may on accident!"
She looked at him, seeing and understanding both him and how she had misread him. "Oh, you're starving." That one word conveyed both weight and sympathy. She'd been several days without eating a few times. And had stolen to keep herself alive, although not for a few years. "Well you coulda asked!" She replaced the pin in her hair.
That put him back a few paces, figuratively speaking.
"What?" John stopped grappling with her as she tucked the pin into those curls, which were as wild and dense as a bramble thicket, but looked softer. Perhaps her mind was just as wayward. "Have you any idea what you're saying?" By now, poor circulation had probably numbed her right arm. He kept holding it, in case she was using pliancy as a ploy to escape when he let his guard down. Sophia was a thin girl and, like most people in her social standing, had likely gone hungry before, so her sympathy didn't mark her as a total lunatic, but close.
And she imagined him a starving ragamuffin. Well, he was not quite so pathetic... More distracted by nuances than hopeless, and altogether too particular when it came to sources of food. At times, John couldn't see the forest for the trees. But admit that the hunger he felt was his own fault? No, not if her misconceptions kept her willing.
"I have it in mind to bite you, Sophia, not ask you to dance." The vampire's other hand touched the draping fabric of her sleeve. He wet his lips and found that he could still see her pulse in her throat, despite the darker setting.
"I know." Her accent was back in a more normal tone, and continued amusedly and slightly archly. "You want to stick something in me and get that organ wet." If she stopped treating things lightly she might be terrified. She didn't think that there was a way out of this without her ending up being bitten, and serious attempts to escape would only make things worse. So she stepped towards him and tilted her head to one side. Uncertainty flashed in her eyes before the amusement reasserted itself as she continued lightly, but with faint emphasis. "Normally a girl wants to be invited to dinner before being eaten out."
Jesus Christ.
For a few seconds, John was at an utter loss, having been taken aback by the forwardness of the girl, who looked no more than seventeen and didn't have the roughness of a tavern wench. Had he been a rapist, her direct response would have sent him running, but he wasn't. Her smelled worked on him, as did his proximity to her throat, and in the blindness of hunger, he didn't care to investigate her sanity. All he could think about was Sophia's taste.
"You're right about that." John's throat felt like sandpaper. As he caressed her neck with his fingers and bent down, he said, "You're fortunate it's me." Another vampire might've broken her neck already, from how violently they often pulled back their victim's heads to take a drink. The messy locks of his hair touched her cheek while his nose took her scent. Opening his mouth, he let the fangs ease the rest of the way out and break her skin. He didn't tear it away. He let the blood bead and run into his mouth, holding it on his tongue like a connoisseur of wine, even though his muscles jerked. If she was going to stand there and let him, John wanted to hold himself together instead of burrowing his face in her throat like a rutting animal.
"If I wasn't, this would be very different," she whispered. Sophia bit down on her next comment about treating her gently as it was her first time on the grounds that she really didn't want to make someone with his fangs in her neck laugh. When in a potentially unpleasant situation, there were two normal responses she knew of that didn't break people down. The one normally advised was 'Lie back and think of England', which had never been her thing. She preferred the motto 'If you can't avoid it, try to enjoy it.' Although that wasn't always possible. (It also sometimes confused her why people thought everyone would want to think of England).
And the gentle drinking he was doing was certainly an interesting sensation, and pleasurable in its way. Although probably not something she wanted to repeat on a regular basis. But one she wanted to remember. She closed her eyes and tried to remain both relaxed and still.
Patience was not a virtue of John's, and the gentle sucking of Sophia's blood was not easy. To manage it, he pretended that her skin was as delicate as an eggshell and she would fracture into sharp pieces if he didn't control his impulses. A vampire could drain a human in minutes, but to do so was gluttony in which he rarely engaged; If he killed a human, they were simply gone. If he let them live, their bodies would replenish what he took, and they could be a source of survival another day. Why dry up the well?
Long after he stopped drinking, he left his tongue on her pulse, letting the thump lull him into calm. Gradually John's fingers eased on her wrist and, with a parting look at the holes in her neck, he backed off and nudged his mouth with his knuckles. His face was flushed. That haggard look had gone away, as well.
"You should eat something," he told her, it being an effort to bring his eyes up. He wondered if she was opposed to taking money to buy herself food. It was only fair that he supply it for her, and doing so could plant seeds of trust. It was also best that he leave before his mind gave him other ideas, like how easy it would be to bite her again, now that she was weaker. He reached into his pocket and pulled out money, which could pay for a decent meal. "Take this. It isn't pity, it's gratitude."
John put it in her palm.
It took Sophie a few seconds to gather her wits when he removed his mouth. The experience had left her quite light headed and weak at the knees and not, she thought, entirely due to the blood loss. But she recovered her wits fairly fast as he spoke. "Thank you." She smiled and the money almost seemed to vanish. "And I know." And he didn't seem to realise how much more expensive food was for the upper classes. Not that she was complaining about that. "I take it most vampires aren't as gentle as that?"
Then, despite her pallor she fixed him with a Look. "If you ever do that to me again, I expect a nice evening first. And somewhere more comfortable than here. And a chance to say no." She was pretty sure he'd notice that she certainly hadn't said she was going to say no. She liked him and found him interesting. And being fed from wasn't uncomfortable and was only slightly scary. Although she'd better find out how to handle vampires if there were others around.
He shook his head at Sophia's question about vampires. Demons, like people, came in all varieties, from what he'd observed in five years as one of them. The only kind they did not come in was 'saint', and John was a far cry from that. Hunger made most of them a vicious, selfish lot. On his worse days, he could be counted among that kind.
"Don't worry, Sophia." Reaching out, he tried to obscure the wound on her neck with a curl, but the puckered, red skin was unfortunately noticeable. "Now that I know your disposition, I won't be tempted to drag you into a dark corner until you've called yourself willing."
He let go and retreated into the street, where the afternoon sun still blazed on the cobblestone. He squinted at it and raised his hand in a departing wave.
She walked the other way out of the alley, not worried about the neighbourhood. She had a few things to do. First was food and some sort of thin scarf. Probably from the Quakers; she didn't feel up to haggling or to worrying about how costs had been cut. Then some research. If vampires were real she wanted to know about them. And not entirely first hand. It also meant that some other things in that weird bestiary might be real. But almost certainly not the bonnacon or the duck-billed platypus.
And she also wanted to know what she could do if a vampire actually wanted to drain her dry. Nothing she had would have helped, and a brief shudder passed down her spine as she thought about what a less decent vampire might have done.