[open] some nights, i call it a draw

[outstandingbalance]

I. Redbright Institute: night

Even knowing about their open door policy, Natasha hadn't entirely believed they'd take her. She isn't a student, for one thing, or even student passing. For another, she's a vampire. Vampires are't known for getting open invitations from other factions; at least not knowingly. Not without good reason. Mostly, though, she's never been exposed to anything quite like the institute before. She'd applied to join the outreach group as a wild grab, an attempt to have anyone at her back to keep her from being seen as a loner or a feral. Being either of those is a good way to end up with a target on her back.

And maybe, if she allows herself to think about it, the open door policy had sounds nice. It sounds like the direction she wanted to take. Everyone welcome as long as they play by the rules, keep the peace and keep their secrets. Natasha isn't the kind to let herself think that way too much, though, or get too optimistic.

Either way, it's a surprise when she's accepted.

She still fosters that surprise as she gives herself a tour of the grounds. It's in her carriage as she walks between buildings or down the halls; not overt confusion or surprise, but a little bit of skepticism, a little bit of caution, holding herself somehow a little reserved from her surroundings. Despite her years of training, there's still an air about her of someone who's not sure they belong, or maybe who knows they don't.


II. A Bar: also night

It could be any number of bars. Natasha hits a lot of them. She always picks the quieter ones, places where you can hear people talk to you and talking to each other. She's not in a good place for loud music or excited kids, or to get caught up in fights. She doesn't want to go places that feel like hunting grounds.

The thing is, she's here in the first place because she's thirsty. She's always, constantly thirsty, and she's trying hard not to go after the one thing she really wants. So like a cigarette addict reaching for a stick of gum, Natasha wanders into a bar. Alcohol is not what she wants, but it's one of the few things she can tell herself helps, at least a little.

She's usually sitting at the counter. Most nights, she orders vodka tonics. Bad nights, it's scotch neat. She doesn't try to strike up conversations, but she listens. Almost as much as the alcohol, it helps to listen to the low murmur of conversation around her. It's a reminder that the other patrons are real people, with lives and goals, things they want and look forward to, even if it's just a new job or getting in to pants of the girl at the coffee shop. It makes them more real, somehow.

So no, it's not a perfect coping mechanism, but it helps.


III. On A Night Bus: missed your train, didn't you?

There's a good mix of people on the bus tonight. A few kids toward the back on their way home from a party, looking tired and far from sober, but happy. A few older passengers coming back from bars, all seated alone and ranging from a professional looking woman sitting primly toward to front, brief case across her knees and gin martins on he breath, to a rough looking man slumped against one window, a nascent black eye just starting the darken his face.

Natasha's not sure what started the fight. It couldn't have been something anyone said, because she'd have heard it. One moment it's quiet. The next, a football fan and a derelict are climbing up into the aisle, in each others' faces and cursing. The bus driver calls back for them to settle down, but they don't.

It's not really that big of a deal—at least not in Natasha's mind. They're both just human. But the fight escalates, and the homeless man pushes the football fan hard just as the bus starts to slow to a jarring stop, and sends the fan stumbling toward her and the person seated next to her. It's reflex and instinct, that pull Natasha to her feet, bearing up to keep the fan on his feet and off their laps.

Which means that just for an instant, the person next to Natasha might get the view of a small woman catching a man a full head and more taller than her, from falling, keeping her balance in heels even as the night bus lurches to a stop. It's just a second, but if someone's watching, the'll see when she releases the lapse in her masquerade and remembers to stagger just a little under the man's weight, wobbling a little.

Then she shrugs free of the football fan, disengaging with a glare before she sits back down.

To whoever's sitting next to her, she gives an apologetic smile and plays it off smoothly, "Always something like that, isn't there?"

There's a faint Russian accent on her words, nothing that would interfere with clarity. The look that accompanies her words is innocent, as though nothing strange happened at all.


IV. Wildcard
((Hit me up at sarosaron if you have another idea.))

Comments

III

[facethewolves]

After a long day of moving furniture for elderly werewolves, Alex is too exhausted to walk back to her apartment. The bus route is circuitous and the sounds and smells of humans grate on her nerves, so she folds herself up in a seat by the window and stares out at the dark streets, trying to ignore everyone and everything until the bus gets to her stop.

The fight isn't her business or her problem, but when the two men get a little too close, Alex stands up, ready to lay them both out cold if she has to. The woman next to her intervenes instead, and Alex notices how strong she is, how quickly she moves to cover that up, and the faint smell of blood. It's not quite the same smell that Alex is used to from vampires - fainter, somehow, maybe... not human? - but it's enough to set her teeth on edge, and that combined with the woman's accent is too much for her frayed nerves to handle. She growls loudly.

[outstandingbalance]

Natasha's lips compress into a tight line at the growl—it keeps them from curling to flash a fang. Her own nostrils flare slightly. Her expression shutters, masklike.

Somehow, she'd been right next to a werewolf, and she hadn't noticed.

She couldn't afford to be that slow.

"That won't be necessary," she says, glancing away pointedly. She didn't intend to start another fight on the bus. She has the feeling theirs wouldn't be limited to drunken shoving and stumbling.

She's not about to show weakness either, though. "There are less conspicuous ways to stop a conversation."

[facethewolves]

Alex glowers, her hand gripping the back of her seat so hard that her knuckles turn white and the plastic starts to bend. The woman is right, of course, they shouldn't make a scene, but it's tempting to hit her anyway.

"What, like mind control?" she snarls. That's her least favorite vampire trick by far, even if she's never been on the receiving end of it.

Just then, the driver arrives to usher the two brawlers out onto the street, and Alex immediately shuts her mouth, keeping quiet until he's gone.

[outstandingbalance]

One of Natasha's eyebrow's kicks up at the other woman's response. Plenty of people aren't fans of vampires. Even so, that's a pretty quick escalation for a public setting.

If she's bothered by it (she is, a little), she keeps it off her face, and she keeps quiet until the drunks are off the bus and the driver is back behind the wheel.

At that point, she strongly considers letting the matter go. Sometimes that was the best move, tactically.

And sometimes, even Natasha didn't make the best tactical move.

So she sits back in her seat, one hand smoothing her skirt, her eyes on her own knees as she says calmly, "I had something a little less dramatic in mind. Asking me to take another seat, for example."

ii

[crowedthedead]

There are probably better things he can do that go out to a bar alone at night. He doesn't want to get drunk. He could do that at home, just as easily. But he's restless and a little frustrated with a spell not going the way he wanted, so he dresses up, slacks and a nice v-neck jumper the color of red wine, contrasting his pale skin and dark hair. He picks a bar at random, almost. It seems decently quiet, not rowdy like a club or a strip joint.

Soeki makes his way to the counter and sits down next to a woman for lack of anywhere else being free, and orders himself a whiskey on the rocks.

A moment later, he glances over at her, raising his glass. "To drinking alone?"

[outstandingbalance]

It is a scotch neat kind of night, and Natasha's sipping her way through her second when someone joins her at offers a toast. She lifts her glass, glancing over at him.

What she notices first is his throat. Good choice on the v-neck.

"Not really drinking alone if we have a toast, is it?" she says, pulling her eyes up to his face. She's pale, and the look she gives him is guarded, but not unwelcoming. She even manages a little bit of a smile.

[crowedthedead]

He's got an eye for fashion, what can he say. (No, he doesn't.) Soeki smiles, the corners of his mouth quirking up in an amused sort of way as he clinks his glass against hers before taking a drink. "We're drinking alone together? That's a thing. I'm pretty sure that's a thing." It's probably not a thing, but he's the master at making awkward conversation in bars with strangers.

i; trying to fill in stuff for Natasha to pick up on but poke me for anything else

[knightscode]

Natasha probably can hear and smell Lily before Lancelot himself. The pure white Samoyed is bounding about the lawns of the institute in the dark, sniffing around and bouncing merrily as Lancelot follows behind. Her fur is thick and soft, designed to protect her from cold Siberian weather, eyes dark and expression about as happy as a dog can get. She freezes once she spots Natasha, tilts her head curiously and opts to wait for her owner to catch up.

Lancelot himself is only wearing a light jacket, dark hair ruffled as if he's been running fingers through it and jeans a little worn in (probably from the dog, one might guess). He's restless but not on guard, as if he's simply been pacing about thinking. It isn't his appearance, however, the might interest Natasha. It's the way he feels.

Like fae magic, like Seelie magic, but not like a fae. He is a metahuman, after all.

He pauses at the sight of Natasha, tilts his head and holds out a hand to Lily. A light whistle gets her attention and she bounds back obediently, stops in front of him and gazes up expectantly as she sits down.

"Hi," he says finally, and his accent is a soft, received english accent contrary to the southern european complexion he has. "I didn't expect to see anyone else out here so late."

IT LOOKS GOOD TO ME

[outstandingbalance]

Natasha stops when she sees the dog; she's a lovely dog, but hard to say how she'll feel about strange vampires running across her walk. She'd really rather not murder someone's dog her first day with the institute. That concern only lasts an instant. Lancelot takes her attention.

Fae, but not fae.

"Can see why you wouldn't," she says. Her English is clear, but lightly accented. She's not hiding that she's Russian. "You're the first person I've run into out here."

Sliding her hands in her pockets, she picks her way a little closer.

"Didn't mean to surprise you."

[knightscode]

"No, no, it's fine -- I just probably shouldn't let Lily bound about like this if she's in danger of crashing into people..."

He crouches to her and clips a leash onto the halter around her, ruffles at her ears as she leans into him.

"Lost? You look like you're looking for something."

She could, of course, simply be looking for an easy way to break in -- but Lancelot doesn't think she is. Most burglars are opportunistic and would bolt at the first sign of anyone else, after all. Besides which, she didn't look like she was casing the place. Just... looking.

III

[dredefulchilde]

Joscelin hates public transit, but it's a necessary evil sometimes. It's just a complicated one. A child alone late at night attracts attention; he's had the "nice" Transport for London officers stop him and ask inconvenient questions just a few too many times for him to ever want to take the Underground again. Buses are somewhat more anonymous, though still annoying. Especially when he finds himself sitting next a fellow vampire.

It's unusually crowded on the top deck tonight; between the vampire and the drunkards he'll take the empty seat next to the vampire. Especially once a fight breaks out. He watches impassively as the vampire catches a heavily intoxicated man and pretends to stagger under his weight. It's a masterful charade, but centuries of experience has him somewhat less than impressed. Honestly, he doesn't think it's worth the effort. None of these people will remember them in the morning, which is exactly what he wants. They're laughably easy marks.

And that's why he's actually a little surprised when she turns to speak to him. He'd figured she was out hunting for a meal, hence the act. Keep their guard down.

"Useless idiots, the lot of them." His language and mannerisms are awfully adult for one who appears so young, but right now he isn't pretending.

[outstandingbalance]

Natasha realizes her mistake as soon as the words are out of her mouth, before the boy even responds. She's been more or less avoiding her own kind since she arrived in London, and that combined with his apparent youth and the weight of his actual age, throws her off balance. She speaks to diffuse the tension, but the sense of discomfort had been one sided.

She dislikes making mistakes; dwelling on that discomfort is dangerous, though, so she pushes it down, identified, labeled, boxed up and set aside like so many others before.

"Not entirely useless," she says, pivoting. Her tone is noncommittal. One way or the other, vampires have always had more use for humans than the other way around. It's up to him what he reads into it.

"At least, not all of them."

[dredefulchilde]

"They're good for a full belly, nothing more," Joscelin points out. "Better still if they're not likely to be missed for a few days; you can drag the thing out a bit. Ultimately most of them aren't intelligent enough to be helpful in any other ways." He knew many perfectly capable humans, but there certainly weren't any on the bus tonight.

He pauses for a moment, considering the woman next to him. She's quite young, even younger than Coward. Practically an infant.

"I don't know that I've had the pleasure of making your acquaintance." A beat. "You're new here."

It isn't a question.

iii

[itsconceptual]

What a pair of wankers.

Effy has been listening to the fight, eyes lazily fixed on the darkened window to her side, occasionally glancing at their vague reflection. For a while, it's not worth bothering with -- whatever it's about, it's just a stupid, little fight. She's seen plenty of them. Once things begin to escalate, though, some of the disinterested charade gives way. Blue eyes slide in the direction of the fight, tensing up a bit as one of the aggressors begins to stumble right onto her and her seatmate--

...For a moment, just a moment, after Natasha grabs hold of the man towering over her, the calm mask is gone entirely, replaced by full-on bug-eyed surprise. The look vanishes after a moment, after she bites back the automatic "what the fuck?" that she wants to shout out as Natasha returns to her seat. Instead, for a second, she just stares.

"Right," she says, finally, guarded but at least able to acknowledge that this woman really wants to play that off as no big deal. "Someone always has to start shit."

[outstandingbalance]

The girl saw, and she saw enough to believe her eyes. Natasha weighs the girl's reaction quickly, taking in the details. She saw, and she believed it, and she was shocked, but not too shocked not to pivot.

Interesting.

Maybe a little suspicious. Natasha had taken the girl for human, but now she pays more attention. And as she studies her, she smiles and she continues the conversation. "Especially on the night buses," she says. "I guess you've seen a lot of it, if you're a night person too."

[itsconceptual]

Maybe she's still drunk. Maybe she's tripping -- though she doesn't remember taking anything. But how likely is it, really, that she actually just witnessed all of that? It's bizarre. Things like that, they don't just...happen.

Or maybe they do. That's why she came to London, after all.

Something about that smile, or the way Natasha reacts so calmly, it makes her suppress a shudder. There's such a thing as too calm, and maybe that reaction has sort of hit that point, but it also forces her to acknowledge that, no, she's not drunk enough to have hallucinated it. There's something very dangerous --very interesting-- about this woman, something she can't quite put a finger on.

"... I think you see a lot of it even if you're not." She offers a sort of noncommittal half-shrug, eyebrows lifting. "There's plenty of fucked up people out there."

II

[kleptofaeniac]

[Kenzi missed bar life desperately. Despite the fact that nothing tasted good anymore, she was still trying to make it work. She used to drink like a fish, but now she was replacing alcohol with blood and while it sounded gross on paper she couldn't deny that it actually...ugh.

Kenzi shook her head in a cartoonish fashion as she opened the door to the warm lit inside of the bar. She refused to be a stereotype and start munching on someone's neck just because they looked yummy.

Not thinking of people in terms of pizza.

Oh, God pizza.

As Kenzi lamented her much narrower prospects for enjoying a meal, she wasn't aware that she was quietly chanting under her breath - which anyone with superior hearing could listen in on:]

Don't eat anyone, don't eat anyone, don't eat anyone. Don't. Eat. Anyone.

[outstandingbalance]

[Natasha might have noticed even without the chanting. The younger vampire's situation isn't exactly subtle—not to someone who's seen it before, even been through it. Not so long ago she doesn't remember, either.

Not that she'd been trying not to eat people at the time, but still... it gave a girl an idea what to look for.

On the other hand, the chanting helps. And it is probably why Natasha decides to do what she does. If she thought Kenzi was out on the prowl, she would have excused herself. Instead, she orders a second vodka tonic, and carries it and her original half finished drink over to slide into the space beside her, holding out the glass in front of her.]

Here. You look thirsty.

[She doesn't even make eye contact. Not at first.]

[kleptofaeniac]

[Kenzi doesn't even say hi before she downs the whole thing in a few swift gulps. She's a consummate drinker and it shows now.

Her mouth twists unpleasantly though. Normally she loved vodka - it was her everything. Now it tasted like sewage.

Or at least, what she thought it tasted like.]

Eaugh. Thanks, I guess.

Redbright Institute

[fatherswatch]

There's a new scent in the air. It's something that catches Illya's attention on his night rounds. He does them twice a week now -- it used to be more, but he also has to monitor other things as a Guardian, so his security work here has been cut back somewhat. Still, he knows the smell of death, and he follows it carefully, cutting a few turns off so he can turn a corner and face the newcomer.

What he is will be obvious. Vampires and werewolves know each other.

"Do you have any identification?" he asks. It's not overtly hostile. Or, at least, he doesn't mean for it to be. Most people would hear the Russian accent, see the large stature, and assume complete hostility. "May I see it?"

[outstandingbalance]

Natasha isn't most people. The accent gives her pause, but not because she finds it intimidating. She left Moscow for a reason, and that does worry her. But even with her enemies in the nest there, she doesn't think they'd reach out to a werewolf. She'd have been more worried if he were human, oddly enough.

When she responds, it's in Russian—clearly her first language—and colored with a certain dark humor.

"Are you really asking for my papers," she asks, reaching into the inner pocket of her jacket calmly. As though she wouldn't have something. What she produces is a passport and a few loose sheets from her recent interview about joining. It's the best she has at the moment. "The birthday is fake. The name isn't."

[fatherswatch]

"Da," he responds. The Russian... Well, honestly, it's nice to hear. He doesn't hear it enough lately. Not for years. How long has he been away from his home? Long enough that he actually smiles a little and continues in their shared language. "I would ask any stranger, but I am particularly inclined to be suspicious of a beautiful woman."

So far as he's concerned, it's a simple statement of fact. A beautiful woman, especially a vampire, ought to be considered dangerous.

Her passport gets only a cursory look; it's the interview sheets he really pays attention to. And they meet his required level of scrutiny before he hands them back and gives a nod.

"Welcome to the staff, then. Illya Kuryakin, night security."

I

[protagonized]

You get all types at Redbright, even in the wee hours of the morning after Simon's finished up something for Outreach. You don't get many vampires, though.

Simon smells the vampire before he sees her. He's already tensed when she comes into view, hackles raised (or they would be if he had any hackles in human form). Is she out to hunt? Does she want to eat him? Does she want to eat any of the students?

"...Good evening."

[outstandingbalance]

"Evening," Natasha echoes him, eyeing the newcomer. Meta-human? She doesn't think so. Something that knows what she is? Maybe it's paranoia, but her instinct is that he is. She can see the signs of suspicion in him.

Subtly, she changes her stance, making herself look less threatening.

"Am I interrupting something? I didn't expect to run into anyone."

[protagonized]

"I bet you didn't."

It comes out like a challenge. If she's out hunting, she'll have a to go through him. But that just makes Simon even more nervous. What chance does a fairly weak shapeshifter have when compared to a creature of the night? She's a fucking vampire.

"This is a school. There are kids here. If you're planning on hunting..."