nomorekaraoke | October 31st, 2006

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October 31st, 2006

Ahh, the late October evening air is crisp and sizzling with the bustle and excitement permeating 6th Street. Just an hour or two ago, the streets lay quiet and calm, like before a storm. And what a storm it is. Tonight is the biggest night of the year for Lorne - the only night he can go out with a bang (so to speak), and glam it up without having to worry about mobs and pitch forks and torches and all kinds of peer pressure. He can be lean and green and having a fabulous time. For any other demon with a sense of dignity, Halloween is the be all and ban all of faux pas-es. It's a night where silly wannabes co-mingle. It is just not done.

But Lorne will do it and do it well for every year he can muster. He'll be in his hundreds, old and wrinkly and hunchbacked, and he'll still come here for the big event.

***

And when the darkness has fallen over the city, and the parade lights up the city streets with eerie lights and chilled merriment in equal doses, Lorne dances down the line like it's 1999, all feathered up, glammed up and having a ball.

You never know who you'll bump into, and the best part? You can pop into a coffee shop or a restaurant on the way, get to know someone better anytime you want to. If he should be so lucky tonight, it would be the icing on the cake and the cherry on top.

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She's wearing a short black wig and a mask, black and gold and red in swirling abstract patterns, and that's about as much costume as she felt up to putting together -- but it means she can walk down the street without worrying who'll see her.

Even someplace like Union Square, which was one of her old habitual hangouts. All of which she's compulsively avoided for almost a year now.

She's glued a fine black mesh over the eyeholes of the mask so that not even her eyes are visible. It doesn't obscure her own vision; she's watching the parade, and trying not to feel like she doesn't deserve to be here.

Like the societal outcasts they both are, they couldn't be more different; one of them striving not to be noticed, the other one having done everything to the exact opposite effect; both of them risking very serious consequences should they be caught.

It remains to be seen if either of them care enough about personal safety not to get up close and personal with a stranger.

...the green fellow in the pale, frosty pink suit with the feathers ~~galore~~ certainly doesn't seem to care that much.

"Can't you tell? I'm Liberace, honey!"

Loud enough to be overheard even in the jovial cheer surrounding the parade.

The twitch at the nape of her neck, the warning tingle down her spine, and she turns sharply before realizing she's going to --

Cold and flat in her mind: That's not a mask.

She should go. She should turn and slip away into the crowd, because that's a demon, and if she recognizes what he is, he could recognize what she is.

She can't move.

What she is, is freaking out, and when it comes down to the rough and tough of it, fear is the single loudest emotion of them all. You don't have to be listening for it to hear it coming. Even if it's all around and all over the place and fitting for the holiday, that was not a cheerful thrill. It's genuine fear.

Wondering what would cause it, Lorne turns his head to spy the crowds lining the street to watch the parade. He has a sinking feeling his cover is blown even before his eye catches sight of a girl in a black wig and a pretty mask.

Yeah, that's fear all right, staring him right in the face, and if she can't move, he certainly has no qualms about moving his feet. He tells himself it isn't making a run for anything, even as he zig-zags his way through the parade, looking for the nearest dark alleyway to disappear into.

It's as though his movement gives her permission to move: her paralysis breaks, and she steps backward and turns to slip off into the crowd, with an unconscious awkward grace that gets her a few more glances.

He saw her, there's no doubt in her mind. It was stupid to come out here, stupid -- the subway entrance is right over there, and that spells escape if she can just get to it before anyone else recognizes her.

It would be a great plan, all things considered; a great set of plans, if they weren't heading in the same direction. The thought hits Lorne too, halfway across the street, and he makes a mock-merry swift process of circling around the scared girl.

That's all he needs to bolt, knowing he's scared someone. Knowing someone out there knows what he is.

And just when he thinks he's in the clear, another wave of fear hits him smack dab in the noggin and he goes down. Funny thing about lamp posts. They don't move out of the way even if they see you coming.

He must be a pitiful sight to behold, trying to keep his nose from bleeding all over his nice costume, and cover up the face it isn't a masterful blend of sfx and nature.

Funny thing about New Yorkers. The moment you think they're a coldhearted bunch, someone comes along to offer you a helping hand.

"Thanks, doll. I owe ya one."

She's slipping past, quickly as she can, fumbling in the pocket of her black jeans for her Metrocard as she thumps down the stairs of the subway entrance.

Red wetness against smooth green scales, a hand clutching at a bloody nose. I did that, wails a tiny panicked voice at the back of her mind, and it makes her queasy even though she knows it's not true.

The turnstile balks and won't let her through; she swipes her card again slower, and makes it this time.

There's no train in sight.

When the going gets tough, the anagogic demon draws all his bridges and pulls all his curtains, letting nothing in but the bare necessities. Smell, hearing, sight, so on, but the bombardment of emotions jacked up high goes away like some kind of bliss.

It isn't until he's stumbling past the checkpoint that he notices he's trapped with the same girl he gave the heebie jeebies. For real.

For one moment, he considers doing a one-eighty and tap dancing back whence he came. It takes only one more moment for him to decide not to. He instead leans against one of the tiled pillars keeping the station from caving in on itself, and fumbles for his handkerchief. His neat, clean, flamingo pink handkerchief. Pressed to his nose.

"I hope you're not a sanguiphobe, darling. Sorry," he offers, just a bit stuffed. It's pretty genuine, as apologetic tokens go.

See? He's harmless.

She's standing with her back to the wall formed by the stairway, arms folded around her midsection.

"Little bit," she says, barely audible.

He nods, silently berating himself for being such a fool.

"Listen, I know what this looks like, but I just wanna make one thing perfectly clear, okay? I didn't mean to scare you."

He looks at the young woman square in the face, at what must be her eyes behind the mesh. "I also didn't mean to follow you down here, but then, you know, I kinda didn't mean to let that lamp post knock me out either. My not-meant-tos just keep stackin' up, don't they."

Speaking of which, he fetches a small compact mirror (intricately adorned in black and red embroidery; some kind of Asian floral theme) from inside his jacket - not so fabulous anymore - to survey the damages.

On the one hand: does he really expect her to believe that he didn't follow her on purpose?

On the other: Beth knows all about not-meant-tos.

Muffled: "Sorry. About your nose."

No. To be fairly honest, he doesn't expect her to believe one single word out of his green cake-hole. Then again, he doesn't believe what people tell him, as a rule. It's only to be expected. You don't trust demons, not even if you are one.

"I'll survive, and don't you apologize. I don't recall you roundhousing me, pumpkin." The mirror is returned to its pocket; the handkerchief isn't, even after he's stopped bleeding. Eugh.

He takes a deep breath, fails, and tries again. Through his mouth this time. "You got no reason to trust me not to do all kinds of nasty to you, but... You know, to be fair, I don't really have any reason to trust you're a lamb either. Looks and deception and all that jazz."

Just making conversation. Snazzy.

"Looks and deception," she repeats, nodding. "Specially tonight, right?"

She's reminded that he can't see her face, not even her eyes; it makes her a little less nervous. A little.

"Is that why you were out in the open? Because people would think it's a costume?"

He chuckles, which comes out as a snort, and gee if that isn't sort of embarrassing. "I'm the only demon I know who dares show his face come All Hallow's Eve, but then I'm, what do the kids call it? A special snowflake."

It might seem out of character for him, if only you knew, that that last statement is almost completely void of self-deprecation. He actually thinks it's kind of funny. It's the first time since this little merry-go-round that he's smiling.

"Clever and mysterious." He pats his chest, where his heart would be were he a human - or most any other humanoid demon. Pyleans are special in all sorts of ways.

"I think I'm falling already. Head over heels." But enough with the banter. "Yeah... I can't exactly go to the movies on a whim, you know?"

"Yeah."

Just the one flat syllable. She doesn't mean it to come out quite as bitter as it does.

It's just -- she was having fun, out watching the parade, thinking herself safely anonymous behind her mask, and now -- is she going to have to hide for the rest of her life?

(An unexpected addendum to that thought: Like he does?)

"Oh." It's got layers and layers of meaning, that two-lettered response, and it sends his grin waning. "Oh, dear. Don't I know the feeling."

She's on the run. But from whom? From what?

She raises her head a little, looking right at him for the first time.

"I guess maybe you might."

"Lemme take a stab at it? Not literally of course." Of course.

"You meet some new friends, everything's champagne and roses and fun times. You spend more and more time with them, getting real close. Why, you'd do anything for them, just anything, because you know they're good people. In some sense, you're like a family, you and the guys. It's like that for a long time. It's like you don't even remember what you were like before you met them."

Bitter? Excuse him while he lights up a cigarette. Hell yes, and it's only ameliorated by the fact he's a bajillion miles away from the memories. "And then one day, push comes to shove, and all the good things you and your bosom buddies worked for...it makes nice pavement for a certain yellow brick road what smells of sulfur."

At the words you meet some new friends, she tenses but doesn't move away; if this is a trap, she thinks grimly, let's hear it.

And then slowly the tension goes out of her as she listens.

He's not talking about her. He's talking about him.

"Kinda like that," she says, even though past a certain point the stories don't match at all. Because the people she was working with --

"Only you don't know they're good people," she hears herself say, without intending to. "Not the ones you're working with, not the ones you're pretending to work with, you just picked the side you thought was gonna keep you safe and not make you do anything horrible. And you picked wrong."

Another deep sigh breaks his silence as he listens, watching the young woman, and it strikes her just how young she must be. How old she must feel.

His face, thinly veiled by smoke as it is, remains passive; guarded. Only his eyes can't keep up the facade. Maybe their stories are worlds apart, just like they are or seem to be, but he knows some of her pain.

"But that's just the thing, isn't it? You didn't know. You believed you were doing the right thing all along. It isn't what you did that hurts. It's the betrayal of trust."

She shakes her head.

"Shouldn't have trusted her in the first place," she manages before her throat closes entirely; the mesh behind the mask may hide the sight of threatening tears, but it can't hide the sound.

"Oh. Oh, no, sweetie. Don't cry." He takes half a step forward, hesitating only because he's scared her once already and he isn't at all keen on making the same mistake twice in such a short time span. Instead, his voice lowers to a soft murmur.

"Lemme tell you something about picking sides. There are no sides. There's no clear cut right and wrong, there's no black and white. It's all one big, whoppin' gray area, and the only thing you can do is follow your heart even if it leads you straight to Hell."

If you have one. "You did, didn't you? You had faith in someone, you thought you were doing the right thing. You believed you were. Didn't you?"

And, well ... did she?

"There are sides," she says finally, low. "Doesn't mean either of them's right. I thought ..."

Her arms are folded tight around her stomach again, against the ache and nausea, but she can say this; she can say this to him because he has no idea who she is.

"It doesn't matter what I thought. People got killed and it was my fault."

Strangers in the night. Frank Sinatra had no idea.

"It matters," he insists that it does, and probably would years from now. It's his way of justifying his own crimes, big and small. He believed he was doing the right thing. He really did.

"Just, maybe not the way you think it does."

"How do you think it matters, then?" It's sharp, sharper than she would ordinarily dare, but all the rules of ordinary seem to have been put on hold for the moment.

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