undergrounds | just walk on in ( for joss )

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just walk on in ( for joss )

It started as an absolutely routine trip to the store. Nancy'd ducked into her nearest magic shop, looking to replenish a few of her supplies. You could never have enough candles or sage, after all. With a small basket tucked under her arm, she'd picked up a few different items, looking at new herbs and books on charms. She almost didn't notice him- but when it was almost too late she noticed his soft, dirty-blonde hair.

As soon as she saw it, she knew who it was. It was the boy- Joss, Cooper had told her- the one she had taken in after she'd found him. A child vampire, she'd been heartbroken for him, though Cooper alleged he'd truly been over six-hundred-years-old. She could hardly believe it, and honestly it was the very last thing on her mind when she saw him. She'd spent hours imagining where he was, hoping he was okay after he'd run out of her apartment. To her, he'd been a sweet, lost boy, not some old, cruel man.

But isn't that how it always went?

"Joss!" She called, and immediately ran over to him, wrapping her arms around his small shoulders. "You're alright!"

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"So I'm told," he replies mildly. Of course the salmon's good. It had an article written about it in The Daily Telegraph once. In 1982. He orders it every time he comes here and now is no exception.

When Nancy offers to buy Joscelin a drink, he stiffens. Goes even colder. Is she pitying him? Does she still think of him as a child to be coddled?

"No, thank you. I've no wish to attract any more attention than was already drawn to us earlier, this particular establishment's ownership notwithstanding."

She's not pitying him. She's trying to help an older man stuck in a kid's body.

"Oh, of course." She says with a tighter smile. "You don't mind if I drink then, do you?" She was going to drink regardless. She always had a flask on her person these days, it seemed. Something that should probably be cause for concern.

He smiles thinly. "Not at all."

Joscelin considers showing off his knowledge of fine wines and ordering her some expensive vintage, but he instead leaves it to her to order her drink. He's growing tired of being gentlemanly; this is more social interaction with a mortal that isn't a food source than he's had in weeks and he finds it tiring.

"And how is Cooper?" He doesn't actually want to know.

Nancy, actually, goes for a gin martini. One that's mostly just gin, truth be told.

"He's brilliant," Nancy starts to gush. "Working for the Night Council really suits him, I think. Just had a birthday last month, too. That was something special." She'd given him one hell of a birthday surprise. But it wasn't something she was going to share the details with a very old vampire in the body of a very small child. That was really not okay in her book.

"I imagine." This is getting intolerable. He doesn't like Cooper--he may even hate him--and hearing about him isn't making his mood any better. He'd asked to be polite, not because he cares.

"I must admit that I was somewhat surprised by the election results. He's risen rather swiftly through the ranks." He can't help a little bit of bitterness in his voice. "I thought Cesare Borgia was more likely to win the seat."

There are worse things in the world than having lunch with a pretty girl, Joss. Especially not one that you did have your face buried in the breasts of. Even if it was for comfort.

"He used to be in-charge of part of a nest back in the United States," Nancy explains. "Most people just like to make it seem like he doesn't have any experience because he looks so young." She presses her lips together. "I like Cesare well enough, but... I couldn't vote for him, in good conscious."

Oh dear. Now Nancy's given him an opening.

"'In good conscience," he echoes, a little mockingly. "Conscience hasn't got anything to do with it; it's not a trait vampires put a lot of stock in. No matter how young we look." Cooper has very little sympathy from Joscelin in that regard. At least he had gone through puberty before his death.

"Having a conscience is a sure way to end up on the business end of a wooden stake or a silver bullet."

"Pardon me for being human, then," Nancy says, frowning. Already now she was wishing she'd ordered a double martini. "A conscience is a rare thing, where I come from." Fagin certainly had none to speak of, as had been the case with her boyfriend before Cooper.

"And I've managed to survive with one so far."

"And where is that?" He's smirking as he tucks into his salad. "Where do you come from, Nancy?" He enunciates the syllables just enough to draw attention to his BBC-perfect accent.

He sighs patronizingly. "You're young. You'll grow out of that soon enough."

Nancy purses her lips, looking at Joss over the top of her martini glass. "Saffron Hill," she tells him plainly. She'd been raised in poverty, working on the streets by the time she was thirteen. It was only recently she had any money at all, and most of that was Cooper's.

"No, I don't think I will. If I was going to have grown out of it, it would have happened already."

Had the upper-middle class existed in the fourteenth century Joscelin would have been born into it - the beloved youngest son of a ruthlessly ambitious cleric whose pretensions of status and hunger for power had gotten him a bishop's mitre and made him a big fish in the relatively small pond of Cambridgeshire - but he's experienced his share of cold and hungry nights during his exceptionally long life. You'd think that would have given him a little empathy, diluted his classism and open contempt for the common man, but it had only cemented it further. He grins mockingly at her. "Lovely place," he replies sarcastically.

"More's the pity. You'll not survive very long."

"It was a roof over my head and a place to sleep." There was an upstairs loft where they all slept, an odd miss-matched collection of mattresses and miscellaneous furniture to create a bit of a make-shift dorm. She remembered it fondly, thinking of the warmth they'd created in that place. Even if Fagin hadn't turned the heat on.

Sometimes Saffron Hill really could be a lovely place.

"You're the second person to tell me that in as many months." Mogget, too, had made it known she wouldn't live long. "Not that it's anything new to me. I'm surprised I made it this far." She's astonishingly frank about it. But girls with her sort of life never lived long.

She's not rising to his baiting. She keeps deflecting him, saying things that are damnably reasonable when he wants her to get upset so that maybe he won't feel the nagging sense of owing her anymore. He needs an excuse and she's not giving him one.

Time to go nuclear.

"Then why do you keep on? You're temporary, you know. Even if you don't get yourself killed you'll get old. You'll wither, lose your...charms, and Cooper will move on to greener pastures. You're mortal; that means you're replaceable."

Her face falls.

Temporary. Her blood turns cold at the word. She'd never considered herself that. But that's what happens when you're hundreds of years old. You start to view others as temporary. Like her problems didn't matter, because in five years she'd be dead.

"He promised me." He'd be there for her when she was old and grey and he'd be there with her. She knew that would never be the case, deep down. But it was a safe thought. Like being with Cooper wouldn't end.

But that was temporary, too. Bill would get out of prison, and she'd leave Cooper. Or they'd come to the point where what they wanted was so different that they couldn't stay together- Nancy, after all, wanted a real family. Cooper couldn't give her that. They both knew it.

She swallows. "And there are people that need me. As long as I'm alive, and I don't intend on letting them down."

Nancy doesn't look at Joss.

It's a victory, but it doesn't feel like one.

Joscelin has gotten what he wanted: he's drawn blood. He can keep twisting the knife, but he finds there's less sport in it than he thought there would be.

So instead he finds himself saying something he normally wouldn't. "People are weak and fallible. They will invariably disappoint you." He sounds surprisingly bitter. "Don't put too much stock in them, or their promises."

She keeps her gaze on the table, takes a drink. She's going to need even more to drink when she gets back to Cooper's flat.

"They might, and they do. You don't need to tell me- I know. But that's not me. I try to keep my promises, to the best of my ability. No honor among thieves, all that, but at least I'm trying."

"You can keep your promises all you want and still end up disappointed," Joscelin points out. "Self-interest is what makes us human." He smiles ironically. "Well, in a figurative sense. I haven't been human in a very long time."

Still selfish, though.

"I've never been a selfish person. Funny, considering I was raised by one of the most selfish people I know." The bitterness was hard to miss. "But I'm always surprised by the goodness in people."

She tried so hard to see the good in people. Of course, her bar for what was considered good and what was bad was considerably low.

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just walk on in ( for joss )

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