justsookie | breathed so deep i thought i'd drown; it feels better biting down

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breathed so deep i thought i'd drown; it feels better biting down

She should have known that it would only be a matter of time until someone noticed. It was easier to watch out for herself shortly after first arriving, a pocketknife buried deep in her purse and nightly practice sessions for holding that light between her hands, the fae's warmth thrumming against her fingertips. But day after day, nothing happened. The daytime is all hers to play with, roaming the city, searching for clothing outlets, boutiques, bakeries and coffee shops. And in the evening, she's free to smile more while under the protection of women and men who know what they're doing, strength and cunning plentiful among all of them. She sleeps soundly, knowing that Lafayette's only some flights of stairs away.

Complacency becomes the theme long before she realizes it.

So when she heads home one evening and notices a series of steps clipping fast behind her, she assumes that it's just another drunken asshole, someone who probably thinks that leaving a generous tip entitles him to a little extra something later. Sookie picks up her pace, not yet casting a look over her shoulder as she holds her purse closer to her chest. Her apartment is only a couple of blocks away, it won't be hard to make it back.

Until she suddenly feels a rush of air all around her, shoes slipping off and heels dragging against concrete, the wind knocked out of her as a pair of darkly blown eyes rake over her body and press her up against a wall.

"You make one more move and I'll scream," she warns, a soft thrumming energy building by her fingertips, but it doesn't linger long before Sookie feels her arm wrenched up high above her head. Letting out a cry of pain, she struggles against the hold, but the man is much larger, much taller, and she can't get the leverage she needs when all her limbs are stretched.

"I think I'd like that," the man breathes, grinning before his fangs suddenly slot into place, long and sharp. "No one's going to hear you in this part of town, sweetheart."

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He slips and shuffles only a little as he drags himself up from where he was half-curled on the bottom of the tub. The water slides off, dripping from the tips of long fingers, and he gives his arms a small shake, unbashful about his own nudity. He'd had that beat out of him at an early age, with the women he'd spent the most time with.

"Something to drink is even easier, so you don't need to feel like you're asking anything much, you know." He moves away for the thick towels, glancing back over his shoulder with a smile, less broad than some that met his face. A little concerned. "You shouldn't talk about it that way. And anyway, if you want, you can stay here for however long suits you. I just assumed you had things to get back to. Maybe I assumed wrong."

He stretches an arm out toward her, offering a towel.

Edited 2013-11-23 06:22 (UTC)

The water splashes by her feet, and Sookie ducks down briefly to pull the plug on the tub, reaching out afterward for the towel Kisuke holds her way. Sparing a brief and appreciative look that trails down the line of Kisuke's spine, Sookie's cheeks color, and she shakes her head quickly as she steps out of the tub.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not ashamed of what we did," she tells him first, expression even and serene. "I'm not ashamed of being a sexually active woman. But... I'm not used to it like this, either. All the men I've been with so far have been my partners in relationships. I was practically engaged to be married to one of them. There was never any walking home in the middle of the night or, you know, parting ways and never seeing one another again."

Her last words are what get his attention, and he pauses in the middle of running the towel roughly through thick hair. He turns to give her a long look of hesitant curiosity, before dropping his arms to tie the towel around his waist and make a noise somewhere between a sigh and a laugh.

"I wouldn't have figured that someone who'd got the truth out of me would have wanted to come around more often and make friends. I'm not blowing you off, so please don't think badly of me for saying it. But if it weren't for very special circumstances, you really might never see me again. Even if you were looking. Would you really want a relationship - by that, I mean friends; I wouldn't want to be presumptuous - with something so different?"

"I kind of expected you to blow me off, so you won't be coming off as any flightier than I'd assumed," Sookie says first, patting her entire body down with the towel before wrapping it around her hair, leaving the rest of her skin bare. "And you know, I wouldn't have been intimate with you if I thought that you were the kind of person I didn't want hanging around me. I'm a risk-taker, but not with my priorities like that."

Letting out a soft breath through her nose, Sookie turns to face Kisuke's mirror, rubbing the towel more roughly against her hair. "I don't tend to be the kind of person who's scared off by what people are, anyway. Vampires were the exception for a while, but that's more because of what I am to them. I'm not... normal, myself. What right do I have to get squeamish over other people being a little out of the ordinary?"

"So I noticed," Kisuke says, softly amused, if a bit cagey, as he studies her with quiet eyes before taking the robe from on top of the stack he'd made and unfolding it with a soft snap. He holds it out behind her, ready to be stepped into.

"Kora," he says. "So what makes Miss Stackhouse shine for vampires? I can see that there is something different about you. Not that I would have ignored you if that weren't the case. People should help each other when they're capable of it."

Drawing in a deep breath, Sookie smiles as she pushes her arms through the robe held out for her, wrapping it tightly around her body and ducking her head to press against the fluffy texture. She enjoys being pampered, but more than that, she wonders if Kisuke's the type of person who likes to indulge others regardless.

"I've got fairy in my background," Sookie says, pursing her lips. "Which I guess doesn't mean as much in Darrow, where fairy can mean a billion things, but where I'm from, fairies are... creatures that are capable of altering their appearance to match an individual's perception of beauty. I haven't got that, probably because I'm too human, but I can travel between some dimensions, and I've got this kind of light-based power in me? I can fire it at enemies with some care. I tried to at that guy, but he pinned my arms to the side and I'm not great with aim."

It isn't with indulgence or idle curiosity that he liftens, expression kept maybe a bit too schooled in reaction to her explanation. It doesn't surprise him, not that she's got something other than human in her, or that she'd been capable of defending herself back there, if she'd have absolutely needed to.

He works hands around her waist to tie the robe gently shut, before sliding up to take her wrists loosely in his hands and slip them closer together. It looks, perhaps, more like someone being taught to hold a baseball bat more than anything else.

"It seems to be in your best interest to learn how to aim," he says lightly. "What do you want to drink?"

Sookie puts up no resistance as soon as it's clear that Kisuke's intent on tying her robe shut for her, and watches their hands curiously as he maneuvers her hands. Licking her lips, Sookie takes a deep breath before calling some of her power forth, keeping it carefully held between her palms and lifting them to show Kisuke. The light is bright, faintly pink in color, buzzing slightly in its power.

"There aren't many people who've got an incentive to show me how to do this. The fairies didn't want me throwin' this around and drawing attention to them. Not to mention that I've only got a finite amount of power, 'cause I'm not full fairy." She breathes out slowly, letting the power dissipate. "And the one guy who tried to show me ended up trying to take my life, so I'm not inclined to be very grateful to him. Do you have some kind of juice?"

Whatever it is, the light she can produce is warm and somehow comforting. Not thretening at all. But he can imagine how it might be made a weapon against something like a vampire, or even a Hollow.

"You need to learn to aim," he says, before sliding away from her to move toward the bathroom door, headed for the kitchen. "If you don't want to just get rid of that altogether, you need to learn to aim. Is apple cider alright? It's all I've got, I really don't drink a lot of juice."

"Are you going to teach me? All while making sure, like you said, that I don't lose everything of what I've got left?" Sookie asks, clearly challenging but mostly playful, still feeling the slight weight in her limbs from her time with Kisuke. Nevertheless, even voicing the worry seems to back up what Kisuke says. She can conserve what she has all she likes, but if she ends up missing entirely as she fires indiscriminately, there's no point.

"Cider would be great," she says, glancing down at the open front of the robe and tugging up the collar slightly to better cover her chest. "Or water. I'm not picky, but I've got somethin' of a sweet tooth."

"If you want to be taught," Kisuke says, looking at her with a smile as he lingers in the doorway to the kitchen before disappearing into it to get her a cold drink. "Then I can teach you. I think that it's something important for you to learn. Power like that should be controlled, or it'll control you."

He digs the jug out of the fridge and a glass out of the cupboard before filling it, and adding a plastic straw and a couple ice cubes for good measure He prefers something hot to drink, but after a bath like that, he can see how something different would be refreshing.

He's just not thirsty enough to bother with himself, for now.

"I've got a sweet tooth too," he admits, raising his head to search for her again as he presses his damp bangs out of his eyes with a flat palm. He wonders if he should put his clothes back on, or if she might take it the wrong way. He never meant to try to rush her out, but it's apparent that their ideas of intimacy are a little diagonal to one another.

Sookie receives the glass with a nod of thanks, quieting down and taking the straw between her lips, sipping slowly at the drink. It's cold and refreshing, even though it drives a slight shiver down her spine. More than anything, as promised, the sugar is what makes her relax, feeling at home and at ease. There's something about the way that sugar softens the feel of any situation.

Soon, however, the chill grows a little too strong in Sookie's stomach, and she leans back to watch Kisuke's movements closely, smiling at the soft brush of palm over his hair.

"If you know so much about power... does that mean that your job's a complicated one? I guess that shouldn't be a surprise, where death is concerned," she murmurs softly, tapping her cheek as she rests her chin in her palm. "But you make me wonder if it's a violent thing. What you do."

"It isn't my job anymore," he's quick to remind her, forever toeing his party line. He offers her a sideways smile, before pulling out one of the four kitchen chairs and settling into it, chin propped up by one cupped palm. He slides the seat beside himself out with one bare foot, offering Sookie a place beside himself.

"But I would say that it can be complicated. And more than that, that it can be violent. This isn't about my job, though. It's just what I like to do. I like to see people live up to their potential. Do you think that you're living up to yours? Different people have got different priorities, after all. That's their prerogative."

Edited 2013-12-14 18:26 (UTC)

"Is that really a job you can retire from?" Sookie asks briefly, more rhetorical than anything else as she sits herself down in the offered chair, snorting lightly at the push from Kisuke's bare foot. He is, in more ways than not, a contrast to all the men she'd grown up with and around.

"You know, no one's ever really asked me that question. About my potential. I think people kind of assumed from early on that I wasn't someone with a lot of it, 'cause I couldn't focus and I was always hearing things, and for the longest time no one knew why," she says, frowning, tapping the end of the straw against her lip. "It's why I didn't do well in school. Try concentrating when you've got twenty-some other kids yammering about in your head. All I know's that I'm not the most ambitious girl around, but... the exception's in learning how to protect myself. And other people. I'd like to live up to my potential there."

"No," Kisuke says, vague, nearly a brush-off, "It's not the type of job you retire from." He offers Sookie a long, lazy smile, from beneath heavily lidded eyes, before looking around the kitchen in consideration himself. It seems like a good time for a snack, either because his hands are for want of something to do, or because he's legitimately hungry; he's having a hard time distinguishing tonight

"I dealt a lot with people sort of like yourself at home," he says. "Not fairy people, of course." He emphasizes the word with amusement, but not scorn. "People who saw or heard things that others weren't capable of. You must have had a rough time, growing up. I empathize, I really do. I also think that it's important for you to see me again. I want you to live up to your potential. And I'm reasonably sure that I can help make that happen. If you're willing, and interested."

Edited 2013-12-17 19:12 (UTC)

"It... it was pretty hard, I can't deny. Fairies can read the thoughts of living creatures, more or less, and when I was a kid I couldn't figure out the difference between a person's thoughts and the things they said," says Sookie, watching as Kisuke makes a circle around her, heading back to the kitchen. "My parents were afraid of me. So much that, well. My dad —"

Sookie pauses, giving Kisuke a longer, considering look before shoving the thought away. Less because she doesn't trust him, and more because she's not sure if she'd be able to handle all possible responses to the idea of parents taking away their daughter's life to protect her. It's hard to tell what Kisuke would think, exactly.

"I wouldn't mind seeing you again," she says instead, lips pressed in the slightest of smiles. "As long as it doesn't interfere with my work. I... I've got some friends who could use the help, too, though I think I need to pull my act together first. And make sure you don't terribly mind if I bring in a bit of baggage."

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breathed so deep i thought i'd drown; it feels better biting down

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