when: December 3rd, 2019
where: a dark corner of the Last Drop
with: @jinxlane
It didn’t feel quite as sharp as he thought a haunting should. Then again, she wasn’t quite a ghost, and he wasn’t really haunted – not by her, at least, but instead by the time in his life in which he’d met her. (He could still smell his father’s funeral pyre, even then; the scent clinging to his clothes and his hair like smoke to an arsonist.)
So it wasn’t a haunting, and it wasn’t sharp enough to truly instil an interest, until he heard some other patron refer to her as Jinx, like it was her name, and he saw her respond, like it was her name.
Last he checked, her name was Winter, like the season they courted, and she was still in the company of her family, the Holters.
So it wasn’t sharp, but it resonated through him anyway, like the iron string of a fiddle being plucked. Whatever visual similarities there might have once been between them, they were all gone – she’d traded the piercings and leather for bubblegum pink, her hair blonde like a field of wheat. Declan himself had grown into his height and broad shoulders, more tattoos on his body now than there had been back then. The rolled-up sleeves of his black sweater revealed the circle of nine spears for Odin on his arm, joined in the years after by portraits of one-eyed ravens and burrowing serpents. The ink hid scars, among other things; a select few marking him for what he was to the initiated.
He gave her a nod of acknowledgement before he approached, a beer in his hand.
“Been a while,” he said, which was an understatement.
“–– How’s Jake ‘n Jade and the rest of them?”
most people found comfort in familiarity. the idea of seeing an old friend and catching up was looked on with nostalgic pleasure. it became significantly less appealing with the looming threat of a barrel in your face or bullet in your back for the wrong word. the hunting community was a rare sort. they were sparse, but connected. they didn’t go around having family reunions or anything, but it was safe to say you had a calling card in your corner on any corner of a map.
which made it all the more difficult when one stumbled on you. it made it all the more difficult to hide the signs.
“look who finally filled out.” jinx said in response, or should she say winter. he may be one of the few to know the difference. it had been years since anyone had called her that. the bottle blonde lifted her drink to her mouth and took a long and much needed sip through her straw. it burned the entire way down.
a quick incendiary rage lit behind her usually icy green eyes. it was a dangerous question. it was a dangerous answer. she could feel the edge of the blade that she balanced on as they spoke. not even two sentences in and she felt the tension of a minefield.
“cold and six feet under somewhere in washington.” may as well tell him the truth. afterall, it would be shocking had that information not already spread through the grapevine. in their line of business, it wasn’t uncommon. “it’s a solo act now, sweetheart. and you? I’m noting a significant lack of odinsons.”
