Brigit's Flame -- "Beat"
Prompt: "beat"
Word Count: 909
Warnings: meh, little bit of language?
Author's Note: It is the hour of night when I hate everything. I need to learn how normal people deal with deadlines. Thanks as always to the inimitable eltea. :) Oh, yeah, and... Vincent the First and Vincent the Second. Meet Eddikins.
"BEAT"
The city was an organism-probably with an aluminum can for a brain, ignobly cloistered in the back of someone’s pantry, because no one really liked string beans, did they?-with its own tics and beats and rhythms, and it clattered along harmoniously if you knew how to listen.
The Blevins boy seemed to be getting high on it.
Which was amusing, to be sure, but a bit inconvenient.
Vincent attempted to put himself in the boy’s shoes-hideous swoosh-marked things they were, topped with fraying laces, God-knew-what clinging to the soles-long enough to appreciate their surroundings. Night was just gearing up for the long haul, Sirius taking the usual bright-eyed, guilty peek at the sordid muddle below, and the air was thick with the breathing of her children. Traffic lights winked between streetlamp glows, neon blaring out from façades more demure in the daylight. Footsteps rang on asphalt and cement, darting over painted crosswalk lines, tripping and forging where grit spilled out from construction sites or once-parks, and laughter broke out, rich and mellifluous if they meant it. Spare change jingled in cotton-lined pockets or sang against the sidewalk, and halloos and better were wailed at passersby. The cars roared, and the world breathed, and everywhere, everywhere, a thousand pulses beat in necks and wrists as hearts jumped and capillaries squeezed.
…damn it, now he was hungry again.
Vincent deigned to glance once more at his utterly unimpressive companion. The Blevins boy-who was, in fact, on the cusp of thirty years old; Vincent figured that when you were two hundred and sixty, you had long since earned the right to call anything younger than an Egyptian artifact “boy”-must not have gotten out much, or he wouldn’t have been nearly so obvious about his rapt fascination with the cadences of the world.
“Tell me, Edward,” Vincent said, “how far away you can smell them.”
There was a pause.
“Edward.”
Nothing.
“Wolf-boy.”
Blevins’s head snapped up, brown hair floating about his face before settling again. “Huh?”
“Were you listening to me?” Vincent inquired idly. “Or were you looking at the woman with the red blood?”
Blevins stared at him.
Vincent’s triumphant smirk soured. “It was a clever cultural reference,” he muttered. “Never mind.”
He shouldn’t have expected this Neanderthal to get it in the first place, but he could hardly help if his wit was permanently programmed to the scathingly brilliant setting.
“What was the question?” Blevins prompted uncertainly.
“I want to know a bit more about you,” Vincent told him. “My experiences are limited, and knowledge is power, as they say.”
Blevins eyed him. “Power over me,” he translated.
Vincent smiled, well-aware that his fangs would do the beautifully histrionic gleam-thing they did. Maybe the boy wasn’t as stupid as he looked, acted, sounded, and constantly gave the impression of being.
Blevins shrugged, and the motion had some of the wolf in it-smooth and guarded. “It’s hereditary,” he divulged, “for starters. My father was a wolf, and my father before him, and his father, back to the Mayflower…”
Vincent arced an elegant eyebrow.
“It was a joke,” Blevins said.
Vincent sent the other eyebrow to join its brother.
Hunching his shoulders now, hands in his pockets, Blevins scuffed a foot on the pavement, another beat in the vast crucible. Vincent didn’t believe in divine ordination-or not in the traditional sense-but he did believe in order. There was a way to things, a way of things, and even Edward “I haven’t seen ‘The Matrix’” Blevins factored into that overarching, underpinning coherence.
“I gather that the transformation is voluntary?” Vincent remarked.
Blevins nodded and indicated their dim surroundings with another tilt of his head. “I take it you haven’t worked out the sunlight immunity bit yet?”
Vincent frowned. “To my intense chagrin,” he responded, “no.”
Blevins looked unimpressed, which was extremely unfair given the circumstances.
“So what can you do?” he asked.
“Kill things,” Vincent answered.
Draft One in his head had been more along the lines of Kill impudent little furball bastards like yourself, but he did want to know the nature of the beasts about him, and alienating the most naïve among them was not the best way to acquire information.
“I like killing things,” Blevins mused, entirely unexpectedly. “Though you probably don’t settle for squirrels and shit.”
Vincent employed his eloquent eyebrows again.
Blevins raised his face to the streetlights, the starlight, and the sky. “You want to race?” he asked.
Vincent stared at him. “What?”
“Race. It’s this thing where you try to run faster than the oth-”
“I know what it is; I was expressing a general surprise at the proposal.”
Blevins smirked, which was unfair, because Vincent was supposed to have a monopoly on the smirking privileges here. “Now that you’ve processed it properly,” he noted, “would you like to?”
Demonstrating that he could feign disinterest with the best of them, Vincent lifted his shoulders. “You wouldn’t have a popsicle’s chance in hell, of course…”
Blevins grinned.
Dreadfully predictably, seconds later, two flashes, one black and the other gray, flitted through the orange pool of light beneath the nearest streetlamp to disappear down the street, leathery paws slamming on the street, matching inhumanly swift strides.
It was strange how alive you could feel, being undead.
Also, Vincent was going to laugh his ass off when Edward Blevins realized how far they were from the clothes he’d left behind.
Word Count: 909
Warnings: meh, little bit of language?
Author's Note: It is the hour of night when I hate everything. I need to learn how normal people deal with deadlines. Thanks as always to the inimitable eltea. :) Oh, yeah, and... Vincent the First and Vincent the Second. Meet Eddikins.
"BEAT"
The city was an organism-probably with an aluminum can for a brain, ignobly cloistered in the back of someone’s pantry, because no one really liked string beans, did they?-with its own tics and beats and rhythms, and it clattered along harmoniously if you knew how to listen.
The Blevins boy seemed to be getting high on it.
Which was amusing, to be sure, but a bit inconvenient.
Vincent attempted to put himself in the boy’s shoes-hideous swoosh-marked things they were, topped with fraying laces, God-knew-what clinging to the soles-long enough to appreciate their surroundings. Night was just gearing up for the long haul, Sirius taking the usual bright-eyed, guilty peek at the sordid muddle below, and the air was thick with the breathing of her children. Traffic lights winked between streetlamp glows, neon blaring out from façades more demure in the daylight. Footsteps rang on asphalt and cement, darting over painted crosswalk lines, tripping and forging where grit spilled out from construction sites or once-parks, and laughter broke out, rich and mellifluous if they meant it. Spare change jingled in cotton-lined pockets or sang against the sidewalk, and halloos and better were wailed at passersby. The cars roared, and the world breathed, and everywhere, everywhere, a thousand pulses beat in necks and wrists as hearts jumped and capillaries squeezed.
…damn it, now he was hungry again.
Vincent deigned to glance once more at his utterly unimpressive companion. The Blevins boy-who was, in fact, on the cusp of thirty years old; Vincent figured that when you were two hundred and sixty, you had long since earned the right to call anything younger than an Egyptian artifact “boy”-must not have gotten out much, or he wouldn’t have been nearly so obvious about his rapt fascination with the cadences of the world.
“Tell me, Edward,” Vincent said, “how far away you can smell them.”
There was a pause.
“Edward.”
Nothing.
“Wolf-boy.”
Blevins’s head snapped up, brown hair floating about his face before settling again. “Huh?”
“Were you listening to me?” Vincent inquired idly. “Or were you looking at the woman with the red blood?”
Blevins stared at him.
Vincent’s triumphant smirk soured. “It was a clever cultural reference,” he muttered. “Never mind.”
He shouldn’t have expected this Neanderthal to get it in the first place, but he could hardly help if his wit was permanently programmed to the scathingly brilliant setting.
“What was the question?” Blevins prompted uncertainly.
“I want to know a bit more about you,” Vincent told him. “My experiences are limited, and knowledge is power, as they say.”
Blevins eyed him. “Power over me,” he translated.
Vincent smiled, well-aware that his fangs would do the beautifully histrionic gleam-thing they did. Maybe the boy wasn’t as stupid as he looked, acted, sounded, and constantly gave the impression of being.
Blevins shrugged, and the motion had some of the wolf in it-smooth and guarded. “It’s hereditary,” he divulged, “for starters. My father was a wolf, and my father before him, and his father, back to the Mayflower…”
Vincent arced an elegant eyebrow.
“It was a joke,” Blevins said.
Vincent sent the other eyebrow to join its brother.
Hunching his shoulders now, hands in his pockets, Blevins scuffed a foot on the pavement, another beat in the vast crucible. Vincent didn’t believe in divine ordination-or not in the traditional sense-but he did believe in order. There was a way to things, a way of things, and even Edward “I haven’t seen ‘The Matrix’” Blevins factored into that overarching, underpinning coherence.
“I gather that the transformation is voluntary?” Vincent remarked.
Blevins nodded and indicated their dim surroundings with another tilt of his head. “I take it you haven’t worked out the sunlight immunity bit yet?”
Vincent frowned. “To my intense chagrin,” he responded, “no.”
Blevins looked unimpressed, which was extremely unfair given the circumstances.
“So what can you do?” he asked.
“Kill things,” Vincent answered.
Draft One in his head had been more along the lines of Kill impudent little furball bastards like yourself, but he did want to know the nature of the beasts about him, and alienating the most naïve among them was not the best way to acquire information.
“I like killing things,” Blevins mused, entirely unexpectedly. “Though you probably don’t settle for squirrels and shit.”
Vincent employed his eloquent eyebrows again.
Blevins raised his face to the streetlights, the starlight, and the sky. “You want to race?” he asked.
Vincent stared at him. “What?”
“Race. It’s this thing where you try to run faster than the oth-”
“I know what it is; I was expressing a general surprise at the proposal.”
Blevins smirked, which was unfair, because Vincent was supposed to have a monopoly on the smirking privileges here. “Now that you’ve processed it properly,” he noted, “would you like to?”
Demonstrating that he could feign disinterest with the best of them, Vincent lifted his shoulders. “You wouldn’t have a popsicle’s chance in hell, of course…”
Blevins grinned.
Dreadfully predictably, seconds later, two flashes, one black and the other gray, flitted through the orange pool of light beneath the nearest streetlamp to disappear down the street, leathery paws slamming on the street, matching inhumanly swift strides.
It was strange how alive you could feel, being undead.
Also, Vincent was going to laugh his ass off when Edward Blevins realized how far they were from the clothes he’d left behind.