undergrounds | do you fly in the day, darling

[A June catch-all! Pick an option and say hello, or start something more specific in the comments. Hit me up on plurk if you want a specific starter!]

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A Just another Saturday night out, Nancy's lips painted blood red and staining the side of her low-ball glass. Her legs are crossed at the ankles, black pumps and fishnets on full display under her short leather skirt. It's a night out, another night working. People around here knew who she was, what she offered. It was easier in supernatural bars, Nancy knew, to find vampires looking for a feeding, or even just a john wanting some company.

She props an elbow up on the bar, and looks down the the way, eyes peeled for any familiar, or unfamiliar, face. She'll just try not to think about how great it would be to be watching Netflix right now instead of work.

B Do you believe in fate, baby, ask me, ask me, the music played in her earbuds as Nancy jogged in place at a cross-walk. Trainers on her feet and hair pulled up in a pony-tail, she was doing her usual exercise routine. Always good to be fast on your feet, she'd learned as a child, and running was a great way to keep that up. Even if she had ways to get away, her feet were still just as important.

Besides, there was something relaxing about running, she'd found. She could shove the world away and concentrate on the music and running and the city. She'd found her way down to the Thames, and was running on the paths near it, past youths with skateboards and graffiti'd walls, business men grabbing a bite to eat right outside the Globe. It was astounding the way the culture and history blended together so seamlessly. She'd never get over that.

The light turned green, and on she ran.

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His hand comes up to lightly touch the spot where she kissed him, fingers coming away with a smudge of lipstick on them. The blush doesn't decrease at all. What can he say? Pretty girls are his weakness. "I do believe that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me." Then he grins impishly. "You should do it more often."

"I haven't known you all that long, y'know," she reminds him. "Maybe I'll say something nicer later. or take it all back, though I'd rather the former." She tilts her head towards him in a gesture of comfort.

"You want me to? Or wouldn't you rather better, more creative compliments?"

"Most likely, I'll say something that'll piss you off 'n make you curse me out something fierce." He shrugs, ever the pragmatic one. It tended to happen a lot when one had a sarcastic mouth like he did.

"I'd prefer to be showered in compliments of a Shakespearean nature. It keeps my ego nice and inflated." Then he laughs at his own joke the way some old men will do.

She liked the way his accent rolled on fierce. Irish accents were always beautiful to her, she that alone brought a smile to her lips, dreamily. But that wouldn't stop her from wrinkling her nose at the suggestion. "Well let's not rule that out then."

Nancy rolled her green eyes. "Yeah? You're a fellow of the strangest mind in the world." She'd really liked Twelfth Night.

Cooper looks pleased with that poetic-sounding turn of phrase and with the fact Nancy was able to quote Shakespeare. There's more going on underneath that pretty face than just spells and hexes. "I'll take it over 'Thou art the son and heir of a mongrel bitch' any day."

"I believe you," she laughed, raising her glass to him. "I think most would. Though, I love a good Shall I compare the to a summer's day? Hot as hell." A joke, obviously, as that wasn't how the sonnet went.

"Sorry- I've always had a fondness for Shakespeare." Blame Romeo and Juliet. Exhibit A: her cat.

"I only really got into him around the mid-1800s." He'd been functionally illiterate until he was in his thirties. Advantages of being immortal: you could take all the time in the world to perfect skills others had already acquired. "No, no, go on. You're cute when you talk all flowery-like."

And there she goes, blushing again. "It's more interesting to hear you casually remark about the 19th Century!" Nancy said. "Besides, I really can't do Shakespeare on command, unfortunately." She was a prostitute, not an actress.

"The 19th century wasn't all that great. Just a lot of death, destruction, and syphilis. The 20th was much better. Unlimited running water, penicillin, and motorcycles. I sometimes think the only reason I was meant t'have lived this long was because I was born in the wrong century to begin with." He likes to think there's a purpose to his existence instead of just some randomness of the universe being at work.

Nancy giggles into the back of her hand. "Maybe that's it! Your biography would make a killing, I wouldn't doubt." It'd be the real equivalent of Jann Bean's Vampire Saga.

She looks awful pretty giggling like that. "If I'm ever hard-pressed for money, I'm hiring myself a ghostwriter and I'm gonna do just that." It would be a best-seller, of that he had no doubt. He'd led a very full and interesting life. "'Cause I can't write for shit."

Cooper, you just think she's pretty all the time.

"Well, there we have it. But since I gave you the idea, you're going to have to give me a cut of the royalties." She could drive a hard bargain if she needed to.

This is true. Doesn't keep him from thinking it all of the time. "You've got yourself a deal, girly-girl. Money is a nuisance 'n the sooner you earn enough of it t'live comfortably, the better off you are." Of course, most people didn't have the luxury of waiting around a hundred years and waiting for investments to pay off like he did. He'd won and lost about four different fortunes at this point in his life.

"Perfect." Nancy raises her glass to him. "I don't think I'll ever acquire that much, not with this life." She laughs it off though, like it's no big deal. She's never been able to consider herself even remotely wealthy. "So let's just hope you find yourself that ghost writer soon."

"Just keep your fingers crossed and hope you win the lottery." He supposes she must be making good money doing what she does already. At least, well enough not to be out on the streets and to be able to eat, and that was really all that mattered. He took another drink.

"Never been a gambler. I know all the tricks." and she wasn't shameless enough to use it to her advantage.

"Too bad I deal in limited resources."

"Ah, but what resources they are." He appreciatively eyes her once again. He nudges Nancy with his hand. "Looks like I'm not the only one." At a nearby table, there was a dark-haired man in his mid-twenties alternatively staring at Nancy and glowering at Cooper. It was rather entertaining. "Looks like you've caught another fish."

Nancy smiles, but turns to look behind her at the man. Handsome, looked like he had money to spare. Nancy batted her eyelashes innocently at him, then turned back to Cooper.

"So I have- you best get out of here, then."

"Be seeing you around, sweet-pea. Enjoy the rest of your night." He covers her small hand with his own larger one for a moment. Then he finishes his beer and gets up, humming a tune as he makes his way through the bar.

do you fly in the day, darling

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