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[anewlanguage]

You know, Dean? Dean, you might be right. Maybe half right.

[Some six hours after Barbara's post, Cain is completely stinking drunk. But he's also feeling more sociable, and between swigs or statements he hums a song, occasionally mumbling the lyrics.]

...Hit her foot against a splinter,
Fell into the foaming brine...

I'm not rethinking stopping being a pacifist, but I oughta say I'm feeling like doing target practice, and the boat's not real steady under my feet, you get what I mean. So hurry on down, clear out my gun cache.

Knives, too.

[He takes a healthy swallow from the bottle.]

dreadful sorry, Clementine...

[The feed cuts about halfway through that chorus

Comments

[spam]

[routemistress]

Depends on the vampire, I reckon. Some are born that way, not turned.

[Iris: distractions a specialty.]

...any road, I've never shagged a vampire, as it 'appens. You?

[spam]

[anewlanguage]

Nope. Closest I ever got to one was here, and I tried to keep that shooting distance. Never did like getting close to anything that saw cutting my throat as a meal ticket.

[spam]

[routemistress]

To be fair, some of 'em don't. I've even 'eard that said about the old Gallifreyan vampires - that they were peaceful and lived off farm animals before Rassilon's crew took a dislike.

Then again, I wouldn't trust that lot any more'n I did Rassilon. Mal's all right though - our Mira's warden. That's a girl that doesn't look at people like cattle, even though I think she were raised to.

Want to go for a drive or summat?

[spam]

[anewlanguage]

I've seen her around. She's worth talking to, huh?

[It's an idle question, though. His mind is weighed right down right now, and he shakes his head.] Nah. No. Maybe she'll come back here, maybe she'll get another chance. If she does I can't be off somewhere else.

[spam]

[routemistress]

[She could point out that they both have time machines; that they can spend six months away and be back in five minutes' time if they like, but Cain already knows that. If he wanted to, Iris thinks, he'd have remembered there was a way.

Nor has she forgotten that she failed to find Cass, the last time: so she doesn't push it. Instead she picks up the previous thread.]

She really is, aye. She's from a fascinating world and all. She's a soldier. I've got - you know I'm funny about vampires, it's genetic, but Mal made it a lot easier to ignore.

I 'ad a flood where I was from there. I were a witch, it was brilliant.

[spam]

[anewlanguage]

You know me and soldiers.

[Despite Cain being on the wrong side of the law, there's an ingrained respect for the very competent soldiers out there. Also a lot of competitive habits.]

What'd you do as a witch?

[spam]

[routemistress]

And you know me and soldiers.

[Iris would cut her own leg off before she would join anyone's army, but she does have a thing for big serious men and women in uniforms.

Not that she's interested in Mal that way, but it still broadly applies.]

Witching's practically the same as wardening, actually. You keep an eye on things and look after people. I were based in the big city, so I weren't officially a witch - some folks are funny about that when you're not up in the mountains. I were a guild leader in the Seamstresses.

[spam]

[anewlanguage]

[He laughs]

For a free spirit you take to responsibility real well, darlin'.

[spam]

[routemistress]

[She laughs with him, and coils herself around him to draw him into her own, more peaceful emotions: though she puts any feelings she has about Cass specifically down somewhere inaccessible.

Not that they're negative - Iris has always liked and respected Cass - but she never loved her and Cain has enough of his own to deal with.]

I know. It's a secret.

[And, after a silent moment:]

The timelords 'ave it that you get a whole raft of responsibilities just for being what we are. I couldn't stick that part. But I'm not bad at the ones I choose to take up. And you're always your own boss when it comes to witching - it's practically the definition of a witch, that is.

Re: [spam]

[anewlanguage]

So you were born a witch then. Doin' what you like. Being what you want.

[spam]

[routemistress]

Didn't you spot that right off?

[She says it in a joking tone, but she means it seriously; whatever word she chooses to call it, Iris, alone since before she could remember, has never been anything other than independent.]

I didn't exactly 'ave a choice about it, you know. Not really. Not that I'm complaining; I reckon I'd've broken out wherever I'd started from. Same like you.

Re: [spam]

[anewlanguage]

[He grunts, offers her a wry smile; a rather somber way to respond to a joke, but.] State I was in when I got here, I wouldn't have given you so much as a 'hello' if I didn't think you had your own two feet firmly under you.

Considering you never had a choice about watching your own back, you're still pretty good at letting yourself be safe. You know. Let yourself be open with someone else.

[spam]

[routemistress]

I remember it really well. You were so walled in. Smiling, aye, but you weren't letting anything in.

[She starts to rub his shoulder, rolling her thumb over the scarred place where it tends to tighten up, feeling out the planes of his tension where it pulls against the sloppiness of whisky. She means to make it look absent, and touching Cain is always as much for herself as it is for him; but like the conversation, it's only careless on the surface.]

I never got the knack of that. I remember Panda telling Lilith she trusted too easily, way back when. I still do. The first friend I remember 'aving - and I'm talking Lilith days 'ere, right when I first found the bus - 'e turned on me. Tried to kill me. You can see I never really learned better, can't you?

[She stops rubbing to rest her face against his shoulder, because she wants to breathe in the scent of his skin, because sometimes the swell of love expanding in her chest hurts her ribs and she needs to ground it through him like electricity.]

'E weren't the last, as you know very well. But every now and again I sling that trust out and it nets me you. I call it a good trade.

Re: [spam]

[anewlanguage]

[When they first got together he'd melted into this. When he'd developed real feelings, the kind that lasted as long as his scars, he'd often tensed up like he was ready to bolt whenever she touched him this way. With time, he learned to relax again, but in a different way; he no longer treated this sort of affection as mere foreplay, but rather as perhaps a more honest way of expressing concern or support.

He hums softly, closes his eyes.]

You didn't know it'd be a good trade though. How'd you keep from hating everyone?

[spam]

[routemistress]

[It's one of the things that delights her about Cain: how much they can talk over without speaking a word. Or while speaking any number of less relevant words. She could certainly speak her concern and support aloud, but it would only be noise. It wouldn't help. Holding her love in her hands, pressing it into his skin: it may not touch the grief and guilt, the rings of black thorns, but it can grow alongside them. It can ease the sting.]

I didn't, no; but I'm good at playing the odds and you looked like a good bet to me. All the rest...

[She pauses, both to gather her words and to work down the pressure points along the nape of his neck.]

I just keep moving. I 'aven't stopped since I were a little girl; this is the closest I've come in nine 'undred years and it's not like this boat stays still. There's no room for hate when you're looking forward to the next adventure. You just leave it all be'ind.

You know that. I've seen you angry; I don't think I've ever seen you hate.

[spam]

[anewlanguage]

[His eyes are still closed. In his mind he sees the pressure of her fingers as colored lights against a pitch black canvas. He may not seem the type to be into meditation, but he is, and this is helping.]

We leave a whole lot behind around here even if not much changes on board. And I'm pretty sure I've come damn close to hate...it's a waste of feeling, you know? It distracts you if you're stuck always thinking on a person and how they've done you wrong. I learned to let go 'cause I had to, had nothing to do with peace or harmony, just had to do with keeping at the top of my field.