And that was that. Another good deed done, another day saved. Normally, Lucanus might have even bothered to feel good about himself. But today, somehow, it didn't even feel worth it. Perhaps it had to do with how utterly anticlimactic that entire moment had been. He didn't know what he had expected. It wasn't as though he had run across some underground gang fight, or even some ex-military veteran, suffering from a sudden PTSD attack, who might have at least proved somewhat engaging in conflict before Lucan subdued him. No, all he had found was a madman in an alley. He should have known by now that madmen didn't provide any entertainment.
Perhaps it had something to do with the girl. Starr. She was what had stopped him in the first place. Or, rather, the sillage left behind by her perfume, the traces of orange blossoms and vanilla unexpected and remarkable in that dark street. It was not the kind of smell that was associated with the girls on the street corner, who were just looking to hide the more rancid scents that lingered underneath. No, this was refined. Bright.
Even the faint glimpse of her he had gotten before turning to scrutinize the scene more fully had been more than enough to confirm the impression the manufactured scent of floating blossoms had left behind. She had been delicate, perfectly poised even when pressed into the dirty concrete of the alley.
A part of him had expected perfect sophistication from her, something to match the painting her form and demeanor had promised. He had wondered if he had finally found something new and different, if his life had been moments away from changing into something new and different. He had turned away, waiting to see what glorious future she would offer to draw him back.
Instead, she had proven to be nothing more than a child. Naive. Sheltered. He might even go so far as to call her callow. It had shattered the illusion that her natural showmanship had created. The bubble had burst. Lucan was left only with reality, and found it wanting.
Now, instead of accompanying some vivacious mavourneen back to her room, Lucan found himself seated in another dingy bar, swirling the straw through the ice while squinting against the light of a neon that was directly in front of him, and considering breaking the jukebox to halt the god-awful caterwauling that was coming from it.
It was a relatively busy evening, and the bartender wandered past him exactly seven eyes before the traces of movement from Lucan's straw suddenly brought him to an abrupt halt. He stared agog for a few moments at the straw, which continued to swirl lazily through the drink for a few moments, before turning to grin at Lucan. His teeth were asymmetrical, with a gap large enough to stick a toothpick through in between his right front tooth and the lateral incisor next to it.
"That's a neat trick," the man said, grinning further and revealing another gap in his teeth. "Next round's on the house if you tell me how you do it."
Still feeling somewhat bitter over the puncturing of the lustrous dream Lucan had allowed to overcome himself, he couldn't help the cynical smile that flickered across his lips at this proclamation. Fine. He'd do just that. "Bona fide magic," was his dry reply. He flicked a finger into the air, and the straw lifted itself out of the cup, spinning lazily in the air a couple of times, before coming to lay down across the rim of the glass.
If the bartender's eyes had been wide before, it was nothing compared to the gape-jawed look that plastered itself across his face now. For a few moments he seemed to forget how to breathe, before letting out all the air that had been trapped in his lungs in one abrupt guffaw. "That's pretty fuckin' good," he pronounced. "I can see why you might want to keep that one to yerself. Couldn't 'ave been easy to learn."
There. Another evening made, if the smile crossing the man's lips was any indication.
He walked a few steps away, before turning around again abruptly. "Show me again, and I'll still toss in a free drink. Nothing imported, mind you."
Lucan obliged willingly, not even bothering with the finger motion. The straw spun end over end, before dropping back in the ice. A brief look of frustration crossed the bartender's face, still unable to figure out the trick, but he sighed and nodded his head all the same. "Whaddaya want?"
"Charbay vodka."
That earned a solid snort. "I said something cheap."
"You said nothing imported."
The man opened his mouth halfway, before clicking it closed and chewing briefly on his upper lip. "Fuck," he finally said. "You're too damn good, man."
Yes, that was the problem, wasn't it. He was simply too damn good.
Lucan didn't pay for another drink that entire night. Every twenty minutes or so, just as his glass was starting to get empty, the bartender would wander over again, offering another glass in trade for another chance to dissect the "trick".
"I fuckin' give," the bartender finally spat after the ninth glass, all the while imposing more and more strict regulations on the performance each time he offered another chance, hoping that Lucan would slip up and reveal the method as he grew inebriated. "Not only can I not figure out this trick, but I'm certain you should also be flat-on-your-face drunk by this point, but you don't even seem unbalanced. Maybe you are fucking magic."
"That's what I said at the beginning," was Lucan's bland reply. This endeavor had proved nowhere near as satisfying as he had hoped it would be, either. Maybe the alcohol was having more of an effect than it should have, if he was expecting some display of brilliance from a man who could do no more with his life than mix cocktails. In the background, the jukebox clicked as the song came to an end.
The barman grumbled, before stomping away. Letdown after letdown. Lucan would have even taken a bar fight at that moment, anything excited and unexpected, anything to break the monotony that seemed to hang over this day like some oppressive, smothering fog, anything to...
The jukebox popped again, and the next song began. The next song, a slow and soulful rhythm that was impossible to forget and even more impossible to avoid. Judgement, Starr's instant hit.
Lucan shot to his feet, slamming his hands down on the counter with a bang that sounded more like a gunshot than flesh striking against vinyl. That was it. It was too much. He couldn't take it anymore. There was another pop from the jukebox, this one more electrical than static, and the bar was instantly silent once again.
Damn her. Damn her for letting him down. Damn her for somehow managing to force expectation into his life again, only to leave him floundering and wanting. Everyone was staring at him, eyes wide but Lucan didn't care one bit. He was heaving breaths as though he had just sprinted a mile, and his hands were shaking slightly.
The bartender took a hesitant step forward, towards Lucan. "You okay, ma..."
It was the wrong move. Any other person might have been able to calm him down, remind him of where he was and the role he was supposed to play as a member of modern civilization. But this man, he'd been nothing but another letdown. Another moment of infuriation, brought on by that woman. Lucan's eyes jumped to him in an instant, and the man's words were cut off in a sudden gurgle as invisible pressure suddenly squeezed against his throat. His hands went up, scrabbling in vain, and now his eyes widened with real fear. Real belief.
"I'm..." he choked. "I'm so... sorr.. y. P...p...ple..."
With a snarl, Lucan released the bartender from the mental grip that had held him paralyzed. The man broke into a fit of coughing, but Lucan didn't pause. Instead he simply turned around, stalking towards the door of the bar, which swung open in front of him. He only halted when it had slammed closed behind him again.
Wryness twisted his lips, but this time the mockery was directed towards no one but himself. No matter how much more satisfying it was to believe otherwise, this was not the bartender's fault. He was simply another symptom, not the cause. Back inside the bar there was another pop from the jukebox. The lights flickered, and the machine turned back on. Completely reset, it selected another song and cheerily started playing as though nothing had happened. A moment later the bartender would rush out of the door of his establishment, looking up and down the street, but Lucan's dark-clad figure would have already vanished into the postmidnight darkness.
He wandered without direction, irrationally bothered, until the pitch sky had lightened to the bluish-grey that signified the coming of dawn. Several times along his route, Lucan had to halt himself and pointedly take a few calming breaths, to stop the little pebbles he passed by from lifting into the air in direct response to his frustration.
The dawn seemed to jolt him out of his stupor, though, and now he halted more fully, turning down a couple of streets until he found a large tree. With a glance the moist ground right around the roots dried out, the water pushed deeper into the soil, and Lucan seated himself down.
What now? He had to do something, that much was clear. Simply waiting and trying to move on wasn't going to be sufficient. If it was, he would have already calmed down by now. The sun crested the horizon, and reached all the way up over the roofs of the nearby buildings, and Lucan simply sat there, thinking. No obvious solution presented itself. It was obvious that relying on some random stranger to suddenly cut through the impossible boredom and frustration that consumed him now was not a valid option. People simply didn't work like that.
Yet, it was equally true that he wasn't going to be able to simply move on. Now that he felt the lack of some unknowable thing he wasn't going to just be able to forget its existence. Not without doing something stupid out of frustration along the way. No. Somehow he was going to have to find a way to fill whatever it was he suddenly felt was missing.
But how was he supposed to fill it when he didn't even know how to begin going about it? He didn't even know what was missing! Unable to contain himself any longer, Lucan's fists shot back behind his head, slamming hard enough into the trunk of the oak he sat under to shake the leaves. He moved his hands forward, cradling them for a moment as he gasped in pain, before, one quick blink later, the abrasion was gone as his skin rippled slightly and straightened itself out.
This was absurd. Why was he abusing himself when it was Starr's fault he was feeling like this at all. She was the one who had caused this. She was the one who should fix it, too.
Lucan froze suddenly, before straightening. Yes. Why not? He knew she wouldn't be able to offer what he had expected from her, but maybe he could use her to lead him to the thing he really wanted. The entire world she lived in was filled with charade and performance. He would fit right in.
Now it was just a matter of finding an in.
"So... Lukanoos?" Starr's aide asked, as he guided Lucan through the door and down a short hallway towards where she was waiting. Lucan's hands were tucked in his pockets, his expression utterly blank. He had spent, essentially, the entire day waiting to be called. Perhaps it shouldn't have surprised him that every able-bodied man in the personal protection industry had come to try and gain a job as Starr's new bodyguard, but it had frustrated him even further. Her aide's incompetence was just another straw on the camel's back.
"Lukahnyus," he corrected, a brief look of disgust crossing his face, even as he barely managed to contain the sigh that almost accompanied the correction. He was supposed to be appearing as a professional, and snide remarks or comments would be a sure way to get himself shown to the door before he was able to get what he wanted from this whole encounter.
"Ah. Of course. Thank you." He didn't sound like he meant it in the least.
The man stepped through another door, only just remembering to hold it for Lucan to pass through behind him. "Miss Starr has had a long day, so keep your audition short and to the point. Good luck."
Lucan stepped through the door.
