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31_days2005-09-07 11:38 pm
of-carabas.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2005-09-07 11:38 pm
[September 7] [Near Dark] A Thousand Miles (3/26)
Title: A Thousand Miles (3/26)
Day/Theme: September 7th/Herr Doktor
Series: Near Dark
Character: Severen
Rating: PG13
Severen had seen Jesse at the bar a few nights earlier. Late - he didn't get off work at the stockyards until after midnight. Jesse was there when he arrived, and still there when he left. And he was there the night after that. And the next. And although he ordered a beer, he never drank it.
Cities were convenient, Severen realized later; you didn't need to keep moving to disappear, there were a hundred nooks and crannies and faceless masses to get lost among. Occasionally he wondered what would have happened if he'd met Jesse anywhere else, if Jesse'd been on the move. And then he decided that seeing as things had worked out just fine, there wasn't much point in wondering about how they could have gone differently, was there?
The fourth night, when the rest of the boys from the stockyards headed home, Severen stayed behind.
Jesse had told him, years later, about the younger brother who died in the War, the brother that Severen reminded him of. The years alone on the road. The trip back to his family home, the graves sitting side by side. So Severen figured that was why Jesse'd been watching him, subtle, out of the corner of his eye, those nights at the bar: it was the way he looked, the way he acted, so like a dead man.
But Severen had been watching Jesse back, and he hadn't been seeing some wished-for big brother. Severen had always had a knack for sizing people up, knowing exactly where they were in the scheme of things - and Jesse, he didn't fit anywhere. He wasn't sure he could put a name to what he was seeing when he looked at Jesse, except that it was his ticket to something... interesting.
Damned if he hadn't been right. Jesse thought of him as a little brother, that was fine, and Severen even started to look at him as a big brother, after a while. But that first night, he'd been... a savior, a hero, not that he wanted to gush about it; the man had flat out been his deliverance from an ordinary life. A doctor who cured him of every weakness, every little flaw, or an outlaw who'd shanghaied him away from the boundaries of society, carrying him off into the unknown.
Or maybe something like a phoenix, Severen thought that first night, as he stood in the shadows of the West Side. To burn his old life away into ashes, give him a new kind of night brighter than any day.
He heard Jesse laughing as he lit the match.
Day/Theme: September 7th/Herr Doktor
Series: Near Dark
Character: Severen
Rating: PG13
Severen had seen Jesse at the bar a few nights earlier. Late - he didn't get off work at the stockyards until after midnight. Jesse was there when he arrived, and still there when he left. And he was there the night after that. And the next. And although he ordered a beer, he never drank it.
Cities were convenient, Severen realized later; you didn't need to keep moving to disappear, there were a hundred nooks and crannies and faceless masses to get lost among. Occasionally he wondered what would have happened if he'd met Jesse anywhere else, if Jesse'd been on the move. And then he decided that seeing as things had worked out just fine, there wasn't much point in wondering about how they could have gone differently, was there?
The fourth night, when the rest of the boys from the stockyards headed home, Severen stayed behind.
Jesse had told him, years later, about the younger brother who died in the War, the brother that Severen reminded him of. The years alone on the road. The trip back to his family home, the graves sitting side by side. So Severen figured that was why Jesse'd been watching him, subtle, out of the corner of his eye, those nights at the bar: it was the way he looked, the way he acted, so like a dead man.
But Severen had been watching Jesse back, and he hadn't been seeing some wished-for big brother. Severen had always had a knack for sizing people up, knowing exactly where they were in the scheme of things - and Jesse, he didn't fit anywhere. He wasn't sure he could put a name to what he was seeing when he looked at Jesse, except that it was his ticket to something... interesting.
Damned if he hadn't been right. Jesse thought of him as a little brother, that was fine, and Severen even started to look at him as a big brother, after a while. But that first night, he'd been... a savior, a hero, not that he wanted to gush about it; the man had flat out been his deliverance from an ordinary life. A doctor who cured him of every weakness, every little flaw, or an outlaw who'd shanghaied him away from the boundaries of society, carrying him off into the unknown.
Or maybe something like a phoenix, Severen thought that first night, as he stood in the shadows of the West Side. To burn his old life away into ashes, give him a new kind of night brighter than any day.
He heard Jesse laughing as he lit the match.