Smells Like Home

[whistlersmum]

Whistler spent a lifetime the past eight days rooming at the El Ray.

The paper-thin walls provided twenty-four entertainment; while he'd suspected Blair was a bit loose, her Facts of Life were projected in high-octave screams of pleasure, and Mister Drummond was a horrendous, abusive drunk.

If his bosses expected him to set up shop in the desert again, the least they could do was point him towards decent place to live. Which, in Searchlight standards, was a double-wide trailer on a dusty road on the outskirts of town.

It had a pinsize hole in the floor in the north corner, and one of the windows was a piece of plastic and masking tape, but it was quiet. All he needed to figure out was where the smell was coming from.

A final sweep of the hotel room produced a missing pair of boxers. He didn't relish the thought that Blair had been snooping through his things. He'd dropped off the key, and walked back out to the Impala.

"Onward and sideways."

Comments

[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon froze, key in the door, as she caught sight of the Impala over the roof of her car. “Well, well.” It was her would-be assassin in the flesh. She briefly entertained the notion of jumping in her Volkswagen and flooring it, then claiming she thought Whistler was an apparition after her tires flattened him. For shits and giggles.

Better judgment and a reticence towards courtrooms prevailed.

She pocketed her key and approached him. The trip into the bookstore could wait.

“You still here?”

[whistlersmum]

He followed the voice, and planted his feet.

'She's real, remember. She's not a figment of my imagination. And she hasn't tried to kill me. Yet.'

Whistler rubbed the top of his head. He still hadn't found a suitable replacement. He wondered if he ever would.

"Yup, second time might be the charm. Just, uh, movin' my stuff out and over onto Wendell. Only so much fun and excitement I can take in this place."

[rhiannon_lee]

“Yeah?”

He looks skittish, Rhiannon thought. Good.

She didn’t mean that.

Thumbs slipped into rear pockets as she crossed the parking lot. She walked around the front end of Whistler’s car to see if he had fixed the body damage or, at the very least, washed the blood off the hood ornament.

“So what cosmically important thing has you tied to this shit hole?” she asked.

[whistlersmum]

Was she checking out the car? Looking to find a small piece of her left behind from the near vehicular manslaughter? He might be a demon, but he wasn't a sadist.

Or was she checking him? Did she pick up on his nervousness?

Oh shit, Whistler realized. Can she still hear me?

He focused on her question and made sure to say aloud, "That's what I dunno. There is something about this place. When I close my eyes, I can feel this low-level hummm. You... You don't feel it?"

Whistler looked over his shoulder before speaking again. "I mean, you're a slayer. You should be in tune with this stuff."

[rhiannon_lee]

"Maybe you're just a paranoid schizophrenic," she said.

Yeah, she knew the hum he referenced. That wasn't the word Rhiannon would've used to describe it, but that didn't make it less valid. What had Julianna called it? A pull? Rhiannon just experienced a sense of certainty. It was all the same.

"You do hallucinate." She touched the hood ornament and remembered how it felt gouging a hole in her thigh.

I'm fucking with you, she thought. Her eyebrow hitched as she looked at him.

[whistlersmum]

That, he heard. She projected it, Whistler was sure.

"Yeah, about that." Seemed like a good place to insert another apology. "Since I touched down at McCarren, you were there. Poppin' up in mirrors. See, I get these..." the demon waved his hands in the air, an attempt to put a physical point to his description. "These visions. From my superiors. Not always, only when it's important."

Words weren't encapsulating what he'd been through. So Whistler decided to share. "Lemme show you what I mean."

[rhiannon_lee]

Now Rhiannon was nervous. “Wait. How?” she asked. A step backwards, a finger upraised, as though that would do anything to prevent it. “If you’re going to do some kind of mind meld, give me a heads-up. What’s going to happen?” She wasn’t opposed, but she hated being caught off guard, and she didn’t want to have a violent reaction just because she was startled.

Figuring out that there was a person in the universe who could telegraph thoughts into her head was strange enough. Visuals, too?

[whistlersmum]

Whistler picked up on Rhiannon's hesitation, and tried to assuage her.

"Think of it like watching a super-eight millimeter film, but behind your eyes," he offered. "Plays out like you're dreamin', only awake. Only you'll be able to pause, rewind and fast-forward."

"And don't worry, there's no stranger danger. You're still aware of shit goin' on outside of ya."

[rhiannon_lee]

She took stock of their surroundings. Public street, but nobody watching too closely. She wet her lips and looked at Whistler again, idle fingers scratching her elbow in a nervous tell.

This man plowed her down with his car on purpose, and yet she trusted him. There was something in his eyes. An earnest vulnerability. A familiarity, though that made zero sense.

"Okay," she said.

[whistlersmum]

He expected more push-back. She trusted him. And oddly enough, despite trying to run down her shadow, he trusted her. Whistler instinctively knew that, given access, she wouldn't go digging through the dark corners of his memory.

"Okay, then." He really needed a smoke.

Idea.

"Think of somethin' you can't do without. An object or whatnot. It's your touchstone. You feel like you're gettin' lost, think on it. It'll bring ya back."

Whistler laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles, then held out his right hand. He nodded towards it.

"Need to make a physical connection for this to work."

[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon leaned back against the hot car door. This was getting weirder by the second. Being a nomad, she didn’t have many physical possessions, and certainly none she couldn’t live without. But there was a favorite knife in the small stash of weaponry she could carry in her backpack. It had been a cherished gift.

“Alright.”

She reached out and laid her hand in his.

“Hit me.”

[whistlersmum]

"Here goes..." Gods, that sounded trite. He hated sounding cliché.

Whistler closed his eyes and projected.

[rhiannon_lee]

And so she saw herself as Whistler did. Cropping up in unexpected places, a face that didn't belong, a sense of import attributed because of its persistence and the look in her eyes. Then three possible futures: light, dark, and... Naked?!

Rhiannon snatched her hand back. "What the hell was that?" Shock made her voice shrill, though whether it was the image of herself covered in black veins or covered in HIM, it was difficult to ascertain.

[whistlersmum]

Whistler rubbed the bridge of his nose which was finally healing, not that she asked. He should've put a block up, shown her just the two possible futures, omit the sexy times one. He wasn't able to deal with the suggestion, he could only imagine how Rhiannon took it.

"Don't shoot the messenger!" the Agent croaked. "It ain't wishful thinkin', if that's what you're implyin'."

Okay, maybe there was a little wishful thinking.

[rhiannon_lee]

"It's fine," she mumbled, shaking it off as best she could. But damn. It was an anatomically accurate vision, down to the tattoos, and she found herself turning red, as if she had been stripped down right there in the parking lot.

But there were bigger issues at play.

Rhiannon pushed away from the car and bent down to pick up a rock. She weighed it in her palm. "What was on my skin? Do you know?" she asked.

[whistlersmum]

With the mental link broken, Whistler took a moment to shake open his pack of Lucky Sevens. He lit two absently, offering one to the slayer. It was only after did he question whether or not she'd had one before in his presence. It just felt... natural to offer her one.

Like after great sex.

"You mean the tattoos, or..." he voice trailed off, smoke in the air. "No, you didn't mean the tattoos." It was now his turn to turn red. "It's... best way I can describe it is a spiritual infection. Corruption."

[rhiannon_lee]

"Well. That's outstanding."

The slayer took the free cigarette and lit up with her own lighter. She puffed and exhaled, thinking about what Whistler told her last time, that he saw possible futures. Not absolutes. But it was enough to twist her stomach into a painful knot.

He was the first person to see what Rhiannon knew about herself.

That she was vulnerable. That she might make a terrible decision.

"So what now?"

[whistlersmum]

Whistler tried (and failed) to pinpoint the nexus of Rhiannon's destiny.

So he improvised.

"There's gonna be a moment, Rhi-Rhi." (Where the hell did that come from?) "Everyone has 'em. You can't get away from it. It's what comes after that's gonna decide who you're gonna be."

The Agent took a long drag of his cigarette before continuing. "It can be slippery. It'd help if you had someone ta hold onto, metaphorically."

[rhiannon_lee]

"Yeah, I guess it would," she hedged, "Except when they're not disappointing me, they're bowling me over with clichés and bad nicknames." Rhiannon tossed the rock in a garbage can a few yards away. "Look, you can be straight with me. I don't deal well with ambiguity and I don't respond to motivational speeches. If you need to say, 'Rhiannon, what you're doing is fucked', just say it. You do that, and I'll do the same for you. But I also don't need or want a watchdog."

She took a drag of the cigarette.

"Anybody could be corrupted, Whistler."

[whistlersmum]

"Rhiannon, what you're doin' is fucked."

Whistler took another drag of his cigarette.

"And at the very least, you need a friend."

[rhiannon_lee]

"I hope that was just practice, because I haven't done anything." Her expression was blank.

[whistlersmum]

"You couldn't even fool your own father with that," Whistler spat back.

He took a step forward towards Rhiannon, attempted to speak but instead sighed, turned and walked back three steps. Whistler then pivoted and took another step. He raised a finger at her.

"You think you're so fuckin' tough. That nothin' gets through your armor. Been doin' shit on your own for so long, no Watchers, no nothin'. Don't need help." He gook another drag of his cigarette. "And that's the exact thing you shouldn't be doin'. You think I can't smell the Were on you? That I can't already see the dark edges? You've been flounderin' since you hit Nevada, but are too scared to fuckin' admit it. You'll take any comfort to keep you from screamin' your head off."

The Agent looked up to the night sky. The one good thing about Searchlight was that you could see the stars at night. "They say you're important. But you know what? I don't need 'em to tell me that. I know it.

"It's a shame you don't."

[rhiannon_lee]

"Hey." Rhiannon flicked her cigarette at his cheap suit. The butt bounced off his lapel, landed on his sleeve, and rolled onto the ground. "I smell like Were? You smell like liquor and bargain basement prostitute, so don't talk to me about floundering. You want to earn my trust? Step one is keeping your mouth shut about a good man who's shown me nothing but decency, demon."

She shook her head.

No use denying there was a connection between them; their communing brains had taken care of that detail. But she didn't have to like him, especially if he kept up with the holier than thou attitude.

"You are the exact reason I'm starting to hate playing for this team."

[whistlersmum]

"You think I'm on just this team?" Whistler was getting hot under the collar, and it wasn't from Rhiannon's discarded cigarette. "I'm technically half-demon. Two opposing sides decided to have a tryst and I'm the result. I'm so fucking OCD over maintaining the balance I can barely function. So excuse my coping mechanisms."

He threw down his cigarette and jammed his heel into it. "I put Moses in the basket, and convinced hundreds of people that the volcano was just burpin'. Was I happy about it? What do you think? You can read my mind. So go ahead. Take the full download before you judge me."

[rhiannon_lee]

"What?" Rhiannon snorted. "The only thing I'm judging is your bad behavior," she said. "Since we met, you have run me over with your car, yelled at me for being real, left before I even woke up at the hospital, insinuated that I'm going to the dark side, and that I'm sleeping with a man just because I'm going crazy. At this point, I don't LIKE you, okay? And if you don't have a seat in my life, it's because of your actions... Not mine."

[whistlersmum]

Whistler knew she was right. And worse, he knew he was being an ass. For the first time in centuries, the man was completely out of his depth. No one had access like the brunette did.

"Fine. I take it back. I apologize." There was sincerity in his voice. "For the record, I left the hospital because I was sure you were just gonna hit me again when you woke up."

He leaned against his Impala, feeling smaller. "And I don't mean you are goin' to the dark side, but you saw it. It's possible. I'd really like that not to happen."

There was a weighty silence between them, which he finally broke. "Say the word, and I'll leave ya be."

[rhiannon_lee]

"Fine." Rhiannon crossed her arms. She leaned forward. "Leave me be."

Silence stretched between them. The wind blew hard across the parking lot, stirring up hot air and dust that stung Rhiannon's bare arms. The statement felt off, like a bold faced lie being told with a straight face, and yet it was the only answer that Rhiannon could give. She was tired of the behavior police, tired of condescension, tired of the suspicion that those she took cues from were much farther down the spiral than she was.

She turned and left the parking lot.

"Go ahead," she mumbled. "Say you saw it coming."

[whistlersmum]

'I didn't.'

He hadn't moved. Not an inch. But he heard her in his head. And her leaving just hit him as a thousand kinds of wrong.

"Usually I show up at someone's doorstep, tell 'em they have a destiny. Point them in a direction. And then I'm onto the next stop. But I get here, and you're in my head. We don't know each other, and I'm acting like you should know all this shit already."

He pulled out another cigarette.

"I dunno, maybe it's this town. It fucked me up once already. Bore a hole and skull-fucked me until I could barely see."

Whistler looked past Rhiannon. "Maybe I'm too early. Maybe it's just the way it is. Whatever's going on, I can't see what's comin' next.

"And that scares the shit outta me."

[rhiannon_lee]

On the sidewalk, she turned on her heel.

"None of that has anything to do with me," she called out. "I never know what's coming next. I just try my hardest and I do what feels right in my gut. So I think about defecting sometimes. Ya got me. You straddle the fence because you were born to. I straddle it because I believe in myself more than anybody else. I trust me." She thumbed her chest.

"If we're supposed to be connected, you get to know me like anybody else. Okay?"

[whistlersmum]

"Deal."

[rhiannon_lee]

She didn't move any closer.

"I live in Vegas now. Acacia Street."

Rhiannon dug her key out of her pocket. "I'm sure I'll see you around, whether I want to or not."

[whistlersmum]

Whistler didn't move from his position.

"I'm on Wendell. There's always-- or there will always be beer in the fridge."

[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon had a feeling she'd need one to hang around Whistler.

She unlocked her car door and sat inside. She watched him for a moment through the windshield, then shut the door and turned the key in the ignition.