You got a black .38 and a gravity knife, but you still have to ride the train

[wontturntofoam]

Who: Shrieky, Ivan, and YOU?! Open, basically!
What: A solo scene which occurred during the hiatus, and an open log of Shrieky recuperating from blood loss in a bakery.
Where: The Red Chamber Bar (which I just made up/will make a wiki post for later) and The Bleeding Heart Bakery in Mafaton
When: Solo scene from the Hiatus - Open Log at around midday
Warnings: Blood letting, Blood drinking, Depression

The Red Chamber Bar - Late Toidaren


"Oi! We're having Xenian rates for him, he's a Mermaid."

The proprietor of the Red Chamber bar paused, with a needle poised against Shrieky's arm, ready to plunge home. He was a dark haired, aristocratic type, who looked, to Shrieky, to be much younger than he actually was. His head turned slowly, to look across at the speaker. Shrieky's present escort was a young man named Payfred, who wore his head shaved, and had tattoos in some illegible scrawl on his neck and scalp. He was rubbing a plaster, pressed over the pinprick wound which had just been made in his arm.

"He doesn't look much like a Mermaid to me." Said the proprietor, disapprovingly, "And besides, being a Xenian doesn't automatically make someone taste any better. There are some beautiful creatures in the city, whose blood tastes like bile!"

"He's of the latest cohort, and was beset by some dreadful misfortune before coming here that's left him in the unfortunate likeness of a human," Payfred said, insistently, "But he ain't one, and if you find he tastes of bile then pay us dirt and we'll go elsewhere with him next time!"

"We'll see." The proprietor sighed, pressing his needle into Shrieky's arm. It stung for a moment, and Shrieky bit down on his lip hard, suppressing the urge to verbally assault the man for hurting him. Impassive, dead eyes rolled up to regard him, "You've not done this before, have you?"

"No."

"You shouldn't sell more than a pint a month, but most people will stretch to two, as long as they eat well and rest enough. He'll try and persuade you to sell more. Most start off doing it weekly, before the tiredness sets in, but you'll grow weaker faster if you do."

The blood runs fast down thin, clear tubing, and fills a bag that the vampire's holding. Shrieky watches it swell while he talks, nodding distantly. It seems odd that he doesn't feel it leaving him, but it's better than if this had hurt. When the bag is fat and filled to bursting point, the proprietor directs Shrieky to place two fingers over the spot where the needle is, and once it's extracted, to press down hard. He does, and no blood drips free.

"A mark a bag's what that stuff is." Payfred insists optimistically, and the Vampire snorts, detaching the needle and plastic tubing from the sealed bag.

There's a trace of his blood lingering on the tubing, and the proprietor wipes it clean onto his hand, before lifting his bloodied fingers up to his mouth. As Shrieky watches, he can pinpoint the moment when the vampire smells it, when his face shifts slightly, from distant derision to sudden attentiveness. His hand, Shrieky's blood, is still an inch from his mouth, but when the Vampire closes the distance to lap up the blood, his mouth's watering visibly. He licks clean his hand, then, after a moment's pause, reaches for the bag.

"I couldn't sell it for a mark. I'll give you eighty shekels."

"We'd get a mark somewhere else. A mark if we found a private buyer."

"A private buyer would bite him."

"Maybe for a mark, we'd let them."

The Proprietor's eyes flicked to Shrieky sharply, and there was something in them that made him round on Payfred, "We would not! I refuse to be bitten!"

There came another snort from the Vampire, and in one quick motion, he bit down into the bag. It was a strangely occupying sight, for Shrieky. The man's eyes drifting closed as the swollen plastic began to shrink, the obvious pleasure taken in it. Payfred raised his voice, visibly irritated, "Oi! You've not paid him for that yet!"

The vampire pulled the bag away from his mouth with a sharp snapping sound. It was half empty, and through loose hanging lips, his teeth were stained with red. His hands were shaking, very slightly, and he folded down the plastic, where he'd bitten into it. It took a moment for him to arrange himself again, but when he opened his eyes, they were still deceptively human.

"A hundred shekels if he comes every week. Ninety otherwise, and I consider that generous."

"Deal!" Said Payfred, quickly, but the Vampire ignored him. He was staring instead, at Shrieky, awaiting his answer, despite not posing the question to him directly.

"You said I shouldn't sell it every week." Shrieky pointed out, feeling contrary and cautious and confused all at once.

The vampire grinned, showing his bloody teeth, "I changed my mind."



~~~



The Bleeding Heart Bakery - Early Ruudary

It had become an awkward but profitable weekly ritual. The owner of the Red Chamber had taken to ensuring that there was a little cooked meat in the bar on Friday mornings, watched Shreiky eat however much he deigned to portion out, then took a generous pint out of him, to serve over the week ahead. The hundred shekels didn't go as far as Shrieky might have liked, but it kept him afloat, all the same. Today, before Shrieky had left, it had been delicately mentioned that he could ask for considerably more if he would feed patrons privately, via a bite, but Shrieky had shrugged off the suggestion, and slipped away.

The exhaustion wasn't bad yet. Most weeks Shrieky would spend a day or so feeling weak and drowsy before he recovered, and knowing that he didn't have to be able to read, didn't have to be polite, didn't have to be clever or patient or to like his boss or to aspire to improve in any way, was simultaneously liberating and crushing. It was very far from being perfect, but since Shrieky didn't think that he would care at all if both Payfred and the Red Chamber and his latest employer one and all vanished out of Baedal with the rising of the sun? It did offer him a kind of security that he'd become estranged from.

He continued his own little ritual, after departing from the bar, heading for the Bleeding Heart to boost his energy and satiate his sweet tooth somewhat. He'd taken to washing his clothes in the river again, so there was a kind of watery smell about him that served a little to blot out the scent of his blood, and the proprietor of the Red Chamber had invested in little moon and star shaped plasters (to further appease him after his donations), one of which is currently pressed flat on the inside of his arm, covering his latest puncture. He creeps to the counter, where he's pretty sure he's recognized, both as a regular and a bloodletter by now, and orders a raspberry ripple cupcake with cream cheese frosting.

Mafaton's usually quiet at this hour, which is why he chooses it to come and sell. There's less chance of someone else catching the scent of fresh blood, less chance of being pinpointed as a potential meal. Even so, Shrieky can still see the way the waiter's nostrils flare, as he picks out the cupcake, and they evade one another's eyes, as he hands across his payment.

Comments

[deservesadaisy]

Ivan, though he'd once had a whole infrastructure to back him up, was honestly used to cleaning up after himself. It was what he had always preferred, and it was serving him well in Baedal. It necessitated, though, not limiting himself as far as neighborhoods. He kept alert, and kept an ear to the ground.

The smell of water mixed with the blood, but couldn't totally mask it, even if Ivan had already fed. The potential for a meal is a biological imperative, after all. But more than that, when he pinpointed the source, he looked familiar.

Ivan took a moment, unabashed, to make sure he was placing him correctly.

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky has taken his cupcake to a stool beside the window, and is in the process of carefully scraping off the icing (because that's the best part and he wants to save it for last) when he notices Ivan. And notices the fact that Ivan is staring at him.

It takes him a moment to put together where he knows Ivan from, and while... it's not fear that he feels, exactly, there is a strange anxiety that comes from the realisation that you are being watched, without the knowledge of why. He feels... hunted. Threatened. Even though he knows that it's broad daylight, and that the majority of Vampires in Mafaton don't need to go out hunting for blood.

Then something clicks in his mind, and he remembers where he's seen Ivan before, and any tension he might have felt melts away immediately.

"You're Ilde's. I remember you."

He lifts the cupcake, and takes a tentative bite out of it, squeezing the raspberry filling so that it runs out the other side of the cake, in a wet, red line.

[deservesadaisy]

He nodded; that assessment was close enough he had no desire to dispute it. He comes over, moving with easy grace. He isn't hunting (now). "Ivan. You're far from the river today, Mermaid." Metaphorically, not only physically.

[wontturntofoam]

"Well, Baedal is a very big place. You have to leave the river if you can't breathe underwater anymore." Shrieky's answer is more physical, as he turns over his cupcake to lick up the dripping red goop from the far side of it.

"How is Ilde? And the baby?" He asks, as if it's born already.

[deservesadaisy]

"Not due for several weeks yet," he answers, neutral but pleasant enough. "But Ilde's well, under the circumstances. Shall I tell her I saw you?"

It's a simple question, not loaded the way he asks it, and yet... Ivan's look is observant enough. Perhaps that he saw him, but not where. Or in what condition.

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky nods, carefully passing the remnants of his cupcake between two hands. He doesn't mind Ilde knowing that Ivan's seen him. He hasn't been... avoiding her, exactly? He just hasn't wanted to be around people who he likes too much right now. He takes pause, after a moment though, thinking briefly of how that conversation might go.

"You could tell her that I asked how she was? And... perhaps omit that you saw me in Mafaton?" Me smiles, loose and tired, despite everything, "She told me I shouldn't come here."

[deservesadaisy]

"I can't imagine why," he said, dryly. It's part sarcasm, part bemusement that Ilde's self-preservation instincts seem to apply to everyone but herself sometimes. "We all do what we must, though. You should make them pay you well, though, rare blood goes for a higher price."

He doesn't know, not for sure, but the symptoms more or less match and he figures the reaction that comment gets will tell him whether or not he's right.

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky scoops the cream cheese icing onto his finger, then into his mouth. It's sweet and tangy and it makes his mouth water. He swallows, and wipes his thumb across his lips, glancing down a little, "I get a hundred a bag, so long as I sell every week. He said he could pay me more, but it's not something I'm interested in doing."

He's not ashamed of it. Even less so now that Ivan's been the one to bring it up. There's nothing to be ashamed of, but talking about it still makes him feel sort of... well... weird, to be honest.

[deservesadaisy]

Ivan nods, his assumption confirmed. He sits and considers the amount. "That's not bad. Though weekly is often, for most." Maybe mermaids had different constitutions; he wouldn't claim to be an expert on their biology.

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky nods as well, it's weirdly liberating, talking to someone about this who might not have thought that it was all right, "I was going to do it less than that, but the Red Chamber gives me ten shekels more for the security of having it in stock every week. I was thinking, when I start getting more tired, I'll go down to twice a month."

[deservesadaisy]

He looks thoughtful, for a moment. Ivan isn't in the habit of giving out free advice, but this is a friend of Ilde's, and that does earn him a bit of consideration.

"Look," he says, after a moment, "your business is your business, but if you're going to go selling the stuff, they're not the only buyers in town. If you want to do it less frequently, you could always make noises like you're going to discuss other arrangements. If you were human, they'd tell you to go fuck yourself, but as it is." He shrugs. "Unless you get brash, you've probably got some wiggle room."

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky looks at the last few crumbs of cake on the wrapper, before carefully sweeping them into the bin.

"I don't know how much Ilde's told you about me, but sometimes I get angry. I don't know if... I don't really like him anyway, so I feel like if I got my hopes up for something, and he didn't want to give it to me, I might... I would probably end up 'getting brash'." He gives a lopsided little shrug, "Thank you anyway, though."

[deservesadaisy]

"Ah. I'm not unfamiliar with the temperament." Surely not from personal experience; Ivan doesn't give the impression of being a man who takes much seriously enough to be angry over it. But he's known enough people who would fit that description.

"Well, so long as you don't feel cheated and keep on your feet, I suppose that's all the really matters. I find I have fewer choices than I'd like myself, here."

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky tilted his head slightly. He didn't really know much about Ivan, beyond that he was Ilde's partner, and presumably that he had planted the baby in her. That said, being considered worthy of planting a baby in Ilde meant that he must have had some things going for him, so Shrieky decided to pry.

"What kind of choices do you mean? Like, in the jobs you do?"

[deservesadaisy]

He smiles and shakes his head, and pulls out a cigarette, though evidently to play with as he makes no move to light it.

"I used to travel," he said, after a pause. "Great distances and often. It's a large city, but it's still only one city, and I'm not used to not being able to leave."

[wontturntofoam]

"Well, you couldn't just get up and travel wherever you liked now anyway." Shrieky pointed out, a little snittily, "You have Ilde to think of now. She might not have wanted to travel great distances and often."

[deservesadaisy]

Ivan made himself not laugh at the tone. "I would take her with me, or I'd not be gone very long at a time. But it's all a mental exercise, because we can't leave, either of us, on purpose."

So it didn't matter whether, in another life, his wanderlust might have been a problem for them.

He was dead, and so was Ilde, in the worlds they came from. There was nowhere else to go.

"I do understand the concept of compromise, but that wasn't what I was talking about," he added.