The Long Way Around

The Daeva had kept her cool thus far through the entire monomacy, the brief conversation and leaving the venue. But, she didn’t feel calm in the least. Thankfully, she wasn’t accustomed to anger. Hopefully, David would be a voice of reason. Even so, she wasn’t about to prolong a discussion with Josephine.

Vivian walked swiftly out to her car, parked around the corner of the Asylum. She wasn’t sure how fast David would keep up but eventually he’d make it to the car. “Do you need to grab your bike?” She called back to him. Unlocking the door tossing her purse in the back seat and then heading toward the trunk.

“Yes,” David succinctly answers, still stewing over the night. Peeling away from Vivian, David heads to the scrub where the familiar green bike is perched and the ticking over of the gears louder than his steps. Lifting it as he nears the Daeva's car, he waits patiently for the trunk to open.

It, however, is only a point of space to focus on, not that he's actually looking at it, at all.

“How are you?” David's question is the first, and in his mind, the most important one to ask. He knows she isn't 'okay' and it would be weird to ask but David offers the opening to speak her mind like one would gallantly hold open a door. “I'm glad for the fresh air.”

Slipping the key in the trunk, as if most Kine knew how to that anymore; so many push buttons no one knew what manual work was. Vivian was internally set off by everything, those that casually walked well across the other side of the street were making her agitated.

“Bloody fucking fantastic, David?” Quickly moving to the driver’s side and whipping open the door. “You?”

“Oh, I will note that I’m sure you can guess my terse tone and language and whatever the hell else I say tonight is not directed at you.” She got in the car and flipped up the passenger’s lock. Turning over the car, she desperately wanted to rev the engine but now was not the place and she wouldn’t commit some sort of Vampire suicide in the Nova with the intoxicating smell of Fred Haymen's 273 always lingering within.

She liked it too much.

“I'm sorry,” the phrase is as much a security blanket as it is simply ingrained in David. Though it comes quickly after Vivian's clipped remark, it is no less genuine. The bike disappears into the car, held in trust by the pride of Detroit. David, the forgotten of Minneapolis, slides into the car with shoulders slowly sagging as he nods. “I understand.”

Hands look for something to do and David reaches behind him for the safety belt. “I'm... disappointed.” Thoughts float through David's mind, half-formed and fragmented. 'Disappointed' is the only word that even comes close.

Heavy metallic sounds close the door, locks securing it in place.

“Those things are supposed to be rare. I've seen three within a year. I was taught patience, prudence, peel the wings off of the bothersome gadfly.” A pause, “This one in particular seems less about the insult and more about the precedent set.”

“Disappointed, understatement of the year.” Signaling to get out to the road. Vivian wanted to scream, but right now was probably not a good idea considering Kine could probably hear it through the car.

The Daeva focused on the road while she spoke, there was no need to look at David’s face to see his expressions. Clearly evident in his voice as her anger was present in her own. “Yes, rare. I’ve seen the same since I got here. Bloody hell, I left Toronto because things were about to get to that point. Only to come here and find that it’s the same. At least the CEO isn’t a tyrant, but now we have someone toting weapons in peaceful places that may just do that?” Taking a turn to the first road out of town. The night wasn’t young, but it was a while until daylight. Right now, she only trusted her words as far as her car and the Shadow in the seat to the right.

“And you’re right. She left the Church. What a moot point to do such a thing for.” Stopping at the light, surveying the area for Kine, but they were passing a business district on the way to some back roads.

“I thought she was smarter than this and more articulate.” Shaking her head as the light changed. Clearly Vivian had more detailed things to say, but she'd bide her time before using words of the Masquerade kind. Since feeding right now wasn't an option, nor fucking, the Daeva wanted a cigarette for nothing more than keeping her hands busy. Yet confined in a car with a Shadow was out of the question at the time.

“I'm known for them,” David answers wryly, “understatements, I mean.” Eyes focus outside of the passenger side window, the Shadow watching the passing of the world beneath glass.

Contemplative, David tells Vivian, “It reminds me of the Twin Cities. Two cities separated by a single river, one ostensibly run by free thinkers and the other held tight by the conservatives. They practiced Fear Mongering, stating that any scholar caught in St. Paul will be put to death. We're apostates, you see.” Dull-brown orbs swivel towards Vivian's profile, “Since we seek to change a condition conservatives deem 'perfect,' because the Lord Above made it. I was surprised to find here, Dillon Connery's progressive stance in working with us. I'm afraid that's changed tonight in a single tiny explosion, returning to something I know all too well.”

An intent look forms, looking to see if Vivian understands what he's getting at.

“Fernandez was an easy target with his credibility destroyed. He was an easy mark to state a grander mission. Now, the ground is littered in egg-shells.”

Sinking into his seat, David then says, “Vivian, if something happens to me, there's a phone number I'd like you to call. One I hope you never have to call.”

While David spoke, she wondered if all Domains were like this. Clawing and biting each other behind backs, stabbing them when the other would least expect it. In Toronto, Vivian had no close friends, no Coterie mates, just her sire. Forming them would have been absurd then, maybe that statement held true everywhere.

“I wonder if I should discuss this with Twist, if it’s even worth it.” The woman was the Archon after all. Vivian thought she got on with the beauty rather well. “I liked Twist when we spoke. I could be as frank as I could in public, and honest with her. But, there was a time I could with Josephine too…” Vivian sighed as they passed the last street light that held back the night road. “Is that what it all boils down to? One misunderstanding and off with our heads?”

She paused, looked at David a moment. “Don’t worry, I don’t have that kind of temper. So don’t feel the need to walk on egg-shells around me at all.”

“So if all of this is just a repeat of our former Domains, what is stopping us from just grabbing more gas and not looking back?”

“I really do hope it doesn’t come to that. You should call my sire if something happens to me.” Her hand raised from the steering wheel, pointing to the glove compartment by the Shadow’s knees. “In there, a pen and paper.”

When David would open the glove compartment, a small notebook with a pen attached lay within. Resting politely on top of a handgun, its clip beside it.

Reaching forward as he sighs, David clicks open the glove compartment and fishes out the pen and paper. Of course, the gun springs into view and David takes in the shining metal before he closes the compartment.

Pen in hand, David writes two numbers – one local and one obviously not. “One of these numbers is my Fascination,” referring to an exchange before American Graffiti, “The other, Johan Fisher, my sire.”

Flipping over the page, David readies himself to take down the number Vivian would like him to call.

“I'm glad I don't have to walk on eggshells with you. What stops me?” Marshaling his thoughts, David answers, “Johan thought Sacramento, in particular, would be the place I came into my own. Grow, away from the familiar places I've been around for 60 years. Johan was right, as he usually is, and this place has become home. Beside that, I must see some things through to the end.”

Raking his hair with the hand holding the pen, “There's some romanticism to a Nomadic existence. But, sometimes, you have to stop and fight for something that is yours a place that you can call home. This is my home. Warts and all.”

The Shadow looks back to Vivian saying, “I didn't know her like you did.” Or thought she did, “I only know her through group meetings and various happenstances and seeing her at her worst. I couldn't begin to speculate on why but I can only say I fear for what this means. I wish I could say something that could give you some comfort. I just think the Reeve is a woman who is used to unilaterally making decisions and expecting everyone to laud their 'rightness.'”

Fascination, a word that wasn’t often used by the Shadow as long as she’d known him. That would get ticked into her rolodex for later. She nodded to both of them. “I will plug them into my phone later.” Seeing David was ready to write, “Jason Ouimet.” The name of her Sire quickly rolled off her tongue followed by his American number. His Canadian line had long since been terminated.

Then the cold reminder of his past love surfaced. So much death since the Daeva been here, it really made her question all she did in her past. Yet, those people she was told deserved it. She’d forgotten at the time that there would be someone left to mourn them. “Yes, that’s right. The matter made personal. So what makes Josephine different than the one who killed Aileen?” The question slipped out without her thinking.

Vivian understood what David meant by calling this place home and putting a foot down. She’d never really been a nomad though, only for a few months.

“That’s just it!” Vivian shook her head as she pulled onto a gravel side road. Her eyes picking up on a few animals hiding in the trees. “I don’t even know her apparently. She used to be rational!” Exclaiming unnecessarily. “We had discussions on some various topics and she swiftly came to some conclusions, possibly with my help. Talking things out seemed to make her more level headed.”

“But did Josephine bother to ask her Coterie mate what she thought of all this?” Her hand flit into the air wiping away some invisible thing. “Noooooooooooooooo. Didn’t even bloody fucking mention it.”

Slamming that hand back to the steering wheel. “Did she can’t be arsed to see if her Coterie mate would be pissed if she killed a family member? Noooooooooooo. I doubt that even fucking occurred to her in the slightest.”

“I don’t know what the hell came over her. She got her knickers in a twist and cast her own Covenant aside before she even made the decision to seek revenge for some words exchanged that she was suddenly offended with some bollocks long after the fact?”

“How, how can I continue to even be her Coterie mate?”

There was a long pause, quelling the rage that was beginning to surface before she the Beast took over. “Why didn’t we become coterie mates in the first place?” Vivian probably shouldn’t have asked that, but the Beast needed a distraction.

She had just told the Shadow she didn't have a temper. Vivian hoped he realized the difference between venting and her word purging.

A slip of paper is scrawled with a series of numbers. A code and a cipher leading to a man Vivian could call Father. Is there a message written in this seemingly random arrangement of numbers? Or, is it simply a random arrangement of numbers? These are questions to be left for later as David looks and listens to Vivian as she vents, her hand slamming into the steering wheel as an outward representation of her frustration.

“I'm easily overlooked,” David says quietly once Vivian is finished. “Or, perhaps, my distance is mistaken for inaccessibility. I'm not sure.” His voice lacks firm confidence in his answer. “Even so, you and I are coterie-mates in all but name.”

Implications sink in and David purses his lips, “Maybe I'm jaded, but words mean very little in light of action. The fact she didn't go to you for an opinion says a lot.” The Shadow lets Vivian come to her own conclusion about exactly what it says but to him it is fairly obvious: that Josephine never valued Vivian's opinion. It seems to David, that Josephine only used Vivian for her social savvy. “What makes Josephine different, by the way, is her place in the social apparatus. She isn't outside of it, actively working to destroy us all, like the woman who murdered Aïleen.”

Shaking his head, David says, “But, anyway, it seems as though you've made a decision about your Coterie situation. I don't see why not you and I can't form a partnership now.”