Indecision

[holiday_pirner]

There was a light positioned over the Kay's office that illuminated a square of orange. Holly was standing in that square, examining the vending machine's offerings. She had gone down to the ice machine with her little plastic bucket. It sat on the ground next to her feet as she sorted through the small pile of change in her palm.

The brunette found two quarters, deposited them, and pressed the rectangular button for an orange. She heard the machine come to life, but then it stalled. Holly bent to check for the soda. "Again?"

She banged her hand against the machine in a halfhearted attempt to get the thing moving again.

Since her memorable night out at the club, Holly hadn't strayed far from her motel room. She flipped through the few television channels, paged idly through some magazines, and re-painted her toenails about 5 times.

Holly had settled on emerald green.

Now she stood there, not wanting to go back to her room, and not wanting to venture out into Searchlight. She stared at the taunting, magnified picture of a Coke, beads of condensation sweating down the can.

"I hate you."

Comments

[daniel_stacy]

Daniel balked.

“You— what?!”

He searched the faded wallpaper in the room in a futile attempt to make that compute. Deanna, his nightmare of a sire, had lured Holly into her hotel suite. Overnight. He hadn’t even done that. Wow, that was upsetting. The worse part, he immediately suspected that Mommy Dearest had done it on purpose. Had she seen him with Holly? Smelled him on her? Found out that her progeny spent time with a human and didn’t bite her?

All of that was interesting, sure, but the baffling part? Holly had lived to tell.

“Wait a minute!” Wait a goddamned minute! He squatted in front of the brunette and lifted her hair, and then he tipped her face back and forth. No bite marks. Unless they were somewhere else…

“So she didn’t bite you?”

Please tell me you didn't let Deanna bite you under the clothes.

[holiday_pirner]

She stared at him, smoothing down her hair. Not that she quite minded him touching her, but it was a bit odd. "No, no biting. I slept on her couch. She seemed quite concerned about me, actually."

Holly cocked her head to the side. "Why are you so freaked out? She didn't seem so bad. A bit handsy at times, but..."

Daniel's words from before came back to her. Blood sluts. Right. "Oh."

She shook her head, catching his hand in midair. "I'll make sure to be more careful with whom I spend the night, in the future."

[daniel_stacy]

“Yes. Please do,” Daniel said.

Deanna was concerned. Ha! Yeah, right. She was never concerned about anyone but herself. Less than a week ago, she was offering him up as cannon fodder. Him! Her supposed 'son'.

“You! You are really insane!” he said, exasperated. “You sleep in strange people’s hotel rooms. You walk down dark alleys with men you just met. You let me in here!” He pointed at his chest and let his hand fall on his thigh with a light slap. “Not that I’m complaining about the last one... or the second one, but what are you doing? Do you want to be a vampire? Because Deanna…” He laughed. “Deanna. You’re lucky she didn’t make a scarf out of your lower intestines, then give it to me as a present.”

[holiday_pirner]

"Ew."

Holly wrinkled her nose at that.

"I get bored. I told you, I don't plan anything. I do things that feel good. It's a rush." She shrugged. "I don't particularly want to be a vampire, no."

Then she smiled, because she couldn't help it. "Maybe I am insane, and you were right. I am setting you up. This is my evil lair."

[daniel_stacy]

From his crouch, Daniel looked around the motel room. There was a bad framed print of a cowboy on the wall, a collection of lamps illuminating the mottled condition of the carpet, and probably a King James Bible in the nightstand. “It does look pretty evil,” he admitted. As if to punctuate, a nearby tenant slammed a door and shouted, “Fuck!” at the top of her lungs.

“Nice neighbors,” he said. “Think they could sell me some coke? I’m kidding. Mostly kidding.”

[holiday_pirner]

"No, you've got it all wrong. I'm the coke dealer. An evil coke dealer. Yeah, when customers don't pay, they end up in the Mojave."

Holly smiled, gestured to him. "You can get up, you know. I feel like you're about to propose to me."

She put her cigarettes back down. "Plus, I kind of want to kiss you." The brunette listened as angry footsteps clomped past her door.

[daniel_stacy]

Daniel was confused. “Is that supposed to make me want to stand up?” He put on his best attempt at a British accent, gleaned from multiple viewings of the James Bond films. “Oh! Then by all means, I shall trot across the room where your lips aren’t.” He snorted lightly.

“Come here.”

Daniel gripped the back of her neck and pulled her to his mouth. She was warmer by twenty degrees and she tasted like sugar and lip gloss and cigarettes, a peculiar combination that was strangely appealing. She tasted alive. His forehead tried to shift and his gums strained, but by the skin of his teeth, he clung to his human features.

Don’t bite her. Do not bite her. Jesus, I really want to bite her. I bet she tastes incredible. Listen to that pulse… How can I be this hungry? I ate at 4 a.m.

He heard rumbling and knew he was in trouble. He pulled back. “Shit!” He touched his face, expecting the ugly mask he’d come to know and love, even if he couldn’t see it in a mirror. Nope, still human.

“Did my stomach just growl?”

[holiday_pirner]

It didn't feel weird; she couldn't tell by kissing him that he was any different than human. What she noticed was a slight flutter somewhere in her stomach. Did he make her nervous? Holly couldn't decide for sure.

She pulled back, too, blinking. "I didn't hear anything."

"This isn't really precedent, is it? I mean, you feed off of people. But I think you like me. And I can't even come up with a way to explain it to myself. Like, I've never had the urge to make out with a steak."

Holly covered her eyes. "Did I just compare myself to steak?"

[daniel_stacy]

“I think you did.”

Daniel wanted to kiss her again, but instead he backed off and sat against the wall. He draped his arms over his kneecaps.

“You’re not a steak. When I feed it’s… it’s not hunger like you think of it. That part’s just a means to an end. It’s predatory. Imagine if you were driving down the road and you saw a cow in a pasture, and you were kind-of hungry but more importantly you just… had to have it. Had to. Had to chase that cow down, sink your teeth in and drink it into yourself, this life, this—I’m not helping.”

Daniel squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them.

“Okay, it’s a very good-looking cow, and you want to eat it, but then the cow would be gone and… you’d have to find another cow.”

[holiday_pirner]

She grabbed one of the flat pillows from the bed and scooted over next to him. Holly put it between her back and the wall. "Back to the cow. Okay." She played with a silver ring on her right index finger while she contemplated. It was a little too big, so it slid around easily.

"You know what you said about Deanna, and the -- the scarf? Please don't make me repeat it in full." Holly rolled her eyes at herself. "Well, I might be a pretty terrible judge of character. No, I am, let's face facts. But you don't seem like that."

The brunette waited a beat, then, "Why did she make you into a vampire? Was it an accident?" Was this a sensitive subject for the undead? Like a kid being asked why he was adopted?

[daniel_stacy]

Daniel scratched his jaw. "I've got my suspicions," he said. "I used to think she saw something in me. Now I know she did. Let's just say it was my face." He rolled his head against the plaster and looked at Holly. "She needed it to get what she wanted." He shrugged. "I don't know why I don't get off on violence. Well, I do, but not like her. I'm pretty green, eleven months. Maybe I'll get more evil with time."

He crossed his fingers.

[holiday_pirner]

"It is a good face," she admitted. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the soundless images play out on the small television set. An infomercial for Lee press-on nails.

"Doesn't your family miss you? Friends?" Holly crossed her legs, one of her boot laces coming undone.

"When you become a vampire, do you care about that stuff? Or does it all just -- fade away?"

[daniel_stacy]

“I put in a call every once in a while, just to keep up appearances,” he said. “Daniel Stacy is alive and well. They think I’m off getting laid by Anne Bancroft. It's apparently so Danny of me,” he said drolly. He followed her line of sight to the television. Press-on nails. There was a revolting quality to them, or rather the idea of them popping off the nail beds. “Some vamps murder their families,” he said, deciding that he liked being blunt with her. “I could channel Psyc 201 and blame latent mommy issues, but I don’t know why they do it. Anyway, I don’t miss them,” he said.

[holiday_pirner]

"Ah ha, so your surname is Stacy. Now I can look you up in the phone book, or order magazines in your name. You know, the usual evil things." Holly nudged him with her knee.

"But you're definitely not a Danny." She turned to face him more fully. "Well, maybe if you put your hair like this." She leaned forward to lift the front of his hair and watched it flop to the side.

[daniel_stacy]

“What? No!” He laughed and scrambled to fix his hair. The girl had no idea how much time, energy, and Studio Line styling gel went into his hair. “Do you know how hard it is to do this without a mirror? Now you have to get me a prescription to Sports Illustrated. I like the swimsuit issue.”

Daniel grabbed her hands to still them. “Yeah, I know I said prescription, but trust me, in this case,” he winked, “It’s the right word.”

[holiday_pirner]

She tilted her head back, laughing. "No, it'll be Newsweek. You can get your rocks off with pictorials of Margaret Thatcher."