Somebody in Boots

[dirtywhiteboy]

Years ago, Ruben had wondered how long it would take for the sun to burn him into ashes. It had been a random notion, one he hadn't seriously entertained, but he thought of that time every now and then. For a man who couldn't see himself in a mirror, he was strangely reflective.

It was three a.m. The bars had announced last call an hour ago. Even in Las Vegas, some laws still held. If you wanted to drink after two in the morning, you had to go home or somewhere else.

He was stepping over the legs of the dead man in the alley, heading towards the sidewalk. He'd learned to eat quietly. Someone would probably find the body eventually, most likely an unlucky garbageman. Nevada was warming up, careening towards summer.

There was a pale moon trying to shine down through the light pollution, and Ruben turned his face up towards it. The moon was cold, remote, but it was also kind. It wouldn't burn him.

Comments

[dori_bell]

“You killed him.”

The girl stepped in front of the vampire. She was blonde and delicate, with round brown eyes that stared in rapt fascination at the lifeless lump beyond his shoulder. She wasn’t afraid of it. Her arms hung at her sides, the fingers loose near the hem of her skirt. A vague scent of orchid and tea rose wafted from her neck where a faintly twitching pulse showed she was alive.

Dori switched to his face.

“You killed that man.”

Her head cocked like a pretty bird’s.

[dirtywhiteboy]

"Ruben."

He'd have told her he was formerly of the Dust Bowl, but a young thing like her might not have heard of it outside of a history book. The Depression was a long time gone. He barely remembered it anymore, and he'd lived it.

"I figger I can round up somebody," he said, waving a hand up the street. "Bar crawl's over, but there's always stragglers lookin' for that one last drink." He turned on one booted foot, and his coat flapped open again. "You wanna see it up close? I wouldn't want ya to get any on ya."

[dirtywhiteboy]

He watched her put her hair in her mouth, and he nodded when she spoke. "It does got a tang to it, don't it?"

He wondered how she killed. If he asked, would she tell him? Show him, as he had showed her? He was not educated, not formally. He wasn't even particularly intelligent. But he had walked the earth for a fair amount of time, and in that time he had learned things. How to make things work. How to take stuff apart and put it back together again. How to make people die.

Ruben's thigh muscles flexed and relaxed, and the cuffs of his pants hitched up when he leaned forward. He wasn't wearing socks, and the scars on his left ankle stood out in sharp relief on the pale flesh.

"Show me?" It was a whisper, although the dead man they hovered over was the only one who could even possibly overhear. "Show me how you do it?"

[dirtywhiteboy]

"Mmm."

It was a considering noise, and Ruben's long legs carried his weight over the bus stop bench where the dead girl had slumped over farther. She was now lying on her side. Cool hands cupped Dorothy's warm cheeks.

If he was death, so was she, he knew that now. The vampire leaned down, his blue eyes looking into her brown ones. She could not stop his heart. That deal was long done.

His lips brushed her forehead on a chaste kiss. She was Other, and that meant she was not for him, but she was like him, and that was enough. His hands moved from her face to her shoulders.

"If'n ya need, I can help get ya home."