Cough Syrup

[Fleur]

Cough Syrup

ooc: backdated to 19 January 2016

<Fleur> Fleur had a special place in the park, a place that she’d since dubbed her second home. A park bench. The dark-haired woman always returned to the same bench. She shouldn’t have had the opportunity. The statistics were against her. And yet, she always managed to obtain the same seat on the very same bench. When she approached, humans shied away from her, moving farther and farther down the bench. They always left. Something about her appearance, perhaps her mere presence, set them on edge. For hours on end, Fleur sat amongst the withered displays of flowers and stared out at the park. Unmoving. Uninterested. Undisturbed.

Her days had consisted of the same: She awoke in her Sanctuary apartment, she checked her emails (as if she were expecting emails), and she made the journey to Thornside Park. On the rare occasion, she descended the ladder into the sewer. Twice, she ran into two very interesting people, two very interesting vampires, and she’d broken her silence to share her blunt nature with them. One, a man named Robin, made reappearances, enough reappearances that they shared a conversation. Fleur never had conversations. The last time she’d had a real conversation, she’d been in Bullwood--yes, she remember the exact spot--and she’d been speaking to her “sibling,” Rowan. But that had been weeks, possibly months ago.

Fleur couldn’t count the frequent words she shared with Dorothy, or with the other dead that lingered around her. Conversations with the dead hardly seemed healthy. Then again, she couldn’t care about what was healthy, not with the unhealed wounds on her face, not with the masks she constantly wore. No, to concern herself with what was healthy, or what was acceptable, seemed too contradictory.

“You’re waiting for that creepy man. Is he your friend? I have friends! I have Courtney and Henry and Pamela,” Dorothy listed off, ticking the names by counting on her fingers. “But you knew that, huh? How come you only got one friend? You’re nice.”

Fleur blinked and slowly turned her head to look at the little girl. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know why she didn’t have more friends. Fleur seemed content to wander through life on her own. She missed one person. The others were easily replaced, if she chose to replace them at all. Cooper. That had been her friend’s name. She really liked Cooper.

“Your questions are getting on my nerves again. He is my friend, and I have one friend because I choose to have one friend. If he is creepy to you, then what am I? What are you? You’re a rotting corpse. You could change your appearance, with a little effort, but you choose to appear like your grisly remains,” Fleur replied. “I should get rid of you for being such an annoying little girl.”

Though Fleur often threatened the girl with exorcisms and banishments, Dorothy still wailed and disappeared, leaving Fleur to sit and enjoy the peace and quiet. For well over an hour, she remained in the same spot, content to enjoy the sound of the water lapping against the edge of the land. But when she grew tired of sitting there, she did something out of the ordinary. The stoic woman reached into the hidden pockets of her off-white tutu skirt, searching for her phone. When she found the device, she turned it on and began composing an email, a short, blunt request for his presence in Thornside Park. Fleur even provided directions for him to follow, directions which led directly from Honeymead Station to her exact location. And then she waited.


<Robin Little> If Robin could get away with it, he’d have someone take blood from him every night. As it was, blood thieves weren’t all that demanding. They didn’t need a vampire’s blood every night. They only needed it every three nights, maybe five. And maybe they had other vampires they could go to. If Robin could, he’d have three of them on the go at the same time. One each night. He didn’t particularly care much about his own thirst.

Freddo had texted the night before. There was something about the guy that Robin couldn’t put his finger on; a kind of weighty gravitas that Robin himself lacked. He was far too awkward, and far short of reliable. Robin got the sense that, if Robin weren’t a vampire, Freddo wouldn’t be friends with him. Not even acquaintances.

That didn’t bother Robin as much as it should; they were both getting what they needed out of each other. Tonight, though, he had no blood thieves lined up. He had no unsavoury business to attend to. Every time he went, it felt like some kind of drug deal. Something to be done in private because there were those that deemed it unclean. Or something ludicrous like that. But it was no different to what Robin used to get up to - both when he was oblivious to vampires and afterwards, when he knew all.

When Fleur emailed, it was timely. Robin found himself back at the internet cafe where he usually ran into her. Did they both keep going back, just in case they’d see the other? As odd and completely ******* strange as she might be, she was good company. Robin liked her. And he didn’t like being alone. He seemed to attract the strange or the broken, which was fine by him. He was one and the same. As the pop-up informed him of a new email, he’d been wondering whether she was coming tonight. As he read, he realised she wouldn’t be. Because she wanted him elsewhere.

Robin immediately logged off the computer and packed his belongings. He followed the directions, staring at the screen every few seconds, the eerie blue light illuminating his features. As an allurist, he passed as human. The wind was brisk but the fresh air was nice, regardless. It took him ten minutes, maybe less, to find her. Thornside Park was just across the road from the cafe. When he found her, he dropped heavily onto the bench beside her.

[Robin Little]

<Robin Little> “I was wondering where you were…” he said.

The email she had said was as blunt as she always was. Though it had Robin curious.

“You’re not going to chop me into little pieces, are you? Photograph those pieces, to try to put me back together again for some weird art project? A severed limb turning to ash in grass… that could be artistic… but I don’t think there’s any grass around. The snow….” he said. Babbling. Because babbling was what Robin did best. Just like his namesake.


<Fleur> “He talks a lot, huh? Hey, mister? You talk a lot. Mister? Mister!” Dorothy stood behind the bench and waved her hands in front of Robin’s face. When her motions didn’t gain his attention, she circled around the bench and jumped up and down. “Flower, why isn’t he doing anything? He’s ignoring me! Mister! Mister Robin!”

Fleur kept her attention on Robin, but Dorothy’s constant chatter and her endless movements actually irritated Fleur. The woman wanted nothing more than to reach forward, grab Dorothy’s hand, and shove the girl down onto the bench, but Fleur knew that attempts to initiate any type of contact were fruitless. Dorothy had no physical form. Once or twice, Fleur couldn’t keep her attention on Robin, but she kept a neutral expression. Anything other than neutral usually bothered her wounds.

Just before Robin ceased his own chattering, Fleur leaned toward him, her hand outstretched, index finger poised, and prodded his lips. She’d focused on his lips, and how they moved when he talked so much. And he talked a great deal more than she’d anticipated. His words blurred together, only bits and pieces of his one-sided conversation surfacing from the steady hum of his voice. Fleur had already forgotten what it meant to sit there and enjoy the muted sounds of nature.

“I’m not going to chop you up. I don’t hurt other vampires,” Fleur replied, retracting her hand, “unless they deserve it, I suppose. I don’t think you deserve it, even though you talk too much. Your never-ending stream of words entertains me.”

On that evening, Fleur had worn a white surgical mask. The material gathered nicely around her mouth, not too tight, nor too loose, and matched the color of her tutu skirt. Sometimes, she enjoyed colors coordinating; other times, she enjoyed picking the most outlandish clothing and accessories. Dorothy draped herself over the back of the bench, and Fleur finally turned her head to stare at the dead girl. Dorothy let out a loud sigh, one that mixed with a wavering groan. The ghost was bored.

“Tell him he looks funny. He reminds me of a koala. Tell him. Tell him I said that. Flower. Flower! Tell him I said he’s a koala,” Dorothy nagged.

Fleur had never tried using her powers to banish a spirit, but Dorothy’s incessant nagging and the dramatic sighs eventually wore on Fleur’s nerves. Her eyes strayed from the ghost and she focused on severing the connection between herself and Dorothy. When she glanced back in the girl’s direction, Fleur no longer saw the girl’s wild hair or the oozing wound. “Dorothy said you remind her of a koala. She would have had more to say, but I banished her.”

The honesty no longer bothered her. Where she might have lied or concealed such information, Fleur no longer had much of a tolerance for games. Her time in the shadow realm had taught her a lot about herself, and about the world beyond the blackness. She’d lost so many parts of herself that she hardly felt like herself at all. Fleur had left as Fleur and returned as someone else. A robot. An imposter. An alien.


<Robin Little> Robin might have wondered at the sanity of the person he was speaking to, but who was he kidding? She wore a mask twenty-four-seven. At least, every time he’d seen her, she’d been wearing a mask. For all he knew, she never even took it off to shower. He opened his mouth to reply then shut it again, frowning momentarily. It took him a few seconds to decipher - there had been both an accusation and a compliment. The compliment came afterwards, so he had so assume that she didn’t care if he talked too much.

“I’d be worse if coffee had any effect. Or alcohol. But I can really just digest it. And taste it. But it…” he stopped. How long had Fluer been a vampire? How many did she know? Was she aware of the quirks of allurists when it came to food? He, at least, was aware of the existence of spirits and wraiths though he could not see them or summon them himself. Although he hadn’t seen much of Lorelai lately, his friend had not been remiss in telling him everything he should know. Though, there were some things he had learned from Jameson before he had become what he had become.

For a few seconds, Robin stared at the empty space beside Fleur, though he had to tell himself that even if he tried really hard to detect the presence of another being, Fleur had just admitted to banishing it. It still didn’t stop the shudder from passing lightly down his spine. How often were the spirits watching? What if one followed him home? What if they were in his bedroom, in those minutes just before sunrise, when he couldn’t sleep yet and wanted something to do? Lorelai would probably be horrified, too…

But he wouldn’t mention that. He wouldn’t want to give any lingering spirits any ideas.

“... I’m really not sure how I look like a koala, though. I thought Koalas were kind of… short and fat. And… they waddle. I don’t really waddle,” Robin said, shaking his head to negate any notion that he might have looked like the Australian mammal.

“Nice girl though, I suppose. Is she your ah… your wraith?” he asked. Maybe he was prying. If it wasn’t Fleur’s wraith, then maybe it was some lingering spirit. Or maybe Fleur was just making it all up. It was an excuse, so that she herself could tell him he reminded her of a koala. Or maybe she really was kind of insane - but being a vampire could make it seem less obvious. Though regardless, Robin still found her company to be intriguing.