A Ghoulish Interlude

Lux
Is he here? Perhaps Amber means Lux's friend. Perhaps Amber heard the name 'Daniel' and, since she is a ghoul, blood-bound, blood-puppeted, that's the word that is making her say a thing. Lux may think Amber means the latter. Her response is a quiet - "No." Followed by another phonecall. This one is brief. Whoever's on the other line doesn't answer. Lux hangs up, and re-calls the same number. And waits. Again, to messages. As Lux is dealing with the phone, she says to Amber, voice a shadow-on-silk soft thing, "I am sorry I did not stop you from injuring your hand; I would have rather you punched me than the wall. Why'dja go and do that?" The question's rhetorical, really; she knows why. Fucking Nathan, after all.

They're not in easy sight of the main road now, settled as they are against the industrial wreckage flotsam and jetsam of buildings and a wall and a street that's long and lonely. But here comes a pair of headlights, the driver driving fast but depending on one's paranoia level just a tick below 'being chased.' The car's something curvaceous and more importantly, fast. Good maneuverability. Not flashy unless you know good cars. Then you know: this is a good car.

"Here he is," Lux says, and the car is making a U, parking just a few feet away from them. The driver keeps the car running while he gets out.

Amber
Amber doesn't know good cars in the way that vehicle enthusiasts know good cars. She does not know about engine calibration or speeds or whatever it is that goes on beneath the hood. She has her car because just the sight of it appealed to her. The curving lines, the dark, blood-bright color, the way the seat hugs her frame like it was made just for her. The roar of the engine is nice, too. Her car is cool, but because she does not know cars as well as someone else might, it needs work.

This car, though, the one that pulls up fast and hard, it's lovely. For a moment Amber is distracted from everything by the sight of that car, curvy and made to be fast and maneuverable. The way the faint light of a dim street lamp slides over the surface, a false little moon over a glossy sea creature breaching the surface of the ocean. Then it's on them, and it's just a car. A good car, but just a car.

Amber blinks at it, and then she looks at Lux. Lux who asked her a question. What was it? Was she supposed to answer it? If she could have answered, the answer would be simple, and stupid. Amber would rather hit a wall than hit Lux.

Her head comes up when the driver's side door opens and out steps a man. For a second she hopes that it's- But no, why would he be here? She didn't call him. Couldn't call him.

Amber casts a look at the Toreador before she takes a slow, careful step forward.

Dubois & Miller
The driver who gets out of the car does not hesitate before heading straight for Lux and Amber. He is well-dressed in a way that is difficult to pinpoint. No flash. No flamboyance. No dripping of magnetism. He's nearly nondescript, shies away from being magazine slick but there is something slick about his clothing or maybe it's just the cut of his coat. A good coat on a good body, not dashing but quietly elegant without pretention though there's something hasty about the twist of his collar like he pulled that jacket on really quickly and didn't bother to hide the signs. The driver - in this light he's got darkish hair, eyes of no distinctive color.

He carries himself like a man who knows how to carry himself like a man with a purpose somebody who has always been conscious of the world around him. There's a certain smooth courtesy to some of his gestures coupled with confidence. That's this driver, this man who's looking at Amber before he's looking at Lux. Who's assessing the beautiful woman's injuries, who's eyes flicker only once tell-taleishly to the darkness around the women, because he's assessing that too. How old is he? Not as old as he looks. What is he? Thirties, perhaps. Early thirties. Mid thirties. That age some men get where they're that same age forever.

Smooth courtesy means if Amber looks like she needs help to his car he gives it to her and maybe she pushes him or flinches or yells at him but he starts to help anyway.

Lux is already at the passenger door, already holding that open for Amber. And when Amber gets to that door, with Gary her shadow, Gary looks a the creature whose shadow he is more truly, a question in his eyes. He hasn't said anything yet because he hasn't needed to say anything yet, and Lux's jaw is set and sharp and sharp enough to slice his heart up. She puts a hand on his forearm, leans her shoulder into his shoulder, rests her forehead against his jaw, and says a quiet thing because his look was a what happened look. 

Then she says, "I think I will collect the paints. Why don't you tell Amber about the time you taught a bat how to get itself out of Hell, huh? I was telling her that story. Or maybe get her a drink, huh?" like Gary's a bartender and his car is the bar.

"How'd it happen?" Gary asks Amber, and this is perhaps when it becomes clear why and how Gareth Gary Miller came to the attention of a Toreador all those nights ago. There's something about his voice. He holds up his hand, the one that would've been injured if he'd punched it into a wall. "Do you really want a drink?"

Amber
Amber's progress to the car is a slow one. Step. Step. Step. Boots scuffing in the graveldirtdetritous that litters the broken and cracked old pavement. Her focus is on that, on movement, teeth gritted so hard it's a wonder they don't crack and shatter in her mouth. The man moves to help her and she doesn't push him away or snarl like she might otherwise. Amber is strong, tough, independent, she doesn't need help! That's how she seems, anyway. Beneath that gruff exterior is someone sensitive, and is it any wonder really? She is an artist.

Lux speaks. She's going to take care of the paints. Amber nods, starts to turn toward the car, but stops. Looks back.

"Phone," she says. The broken remains of her phone dropped to the ground and she'd left it there, too intent on giving Lux her space to bend and retrieve it. Or perhaps she knew, even in her injured state, that if she lowered herself she'd never be able to get back up again. Anyway, she thinks of it now.

How'd it happen?

"Punched a wall," she manages. She holds out her hand to look at it, cringes and closes her eyes immediately. It is swollen and red and it hurts when she tries to flex her fingers, which refuse to respond.

Do you really want a drink?

Maybe it's that something in his voice or maybe she's in so much pain as to be becoming delirious, but she lets out a breath that could be a laugh. The corner of her mouth lifts in a pained grin. "Wouldn't say no to something strong if you've got it." She's hoping for whiskey. She would also take vodka. She would settle for tequila. Or about twenty Aspirins.

Dubois & Miller
"Must've been one mean wall." He reaches past her to open up the glove compartment where he keeps a flask of pick-me-up. As it happens, it is whiskey, so that's one wish granted by the wish fairy. There's not a lot of interesting stuff to be seen in the glove compartment. Some papers, a case of sunglasses. Gloves, go fucking figure. A case of something, tools of some sort. He uncaps the flask for Amber before handing it over. He's not inside the car, he's waiting without it. Looks over his shoulder to guage how long it's going to take Lux. Maybe he can hear her texting, though it's so damned quiet. Maybe he can't. Either way, he clasps his hands together and crouches so he's not looming, then says, "You're a ghoul, am I right?"

If ghouls have a private name for their state, which they use each to each, something less insulting (is it insulting?) than ghoul, something with different connotations, Gary doesn't use it now or assumes Amber won't know that term. Lux told him that Amber wasn't human just now but she was still breathing. He's ascertaining.

Amber
This is the part where Amber is supposed to be a good ghoul, one who keeps her domitor's secrets through lies and deception, isn't it? It is an instinct that is not quite second nature to her, but one that has allowed her to quickly and effectively shut down certain lines of inquiry among her friends.

She shouldn't have to, though, this secret? With these people? It doesn't need to be kept a secret. Lux is right over there and she knows and probably she just told this man who is her friend that Amber is a ghoul or at the very least not human. If Amber were capable of coherent thought she would answer him simply, if hesitantly, Yes.

Amber is not currently capable of coherent thought.

He uncaps the flask and she lets out a breath that is a whine and a sigh of gratitude, thank god, she doesn't have to try and work that herself. Then she tips it back, takes a long, deep swallow of the stuff despite the burn, it doesn't burn anymore than her hand does. That gulp doesn't make the pain go away, but almost immediately the edges of it begin to blur.

Gary is right not to use another term for what they are. If one exists, Amber hasn't heard it. But when she hears that word fall from his lips she reacts as though she wishes there was one. Her eyes widen and she turns her head to look at him and, here is this. Amber is a beauty. The lines of her face may be rigid with pain, but it takes nothing away from the fierceness of her visage. It only makes her more wild-eyed, particularly when he asks this question which takes her by surprise.

Eyes, wild and dark, go wide as her head lifts, chin angles upward as she tilts her body oh-so-slightly away from him. Wary.

"No...?" She says, draws the single syllable out for a bit, ends in a query. Might as well have just said Yes.

Dubois & Miller
He doesn't laugh at her. He doesn't take the flask back yet either. He cocks an eyebrow, and then it seems is done assessing the situation, is done weighing it against what remains of his conscience [ -- not much. The things he'd do. The things he's done].

He's an Anarch's ghoul and a Toreador's ghoul, whatever those two things mean together. He's not part of whatever knitting circle the Camarilla Ghouls have -- not that they would. How can you be friends with people who are in love with somebody who might want to, one day, hurt the love of your life? With difficulty. Knitting circles are hard.

Gary doesn't look like the kind of man who's much for knitting circles, although perhaps he'd be good at them; that deliberation.

"Must've been one mean wall," he says again, "or maybe you're running low, can't remember how to start healing yourself. Takes a little push sometimes."

Amber
Amber hasn't run into the dangers of befriending the ghouls of other vampires, not yet. Her friends are all still very much human, but for how much longer? How long will it last that Amber is the only supernatural one among them? The only one chained to a monster through the power of their blood?

Not much longer, as it turns out, but that is for another night.

This night she is sitting in the passenger seat of a nice car in a not-so-nice sector of the city, her wrist gingerly resting atop her thigh, a flask of whiskey in the other. She takes another drink, considers a third, takes that third before handing it back. She does not think that she's just lied completely unconvincingly, because she does not think about it at all. Her thoughts can only hold from one moment to the next to the next, and they're on to the next. Or are they back to the first? He comments about the meanness of the wall and for a moment Amber is confused, is her brain working on a loop? Has she had this conversation before?

"What?" she asks, confused, rough voice roughened still further by pain and now by alcohol. Healing...her...self? Oh.

Like a bubble rising up from the murky depths, a memory comes to mind. The basement. The thing in the basement, it cut her. It cut her and she...she did go to the hospital. She did have it treated, but. But.

She looks at her hand, bloated and red and aching, burning as it throbs. If Lux is texting or talking or even just walking, Amber doesn't notice it. Her eyes are closed in concentration. When she squeezes them tighter, trying to focus past the pain trying to make Flood's blood work to restore herself droplets appear on her long dark lashes, make them glisten, but she doesn't cry again.

It takes time, and in the end it doesn't do much. She grits her teeth through the worst of it, as the hairline cracks in her bones fuse themselves back together. It doesn't do much for the redness and the swelling, but without the worst of the injury to exacerbate things that should go down soon enough. Her knuckles will be ugly purple-blue for a day, maybe two, but at least she won't need a doctor now.

And at least her head is clearing. Still hurts, but it's only a little more than an incessant sting. hesitantly, Amber flexes her fingers, wincing a little, but hey, she can probably hold a brush again by the morning. Looking over and perhaps up at Gary, older man, gentle man, with that something-something to his voice, and she has something of her fierceness back. "Thanks."

Dubois & Miller
How old is he? As old as Flood appears to be? Only a few years into forever attached to a creature that only ever rises in the dark? Instead of tucking that flask back into the glove compartment (which he'd closed neatly, just after) he tucks it into an inner pocket of his coat. Lux called this man her friend but he knows what ghouls are. He doesn't seem dead, but Lux doesn't seem dead either. Difficult to tell. His breath is visible in the cold air, but whose to say. While Amber gets herself in order, Gary stands up again. He drove quickly to get here and he was in the middle of something beforehand. Not impatient to get back to it, but impatient for Lux to return. He's frowning into the dark again, rubbing the pads of his fingers over his forehead.

"Don't mention it," he says, looking back down at Amber. "Everybody's got an off night. So why," and he smiles, rueful, "did you punch that wall?"

Here she is, Lux. With bags of supplies to load into the back of Gary's car. Her expression is the kind of poised calm, troubled mouth, a shadow sharpening up the lucent edge of her eyes, somebody's gonna bleed, that makes for an interesting picture. There's a line etched between her eyebrows.

Amber
Why did she do it? Well, there are all kinds of answers to that question. Amber has anger issues, has a temper that is still occasionally very easily set off. She has calmed to the point where she doesn't fly into a blind rage, hitting and hitting and hitting until either the object of her rage stops moving or flees. That doesn't mean she won't still hit them, though.

And Nate isn't here to hit, which is probably for the best. Amber destroyed her phone and her hand in two hits. What might have happened to the journalist if his face had been in the way instead?

The answer to this, though, is a simple one. Amber, grimacing or scowling or both, says, "A friend of mine did something real fucking stupid. After I told someone else I didn't think he would."

Dubois & Miller
Gary Miller. Perhaps now that she is better able to think around the pain, the impression Amber will take of him is a steady one, an air of unreserved competence, of wry understanding and a rakish lilt to his eyebrows coupled with a tired sharpness that's probably lead somebody somewhere down a path of trouble. Maybe it was that bat. Had to get into hell somehow. Now here comes the wry understanding: 

"Think this someone else is going to hold you accountable?"

He takes the bags of cans, stencils, etcetera from Lux without questioning what's in the bags, and loads them into the back of his car. They rattle, clink clink, ca-link, which is great because it means Lux can send off yet another text, although Gary's question gets Lux's attention and she looks at Amber more directly.

"Do you? I hardly think so; I just spoke with Daniel about the stupid little fool. Apparently he is a free man; Daniel," she says, again, musing on the name; her tone is somewhat opaque. There's nuance, isn't there. "What grace." 

And Lux, she says free man like it's a promise that you don't necessarily want her to keep (oh, but you do).

Amber
Does she think this other person will find her accountable? Does Amber think that anyone involved in this will blame her in some way for Nathan's trespass?

"No. That doesn't mean it doesn't piss me off."

Free man. Daniel, she talked to Daniel? Of course she talked to Danny, Nathan is hers in some way Amber doesn't fully understand (or want to think about (like her and Danny? ick, stop thinking about it.)).

Let the adults handle it, Amber. Let them work it out amongst themselves what to do with Mr. Nathan Marszalek. No. No, she still wants to talk to him and find out just what the fuck.

"Did he say what happened?" she asks.

Dubois & Miller
Lux's blood-addict chevalier closes the car's back door when it seems like Lux isn't going to get in. He's been around long enough to have an excellent read of his domitor's moods. They're after all what obsesses him and what he lives for, aren't they? They're an important part of his life. He can tell she's not going to get into the back yet.

And he's right. Lux leaves off texting, slipping her phone back into the pocket of that hooded tunic she's wearing. Her bracelet of handcuffs and industrial metal cuffs makes a sound that causes Gary to wince and give something of a Look when it hits the roof of his car, which happens because after the phone gets slipped away, Lux hits the roof of his godamned car, not hard, just solidly, then braces herself against it with the palm of her hand.

"He did not," she says, and the coolness in her voice isn't at all for Amber. "Only that Nathan seemed to think say what an idea I'll go find Flood on my own and now the kid's got the rest of the story." Lux is furious. But Lux's fury is cold (but - oh. Passionate; like a kiss of ice; touch it and you'll stick, it'll take a tithe of skin and blood and maybe more). "How's your hand? I think we had a good idea here; we should come back for the wall some other time. 'Specially now that it's been christened." 

Amber
Amber's eyes narrow at the sound of metal hitting the hood of the car along with Lux's fist, but she doesn't grimace. It's not her car. Her car is off...somewhere. Blocks away, east of where they are. Hopefully it'll go unmolested until the morning, or whenever it is that Amber is finally able to return to it. She still doesn't trust her fingers to grip the gear shift, doesn't think she could handle changing gears, and they're a ways yet from her home.

Amber makes a noise of her own, a tch of her tongue against her teeth, an irritated sound that is next to nothing compared to Lux's cool fury. Of course Nathan would think it's a great idea to go chasing after Flood. Hadn't the Lasombra warned her himself? Wasn't that why she herself was so furious when she realized the identity of the journalist she'd saved?

She's brought back from her momentary distraction (ah, to be able to think again, it's so much like being able to breathe) when Lux inquires about her hand. Amber looks at it. "Better," she says, and it looks better. Maybe she won't even need anymore vitae to complete the process. "I don't think I'll need an ER at least."

The painter, shifted in the passenger seat now so that one booted foot rests on the ground, her head emerged at least from within the car, looks back the way they'd come. And she nods, yes. The corner of her mouth lifts in a faint and faded ghost of her sharp grin. "Yeah."

Dubois & Miller
Lux looks at Amber's hand. Her interest is genuine but Lux doesn't know anything about the care and maintenance of a human's body. How many years has it been since she caught a cold? As many years as there are stars, might as well be. Lux enjoys being a vampire. She'd never call it 'being dead.' Lux isn't dead. Or if she is, it's only when the sun's high in the sky, a pat of butter skidding toward the west so that once again Lux and creatures like her can live again. It isn't Hell. The point is for all her interest in anatomy as it relates to drawing the body she's got no sense of when an injury looks really really bad or just kinda bad or what. So Amber's fingers look better, and Lux couldn't tell you if the bones were broken before or are broken now, just that it looked bad and now it looks less bad.

Her mouth presses into a firm line; usually that firm line is accompanied by the suggestion of a smile, the snick of which is surprisingly sharp. This time the sharpness doesn't come; the suggestion is also a ghost, executed before it's time - a compelling hint. 

"Good. Do you know, once I couldn't hold a pen or brush for a whole unit of time I can't recall the specifics of? It was because of a bee; a bee that came out've this clover-chain, ever make those? Somebody gave it to me and I slipped it on my wrist and the bee grew jealous. The things you remember."

It's Gary who speaks next. The driver's side door is open, a wash of illumination inside the car to give Amber back-lighting, to make the night less dark; somewhere nearby a siren wails to life, and Lux looks in that direction. City noises like that don't dismay her (not now, a few months after), not unless they begin right beside where-ever she's standing, but they're still sharp enough to draw her attention.

It's Gary who speaks next, like he can sheathe that fucking siren in the velvet of his voice, huh? 

"Where are we going?"

Lux answers him but she does so by telling Amber a thing, looking away from the direction of those sirens and back toward the paintrix. I need to go speak to Nathan."

"I'll drop you where ever you need," Gary says, and it's another answer-one but speaking-to-two. He can drop Amber where-ever she'd like. He can drop Lux where-ever she'd like, just say the word, give him something to do.

Amber
[should I ask this question I want to ask?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Amber
Lux's mouth firms into a line without its usual suggestion of a smile. Amber notices, because there is a part of Amber that always notices Lux. The way the shadows color her eyes or the light glitters on her accesories or. The way her features don't hold that usual sharpness. Amber notices. And she knows it's time for them to leave this place, to go to the men they care for and assess the damage.

First, though, Amber is assessing this damage. She is looking around the blast radius of the bomb that was Flood's message. She's studying Lux and her fine fury. There is something in her own face, still too pale, still etched with pain though it's easing. A suggestion of a curiosity. Not about the bee and the clover chain, but something else.

Then she looks away. Whatever it is, it can keep for another night. When she looks away she looks at Gary, who has just asked her where they're going. He can take her where ever she needs, but where she needs to be is home and he can't take her there. She needs to be where Flood is, but she doesn't know where that is unless she asks Lux and she's not going to ask Lux. Just like she's not going to ask Lux for a drink to help her heal a little further so she can drive herself. There are things that you ask and things that you don't ask, and tonight Amber is finding a lot of things she doesn't ask.

So. Where to?

"Santa Fe's good." It's very good. She knows people in the area and she knows where the buses are and when they run. She can get herself home from there. "Are you gonna be okay?" she asks, and this is to Lux of course. Lux who is furious, who is most affected by Nate's foolish actions. "Maybe in a couple of days we can come back." A tip of her head toward the wall. "Can't leave it too long, right?" And there is that ghost-grin again, flickering faintly as any of the old street lamps illuminating the area.

Dubois & Miller
This conversation will later serve as confirmation about Amber's status. Amber, a Ghoul. A Ghoulish Sweetheart. Another addict who'll one night look at Kindred (Cainites [Sabbat Terminology for the Sabbat Ghoul]) and perhaps feel a pang, because that's a hit right there, that's a line. Lux doesn't want to know Amber's a ghoul. Lux doesn't want a lot of stuff.

Santa Fe's good. Both Gary and Lux hah. Gary's hah is good to hear. Lux's is a scrape of shadow. They're both down on the Santa Fe more often than not it seems some months. Go figure that that's not where they've run into Amber.

"We don't want somebody else with bad ideas coming along and scrawling over our nice start," Lux agrees, as to: not leaving it too long. Lux hits the top of the car again (very lightly this time [there's still a clink]), and then she moves to shut the passenger door for Amber. So she can better circle the car, catch Gary as he's buckling his seatbelt. The driver's side window is rolled down and Lux leans her elbows on the edge of it in order to say, "Call," rest a hand on Gary's shoulder, caress of a thing that takes in his askew collar, finds his throat and his jaw, and's as much of a kiss as an actual kiss might've been. Such a smile, Lux. Even furious. Especially furious. First for Gary, and then for Amber in the passenger seat.

"Seeya later," a tilt-up of her chin. "Put the pieces of your phone in one of the bags."

Then Lux withdraws; pulls back and goes off to -

Doesn't matter, does it? Gary checks the rearview mirror (cautious [wary]), and he'd smiled too. Wasn't a man made of stone, no. The smile's still there in his eyes (so assured [confident]) which're turning to Amber.

"So," he says, "on a scale of 1-10 how much respect do you normally have for law and order? Specifically the speed limit."

Amber
They haven't seen Amber there, but maybe they've seen her work. Not in a gallery, no, not there, not yet, but outside somewhere. Side of a tattoo parlor maybe. Side of that building next to the Conoco on 6th maybe. In the back of some collection of galleries, the pretty lovely place with the strung up lights and the wall made entirely of doors. It's quiet in that place, about the only quiet place on that street on the first Friday of the month. They haven't seen Amber there, but once or twice she's left her mark.

Amber tucks in to the passenger seat so that door can close her in with Lux's friend, her ghoul, bound to her the way that Amber is bound to Flood. Or are they? Can that bond be different from ghoul to ghoul? Gary is a friend, a driver, a whatever-is-needed. Amber doesn't look it now, she's still nursing that injured paw, but she's a queen. Queen in training maybe, lady of the day to a lord of the night.

But at the end of the night she's still just a ghoul, and they all have the same addictions and the same desires. It's easy to feed them the same lines.

She looks out the window when Lux kisses Gary, not a sharp look of embarrassment, she's not terribly uncomfortable with public displays of affection (even cool affection, furious affection, false affection). It's not even to give them the illusion of privacy. She looks out the window because that's what she always does, isn't it? Look out of windows, look in windows, never quite satisfied on either side. Like a cat that way.

There's a nod to Lux just before she heads off to wherever she heads off to. Then it's just the ghouls in the car, the addicts.

Amber gives Gary a glimmer of a grin. "Nnnnnnnegative eleven," she says slowly. She wants to go home.

Dubois & Miller
The story changes ghoul to ghoul. The gentry don't necessarily care because a ghoul's just a tool right tool for the right job or maybe they do care because who doesn't get fond of one's pets because who doesn't love one's helpmeets. A ghoul's the only thing you can trust will love you because their love isn't going to fade and neither is their need. Maybe that's why most Cainites find the idea of an Independent Ghoul so abhorrent. The blood bond is twisted but it's true. They make it into something else. They're untrustworthy: they're on the prowl. They're untrustable. Things that you can't trust at all don't tend to last long in the world of darkness, do they? Because even a deceptive bastard knows that to make a deal at least one out've two has to be kept or your word's nothing.

Some ghouls are brought unwillingly into the fold.Some ghouls learn what they are too late too late.Some ghouls like the power of what it is they are.

Because there is power.

Amber gives Gary the glimmer of a grin. Gary hahs. "I should've known. With Lux it's always the rulebreakers." He'd never call himself a king, or think of himself as Lux's equal - although he doesn't think of himself as beneath her (per se). If he were a piece on her chess set arsenal, he'd probably call himself her knight noir. "So you're an artist? Mostly tagging?"

He can have a conversation and drive really really fast at the same time.

That's what's happening. He is driving really really fast, peeling away from the kerb but not with a screech of tires. Nope; he knew how to accelerate just so to avoid that, and now he's bringing the dark beautiful animal of a car into a steady (fast) pace.

Amber
Amber was not brought unwillingly to into the fold. Unwittingly, yes, but once she was aware that she was something, something better than human? She was in.

Until she wasn't, but it wasn't being a ghoul that she'd run from. It was the one who made her one. She'd gotten free, gotten clean, gotten away away but ah, it was something other than a need for a fix that saw her coming back, not crawling, not kneeling, but striding with purpose. Head high, all of that. Do they ever consider themselves beneath their companions?

Gary says that with Lux it's always rulebreakers, and a little sliver of her heart sinks to hear it. Is she not special, then? Does the beautiful and wonderful and magnificent Lux go through rulebreakers with some sort of frequency?

Then why Nathan? Amber wouldn't call Nathan a rules laywer, but she wouldn't call him a breaker of rules, either. He is straight laced (except for the alcohol but Amber doesn't count that) and honest (mostly). Why him? Not 'why him and not her' just why him. Because he does stupid shit like endanger himself and piss off all the people looking out for him?

But wait, conversation. C'mon, Amber, you can do this. Your hand isn't hurting nearly so much, it's barely wounded. Have a conversation with Lux's ghoul.

She nods, and then shakes her head. "Nah," to mostly tagging. "Not really. Mostly painting. Oil on canvas, watercolor, whatever. I've done a lot of murals lately, though. What about you? Are you an artist?"

Dubois & Miller
The moments Amber loses to introspection don't seem to bother Gary. He doesn't mind silence. How many friends do ghouls really have? They can't be friends (really) with their own. They aren't friends (although perhaps that's their delusion [what you tell yourself]) with their addictions. They aren't friends with the people they're just using in order to serve their addiction (their masters [mistresses], their reason for being, breathing, living). Or are they? The things you tell yourself.

The point is that Gary doesn't mind silence. He gets out a lot but there's a certain sense that he's well able to take care of himself well able to just be himself.

He's keeping his eyes sharp on the road because when you're driving fast and you're taking shortcuts you should pay attention to the road. Full of roadblocks and pitfalls and dangers; there's a police car once but it lets him go (a friend, maybe). 

Is he an artist. Quick dart of a glance, and then he shakes his head. His voice is gorgeous but that's all he's got to offer in that way, and maybe there's a part of him that wishes he could offer it. Wishes he could have a chance at entrancing her too.

"Last time I drew a stick figure somebody complimented me on my unique tree," Gary says. "I do dance if the music's good and the company's willing and my shoes aren't too tight."

Amber
He isn't an artist, well isn't that a matter of opinion? And that opinion depends entirely on what one thinks that "art" is. Is it a painting, a drawing, a sculpture? Is it a dance - jazz, ballet, tap, fox trot - or a song? Gary sounds like he has an artist's voice, all lilting just so and tugging at a person just like that. Amber notices. Maybe if he could put a little oompf in it he could entrance her. She is still so young and impressionable after all.

He doesn't try, though, or maybe he can't. So they talk instead of art and artists and dancing.

Amber huffs something like a laugh. If she were a different person she would tell him he could be an artist if he just tried. Or that lots of artists - Monet, Rousseau, Durand - painted trees and forests. She doesn't, though. Maybe she's selfish, or more likely she's smug. You get to hang with Lux all the time, Gary, but Amber's paintings are poetry on canvas or soaked into the cracks of a building's walls.

"Dancing," she says, nose scrunching. "Dancing where? Like at a club?"

Dubois & Miller
He'd glanced at Amber when she'd huffed that laugh again, but he didn't dwell on whatever it meant, if he saw through her, if he could tell. He's been a ghoul for a long time, Gareth Miller. He knows the ropes and where they're too thin and where they could hang you if you're not careful. There are a lot of places just waiting to become a noose. There are a lot of thoughts just waiting to become a noose, too.

He grins with a flash of white teeth. Rakish cock of a brow, but he's looking at the road again, so it's all profile.

"Sometimes. There aren't so many clubs that allow for the kind of dancing I'm especially fond of," he says. "Or you'll go and find everybody there's too stuffy, too many husbands who aren't sure whether they left their right foot or their their other right foot back at the lessons they bought their missus as a guilt-trip induced anniversary gift. You know how it is."

Amber
"What kind's that?" she asks. "Prom dancing?" Without thinking it through she lifts both of her hands to pantomime resting her hands on a pair of invisible shoulders. Of course her hand isn't ready for that, poor purple bruised thing. Soon as she lifts it the muscles of her face tighten, but she doesn't whimper, doesn't groan. Just makes that face and puts her hand lightly down into the other, holds it there to protect it.

"No," she says, "I don't." Because she doesn't and there's no point hiding that fact. Amber is young, but she comes from an irregular place. Her experience with guilt-wracked husbands is from the side where they do the things that make them guilty.

Dubois & Miller
"I wouldn't know," Gary tells her. "Never went to my prom. Date dumped me for my best friend," and he might be feeding her a line. There's a faint smile curling his mouth; it doesn't seem like a joyful thing, but it's an easy expression. 

"No," and now he's answering her question more truly. "Blues. Swing. Give me a hustle. A two step. Salsa. Tango. Anything Latin, anything that requires a get-up. Don't laugh, but I've always had fun."

"Easier to find the Latin dance halls," thoughtful. "But they can be too stuffy. I'm stuffy," is he? Gary?, "but come on. Where on Santa Fe am I dropping you?" 

Amber
[ARE YOU FEEDING ME A LINE? empathy -2 because ow]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 6) ( success x 1 )

Amber
He is feeding her a line, and she doesn't care. She is in a place currently where the pain is reduced and her hand isn't throbbing with agony and she can sort of smile. Despite what she saw and what she did and how the two were connected. Despite Lux and her fight for control telling her to get out of sight. Despite trying and failing to get some kind of distance between them. She doesn't ever do much more than that huff of a laugh he's already heard, but even that is a little scarce tonight. Like she can only give it out in small doses because she only has so much humor left in her at the moment.

She can smile, though, or grin a little, and so she grins a little. "Didn't go, either, but I've seen movies."

Gary likes the Latin dances and that's fine, Amber accepts that until he says he likes the ones that require a get-up. She doesn't laugh but she does look at him like she's trying to imagine him in something brightly colored and ruffled and she's coming up short in the imagination department. Can't picture it, nope, not really. Maybe some day but, ah, she doubts it.

She doesn't dispute him being stuffy, that's another thing she doesn't know and Amber? She's not the sort to offer meaningless words, platitudes, for anyone, particularly anyone she's only just met. And besides, where is he dropping her?

Amber looks out the window to see if they're there, and if they are she lifts her good hand to point. "Gas station's good. I want to get something to eat," she says, which is neither entirely true nor entirely a lie.

Dubois & Miller
He pulls into the gas station - and that's smooth, too. Knows how to handle the car. Assured. His gaze catches on her injured hand, then he glances over his shoulder at the bags in the back, and there's a frown that'll have to be addressed in a moment or so. 

The car, it's idling, purring, purring, it loves Gary like he loves

"About Lux," he says. "You're her friend, right."

Amber
Amber turns in her seat to reach back. It's easy if she keeps her injured hand resting on her knee and turns to grab with her good hand. At least, that's what she's intending to do. The motion is arrested when Gary asks that question.

She looks at him, brows tight and not because of pain this time. Mouth pursed but not in a grimace.

"Yeah." Stated. No question about it. She is Lux's friend and while she may not guard Lux's secrets as well as she guards Flood's, she'll damn sure try.

Dubois & Miller
He stays silent for a moment, considering (weighing) Amber. He doesn't explain why he asked, why he felt the need to make the statement, but breathes in slowly. He could be a vampire; Lux breathes, too. He's warm, but Amber isn't near enough to feel that; and sometimes vampires lie about that, too. Vampires are liars. Ghouls are liars, too. Gary, he says, "Good. She hangs around too many assholes who're going to fuck her over."

Amber
There are people who think that Amber is an asshole. Generally, they're people who've gotten on her bad side, made her angry, made her snarl and gnash her teeth and sometimes (all too often) strike. To the people who haven't encroached on her personal space, tried to touch her without her permission or condescended to her, she is...not so much an asshole as people think. Beneath it all she is, if not good she is at least decent.

Which is better than a lot of people she hangs out with, and probably better than a lot of people Lux hangs out with, sounds like. The corner of her mouth twitches a little, like maybe she could grin or maybe she could actually smile, or maybe something else.

Because honestly she doesn't know what to say to that, so she just says, "Thanks for the lift." And she reaches for her bags, cans rattling against the canvas cloth as she tugs it to her.

Dubois & Miller
He reaches an arm over to help with the tugging of the bag. His chivalry's dented or maybe a bit belated, but it's not dead. 

"Sure," he says, as she gets out. Glances at the gas station, then back at her. "Take care of yourself," he says, but he also means, and of your friends.

The car doesn't immediately peel off. Gary checks his phone messages while Amber heads into the gas station store, and if and Amber next looks out she'll see that he's filling up because might as well he's here, the phone pressed to his ear. If she comes out while he's still there, the man gives her a faint nod, and then it's back into the car and off into the night.

Time to track down the little dickdrip. 

Amber
He tells her to take care of herself and though Amber is arrogant, she's not cocky about this. She does what she can to keep herself safe and her friends, they are so few, so precious. She does all that she can think to do in order to keep them safe.

It's not enough. It's never enough. And she's not so gallant a knight she thinks she can save them from all harm. But she'll try anyway. She nods.

"You, too," she says, probably means it in all the ways that he does, too. Take care of that woman, keep her safe as you can. Then she's off inside, moving at a slowish pace though not so slow as before Gary reminded her of what she can do. She trails through the aisles, and if she sees him out there pumping gas she nods to him and is watchful of him, and when she finally makes her way to the counter with an energy drink and a packet of pretzels she asks to use the phone so she can call a cab.

Gary isn't the only one whose night is only just beginning all over again, and Amber would like to get to the next leg as quick as she can.

Dubois & Miller
[and thus do the ghouls part ways. ROLL CREDITS. or shift scene.]