(Pryde/Wisdom) "Scotch & Company, Could Anything be Worse?" 2/?
~*~*~
Addition to Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor comic book store worker. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.
Small Addendum: Yes, the tenses and point of view are supposed to do some back and forth changing so it's not been over looked by everyone who's so far read as my Beta's.
Feedback: Very much welcome. This is another addition to my first piece "Big Little Surprises" to the OTL so I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.
"Scotch & Company, Could Anything be Worse?"
~*~*~
It's important.
That's what you've got. All you've got.
It's important.
That's exactly what the chippie says months after you parted ways. Months where neither of you has made the slightest reach because of that other guy nothing happened with. So the girl who stoked the embers of you heart, and redeemed your soul say "It's important" and you're supposed to forget she also broke that heart, tore that soul to pieces and come running like a love, sick school boy slave?
No. Not you, never you. You don't do that. No girl can make you come running, throwing everything you've settled into just because she says "It's Important."
Right. That is why you raced like a mad man through those streets to catch the next ruddy plane out of the there and into New York, ending yourself in an argument with a ugly careless plane boy, with something obviously stuck where the sun didn't shine, who told you there were no more tickets and caused a huge hullabaloo. A guy you also bribed to get on to the plane, into first class no less, so you could be in New York before the next day was even half over.
All because some girl you first thought was a 'nosy cow' says "It's important".
Pete shook his head and took another gulp from the glass of scotch. Bloody Americans atleast knew how to make some top notch drinks if you paid enough money. He leaned back in the overly plush seat, needing to move, needing to speed the plane up. She'd said it was important. His late ex, Kitty, or more aptly his 'Pryde'.
The one the drinks couldn't even help him forget for a moment. The drinks only knocked him and made him dream. She was there, too. She was there from when his eyes closed till his eyes opened, and then her memory rang in his head while he walked around pretending he was living. The beautiful eyes that went from overwhelmingly deep brown to copper to hazel, and the beautiful long locks of chestnut brown hair. And that was still only the very beginning.
The thought of her almost like a pain, a moment to be purged, he finished the drink and handed it off to an attendant for another. A stronger one.
Maybe Romany was right. She probably didn't think he remembered the things she'd said, but they hounded him. They ferociously followed him with the teeth truth that bit into his side every moment he remembered again. The problem with being a guy, who 'could' drink, was you got to be a really good 'drunk'. There was always a higher tolerance, and it took longer to get truly smashed.
She wasn't happy with the fact he'd gone and attempted getting himself smashed inside her apartment where he had currently been staying, about two weeks in a row. She'd gotten annoyed at the end of the first, but he cleaned up a little by mid second because of her outburst. He still remembered her words with crystal clarity as if she could have been saying them right then. Her flashing eyes, her reddened cheeks her flushed face.
"You're a sore sight, don't you know that? I've seen mice with bigger backbones!!! You are more afraid of facing up to the fact you might have made a mistake, more terrified of confronting that which makes you listless, drunk, and lost than you are of running away, aren't you? You'd rather ignore the fact you could go back, go to her without having to worry about trying to find her, and run wouldn't you? And so you run to the ends of time, and space right at the bottom of your bottle?
Good God fucking damn-it, Pete, it's not like it's the Queen or the end of the ruddy world!!! You're the one condemning yourself by sitting on my couch and drinking yourself into oblivion, and I won't stand for it here any longer! You are a coward! Do you hear me, Pete Wisdom? A coward. A low, down, out right, bloody coward, and if you weren't my blood, I'd be ashamed to say I know you."
He hadn't even been drunk far enough for that not to flay his senses to suddenly stone cold sober again. They met each other's eyes, and she left for her bedroom. She regretted the words he was sure of that even thanked him when the bottles vanished. Explosive temper, like their father. She raged like a river without a block till it was out, made him wonder if she was drunk. She was regretting it days after even thought he'd deserved it and she was still making up for it in small ways, but she'd been right.
No maybe, you English git. Romany had been so right she could have pierced the bulls eye straight through with a silver arrow. She'd only been wrong about one thing, about it not being the end of the world. She'd been your world, hadn't she? And you just pushed her away by leaving her like she was some unimportant object, some toy, you'd just lost interest in.
So for her, Romany, only sister, the drinks vanished and he only came home smelling like alcohol sometimes. He'd be leaving soon he told her. It's been a month and a half-ago then hadn't it? Never got your foot out the door for long. Took up some odd jobs, till rumors started to circulate and your buddy's and clients were the ones to mention it. You were sullied, somehow changed like you had a vendetta against the world. No care, like you wanted revenge, or carried a dome of anger inside your chest.
Spoilt. Damaged goods. You were a liability even more than you always loved to be. They thought you were loosing your edge of sanity.
You never told them about her.
"What was her name?"
Pete blinked his eyes; his hand tightening on the drink the stewardess had already brought back. There was someone sitting next to him now. She was an uncanny beauty in the simple girl next doorway, with this tumble of auburn hair to her shoulders and dark rich tanned golden skin, but the eyes of deep brown with green fleck were too wide and open.
"W'ot?"
The girl smiled radiantly and it dimpled her cheeks, giving him a second to look at her. She looked much out of place on the plane with her out fit. The light of the lightest bleach blue bell-bottoms that hugged her hips and thighs and bellowed around her calves to her feet where only her toes peeked out, held only by small dark brown sandals. She also wore a deep, but sparkly green emerald bikini top with a button up white sheer top with only the two buttons nearest to the bathing suit buttoned. It also buttoned at her wrists but they were left undone. She was beach bunny, hippie material by the look of it, even a pair of sunglasses hanging from the buttoned area.
What the hell was she doin on this side of the world bothering him didn't she have a beach to chant on?
"I didn't mean to startled you. Really," she said with an odd wisp of a smile as she turned sitting slanted across the seat to look at him. "You just have that look where either you just lost your best friend, or your girl. It was a half and half guess really."
Pete stared at her oddly. What was next? Crystals, Tarot and aura readings? When had he asked for someone to be his company on this plane ride? Wasn't it bad enough he was on pins and needles because of that phone call? The phone call was just too vague for Kitty. She just didn't act like that, which worried him even more. She'd said something about it being serious, and then this momentary silence had descended. Next she'd started a sentence with 'I'm', and silence had reign. Again.
While he wasn't much in the mood for games this was Kitty. The girl who he would have stopped time for if she asked it three months ago. Fag, he'd do it now if she asked. Next had come some slow babble of him deserving more, what they had been deserving more than this 'mere call'. And if that was off enough, the way her voice was trembling had his hands in a steel grasp of the phone at his ear.
"I'm Kylie," the girl offered happily, simply making him step back into sitting on the plane, and start packing away the drink in his hand that had grown warm. "Kylie Summers."
"Pete," he grumbled gruffly. He wasn't sitting here. He was telling himself it wasn't anything serious. Lousy luck that bloody did. I'm what? I'm in trouble? I'm sick? I'm dying? Ridiculous. Those serious "we need to talk" conversation were always the start of the end of people's normal life. The plane was going damn slow.
"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you Pete. You on the plane just to New York or are you riding all the way through to Chicago?"
Pete leaned back in his seat, continuing to down his drink and resigning himself to the fate of the chattering hippie that had plopped and glued herself to the seat next to his, since she didn't seem to be picking up the blunt point he didn't want anyone there. He wanted his solitude.
"N'w York," he grunted between swallows.
Kylie brightened another shade almost visibly with her smile widening. "What a coincidence. So am I. Meeting the troupe and my brother there. The time a part's been stressful on us both. Going home or visiting someone? Or something else?"
"Visit'n." because staying was out of the question. He loved playing with fire, he didn't like to amerce himself in it. He couldn't be that close and that far from her again, not when she'd been his from sun up to sun down not so long ago. The girls all too cheerful chatter was both making him tense up when she spoke, but for some reason he was relaxing.
The alcohol was kicking in.
"Do you ever smile?" she asked, one of her delicate eyebrows raising, as her hand swung a pair of dog chains that hung down from her neck. She wasn't about to give up this tug-of-war or wills what have it. She'd met some snooty men, her brother could even be on of them, but he was being down right unhelpful at all. "Or do you only grouse and spit out one word sentences?"
"Grouse." Pete muttered unhelpfully, finishing the drink and hitting the stewardess button. That would give her the hint. He watched her expression become a momentary dour frown, before it passed so quickly, like someone hitting a light switch. And suddenly it wasn't an expression of anger, or brilliant warmth, but of a kind of understanding. Apathy. Edging on pity.
"She must have been incredibly important to you."
"The world," he let the words fall like a light sigh; without one. His head against the overly stuffed seat looking out the window he missed it when the girl beside him shushed away the stewardess with a smile and wave of her hand that showed she'd dealt with people waiting on her before. The conversation direction made him see the last days. "And m're."
Kylie lips half turned a smile, even though she regretted doing what she'd done to get him to actually says more than one word. If it weren't for her brother and she getting closer by moment, and mile and hour, she wouldn't have known it in exacts or acted as such.
He was a devilish figure, the man who sat next to her, in his ragged appearance. It was what had drawn her over here. Her, sheltered, spoiledly sweet, soft spoken, and all too bright heart shining Kylie Summers. The disheveled suit he bore, with the loosened black tie and then black cloak that seemed to wrap around him like some kind of physical protection from the world. It was something about him that made her think of her brother. Yes, that must have been it.
"What happened?"
"Th'ngs. She.We part'd ways aft'r," Pete said his voice mumbling between his lips with a light slur. He was sinking in a feeling that had somehow started at his toes and was filling him at the second. Not peaceful, or content feeling, just a mild sedating one, that made him feel like he was watching the conversation not taking part in it. The wonders of airplane beverages, they always had the stock. What had he been thinking about?
He could see Romany standing there holding the phone in one hand, with her thumb over the receiver holes as she told him to get in there. Told him to take his own calls because she wasn't an answering machine service and didn't have the time since she should be on her way to work. And there she'd been, grabbing her keys and watching him as he hung up, before she held out his coat to him.
She held the coat tight the first time he'd reached for it as she opened the front door. He'd looked at her to tell her to let go before he was going to yank it out from her hold, but she had the oddest expression on her face. If anyone could embody a regretful, half goodbye, Romany could. She smiled oddly as she released the coat then, and said 'She's good for you, little brother. Don't blow yourself out of the water this time.'
Romany's good at playing the hard big sister, but she loves you unconditionally, doesn't she?
Even when she seems to be the only one.
"Why are you going back then?" Kylie's curious and insistent voice again broken the reverie of the Londoner's thoughts that were settling again over the thin ice that covered a lake of worries and still aging regrets and brought him back to the chilled area he was contained in.
"H've to. She said-" he started and got submarined by the pilot speaking through intercom. They'd be landing shortly. Was the bloody flight over? It had taken long enough. He opened his eyes, focusing on the seat in front of him. He moved back the sleeve of his trench coat to look at his watch, figured in the time changes. He had a few hours still.
It's important. That's what she'd said.
Kitty had given him directions to some place out side Salem City. She'd said it was a cross between bar and a dinner. It looked like she was setting a meeting halfway, but what exactly was this "Harry's"? And what had she tried to say on the phone? He closed his eyes with a resigned shift to his body as the plane began to descend. A cellular phone sounded next to him and opened one eye to see the girl still sitting next to him.
She'd been so quiet he hadn't even noticed during the last few minutes naturally guessing she'd finally just given up like he wanted.
"Ky, I thought we promise no calls till I was in New York."
"No," Kylie laughed her voice a pact of affection and pleasure. "Being 40 feet over the city doesn't count. You really are crazy, you know that right?"
"Yeah, that means I must be crazy, too. Did you get my new hardware?"
"I know I don't have to ask but is it there with you? Are you at the doorway?"
"Ohhh, your too good to me, Ky. Hand in hand forever-"
She laughed again, as she seemed to have cringed almost as the wheels hit the ground beneath them. "I missed you, too. I love you, Ky. I'll see you in a few minutes."
Fag. Bloody life. Stuck me with some bubbling chippie who's in love with whatever git's on the other end of that line. The window looks nice and we're touching the ground. I'm sure I've jumped further distance to escape worse. Ruddy fate.
Everyone started moving and Kylie finally moved away to get her bag, coming back when Pete finally started moving to leave. He seemed so much like her brother to her when he got depressed it was almost freaky. She walked back over, holding her backpack by the top strap. She smiled even when he looked back realizing she was still standing there and appeared to grind his teeth.
So he wasn't a people person that didn't damper her. Slowly she released what she'd done, atleast safe in the knowledge he'd never know. He looked so like her brother when he gotten broken up over a girl.
"I hope everything works out for you, Pete." She spontaneously moved close placing a kiss against two of her fingers and touching his cheek, before stepping back making a small odd sign with her hand, moving her hand in a circle with all fingers out except the pink and ring finger, which were bent. "Blessed Be."
~*~*~
He pulled into the parking lot like a mad man. It was a repetitive driving habit now but New York had worse, besides the drive had been long from the capital. To have a surprise rental car waiting for him was a thing Romany had done on his behalf. He really owed her. More than he ever realized it when he had the chances to actually pay her back. So here he was. This was Harry's?
First Opinion. It looked like an old fogies joint.
She was in there. What do you do with your ex? Hug her? Shake her hand? Never mind, just keep your hands in your pockets, avoid that all together till you know what it's all about.
Getting out was easy. Sky was gray, wind was harsh. World against him today, too. What more waited on the other side? He opened the front door slowly, running a hand through his rough and tumble black hair, as he surveyed the place. Had a bar that was a plus. Juke box and booths, too.
Second Opinion. Wasn't too bad. Could be better, but wasn't too bad.
He kept looking around, nodding once to a plump man in an apron behind the counter who was drying a pitcher. Hey, look, maybe that was Harry even. Closer inspection.
His eyes found what they had been searching for, and avoiding all at once, and it felt like someone was holding his heart above an abyss, over a huge light, making every tear suddenly that much clearer, crystalline.
Kitty was sitting in the furthest back booth, her nose in a book. He strained for a second without walking closer to see the title. Fundamentalist of Technological Environmental Control and other New Age Technology Theories. She was reading and not reading, he could see it clearly in her eyes from across the dinner even. She was staring at the center of the page eye unwaveringly as if entranced.
Her long tresses of chestnut brown hair framed her face, shadowing it, and flowed over her shoulders, concealing parts of her face. It was her expression that choked his heart beyond the pain and regret that flooded him though. Her teeth worried her bottom lip ever so lightly, and she looked like she was ready to jump if anything startled her. Worried? Scared? Of him?
Pete walked forward. She was too beautiful, and the air around the table too tight. Sticking a hand in a pocket and arguing momentarily with the box pulled out a cigarette as he reached the booth; he stopped in front of it.
"Pryde," he declared it like it could have been some proclamation -or plea- not loud or soft exactly, but light enough that he was positive he hadn't given away anything.
Kitty looked up from her book, closing it slowly as she just looked up at him, holding her place with a finger. He wondered if his lungs had simply stopped working as he'd met those large brown eyes, because the objective to breath was as lost as any resolve he'd had seconds ago.
"Pete," her voice seemed the same as his, somehow formal, but elusively seeming to hint at other emotions as it trembled and stopped trembling by the end. She blinked and seemed to almost curl into where she sat becoming smaller but without moving as she nodded for him to sit across from her.
To be continued?
~*~*~
Addition to Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor comic book store worker. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.
Small Addendum: Yes, the tenses and point of view are supposed to do some back and forth changing so it's not been over looked by everyone who's so far read as my Beta's.
Feedback: Very much welcome. This is another addition to my first piece "Big Little Surprises" to the OTL so I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.
"Scotch & Company, Could Anything be Worse?"
~*~*~
It's important.
That's what you've got. All you've got.
It's important.
That's exactly what the chippie says months after you parted ways. Months where neither of you has made the slightest reach because of that other guy nothing happened with. So the girl who stoked the embers of you heart, and redeemed your soul say "It's important" and you're supposed to forget she also broke that heart, tore that soul to pieces and come running like a love, sick school boy slave?
No. Not you, never you. You don't do that. No girl can make you come running, throwing everything you've settled into just because she says "It's Important."
Right. That is why you raced like a mad man through those streets to catch the next ruddy plane out of the there and into New York, ending yourself in an argument with a ugly careless plane boy, with something obviously stuck where the sun didn't shine, who told you there were no more tickets and caused a huge hullabaloo. A guy you also bribed to get on to the plane, into first class no less, so you could be in New York before the next day was even half over.
All because some girl you first thought was a 'nosy cow' says "It's important".
Pete shook his head and took another gulp from the glass of scotch. Bloody Americans atleast knew how to make some top notch drinks if you paid enough money. He leaned back in the overly plush seat, needing to move, needing to speed the plane up. She'd said it was important. His late ex, Kitty, or more aptly his 'Pryde'.
The one the drinks couldn't even help him forget for a moment. The drinks only knocked him and made him dream. She was there, too. She was there from when his eyes closed till his eyes opened, and then her memory rang in his head while he walked around pretending he was living. The beautiful eyes that went from overwhelmingly deep brown to copper to hazel, and the beautiful long locks of chestnut brown hair. And that was still only the very beginning.
The thought of her almost like a pain, a moment to be purged, he finished the drink and handed it off to an attendant for another. A stronger one.
Maybe Romany was right. She probably didn't think he remembered the things she'd said, but they hounded him. They ferociously followed him with the teeth truth that bit into his side every moment he remembered again. The problem with being a guy, who 'could' drink, was you got to be a really good 'drunk'. There was always a higher tolerance, and it took longer to get truly smashed.
She wasn't happy with the fact he'd gone and attempted getting himself smashed inside her apartment where he had currently been staying, about two weeks in a row. She'd gotten annoyed at the end of the first, but he cleaned up a little by mid second because of her outburst. He still remembered her words with crystal clarity as if she could have been saying them right then. Her flashing eyes, her reddened cheeks her flushed face.
"You're a sore sight, don't you know that? I've seen mice with bigger backbones!!! You are more afraid of facing up to the fact you might have made a mistake, more terrified of confronting that which makes you listless, drunk, and lost than you are of running away, aren't you? You'd rather ignore the fact you could go back, go to her without having to worry about trying to find her, and run wouldn't you? And so you run to the ends of time, and space right at the bottom of your bottle?
Good God fucking damn-it, Pete, it's not like it's the Queen or the end of the ruddy world!!! You're the one condemning yourself by sitting on my couch and drinking yourself into oblivion, and I won't stand for it here any longer! You are a coward! Do you hear me, Pete Wisdom? A coward. A low, down, out right, bloody coward, and if you weren't my blood, I'd be ashamed to say I know you."
He hadn't even been drunk far enough for that not to flay his senses to suddenly stone cold sober again. They met each other's eyes, and she left for her bedroom. She regretted the words he was sure of that even thanked him when the bottles vanished. Explosive temper, like their father. She raged like a river without a block till it was out, made him wonder if she was drunk. She was regretting it days after even thought he'd deserved it and she was still making up for it in small ways, but she'd been right.
No maybe, you English git. Romany had been so right she could have pierced the bulls eye straight through with a silver arrow. She'd only been wrong about one thing, about it not being the end of the world. She'd been your world, hadn't she? And you just pushed her away by leaving her like she was some unimportant object, some toy, you'd just lost interest in.
So for her, Romany, only sister, the drinks vanished and he only came home smelling like alcohol sometimes. He'd be leaving soon he told her. It's been a month and a half-ago then hadn't it? Never got your foot out the door for long. Took up some odd jobs, till rumors started to circulate and your buddy's and clients were the ones to mention it. You were sullied, somehow changed like you had a vendetta against the world. No care, like you wanted revenge, or carried a dome of anger inside your chest.
Spoilt. Damaged goods. You were a liability even more than you always loved to be. They thought you were loosing your edge of sanity.
You never told them about her.
"What was her name?"
Pete blinked his eyes; his hand tightening on the drink the stewardess had already brought back. There was someone sitting next to him now. She was an uncanny beauty in the simple girl next doorway, with this tumble of auburn hair to her shoulders and dark rich tanned golden skin, but the eyes of deep brown with green fleck were too wide and open.
"W'ot?"
The girl smiled radiantly and it dimpled her cheeks, giving him a second to look at her. She looked much out of place on the plane with her out fit. The light of the lightest bleach blue bell-bottoms that hugged her hips and thighs and bellowed around her calves to her feet where only her toes peeked out, held only by small dark brown sandals. She also wore a deep, but sparkly green emerald bikini top with a button up white sheer top with only the two buttons nearest to the bathing suit buttoned. It also buttoned at her wrists but they were left undone. She was beach bunny, hippie material by the look of it, even a pair of sunglasses hanging from the buttoned area.
What the hell was she doin on this side of the world bothering him didn't she have a beach to chant on?
"I didn't mean to startled you. Really," she said with an odd wisp of a smile as she turned sitting slanted across the seat to look at him. "You just have that look where either you just lost your best friend, or your girl. It was a half and half guess really."
Pete stared at her oddly. What was next? Crystals, Tarot and aura readings? When had he asked for someone to be his company on this plane ride? Wasn't it bad enough he was on pins and needles because of that phone call? The phone call was just too vague for Kitty. She just didn't act like that, which worried him even more. She'd said something about it being serious, and then this momentary silence had descended. Next she'd started a sentence with 'I'm', and silence had reign. Again.
While he wasn't much in the mood for games this was Kitty. The girl who he would have stopped time for if she asked it three months ago. Fag, he'd do it now if she asked. Next had come some slow babble of him deserving more, what they had been deserving more than this 'mere call'. And if that was off enough, the way her voice was trembling had his hands in a steel grasp of the phone at his ear.
"I'm Kylie," the girl offered happily, simply making him step back into sitting on the plane, and start packing away the drink in his hand that had grown warm. "Kylie Summers."
"Pete," he grumbled gruffly. He wasn't sitting here. He was telling himself it wasn't anything serious. Lousy luck that bloody did. I'm what? I'm in trouble? I'm sick? I'm dying? Ridiculous. Those serious "we need to talk" conversation were always the start of the end of people's normal life. The plane was going damn slow.
"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you Pete. You on the plane just to New York or are you riding all the way through to Chicago?"
Pete leaned back in his seat, continuing to down his drink and resigning himself to the fate of the chattering hippie that had plopped and glued herself to the seat next to his, since she didn't seem to be picking up the blunt point he didn't want anyone there. He wanted his solitude.
"N'w York," he grunted between swallows.
Kylie brightened another shade almost visibly with her smile widening. "What a coincidence. So am I. Meeting the troupe and my brother there. The time a part's been stressful on us both. Going home or visiting someone? Or something else?"
"Visit'n." because staying was out of the question. He loved playing with fire, he didn't like to amerce himself in it. He couldn't be that close and that far from her again, not when she'd been his from sun up to sun down not so long ago. The girls all too cheerful chatter was both making him tense up when she spoke, but for some reason he was relaxing.
The alcohol was kicking in.
"Do you ever smile?" she asked, one of her delicate eyebrows raising, as her hand swung a pair of dog chains that hung down from her neck. She wasn't about to give up this tug-of-war or wills what have it. She'd met some snooty men, her brother could even be on of them, but he was being down right unhelpful at all. "Or do you only grouse and spit out one word sentences?"
"Grouse." Pete muttered unhelpfully, finishing the drink and hitting the stewardess button. That would give her the hint. He watched her expression become a momentary dour frown, before it passed so quickly, like someone hitting a light switch. And suddenly it wasn't an expression of anger, or brilliant warmth, but of a kind of understanding. Apathy. Edging on pity.
"She must have been incredibly important to you."
"The world," he let the words fall like a light sigh; without one. His head against the overly stuffed seat looking out the window he missed it when the girl beside him shushed away the stewardess with a smile and wave of her hand that showed she'd dealt with people waiting on her before. The conversation direction made him see the last days. "And m're."
Kylie lips half turned a smile, even though she regretted doing what she'd done to get him to actually says more than one word. If it weren't for her brother and she getting closer by moment, and mile and hour, she wouldn't have known it in exacts or acted as such.
He was a devilish figure, the man who sat next to her, in his ragged appearance. It was what had drawn her over here. Her, sheltered, spoiledly sweet, soft spoken, and all too bright heart shining Kylie Summers. The disheveled suit he bore, with the loosened black tie and then black cloak that seemed to wrap around him like some kind of physical protection from the world. It was something about him that made her think of her brother. Yes, that must have been it.
"What happened?"
"Th'ngs. She.We part'd ways aft'r," Pete said his voice mumbling between his lips with a light slur. He was sinking in a feeling that had somehow started at his toes and was filling him at the second. Not peaceful, or content feeling, just a mild sedating one, that made him feel like he was watching the conversation not taking part in it. The wonders of airplane beverages, they always had the stock. What had he been thinking about?
He could see Romany standing there holding the phone in one hand, with her thumb over the receiver holes as she told him to get in there. Told him to take his own calls because she wasn't an answering machine service and didn't have the time since she should be on her way to work. And there she'd been, grabbing her keys and watching him as he hung up, before she held out his coat to him.
She held the coat tight the first time he'd reached for it as she opened the front door. He'd looked at her to tell her to let go before he was going to yank it out from her hold, but she had the oddest expression on her face. If anyone could embody a regretful, half goodbye, Romany could. She smiled oddly as she released the coat then, and said 'She's good for you, little brother. Don't blow yourself out of the water this time.'
Romany's good at playing the hard big sister, but she loves you unconditionally, doesn't she?
Even when she seems to be the only one.
"Why are you going back then?" Kylie's curious and insistent voice again broken the reverie of the Londoner's thoughts that were settling again over the thin ice that covered a lake of worries and still aging regrets and brought him back to the chilled area he was contained in.
"H've to. She said-" he started and got submarined by the pilot speaking through intercom. They'd be landing shortly. Was the bloody flight over? It had taken long enough. He opened his eyes, focusing on the seat in front of him. He moved back the sleeve of his trench coat to look at his watch, figured in the time changes. He had a few hours still.
It's important. That's what she'd said.
Kitty had given him directions to some place out side Salem City. She'd said it was a cross between bar and a dinner. It looked like she was setting a meeting halfway, but what exactly was this "Harry's"? And what had she tried to say on the phone? He closed his eyes with a resigned shift to his body as the plane began to descend. A cellular phone sounded next to him and opened one eye to see the girl still sitting next to him.
She'd been so quiet he hadn't even noticed during the last few minutes naturally guessing she'd finally just given up like he wanted.
"Ky, I thought we promise no calls till I was in New York."
"No," Kylie laughed her voice a pact of affection and pleasure. "Being 40 feet over the city doesn't count. You really are crazy, you know that right?"
"Yeah, that means I must be crazy, too. Did you get my new hardware?"
"I know I don't have to ask but is it there with you? Are you at the doorway?"
"Ohhh, your too good to me, Ky. Hand in hand forever-"
She laughed again, as she seemed to have cringed almost as the wheels hit the ground beneath them. "I missed you, too. I love you, Ky. I'll see you in a few minutes."
Fag. Bloody life. Stuck me with some bubbling chippie who's in love with whatever git's on the other end of that line. The window looks nice and we're touching the ground. I'm sure I've jumped further distance to escape worse. Ruddy fate.
Everyone started moving and Kylie finally moved away to get her bag, coming back when Pete finally started moving to leave. He seemed so much like her brother to her when he got depressed it was almost freaky. She walked back over, holding her backpack by the top strap. She smiled even when he looked back realizing she was still standing there and appeared to grind his teeth.
So he wasn't a people person that didn't damper her. Slowly she released what she'd done, atleast safe in the knowledge he'd never know. He looked so like her brother when he gotten broken up over a girl.
"I hope everything works out for you, Pete." She spontaneously moved close placing a kiss against two of her fingers and touching his cheek, before stepping back making a small odd sign with her hand, moving her hand in a circle with all fingers out except the pink and ring finger, which were bent. "Blessed Be."
~*~*~
He pulled into the parking lot like a mad man. It was a repetitive driving habit now but New York had worse, besides the drive had been long from the capital. To have a surprise rental car waiting for him was a thing Romany had done on his behalf. He really owed her. More than he ever realized it when he had the chances to actually pay her back. So here he was. This was Harry's?
First Opinion. It looked like an old fogies joint.
She was in there. What do you do with your ex? Hug her? Shake her hand? Never mind, just keep your hands in your pockets, avoid that all together till you know what it's all about.
Getting out was easy. Sky was gray, wind was harsh. World against him today, too. What more waited on the other side? He opened the front door slowly, running a hand through his rough and tumble black hair, as he surveyed the place. Had a bar that was a plus. Juke box and booths, too.
Second Opinion. Wasn't too bad. Could be better, but wasn't too bad.
He kept looking around, nodding once to a plump man in an apron behind the counter who was drying a pitcher. Hey, look, maybe that was Harry even. Closer inspection.
His eyes found what they had been searching for, and avoiding all at once, and it felt like someone was holding his heart above an abyss, over a huge light, making every tear suddenly that much clearer, crystalline.
Kitty was sitting in the furthest back booth, her nose in a book. He strained for a second without walking closer to see the title. Fundamentalist of Technological Environmental Control and other New Age Technology Theories. She was reading and not reading, he could see it clearly in her eyes from across the dinner even. She was staring at the center of the page eye unwaveringly as if entranced.
Her long tresses of chestnut brown hair framed her face, shadowing it, and flowed over her shoulders, concealing parts of her face. It was her expression that choked his heart beyond the pain and regret that flooded him though. Her teeth worried her bottom lip ever so lightly, and she looked like she was ready to jump if anything startled her. Worried? Scared? Of him?
Pete walked forward. She was too beautiful, and the air around the table too tight. Sticking a hand in a pocket and arguing momentarily with the box pulled out a cigarette as he reached the booth; he stopped in front of it.
"Pryde," he declared it like it could have been some proclamation -or plea- not loud or soft exactly, but light enough that he was positive he hadn't given away anything.
Kitty looked up from her book, closing it slowly as she just looked up at him, holding her place with a finger. He wondered if his lungs had simply stopped working as he'd met those large brown eyes, because the objective to breath was as lost as any resolve he'd had seconds ago.
"Pete," her voice seemed the same as his, somehow formal, but elusively seeming to hint at other emotions as it trembled and stopped trembling by the end. She blinked and seemed to almost curl into where she sat becoming smaller but without moving as she nodded for him to sit across from her.
To be continued?