Application Annoyance

[Victor Kay]

No one had ever explained the difference between a public library and a college library to Victor, and having not gone to college and barely gone to school before that he wasn't intimately familiar with either, but even if someone had sat him down and soberly explained the minute differences in funding and audience, he wouldn't have cared. They were storage rooms for books owned by other people that you could use, like a laundromat or a strip club, except free. What else did a person need to know?

Sporting unusually clean jeans and a pink t-shirt he'd "borrowed" from another member of the pack--touting the achievement of a 20k race, which he had certainly never participated  in--he sauntered into the school library as though he owned the place, giving the Asian girl with blue hair who was always at the front desk on Saturday afternoons a familiar nod, though he wouldn't have remembered her name to save his life, before breezing past her to head for the computers. He sat down at an empty one in the farthest corner available and looked around a bit surreptitiously before typing in the username and password of a college girl he'd dated for a few weeks a year before. She hadn't really given him permission to use it, but she hadn't hidden her hands when typing it in while they were dating, and she'd been so adamant about sharing resources with the underprivileged that he really didn't think she'd mind.

Instead of opening an internet browser as he usually did when at the library, Victor pulled up the Start menu and looked for Word. His eyebrows began to draw together as a blank document popped up in front of him, a huge expanse of blank opportunity.

Heaving a sigh, Victor sat up straight and twisted his neck from side to side in a stretch, then hovered his hands over the keyboard, his eyes flickering between the keys and the screen.

V . . . I . . . C . . . He had to look around for the T button longer than he wanted to, prompting a low growl of frustration.

[Rosetta Sinclair]

A pasty white finger would appear from an unknown place to press the T for the struggling wolf. Should he look to his savior he would find a coy little smile plastered on the painted red lips of Rosetta, elder of Laurel's Coven. No doubt he knew her. She certainly knew him.

While the vampires and werewolves in Silverdale didn't exactly sit around swapping war stories, they at least knew of one another. Their eyes would meet when they were out, and though understanding nods weren't shared, there was certainly a familiarity there. A 'we are hiding among humans' vibe, you might call it. Imperium coven members were more likely to wrinkle their noses or leave on the spot, but members of Laurel's coven (actually, Rose's coven), were far more sociable. Perhaps even annoyingly so.

"Hello Victor." She was sitting at the seat beside him. She'd certainly been sneaky getting to it. Many werewolves drew away when vampires were around, as their smell and the instinctive desire to attack them could be too much for some to handle. Rose wasn't sure where she and Victor stood, but she would be happy to establish grounding with him.

The woman who appeared to be around nineteen turned her attention to her own screen. She maneuvered the keyboard with fluency.

[Victor Kay]

He'd never liked computers and he didn't like phones, couldn't stand the way they inhaled all of a person's attention, requiring complete concentration. Exactly because of situations like this, where he'd been so caught up in his typing that he'd lost his spacial awareness and had somehow missed it when a stinking vampire sat her butt next to him.

The ivory digit appearing suddenly against the black keyboard made him start, jumping enough to bang his thighs against the desk over his lap. He twisted abruptly, nostrils flaring as he tried to get his bearings and stay calm enough to not get thrown out of the library again. The woman sitting next to him seemed to no longer find him interesting, had she in the first place. Her eyes were on the screen in front of her, leaving Victor a moment to survey the goods before he spoke. He was the first to agree that the smell of them was atrocious--no fancy perfumes could hide the stench of death-- but the women aged like fine wine, seeming to waste into delicate flowers that were as delicious to the eyes as they were pungent. Not to mention that this one could probably kill him in a minute, if she wanted to. As old as she was, and the head of her coven? Not someone he wanted to mess with.

Well, he might consider messing with her in one sense of the word . . . they made nose plugs for a reason.

"Rosie," he drawled, flashing a winning, canine-baring smile. "How ya been?"

He'd been scared of vampires once, feared and revered them as he'd been taught by the first werewolves he knew in Wyoming. Respect the bloods and they would respect you, that was the understanding. Until it wasn't.

"What brings a girl like you to a place like this? There can't be anything left for you to learn."

[Rosetta Sinclair]

Rose didn't even try to stop the spread of her smile into a full on grin as Victor greeted her. He was certainly one of the cute pups. Some werewolves acted like they had kibble stuck up their butts, but others knew how to take their collars off and let their fur blow in the breeze.

"Alive and wiggling." She returned, turning her head just enough for both blue eyes to see him. She winked the closer of the two before returning her attention to her screen. If he looked he'd see her clicking around the same place he was at on his computer.

"Mama duties." She said casually. Then, because she wasn't a very secretive woman, "A friend of mine wants to enroll. I promised I'd get the process started." She typed a little, further displaying her keyboard competency, perhaps only to rub it in his face, but then took a break and looked to Victor's screen.

"You?"

[Victor Kay]

The smile on Victor's face closed into a smirk at her words. Of course, the rich white girl was here to help her friend get into college. Probably pulling on her "connections." If she wasn't an ancient matron herself, Victor would have made a daddy joke. As it was, she was probably her very own daddy, in the spoiled brat sense. Living for hundreds of years the way they did, she could have put fifty cents in the stock market during her human lifespan and still be living off the interest.

His gaze drifted down to her hands, the dainty little fingers clacking away as if the keyboard was a musical instrument and she Elton John. She had to type fifty words a minute, easy. He thought he'd have to get lucky to get fifty letters a minute.

He drew in a deep breath and let it out as a beleaguered sigh, looking back to the still mostly empty page of his document.

"Resume," he said ruefully. "Apparently, you need a 'history of employment' to prove you're not dumb enough to mess up putting bad guys behind bars."

[Rosetta Sinclair]

"Oooh." She sung with interest, eyebrows bouncing once at him. "Beat the system by joining it. I like your style." It was well-known to the supernaturals of Silverdale that the sheriff and their people were all over the werewolves. Granted, they considered the two packs to be gangs...Rose would do everything in her power to make sure they were oblivious unaware of the truth. Hiring more law enforcement was how to handle human violence; bringing in the military was what would be done if their teeth and fur started to show.

"Well, I'm right here, and I can type even faster." She pointedly returned her attention to what she was doing. Then, in a quiet whisper, she encouraged him, "You need only ask."

[Victor Kay]

At the first intrigued noise from the woman, Victor felt a moment's pang of uncertainty. He had never been good at subterfuge and strategy, but even he knew there were times it was best to keep your cards close to your chest. Was it unwise to let the sucker know he wanted to join the police? He didn't think of her as an enemy--well, not any more than a hyena considers the lion one in a season of plentiful prey--but that didn't mean she didn't have her own agenda and goals, and he could be certain that they were not concerned with his best interest.

He relaxed slightly as her playful tone continued. She was mocking him; good. That meant she didn't take him too seriously. So long as she wasn't threatened by him, he was free to carry on. The last thing he needed was another enemy in this town. He had the feeling that the vampires considered the werewolf turf war to be the small-fry bickering of small-minded children; the complete lack of concern Rosetta was showing at the thought of him having authority in the town confirmed it and put him at ease.

"Have you done a resume before?" he asked dubiously. She wasn't exactly an heiress, but she certainly hadn't worked at the Burger King as a teen.

[Rosetta Sinclair]

Rose was clicking around on the computer as Victor spoke. She finished when the last word of his question left his mouth, at which point she turned her face towards him, a self-satisfied smirk on her face.

“Do not underestimate me, Vict.” Her eyes flickered to all that he had typed on his document, and her tone continued in its playfulness. “I can do anything.” If he looked at her screen, he’d find a resume pulled up on the screen with her name on it.

Yes, she’d just written it (using the power of google).

[Victor Kay]

One of the things he hated most about phones and computers and all the other little gadgets people always had with them (the list was very long) was how it always meant that people had a good excuse to avoid eye contact. He couldn't tell from the pale profile if he was starting to annoy the vampire or if she was just very busy with the internet, or whatever she was doing. He was very quickly getting ready to set a more somber tone when she spoke again. She looked at him when she did, thank goodness, so he could see that behind the flash of indignation--and, yep, a hint of irritation, there it was--the woman's good humor was still intact.

Careless with relief, he lifted a tanned hand in protest, slanting his head in a conciliatory, only slightly mocking bow, his smile ramping up as his mouth started writing checks his butt couldn't cash.

"I wasn't doubting your prowess," he corrected, "just your . . . layman's experience."

He did not look at her screen. Why would anyone ever read something they didn't have to?

"Far as I've seen, a pretty face can be all the qualification a gal needs."

[Rosetta Sinclair]

“Sexist, but true.” Rose allowed with a nod of her head. “Unfortunately for a brute like yourself, you’ll have to try a little harder.” They both knew that wasn’t entirely true. Victor Kay was a morsel, only a blind woman couldn’t see that, and even then she might be able to hear it in the tone of his voice and the confident delivery of his words. Still, the nature of playfulness necessitated keeping with the topic.

[Victor Kay]

Victor grinned. A brute, eh? Of course, she could have meant it in several ways. He wasn't unaware of his size and musculature as a man; it went with the territory of being a werewolf and working hard labor. But he was also aware of the long history of vampire derision towards his kind, the way the undead had used the lycan strength and brutality as weapons since their first encounters. He would have bet money that the first werewolf packs to stay together did so against the threat of suckers.

"I do," he said, his face going serious, though his eyes were still smiling. "It is the burden of my kind, and I bear it proudly."

He very suddenly moved, shifting his chair sideways across the floor to leave some space in front of his workstation, like a dog jumping into the couch with the sole intent of startling the sleeping cat.

"So you gonna type for me, or what? I need to go back eight years and I haven't had a steady job in three, so I'mma need some big words to describe my exploits as a self-employed, uh, entrepreneur."

[Rosetta Sinclair]

Consider her super speed compared to him, his attempt to startle--or his movement that would have startled another--did not phase the pretty little woman. Now, had he whipped out his strength, which was super compared to hers, she might have widened her eyes or done a jig or produced some other response that would have stroked his ego.

"Ah ah, you still haven't asked. Not directly, and not with the appropriate words that typically accompany the request of a favor." She was a medieval baby, and had lived through the Victorian era. While she'd adapted with the times and could be casual and informal, she loved the manners of a society that acknowledged that rich people were more important than poor people propriety was a staple to effective human interactions.

Rosetta did scoot a little closer to his keyboard, ensuring him that his effort would not be in vain.

[Victor Kay]

Not even a blink. It was as if she'd expected him to do that, or perhaps just saw him doing it the way a good fighter knew what kind of punch a bad fighter was going to throw even before the bad fighter decided for himself. That's right, the suckers were faster than he could believe. He knew that well enough, had seen enough of his brothers die at their impossible quickness to understand, even if he couldn't really swallow it. He was a man who turned into a wolf, yet how mind couldn't grasp the reality of a human-looking monster that was powerful beyond his comprehension.

Powerful and bratty, it seemed. There was something fun about teasing a woman who could kill him before he knew he was dead.

An eyebrow quirked, and then he pressed his knees together and folded his hands plaintively in his lap, gazing at her demurely.

"Deepest sorries; I was raised in a barn. If it pleases you, your ladyship, please would you spare a moment to help a lowly, unworthy man work this here contraption?"

His voice got a little more serious--or maybe just a little bit sultry--as he added, "Pretty please?"

[Rosetta Sinclair]

"Sure!" Rose cut in without missing a beat, almost interrupting him in her eagerness. Many vampires didn't like werewolves. Bellamy would not have been caught dead having a conversation with Victor, much less helping him...but Rose didn't want to be like other vampires. She wanted to be like a human. She wanted to be innocent and good, seeing the intrinsic value in every individual and acknowledging it with kindness and respect. It wasn't the vampire way, but it was her way, and now that she was on her own, away from Imperium, she could choose to do just that. Exercising this freedom was as much for the sake of being able to as much as it was for actually caring for this matter.

"Start talking." She encouraged. She'd embellish what he said as she typed out a format similar to the one she'd done on her own computer.

[Victor Kay]

Victor blinked at the sudden shift, caught off guard the way he'd meant to catch her. For an undying creature, she had the shiftiness of a typical college girl, the quick mind that could go from angry to giddy in a blink and back again twice as fast. He could only stare at her for a long second, disturbed by the idea that something so dangerous could perhaps be as flighty in thought as a regular woman.

Then he remembered that she was doing him a favor, so he took a breath and began. He said his name, spelling out his last. If she typed without response, he'd go on to list an address on the west side of town, though he didn't know his phone number and didn't have his cell on him to look it up. He hadn't gone to college, but he had his GED.

"Haven't had a job I had to pay taxes for in the last three years," he said with a grimace. "And if they're looking for references, they're not going to be able to call my last employer in Wyoming."

His face went a little bleak at his last words. He'd worked for a company that had been owned by werewolves, a friendly, long-established pack that had been kindly to the Bloodroses. They were the first pack to be completely wiped out when the vampires decided their city didn't want pets after all.