Rest is Overrated

[rhiannon_lee]

Introvert she might be, but Rhiannon was losing her mind in the El Rey.

At first she read dog-eared novels from the public library, watched bad television, and stared at the popcorn ceiling for hours, simply thinking while the world went on without her. It was good at first; it was as close to a hiatus as she had ever taken in six long years. But after a week, she found the flaw in her plan to run off and live under a rock. It was boring as shit.

On her second Monday in town, genuine cabin fever set in. The mildewy sent of the motel room bothered her. She caught whiffs of it on her clothes no matter where she went: the gas station for smokes, the diner for food, the laundromat, the stark but beautiful landscape around Searchlight.

She never did detect the mysterious obsidian stone left by Elfleda; it finally came loose in the wash. Without it, Rhiannon still thought about the gothic woman she met her first night in town and wondered when she would return.

Things like that always did.

On her second Tuesday, Rhiannon got out of bed with singular purpose. She needed a car. It happened that a neighbor was selling a black ‘77 Volkswagen with a few dings in the body. Not her ideal car, but it ran smoothly and she gas was cheap. She haggled him down to a price she could afford and paid in cash.

By dusk, Rhiannon was in Las Vegas.

She parked the car, pocketed the key, and took off on foot.

[Thread: Open to Julianna]

Comments

[st_clare]

For a city that thrived on darkness to show off the neon colors, Las Vegas didn't do much to hide the dirt.

Julianna had had a good steak dinner in the hotel's restaurant, but she'd had to leave rather than linger over her vodka gimlet because there'd been a dreadful man at the bar who kept trying to pick her up. She may have been past middle age - she'd turned sixty in January - but she had it on good authority that she looked ten years younger, and that meant she didn't have to let lecherous strangers buy her a drink as if they were doing her a favor. Male attention wasn't that important to her.

The Englishwoman was currently on a slow walk away from the hotel and wondering if it was possible to get a simulated sunburn from the glare of all these lights. London was a fair-sized city, but it didn't seem as close and crowded as this. Perfect place for a Slayer to fetch up, since where did vampires like to hide but in plain sight, but she looked forward to making a home in the suburbs rather than the city.

To that end, she had a real estate agent in the area looking at small houses available for purchase, somewhere private. She did hope she was ready for the real work of her job to begin. She loved teaching, but being a Watcher was why she'd been sent to the States to begin with. She must not fail again.

[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon noticed the shady kid first. With hands crammed in his pockets and a ball cap pulled low on his forehead, the pickpocket probably thought he blended, but he was far too conscious of acting innocuous to look it. When a silver-haired woman turned a corner and he followed, Rhiannon figured she had the situation pegged.

The woman had a tail.

Alright, not a vampire, but what else am I doing? Besides a desire to spice up the evening, Rhiannon had ulterior motives for an intervention. She despised thieves. She hated the idea of a person working themselves to death, squirreling away money, and then having it taken by a jerk who was too lazy to do the same.

“Hey...” She sped up. “Hey!”

She knocked off the teenager’s cap and snatched him by the hair. “Bother someone else.”

[st_clare]

She'd been staring at the marquee of one of the casinos as she walked, not paying proper attention to her surroundings, and it was the sound of the scuffle behind her that alerted Julianna to the situation. The boy was trying to scramble away from the grip on his hair, cross-trainers scrabbling on the concrete as he looked for purchase, and he kicked out at his captor while simultaneously working to tear himself loose.

"Need assistance, dear?" The girl was half her age, possibly even in her early twenties, and the Watcher approached cautiously. A vampire would have been displaying fangs by now, but this was a dirty enough city that the undead weren't the only menace. Thank God she wasn't wearing heels, but sensible shoes for walking.

She kicked him smartly in the left shin, just below his kneecap, and he squalled in outraged pain as his legs buckled. Even the supposedly old could defend themselves against common threats, and this was a mere boy. "Do we need a policeman? I don't know the common procedure here."

[rhiannon_lee]

“I’m not a huge fan,” Rhiannon said. “Besides, the embarrassment of being beaten up by women ought to suffice.” She let go of the kid’s hair. He scrambled onto his knees, which left a perfect target. After a well-placed kick in the ass, he was off the curb and running, left to wonder where he’d gone wrong.

Rhiannon wiped her hands on her pants. It was probably her imagination, but her fingers felt greasy. “He was after your cash,” she said. “He must have figured tourists are walking bank accounts.”

[st_clare]

"Buggered thieves," Julianna said with distaste as she watched the teenager scamper out of sight. It was true she carried a small amount of American money on her for cabs and the like, but she wasn't foolish enough to walk around with a fortune on her. "I should have been paying closer attention."

Now that she was up close, she could see that the girl was older than she'd initially suspected, and she straightened an imaginary wrinkle out of her blouse as she tried to look both competent and assured in a strange city. Did she expect a reward, or had it been that rare act of Samaritanhood? The Watcher knew the stereotype of the batty old dame who couldn't be trusted to cross the street on her own, and she hoped she didn't resemble it in the slightest.

"At least he didn't try to bite," she remarked with sardonic humor. "Somehow I doubt he's had any of his shots."

[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon’s eyebrows lifted, but lowered again when the potentially supernatural-themed comment (vampire, werewolf, demon, didn’t matter… all of them bit on occasion) turned into one about Rabies. “It’ll be awhile before he tries again, anyway,” she said. She felt herself easing back from the woman. It was the accent; it put her on edge.

Don’t be a coward. Shin-kicker or not, she shouldn’t be by herself. Offer to walk her wherever she’s going.

“Where were you headed?” she asked. “I’m not in a hurry.”

[st_clare]

"I was taking a bit of air, actually," the Englishwoman said, waving behind her where her hotel lurked in the shadows. "Trying to escape the attentions of someone unpleasant. Some men think they're entitled to your telephone number no matter what."

The brunette must be a native of the city, then, or at least familiar enough with it that she wasn't bothered by being out after dark by herself. It was possible that she was a self-defense instructor, since not everyone knew how to deter a mugger without a weapon. Julianna did wonder about the reluctance to inform a police officer, but Americans could be peculiar.

And there she went, stereotyping people when she resented it herself. Ah, well.

"Don't suppose you could recommend an establishment where a lady can have a quiet drink without being accosted by some lout, could you?" Because she didn't drink often, but she did like to savor it when she did. Julianna's mouth twitched at the corners, the barest hint of a smile. "Perhaps you'd care to accompany me. It seems as if women need to stick together around here."

[rhiannon_lee]

I asked for that, didn’t I?

“Um,” Rhiannon’s cheeks puffed out as she exhaled and looked around, as if a bar fitting that description would magically appear. She hooked her thumbs in her hip pockets. “I don’t really know of anyplace,” she said. “I’m not-- I mean I haven’t been here long.”

Meaning a half-hour.

“But it’s Vegas, right, so it couldn’t be hard to find one.” She doubted very much that her type of bar would suit the older woman; ‘quiet’ to Rhiannon meant a locals bar with a dart board and few customers. She presumed that a lounge atmosphere might suit her better. And God, am I under dressed for that.

“Tell you what. We’ll walk a couple of blocks and see what we come across.”

[st_clare]

Had she embarrassed the girl? It was true that she was rather, well, dressed down for an evening out, but Julianna saw no reason to be a snob when the younger woman had been kind enough to dispose of the riffraff from earlier. If she'd been thirty years younger, she might have handled it herself, but it was nice to have an assist offered by a stranger.

"I've only been in the city a short time myself," she offered. "Haven't really ventured beyond the ground of my hotel. Tourist, you know. I do hope to get some proper shopping done before I leave, but before dark."

A taxi rattled past on the street, and she watched with idle interest as it blew exhaust in its wake. Perhaps she should rent a car. She did drive back in London, and it would only take a bit of work to get used to the other side of the street. She'd need transportation when she left the city proper anyway.

"I'm not very familiar with Nevada, or with America itself, except for brief trips. Geography in university is one thing, experiencing the country for oneself is something else. It's so...." Garish. Vulgar. Crime-ridden. "...Bright."

[rhiannon_lee]

“This part of it, anyway,” Rhiannon agreed. The dark-haired slayer was many things, but rude wasn’t one of them. Having hooked herself into a drink, she would see it through, even if the women made an odd pair. She began to walk in the direction they were previously headed. “It’s not all this tacky,” she went on. “I like the east coast cities. New York, Philadelphia, Boston. They feel more honest. But it’s nice to try something else out. You never know unless you do.”

They crossed a street on the pedestrian signal.

Name. Tell her your name.

“I’m Rhiannon.”

[st_clare]

"Julianna."

And she would have offered a handshake, if only because her name sounded so formal when she introduced herself, but she wasn't sure if her etiquette was the proper route to follow in this situation. The girl believed she was a simple tourist, after all.
Not that she'd have believed her real reasons for being in the city.

"I have actually been to New York, for a teaching symposium," she said as they crossed the street. "But it was during winter time and the weather was very much like London's. I decided to try this coast because I wanted to see if it really gets as warm as all that. And the desert can be quite beautiful, if a bit arid. I have a very badly done painting of the dunes in my suite."

The Watcher was talking out of habit, a leftover from her early days of lecturing. If you didn't talk, make yourself heard, your students would go to sleep, especially in the larger halls. And small talk meant she was just like any other woman Rhiannon could meet on the street.

"I take it you're on a vacation of sorts?"

[rhiannon_lee]

“I just moved here,” said Rhiannon. She stepped over the sprawled legs of two teenagers loitering in front of Tower Records. The sounds of a 1982 song by the Psychedelic Furs drifted from the open doors. “I’m not sure if I’m a tourist or a resident. I haven’t picked out a place yet, so I’m squatting in this seedy motel. Very Hitchcock-esque. I just can’t see hanging curtains until I know if Nevada’s right for me.”

A complicating factor, Rhiannon had never lived alone. She was raised by her father before her time spent overseas. Once back in the states, there had always been a couch, a converted garage, or a bedroom she rented for a few hundred bucks a month. She had no legal rental history, no paper trail to prove she was steady for a lease. Rhiannon wasn’t sure, either. The money would be paid on time, but it was hard for the demon hunter to sit still. It unnerved her to set down roots.

She found herself speaking again. It surprised her; she put it down to spending all that alone time in the El Rey. “And if not, who knows. Maybe Cleveland.”

[st_clare]

It was on the tip of Julianna's tongue to say that the girl wouldn't like Cleveland, because there was an active Hellmouth there and it tended to draw all sorts of supernatural entities there like moths to a flame, but she closed her teeth on the words so fast that the sound of enamel on enamel was audible. It had been a reflex action, the impulse of the long-time employee of the Council, and she kicked herself mentally while she looked for something harmless to say. She wasn't supposed to know this country all that well, for God's sake!

"My accommodations are less...Hitchcock-esque," she said. "But they're being paid for by my employer. I'm supposed to give a series of lectures at the nearby university, then assist with some translations. The work must sound terribly dull to someone your age, but languages are a specialty of mine, especially the dead ones."

She spoke with the pride of the intellectual, because she'd spent a long time immersed in academics even before she was approached by an older Watcher, and she supposed that she'd finally turned some sort of invisible corner and become an eccentric. Age did have its privileges.

"No one seems to set up housekeeping in a city like this, at least not on purpose," Julianna said thoughtfully as the new dusk continued to darken around them. "There are lots of wedding chapels, but no place to make a home, if the distinction makes sense to anyone but myself."

[rhiannon_lee]

“That’s a little ageist, don’t you think?” Rhiannon challenged. She kept her tone even, but her chin lifted a fraction of an inch. “What you said before, about people my age? I’m not opposed to hard work, no matter how dull, especially when it’s important.” She pulled a fresh pack of cigarettes from her pocket, tapped it against her palm, and unwrapped the film. As a student, she hadn’t been perfect, but she was an avid reader, and she devoted time to whatever mildewed book they set in front of her.

She just had to learn not to highlight or dog-ear the pages.

The cancer stick bobbed unlit between her lips as she added, “You never know. Perhaps I’m an expert with dead things, too.” She cupped her hands and lit up.

[st_clare]

The hairs on the back of Julianna's neck stirred, but from a sudden mild feeling of dread rather than because her hackles were going up. She knew damned well how to get indignant, and she knew she could be pedantic because that was part of her job description, but Rhiannon's remark had been a little too on the nose. She cast a look to the side, took the girl's measure in a little more carefully this time.

Slayer?

She wasn't sure if she wanted it to be true or not. She wasn't sure if she wanted it to be true, and it was because she didn't know if she was ready yet. Knowing her duty was one thing. Performing it might be entirely different than the theory that she could. Seven years was a long time. Was she ready?

"I intended no offense, dear," she told the brunette, and her voice sounded mild enough despite the beginnings of inner turmoil. "I come from a long line of scholars, and the longer I teach the more I despair of certain portions of today's youth. Even at university level."

It was early enough that the bargoers hadn't started their treks to find alcoholic bliss yet, which meant that the two women would likely be able to have their drink quietly. That might bode well. "Besides, there's dead languages and dead...other things," Julianna ventured, because she had to at least throw a proverbial hook into the water to try and find out if her suspicions were correct. She was not a coward.

[rhiannon_lee]

Comprehension dawned now. Fancy older woman, upper-crust accent, unafraid of a mugger, skilled in ancient languages. All of that added up to the Watchers’ Council in a world that boasted few coincidences. Everything was orchestrated. Rhiannon stopped walking and cut her eyes to the elder. In a world of billions, she had simply expected it to take longer.

“Ohhhhh, great. That’s… heh, fucking great. I move halfway across the country and run smack into you. Hey, thanks.” She looked up and gestured to the sky with her cigarette. “Point taken.”

No longer interested in nursing the habit, she dropped the Marlboro and stamped it.

"Look, I'm not interested. I don't want to take a test. My beating heart speaks for itself. So if you're thinking of starting in with that whole "close your eyes and think of England" riff, I can save you the trouble."

[st_clare]

Brat.

The thought was automatic, and Julianna schooled her face into a mask of careful politeness. As if she'd bloody wanted this. She'd been happy in England, or if not happy then at least contented, and she hadn't had to deal with past traumas and bad memories. They should have sent someone else, because maybe she wasn't ready after all.

"Resistance is natural," she said evenly, and she folded her arms over her breasts to conceal the fact that her hands were turning into loose fists. "Being left on your own after your initial training is complete must breed a feeling of solitude, even if you should happen to run across one of your fellow combatants. But this is a necessary - and painless - procedure. It doesn't even require much effort on your part. I'm sorry, dear, but I have a job to do."

Was Rhiannon going to be one of the difficult ones? The Watcher had heard whispered tales of Slayers who went around the bend and had to be dealt with, and while the practice was rare it had happened in her lifetime. At least they could be mutually resentful of one another. It would make her feel less awkward.

"I'll only intrude as much as I have to, believe me."

[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon’s mouth opened, her face breaking with that ugly type of anger that bubbled up as laughter, so complete was her disbelief.

“Ah, point number one,” she lifted a finger, “Screw you. My training was complete. There was nothing initial about it, and I’ve got six years out here on my own to prove it. Point number two, if you think you’re coming near me, you’ve lost your mind.”

Never again would one of them touch her. Not after the last go ‘round.

She ran her fingernails into her hair, which had been dyed from its natural brunette into a darker shade of burgundy, and let her hands come to rest on her hips. What was she supposed to do now? Leave the city and wait for them to catch up again? She was a year overdue and they wouldn't take kindly to a third rebuttal.

[st_clare]

'Screw you'. How American. Julianna could feel her annoyed reluctance turning into what her graduate students referred to as pissiness, and that was over-riding the fact that she didn't want to be having this discussion. Allison had never behaved this way, not even the day she'd left. Impudent little cow...

"I'll report you," she said bravely, facing Rhiannon despite knowing that the girl was much stronger than she was, to say nothing of much younger. "I can do that, you know. If you fail to comply with the check-in, I'll have no choice but to have contact with someone in London and have them take care of the matter. You'll like their methods much less than you'll like mine."

It was probably an empty threat, and even a foolish one, but she wasn't going to accept this child's temper tantrum over her duty. If she had to be here, so did Rhiannon. Christ, she wanted that drink now.

"I don't want to have to take the hard line, but this is my job." Even if I don't know if I can do it.

[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon crossed her arms, too. She cocked her head to the side.

“What gives you the right?” she asked. “Really? Don’t quote some policy and don’t give me some pat excuse, because I’ve heard them all. I want to know in your words, Julianna..."

God, what a bullshit name...

"What gives you the right to do anything to me? I went to your school, I swallowed my medicine, and I do my job. Why isn’t that enough? Why isn’t my word enough?”

[st_clare]

Because I'm a failure. This is my penance, because the last time I did this the girl died. She couldn't say it, not to this proud, arrogant child, not without throwing up. There was a greasy taste in the back of Julianna's throat.

"I want to leave you alone," the Watcher said after a silence, and she couldn't help the bitterness in her voice. "This is not, as they say, my idea of a good time. I don't like Las Vegas. And from what little I've seen thus far, I can be blunt and say I don't much care for you either. I should imagine it's mutual."

Rhiannon. Rhiannon the nightmare. But this was her penance, one bathed in Allison's blood. The older woman pushed her fingers through her hair, tried to ignore the fact that her stomach was roiling. She shouldn't have eaten such a heavy dinner.

"You said you have a job," she said finally, the sound of her voice muted by a city bus rumbling past on the street. "Well, so do I, and for reasons that are none of your concern I intend to do that job. We all have medicine that we must swallow, Rhiannon, and it seems as if you're my bitter spoonful."

[rhiannon_lee]

Ha! To be disliked, by one of them. It was too obscene to hurt her feelings. They who opted into this world as a career choice rather than a sacred duty, who staged no such tests of readiness or loyalty for themselves, who trusted one another but not the women who put their lives on the line… They disliked her.

Well.

With bunched shoulders, she scuffed the toe of her boot against a crack in the old sidewalk. Tiny pieces of concrete chipped away, eroding like Rhiannon’s control of her anger; she was certain she could boil an egg in her stomach.

I tried to tell you what he did, and you thought I was upset about bad marks.

It was not an evil organization, but there was evil within it, and its name was complacency. She was going to test how far it went. The choice had not been Rhiannon’s to become a Slayer, but she’d be damned if she let them take it away without her permission, too.

“Mmm.”

Rhiannon tsked.

“You’re gonna have to catch me first.”

[st_clare]

Julianna's expression turned stony, but not before one eyebrow climbed a fraction of an inch towards her hairline. The girl wanted to play hide-and-seek, then? No matter the garish state of Las Vegas, there were only so many motels, especially if Rhiannon was trying to stay out of sight to avoid Council types, which was clearly the case. She might not have wanted this assignment, but she refused to back down because the Slayer was being petulant.

"That's what I'm here for, to catch you," she said, her upper-class accent becoming even more clipped as she bit off the words. Mother would have been proud of the steel in her voice, not to mention her spine. Reluctant Watcher or not, she was Julianna St. Clare and she owed a debt to a sweet young girl who had died too soon.

"You'll see me again," she promised the younger woman, and it really was time to make a strategic retreat so that she could re-group. And finally find that vodka gimlet she wanted. Or maybe more than one, depending on how much her belly could stand.

"You can bloody well count on it."

[rhiannon_lee]

Rhiannon leaned closer. Her fingernails left pale imprints in her own arms.

“Do me a favor, yeah? When you call to tattle on me, tell Duncan I said hi.”

She stepped around the older woman. It was all she could do not to spit in Julianna’s face.

[st_clare]

Duncan. Did she know a Duncan? She would have to ask Edmund in her next letter, because Edmund was the only one she could talk to.

Julianna was shaking in the wake of the Slayer's departure, but from stifled fury rather than anything base like fear. Rhiannon wanted to scorn her, but she wasn't going to allow that. If she was to be forced to dwell anywhere near this cesspool of a city, the girl was damned well going to pay attention and tow the line. And she'd better learn to think of England, or else she'd end up back there being stripped of her powers.

"Bloody buggered Americans," was the last thing the Watcher said before stalking off in the opposite direction to find that drink, leaving a trail of frustrated guilt in her wake.