#alienpassions

Adrian crossed his arms, letting out a heavy sigh and shake of his head.  The necromancer would get on his nerves to no end over the years.  Somehow they kept crossing paths.  It wasn’t that she was...terrible company...she was just too focused on something Adrian didn’t like.

Part of the crossings was of his own doing, hunting down leads of undead whispers to keep any sort of threat towards humanity at bay.  “You know you’re not allowed to take a step inside the libraries.  The secrets of the devil forgemasters will stay that way, secret.”  It was the same thing over and over, and yet neither one really felt like getting rid of the other.

She couldn’t drive. Not anymore. It was too dangerous to be at the wheel of a car when, at any moment, her sight could be overwritten with visions of that place.

It was a pity. As a teenager, driving had been the singular freedom given her openly, a freedom offered rather than forcibly taken. Driving along foggy roads at long past curfew, when there wasn’t a single soul about in the small, Appalachian town she’d grown up in. Speeding outside of city limits with her few, delinquent friends until they hit the lake, and then smoking weed until sundown. She’d smiled more then.

Just another thing that she’d lost.

From the passenger seat, she saw a head turn towards her and lips begin to move. Plucking her headphones from her ears, some Alice Glass song filled the interior in that tinny, compressed way that headphones did.

“What?”

“Just making sure you’re still good for this.” Vaughn was one of the few people she still kept in contact with from high school. “This seems pretty Deliverancecore.” He was reliable, but more importantly, he owed her well over a dozen favors.

“What’s your point?” She’d work out, another time, exactly how many favors a trip to Arkansas was worth.

Having turned his gaze back to the road, unable to stomach the withering gaze of someone who had used to be his friend for long, Vaughn shrugged. “It just feels dangerous here. This is for something illegal, right?” He’d been out of that game for a while now. “And besides, this woman you told me, the fortune teller, she sounds spooky.”

“I’m spooky.”

The conversation died there, and she was only too content to let it, slipping the headphones back into her ears. They’d be at their destination soon enough, and the silence her companion no doubt found uncomfortable would soon be replaced.

Fair enough. There was a barrier between her and everyone else now, everyone that she knew. How could she talk about this or that place? No one would believe her; she’d be locked away. Even if someone did accept her story, how could they even begin to understand?

They couldn’t, she decided, as Vaughn’s car drove off just a bit too quickly. Besides, there was no sense thinking about that at the moment, not when she had business to conduct. The woman she was told about would be here, claiming to divine the future, and there was only a single way to discern the accuracy of that claim. With her hands still in the pockets of her jacket, she approached the door, turning the knob and pushing it open without lifting a finger.

The words came out of her mouth alright.  Words that Julia only said to Vicious.  They weren’t meant for Spike.

No matter how close they got, there was a line.  Vicious was as close to a best friend as Spike had.  He trusted the man with his life.  Julia was his so to speak.  That was always a given in the group.

But he would be lying if he didn’t think of her that way.

He did lie about it more than once to others that watched the three of them in the Syndicate.  He could deny it just as well as anyone.  Of course they dared not ask Vicious about the complicated relationship.

But this was pushing the boundary.  Pushing it until it broke and Spike couldn’t say no to Julia.

He would never be able to say no to her, her eyes always hypnotizing him.  Her scent intoxicating him into anything she asked.  She probably knew the power she had.  Vicious did too, but there was trust there.

“Julia,” he said softly before leaning in to press his lips to hers.  She was the smart one, she had to have some reason to do this.

"Oh shit." It sounds like a whisper, almost like a prayer leaving Thilo's lips. "Oh SHIT. Are you? You are, aren't you? Fuck, you're Tony Stark." (alienpassions)