Abstract Impressionism
AN: Wanted to try something a little different, and I think these two fit together well. Not meant to be romantic, because everyone knows that platonic friendships are HAWTT, but you could see it as maybe the start of something romantic I s'pose.
Written because Zahi is a supreme source of Zen, and Cassandra isn't likely to learn an important lesson unless it's incredibly subtle.
OoO
She wasn't exactly sure why she decided to talk to the failure sitting on the park bench.
At first she thought that maybe it was pity, but that was ruled out when logic settled in and she realized an Outcast had no reason to feel sympathy for another Outcast. With that ruled out, she then decided that she was part of the 'misery loves company' campaign, and that seeing another person who wasn't making anything of themselves would somewhat soften the self acrimonious binge she'd been on lately. But that theory fell short as well when she discovered that the failure on the park bench didn't seem to mind being a failure at all. The bastard even had the gall to smile as he drew on his sketchpad.
Since her ingenious reasoning seemed to fall a little into the plain old 'genious' category, she decided that she was just obviously insane, and that maybe it was insanity that loved company instead, as the failure seemed to be a few sticks short of a bundle himself.
The day that she had decided to talk to the failure had started out normal enough, normal being a relative term for a hopeless Outcast of evil, until it had all went to hell. A bad day for anyone, if you look closely enough, is just a series of miniscule Unfortunates that escalate into medium Aw Craps followed by a rather large finale of I'm Going To Kill Everyone. Today had been one of those days for Cassandra. It had started with misplacing some cash, misplacing some keys, being late for a job interview- job interview meaning date with a rich guy she could steal from-, and running into a gang of punks who thought poorly crafted pick up lines would transform her into a little sex toy.
She then had made her way to the park, where a coffee vendor had spilled her desperately needed caffeinated beverage all over her white sundress. This, of course, was just the chocolate coated sprinkles on the top of her miserable terd of a day. Needless to say, the remainder of the cup's Styrofoam contents had landed on Clumsy Coffee Guy's head, and Cassandra found herself laughing just to keep the barely repressed homicidal urges at bay.
When she heard someone laughing along with her, that was when she began to get concerned for her at times barely-there mental health. It wasn't until she noticed that the chuckle was definitely male that she began to calm down.
But when she realized who the source of the laughter at her expense was, she felt the urge to find another cup of coffee to dump on someone's head.
She had never met him, not personally, but she had seen him from afar and had heard enough things from the other Followers to know who he was. He was supposedly hot shit, an Immortal with gifts that had once rivaled Stanton's. Until he blew it all with a poorly conceived plot to undermine the blond Prince of the Night and lost all of his powers.
The story kind of sounded familiar.
Cassandra stood at him, trying to combine the mental assumption she had made of him with the current person sitting on a mundane bench doing a mundane activity such as sketching a picture. She had pictured him with a more sinister scowl permanently etched in his face, maybe even fangs or some skeezy mustache.
She had not pictured the almighty Zahi as she saw him now.
His clothes were a little raggedy, hanging loosely on his thinner frame. His dark hair shone in the sunlight, and his face was lit up rather serenely with a smile as he quietly chuckled at Cassandra's current beverage situation. On his lap was a rather nondescript sketchpad, some charcoal markings lightly done on top of it.
The guy in front of her was a failure, that's what she had deducted upon the stories that had circulated after his downfall.
So why the hell didn't he act like it? Why wasn't he involved in trying to regain power or get revenge like she was? Why wasn't he trying not to be a failure? It just didn't make sense.
Perhaps that was why she walked over to him in the first place.
Cassandra was incredibly curious of who Zahi had become.
"What's so funny?" She huffed with mock indignation, even deciding to pop out a hip for good measure.
The failure, Zahi, just shook his head apologetically, "My apologies. It's not everyday you see a girl dump an expresso on a man's head."
Cassandra was amazed, "How'd you know it was an expresso?"
Zahi shrugged, "Observe a coffee bar long enough, certain types of people always order the same type of drink."
She was, despite herself, intrigued, "And what type am I?"
He smirked, a gesture that made his face light up mischievously, "You wouldn't like it if I told you."
Cassandra snorted, "I'm sure I've been called worse things by better people."
The grin spread, "You seem like a neurotic, stressed, poor girl who's frantically scrambling to get a hold on her life. Which means you needed caffeine, which equaled expresso."
She fought to keep the smile rising on her own face as she retorted, "You seem like a starving artist who wouldn't know opportunity when it hit him flat in the face." She paused, "Plus you obviously don't have any common sense as you thought it wise to antagonize a girl who just dumped a scalding drink on top of a man's head. Which means that you're drinking out of the water fountain since you have no money."
He gave another slight chuckle before holding out a hand, "Zahi." He introduced.
Cassandra hesitated, before finally taking a few steps over to the bench and shaking his hand, "Cassandra."
"You know, the dress almost looks better with the stain," He said, even molding his hands in front of his eyes to make a picture frame around the large brown spot.
The large spot that was over the chest area of the dress. She immediately folded her arms over it, "I think your landscape would look a lot better with some latte on it." She replied smoothly, taking a seat next to the artist and gesturing to his sketch, "It would be abstract and edgy then, cover up all the scratch marks."
He smiled, and Cassandra mused whether the boy actually stopped smiling, "Then I would be in danger of falling into the impressionist category." When he noted Cassandra's confused expression, he elaborated, "A style of painting that doesn't focus on detail or anything other than first impressions."
Cassandra stared at the landscape thoughtfully, vaguely recalling something like it in high school art class, "Monet?" She ventured.
He actually looked impressed, "Very good."
She shrugged nonchalantly, even though the slight praise made her feel a little more elated than usual, "So, starving artist, what inspired you to draw the majestic, litter-filled pavements of the city park today?"
"What inspired you to pour coffee on innocent people?"
"I'm spontaneous. Especially when angered."
"I see." He sighed and leaned back a little on the bench, before answering her previous question, "I like the outdoors, and I like to people watch, I suppose. There's something calming about seeing people go about their daily lives."
"This is Los Angeles, people go about their daily lives like they have a stick up their asses," Cassandra said contritely.
He smiled, again with the smiling- it was beginning to unnerve her, "That's why it's calming. It's nice to know I'm not like that…anymore."
She raised an eyebrow, "Awkward encounters with broom handles in your adolescence, I take it?" She said, deliberately trying to be uncouth.
Zahi snorted, "Just watch them, you'll see what I mean." He stated, shrugging off her comment.
Going against her better judgment, she seemed to be doing that quite a bit today, she took Zahi's advice and leaned back a little more to make herself comfortable. It was lunch hour, so throngs of people cut across the park as they walked to various parts of the city, and eventually they all became a blur of movement, and patterns began to emerge.
The businessmen, with their briefcases and shirts so starched they could cut steel, had a distinct step to them. The heels of their shoes made angry stomps against the ground, their shoulders rotated at exactly the same measure as the other businessmen when they walked. Different people, different faces, but the same stance, the same way of walking.
"Huh," She muttered, intending it to be just for her ears, but Zahi overheard.
"Watch this person," He instructed, gesturing to someone clad in a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt and holding an outdated camera.
"Tourist," Cassandra dismissed off-handedly.
"Watch," Zahi said a bit more firmly.
The tourist seemed to walk in a jaded sort of daze, his steps uneven and occasionally his knees would bow in as he walked. There was an uncertain hunch in his shoulders, and his eyes were diverted to the ground as he seemed to weave in and out of the crowd unnoticed. It wasn't until a little while that Cassandra realized what made him so intriguing.
"He's lost," She observed flatly.
Zahi nodded, "Exactly."
They continued to stare at the man, whose shoulders tensed even more and whose walking faltered as he started to stop walking in a completely straight line.
"He's scared."
Zahi nodded in agreement.
The man continued his wandering, until he eventually faded away from their view.
Zahi turned to her, "You see how it's sort of relaxing?"
Her eyebrows furrowed, "Watching a grown man meander aimlessly is relaxing?"
"It reminds me of what it means to be lost," Zahi rambled, ignoring her somewhat, "And it makes me thankful that I'm where I need to be now. Understand?"
Cassandra just groaned, "You put far too much thought into things."
He smiled, "That's what we starving artists do. Sit randomly and ponder the mysteries of life."
"I think you should ponder a visit to a psychiatrist."
Zahi laughed, "What about you?"
She looked at him, confused, "What about me?"
"Ever been lost?"
It seemed like such a simple question at face value. Of course she'd been lost, who hadn't been lost before? But when she saw something deeper flickering behind his clear brown stare, she found herself wondering if this Zahi knew more about her than he let on. It left her feeling exposed and horribly naked.
"Everyday," She finally settled on.
He seemed to nod in approval, somehow detecting the sincerity in her response, "You pick the next one," Zahi said, gesturing to the crowd.
Sighing the sigh of one who had undergone much monotonous torture, she just closed her eyes and pointed, "That one."
"Excellent specimen," He spoke in a false pretentious voice.
Cassandra opened her eyes and immediately cringed.
A little girl, with pigtails to boot, sat on a swing set, laughing happily and singing to herself.
"She's apparently unbalanced," Cassandra said dryly, "No one, regardless of age, is that content to be on a swing set."
He rolled his eyes, "Oh no, please tell me you're not a skeptic."
"Born and bred."
"Erugh, I hate skeptics," Zahi mumbled, trailing a hand down the side of his face for good measure.
"Well I hate idealists," She responded evenly.
He seemed interested, "Why is that?"
"Idealists are too busy trying to make things better, they never focus on the here and now and that makes it ultimately worse for everyone around them," She replied.
Zahi cleared his throat, "But there's nothing wrong with people wanting a little hope in their lives."
Something bitter tasting made its way into her mouth, "Hope misguides people, it forces them to make stupid decisions that they regret later."
"Living without hope only festers regret," Zahi disagreed sagely, "Actively resisting changes for the better creates more negativity and pain. You become stuck in a cycle, a rut that someone without purpose isn't likely to willingly come out of."
Cassandra wasn't liking the direction this conversation was taking, so she redirected it back to its source, "So what's your opinion on the little girl?" She asked, gesturing with her head to the kid with pigtails.
"I think she's clouded by naivety," He said evenly.
She bit down the frustrated tone of voice she used far too often, "What exactly does that mean?"
"She's a child, there's nothing more innocent and ignorant than a child." He exhaled, and folded his hands across his stomach. "Makes me nostalgic."
Cassandra grimaced, "Nostalgia for ignorance?"
"Nostalgia for simplicity. For easy rights and wrongs, to be able to be happy without any excess baggage weighing me down." Zahi was looking straight ahead, but it felt like he was staring straight through her.
"Oh," She muttered dumbly, "I suppose that's different then."
"My turn," He said blithely, "I pick the nun."
If Cassandra had any coffee left over from her sporadic spilling, she would have spit it out, "What? What nun?" She demanded.
He jerked a shoulder to the right, where sure enough, there was a nun reading. "What do you think?" He inquired.
Cassandra evaluated the nun. She was nibbling on a sandwich and sitting on the ledge of a fountain, a book in her hands. "Hypocrite," The answer came easy.
It was his turn to seem surprised, "What makes you say that?"
She smirked, "First of all, it's Friday-during Lent."
He shrugged, "So?"
"So, she's eating a turkey sandwich. No meat on Fridays during Lent, that's common knowledge."
"Have an extensive background in religious practices, have we?"
She froze, and quickly shrugged it off, "A long time ago," She said absently, before turning back to her assessment, "Plus, the book she's reading? It's got Fabio and a scantily clad woman on the cover."
"Maybe she enjoys the plot?"
"A nun reading a raunchy romance novel for the plot? I doubt it. She's a hypocrite, and what's even worse is that she's broadcasting it. No self-respecting nun would wear a habit and read something like that in public during the day if she was ashamed of it."
Zahi smiled- Cassandra's fingers itched into fist formation- "Alright, you win this round. We shouldn't take everything at face value. Fear nuns." He commented dryly.
She sighed, "I think I'm done people watching." Her eyes drifted back to the sketchbook, "I don't believe you ever answered my question of why you decided to draw today."
Zahi ran a hand through his hair, "Simple really."
"Why's that?"
"It allows me to lure in attractive females such as yourself and force them to make comments on societal norms." He said fluidly.
She scoffed, "You need a real hobby."
"Don't I know it."
"But, honestly, why?"
He grinned, "Honestly?"
She nodded, "Honestly."
"Because I hope that one day someone will ask me about it, and that I'll meet someone interesting."
Cassandra snorted, "Idealist."
He nodded, "Naturally. But you see, some things are worth hoping for."
She stared at him blankly, not sure how to interpret that.
Zahi's glance seemed to dart down towards his wristwatch for the first time, and he gently closed his sketchbook, "It's been a pleasure talking with you Cassandra, but I really have to go now."
She stared at him in confusion, "Where would a starving artist have to go?"
He laughed, "I actually do have a job."
Cassandra grasped her heart dramatically, "Who would hire you?"
"An idealist."
"Smooth."
"Thank you."
Cassandra watched him stand up and begin to walk away, and a question was on the tip of her tongue, one she had wanted to ask him since the discussion about being lost. Finally she blurted it out.
"Do you know who I am? Who I was?"
He paused in his step and turned around, "I think that you're still figuring that out." Was his cryptic reply, before he calmly started walking away again. "I'll look forward to meeting you again when you find out," He called back amiably before he lost himself in a crowd.
Cassandra watched the failure go in nothing short of amazement, before looking down at her feet and wondering who was actually the failure and who was in desperate need for improvement. Then she mentally cursed Zahi when she realized that the bastard was starting to turn her into an idealist.
Cassandra walked home that day feeling a whole lot lighter, a new perspective beginning to worm its way into her mentality and a foreign emotion withering into her heart.
"…some things are worth hoping for."