[psl] 1991: you're a bad idea and I know it

[firewatcher]

Ever since the family had gotten back from their reunion trip to the northwest, Maria had been anxious to see Aunt Danielle. Even so, she'd managed to end up alone on stakeout with her three times already and not actually bring up the topic she really wanted to talk about.

Maria stared out into the dark through the sight on her rifle, biting her lower lip and resisting the urge to glance over at her "Aunt." Prepared for everything, she'd always been, except, well... this. And asking for advice meant acknowledging to herself what was going on. It had been easy to think of it as no big deal after that one night on the camping trip... less so after the next time she and Vera had been alone together, and the next, and the next.

Okay. This was it. She had to do it tonight. After all, Aunt Danielle was basically the only person Maria knew who, well... knew what it was like, if rumor was correct. And the only one, because of that, who stood any kind of chance of keeping her secret.

All right. Gonna do it. Just gotta spit it out.

Maria cleared her throat. "Uh..."

Comments

[firewatcher]

"From the stories you've told me, I'm not sure if your brother is necessarily someone whose example I should follow, but—I'm not married yet, yeah. Yeah."

She let out a sigh. "Just—I don't want to break my word, I don't want my parents to have to break their word, and I like Vasily and don't want to, like, ruin his life." Because there was... not really a great way to not ruin someone's life if it becomes public knowledge that you've been sleeping with their sister.

[beyondthisillusion]

"It's a complicated situation," Danielle agreed, giving Maria a sympathetic grimace. "As weird as this sounds, it's something you might want to actually discuss with Vasily. Not necessarily intimate details but..."

Danielle cut herself off, frowning thoughtfully.

As was often the case with Maria, she found herself reflecting on the past. On her own roads not taken.

"Back when I was...you know..." Alive. "I always said to myself that I wouldn't get married until I'd had at least three boyfriends. And I wouldn't marry anyone who hadn't had at least three girlfriends. Because, the way I saw it, it was important to experience every opportunity in life. So you wouldn't have any kind of resentments or regrets after settling down."

[firewatcher]

"Yeah, maybe. I guess you want to have that life experience so you can be sure what you want. He's more of his parents' kid than—uh, well, he's definitely not someone I'd expect to disobey his parents," Maria said, remembering just in time to avoid mentioning Vera by name. "But... I don't think he's as, well, uptight. Maybe. I mean, there's something in it for him, too." Hopefully. "It seems sensible to me, anyway, when you put it like that."

She glanced back at Danielle. "Did you ever have your three boyfriends?" Pause. "Did you ever have a girlfriend? Do you have a girlfriend?"

[beyondthisillusion]

Danielle smiled faintly. "I wouldn't say boyfriends exactly. But that was one of the first things on my list of things to do after getting out of my father's line of business. Shawn and I never had a lot of time for dating so...I had some catching up to do."

Translation: She'd gone on a few dates and had a few one-nighters.

"And...there is a girl I'm kind of...seeing." She hesitated to use the word 'girlfriend.' She wasn't sure what it was, to be honest. It had started out just as an experiment but...

Well...

It was complicated now.

[firewatcher]

Maria's eyebrows shot up. "Is she cute? What's her name? How long have you been seeing her?"

Aaaaand kissing any sense of delicacy in this conversation goodbye.

[beyondthisillusion]

"Hold up, hold up," Danielle said, holding up her free hand, while balancing the rifle with her other. "We were talking about you, remember?"

It wasn't that she didn't want to share. Hell, she wanted to sing it out to the mountain tops, as cliched as it sounded.

But Danielle had never particularly enjoyed being in the spotlight. And Maria's problems seemed infinitely more immediate.

[firewatcher]

"Haha, sorry. But like—" How to put it? "I just don't really... have any idea what all of this is supposed to look like, you know?" Maria shrugged. "Aside from one of us eventually dying in some tragic way and the other marrying a man and settling down, because that's all I'm getting from fiction. But you're real. Also, you can't just tell me you have a maybe-girlfriend and not dish."

[beyondthisillusion]

"Hey," Danielle said, "I'm a vampire, remember? I'm definitely the wrong person to look to for what something is supposed to be." She said it lightly, in the self-effacing tone of voice she always used when talking about her...ahem...condition.

But it always hurt. Way more than she would admit.

Danielle craved normal like most women craved chocolate and Brad Pitt.

"Anyway," she continued, "I'm not sure there's any supposed to be about relationships. We call fiction 'fictional' for a reason."

[firewatcher]

Maria rolled her eyes. "Well, yeah, I guess," she said. "But when it's a guy and a girl dating, it's easy to think of what your future might look like, right? Even if you don't want the white picket fence and all that shit. Kinda nice to have a map, even if you're not gonna follow it. Also, you're totally deflecting."

[beyondthisillusion]

Leave it to Maria to call Danielle out when she was deflecting. Danielle gave her a look, one that said 'you caught me, kiddo.'

She used it a lot with Maria.

"When I joined the Ordo Dracul," she said thoughtfully, "they told me that you couldn't feel any emotions as a vampire that you'd never felt as a human. But, see, I don't think that's true. Because I definitely never fell in love as a human. But I think I might..."

...be in love.

[firewatcher]

"Oh my god, seriously?" Maria practically jumped up from her seat. "Oh man, that's awesome! But—like, what's her name, how did you meet, what's she like?" Please tell me about her so I can feel less weird about my own life.

[beyondthisillusion]

"Maria!" Danielle hissed sharply, jerking her head out in the direction of the black night around them. They were on a stake out, after all. As fun as girltalk could be, she didn't want it being the death of them.

Then she'd never know if it was love.

Lowering her voice and leaning closer to Maria, she whispered, "We met through my friend Brady at the University."

[firewatcher]

Maria grinned and picked her rifle back up, getting back in position. "I get it, I get it. There's just not a lot of times when I can talk about this kind of shit without someone overhearing, you know?"

She settled back onto her seat. Still no movement, but they'd gotten here early. "University, huh? Is she a student? Professor?"

[beyondthisillusion]

"Student," Danielle admitted. And even if her body was stuck on 26 forever, she had to admit she didn't feel like a cougar. Maybe with some of the boys she'd messed around with a few years back but...

No. No, this was different somehow.

"Brady met her in an Intro to Biology course."

[firewatcher]

"Nice. Maybe I'll run into her once I start classes in the fall." Weird to be able to say that, weird to be done with high school. Too bad Vera's family weren't sending her to college. Not that everyone needed to go, but... it would be nice to have her there. "She's human, then?"

[beyondthisillusion]

And there was the reason why Danielle was hesitant to share her name. They would, in fact, be in school together. Possibly in some of the same classes.

It wasn't that she didn't trust Maria. It was just...well...it was nice having something that was just hers. Danielle had sworn to share everything with the Palmer family, and she'd lived up to that promise. And certainly, she hadn't had any privacy growing up. Not with dad living that Spartan life and Shawn being...well...Shawn.

This was new and strange and wonderful.

"Yeah," she said, quickly sweeping the area with Auspex so they didn't get too sloppy. "I wouldn't go out with a vampire."

[firewatcher]

"Yeah—I figured," said Maria. "Most vampires don't seem like your type, anyway. The whole mostly-assholes thing, for starters." She'd run into her fair share of vampires on the hunt—which, admittedly, was kind of a biased sample, but some above-and-beyond kinds of assholery you didn't forget in a hurry.

Hm. Still no sign of the weird lights that they'd heard showed up before whatever this thing was did. "You think you're in this for the long haul, then?"

[beyondthisillusion]

"Not sure there's such a thing as a long haul," Danielle admitted.

It was only half true. There was such a thing. Such a thing just didn't exist for anyone named 'Remington.'

The jury was still out on 'Palmer.'

[firewatcher]

"Well, I guess there's only one way to find out." Maria tilted her head slightly to the side. "I guess don't expect too much and you won't be disappointed, eh."

Kind of a bummer when she put it that way. Then again, even though her family had a long line of solid marriages behind it, no Palmer ever died of old age. You might get forty years, or you might get five.

"You gonna tell her, though? Does she know? About, you know—" Maria mimed fangs with a free hand. At least this kind of thing wasn't a secret she had to keep from Vera.

[beyondthisillusion]

"I haven't really been able to figure that part out yet," Danielle said with a sigh. "You know how I feel about the Masquerade."

As far as she was concerned, there was nothing more important. And if everyone had held to that belief, she wouldn't even be having this conversation now. No, she'd be back in New Mexico, probably married with kids of her own, working a nine to five jobs and complaining about her taxes.

If all vampires had adhered to the Masquerade, her mother would still be alive.

"I never thought I would even consider breaking it. But..."

[firewatcher]

"Man, I still can't get over the kind of lingo vampires use for stuff. 'Masquerade' sounds so dramatic. I mean, everyone—" that is to say, the Palmer family, "—knows that you can't just tell anyone about this stuff. Can't just trust most people with it. I mean, there are people out there who willingly seek out vampires. Not even to become vampires, just to have them feed off of 'em."

That she would never understand. Gross.

"Still, though, eventually she's going to notice there's something funny going on, isn't she? You think she'll be able to handle it?"

[beyondthisillusion]

"The thought had crossed my mind," Danielle replied dryly.

She was trying very hard not to smile. But Maria shared her sentiments about vampires. Way too many pretentious vocabulary words and euphemisms.

Sighing softly, Danielle took another quick sweep of the area. "I think she could take it. If it was presented to her in the right way, you know? No coming out and saying 'by the way, I'm a vampire.'"

[firewatcher]

"Heh, I mean, who knows? Then again if she goes for that maybe that's a bad thing," Maria said, laughing. "You'd know best, though. I guess a lot of the reason why hunters hook up with other hunters is that it's just easiest to not have to explain the whole thing."

It hadn't taken that long for Maria to figure out that most families didn't go on "hunting" camping trips all the time and definitely didn't own nearly as many guns, but it still had been something she'd had to figure out.

[beyondthisillusion]

"There is something to be said for being around normal people, though," Danielle said with a sigh. "I hope that my feelings for her don't change, once she does become someone...you know. In the know."

Because, of course Danielle would fret about something like that.

"For now, I guess, I'm just going to enjoy the ride." She paused, glancing sideways at Maria. "Something someone your age should be doing."

[firewatcher]

"I think all of this falls outside of what someone my age 'should' be doing," said Maria, with a half-grin. "I know you wish you could have opted out of this life, but I like it, you know? Met a lot of people I wouldn't have otherwise." It was hard to not break into a full grin, there.