Author's Note: Some foul language in this one, but not enough to bump it to an R rating. If I offend, um, well, just know that I swear like a sailor at work and have probably already been yelled at on your behalf at some point. And I'm not 100 percent happy with the results here, but I was trying to hit the kinds of scenes I tend to gloss over, trying to paint a picture of who Beth is at this age. In any case, I want to stick to a schedule, so I'm posting. But I might go back and revisit this if the muse strikes.
Thanks again for the feedback. This is probably the fastest I have ever written anything, fanfic or otherwise. It took me almost a year to write my big "Roswell" opus, but there's something about this world and this community ... It's a wonderful addiction. I hope the thrill ride never ends ;)
Part Eight
Beth liked the burn. The hot trail of vodka down her throat, the smooth path of scotch as it settled in her stomach – good scotch, anyway – the perfume-y echo of schnapps.
It was rare that Beth wasted much time at parties with a cheap beer in her hand. If she was going to get drunk, she'd do it fast and hard with shot after shot until the room swirled around her and her limbs grew heavy.
And it was, therefore, particularly out of the ordinary that she was downing a Michelob draft at a bar in downtown L.A. It was her third congratulatory drink in the last hour and she was just about done.
Yes, it was a big deal that she'd won an award for her work. Her story on how the campus clinic had forced rape victims to wait hours for a doctor and then "misplaced" several rape kits was the first story of substance she had done and the first one that earned her any recognition. In between typing up police dockets and inane stories about the student government, she'd actually begun to doubt whether she was any good at journalism and, worse, whether she wanted to be.
Now Beth was trying to decide between the more respectable and rapidly dying print journalism and the sexier, shallower world of broadcast news. Tonight, sexy sounded just right.
"What's the matter with this place?" Beth announced, polishing off her beer and letting slip an unladylike, though quiet, belch. Another reason she didn't drink beer. "The lights, the beer, everything. This bar is awful."
She made a face and stood. A little wobbly, but she caught herself on the bar.
"Let's go," she demanded of her editor, a scrappy blond who was half in the lap of one of the sports reporters and completely ignoring her star reporter. Beth looked around. Her friends were either even drunker than she was or on the prowl.
Beth set her glass down unceremoniously and burst out of the bar into the night. She sighed and took a deep breath of the spring air. She almost choked on the combination of smog, trash, vomit and piss that greeted her.
"Fuck," she stumbled a bit. That was supposed to be fun, invigorating. Clear her head or something. Instead, she fled the patch of nastiness and hailed a cab.
One cruised up. It was early for barflies to be relocating, but this one didn't seem to mind.
"Know any good bars? Dark and – " Beth lowered her voice melodramatically -- "sexy?"
The driver looked at her in the rear view mirror, staring intently, before he laughed and pulled away from the curb. The chill of his air conditioner on full blast forced Beth to realize she had left her demure summer sweater, with her cell phone in its pocket, somewhere in the bright booths of the last bar.
The cab headed off into the night to parts unknown.
Josef swung his club and sent his ball sailing across the fairway of the eighth hole. He gave a wolf whistle.
"That, my friend, is perfection," Josef hopped on the golf cart, readying to careen down to the green.
"The PGA doesn't know what it's missing," Mick braced himself. Josef's need for speed didn't stop with the Ferrari.
"So I'm up, what three strokes? That's three pints, Mick. Pricey round of night golf tonight," Josef eyed the nearing green. "And, unless you birdie this hole, that'll be four."
"So you're assuming your ball is on the green."
Josef slowed the cart and squinted down the fairway.
"Damn it." The ball had hit a decline and rolled into the rough while Mick's ball was just a foot or two from the hole. "Four hundred years and twenty years of lessons and you'd think I could beat some punk from L.A. without breaking a sweat."
"You'd think that, huh?" Mick cocked his head to the side and swung.
A few minutes later, the two were just two strokes apart.
"I'm still winning. Last hole. No way I'm making this in less than two," Josef announced.
"Whatever gets you through the night," Mick called from his perch on the cart, draining his flask of blood and booze.
As Josef teed off, Mick's cell phone buzzed.
"St. John."
"Mick, it's Edward," came the tight voice Mick recognized as one of the bartenders at Dreaming Darkly, a favorite haunt of Josef's.
"Looking for the big man? He's about to lose a round of golf, so he might not be in the best mood," Mick heard Josef muttering under his breath from the driver's side. An insult to Mick's parentage and sexual preferences if he wasn't mistaken.
"No. It's you I wanted," the man sounded uncertain.
"What's wrong?"
"Are you missing one of your girls?" the bar sounds nearly drowned out the question.
"I don't have any girls," Mick let Josef go ahead, sinking his putt with a twirl of his club.
"Well, there's a drunk blond here who has your scent. Most of the vamps are behaving themselves, but she's not and eventually someone who doesn't know you is gonna start to nibble."
"I'll be right there."
"I forfeit. Something's up," Mick slid into the driver's side.
"That girl is always ruining my fun," the eavesdropping Josef allowed the P.I. to race the cart back to the clubhouse, faster than even the elder vampire had driven it.
Men had been sniffing around her all night. Gorgeous men, even a few beautiful women. She'd had her fair share of free drinks when she first walked in – this time straight liquor, no beer at this bar. She didn't even think this place served beer.
Beth wasn't sure exactly where she was. The taxi had woven in and out of industrial areas, past penthouses and to a secluded little place in sight of a beach. The bouncer hadn't asked for ID (which was good because she was pretty sure her fake wouldn't make it here), just leaned in and either sniffed her or looked down her top. Either way, he'd let her join the mass of writhing bodies pulsing to the heavy beats of some song she didn't know.
After her first vodka double with an amaretto chaser, the idea of grinding on the dance floor, with its flush of mellow red and blue lights making everything so lush and lovely, sounded perfect. She'd rubbed and twisted in time, danced like sex with music. Plenty of eyes flashed at her, but no one took her up on her drunken offers. Couples were ensconced in darkened booths, but no one came to drag her back to one.
So she'd headed back to the bar. The bartender wasn't particularly busy. For a place filled with bodies, it didn't seem like enough drinking was going on.
Too much thinking, Beth decided. She wasn't a fucking detective. Who the hell cared how much people drank? She flagged down the adorable bartender with his closely cropped blond hair and overly muscled chest. Not her type, but okay in a pinch.
"Can you give me a slippery nipple?" on tiptoes, Beth bent over the bar, nearly dumping her cleavage out of a little black dress that, without the sweater, was downright slutty.
He gave her a libidinous, promising grin and Beth's heart raced. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice shrieked that this was not her. She liked a little thrill, but this sort of thrill was likely to get her hurt. Or worse.
Yet when he leaned in to whisper to her and then immediately recoiled, she was pissed.
"I'll be right back," he said.
He disappeared round the corner, leaving Beth to pour herself back into her dress and wonder what was wrong with her tonight.
The Benz squealed into place in front of the club. How the hell had she found her way here? Dreaming Darkly was far from the clubbing districts, heavily guarded and very dangerous. People were inside for exactly two things: fucking and feeding. Not necessarily in that order.
"Mick, move the car," hollered the bouncer as Mick breezed past him, whipping the keys behind him.
"If the cops show up, get it out of the way. But I'll be right back."
Inside, Mick spotted her draped over the bar. But it wasn't little Beth. He knew she had grown. He knew she was in college. He'd watched her pass puberty, leave her mother's house. But suddenly she was legs and hips and breasts, all wrapped up in a dress that should be at least three inches longer in both directions.
The perfume of her blood was calling to half the vampires in the place. He was surprised that she hadn't been jumped long before he'd gotten here. Lucky for her, his stalkerish ways had left his scent, faint but present, on her. He'd meant it to protect her during late night walks across campus and waiting for the escort from the library to the dorms. Not vampire bars and human orgies.
Mick closed the gap between them in an instant. She threw her head back and downed another shot. Her hair was short, the chin-length cut that reminded him of the little girl in his arms so long ago.
But he knew that when she turned around, it wouldn't be her. That girl was gone. He took a breath. Eight years since he'd been this close, near enough to take her breath into his own lungs, to feel the embers of their connection stirring.
He sidled up beside her, moving a hand to the small of her back as she swayed on her feet.
"Hi there," came the breathy tone. Not her voice. This was velvety with liquor and sex.
"Hi," Mick strained to sound as friendly as possible. "Are you doing okay?"
"I'm fine. Just fine," Beth's eyes met his, barely focused. "Don't I know you?"
Her hand raised to his face, but Mick took a step back.
"I think I'd remember a pretty thing like you," no girl – no woman had been able to resist the St. John charm. Mick knew he had tall, dark and broody down to a science, not that he'd used it much in the past couple of decades.
She twisted toward him, giving him a full and decidedly uncomfortable view of her front side. He resisted the urge to shrug off his jacket and cover her with it.
Beth blinked, trying to reconcile her mind with her sight.
"No, you look like... someone I used to..." Beth screwed up her face and searched. She lifted her hand again, but mid-gesture plopped it on top of Mick's.
A chill went through Mick at the contact. Beth froze and stared, transfixed at their touching skin. Mick willed the connection to close, imagining wall after wall of ice between them. Beth gave a shiver and let go.
"Maybe not," she seemed uncertain and, if Mick wasn't mistaken, the salt of tears teased at the air.
"Can I give you a ride home, Beth?" he tilted her toward the door and they were already in motion before she answered.
"Hang on, I've gotta settle up," she pivoted shakily as a hand descended into her cleavage, fishing around in her bra.
"I'll get it," Mick wanted to blush on her behalf. Why the hell didn't she have a purse? He plucked a bill from his wallet, not even glancing at how much and threw it on the bar.
"My mother told me never to get into the car with a stranger," Beth replied. "Next thing I know, you'll take me to a cabin in the woods to wait for my new daddy."
Mick winced.
"My name is Michael. There, now I'm not a stranger," Mick gave her his given name, not wanting to waste this moment on a lie.
"Hi Michael, I'm B-" Beth paused after another step. "Wait, you knew my name before. I never told you."
"Sure you did."
She stopped a precious few feet from the door.
"No," the fear trickled into her voice. "I didn't."
Mick glanced around. The clusters of vampires were looking at her, several with a downright hungry look and the smell of her fear wasn't helping. One, barely past fledging, darted across the floor toward them. Mick was a minute away from tossing Beth over his shoulder and hauling her out of the lion's den.
"Okay, maybe you're right. Maybe we have seen each other before," Mick whispered. He let the wall of ice melt a little. Just a little. "Maybe you know me. Maybe you've always known me. Maybe you shouldn't trust me, but I think you do. And I think you're drunk and need a ride home, Beth."
Beth's unfocused eyes locked on his and still she hesitated. Mick let his eyes flash, for just a second, to the ice blue from her deepest memory and something clicked in her gaze.
"Okay, Michael. Let's go," She reached for his hand and let him lead her out of the club, into the night.
The windows of Beth's second-floor apartment, near the campus newspaper offices, was dark and silent. None of her roommates were there, which was good for Mick.
Beth had passed out in the car, the force of the liquor finally hitting her. Mick gathered her in his arms, the muscle memory striking him as he effortlessly lifted her from the passenger seat. She roused with the movement.
"I knew you were strong," her whisper held a hint of slur. She lifted her arms around his neck.
"Strong enough," Mick moved slowly. He let himself breathe in her smell, let it roll through him. Her heart was next to his, her beats urging his nearly silent one to give chase.
"You were always stronger," she murmured. Mick opted for the stairs over the elevator. A small confined space didn't seem like a good idea at the moment
"Will you stay? Just for a little while?" the pleading was all seven-year-old Beth.
"You need to go to bed."
"Not yet. I'm too drunk, I'll throw up," Beth informed him.
At her door Mick realized that his lock picking kit was in the car and God only knew where she kept her key in that ensemble.
"Beth, where's your key?"
A pause.
"In my sweater."
"You're not wearing a sweater."
"I was," a petulant response that prompted a grin on his part.
"But you're not any more, so I'm going to have to figure out a way to get you into your apartment without breaking down the door," Mick explained slowly, as though he would a child.
Beth groaned. The buzz of the liquor was wearing off as her body went about the business of removing the alcohol from it.
"Jen. In 203. She has a spare."
Mick moved to set Beth down, but she tightened her grip.
"Don't let me go."
And so Mick found himself disturbing a bookish looking girl – woman, about Beth's age – embarrassedly wrapping a robe tight over raggedy pajamas, a flickering TV muted in the living room and a pile of books spread across a table behind her. She glanced at Beth's moaning form in Mick's arms and hesitated, but surrendered the key.
Once in her apartment, Mick headed straight for the bedroom. He set her in her bed gently.
"Beth, I'm going to go. You're gonna be fine," Mick whispered. Her eyes opened in a panic and she lurched forward, grabbing at him.
"No," Beth caught his hand and moved it to her forehead, then her cheeks, running his cold skin over her clamminess. "You feel so good."
Mick shrugged off his jacket and settled himself behind her, letting his chill be useful for once.
"Tell me a story. I loved your stories," she murmured after a minute. Mick tensed. She knew, she remembered. Didn't she?
"All my stories end in blood or tears."
"Not all of them," she replied. "Not this one."
"This one isn't over yet."
Beth drifted out of consciousness again, sagging against him. He awkwardly arranged his arms to support her without touching much of her bare skin. Where his smell had been a hint before, now she'd be covered in it like one of Josef's freshies. Any vampires drawn by her would hopefully have the good grace to stay away from what was his.
Mick let himself enjoy her smell again, a connoisseur rolling the flavor but not drinking. No matter how many years passed, how she changed and evolved into a person, her scent was constant. Under the smell of her shampoo, her soap, her laundry detergent, even the pungency of human existence, there was Beth. Spicy and sweet, with the edge of dark, thanks to him. But together it made for a potent temptation.
He felt the push of fangs and the rumble of hunger echoed through his chest. With a flinch, he clamped down on the vampire with violence he usually reserved for career felons and rogue vampires.
Beth moved against him, rolling over face first across the bed. He could smell the nausea.
"I'm going to die," the muffled pronouncement sounded dire.
"No, Beth," Mick used the opportunity to remove himself from her. He slid off the bed and knelt to the side of it, pushing her hair away from her face. "You're going to live a very long time. You'll die warm in your bed surrounded by grandchildren, if I have stalk you for the rest of your life to do it. And as long as you don't do stuff like this again."
"It's too late, I'm going to die now."
Mick listened to the rhythms of her body. Too much alcohol, way too much. If he'd realized how exactly much, he might have taken her to the emergency room instead of her room.
He wasn't leaving any time soon, not until he was sure she was fine. He locked the door to her bedroom and came back to her. Mick arranged himself on the floor next to the bed, listening to her pulse, her breathing. Steady, a little too slow, but steady. He pulled her to the corner of the bed, so her face hung off the side.
Beth reached for him again. Her hand found his and he let it.
"Better," she sighed.
Mick pulled a dogeared book from her bedside, "Pride and Prejudice," and read to the sleeping woman. Breathing her in, he kept his cold hand in her warm one through the night.