Star-Crossed Citizens

[Irene (DELETED 3180)]

“… I was also increasingly isolated in a more conventional way. The outer world, England, London, became absurdly and sometimes terrifyingly unreal. The two or three Oxford friends I had kept up a spasmodic correspondence with sank beneath the horizon. I used to hear the B.B.C. Overseas Service from time to time, but the news broadcasts seemed to come from the moon, and concerned situations and a society I no longer belonged to, while the rare newspapers from England that I saw became more and more like their own “One hundred years ago today” features. The whole island seemed to feel this exile from contemporary reality.”

- The Magus, John Fowles

That was the way Irene felt, or at least, an approximation of how Irene felt. She doubted that Nicholas Urfe would know what it might feel like to know that you were virtually stranded in a city with, according to Henshin, three thousand vampires in it. But his plight was similar: they both feared for their sanity, they both were subject to the whims of purportedly supernatural creatures and events, and they were both pronouncedly foreigners in a pronouncedly strange, isolated place. There was a constant feeling of displacement, of unreality.
Irene had taken to carrying around a small, circular mirror with her in her pocket. She’d surreptitiously point it at people sometimes, to check for reflections. The reflections were always there. At one point, Irene thought that maybe Henshin was just a well-orchestrated prank. Somebody thought it would be funny to convince her that vampires were real. After all, you could fake that sort of thing, if you really wanted to. You could rig mirrors up like that.
But then, on a walk home one evening from the library (researching the Harper Rock population, the history, the economy, anything to keep her mind busy and filled with facts to keep her sane), Irene saw a couple of people fighting. Which would have been normal and mundane enough, except that it wasn’t. They were moving too fast. They were hitting too hard. And just as soon and suddenly as she’d spotted them—that man and that woman—they were gone.

So she spent her afternoons in the library, filling up her head and her notebook with Harper Rock; the myths, the tabloids, the rumors. In the evenings, she went on walks, her Lady Derringer always tucked in the inside pocket of her coat, hoping for another glimpse. She wasn’t ready to call on Henshin again, for another conversation. Or Jacob, who she strongly suspected was a vampire. She went on walks with Elliot—intimate walks through the unreal streets of Harper Rock when he came to pick her up from the library, or she went off to steer him away from somewhere else. They walked sometimes holding hands, sometimes with her arm hooked through his elbow, or else just standing close, talking.
She needed those walks, the warmth of speaking about mundane things: the reconstruction of his bar, the Necropolis; her progress with her book, or her lack thereof (“Writer’s block,” she complained. “It’s awful. And nobody else has let me interview them. I might have over-evaluated those rumors, you know. So I think I’ll just write a novel, instead. What do you think of the title, Twilight Redux?”); their past—reminiscing about Paris, and then sharing tidbits about themselves they didn’t already know; what they did those three years of being incommunicado; art, literature, music (Irene told Elliot about Aubrey Beardsley, Elliot told her about David Bowie and Iron Maiden). Whatever. She needed those; they kept her feet on the ground, figuratively as well as literally. One time, he busked for the hell of it and she sat near, watched and chatted with the audience that inevitably crowded around him (that mirror sometimes flashed in her hand).

One evening, Irene pulled Elliot into a Chinese restaurant with a little red dragon or gargoyle waiting at the front door. It was all flared nostrils and menacing teeth, but the hostess was a welcoming young woman in a red Cheongsam. The restaurant had a name that Irene couldn’t pronounce, though the menu was familiar. The inside was lit with Chinese lamps, and on one wall facing the kitchen was a mirror that took up half the height and width of the wall.
There were about fifteen or eighteen other people in the restaurant, aside from her and Elliot and the staff, all of them with their reflections intact—as far as she could see, anyway. All was well, and normal, and Irene wanted steamed fried rice.

“You used to have a much fiercer appetite,” Irene said, tapping her chopsticks on the bottom of Elliot’s bowl.
”I’m not as poverty stricken anymore,” he said, shrugging. “I’m not as hungry as I used to be.” Irene bit on one chopstick, watched him eat for a second, and then winked when he looked up at her staring before she went back to her meal.

“Wanna stay over tonight?” Irene asked when they were out on the street again, meal done and paid for. The tone was nonchalant, but the other, veiled invitation was implicit. He didn’t say anything, but instead put his arm over her shoulders and led her off to the house. It wasn’t far off.

[Lancaster]

<Lancaster> The nights that he spent with Irene were glorious. They were filled with warmth and bright lights, and no woe touched its sticky fingers upon Lancaster’s heart, or bothered him with thorns in his thoughts. It was only ever after he left Irene’s side that he began to worry about what the future might bring, and the discourtesy that he was doing to her by remaining by her side—by prolonging a relationship that did not seem to be only a mere fling.

Lancaster thanked all the stars in the night sky that he had landed upon the path that he had. That he had a reflection—he was not daft. It didn’t matter how inconspicuous she tried to be with it, Lancaster could see the way Irene constantly referred to her mirror. He was glad that he could eat and drink, and was certain that his excuse concerning his eating habits was an acceptable one.

It was only a matter of time before that heavily hinted question would be asked. Lancaster had not stayed the night with Irene since they had solidified their relationship. The time they had spent together, their kisses only grew more fervent. Lancaster was almost certain that he caught the veiled hint in her question, anyway—he didn’t trust himself to answer, so merely folded his arm over Irene’s shoulders and began to lead the way. It was only when they were halfway there that he spoke again.

“I s’pose the landlady will be home?”


<Irene> "She's always home," Irene said off-handedly. She tucked herself against Elliot's side, her hands in her coat pocket--mostly to hang on to have something to hold on to while the elation burgeoned in her chest. This was almost like being a teenager again, except much better. There was that fear that he wouldn't say 'no', or think badly of her for initiating anything like this. After all, Elliot always gave off this feeling of being perpetually uninterested in women, or sex, as if his mind were always on loftier things: a kind of precious, gentle unattainability. That was why, three years ago, Irene said nothing. He was 'too tall'.

"Her son, too. But I'm sure we won't bother each other." Irene made a show of brushing her hand over her cheek to push away a strand of hair that had come loose from the bun. It was mostly to cool her cheek, which had gone into that idiotic blush again.


<Lancaster> Lancaster momentarily lifted his arm from Irene's shoulder to grasp at the hand that she used to brush the strand of her from her cheek. She was blushing again--tucked so close to him, Lancaster was consumed by the scent of her. The warmth that vibrated beneath her skin, the scent that was so indelibly Irene. Heat flushed her skin and he enjoyed it. He pushed his fingers through hers, keeping that hand from covering the red tinge on her cheek. "Mmm. How long do you think you'll stay there? Renting that room? D'you think you'll find somewhere else at any point?" Lancaster asked. It was a way to make conversation - they weren't too far from their destination. But it was also a tactic - how long would she be staying in Harper Rock?


<Irene> 'Stop,' she mouthed, turning away for half a second to hide her grin--which was futile, really, she was about to break her face with it. "I don't know," she said, with a little exhale. "I've been wanting to find another apartment for a couple of days, now." Irene's thumb brushed over Elliot's as they walked down the last two blocks to the house. "You wouldn't happen to know any place, would you?" She looked up at him. The tone of her voice sounded more coquettish than she meant it to be; just piling on the veiled messages tonight, Irene.

<Lancaster> Lancaster perked a brow. His question had not been meaningless, then. Had not come out of nowhere. She'd already been looking for an apartment. The vampire glanced down at the human at his side--there was something in her tone, something in the way she was looking at him. Was there a question between the lines that he wasn't understanding? The tiniest hint of understanding, and he forced it away--he remained ignorant. He narrowed his eyes. "Not off the top of my head, no. There are a few complexes around..." he said. He knew the names. He knew the addresses. But he was loathe to give them. Too many vampires he knew lived in those complexes. "I'm sure there'll be something," he said with a smile. Hold her gaze. He told himself. Don't let her think you're hiding anything.


<Irene> Irene made a face and let out a silvery laugh, half-embarrassment and half-incredulity. Though it was just as well that Elliot didn't seem to understand; it occured to her that even to suggest something like that was moving just a little too fast. "Okay," she said, getting out from under his arm and leading him along the pathway toward the house. The ivied bay-and-gable was so pretty, the patio so wonderful; she didn't want to leave the place, but Olivia and William got on her nerves too often, they were always hanging around. Irene still kept her hold on Elliot's hand as she took the key out of the pocket of her coat and turned it in the lock.

Miraculously, William was out walking the dog (or at least she guessed, because Ivan wasn't anywhere), though Olivia was in the living room, watching television. The back of her white head was turned toward the door. Irene turned back to Elliot and put her forefinger on her lips, shushing him as she closed the door behind them, as quietly as she could. "Mum will hear," she hissed.


<Lancaster> Lancaster couldn't help the wide smirk that spread across his lips. He did as he was bid; he kept as quiet as a mouse as he followed in Irene's stead--through the front hall and toward the stairs. He couldn't remember ever having any kind of secretive dalliance in high school. Had never had to be hidden from any girl's parents. To pretend that the two of them were teenagers, engaged in an act of stubborn defiance, was exciting in a way that Lancaster couldn't describe. Nor did he try. They reached the top of the stairs without a hitch, and with a little more noise navigated toward Irene's bedroom.

As soon as the door was closed firmly behind them, Lancaster tightened his hold on Irene's hand and tugged her toward him. His kissed her--not with the familiarity that they had grown accustomed to over the past weeks, but with the heavy expectation of more to come.


<Irene> Irene almost laughed again, but the minute she closed her bedroom door behind them she was pressed up against Elliot's chest, her mouth and his melting together in that close, heavy, langurous kind of way. You saw that kind of kiss in movies, when the girl and the guy get home after doing whatever, or after a date, and the tension's been building up between them for so long that it all slow-motion explodes in that passionate, picture-perfect kind of kiss: soft lips, open mouths, and modest bits of tongue thrown in the mix. Irene nearly threw herself up into Elliot's arms, she was up on the tips of her toes so fast. Her heart beat quicker in its cage, thudding in that all-encompassing way that made her think of nothing but that exact moment. Irene's hands cupped Elliot's jaw, they found his collarbones, they found the lapels of his jacket, which she tenderly pushed--more like a suggestion, really--off of his shoulders.


<Lancaster> There was no need to talk about it. The two of them engaged in a dance that mankind knew by instinct--a dance that had existed since the beginning of time. Lancaster didn't want to rush. Like everything he did, he liked to savour the moment. To remember every single second, to emblazon each second into his memory so that he would remember every aching sensation. He disengaged his hand from Irene's, his palm from her neck, to allow the jacket to be removed from his shoulders. In the process of their slow dance, Lancaster removed the bag hanging from Irene's shoulder, and allowed it to drop to the ground near the door. Next, he sought to push the jacket from her shoulders, echoing her former intentions.


<Irene> She mirrored Elliot; shrugged her jacket off and cast it to the floor. Now that her arms were bare in that sleeveless blouse--the one that made her elbows look like turned knobs--she wrapped them around his waist. Irene stopped for a breathless moment. She stood there, her lips parted and close to Elliot's, just brushing his underlip, looking at him through a curtain of eyelashes. And then she smiled; an impish, almost cattish turning up of the right side of her mouth, and then the left. She kissed him again.


<Lancaster> Rather than dancers, the two of them could have been mimes, copying each other in their movements and expressions. Lancaster smiled, too--if his heart was capable of it, it would be racing. But that did not quell the tremor in his soul, the stirrings of arousal common to vampires, just as it is common to humanity. His long, adept fingers quickly sought the zip for her skirt, even as his lips were focused upon hers, tongue parting them slowly, lusciously revelling in every taste of her--with slow, deliberate steps, he began to veer their dancing movements toward the bed.


<Irene> He smelled like Old Spice. Like the fabric of his clothes. And she was getting her scent all over him: gardenia perfume and paper, and something hazier. Her heart throbbed, she imagined, in time with his (because it was so loud that it heard its own echo). The buttons on his shirt came off one by one, and the rest was a hot haze that Irene, lying on her stomach with the covers drawn up to her armpits, dreamed about with a smug little smile on her sleeping face.


<Lancaster> As slow as Lancaster tried to go, as much as he liked to revel and remember, there was a point beyond which such a thing was not possible. From that point, heat and their desire--which had built in the three year absence from each other's company--led to a dazed tango, at the end of which Lancaster was filled with the brightest happiness. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so damned happy.

But it wouldn't, couldn't last. He could stay there, curled up beside Irene's warm body. Couldn't continue to revel in her scent until midday. No, he had to leave before the sun graced them with its presence. With reluctance and guilt, Lancaster slid from the bed. He dressed with all the silence of a phantom, and slipped from the quiet house, leaving Irene where she lay. The image of her sleeping, smiling face would keep him company in the daylight hours.

[Irene (DELETED 3180)]

The house was a square, indefatigably solid construction. It was modern, had floor-length windows and tile floors, and the downstairs was sparsely dressed with dark and minimal furniture. It was masculine, even. Irene sometimes forgot that Mort, a woman, was supposed to live down there, or that anybody lived down there at all.
Both floors were mapped out the same way. They were the same width, they had the same layout. There were kitchenettes-living rooms-dining rooms on both floors; a bedroom and a bathroom. Neither one had any claim or connection to the other. But Irene couldn’t help feeling, sometimes, that she owned the entire house.

It was the quiet. It was the fact that she could go out into the garden—or the little plot of land that rimmed the property, filled in with decorative hedges and some trees—and map out where she wanted to put tomatoes, or arugula, or maybe even flowers. Gardenias, maybe. Or roses.
It was the way she could freely camp out on one of Mort’s couches or use her television while she waited for the deliverymen to drop off the furniture she bought. It was the decorating, and the arranging, and the making everything just so.

Irene made her space bright. She was in the middle of painting the walls white; the previous tenant had left them an ugly, faded kind of beige. The style, she planned, would be “modern eclectic”. Irene was learning all sorts of buzzwords from home owner magazines, which she bought from a magazine rack in the grocery store. It would be vastly different from Mort’s place. There would be color, on Irene’s floor. Lots of light. Lots of movement. She wouldn’t draw the curtains down all the time. The yin to the yang.
Meanwhile, Irene had a mattress to sleep on and boxes to sit on or eat off of and use as a desk. The second floor was a blank slate, and symbolic of Irene’s condition: back to square one.

Buying furniture is not the behavior of a transient. Neither was planning to plant a garden in the spring. But ever since the incident with—she couldn’t even repeat his name to herself—Irene was looking to fill up her time with trivial things.
The daytime was easy. When the sun was out, Irene was out. She scoured for pieces of furniture that might fit into her “new home”. She looked among the walls of the Modern Art Gallery for some precocious young Banksy to buy art off of, to decorate those bare white walls in Cedar Court. Irene always said that if she wasn’t a writer, she would’ve been a curator. She shopped for fresh ingredients in the market. She took walks in the park and thought about buying a cat, or a bicycle, or both. She watched the leaves slowly brown under the autumn sun, like watching sugar caramelize. She visited the museum, finally, on her own.

The evenings were more difficult. Irene made it a point to be back before the sun set, and safe in the confines of drawn curtains (white, too). She didn’t venture out, not without Elliot, and even then she mostly made up an excuse to stay indoors. The walls needed painting. Would he help her? Would he help paint that black border around the room, like she wanted?
He did. (Of course he did.) One night, they painted and Irene forgot to open the windows, and the fumes made her giggly and inane. She laughed and babbled in her dry-sweet voice about having lived in Greece once, with her now ex-husband (had she told him about her ex-husband yet? “Yes? No? Oh, it was nothing too serious. Just about a year.” Why did they break up? “He was too Greek.” What did she mean by that? “Nothing, nothing! He just didn’t like me as much as he liked young boys. Don’t laugh, it’s not funny! It’s not! Okay. Okay. Maybe a little. Okay, maybe a lot”).
In the evenings she kissed Elliot, she coaxed Elliot, and then inwardly worried that she was being too affectionate, or too cloying, or invited him into her bed (that is, mattress) once too often that it was suffocating. But she couldn’t help it. There was that desire to please him; him, Elliot, her to-all-intents-and-purposes hero. Irene made up for it by not asking him why they couldn’t meet in the day, or where he was always sneaking off to in the middle of the night, although she couldn’t help feeling like there was something he was hiding. Another Elliot. Maybe a wife, or kids…
It was improbable. Elliot was decent, and sweet, and kind. He wouldn’t. Couldn’t. It wasn’t in his nature.

There was an unspoken agreement between them that they wouldn’t mention What Happened. It was the big, pink elephant in the room, which they both ignored with great aplomb, good wine, and Chinese takeout. And despite it, and despite the increasing, creeping suspicion that was like a big Daddy-long-legs going up Irene’s neck about Elliot’s daytime world, Irene was happy. She was so happy that she caught herself thinking, sometimes, that she would really stay. That she would really settle down here for a while, three thousand whatevers be damned, instead of go back to New York in November.

* * *

Irene had the same nervous tick as her mother. When she was smoking and thinking, she continuously tapped her cigarette on the lip of her ashtray, like Irene was doing. Jim’s voice was on speakerphone. He’d left a few messages.

“Reen, call me back. I haven’t heard from you in a while. How’s that book going?”
“Is everything alright? Should I call the navy?”
“Reen? Reen. Why aren’t you picking up? Answer the phone. Dammit.” Click.

Her sister, with the sweet ringing soprano:

“Hey, sissy! Just thought I’d say hi. I’m going to a convention in Manhattan and I was thinking about visiting that couple—June and Larry, right? Am I getting that right? Do you have their number?”

The Greek even made a cameo. His speech was heavily accented, and his voice had a brash, almost obnoxious ring to it. He said psi-psi like he was calling for a cat.

“Rene? Psi-psi! Ey, Jim called. He is worried about you. Where are you, eh? Why are you in Canada? What is in Canada? Psi-psi!!”

And that was it. Irene thought that the cellphone probably died out there, in the forest, or that it had gotten wet in the rain before anybody else could call. She made no reference to it and handed Elliot back his phone with a smile, a kiss on the cheek, and a “Thanks. I should probably send out some e-mails.”

* * *

They were on the mattress, and she had her hand in his hair. And then she said, as if surprised and seeing them for the first time, “My god, your eyes are so blue!”

* * *

Siargao was all sand and sun that day, the kind of day that was meant for surfing. Ingrid wondered aloud why their mother wasn’t out there, and Irene shushed her. Maya was in her bedroom, with the shutters down, light and sound blocked out. The tip of her cigarette was tapping, tapping, tapping against the lip of her ashtray.
Tap, tap, tap. Tap.
It was the tapping that woke Irene up from her dream: Elliot’s belt buckle tapping against the tile floor when he picked it up. She turned around, blinked through the half-light at him and, clearing her throat of sleep, said, “Lock the front door on your way out, please? She’s got expensive things.”

[Lancaster]

It was too hard.

After the incident—the one that they never talked about, even though Lancaster was itching to ask Irene to tell him absolutely everything—Irene seemed to make a concerted effort to never mention vampires. To never wonder about them, to never argue semantics, like the two of them were prone to do on occasion. This might have been all well and good, except for the fact that Lancaster had—seemingly simultaneously—come to the conclusion that he ought to tell Irene what he was. Should show her exactly what he was capable of. And yet now...now he was finding it incredibly hard to find an opening.

It was a dire thing to admit to. It wasn’t as if it were a simple thing he had kept from her. It was no ”Hey, Irene, I lied—I really actually hate pink lemonade.” It was even bigger than something like ”Hey, Irene, my birthday’s actually in November.” To all of a sudden come out with ”Hey, Irene, those creatures you were looking for? Vampires? I am one” seemed kind of cruel. That he had deliberately withheld the one thing that she was looking for—what would she think? Surely, she be pissed. It wasn’t just the boulder of a truth that he was considering dropping on her head, it was the fact that he had kept it from her. Surely, any person would be pissed.

________________________

Lancaster watched Irene with avid curiosity—with a thirst for everything that she represented. He drank in every aspect of her—every aspect that did not include the direct consumption of her blood. The two of them together—they were so easily amazed, and so easily amused. Everything was so easy. No longer did Lancaster find himself slaughtering things in the catacombs in order to vent. Instead, he found himself writing more. More than rage, he had happiness. It was far easier to convert happiness to melody.

________________________

Put your feet up on the dashboard, roll down your window. The sudden chronic serenade from a thousand radios. The sun burning into your eyes like a blue blindfold. We’re marching on the spot; we’re marching home...

As long as you sit next to me we can burn. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth...

See all around there’s brains in jars and engines idling. You think out loud like you’re circling things in a magazine. But the sound of your voice is enough to rescue me from the fireball at the end of everything...

As long as you sit next to me we can burn. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth...

________________________

Melody aside, Lancaster loved watching Irene. He loved watching her move house, watching her settle. Listening to her talk about furniture, about the garden, about all the things that accompanied a static life—a life were a person was settled, where they were not going anywhere.

And how damned selfish he felt, wanting Irene to stay, and yet not revealing absolutely everything to her. Letting her stay, when she was in danger. All he could do was stay with her, as much as he was able. All he could do was keep watching—watch for the signs that she was keeping something from him. And wait....wait for that opening.

Tell her, mate. Tell her soon, before it gets worse.

________________________

Yet again, sneaking out. Getting away, before the sun could rise. How disastrous would it be, if he were to be stuck? What kind of excuse could he come up with, to deny the suggestion of going out for breakfast? For sticking to the shadows, and avoiding all fingers of sunlight? He couldn’t. He could not possibly pull that off with any semblance of believability. And so he left, every morning. He hoped that she would never wake up. That she wouldn’t question him.

And yet when she merely told him to lock the door behind him, he couldn’t help but feel...what? It was guilt, mainly. Guilt, and the desire, then and there, to drop down on his knees in front of her and confess everything.

And he did. As soon as the belt was secured around his waist he crept toward the mattress. He kneeled beside it. Irene lay there, eyes closed, her breathing steady, her heart-beat a soothing, bass-like rhythm in that reverberated to Lancaster’s soul. A strand of hair had fallen haphazardly over her cheek. Lancaster pushed it away. Irene did not stir. Although she had woken, although she had spoken to him, she must have done so in a dream—she was asleep, and he could not bear to wake her, to see that face, now so peaceful, contorted with fear or rage or disbelief.

And so he kissed her forehead, stood, and left. He double-checked, to make sure the door was locked behind him.

________________________

Don’t ask me how I think it’s gonna end.


There’s never been
a better time
to
begin...

[Irene (DELETED 3180)]

<Irene> If this was New York, or anywhere else Irene knew more than, oh, three people tops, she would have organized a little get-together. There would have been food, music, champagne flutes... but being marooned on this desert island was a different story entirely. Sure, she talked to people on the street. She met them in coffee shops and open mic poetry readings. She wasn't entirely sequestered from the rest of the world, but there wasn't anybody to invite to something so intimate, either, so it was just her and Elliot.
The apartment had finally been finished. White floors, black borders, a turquoise couch, eclectic furniture, knick-knacks... . Not bad, if Irene did say so herself. "And... voila," Irene said, after putting down an arrangement of blue and white cabbage roses on one of the end tables. She tilted her head to the side, her left hand on her right shoulder, and wrinkled her nose as if she weren't sure of the bouquet. Irene had just finished hanging up the last bits of artwork around the place, and was dressed in a pair of old, rolled up cigarette pants and an equally battered yellow NIRVANA t-shirt, tied up at the waist. Her hair was up.
"Is it too much?" Irene asked, turning her head to look for Elliot, who was somewhere in the room.

<Lancaster> Lancaster knew a lot of people. So many people, in fact, that had he invited them to Irene’s housewarming, it would have been a respectable get-together. Everyone that Lancaster knew, however, was a vampire. Everyone bar Roxette, that was. And he wasn’t about to persuade Irene to invite a bunch of vampires into her abode. And so he kept quiet. And how odd would Irene feel, anyway, throwing a housewarming party for herself where she knew no one? There’d be no point.
And so he sat upon Irene’s new couch, dressed only in jeans and a blue shirt, the buttons loose below the neck. He was barefoot, and while Irene fiddled with the last of the decorating, he strummed idly at the strings of his acoustic guitar. It was a battered old thing, which had been through thick and thin with Lancaster. It was his old friend.
Lancaster glanced up as Irene posed the question. He glanced from his girl, to the flowers she had just placed. His gaze then swept the room, taking in every aspect—and how it looked in relation to the flowers. He was no interior decorated. His own place had remained undecorated for months, before he gave in to the pressure placed upon him by Pi. And then, he gave up all decisions to the decorator. He shrugged his shoulders, then grinned a cheesy grin.
“They could never be too much, when you’re standing beside them. I can’t even see them, compared to your beauty,” he said.

<Irene> Irene threw her head back and laughed. "Char!" she exclaimed, reverting back to an expression in her mother tongue. Something like, 'You've got to be kidding me!' Also on bare feet, she crossed the tile floor and sank knees-first in the couch in front of him. "They match your eyes," Irene said, picking up the thread of cheesy bon mots. She took the guitar from him, moved it away from his torso so she could lean in and give him a kiss. Irene lingered, looked at his face through half-lowered lashes, kissed him again, and then turned to lean against his chest. "Come on." She put her hand on the neck and pressed her fingers into the frets; plucked an off-key rendition of the first few notes of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". "Teach me."

<Lancaster> The grin remained as Lancaster watched Irene cross the floor. His eyes--which she so cheesily referred to--caught every movement. As casually dressed as she was, she was still a miracle to him. A perfect construction of bones and flesh, to create something beautiful--always, even in a state of disarray. He'd keep the cheesiness to himself, however, and wouldn't mention as much to her. As per usual, he revelled in the warmth of her as she settled onto the couch next to him. He re-arranged himself to accommodate her, kissing calmly, with the familiarity of an action engaged in often. He chuckled, as she asked him to teach her. His arm wound around behind her, holding the neck of the instrument beside her own fingers. "What do you want to learn?"

<Irene> His chest rumbled when he talked. It was something that she liked, a lot. Sometimes, when they were in bed, and he was talking, she'd put her ear up to the middle of his chest and listen to his chocolatey baritone amplified there. Once or twice, Irene had tried to find his heart beat, but his voice was always either too loud or she just couldn't hear that well. (Denial, more than ignorance, is bliss.)
Irene turned her head. Her nose brushed against the stubble on his jaw. She still couldn't believe it, sometimes: her and Elliot, the way it happened, the mind-blowing coincidences... . Sometimes, like right now, all she could do was smile. "Stairway to Heaven?"

<Lancaster> "Easy," he said. The song itself wasn't really all that simple, but it was so well-known. How could he not know it? It was often a popular demand. "Watch, first, and then I'll show you," he said. When he was teaching--which he had been commissioned to do, every now and again--he got rather serious without realising it. He played the song once, only humming the lyrics every now and again. After he'd finished playing the song once over, he began to teach Irene the frets - the notes, the strumming, the particular way the guitar liked to be handled in order to produce the right sound. He held his hands over hers, pressed his fingers over hers, guiding her. After doing that a while, he let her go on her own, interjecting only to correct certain mistakes. Always patient with her, always calm, and so very, very content.

<Irene> Without a single musical bone in her body--even though she knew music, she listened to it, she loved it, and she had an alright-enough-for-karaoke-but-please-never-make-a-record-ever singing voice—Irene didn't have a chance at learning Stairway. At least, not in the next five minutes. Still, Irene had a good crack at it, a couple of sheepish laughs. And then, while she plucked at a chord or two--off-key, because she was looking at his face--she said, mostly without thinking, "You should come to New York with me in November. It'll be full on fall. It's so pretty, there."

<Lancaster> The question caught Lancaster off guard. He was so used to her being here--the fact that she had settled into a place of her own--he liked to think that she would never leave. This contradicted the fact that he believed she would be safer in New York, and that she probably should leave. And why should he not have expected that she would ask him to join her? The logistics of it, though. How does a vampire travel? Very carefully I assume, to avoid daylight hours. And his excuses for avoiding sunlight would just not hold if not here, his current 'home'. But by November, he hoped that everything would be different. She would KNOW, in November. He should tell her, right now. His lips slid into a tight line--he was going to tell her. What better time than now? Except when he looked down at her, at the hope in her eyes, his voice caught in his throat. For a few seconds he didn't answer. He was trying to think of how to begin. The words that he finally uttered defied his intentions. "Sure. Why not?" A complete and utter goddamned lie. He forced a smile.

<Irene> "Sure, why not," he said, with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. Irene felt her heart drop to her stomach and a few stories further down, but she smiled back. It was as if a realization had struck her. Something she didn't want to put into words just yet--couldn't, because she didn't have the heart to. It was that kind of wordless knowledge that... . But anyway. Anyway, live in the moment. Anyway, never take anything for granted. She passed him back the guitar and said, her voice a little softer, "Play me one of your songs?"

<Lancaster> Lancaster knew that he ought to have been more convincing. He should have tried to appear happier, more enthusiastic about the prospect. Irene knew him as Elliot Lancaster, intrepid backpacker. Why should he not be enthusiastic about travel? And yet, Elliot Lancaster wasn't a liar. He was a performer, but he could not act to save his life. And he didn't want to lie to Irene. But she didn't push the subject. Instead, she asked him to play one of his songs. He happily took the instrument, and played the first song that seemed to always itch at the edge of his fingers. 'Survival Expert'. This time, he changed the ending--he injected more falsetto, more of a soaring melody. And when he finished, he merely gave Irene a small smile, pushing the hair out of his eyes.

<Irene> 'The shifting shoreline's hidden hands/Might show you one black feathered wing/Sticking up from the sand/But you'll still fly'. Irene paid close attention to the lyrics, for any hidden meaning in it all, for anything in Elliot's face that might clue her in to... god, anything. There was a secret there. Some kind of secret that he was keeping hidden from her. But what? What? It felt heavy in the middle of her chest, a kind of bittersweetness. She was in love with him, even though everything--this Secret--said that she shouldn't be. That she should reserve something for herself. That she shouldn't tell him, even though she could feel it just behind her teeth. When Elliot smiled, Irene's chest constricted. She smiled back, leaned in to kiss him again--this time without moving the guitar. There was a pause, some quiet, before Irene said, "Stay with me tonight. I mean, really stay with me. Until morning."

<Lancaster> While he had played, the memory of the question Irene had asked and been pushed to the back of Lancaster's mind. He'd lost himself in his song, in the lyrics, in forging them with every emotion that he held locked deep inside. As he finished, he wasn't expecting the discussion to be brought back up--but he might have preferred it. Might have preferred, trying to bluff his way through it. Instead, she asked him to stay right through until morning. Lancaster cleared his throat. "I can't. I can't I... have some renovators coming first thing. They couldn't fit me in earlier... I need to be there for them, to let them in," he said. Bold-faced ******* lie. Renovators? Could he not more inventive than that? And yet he could not take back the words he had just uttered. He could only hope--in vain--that she would believe him.

<Irene> "So, we'll just... head out first thing," she said, sitting back on her heels now. There was an edge in her voice, now. A tinge of annoyance. Of disbelief.

<Lancaster> "No, really. I don't want you see the place until it's finished. It's going to be great," he said, trying to infuse his voice with enthusiasm. Instead he was stuck, frozen, like a mouse caught by an eagle.

<Irene> "Don't you co-own that place? Can't your partner do it, for once? You do all these early morning things." Her face scrunched up. She got off the couch and walked over to where her cigarettes were, just by an ashtray and an open window. "It's like you're... I don't know. Making excuses not to stay. You can just say if you don't want to stay." Her voice had gone up a pitch, but she was trying to stay calm. She was trying not to look like one of those hysterical girls that had to have their boyfriend or whatever with them 24/7. But it was hard. It was difficult to do that, when it was about a month in the relationship and they'd never seen each other in broad daylight, like they were hiding from someone.

<Lancaster> Now. Now. Now was the time to do it - tell her right now, while she's already angry. Give her the reason, and then everything will be forgiven. But he couldn't. Why? Because he didn't want to see her anger turn into fear. Selfishly, he wanted to retain what they had. He wanted to be able to keep pretending to be human with Irene. "She'll be there, too," Lancaster said. Another lie. "We both need to make the decisions. Wouldn't be a co-ownership if we didn't," he said. He stood, too, though he stayed where he was.

<Irene> "What about last Friday? Or last Saturday? Did you go to see contractors then, too?" She turned to look at him, unlit cigarette between her fingers. She was gesturing widely, her voice going up another pitch; she was barely trying to control it now. "Do contractors work all ******* week?" '*******'. Irene hardly ever cussed. Suddenly, her anger embarrassed her. She turned away again, to the window, and lit her cigarette.

<Lancaster> He didn't like seeing her angry. And how much worse would it be if...? If she found out what he had been keeping from her? The swear word hit him like an anvil to the heart, and all he wanted to do was make it better. He crossed the room so that he could stand behind her. "Calm down, Irene. I didn't know it was bothering you just... not tomorrow, okay? Next time. I'll stay next time," he said. He hated himself just that little bit more with every lie that he told--and his words were infused with that special brand of power, an inadvertent slip on his behalf. It was a subconscious thing that he used on the shop merchants so that they'd give him better deals. He wanted to persuade Irene to calm down, to forget about it. And he was so desperate to do so that he lost all recognition of what he was and was not capable of.

<Irene> Next time, he said. He'd stay next time. Smoke travelled out the window. Irene took a deep breath. She was still angry, still suspicious... but she was ashamed, too. Ashamed that she had that outburst, had made her doubts so known--that she had become so vulnerable, so nakedly angry. When she spoke, her tone was infinitely more subdued, like a child who had been scolded. "Alright." Her left shoulder went up in a stiff little shrug, as she cradled her right elbow in her hand. "Okay."

<Lancaster> It was only after her shrug, her small vow of acquiescence, that Lancaster realised what he had done. That she had given up so easily, that she was no longer raging at him--he had to have done something. He remembered Irene as a passionate soul. Surely, she hadn't changed so much that she'd give up so easily. But he couldn't apologise. Could only pretend that it had never happened. But he couldn't help but sigh in relief. "Okay? Okay," he said, low and flat. He took the cigarette from her fingers. He squashed the end between his thumb and index finger--he never really complained about it, but he really did hate the habit of hers. He flicked the cigarette out the window, before he kissed her again. Kiss her...kiss it, to make it all better.

<Irene> He kissed her. She let him kiss her, and after a moment or two kissed him back. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held on to him, as if she were scared that if she let up, he'd just go. "Just stay a little bit longer," she murmured, not quite taking her mouth away from his. "Just a little longer."

<Lancaster> He did not answer her. The only response that he could give to her query was a low mumbling mutter of a moan. Of course he would stay, a little longer. He would stay as long as he was able. He would stay until that very last minute--until he was pushing the limits, until there was every chance that he might get crisped by the sun. He had, one morning. Just as he was stepping through the doors of the Necropolis in order to get through to the portal, the sun's rays had caught him in their embrace. Suffice to say, he did not see Irene the night after. No, he waited until his skin was smooth again, before trying to explain first-degree burns. How easy, to fold her into his arms now, to all but carry her to the lounge. To the lounge, because here, in her new home, there was no fear of being interrupted.

<Irene> Elliot's lower lip was soft, and the stubble against her hand was sharp, and his arms were sturdy; they wrapped around her and made her feel tender and small. Irene couldn't help echoing the sound he made, or the way her hands wandered over his chest, into his hair. She couldn't help letting that suspicion go, just for now, to make way for the sweet, heady feeling of Elliot kissing her. Of all that passion in him. She almost said it again--the thing that was now always just behind her teeth--but instead she kissed him, and she kissed him. His face, his neck, his shoulders; his chest, when she undid two buttons from his shirt.

<Lancaster> At first he was unsure whether she would give in to him completely. He was still so unsure of how his power worked--about how it affected a human, how long it took to wear off. Had he even done anything to her, except add a tone to his voice? Could it not simply be compared to pleading someone with big, irresistible eyes? Everything was forgotten, however, as they clawed and grabbed at each other, all movement hastened to shed the layer of flimsy cloth that separated them. As he lay down with Irene, Lancaster did not think about the hours ahead--the minute that he would leave her, again, to escape the brilliant sun.

[Irene (DELETED 3180)]

Irene: She'd asked to meet him, earlier, in her apartment, after they'd gone out and done everything--"everything" being "feeding", which Irene hated to think about. So she didn't think about it, if she didn't have to. Irene sat fully clothed in her bathtub, smoking, endlessly smoking. Her cigarette consumption had gone up one hundred percent, ever since she'd been turned. Maybe it was a way to manage the stress of the change. To take her mind off of things. It never worked. Irene's hand dangled over the edge of the tub, feeding ash into her ashtray. There was music on her record player, an old album. A vinyl of The Smiths. Her foot wiggled as she sang along.

Lancaster: Feeding had become a habit for Lancaster; it was the first thing he did every night, so as to get out of the way. It had nearly been a year. He remembered the weather; he remembered the cold. He remembered how he'd been so conscious of it as a human, and so shocked that it didn't affect him, after he was turned. A frown had settled itself perpetually upon his brow as he thought of Pi, and how he still wasn't speaking to her. Not really. He left the unfortunate victim at a bus stop--seemingly asleep. After which he returned to Irene's apartment. He followed the sound of her voice to where she lay in the bathroom. He leaned idly against the door frame, silent and smirking, waiting for her to notice him.

Irene: "Want to see liiights," she sang, right in the middle of her song when Elliot found his way inside. Irene's eyebrows went up into her hairline. She smiled at him, stubbed her cigarette out, and squirted a little Febreeze--handily in arm's reach--into the air. She knew he didn't like her smoking; not the smell of it, or her habit of it. Not when she was human, and not now. Just one of those unspoken things. "Hi," she said, waving her arm around to make the smoke dissipate. "Make yourself comfortable." She sat up, cross-legged, and gestured around at the bathroom as if it were the most luxurious four star suite.

Lancaster: Irene's eccentricity was one of the things that appealed to Lancaster most. She did her best to decrease the acrid stench of cigarette smoke - the febreeze wasn't much better. The artificial scent was an itch in Lancaster's nose. He was far too sensitive to all scents, these days. Irene asked him to get comfortable, and he glanced around the inside of the bathroom. He considered the toilet as a seat, for a moment, before approaching the bathtub. "Scoot," he said, before slipping off his shoes and stepping into the tub. It was a tight squeeze, but it was also a big tub. Lancaster sat at the opposite end to Irene. "What's up?"

Irene: Elliot's long legs bent into the tub. He was like an exceedingly long accordion folding up. Irene laughed and moved around, trying to accommodate him. In the end, she settled with putting her leg across one of his legs, and the heel of her foot on one of his knees. "I just wanted to hang out somewhere that wasn't dark and had windows, that's all." She looked up and knocked the window open with the tips of her fingers, stretching so she could do that. "And I don't want Bob to snort at me again," she said. "I can't believe you know Bob. Then again." Irene shrugged a shoulder. She rolled her sleeves up to the insides of her elbows. She took the big toe of his right foot between her thumb and forefinger and wiggled it around affectionately. "I have a question, too."

Lancaster: For a second, Lancaster had no idea who Irene was talking about. Bob? He didn't know any Bob. Why did she think that he did? But then it dawned on him - Bob equalled Robert. Why the hell was Robert snorting at Irene? Lancaster opened his mouth to ask the question, but shut it again as Irene admitted to having a question of her own. 'Bob' could wait. Funnily enough, 'Bob' wasn't actually causing any problems recently, and Lancaster liked to keep it that way. "Shoot."

Irene: "Earlier this week, I..." She kept wiggling his toe, staring at it. "I did something, but I don't know exactly what, or how." She stopped wiggling his toe and looked up at his face. "It's nothing bad. Just weird." Irene fiddled with the denim on Elliot's jeans, picking up little bits of thread if there were any. "So, I was in a shop, and I was talking to the clerk, and he got very rude--you know how people can be. He was just very rude and clipped and... well, I got angry. And there was this... I felt this surge of energy through my body, and I don't know if it had anything to do with it but the clerk, all of a sudden, he just stared at me. His eyes were as big as saucers, and he just stammered. Then he started spilling things and getting very confused...." Irene bit the inside of her lip, squinted at Elliot. "Has that ever happened to you before?"

Lancaster: For a second, Lancaster was flooded with fear. She'd got angry--bad things happened when vampires got angry. He supposed he was only thinking from experience. But Irene elaborated, and Lancaster relaxed again. "Yeah. That happened to me.... almost straight away. It's something we can do - it's called Confuse. We can force it on someone," he said, with a frown. There were so many things he was capable of, but he didn't ever make use of them. It was so invasive. He took a breath, pushed his fingers through his hair, and narrowed his eyes as he pondered. "And to prepare you - we can also scare people. A lot. Intimidate them. We can seduce people - that one... jesus, it can be hilarious. But a bit cruel. It doesn't last long. But... well, it works, if someone's hellbent on attacking you, hurting you, if you seduce them they just... they love you instead," he smirked. "Should I keep going?"

Irene: "Keep going," she said, as she got up and crawled into his arms, to put her back against his chest. "What else can we do?" It felt strange to say 'we'; 'we' used to be 'him', and 'he' used to be 'they'--vampires. And vampires used to be... well, they never used to exist outside of books and TV. Irene got that surreal feeling again. It settled in the space between her temples, like a cold weight. For a split second she thought she would wake up soon. And then Elliot's wrist--the round joint of it against her thumb--anchored her. She was back in her body.

Lancaster: If Lancaster was a house cat, he would have purred, the sound of it reverberating through his chest against Irene's back. Instead, he hummed a little as he continued to ponder. His hand slipped beneath Irene's blouse to trace melodic circles upon her bare skin. He spoke softly into her ear. "We can inspire," he said, thoroughly aware that he was doing so, right then and there--inspiring Irene. "Instead of confusing the shopkeepers, next time you should try persuading them - they call it Silver Tongued. Shopkeepers continuously give me ten percent off--and ten percent more, when I sell things. "We can bewitch people - vampires, humans, anyone - to help us. Oh. Remember Roxette?"

Irene: The smile on Irene's face grew. It felt like a warm hand on her head, that made her feel capable of anything. Made her feel stronger. It was a pleasant feeling; Irene would've purred, too. "Roxette," she said, her voice dreamy. Some part of her had pushed down some memories of that night--the one of Roxette included. The one of her feeding off of Roxette, though that came back, now that Elliot reminded her. "What about Roxette?"

Lancaster: "Well... I didn't mean to. It was... I can't even remember how I did it now. But, just like your confusing the store clerk was accidental--Roxette is what we call a thrall. I can't undo it. She's bound to me for as long as we each live. Every time I ask her to do something, she has to do it. She's bound to my will, I suppose," he grimaced. He didn't like it. And he didn't ask Roxette to do much for him - and given all that Lancaster had done for her in repayment, she was willing to do most things anyway.
Irene: Irene paused. She almost stopped moving, when she heard him say that. He couldn't undo it, and poor Roxette was bound to him. She felt him flinching against her shoulder, as if he was expecting her to scold him. And she would have. She would have demanded he let Roxette go, if only he had done it on purpose. The first thing that Irene said on the matter was, after a tense silence, "I hope I don't do that." Irene tried to get comfortable again; shifted around until the pressure of that knowledge let go again. It was just something that they all had to get used to. "And what else?" she said, quietly, after a little while.

Lancaster: "You won't. I ... hope you won't. I hope the fact that I can tell you about these things now means you'll be prepared, and you'll know what's happening before you do anything," he said. For a moment he was stuck. He sighed, and shifted a little to make himself more comfortable. He leaned his head back against the edge of the tub. "You know, I'm not even sure if you'll be able to do all this - whether you'll discover it in the same order that I have. It's like... those things you saw Regan do. I can do that, too. I can... I can turn into a monster, if I want to. I can..." here, he smirked. Why had he not told Irene this before? "I can turn into a Dingo."

Irene: The name didn't frighten her anymore. There were no more breakneck reactions--there was no more fear. Even some of the resentment had gone away, and gave way to apathy. That was strange, to Irene. It was strange, too, to hear Elliot say that he could turn into a monster, like Regan did. And... "A Dingo?" Irene echoed. She lifted her head and looked up at him; saw the slope of his cheekbone, and the bend of his mouth, where he was beginning to smirk. She half-laughed. Was that a joke? "You can turn into a dingo?"

Lancaster: "Yeah. Like Oria was that... Wolverine? I can do that. I don't know why I didn't mention it - I suppose we were preoccupied with..." he shook his head. He perked a brow, and craned his neck so that he could look down at Irene. "It happened as a result of uncontrollable emotion. Frustration. It got to be too much. And I suppose you could get philosophical about the kind of animals we become. Only relevant connection between myself and the dingo, as far as I can tell, is our nationality," he said, eyes a little glazed as he thought about it.

Irene: "Right!" she exclaimed suddenly. "Oria. She's nice. We've met. Oh, she healed me!" Irene lowered her voice until it was a half-whisper, "A dingo." She didn't say anything about that night. It was one of those things--like feeding, and her turning--that she didn't like to talk or think about. So she talked about dingos, instead. "I don't know anything about dingos, except that they're from Australia. And from that movie. Dingo ate my bay-bee." She copied the Australian accent, badly. "With Meryl Streep--not that I'm saying you'd eat a baby!" She lifted her head suddenly, when it occured to her that it sounded like she was saying that.

Lancaster: Lancaster laughed. "I was always on the dingo's side, to be honest. I don't reckon that poor bugger did anything wrong. That woman's just nuts," Lancaster said. He was joking, kind of. It was just one of those things that all Australians knew about. A part of their history that they would never forget--never outlive. "And see? Healing. That's what that I can't do. And there are people who can summon spirits. You know, if we consume them - is that the right word? - anyway, spirits help with this magical voodoo that we can do. They boost our ability, I s'pose," he said. Upon the words 'magical voodoo' he waved his hands out in front of them, only to have them settle back in their previous positions.

Irene: "Magical voodoo," she echoed, doing the same with her hands. Irene paused again. "But what happens to the spirits?"

Lancaster: "I have no idea. That's getting a bit beyond me," Lancaster replied, honestly. He assumed they went back to wherever it was that they came from. But maybe that wasn't right. Maybe they were gone forever--and consuming them like they did was bring true death to unsuspecting souls. "...but if they do die, maybe that's what they want. Maybe they were stuck in some kind of purgatory beforehand..." he mumbled, completing his thought out loud, rather than keeping it to himself. He shuddered at the thought of purgatory--of that place where Reilly was stuck. He hoped he never had to go there.

Irene: Irene stared at the wall in front of them. Henshin had described a little bit of the spirit realm. A limbo. What if that was it, she wondered; what if that was all there ever was and would be? Irene stared and stared. She bit the bend of her thumb. She turned to look up at Elliot--and changed the subject again. "What kind of animal do you think I would be, if I happened to turn into one?" She smiled.

Lancaster: It seemed that Lancaster and Irene were both distracted by the thought of spirits, and where they went and where they came from. Lancaster stared at the ceiling, while his fingers continued to run circles around Irene's belly-button. It was Irene who broke the silence. Lancaster took a deep, unneeded breath and glanced down at Irene - stared at her, as if scrutinizing. "I think...a cat, of some description. You're far too curious for your own good," he teased. "A jungle cat, 'cause you're a wild thing when you wanna be. I had one of those as a pet, once. --Well, I didn't. A house I stayed in once in China. I don't think it was particularly legal. Maybe it was...this thing was twice, maybe three times the size of a domestic cat..." he was rambling, and had resumed his staring contest with the roof.

Irene: "Aswangs are supposed to be shapeshifters," Irene said, going off on her own tangent. "I wonder why Oria turned into a wolverine." Irene took Elliot's hand away from her stomach, kissed it, and then started standing up out of the bathtub. "I'm going to go make some tea," she said. "I can drink, now!" Irene almost stumbled as she climbed out of the tub, caught herself, jazz-handsed, and started backing out of the bathroom. "You know," she said, stopping at the doorway to speak, "I used to think being a vampire meant I wouldn't have to use the bathroom anymore. But for some reason it's my favorite place, now." Irene smiled, shrugged a shoulder, and walked off toward the kitchen.

Lancaster: For a second, Lancaster found himself gazing at the interior of the bathroom. He wondered how it could be Irene's favourite place, and it caused him worry. She had said she liked places that weren't dark, places that had windows. It was the first thing she had said that indicated she had any kind of regret. He, too, got up out of the bathtub, careful not to trip like Irene had. He lazily followed her out to the kitchen, and started to make tea for himself, too - Rose and French Vanilla. So much like Turkish Delight.

Irene: The Smiths were louder in the kitchen, because the record player was in the living room. Morrissey was whinging, as usual, but in the way only Morrissey knew how. I was delayed/I was way-laid/An emergency stop/I smelt the last ten seconds of life/I crashed down on the crossbar. Irene hummed along as she stirred milk into her Earl Grey. And the pain was enough to make/A shy, bald Buddhist reflect/And plan a mass murder. Irene sat on the countertop. She sipped the tea, smiled because she still could, and started talking to Elliot about "you know, you should meet Henshin. He's a little strange, and very confusing, but he's been kind. You'd like him, I think." And she rambled about him, and the people she'd met, including that one pink thing from that club down at Red Wood...

[Irene (DELETED 3180)]

‹Irene› The little chalkboard on the front still said 'The Really Bad Poets Present: Open Mic Night'. There were stereotypical poet types, with their scarves and their berets, their melancholy looks, their eccentricities. Irene had been sitting there for hours, building a rapport with them, these poets, laughing at their jokes and clapping at their enraged poetry: the feminist rant, the jaded middle-aged male, the quasi-socialist diatribe, the nature-loving Wordsworth... it was the same in every other city. It felt familiar and comfortable. Irene could even drink their alcohol with them, sipped from somebody's glass when they offered her a taste, drank Irish coffee. Some of them recognized her, shook her hand, asked her how that movie deal was going. Most didn't know her from their own ***, and that was good, too. The point was, Irene felt normal, and for a few hours forgot that she wasn't. Not anymore.
‹Irene› Hours ago she texted Elliot: "meet me @ corner cafe in redwood after work? :*" Now, most of the crowd had trickled out. Aside from one drunken straggler at the makeshift stage half-yelling, half-slurring his poetry into the microphone and his raucous, equally drunken friends, the place was mostly empty. "Red! Price! Tag! Red! Price! Tag! Tell me how much my net worth is! Red! Price! TAG!"

‹Lancaster› Although Lancaster didn’t spent as much time on the small stage in the back corner of the Necropolis these days, that night he found himself selfishly indulging in the fact that he owned the space. That he could do with it as he wanted. And, being a vampire, he didn’t tire as easily as he used to. He could spend hours on that stage, drifting through all the songs in his repertoire; he could play all of his own songs. Of, if he wasn’t in the mood to share his own feelings and emotions to a crowd full of strangers, he’d play a bunch of covers. The crowd seemed to like that better. They gathered, they danced, they laughed, they hollered suggestions. Sometimes he knew the songs that they requested and he’d acquiesce their requests.
‹Lancaster› By the time he finished and returned to the bar, he got stuck chatting to a few slurringly drunken humans; women, locals. They wanted to know where he was from, where he learned to play, why he was in Harper Rock. He gave them their answers, and even enjoyed the normality of getting to know new people. That’s how his life used to be – getting to know drunk people in bars. Though usually, he was drunk himself. Now that he couldn’t get drunk, he got very bored with those kinds of conversations. And so he broke away to converse with staff – only to find, very late, that he had a message from Irene.
‹Lancaster› He wasn’t sure that she would still be there. But he went anyway. He took the train from Gullsborough to Wickbridge, and walked the rest of the way. He slipped into the chair beside Irene, a smirk on his face. “Forgot you liked this kind of bunk,” he said, and kissed her temple. “Sorry I’m late.”

‹Irene› "That's all right, I wasn't really waiting," she said, tilting her head up to receive the kiss. "I've been having a blast. You should have seen it, earlier. People were just..." Irene snapped, the way beatniks snap after a piece of poetry. She was smiling big, in a great mood, with her leg wiggling on her knee as it did when she was in a good mood. "Oh, do you want anything?" Before Elliot could answer, Irene had her hand up, calling the waitress over. With the finesse of someone used to restaurants and cafes, she illustrated a rectangle in the air, for 'menu'. As the waitress collected her tray and the menu, Ireneturned to Elliot and kept rambling.
‹Irene› "There was this one man," she said, putting her hand on the back of Elliot's. Her eyes rolled up to the ceiling. She threw her head back. "He wasridiculous! He went on this whole prosody piece about capitalism. One of the characters in his poem-prose piece was called Moo. I just." She laughed again. "Anyway, how was your night?"

‹Lancaster› The way Irene acted, the way she spoke, it was as if she literally beamed. As if her happiness were so profound that it could not be contained, and clung to her skin like millions upon millions of little shining lights. She ordered a menu, regardless of the fact that Lancaster might not want anything. If he didn't know better, he might have assumed she was on a caffiene high. Lancaster laughed not at the incidents that Irene related, but instead at her enthusiasm. It was refreshing. He thanked the waitress for the menu, but didn't yet look at it. He shrugged his shoulders. "The same old. Played some music. Got accosted by overly friendly locals. I don't think my night was quite as good as yours," he said, still grinning.

‹Irene› "Too bad. You know they do this every week? I think I'm going to make it a habit." She put her chin in her hand and leaned on the table. She watched the man stumble off of the stage and into his friend's arms. The emcee--a plump, matronly woman--asked them to clap. They clapped. Irene clapped. After, she turned to Elliot, said, "Okay," and shifted around in her seat to face him. "So, I was thinking. What do you think about a little get together with a few other people later this month?"

‹Lancaster› Irene was one of those people Lancaster was inherently comfortable around. They could descend into silence, but neither of them struggled to fill it. The silence between them was never awkward. It was companionable. Lancaster in one of those moods--he felt like he could just sit without saying anything. Just relax and drift off into the ether. Irene turend to him, however, and he focused. He folded his arms across the table, and turned his body toward Irene. His brow shot skyward. "Sure," he replied. Why not? But then: "What kind of people?"

‹Irene› "You know." Elliot had that dubious look on his face--the one with his eyebrow way up high on his forehead--the one that made Irene smile. She lifted her hands to make air quotes with her fingers. "People." Irene leaned into the fluffed up leather cushions of her armchair and put her elbows on either arm rest. "Remember Henshin? I'm thinking about inviting him. Maybe, if it's not too awkward." The emcee stepped off the stage and music started piping from the sound system. It was a song that Irene knew: Feist's "My Moon, My Man". Her foot started wagging to it.
‹Irene› "And the guy that invited me to that party the other night? It was really short notice. Anyway, he's a Doctor of Anthropology. I think you two would like each other. You can have conversations with him. More than just," she waved her hand around, "hello, how are you, oh, tell me about your girlfriend. How did you meet. Ick."

‹Lancaster› There was a small amount of relief, as Irene explained. Not a massive one--just something tiny, nigh indiscernable. For a moment, Lancaster had thought that Irene was going to ask to meet everyone. To invite Pi, Asteria, Robert, Madison, Aidan... people who she ought to know, by all means. People who Lancaster should invite, in any case. And maybe he would, after all. Why not? "Yeah, alright. Sounds good," he said. "You left so quickly I didn't get the chance to ask - I suppose this guy was the one good thing about this party that you didn't actually like?" he asked, curious. He was not against Irene getting out and meeting people. He wasn't the possessive type--not unecessarily, anyway. But he was curious.

‹Irene› "It was just weird, that's all," she said. "Etienne--that's him--texted me in the middle of nowhere and said he was bored. And I like him, you know, he's a real character, so I went. And I had no idea what the party was for, until later, when I went back because I was feeling all... restless. You know how I get." She lifted her left shoulder in a shrug. "And that's when--oh, I meant to ask! Do you know about Tytonidae? I had a really long conversation with uh... ah..." Irene snapped her fingers. "Velveteen."

‹Lancaster› And anyway, Lancaster didn't like to think he'd be the jealous, possessive sort. Because that would imply, in part, that he didn't trust Irene. And that wasn't the case, at all - even when she said this guy had texted her. Etienne. Sounded French. For the time being, that was fine - Lancaster wouldn't start to get possessive until he met the guy, and could judge for himself. It was only when Irene mentioned Tytonidae that Lancaster tensed. And then the mention of Velveteen was just the icing on the cake; the muscles in his jaw tightened, his eyes went hard. "Yes, I know them. What did they... did they threaten you? I swear to ******* Christ if they--" he stopped. Surely, she wouldn't be so upbeat if she'd been threatened. He narrowed his eyes. "Why?”

‹Irene› "Elliot," she grabbed his wrist and squeezed. But she couldn't help the smile on her face. It was nice, after all, to feel protected--even if she did hate it sometimes, when she felt useless at protecting herself, even now. "It's okay. We just talked. Velveteen was just telling me about elders and things like that. There was even a little debate between us two. It was very civil. Pleasant, even." She looked at her coffee cup. The insides had turned cold. "It actually... it put a bit of perspective on things."

‹Lancaster› Lancaster didn't buy it. He relaxed only a little, because he knew Irene wasn't in danger. Though was she? Could they brainwash her? Surely not. Surely, she had smarts enough to avoid something like that. But he felt he should explain. He shook his head. "I don't trust them," he said. And he knew he couldn't leave it at that. He leaned forward--the story he had to tell was for Irene's ears only. "Cyth was...one of the first I turned," he started. Had he told that story? Didn't matter, really. "She was new. She attacked one of their members in retaliation for something they did to Robert--Bob. She was... naive. She thought she was doing the right thing. And I s'pose, in a way, she was. I don't think she even did any harm. Not much, anyway. And Velveteen? I've never met her. But we talked. She threatened to kill Cyth. KILL her, for the smallest thing. It wasn't even an eye for a ******* eye. It was...fucked," he said. He bit his tongue; he wouldn't generalise. He wanted to say the whole group was fucked, but he would try to control himself.

‹Irene› Irene paused and thought back on the conversation. Velveteen backtracked a lot. Talked circles around circles and seemed to have a difficult time staying on one track of argument. The only thing that made sense toIrene was the idea that survival was the strongest instinct in any species of any animal. As she listened to Elliot tell the story, a little frown crinkled her forehead. Then it deepened. "That is fucked," she said. Again, her optimism flagged. She wanted a cigarette. "Just when I thought things were starting to make sense." Her forefinger circled the armrest for a second. Then she shrugged. "Oh well. I'll make sure Etienne doesn't invite her." Irene paused. With an intake of breath to speak she said, "I've never met Cyth, by the way. Or any of the other people you've uh." She gestured vaguely.

‹Lancaster› Lancaster sighed. He saw in himself then the same flaw that he loathed in those around him. The inability to offer the benefit of the doubt. People could change. And just because he didn't exactly agree with Velveteen's methods, didn't mean he should deride all who belonged to the same group. Ariadne was now Tytodinae, and he had no problem with Ariadne. And besides, nothing untoward had befallen Cytherea. She'd been left out of the fray, in the end. Perhaps they could be civil; but Lancaster didn't oppose Irene. Given the choice, he'd prefer not to meet Velveteen. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm not gonna...tell you who you can and can't be friends with. I get enough of that, and I ******* hate it," he said. He smiled. "And you will. I'll invite them to this gathering. Probably not Cyth. She's a bit MIA," he sighed.

‹Irene› She smiled back. "Well. I want to meet them." Irene dragged her armchair across the floor--and it looked cumbersome and ridiculous, but she did it anyway. The chair made a little squeak across the floor. When she was close enough, she kissed Elliot on the cheek. "I know you won't try to control who I'm friends with." She pulled away and shrugged a shoulder. "Besides, I wouldn't call her a friend. I talked to her once, and she didn't seem to care about making much sense. Though she did make her point, in the end. But." Irene took her cellphone out of her pocket and handed it to Elliot. There was that poster on the CrowNet, about the book auction. "I think I'm going to go to that, too. And my sister might come to visit on Christmas. I've got big plans this month." She rolled her eyes when she said 'big'. Then a weight dropped in her chest and she said, "We should look after her, if she does come."

‹Lancaster› Lancaster smiled, then, the expression genuine and broad. Reilly -Irene could meet Reilly. She'd love Reilly. Who couldn't love Reilly? And as Irene kissed him on the cheek, she denied Velveteen really being a friend. And he couldn't help but think - here's a woman who trusts me. Who'll listen to me, when no one else seems to hear me. He wanted to thank her for that; it was a burgeoning need that he struggled to shove aside. But he did. "She'll be fine. We'll take good care of her," he said, as he glanced down at Irene's phone, brows furrowing as he read the Crownet post. "You can meet my ex," he grunted sheepishly, pointing to the post Kaze had made. "And you're going to go, huh? All by yourself? Stag?" he teased.

‹Irene› "Well, if your ex is going be there, I probably should," she teased. "But no, really, I want you to come along. Somebody has to pay for those books."Irene looked serious--dead serious--for all of five seconds. And then her mouth twitched. "I'm kidding," she said, as she finally cracked a smile.

‹Lancaster› "God no. The way that relationship ended..." he struggled, trying not to laugh. It was amusing, that he could laugh about it now. It wasn't really a laughing matter. Kamikaze had helped to kill Robert. Had even initiated an attack on Robert. Had done so, without a care for what Lancaster might think. Though he assumed she had a part to play in why Cytherea was let off the hook. "It's probably bloody childish of me, but I want to show you off," he smirked, playfully. "Would even happily be your sugardaddy for the night. So long as you pay me back later."

‹Irene› "Ohhh, I see." She put her chin in her hand and affected a smoldering look. "Then I should really dress up, then. And pay you back in kind." Irene winked, and then leaned in her chair again. The music was getting softer. Peggy Lee. Something coffee themed. Some waiters started cleaning up, even though they were open until the wee hours of the morning and it was still relatively early. Irene was in a good--or at least a very peaceful mood. Her mind was at ease. "So tell me about this ex of yours, then."

‹Lancaster› So Lancaster told her - told her all about Kamikaze; how he thought her name was odd, and it wasn't her real name anyway. How she was in a wheelchair. How he had met her, with her sniper, in the Quarantine Zone. How he had thought she was so sweet, until he realised where her loyalties lay. Told Irene that Kaze was part of the reason he was so mistrustful of Tytonidae - that Kaze was good friends with Velveteen. That she wasn't really so sweet. She was actually quite bloodthirsty--or so was the impression that he had been left with.

‹Irene› And Irene listened, and she furrowed her brow and reacted appropriately, at the appropriate times. She said how it was strange--she met somebody in a wheelchair in Harper Rock, a few months ago, but she couldn't remember the name. She had been trying to rent an apartment, but... well, the woman was a little strange. The place, too. Could that have been...? Then, later, Irene told him about Elias Zabat--about the restaurant, about their own strange story. About the others. Now and again, she digressed, as she was wont, peppering her stories with, "anyway"s and "where was I?"s.
‹Irene› And they talked like that, and talked until they slipped into comfortable silences with each other, and then started up again, and then quieted down again until the busboys started mopping, and they had to go. Back to the apartment in Cedar Court, with the blackout curtains, and the rugs, and the lack of supernatural creepy crawlies scratching at the door. Just one of those nights.