the wallflower {open}

Predictably, Winston was never quite so enthusiastic with his own preparations for a night on the town. Then again, he wasn’t going out for the same reason as Miranda, not exactly. Oh, there was a little bit of enjoying himself involved—but not enjoying himself by getting wasted, groping women, falling over on the dance floor. No, Winston sought a different kind of fun, one that might be just a tad controversial. He also didn’t go as weapon crazy as she clearly did; the four-inch knife at one ankle was all he had. But Winston was good at hand-to-hand, most specifically savate (or French kickboxing), and also good at improvising weapons. He used to take down enemies with the torn-off leg of an occasional table as a stake. Whatever worked.

He wasn’t dressed quite so brightly as Miranda, either—then again, could anyone in the entire club claim that? Anyone in the entire world? He could have sworn she was visible from space. He himself was in a pair of dark grey skinny jeans, making his legs (his most powerful weapon when unarmed) look a mile long and one of those vaguely hipster-y V-necked tops for men, a little rumpled and with one of those strange pork cut diagrams on it. Yeah, not weird at all.

“Oh, Phillips,” he said, lowering his drink when she started talking. He’d pointedly ignored her right up until then. Drat. She was going to make it impossible to do his usual patrolling completely inconspicuously, wasn’t she? “Sorry, I didn’t see you there for a moment. You simply blend in with your surroundings so… seamlessly.” The sarcasm sounded resigned, though one eyebrow arched effortlessly. He sighed lightly through his nose before pushing his glasses up a little.

“And I prefer to think of them as Clark Kent glasses, thank you,” he added, though his lip had twitched a touch at the reference to the serial killer. Well, he wouldn’t be Winston if his sense of humour wasn’t just a little bit on the dark side. “I’m coasting the town, Phillips. Doing my job, if you remember what the spangly place we go to once a week is even for.” He looked her up and down and sneered a little. “Someone’s got to keep an eye on the citizens of our fair city while you go out on a drunken rampage around town. You’re clearly looking for a different kind of prey to me.”

“Emo corner?” He smirked, having also caught on to the reference of him apparently being emotional. Cute. If anyone knew about Winston being practically incapable of emotion, it was the woman stood in front of him. He’d always considered it an advantage, of course; he didn’t know any other way of living. “Hardly. But if that’s the way I come across, even better. You know how the supernatural filth are just suckers for a…” He flicked his head back mock-dramatically, sending his fringe flipping. “…tortured soul.”

Her word-choice made him snort. Following on with the metaphor, all of the stew was tasteless in his opinion, especially in this place. But that was what Winston did: whatever he had to do. Miranda wasn’t the only person who seemed to speculate what gender he most preferred. He didn’t care what people said on the matter, and certainly took no offence at her comments that seemed to pin him as gay. “Please. Everyone knows that Superman’s heart secretly belonged to Batman.” He would rather have been Bruce Wayne than Clark Kent anyway, but it worked better with Kent. Him and his super-disguise glasses that apparently made him completely unrecognizable when he went out saving the day. A much more subtle disguise than the rainbow-splosion in front of him. “The honey trap is so cheap, darling,” he continued, even though it was one that he’d used more than once. “And I don’t know how you hide so many sharp, pointy things on you in such a scandalously short dress, but I suppose it’s a credit to you. Though really, you should improve on your unarmed combat. You never know when you’ll be caught unawares.” He made it sound almost like a threat. Then again, most things he said did.

“Winnsy?” was his first remark. He was going to completely ignore the comment about teenage angst, because he didn’t like talking about his teen days particularly. Simply ignoring one’s issues wasn’t exactly a good way of dealing with them, but Winston thought it had worked out divinely so far. “Sunshine Kid? I’d say it’s more like the Apocalyptic Supernova Kid.” He paused, mulling over his beer for a moment before pointing the rim of the bottle at her. “And I would take that as a compliment, if I were you. We would make quite the slaying team…” He pretended to frown. “If only you’d learn how to tie your shoelaces and go potty without a grown-up to hold your hand.”

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note he’ll let her get away with it… FOR NOW.

Neptune was also the farthest official planet from the sun: a dark, icy, gaseous wasteland, completely devoid of life. Absolutely fitting for Winston. Perhaps she hadn’t done it on purpose, but Winston appreciated the choice of planet nevertheless. “That’s the one,” he said idly, taking another sip at the Asahi beer in his hand. “The weather’s much better here on Earth, but the company?” He pointedly looked at her. “Just terrible.”

It was a strange sort of relationship they had. He enjoyed their battles, silly and pointless as they were, and had sort of slotted her into the ‘deranged step-sister’ slot of his mental family map. Perhaps it came from his upbringing by a slaying family, but Winston really did think of the Gentleman’s Club as a family of sorts. A family he’d be more than willing to throw under a bus if it got him what he wanted, but a family nevertheless. “Oh, there’s no doubt that it works. If anything, it’s just too easy,” he said smugly. “I wasn’t joking about the ‘tortured souls’ bit. Look a bit mopey and melodramatic and vampires fall over themselves to try and change you.” Until they realized that he was no ordinary mortal, of course: he had the supernatural abilities of a born slayer. An advantage he’d always had over Miranda, and an advantage that made her seem fragile to him even though she wasn’t.

“I’m sure it won’t be too long now,” he said idly, icy eyes tracking over the many dancing bodies in the club. A lot of them were subtle, but there were always the ones he could tick off easily. Vampire, mortal, vampire, werewolf… “And you never know when it could happen. And it would be such a tragedy if you had your throat ripped out because you have a lousy upper cut. Honestly, I’d cry for days.” He sneered a little but then turned his attention back to her. “You should learn. It’s a liability to the club.”

Winston just shook his head blankly at her reference to the golden bear. He hadn’t really had a childhood, as such. All of it had been spent training.

“This place is always full of them,” he said, distaste creeping into his voice. No, Winston didn’t just hunt out the bad ones. They were the ones that tended to go first, of course, because they were so much easier to spot… but Winston didn’t mind whether the monsters he killed were ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ They weren’t capable of either, in his mind. They were all abominations. “I wouldn’t be caught dead here if it weren’t my job.”

At her question he took a last swig of his bottle and balanced it on a small wall next to him, separating him from one of the raised platforms. “Lead the way to the bar,” he said graciously. “Oh, and mind the barmaid. I’m fairly sure she’s a bitten.”

It was something one had to get used to in their line of work—the hyperawareness, the sensitivity to possibly meaningless things. Nothing was allowed to slip through the net. Winston was good at keeping an eye on what was around him, constantly watching, constantly evaluating. But he was a bit cocky, too. Some potential threats passed him by simply because he considered himself far too good to be caught off-guard by them. He’d dismiss things as nothing quickly. He used to be more cautious, but after a while it was easy to settle into confidence. He stuck his own tongue out a little, briefly, right back at her. “You should be used to it by now,” he retorted.

That was something that worked for Winston: he could blend in. Sociopaths are good at that. He preferred being the cool-looking hipster outsider with a touch of approachable pathos about him (a personality he projected so often that it might have been the closest he had to a real one besides the part of him that liked to poke sharp things at soft things to see what happened), but he didn’t mind trying to fit in elsewhere. He had a good pokerface. “Who’re you calling little?” he asked, raising his eyebrow as he lightly shoved her hand away. “I’m not the one in the over-compensating neon heels, though I daresay they’d suit me better than they suit you.” Winston wasn’t great at respecting personal space either, but he always expected his to be. Hypocritical, really, but what can you do. “You’re not doing your job properly if the leeches seem happy at the end.”

He smiled indulgently at her. Winston was incapable of crying as far as he could tell, from pain physical or emotional. It made tears all that much more interesting to him, and not even in a sadistic way. Just in a rather distant… clinical sort of way. But he’d hate to crush her dreams. “I’ll happily teach you. I have the time. And, need I even say it, the skill.” The practical skills, yes. The dealing with working alongside someone instead of on his own? Something she could enjoy watching him struggle with, and he wouldn’t even know it.

At her hint, his gaze flashed briefly to the guy looking her up. He couldn’t tell if the guy was a creature or not, not off the bat—and even mortals got funny at slayers sometimes these days. Traitors. “I could do the overprotective boyfriend act on him if you’re that worried about getting a closer look,” he said apathetically, obviously not seeing him as much of a threat. The bartender was given an ironic ‘no autographs, please’ sort of gesture at Miranda’s words. Honestly. He pulled out a couple of five dollar bills and put it on the bar before Miranda could object, not that he thought she would. “It’s hip to be square,” he said with a charming little smile at the fanged woman behind the bar. “Or so Pythagoras says.”

“With time, effort and love,” Winston replied airily. He didn’t exactly set out to inspire people. Always, always, he had his own agenda. Besides, if people started trying to be like him, the world would be in a lot of trouble. He knew that. There was only enough room for one Winston.

With his focus being more on blending in than looking good, he didn’t quite follow on with that philosophy. Miranda seemingly had a lot of trouble blending in—but it worked for some. She had a gregarious personality, she partied, she fit into the scene that she belonged in. Winston, on the other hand, didn’t really belong anywhere—except the Gentlemen’s Club. He had to fake it to make it, all day every day. “If you win. Which you won’t. I like to hedge my bet. I play with loaded dice.” With a little wink and anything. Yeah, of course Winston is a big fat cheater. The ends justify the means to him; not only with bets but mostly with slaying. At least he gets results.

An eyebrow arched. “You’ve never thrown a punch?” His voice was dripping with disbelief. “You can’t get by in this business using weapons as a crutch, Phillips. Don’t rely on guns and blades. Don’t rely on anything.” There was a bit of Winston Wisdom right there for her. Don’t rely on anything; including her fellow slayers. Winston liked Miranda. He’d hate to have to stab her in the back someday. “And it will be fun. More for me than for you, considering how much I’m going to kick your ass, but still fun.”

He breathed a quiet laugh, looking back towards the man because he really didn’t care if the staring idiot got suspicious. “Flash him that blinding smile of yours. Draw him out.” He took his cold bottle of beer from the bartender and took a long drink. He liked playing with people. Creepy creature or just creep—it’d be fun to mess him up wither way. “And now let’s go outside, mm? I need a smoke.” And they never knew. Maybe the creeper would follow them out.

Winston had never seen Lion King, so he didn’t even realize that it was a pun. Again, his childhood had been far from a normal one, militarized as it had been. He shot her a sidelong look, cocky and overconfident. “It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t give you a fighting chance, I suppose,” he said loftily. “We’ll see about this bet the next time we’re on a hunt together. Although…” Although it was looking more and more like they were on a hunt together at that very moment. Unless Mr Googly-Eyes turned out to be just a random creeper, in which case he was the unluckiest random creeper in Chicago that night.

“I’m saying that you can’t rely on a stake or a bullet,” he said, not picking up the snappy tone himself: Winston’s calmness was endless and terrifying. Like a robot he was almost impossible to bring to anger. Or most emotions aside from vague amusement or interest. “That isn’t the same as don’t use them. But you have to be prepared for every eventuality, for failure in every plan. If everything and everyone lets you down, you still have to have a way of winning.” He pushed his glasses up his nose calmly. “As for the ‘you’re technically a thing’ argument… stop being such a pedant.” He suddenly smiled again, bright white and blank like a shark.

A sip of his drink and a lazy shrug followed her request. “I’ll take it as easy as I deem necessary, but you won’t learn anything if I don’t push you.” That was exactly how he’d been taught—he’d broken bones learning to fight. And then he’d gone from being the broken one to the one doing the breaking. Circle of life, right? “I’m not going to kill you. That would be counter-productive.” Not because he’s fond of her or anything like that.

He watched her work her magic on the creeper before heading off towards the door, nudging her shoulder with his briefly. “Blinding as in obscuring your true intentions, at the very least. After you.” He held open the hefty back exit, which opened straight out into a dirty little road. Deserted. Perfect.