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]

Comments

[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?"