Nights & Whiskey [Open]

[Aurelia]

There were many things that went together, and other things that didn't. For Aurelia, one of the things that didn't go together was sunshine and whiskey. Her ex, Lawrence, would have disagreed - he had always enjoyed drinking earlier in the day on nights when he didn't have to go into the office. It was one of the things that she'd never been able to compromise on in their relationship, and as she removed the beige hat from on top of her straw colored hair, she was glad now that she had never wavered.

Even if it did sound like a damn good idea.

Instead, there was a day to day effort that kept her in check. That kept the disappointment at bay. She had a schedule and she'd be damned if she couldn't keep it. For that day, she had to go get groceries; even if she lived on a ranch, she didn't kill the animals that roamed on her grounds for food. They'd been her pets growing up and although her parents scoffed at her attitude once they visited from their new apartment, she didn't care. She liked living in the country, away from it all.

But, living in the main part of the area always had its perks. When she went to the farmers market, the vegetables were fresh and plump, even if only seasonal - she was still working on becoming a better gardener; so far, the only things that had survived her trial were tomatoes that had tasted too bitter for her. The gas mileage had also seemed to get better, an improvement from the last time she'd been there for more than a week. However, with upsides, came downsides. Being in the city, particularly in Wickbridge, the dreadful feeling in the pit of her stomach had returned with a vengeance that had startled her. Even if she could ignore it, for the most part. Just like the spirits that lingered about, crying out for their loved ones. Wanting someone to hear them, to see them.

It had been part of the reason she left, really. And now, she wasn't too thrilled to be shopping after dark in the nearest grocery market. Aurelia always felt they ruined the experience. A man with a gash in his throat stood not too far from the cereal aisle where a mother with triplets looked through the spirit and reached for another. Her youngest child stood still, gripping the woman's dress and staring at the spirit - was it because the child was young, or was he liked her? The question was something she always pondered when she caught children staring.

By the cheese, Aurelia found an old lady wearing one shoe. Her hair was a little disheveled, but there was no sign of violence. When she caught the younger woman staring, the woman frowned at her and put her shoe back on causing the blonde to mentally sigh before continuing on towards the rest of the dairy section. "Sometimes, the living are stranger than the dead." She thought to herself as she reached into her pocket to search for the list she'd created. Behind her, she heard footsteps and then felt pressure on her hand. The smell of whiskey washed over her, a man breathing out, "Hey pretty lady," as her eyebrow twitched.

"Leave me be." She said, lifting the hand off her shoulder and turning around to face him. He was around her age, dressed in a suit. She supposed he'd had a rough night, his tie was loose and hanging around his neck. Scowling at the man, she stepped back, watching as he stepped closer.

[Evangeline]

The chime of her phone had her automatically reaching across the desk, slender fingers curving around the black plastic to pull the headset from the cradle. Tucking it between her chin and shoulder, she rested back in her chair, nails flying across the keys of her desktop, the stead whir of the ancient machine the only sound – other than the heavy breathing coming over the line. “This is Dr. Hart, how may I help you?” Her voice was as gentle as a summer breeze, and as turbulent as a brewing storm as she waited with bated breath for the caller to speak. It was unlikely that it would be a joyous call, not when it was – ****, was it really that late? “I can hear you, you know. If you need help, I need you to talk to me,” she tried, her voice softening as if she were trying to coax a rabid, frightened dog from beneath a bed. It was the only method she had left. She had the patient of a Saint, but as the nights grew longer and these calls increased in volume, her patience had become threadbare, a piece of string frayed and ready to snap with the right amount of pressure.

“I’m going to hang up now. I suppose I’ll hear from you tomorr—“
Click.

As the line went dead, she replaced the handset to the cradle with a slow shake of her head. It was not uncommon in her line of work to receive threats, or in this case, the threat of a threat – but these calls were bordering on ridiculous. Sighing in quiet frustration, she gave a few last clicks of her mouse, saving the final patient final to her hard-drive before finally pressing the power button, causing the monitor to darken. Collapsing against the back of her chair, she ran both her hands through her auburn hair, causing the curls to become tossed and mussed. Thankfully, she wasn’t one to care much about her appearance in the sanctuary of her own office after hours. She had no one to please, no one to dress up for. That ship had sailed when her ex-girlfriend had waltzed out of her life, pert little *** cupped in the hand of some wealthy businessman.

You just cared too much about work, Eva, and not enough about me.

She was probably right.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had done something just for herself – or for someone she cared about. She spent her days and nights in the office, her clientele a mix of human and vampire. In the mornings, she listened to the familiar issues of the mortal; in the evenings, the morbid and sometimes frightening tales spun by the immortals. I’m servicing society, she told herself each morning when she pulled herself out of bed, bare feet slipping into a pair of warm slippers. By night, as she slid into the comfort of her car, she wondered if she was cut out for this career. Humans were one thing, their minds were a familiar complexity, but vampires… they were more than just a different breed. They were utterly chilling, their issues so entangled, so dark, it left her uneasy.
So, yeah, she probably did spend a lot of time locked away in her own mind, and not enough on her relationships. Of course, Andrea hadn’t exactly made it easy with her high-pitched voice, voyeurism and sociopathic nature. She was drawn like a moth to the flame to the troubled, it seemed.

Running her hands once more through her hair, she pushed from the desk and grabbed her keys from the desk, her tired gaze sweeping the office once more before she headed for the exit. It was well past quitting time, the last client having left over an hour ago. Already, she could feel her stomach twisting with hunger, and she could only imagine what her dogs were feeling, having been locked inside all day. A quick trip to the market for provisions – and treats for the fur children – and she’d be in bed by three.

It didn’t take her long to navigate the roads to the store, and within ten minutes, she was inside the bright light aisles, her hands greedily grabbing whatever appealed to her. Each step she took echoed throughout the nearly empty market, the Gucci heels causing the arches of her feet to ache. It didn’t take her long to pause outside the cheese, fingers dipping into the black straps to slide them from her ankle. When she had freed her feet of the torturous beauties, she dangled them from her fingers and pressed her sore soles against the chilled tile. Curling her fingers once more around the handle of the cart, she headed a few steps down, only to pause when her ears perked, picking up the hint of a masculine voice. Searching for the source, her eyes landed on the blonde, face contorted in discomfort as she edged away from the man, who, of course, didn’t seem to give a damn about personal space.

“Hey, do we need milk?”

Her lightly accented voice broke the otherwise heavy silence as she pushed the cart forward – nearly pressing it to the man’s back – before she walked around to stand alongside the blonde. “You don’t look familiar,” she smiled, mahogany eyes sparkling with warmth, despite the icy feeling curling within the pit of her stomach. “Is he a friend of yours, love?” Pulling her plump lower lip between her teeth, she draped her arm loose about the blonde’s waist as she allowed her gaze to slowly roam over the man. It didn’t take her well trained eye to pick out the small tales in the man’s distress, and that only made her more wary as her smile started to wane.

[Arielle]

W E A R I N G

Checking her watch, Arielle frowned at her reflection in the polished glass face of the instrument. She lifted her other hand to brush at a bit of lint that had managed to find its way into the joint of her sunglasses, caught in the hinge and hanging just outside of her peripheral vision. She grimaced at the bit of fuzz and shook it away from her face, letting it float slowly to the floor. She sighed, then, as she noticed the time. The day had been wearing away faster than she would have liked, her time away from work dwindling faster and faster with every passing day. The situation in Harper Rock had become uneasy, to say the very least. Unrest had infected the people, and it was making her job that much more difficult; that much more important.

She shook her head and pushed herself up onto the toes of her tall heels, managing to gain only another inch of height, nothing close enough to let her see over the aisles. She made a mental note to kick her sister’s shin again later for being born with every bit of her share of height. She let herself settle back down to the floor with a click of her heels as a young man moved to slide between her and the endcap she stood next to, much more room being left on the other side as she had intended to let people pass her by there.

She knew his type, knew he was just hoping to be a bit closer to a pretty woman. She didn’t say anything, and he didn’t do anything but brush past, letting himself by with just a slight bump of his hip to her side. She’d give the man a hug, if she knew him. She’d grown accustomed to people his age trying to make a grab for something that would earn them the sting of her palm across their face. It was nice to see a youthful face with enough taste to keep his hands to himself. She even graced the man with an apologetic smile and gave him a little wave of her fingers. He returned the wave with a cheerful smile, and vanished down the next aisle.

Already, her day was better. Suddenly, she was in a bright sort of mood again, even if her sister was taking way longer than they had agreed to meet back up front to continue shopping. She gave herself a chuckle and turned to head toward the back of the market, where Aurelia should have been. A brisk walk wasn’t going to hurt her.

As she came upon the back of the store, stepping around the end of the aisle and nearly running into a pair of young women as they moved along the back of the market walking as close to the ends of the aisles as they could manage, the epitome of rude if anyone would have asked Arielle, she saw Aurelia standing in the dairy section, an older woman standing with a cooler door wide open as she read the label on a glass bottle of milk was between them, and a man older than herself, closer to Aurelia’s age, appeared to all but try and drape himself over her.

Her immediate reaction was to reach for her gun and show the drunk a good lesson about keeping his hands to himself, but, she reasoned with herself, this was an opportunity. An opportunity for her to see how, with the way things were changing all around them, and the way that the world was devolving into a real shitshow, how she would handle this sort of situation if she wasn’t anyone special, if she didn’t have authority.

She frowned to herself as she watched Aurelia step away from the man and his stubborn pursuit, his drunken gait lazily sliding back into place with every pace that she tried to put between them. A very real wave of anxiety washed over her at the sight of the man’s insistent stature, and she stepped around the end of the aisle, finally, and moved to stand with her sister. It was that moment that the taller, more slender woman with hair like flame stepped between them, and leaned herself easily into Aurelia’s side. Perhaps two perfectly capable women would be enough to shake him off.

The red haired woman slipped her arm about Aurelia’s waist and collected her elder sister’s space for herself, effectively cutting off the man’s access to half the woman’s body. The woman was a pro at fielding a good ****-block, even if a little… forward, for a stranger. Arielle decided on letting the woman handle her sister, though she had her eye on the redhead, even as she closed the space between herself and the quickly growing knot of people. “Well I didn’t expect to run into anyone we knew out here. Who’re your friends?”

She was careful. Careful not to use Aurelia’s name, in the case that the man might pick up on that, and remember it later for some cyber stalking. She wasn’t exactly sure how her sister felt about the woman, either, but she was certainly attractive enough to put a little proximity at a small problem that she was sure her sister could handle. Careful to keep herself at least partially between the two women and the drunken man, and careful to keep a good bearing on where her weapon was strapped to her thigh at all times. If the man kept things up, she supposed, she could possibly just arrest him. Though, she hoped to avoid a scene herself. It was infinitely harmful to her cover, to have to make an arrest in such a public place. Surely, her handler would understand another assault charge. They mounted up quickly while she was at home.

She turned to her sister, then, and gave the woman a bright smile. “He’s kind of cute.”

He wasn’t. Not to her, anyway. But Aurelia would know that. It would hardly be the first time, and she doubted that it would be the last, that she “took one for the team,” as it was put. She turned to the man and offered him a smile. “How about we get you some coffee, and get you sobered up a little there, big boy?”

[Aurelia]

If she was asked, there were times where she preferred the company of the dead to the living. She could ignore the dead, pretend they weren’t there even as they reached out and put their hand through her body. Sure, it felt as if she’d jumped into an icy pond in the exact spot where the limb would pass through, but it was easy to ignore. The living, however, men in particular who didn’t listen to the request to leave her alone, didn’t. Even if she could defend herself fine, Aurelia had always been one to try and remain on the polite side. She knew how to throw a punch, how to evade being grabbed and how to escape conflict with ease - both physically and verbally.

But it was on days where she was tired, where she’d been out for a spell, that the woman preferred to just be left alone. And the man continued. ”All I wanted to do was grab a few things and then drag Arielle home for sisterly bonding.” Aurelia narrowed her eyes slightly as she could smell the alcohol wafting off the man as if it were seeping from his pores. Her patience was growing thinner and she thought about the mace in her pocket - a gift from her father when she’d moved away to the big city. She’d never found reason to use it; even as a prosecutor, she’d always been more favorable. Threats were never followed through. Her media image always remained clean even in bad situations where her partners weren’t.

The last thing she expected was to hear a woman asking if they needed milk. Aurelia’s blue eyes moved to the red head and thought that she was the man she was speaking to. She was certainly pretty, the words slipping from her thoughts as the woman came her way and to her side; it registered only a moment late as her lips parted briefly when she realized it was not the case. The closeness was appreciated, as was the image was created the moment Aurelia felt the arm around her waist. In return, she moved her hand to rest against the small of the other’s back as she said, ”Yes, milk. Nearly forgot to put it on the list.” Her gaze remained on the man as he seemed briefly confused before an interested glimmer appeared in his eyes.

It was nearly enough for Aurelia to want to knock him to the ground. ”I would lose my head if it weren’t for you.” She smiled, the double meaning completely going over the man’s head as he swayed on his feet and her body relaxed in the red head’s grasp. ”He isn’t a friend, but this is...” The blonde trailed off and paused, only to get the same implication asked by her younger sister. ”You know, I actually think he didn’t introduce himself before he began to paw at me.” There was a tint of red to his face at her words, the drunken man beginning to sputter before he finally turned his attention towards Arielle.

As her sibling said the man was kind of cute, Aurelia couldn’t help the look of disbelief that crossed her features. Her eyebrow upraised, her lips pressing together briefly. Where Aurelia had always dated more men than women in her life, Arielle had been more involved with the opposite. Time and time again, her younger sibling was more comfortable with taking one for the team than the older. Aurelia was more comfortable telling someone to go screw themselves and walk away, or to threaten them with physical harm if it got bad enough. ”Or he could simply just have a taxi called?”

Or that he should be introduced to something cold. That usually sobered Aurelia up quickly after a long night of drinking brought on by a bad case. A chill rang up her spine, causing the woman to turn her head briefly to see a spirit of a brunette staring at the man intently over her shoulder. No wounds, no visible damage. She was beautiful even in death, dressed in blue pajamas, but rather than look at Aurelia, speak to her, she remained staring at the man. It caused the blonde to step closer to the red head. The chill from the spirit grew deeper in her spine as she passed through, her shoulder gaining pins and needles as the blonde looked back towards the male.

”Lost love?” She wondered. He didn’t look too heartbroken to her. ”And, this is my heroine.” Aurelia smiled towards the red head, silently applauding the way she’d stepped in without missing a beat.