TIMING: During The Apple Gathering
LOCATION: The Apple Gathering; Gatlin Fields
PARTIES: Rosemary (@necrosemancy) & Siobhan (@banisheed)
SUMMARY: Rosemary and Siobhan are unimpressed by a hayride.
NOTES: Despite repeated mentions of an action known as "boning" this is a family friendly thread. This thread is G-rated. We promise.
Hay was the thing animals ate. Siobhan kept thinking about it as she pulled straws of hay out of her legs. She thought about it as she looked at the hay ride to begin with, and as the operator of the tractor boasted about a ‘haunted’ experience that was sure to be ‘scary’ and ‘spooky’ and then again, as she climbed up and sat on the hay. She pulled more bits of hay away from her, as though just underneath the dried grass would be a plush leather seat. She turned to her right. “Do you come here often?” She asked the woman beside her because she seemed to be like her: in that she was dressed well (albeit horrifically pastel) and wasn’t a quivering child or tired parent. “To these…” She tried to find the word for it. Was ‘completely idiotic apple themed event’ too harsh? If she said it, would it spawn any questions about why she was here? There were less words to explain that. “...events?” Siobhan tried to smile; she could be friendly, sometimes.
When someone advertised a ‘haunted hayride’, it conjured images of a hayride mixed with the thrills and chills of a haunted house. Rosemary could get behind something like that- she didn’t have to walk through the dark, running the risk of tripping over a scare actor if she was sat comfortably on a bale of hay. She crossed her legs before adjusting the pastel orange ribbon she tied around her ponytail. She was plucking a stray strand of hay from her autumnal sweater when she heard the most bizarre question she’d ever been asked on a hayride. The witch blinked owlishly at the woman next to her as she debated whether or not the stranger was using it as a pickup line. “Yeah, sometimes. It depends. I like autumn, so I tend to go to a fair number of events. How about you?”
Was this what polite conversation passed for these days? It was her fault—she’d started the conversation plainly—but that was before she remembered how boring normal conversation was. Siobhan sighed, deeply offended by herself. What were they going to do next? Talk about the weather? Their jobs? Fates, if this woman so much as mentioned a hobby to her she was going to throw herself off the extremely slow-moving tractor—it wouldn’t be physically damaging at all but she hoped it would be dramatic enough. This was her fault and she ought not to complain (mentally) about it but still. “I like…” She grit her teeth as though the words pained her. “...winter best. And spring. No events.” Being friendly was so achingly boring. And it made her skin itch. And she hated it. And the hay was poking her. And it smelled bad. And the children keep staring at her with their big, insipid, wet eyes.
Siobhan pulled more hay off her. The children shrieked as a skeleton (plastic) pushed through stalks of corn. “It’s not even accurate,” she grumbled. “Missing several bones.” The skull of a dog (also plastic) burst forth next with glowing red eyes—of course it wasn’t the skull of the dog so much as a bone-white approximation of a dog’s head with cartoonish features. “Abhorrent. Is this what scares humans now?”
“Nice.” The witch nodded her head in polite acknowledgment. This stranger clearly did not enjoy small talk. Rosemary couldn’t imagine why the woman had bothered to strike up a conversation if they hadn’t wanted to talk. Obligation, perhaps? Or an inability to sit comfortably in silence.
The ride trundled along, and the least terrifying Halloween decorations Rosemary had ever seen in her entire life caused a chorus of scared and delighted screams to ring out from the six-and-under crowd. The woman beside her, much to the witch’s delight, seemed less than impressed as she began to heckle to decor. “Apparently,” Rosemary snickered in response. “Hell, look. They even gave the dog ears. Dog skeletons don’t have ears. These poor kids are going to grow up thinking they have ear bones.”
“Yes!” Siobhan brightened. She scrambled across the pointy hay to sit beside her ally against the terrible skeletons. “The misinformation is the issue and human children are such sponges. Proper bone education needs to start young if you hope to have a well-adjusted adult.” Like her, who was adjusted extremely well and had no flaws or issues. Skeleton spiders skittered across the ground; which would’ve been an impressive feat of animatronics if it wasn’t an offensive display of bone lies. Siobhan held out her hand. “Siobhan,” she said. “My name, not yours. I like you. You’re sensible. You’re attractive. You dress well.” Although not to Siobhan’s color tastes. “You seem knowledgeable about bones. Do you collect them?”
The witch groaned. “Are those skeletal spiders? Spiders don’t have bones! They have exoskeletons.” Despite her protests against the authenticity of the spiders, she studied them as the skittered by, just to be sure this wasn’t some sort of spell she could utilize. Her hopes were dashed when she saw a glowing red lightbulb on the back of one of the spider’s thoraxes. Damn. Her mouth quirked into an amused smile at the introduction. “Pleasure to meet you. And Rosemary is my name, not yours.” She said cheerfully, replicating the woman’s strange introduction. “I’d say all the same things about you- love your shoes, by the way. Unfortunately I don’t think I have enough for them to be considered a collection. I have a dog skeleton. And a bunch of taxidermied mice. Always looking for more, though. Do you collect them?”
“Yes! Exactly!” Siobhan bit down on the inside of her cheek, forcing herself to quell her excitement—she could feel her voice climbing into the banshee register. It was so rare for a human to be this wise—the bar was very low—and so having just one thrilled her. What a good human this one was! Siobhan resisted the urge to pet her head. “Oh, aren’t they just darling?” Siobhan shifted so her feet were towards Rosemary. “I stole them off someone I ki-” Siobhan paused. “Kissed.” The lie burned a little. “I think it looks better on me. Speaking of…” Siobhan reached out and gently poked the ribbon in Rosemary’s hair. “Really ties the outfit together.” Fashionable, sensible and knowledgeable? Why couldn’t more humans be like Rosemary?
“Oh, what a shame.” Siobhan sighed. “We should go bone hunting together—or boning, as it's known. We could bone.” At this point, the silly inaccurate skeletons were completely uninteresting to her. “I do collect them. Oh! Taxidermy.” Siobhan had never been especially skilled with it; the patience required was beyond her and why make the dead thing look like it was alive? It seemed to be a little bit of a waste, but still, she appreciated the art. “Did you do it yourself?”
Rosemary’s smile widened at the woman’s excitement. This woman had solid friend potential. She preened like a bird under the praise as Siobhan poked at her hair ribbon. “They definitely do.” She agreed, not noticing the hasty change of words on the other woman’s part.
Amusement flickered in her eyes at the term boning. Her inner child that couldn’t help but laugh at dirty jokes barely restrained herself. “We could absolutely bone.” The response earned them a murderous glare from a mother a few seats down who covered her child’s ears to shield the tot from their conversation. “I didn’t do the taxidermy myself, but I did sew the little outfit one of them is wearing. I made her a little burlesque outfit. I call her Dita Von Squeak. The skeleton I call Skeledog. Clearly I enjoy naming things.” Rosemary swallowed a groan as a plastic skeleton popped out. “Why do they keep insisting on putting ears on the skeletons?”
“We should go bone now.” Siobhan was ignorant to any looks, excited by having a human that wouldn’t disappoint her. She glanced down the side of the tractor—the jump really wasn’t anything at all. “Very…” Siobhan tried very hard not to frown at her new human pet—friend. “...original names.” Skeledog was an unoriginal, uninventive mockery of bones, but there was no reason for Rosemary to know what she thought. She couldn’t scare this human off just yet, boning was a lonely venture but boning with a companion was an acceptable joy. Boning yourself simply wasn’t the same.
She turned to the skeleton as Rosemary did. “Humans are stup…” She cut her sentence off. “Some people are stupid.” Siobhan smiled. “Not you. Not us.” She gestured to the slow moving ground. “Shall we? Or do you enjoy skeleton ears?”
The witch’s brows rose in surprise at the immediate change of plans from Siobhan. Not that she was opposed - no, quite the opposite. Rosemary was always down for a strange change of plans. She supposed it ought to be concerning receiving an offer to go hunting for remains or boning as the other woman called it. But if Siobhan was planning on leading her to a deep dark pit in the woods with lots of people she’d serial murdered, Rosemary could probably raise one of the murdered to keep her from getting stabbed. Maybe. Probably. Hopefully.
“No, we’re very pretty and clever. And have immaculate taste.” Rosemary strapped her bag over her shoulder and hopped off the slow rolling hay ride. “Let’s go bone.”
Siobhan didn’t like humans, generally. They were insipid, juvenile and arrogant, but they could be at times amusing. Rosemary was sensible and could be enjoyed like a cup of tea. It was important for Siobhan’s particular lifestyle to amass pleasure in different degrees: cups of tea were as important as chugging down 40-year barrel aged Irish whiskey, for example. If she had whiskey all the time, she imagined she’d be pretty sick. But scatter her days with tea and the rest could be managed all the better. Siobhan had come to the apple event seeking fun and she’d found it. For now, she liked Rosemary. For now, she may even deign to call her a friend out loud. Later, perhaps, she might enjoy her tea spiked. Later, perhaps, there would be other things to do with Rosemary. Siobhan was determined to have her fun, after all—it was the only thing she could have anymore.
She jumped down, confident in her manipulative intent and ability to continually dehumanize Rosemary lest she do anything so embarrassing as actually enjoy her company. Then Siobhan forgot: forgot that Rosemary was a woman she just met, forgot that they weren’t actually friends at all, forgot that she was supposed to fantasize about self-serving interests. Walking alongside the woman with the promise of boning in the air, she felt only like her friend.
When she remembered again, it all came back to her with a clenching force, squeezed around her body. She was only doing this because it was better than the hayride. She was only doing this because Rosemary was slightly more enjoyable than other humans. She was only doing this because she was bored. She was only being friendly because she needed Rosemary’s company to scare away the ache of solo boning—and for any future gains she may receive by pulling on that thread of friendliness. This, like the hayride, was nothing special.
"Did you know that cannibalism was highly popular back in the early European cultures? T'was even considered medicinal." Bob stated, initially with a smile- which soon dropped.
Oh, he wasn't done.
"God damn party poopers. Ah wanted to try one a' those Egyptian mummies for myself, but nooo- ther' just HAD to be an increase with grave robbers 'round that time." He ranted.
his first, clear memory is of his mother. her face, more specifically. like, a camera zoomed in on her features. fixated on the painful details of her smile. lips stretched back, effortlessly. a light shining through her eyes. the truest form of happiness he will ever see, even though he didn’t know it at the time. a bright, glowing ambiance shines off of her. it’s yellow. everything is yellow – just like her. if someone ever stopped and asked him how to describe the color yellow . . . he would say ‘mama’. without any hesitation.
if he sees that particular hue now – he flinches away. tucks into himself, far far far away from ‘mama’. it’s the most painful sensation he’s ever experienced. the emptiness of her not being on earth. not seeing the glow he had always found so comforting.
the last time he saw that yellow – perfect, vibrant – it was draining away. similar to the way paint washes away from skin. muted, running, then gone. circling then down the drain.
as he walks down the street and looks at strange faces – he sees a rainbow. colors bleeding together. oranges, blues, greens, pinks. an assortment so vivid and bright. everything but yellow. not for a long time. not again until now.
TIMING: Recent
LOCATION: The Codfather
PARTIES: Eve (@technowarden) & Siobhan (@banisheed)
SUMMARY: Eve and Siobhan go on a date, which is only improved by the presence of leprechauns (and oysters).
CONTENT: Gun Use tw, Eye Trauma tw
There were some minor challenges in being a Warden who didn’t actively hunt for Eve. All that energy meant for prowling along the forest edge, chasing after Cat-Sith, darting around Trolls, none of it was going anywhere. Hours a day meant for hunting instead spent in front of a screen. Eve loved it, but it left her jittery. She was a member of eight running clubs in town, and all that wasn’t enough. Sometimes there was an urge for something more. While Eve often found her thrills at the Three Daggers, sometimes you needed to spend the night with someone who didn’t have quite such a rugged, heavy look in their eyes.
Sometimes, you needed to flirt with a strange but beautiful woman on the internet, talking about soggy cakes and butter knives. Sometimes, you had to accept that the computers wouldn’t solve the impending apocalypse, only steer the right people. And if there was no new information, there wasn’t much more she could do. So Eve had put on her best fuck-me outfit, with long wide trousers that cinched at the waist, a mesh crop top, and a leather jacket on top.
She was taking Siobhan out for dinner, first, of course. (Or perhaps Siobhan was taking her out). She wasn’t an animal. Anyway, it meant that she could figure out if Siobhan was just an internet troll, or something perhaps a little stranger. The Codfather was a good venue, and with their large outdoor fire heaters, they could even enjoy the outdoor fresh air. She arrived a couple minutes early, casually leaning against the wall of the building and checking her phone alerts for anything new.
There was a prickling in her spine, like her shoulder blades were aspiring to be wings. Eve tensed slightly, looking around. In autumn, she could sense something every five minutes, but there wasn’t enough grassy paths in this area to blame a gnome. Sometimes fae walked the town, that didn’t mean they would require her to take any action.
—
Siobhan walked a fine line between caring and not; dressing up was an obvious indication of care and it was unavoidable for her. If she wanted to be adored, she needed to dress the part. A tight dress typically did it but she wanted her intentions with Eve to be obvious. And so, the dress wasn’t just tight, it cut down low from her chest and revealed the curve of her breasts before stopping in a pool of dark red fabric at her bellybutton. It was the sort of thing that demanded to be pulled off or tugged down; it was the sort of thing that wasn’t entirely appropriate for a family establishment. She wanted Eve to think about it, she wanted Eve to desire it—that thing the dress encouraged—and she wanted to never give it over. There was nothing that thrilled Siobhan more than the wet-eyed desperation of a human. Her fun with Eve might end with the other naked, but her dress would stay on, that was the point.
The unfortunate byproduct of her plan was how much she appeared to care. From the carefully selected dress to her favourite leather jacket (it could hold so many knives) to her tall black heels to her makeup, she was very deliberate. Siobhan knew that was the agreement of a date, if they could call this one: to care in a horrifically transparent way. What exactly they would be caring about would be up to them. Siobhan, for example, didn’t expect to leave this meeting knowing anything personal about Eve. If she happened to learn Eve’s hobbies or favourite colour or name of childhood pet, she’d count that as a failure. Unless, of course, she could use that information to log into her bank account. She thought Eve might be the same; she had a way of speaking online that was purposefully vague. The only truthful thing she’d been given might’ve been that Eve was tall.
Which she was. Siobhan’s heels clicked like drops of water as she approached. She smiled in her amused, lopsided way to see that Eve also cared. If their desires were aligned, it would make the whole thing flow easily. In fact, why bother with the seafood at all at this point? Formalities could be such a bore. “You’ve brought a butter knife, I hope? If we get attacked, I am hoping you’ll protect me. I can’t get blood on these clothes.” Siobhan tugged her leather gloves off, one finger at a time, and stuffed them into her jacket. With her glamour safely in place, and her Irish accent lilting into the air, she held out her hand. “Formally then: I’m Siobhan. And you’re charmed, I’m sure.”
—
The dress had its desired effect, for a moment. It really did leave very little to the imagination. Eve’s eyes drifted involuntarily down. This bizarre internet stranger really was one of the catches around town. Except as Siobhan walked closer, the itchy feeling in Eve’s shoulder blades grew. There must be someone in the restaurant, someone who Eve hadn’t seen enter, right? She took Siobhan’s hand, smiling. “I’m Eve. I imagine I’m about as charmed as you are.”
Siobhan was such an Irish name. And the weirdness from before? Definitely word games. Mathematically, it was a big coincidence. Fuck. Eve’s smile didn’t falter, even as her pulse jumped. Now there was only one reason she’d not be able to take her eyes off of Siobhan, and it had nothing to do with the dress. “Wow, you look incredible.”
“Of course I have!” Eve chuckled falsely, as she pulled the butter knife out of her pocket. “As long as you’re willing to wait three hours while I finish your would be assailant off.” The idea of flirting with a fae for the next few hours made her stomach turn, and somehow the idea of rejecting a fae without offending them felt more fraught than the demon rumbling beneath their feet. Fuck, she’d have to be so much more careful with her lies too. “I was thinking oysters? Safely no butter knives involved, for both our sakes. Shall we sit out here, away from the crowds? It offers us a bit more privacy, and I’d like to have you all to myself.” In case Siobhan tried to pull anything, of course. Also in case she had to make a quick exit.
Eve decided right then she would never tell a soul about this night. If she survived it. “So, Siobhan, are you in a wine or cocktails mood tonight?”
—
Siobhan tried to hide her pleasure at the attention; she wasn’t some lonely old lady who needed to know she was still attractive. Except for the unfortunate fact that she was exactly that, and in the part of her brain shoved between all the other parts and cast over with darkness, she knew it. Compliments to her body didn’t mean much—it was all genetics, not her—and under the glamour it was repulsive, but she could take the silent praise and let it fill her up. Let it be something more and then it could be enough. She felt the most like herself when the attention was shallow. “I am incredible, I know.” She smiled. “You look…” She trailed off.
There came a point in every fae’s life when they had to decide if the joke was worth the repercussions of a lie—if the fae had lived a good life, it would be multiple points. Such was Siobhan’s dilemma: she could compliment Eve honestly, or she could make her fun and suffer a little. “Average,” she said, turning her head as bile rose up her body. She covered her lips and suppressed an acid burp. She thought she’d done a good job of it, turning back to Eve as though she hadn’t moved at all. “Relatively speaking, of course.” She smiled.
To her observation, nothing was amiss. Siobhan delighted in the brandish of the butter knife. “Watch you get sweaty for three hours?” She hummed. “I think I can manage that.” It was strange how much she felt like a younger version of herself—Fates, what a cliché. But the Siobhan who’d been freshly thrust out of Saol Eile couldn’t have managed this; there was an odd sense of freedom here. Freedom to manipulate someone into doing exactly what she wanted, but a freedom nonetheless. It was going to be fun. “I’d like that.” They were seated outside and presented menus, the drink menu being the most important.
“Wine,” Siobhan answered quickly, unable to stand the seconds in silence where she might be misunderstood to be a cocktail person. “Let me guess, you’ll order water, won’t you? Or…” Siobhan trailed her finger down the drink menu. “…something slightly alcoholic, so as to not appear like a wet blanket, but perhaps even that you’ll only sip at.” She closed the menu with a grin. “How’d I do?”
—
“Just average? If I’m not up to your standards, I can leave. Find someone with better taste,” Eve teased, although she almost wished Siobhan would dismiss her. Let her leave and forget this completely embarrassing night, preferably with lots of alcohol. Somehow, she didn’t think Siobhan was going to send her away. Eve was going to have to work harder to weasel her way out of this. “I’d be disappointed if all you did was watch.”
Eve listened to Siobhan’s speculation about her drink, crossing her arms and a single eyebrow raised. The annoying thing was… Siobhan was right. From the moment Eve had felt the first jitters in her spine, alcohol had been off the table. Enhanced reflexes weren’t much use if you unenhanced them. For a moment, Eve panicked and wondered if Siobhan knew. But that was almost impossible. Which meant that she was just being antagonised to get a rise out of her. Classic, wretched fae. Before Eve could reply to Siobhan, a waiter approached the table, asking for their drinks.
“Two glasses of the Alsace Riesling white wine, please. And may we have a sharing platter of the oysters? You’re a star,” Eve told the waiter, extremely cautious not to thank anyone. It wasn't part of her every day language anyway, but she was all the more aware of it now. Once he’d left, she looked back at Siobhan smugly. She probably wouldn’t have much anyway, but this was just to make a point. “I’m normally a cocktail girlie, but I guess I have something a little weaker for once.”
“So, what is your deal,” Eve asked, leaning forward over her elbows. How long would she have to wait before it was acceptable to claim it was cold and zip up her jacket? The mesh top that usually made Eve feel on top of the world suddenly felt incredibly vulnerable. “First you call me a spider, then you call me a lightweight. Do you always insult your dates, or only the hot ones?”
—
“I’m sure you can work your way into my good graces,” Siobhan said. The teasing and the white wine were a great start.
“Was I wrong?” Siobhan folded her hands together, resting them on the table. She smiled softly. The war of wits started now; if Eve could keep up—if Eve even knew they were playing—only the conversation would reveal. She knew very little about the woman across from her, which was her preference, but the inner workings were her favourite puzzle. Was she dealing with someone simple or complex? Were Eve’s motives aligned with hers or did they exist in a realm Siobhan had yet to consider? To dissect Eve would be a joy. “I didn’t call you a lightweight. Do you always spin words to dull their meaning?” The spider was many things: the waiting predator, the clever engineer of an invisible web. Siobhan had no idea what Eve was hoping to catch, but she could tell that the woman was constructing something inside her head. Or, at least, Siobhan thought she could. She wasn’t always right with people, but someone who navigated social interactions like chess was someone she could relate to—if, indeed, that was Eve. She hoped it was; it would be boring otherwise.
Siobhan pressed her palm to the table and smoothed out a wrinkle in the cloth. “It’s the way you ask questions. It’s interrogative, yet you’ve woven them to be unassuming.” Analysis floated around in her head: was Eve the sort of person who enjoyed being underestimated? Was Eve hoping to dissolve into the noise of humans, turning into one drop in an ocean? Did that reveal a lack of ego or an exceptionally dedicated intelligence? And could Siobhan even be sure? What if she was wrong? Looking at Eve now, it was hard to tell that she was doing anything in particular. Her responses were so quick, and so sharp, and she never agreed to or outright denied anything. Siobhan wasn’t certain, but walking the observation back would reveal weakness. “I believe you’re perfectly capable of handling alcohol, but you value your awareness more.”
Siobhan leaned back. Eve’s reactions would tell her a lot, but if she could ensnare her date into revealing her motives, she wouldn’t have to bother with battling Eve like this. “I’m complimenting you and I only do that for the dates I like.” Siobhan was very fond of spiders; it was blasphemously high-praise for a human. “Do you always assume the worst or am I special?”
—
Eve bit her tongue. Ugh, this was all so fae. Arrogance up to her ears, morally superior just in her analysis, twisting her words in ways no reasonable human ever would, and peering deep into Eve’s soul. Siobhan may describe her perception as complimentary, but Eve could see the manipulation, because it was one she used herself. To share those perceptions was to put someone on the defensive. This had never been a date, but a power play. Rotten being. There was cold iron in her jacket that was calling to be used. Eve smiled, acquiescently. “I don’t want you to worry that I won’t keep up with you,” she admitted, having a sip of her wine. “But you caught me. You’re beautiful and charming but my expectations from this were not exactly an overwhelmingly romantic affair. Whenever, and wherever we finish, my aim is to be able to drive home tonight. I’m just not that kinda gal. I thought you might be the same.”
“Being called a spider is a compliment?” Eve made a point of shivering at the thought. “That never even occurred to me. They give me the heebie jeebies!”
Her thinking was changing. This wasn’t an encounter she needed to win or outsmart Siobhan at. It was just an encounter she needed to survive. It was better to relent and bend, than stand tall and shatter. Even if that meant swallowing all her pride. She raised up her hands in defeat. “You’re definitely special, and you’re also probably right. I just wasn’t expecting to be psychoanalysed before we’d even been served our evening meal. Usually deep personal truths don’t happen until drink two or three at least.”
“So how has your week been, anyway? Anything exciting happen?” Siobhan may have been fluent in the language of half truths, but Eve knew exactly how to be a mediocre date.
—
“I wasn’t worried.” Siobhan took a sip of her wine, mirroring Eve; supposedly it put humans at ease, though Siobhan never found that it worked. At least, if Eve noticed Siobhan was copying her—which she would, if she fancied herself even a little observant—it would probably annoy her, which would in turn delight Siobhan. She smiled just as Eve did. “Not interested in romance then? No, neither am I.” But if they were so aligned on the end-goal, why wasn’t Eve moving? Why sit here and waste time? What if Eve just wanted the oysters that badly?
Then she shivered; Siobhan didn’t copy that. It was hard to tell if it was forced, Eve was very good at making her motions seem natural—indeed, they might as well have been natural. Siobhan could’ve been overestimating this human. But there was a small mistake Eve had made: she changed the rules. And Siobhan could tell. Eve was pulling away, forcing distance between them. Which may as well have been a normal reaction for someone uninterested in emotional intimacy except for the fact that Siobhan was sure they hadn’t been saying anything personal prior either. Again, the motive was completely lost on her, but that Eve shifted around at all meant something Siobhan did worked. Eve was getting uncomfortable, wasn’t she? Siobhan could work with that.
And what better way to make someone committed to distance uncomfortable than genuine displays of emotion? Siobhan would know, it tended to make her skin itch too. So, she looked confused, softly—like a fairytale princess being told she needed to be locked away—wounded but not insulted. She was in fact a little confused, and so the expression was slightly genuine, which she thought would help it read that way to Eve. “I love spiders,” she confessed in that same soft and wounded way.
“There was this spider in my grandmother’s garden…” All true. “...and every day I would go out and stare at its web. It made it between two plant stems.” Also true. “I wanted to see it eat, but I never caught it in the act. And then it was gone.” Gone because she took it and put it in a jar with a fly and then it starved instead of indulging her. “I was sad. Horribly, I think.” True. “More than I should’ve been. I’d really grown attached to that little spider, in some silly way I suppose I thought it liked me too.” Embarrassingly true. “They’re lovely creatures, Eve.”
Siobhan raised her hands up as well, as if to show she wasn’t carrying anything dangerous. “You have an odd definition of deep personal truths, love. My conjecture was shallow at best; anyone can see what a spider is but discerning what type…” Siobhan took a slow sip of her wine, adopting Eve’s methodology—normally she had no qualms with being tipsy. “You’re not embarrassed about your nature, are you? I find it quite charming.” If Eve was trying to steer their conversation into the mundane, Siobhan had to wrench it back. “Hm.” She took another sip. “So you value safety then? You’re very eager to escape to it.”
—
“Kids get attached to the strangest things. We had a slug infestation, when I was six. I used to think those little slime trails we found every morning were the slugs leaving me secret messages. Like I was a weird. I was devastated when my mum got the salt out. I don’t think I spoke to her for a week. But, anyway, I’m happy spiders make you happy. It’s just not for me.”
Eve let her face scrunch up a little as Siobhan avoided her question, put off in the way that any reasonable date would be.
“Geez louise, lady. I’m not sure if this mysterious knowing energy works for other people, but you’re coming off a bit cocky.” It’s a bit of a turn off, Eve didn’t need to say, as she leant back, and zipped up the first couple inches of her jacket. “Safety? What, oh, because you’re going to hurt me with a butter knife? Yeah, I’m always rushing right into danger. But what about you? What’s your job like, anyway?” It was, deliberately, among the most boring questions to be asked on any date.
The plate of oysters were brought in front of them then, delicately displayed on a layer of ice with sliced lemons and an aromatic sauce. It was a shame Eve wasn’t letting this date last long enough to enjoy them. She delicately picked up one, and held it up for a toast to Siobhan. She’d heard oysters were a high iron food. “To good food, and an average view.”
Although Eve couldn’t hear it yet, much further down the road, there was the sound of a little chittering.
—
Siobhan leaned forward, grumbling into her next sip of wine. She couldn’t be sure that she was getting to Eve but Eve was certainly starting to get to her. Siobhan didn’t have a lot of patience, boring things ate at her like a rash. She needed something. The slug story was probably false, though whatever truth could be extracted from it was a truth she knew Eve would never give her. Not like this, at least. Maybe she really was turning Eve off—it wouldn’t be the first time her general demeanour was repulsive to a human. That was the typical reaction.
Siobhan leaned back and pushed her tongue to the inside of her cheek, halting a scoff. “Let it be said you’re annoyingly skilled at your art.” And calling it an art was praise she didn’t want to give Eve. Self-doubt didn’t suit Siobhan and Eve was an expert at sowing it. “I’m not letting you get away so easily, Eve.” And again, she refused to answer her boring question. Without hesitation, Siobhan picked up an oyster and swallowed its gooey body, denying Eve her toast out of a simple pettiness. The oyster burned—it wouldn’t sit well over time—but nothing hurt as much as Eve denying Siobhan her game.
Then, a needle of ice shot down her back and Siobhan straightened up. She snapped her body around and glanced down the foggy street. The town’s constant hum was punctuated with a few clicks, almost like the failing engine of a car trying to start somewhere far but Siobhan knew the way those sounds tended to echo; tended to mimic distance. The only trace of panic left with her when she turned back around to Eve was in the disgusting transparency of desperation in her voice. “You should go.” It could’ve been mistaken for care, though all Siobhan really wanted was to make sure that Eve didn’t get eaten before she could figure out how to have fun with her. “Now, preferably.” The chittering and the clicks swelled around them.
—
“Oh, I’m not an artist. I just work in IT,” Eve replied, pretending to be as oblivious as could be. “I’m not going anywhere. Are you okay, Siobhan?” The toast abandoned, Eve savored her own oysters, as well as Siobhan’s growing irritation. Maybe she was winning, after all! Which, wasn’t the point. Just survival, just getting out of here, and never speaking with this woman again.
As soon as she heard the chittering, Eve froze, all pretence of a date vanishing from her features. If the desperation in Siobhan’s demands affected her at all, Eve didn’t show it. Just because fae couldn’t lie with their words didn’t mean they couldn’t trick with their tone. And what an impressively frightening trick this was, to lure her out here. Not just to a bad date, but a trap. Had Siobhan known all along? She wouldn’t have been so friendly, surely. Dread dug a pit in her stomach.
Eve had a list in her head. On the nights when cleaning felt too reactive and she dreamt of returning to hunting, Eve went over it in her head. In those dreams, she had no future, only a legacy she wanted to leave behind, an incredible blaze of glory. She wouldn’t last long, but there were fae that Eve would be better suited for. The ones that didn’t have built in strength, whose abilities could be cut off before they could be used. Ones who could be tricked until Eve was in arms’ reach, who wouldn’t have time to react to the cold iron blades dragging along her throat.
Eve had a second list too, of fae that she would never even dream of hunting deliberately. Guess which list leprechauns were on, with their height, strengths and numbers? Even before her injury, Eve’s weapon of choice for leprechauns had been a war bow, and a perch half way up a tree. Not a fight outside al fresco dining, where movement was limited. She stood up, with a quick reach into her bag to pull out a gun, sending a quick SOS to a couple wardens she knew on her phone. Even they weren’t knee deep in withercaps already, no one would be here instantly. It was one thing, to choose not to give chase, or to run when it was just her life on the line. It was another to leave a restaurant full of people at the mercy of whatever Siobhan and these leprechauns had planned. Eve quickly walked out of the al fresco area, sliding a chair to block the handles to the restaurant, trapping the other patrons and staff inside. Hopefully, no leprechauns had already made it inside.
“I’m afraid that’s not an option,” she said, her voice stiff as ice. “Call them off, Siobhan. Now.”
—
The road writhed—no, it wasn’t the road, it was pairs of grey bodies squirming down the asphalt. What were the odds that these were the very same leprechauns that’d been harassing her? One broke off from the carpet of grey, sliding up a car, staring her down with its one eye; the other was covered by an eye-patch. So, the odds were clear then: these were certainly those leprechauns. Honestly, she wasn’t sure that one had ever lost its eye—she didn’t remember, anyway. Siobhan stood up, sighing deeply. She didn’t want to kill them; she had that time in Ireland, which was why they wanted her flesh so badly; and then she hadn’t when she first learned that they followed her, and then they stabbed her! She supposed her options were to get stabbed again, clinging to an old idea of what being fae meant, or kill them all and be done with their silly revenge plot. The logical choice was clear.
Siobhan turned, finding Eve with a gun—tacky—and a chair, which she dragged to the doors and locked the humans inside—smart. And then telling her what to do? Eve was strangely calm. Why did Eve have a gun? Why did Eve have any sense of what was happening? Siobhan laughed. “You had that in your bag this whole time? Cute.” Siobhan pulled two knives out, spinning them in her hands. She turned to the leprechauns, who now surrounded their dining area, chittering at them. She said, in Irish, “get over yourselves.” The noises ceased.
The eye-patched leprechaun clicked once and a wave of grey rose up around them and collapsed in. Leprechauns flew at Siobhan, and she couldn’t see Eve anymore, just grey bodies and beady eyes. The leprechauns latched onto her like sea barnacles against a ship—those oysters were still on the mind. She hissed as their razor teeth sunk into her skin and their bodies wrapped around her limbs, trying to drag her down. The knives were lost; admittedly, it was silly she thought they’d be helpful at all. Siobhan tore a leprechaun off her arm and twisted its head off its body. It cracked off with a satisfying pop—like opening a tight jar—but served only to enrage the remaining leprechauns. Siobhan kicked the head away and continued ripping leprechauns off; each time she did, another would take its place.
The instinct to scream was overtaken by another, more learned instinct: something fae got taught young, something that made her feel like it would be a mistake to show Eve. What were the odds that her date was a warden? “You should run while you can,” she called out over the leprechaun's rage. She couldn’t see her at all; what was she up to? More than survival, Siobhan was curious about that. She ripped another leprechaun off and stabbed her thumb into its eye. It whistled in agony as she used her new grip to smash its head into the other leprechauns. When its skull shattered and its brain turned to pulp, she grabbed a new leprechaun and started over. Despite the gore, it wasn’t an effective method at all: in a moment, she’d be overwhelmed. All she wanted was to pull enough leprechauns away so she could see Eve.
—
Eve counted, skimming the crowd with her eyes and she continued backing up, her gait more noticeably off as she walked backwards. Twenty little fuckers, more than she’d personally ever seen. This would be bad, fast. She glared at Siobhan, the threat in her look clear. But it didn’t matter. They weren’t interested in Eve, nor in the people in the restaurant. They were only interested… in Siobhan. They lunged at her like a tidal wave, drowning her. Never, in the history of ever, had a warden written an account of leprechauns attacking another fae.
It was enough to make Eve doubt her senses. What if Siobhan wasn’t fae? What if, all along, she’d been sensing the leprechauns, and Siobhan was the regular form of Rester weirdness? That didn’t feel right either, but there wasn’t time to interrogate it; the doubt was enough for Eve to act. Hopping further back, trying to give herself enough space, Eve shot one of the leprechauns at Siobhan’s ankles. It screeched, beady eyes spinning to turn to face her as its back sizzled, blood boiling from the cold iron in her bullets. It staggered, toppled away. The chittering grew louder and more aggressive as a few of the leprechauns turned from Siobhan and towards Eve. She breathed, and began to fire into the horde.
One of the leprechauns bounded forward, slashing one of Siobhan’s blades at Eve’s ankle. Fortunately, it was the wrong ankle, and the knife just ripped through fabric and air and missing the C-curve of her prosthesis. Jolting backwards, Eve raised her hand over it, iron perspirating out her skin. The Leprechaun scowled, it’s neck jerking upwards, then its whole body straightening, and stretching up towards her hand. Magnetism dragged it off the ground, and as soon as it was airborn, flying towards her hand, Eve twisted her wrist. With a sick crunch, it impaled itself on her knife. The lights went out in its eyes and its jaw dropped slack.
As its grip loosened on Siobhan’s blade, Eve caught it with her other hand. She flicked her own knife, shaking off his body into the crowd. Now they really were paying attention. Eve threw Siobhan’s knife into the spine of one of the leprechaun’s on Siobhan. Hopefully she could use it, Eve couldn’t check. More leprechaun’s surged towards her, nimbly dodging her bullets, so she was barely grazing their arms and tiny legs.
One jumped up at her. Eve tried to dodge, but it hit her square in the chest. She stumbled back, her prosthetic leg lagging behind as she toppled backwards. Eve grunted, air knocked out of her lungs as she hit the floor, along with the hard clatter of plastic and metal hitting the gravel. Another jumped up, grabbing her arm and dragging it out to the side and away from her chest.
—
The gunshots didn’t bother Siobhan, but the idea of the gun did. It was offensive to a banshee or, rather, it was offensive to Siobhan. How much she could claim to be representative of a banshee now was debatable. Banshees didn’t get attacked by leprechauns, leprechauns didn’t attack other fae, other fae didn’t attack leprechauns. Siobhan thought about it as she watched leprechauns fall over in bloody heaps. One of her knives—so that’s where it went—sailed through the air and crunched into the back of a leprechaun on her shoulder. It clicked and fell off, landing on the hilt of the knife, sending the blade clean through its stomach. If Siobhan didn’t know any better, she’d say Eve was trying to kill her instead of the leprechauns. She was certainly very unconcerned about aiming close to her.
Siobhan would’ve cared if it wasn’t exactly the same method she employed when fighting alongside someone, which was a rare enough event. The real threat was the leprechauns, if she hurt someone else accomplishing her goal…c’est la vie. Thanks to Eve, she could kick the few leprechauns beside her away and pick up her knife. Her favourite jacket was torn, she was bleeding, her dress now showed a little too much skin. While those were all things she imagined would happen on her ideal date, she didn’t want it to happen like this. Siobhan reached into the shattered wreck of their table and grabbed the oyster tray. She stomped over to Eve, crushing the bones of dead leprechauns under her heels.
“Are you some kind of hunter then? That would explain the…” Siobhan swung the oyster tray at the leprechaun on Eve’s arm, sending it flying into another table. “...sudden change of mood, clearly it wasn’t…” Siobhan thrust her knife through the skull of a leprechaun climbing up her leg. “...anything I did.” A downed target was a leprechaun’s favourite, and Eve laying there was sugar to ants. The living leprechauns, all bleeding lumps of grey, rushed them. Siobhan sighed, turned to face away from Eve, crouched and screamed.
The problem with being a perfect, sexy, issue-free banshee with great boobs and decades of practice was that it all appeared effortless and therefore seeming to be undeserving of praise. Behind Siobhan, there wasn’t a single crack in the restaurant’s glass. In front of her, the leprechauns burst like fireworks of blood. So Eve’s ears might be ringing…c’est la vie. The one-eyed leprechaun slinked away in the distance as Siobhan turned back around and offered her hand to Eve. “Imagine having to shoot at each leprechaun individually. How embarrassing.”
—
The leprechauns tried to pry Eve’s fingers off her gun, so this one too she let become covered in iron, so that as it was drawn to her it burned. With her other hand, she tried to stab the leprechaun on her chest, and while it shrieked as the knife burned its side, it kept dancing on her, the weight of it and its companions slowly starting to crush her. Eve hissed, planning her next attach when a sheet of metal swung out of nowhere, smacking the leprechauns away.
Eve didn't respond to Siobhan’s accusations, far more focused on trying to kick the encroaching leprechauns away from her with her good leg. They were fast at dodging, but occasionally her foot connected with their chest in a way that sent them flying. From Siobhan’s mouth burst a horrific wail that rattled Eve’s very bones. It was a sounds unlike anything Eve had ever heard, but one she knew immediately. Inhumanly fast, Eve threw her hands over her ears, although it did little to shield her from the piercing pain that came with it. Splatters of blood and tissue splashed on her legs as the leprechauns burst before her.
Eve eyed Siobhan’s hand as if it were a trick, ignoring it to rock her weight over her biological ankle and pistol squat from there until she was upright. The fact there was still iron on her hands had nothing to do with it. Seriously. Pain bloomed in her sighed as she moved. Definitely some bruised ribs there, maybe even some cracked ones. Under her jacket, Eve was confident her arms were already starting to look black and blue.
She spun, looking for any surviving leprechauns, but the survivors had scrammed, a couple leaving bloody footprints in their wake. Much like Eve, they had not been prepared for the full power of a banshee scream. “Terribly embarassing,” Eve agreed lightly, “although, I imagine, not as embarassing as being a fae attacked by leprechauns.”
Her gun was still in her hand. It wasn’t pointed at Siobhan at the moment, but it wasn’t all the way lowered. If Siobhan screamed again, would Eve have time to pull the trigger before her lungs ruptured too?
—
“Would that be more or less embarrassing than being a warden on a date with a fae?” Siobhan’s response was quick, she hoped to get it out before the sting of Eve’s words settled. Eve had to be a warden: it was the simplest explanation for her behaviour. Unless she’d figured it out by the numerous fae-like things Siobhan committed on the daily, but Siobhan liked the narrative it introduced. How humorous that Eve had shown up expecting a little fun only to be surprised by her date being one of the most vile creatures to live—Eve’s thoughts, not hers. Siobhan’s gaze dropped to Eve’s torn pant leg. She frowned; the two vertical scars down her back burned in solidarity. She didn’t like it, it was one of those things that revealed a little too much about a person, the way a scar or a nervous tic did. The missing leg didn’t alter her opinion of Eve, but caused her mind to fixate on the obvious question of how—which was awfully personal, and not exactly inline with Siobhan’s goals.
She stared at her gun instead. The funny thing about dealing with a warden was the inherent social disadvantage: nothing Siobhan said would be taken with sincerity. If she showed concern, that was a trick. If she explained that she didn’t intend to harm Eve (yet), that was a scheme. It was much more complicated to get a warden to like her, let alone trust her. And now Eve knew two useful things about her: she was a banshee, and she killed a group of leprechauns. Doubtless, Eve was thinking of a way to use that to her advantage. What did Siobhan have? Considering they went out for oysters, Eve could easily claim that she was luring a fae into a trap. Siobhan hummed and picked her knives out of the leprechaun gore, wiping them clean on her ripped jacket sleeves as her mind ran through useless possibilities.
No, Eve wouldn’t let her try to help—did she even want to help? No, Eve certainly wasn’t interested in sleeping with her. Yes, Eve was going to hold on to that gun as long as Siobhan was still here. “What do you do about them?” Siobhan asked, jerking her head towards the restaurant and the humans pressed up against the glass, gawking. “I usually go with performance art; it’s a wonder what humans will forgive if you call it art. But there’s the risk of them blabbering about it: likely this was the most exciting part of their year and to know it was art!” Siobhan shrugged, moving closer to Eve with slow steps. Eve denied her hand when she offered it, so Siobhan didn’t have delusions of being able to touch her. “It might be better to call it something mundane, forgettable. We’re exterminators and those were rats, for example.”
Siobhan hovered by Eve’s side. She supposed she ought to just leave: Eve was expecting nothing positive from her and though Siobhan delighted in breaking expectations, she wasn’t keen on doing any work. It wasn’t her problem. “You’re hurt,” she said plainly, as if stating the colour of Eve’s hair. Eve wouldn’t let her help with that, not that she cared, and not that she wanted to, and not that Eve even needed her help at all. Siobhan was the one who was bleeding and Siobhan was the one with the tenuous relationship with her own community—could she even call them her community anymore? She’d be the one haphazardly applying first-aid to herself. Anyway, what could be the worst of it for Eve? Some bruises? Boohoo.
“Well!” Siobhan dusted her hands off, which had the effect of splashing more blood around. “I’ll leave you to it! I know how you wardens love your busy work. Call me, don’t be a stranger, et cetera.” Siobhan backed away slowly, keeping her eyes on Eve’s gun.
—
Eve flushed. There was no sense denying it, she’d been caught iron-handed. “Is it less embarrassing for you?” She asked. Although evidently Siobhan was not like other fae. Even from the way she’d aimed her scream away from Eve rather than allowing her to be collateral. Eve’s ears were still ringing, but at least they were still functional.
Siobhan’s question was sensible, the moment she proposed her solutions, Eve felt argumentative. No, obviously they couldn’t sell it as a performance piece. The people in the restaurant would never buy that! Humans could be smarter than you realise, they wouldn’t fall for such a simple lie. Nor would they buy a story about extermination, or they certainly wouldn’t be happy about it. Eve couldn’t just say any random nonsense, it had to be clever, it had to be believable…. It had to be, shit, exactly what Siobhan suggested. Not that Eve would admit that. “I’ll figure it out. No need to worry.” Once the pain had wilted a little.
“As are you.” Eve’s eyes skimmed over the cuts and bites on Siobhan’s body, the thin bodice of her dress possibly exposing more than Siobhan would like. At least Eve’s jacket zipped up, and her trousers had only torn below the knee. She ground her teeth together. It was one step too far to offer Siobhan any help, she felt, but she let the gun lower to her hip. Her instincts were all twisted up. It wasn’t often a fae saved her life. It was never. While she supposed it had been a debt repaid, as she had cleared a few of the Leprechauns off Siobhan in her moment of doubt, it didn’t sit well with her.
She sagged against one of the tables, inhaling sharply and surveying the horror around them, blood spattered all down the street. She could drive her car up close, and scoop up the bodies. It’d rain tonight and sort most of the blood for her. It was maybe an hours’ clean. Eve set her bag down, and pulled out some stronger pain relief. Once the digging pain in her side subsided, she’d begin. Once it was finished, Eve’d go home. This was the one advantage of her solitary hunt: she could easily go a week without seeing a soul. No one other than Siobhan would ever know how close Eve had been to being bested by some leprechauns.
“Yeah, you should leave. There are more wardens en route,” Eve said quietly, although she was already reaching in her phone to call off the alert. When she next spoke, it was in American accented Irish, and the slightest hint of a tease. “Do try not to upset any more leprechauns. I hear they hold a grudge. I’d hate to scrape you off the street next.”
—
“Oh,” Siobhan winked, “you’re not my first.” Taking a warden out on a date was the epitome of a good time, with all those delicious buttons begging to be pushed. Siobhan enjoyed annoying people; if her inherent presence was an annoyance, that gave her all the more space to play. Limitations breed creativity and so on and so forth. She could do anything she wanted with a normal human but the ways to play with a warden were limited—risky—and so, more fun. Eve was a fascinating warden in addition: in Siobhan’s experience, most wardens were terrible socializers. Something about the fae power to twist words probably shut them up. To Siobhan’s estimation, Eve fancied herself wiser than average—perhaps even the average warden—and didn’t fear conversation in the same manner Siobhan was used to. In the ninety-some years since Siobhan’s activation, that was a novelty.
She ought to kill Eve but that would be boring. There was so much game left to be played. “I’m not worried about you,” she said with a smile. “You’ll figure it out.” Which was all the better for her since she wouldn’t have to do it herself. The last thing she wanted was a group of angry humans collected outside her door accusing her of Devil worship or something of the like. It hadn’t been fun the first time it happened. Siobhan didn’t need to be told to leave but took Eve’s command anyway, spinning around and striding off. She paused when Eve’s Irish hit her ears. Though the warden couldn’t see it, Siobhan smiled. She turned her head to regard Eve through the edge of her vision.
“Do try not to seduce any more fae, I get jealous,” she replied in perfect Irish. She swiped a leprechaun half-skill from the ground and settled the hollow cranium on the tip of her finger and spun it around. With a whistle, she was off. It was only when she was certain she was away from Eve that she crouched to whisper prayers for the dead leprechauns. Standing up, she considered that the bigger shame would be having to scrape Eve off the street. Mostly because she wouldn’t bother with any scraping—Siobhan liked her wardens in several pieces.
TIMING: Recent
LOCATION: a club
PARTIES: Kieran (@debauchfairy) & Siobhan (@banisheed)
SUMMARY: A little incident on the dancefloor leads to a confrontation Kieran has some trouble getting out of. Siobhan stumbles in.
CONTENT: Unsanitary tw (blood), Memory loss tw (minor mention, from fae binds)
“Seriously? Red wine? Who brings a full glass of red wine onto the dance floor? Fucking amateurs…” Kieran was muttering to himself, luckily alone in the bathroom but really, the presence of other people wouldn’t have stopped the angry tirade. He wouldn’t even really have minded an audience, someone to agree with him on the audacity of what had just taken place. Truly, it had felt deliberate, a premeditated crime against him and his shirt. No one just accidentally spilled that much wine. Wine that, despite Kieran’s attempts, was adamantly against being washed out.
With a heavy sigh, he turned off the faucet, stopping the stream of cold water he had desperately hoped would mitigate some of the damage. No such luck - the top was officially a goner. Just as he reluctantly tossed the soaked garment into the trash, the door to the bathroom swung open and his eyes narrowed at the annoyingly familiar face. Red wine lady. “If you’re here to apologize, I only accept those in the form of cash. Pretty sure it retailed for around 400 bucks,” Kieran explained dryly, arms crossing over his chest, now bare underneath the jacket that had fortunately survived the massacre.
The woman looked entirely unimpressed, letting the door close behind her. “That’s the least of your worries, fae.”
Oh. Oh. Kieran let out an amused scoff even as he took a step back, glancing towards one of the bathroom stalls. The woman - a warden, apparently - was blocking the only exit. “See, I knew you spilled that deliberately.” She took a step closer, flicking her wrist and letting a blade slide down into her grip from somewhere inside her sleeve. Kieran couldn’t hold back an eye roll. “Alright, very impressive but completely unnecessary. I’m sure we can come to some sort of non-violent conclusion?” His tone took on a different cadence, words laced with the suggestion that it would be so much nicer to follow his lead, give into the control he was currently trying to exert. She looked completely unphased. Fuck.
—
“Seriously?” Siobhan mumbled to herself. “No one is going to die?” Why did she drag herself to a club if no one was going to die? She came to be entertained and instead there were sweaty humans swaying to mediocre music. She ordered a drink every time someone she didn’t want to talk to (everyone, anyone) approached her and lost track of how many drinks she’d had. Pleasure buzzed through her bones and so she assumed she’d hit her minimum, but the scenery was dull and human-watching had lost its charm two decades ago. They were still the same, always the same; always boring unless they were dying. Which was the point, she’d come here for the point of it all: a large crowd of people usually guaranteed her at least one death. And then they might meet the point of her knife. Technically, they’d meet the side, not the point. Contrary to popular belief—and Siobhan did think people were thinking this about her—Siobhan was a throat-slitter, not a stabber.
It was starting to turn into that time of night when her thoughts gave up and ran amok in her head; she needed to leave. Siobhan stood, teetering only once, and suddenly realized she had to pee. It was the great misfortune of alcohol that it tended to do that. Steadying herself with her palm on the sticky club walls, Siobhan followed the signs for the bathroom. Then there were the voices, cutting through the din and piercing her attuned ears: she’d learned to listen for these sorts of things. A chill shot down her spine, temporarily sobering her. “..fae.” She knew that contemptuous tone, that spitting of the word as though it would burn through a tongue if held on one too long. It wasn’t her business; her home and left her behind and she had left it and with that leaving, she’d forfeited her ability to care.
Fae looked out for other fae, that was their rule. What fae had looked out for her? Siobhan didn’t care. She pressed her ear to the door and listened but not because she cared. She pushed the door in—without care—and found that it creaked open with ease—which she didn’t care about. Wardens these days were so stupid; why would you risk a confrontation so publicly? Back in her day, Wardens were less stupid and everything made more sense and if she wanted to kill someone she had to walk across Ireland in the snow both ways. Honestly, she didn’t want to help the fae—she didn’t care—she was merely offended that the warden was so sloppy. Her mother always said that if you were going to kill someone, you had to do it right.
“I’d really like a violent conclusion, actually.” Siobhan grinned, pushing into the bathroom and holding the door closed behind her, in case someone else stumbled by. She recognized the fae from wine-spilled-on-the-dancefloor fame; the scene had earned a chuckle from her from her viewpoint at the bar. She didn’t think this about most men, but she preferred him with a shirt; the wine stain really made his eyes pop. She pulled a stack of paper towels and jammed them under the door, forming a make-shift door-stopper. Straightening up, she adjusted her hair. “You’re outnumbered now, what are you going to do?” Smelling her own breath, she realized she reeked of whiskey. Yet—and even though she was unable to keep steady—she was perfectly sober in her head.
—
This wasn’t great. Of course Kieran had assumed he could let his guard down in such a crowded place, even in towns like Wicked’s Rest, blatant murder in front of timid humans tended to be frowned upon. Hard for a warden to follow their cliched purpose if they got in trouble with the law. This one looked too angry to care - maybe she just really hated fun? Or attractive people? Sure, there was the matter of him feeding but no one was worse for wear, the people Kieran had snacked on presumably still enjoying themselves on the dance floor. Probably even having the best night of their life because of him, not in spite of his presence and influence. It didn’t really matter why this warden was so eager to slice and dice in a public bathroom, however, the why of it wouldn’t stop her. A witness might.
Dark eyes flicked back to the door, willing it to open as the warden stepped forward and Kieran retreated, a deadly sort of synchronized dance. The iron blade glinted as she flipped it around, ready to wield, to hurt. For the briefest of moments, the constrictive weight around Kieran’s chest loosened when the door blissfully swung open, providing the witness he’d so hoped for. Only it was a completely useless witness, seeing as it was one that could be murdered with just as little regard as he could, the feeling of a second fae prickling at Kieran’s skin - followed by the return of the tightness inside his chest that hopefully wasn’t a sense of impending doom. Except the drunk and wobbly fae was ruining their chances of anyone else barging in here. Kieran wondered if the desperation in his eyes screamed ‘what the fuck are you doing?’ loud enough but seeing as the other fae’s eyes were swimming in too many drinks, he might as well have actually screamed it and garnered results just as useless.
Kieran watched as the warden sized their new companion up, stepping back to keep both fae in her line of sight. What were the odds of the drunk lady carrying a weapon? “Attempt to kill us both is my guess,” he answered for the warden, who seemed to be done talking, her fingers tightening on the hilt of the knife. Kieran let his glamor drop as it wasn’t doing him any favors at the moment, only the second it did, the warden was moving. It was a question of a few inches, sharp iron just barely missing his chest as he leapt backwards, nowhere close to being a solution as he was quite literally backed into a corner now. Stuck between a blade and a hard place - or a Dyson hand dryer if one wanted to get stuck on details.
—
Siobhan was a strong believer in making her own fun. If no one was going to die, what if she just killed someone? It’d been so long since she’d killed a warden; did they still bleed the same, did they die just like any other human? The warden lunged and swung and Siobhan clapped and laughed and stumbled into a sink. The warden probably thought she had easy pickings: one (literally) doey boy and a steaming drunk. Siobhan was happy to think for a moment about how wrong she was. She glanced at the other fae. Probably not wrong about that part or that she was a little more drunk than she planned on being—but she’d perfected the art of drunk murder. Sober or not, a scream was a scream. For another moment, she wondered if she should let the boy die; two deaths were better than one. She thought about it. She imagined it—somehow stuffing his head into the hand dryer, as though it were a blender, and turning it on, painting him across the walls. But no he was too pretty to die. Normally, that was a sentence she reserved for herself, in jest. But with complete seriousness, it had never applied more than to that fae: he was too pretty and it would’ve been a shame to see him gone.
The warden’s death came to her in a drunk hiccup, chest burning with the stronger remnants of the scream. She didn’t look at it, she didn’t like spoilers for the main event, and anyway, despite her drunken mastery, if she got too excited, she couldn’t control herself. More than a few screams had come out against her designs and as she knew…sober or not, a scream was a scream. A knife slipped from Siobhan’s sleeve.
The warden lurched forward; the fae was against the wall with nowhere to go. She was aiming right for the heart and this time it was sure to hit, it should’ve hit. He should’ve been dead. Instead, she crashed into a stall door, groping at the knife stuck in her throat.
“Stop moving.” Siobhan warned, trying to get her knife back just as the warden’s slipped from her hand. “I’m trying to…” The warden gurgled, blood gushing around the knife’s hilt. “…I didn’t want to stab you, I just…” Siobhan‘s fingers slid off the bloody hilt. “Oh, if you could just stand still…” The warden crumpled to her knees, grasping the slick hilt. Her fingers flew off and again she tried to pull it and again. And it was only when Siobhan held it, a foot planted between the woman’s breasts, that she pulled it out to the fanfare of bubbling blood. The warden toppled over with her palms pressing the geyser in the side of her throat. “I was trying to slit it,” she explained. She turned around and smiled at her fellow fae—could she still think that? “I love it when they die like this.” She turned back to the warden, pale and wheezing and trying to reach for her knife which laid—of course—just out of reach from her bloody, trembling hand. The life in her body was diminishing and it was that that Siobhan adored: the power she held, her slowly satiating curiosity (yes, she died like any other human, just as they always did). How many times had she done this? Still she marveled at it, still it assured her that she was herself. She was Siobhan. Tomorrow, hungover, she would be some other pathetic woman but here, now, gargling warden on the floor, she was Siobhan.
Sometimes, it didn’t feel so right, but she didn’t think about those times. The warden’s blood on her body burned and she was happy. “What do we do about the body?” She asked over the warden’s blubbery gargling. “We are in public. Now, I didn’t bring my big knives but I feel strongly about dismemberment and then stuffing her in the toilets. What do you think? She was trying to kill you so you get to decide.” Not that it was an actual rule of any sort, but Siobhan was in a generous state of mind.
—
A bit too frequently for Kieran’s taste, the second time in as many months, he found himself thinking that maybe a touch of self defense skills would do him some good. Thinking such things was absolutely useless now, wouldn’t change the events of the next few seconds but if someone as egotistical and unwilling to look within as he was ever going to lament on things not done, it would be right before an untimely death. Only the blade didn’t make contact, didn’t cut and burn and cause irreversible damage.
The other fae’s knife had been faster.
It was hypnotic, gruesome in such an… undignified way. Kieran wasn’t particularly messy - not in this manner of speaking, he could definitely be another sort of messy bitch when the occasion called for it - so watching this scenario unfurl was a first. Or he thought it was, a faint memory of a before knocking on a bolted door amongst so many other locked up things from the past. Somehow, drunk and fumbling, the other fae still commanded a sense of respect but maybe that was just the knife in her hand and Kieran’s adrenaline crash. He couldn’t tell like he normally did, wasn’t able to metaphorically taste this woman’s glee but the faun knew enough about joy at this point to recognize each aspect of it. Her eyes were sparkling with it, not even diluted by the alcohol. Through the fog of almost dying, Kieran tried to remember if that gave him any clues as to what flavor of fae he was dealing with. Maybe she just liked the sight of blood regardless of her heritage.
“Hmm?” She was speaking to him, Kieran’s eyes reluctantly tearing away from the warden’s neck where the blood was coming out in shorter and shorter bursts now. Detaching his attention from the scene finally made him aware of a deep burning on the skin of his chest - some stray droplets of blood, most of the messy spray luckily having landed on his jacket. The shirt this warden had ruined would have deflected the rest. Another inhuman sound from the warden. It was never this distracting those few times Kieran had left an unwitting human without a pulse.
You get to decide. “I… think that might take a while.” Not to mention it would be a bloody affair and the bit of iron-laden blood Kieran already had on his skin felt like plenty. Reaching for a tissue, he wiped distractedly at the blood. “We could just leave?” Why were they suddenly a ‘we’? Sure, without her he’d almost definitely be dead but that was part of the past, now. With a deep inhale, the tangy scent of blood and the remnants of some sweet perfume filling his nostrils, Kieran ran a hand through his hair and let his glamor slip back. As if on cue, a round of annoyed banging began against the door. The paper towels wouldn’t hold forever. If needed, he could easily charm some poor sap into guarding the door for a moment or two, giving them room to get out of here. At the very least him, he wouldn’t stand in the way of her chopping up a body if she was really feeling it.
—
“Leave?” Why were some people so bad at murder? As someone who took her murdering seriously, it was offensive. Siobhan’s heel crunched the limp fingers of the warden as she walked over to a sink; the hand reaching for the knife had long since stopped as the life evaporated from the poor girl with one final sputter. Her dead were open, staring at nothing. She washed the blood off her hands. “Are there not cameras? Witnesses? Fates, it’s like you’ve never murdered anyone before.” Not like he had now either, she’d done it. Siobhan watched the blood swirl down. Her hands were stained. No, not stained. Just a little irritated from the iron. Still, she dragged her blunt nails over her flesh as if she could scratch the redness off. The banging at the door startled her up. She snapped her attention to the fae, now glamoured. He looked like someone who got other people to do the less pretty things; faun were always like that, weren’t they? They were creatures of fun, not responsibility.
“Banshee,” she said in place of an introduction. He’d shown her what he was, she could offer him the courtesy of an explanation. “You couldn’t have hypnotized her?” If a banshee was destructive, practical, rigid, a faun was an inherent opposite. The best she could’ve done was murder. And yet, what had he done but look pretty? “You look like you had an orgy with a box of tomatoes.” Siobhan glanced at herself in the mirror, noting that she looked worse than he did. The bathroom itself looked worse than the both of them: the warden’s blood created a red carpet across the tiles. She frowned at the mess, head throbbing, room swaying. The idea of cleaning it all up nauseated her. Where there not cameras, as she has so astutely put it? Weren't there witnesses? Murder used to be much less of a hassle. “What if we simply carried her out?” she suggested, turning to the pretty, and pretty useless, faun. “We’ll just pretend she’s drunk. Humans are stupid. Their brains are tiny.”
If they left her, would that be better? The next human who walked in would surely notice the body on the floor. And her companion was right, it would take a while to dismember. “We could stuff her into a stall,” she said. “Or, perhaps, eat her?” Siobhan smiled; it was her idea of a joke. “Or leave, yes, if your kink is watching yourself in blurry footage with big red text that says ‘have you seen this man’.” She smiled again, another joke. “It’s mine.”
—
Rolling his eyes, Kieran couldn’t quite see how his suggestion of leaving was any worse than hers that included the grueling process of chopping up a body. Even if she did bring up some annoyingly valid points - just walking away, or sometimes running, from situations had usually worked out alright for Kieran in the past. This was his first gruesomely bloody murder, however, as the other fae so accurately pointed out. Somewhat accurately at least, this wasn’t technically the first lifeless body Kieran had left in his wake. Although was it technically a murder when it was simply a minor slip up of the feeding variety?
She didn’t give much time to offer counter arguments to nuisances like cameras and witnesses, introducing herself without a name but the reveal of her being a banshee was much more relevant than a name. Kieran couldn’t remember meeting a banshee, could only recall morbid interests and something about screams. At least he wasn’t the only one lacking knowledge. “Wardens are immune,” he scoffed, tugging the lapels of his jacket closer at her comment and giving her a very obvious once over. Yeah, he was the one that looked a mess.
For a moment, Kieran had forgotten just how drunk the banshee had looked when she had entered the bathroom. He was quickly reminded when she suggested carrying the warden, giant blood stain at all, out of here. “Oh my god,” Kieran groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face to the background noise of more insistent banging on the bathroom door. Followed by jokes (he hoped they were jokes, were there a species of fae that actually ate flesh?) which usually, Kieran didn’t take things seriously and jokes were welcome. Standing in a pool of blood in a crowded club? Definitely the exception.
“Only as a fantasy scenario,” he shot back, not wanting this banshee to outwit him, the rest of whatever graphic commentary should have followed dying on his lips as an actual idea replaced it. “What if there was no footage?” Clapping his hands together as something like a plan formed, Kieran sidestepped the crimson puddle and moved closer to the door, giving a few bangs back to quiet the noise for a moment. “No one probably cared enough to notice this woman going into the bathroom - I mean, you saw what she was wearing. We just need to get out of here without anyone properly identifying us, then I’ll make sure the tapes get deleted or whatever.”
It sort of made sense, right? Granted, Kieran wasn’t exactly sober but it was still better than any idea the banshee had come up with. “We just… need a distraction to get out of here.”
—-
“Are they now?” Siobhan mulled it over; they certainly weren’t immune to being screamed at or stabbed. Perhaps it was—as the kids in her class might say—a ‘skill issue’. Banshees had their own ideas about the other fae, and she couldn’t be certain what was a fact and what was banshee conjecture. Would now be an appropriate time to ask if all the stories of moonlit faun orgies were true or…? Still, immune or not, would he really have stood there and done nothing? Would he have allowed himself to die in a bathroom, the tackiest place of all to die in? It was wrong to think of herself as a fae—given what she’d done, given who she was—but she thought they shared an acute survival sense. Now, she was given the impression that the faun was one of those sorts of people that wouldn’t do something if they thought it to be too difficult.
Her estimation of him did not improve; he did not, after all, seem enthusiastic about dismemberment. Siobhan frowned. “But did you see what I’m wearing? Clearly people noticed me.” She wasn’t sure if that was true; actually, remembering her stumbling journey to the bathroom, no one looked at her at all. To anyone else, perhaps the memory would’ve been humbling. To Siobhan, it was embarrassing, so she ignored it. Then she lit up, perking up like a dog hearing its favorite words, which was exactly what she was. No one loved a distraction more than her. Her mind buzzed with all of the options before her: she could scream, but it would make them more obvious if they were the only ones not dazed; she could run around in the nude, but she’d grown out of such juvenile acts. Nothing she could think of would help with ensuring that no one identified them. Siobhan only cared about the opposite: being seen, being applauded, being praised and worshiped. With her extremely attractive face, body, face…other things…how was she supposed to be invisible?
“We’re fae,” she said after a silence. Slowly, from her thigh, she pulled a wad of bills out of one of her knife sheaths. Yes, it might’ve been easier to simply carry around a purse but how could she debase herself with a bag, as though she was incapable of carrying things? In fact, it was her rejection of bags that meant the bills were miraculously unstained. Siobhan shook the bills out. The humans had their stories cautioning accepting gifts from a fae; their wisest and truest stories were the ones that warned of danger. The gift itself held no power, but in taking a gift, one offered up a favor. It was very simple to say: “take this, and promise to forget”. Every gift allowed them to set the terms for the cost, and humans never cared for the fine print of an innocuous exchange. The humans could reject them, but would a series of drunk humans turn down— “Hundred dollar bills. Most of them are fake, in fact, not that anyone can tell in dim light, and by the time they’ve accepted them…” Siobhan shrugged. She divided the cash out and held out half of the stack to her faun ally.
“What do you think? A gift is a promise. A gift is a deal. We tell them to forget us and they will.” Perhaps it was a stupid idea, but Siobhan considered that given how attractive they were, there was no other way to be unnoticable. They were simply too sexy.
—
From the look on Kieran’s face, it was easy to tell that he wasn’t that impressed with the banshee’s outfit. It wasn’t awful but not doing her complexion any favors, either, and with that bone structure and those collar bones, she really should have – Kieran pulled his focus back. Not the time. But if their faces didn’t make it onto what would admittedly be the prettiest wanted posters since the dawn of time, Kieran definitely needed to get this woman into the store at a later date. Willingly meeting up with another fae? Murder really did change many things.
His faith in his own idea grew when the banshee’s face lit up and he waited expectantly, and then a bit impatiently. Kieran had come up with one half of a usable plan, it only made sense that she came up with the rest. Not because Kieran didn’t have any ideas, just simply because it was fair. Maybe he was putting too much stock in this woman’s ability to do anything but stab and joke, eyebrows raising in exasperated defeat at her statement. “Last I checked,” came his dry answer but she wasn’t listening, revealing instead a James Bond-esque hiding place and pulling out wads of cash.
It made sense that Kieran hadn’t come up with that idea himself. He neither carried cash nor was very big on making deals but he could have come up with something similar. Given the time. Annoyingly, it was a good idea. Promising for not getting implicated in a murder but still very annoying. Kieran had definitely caught the attention of more than a few humans here tonight, as was to be expected, so forcing them all to forget made sense. “And you’ll make sure both of us are forgotten if I do the same?” he asked, words colored with distrust and the expectation of a promise as he hesitantly accepted the cash.
Now all they needed was the time to spread their gifts and make sure no filmed evidence remained. In a few swift movements, the tissues that had been doing an astounding job at keeping the door closed were removed, door swung open just enough to snatch the person from the front of the line inside and promptly close the door again to a chorus of annoyed groans. The club goer’s expression was already glazed over by the time Kieran had him pressing his weight back against the door, carefree gaze moving over the corpse. “Huh,” the guy noted calmly before the eyes were very gently guided back to the faun.
“Hi,” Kieran said with a smile. “You wanna help, right?” The stranger nodded dumbly and Kieran’s smile grew.
The deal was made for the protection of the bathroom. This random stranger would most likely get in a lot of trouble being the one stuck in here, preventing access but such was the way of life. When you were susceptible to hypnosis and fae deals, at least. Once the unlikely pair of fae had finally escaped the bathroom, the tangy smell of blood replaced by booze and sweat and just general debauchery, Kieran wasn’t sure he’d ever appreciated the scent more. Glancing over at the banshee, he gave a curt nod.
—
Siobhan’s smile twitched and her amusement slipped. Yes, she was planning on only asking the humans to forget her, not him. How did he know? Could he see it on her face? Was it a lucky guess? What about her general demeanor gave him the impression that she was self-serving and unreliable? Whatever it was…she most certainly wanted to keep at it. “Yes, yes.” She waved his concerns away. “I’ll make sure they forget us both, forget the whole night even. Just make sure you do the same.” And since he’d caught her—put a name to her wicked thoughts—by principle, she felt he was owed her honesty. Her games did have a few rules—when she felt like having them.
Siobhan watched the faun work, realizing that was the area in which he excelled. His domain, as it were. There was an ease to his movements, a skill in his execution. Jealousy flared like the rolling lava-spit of a volcano, slipping down her body. Once, she’d been rather charming with the humans. Bitterness transformed her into a crude, argumentative woman. The idea of fawning attention made her skin crawl. But she’d been skilled at it once, surely she could do it again? Out of the bathroom, into the putrid air of alcohol and human perspiration—undesirable in comparison to the delightfully acrid musk of blood—she made her way to the first aggrieved human. He had complaints about the bathroom and stunk of gin and fruit juice.
If she could see herself from the faun’s eyes, she would’ve been embarrassed. She lacked his subtlety; everything to her was a performance now. Her motions were big and her smile too wide as if playing it up for an imaginary presence in the distance. Siobhan thrust a bill out and predictably the man’s eyes darted down. “If you accept this, you promise to forget me and forget that man there—forget the last thirty minutes all together—and go back on the dancefloor.” The offer was businesslike instead of seductive.
In the end, the man was confused. “Uh, yeah sure, whatever,” he said. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t taking her seriously, the magic worked all the same. He took the bill from her hand and marched back to the dancefloor in a daze. Siobhan turned and nodded to the faun, as though she’d done exactly what he had, with just the same grace. Slowly, she made her way through more and more people who’d gathered for the bathroom, sending them off, slipping between them as they left.
—
The banshee hadn’t done a great job at hiding her disappointment when Kieran set his terms, confirming what the faun had suspected - she’d had no intention of making these deals benefit him. Kieran was neither surprised nor offended, but only because the thought to leave her hanging had crossed his mind first. Being self-serving wasn’t a trait only displayed by fae but the correlation was definitely higher than among your general population. Satisfied that, however forced it was, they would have each other’s back, Kieran timidly put his trust in the woman.
A bit too prematurely perhaps, as Kieran watched her gracelessly bear down on the first poor sucker. Whoever had been in charge of teaching this woman poise, subtlety, any redeemable social skills really, had failed. Lucky for both of them, cash managed to speak louder than words, and the banshee’s words were loud. He didn’t bother to hide the genuine disappointment on his face when she looked back to him, glad now that the two of them were diverging paths to get through all these people so he wouldn’t get distracted by her crass tactics.
It worked, of course it worked. Even if the weight of all these binds felt foreign, this was definitely a success. The ones that hesitated weren’t given much chance to, hypnosis dialed up the second Kieran felt anything remotely resembling resistance. In a rare occurrence, the faun was more than ready for this evening to be over. Charming his way, literally, into the backrooms was just as easy and a helpful staff member made sure tonight would only live on in fae-influenced memory and not on tape.
The hope had been to not cross paths with the banshee again - what if she had the audacity to expect gratitude for the murder? - but this was proving to be anything but Kieran’s lucky night. She was stood outside as he finally emerged, head heavy and almost a bit fuzzy from the strangeness of using his abilities to this extent and for this purpose. This had really put a dampener on his evening - tomorrow would need to be amazing to make up for the cluster fuck that was tonight. “Alright then,” Kieran said curtly, fixing up his jacket. Out here under the streetlights, he could see the faint splatters of blood on his shoes. “This was… messy. And not in a particularly fun way.” It could be unrelated but he thought that perhaps the faint sound of sirens was filtering through the air now.
—
Adding binds to the ever growing stack of binds and promises—the culmination of all that she’d made in her life—wasn’t an issue for Siobhan. These were moments she saw as disposable; in one side of the brain, out the other. More than half of the deals she made, she remembered only as a series of blurry snapshots and whispered half-words. She moved through the crowd with ease, assigning none of it—the poor guileless human’s faces, the possible bystanders, her own actions—to her memory. When she moved through the back of the club and was finally outside, it was all done much quicker than her estimations. Her stomach twisted with the worry that she must’ve been forgetting something, but her tipsy mind sent the thought away quickly. She liked to think of herself as a careful person but perhaps it was always just that: something she liked to think. Finally, the faun was beside her, and there was no sense in fretting over something that was already done.
Fate would have its way with them now, one way or another. If there were to be consequences, they would simply have to accept it. “I had fun,” Siobhan said. She turned her head and smiled at the man, whose name she did not know and did not care to learn, and hoped to never see again lest something as deplorable as a friendship bloom between them. She thought of them as business partners and though she had technically saved his life, her own self-possession denied her any self-acknowledgement of the favor. She might’ve aided him in finding a ballpoint pen for all it mattered to her. “I would’ve had more fun if you’d allowed her to be dismembered. Imagine what we could do if we had a foot each.” And she was thinking about taking her feet—she thought Rhett’s rotten one was lonely in her home. Limbs were like guinea pigs in that way: social creatures.
She glanced down at the faun’s foot. Maybe… “Well, it was a pleasure doing murder with you.” Siobhan lifted her gaze up to his face again. Of course, she’d done the murder, not him, but it was too late to be pedantic. She held her hand out. “Nice to meet you,” she said and waited for his hand to rise, for his hand to reach for hers, for his fingers to curl and anticipate a handshake. Then, she snatched her hand back, laughing wickedly. “Oh,” she cooed, “too slow.” She turned away and strutted down the street without a glance back; without another word.
TIMING: recent
LOCATION: the streets
PARTIES: @banisheed & @lara-martins
SUMMARY: Needing help for an injury, Siobhan turns to an unlikely aid: Lara. Who just happens to be there.
CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A (though description of injury and medical care)
Siobhan wasn’t going to die. Fate was incapable of generosity in the way that things of nature were; eels to the wet grasp of Romantic notions. A storm didn’t carry anger, Death wasn’t possessed of cruelty, Fate didn’t forgive. It must’ve been a defect of evolution that people were desperate for their poetry; grasping at meaning through their untenable lives. Siobhan’s mother often said that only the cowardly thought Life was imbued with artistic value; those so eager for meaning in their mundanity to call a flower beautiful, as though it had evolved pink petals just for them. Siobhan stumbled, blood gushing through the fingers pressed to her stomach. Her other hand streaked red across the brick wall. The stone’s texture felt like pores on skin to her; the alley was a breathing thing. The concrete below yawned and sighed, occasionally whispering through the skittering of a rat. Above, the spreading dusk revealed the city’s small halo—a ring of light pollution to ward off the winking stars. A skyline could be worshiped, she thought, but it was the treeline she preferred: the tufts of leaves and pillars of dark wood that dissolved into the sort of darkness that laughed and beckoned. The world was beautiful and her cowardice was simply another fault to accept.
Siobhan wasn’t going to die and so, it had felt like Fate blessed her just once, even as blasphemous as that was to think. It was another boon of Fate that her mother was incapable of reading minds and wholly uninterested in her daughter. Though, that last part was still a sore consideration. Siobhan wasn’t going to die—great—but now she needed to do the embarrassing thing. Living—yes—but worse than that: asking for help. No one was ever sexy asking for help and Siobhan’s own sexiness was of the utmost concern. Almost dying was very sexy; bleeding across a dark alley did have an appeal to it. She would’ve preferred if it wasn’t her, but perhaps next week she’d stab someone in an alley to balance the scales of sexy. For now, she was the one stumbling around, dribbling a line of blood, trying to remember which direction her stupid house was in. Considering that she lived on a farm and that her surroundings were solidly urban, she accepted that she was lost.
Direction wasn’t the only thing lost to her: her vision was narrowing and each stumble was more difficult than the last to recover from. Siobhan needed help, which was a concession that she thought showed remarkable growth on her behalf, not that anyone would notice her gallant display of internal drama. Instead, they’d see the embarrassing part: the asking, the needing. Regan would probably laugh at her. Or worse, not laugh. Take it seriously. Call her a hag just once and not a dozen times. Administer proper medical care and not decorate her bandages with crude language. Fates, just thinking about it made her shiver.
Siobhan wobbled onto the sidewalk, emerging from the alley. Thankfully, the person approaching wasn’t Regan. “Help,” she croaked. She tried to do her best impression of a distressed damsel but between her inability to accept damseling and the general murderous intent of mind, her impression fell short. Dimly, she was aware that she must at least look like a damsel: doey eyes, completely mauled, actively bleeding, objectively (to her) cute frown. What silly human could resist? “Help.”
—
It was a clear, warm night and the streets were mostly empty. Up until a woman stumbled out from the alleyway onto the street, stopping Lara in her tracks. It was a fae woman, Lara knew almost immediately. She had one had clutched to her stomach, with blood spilling out. Blood was spilled out from underneath her hand, clutched to her stomach. Lara hurried over to the woman, offering a hand to hold her up. She wasn’t sure what to do in this situation, but that seemed like a good start.
Lara gave the area around them a quick scan, looking down the alley where the woman had come from. There was no one running after the woman, as far as Lara could see or hear. Not yet. But better to get her out of here, if they could. The last thing Lara needed was to run into someone she knew, as they tried to kill this woman.
Her first thought was to call an ambulance, and pack this woman off to the hospital. Lara could wipe her hands clean of this knowing someone else was taking care of it. But somewhere that specialized in human biology might not know what to do with a fae.
“Is there… someone I can call for you?” Lara asked. “Someone I can take you to?” Did they have doctors? Healers? Or did they just hide somewhere and hope for the best? For someone who had grown up studying fae, it was something she knew nothing about. Wardens weren’t taught what to do with an injured fae, beyond ‘finish the job’. But she didn’t feel right of leaving this woman alone here, maybe to die.
—
Someone to call. Siobhan wanted to laugh at that; the sound came out a choked, forceful cough instead. Did she have someone to call? Did she possess the privilege and embarrassment to call upon another at all? The answer either way was a resounding “no”. Staring at this woman—her savior, the woman she had to ask—she was stricken was an unusual vulnerability. “No,” she said, and she meant it as honestly as someone could. She could die by this woman’s hands. She could owe everything to this stranger. “There’s no one…” Siobhan coughed, sparking another splutter from the wound in her stomach: there was nowhere to turn, there was no one to ask, lest she risk exemplifying a weakness in herself that she was not keen to expose.
“Could you…” She didn’t finish the thought. All she needed, she thought, was some basic care: stop the bleeding, loosely patch her up, send her on her way. She’d do it, if only her body contained the will. “Please.” She looked at this woman, to which she was hinging her livelihood. What sort of life had she lived? Who was she? What did she want? How did she begin to ask for something she couldn’t even disturb her friends for?
“What’s your name?” Siobhan asked instead. “Who are you?” These questions, in this moment of slackening life, seemed to be of the utmost importance. All she needed was someone to pause the sputtering wound. “Leprechauns,” she said suddenly. “That’s what it was. There’s no one you can take me to. Please.” It was shameful to admit that another fae had done her in; but no one would care. No regular human would know what she meant or ponder its meaning. She hoped it was just enough to spur the woman into action; she didn’t dare hope for more.
—
“Could I what?” Lara prompted. “What do you need me to do?” Whatever this fae needed, Lara would do. She just had to tell Lara how to help her. What to do. Lara didn’t like being the only person this woman had, but from the sound of it, no one else would be coming to help.
Lara gave a quick nod at the mention of leprechauns, thinking. Of course, she knew about them, but had no idea what this woman had gotten into. If she’d stumbled onto treasure, gotten into a fight, or just happened to look at them wrong. It didn’t matter. At least if it was another fae, the wound wasn’t likely to be cold iron.
“First, let’s get you out of here,” Lara said, trying to sound confident, like she knew what she was doing. “In case they followed you.” The attackers were still nowhere to be seen. Lara’s guess was they weren’t chasing this woman down, but she didn’t want to find out the hard way she was wrong.
Lara tried to guide the fae to where her car was parked down the road. There was an old first aid kit in the glove compartment, but Lara had the helpless feeling it might not be up to an injury of this magnitude. She glanced where the woman still clutched her wound. Fae could bleed out, she knew that all too well, and Lara knew what getting gut stabbed usually meant. Nothing good. But she would try. The woman had pleaded, and Lara would try. “I’m Lara, don’t worry. I think you’re going to be fine,” Lara lied. “What’s your name?”
—
The human was shockingly eager to help. Her mother had said humans were selfish creatures and sure enough she had observed that selfishness more times than she was capable of counting. Humans were greedy, self-serving, cowardly, stupid. This human was helping her: was she uniquely kind, was there a defect in her assumptions about humans, was there something else she was missing about the human ability to aid? It could be that any human would stop to help a bleeding woman and that this one was no more special than any others and yet this was the one she had and by that merit alone, she seemed special. Siobhan hated that she was going to owe her. She didn’t have to—nothing about this moment said she had to—but she would; it was the principle. Give a dog a treat when it sits, and so on.
“Where are you taking me?” Siobhan asked, stuck with a vision of the woman dragging her back into the alley to finish the job. But it wasn’t a true vision, just something her paranoid imagination conjured up. She already knew she wasn’t going to die but she was worried about being taken somewhere unbecoming, like public transportation. If this woman was going to drag her onto a bus, she’d rather crawl back into the alley. Then she saw the car and relaxed. The worst thing the woman could do was kidnap her, which—if she was being honest with herself—she almost wanted. She hadn’t been kidnapped in over six decades; she was beginning to think she was undesirable for kidnapping. Just almost, though—she wanted to be in a dingy basement as much as she wanted to be on a bus.
Siobhan planted her bloody hand on the car’s trunk, smiling at the way her blood dripped down. “Siobhan,” she said, peering into the car’s interior as if she might unearth something interesting. Even bleeding—especially bleeding—her insatiable need for entertainment guided her actions. But she didn’t have to look, Lara provided enough entertainment with her silly words alone. Siobhan leaned against the car and cackled by way of wheezing coughs. “Don’t worry?” she repeated, grinning lopsidedly. “Worried? Me?” It was the woman that should be worried, she thought. Oh! If only this were some elaborate set up to kill her: lure her out, weaken her defenses, stab her artfully in the gut. There was a knife strapped to her thigh.
Then, her mind chimed like a church bell, calling sense into her mind. What was wrong with her? What was written into her nature that spawned a constant itch for violence? Even someone helping her—especially someone helping her—she wanted to kill. Moments of calm always twisted this way; death was etched permanently into her thoughts. Siobhan turned her face away, her cheeks reddened as much as they could given she was naturally pale and passionately bleeding. It was silly to her that her body spared any blood at all to show her embarrassment off. “Just stymie the bleeding. Give me a bloody towel. Alcohol. Whatever.” It was because she was herself, not a fae, that ‘thank you’ was horribly difficult to say.
—
Lara shot the woman beside her a concerned look. She was acting a little delirious already, which wasn’t a great sign. She opened the back seat of the car for her, as the woman left bloody handprints on the car. Lara had finally gotten the interior clean after the bugs, and now this. She still didn’t have a windshield either. That’s just how it went in this town, didn’t it?
“I don’t keep bloody towels on hand,” Lara said, raising an eyebrow at what she assumed was a joke. She tried to sound more relaxed than she felt. It would be easier for both of them that way. “But I’ll see what I can find.” Lara went to the front seat, and rummaged through the passenger side glove compartment, unearthing the first aid kit out from under insurance paperwork, maps, and a long forgotten iron knife. The metal cookie tin had the words FIRST AID scribbled hastily across the front in her cousin’s sloppy handwriting. Inherited along with the car. Lara hadn’t had much need to open the tin over the past few years. Perks of not hunting down fae. Ironic, wasn’t it? Pulling out the first aid kit for one now.
Lara popped open the tin. She handed back the handful packs of alcohol wipes she found inside to the fae. Expired, but maybe they would still do some good. There was a roll of bandages inside too, next to a needle and generous spool of thread. Something Cíntia would stock, but nothing Lara was interested in going near. Lara couldn’t even sew a seam, let alone stitching a fae back together. They didn’t need to go there. Lara glanced back at the woman. Not yet anyway. Maybe they could patch her up with just the bandages. If it came to stitches, the woman might be better off at the ER, with some fast talking to get her out of any other treatments.
“I found bandages,” Lara said to the woman. She left the open tin on the passenger seat, and moved back towards the woman, roll in hand. “Between that and the wipes, maybe it will do some good. Lift your shift, and I can wrap it for you.” She opened one of the wipes and started cleaning off her hands. She didn’t know much about medical care, beyond the basics, but it would be best to keep things clean. Or clean as was possible for backseat medical care
—
“I don’t mean bloody as in—It was an…” What was the word for that again? An explosion? No, that wasn’t right. Siobhan grumbled again. She crawled into the backseat and bled happily over the woman’s car interior. Ah, Siobhan wished her car was painted with blood. Alas, the poor second hand hearse was only painted with mechanical trouble. “I’ll do one better.” She lifted her shirt completely off and threw it aside. She didn’t have the energy left to glamour herself. The woman would see the scars that lined her body at every angle and Siobhan would just have to accept it. On the other hand, what if she did kill her? Then there wouldn’t be some woman walking around who’d seen too much, known too much. First, she’d repay this favor in some way, as was polite, then she’d kill her. Soothing herself with the thought, she resolved that it didn’t matter at all what this woman saw. She could say whatever. Do whatever. “Your car is ugly,” she said, taking the wipes.
The bleeding had slowed and Siobhan dabbed around the wound, numb to the stinging. In leprechaun fashion, they’d gotten her with an especially pointy rock—an embarrassing thing to be stabbed with. She wasn’t sure how they’d heard about what she did in Ireland. Unless they were the same ones but she wasn’t sure of that either. “You can look at my breasts but know that you’ll never see breasts this great again.” It was a curse in that way; no one who had looked upon her breasts would be the same. She discarded the used up alcohol wipes at her feet. Socializing was so much easier now that she’d convinced herself that she didn’t have to be nice. “You? Wrap me?” Siobhan laughed, as though the woman were incapable of basic functions. She liked being mean, that was all there was to it. The woman could be an accomplished medical doctor for all she knew, it didn’t matter.
“Okay. Go ahead.” Siobhan lifted her hands up to make the job easier and also to write words in blood around the interior of Lara’s car. Mature words like “boob” and “butt”. She felt very fae in this moment, completely given to an inherent desire for chaos. She wanted to knock things over…maybe she was feeling more cat than fae. “Can I eat your hair?” she asked, not really wanting to but curious if a childish stream of nonsensical questions would annoy her. She wanted to annoy her. It didn’t occur to her that this woman would be helping her; Siobhan wasn’t one to fawn. “Why is your car so ugly? Are you poor?”
—
The woman pulled off her shirt, showing old scars covering her body. Lara kept her face smooth. She reached for another wipe to finish cleaning up. This woman had been through something, many things before. Lara didn’t ask. If it were her, she wouldn’t want someone to mention it. She ignored Siobhan’s comment about her breasts. This was hardly the time for that sort of thing. Besides, her personality left something to be desired.
“No, you may not,” Lara said flatly, when the woman asked to eat her hair. Never let a good deed go unpunished. Sometimes fae seemed so human. In this moment, the woman was acting like a child. Lara resisted the urge to slap away her hands as she doodled in blood. It was too late for the seats now, and it felt like losing something to show the other woman that she was getting under Lara’s skin. Lara would clean her up well enough to send her on her way, and with luck, they would never see each other again. With more luck, peroxide would be all the fresh upholstery needed.
“Does it make you feel better to insult my car?” Lara asked, as she reached around Siobhan, to wrap the bandage around her torso tightly. Her car wasn’t the nicest to begin with. She could afford a better one now, but she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of it. At this point, it was a matter of time until something broke that couldn’t be fixed. Not to mention the missing windshield, with plastic taped over it. Nothing she was interested in explaining to Siobhan.
She wrapped the bandage around Siobhan a few more times, until the roll ran out, before tying it off. “How are you feeling?” Lara asked. She was certainly talking a lot. At the least, she didn’t seem about to lose consciousness.
—
Lara wasn’t annoyed enough. It was the kind of exasperation of a mother on a playground: calm and absent-minded enough to let the words roll away, knowing a new annoyance would pop up at any moment. Siobhan looked up at her work. She’d written “bob” instead of “boob” one time. She huffed. “No, it doesn’t make me feel better.” She needed something personal to insult; Lara’s car was a mess and she didn’t seem to mind so it couldn’t be that. There was nothing personal here, nothing to pick at. No picture of a husband and three kids or a wife and two dogs or a sister or a father. Who was Lara? Who was this woman that agreed to help, took her insults, and continued to help? Siobhan poked at her new bandage. She could say it, those terrible two words. Thank, like thunk, which was what she wanted to do with Lara’s head. You, like Ew, which was what she felt. She could move her lips around those words and give them and if Lara took them that would be okay, because she was owed them. She could say it. She could— “You did a horrible job,” she said. “It looks like it was tied by…someone who’s bad at tying things.”
No, she couldn’t say. Was her life saved? No, she wasn’t going to die. But the walk home would be easier and for that she was grateful, she did feel gratitude. Yet, to say so felt like she was admitting something terrible. Siobhan sighed. “I feel fine.” Would it really annoy Lara if she took her knife out and scratched up the seats? If she carved her name into the roof and everytime Lara sat in her shitty car she remembered that one time she tried to be nice and the woman was mean and the next time someone needed help, she wouldn’t help, and then some function of the world would be vindicated to Siobhan? Would that annoy her? “What do you want?” she asked. “Your boon. What do you want? Money? A better car?” She looked at Lara’s strange, unreadable face. “You didn’t seem so surprised when I said it was leprechauns.” Was that because she knew what they were or because she assumed it was the rambling of a bleeding woman? “Regardless, a boon. A treat. For being a good human. What do you want?”
—
“I can take you to the hospital if you want better work,” Lara said. It was hard to be offended at the woman calling her bad at medical care she wasn’t trained in. “Or I can take you home.” Lara wasn’t eager to keep the fae in her car, but she didn’t feel right about sending her stumbling off with a wound like that.
“You seem a little delirious. Leprechauns are only the half of it,” Lara said, lying more out of habit than anything. She didn’t expect the woman to believe her when she had taken everything in stride. Tonight, she hadn’t tried to play the clueless human. The moment hadn’t called for it.
“I don’t need anything from you,” Lara said, like it was nothing. “Your thanks is enough.” How very like a fae to offer something for a kindness done. How very like a warden to not be able to resist looking for the advance. It made her something of an asshole, and she knew it. The good deed was cheaper for it. She didn’t linger on the request, as she picked up the discarded wrappers. The woman would honor it or not. Lara hadn’t done it for the thanks, but she wouldn’t complain if she left with one, either. You never knew when it might be useful.
—
Siobhan frowned; the woman knew she didn’t want to go to the hospital, she’d said it before. Just as bitterness burst like a broken pipe (one eager to break), Lara’s next sentence plugged the hole. ‘Or I can take you home.’ It was an illogically kind—a tautology—gesture; everything about this was illogically kind. What was one more to add on to the pile of nonsense? An insult. A terrible, grinding insult. Nothing in Lara’s words suggested that she’d meant Siobhan was incapable of walking, or that she needed help but the rattling pipe of bitterness wanted to read it that way. If she could push someone capable of giving her such undeserved kindness—another tautology—and someone who seemed to be willing to give more kindness into someone who would take it all back, then she could… She could… Siobhan’s hands clenched into tight fists resting on her thighs. “I’ll walk. I’ve been stabbed, not dismembered. I’ll walk,” she said, wondering again if she ought to dissect her cruel impulses.
“Yes,” she smiled, “delirious.” If the woman was lying, which it seemed she was, Siobhan didn’t care enough to press the issue. There were few humans—assuming she was human—that would truly know what a leprechaun was and as long as she wasn’t the type of human inclined to stab her—getting stabbed twice in one night wasn’t sexy—she didn’t care. Xóchitl had called them rocks, for all she knew, maybe that’s what Lara thought they were too.
“You want…” Siobhan’s wound suddenly ached. “…My thanks?” It was Lara’s by rules of politeness; she had meant to offer it; this was a common phrase the humans said to appear humble. Did Lara know what she was asking for? Would she appreciate the gesture? Why did she want to be appreciated? She’d defiled her car and wanted Lara to appreciate her. If she’d wanted appreciation, she wouldn’t have said the things she said, wrote “bob” the way she did. But, the idea of any gratitude made her skin itch, especially the thought of it coming from this woman. And yet, her mind clanged like a bell again and she knew that she wanted it desperately. Look at how good she was, she was saying it: “Thank you, Lara.” Her voice was as calm, as steady and as sure as it could be. She thought she was the one offering the insipid human her dog-treat, but it was her that was begging for one. Any shred of attention, good or bad, anything that gave her something. Siobhan’s skin itched anyway. She ground her teeth, but she couldn’t take the words back, they were Lara’s by right.
Siobhan popped the card door open and swung one long leg out, but her hand was still stuck on the handle; she didn’t move. Fates, she really was waiting for her treat. She really did want it. Maybe that was the impulse to dissect and remove.
—
Lara raised her eyebrows. The woman seemed offended at the offer of a ride. Either she wasn’t that hurt, or she was a fool. Possibly both. “I’m not doubting your ability to walk home.” Not strictly true. Lara couldn’t help but wonder if Siobhan would be okay if she did. “Call it looking out for my peace of mind. I might lose a bit of sleep imagining you dying on your way home.”
At the end of the day, that’s what it really was, wasn’t it? The woman was speaking fine. She probably could walk home just fine, for all Lara knew. This was about Lara, about the part of her that saw someone else entirely when she looked at this woman. That felt like if she did right by this fae, it would change things that couldn’t be changed.
“I’ll accept that,” Lara said. “You’re welcome”. The words tasted unfamiliar in her mouth. She rarely used them. Holding the woman’s thanks felt like safety, like power. She hated how much she liked that feeling. With luck for both of them, she’d never need it.
Siobhan hesitated at the door to the car. Maybe she wasn’t as fit to walk home as she was pretending to be. Lara went to the passenger seat, and stowed the tin back away in the glove compartment, before turning back to the woman. “If you’re second-guessing turning me down, you’ll have to move the front at least. I won’t be made an Uber driver.” A throwaway reason. It might give the fae another place to write blood on, but Lara could not in good conscience drive with her back to a fae.
—
“I won’t die.” Siobhan ground her teeth again, eventually working her tense features into a sharp smile. “Call it a promise, if you want. I won’t be dying today.” She could tell, after all. It might not offer ‘peace of mind’, as Lara put it, but she didn’t care much for her peace of mind anyway. Now for a piece of her mind, in the literal sense, well… Siobhan sagged against her seat. Her murderous urges really were her sexiest and least convenient habit. Siobhan grumbled, trying to shake the woman’s words off. “Don’t tell me I’m welcome; it’s not… never mind.” Her cheeks burned.
She forced herself out of the ugly car and into the cool night, picking up her discarded shirt. “That’s alright. I’ve blessed you with too much of my presence for one night.” Siobhan leaned down, looking into the passenger window, regarding Lara in the driver’s seat. Again, she hesitated. What did she want? Why did it feel so wrong to leave? Even after her offering of gratitude, she felt like she owed more: more thanks, any sort of apology, an offer to fix up her wreck of a car. Siobhan squeezed her hand on the still-open side door.
She couldn’t thank Lara again, she’d already taken the one with what she felt was inappropriate glee. She couldn’t apologize, that was embarrassing. And, honestly, there was no fixing this wretched metal thing. “I hope you don’t…” Siobhan said through clenched teeth. “…die prematurely in a boring way.” Which was as close to well wishes as she was capable of offering and even that turned her pink again. She slammed the door shut and sauntered off into the night, as though completely healthy… until she rounded the next corner and hunched over, taking the rest of her walk like a drunken hag, hoping Lara wouldn’t see all the while.
TIMING: Before Jasper lost his face
LOCATION: Shimmering Sky Bar
PARTIES: Siobhan (@banisheed) & Jasper (@eatdearth)
CONTENT: (alcoholism tw) some implications to alcoholism, alcohol consumption is heavily involved
SUMMARY: Siobhan invites her best friend* Jasper out for some drinks, which he's never had before. They talk. And then Jasper really talks.
*she thought it would be funny to say he was her best friend. The verdict is still out on if it was funny
Siobhan could count the things she knew about Jasper on one hand: he seemed boring, he had great hair and he had, for some reason, accepted her admission that they were best friends. She’d said it to annoy him and yet, he didn’t seem very annoyed at all by the sudden statement. Siobhan didn’t know what that meant. Was he lonely? Did he want to make friends that badly? Or did he truly not care? There was also the possibility that Jasper was playing her for a fool; that while she intended to annoy him, he had planned to annoy her back by not being annoyed. Jasper didn’t strike her as the type to be masterminding an entire scheme from the shadows, but what did she know? She thought it was impossible that anyone could have gone through life without sampling a cocktail, but some people also considered her as someone who drank too much. Maybe her opinion didn’t matter but what did those people know?
The Shimmering Sky Bar was thankfully devoid of any usual bustle, so no one was privy to Siobhan grumbling into her cosmopolitan about imaginary arguments. Of course, except for the bartender who shot her several concerned looks down the bar. She’d asked Jasper to meet her here as she assumed there would be no better place for fancy cocktails but she’d also shown up early just to get a few extra drinks in. When Jasper did show up, she was already a little flushed and very friendly. “Jaspie!” She called out to him like he actually was her best friend. She ran up and gave him a hug like he was one too. “This way.” She gestured to the bar. “I got us the best views of the, uh…” She then gestured out the windows, at the lush greenery around them and the distant landmarks of the range. “You live somewhere around here, don’t you?” She took a seat at the bar, patting the stool beside her. “How are you feeling?”
—
Jasper had always thought Doctor Dolan was attractive. But that was about it. Any other thoughts he might have had regarding that matter, he chose to not entertain further. Because professionalism. But the fact was, Jasper was a pretty lonely guy, which meant it was almost second nature for him to think everyone else was attractive, especially if they were new, especially if they hadn’t yet had the displeasure of hearing about the rumors that were plaguing his occasionally forgotten reputation: Dude was awkward “af” that he was basically socially inept and he lived in the mountains alone. He wasn’t exactly someone anyone else would invite to a “rager” or whatever. So when Doctor Dolan invited him out for drinks, calling him her best friend, he was beyond ecstatic. A night out with a gorgeous woman? Best day of his life.
“Doctor— I mean, Shiv!” Jasper feigned, awkwardly at that, an air of being nonchalant. He wanted to seem like he had just arrived, that he was thinking of not even showing up in the first place, even though he had been there a few minutes earlier than the arranged time, pacing in a dark alley while trying to hype himself up for this “date.” It wasn’t, of course, but Jasper was too lonely and socially repressed to know the difference. Case in point: He reacted to the hug a little too late, tried to hug her back but she was already leading her to the bar, so he just pretended nothing ever happened. “You look good,” he fumbled as soon as his lips parted, the words seemingly pushing against each other as they tried to escape his mouth. “I mean, the view looks good… You also look good! You and the view both look good? Professionally speaking, of course.”
“Hmm? Oh, I, uhm, I’m feeling…rather…well,” Jasper feigned a cough as he sat on the offered stool, leaning on his arms on the countertop, a huge goofy grin on his face as he looked around for no real reason than the fact that he hadn’t been there, and if he even had, it was definitely not with a lovely lady. “How about you, Doctor—Shiv?”
—
“I always look good,” Siobhan said quickly: an automatic response to being complimented. Of course, she did also preen a little--touched by Jasper’s display of common sense. Yes, yes she was attractive and she was very keen on everyone knowing it. “You look…” Jasper wasn’t unattractive--to say so would be an obvious lie--but she also thought he carried himself like he was worried his mother would scold him for being out too late. “You look hot,” she settled on, patting his shoulder in hopes that she could pass on even a shred of her abundant confidence to him. She smirked. “Professionally speaking, of course.”
Siobhan wondered for a moment, watching Jasper smile, if he was actually several children wearing the suit of a man. It would explain things. What things, exactly, she didn’t know but it certainly felt like things would be explained if Jasper was somehow not who he said he was. Was this another attempt at demoralizing her? Of ruining her game? Not only was he not annoyed that she was overly familiar, he seemed to be thrilled about it. “Well, I’m so happy to be out with my best friend.” She tested the waters, waiting for a flicker of annoyance or disapproval to cross his face. “Bestest bestest friend.” She grinned widely, too widely, and immediately she decided she needed drinks.
She waved the bartender down, “Shirley Temple right? You mentioned it, why not try it?” Siobhan ordered two Dirty Shirleys and prayed they would come with lightning pace. “You know, I was just thinking, you’re my bestest friend and I hardly know a thing about you. Other than the fact you lick rocks, of course.” Again, she waited.
—
‘Oh, no, are we gonna fuck?’ was the first thing that came to Jasper’s mind when Siobhan called him ‘hot,’ though he immediately tried to chase that unprofessional thought away with a mental head shake. It was a combination of a lot of things that gave birth to that stupid thought: (1) the fact that no one has ever called him ‘hot,’ not even the girls that he was dating individually; (2) it has been a while since he’s had intercourse or even been intimate with anyone; and (3) he forgot for a moment that the word ‘hot’ could also refer to a high degree of heat or temperature. Like a fever, which this whole exchange was beginning to seem to him. A fever dream, more precisely.
The concern from that now-dissipated thought did not come from not wanting the possibility, too, as even a dunce would realize that Jasper would do it with a pole if it was wearing a skirt…or however that hilarious but hurtful remark from Professor Nancy Go went. No, it was more the fact that he and Siobhan were coworkers, and Jasper thought that being intimate with a coworker never ends well. Case in point: Him and Nancy, who has now taken to his home as her second home despite the fact that they were no longer being intimate. If only he could just tell her off. Then again, he couldn’t even tell his late uncle’s dog off for being such a snooty snoot to him.
“Yes,” Jasper heaved a sigh of relief when Siobhan established the parameters of their ‘relationship,’ though a small part of him was a bit disappointed. “Best friend,” he reiterated the term to drill the same into his often uncooperative brain. Well, the social part of it. Some days Jasper was a hair away from being one of those villainous turds in She-Hulk, a show which he actually loves, by the way. Fortunately for him, today was not one of those days.
“Bestest best friend!” Another mental sigh of relief before Jasper nodded at the drink choice, sheepishly grinning like an apologetic child whose hand was just caught in the cookie jar by his mother, before shaking his head in protest at that last bit. “Well, actually, I don’t lick rocks. My tongue’s reserved for licking something else. Like stamps. Or ice cream. Popsicles? Anyway, what would you like to know? Most of the things about me are on my personnel file or the university faculty website, anyway.” Weird way to say he was boring and uninteresting but it wasn’t the worst way he could have gone about it.
—
“Or licking pu--” Siobhan stopped herself, looking at Jasper. She wasn’t sure how well the joke would land and, anyway, she wasn’t entirely convinced that Jasper wasn’t actually a child. Somehow. “I don’t read things on the internet.” Siobhan waved her hands around. “There’s too many words and not all of them are true.” Mostly, it was that the large majority of words on the internet were written by humans and if Siobhan wanted to puncture her brain with the continued stupidity of humanity, she’d assign essays to her class. She avoided them for a reason. “You’re here now, aren’t you?” She nudged Jasper, smiling brilliantly. “Why don’t I hear it from your cute mouth?” She pinched his cheek. No, that was his real skin. She supposed he was just one of those weird humans; the sort that grew up all wrong.
The drinks arrived too slow for Siobhan’s liking, but their presence was welcome. “In actuality, a Shirely Temple isn’t an alcoholic drink,” she said with a laugh, as though she’d ever willingly order something without alcohol. “Not this one though. Cheers, love.” She didn’t wait to clink her glass against his, taking the first full and quick sip. Ginger Ale and Grenadine was a sweet mix, the presence of vodka was hardly noticeable under all the sugar. The cherry was a welcome addition. She hummed, her cold skin slowly warming. Quickly, she ordered two Bloody Mary’s: the other drink Jasper had mentioned. “What do you think, Jaspie?” She took another long sip. The more she drank, the less she would question why she was doing this.
Against her best efforts, it really did seem like Jasper wanted to be here and would have fun. None of that was Siobhan’s intention.
—
If Jasper had a drink sloshing in his mouth hole, he would have spat it all out when he realized what Siobhan was about to say before she cut herself off. It took him a second, sure, but he realized it as soon as he could. Eyes wide in horror, he couldn’t help but stare at Siobhan because of that, his cheeks flushing red, before turning away and feigning a cough to save himself from more unprofessional thoughts. “That’s fair,” Jasper swallowed air.
Even before Siobhan pinched his cheek, he was already feeling uncomfortable…but in a good way, if that was even a thing, which it probably isn’t, which just means that Jasper did indeed grow up wrong. Hard to grow up right when he was raised by the same uncle that slaughtered the rest of his family without Jasper’s knowing because said uncle feared their magic bloodline was the cause for all the weird shit in town, which of course wasn’t. But, hey! She called his mouth cute. That’s something, right? “I mean, I don’t lick rocks, so that’s one thing. I have a dog? Val, short for Valentine, but technically, she was my late uncle’s, so I guess I just inherited her…among other things. You do already know I live by myself, with my dog, in the mountains, I think?”
“Oh, it isn’t?” Jasper was genuinely flummoxed, a word he was reacquainted with just the past week and has not taken a liking to, which means he will most likely use that same word a lot in his next few classes. “I’ve always thought it was.” Jasper watched her take her drink, his eyes subconsciously fixated on his lips as he swallowed air, feeling his own throat dry up, constrict on its own volition. “I think that’s hot,” he blurted out before catching himself, immediately taking a sip of his own drink to conceal his stupidity to little avail. “I mean, uhm, it’s delicious… You’re delicious… This drink is delicious!” And it was, which surprised him. It wasn’t like he didn’t think he’d like the drink. It was more like he didn’t think it would be that good. “Oh, this really is delicious! Shirley, you’ve surely created magic here! I think I’m in love!”
—
Siobhan tried to listen to Jasper, but he was doing that thing humans often did where they were unbearably boring and her alcohol was doing the thing where it wasn’t working fast enough. She stared down at her drink, noticing it was empty. When had that happened? Siobhan looked back up at Jasper, smiling tightly. “Surely you must have some hobbies,” she said. “There has to be more to my bestest friend ever than his dog and his house and the fact that he’s lonely—sorry, lives alone. Slip of the tongue.” She stuck her out, laughing as though she really cared about the error. She sloshed the ice around her glass. This was why she stabbed people, stabbing people always made them interesting. Unfortunately, she didn’t think it was wise to attack a colleague in a public space.
The Bloody Marys came down quick and Siobhan took hers before Jasper had even sipped his Dirty Shirley. “Hot? No, these are cold drinks. Do you want something hot, Jaspie?” She could probably order one, even if nothing came to mind right away. The more drinks she got the better, she needed Jasper to become interesting as soon as possible. The knife she kept strapped to her thigh burned against her flesh, begging for use. All she needed to do was reach through the slit of her dress and… “In love so soon? You should get higher standards.” She chuckled, the desire to stab him subsiding temporarily as she found the outburst adorable, in that way a dog chasing someone around for a treat was. Her preoccupation with violence had left her unaware of Jasper's slip-ups and staring. “This one is vodka and tomato juice and a variety of other things I can’t be arsed to remember. Cheers!” Again, she didn’t wait for him before taking a sip. “It’s more of a savoury one,” Siobhan explained. “I’m not sure if you’ll be so in love with this one.”
—
“I have a massive pe—” Jasper cut himself off, realizing his little joke might land him in hot water if he continued. Siobhan seemed like she could take the joke. Pun intended. If that was even a pun. But would Jasper risk his only source of joy, his only semblance of life, his only…hobby, for a few seconds of a chuckle? He’d rather not. “—atience. I am very patient. Not a hobby, but that’s something more to me, I think.” Weird, flimsy train of thought, but that was all he had before he took another sip of his drink. “Don’t be,” he shrugged off what most people would consider an insult. Or at least take offense to. It wasn’t wrong, anyway. He was lonely, and it wasn’t just because he lived alone. He was very lonely. “You have a pretty tongue, I mean you weren’t wrong.”
Another feigned cough to hide his slow descent into drunkenness. It was just one drink, barely even down to two-thirds, but Jasper was already feeling the alcohol. “It already feels hot,” he omitted the realization that the sensation was all within him. If it was even real. Could just be him. His mind playing tricks on him. The placebo effect. Because he thought the drink could make him drunk, he started feeling drunk. That sort of thing. “A lonely man can’t afford standards, Shibby,” he heaved a sigh, shaking his head, forcing his eyes into each socket before opening them as wide as he could, all while his head was down toward the table. “You had me at vodka!” He chuckled and downed as much as he could of the new drink, barely surviving the result. “You do this often? Drink these things?”
—
Siobhan thought she heard a joke, carried through the mumble of the bar around them. She stared at Jasper, wondering if he had the strength to finish it. No. Pity. Jasper as he stood now, or sat in actuality, was quickly gaining in mundanity. It wasn’t his fault he was boring, Siobhan thought the vast majority of humans were. He wasn’t saying anything riveting. She wanted the ‘hot goss’ as the humans said; the details so juicy Jasper hardly admitted them to himself. She couldn’t expect him to just talk, he needed to be lubed up—metaphorically. “I do have a pretty tongue,” she smiled at him. “Would you like to see something else that’s pretty?” Siobhan tugged on her gloves, setting them aside. With a shrug, her leather jacket fell away, hanging on the back of the stool. She maintained her glamour well, despite the alcohol; it was imperative that Jasper not see her scars and, as she was finding his lack of scandalous information boring, the concentration gave her something to do. Her dress, low-cut, was sleeveless and she pointed to her now bare arms. “Here are the ulna and the radius.” Siobhan traced each bone, showing Jasper where they sat under her skin. “And here’s the radial artery, where you can take my pulse.” She paused. “Do you want to?” As a banshee, there wasn’t much of a pulse to take, but she hoped his drunken stumbling around her arm to figure out why he wasn’t feeling a regular pulse would disarm him enough to be interesting.
Siobhan smiled, watching a tipsy flush reach Jasper’s face. She was feeling more inclined to be friendly, a little bold, but the more she drank, the more she thought she started to feel like herself. Sharp white canine teeth glistened when she smiled. “I do. You could call it an Irish tradition, but don’t say that to anyone that’s Irish. Except me, of course. You can tell me anything.” Siobhan’s grin expanded, pulling up into her cheeks. “Don’t you want to tell your best friend some very personal information? Something that will bring us closer? Don’t you want that, Jaspie?” And please, for the love of Death, she prayed it wouldn’t be another remark about his dog or his virtue of patience.
—
“Yes, and yes,” Jasper responded with zero hesitation and a passionate nodding of his head. He still took his time, however, despite his one-sided battle with alcohol. In his head, he was getting way too drunk, though he didn’t care: He was with a lovely woman. What better reason to be drunk? In reality, however, barely a single drink should make him drunk. If not for his subconscious willingness to hasten the process for the possibility of more intimate rewards, he would be more sober than a priest in the middle of his own mass in the Vatican with all the other priests watching him keenly. Siobhan’s offer was why Jasper was glad he wasn’t actually a priest.
As soon as he could, he immediately went to work, though he hesitated actually touching her. It could be a trap, meant to seduce him, and when his guard was lowered, while he was caught in such a scandalous position, she could scream and call him names and get him fired from his job, ruining his life forever. But a stolen glimpse at Siobhan’s alluring eyes made Jasper think she would do no such thing, so he smiled, ever the fool, happy to be one, glad to be tied around her pinky finger, and savored every contact he could make with her skin, her bone, her…pulse. Man, am I so drunk, I can’t even feel a pulse? “That’s weird,” he hiccuped. “I can’t find your pulse.” Maybe it’s in her left breast—icle, clavicle. Fuck! Even ‘drunk’, he wasn’t that rude. Or evil.
“You’re Irish?” Jasper absentmindedly blurted as he continued trying to find her pulse, as if he just needed more time to find it. Typical guy thing—if you know, you know. What Jasper should have known was the answer to his question. Her name was a dead giveaway. It was the only Irish name he knew how to spell. He made a note of that in his head after meeting a lovely Irish girl in the UK while at a seminar, the geology professor too scared to make the jump despite the many pushes she had given him, some even outright, including an invitation to her room on the final night they would ever see each other again. “What do you mean?” He asked, a lingering concern in his voice, as if he was about to get attacked by a hidden monster. Or reminded of a haunting regret in his love life. “Like my bank details? You’d be disappointed, but also you’d have to buy me dinner first. Jasper H. Langston is not an easy lay!” Nor is he a good one, his sober brain added, much to his faux drunkenness’ dismay.
—
“I have an accen—You know what, it’s probably just hard to tell where I’m from.” Siobhan forced herself to smile, watching Jasper fumble around her arm. She maintained concentration, picturing how her skin once was and how her wings once fluttered. Her hand snapped over Jasper’s, anchoring him to her cold skin. She grinned sharply, with all the excitement of a cat capturing a mouse. “Not your bank details…” Although the offer was tempting; how many cups of yogurt could she buy under his name? It wasn’t entirely necessary, as much fun as it would be, Siobhan had more than enough money between her salary, credit cards, and the men whose bank details she did steal. Siobhan leaned into him. “Something secretive, Jaspie. Something you’ve never told anyone.” There were probably more tactful ways to go about stealing secrets, but Siobhan didn’t particularly care. She thought Jasper was drunk anyway, never mind the reality that she’d had much, much more than him and was certainly feeling it. “Something you’re afraid to say; don’t worry; would I ever tell anyone?” She would probably tell someone. “It can be our secret.” It wouldn’t be. “Who would I tell, anyway?” This part was true, and did reveal that even though Siobhan had no respect for the secrets of humans, she didn’t have any friends (except Metzli) and thus, had no one to share the hot goss of Jasper’s life with.
Siobhan reached for her drink, downing the last of her Bloody Mary. “I just think…we’re such good friends aren’t we? I let you find my pulse—that’s my heart—and what are you giving me? You told me about your dog! I don’t want to know about your dog.” Siobhan leaned in again, displaying every drop of alcohol on her breath—which was otherwise minty fresh (she enjoyed a good mint). “Come on, Jaspie.”
—
“I mean, yeah, I just thought you were from Boston or something,” Jasper shrugged, before he was caught by surprise when Siobhan unexpectedly grabbed his hand. His eyes, wide in shock, warily searched for hers, and when they met, the geology professor could only gulp. She had pretty eyes, that was the first thing that came to his mind, before her words slowly made their mark in his brain.
“I…have never slept with someone who wasn’t in a relationship with me,” the words started to spill from his mouth, like an unsuspecting leak on a pipe in someone’s basement. She wanted secrets, right? Something he’d never told anyone. Well, Jasper had a lot of them, and all of them he’d never told anyone. Or at least that’s what he believed in his supposedly drunken state. Truth was, Jasper’s lips loosen every time he was out of his mind, even when he only believed so.
“I’ve been trying to learn magic but I suck at it… I lost my childhood friend in the mines and have been trying to find her still, even though she’s probably already found her way out and moved on with her life or dead and eaten by whatever’s down there, if there’s even things down there… I love pineapples on my pizza and hot sauce on my ice cream… I do think some of my students are hot, but I would never… I also think you’re hot and you’re so close to me right now and you smell so good and feel so good…” Throughout his word vomit, or is it words vomit?, Jasper found himself unable to look away from Siobhan, as if enthralled. While the jury might still be debating on whether Jasper H. Langston was in fact an easy lay, there was no doubt right now that he was definitely an easy prey.
—
For the moment, Siobhan could ignore that Jasper thought she was from Boston (she actually liked Boston, she’d had great clam chowder there and at least seven murders she was proud of). She could ignore that Jasper had never slept with anyone he wasn’t in a relationship with, which was a very boring slice of information but as soon as he said that, she could tell they were finally getting somewhere. And then he went on. Magic, mines, pineapples, hot sauce, students—that last one made Siobhan’s nose wrinkle which was quickly appeased by being told she was hot. Of course, it meant less when it came after a sentence where he admitted some students were hot, but Siobhan was always hungry for compliments.
Siobhan snapped her hand away and slipped her jacket back on. “So, you’re a…witch then, are you?” She went to take a sip of her drink, then realized there was nothing in there, then got sad. She set it back down with a disappointed clink. “A very shite witch?” Was this an interesting fact or just the only one that provided any use to her? “D’you get yourself a teacher?” She slurred a little, leaning back into her stool. She played around with the other details in her head, trying to figure out how to file them away. “Your friend went into the mines…” she repeated. “…and you don’t know if she’s dead or alive?” As a banshee, she was uniquely capable of figuring out if someone had died but the process wasn't as easy as thinking really hard about it. She’d have to travel the mines, sorting through all the visions of death that lingered there until she found one that matched his friend; the process was tedious and with a place as large as the network of underground tunnels, it wasn’t likely she’d ever find the spot. And, more importantly, it would involve wanting to help Jasper; that was the larger hurdle to jump.
“Can’t you magic a location spell?” Siobhan waved her hand around in the air. “Sprinkle sage in one of her old shoes and go ‘where is she’ and let the tea leaves show you or whatever it is you witches do these days. Back in my day, it was a lot of herbal nonsense and chalk-drawn sigils. These days maybe you witches have got an app for this.” She tapped her finger against the bar counter. “Oh, sorry.” She patted Jasper’s arm. “I’m not going to sleep with you—you’re not my type, too pathetic—but valiant effort with the compliments, Jaspie.” Now that she has squeezed what she wanted out of Jasper, she only lingered to see if he’d offer anything else up. With her hands gripping the counter, she was ready to leave as soon as he mentioned his dog again.
—
A witch? Jasper did a double take. Visually. With his head and neck and shoulders and upper body. Moving a bit away from Siobhan, as if he was disgusted at the thought of being called a witch. “I wouldn’t call myself a witch…” The immediate image in his head was that of a hag, and having forgotten in that moment in time how hot Marvel’s Wanda Maximoff was, he recoiled at the idea of himself being a hag. Maybe if he had better mentors, a magical one, he’d realize that hags are very, very sexy these days. Like Anne Hathaway in that movie he never actually saw. “Shit....e, yes, but not…”
“...no, no teacher unfortunately…” He heaved a very audible sigh before remembering he did get those ‘lessons’ from that weird guy. “I mean, not an actual teacher, but there was this guy who showed me the basics…” What was his name again? Johnny? Johnny Jones? Not Johnny Cage, that one’s a much cooler guy. And also white…r? Anyway, Jasper just had to squint at Siobhan when she mentioned his friend but then remembered, regretfully so, that he had shared that information just seconds ago after a moment of weakness. “Yes,” he swallowed air, feeling his throat suddenly deprived of moisture. “But that was a long time ago. We were kids… I’m still holding hope she’s down there somewhere, still alive… Weirder things have happened.” Like a very attractive woman taking to him as her best friend.
“I…don’t know a single location spell,” Jasper grew red in embarrassment. He’s already admitted he was a shit spellcaster but actually displaying how much of a shit spellcaster he was was, well, a bit worse. “I can only do, like, rock spells. Levitating rocks… Throwing stones without touching said stones…” What was even the point of him being a spellcaster, he realized that then and there. “Oh, I mean, I didn’t,” he started to laugh awkwardly, trying to salvage what remained of his broken heart and equally broken ego by brushing that very patheticness aside. “...I was just saying you are very, very beautiful, but I would never…sleep with a colleague.” Jasper took a sip of his drink but almost stabbed his upper lip, the rim of the glass clanging against his teeth. “I mean, I already did and that didn’t work out, so…Plus, I’m already taking care of my uncle’s dog, so no room for more, hehehe…” Looks like it’s back to his right hand tonight. And the rest of his nights.
—
“Rock spells? Like The Rolling Stones spell.” Siobhan paused, waiting for laughter. Thankfully her delusional mind came with its own laugh track. Would she have use for a rock witch? She thought about it. Maybe he could help her landscape? Maybe she could get him to throw rocks at people for her amusement? She tapped her chin, imagining the multitude of ways to indenture Jasper into her service. In the end, she decided he wasn’t very useful. What kind of witch was a rock witch anyway? As much as she made fun of them, maybe she did miss the witches that made the weird herbal potions, at least they were fun. And all of them had bathtub booze of their own, which never tasted like anything Siobhan had had before or would have ever again. And then, it happened. Siobhan looked at him, blinking, hoping it had been some cruel joke. No, it happened. He did it.
He talked about his dog.
Siobhan pushed up out of her seat, nearly knocking the stool over. She took a wad of crumbled bills out of her pocket and slapped them down, hoping it was enough to pay for them both but knowing it probably wasn’t. “I have to go,” she announced, straightening herself up. “If I hear you talk about one more horribly mundane topic again, I’m going to explode. Do you think I asked you here to talk about your dog? Does anyone want to talk about your dog?” She laid her hand on his shoulder. “Jasper. Jaspie.” She pinched his cheek softly. “You’re so cute. You’re my best friend, because I said so, so we’re making it so. I think if you talked less you’d have more, as the humans say, bitches. As a woman who grew up around women, I think I should reject the term. As a drunk, I will not. Get bitches, eat money, lick rocks, whatever it is they say. But please, for the love of Death, don’t talk about your uncle’s dog.” She leaned into him, pressing a swift kiss to his forehead before she dashed away, running as fast as she could in her high heels just in case he decided to mention the dog again.
She wouldn’t be able to handle another second of Jasper.
