Keys

[holiday_pirner]

The man at the front desk of the swank hotel wasn't much older than Holly, she surmised, watching him from a bench in the foyer. He checked a few people in, intermittently answering the sleek black telephone. She stood and stubbed out her cigarette in the pillar ash tray, then approached the shining mass of mahogany.

"How can I help you, miss?" He gave her a customer service smile, the ambient lighting catching his brass name tag. Will.

"Hi, Will," she said, placing her hands, palms down, on the counter. "I've come here to visit my aunt, she has a suite here, but she forgot to tell her room number and I think she's out tonight with some colleagues." Holly looked at her suitcase, and he followed her line of sight.

"I just had a terribly long flight and all I want is to drop these things off and have a nice, hot shower." And here, she smiled, her blue eyes meeting his brown ones. He ducked his head, his own smile changing quality. "Her name is Julianna St.Clare. Could you make me a key?"

He nodded, grabbing a plastic key from beneath the desk. She waited patiently, pretending to study some of the adverts for the nearby casinos. The clerk slid a paper envelope across the counter to her. "Will you be needing anything else?"

Holly peeked at the room number written on the envelope. "That'll be fine. Thank you, Will." She gave him a backward glance over her shoulder as she rolled her suitcase toward the elevator.

Awake on a Weekend Night

[daniel_stacy]

Daniel woke up after nine p.m. and heaved himself out bed, one corner of the gray bed sheets tangled around his foot. Sleep rode him hard. He stumbled at the threshold of his bedroom and shoulder-checked the door frame. “Ow,” he muttered and followed the electric glow of a muted television set to the living room. He rubbed his arm and stood at the foot of the couch. The cushions peeked at him from under a layer of blankets, women’s clothes, and a wet towel, but not Theresa. This time she beat him out the door. “Mmph.” He rubbed his bleary eyes.

The vampire gradually came to consciousness under a spray of water. The handle of his toothbrush jutted out of his mouth. What to do tonight? The weird thing about being dead was how little it mattered. His mom thought he didn’t have goals before; she should see him now, nocturnal, unemployed, with no death clock ticking. He stayed in the shower for as long as he had hot water. He liked the warmth it lent him, almost like regular body heat.

He did a half-ass job toweling off and tried to tug jeans and a t-shirt onto his damp skin. It pulled a hole in his sock in the process. It really bothered him how movie vampires just sprang out of the coffin fresh as a daisy every night. When he was decent, he crashed on top of Theresa’s stuff, an arm cradling his head, and pitched a ball at the ceiling. Thwump… thwump… Revenge for upstairs neighbors who thought that rolling marbles across the hardwood floor was a good way to entertain their cat at 4 p.m.

[Thread]

What Happens in Vegas...

[st_clare]

Julianna got back to her suite at around midnight, and when she dialed room service she discovered that they stopped delivering at twelve. She did, however, manage to coax the person on the other end of the phone to send up a roast beef sandwich and an order of thick-cut fries. She'd need to eat to offset the effects of those gimlets, that and drink lots of water so she wouldn't be hung over in the morning. Not that she had a class to teach, but she'd had one blinding headache since she'd been in Las Vegas and didn't want another.

She got a bottle of water out of the mini-fridge and uncapped it, then kicked off her shoes and padded into the bathroom. If the kitchen was closing for the night, she'd probably have time to shower before they sent someone up. The Watcher pulled at the contents while testing the temperature of the spray with her other hand, thinking idle thoughts rather than serious ones.

When she was finished, she put on her robe and moved into the sitting room to look for something to watch on the telly. She was tired enough to doze, but not until after she'd eaten. She mindfully drank more water, finishing off a third of the bottle. She was curled up on the couch, her legs folded beneath her, when the knock sounded.

"One moment!"

( Stress Relief )