Suicide is Painless [Pi and Lancaster]

[Stryge (DELETED 7204)]

Stuart Ryan Giger's introduction to Harper Rock had been overwhelmingly underwhelming. He had stepped off the Greyhound bus that morning onto a clean but quiet city street. The whole town had a muted feel, as if he were watching a still photograph that had somehow sprung to life, albeit gradually. The street was quiet, and the few people he observed walking to and fro mostly kept to themselves.

A block down from the bus stop had been a bar, and, what with bartenders almost always being repositories of such information, he had swung in to inquire where a fella like himself might find room and board. He had also been appreciative of the bartender's discretion in not raising an eyebrow at the whiskey Stu ordered at ten in the morning.

From there the transit system had delivered him to the Redwood district, home of his final destination. A transit system! What was it about Canada, with its hidden metropolises? He had never heard of Harper Rock; had to look twice to find it on the map. But Billy had sworn by it, and though Billy wasn't the smartest friend Stu had ever had, he was one of the last ones to stick by him. Most everyone else in Stuart Giger's life had abandoned him with nary a word, usually signalling their disassociation by unfriending him on Facebook, that modern-day equivalent of insult to injury.

The location that the first bartender had pointed him to was some sort of hostel that went by the name of Backpackers, located above a bar called Lancasters. Though some might have been worried about the prospect of a quiet night's sleep, the proximity of the two in no way displeased Stuart Giger. He had been drinking his way steadily across North America, and had no intention of stopping now that he was in Harper Rock, Ontario.

Except that wasn't entirely true. Some night soon the drinking would stop. Forever. Stuart Ryan Giger had arrived in Harper Rock with the intention of killing himself.

As he passed through the doors of Lancasters, he was pleased by what he saw. The bar had a warm feel to it. An 'everybody knows your name' kind of place. He noted the stage in the corner opposite the bar. Music to soothe the savage beast. Except there was no soothing his beast. His beast was a rat, and it had been gnawing steadily at his soul for close to three months now. But not for much longer. Very soon he was going to stop that little ****** in its tracks; no doubt about that.

As he inquired about a room, he mused that his appearance must not be uncommon to a place that advertised itself to wanderers like himself. He wore old jeans, sneakers, and a leather jacket with a hood. A military surplus duffel bag was slung over his shoulder. Though he was clean-shaven, his hair had been getting longer and more unkempt on the road, forcing Stuart to resort to a man-bun just to keep it in check. He was a "backpacker" alright. Would his stay be shorter or longer than the average customers, he wondered, as he paid the deposit up front and settled his belongings in the room.

Ten minutes later he was downstairs at the bar. He noted appreciatively that this bar stocked some of the finer vintages, including a few that he had only seen in the private stocks of some rather wealthy individuals in his native Houston. Well well, Harper Rock, you are just full of surprises. Unfortunately, the money he had left home with was running thin, and it was a little premature to declare a Babette's Feast here at Lancasters tonight. The timing was still off. For now he settled for a glass of whiskey poured from a bottle located somewhat lower than the bottom shelf.

The willpower he had been mustering for a while now to do the necessary evil and end it all must have been working on his subconscious, because though the conversation of the meager afternoon crowd had not previously been registering as much more than a low mumble, as he raised his glass to his lips, a phrase cut through the chatter with crystalline clarity and rang in Stuart Giger's ears:

...buy a gun...

The phrase was absolutely musical in its perfection. If Stu had any belief left in the Almighty, he might have called it a sign from Heaven. He paused in his drinking and turned to the patron next to him, the one who had uttered the magical words. Putting on his best southern charm, Stuart Giger spoke.

"Excuse me sir, might you be so kind to as tell me how I could do exactly that?"

[Pi dArtois]

She had to work at acting normal, especially around Elliot. It had shaken her when he was taken out by Tytonidae and she wasn’t sure she was entirely put back together again. She was here though, at the Pub, and so was Elliot. She didn’t mean to follow his every movement with a eagle-eye, but she couldn’t help it. At any moment she expected him to lose his damn mind, snapping like a dry twig, and exploding all over the polished wood floors.

Or maybe she was projecting and it was her that was about to snap, the whole situation they’d just lived through bringing their tenuous position in this city into stark relief. Pi was not happy with the death served to her husband. She wasn’t happy at all.

She heard the man speak, the first one, not the second one who had overheard. Sure she used Lancaster’s as a front to sell weapons but it felt insulting to cultivate new business so soon after Elliot had returned from the Shadow Realm. So she ignored it, the first man and the second, moving down the long expanse of wood to face the second male, with the man bun and slow southern drawl.

Pi was a publican, in the worst definition of the label. She had her moments where her actions fit the expectation. She was one of the owners, she even talked to the people who came, leaning on the bar and indulging in senselessly inane conversation with virtual strangers. These days more and more people knew her name, regulars who gave at least a nodding acknowledgement of her. Some who expected her to remember their ‘regular’ orders (and sometimes she did). But mostly, this was Elliot’s role, Elliot’s domain and she gladly played second fiddle to his intrinsic charisma.

The fact Pi was here and she was the most charismatic, spoke volumes about where she thought Elliot’s head was. He seemed darker since his return. As if the Shadow realm had left its mark on his face, etching grooves across already lean cheeks. He wasn’t as quick to smile, or quick to joke. Or maybe she was just watching too damn closely and being too damn critical.

Maybe he was just find and dandy and she needed to lighten the hell up, and stop psychoanalysing the man (and his facial movements) for signs of mental distress.

“What can I get you?” She asked smoothly, her French accent sliding across vowels and consonants.

Her hair was getting longer, brushing her shoulders, the left side tucked behind her ear. She was dressed for summer, with a skirt flirting with the bottom of her knees, the scalloped neck of the mint green shirt showing off a tiny row of daisy trim.

[Lancaster]

Pi and Lancaster were two parts of a whole. The two had spent so long in each other’s company that each had changed the other, in certain ways. It was subtle, but it was there. The musician could feel his partner watching his every move; he could feel her eyes on his back. It didn’t bother him. In fact, it comforted him, knowing that she was there with him in this physical realm. That at any moment, he could look up and catch her eye; and when he did catch her eye, he gave her that smile that was reserved only for her. Because she was right. The smiles were less quick, these days. Happiness was not his default expression. The man was sombre, lost in his thoughts. Unable to just… be, anymore. There were things he knew he had to do. He couldn’t just stand around and do nothing anymore.

But the pub was still his baby; for the time being, it still was one of his main priorities. Sia had settled well enough; he’d spent a couple of nights teaching her and making sure she’d found her feet before letting her regain her independence. Though he made sure to check in with her often enough. Whatever plans he may be working on were not yet fully formed.

He hadn’t yet taken to the stage since his return. Whatever inspiration he’d had to make music was lost. It would come back, sooner or later, but he was in no rush to write away his pain. He’d turn it to different endeavours. The music played over the juke box, and while Pi manned the bar, Elliot collected the dirty glasses, stacking them into a wire tray. When he laughed with the customers, talking to them as moved between them, it was a mask. He could not lie with his words, but he could lie with his body, with his facial features. People asked him how he was doing and where he had gone but he evaded the questions with expert ease.

After he’d done his rounds, he returned to the bar, the glasses clinking in their tray. His plaid shirt was rolled up to the elbows, the tea-towel flung over his shoulder. His hair was tucked neatly behind his ears as he started to stack the glasses onto the tray that would slide into the industrial dishwasher. He glanced up at Pi and the customer she was currently serving; he stood just to the side of her, not interrupting but close enough to hear. Paying attention to his surroundings, his expression neutral and his blue eyes sharp.

[Stryge (DELETED 7204)]

Stuart's inquiry into the purchase of a firearm was interrupted by the sudden appearance of the bartender.

What can I get you?

Though she did not ask the question particularly loudly, the swiftness of her appearance surprised him.
There was something in her tone that was almost pointed, as if she had intended to interrupt the conversation. Don't be ridiculous, Stu thought to himself. She's just doing her job.

The first thing he noticed about the woman behind the bar was that she was absolutely beautiful. Though not particularly tall, she had an undeniable grace and finely delicate features, with almond eyes that cast an an air of kindness. But, perhaps, beneath the surface, also a bit of judgement, as if the charity he observed was like the still surface of a lake whose depths held something dangerous. Here there be monsters. Her hair, like his, was obviously in the process of growing out past the previous season's style, though in her case the process looked very natural. And what the hell, the French accent didn't hurt either. Stuart wasn't in much of a place in his life right now to be smitten with anyone, too lost as he was in his own guilt and self-loathing. But if he had been, there would've been stars in his eyes for the young woman behind the bar. As it was, at this moment the offer of a drink had more immediate appeal.

Stuart pulled a five dollar bill out and laid it on the bar. "M'am, I'll take whatever kind of whiskey this will get me." He reached up to tip a cowboy hat that was no longer there, had not been there for some time in fact, but stopped himself short. You're not a cowboy anymore Stu. Not that you ever were much of one. Hell, if he had been riding a horse instead of driving a car that night, it most likely would've been his neck that had been broken. And the world would surely be a better place for it, he thought.

He noticed a man working behind the bar near the French woman. Though their proximity to each other was entirely professional, there was something about the way the man looked at her that implied there was something more there. Stu decided to keep the flirting to a minimum. No sense riling up the locals.

"Nice place y'all have here," he said cordially. He noted with some irritation that the man he had asked about the gun had slunk away to another part of the bar. Time for that later, he decided.

[Pi dArtois]

In anyone’s life, there were people that walked in and out of it, ghosts who flit on the periphery of your reality. They meandered into your frame of reference, bit actors playing walk on parts in a reality that was their own, but also a little bit of yours. They played small speaking parts, interactions with little depth and no substance. They were the people who passed you in doorways, who met your eye, nodded their heads and walked on. They were the shopkeepers in stores you frequented, who recognised your face enough to inquire about your day, take your money and forget you until you ventured their way once more.

So many lives, brushing past your own, each on a fate driven course of their own making. Personal clocks flipping through ticker tape timing in counterpoint to your own.

As an owner of Lancaster’s she understood the subtle impact she had on the lives of others. Her vampiric state was as removed from this environment as her former humanity. But in the breach between the life she now lived and the ones who brushed against hers, either here or in the vampire world, stewed a thinly held veneer.

With the stretching of her life’s timeline she had slowed the minute hand of her own life clock. Its beat was a grindingly slow pulse. Each person who drifted in and out adding a single reverberating echo. She imagined when she was human, these interactions would be short-lived, forgotten and discarded. When you lived a life whose minutes were precious and limited, you didn’t waste them on people who drifted. You guarded those minutes jealously with parsimonious frugality.

It was only now when she had so many of those minutes to spare that she appreciated the wonder of each ebb and flow of the human ocean. Waves of people, crashed against her life shore. Some were small eddies, tiny ripples of water kissing the edge of sand, only to creep quickly away, sucked back into the sea of people. Others were resounding white tipped curls of rushing water, crashing and spilling their lives against the rocks, their momentum spilling their words and actions until their life surrounded your own. You became an island, locked on all sides by their emotions and actions.

And it took being a vampire to halt the rushing onslaught of time long enough to appreciate it. Each person, each ripple against the now permanent skein that raveled her days and weeks.

In her other life she would have passed by the face of the man with the invisible hat, and ignored his old southern charm. Life would have been too busy to stop in what she was doing, to settle against the long expanse of highly polished wood to give him her attention.

He, among the many tonight played a part in her life. It didn’t matter if he was the small eddy, flowing around and away, who would soon be gone, his contribution to the near constant stream a infinitesimal memory. It didn’t even matter if she would be as easily forgotten against the richer tapestry of other lives his universe would collide.

What did matter was the minutes she gave this moment. The attention she gave this exact second and the man with the sad eyes, the old air of south charm, with a drawl as reminiscent of his own ancestry as her French accent said of her own.

“Oui.” She answered. “I have something you may like.” She offered, sliding Elliot a sly glance before pulling his special bottle from the top shelf, pouring a 30ml splash into the heavy lead glass and sliding it over.

“This?” She asked, pushing the glass forward a bit more and sliding the five into her apron pocket.

[Lancaster]

There was a sixth sense that Lancaster had. One that he hadn’t honed – he wasn’t sure whether it could be honed. It sure couldn’t be controlled. But it was something that he had learned to interpret; he knew which emotions weren’t his own. He could detect the foreign waves like silent melodies from perambulating radios. It was harder in crowded spaces, of course, but he’d learned the different nuances. It was like hearing a dozen different songs all at the same time, all from singers standing right in front of him. With practice, he could determine which singer sang which song by the way their lips moved. It was the same with emotions. He could figure out which emotions belonged to which person depending on their facial features; the way the variant twitches and hints of body language gave away their mood.

Some emotions were easier to pick up on than others. Some weren’t felt strong enough. Someone grieving over the loss of a parent was easier to pick out of a crowd than someone who was only vaguely worried about whether they’d fed the cat or not. Sometimes Lancaster wasn’t sure what it was that he was feeling, but the knowledge was subconscious. And in this situation, he subconsciously felt the need to interrupt. To shimmy his way into the conversation. To show this charming Southern customer where he stood.

”Thank you. It was a joint effort," he said, responding to the compliment on the bar. His own accent was broad, just like the customer’s. But in an entirely different way. Australians tended to be lazy with their pronunciation, sometimes. Lancaster was no exception. He had watched Pi reach for the most expensive whiskey, the one that Lancaster himself preferred to drink, on occasion. It wasn’t anything that he himself wouldn’t have done, but when it came to Pi, all reason flew out the window.

All the glasses had been stacked into the dishwasher; the load was running through. It would only take two minutes. But Lancaster let them be while he turned his body toward Pi, leaning against the bar top so that his torso stood half a hand-span from her arm. He smiled down at his other half; this smile wasn’t a mask. It bled into his eyes and allowed his entire demeanour to relax, if only slightly. ”Well, it was Pi’s doing, first. A surprise,” he said, before turning his too-blue eyes toward the customer. He held out a hand.

”Lancaster d’Artois,” he said, introducing himself. For a while he’d introduced himself as Elliot. Elliot was his given name. Elliot Lancaster, though he’d grown up being referred to as Lancaster. He’d travelled the world as Lancaster. And now he had another name to call his own – the man could be fickle with how he introduced himself on any given night.

”What brings you to our humble pub?”

[Stryge (DELETED 7204)]

I have something you may like.

Stuart Giger's eyes widened slightly as the beautiful French bartender completed their transaction, not by pulling out some bottom shelf swill, but by reaching up and grabbing a bottle whose age and label clearly stated it should have been well beyond Stuart's means at that moment. She proceeded to pour him a glass of aged, aromatic, and naturally dark (no caramel coloring here) liquid that was worth about ten times what Stu was paying for it.

This?

Stu sniffed the contents of the glass appreciatively. "Much obliged."

He was reminded suddenly of a scene from a movie he hadn't seen since he was a kid. Titanic. Penniless drifter Leo DiCaprio drinking champagne with those rich folks on the doomed ship, living for the moment, not knowing he'd soon be dead. The difference was that Stuart knew that his ship was sinking, and though the exact time had not been determined, there was no more escaping his fate than poor doomed Leo floating face down in the Atlantic. Why not live it up tonight then? he mused. Perhaps the time had come for Babette's Feast after all?

The man behind the bar had moved closer to his coworker, or, as it turned out, co-owner. As he responded to Stu's social nicety of a couple seconds earlier, he revealed many things to the observant young Texan. First of which was that Stu's instincts had been correct. The way the man stood over the French woman, and the way that they looked at each other, made it clear that theirs was more than just a business relationship.

Stu also learned that the stunning young woman had a name, or at least a nickname: Pi

Lancaster d’Artois. What brings you to our humble pub?

Stu recognized the accent as being Australian. He shook the proffered hand. "Stuart Giger. Pleasure to meet you."

Something about the man's grip and his stare (his eyes seemed almost unnaturally blue) left Stuart with the impression that he was treading in some dangerous waters. Though others, especially some of the party boys he had run with in Houston, might have too quickly mistaken the woman Pi's graciousness for flirtaciousness, and consequently would have gone about making asses of themselves the rest of the evening attempting to get into her pants, Stuart had been raised a little better than that (at least while his mother had still been alive). The overwhelming guilt he carried with him had also come with a healthy dose of humility. The idea that any woman would find him attractive in his current state was completely alien to Stuart Giger's mind. And besides, he was on the run, intentionally distancing himself from everyone he knew he might have to leave behind in order to more easily accomplish the singular purpose to which he had committed himself. He had no plans to accumulate new messy emotional connections in his life, not now of all times, right before he killed himself. He hadn't even been planning on leaving a note.

Stu decided the best way to put the Australian at ease was to give him his full and undivided attention; to make it clear that Stu had no designs on his beautiful partner, as hard as it was to take his eyes off of her. There was just something about that face...

As he responded to Lancaster's inquiry, he grinned wide and lied his head off.

"I'm on a bit of a vision quest, I guess you might call it. Decided to pack up what I could and see as much as I could see before I end up in some office shuffling papers for the rest of my life. I'll only be here a day or two I reckon, then moving on to the next sight."

He sipped his drink thoughtfully for a second. His particular brand of gallows humor would not allow him to resist what came next:

"Fact is, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what's gonna happen, or who I'm gonna meet; where I'm gonna wind up. Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge and now here I am having a top notch glass of whiskey with you fine people." He gestured with the glass. " I figure life's a gift and I don't intend on wasting it. You don't know what hand you're gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you... to make each day count."

Stuart's dark eyes shone like polished stones as he beamed at the bar owners.

[Pi dArtois]

It wasn’t apparent to the public, the tight rope her and Elliot walked. They were publicans in a city where the line between two worlds was tissue thin. In a city where it was an imperative to keep the secret of their unchanging lives, her and Elliot straddled that thin line with acrobatic care.

In this setting she played the part of a simple bar owner. She poured drinks, she make small talk with patrons, she drew drinks and smiles from those who came to take a break from their lives. They couldn’t know about what lay beneath the surface. They had no idea of the world just a whisper away. How many years would they live like this, never changing, while everything around them grew old and faded.

Tonight they could pull it off with ease. Tonight they were merely bar owners who were barely integrated into the fabric of the community. People knew who they were, but soon those people would age while her and Elliot would be carefully frozen, time shifting and molding around the immortal islands they represented.
It would be a problem later. In a few years her and Elliot (and the rest of their kind) would need to make decisions about how you hide your true nature from a small populace that ages around you. But not tonight.

This night was no different from any other. People came, some she recognised and some like the man in front of her, with the dark hair and cheeky smile who would pass through their lives, not to be seen again.

“He is exaggerating …” Pi joked, closing the last of the space between her and the tall Australian standing just behind her. With a small shift she pressed her back against his chest. The move wasn’t overt, because her and Elliot weren’t the obvious sort of couple (well, not until someone pissed them off and then the gloves were tossed into the dirt and they both fought dirty). However, public displays of affection weren’t their thing.

She liked his name, Stuart. It felt like a very English name, and not one she would have associated with the slow drawl and hat tilting movement she’d been treated to earlier. She’d met enough transient people who used Bunk as a wayfarer Lodge, on their way to somewhere else. Very few would call Harper Rock a final destination and she wondered really, if any did on purpose. How many of the vampires in this city had come, just like this man, one stop among many, only to be hijacked from their original purpose.

Many a life plan had ended here, brought to grinding halt. Relatives had to be put off, friends ignored, their curious texts left unanswered. Life had to be reinvented with a different purpose, a surreal outcome no one could predict. None of them did predict.

A vision quest. It sounded like something a person would say because they didn’t’ want to say what they really wanted to say. A small little evasion designed to gloss, a version of a truth you said in public facing conversations because how else could you adequately describe what was truly happening. It was the more grown up version of the ‘Nothing much’ answer given from the innocuous ‘what are you up to’, when the truth was, there was so much ‘up’ you had no way to properly define it all.

But Pi wasn’t the curious sort and she felt a vision quest was as good a reason to float around the wilds of

Canada as any. She had been cured of curiosity many years ago and her current existence guaranteed the lesson ten times over.

Her assumption at his words, were only that. An assumption. It didn’t matter how many other prevarications she’d heard in her time behind the bar. The blithely cited ‘nothing much’, or the ever handy ‘this and that’. They were phrases meant to explain absolutely nothing because silent staring wasn’t the done thing.

“That sounds interesting.” She answered, although he hadn’t really posed the statement to her at all. “I had never intended to stay here long term myself.. yet here I am.” She added.

“Did I see you come down from Bunk?” she asked, her eye caught by one of the regulars giving her a come hither and serve me something to drink smile. “I’ll be right there….” She answered, nudging Elliot as she moved to the left to take order, money and pull the handle on a shandy. “So that means we’ll see you again before you head out of town again.” She continued, multi-tasking her drink order pour and the conversation with practiced ease.

[Lancaster]

Pi’s thoughts and Elliot’s thoughts about what they would do down the track would differ completely, he assumed. Already he had shared the fantasy that their humble pub would become like a magical oasis. They could be legend. The couple who never aged, but who nobody thought to question. An old grandfather passing on to a granddaughter how he used to go to a pub called Lancaster’s, and there was a tall gangly man and his small, petite wife who made everyone feel welcome. Another realm into which they could step, to get away from their ordinary lives.

Of course it was just fantasy, and of course he didn’t believe Pi would ever let that happen. And Elliot had his doubts, too. Deep down he knew Humanity wasn’t ready for that kind of thing. They didn’t live in some novel where the magical was readily accepted. Instead, they were more likely to be received by a hoard with their bonfires and their pitchforks, ready to skewer anything they didn’t understand. They feared what they did not understand. It was juvenile, and it was disappointing.

But it wasn’t something that Elliot focused on tonight. In contrast to Pi, he chose to believe Stuart’s explanation, even though the vibes that he could pick up seemed to be in contradiction to what he was saying. Elliot still couldn’t pinpoint the emotion or what thought might be behind it, so he chose to ignore it and pretend like he didn’t know anything he shouldn’t. Because this was the reason why he had established the backpackers above the pub; so that he could live vicariously through those who were still able to live the life that he had decided to give up.

Pi moved on to serve another customer, but Elliot’s focus remained upon Stuart. His smile had shifted; it was still genuine, and it was welcoming, but not as soft or as adoring as the one that he had gifted to Pi. It was still a curious smile, though. An interested one, while that gleam of faraway places entered Elliot’s eye.

”I know how it goes,” he said. ”I did that, you know. I left home at eighteen to travel for a year before I figured I’d go back and get a job and settle down. But I never did go back. The world became my office,” he said. That smile didn’t falter. He’d had a hell of a lot of good times. ”It’s a hell of a way to live. You won’t regret it,” Elliot said. Because he had done just that. His days were not planned. He found a new place and he got a job where he could. The money he earned shifted and pulsed, building until he spent it to buy a bus ticket or a plane ticket or a boat ticket. And even then, tickets were few and far between. Hitchhiking was the best way to go. No better way to meet people with interesting stories than meeting them on some middle-of-nowhere highway, somewhere.

But you could still meet good people in a pub, too. And he was happy for his place here. Happy for this little oasis. Even if no one else believed it was an oasis, it was his oasis. As it would always be.

[Stryge (DELETED 7204)]

"The world is your office. I like that. Hell, Lancaster, maybe I won't go back home after all."

Stuart chuckled as he smiled at the man Lancaster and his beautiful partner Pi, but a creeping doubt had come into his mind. He found his resolve wavering. In his travels he had met plenty of folks he would qualify as "friendly" (as well as more than a few that he wouldn't), but he had never met anyone quite like these two, the Frenchwoman and the Australian. There was something about them that was larger than life. The few words he had already exchanged with them had been like drops of rain in the desert. Just this small glimpse into their personalities and their lives were for Stuart like being hypnotized by the dancing flame of a candle. And this frustrated him. For he was not looking to accumulate an ever-widening trail of those he would soon leave behind. Aw for Christ's sake, don't make me start to like you.

Stuart downed the rest of his whiskey. He decided he needed to focus on what was important. It was time to get this conversation back on track. "You know, travelling really is the life, but I tell you what, it's a bit scary out there for a hitchhiker these days. I've come close to getting a knife in the throat more than once. In fact, after the last time, I decided that I wouldn't keep travelling without carrying some means of defending myself. Preferably a gun." He knew that what was coming next was a longshot, but he had gotten the distinct impression from overhearing his former neighbors at the bar that Lancasters had been the place where they had been intending to buy a gun.

"Would y'all be able to help a fellow traveler out, and direct him towards the best place to do that?