garrickc

[garrickc]

She gets further away, backing up like he is just a ghost she'd long made peace with and despite that, no part of him — no good part of him, says he should leave. She can't exorcise him from her doorway, he's too deeply woven into her blood, into her memory. This can't be how they begin again. Straight to the ending. Garrick only wants to reach for her, drag her to him so she doesn't have to steady herself alone. But that's not for him to do anymore, she's had decades without his comfort; to learn to live an immortal life of her own volition.

Lara looks right at him and his world stops. He's never forgotten his infatuation turned something else, knows that her power, even mortal, had wrapped gentle chains around him. He'd allowed it. Balancing Brooklyn and Lara in each hand like he could shape a world two ways. Garrick knows why he loved — loves her, as violently as an unbeating heart can. It unfurls something dark, and possessive in his chest to hear her say it with such finality.

You were my everything. Time does not stop, even on account of them.

A soft smile offered back, crooked on his mouth: "Hope is a dangerous leverage," Garrick might have merely heard what he wished to hear in rumours. Followed the trail, because maybe it would lead to something. But he didn't know what he'd fine. Whoever Lara Rivkin is now, even if not his, he'd like to be some piece of her world. He doesn't even deserve that. Not after how everything went down.

And then her arms are around him, and Garrick doesn't need to think. He merely slides his arms underneath hers and around her chest, allows her perfume to rewrite his nostalgia. He can't help but chuckle. She can be pissed if it feels like this.

"I missed ya, too, Lara." It's as clear cut as he can make it, slithers of a gentleman gone. Garrick's hand lifts on her back, and strokes over her hair, softly. Treasuring the moments she'll let him have. She's given him more than he's ever given her. It's quieter, in the fragility of the moment: "I should'a been there." It'd been messy, and he still doesn't know where to start unravelling the lies. He's not perfect, and even if she were drawn to aa scoundrel then. He still is one, a greaser who does his hair a little less slick now. How can he let her go again? Garrick can hear voices, and noises of others outside the door, in the corridor. Imagines how volatile he'd be for a single peep outta them interrupting this. He'd always tried to keep Lara from seeing the unsavoury parts of the man, but that hadn't done squat in the end.

Garrick holds her, as close as she's comfortable, calloused hands working softly on a shoulder, and her hair. Memorising the details he tells himself he'd never have forgotten. "You still got room for me? Even if it ain't what we were..."

He didn't know she looked - and that's shocking to her. She'd made waves, but he had to have been running from something. All those sweet nothings, the ring on her finger -- He was always going to make her into this, and maybe she'd have loved to rule the underworld with him. She steps back and leans against her desk, taking breaths they both know she doesn't need in an attempt to center herself.

The movement of her face has made the scars ache, and she gently scratches at the perpetual healing itch from them, rubbing deft fingers over the patchwork of her neck. With a swallow, she looks at him - really allows herself to look.

Her eyes burn, but they don't water over - she'd cried too many tears over this man years and years ago. It's just latent memories and latent affection for someone she's tried to hate in the after of it all. She sniffs, follows his gaze around.

"Must have been a hell of a tip. Fuck's sake, of course I looked for you - I loved you. You were my everything." Someone else had taken that label of 'everything' now, despite the hardships of the last few months.

She allows herself more time in the space away from him, heartbeats that don't exist count the time. It's minutes before she steps away from the desk and closes the distance - this time to wrap her arms around his neck in a tight hug. "I'm so fucking pissed at you."

It feels nice to be here, to touch him again - even if the love she had for him has long since gone. He's a comfort, a reminder of a life that she could have had. "But I do miss you."

[garrickc]

A hand on his arm draws his attention left. An instinct not entirely dampened by rum. It stops him from rattling with the lad on the adjacent table, whose giving him a stink eye. Oh boy you've no idea. Garrick's friendly, til he ain't.

You've sunk so deep, darling.

"Well, darl." That's all he's got for that string of thought, actually. He's busy steadying his feet on the ground. He hasn't been a pirate in so long, it's a phrase he'd never use outside of his mind, either. Garrick thinks she's referring to the restaurant, with it's gimmick's and little monsters scrambling up fake rigging, and tugging on skull and crossbone flags. "You didn't mind giving a hand, did you?"

It's still lingering, equally cold fingers looped around his elbow. Alcohol stained lips curve into an amused smile. More dead. They're truly infection parasites. The smiles stretches into a thing half wry, half a little too honest. Garrick decides he might need to sit back down for another quarter of an hour, before he's able to fully surrender his table. He plants himself back on the picnic-like bench. "Thankin' you."

His ship? Is she pulling his leg?

"You work here or somethin'?"

Even though it has been years -- centuries -- since she'd seen him, Nisha would recognized Garrick anywhere. He'd been one of the men that she had tried to manipulate all of those years ago. Someone that she thought she'd be able to latch onto. Who would give her a new life, away from her sire. She hadn't given herself the greatest chance, though, having stowed away on his ship.

It turned out that Pirates really did not like strangers being on their ship. Especially ones that carried baggage. While Garrick hadn't known who she was at the time, his Captain did.

She could tell that he was drunk before he even tried to stand. She's seen him drunk before. Although, it seems as though his balance is off now that he's on land. "A Pirate who can't even stand on his own two feet." Nisha smirked as she took a step forward, grabbing ahold of his upper arm to steady him. "You've sunk so deep, darling."

Whether he recognized her or not didn't matter. It would be best if he didn't, honestly. Mehrzād was around. If he had a reason to believe that Nisha had stepped out on their marriage, even though it had been centuries ago, he'd go after the man that she'd done it with. Then she'd suffer more consequences than the ones he'd already put her through. As if on cue, the burning sensation on her forearm flared and she grimaced.

"Where's your ship?" Because even in the modern world, Nisha assumed that he was still living on one. Once a Pirate, always a Pirate. At least, that's what she believed.

[garrickc]

Garrick's intrigue rises. It'd been a shot in the dark to think she's seen iron bars. Imagines that she knows rotted bread, too. Probably a real bad time, in Loddersville, in fact. Closest he's been to the grime like that is the bilge, with shit and seawater. A vortex of utter despair. Maybe an NYPD station way back (oddly, cleaner), when he's wanting to make a roscoe squeal a little. He ain't saying it with the heavyweight tone that she is, though.

He can't decide if he can tell she's a little rough around the edges, or if she's having him on because he's buried in his cups.

Nightingale's got some tale, after all.

Not lobsters.

Lovers. Oh, he knows this story. Garrick leans back, listens to her woe spoken as a vendetta. He don't know much about the beef between witchfolk. It ain't his business, really. But he should make it a little, considering he's looking for the right one to give him some answers to a dying hope of knowing the sun again. He thinks back to what he's lost, timelessly, in life, in death, as recent as yesterday.

He considers what the world is, now. A place where the dead come back, shambling limbs and burning fires of things they can't get back.

"Seems like a fair trade," he supposes, an eye for an eye. There's an equality there that tickles Garrick's compass. He'll remember Ironwood, and make efforts to stay on this side of the table with this woman. It's only when he reaches for his cup that he remembers it's empty. Drat. Eyes fly back to her: "Many left?"

Though, talks of blood magic have his blurred vision narrowing.

"Tha's your shtick, ain't mine. But if you'd like to give some illuminations, I ain't shy," Garrick shuffles on the bench, because it's an ancient woe of all creatures like them, isn't it? He thinks so. "Can't give no firstborn for it though," a hand lazily gestures to himself, around his stomach as a joke. "Don't work," then a low chuckle, like something's suddenly funny, He rolls his eyes, stifling the laugh: "Well some of it do work but nuttin' like that." Ha.

His head tips back, to see the stars, hidden by the Rascal Jack's bright lights, and novelty glare. Now she's touching on wounds he ain't sure he wants poked.

"If it were summin' you could run from, that'd be easy as cake. This, you gotta hide from, don't 'cha?" He gives it a thought, maybe it is a bit of chase. Orbiting around and around. Hide and seek on a life and death level. "Long enough I ain't remember what shade it is after th' purple. Big. White flash? Hurts, like a heater up the pipes."

"I've my time there," she says, vaguely. In earthly means as a runaway piece of property and in metaphysical means as a killer of her fellow witches; it's four words dripping with the sauce of meaning, rich and thick and so biting with spice it might bore a hole in the tongue just to speak it.

"Well," she answers his question of mollusks. "I ate well."

A witch with knowledge of the earth and its bounty need never starve, and with abundance, need never be left wont either.

"Not so much lobsters as lovers," she speaks it with an ounce of poetry. "Simple as. They took from me more than one ought ever take from another and so here I am to do the same - they think me long dead, or long vanished; a myth, see you or a bedtime nasty meant to scare children out of ill humours. It's that latter thing I aim most to emulate. Ironwood coven, out of the Boston Colony, or thereabouts. I intend to kill them each and all - or... well, I suppose most. It all depends, doesn't it?"

She lets that rhetoric lie between them; Like as not it means nothing to a vampire, though Ironwood does have its holdings back east, or so she's been told.

Talk of her own woes ebbs, and she adjusts her position, drumming acrylic nails across the glaze and patina on the table. "I too've heard this, though I've no knowledge of it myself I do know some who might ought could teach it, though, I've simply not had the reason; I'd assume blood magic, though."

She narrows her eyes. "Is that why you're here? Running from the sun? How long's it been then, since you've seen that big hot thing above the clouds?"

[garrickc]

"Well, ghosts ain't bad company all the time," Garrick has enough of them, that on nights where the rum weighs him down into the gutter, he holds a solid conversation. He doesn't miss as many phantoms, as much they miss his sorry ass. Or at least, desire to cut off a piece of him.

He removes his hand from the man's wares, loosely folding his arms across his chest, and holds the cowboy's gaze.

"A character?" He blows out an unneeded breath, "Don't mind. I t'ink I'd just call you a gunslinger," a crooked smile, then a poke: "Don't worry lad, I'm waiting for the tumbleweed," The old west isn't his style, nor stomping ground. But he thinks they're playing because no longer is the attention on the old, beaten junk on the table. Just a low laugh, and a lotta confusion over this fella's intentions.

Rancher's kept the talkers. And it keeps Garrick chuckling.

"You know what." New plan. Fuck this business shit. "If you ain't making dough on it. Leave it 'ere. Someone'll 'ave it." A nod towards the array once again, "I'll hear a story over a firewater," he's sure he's seen a port liquor house nearby. Garrick points a finger at the man, from where they're folded. "You look'a lot like a sneaky pete kinda boy."

Wine. Cheap. A joke. "I'll getcha a brew"

Looked like the man was hunting for entertainment on a cloudy, nothing much Friday. Just another stranger picking through his old trinkets. Like Buck did, sometimes, though that ornery bastard wasn’t just anyone. Buck was family now, stuck through thick and thin, stubborn as hell. Colt’s face pulled somewhere between a smirk and a frown — the kind of look a man wore when he couldn’t tell if he was amused or halfway to annoyed. "Not worth it," a beat. "My workers needed the space, and I’d rather have a working farm than a barn full of ghosts."

The man had a nosy streak. Not in a bad way. Reminded Colt of the kids from earlier, just without the Irish chatter. And there was something off timeline about the way he talked. Not in a bad way either, like he’d stepped out of a grainy film reel. "You sound like the kinda fella my old man would’ve called a character," Smart mouth and a twinkle in the eye.

He let that hang in the dusty air, eyes drifting over the table of rusted iron and worn leather.

"Anyway, kept the ones that still talk back," he added. "Rest of it — just weight with a story." Gaze slid back, measuring the man now. "You lookin’ to carry some of that weight, or just killin’ time?"

[garrickc]

"I ain't ashamed to say I gots no idea what that means." It's a slurred, deep admittance but he can feel how quickly the rum and whiskey is wearing off. Abilities really do kill a buzz at the best of times. But he's not sure if blending into the bench is a good thing, and if this broad is getting her funs out of him. Garrick wouldn't mind if she is. Somebody has to. "I jus' know you canny be about the shadows, bet the light looks stellar on you, doll." He can't know that, nor will he get to know that without procuring what he's in the city for. He's made less progress on finding that, more efforts in drinking himself in a hole, hearing about lost loves and old friends.

Garrick isn't exactly on a clock, he knows. But, he's both fine to wait, and waited long enough. Nothing wrong with a bit of sightseeing in a new place, even if it's looking at a woman who's saving him from his face hitting the concrete floor. That'd be a real killer. She likes the dark? That's a dangerous thing to say to a man who exists in it.

Not best to tell him a strategy for coping is crying into the fries, either. Not when he's just ordered her some.

"You gonna break tears into these ones? I ain't meanin' to rattle yer cage." he attempts to straighten out his words, so she doesn't misinterpret them. He's worse with a brown-stained tongue, slightly better with sobriety. Always, a gangster with a violence in the heart for those oppressed.

He leans an elbow on the table, and sits sideways when he stares at her endless bouts of energy, and jokes. She's got a pain there, he realises. That beneath all the teasing, some of it is real. Garrick's lived too long, known too many people, bottling a realm that they believe will never see the light of day. He supposes, she's doing quite well with that, but instead she's airing it to unsavoury folk in the night.

So he plays, because that's the easy conversation: "If I ever get caught being responsible, shoot me dead. Ain't worth it no longer." She won't talk to a drunk, not beyond this level. But, her company is pleasant and he makes that obvious in the provocative shift in his tone, just a tad. Both boyish and ancient, too aware that there's a thousand or more ways these things go. "You gettin' in this cab with me, Romy the Third? Ay, I ain't that bad," a beat, to hold up his fingers, "Scouts honor, the parking meter would'a started it."

But when she gets digging at the real questions. Garrick only smiles, glances up at that tricorne on her head again, and lets the watery depths of his soul make rougher waves. His eyes awash with the dark of the underbelly of a stormy night, on the ocean, with nothing but the wind, and the shouts of crew going overboard.

He's close to lighting up the tilt sign, but he doesn't.

"Spot of bad news." Plays it off, despite the honesty. "Ain't nowt to worry about," he wavers it off. She can call him sailor, or cap'n, or whatever tickles her berries. He knows. There's more history in this town chasing him. It's wild for a place he's never made roots in before. He hadn't planned for ghosts to come and gut him raw.

Garrick winks at her, feeling oncoming sobriety, a wave at a time: "Got an angel ain't I? Slinging out water 'nd fries. We gots our own kind of fun."

Romy’s mouth curved, not quite a smirk, not quite a smile — something in between that said she heard that and was deciding how much trouble to make with it. “Too pretty for the dark?” she repeated, the words playful on her tongue but not dismissive. “Now that’s a bold claim for someone who’s actively blending into the bench like it owes him child support.” She stretched her legs out further under the table, boots nudging against his without apology. “Besides, I like the dark,” she added, rolling the plastic straw between her fingers. “Good lighting. Great acoustics for dramatic one-liners. And no one can see you cry into your fries, which I’m told is a very niche but valid coping strategy.”

When the server came and Garrick actually ordered, she blinked. Once. Twice. “Wow. He hydrates. Look at you go. Next thing you know you’ll be making responsible decisions and paying your taxes.”

She leaned back slightly, head tilting just enough to make the gold of her earrings catch the low light. “And yeah, angel of death. Tough gig, but someone’s gotta sass the damned on their way out. Management says I’m doing numbers.” A pause. “Though they did dock points last week for throwing a shoe at a ghost. Bit rude, apparently.”

But then — his question. You sure that’s all you want? The flirt behind it, the edge, the way he wasn’t just talking about fries anymore. Romy’s brows lifted, expression shifting like she’d caught the thread he was tugging at — but wasn’t quite ready to unravel the whole thing. Her shoulder hitched in a shrug, casual as anything, but her gaze stayed steady on him.

“Well,” she said, voice easy, “I figure someone’s gotta be sober enough to get you into a cab later, or at least stop you from challenging a parking meter to a duel.”

A beat, and then the grin came — not sharp, but not soft either. Somewhere in the middle. The place where concern could hide without making things too heavy.

She shifted, folding one leg under the other like she was settling in. “What got you drinking like that, hm?” The question was simple. Unadorned. But her tone left space for the answer — or not. “You don’t strike me as the just for fun type.”

[garrickc]

She's new to town, too. He's not always one for signs, or none of that woo-woo shit but he does get an ache in his knees when he thinks the bad weather's trying to tell them something. Maybe it's telling them both to put eggs in their shoes and beat it to another port. Garrick's still splashing off remnants of water from his jacket, and his cargos, shaking a hand through the strands of wet hair.

"Ain't kidding on that," It seemed like if they'd had storms like this before, they're bad at being prepped. Port cities usually have better responses, he'd know. He's rousted enough of them. He'd seen the city turn up crazy in a matter of hours. Maybe he had been too (crazy), considering that he's agreed to ol' Frank's request to kick it with the fats in their castle.

He glances back towards the door, both to check his exit and to remind himself that the clouds overhead had been as thick as firesmoke, blocking out the light. Garrick hadn't imagined that'd been the rumour when he'd come to Port Leiry, thought there would be a different version of the solution for daywalking.

"Yeah, how 'bout that?"

She doesn't appear like she cares that the dead have invaded the wolf camp. But she's got a funny way of talking about it. Garrick puffs out of a breath, as though offput by the idea of a small wooden box. "Coffins are fer' the Ivy Leaguer's," the fancy, the fuckin' rich. Ain't nobody lying in coffins, but he knows she's talking about the being-dead thing. But that's not the point he's making. He'd nail a coffin shut and drop it to the bottom of the ocean, dare he caught anybody snoozin'. "Unmarked graves, doll. That's all we gets."

Then, to settle the bite, "Nah, I'm screwin'. Ain't no coffin, or coffin-boats. Jus' wet." a beat, for him to nod his head towards her. "Don't you lot like the rain? These clouds confuse the moon or anything, you get bitey in the day now?" He hopes the fuck not.

Some guy happens in - he's not the first; they've left this little squat open to people who might need a port in the storm, as it were. It might be a little volatile, because werewolves is volatile, right, but past a few initial side-eyes when a few of the more diligent among them get that subtle subtext of death tugged out from under the wet asphalt and petrichor, most people don't take much notice. Millie passes it off and smacks her hands against her thighs to chase away any lingering chill and let the firepit's warmth creep in. It's probably a bad idea, burning shit inside, but its cold with the rain and its just a handful of tiny burn barrels; they can put them out if it gets weird.

"Not like this I don't think," she says shaking her head, curling up to watch the stone-age television, its flickering show glinting in her eyes. "Sure its been bad before though. I just moved here so I don't know."

She scrunches her nose up while she looks him over. "Sky so dark it's got everybody out to see, huh." She smiles under the question. She looks about, its really only other wolves around the fire. "Or'd your coffin turn into a boat. You got a coffin? Is that real?"

Is that an okay question? She doesn't know! He can ask her about wolf stuff if he's figured it out, she don't care.

[garrickc]

No regret. That's a loaded statement full of beans. She does have clarity in amongst her hindsight. She admits that to him, by way of confessing that there's things to be done differently. Garrick laughs quietly at the end of it. Not to insult, or disprove. Merely because she's a better person than he'll ever be. Garrick is the man who regrets sparing a single roscoe, or a Jackal. Mercy that had not served the bigger picture. There ain't nothing good about his thoughts on the matter, so he buries them, much like the sand that holds their secrets. Sinking them to the centre of the earth, where they'll burn.

If I had crossed a line, nothing meaningful would have changed.

Is that right? He can't put his finger on her. A tortured witch with a burden, or a naïve one learning life lessons too late. He stows away the knowledge of a compliment; she might not like him if she'd met him on another night. If he had not had his histories laid bare in his mind at seeing an old friend again, earlier. If he did not have the visions of the ocean, or the sand under his nails. If there were not just the two of them, and the stars to store their humilities. Maybe he'd let the rum speak for him, or the hunger. But that isn't a contrition.

He hadn't been aware he'd been lying to her. But her offended, yet sarcastic tone implies she's towing lines of a betrayal. It's not real, as much as he understands that she might not stop to make friendly conversation with the dark very often.

Garrick almost steps away prematurely at the rise in her pulse. But she stays, bravely, foolishly. So he does. Calloused hands that had no business on unblemished skin, humming with life.

"I like tha'. A snap," he'd never thought of it so crassly. A snap, against a flick of his wrist. It's more sudden, filled with a power to skirt the surface of the sea. And then he watches her make attempts, his arms fold across his chest, smiling. "You'll get it." He assures her, despite her lack of belief in practice. Maybe Juniper doesn't have all the time, but she has at least a lifetime. She should cherish that. So, he gives her something, subtle, but assuring: "I've had a lotta time to practice." Garrick isn't a quick study, at the best of times.

His penmanship, even now, is still a crass scrawl. He speaks more languages than he can read or write. And even those he can, the ones he learned later in death, are illegible for the most part. He knows his strengths, like he knows his weaknesses.

He doesn't like sir, even if it's playful. But he notes the horizon with a turn of his head, and the threat for the star to come peeking over the edge of the world. She's right, he should find himself somewhere dark. And this cove is not his ally. He imagines upon Juniper's absence, it will no longer tolerate his presence.

Garrick's head lifts when she makes her backpedal off the sand, and towards solid ground. She wants him to think about his answer; her question provokes a short snippet of a life he's almost forgotten. He nods, a wry smile and dark eyes pointed at her as she leaves.

Doesn't she know that they often crave the sun?

END.

Questions of regret brought a laugh bubbling up from somewhere deep in her throat. Regret was a funny thing. A feeling she hadn’t really considered in the context being presented. Did she regret not killing him? She had to think, gnawing on the inside of her lip within her own smile as if the shot of pain would make her mind reach a conclusion faster. 

“No- I don’t. Not to say I wouldn’t do it differently if a second chance presented itself. But there’s no going back in time. Besides, there is something about this place that just feels right. I like this city. I like the way it makes me feel. I like the people- haven’t met a one that I haven’t enjoyed the company of.” It was a small number, but it still mattered to her. “ If I had crossed that line- nothing meaningful would have changed.” 

Talking shouldn’t be this easy. Not only is he a stranger, he’s a danger, at least he should be. She was very aware of the risks of approaching. All too aware. She knew what hungry fangs could do to a witch unsuspecting. But if Garrick had any intention of harming her- he probably would have done it by now. He didn’t strike her as the type to senselessly play with his food. 

Then again maybe she finds it easy because it shouldn’t be. There was no risk. Telling her inner thoughts to a man she might never see again. The city was big- and they were people that existed in different worlds. Marginal overlaps aside. It was a fluke she was even here tonight. It was entirely possible that after tonight she would never see him again. She might never have to answer for her honesty. He didn’t give a rats ass about her, so there was no reason to give a rats ass about the skeletons in her closet. A conversation with little consequence; comfort in anonymity- even if he did know her name.   

She hummed a tone of skepticism at his deflection. “I’m hurt that you would lie to me, Garrick.” It’s sarcastic. She isn’t serious. But she's a little insulted. He's a vampire and she isn't stupid. By very nature of being beyond human there was innate excitement to be had. So this is an attempt at modest playfulness to express her own lack of ill-intent. She doesn’t mean to pry. She’s just curious, a bad habit. She liked learning. The context didn’t really matter sometimes. 

It’s only when Garrick moves to stand behind her that her pulse quickens. Not because she’s afraid. He doesn’t scare her. No alarm bells are ringing in her head. Her intuition is not telling her to run. That’s more terrifying than anything. She really does just want to finally learn to skip a stone, and end her evening on a somewhat pleasant- albeit introspective note. It’s her own lack of anxiety in the moment that gives her pause.

She tries to focus on the ocean in front of her and the repetitive motion of her arm. It wasn’t uncomfortable. “Practice can only do so much I’m afraid. But I think I understand what you mean. It’s like throwing darts. Just from a different angle, and a smidge more snap.” When he stepped back she did peek over her shoulder, mostly making sure he wasn’t still so close she might hit him if this went disastrously. Then she returned her focus to the ocean, followed the same motion as before, then snapped the stone forward. 

It hit the water parallel, then sank immediately. Not a skip in sight. But she was smiling. The motion felt right. She just needed to adjust her angles. One stone, two, by the third she is pretty sure it almost wanted to skip. “Give me maybe a hundred more stones and we might have a skip or two by the stone 50. Not that anyone has that kinda time.” 

One more attempt at a skip, and then the final rock in her hand she just chucked. Aiming for distance instead of precision and finding herself pleased with the result. “Well as charming as this has been. I think we have a solid 30 minutes till day break and you sir need to get somewhere shady.” She moved away from the shore and back to the log she started on. Collecting her phone and knife. She knew she should leave it at that. But it was a night of little risk. 

So in her retreat she turned to take a few of those steps backwards. Her curiosity gets the better of her. She’s testing her limits. She would accept not getting an answer. “I’m rain checking that question. So think about it until next time. I wanna know if there is anything you really miss.” About being human- is the silent implication. There had to be something. Even if he chose this life. She wished there was time. But she didn’t want to keep him any longer. Not when she had already taken up too much time. 

“Get home safe Garrick.”             

[garrickc]

Well he's wrong about the eye gouging.

It's hard to tell which part of Frank is blitzed in her haste to spider around him, all strong legs and choking arms. It's relief, he thinks. To know that his sister in arms is here, she's still kickin' as he slowly reaches around to hug her back. There's a rumble of a laugh as she squeezes the unlife out of him, tight and cinching. He's missed her voice, her violent palm on his cheek — her wayward mouth of comrades reunited.

She doesn't reek of leather, and oil anymore. Something patchouli-esque, more floral. Fresh, not slathered in grease and fumes. The faintest tinge of cigarette smoke between them, but that could be every part him.

He doesn't even deserve a name on a grave. What would there be to bury? Garrick would suit being tossed into the ocean, and allowing the sea to win for a final time. But it's touching. Even if his eyes are stolen by the glimmer of luxury that drowns them. It's everything he ain't. What else could he expect after all this time — for Frankie not to have found her way home? Brushed the dirt off those expensive dresses, and seen that they still fit. The Rays were long gone.

Along with tempering that burn on his cheek, his smile grows wider, more reminiscent. Their faces remain so close when he teases: "Pourquoi ne l'as-tu pas fait?"

Why did she attempt to deliver letters to him, and make efforts to find his number? To consort with every connection they ever had, after how he'd failed her? It should have been him, under brotherhood torment, not her. She's still a knock-out, a devilish beauty that suited caps and jackets. But glamour allows her to bloom here, he can see the glow on her skin, and catches the aftertaste of blood well enjoyed when she speaks at his so charmingly.

Then, she lets go.

"A little bit of here, little bit of there," Exploring a continent that doesn't know his name. Listening to rumours of witches forging new spells that allow for the sun to kiss their skin. "You ain't worried about lil ol' me, are ya?" They're a long way from Philadelphia, and even further from everything that came before. Garrick flicks her chin with his thumb, playfully: "You did alright, ay?"

She couldn't believe her eyes. Mostly because she was blasted out of her mind, and riding the kind of buzz where the walls looked like velvet and the lights tasted like fruit. Garrick stood soaked in purple, right under those neon lights, like a memory dipped in glitter. God, he looked too good, and too real, which meant he probably wasn't. Was that a silly, little trick? One of those fake out moments where she would go to touch him and whoosh — straight through him, face first into a nightclub floor. Wouldn’t be the first time. And it probably wouldn't be a hot look, either. But she’d laugh about it. Stilettos tapped a hesitant rhythm toward him, slow at first, and then she launched. Full body cannonball. With legs tight around his waist, and arms pulling him in by the neck.

That familiar scent, and warmth. All his. She cackled right in his face, dizzy and wild with it. And then she grabbed his cheeks in both hands, squishing him like a peach. Her nose nearly touched his, where her grin had gone razor wide. "Je devrais coller ton nom sur une tombe, connard." A kiss, and a slap, all at once.

Nothing bitter clung to the image of her old friend. Why waste eternity being mean, when you could turn it into a party? They had forever to argue. To point fingers at each other and dig up ancient hurts. But right now? He was standing in her club, no stake in his sad, old heart— so why not make it a celebration? Frankie didn’t remember last night. She barely remembered this morning. And the last time she'd seen him, half a century ago, felt like a black and white photo someone had taken scissors to. Torn up into confetti she'd thrown into the void.

She’d missed his stupid face. A little crooked, ears still weird and pointy at the end, hair still some kind of an abomination. But it was his.

Hands released him from their gilded prison, where her eyes had stayed on him, "Where ya been, peach?" she asked, her voice a sweet thing, like she hadn’t just threatened to put his name on a tombstone. "Planet B90? Also known as the planet of no phones and no fucking mail?"

[garrickc]

A savage avowel New York City, Brooklyn, 1955.

I prefer a dangerous freedom, over peaceful slavery.

While Crooklyn's name gets carried in the wind, in the mouths of gangs across every borough. Garrick sits behind the wheel of a Mercury Montclair, a boot pressed deep on the accelerator as he burns rubber like there's no going back. Stingrays are on the precipice of a street war with the Manhattan Jackals, and there's an uncertainty in the air about who'll come out on top. He's lost a couple of Rays to Queens, and he's near enough lost Frankie to backseat bingo with a broad off Main who talks like apple butter.

But he ain't pressed, because he'll handle Manhattan and Queens, he'll take on the Bronx if they want to get up in his gasket about it. Brooklyn's his turf, and he'll head the protests as much as he'll put a roscoe up on display in front of The Lever House if it means they'll back up out of Brooklyn and stop cuffing his guys. Third Avenue is theirs, and they'll race up and down the street until dawn comes to snatch it from them. Roscoes, Jackals be damned.

There is something he's damn sure of, whether it's smart, or savvy to say — and he ain't sure if the crew are going to like it. But they don't gotta. It's not about them.

He's going to marry her.

And he's never done that before.

He thinks about it at the speed of 115. It's not the ocean, where his mind is all unsettled waves and monumental depths. It's the city, with the squeal of tyres on tarmac as he tears around the corner, understands the weight of the chassis, to know when he's pushing. He's always pushing. And maybe, he's trying to razz Lara's berries a little, show her the thrill in the way that has her lighting up. But she suits riding shotgun. Whether they're in a flip top or a Chevy. She looks good in the moonlight, as his second, whilst they cross into Manhattan's East side, and make a backpedal towards the Brooklyn Bridge.

There isn't any room for doubt. Garrick's had centuries to know the right way to do this. Watched in the quiet at every kind of gentleman caller as they present their fineries in velvet pouches and are met with astounding bouts of tears and shrieking. Rarely is there a slap and a door slam. But he's seen those too. Yet, what he notices more than anything is how they always drop to a knee.

He supposes that makes sense; a surrendering of one's heart to another.

But it's a foreign notion to a sailor turned gangster. To become an offering, in the weight of a trivial decision. Garrick isn't a man who surrenders anything.

He thinks he could surrender to Lara.

With that comes the eruption of everything he is. She doesn't know that he plans for her to sacrifice the sun, or to know that the Roscoe they've just passed only has to be a little more attentive to know who he is, tearing down the streets, specifically to dirty a rival's turf. He's a scoundrel and a liar, and he's expecting Lara to understand.

It paints a target on her back, loud and clear. A mob boss' girl is a bartering chip in any play. And how would Garrick decide between her and a street? Precariously balancing the wavering loyalty of the Rays, and the cause that Brooklyn shouldn't be a place of aristocracy and less than. If she were like him, a nightcrawler, she wouldn't ever be a pawn on the chessboard — she'd be the Queen; the most powerful piece in the game.

Say yes, Lara.

To everything he's left unsaid.

To all the lies he's crafted in the eleven months she's been knocking about his world. To be his shotgun, eternally. For every time he'd made excuses for her daylight jaunts. He can't come to the tar beach, because he'd dust. Those cugine's who came running with half-cocked information, because they knew a civvie was at the dinner table with him. He's got to do this part right, because he's all wrong. And her mama ain't about a man like him. A man about equal rights has been playing her like a fiddle when he should've come clean months ago.

But it's not here, or now.

Garrick drifts the car into park, central to the bridge.

It's a beautiful night, and she's all leg and provocation; a classy chassis, if there ever was one. He's sold himself on being a gentleman, might've convinced her he's a man of God. All respect, and holding out. She's made him someone better, and she doesn't even know.

"Hey, doll." he twists in the driver's seat, leans closer: "You good?" It comes with a quick kiss, a thief of everything bloodied, oiled hands can get hold of.

Then, he's getting out of the car, darting around to grab her door before she can let herself free. Garrick's posted two corner guys on either end of the bridge, but he knows they haven't got long before Jackals come crawling, or Roscoe's get them to scram. It's hard to admit that he's got the zorros. If his heart beat, he thinks it might hammer like when someone's afraid; that gallop of brake horsepower, rumbling like a stampede of hooves.

His girl climbs out easily, brushes up against him as she weaves to to slither of a sidewalk. He chuckles, shaking his head as he shuts the Mercury's door: "Easy, pocket rocket."

Lara's straight to the edge. New York is all glitter at this hour. It's a testament to man. A depiction of time. She's a more beautiful sight than the city lights could ever be. The fall beneath them, if she looked down, is all abyss and waters. He wonders what she'd be like, diving into the depths with him.

Garrick presses up behind her, a left arm slides along her waist, before settling on the rail. She's trapped between him and iron bars of the Brooklyn Bridge. His other hand is slower to snake in front of her; a black satin box snaps open to reveal a thin silver band, encrusted with a blood diamond.

Maybe he doesn't go down to a knee, but he favours the sight overlooking the city, with the brisk cold biting at their skin. She's got nowhere to run, and every reason to. It gleams in the dark, much like the city does; it rarely sleeps.

Neither would she, if she says the right thing.

"Whaddya say, Lara?" he whispers, close to her ear as he brushes his front up against her back, waiting, hoping. "Will you marry me?" Will you be a Ray?

Will you love me when you know what that means? "'Til death, do us part?"

[garrickc]

Garrick enjoys his victory for about a whole three seconds. Clicks his tongue sharply against his teeth as he tries to steady the horse — because he's just bucked its owner off unsolicited. Fuckin' swell. He glances down, piercing eyes meet one another as a loud whistle carries across the field. Garrick winces at the blow to his senses, playfully rubs a palm over his left ear like he's trying to rattle out the noise.

And then he's going down, back into the mud when the horse's legs bow and sling him off to the ground beside the nepo baby with a grunt. He can hear her talking to the horse like a friend. They understand each other in a way that Garrick ain't never going to. He sits himself up with a dramatic groan and brushes off mud, as though it's not just clumps of dirt spattering on the grass. Part of him hopes it speckles onto her ludicrously expensive riding shoes. He has no idea. He assumes they are; the embossing on the calf looks like something leather and Italian. But he's guessing.

He flashes her a wide grin and clambers to his feet, wiping his hands on his jacket carelessly. "You'd never dirty yer hands with apples from a plague, would ya?" He's teasing because that's how he imagines the elite always see men like him. No use crying over some mud and grit. The new wardrobe sounds like a cost he'll never afford. Even if he could, he wouldn't. But— "I do know the best apple spots, though." Because why wouldn't a thief, and a fiend, know where's best to reap chaos?

When Garrick approaches her, nice and easy — like she's a stallion in need of placating, or a new set of wheels yet to be broken in — he extends a hand and nods his head, like a truce.

"We could cut a rug beneath the stars, covered in mud, ay?" There's no music, but he's not expecting her to play ball, either. She's probably thinking she's chrome-plated, turned hunk o' junk if the late-night mess is anything to go by. What's a name to the woman who'll call the roscoes on him before dawn comes? "I ain't never been threatened with a whistle before, tha's a new one." Impressive even. He's inclined to turn it crass, too. But what's a stick up her arse broad gonna know about filth?

Garrick tastes the ashen remains of the clove in his mouth as his tongue pokes at his teeth, outstretched hand turns upwards, to indicate one moment. "Scuse me, doll. " He spits on the ground behind him, because whilst there's no burn, it's grim to taste bonedust on the best of days. He swivels back, licks his lips, "We gonna ever talk about the treacle, by the way? Wha's tha' about?"

She recoils—just a little—at the sound. That awful, wet crunch of garlic between his teeth. It’s not just the audacity of it, but the confidence. Like he’s chewing through a joke only he’s in on. Her stomach tightens.

Shit. She’d hoped that would work. His words though, are all the assurance she needs. Her heart stutters for half a beat. Vampire. He doesn’t look like any of the dead-eyed Russians she’d spent the last five years with, but maybe that’s the new trick of it. Charm instead of cold. Mud instead of marble. Garlic immunity? Her stomach twists.

But she doesn’t even have time to flinch.

One blink, and he’s up. Another, and she’s airborne—mud, linen, and pride all flung into the air like discarded lace. Her breath punches out of her lungs as she hits the ground with a graceless, wet thwack. The nightdress clings instantly, soaked through, more battlefield than bedtime.

"Oh, you absolute plague.”

Andi turns over in the mud, narrows her eyes, unwilling to let the moment slip. Her fingers dart to her mouth, and she lets out a whistle that cracks through the air like a gunshot—sharp, trained, meant to draw attention.

Michelangelo, prince of ponies and traitor to the leisure class, reacts on cue. He drops down like a drama queen with a vendetta, legs folding, rolling his full body weight into the mud. Vampire included.

Andi watches as both man and mare go down in a heap. She crawls closer—not toward him, but toward Michelangelo, who’s whining low and pawing the ground like he deserves a standing ovation. “Good boy,” she coos, pressing her forehead briefly to his. “You’ve got five more of those in you if he doesn’t let go, don’t you, love?” Her hand slips into the halter strap, comforting, promising. “Sorry bud. Treats on a tab tonight.”

She strokes his damp neck, then glances back at the mess of man beside her—grinning, annoyingly alive, and far too close for someone who might be undead.

“You owe me six good apples for his tab,” she mutters, brushing mud from her hem. “And possibly a new wardrobe.”

Then her gaze sharpens. “Who are you?” she asks, rising just enough to look down on him—one arm still around her horse, the other propped against the slick churn of earth. “Because I think if I just knocked you off your high horse, I’m owed a name.” Beat. “Or do I need to whistle again?” God, if she's going to die here tonight at least it's next to her horse.

[garrickc]

"Oh yeah? You been?" Locked up, that is. Tasting lobster on a tongue that'd sooner be cut out than incarcerated. Jail ain't something Garrick knows, because that'd end poorly for anybody who'd try it. But for the most part, he's havin' a laugh with her. "And what'd a girl like you eat if no sea scallions?"

And then she's sat with him, planning her evening delights like it's no bother. Garrick's tongue skirts along his lips, rum, whiskey and every other thing they've served him prickles his lips sticky. What did he really expect from a lady who's speaking like she's from an ancient port town he's just rousted?

"Vengeance." Tale as old as time. How fitting. "What'd they do? Hope it ain't nuttin' to do with lobsters."

He's not subtle, never has been. Liquor only makes it worse.

"Yer gonna find some child, swing 'em your side? What is yer cause then other than enacting old justice?"

A beat. "You lot," witches that is and he gestures absently towards her, like she's spokesperson for the entire specie, "I hear yer did something that had the sun not so nasty in these parts."

"Prison food, lobster," Briar says, following Garrick's stare to prospective meals for the evening course. She makes a sneering, disgusted twist of her features, as if actively repulsed. Nasty little sea bugs. And they clamor for it here! Like it's a big to-do! Strange days, these times."

A click of the tongue and a roll of the eyes at the absurdity of it, settles into a booth, reads the menu printed on the place mat before her with a dawning sense of confusion at why everything's named like that.

"My tale's simple. I'm recently escaped my former coven's revenge and am here to visit my own on them tenfold."

"They don't know I'm here, I'm sure, but they've agents in this city looking for a very important child who I aim to find first, that I might turn them to the cause."

She looks up to him, smiles big. "And you? The world's full of blood, why's this squat so appealing?"

Maybe he just lives here, she doesn't know. S'why she's prying.

[garrickc]

She doesn't make any attempts to convince him otherwise, but he's found that there are a lot of them in the dark in this city. Maybe the most that he's seen in a long while. Perhaps they're gathered, wreaking havoc for the same reason he is. Searching. Yearning. Finding the sliver of light in the night.

Least she ain't trying to pull the wool over a drunk's eyes.

"How long?" he asks, as he stumbles from solid ground to the sandy beachside off the edge of the decking. Never the name first, apparently. Just'a how long yer been dead then? Because she's quiet behind him, feet at a light jog. But still following him, and he only half turns back to acknowledge it. "Few hours is a few hours, ay?"

And then she helps him out with where he could lay low for some time.

"I ain't mind the waves," he calls back, like there's some private joke between them. His foot almost slips into a sandy hole, but he catches himself before he goes chest-first onto the floor. Garrick chuckles, wishes he had a bottle in his hand, still. "You ever been down 'ere? Not tha' gimmickhouse," He's talking about the pirateering restaurant behind them "—but you gotta know the spots if you know the outcropping, yeah, kid?"

Aria blinks at him - belligerent drunks aren't exactly her forte, at least not when she's sober. "Not everyone." It's said with a disbelieving laugh, thinking of the people at the arcade, regular customers who come into the bookstore, Autumn. "But me? Definitely." She loosens her grip on him, which is enough for him to wobble his way down towards the beachfront.

The accent's throwing her, but so is the booze.

Maybe she should have drank a little too much to match. It'd be better for both of them. She looks back to check and make sure he didn't leave anything important, and then.. well, fuck it, she follows after him. There's no ring on his finger, no bloodied necklace or earring like hers, and the sun's not far off.

She's just being a good Samaritan.

"Hey -" She calls for him, jogs up closer before he has a chance to plop down again. "It's only a few hours 'til sunrise. There's a -- there's a rocky outcropping a bit down further that'll save you from dusting. It's nice. Quiet, except the waves."

She'd photographed another couple for their prom a week prior.

[garrickc]

Yeah. He does. Garrick deserves all she'd like to dish out at him. Whatever she does to him, it cannot hurt more than watching the woman he'd known tremble in his presence. Radiating with everything he'd uprooted for both of them. The wrath in her tone, the way her muscles tense with exertion. Garrick can't stand it. None of the versions in his mind have him staring at a fractured beauty, who is everything he'd hoped she'd be — she did all that, without a dime from him.

"You always did know how to raze a little hell, didn't ya?" Whether she realised it back then or not. She was a point of contention amongst the Rays for longer than she'll ever know. A distraction that Garrick knows he'd let derail him, time and time again, if they could ever go back. If he could go and do things differently. He'd have told her, instead of keeping her arm's length from what he was. Even if she had deserved better than a greaser and a gang of hot rodders.

His hand drops a little when she pulls away from him, hovering there, inches from her features. Still a man who'd take, before he'd ask about it. Garrick's brows knit together when she talks about how she searched.

"Yer looked for me?" Garrick hadn't gone back to New York, not after the way he'd left it. Cutting ties seemed better. Lara had been his only reason he'd ever consider returning, but he hadn't heard of Rivkin or a new immortal making waves. He wasn't sure if she perished or — "I ain't never wanted to leave you, doll" But what did that do, now? "Jus' know that." He cannot imagine what she must have thought upon waking up, covered in blood. New hunger, no guidance, just a city to roam at night with plenty of folks desperate to become something in the night.

Garrick steps back when she pokes.

It tears him up that she wants her distance, that there are decades of unknown between them. A life lived without each other. She's right, he can't have expected anything more than a semblance of closure. He's not a saint, and she's never looked at him like he is one. Just the poison that turned her into this.

But he would have liked to show her the world.

Garrick finally lowers his arm. Makes no more attempts to close the space, if she'd like to gather herself away from him. He wants to know so much of what he's missed, he wants to know how she built herself a dark little tower, that ain't to be struck down. He'd like to know how she works, what she'd gone through after they parted. He'd like to hear her stories that she got to have, because of a choice he made seventy years ago. He'd like to know her again, even if that's all she'll let him do now.

He'd like to rip the teeth out of whoever made a canvas of her face, too.

"You like it?" He asks, looking around at her dressing room. Odes of her, in perfumes and make-up. Clothes of the more skimpy variety hanging on rails, lavish chairs with cushions and blankets. Garrick isn't a fool, but he won't think about where he is. What she's made, and how she got herself there. It'll boil his blood in a way that he has no right to. She's not mine. All that he has left of her is memories and a bond of blood.

And then she calls him Ray. And he remembers how deeply woven the lies started. No wonder you'd never found me, peach. Looking for a man who only existed in New York, and nowhere else. His smile is solemn. Garrick doesn't know if he can keep that lie strung along, without having to confess a slew of sins she won't care for. She's made clear, Lara does not want an old greaser back in her world.

Why is he there?

"I heard a rumour. New Madame of this pad. Yer name, I couldn't ignore tha', could I?" But Garrick doesn't imagine she's asking why he's there. As much as she'd like to know why fate brought him to Port Leiry. "And 'ere you are. Beautiful, powerful. I'm seventy years late, doll, I know, but I did pick right back then." She'd have made a hell of a queen of Brooklyn.

There's another life they didn't get to live, and he'll never forgive himself for that.

But he'll settle for trying to earn her amnesty.

She jabs her finger at him, hand shaking with the force of it and the emotion behind it. "Deserve a whole hell of a lot more than that." In an instant, she's transported back to the 50s. Her hair is in the wind, she's laughing about Ray tearing up the asphalt, spinning and screeching to make her laugh. How many years has she loved him, and how many year since has she hated him? And yet, here, confronted by his face for the first time in decades, she can't decide what emotion is plaguing her.

She's frustrated by the fact that she can't just cut and dry be angry.

His fingers brush against her face, gentle and fuck him, loving? Her lip curls, twisting up the scars to pull at her skin and make her visage even more disgusting. Lara decides he's had enough of that, and shakes her head away from the touch. "You do not get to waltz in here, pretend like everything is fine, and that I didn't chase you down for twenty fucking years without a word."

She finally juts her finger into his chest, pushing him back just a half step. The space helps, and she drops her hand, still barely able to stop shaking. But he brings up the Cabaret instead of their history, and she almost fucking splutters at him.

"You -" Huff of a breath, head hanging down in an attempt to gather herself. "Yeah. Yeah, it's mine. Recent." He doesn't deserve to know that she danced and fucked her way around Port Leiry for a buck, saved up the money from that to buy it. She flexes her hand by her side. "Why are you here, Ray? After this long?"

[garrickc]

"Water it is." He's not figured out where Theodore fits into the equation, but it doesn't deter the tipsy smile. Not when she curtsies, or jests and comments on whatever is in his bloodstream. Garrick's attempting to follow her lips as they move at pace, "En vogue? Well, I t'ink a Kraken will win every round."

He laughs because he thinks she's a comical whippet. If every crown claimer were like her, there would be a lot less need for people like him to burn their towers down. She's for the people, he can tell. By the way she sits and leans in like they're sharing covert information, she wears honesty on her sleeve. Hides something behind bright eyes, difficult to discern in the glaze of his. But her voice is velvety in places. "Yer too pretty to hide away in the dark," he says. She's sun-kissed and bright. One of those lights he knows he'll snuff out if left alone to their devices for too long. She's got no business comforting an old pirate turned mobster in the shadows.

Garrick adjusts in his seat, a warmth he can't feel at its entirety settles upon his hands, and clamps down on his ribs. "Angel of death, eh?" Ain't that something? "Rough gig, kid. Gotta deal with some real scallywags."

A server comes by, and Garrick grabs their attention. Catches their gaze politely and asks for two waters and some fries. The dressed-up, thematic server obliges, and he shifts his hazy eyes towards Romy Hedgeworth again.

"You sure tha's all you want?" It's not his appetite he's thinking about. "Even angels of death, who thrive in the dark, 'ave gotta get their funs."

Romy’s eyes flicked sideways at him when he called her Romy William Hedgeworth the Third, a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth like it was trying not to laugh. “Technically it’s Theodore, but I’ll let it slide. Nobility’s very forgiving,” she said, doing a little mock curtsy with exactly zero grace and way too much flair. “And it’s okay, you don’t have to get me anything. Just water’s fine. Maybe you need some, too — balance out whatever’s still doing laps in your bloodstream.”

She plopped onto the edge of the bench beside him, legs stretched like she owned the place, or at least the square foot of floor under her boots. “Hydration is cool now. Very en vogue. All the pirates are doing it,” she added with a deadpan nod, then glanced pointedly at his empty glass. “And not to alarm you or anything, but I think your kraken might’ve already won that round.”

When he teased back with that amused little finger-wave, she clicked her tongue and gave him the most exaggerated, theatrical nod of solemnity. “Absolutely. Article seven, subsection B; any fries brought within boarding distance are subject to immediate, unauthorized consumption by the crown.” A beat. “Which is me. Obviously.”

Then, a beat passed. A quieter one.

He’d offered the fries and water and Romy tilted her head, the smile still lingering, but softer now. “You don’t have to do all that,” she repeated, voice a touch gentler than before. “I’m not trying to turn this into some nachos and life coaching situation. You looked like you needed someone to come sit in the dark with you for a bit. Lucky for you, that’s kind of my whole brand.”

She let that hang a second before shifting tone again, like flipping the channel back to something lighter. “Or,” she added, leaning in like she was sharing a secret, “Maybe I’m actually the angel of death. You know, bench-haunting, sass-delivering, french fry thieving spirit of the void. Very exclusive gig. Only show up for the real messes.” She grinned, wide and full of trouble. “And between you, that bottle, and your public bench showdown… well. Let’s just say I’m keeping busy tonight.”

She nudged him with her elbow again, gentle but insistent. “So. Water, pirate. Let’s not have you sailing into any more stuff without a co-captain.”

[garrickc]

There's a gentle nod that accepts that time does not wait for anybody. Garrick doesn't know what circumstances she faced, so he cannot condemn a choice he has no other knowledge of. He understands the savagery of hunterkind and how their barbarity rivalled those they painted as abominations. So he says nothing about the injury and allows the quiet confession sit peacefully between them.

And then there is a truth that sinks the next rock Garrick picks up, tosses it carelessly into the water with a plop.

Garrick's attention slips away from the ocean, and looks towards her. He'd expected a simple answer; a yes, or a no. Not a recount. It makes it worse. And nothing he could say would change, nor do squat about what she'd endured. He's not a saint and there's times in a long life where he has also failed to humanise a person. Pretty bodies, with pretty mouths sometimes win over a man at the edge of the world. Can't say he's tried to beat out the complacency in a person, because he likes a fighter. He thinks about a sharp woman he left behind seventy years ago, and it jabs at his heart.

There's a lot of ghosts out of their graves, dancing between them tonight.

"You wanted to be better than him," It's wistful. Noble, even. It's what Garrick would like to inspire in himself; for a world where there was no judgement or hierarchy, where one man was not lesser than another. Morality throws everything into question. Because Garrick is not the better man. He would be the worst to achieve a world that is something more. Amongst all that, decisions are often haunting: "You regret it?"

Maybe he's pushing too hard. Asking things he's not entitled to. But then she moves through the dark, approaching him and the ocean. Severing the string that had kept them a safe distance. Juniper's told her story, and she's closing in on a monster who'd do so terrible things if pushed. A man on the edge is not who she should get bold with.

Garrick doesn't move. Lingers there, and he can scent the jasmine and raspberries on her, like herbal teas. Stale, but aromatic as it cuts through the saltwater and seaweed.

He doesn't know what a witch may care to ask him.

"Ain't nowt exciting about me, Juniper," he keeps it light, offers her a terse but friendly smile as he scans the sand for a stone. She could ask, he'd try to answer. But he doesn't mind showing her skipping stones either. Garrick plucks a flat rock up out of the grains and offers it out towards her, "It's practice." He moves aside and stands just behind her, gently reaching out towards her elbow, "May I?" A flash of a brighter smile; it's polite, but a finger softly nudges her arm anyway, as he gently draws her arm back and forwards in the correct skimming motion. "It's in the wrist, yer aiming just above the surface, keep your aim straight and it'll follow. There's no tossin' the stone, jus' flicking it," And then he lets go of her, so she can try.

The waters don't make it easy tonight, so he expects there will be plenty of trial and error. He glances towards the horizon again, waiting for that beam of bright light that always comes. There's time, as she said, but she won't like to see another fire, he's sure, if they dance with the impending daylight too long.

She can tell she struck some kind of chord. She isn’t wholly surprised. Good relations between hunters and vampires were far less heard of than that of hunters and witches. Still she almost regrets being honest. Not sure if the truth was worth the loss of gentle conversation and a friendly brogue. But there is no judgment here. He isn’t looking at her like a victim; yet. That’s enough to keep her talking.

He acknowledges the unspoken. Neither of them are exactly human. Though she would argue Garrick had shown her more humanity in this brief evening than she had experienced in quite a while. He seemed genuinely curious without the morbidity of entitlement. He seemed kind. She had been wrong before, and it had almost cost her everything. But this was… different. Her eyes felt more open tonight than they had been in months. Maybe even years. The magic of this cove was chipping away at something inside of her and she was better for it. 

“I’ve done what I could. It would  probably be better if I had been able to get better treatment faster. But that wasn’t an option…” She could stop there. He would probably respect it. But the stars were bright and she felt lighter on her feet than she had in so long. Desperately long. The truth will set you free. Maybe there was something to it. Maybe keeping it in was slowly poisoning her. Holding on to the truth because she was ashamed of it. Would she even be able to start over if she let this monster in her closet hold her down? 

Maybe bearing her truth and shame to this stranger was a bad idea. Her willingness to find the good in others was usually what got her in trouble in the first place. But Garrick did not feel like a stranger right now. It wasn’t a vulnerability that felt exposed or raw. It was simply honest. So she let it wash over her. 

With a shake of her head she continued despite the lump in her throat trying to silence her.

“No. I had the chance… It should have been easy. I had the knife to his neck and I just- I couldn’t. It sounds pathetic. To hesitate for a man that kept me locked away like some dirty little secret. A prisoner in my own home. With hindsight I think he stopped seeing me as a person long before it came to blows. I was… a possession, something he wanted and hated at the same time. He was trying to take everything away from me. Turn me into something I am simply not. It should have been easy. But the anger scared me. Not his- mine. I spent my entire life learning how to save lives. Not taking them. If he could have just let me be-” Her voice caught in her throat. “I can still see it when I close my eyes sometimes. How he looked at me. Like the good years didn’t matter. The minute he realized he couldn’t actually control me- something snapped.”

One silent moment. Then another. “When I regained consciousness he was gone, and everything was on fire. He probably thinks I went out in ash and smoke that night. Nothing but a bad memory. That’s fine by me.” She spared him the more grotesque details. The breaking of bones and burning of flesh. The spotting in her vision making the world around her dark as his rage and laughter rang in her ears. She could remember every single moment of that night. At least the moments she was awake for. 

She felt better. Like purging bile and sickness in the form of words and memories. It was out there now. Released into the sky and sea and no longer choking her. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But Garrick didn’t deserve the stress of either right now. Not when he had been so kind as to let her speak. Probably getting far more than he bargained for. If he ever came by the cafe she would have to make sure his drink was on the house. Did vampires even drink tea?  She turned on her heels and made her way down the shore. Crossing the invisible line set between the two of them with an almost defiant smirk, like she knew she was breaking a rule by approaching. “Well Garrick… you know my secret now. I think it’s only fair that I get to ask a question of my own… If you would prefer a raincheck I’ll settle for teaching me how you skip stones like that. We have a little time, the sun seems slow to rise tonight.”

[garrickc]

He wasn't stealing the horse. Garrick will claim that he'd merely been borrowing the steed. But he'd like to know who needs half a dozen fucking horses; she can only ride one at a time. Even in his rebellious prime, he'd never had a dozen cars, his crew might've had some, shared others. But they're not his. They're for the people, because they'd never get to have them another way.

Hell, they'd taken great pleasure in careening screamers into the heat mid getaway.

Huckleberry?

"Oh tha' Twain scarred lad," Tragic.

Garrick enjoys that she thinks everyone has access to the elite's country club and that it ain't just the everyday theft of jackets. Those who are left out to dry in just their skivvies. He looks around, waiting for the rest of the roscoes to come piling out of the darkness, all on horseback to escort him to the gallows. But there's nothing but them; she's alone in the abyss, wielding garlic as her sole protection.

Lassie's in trouble.

Garrick reaches up for the rogue clove of garlic trapped by his collar, pinches it between his fingers: "You got me down so well, peach." He's decided not to justify the horse borrowing, instead, he tosses the garlic into his mouth and chews. Pulling a face of amusement, for just a moment. She knows, because this is a city half out of the shadows, apparently. "Ain't it funny how we got such keen senses, ay? But this tastes like the ash an' bone dust," Peculiar, in the way that it enflames his senses with the scent, but the taste is bland, and just something crunchy between his teeth.

He's not Butch Cassidy, but maybe she wishes he were right about now.

He'll toy with aristocracy only so far before the bothersome part of their existence begins to grind on him. He sits himself up, rolls his shoulders where he can feel the mud slopped on his clothes. She's barking threats, and they fall short. So short, that he's suddenly on his feet. A blink, from ground to feet.

Another blink, and he feels the horse protest, but he swings himself onto the back of the steed, brings the mud and grime with him, wraps muddied fingers against her arms, and very nice, clean outfit.

Garrick leans in, firmly saddled against her backside, leans in towards her ear, garlic, mud and some exuberant perfume of hers tickle his senses: "I think you need a bit of knockin' off your high horse."

— and off she goes.

She hears laughter cutting through the fog like it’s been sharpened on the edge of a whiskey glass — too casual, too entertained, too much. And then something about tickling britches, which earns nothing but a slow blink. Not confusion — contempt laced with disbelief. Tickling britches. She mouths the words silently, like they might make more sense that way. They don’t. He’s eccentric, all right. Eccentric and infuriating.

Up ahead — she watches the figure launch himself off his horse and something uncoils. Huckleberry will make it home, and sure enough, Huckleberry takes off the moment the rogue hits the dirt, hooves carving an indignant path through the mist like a four-legged middle finger. He’s heading to the barn, she can tell — tail high, ears pinned, probably mumbling horse curses under his breath. Good boy. That’s one disaster diverted.

Michelangelo — loyal, blessed creature — doesn’t need direction. He flicks an ear. He’s calm, responsive, tuned to her breath and the shifting weight in her hips. She urges him forward with a slight squeeze of her calves and he glides down the slope, steady as a warhorse from a Renaissance painting — which fits, really, given his namesake. The stallion’s gait slows to a careful walk as they approach the lunatic sprawled theatrically in the mud like a Regency widow overcome with grief.

Andi doesn’t dismount. She’s not getting her boots dirty for this.

She circles once, slow and deliberate, Michelangelo’s hooves squelching in the wet earth with quiet disdain. She doesn’t speak right away — just looks down at him, arms crossed over the horn of her saddle, mouth drawn tight in a line that says you better be joking.

“You were stealing my horse,” she announces finally, voice flat with the sort of disbelief usually reserved for bad champagne, surprise taxes, and men who think charm is a substitute for permission. “And not even well. You didn’t steal Huckleberry — you borrowed him like someone grabs the wrong coat at a country club. And now look at you: soaking wet, clearly not the owner, and about to get escorted out.”

He grins up at her, mud in his hair and a garlic clove possibly lodged in his collar, like he’s just won something. Like this is a game. It only deepens the wrinkle in her brow.

“Do you have a concussion, or are you always this much of a jackass?” she asks, tilting her head. She flicks the reins, turns Michelangelo into another slow circle, like she’s browsing different angles of the mess. “If this is charm, this is bad theater.”

He groans something about cloves and stinking roses, and she sighs — long, theatrical, but too seasoned to be dramatic. “I swear to God. Who throws garlic? Me, apparently. I throw garlic now. This is my life.”

Then he hits her with the line — cowboy down — like he’s just delivered the final act of some tragic opera.

She raises an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“Oh, you’re down, all right. Down bad. Down dirty. Downright ridiculous. This isn’t some epic standoff — you’re not Butch Cassidy. You’re a man who took a joyride on someone else’s horse, got hit with cooking herbs, and face-planted into my lawn.”

Michelangelo huffs beneath her, sympathetic in a way she’s not.

“Cream you?” she echoes, blinking once like that phrase physically offended her. “Honey, if I wanted to cream you, I’d do it with more than seasoning.”

She pauses just long enough to let the silence grow pointed.

“And I wouldn’t miss. I do have a few more cloves of garlic too."

With that, she clicks her tongue and Michelangelo steps back, gaze cool as glass, posture loose but lethal — the picture of a woman who could either shoot you or invite you to brunch, depending entirely on your next words.

[garrickc]

He calls it a detour — his second of the night. Maybe he's just delaying now, or answering a call to the ocean that never lets him go. But he's able to navigate worse things than a land storm, and picking up the waterlogged phone to a lost sister who keeps asking where he's got to.

But there's a splash that draws his attention; something heavier and not nailed down goes over the dockside. Garrick moves through the rainfall, speed has him sliding across wood, and he almost tumbles right on over the edge himself.

A face emerges from the depths before he dives, so he stops. Not afraid of being lost to the beast that is the sea, or the roughness of its grasp. Waves threatening to slam up against the hulls of docked ships, and smaller vessels that'll never survive by morning. She clocks him, eyes pinned on his, and there's a familiarity in their exchange. But it's a lost thing, because he finds that he sees so much in faces in the ocean, and has echoes of creatures that claim to never cross his path.

Garrick has seen plenty of odd, curioso's in a century of sailing, and then even more in the lives that came after. In New York, there were fewer beasts made of water, and gills, but there were plenty of the same monsters in men, even on land. This might be one of those impossible imaginations of seeing a siren in the water, called this way by something he cannot hear, nor speak.

But he'd also found himself among wolves earlier in the night, laced his lips with whatever gets creatures like them a little wired.

He calls out to the stranger. "I'm all for a swim, doll, but she's not forgiving on nights like these." Not when the storm and the ocean go to war; it's the last place anyone should desire to be.

Who: Open (0/4)

Where: PL Boat Rental

If the wind were still able to fill her lungs, Ha-Jeong knew that it would taste like magic. She knew storms, had sailed in more typhoons than she could count, and this was no natural storm. But she found that she cared little for its origin. She was reminded of her centuries at sea. How she had volunteered herself for solo deck duty in almost every storm the ship had seen. It had been a selfish move as much as it had been a logical one. Her body could simply withstand more than her human crewmates, but she had also loved the feeling of being swept up in something so much bigger than herself.

She sat on her dock, the humans she usually employed to run the place summarily dismissed and sent to safer pastures. She had gone around on her own and spider tied all vessels that hadn’t been stored on racks or in the 3 operating boat houses. The dock rocked beneath her, undulating with the sea.

Ha-Jeong stood and started to remove her jacket. The other haenyeo used to call her ‘ineo’ when she had spent her decade on Jeju. That was perhaps her favourite way she had spent the 90s. She cocked her head from side to side as she took a starting position. If she was honest with herself those ladies hadn’t been the only people to accuse her of having a more aquatic than human nature. Ironic for this was perhaps the one human idiosyncrasy she had left, as she ran towards the edge of the dock, wind running through her hair, she was reminded of a little girl centuries ago who would have done the same.

As she flew over the water, the tumultuous storm current sipping around her body, she felt a presence appear behind her on the dock. As the water welcomed her, an embrace no colder than her own, she quickly broke through the surface to meet the eyes of someone who was either just brave or just stupid enough to witness her in her human indulgence.