Title:  Dark Sylvia WIP's 3

Here is a look at my WIPs. Just because I feel like it. And I like this meme. And I want to see other people's.


"I've been waiting for you to ask me that."

"I know. So how are you going to answer?"

"Yes." He said. Brian slowly let out the breath he hadn't known he was holding. "But I have to tell you something."

"What? You’re dying to blow me?” he raised an eyebrow.

"No," said Justin, patiently. "I have to go to Hollywood for a while. Brett offered me a job on the movie."

His voice was pitched for maximum nonchalance, which Brian was pretty sure he'd gotten from imitating him. Brian's stomach clenched a little, and his shoulder throbbed.

"When are you leaving?" and when are you coming back?

"Four and a half weeks. They're doing the legal stuff now. I'll probably be there for six months. Then I'll come home. Here."

"Okay," he said. Justin was looking at him warily, as if he expected an explosion, or a cold sentence like 'Who says I'll be around'. So maybe the pain medication helped, but that was what someone else would have said. Someone he'd been in the past.

"Really okay?"

"I'll be here when you get back."

And that had been the end of the conversation. Except that hadn't been the end of the issue. Brian wasn't clingy. He'd never been, except maybe when he was drunk, to Mikey, to ensure his ride home. Justin wasn't clingy either. He'd had leanings that way in the beginning, but Brian had sarcastically cut them out of him, something he was not really proud of. Of course, if he cared to acknowledge it--which he didn't--he'd had any of his clinginess dissected from him a long time ago, by Jack.


********
Justin almost never had to take the Subway because he almost never had to venture out of his part of the city. Food, shelter, work, and fun were all convieniently housed within walking distance. The reason he was on one now was that TB had given him carte blanche on his materials for the mural at the club. He didn’t know what it was going to look like yet, but he now had an obscene amount of paint to work with. What he could carry was sitting at his feet. The rest was being delivered to the club. He could have had all of it delivered, but he wanted to get started on the base coat, erasing the old graffiti and letting it dry.

He was planning things in his head, enjoying how the ideas were bouncing off of each other and mixing and exploding. He hadn’t had this good of a project in a long time. He hadn’t had this much time to spend on art in a long time. Justin grabbed his two cans of black paint as the subway slowed, and he stepped off, already turning toward the exit.

And that was when he saw Brian Kinney step off a few doors down, disgustingly perfect, sickeningly good-looking in a black overcoat and a pin-stripe suit, with only his bright red tie for color. He was lighting a cigarette, not looking around, which gave Justin a chance to duck around a pillar. But Justin couldn’t stop himself from peeking at him. Justin’s stomach was twisted up and it hurt. Why did it hurt? How could it possibly hurt after all these months, after he’d proved that he could survive, after he’d fucked so many other people, and painstakingly carved out his own life?


********
Mia brushed back the chunk of hair that was encroaching on the left side of her face, and took a sip of her vodka. Then, after a brief pause for breath, she slugged back the rest of it. Digging in her pocket, she threw the last of her money on the bar and walked out into the humid night.

Normally, the night air would have made her feel alive. Normally, she probably would have kept drinking—except not in the cheap little bar she’d just left. Circumstances, however she tried to ignore them, were not normal.

The problem was, of course, money. She didn’t feel any remorse for having spent her last few dollars on alcohol because the amount of money she needed was so astronomically out of her reach, that the few dollars she’d spent wouldn’t have made a difference. So she’d used it on something that could make a difference. Now she still didn’t have the money, but she didn’t feel quite so bad about it. In fact, this was the highlight of her week. The alcohol had gone nicely to her head, making her limbs feel just the right amount of soft without making her dizzy.

Since there was nothing else she could do here in town—indeed, she’d accomplished what she came for—she decided to call it a night and go back to the Hummingbird. It lay in a field two miles out of town, nearly empty of gas. If she’d had some gas, the lack of money wouldn’t have been so bad, because she and the Hummingbird could take to the sky and go somewhere where burly men with guns weren’t trying to get money out of her.

She took another deep breath of the hot, moist air and started the walk to her temporary home. With each step she took, however, the scant amount of alcohol wore off, letting her despair seep back in. By the time she’d reached the edges of the town, she was starting to feel irrationally angry. There was nowhere to direct the anger besides herself, however, and she’d learned long ago that you had to be in accord with your own well-being or you’d get your ass kicked and possibly opt out of the game of life much sooner. She was all in favor of life.

This philosophy was why she finally noticed that there were two men following her. She could tell they were men by the way they moved. She could tell they were together by the way they stopped when the other stopped. And she could tell they were after her because of the way they were catching steadily up to her now, on a deserted street in the middle of the night in a foreign country.

“You!” called one of them men, a shifty, compact individual. “Andolf sent us to collect his money from you.” Mia was fairly sure she could take that one.

“How unfortunate for you,” Mia said. “I don’t have any.”

“Then we’re to take you, instead.”

“The deal was for money,Mr. lacky. And he said he’d give me another week.”

This time the other spoke up. The situation looked a bit more serious when this one stepped out of the shadows in the lamp light of one of the buildings. This one was tall and the tempered steel of his eyes put the impressive muscles of his body to shame. He didn’t look terribly bright, but then, he wouldn’t have to be. “Andolf has changed his mind. We’ll collect the money now. Or you.”

“Well, gentlemen,” said Mia, smiling an angry smile, “It looks like we’re stuck. I don’t have the money and you can’t have me. You’ll just have to trot on back to Andolf and tell him if he can’t wait the extra week he can go fuck himself.”

“That’s what he said you’d say,” said the scary, steely one. He smiled. “Which is why I came along.”

Okay, things were going from serious to deadly, fast. At least she’d walked off a few sips of the vodka. The little one wasn’t a problem. One well-aimed kick to various sensitive portions of his anatomy would prevent him from taking her anywhere. The problem was the other one, who looked like he used his muscles regularly for various unsavory purposes and would not hesitate to use them again on her.

He was close enough to lunge for her. Fortunately, she’d seen this coming and had dodged just enough to the side, driving an elbow into his kidney at the same time. Unfortunately, he’d also seen her elbow coming and had tried to kick her legs out from under her. She rolled backwards and came up on her feet, and he was already nearly on top of her again. She dodged again and tried to kick his knee, but once again he had seen her coming and had tried to take advantage of the situation. He’d grabbed the longest hank of her hair. The only reason she didn’t yell then was that she was already out of breath. This was what not taking the time to exercise would do to you, Mia thought. She brought her hand up, dug her knuckles into the man’s tendons and wrenched his hand away. There went the other half of her hair. She kicked his shin at the same time and he flinched in pain, but lunged for her again.

“Eck,” she said, struggling to get his hands off of her arms. She shoved both hands behind his back, knowing his arms couldn’t bend that way, and kneed him at the same time. He’d expected the knee but not the arms and let her go long enough for her to spring away from him.

The time, she thought, had come to run. So she did. He was a big man, and didn’t look like much for long distance sprints. And the little one didn’t look like much for any sort of strenuous exercise. If they were pursuing, she’d bought some time. If they’d gone to get further instructions she had a bit longer. Mia ran the mile and a half to her plane. As she approached it, panting and disheveled, she saw that there was yet another man leaning against the door. Apparently, Andolf covered all his bases. She assessed the situation out of habit, memorizing the man and figuring out what physical difficulties she could expect from him.

This man was dressed in tourist’s clothes. He was not as large as the steely man, but quite a lot bigger than the small man. His gold-rimmed glasses glinted as he turned his head to watch her slowed progress. Hair—light blond or grey, she couldn’t tell which, but was going with blond based on the relative youth of his face. Physical condition? Fairly good. She couldn’t see specifics because of the loose button-up shirt and equally loose khakis, but he lounged against the plane door with grace that spoke of fast motion and good control of his body.

“Not again,’ she told him. “I’m tired, I’m not sober, and I don’t have what you want. Go away.”

He raised one eyebrow in calm consternation. “The first two aren’t my fault, and you do have what I want, as it happens, so I’m not going to go away.”

“Look, I know Andolf said to take me instead, but I really don’t have the money and you won’t be taking me anywhere.”

“Actually, I was hoping it would be the opposite,” he replied mildly. “I need a ride out of here. Tonight. You have a plane and I would like to be on it when you leave. Tonight.”

Mia stared at him for a moment. Obviously, she had misjudged Andolf. He wasn’t nearly together enough to have gotten a man positioned by her plane. And definitely not one as well-spoken as this one.

“I don’t smuggle,” Mia said finally.

“And I wasn’t asking you to.”

“There are planes going out of the airport, back three miles the other way. Why not take one of them? Do you have a passport?” Stupid question, Mia, she thought. Of course he doesn’t if he’s asking for a ride from you and not the airport.

“It was stolen.”

“I’m sure.”

His mouth moved up in a half smile and Mia felt her stomach turn a full, slow flip. Her heart tripped over itself. The alcohol, she thought, it’s just the alcohol.

“Okay,” he said. “I have a passport. But I can’t use the regular airport because it’s being watched by some people who aren’t very concerned about my good health.” He paused and let his mouth evolve into a full smile, full of dangerous-looking even teeth. Mia’s blood gave one hot surge through her veins. “And judging from what you said a minute ago, there are people here who aren’t very concerned about yours, either.”

Even if she hadn’t been having trouble formulating coherent sentences in the face of that smile, Mia couldn’t think of anything to say to that. It was true, after all. She could hardly deny it, and she didn’t want to explain it, so it was best just not to say anything. Instead, she decided to explain the gas situation to him. Or lack thereof.

“I’m out of gas and even more out of money,” she said. “That’s why I’m not already gone, but am waiting here for Andolf to try and collect his money. So I’m sorry, but we’re both out of luck.”

“I can pay for gas,” he said. “And I can pay you, too.”

“And you’re not doing anything illegal?” she asked. Though at this point, she didn't care.

“No.” His grin got wider. “I swear. You can see my passport. I’ve made someone mad and they’ve caught up with me because I spent too long here.” You and me both, she thought. “I have to get out tonight.” Mia thought about it for a split second longer.

“Okay,” she agreed. He probably wasn’t telling the truth. But he was offering money, which was the next best thing to truth. As long as she could safely and—more importantly—claim ignorance if he was caught later, she really didn’t care. Andolf would soon be a thing of the past.