Lightly Scented Air

[rhiannon_lee]

Clink…clank…scratch…

Under a thick layer of mascara and liner, Rhiannon’s eyes lifted from the pages of her paperback to search out the sound. She sat slumped on a vinyl-cushioned bench in the laundromat, legs stretching into the aisle alongside her basket of detergent and dryer sheets. She leaned forward and squinted at a zippered hoodie bouncing ‘round and ‘round the front-facing dryer. Was it worthwhile to stop the machine and flip it inside out?

The Laundromat was humid and heavily scented: ocean breeze, spring bouquet, fresh cotton. A television was mounted in the corner and from it Rhiannon heard the subdued score of a soap opera punctuated by commercials for cleaning products or diapers. Headphones hung crookedly around her neck because she wasn’t sure how much juice was left in the cassette player’s batteries.

She set her book aside and knelt in front of the dryer to open it.

[Thread]

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[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon froze.

Her head turned.

“You’re not…”

No. Three in one city would be insane. Forget about three in one elevator.

She leaned her hip on the folding table, a t-shirt dangling from her hand.

“How’d you know?” she asked.

[holiday_pirner]

She couldn't talk about her father, not here. And not with a slayer, yet. "I know a watcher."

Holly picked up one of Rhiannon's socks and put it with the others. "She works at the university. Prim, proper, yet oddly quick to anger. Well, it might not help that I know how to make her angry."

She shrugged, the hint of a mischievous smile on her lips.

[rhiannon_lee]

“Oh, gross.” Rhiannon rolled her eyes and sighed. It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together and come up with the watcher’s identity. “I can’t stand her,” she muttered and folded the t-shirt. “If she’s one of your relationship’s detractors, you should definitely stay in it. In fact, send her photos.”

She picked up her cigarette and took a drag.

"She probably wouldn't care for what I'm up to, either."

[holiday_pirner]

"I would," she answered, flipping her hair back with a smirk, "if she hadn't tried to chat him up."

Holly sat down on the row of thinly padded chairs. "But she gave that up, I think, when she realized he was a -- that he was with me." She pushed aside a Good Housekeeping magazine.

"What are you doing that's so bad?"

[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon frowned. “One of you is dating out of your age bracket.” She tossed her folded clothes in the laundry basket. Then she sat down alongside Holly and stared at her flipping laundry. Black sock. Blue shirt. “I’ve been seeing someone who’s not quite human. Well, he’s human, but he’s also something else, and it’s the kind of thing that can be contagious, if you’re not careful. They might not care about that, but watchers don’t generally condone our sex lives, no matter the circumstance. We're supposed to be more focused.”

She bit her cheek.

"You know, I once had sex with a vampire. I staked him after. I felt like a real tool."

[holiday_pirner]

Holly opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. She could feel her face go pale, paler than usual.

"Oh." The brunette searched the recesses of her brain for something a little more eloquent. "Was he not good?"

[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon snorted. She rubbed her face.

“Not particularly.”

She had never told anyone that before. What the hell?

“I just couldn’t take the risk he’d run his mouth to his friends. I was going through something and I can’t say it’s an activity I wanted to repeat.”

[holiday_pirner]

She flipped through the magazine, not really looking at the pictures. Tablecloths. So many tablecloths.

"Okay, but," Holly began, trying to keep a hypothetical edge to her voice, "what if the vampire isn't bad?" She bent the corners of the pages, running her thumb over the folds.

"Some don't always kill people."

[rhiannon_lee]

“I’d guess about five percent don’t,” said Rhiannon, making up the figure based on anecdotal data only. She thought about that sad vampire in the cemetery in Searchlight, how intrigued he was when she proposed – based on zero data, that time – that some demons might also have souls. “I don’t believe in absolutes.” She dropped her cigarette in the aluminum can. “Although I can say with assurance that the vampire I stupidly decided to nail did kill people, and he liked it.”

She poked her tongue in the corner of her mouth. Replayed the conversation in her head.

Turned to Holly, arm hooking on the back of her own seat.

“Wait, are you doing a vampire?”

[holiday_pirner]

Holly could deny it, but what would be the point? They were apparently trading secrets, anyway.

"Caught me," she answered dryly. "He's in the 5 percent." Or trying to be. I think. "So don't stake him."

She leaned back against the hard seat, the top pressing against her shoulder blades. "And thus the detractors."

[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon arched her eyebrows. “Well,” she said, wrapping an arm around an uplifted knee. “I don’t generally stake them unless I find them hunting,” she said. “There’s plenty of the savage variety to distract me. So if he’s as squeaky clean as you say, it’s a non-issue.” She studied Holly’s profile. “He must be cute. And Julianna tried to chat him up?” That made a wicked smile come to her face, though she did her best to subdue it.

[holiday_pirner]

"He is," she understated carefully. "Julianna has a penchant for...the younger variety, I think." She knew she should take her clothes out of the dryer and fold them, but it seemed like a Herculean task at the moment.

"What was it like there? In London?" Holly slid a bracelet up and down her wrist, her eyes on Rhiannon's boots. "Did you meet a lot of watchers?"

[rhiannon_lee]

“Yeah,” she said, resting her head in her palm. Her fingers twisted in her hair and she looked at the floor. “When I was there, it was just me and one other girl, and they kept us separate… Just had us spar a few times before she left. And then it was them and me. Mostly Duncan and me. You have a primary watcher, but you’re like a pet with ten different people walking you.”

[holiday_pirner]

"I know a watcher who was killed," Holly said, conversationally. Her voice implied she could have been talking about the weather, and she turned her attention toward the television.

"The Council seems cold. Maybe they have to be, I don't know."

[rhiannon_lee]

A dead watcher?

Huh.

It wasn’t unheard of. People got fucked up in the field. But she was far from being in the loop, as far as the Council was concerned. Never would she have described them as forthcoming, anyway. “I don’t think of them as cold,” said Rhiannon. “More like… matter-of-fact and myopic. Like with businessmen, it’s all about the bottom line, only the bottom line for the Council isn’t profit. It’s the fate of the world. Out of… I dunno, twelve watchers I’ve seen face to face, I only met one I’d like to shove into a pit of vipers.” She picked up her can and tossed it at a trash bin.

“How do you know two watchers?” Rhiannon asked. “What’s your in?”

[holiday_pirner]

Holly rubbed her eyes until spots showed up in her vision. She couldn't hold out, she needed a cigarette.

"Family connection," she answered simply, rifling through her bag and finding a pack with two left. The brunette lit up, taking the opportunity in silence to change the conversational track.

"Why did you want to shove the one into a pit of vipers?"