Tracing Danger [Closed]

[Pierre Roux (DELETED 6974)]

Again, the Allurist understands about half of what Charlie is telling him and fakes the rest with a cheesy smile. There is always that worry in his head that he can’t fit in or get along with people because they don’t have the exact same likes and dislikes. Pierre knows about Doctor Who, of course, but not enough to really quote episodes or compare experiences. If he’s honest, he doesn’t really understand the appeal of Sci-Fi and other kinds of fantasy. Well, that’s not entirely true, it’s more that he doesn’t connect with these outlandish tales of dragons and aliens and magic wands. Pierre was always so in-tune with the real world, with real people and real happenings that were going on today. He never really entertained the notion of real monsters lurking under his bed – well, not past the age of five at any rate. He also questioned the logic and magic of such well-known children’s characters like Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. It was nonsensical to Pierre and he always preferred knowing that it was because his parents loved him that these gifts were bestowed, not merely because some random fat man was passing out presents to all the good kids. It was certainly much more exonerating to feel special than just another one of those faces in a crowd.

Now that he was a Vampire, however, all of Pierre’s expectations and comprehension of what real actually meant has been turned upside down. Before, monsters were just story elements and now he was one; he was that thing that kept children up at night, the thing that had them quivering in a nervous sweat under their duvets. Pierre wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do now. He was finding it difficult to come to terms with his new sense of self – not nearly because his sire has told him things that make his skin crawl, but because he feels like he wants to participate. He wants to feel what it’s like to have children cower away from him, he wants to see the fear in their eyes and he wants to smell the thickness of their blood clotting his nostrils. These things he wants and does not want pull him down the middle, and Pierre is sure he can feel the skin of his psyche breaching under the pressure. Each new obstacle and choice is another tug that tears him further, and this confliction presents itself again when Charlie questions him about Nishaa.

“I don’t think Nishaa is afraid of anything,” he confesses, his voice sounding as much astounded by its own words as it is convinced by them. “She’s a terrifying woman and I hate the thought of disappointing her in anyway. Though… I hate the thought of becoming like her too. It frightens me, the thought of becoming so callous and selfish that I no longer care about hurting people. Not that she’s entirely like that…” Pierre adds with another anxious laugh, the sound of it tripping across his pearly teeth like a mallet striking the keys of a xylophone. “I’m just worried about losing myself, because I don’t know enough about anything to have a full appreciation of the way the future is going to shape itself. I guess… Well, I guess I just need to be more patient.”

It is as honest an assumption as Pierre is able to make. The truth of the matter is that even though Pierre is terrified of Nishaa, he doesn’t hate her or loathe her. He’s scared of what she represents and how easily he could become switched off to his morals, how easily he can give in to what he wants to do deep down. Pierre has always held a firm grip of what is right and what is wrong – it was a great part of who he was. But he’s not him anymore. He’s not that boy who grew up in warmth of Sherbrooke with a loving family, a healthy career, an optimistic future and a charismatic lover – that boy was dead. What was left of Pierre Roux was a crying conscience in the shadowy confines of instinctual desire, fuelled by forces beyond the comprehension of all intelligent creatures. What he was no longer matters because Pierre has to face the fact one way or another that looking back and clinging onto the past is no way to live in the present or future.

“And I was just an ordinary person before this. No one and nothing special. I had dreams like any other person, but those dreams don’t matter now,” he offers with a lazy hug that could be mistaken for melancholy. “How can I have a career and a family and all of those other normal things when I can no longer suffer the daylight and every one person I look at makes me hungry? It’s… it’s just not possible.” Pierre pauses to search the ground for some confidence, for some methods that can lift him up from his misery. He finds a little inspiration when he realises that she’s been the one asking all the questions. Blue eyes search hers with interest and he asks, “…but what about you? Who were you before all of this and has it changed you at all?”

[CharlotteC]

He spoke of a woman, and sadly, her first thought was that this guy might have had something for her. She couldn’t tell, but she wouldn’t ask about it either, it really wasn’t her business. Yet, one thing that she was tempted to butt in about was the fact that he said that she didn’t seem scared of anything. Well if that were true, more people would be more for coming out of the coffin, but she didn’t say anything, she just bit down on her tongue and took in everything else he was saying to her. She scared him but he didn’t want to disappoint her and there was a small part of Charlie that both understood the not wanting to disappoint a sire. However, when he spoke of hating the idea that he might become like her.

For some reason, that fear of his really amused her and she couldn’t help but smile at him, almost as if she were looking at a puppy growling because he was trying to look scary but in truth, he really wasn’t. The fact that he was so aware of his fear of becoming like that should have told him what she believed to be true… that he was no more likely to become callous and selfish than she was to become a member of that group of bullies. No, the chances of that weren’t just slim, they were nil. And as she thought of that, she knew, she could just feel it in her bones that the male that stood before her would neither be callous or selfish no matter how long he lived. Well, he might become the latter, but callous. No. That she just couldn’t see about him.

He continued to speak and she continued to listen, he brought up the idea that he felt that he was losing who he was, that he was worried about the future. She would be worried about anyone that wasn’t worried about the future. Especially as a vampire. Their future, from what she could see now was endless. So much could happen with an eternity. And then there were the fear mongers that said that their wouldn’t even be that because if humans found out about them they would be wiped from the earth like before. But things have changed in the centuries. At least, she could only hope for that. But as the saying goes ‘Hope for the best, Prepare for the worst.’ And that was something she had been doing ever since her last death.

It was when he spoke of needing more patience that Charlie once again smiled at him. He had an eternity now to learn that, but she believed that he had to get past the other parts of his fears before he would come to see that and gain not only patience but freedom as well. He just had to see what she was already seeing. He was still a good guy, the fact that he drank blood didn’t change that. It just meant he had to go about his way of feeding differently. He spoke of having dreams but that those dreams didn’t matter any more. That almost hurt her. Why would someone believe that? What had his sire said or done to him to make him think that? She shook her head, her smile fading just slightly at the thought that he had lost his dreams.

He wanted all the normal things, the same sort of normal things she herself wanted. Career - something that wasn’t a crap shoot for him like he seemed to think, family - she didn’t know of his sire, but usually the sires of this city looked at their blood as a family. No, he may never birth kids, but if he sired, they could be his children or people that he could look out for, provide for, care for. If he ever found someone to love, that person would be his family as well. So yes, she believed at least to an extent, his dreams were still within reach. They were possible.

His question brought her out of her thoughts. He wanted to know about her, what she had been like before and if it had changed her. She had to think about that for a moment. Yes, of course it had changed her in a lot of ways, but she was still the same. Charlie looked at vampirism as if it were alcohol. It didn’t really change anyone, it just brought the side of the person that was normally hidden to light. If the person was good they were a happy drunk or a better vampire, if they were assholes, then that would show. She took a deep breath and moved closer to him, looking deep into his eyes before she chose to answer him. She wanted to see the truth she was about to say in her eyes, not just in her words.

“Before all of this I was a girl that tried to do good by breaking the law. You could say I was an internet version of Robin Hood. Only instead of money, I stole information. When I became a vampire that didn’t change. I still do that, the only thing that has changed is that now I can do it without even being at a computer, and I can do it at speeds that even the best hackers I know would have trouble keeping up with me. Yeah, I take more risks because I know I can handle it now, I can talk my way out of trouble because of what I am, but at the same time I am the same girl now, as a vampire, that I was as a normal girl.”

She smiled at him again and then continued, “Yes, I drink blood now, and yes, there are people that would look at me as a monster. That said, there are people out there that want vampires to be real, that want to know that the mystical can really be real. In a way, they look at us as gods. They want to be like us. I’m not a monster, I drink blood but I drink bagged most of the time, and when I don’t I make sure never to harm the person I feed from. I also never take from someone unless I have their permission. Because of that, I don’t see myself as a monster, I see myself as someone with a different dietary need, nothing more. I’m still me though, I still hold on to my dreams because I know that they are - to an extent - still as possible as the day before I walked in on my fiance and my best friend in bed together.”

Yeah, the sight of her fiance and her friend in bed had blinded her at the moment, but now that she looked at it, she didn’t lose her dreams. She gained more time to achieve them. “I wanted a family, and in a way, I do have one. I have my sire, he’s my mentor like a big brother to me. I have my thrall, he too is like a brother to me. I have women that I see as my sisters now. I did at one time sire a girl that I saw as my daughter. Not just because of her physical age, but because I had brought her into my world to save her. I look at those I mentor in the same way. Is it different? Yes. Yet, at the same time, it isn’t different. Family, it may be different now, but it could be there. If I wanted a career, I could have one of those as well even like this. Really, the only thing I haven’t been able to get my hands on is romance, real, true romance, but I have time, I have all the time in the world now to find that.”

That was the one thing she wanted above all else. Someone to love her the way that she saw how Elliot loved Pi. Someone to care about her and hold her when she was upset. Someone she could be with in a way she hadn’t been with anyone in years. She wanted that so bad and at the same time, she had also given up on that one dream. She was at the point that she believed it would never happen to her now, but she still held onto a little bit of hope. Perhaps she was just deluding herself, but who knew what was to come. She had an eternity to find out.

[Pierre Roux (DELETED 6974)]

Every time the Frenchman smiles and every time his blue eyes shine, they only do so with half the strength they used to. Pierre’s passion has waned like the moon stuck in an eternal equinox, because Pierre doesn’t feel whole anymore. The closest he can get to the sun is feeling it reflect on that lunar majesty, and that stale silver light is cold, leaving him feel like he’s lacking. Something, more than just his history and his life, died the day that Nishaa made his heart stop beating. Was it his soul that had been lost? Pierre isn’t sure he’s ever believed he had one, but that doesn’t mean he can’t feel its loss. He was always polite, always generous and charitable and forgave sins against himself because he was just than kind of man. There was no insurance policy attached to his good behaviour, no God was watching him and making him feel like he just had to impress him. Pierre was good because that was what it took to make the world a better place. There was no point in reserving his charity either, and maybe that made him appear like he had no loyalty at all, but he didn’t mind the back-lash so much. Pierre wants for everyone to find happiness and even if it’s a little counter-productive to save one person before another, just to have that weight of the dead press upon his conscience, at least he could rest assured in the knowledge that he’s saved one rather than neither.

Pierre is the ultimate people-pleaser and it was this quiet and polite side of himself that doesn’t question Charlie or interrupt her as she speaks. There’s a lot of things he wants to ask, like what kind of information she was digging up, and just who were these ‘rich’ that she was judging for the sake of the ‘poor’. Pierre also thinks it’s important to point out – without being over-bearing and critical – that her examples to him about living a “normal life” are flawed. Normal people do not hack computer systems or steal for a living – criminals do that. With Charlie’s questionable morals already on display, it was perhaps going to be easier for her to make the transition into being a homicidal maniac. Pierre feels the tug, the push-pull of his desires warring at his morals every night, so he is certain that is far easier for some people to give in to the calling than it is for others. That doesn’t invalidate his claim that any of this wasn’t totally wrong. They drink blood now, steal it right out of the veins of any person they can get it from. Charlie’s description of those people who look at his kind like Gods makes his stomach do a little back-flip and he feels worms under his skin. He would not see their kind as Gods, he would see them as monsters. He saw Nishaa as a monster the moment he looked at her – a beautiful monster who’d wreck him and rip him to pieces.

Pierre crosses his arms over his stomach as Charlie continues, like he is trying to hold his organs in place. Her description of families even makes him uncomfortable because he is trying to compare it to his knowledge. His sire his not his mother and while Marty is like a kind of brother to him, he doesn’t think he can ever regard the Andras Bloodline as his flesh and blood relatives. Well, maybe in a century or so. It’s not because they’re horrible people, it’s because he can’t replace one life with the other. He can’t begin to chop and change, to exchange those people he knew as family and lovers for these strangers just because they happen to share a bond. It’s all too new to him yet – too much change in a short space of time that makes his heart leap for his throat like it wants to go overboard; leave the ship to sink. But as Pierre is thinking about himself, he remembers to listen to Charlie and what she says about dreams, her fiancé and best friend leaves him speechless, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. He wants to question this too, but he can’t. He just can’t. His face is frozen in a look of shock that only thaws when continues to speak in such a cheery tone.

“I guess you make a good point,” Pierre says, his face having warmed into yet another smile. He looks for her hand, just for a moment, before turning those blues back to her eyes. “We do have an eternity now to learn things, and un-learn things. Maybe I can change what my dreams even mean. Not that I think Nishaa could ever be my mother… it’s just unhealthy to think that way.” Realising that they have been standing there talking for about ten minutes, Pierre makes a nervous sound in his throat before bringing up the subject. “Do you think we should, perhaps, go for a walk?” There’s not a single place in mind that he would lead her to, so he hopes she’ll have the presence of mind to offer their destination.

[CharlotteC]

As he began to speak, Charlie nodded, to his words, a soft smile on her face. Yes, they had time, time to do whatever they needed to do. If they needed to chance things or fix things, they could because they had time. Yes, they could learn more. As a hacker, she always learned new things, and because of how her mind worked, she never forget either. They were clear images in her mind. Music as well and spoke words were as clear as HD recordings in her mind. When she was human she found it to be more of a curse because having so much information tend to leave her with serious migraines, now, she seemed to have an unlimited amount of space for information. Or at least, not as limited as it had been when she had been human.

He spoke about not being able to see Nishaa as a mother, that that sort of thinking was wrong and that caused Charlie to do a bit of a double take on his meaning. However, she just smiled after a moment and shrugged to the male. "You don't have to see her as a moment. I said earlier that I see the male who I call my sire, as more of a mentor than a father. He's more like an older brother if anything. Perhaps you should look at your sire the same way. As nothing more than a mentor. You are her progeny, so she should be teaching you things. Though one thing I learned from the male I no longer see as my sire. Is that you don't always have to listen to what they say. The last time I listened to that monster, I ended up getting killed for his sins." She seemed almost angry in that moment but then shook it off and forced herself to take a calming breath, her eyes shutting for a moment.

When they opened again, they rested on the male and again she smiled to him and nodded. "As for taking a walk, I think that is a pretty good idea. Out here we are likely to incur the wrath of the fae. I know of a place we can go where we can chat more freely, if you would like that?" She said as she made sure that her gun was still safely in place on her back, the shoulder strap high on her shoulder before she turned and glanced back at Pierre, a smile on her face. Ready to lead should he chose to follow.

[Pierre Roux (DELETED 6974)]

Pierre listens with his smile in place as Charlie speaks more, reiterating her earlier words so he can better understand her. He appreciates her attempt to guide him, but maybe he’s being a little cynical, maybe a touch too stubborn. It’s probably because if he really accepts his new Vampire family, then he’s accepting what he is, what he should be – a monster. He is so resistant to acknowledging those sinister urges that he can’t entertain the notion that Nishaa might be his new mother figure, that Every is his grandmother and all these other Vampires connected in their strange web of bites are somehow his new family. Why did Vampires do that anyway? Just because one person brings another person into a group does not make them responsible for that person’s actions, it does not make them their guardian or mentor either. The sire and childe tags seem so very archaic, reminding Pierre of religious rights and laws created specifically to keep the riff-raff in their places. Technically, Nishaa couldn’t be a sire because she was not male, if specifics are to be considered at all.

The Frenchman is drawn out of his brooding when Charlie agrees that they should go on a walk. She couldn’t have agreed sooner because the smell of decaying wolf is adding to his anxieties. Pierre doesn’t know where they could go, but he is so eager to get away from this place that he immediately nods his head at her, grins and then starts walking. It doesn’t occur to him that with the direction he is proceeding in, following the path straight ahead, that they are just walking deeper into the forest. The theory is that, as long as you stick to the path, the Fae won’t disturb you, but could it really be as simple as that? What science or magic did a path possess to ward off the unstoppable beasts? If the explanation is so plain that any creation of man can deter a Fae, then surely they would not cross a Vampire to begin with. All Vampires were once Human, after all, so there had to be a deeper meaning behind it – a meaning that Pierre might one day investigate. He is in need new ambitions after all.

“Do you have anywhere specific in mind, Charlie?” he asks, turning those blues eyes back at her and smiling. That accent of his permeates like cigar smoke and curls around them both in lush, tickling tendrils. “I’m happy to go anywhere that makes you comfortable. We have all night to… talk. Uh, about anything you’d like.”

[CharlotteC]

Though it may have seemed that they were walking deeper into the woods, in fact, they where heading back towards the city, the wilderness in this part was lusher, had more trees and cover - the reason that she had actually chosen it. It would mean that she would actually have to work to find an animal it also meant that the likelihood of accidentally shooting someone was far less than some of the more open areas of the place. It also gave her a place to hide in the form of her animal if she needed to do such. As Pierre asked of their destination, Charlie glanced over at him and smiled softly, her eyes glittering a bit despite the darkness of the area. His accent was something of a draw to her that caused her to slow a bit more, there was a richness there to it. Like a dark chocolate in a way.

With another glance towards Pierre, she continued to walk, "There is a pub I go to whenever I wish to feel a bit more at home despite being surrounded by all kinds of people. It's my mentor's place actually. There are some places where we can relax and just enjoy the atmosphere of the place. As well as talk." She said with a smirk, wondering though what he had thought of in that one moment that had caused him to pause at the word 'talk'. Charlie continued her relaxed pace, and would at times still glance over to see if he had continued to follow her before the treeline began to thin and the lights of the city began to show, twinkling like the stars overhead. It was one of those things really that could bring someone to a stop if they really enjoyed it. The way the city at night looked from a distance. Even if that distance wasn't more than a few hundred yards.

She once again glanced a Pierre and smiled brightly, "Feeling a bit better now that we are away from the sight of death?" Charlie asked softly as she watched him for a moment, the two of them standing just on the outskirts of the city, looking towards the shimmering lights of buildings. She could see West Towers, it was fairly tall and hard not to spot from any place in the city, but outside, as it was one of perhaps three or four tall buildings, she could tell which it was from sight alone. She was actually tempted to change her mind, but at the same time, she didn't want him to feel like it was a trap, and at the same time, she was still on guard herself. Lancaster's would be better. "Ever been to Lancaster's before?" She asked, not knowing for sure but being pretty sure that he hadn't. Being as she worked on the second floor, she had a pretty good knowledge of the regulars, of which, he wasn't.

[Pierre Roux (DELETED 6974)]

Pierre appreciates how effortlessly Charlie can take charge when he needs her to. Though the man is perfectly capable of taking a leading role, he’s been feeling a crisis of confidence since his turning and it’s rather difficult to take charge when you’re not sure you understand what’s happening in your own head let alone what’s happening with the rest of the world. Charlie clearly has the upper hand on him, so it makes sense to take advantage of that. Her suggestion of visiting a bar makes him nervous because he’s supposed to be dead, so going anywhere in public actually gives him chills. Most nights, he’ll dress in all in black, with hoodies, scarves and headwear to disguise his features. He has to blend in, disappear, so that no one recognises him, because if someone should, he wouldn’t know how to deal with it. What is he supposed to say to their questions? Or should he not say anything at all and immediately run? He can’t think about the alternative, about what Nishaa might just command him to do. She has a taste for French blood after all and he doesn’t want to broach the subject if the possibility turns to fatal reality. If she tells him to snap their necks, for instance, he’ll have no choice. He cannot deny this woman anything she asks of him and Pierre likes to disappear into his own little world of denial each time she makes such a frightful request.

He’s almost lost in his own head again as they are walking, he falls about a step or two behind her unconsciously and wakes to realise that they are nearing the city. The lights twinkling in the shadowed space remind him of Christmas even though he’s seen this same landscape a hundred times before. It’s early January, so perhaps latent festive visions are washing before his eyes, twisting his perceptions. He doesn’t give it much thought as Charlie talks to him again. He nods to her question and offers his appreciation, breathing in the air that smells a little less like pinewood and death and little more like smog and engine oil. There’s a fine line between disgust and comfort threading around him, but he smiles to Charlie as though everything is fine. As she gives him further details about this pub that she is leading toward, he notices how those thread pull a little and begin to slice against him. Clearly he’s learnt how to be very paranoid in such a short space of time. Before he’d met Charlie, he considered nothing about traps and betrayal, but her fear has infected him. No he wonders whether her smile is genuine because he knows his is not – albeit for different reasons. She wants to take him into her territory, and although he’d expected such, it makes him uneasy to have no control and no sense of safety. Right up until he remembers his family tome, at any rate.

“No. I haven’t been to Lancaster’s before,” he offers, feeling slightly more confident. “I’m not really much of a… drinker. Before, I my days consisted of going to work, going to class, and then coming home to sleep. I spent any free time studying, taking photographs, creating artwork and catching up on chores. I didn’t have a lot of time to just relax with friends… And we were more likely to go to a park, or eat out, or go to a movie than sit at a bar. I don’t think it was our thing, really.”

Pierre realises that he sounds like he is probably condescending to her, dismissing the lifestyle of those that drink alcohol because he is somehow superior. People usually suspect that he is looking down his nose at them when he says he doesn’t drink. It’s the same scenario as when he says he doesn’t smoke. People automatically assume it’s because he thinks he’s better than them rather than it being a personal preference. Pierre has simply never liked the flavour of booze, or its affects, and therefore doesn’t drink it. When all the kids his age were sneaking about sampling their first mouthfuls of freedom in liquor form, Pierre had his eye down the lense of a camera. His parents were also very liberal, so because they had never denied him anything that was bad for him, he had never been attracted to the charm of forbidden fruits. The Frenchman learned to approach alcohol like any other form of drink and if he didn’t like the taste of it, he wouldn’t force himself to drink it just because everyone else was doing it. Pierre is pretty much immune to peer pressure, but that doesn’t mean he’s socially inept. While he realises that he probably sounds like he is casting her livelihood into the fire, his attempt to fix the potential disaster is averted when he also realises that he hasn’t mentioned Marilyn once either.

Marilyn and Pierre had been together for almost two years before his turning; he even considered popping the question just a few weeks before his death. It was the right thing to do, everyone had said, and while he would never have gone through with something as serious as a marriage on the whim of others, Pierre couldn’t conceive of a single reason why he and Marilyn shouldn’t have gotten married. Though they were young and both had their different viewpoints, they never argued and got along so well you would think they were childhood sweethearts and hadn’t simply run into each other at a seminar on Banksy. Pierre still loves Marilyn too and maybe it’s the fact that he misses her alongside his torn-away life that forces him to never mention her. Perhaps if he can forget, he can stop the pain and never acknowledge it, shove it down deep along with the memories of his sins. It’s a flawed rationale, but it beats facing up to his problems right now. Besides, the thought of mentioning Marilyn to Charlie make his stomach hurt worse than his forearm. It’s the kind of knotting sensation in the stomach that one might feel if they’ve taken something precious away from someone, like ruining a birthday surprise. It’s the kind of discomfort that while seemingly insignificant, gets left to grow into a ball of concrete and glass as time marches on.

As he glances away from Charlie, he realises that this is ordinarily the time when his glasses would threaten to fall. He still feels their weight shifts along the bridge of his nose and Pierre presses a finger along the bone, pushing back the phantom spectacles with his finger until he feels the discomfort leave him. Then he coughs into his fist, trying to come back from the brink of confusion and angst – or at least distract himself from it, but there’s nowhere to really go from here… nowhere other than Lancaster’s apparently. Pierre smiles back to the brown eyed Vampire beside him and makes a gesture toward the city – more for his benefit than hers.

“Is it far? Lancaster’s, I mean. Just because I don’t go to bars usually doesn’t mean we can’t go to one tonight. If it makes you comfortable, I’m more than happy to go with you.”

He’s overcompensating out of guilt and partially because there doesn’t seem to be any alternatives. Pierre is happy enough to make Charlie comfortable and if she’s most at ease in a bar that belongs to her mentor then he doesn’t really have a reason to refuse. Though, he can’t help thinking that if the situation was reversed and he’d offered to take Charlie onto his territory with the potential to meet Nishaa, then she might fret about it. Charlie already believes that Vampires are basically untrustworthy and now that she’s enlightened him to the fact, he can’t help but feel more insecure than ever. With any luck at all, Pierre is just making mountains out of molehills and everything will turn out just fine in the end.