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!))

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[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.