Justine Drabbles
I started one of those 100 drabbles about one character challenges. Of course I didn't finish, but here is a selection of drabbles for one of my favorite characters.
TITLE: Drabbles for Justine
Rating: PG
Warnings/Notes: These aren't in any particular order; they are just separate glimpses at Justine.
Sunshine
These days, she avoided the daylight. She mostly kept the same hours they did. The monsters.
She found the sunshine irritating. The daytime air smelled wrong to her. Passing through the city streets, in sunlight, when normal people were about jarred her, gave her headaches. She wanted the midnight, wanted to prowl and hunt and kill.
The freckles on her skin faded. If her sister were alive, vibrant in sun-kissed health, it would be easy to tell them apart now. But she wasn’t. So maybe the twins again were hard to distinguish between, because now Justine was pale as death.
Dawn
We staggered in just before sun up. One of Holtz’s recruits, the one with the scrap marks on his neck, was bouncing around the room, talking loud. Sit down I said. He slid into a chair next to mine, jabbering away. How he’d never been so scared, that he was sure he’d been going to die. And didn’t I think about dying?
I wanted to say, I don’t worry about it. I’ve seen my twin sister in a coffin. I know I’m going to make a good-looking corpse. Instead I told him to shut up and get some sleep.
The Start
When he pinned her hand to the table with the knife, at first there was only pain. Surprise and pain.
He wanted to test her commitment. Ok, then, he could watch this. He’d find her here whenever he came back. Whenever.
She found if she didn’t move the hand, there was no new pain. Just a level of it she could get used to, could endure. She sweated. Wouldn’t allow herself nausea. Or tears.
She didn’t think of Julie. Only of Holtz and commitment and an acceptable amount of pain.
She lay her head on the table, gently, and waited.
Lonely
They were dressed alike as babies. Once they found their voices, they never were. It didn’t matter if their tastes differed; they knew each other’s thoughts.
Their faces were so similar only the very familiar could see a difference. And people would ask, “So how’s it feel to be twins?”
They got that a lot in school. Even the dumber adults would ask it sometimes. Justine and Julie would roll their eyes at each other. Get a clue. We’ve always been twins. How does it feel not to be?
Justine knows the answer to that one now. It feels lonely.
Betrayal
She should have felt it. Should have known. Instead of sleeping through the night, she should have bolted upright at 2:30AM, feeling like her life’s blood was draining away. That was supposed to be the way of twins; they were one person split in two. Half of her died, why didn’t she know?
But she slept deeply, soundly. Was that her last good night of sleep? The next morning her coffee tasted good and strong. She never felt it, that now she was an only child.
It was an ordinary day.
She didn’t even have a bad dream that night.
Want
Wesley kept her in a glaringly bright room for days after he captured her.. He would wake her if she fell asleep. She lost track of the days. Couldn’t calculate them.
She was defiant for a time. Cursed and screamed at him. He never raised his voice to her. He gave her water, enough so she wouldn’t dehydrate. Then clothes, a little food. When she cooperated.
She gave in; it didn’t matter. Her hate wasn’t strong enough anymore.
She bent to Wesley’s want as she had to Holtz’s. For as great as hers had been, theirs would always be greater.
Choices
“It’s all about the actor’s choices,” Ms. Finebaum would say. Repeatedly. When Justine was in the dumb high school drama club, dressed in a gross costume in some play she never understood.
Ms F. (to her face; Furbottom, behind her back) explained how you could say the same thing so many different ways. The actor must think how to win over the audience.
In her approach to Wesley, to lull the suspicions of the baby-snatching vampire toady, Justine’s chosen sincerity and neediness. And a knife. Her performance overwhelms him, bringing him to his knees. Her Ms. F. would be proud.
Parent
Her mother did manage to get there, after all. Justine had a tough time tracking her down. She’d changed jobs, apartments, boyfriends since the last time they talked. If the police hadn’t held the body for autopsy, Julia’s mother wouldn’t have made the funeral.
Justine offered her money for the plane ticket, but Lynn Anne said she’d take care of it. Her daughter couldn’t help but think that Lynnie was going to relish telling the airline a story of sudden loss and grief to get a discount.
Lynnie took home all Julia’s dresses that fit her and the opal earrings.
Silver
They bought their first car together. An automatic, because Julie refused to learn stick. She said she might want to wave to friends and wanted a hand free.
The car was silver where it wasn’t rust. The back seat upholstery was torn, the heater gave off a funny smell, but they loved that car. They’d squabble over whose turn it was to use it and only Justine remembered to put in oil.
One night, going to a party, it just stopped, never ran again. Went out for an evening of fun and never made it home. Kinda like Julie.
Hunger
They told her she needed to see this certain detective. Said it to her off-hand, eyes turned away. When Justine wouldn’t stop asking questions, the cops said, maybe you should see Kate Lockley.
Justine badgered her, too. Tell me, tell me, tell me. Kate doled out information. Testing how much Justine could take, would accept.
“There are things that can’t be arrested but can be killed.”
“How?”
“You need wooden stakes, beheading swords. It helps to have Holy Water, crucifixes, good running shoes.”
These were the ingredients for retribution; she added burning hatred to make the recipe her own.
Music
Feet pounding, gasping predator reaching for a prey that doesn’t breathe at all.
Julia and Justine’s mother’s second or third husband (Justine is vague now) taught them a song. The girls sang it loud and out of tune, and when they got to this part, these boots are going to walk all over you, they had a dance move. In synch, they’d lift a foot and bring it down hard, on the word “you”.
Now Justine’s running through the graveyard, chasing her vampire, this song in her head; she plunges the stake on “you” and walks all over the dust.
Sound
After it was over, after she staked vampires, slit a throat, stolen a baby, lost her future, killed her decrepit champion, what was she to do next?
There was drinking, of course, and crying. There’d have been road rage, too, if she hadn’t lost the car. Somewhere.
She needed clues to her life. She went to her storage locker, sat on a heaped-up pile of the past and listened to tapes Julie made. Julie liked the sound of her own voice.
As the batteries started to die, the voice slowed, distorted. There were no hidden messages that Justine could hear.
Dusk
Impatient for the day to end. Eyes that should be downcast slide up past cubicle walls to see the clock or check the sun’s decline through the window. Lengthening shadows mean freedom.
Justine seldom sees this city sun-filled. At dawn she goes someplace quiet and dim. She sleeps where she’s fallen. Later she awakes. Not late enough. The world must be dark or the demons won’t come out.
She, too, watches the horizon. She, too, seeks the release that night will bring.
Cube farm prisoners and vampire hunters have one thing in common. They know that dusk is Happy Hour.
Space
Funny how you adjust to the space you have. When Lynnie, their mother, had latched on to a steady-income man, the twins lived in a big house. Hallways to run shrieking down, separate bedrooms. Once there was even a pool.
In bad times, they camped in a cheap motel, in one room. Lynnie would spend their money on her own clothes. “Advertising,” she’d say to them.
Either kind of place was okay with the twins. They were together.
Now when Wesley opens her closet door to feed her, Justine shrinks back. She glimpses the world outside. It looks too big.
Dreams
He knows the demon world in LA. Knows somebody who’ll know where she is. The scarred throat man can reach out anytime if he wants to trap her like an insect under a drinking glass.
He does, after he’s thought through his plan.
One dark night, in one dark alley, he’s behind her. A hand around her windpipe, a needle prick. She goes to sleep.
She has her recurrent dream. Never of him, but of Julia. Her throat red, sliced, not fanged. Struggling to speak but mute. Justine yells at her.
She wakes angry and naked in a closet.
The Future
At first sight Holtz thought her a man. No woman in his time, except a stage strumpet, wore breeches. And none fought vampires.
He found her in a graveyard, tussling with one newly-risen. Clumsily. Fighting inexperienced demons showed she recognized her level of skill. She might be intelligent and trainable. And after her kill she dispersed the creature’s dust with savage boot kicks. Rage and passion. He wanted her to have that, too.
Why should he, brought here by a demon, stick at fighting with a woman. Better to think, O brave new world, that hath such people in it!
Time
Change...
From being one of two. From being a confidante, a sounding board, a scolder, a joke-sharer, a sister, to being on your own, an only child.
Change...
From being an avenger, a justice seeker, a death-bringer whose blows are swift and sudden to being a follower, an order-taker, a torturer, a butcher.
Change...
From being a gloating Fury, a conspiratorial tormentor to being a thing in a closet.
Change...
From being a normal girl to a bereaved sister, to a maddened slayer, to a compliant helper, to an abandoned lover, to a weeping executioner, to, finally, a heart-broken woman.
Death
At a death, when there’s a body to bury or burn, you have a wake.
You have in it in your small apartment because you never thought of saving up for this.
People come and say Julia was such fun to work with and they’re really going to miss her and oh-my-god, you look just like her.
Your mother, Lynnie, tastes the white wine and says baby, you should have chilled this more. Everybody drinks it, though.
You hear laughter in the corner; you hope someone’s telling a funny story about Julie.
They leave; you finish all the warm chardonnay.
TITLE: Drabbles for Justine
Rating: PG
Warnings/Notes: These aren't in any particular order; they are just separate glimpses at Justine.
Sunshine
These days, she avoided the daylight. She mostly kept the same hours they did. The monsters.
She found the sunshine irritating. The daytime air smelled wrong to her. Passing through the city streets, in sunlight, when normal people were about jarred her, gave her headaches. She wanted the midnight, wanted to prowl and hunt and kill.
The freckles on her skin faded. If her sister were alive, vibrant in sun-kissed health, it would be easy to tell them apart now. But she wasn’t. So maybe the twins again were hard to distinguish between, because now Justine was pale as death.
Dawn
We staggered in just before sun up. One of Holtz’s recruits, the one with the scrap marks on his neck, was bouncing around the room, talking loud. Sit down I said. He slid into a chair next to mine, jabbering away. How he’d never been so scared, that he was sure he’d been going to die. And didn’t I think about dying?
I wanted to say, I don’t worry about it. I’ve seen my twin sister in a coffin. I know I’m going to make a good-looking corpse. Instead I told him to shut up and get some sleep.
The Start
When he pinned her hand to the table with the knife, at first there was only pain. Surprise and pain.
He wanted to test her commitment. Ok, then, he could watch this. He’d find her here whenever he came back. Whenever.
She found if she didn’t move the hand, there was no new pain. Just a level of it she could get used to, could endure. She sweated. Wouldn’t allow herself nausea. Or tears.
She didn’t think of Julie. Only of Holtz and commitment and an acceptable amount of pain.
She lay her head on the table, gently, and waited.
Lonely
They were dressed alike as babies. Once they found their voices, they never were. It didn’t matter if their tastes differed; they knew each other’s thoughts.
Their faces were so similar only the very familiar could see a difference. And people would ask, “So how’s it feel to be twins?”
They got that a lot in school. Even the dumber adults would ask it sometimes. Justine and Julie would roll their eyes at each other. Get a clue. We’ve always been twins. How does it feel not to be?
Justine knows the answer to that one now. It feels lonely.
Betrayal
She should have felt it. Should have known. Instead of sleeping through the night, she should have bolted upright at 2:30AM, feeling like her life’s blood was draining away. That was supposed to be the way of twins; they were one person split in two. Half of her died, why didn’t she know?
But she slept deeply, soundly. Was that her last good night of sleep? The next morning her coffee tasted good and strong. She never felt it, that now she was an only child.
It was an ordinary day.
She didn’t even have a bad dream that night.
Want
Wesley kept her in a glaringly bright room for days after he captured her.. He would wake her if she fell asleep. She lost track of the days. Couldn’t calculate them.
She was defiant for a time. Cursed and screamed at him. He never raised his voice to her. He gave her water, enough so she wouldn’t dehydrate. Then clothes, a little food. When she cooperated.
She gave in; it didn’t matter. Her hate wasn’t strong enough anymore.
She bent to Wesley’s want as she had to Holtz’s. For as great as hers had been, theirs would always be greater.
Choices
“It’s all about the actor’s choices,” Ms. Finebaum would say. Repeatedly. When Justine was in the dumb high school drama club, dressed in a gross costume in some play she never understood.
Ms F. (to her face; Furbottom, behind her back) explained how you could say the same thing so many different ways. The actor must think how to win over the audience.
In her approach to Wesley, to lull the suspicions of the baby-snatching vampire toady, Justine’s chosen sincerity and neediness. And a knife. Her performance overwhelms him, bringing him to his knees. Her Ms. F. would be proud.
Parent
Her mother did manage to get there, after all. Justine had a tough time tracking her down. She’d changed jobs, apartments, boyfriends since the last time they talked. If the police hadn’t held the body for autopsy, Julia’s mother wouldn’t have made the funeral.
Justine offered her money for the plane ticket, but Lynn Anne said she’d take care of it. Her daughter couldn’t help but think that Lynnie was going to relish telling the airline a story of sudden loss and grief to get a discount.
Lynnie took home all Julia’s dresses that fit her and the opal earrings.
Silver
They bought their first car together. An automatic, because Julie refused to learn stick. She said she might want to wave to friends and wanted a hand free.
The car was silver where it wasn’t rust. The back seat upholstery was torn, the heater gave off a funny smell, but they loved that car. They’d squabble over whose turn it was to use it and only Justine remembered to put in oil.
One night, going to a party, it just stopped, never ran again. Went out for an evening of fun and never made it home. Kinda like Julie.
Hunger
They told her she needed to see this certain detective. Said it to her off-hand, eyes turned away. When Justine wouldn’t stop asking questions, the cops said, maybe you should see Kate Lockley.
Justine badgered her, too. Tell me, tell me, tell me. Kate doled out information. Testing how much Justine could take, would accept.
“There are things that can’t be arrested but can be killed.”
“How?”
“You need wooden stakes, beheading swords. It helps to have Holy Water, crucifixes, good running shoes.”
These were the ingredients for retribution; she added burning hatred to make the recipe her own.
Music
Feet pounding, gasping predator reaching for a prey that doesn’t breathe at all.
Julia and Justine’s mother’s second or third husband (Justine is vague now) taught them a song. The girls sang it loud and out of tune, and when they got to this part, these boots are going to walk all over you, they had a dance move. In synch, they’d lift a foot and bring it down hard, on the word “you”.
Now Justine’s running through the graveyard, chasing her vampire, this song in her head; she plunges the stake on “you” and walks all over the dust.
Sound
After it was over, after she staked vampires, slit a throat, stolen a baby, lost her future, killed her decrepit champion, what was she to do next?
There was drinking, of course, and crying. There’d have been road rage, too, if she hadn’t lost the car. Somewhere.
She needed clues to her life. She went to her storage locker, sat on a heaped-up pile of the past and listened to tapes Julie made. Julie liked the sound of her own voice.
As the batteries started to die, the voice slowed, distorted. There were no hidden messages that Justine could hear.
Dusk
Impatient for the day to end. Eyes that should be downcast slide up past cubicle walls to see the clock or check the sun’s decline through the window. Lengthening shadows mean freedom.
Justine seldom sees this city sun-filled. At dawn she goes someplace quiet and dim. She sleeps where she’s fallen. Later she awakes. Not late enough. The world must be dark or the demons won’t come out.
She, too, watches the horizon. She, too, seeks the release that night will bring.
Cube farm prisoners and vampire hunters have one thing in common. They know that dusk is Happy Hour.
Space
Funny how you adjust to the space you have. When Lynnie, their mother, had latched on to a steady-income man, the twins lived in a big house. Hallways to run shrieking down, separate bedrooms. Once there was even a pool.
In bad times, they camped in a cheap motel, in one room. Lynnie would spend their money on her own clothes. “Advertising,” she’d say to them.
Either kind of place was okay with the twins. They were together.
Now when Wesley opens her closet door to feed her, Justine shrinks back. She glimpses the world outside. It looks too big.
Dreams
He knows the demon world in LA. Knows somebody who’ll know where she is. The scarred throat man can reach out anytime if he wants to trap her like an insect under a drinking glass.
He does, after he’s thought through his plan.
One dark night, in one dark alley, he’s behind her. A hand around her windpipe, a needle prick. She goes to sleep.
She has her recurrent dream. Never of him, but of Julia. Her throat red, sliced, not fanged. Struggling to speak but mute. Justine yells at her.
She wakes angry and naked in a closet.
The Future
At first sight Holtz thought her a man. No woman in his time, except a stage strumpet, wore breeches. And none fought vampires.
He found her in a graveyard, tussling with one newly-risen. Clumsily. Fighting inexperienced demons showed she recognized her level of skill. She might be intelligent and trainable. And after her kill she dispersed the creature’s dust with savage boot kicks. Rage and passion. He wanted her to have that, too.
Why should he, brought here by a demon, stick at fighting with a woman. Better to think, O brave new world, that hath such people in it!
Time
Change...
From being one of two. From being a confidante, a sounding board, a scolder, a joke-sharer, a sister, to being on your own, an only child.
Change...
From being an avenger, a justice seeker, a death-bringer whose blows are swift and sudden to being a follower, an order-taker, a torturer, a butcher.
Change...
From being a gloating Fury, a conspiratorial tormentor to being a thing in a closet.
Change...
From being a normal girl to a bereaved sister, to a maddened slayer, to a compliant helper, to an abandoned lover, to a weeping executioner, to, finally, a heart-broken woman.
Death
At a death, when there’s a body to bury or burn, you have a wake.
You have in it in your small apartment because you never thought of saving up for this.
People come and say Julia was such fun to work with and they’re really going to miss her and oh-my-god, you look just like her.
Your mother, Lynnie, tastes the white wine and says baby, you should have chilled this more. Everybody drinks it, though.
You hear laughter in the corner; you hope someone’s telling a funny story about Julie.
They leave; you finish all the warm chardonnay.