Over the Freeway

[rhiannon_lee]

‘Ma’am…’

Rhiannon closed her eyes. It was simple. One foot in front of the other, just like on the ground. A bottle swung lazily between two fingers.

‘Ma’am, get down, please!’

She took a step.

High above the street, the muffled sound of a stranger’s voice didn’t matter, or the sharpness of headlights, the whoosh of fast-moving air. Nothing convinced her to get down. The overpass bridged two neighborhoods that were bisected by the freeway. She had climbed onto the guardrail to sit first and let her legs dangle over the side. Then she stood up. It was then that a stranger slowed his car and rolled down the window.

‘Get down or I’m calling the cops!’

Rhiannon smiled to herself. “By all means, go call ‘em.”

The tires squealed as the man's car peeled back into traffic.

[Thread: Open]

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[wolfs_daughter]

The screech of tires accompanying the sudden movement of the car caused another vehicle to pull up short, brakes making a loud protest. The driver of the van lurched forward in the seat, the seat belt tightening against her chest. "Pick a lane, jerk."

There was something on the guardrail. No, not something, someone. Echo frowned. Light from the headlights of passing cars glinted off the bottle in the figure's hand. A jumper?

There wasn't much room to pull over, but the hybrid managed to ease the van out of the path of other cars. A horn blew. She ignored it. She reached across the seat, rolled down the manually operated window. Speak softly. You don't want to startle her.

"Hey. Hey, lady. What're you doing out there?"

[rhiannon_lee]

“Playing tic-tac-toe.” Speech was not slurred, but vocalized in such a loose way that it was clear the drinker was feeling pretty damn good. “What are you doing?” Rhiannon continued her tightrope routine. With nearly three inches of concrete underfoot, it wasn’t as dangerous as it might seem; not for her. The complicating factors were the chunky boots, the alcohol and the fact that Rhiannon wasn’t looking where she was going.

Everything existed this way. Safety to the left, danger to the right. Light and shadow in blinding secession. One false step and you were over the railing and sprawled on an innocent person’s windshield. Splat. And what wreckage you would leave in your wake! It boggled the mind. Rhiannon tapped a finger against her forehead.

“Piece of advice!” she shouted over an eighteen wheeler. “Women who convince themselves that they are part of the great Not Mattering populace – and who, on some level, like it because they can take the easy way out – should not form romantic entanglements that prove otherwise.”

She took a great leap, like an acrobat on a balance beam.

[wolfs_daughter]

"Jesus Christ!"

Echo lunged in the opposite direction so fast that the seat belt yanked her back into place, and she cursed as she unfastened it. That was going to leave a red mark on her neck tomorrow.

The van's door creaked as she opened it, and her sneakers gritted over broken glass and loose bits of asphalt when she got out. Not that she'd have been able to do anything if the stranger had jumped, because while she had her own peculiar abilities, flight was not among them. But she could possibly flag down a car with a phone in it, someone to call Emergency Services. How far down was it?

She raced around the front of the vehicle, and her breathing slowed down just a notch when she realized that the other woman had only jumped a few feet to the side, rather than off and down. The glare of headlights washed over the van's matte black paint job. Echo grabbed the guardrail with both hands.

"This doesn't look like a really great spot for tic-tac-toe."

[rhiannon_lee]

“You are probably right. Don't worry. I'm not really playing it.”

Rhiannon pivoted and began to walk backwards on the structure. She tipped the bottle and took a sip of Jack. From this vantage point, she could see the other woman’s face, especially in the reflection of headlights. Her freckled features struck a familiar chord. “I think I know you. You’re that cowgirl, aren’t you?”

Would Rhiannon be recognized? Possibly. There were no false lashes and red lipstick this time, and no fishnet hose, but the same general appearance under jeans and a forest green sweater that sagged off her shoulder.

[wolfs_daughter]

The brunette on solid ground squinted into up into the other woman's face, and she slowly placed the face. It was the bartender from the Halloween event, the one that had turned into such a bloody nightmare. The corners of Echo's mouth hesitantly curved into a smile.

"Good memory," she remarked. Her hands were still on the guardrail. It didn't look like the semi-stranger was going to come down from there, but as long as she didn't try any more of those leaps, the boots she was wearing wouldn't lose traction. If she had to, would she be able to climb up and bring her down?

Maybe she should try talking first.

"So. What are you really doing?"

[rhiannon_lee]

“Thinking.” Rhiannon paused. The bottle was two-thirds empty, enough to share if the other woman wanted a gulp. She stuck it forward and the contents sloshed welcomingly. “I think better up high.” Also, alone, but being rude wasn’t on her evening’s agenda. If she had required absolute aloneness, Rhiannon knew she could have picked a better spot.

Should she tell the cowgirl there wasn’t any cause for concern? If the shoe had been on the other foot, Rhiannon wouldn’t have felt comfortable watching a girl tap dance above a busy freeway. She supposed she could claim to be a trapeze artist. In this city, that flagrant of a lie might actually fly. Or maybe she could just come out with the truth. The cowgirl had witnessed monsters ripping open arterial veins and kept her wits about her. That was a vote of confidence.

“And I’m not suicidal,” she added. “In fact…” She raised a shoe off the wall and stood there like a flamingo. “I’m remarkably fleet of foot.”

[wolfs_daughter]

Echo twitched, kept her hands on the metal railing with an effort. If she reached out and tried to make a grab, she might cause the other woman to lose her balance and take a header. She seemed...she didn't seem necessarily 'okay', but she wasn't baying at the dark sky either. The irony of that thought made her snort to herself.

"Whatcha thinking about?" she asked, deciding that if they could have a semi-normal conversation it might clarify things. She'd heard something about unfortunate romantic entanglements, but she'd been in such a hurry to get her ass out of the van and get over here that she'd missed most of it.

"Is it a boyfriend-girlfriend thing?" Was it safe to actually broach the subject? Echo cringed a little before she asked, "Bad breakup?"

[rhiannon_lee]

“No, he is great. Gr-r-reat.” Rhiannon snorted at herself. She had deteriorated into quoting cereal commercials; that had to be a bad sign. “I’m head over heels, which is exactly my problem. I did not come to Las Vegas fucking Nevada to fall head over heels and forget who and what I am, and what that means, for me or anybody else.”

She took an aluminum cap out of her pocket and screwed it onto the bottle of Jack. “Catch.” Rhiannon tossed it underhanded to the other woman.

As soon as her hands were free, she crouched down and swung into a straddling position. Someone drove by and honked wildly, the sound Doppler-ing in and out of earshot. Now more or less at eye level with her acquaintance, she smiled, intoxication making her friendlier.

“I tried not to get that crazy about him, but I’ve gotta say, it was a seriously weak effort on my behalf. He’s either really slick or I’m not as hard as I think. That ever happen to you?”

[wolfs_daughter]

"Uh...not really, no."

The bottle in the hybrid's hands gave her something to look at, which was good because she needed a second. Now that the other brunette had climbed down from her perch, she could see that their ages weren't that far apart. Give or take a year, maybe.

"Well," she amended, "I have had feelings and stuff, but they've never really gone anywhere because I don't know how to handle them. Relationship stuff is a tricky subject for everyone, I guess. But some of us more than others."

Finding this sort of common ground with a stranger, for whatever reason, made some of the usual tension at the sudden closeness drain out of Echo's posture. On the road, traffic continued to flow past. She held the bottle up and looked at the level of alcohol left inside.

"He's not, uh, married or anything, is he?"

[rhiannon_lee]

“No.” Rhiannon laughed. It was a fair question, forbidden fruit and all that. “Neither am I.” She studied the girl’s face, the slightly uncomfortable posture that was present both in-costume and out. Socially awkward was the word. Yeah, Rhiannon could believe that relationships were a step into uncharted territory for her. Not because she wasn’t pretty – there was an appealing quality to such an unusual face – but because she probably talked herself right out of it. “What I am is…” She trailed off. That word from an old evaluation, back again to haunt her. “Stubborn.”

She swallowed and looked over the edge of the rail at the traffic that passed beneath her shoe. “A while ago, I realized which way my life was going to go. It was a shitty way but I made my peace with it, because I didn’t think I had a choice. But now suddenly things are less shitty, and it turns out I do have a choice, but there’s a part of me that’s disappointed. It turns out I actually wanted it to be shitty. I wanted to take a flying leap into a steaming pile of life-sized shit because…” Rhiannon licked the corner of her mouth.

Oh god. Clarity. Alcohol-fueled personal clarity. She laughed.

“Because I’m having a tantrum,” she concluded. Her hands came to a heavy rest in her lap. She sighed. “I am that kid who gets riled up because someone took her lollipop, and then a stranger hands her an ice cream cone instead, and she loves ice cream cones, but she flips out anyway because what else is she supposed to do with all those feelings? There comes this point where you’re so upset that you don’t know how to back down, and you don’t want to, because nothing pays off quite like a meltdown.”

Rhiannon turned back to the woman. “In case you’re wondering, Cian’s the ice cream cone.”

[wolfs_daughter]

Some more of the nervous weirdness went away. Echo had just had that happen, that feeling that things were meant to be shitty. Holly had legitimately hurt her feelings, but she'd blown it way out of proportion inside her own head, and now she didn't know how to take back how she'd felt in the moment of it. Even if she'd never actually sent that letter, it was the principle of the thing.

Wait. Cian.

The hybrid looked up again, and her expression relaxed into a smile that was almost comfortable. She let go of the bottle of Jack with one hand, reached over her head. "About this tall, blond hair, hasn't quite lost his accent yet?"

A motorcycle blew past, its engine thrumming in Echo's ears after it merged with the rest of the vehicles. "He's kind of...well, not a friend. I think he can be a little difficult to know. But he helped me with a thing, and I haven't gotten the chance to really thank him yet."

[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon’s eyebrows went up. She smiled.

“That’s him. Only I think you may be understating the accent thing. Sometimes I have no idea what he’s saying, so I just nod.”

Which was, in turn, an overstatement, but she needed to make a joke because otherwise, she’d have to acknowledge that she just accidentally spilled the beans about a man to his friend. If word got back to the Were that she was drunkenly frolicking above a highway because she had too many feelings for him, well. It would be embarrassing to say the least.

She stuck out her hand.

“Rhiannon. Officially. And sorry about the Shark Tank, she was looking for me.”

A second passed.

"Are you Echo?"

[wolfs_daughter]

"Yes. Hi. Hi! Wow, this is, uh, kind of weird. But good weird."

The handshake passed, and Echo put the bottle down on the concrete lip beneath the guardrail. This meant Rhiannon must know about the other thing. The thing that made Cian an Other, and if she'd heard her name at some point that probably meant she knew about her too. Echo hooked her thumbs into her belt loops.

"Don't, uh, don't be embarrassed. About what you said." The hybrid knew potential social discomfort when she saw it, and she didn't want to make the other brunette feel awkward. "I won't tell. Feelings can be scary. I should know." She smiled ruefully. "But I won't say anything."

[rhiannon_lee]

"You should know," Rhiannon repeated. "Why? Oh god, you don't have feelings for Cian, do you? Shit." She cringed. Her initial read on Echo was that she might be gay, but sexuality ran the gamut and maybe that whole therianthrope quality made for instant attraction, no matter the animal.

[wolfs_daughter]

"No! No. I..."

Echo was so startled by the suggestion that she nearly laughed, and she roped it in out of concern that Rhiannon would think she was making fun of her. Her hands detached themselves from her belt loops to lace together on the back of her neck. Her ears were red, and she was grateful for the on-off quality of the light so the other brunette hopefully couldn't tell.

"I meant feelings are scary in general," she clarified. "Cian's very nice to look at, and he helped me when he didn't have to, but he's not...I'm more into girls. A lot more."

[rhiannon_lee]

“Good. I mean—”

Rhiannon shook herself. Were her brains scrambled? Well really, it was good, since it eliminated any potential discomfort there, and the opposite of good was ‘bad’ and she wasn’t about to lay that on her.

“Whew. I guess. I’m not sure what I’d do if I saw a woman climbing all over him. I’ve never been in the situation and I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t beat the shit out of her.”

She leaned down, arm stretching to its fullest as she picked up the bottle of Jack and unscrewed the cap. After a couple of swallows, she rested it on her thigh. Pleasant warmth traveled from her throat to her stomach.

[wolfs_daughter]

The hybrid tried to picture it for a second, her climbing all over Cian, and it just made her feel weird. It was like the idea of seeing Papa naked. Twitch.

"I like my body intact, thanks," she said, eying the bottle Rhiannon held. She wasn't that far away from home. A mouthful or two wouldn't kill her.

"I'm glad you came down from there," she said, pointing at the spot on the guardrail where the other brunette had been a few minutes ago. "I had this image of trying to snag you by your sweater before you could try a pirouette." The chuckle that followed was almost normal-sounding.

"Could you pass the bottle? I have the sudden urge to have a calming drink."

[rhiannon_lee]

She handed it over. It was on her mind to say that feline balance was part of the slayer territory, but it would’ve come off strange, considering her boyf— is that how she was referring to Cian now? She couldn’t use the word ‘lover’ without feeling like she was in a bad soap opera with a saxophone track.

“So what you’re saying is… I definitely shouldn’t do this.”

Rhiannon squared up her palms between her thighs and pressed up into a handstand. She lined her thumbs up, side by side. Long hair obscured her view of Echo. “Am I freaking you out?” She widened the set of her legs and shifted her center of balance left. Her right hand was free to wave at the cars below.

She wobbled. Alright, maybe another time, when she wasn’t on her second bottle.

Rhiannon went back to two hands. "If this is living on the edge, I'm having a slow week," she said, her voice straining from being upside down.

[wolfs_daughter]

"Now you're just showing off."

Echo's voice was a little hoarse from the burn of the Jack Daniels, and she took another liberal swallow from the bottle to follow the first. She wondered idly if a random tourist would happen by and snap a Polaroid of Rhiannon's antics. How much would the National Enquirer pay to hear about real superhumans?

"So how's you get away from her? The party-crasher who was looking for you? She seemed really motivated to have a conversation. Or something."

[rhiannon_lee]

“I lit her shoes on fire,” Rhiannon said. She didn’t like the impression she might have left, that she was scared to face the vampire, as that was definitely not the case. But she wasn’t about to out herself as a slayer in front of five-hundred strangers, or engage in a round of fisticuffs while Katherine’s minions ate the onlookers. “She was a regular Sammy Davis, Jr. up there. Chaos and overwhelming numbers took care of the rest.”

She hopped down and finally stood on solid ground.

“Never caught my name or my face, but I got hers.”

Rhiannon fished cigarettes and a lighter out of her pockets. She fired one up.

[wolfs_daughter]

Echo laughed, took a final drink from the bottle before handing it back to Rhiannon. "I knew fire had to be involved somehow since the sprinkler system came on. I guess vamps don't spontaneously combust. I'm surprised more people weren't hurt in the rush to get out."

That she hadn't had nightmares about the incident made her wonder a little about herself, but the night she'd returned to her trailer she'd slept peacefully. "Is that why you think your life is supposed to be shitty? Because of the chance that a random psycho will try to track you down?"

[rhiannon_lee]

“No,” she said. After she polished off the contents, she gave the bottle a little flip. A few droplets sprayed her arm. “The real psycho isn’t random at all. He was my watcher. Vampires are a welcome distraction.” She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. There wasn’t anything there. Just cold, she guessed.

“Where were you going?”

[wolfs_daughter]

"Home to Searchlight."

Echo had spent the day in Vegas, in the student union at UNLV. She'd picked a corner and set up with her sketchpad. She liked to draw random passersby, to choose subjects just because she liked their looks. She had a few decent drawings on the passenger side of the van, but she knew she could always stand to improve herself.

"Do you need me to...do anything? Call somebody for you?" Pause. "Not Cian. But I don't know how much you've had to drink. I'm sure you're as tough as hell, but if dropping you off at your place will keep you from possibly spending the night in the drunk tank, I could do that."

[rhiannon_lee]

"Thanks, but I'm good," Rhiannon said. "I'm only a little drunk. Talkative drunk." She squeezed her thumb and forefinger together.

It occurred to her belatedly that maybe the hybrid just wanted to get off the overpass, and going for a payphone would give her a good reason to do so without just deserting. Her van was in a precarious spot and they were drawing attention from motorists.

"Tell you what," she said. "If it'll make you feel better, you can drop me off at the edge of my neighborhood."

[wolfs_daughter]

"It would make me feel better. It wouldn't be right to just leave you here. I stopped to help, that means I have partial responsibility now."

Echo had been slightly concerned about the van, but that was secondary. She hoped Rhiannon didn't mind that it was kind of a pit, since she never cleaned it out unless it was a dire situation. Maybe she'd shovel it out tomorrow and then borrow Mr. Snyder's power washer to give it a bath.

"Sorry if it smells like burritos," she said as she opened the passenger door. "I had Taco Bell for lunch and supper, and that stuff leaves behind an aroma." The hybrid picked up her sketchpad from the bucket seat and tossed it onto the dashboard. "So where are we going?"

[rhiannon_lee]

What Echo felt she had partial responsibility for, Rhiannon wasn’t sure, but since it was a kind gesture she went with the flow. She wasn’t about to judge the odor of fast food, being a French fry addict. The interior of her car frequently smelled like McDonald’s. She climbed into the passenger seat. “South on the freeway,” she said. “Then take the beltway exit.”

The sketchpad nabbed her attention. Rhiannon picked it up before it slid. “May I?” She waited for permission to flip through it. “I draw. Actually I paint, too, but I’m better with charcoals. I had a job doing graphic design for a while. The money was terrible but it was fun.”

[wolfs_daughter]

"I'm still kind of practicing," Echo demurred, but she was pleased by Rhiannon's attention to her art. "I like to people watch, and the campus is a good place to do it because you don't have to buy anything to hang out. I kinda-sorta had plans to take some classes, but I decided to forgo school for a while."

The traffic had dwindled a bit by now, and the brunette eased the van off of the shoulder of the road and back into the flow of cars and trucks. She knew the city well enough at this point that she'd be able to follow Rhiannon's directions even now that it was way past dark. Would a woman who wasn't afraid of vampires be worried about living in a possibly sketchy neighborhood?

"What did you come to Nevada for if it wasn't to fall in love?"

[rhiannon_lee]

“Whoa.” Rhiannon was quick to intercept. “Easy with the L word. That thing has serrated edges.”

She flipped a page and studied a drawing of a girl sleeping. There was a book open on her lap. “I had to leave Pittsburgh, so I got on a bus and just kept buying tickets until it felt right to stop. Gut instinct.”

The slayer cocked her head at another figure.

“What about you?”

[wolfs_daughter]

"Sorry. I didn't mean to presume."

Echo glanced into the review mirror, then switched lanes so she could bypass an old Caddy that was creeping along at a glacial pace. "I came down from Seattle instead of going to college. I figured a total climate change would give me some life experience. Papa said that cities are the easiest places to hide in plain sight. I thought about New York for a micro-second, but that's too far away from home."

[rhiannon_lee]

"Take this exit," said Rhiannon, placing the paper pad on the dashboard. "New York would've been bad. Sensory overload." It was a lot to take in for a human, and so a hybrid bred for the wilderness would probably find it numbing. Plus, central park didn't count as a good place to run.

"You can drop me at the second corner."

[wolfs_daughter]

"All right."

Echo looked out at the dark street with a thoughtful expression on her face, and as she pulled the van up to the spot Rhiannon had indicated she cleared her throat. Her sketchpad was still open to the drawing of the sleeping girl she'd seen at the student union.

"Um, I know we don't know each other, and I would never tell anyone else how they feel, but caring for Cian could be a good thing. From what I've seen of you, he could do worse. Being brave is hard. I should know because I'm not. Don't talk yourself out of something the way I would."

[rhiannon_lee]

“Oh, he could definitely do worse.” Rhiannon smiled, resorting to humor because the conversation had taken a serious turn. Her hand was on the door handle, but she paused. “Listen, you don’t chicken out, either. Regret lasts a lot longer than disappointment, and it packs a harder punch.” She jumped out of the van. She was still holding the empty bottle. “Thanks for the ride.”

The garage was about two blocks away, and she could use the short walk to clear her head.

[wolfs_daughter]

"Good night, Rhiannon."

Echo watched the other brunette disappear into the gloom, then put the van back into drive and pulled away from the curb. Sleep would come easy tonight. She'd kinda-sorta made a new friend.