Roadtrip of Denial: Swallow a drop of gravel and blacktop 'Cause the road tastes like wintergreen

[emptynight]

Darkness. The night was so ink-black and thick, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, much less the path in front of him. He stumbled, and the unseen rocks and jagged ice cut into his clothes and his skin. An icy wind blew and seeped into the growing rips in his clothes and his skin, a chill that lodged into his very bones, that seemed to grow until it obliterated the very memory of warmth. He couldn’t stop. Something was driving him onward, one painful step at a time. He shivered from the cold, and that only made him fall again, in the dark, into the ice and glass and rocks. His hands were cold, slick with icy slush and blood, but he still moved, on hands and knees until he could get his feet back under him, and then stumbling steps in the dark. Relentless. Always moving.

And suddenly there was light. Where there had been darkness and uncertainty there was now light. Light that illuminated his path, that showed him the world, a place of beauty and marble statues. He left behind jagged rocks for artful columns and tasteful drapery, a place of sunlight and warmth. The wounds on his hands and knees healed, flesh knit closed and warm water rinsed away traces of blood and ice. The drive to move, to always keep moving forward faded, and he found rest. Rest in this place of marble and ivory where there had been before only lost wandering. Warmth where there had been ice. Fulfillment where there had been hunger.

Hunger. Warmth. Something warm and soft at his feet. Thomas looked down, and instead of warm cloth and blankets, it was a woman, slim and lovely, her face frozen in a moment of utter bliss. Dark hair, smooth olive skin. A rosy flush in her cheeks. Wide dark eyes, empty and staring. The warm world around him seemed to change, or perhaps he did. Where there had been ivory and marble was now bleached bone, the lovely columns taking on a patina of decay, the air so warm and inviting a second ago now curling with the sickly sweet scent of rot.

The fall of another at his feet, a man this time. Sinewy and well-muscled. Dark hair and dusty chin. His eyes staring wide and empty at the ceiling, his face forever twisted into panting desire. Another. Red hair and a haughty face turned wanting and mindless with desire. Dead green eyes. Another and another and another. Blonde hair mingled with black, with strands of gold and shocking pink. Eyes staring, lips parted. Always staring. He tried to step backwards, but found himself surrounded. More and more and more. A neverending parade of them spread out at his feet.

Fear rose in his throat, black and bitter, as he fumbled, stepping over the tangled limbs. His legs caught on one and he fell into waiting arms. This one perhaps the worst. Pale smooth skin. Long silken hair the colour of chocolate. The curve of a throat that fit perfectly into his hand. Wide eyes that had held such strength and understanding now empty and frozen. Trembling lips that had parted for him a thousand times now fighting for a single last breath.

They were his. All his. All wanting and needing and walking to their deaths. The world of bleached bone mocked him in its cold austere beauty and terror. A cold wind whipped through him, carrying a whisper on the wind, telling him this was his, all his. All there would ever be…

*****

Thomas woke with a start, trembling as the tenacious tendrils of cold terror and sleep clung to him. He reached out instinctively for Alice, a familiar warm presence against his mind, but found nothing. The logical part of him sighed in relief, not wanting anyone to see him like this, shaking and terrified of unseen things. It wasn’t until he sat up, throwing the covers aside with every intention of making a cup of strong coffee, that Thomas noticed he wasn’t alone.

A young woman sat on the hotel room issue couch, slim and pale, with short dark hair, and her face buried in the hotel directory. “Lacci?” Thomas asked, rubbing his eyes with a hand.

At his voice, the young woman looked up, a smile on frozen raspberry lips. “Is that her name?” Maeve cooed, the short hair flowing back into cool glacial colours as she stood up. She managed to cross the small hotel room slowly, with unnaturally graceful, undulating steps despite the short distance, and stopped within arm’s reach of Thomas.

“What are you doing here?” he asked sharply, fingers tightening on the hotel bedspread as he forced himself to still, not to flinch away.

Maeve blinked, and her eyes shone with the colours of a winter sky. “You haven’t been sleeping well, my knight,” she said, conversationally, trailing a finger on the bedspread, following the curling design with a tracery of ice. “I only came to see if I could offer my services.”

Thomas’ eyes flickered between Maeve and the creeping ice on his bedspread, but he kept his voice calm despite the tension he couldn’t hide. “I’m not your knight, Lady Maeve,” he said, careful and firm. “I don’t think there’s any service you could render me.”

“Oh really now, Thomas Raith.” The way his name rolled off her tongue made something tingle between his shoulder blades, and Thomas tried hard not to think about it. “There are many services I think you would be interested in.” She smiled again. The gesture would have been warm and inviting if she hadn’t be so cold, her beauty and pull so obviously inhuman. “Dreamless sleep. Power. And end to your struggles. An end to fear. Even, if you wish it, to touch that girl again.” The last was spoken with almost casual indifference even as Maeve shifted again, hair growing long, pale as snow. Her eyes grew dark and knowing. A sweet smile curved on her lips, painful in how familiar it was, as she touched his hand with her fingertips, trailing a cool path up his arm.

Justine’s touch had always been warm. The dissonance made Thomas jerk away, moving to place himself between Maeve and the door. “I don’t think so. But I’m flattered by your consideration. I’ll send you my resume if I change my mind,” Thomas answered, his sarcasm’s effectiveness blunted by quaver of longing that escaped. His hand tightened on the door knob and he opened the door, gesturing to the hallway. “If you don’t mind, I’m expecting company. Dinner.”

Maeve laughed, melting back into herself, icy dreadlocks and frozen berry lips. “I adore resolute men,” she purred, brushing past Thomas with a whisper of snow. “It’s all the more satisfying when they accept.”

The breeze that whispered by smelled of pine and snow-covered mountaintops, and Maeve was gone. With slow, deliberate movements, Thomas closed the hotel room door and sat down on the couch, watching the bedspread, where the elaborate pattern of frost was beginning to melt.

((Tag Alice!))

Comments

[manicpixydream.livejournal.com]

"I was wrong, ok, I was totally wrong unless you like mourning the pointless death of thousands of shoes (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/9676) there might not be a whole lot going for Albuquerque except I really like saying it, and ok there's cute stuff but you know I guess it's hard to follow Vegas, and the hotel (http://www.hotelandaluz.com/photo_gallery/) is really nice, this guy Luis at the front desk was so totally sweet, he offered to show me the best night spots or something but really there was just a package for you-" Alice stopped her monologue abruptly when she saw the look on Thomas' face, setting both her shopping bag and the package on a side table.

"Thomas? Did you have a nightmare?" She'd been really, really good about pretending those weren't happening, especially when they got better in Vegas - even if she was worried about why they'd gotten better - but he looked like he'd seen a ghost.

[emptynight]

It took longer than normal for his mind to process what Alice was saying, and even so, Thomas couldn't keep his eyes off the puddle of water now forming on the bedspread. "No, I mean yes," he answered without thinking. "I mean, no worse than usual. I just had an unexpected visitor."

He needed something. Activity. Something to keep him from staring at the bedspread, staring at where the Winter Lady had stood, wearing Justine's form like a coat. The scent of pine and snow lingered, a constant reminder, until Thomas forced himself to stop staring at the bedspread and jerked his eyes away to land on the coffee maker. Coffee.

He all but jumped up and began pouring water into the pot, ripping open a bag of coffee and tossing the packet into the top. Coffee to cover up the smell of evergreen, something to drink to wake him up and shake off the dream. It'd been the worst one yet. His fingers shook a little as he poured the water into the coffee pot. "Bad way to wake up," he said with a frail, sheepish smile. "How was the Shoe Tree thing? Not what you'd hoped for?"

[manicpixydream.livejournal.com]

"No it wasn't what I'd hoped for, it was a bunch of shoes nailed to a pole, Thomas a visitor? What the hell? Who even knows you're here aside from the package person which is a question on its own lemme tell you. And why does it smell like a forest in here?" And why are you shaking, and did you wet the bed except I can tell you didn't, but that was enough questions in a row. She missed Jasper, really and truly, but it was a lot easier keeping a lid on herself now that Thomas was there. Her headaches had gotten so much better.

"Thomas, come on." She put a hand on his once the coffee was brewing. "What's going on? You're scaring me."

Actually he'd been scaring her a little already. Nothing major. They'd had such a great time in Vegas, and when he'd slept she'd tested the limits of her sight which, on her own, was a pretty small radius, so she'd increased her already ridiculous fortune by quite a bit before they kicked her out. They always kicked her out.

And when he wasn't sleeping they'd been drinking, laughing, actually relaxing. He seemed way better, less like some hollowed out person masquerading as Thomas, and it wasn't like she minded when he started going off with waiters or showgirls or whatever, she had plenty of fun on her own, it was just more and more of them. Every night they'd been there he'd fed a little more, drank a little more, seemed more reckless, and that was kind of good, he was loosening up. But it was kind of weird, too.

Now she wished they were still back there so she could be a little worried instead of really scared. "I'm not just the chick on the back of your bike, ok? I'm a big girl and I have a brain, you can tell me what's happening if something is."

[emptynight]

It was the touch of Alice's hand on his, all sour fear and worry, more than her barrage of questions that made Thomas stop, made him pull his eyes away from the coffee percolating away. He had hoped (probably foolishly) that once he'd left the house, once he'd proven to himself that he was under control, that the nightmares would go away, that the Fae would realize he wasn't worth their time.

Apparently he was wrong on both counts. And it was all made worse by the fact that the gnawing hunger was back. He'd fed in Vegas. Fed often, like he had at the house, hunting multiple does and bucks in one night, a cocktail waitress here, a dealer there. And here it was again, that gnawing hunger at the back of his mind, the emptiness in his soul gaping just a little wider.

"I know." The words slipped out quietly, without thought, even as Thomas tried to find the words to explain. "She found me once while Lacci and I were out," he said, careful and hesitant, as if the very mention of her would bring Maeve back. "The Faerie. The Winter Lady. Whatever you want to call her. Wanted to make a deal."

The coffee maker was still bubbling away, but the strong smell of slightly burnt coffee was already overpowering the lingering scent of snow. Thomas sat down heavily on the hotel couch and ran a hand through his hair, a look of lost disbelief on his face. "I thought it was all going to stop once I got away from everything. Once I got back in control."

[manicpixydream.livejournal.com]

Alice talked a mile a minute, sure. No one was more aware of that than she was, but she wondered sometimes how it was other people just condensed such huge pieces of information into tiny little sentences, like that was better. The weird consequence was that she ended up responding in kind 'cause she really, really had to think, and it was noisy in Alice's head to begin with.

"She wanted to make a deal?" Alice had heard whispers of all kinds of stuff over the years, had seen more stuff than she actually had names for just by looking at people's paths, and the Fae or whatever, they were bad fucking news. The door Thomas had cut had been hilarious just to see the look on Edward's face - he never believed her when she told him there were way more than vampires and werewolves in the world, which, so blind - but the cat thing had been less amusing, and now there was a Queen popping up regularly? And she wanted Thomas? Bad didn't even begin to cover it.

Then there was the whole other spiel Thomas had gone into about control and everything stopping and it wasn't totally comforting, all at once. What she'd wanted to hear was that he was just getting his sea legs back and it was all totally normal, even if she didn't completely buy it. Everyone needed room to wobble for awhile, but Alice wasn't stupid. She knew damned well what 'everything' was code for, and that raised a bunch of questions that for once, she really didn't want to ask. Didn't mean she wasn't going to have to. Damnit.

Alice curled onto the couch, slipping her arms around Thomas' waist. "You seem pretty in control to me aside from not being able to make a cup of coffee worth a damn, that smells foul." He looked even more helpless than he had when she'd come in, which again, bad sign. "Thomas? Your nightmares. I mean- do you remember anything else? What happened when you left?"

[emptynight]

"Don't say that like you think I'm going to accept any sort of deal with the fae. I swear you and Lacci talk like I don't have an ounce of common sense," Thomas grumbled, letting Alice wrap her arms around him without complaint. He didn't even manage false irritation, which actually did irritate him on some level. Unfortunately, his mind was too busy being currently occupied by the fact that Maeve had found him.

He did manage a smile at the coffee crack though. "Smells better than snow and pine," he pointed out, unconsciously resting against Alice. The memories floated back to the top of his mind easily, spurred by the nightmares and the question. He was too tired tonight, too tired and unsettled to put forth the effort right now to hide, and Thomas suspected Alice recognized it, was striking while the iron was freaked out and unstable, so to speak.

"When I actually left, or everything that led up to it?" He frowned a little, remembering the bar. The memories there were fuzzy, as if seen through a haze of curling smoke. If he inhaled deeply, he thought he could smell it. Roses and night blooming jasmine, niggling at the back of his mind like some little tic or itch just out of reach.

"I remember being hungry. And there was the girl." Her name was Grace. He tried not to think too hard about that. Everything had been clearer, sharper, more in focus that night because he thought he needed it, needed the Hunger's awareness to keep them safe from the Other. "Dru... not Her, but Dru, was there. With the girl. Offering her like some sort of appetizer." Thomas shivered a little at the memory. There had been frustration. Irritation. Things he hadn't recalled at the time because he had been so seduced by the scent of roses and jasmine. The scent of madness.

Thomas blinked a little, several puzzle pieces falling into place. "I think Edward and I might have fought over a girl." His words were almost comical in their simplicity, coloured even more so by his own disbelief at the idea.

[manicpixydream.livejournal.com]

The Fae could wait, he really wasn't that stupid and overall she really didn't want to know what they might have offered him, safe to say it was a bad experience and she'd leave it at that except for keeping an eye out.

For now she took his weight and let him rest while he groped for memories, even if it did make her head hurt and that was mostly her own frustration at not being able to have just seen it, but she kept a clamp on that. She was getting used to it, and anyway she didn't want to interrupt his train of thought with shiny new emotions popping up and waving signs.

"So you and Edward... what, had an argument about who got to feed?" That didn't seem right, not with all the footage she'd seen of the two of them living it up in co-ed town. And Dru had just been Dru apparently, which along with the past few days was beginning to make her think her understanding of the whole situation had been really, scarily wrong.

She stayed as calm as you could under those circumstances which was something she was pretty schooled at, thanks to Jasper. Just hugged him a little tighter and tried to word it right. "What happened next?"

[emptynight]

It didn't seem fair that despite everything, this would be the thing that hurt the most to admit. So Thomas didn't. Ignored the look Alice was giving him as he poured too much sugar and fake powdery creamer into his burnt coffee and stirred it with the stupid little plastic stir stick. Even without looking he could tell she was still staring, as if boring a hole in the back of his head through strength of will alone.

He drained the cup in one gulp, letting it scald all the way down, burned flesh knitting immediately. "Drop it, Alice. Please."

[manicpixydream.livejournal.com]

Stunned was not something Alice got to feel a whole lot. She almost appreciated the experience, or she would have if she hadn't right away been so frustrated she almost threw the stupid thing at him.

"You idiot! I can't believe you didn't tell me this!" Oh god oh god, she loved him, really and truly loved him. "You unbelievable- do you know what this means? I was wrong about nearly everything!" So many things were falling into place that even Alice, who was used to juggling way more than her fair share of Things to Think all at once had to sit down. He'd known the whole time, the whole time and just let her keep- no, ok, that was the wrong thread. Follow the yellow brick or whatever.

"Say it. I want to hear you say it out loud."

[emptynight]

"No."

When Thomas didn't want to talk about something, it got hidden behind grins and danced around with words. It was a testament to just how much he didn't want to talk about this that he resorted to actual anger. Alice was a bundle of frustration and budding anger behind him, but he had plenty of anger on his side to outlast the siege.

"I'm tossing that in the dumpster tomorrow, so there's really nothing left to talk about." Anger clipped his words, made his voice rough and sharp, hiding the lie.

[manicpixydream.livejournal.com]

"You are not." Alice was not impressed with the whole Thomas SMASH routine. He could shout himself hoarse if he wanted to, there wasn't a creature on the earth that could withstand Alice Cullen with a full head of steam.

"Fine. So you won't say it out loud. I will. She's in love with you. Drusilla the woman, Drusilla the vampire, Drusilla the frigging Goddess is in love with you, capital L, meaning she's not a whole other thing entirely, meaning I was wrong about so much stuff you do not even- and you just left. I can't even digest this. And you're pissed at me? That's frankly totally hilarious Thomas, nothing left to talk about my entire tiny ass."

Actually she was kind of surprised she was managing as many whole sentences as she did. She sure as hell was keeping a death grip on that box.

"Why the hell would you throw this away?" It was only the first of about a million questions, but it was the one that rose to the top. The rest could wait until he was feeling more like a reasonable grown up.

[emptynight]

Anger helped a lot of things. Harry always seemed to make things blow up the most when he was angry (granted, it might have only seemed that way. Charred buildings tended to look the same after a while). Right now, anger was keeping Thomas from flinching with every word Alice uttered.

"Because I don't want it." Don't deserve to have it. He tossed the coffee cup into the trash and made to brush past Alice for the door. "And yes I'm pissed at you. Because you wouldn't leave it alone! Because now you're going to want to fix things that shouldn't be fixed." His voice was rising. He was probably shouting by this point, but he needed out, needed to not be looking at Alice. The smile he gave Alice was sharp and cold. "I'm going out. Find a club. Eat everyone inside."

More like find the nearest liquor store and buy out their entire stock of liquor.

[manicpixydream.livejournal.com]

"Oh that's perfect, run from me now, and for sure get your demon on, is that the plan? It's totally the best one you've come up with so far. Thomas I'm trying to help if you'd listen for more than five seconds, you sound like- I don't even know if Edward gets this bad, and since when are you the psychic? I'm going to try to fix everything, yeah? Well explain to me how I'm gonna do that cause I'd be really interested in any kind of clue right now."

Never mind the fact that this information was only totally relevant to everything Alice had in front of her. She'd made that point and it wasn't what was pissing her off right now. Alice took great pains to keep her voice steady and calm and not at all shouty.

"You're being a brat. Worse than. If that's how you want to deal then go, eat as many people as you like, get stupid drunk and strand me in fucking Albuquerque, or you could sit down and breathe and stop looking at me like I'm some monster enemy you don't even know. Cause I'm pretty sure we're friends."

[manicpixydream.livejournal.com]

She could kill him, Alice thought, she really could. First Dru, and that was totally enough, but now the revelation - which totally shouldn't have been one, not after she'd watched him in Vegas - that there was no problem, there never had been. There was something wrong with boys, she thought. And people under a century. And this list was going to get really long if she thought about it much more.

Anyway she couldn't be mad, not when he looked as worn out as he did now. She'd save that for the next time he got all tetchy, maybe when their hadn't been a frigging faerie visitation. It was making the whole course of action and next step thing a lot clearer, that was for sure.

"I know it's still you, you know. I mean-" She crawled back towards him, sat on his lap. "Ok so it's not all of you, but it's just like when I'm really hungry or whatever. It's kind of a nasty scene, just mine doesn't have as well-developed a vocabulary. Everyone gets all gimme gimme gimme sometimes, yours just comes with some sort of evolutionary boost and lemme tell you, pretty powerful one, you weren't kidding." She dropped a kiss on his jaw.

"God you need to shave, but whatever, you're kind of pulling off the scraggly handsome thing right now. And you don't have to make it up to me or whatever, I knew what I was signing on for." Mostly. "So I'll let you pick." She grinned. Alice was nothing if not unfailingly generous.

"We are gonna have to talk about some stuff eventually, you know. I mean not immediately, but I wouldn't be me if I wasn't putting it on your mental to-do."

[emptynight]

Wrapping his arms around Alice, Thomas laughed a little at her words even as he nibbled at her ear. "I think it's got a better vocabulary than I do," he muttered. "Who the hell says 'chit' anymore?"

She was twisting in his arms, going on and on about shaving and more talking, so Thomas did what he did best. He tightened his arms around Alice and kissed her with all the heat and pent up desire from the Hunger's wake. Warm lips and soft skin, just a gentle, teasing tug at the want he could feel against her skin. His hands slid down her hips, pulling her just a little closer, even as he shifted against her.

"Let's go out," he said, finally surfacing for air. "We'll take a cab. Go see what this idiot town has to offer before we find someplace new. Route 66 has got to have something more interesting on it than Albuquerque." Another nibble at Alice's ear. "And I'm thinking 'in the cab' first. Then we'll see."

[manicpixydream.livejournal.com]

Sometimes Alice rambled just to get shut up. It took way longer with Jasper and it was more of a game than anything else cause he always knew. Thomas was easy in more ways than one.

She hadn't just been talking for the sake of it this time, but clearly he was going all alpha male Avoidance Starts Now and really, she had no objections, not after getting the full blast demon ray or whatever and ok, right here it was. Shifting to straddle him, Alice returned his kiss with a whimper, 'cause it was all of Thomas now and there was no reason to keep all that breathless, ragged wanting under wraps anymore. Hands flattened against all that lovely warm skin, and hips moves without much encouragement at all.

Then he was talking, which brought back the urge to smack him, but there were merits to the plan. It wasn't all about sex with Thomas; Vegas had proven for sure that she actually did like spending time with him, and if anyone could find fun in Albuquerque, it'd be them. There was just a finite amount of being incubus'd at one person could take, she figured. That ear nibbling thing was just unfair.

"Fine," she sighed, "let's go see Albuquerque. It can't be that bad, I mean it's like a major city, right? Let me get dressed." Which would take an extra long time; as revenge went it kind of sucked, but you took what you could get, and besides if this really did turn out to be a hick town she owed it to public to demonstrate total fabulousness.

Half an hour later, Alice bounced out of the bathroom in her elaborately (http://pics.livejournal.com/manicpixydream/pic/0000ygpq) coordinated (http://pics.livejournal.com/manicpixydream/pic/00010hew) best, topped with a hair clip (http://pics.livejournal.com/manicpixydream/pic/000115hp) that she thought matched her eyes perfectly. "So what," she said, twirling, "am I edible enough for a cab now? If I need a drink then you must really need one."

[emptynight]

While Alice had been taking forever in the bathroom, Thomas had called down to the front desk for a cab. Normally he wouldn't have bothered, trusting cabbies to be circling the hotel like vultures, but this was New Mexico. "Edible enough for a cab and then some," he answered with a grin, wrapping an arm around Alice as she finally came out of the bathroom. He'd thrown on jeans and a black button-down, as always letting supernatural genetics substitute for effort.

"And yes, I want a drink." Thomas ran a finger under the strap of Alice's dress as he pulled her out the door. "So let's get going. Cab's waiting."

The elevator ride down was full of teasing touches and fleeting, increasingly heated kisses. Just a couple of young beautiful people looking for a good time, the likes of which this stupid town was not likely to see again.

The cab was, in fact, waiting as they stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby. A grumbling driver with sun roughed skin and smelling of stale cigarettes sat on the hood of the cab and gave them a once-over as they approached. "So where's it going to be?" he asked. Thomas shrugged and looked to Alice for a suggestion.

[manicpixydream.livejournal.com]

Really Thomas was underestimating the draw of smaller cities, Alice thought. She'd lived in plenty of small towns and they could suck for sure, but they always had their quirky places and people and that was the best part. So ok, she'd never been to New Mexico or whatever, there was fun anywhere if you looked for it right.

The elevator was a pretty fun place on its own, for example.

The cabbie looked pretty grumpy but whatever, Alice had just faced down a demon that wanted to eat her, Mr. Surly Ride wasn't going to be a thing, in fact he was getting her sweetest smile and a great big tip if he managed to stop scowling for five seconds.

"Well, Luis rattled off a bunch of places, seriously Thomas he almost talked as much as me except for that not being possible or whatever, but the only thing that sounded like even a little bit interesting was a tiki bar? I mean come on, kitschtastic, you know the place?" Eyelashes. Pause. Pixie smile. If that didn't warm him up he could just live with being grumpy and underpaid.

[emptynight]

"You wanna go to Burt's?" the driver asked, eyeing the two of them with skepticism.

Thomas shrugged. The tiki part he could do without, but the bar part sounded just right. "Sure, why not?"

Another grumble and the taxi driver slid off the hood of his car, not even bothering to open the back door for them. "Damn tourist kids and their fake IDs."

Rolling his eyes, Thomas opened the cab's door himself and slid inside, pulling Alice in with him. They were going to have a good time; after all of that, they deserved it. Determined, Thomas didn't even bother waiting for Alice to close the door behind her before he started trailing kisses down her throat, one hand already sliding up her leg.

Fingers toying with the hem of Alice's dress, Thomas spared the cabbie a glance as he pulled away from the curb. "Take the long way there."

[emptynight]

There was a moment in which Thomas thought he would have had to intervene when Barbie Two-or-Three grabbed Alice's drink and dumped it on her head. But then Alice started laughing and the Barbie Brigade continued stalking off and Thomas relaxed, laughing along with Alice.

"I'd say I was surprised that this is the first time you've had a drink thrown on you, but I suppose you've always seen them coming," Thomas answered, licking a trace of pineapple and rum off Alice's temple. "And by all means, down the big blue goldfish bowl. Let's see how pixie-like you are hammered."

Thomas grabbed the little swizzle stick kebab of pineapple and maraschino cherries and chewed on a bit of pineapple garnish as he watched Alice take a swig from the blue thing. "Pay me back for what?" he asked innocently, snaking his arm around Alice and tugging up the neckline of her dress just a little. "I don't recall doing anything that warrants payback."

He hadn't even been aware of her drawing blood until she licked it away, but even then Thomas shrugged it off. Share and share alike. "If I wanted to see that much plastic, I'd stare at department store mannequins," he continued, now nibbling at Alice's neck under the pretense of licking away the traces of drink still clinging to her skin. "Besides, it's just rude to dump my date. I'm not as Southern as some, but I'm a gentleman."

[manicpixydream.livejournal.com]

"I'm the pixiest, hammered or not, actually I might be even pixier when I'm drunk but it takes a lot more than a big blue bowl of tasty to waste me, oh hey that rhymed!" Ok so maybe it didn't take a lot, but she was nowhere near drunk, and could for sure drink the burliest guy in there under the table. She might not have Edward's suddenly weird gigantic tolerance, but she was still a vampire, it wasn't like a few buckets of moonshine were going to do her in.

"And yeah I usually see them coming but seriously it doesn't happen that much, that was just timing and a half in more ways than one, and I said payback instead of revenge 'cause I thought you might appreciate whatever I come up with, but I could be wrong, happens all the time now, so I won't disappear under the table anytime soon, yeah?"

Alice had been feeding regularly just to keep that fine cherry glow in her eyes, but since she hadn't really known what was going down with Thomas and how it might get worse, she hadn't bitten him, not even during moments she'd really, really wanted to. That little bit of blood had reminded her exactly how much. But he was nibbling and she was tipsy and there were pissed off blonds and all around, that was worth her attention for the moment.

"Why Thomas Raith I do declare, are you maligning my poor Southern husband? He's just so unfamiliar with your big city yankee ways, I expect you scared him right out of his britches or something I don't know I can't keep that up." She giggled and squirmed a little closer to him, leg still hooked over his. And she fully didn't mention the number of times he absolutely had ditched her on the trail of some tasty morsel or another back in Vegas, because completely not the time, not now that he'd really take it personally.

"Where are we going next anyway? And I don't mean which dive of a strip mall bar are we headed for cause our hotel room is nicer and probably more expensive than anything in here, and I fully intend to make use of it." She unbuttoned the top of his shirt, slipping a cool hand to rest on his shoulder. "But after Albuquerque I'm thinking hick towns oughta be planned for appropriately, you know?"

Plus ok, Route 66 was a cute idea and everything, but Alice had some plans of her own, and the time to start dropping breadcrumbs was now.

[emptynight]

Sliding the big blue fishbowl over to Alice, Thomas took a moment to poke at the other giant drink he'd ordered, this one bright red and quietly billowing white smoke. Well wasn't that theatrical and appropriately tacky. Alice might not have been drunk, but she sounded hilariously tipsy. "Well, if you're not going to dive under the table, maybe I should," he teased, fingers dancing on her bare knee.

Logically Thomas knew Alice would have done much the same, nursing him back to sanity and all that, even if she hadn't needed him for the quiet. It didn't help the niggling sense of wanting to make things up to her for putting up with him though. Her accent, on the other hand, was making him laugh and Thomas offered her a drink from the big smoking red fish bowl before he kissed her, and her hand went inside his shirt.

Arching a little into her touch, Thomas shrugged and leaned back, promptly hitting the back of his head on a tacky surfboard on the wall. "Okay, this place might be too tacky," he grumbled, shifting instead to nip at Alice's throat again while his fingers tugged lightly on the strap of her dress, not undoing the knot but just a reminder that he might.

"And I have no idea where we're headed next. You want to pick?"

[manicpixydream.livejournal.com]

"Are you laughing at the drink or my accent cause I'll have you know I am technically a southerner or something, not that you've ever asked, what the hell is in this anyway it tastes like drunk Hawaiian arsenic." Not that she cared about the laughing or the drink or anything. Tacky or not, this was turning out to be a pretty good time, or at least it'd be a good story, almost as good as the drag queen and the drugs on the Vegas strip except this one would be better once it was done. Plus she had gotten more than a little something out of it.

Was still, really. She made up for the giggle at his head clonk by kissing him and shifting even closer and doing a whole lot of wriggly suggesting about how much use the hotel room could be put to, and she wasn't even trying to warm him up to anything. It was at least ninety eight percent genuine.

"Well ok, no offense to my kin of old or my fine southern husband or whatever but I say we head north ASAP, not like it's going to get better the further east we go in fact the last time I was in Arkansas I'm pretty sure I punched a guy." Just little breadcrumbs. Thomas was too smart for anything else and ok, they would have it out at some point and if it was now, she'd deal. But little ones meant she might not have to. She ran a finger down his chest.

"I dunno, isn't there some big vampire ho-down in St. Louis or something? I mean assuming that's even the same reality as this one which I can't believe I actually have to say out loud like it's a thing but it is, either way it's worth checking out, yeah?"

[emptynight]

"We can go as north as you like. But I'm drawing the line at Canada," he warned. It occurred to him that St. Louis was within a day's drive of Chicago, but Thomas pushed that aside. They weren't going to Chicago. He wasn't going back to Chicago. But that wasn't for right now. Right now Alice was moving against him in all the right ways, and the way her finger was making its way down his chest was seriously distracting.

"Who knows. If we go to St. Louis and it's nothing more than a glorified hick town, we'll find somewhere else more interesting, like New York. I haven't been back to New York City in ages." Speaking in-between kisses, he shifted himself away from the offending surfboard, in the same motion pulling Alice into his lap.

His hands settling decorously around her waist, Thomas pressed a long kiss to Alice's lips, full of slow burning heat as his hips moved teasingly against her. "I'm tempted to swing into Arkansas just to see you punch a guy, but I think I'd get too depressing a look at "Ben" and his ridiculous accent."

[manicpixydream.livejournal.com]

If she didn't know better, Alice might have thought she was being distracted on purpose with a kiss like that. Really she might have been, but the fact that she didn't care got in the way. So maybe he'd managed the most public orgasm she'd had in at least a year, there was still a lot of heated enthusiasm left over from Mr. White Eyes' visit, even if she didn't want to admit it. And there was Whole Thomas right there, who was a big draw all on his own.

"Was that supposed to be southern? Oh Thomas, you really suck at that, I don't even remember being human and I can still pull off a Biloxi drawl if I need to, that's just sad. I think you're gonna have to rely on your by the way increasingly worrying facial hair for disguise purposes from now on cause I couldn't even tell where you were supposed to be from." Now that she was in his lap, there was a lot more access to buttons that were sitting there telling her real clearly they needed undoing.

"St. Louis it is, then." And there'd be places in between with like, town status to water balloon or small towns to scandalize or whatever, but she'd gotten what she wanted. After St. Louis it was just a hop skip. And she'd keep it up. Nothing overt, just nudging, she could nudge with the best of them. And she could spend some time kissing his neck while she did it. "New York is so done, Thomas, I mean ok I have a special affinity with any place that brags it doesn't sleep but still."

This would be great, Alice thought. She hadn't been to Chicago in decades.