The In Crowd

[st_clare]

She'd been meaning to get to Ragnarok anyway. Gerald had mentioned it to her ages ago, but between one thing and another there'd been no time. With spring approaching, classes had hit a bit of a lull, and she was prepared for the next week. That cleared some of her schedule.

Julianna had parked her car in the lot and was now waiting in the queue to get inside. Some of the 'costumed' staff were outside greeting guests, and the Watcher was amusing herself by trying to deduce who was actually human and who wasn't. It was the perfect place to be if you wanted to hide in plain sight. She wondered if the owner had to strike a deal with any vampires who might be employed here.

Inside, it was surprisingly ordinary, at least as far as decor went. Julianna ordered a gimlet at the bar, then sipped at it while she wondered at the possibility of getting an audience with the proprietor. Her colleague wouldn't have mentioned the woman if she might not be a valuable acquaintance to have, so perhaps she should make an effort herself.

In the meantime, she would enjoy the atmosphere here. Las Vegas might not be much for culture, per se, but it didn't lack for its own brand of ambiance.

Comments

[daniel_stacy]

Daniel took the job at Ragnarok when his savings account dwindled to triple digits. He'd never seen himself as bouncer material. In his book, bouncers were meat-heads and assholes who flunked out of the police academy. However, standing guard at a door beat serving French fries, and the hours were great. His boss Livia was quirky but sexy (so many hands) and, bonus, he could wear his fangs to work if he wanted. She actually encouraged it. He thought it made an effective disguise. If he wore his vamp face at Ragnarok, he could still wander around in public without it, and nobody would put two and two together.

He was on break when Julianna came through the door. When he got back, a bouncer named Sergei elbowed Daniel and said, “Check out the silver fox.”

Daniel searched the bar, looking for some old guy in a suit and tie, a Bob Barker lookalike getting his kicks with a demon babe, but no one matched the description. “Wait… her?” He frowned and craned his neck. “Hate to break it to you, but a silver fox is a dude.”

Sergei did a double-take. “She’s a man?!”

Daniel scowled. “No! It’s an expression. Silver fox. It means an old guy. That’s a woman.” He gulped a drink and observed Julianna through the crowd. She held a cocktail while she looked around the place. Maybe she was waiting for someone. The vampire slapped Sergei’s arm. “I’ll be back in a minute.” He joined the woman at the bar.

[st_clare]

She was aware of it when the space next to her became occupied. Her glass was still mostly full. She was nursing the drink because she was driving. There was no mirror behind the bar. Probably wise if the undead were among the employees.

When Julianna turned, her expression was mildly inquiring, and she did a slight double-take when she saw the fangs. Then the brief startlement subsided. She'd seen vampires up close, but not this particular vampire with his other face on.

"Hello, Daniel. Almost didn't recognize you. I'd imagine this is the safest place to walk around looking that way."

[daniel_stacy]

"What, this?" Intentionally obtuse, he gestured at his simple uniform of jeans and a Ragnarok polo shirt. "You know, the owner, she ah... she tried to put me in a G-string but I had to put my foot down." He accepted a beer from the bartender and swallowed the top third. He gestured at her gimlet. "They card you?"

[st_clare]

The Watcher snorted, an amused noise. If it hadn't been for the ridged forehead, Daniel could have been one of her students. She wondered what he'd been like before his turning. She had never disliked him personally, not really. Distrusted him? Probably. Been worried because of his connection to Holiday? Absolutely. But if there was such a thing as a vampire being an individual, he might be it.

"I haven't been carded in nearly thirty years, but thank you for saying it."

Julianna sipped at her drink, gestured with the glass. "I had rather expected something more exotic about the surroundings," she said lightly. "I suppose its to keep the tourists from getting too curious, though."

[daniel_stacy]

Daniel shrugged. "Maybe the ambiance is supposed to come from the actors, not the set." He rolled a kink out of his shoulder. In a sense, they were all in character, either toning down the violence or upping the absurdity of their features aor proclivities, whatever it took to fascinate the patrons, keep them just on the edge of 'nice costume!' and 'wait... is that real?' "Think of it like a circus freak show."

[st_clare]

The analogy piqued Julianna's interest, and she set her gimlet aside to face Daniel more fully. Again, the disconnect struck her. His demeanor was so neutral, so normal, that it very well might have been make-up that made his visage so surreal. Maybe it was a relief of sorts to be able to show his other face without fear of being discovered.

"Is that how you see yourself? As a circus freak?"

Her tone was casual when she asked the question, only indicating her interest. The knowledge that she had considered inviting him up to her hotel room the night they'd met was seated uncomfortably beside the awareness that he probably would have killed her if she had. But intellectual curiosity trumped both thoughts. Once a Watcher, always a Watcher.

[daniel_stacy]

Daniel warmed to the idea. "Yeah I guess. It's not much of a stretch. On the outside I look normal--" he gestured at his torso, "regular vampire, regular human guy. But I'm neither." He licked the beer from his bottom lip. He figured that the same description could loosely apply to a woman whose secret mission in life was destroying the forces of darkness. "And take you," he aimed the bottle mouth, "You're not an ordinary woman so you ought to feel at home. In a place where the only thing we've got in common is that no one's really home."

[st_clare]

She should have resented even the suggestion of a comparison. Twenty years ago, she probably would have resented it. In the Now, however, she was merely a bit amused. He was right, they weren't ordinary, her by choice and him most likely by terrible accident. Or perhaps he didn't think it was so terrible.

"Once you've immersed yourself in a certain environment, it's difficult to remember that other people live differently," Julianna said thoughtfully. "That you are the...the exception and not the rule. Sometimes it's better to be exceptional, though."

[daniel_stacy]

His Adam's apple jumped as he swallowed. "I'm alright with being a misfit, at least for now. Doesn't matter here because nobody's allowed to touch the customers. There's places though where I might get my ass kicked for it. My sire doesn't even know. She'd be first in line to put me out of my misery. She'd consider it righting a wrong." He eyed the watcher and wondered if she had seen Holly. He even leaned a little closer and sniffed, trying to be discreet about it.

[st_clare]

Julianna was very aware of it when Daniel inched into her personal bubble, but she pretended to ignore it until he eased back into his space. She picked up her drink and sampled it, then set the glass back down.

One elegant eyebrow arched, and her tone was light after she cleared her throat. "If you tell me that was because you're trying to decide what perfume I'm wearing, that will be a better answer than saying you're contemplating wrangling an invitation to somewhere more private. That almost worked once."

[daniel_stacy]

Daniel raised on his stool. "Almost worked, really? Mm. I'm flattered but no. I'm on the wagon. I was actually trying to figure out if you'd been around Holly. Holiday." He wiped condensation on the leg of his pants. He picked up the scent of Julianna's skin care products and something spicier, maybe a man, maybe not, but not Holly.

[st_clare]

The Watcher blinked. She hadn't expected that. Either the remark about being on the wagon or that Daniel apparently hadn't seen Holiday. She looked down into the contents of her glass, then made eye contact with the vampire.

"No, actually, I haven't," she said slowly. "I believe she's written me off, as they say. She seems mercurial that way. Prone to changing her mind."

She looked across the room, where a group of customers had just entered the establishment, then focused on her erstwhile companion again. "You haven't seen her?"

[daniel_stacy]

He pursed his lips, gave a nonchalant shake of his head. "Nope. I got a message from her a while back, said she was okay, just bad at staying in touch or something. That, uh, heh, that was an understatement." He shook his head and polished off the beverage. Daniel wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "She's alright. She just can't be tied down."

Wait.

Daniel squinted. "Not-- I mean, I didn't actually try to tie her down, I want to make that clear."

[st_clare]

His borderline discomfiture amused her, and it showed. She looked at his empty glass as she polished off her gimlet, pondered ordering another. She hadn't realized it was possible for a vampire to become uncomfortable.

"So what are you surviving on if you aren't..." Julianna lifted her hand towards her neck, barely refrained from touching it. "Looking for donations?"

[daniel_stacy]

"Ketchup," Daniel said wryly. He nodded at the bartender for a second round, indicating both their glasses with a swirl of his index finger. He waited for the beverages to be set down before he spoke again. "I know a butcher. Once in a while I drink from a human, but I stop before... you know. Usually it works. Once I made a colossal error, though. I had just eaten a bunch of peanuts and this girl, she had an allergy. Another time, I got sprayed by an artery."

[st_clare]

"I imagine it was quite the challenge to get home after that. You must have looked like a Jackson Pollock painting."

The attempt at humor likely would have horrified her colleagues in London, and Julianna wasn't even certain Daniel would get the reference to Pollock. Everyone in 'their' world had coping mechanisms for dealing with the horrors that existed. The occasional joke, no matter how poorly made, was preferable to other methods of dealing with terrible things.

"You seem very..." The Watcher waved her free hand around as she picked up her fresh drink. "...Relaxed, I suppose. About your new way of finding sustenance. Must be a bit like trying to give up smoking, hmm?"

[daniel_stacy]

Daniel smiled into his drink. He did get the Pollock reference, but only because he took Art Appreciation to fulfill a general education requirement in college. What he predicted to be Finger Painting 101 was actually a slew of field trips to the museum and a shit-ton of essays. Major mistake. "You wanna know the truth? It's not that bad," he confessed. "One, I actually enjoy doing the opposite of what my sire would do. She is a heinous bitch. Two, I'm probably the world's worst vampire. I suspect my inner demon was a slacker in hell. We're a natural fit, I was a slacker in life."

There was no guilt, no sadness, none of the moping that an ensouled vampire would do. Whistler had confirmed it; there was no soul in residence. But neither was there naked aggression. Daniel just was. The greatest danger was that his lack of life-passion or death-passion would bore him to dust.

"I bet you've never slacked on anything," he added. "Checkbook balanced, hospital corners, morning moisturizer routine."

[st_clare]

"I like routine. A certain way of doing things doesn't have to be negative."

But her routine was altering, wasn't it? Considering that she hadn't even wanted to come to Nevada at all, she'd carved out a semi-comfortable niche for herself. Things with Valerie were progressing exponentially, and she and Rhiannon seemed to have reached a real truce. Neither of those things would have happened if she hadn't stepped out of her comfort zone at least by a fraction.

"On the other hand, there is something to be said for occasionally just...letting things happen."

Julianna knew the remark was a bit cryptic, and she studied the contents of her glass for a moment. For all that she'd advised Valerie to live in the Now, she wasn't sure she was leading by example. Perhaps that was why she hadn't let Nathan finish his thought the other night, because of the fear that it would disrupt her routine. She'd allowed him to talk her out of sending him away before because she hadn't really wanted him to go, but was it fair to not allow him to speak his mind?

"Change is always difficult, Daniel, for some more than others. I'm not sure a woman my age can step fully away from routine."

[daniel_stacy]

"You kidding?" Daniel's eyebrows climbed to his hairline. "Now is the exact time when you should." He gestured widely with his beer bottle. "Think about it. You got the career -- two of 'em by the sound of it. Probably a nice car, nice condo. You've accomplished... whatever it was you set out to do. You're not gonna have kids or get married at this point, am I right? So what have you got to lose?"

He scooped up a handful of bar pretzels and ate them.

"That's not an insult, by the way," he said around them. "Women are like wine. They get better with age."

[st_clare]

There it was again, that potentially dangerous charm, and Julianna lifted her glass in a toast at Daniel's remark. "I wasn't intending to take it as an insult," she told the vampire with a half-smile. "I have no wish to turn back the clock forty years."

As unlikely as the source of the advice might be, he wasn't wrong. Children had stopped being a possibility years ago and she didn't regret that, and while her relationship status might change, she doubted wedding bells were in her future either. Just the prospect of things altering was terrifying, but not awful.

"And now if you won't take this as an insult, I'm going to tell you that I think you might be a good influence on Holiday. I didn't approve at first, although I'm sure it's hardly my place, but on closer inspection you're not without merit."

[daniel_stacy]

"Not without merit." He ran his tongue inside his cheek and washed down the pretzels. "That's almost as good as saying I have merit. Either way, I'll take it. Look at that, you just complimented a vampire and the world didn't end." He winked at her.

Of course he hadn't seen Holly in ages, but neither had Julianna, so apparently it wasn't personal. He wasn't about to get creepy and start following her around.

"So you're here to see my boss, that about right?"

[st_clare]

"Yes, actually. A colleague mentioned making her acquaintance, and I decided to give this place a look myself. It's a relatively small community, and perhaps there's information that can be shared."

Julianna had finished half of her new drink by now, and that meant she should cut herself off. Two was her limit in situations like this, when she wanted t make a reasonably good impression. The Watcher emptied her glass, set it down on the bar in front of her.

"If I don't see you before I leave, it was nice to see you again, Daniel."

[daniel_stacy]

"You, too." He pushed away from the bar, remembering that he needed to get back to his shift at the front door. "If I see Livia, I'll send her your way." He grabbed the bartender's attention on his way past and mumbled, "Put her drinks on my tab."