The arrival (Iousaas)

[Gideon (DELETED 5567)]

Speeding along the highway that led toward their destination, Gideon drove the car which was their carriage at this early hour with great ease and skill. Before becoming a sorcerer, he had been a street racer, with plans to go legit and race the circuits. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how one looked at the situation, his latent powers had manifested themselves six years ago, bringing him to the attention of the ones who already possessed the same power. They found him, and recruited him, then trained him. That was where he had met her, his companion on this venture, his friend from the school of wizardry, as some called the training of sorcerers.

Having ‘graduated’ from their studies at the same time, the pair had been tasked with joining the mission in Harper Rock, Canada, in the fight against the vampires that had returned to the world. They had learned the old stories, heard of the final fight, or massacre, two centuries ago, as part of their training for the current mission.

It had been only a few days since they had left Europe, landing in a nearby city rather than Harper Rock directly, stopping at a hotel along the way. Finally, though, they were arriving at their destination, where accommodation had already been arranged for them. Outside of The Order, they were to pose as a married couple, though in truth there was no romance between them, only friendship and friendly rivalry during their training. Gideon took the car past the boundary to within the city limits, taking in the buildings as he passed them. “Iousass, wake up” he said loudly, “we’ve arrived, finally.”

[Iousaas Murad (DELETED 5562)]

Being cooped up in a vehicle was always boring for her and it usually resulted in her falling asleep after a very short amount of time. There wasn't much she could do about it. Iousaas had been known to even fall asleep mid conversation while in some sort of vehicle, even while flying. It was annoying but it kept her from freaking out. The woman was deathly afraid of flights and her partner's driving as well, so sleeping was usually the best option for her. Her family had traveled a good bit in her youth, which left her as an outsider wherever she went, despite her best efforts to connect with those around her. It wasn't something she ever managed to understand and people in general always left her thinking that there was something wrong with the general public. Then, that fateful day came and passed, and she found herself with a few like-minded individuals. It was also the day she had met him, Gideon. It had been the start of a wonderful friendship.

They made it through everything together, even when the odds were stacked against them and failure seemed inevitable. The outsider and the racer, an unlikely duo but it worked out in their favor just about every single time. It was only a matter of time before they would have ended up on some sort of mission or task together, and sure enough, the day came and they were well on their way before she knew what had happened.

Poor man, he had to deal with her panic attacks and her general freak out moments over being stuck on a plane. It had to be quite the scene to some of the other passengers at times seeing as even in her sleep she still freaked out. Iou had never been so glad to see the ground and have it back beneath her feet before. She practically cried tears of joy as soon as she took that first step onto solid ground. However, her moments of joy were only fleeting and soon enough she had found herself stuck inside another vehicle with him on the way to some hotel, at least she could finally take a break from being stuck inside a rolling death machine.

The night in the hotel passed by too quickly for her liking, leaving her longing for the comfort of that soft bed as soon as she stepped out the door to get back into that machine of death. She gave a nervous swallow and reluctantly settled herself back down into the passenger seat of the car. Maybe she would be able to get some more sleep on the way. Yeah, sleep even though it would be far from restful even with his skilled driving. There were a few times they rounded a curve and it woke her up, causing her let out a sound similar to a muffled scream while reaching for his arm out of reflex of needing to know that someone was physically there. Iou always found comfort in the presence of others, no matter what. After a few more close calls as she considered them, which were only him rounding a curve a bit too fast for her liking, she had managed to doze off again. At least that time when her eyes closed and she drifted off, it was actually restful sleep she got. Time passed them by but she was completely unaware of how close or far away from their destination they were, until he startled her awake. Damn him and his loud mouth. The ebony haired woman flailed and smacked his, “Don't scare me like that Gideon!”

She ran a hand down her face before rubbing her eyes. It took a few moments and some serious blinking before her vision focused on the buildings that were rushing past them. “So, this is Harper Rock? Doesn't look like much to me Gids.” Yeah, she totally just called him by his nickname, which she still wasn't sure if he liked or not, but it didn't matter to her one way or the other. If he liked it, okay. If he didn't, well, that just meant she would get to have fun getting on his nerves with it from time to time. “Well, I guess we might as well get ready to play our roles right?" Nothing like having to pretend to be married to your best friend. The thought alone usually made her feel sick since he was like the brother she never had. “Just great... I hate the **** we end up having to do sometimes, and this is definitely one of those times.”

[Gideon (DELETED 5567)]

Gideon nodded in agreement to what she said. He didn't mind that she called him that, but Iousaas was the only one he let get away with it. Now and again he would act annoyed when she said it, just so she could have the illusion of satisfaction of having picked on him. "You aren't the only one. I don't know why they keep thinking we need to be posing as a married couple, surely they realise we can pull off brother and sister far better." With a smirk upon his lips, Gideon looked at her "besides, I don't know about you, but kissing you makes my skin crawl every single time."

Looking at the street name signs was not being very helpful right now, and the car they had was not provided with a satellite navigation system. He had forgotten the address of where they were staying "hey Sassy, get me the map out of the glove compartment would you? And the address for where we are staying? I hate to say it, but I'm lost." It was true, just as she had her name for him, he had one for her also. Only thing was, he was sure she really did hate hers, which only made him want to use it more.

They fought like brother and sister at times, really arguing, but it must have come across to their higher ups that they fought like husband and wife. They were obviously the only child their respective parents had ever had and they never had a close enough friend they could develop the bond with. His mind went then to another part of their mission, tracking down and working alongside a group called The Order of Saint James, the paladins in this area who had, in a sense, been the second wave against the vampires, a group of blood thieves having come before them, from what he understood anyway.

Not wanting to risk getting pulled over for reading the map while driving, he found somewhere to park up until he could figure out where they were and where they needed to go from here.

[Iousaas Murad (DELETED 5562)]

“It only makes you skin crawl? Really? That's all it does to you?” Iou sounded almost shocked as she sat there staring at him in wide eyed disbelief. The thought of having to kiss him and act all lovey dovey with the man made her feel sick, like she was going to hurl at any possible moment. Even the conversation about it all was making her feel nauseous. Goosebumps made their way up her arms. Immediately she rub her hands up and down her arms while mumbling and grumbling something about their mission.

Her attention went to the buildings that they were passing by. The street signs were barely noticeable to her, until he spoke up again. Iou grumbled a bit at him due to his nickname for her. “I told you not to call me that. You know damn well I hate that name.” Her grumbling stopped when she realized he had said something about being lost. Right as she went to open the glove compartment it fell open, hitting part of her hand. “Owie.” she grumbled again while shaking her hand before kissing the top of her knuckles out of habit. With her free hand she took out the map and everything else that was needed.

He had always been like the annoying big brother she had never had but at least she had someone that was willing to look after her butt at times when no one else was there for her. Her father had passed away when she was little, right around five years old, he had been gunned down in the streets, and her mother refused to date anyone after the accident. So as a way to bring some sort of joy back in to their lives, they often traveled all over the place with various other family members, but even that came to an abrupt end when her mother fell ill. After her mother's passing she was taken in by an old family friend and then from there, her life changed forever. She met Gideon and actually had a friend for the first time in her life, even if she wanted to smack the crap out of him when he would pick on her.

“I had told you that we needed to get a GPS thingy before we left but no, you didn't want to listen.” Iou said glaring at him before looking the map over while he pulled over somewhere. Maps were so weird and confusing to her with all their intersecting lines in different colors. It didn't take her long to get frustrated and she ended up practically shoving the map in to his hands. “Here. You figure out how we get there.”

[Gideon (DELETED 5567)]

“I was trying to be nice” he laughed “didn't want you to think I was totally and completely repulsed and disgusted at the concept.” Gideon nudged her playfully “I should have know better. I think I nearly fainted a few times when we had to practice to make sure we gave a good performance.”

Iousaas had reacted just as he knew she would to the name, the way she always did. He just laughed at her “hey, if you get to call me Gids, I get to call you Sassy, Sassy.” When she thrust the map and address at him though he just grumbled, he hadn't seen the point in wasting money on a GPS or Sat Nav or whatever they called them over here, but now he did. As much as it pained him to admit it even to himself, he agreed with her.

Looking out the window he tried to find a street sign he could read to get his bearings on the map. It only took a few seconds for Gideon to find one, then looked on the map. Finding it on the map was a bit more difficult, naturally, but eventually he did. Now he needed a second street name for a point of reference that was an intersection. That sign was more difficult to spot, but again he found it, not able to see the name clearly, but when compared to the map, he was able to figure out which one it was. Now he knew where he was, he just needed to find where he was going. It took a few minutes “damnit, why do maps have to be so complicated to read at times? A GPS would have been a hell of a lot easier, but more annoying with the damn voice instructions. Handy but anno-” he cut himself off as he found the place “ah ha! There we go. Now I just go straight up here, cross the river, turn left, cross the river again, straight along, and..” he trailed off and nodded “okay, I know where I'm going now.”

Without a second thought he tossed the everything in to Sassy's lap and started driving again.

[Iousaas Murad (DELETED 5562)]

”You know damn well you don't have to be all nice and sugar coat that ****.” Iou glared at him as best she could but it was always hard for her to keep a straight face when they went back and forth about anything. She ended up sticking her tongue out at him when she thought he wasn't looking. ”You think that was bad? I nearly puked when we had to practice!”

As usual she fell for what he had done. Damn him for being so slick at times. She huffed and folded her arms over her chest as she went back to staring out the window. ”Stop doing that you ********.” That's all she could say about him doing that to her again, as usual. She hated him so much at times, and practically anytime they were stuck in any sort of confined space was definitely one of those times she hated him. He was so infuriating at times and when he managed to get the best of her always made her want to shove a blade to his throat or just kick his ***, but she usually never followed through with her thoughts.

Oh well, at least she didn't have to deal with the annoying map. On the inside she was laughing at him, at his misery. There wasn't much that really amused Iou but watching him struggle with something was definitely at the top of the 'Things that Make Iou Laugh' list. While he was busy trying to figure out where they were, where they were going, and how to get there, she decided to try to get some more rest. So, she wiggled about in her seat and rested her head against the window once more. Sadly, her plan of getting more sleep was cut short and completely ruined by his big mouth. It never failed. She would get comfortable, start dozing off and BAM! He would say something to get her attention or he would just do something annoying to irritate her to wake her back up.

Without missing a beat, she swatted him. “Stop doing that!” The woman smacked his arm a few good times just to make sure she was driving the point home to him, at least for now. “You know I hate it when you do that!” Again, just for good measure, she smacked his arm a few more times. Somehow though, through her smacking, he had managed to shove everything back in to her lap. Iou stared down at the map and everything. She just sat there, staring at it like it was going to try to eat her or something, or perhaps the stare was more or less her silently wondering how he managed to do that. ”You sure you know where you're going? Remember last time you said that? We ended up hours away from our destination..”

[Gideon (DELETED 5567)]

Rubbing his arm through the smacking, after dumping everything in her lap, he laughed “hey, you’re going to bruise the tattoo!” just before he had started driving again. At least now he had his bearings, even if his right arm was feeling a little tender now from the beating it just got. Gideon didn’t even bother to look at his travelling companion when she said the last part, having ignored her previous two comments.

“Of course I know where I am going. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, that was deliberate. I was taking the scenic route because I had this suspicion that the more direct route was going to have a traffic jam. Yes it took several hours to get back from where we ended up, but you cannot deny I was right about the traffic jam and still got us there sooner than if we had gone the direct way, given what caused it and how long it lasted.”

What he was saying was true of course. There had been a wagon overturned across the highway they needed to use, overturned and then exploded, the blast catching several smaller vehicles that had the misfortune of having been too close at the time of the explosion. A number of lives were lost that day, but they at least got to their destination sooner than they would have had he stayed on that road.

It was not too much later, a little over ten minutes, when he pulled in to the parking lot of where they were to stay. “See, told you I knew where I was going.” When he looked over he realised he had startled her awake yet again and prepared himself for another beating of the arm. For some reason he preferred that to just being glared at. Silence from a woman always scared him, especially from his own mother, as that meant a worse punishment than an instant beating was to come, and it was never the same thing twice. Not from his mother, and not from Sassy. Given the similarities at times, he often wondered if maybe they really were brother and sister, that his mother had had an affair at some point and put Sassy up for adoption without he or his father knowing about it somehow.