Say You Remember Me

I smiled with my eyes and laughing with my mouth as Booth, drunk, sang Bennie and the Jets with another drunk vampire. I sang along loudly, though not really knowing all the words to it—who did, anyway? There was one amazing thing about humans; their music. I had to hand it to Elton John, he was the shiznits. Whoever couldn’t love his older music?

The crowd in my restaurant cheered loudly as Booth and his drunken friend—Vinnie—finished the song. Booth set his sights on me and his voice boomed in the microphone as he said, “Hey, Mary, maybe you could get up here and sing.”

I was cheered loudly by my crowd of people. I smiled sweetly and called back, “Oh, sorry, precious! I’ve gotta make sure my kitchen is in order ‘n’ that all of y’all have plenty of drinks!”

“We got plenty!” Booth protested, gesturing at all the glasses of the thick red liquid. “Get your skinny ass up here an sing, woman! Are you too much a pussy?”

I balked, storming up to the stage, shouting, “I got one, chicken-shit!” earning loud laughs from the crowd.

Booth smiled triumphantly, loosely wrapping his arm around my waist. I threw his hand off. He pulled his arm around my shoulders. I shrugged out of it. The crowd laughed. Booth gave up and asked, “What song are we singing, darln’?”

“Well, since you just love David Bowie so much and I just love duets, why not Under Pressure?” I suggested.

“Assuming I’m taking Bowie’s lines?” Booth scoffed.

“Well,” I said mischievously, giving the crowd a sneaky smirk. “I am a queen, after all.”

Booth ignored me and the song started playing in the long intro.

I smiled triumphantly as I started out with a quiet, “Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah
Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah.”

Booth smirked competitively as we sang together, “Pressure pushing down on me
Pressure, pushing down on me
Pressing down on you, no man ask for
Under pressure

“that burns a building down
Splits a family in two,” I sang in a higher voice.

“Puts people on streets,” Booth sang deeper in a terrific Bowie voice; he sucked ass. After a pause, he sang again, “It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming `Let me out'”

Though I came in higher on the ‘let me out!’, I came in with, “Pray tomorrow takes me higher.”

And while I held the note ‘higher’, Booth sang, “Pressure on people, people on streets.”

I sang solely, “Doh doh doh bah bah bah bah
O-kay.”
I raised my voice to a higher pitch and sang, “Chipping around, kick my brains around the floor
These are the days it never rains but it pours
People on streets, dee doh dee da dee, people on streets
Dee doh dee da dee da dee da

Booth sang higher than last he sang, “It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about,
Watching some good friends
Screaming `Let me out'”

Again, I sang a higher ‘let me out!’ and came in, “Pray tomorrow takes me higher.” Only now I held the ‘higher’ note and actually rose my voice higher and higher.

While I held that, Booth sang, “Pressure on people, people on streets.”

The music slowed. We quietly sang—me in a high voice, Booth in a dreadfully low one, “Turned away from it all, like a blind man
Sat on a fence but it don't work.”

Louder, Booth sang, “Keep coming up with love
But it's so slashed and torn.”

I sang dramatically, “Why, why, why?” Raising my voice higher with each ‘why’.

On my last ‘why’, Booth came in with an equally dramatic, “Love, love, love, love.”

There was a pause. Booth came in again, the beat faster. “Insanity laughs, under pressure we're cracking.”

I came in instantly with the signature Queen style of singing with, “Can't we give ourselves one more chance
Why can't we give love one more chance
Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love, give love.”

Booth picked up right from there. “Cause love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care
For the people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves.”

We both sang, “This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves.”

A pause where the beat continues. I jump in. “Under pressure.”

A few pauses. Booth adds, “Under pressure.”

Dramatically, we both end with, “Pressure.”

There’s a dramatic piano ending.

Then there’s loud cheering, clapping, and whistling. Booth and I bow to our audience. “Thank you, thank you,” I gush, unable to help myself.

The rush of my BBC (Blood Blood Concentration) high. My head spun dizzily and I tripped coming off the dais. Booth made as if to catch me, but balked under my weight and we ended up in a tangled heap. We laughed, trying to untangle ourselves, but somehow found ourselves making out instead. Booth is an excellent kisser. He’s perfected the art over the years.

“Guess she’s ready to tie her knot, eh, Booth?” some random person laughed.

I jumped out of Booth’s loose embrace, mental fur bristling. No longer was I the happy drunk vampire—I was pissed and drunk; not a good combination. “Oh, yeah?” My eyes searched the crowd for a good victim. I seized him by his collar and gave him a wet, sloppy kiss. Tongue and all.

I didn’t see Booth glare at me.

I pulled away from the random stranger, grinning. “I’ll take him home with me if I have to prove it any better.”

Though I doubted anyone had the nerve, someone did suggest I do just that. I never knew if it was really him or not, but I suspected it was Booth.

Determination set in my eyes, I said, “Fine.” Grabbed the stranger once more and we had a crazy, wild twenty minutes. I was sure everyone was watching. Which made me perform even better.

My suspicions were confirmed when I saw a crowd outside my door when I walked out with the stranger. A distant part of my mind was pissed—pissed at them and at myself for being so cheap. But that part of my mind was annoying me, so I shut it off, outshining it with a brilliant smile.

Booth glared in the darkness, away from everyone else, arms crossed over his chest. Had he really thought we were et in stone? We were only fooling around, just like we had before. Back when I was Evangeline.

But that part of my mind also annoyed me.

I shut it off.

I glided over to Booth gracefully, light on me feet. My smile glowed in the shadows. “Hey, baby.”

When I snagged his arm, he pulled me off him. “Don’t ‘baby’ me.”

I gawked at him, becoming irritated. “What? Oh. You thought I’d changed, didn’t you?” I chuckled darkly. “Not much fun in that, is there?”

He turned, green eyes glaring at me. “Guess not.”

“Ugh!” I screamed in frustration, following on his heels. “You are so demanding! I told you not to go and fall in love with you.”

“Whoa,” Booth turned slowly, stopping. I stopped. He said in a low voice, “I am not in love with you, Mary. I just thought maybe you had enough decency for yourself not to go off and fuck a random stranger while you let people watch. Why’d you even bring him home? Why not fuck him in the middle of your restaurant.”

I traipsed after him. “Oh, yeah, sure, I’ll be sure to remember that next time.”

Under his breath, Booth muttered, “God, you are such a sleazy whore.”

For some reason, the comment stung. I gaped at him, unsure why I was so hurt by that simple, truthful, comment. “Maybe I am, Booth,” I murmured. He stopped, but didn’t look back. “Maybe I am. But you were just another guy, weren’t you? Another fucker.”

Booth shook his head, fuming. He stormed away. I wasn’t sure if I’d see him again.

This is how it went; he burned me, I burn him back ten fold. That’s how the story goes. That’s our relationship. Booth wanted, expected, too much out of me and then got his little feelings hurt when I didn’t comply with his expectations.

I wasn’t going to be tied down. Not now, not ever.

No damn guy could change that.

Ever.