[Blackbird] Off to Vegas
The transition left her cold and shuddering, standing in a deep shadow in the backyard. Looking around to be sure no one in Converted House was watching she moved out of the shadow and swiftly headed for the shadow of the wall and pulled herself over. Calling a cab she got in and directed it to Caesar's Palace. It probably wasn't good, leaving the Cabalgam like this. So much history and pain come up, and someone needed to make sure they didn't fall apart. John and Chandra only fed each other at the same time they tried to make it better; both so tied into the other they couldn't separate even the little actions anymore. The depths of the human heart was amazing, and someone observed in channel how much love could exalt a person to the heights of incredible bliss. . .or it can break them, leaving them hollow inside. Too damned hard to tell which way they would go.
One night, maybe two if she hit LA tomorrow; they could fucking deal with their own issues. They likely wouldn't notice her being gone for some time and she didn't really belong there anyway. Let them deal with their Science and Magic and forget about the rest of it by themselves. Sometimes it’s just better to walk away.
~all the locals hide their tears of regret
open fire cos i love you to death
sky high, with a heartache of stone
you'll never see me cos i'm always alone~
An hour and innumerable drinks later she lurched out of her seat, folding the pair she had and moved off. The Casino lights were too much, the air too full of expectation and loss. And the old woman to the left of the dealer was gratingly New York Jew, all shrill complaints every lost hand which happened frequently. Too many people, to bright and too open. Grabbing another cab she gave the name of a club someone had mentioned, forgetting as she said it what club it was.
People needed to be there. Alone lead to more drinking and the memories coming into the front of her mind. Day to day, without a job there was a lot of alone time. To keep from going mad Blackbird had started to catch buses randomly throughout the city, trying to learn her way around. More and more she was drawn to the bad sections and the dive bars where one could drink and be alone in a crowd. "Family" was well and good, but when you were the middle child one got used to working things out by yourself.
~how to love without a trace of dissent
i'll buy the torture cos you pay for the rent
tied high with a broken command
you're all alone to the promised land~
It was what she wanted, dark and loud with decently strong drinks. She laid down a hundred on the bar and told the barkeeper to tell her when she'd had $50 of that. All around 20 somethings drank and danced, caught up in the sound and fury of the atmosphere. Underdressed in the BDUs and sheer shirt over her tank top it had taken only a heavy tip to convince the bouncer to let her in.
As the DJ's changed she took a drink and out of habit more than any thing else she checked the channel. It was odd looking at it on the PDA screen, but the sunglasses weren't needed in the club and no one really seemed to notice the reflection from her eyes. Claire was asking about the greatest evil she had ever seen. Joy kill.
Smoking and typing out her answer she hadn't noticed the man behind her, watching her sit alone. The Union was corrupt and doing things with good intentions but that way was the road to Hell. It wasn't home any more than the house on base was home after years away at college. The Traditions were as bad as the Union but they were her allies now. But they just sat and bickered away the remaining time left to do anything worth while. She found it hard to care, watching everything crumble around her. Someone had to stand in witness as the hubris of willworkers lead to the fall of everything they had built. It was almost a comfort, thinking of the memories of the past and watching as everything collapses. It was the way of the world a cycle of destruction and rebuilding and forgetting the lessons that came before. If given a chance, she'd act and weep as she destroyed the Union she'd loved so deeply and the Traditions who she respected for trying so hard for so long. Sometimes destruction was better than preservation, pity no one else understood that.
~i'm in love with this malicious intent
you've been taken but you don't know it yet
what you will know must never live to be found
cos it's the subject of the eyes of the drowned~
It took a moment to realize the man was not just dancing that close because of the crowd. The club was open until 9am but by 5am many tourists had cleared out and gone back to their hotel beds. Moving away did no good, he followed her, shouting something not quite loud enough over the music. Shaking her head no she started to move away again and he grabbed her wrist. Instinctively she twisted her arm out of his hand and seized his. Growling she jerked her own hand to the side and felt the joint of his thumb pop out of place. Moving swiftly away she relaxed as she was trained, radiating a belonging that lulled those around her into ignoring her presence. Within seconds the hurt man couldn't remember her face well enough to pick her out of the crowd, within a minute the details of why he had tried to grab a woman’s arm were gone from his mind as well.
Letting the bartender know he could keep the rest in tip Blackbird staggered off to get a hotel room for the day. Roused to anger, it was probably better to go to bed now. The lure of a fight was strong and hurting the guy felt too good. Too many years trained to kill and fight and no way to be content with anything less. Time to find a way to be useful with the only thing that felt right on this damned mud ball of a planet. But a jerk in a Vegas was not the place to start tearing it all down.