The Quiet One

Richie was taken a back with the woman’s words, "You’re beautiful…" He couldn’t help but smile a bit. That was really the first time anyone had ever said that to the man, even though he had talked to many women before, but usually Richie was the one talking up a storm. “Yeah, flowers are beautiful, boss listened to my tips, now he is making more money than he is already paying me — life sucks..” he grinned, blue eyes looking at the red hair that trailed down to her neck….

He rubbed his eyes, unsure what was going on for a second. He nodded, “I’m fine, just thought I heard Brenda…” he smiled, unsure, but he could feel that she was a witch too. Richie didn’t want to say anything though, because if he played ignorant then maybe she wouldn’t hurt him. Had Seth ordered her to kill him? He wasn’t sure. He hadn’t talked to his brother in a while, not having enough money to pay for the phone call to the penitentiary, but he did have enough to give his brother for the Commissary. “Did Seth hire you or something?” he asked, crossing his hands over his chest, eying Victoria suspiciously. “Because if he did, I don’t appreciate it.” he stated, an unamused expression on his face.

Why would his brother hire someone to distract Richie? Was it a gift or something worse? He turned around then, waited for this Brenda to show up. He was getting nervous; a sweaty nervous. He wanted to get out of there, return to his van and take a breather. He turned around and the girl was still standing there. Richie smiled at her, “Did you say you worked at a bookstore?” he asked, suddenly entertained. “Do they carry comic books there? It’s so hard to find the new X-men around here — especially the older ones in the series. Do you have those at your bookstore?” he asked, hoping that she did.

"I know the feeling" Victoria answered, her eyes darting from the flowers to the man standing in front of her. "I work for little pay and everyone there hates me. It sucks big hairy balls." She laughed awkwardly, her face growing flush from the words that fell out of her mouth. What was she even saying?! God, mouth, why can't you just get it right for once? Big hairy balls, really?! Victoria found herself wandering away from reality again, her eyes unfocusing. She had to shake her head to bring herself back and nervously played with her hair.

She was feeling weird about the situation and thought that perhaps she should go look for this Brenda person herself. How long was the secretary going to take? Didn't she say she was just going to the bathroom...? "Uh...I'm really sorry but I have no idea who Brenda is. I just wandered into this place." Victoria knitted her brows together; beyond the hot tingling her body was going through because of her powers, she had a different, softer buzz in her ears. It told her that the man was a witch like her and the idea made her more comfortable. He's like me. She thought to herself, a small grin growing across her face. His accusation took her off guard, causing her smile to fade quickly. She had no idea what he was talking about. "What? Whose Seth?"

Richie grinned, quickly turning around to place the card back in the little slip in the bouquet of what seemed to be a mixture. The flowers looked healthy and lovely, it seemed that the owner of the flower shop had really been paying attention to his tips on how to make flowers bloom beautifully. He tugged at his suit jacket, and looked at who seemed to be Victoria. “Well, do you know where this woman is?” he asked, tone not impressed with the unprofessionalism that seemed to be pouring out of this office.

"These types of flowers need to be put in water immediately or else they start losing their color and die…"

He pursed his lips, blue eyes admiring the girl’s lovely red hair. He liked that in women, her skin seemed nice too. Richie couldn’t help but get carried away in thoughts, his face read an entire different expression, not showing any sign of the perverse thoughts in his head. “What do you do around here?” he asked, the smile not leaving his face. Richie liked to talk to people of the opposite sex; he wasn’t as good as his brother, but he tried his best, sometimes mimicking what his brother would do, only to receive a slap in the face and a kick to the groin.

Weird sounds began to ring in his ears, he closed his eyes momentarily, tilted his head to side hoping it would go away. He then heard an angelic voice calling out to him, but he couldn’t figure out who it was. Then, reality came back and realized that he was still in office, the red headed girl standing there. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”

Victoria immediately recognized the mistake in her actions; she didn't work here and the man was obviously just trying to do his job. She wondered who Brenda was and who had brought her the flowers. They seemed to be very lovely and for a fleeting moment, Victoria felt a tugging in her chest that was pulling her towards England. She shook her head, ridding her mind of the thought. "Oh, I-I...actually don't work here. The secretary or whatever asked me to watch the desk. I guess she had to go to the bathroom?" She ended in a question as if the man would be able to answer it.

"Oh that's terrible! I mean, you're beautiful. Wait--what? No, the flowers. I mean the flowers. The flowers are ni--"

Victoria felt herself swallow hard as if she had a lump in her throat that seemed to appear out of nowhere. She could feel her face growing flush by the man's odd behavior, that he was staring with a smile still plastered on his face. She could feel her skin prickling with heat, her pyrokinetic powers one step away from exploding into a blaze. "I...uh. I work at the bookstore." She managed to stutter out, growing increasingly uncomfortable.

That is until the man closed his eyes and seemed to drift off somewhere. It made Victoria relax, somehow relieved that he had stopped staring at her. When he opened his eyes back up, she made an audible squeak. "I...didn't say anything. Are you ok?"

It was a hot Spring day, and Richie was out and about delivering flowers to people that didn’t seem to deserve it. Instantly, they watched Richie, looking at him like he was a freak. He looked down to study his clothing, was it really that odd to wear a suit while delivering flowers? He shrugged not thinking much about it as he walked into the office of the recipient, putting on a big smile as he walked into the office, immediately walking straight to the front desk, avoiding eye contact with anyone that crossed his path. Richie’s powers were under control for the most part, but that didn’t mean anything to him. He sighed, slamming down on the bell, placing the lovely bouquet of flowers on the counter as he waited for anybody to show up. He stood perfectly straight, blue eyes staring directly at the wall in front of him. 

Richie felt a tap on the shoulder and he swiftly turned around, almost reaching for their forearm until he realized what he was doing. He cleared his throat, “I apologize, didn’t see you coming…: he muttered, turning his entire body towards the direction of the stranger. He picked up the card and read the name, “You Brenda?” he asked, adjusting his glasses. 

Victoria was wandering the streets of New Orleans, it was something she did quite often as she enjoyed the architecture and liked to people watch. After roaming around for quite a while, she noticed a particularly interesting building. She was tired from walking around, the heat of the day getting to her, so she decided to go inside to investigate further. When she entered, she noticed that the place was empty except for a secretary sitting at the front desk. Victoria made eye contact with the woman for a minute and that caused the woman to perk up.

"Oh my god, thank the heavens! Hi, did you need anything? If not could you do me a huge favor?" The secretary asked.

"Uh--I--" Victoria tried to answer before she was interrupted.

"Please just watch the place for one sec, ok hun? I really need to go to the bathroom and the boss hates when I leave." The secretary answered at a rapid-fire pace. Before Victoria could respond, the woman was gone.

Shocked but still tired from her walk, Victoria looked around before finding a chair and promptly sat in it. After a few minutes, a man entered the building carrying flowers and walked right past Victoria. He seemed to be looking for someone to help him so Victoria carefully walked up behind him and tapped on his shoulder.

"You Brenda?"

"Uh, I--no. I'm Victoria." She answered, feeling weird about the situation.

Books. How could anyone ever find themselves so positively infatuated with books? As the male wandered through the shelves of Crescent City, a place which he had never actually set foot into before this time, he couldn’t help but wonder exactly what drew the bodies here other than the overwhelming sensation to do something entirely hipster driven. ‘I was reading before it was cool.’ The dusty pages only reminded the of school, of assigned reading and being forced to choke down ancient literature that turned out to be just as dismal as their titles would suggest; for example, The Scarlet Letter. Deceptively, the male had been lured into thinking that the content would be ridden with blood, as the color scarlet would suggest. Instead it was about some woman who had decided that spending her life in exile with her child was a far better option that outing a man for getting her pregnant. He had to hand it to her, women in today’s age wouldn’t typically care for social standing or the possible outcome of the outing, in fact they would probably inform the unfortunate father via twitter where all could see. 'Totes pregnant. Greg, you suck. Frowny face.' Discretion was a luxury of the past thanks to social networking, existence in a world where humans felt the compulsive need to announce their every waking movement, an aspect of cyberland that the male was proud to admit he didn’t actively participate in. If the male had a twitter, it probably would have went something like this…

@zachyv "There is a special circle of hell reserved for people who make giant orders in the drive thru…" "Ninjas give me bike boners." "Is it bad if you piss electric green?" "Update: it is bad."

Still, he just couldn’t wrap his head around the concept of simply just reading for hours. He was more of a physical being, someone who needed to experience things by doing just that. Experiencing them. He honestly didn’t get much joy out of visualizing what someone else was doing, what adventures they would partake in today. Sure, the films were enjoyable enough, but why did he really care to try to picture himself in their universe? Zach much rather preferred the cyber universe, a place which he could actually explore simply by using enough of his brain energy. Mindlessly he flipped through the pages of a copy of the dread Beowulf, a title he vaguely remembered from his high school days though he was certain that he had blocked it out for his sanity. Wasn’t Angelina Jolie naked in the film? Heh. Yeah, she was. With a groan the male unsheathed his cell phone, rubbing between his temples before beginning to speak to it as if it were a human being. “Hello, Siri.” The male began, the computer voice responding to him with an automated "Hello, master Zach who rocks my world." Licking his lips, he spoke again, evidently unabashed by his electronic companion. “Siri. Find me a book to read that doesn’t suck.”

Victoria often found herself fascinated by books ever since she was a little girl. Of course, the curriculum in school was sub-par at best and it always seemed that the most boring of books were assigned there. Victoria could vaguely remember a time when she lived in England in which the books assigned were at a much higher caliber. But then again, she was quite young and could have some of that vague childhood happiness replacing her memories. Nevertheless, she always spent hours upon hours reading. It was a way for her to escape from herself and the situations surrounding her. It truly was an escape for her, something she had to do in order to survive her awful childhood. It was much easier to pretend you were some princess caught in a tower or a super hero flying above a city then deal with the terrible truth that you were going to go without dinner for the fourth time in a row that week. Still, Victoria somehow managed and her love of books outweighed nearly everything else. It was the one part of her childhood she clung to like a captain clinging to his sinking ship.

Today Victoria found herself in the French Quarter, roaming around for a few solitary moments before she finally settled on a nearby bench. It didn't take long for her to remove a book from her satchel and quickly found herself falling into its pages. But her engrossment into another world was interrupted by someone nearby messing with their phone. Irritated for a fleeting moment, Victoria focused on the real world to catch the last words of what the person was saying and she was immediately interested. "Well that would depend on what genres you enjoy the most, I'm afraid." She answered before she realized what she had said.

           "It’s why auditions make me nervous," Caleb admits with a low sigh, "She truly was wonderful in just about every single way. She was hard working and determined despite the sadness and depression. She wanted to make something of herself. It felt so good to be there with her…watching her shine onstage." He can’t help but smile sadly, a sound that resembles a huff but is more him trying to hold back the sob that wants to leave his lips.

           "That would be strange as if remember her looking very different from you. She was very boyish, you know? Cut her hair short and pierced her eyebrow and the likes. The other got pregnant a while back, but I guess that sort of runs in the family with the girls on my mom’s side. My aunt has four kids, only two of them have the same dad," He sighs softly then, "It is nice out. I haven’t been able to truly stop and smell the roses since I got here, in all honesty,"

"I could see that..." Victoria answered, listening carefully before an awkward silence fell between the two. "Well...I-I'm sorry." She finally managed to answer, able to tell that something happened to the girl Caleb spoke about.

run // daughter

         He felt foolish. Maybe he shouldn’t bother. Maybe he should lock himself off and die there with the painful death he deserves — getting the bleeds from not feeding. He can picture it in his head and then he realizes that the girl is still there. His mind has been going rapid so he would imagine it’s only been a second or two.

"Good," he said brusquely. "Then come with me." Mortimer glanced over to the one of the other workers, who seemed to have nothing better to do with their time other than giggle. "You, man the cash machine. I am going to be monopolizing Victoria’s time for a few minutes."

With that, he strode toward the science section, clearly expecting that Victoria would follow. In his way, looking at the same section, was a dorky looking ginger with stupid sunglasses, a weird face, and a sweater vest. Who even wore sweater vests anymore? “Get out of the way, Stevie Wonder. If you’re looking for the self help section, it’s over there,” Mortimer demanded, and ignored the man’s pathetic stammering.

Finally. He was alone with the section.

Mortimer gazed upon it, and sighed deeply. Dawkins. Dawkins everywhere. “I hate you, Dick Dorkins,” he muttered venomously, then raised his voice to call, “Victoria! Where are you?”

She was stuck in her mind again, allowing it to wander and float away from the world. She just stood there in the middle of the bookstore, eyes closed and standing absolutely still. The lights flickered for just a moment before the shrill voice of the customer Victoria was helping burst through her happy thoughts.

When she opened her eyes, Victoria had an annoyed look on her face as if she didn't want to help this man. She sighed and trudged towards him, quietly standing behind him.