bakerstreet | the picture prompt meme.

Annika is driving.

Edited 2018-06-29 09:45 (UTC)

It had probably been only a matter of time before they got caught.

As much as Iseul enjoyed Jackie's company, meeting his vampire friends had never been part of the plan, and Iseul knew instinctively that was what the woman was the moment she got close. He gave himself away too, tensing noticeably as his danger sense prickled. It was very hard not to immediately shift and fly away. But that would be a bad idea, both for himself, and for Jackie. Mostly Jackie.

He stays put reluctantly, and gives his unlikely friend a look, clearly expecting him to take care of this. It's a huge trust fall for the Corax, and he's not happy to be put in a position where the exercise is necessary.

"Friend of yours?" He mutters. Needlessly. He's entirely sure the other vampire can hear him no matter how softly he speaks.

Shit.

Shit shit shit shit. He really hoped that they could eternally avoid this. (Not a very realistic hope, mind, but... he'd really rather never deal with either side of acquaintances of theirs. Though at least his side is probably slightly less deadly, funnily enough. Or even much of an immediate issue at all, if he plays his cards right... Which hinges on Brian not checking Jackie's aura at any point. And Jackie not doing anything that would make anyone think that he isn't a regular human.

Luckily the Corax is fairly bright and sneaky, and Brian generally trusts Jackie, so that should work out...

"Yeah.

A very good friend, too." There is a slight change to the way he speaks - softer and sharper at the same time, an airy sort of flow to it that isn't there normally. He grins easily, and nobody would be able to tell that he is not, in fact, happy to see the woman. "Hey, Annika," he calls out to her, waving. He's sure that she's seen them anyway, she was fairly clearly heading in their direction, so it's not like he's giving away their last change to escape. Better just act normal, "over here!"

She waves back, not correcting her course - yup, she'd already seen them - and arrives half a minute later. "Man, it's crowded today." Her eyes go towards Iseul, eyebrows rising slightly, though she just continues talking. "You'd think a Tuesday night would be quiet, but I guess it's payday or something. Made it a lot harder to track you down." She slaps Jackie on the back, and then keeps her hand there. "Luckily most people have no trouble remembering you. So who is this?" A nod towards Iseul, and her grin widens - if she had permanent fangs, they'd be showing now, but as it is it's just a very mundane, toothy grin. It still is significantly too predatory for comfort. "Someone you're having an eye on?"

"Yeah." Jackie actually manages to sound prickly at that and shakes her off, taking a half step to put himself solidly between her and Iseul, and gives her a pointed look. "Permanently. And I'm not sharing."

Iseul is quiet for once. Every instinct he has is telling him to get the hell out of there, and he is visibly uncomfortable, especially when the woman looks at him. He takes an involuntary step back when she smiles at him. He'd been very careful not to meet her eyes up until that point, buthe meets her gaze for a split second in his haste to look away from her teeth.

He's on the verge of bugging out and growing feathers when Jackie steps in front of him. The Corax doesn't relax but he does keep his Homid form. He doesn't, however, know whether to relax or panic when the vampire answers

Permanently? Permanently what?

Iseul looks like he has something to say to that. Likely something smartassed and inappropriate. You can actually see the effort it takes to hold his tongue on his face. It's pretty funny.

And the Corax isn't stupid. He has a very good idea of what Jackie is implying, and while he's relatively sure it's an act, the idea chills him to his hollow bones.

He takes a deep breath, and pastes a fairly convincing friendly smile on his face. He's still nervous. He can't hide that, but that could be due to anything. She could draw her own, hopefully relatively harmless, conclusions.

"I'm Iseul," he offers, and his voice does not shake. So far, so good. He's not budging from his place behind Jackie, but doesn't sound terrified either. Right. Time to put those acting chops to use. He is now a totally ordinary run of the mill human. Nothing weird at all. Maybe a little eccentric, but definitely not a were-creature. He'll stick to Jackie like glue, play his part, and everything will be fine "Are you going to introduce me to your friend, Jackie?"

There. He even sounds like he'd like to be introduced.

Jackie misses most of Iseul's internal fight and acting skills, too focused on Annika and actively facing away from Iseul as she's on his other side.

The Brujah, however, notices his initial expression and the way he pulls himself together. Which makes her whistle in appreciation when Jackie announces his intent.

"Well, he looks like a good pick. I didn't realize you guys had a type, but looking at him I feel like you have one." She's clearly having fun ribbing Jackie, who doesn't budge from where he is standing but relaxes slightly. Looks like his claim was believed and accepted. At least on her part. "This is Annika. She's a friend."

"Nice to meet you. I'd offer you a handshake but certain people are standing in the way." Annika throws a pointed glance at Jackie, who reluctantly moves out of the way but sticks close to Iseul, and finally throws a quick look at the Corax.

Iseul is looking from Annika to Jackie, and when he sees the vampire relax slightly, he follows his lead, like a good potential fledgling. He's looking back at him when the vampire glances his way, resisting the urge to raise an eyebrow.

He seems to catch Jackie's meaning, tosses his hair casually, and steps forward to offer Annika his very well manicured hand. His grip is unremarkable. If anything, he appears somewhat fragile, but he imagines everyone appears fragile to a vampire. And the silver bracelet he's wearing isn't going to do anything to protect him, but it may reinforce the illusion that he's human. It's common knowledge that Garou and company are allergic to silver, right?

"Nice to meet you," he says amiably, turning on the charm.

Her grip, on the other hand, is on this side of just-so-not-too-tight. She doesn't seem to have caught on anything being off, at least. "I guess I'll see you around in the future."

"So," Jackie chimes in, trying to draw her attention away from Iseul now that he feels like it is proper, "why were you looking for me in the first place?"

"Oh, right. You see, I found this garage with absolutely beautiful cars in it, and one of them is just calling out to me, you know? But it's locked, so..."

"...you want me to open it for you, and the car as well. Got it." Should be a fun challenge, and he never minds helping her out with those things. ...He just really wishes she had asked another night than this one.

"Bring your 'friend' along." She winks at him and then turns around to lead them down the street. Jackie shakes his head but gives Iseul a very apologetic look and gestures for him to come along, though his voice sounds cheerful. "With a bit of luck, we'll not die tonight."

"Oi, I heard that!" She turns around and smiles at Iseul. "I'll have you know that I'm perfectly capable of driving a car and Jackie is absolutely overreacting."

I really hope not. Iseul keeps smiling through the handshake. Then it disappears the moment she's not looking at them anymore. When Jackie looks at him, he lets the act drop for just a moment, just long enough to communicate the mix of near panic and confusion he's experiencing at that moment.

He is, however, despite his discomfort, following their conversation with interest.

"I know how to pick locks," he says when it becomes obvious that he's coming along on this excursion whether he likes it or not. That was one way to put it. More like he can magic them open with ease. But he could probably make it look like he was picking the lock.

Without thinking, he's defaulted to the unofficial Corax credo: Be useful. Stay alive.

And he's curious to know why Jackie seems so reluctant to get into a car with Annika even as he's dreading it.

Hard wired curiosity is a bitch sometimes.

Edited 2018-06-29 20:11 (UTC)

"...Sounds like your type is Jackie 2.0," Annika laughs, directed at her fellow vampire, and falls back far enough to pull up next to Iseul. She doesn't attempt to slap his back though, at least, her hands stuffed into her pockets now.

"Maybe you'll be faster together? Down here." She leads them around a corner.

"Maybe. Probably not, unless there are multiple locks." They walk down a narrow lane now, and at the end of it across a plaza and then some distance. It looks like they'll be walking for a bit. "...How long are we going to walk?"

"Not much longer. Maybe a mile more?"

"We could have gotten an Uber!"

Iseul opens his mouth to say that he's almost certainly better at picking locks, and shuts it. Not a good idea to call more attention to himself. Better to play the oblivious obedient human. He's not sure how much he's meant to know under these circumstances.

Penned in between a couple of vampires is not anywhere Iseul wants to be even if one of the vampires is Jackie. He tenses when Annika moves to put him between them, and decides that trying to hide it at this point would be more suspicious than rolling with it. So he's uncharacteristically quiet as they walk... and walk... and walk some more.

He's on the verge of saying something himself when Jackie speaks for him.

"I'm alright," he reassures the man, thinking it unnecessary, but appropriate considering the part he was supposed to be playing. If he was acting fully himself, he'd make some crack about vampires forgetting about human limitations. He looks to Annika, honestly curious. "But Jackie's right. Do you not like other people driving for you?"

He's doing a good job t acting - or perhaps Annika just isn't paying much attention to him. Or a mix of both. Most certainly a mix of both.

"Not other people in general. But most of them. It's so boring." She makes a large, all-encompassing gesture with her hands.

"Driving at reasonable speeds and not ignoring every law of traffic or common sense," Jackie explains, and Annika grins. "Exactly that."

Iseul shoots Jackie a worried look that he doesn't bother trying to hide from Annika.

"Uh, I'll take your word for it. In that case, I think I kind of like boring..."

The vampires might survive a car crash, but Iseul is confident that he wouldn't.

Jackie just returns a slightly apologetic look, accompanied by an eye roll. He could attempt to calm Iseul down, but... that'd not necessarily be truthful, as far as he's concerned. "She has never killed anyone driving that she didn't mean to kill," is the best that she can offer. "At least not while I was present."

A firm hand lands on Iseul's shoulder, holding on to him. "Really Jackie 2.0, huh? No running away, though." She flashes him a toothy grin, bringing out her fangs for this occasion - it just has a more dramatic flair. "C'mon, no risk, no fun.

Though there's no reason to worry. I know what I'm doing. I used to be a stunt driver, you know? Drive cars off buildings, highway chases, all the good stuff."

Iseul looks like there are a few things he'd like to say to that. Instead he nearly jumps out of his own skin as the hand lands on his shoulder, eyes going comically wide.

Don't grow feathers. Don't grow feathers. Ohshitthosearesharp. KEEP CALM AND STAY ON THE GROUND, ISEUL.

He swallows hard, and manages to smile wanly. Well, then. That makes at least one thing clear. Annika isn't going to the trouble of keeping up the Masquerade in front of him, which only makes Iseul feel like things have suddenly gotten more dangerous.

“Sorry. I never was a big fan of Grand Theft Auto,” he replies, trying for casual, and succeeding mostly. After a moment though, he can’t stop himself from adding, genuinely curious, “...That’s really interesting though. How did you get into that?”

"I've never driven over a prostitute for fun, promise." She's not going to say that she's never driven over anyone at all, because that would be a lie, but there are huge differences between real life and GTA, in her opinion.

"And how did I... Probably not that unusual a story, really.

My parents owned a driving school, and one of his teachers worked as a stunt driver on the side. Took me along to things sometimes, sets and shows and such. And everyone there was always quite happy to indulge my interest when I got hooked." And this would be the only context in which one would hear her talk about her parents, really. Not because they were bad parents but because she doesn't see much of a point. They belonged to a very different kind of existence.

"Huh. I just wondered. It's not exactly a traditional career path, right?"

Truth be told, if she wasn't a vampire, and therefore setting off all his psychic warning bells, he might get on quite well with Annika. She's definitely interesting, and he's generally personable enough to form a friendly acquaintance at the very least. He's banking on that particular quality keeping him alive long enough to survive this encounter.

He still wishes she would walk at least a couple paces to the right. This close, she was making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He reaches behind his head and rubs the skin self consciously.

"Well, that depends on whom you ask. It used to be quite normal in the circles that I ran in. Well," she grins, "still run in. There's enough nightly challenges.

Here."

She leads them around a corner and then they stop on the backside of a building. "There's a lot of security cameras and such on the other side, but there are none here, I checked. Should give us valuable seconds once we're there.

How fast can you guys open the car?"

the picture prompt meme.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject