So Long You Pretty Thing

Clair drank her coffee as she sat inside the small cafe she loved and had visited every time she could since her first day of University. It had also had been her part-time job that she had as she started her internship with Herbert and Son. That had gone on until her internship ended, and she had gotten an actual job at the law firm.

She had called into work to say that she was sick so that she wouldn't have to see Liam. It was not a complete lie because the thought of him started to make her feel physically ill.

There were people milling about outside, and Clair made up stories for each of them. It was a game she had played ever since she could remember. No matter how mundane the person's life actually was, in her mind they would be spontaneous and exciting. When she had first met Adam, Clair had done exactly that to him. In her mind, he had been a changeling that was out to take her mother away, that was what Clair had desperately wished he was. It was her sick version of a dream come true. Not that she thought her mother deserved it any less today. To be honest, the feeling had actually deepened inside of her. All of those years ago when her mother had...

Clair jumped when she found that Lisa had been sitting in the chair across from her the entire time. Lisa was her best friend, well only friend, but Clair didn't really mind because in her little anti-social world one was more than enough. Lisa dyed her hair a different color every week. This week it turned out to be a red mixed with black which was, as always, in a boyish style that highlighted skull's more attractive features.

"Hi, hi," she chirped in her usual sing-song voice.

"Hey," Clair ran a hand through her hair not meaning to choose the hand that had the ring on it.

"Wait, did he?" Lisa took Clair's hand in her's.

Clair had almost forgotten about her other incident of last night. To her luck, the moment Lisa asked, a man in a leather jacket wearing black, leather gloves, and blue jeans passed to coffee shop that Clair sat in.

"I need to get going," Clair slipped into the crowded street, away from her best friend toward a perfect stanger. As she neared him, he turned quick enough for her to run into him. His body was warm and smelled of cigarette smoke. It had always been a smell that she had a strange attraction to and reminded her of back when she used to live in London. Her father had been a smoker and would go into her room with the stentch of tobacco clinging to him. It was also the last memory she had of him before she left.

"What I can't walk around, now?" The abrubtness of Liam's voice caught Clair off gaurd. "I quit that job; I left your apartment; what else can I do?"

No words were able to form in her mouth, so she just stood there with her mouth half open. That was before the rage took over, "You seriously thought the only thing that I would walk over to you to do would be just to insult you?"

"What else did you have in your mind?" Liam scoffed.

"You don't know me!" Clair started to turn away and walk back to her friend.

Liam let out an audible sigh before turning the other way. Clair turned to face him again, "I don't what mental issues your friend has but make sure he doesn't come anywhere near me."

Liam raised an eyebrow, "Friend?"

"I assume that you have them too," Clair let the annoyance in her voice become very present.

He gave a dry laughter before asking, "What happened?"

"Someone broke into my house,” the people walking past them didn’t care to notice them. They all had important lives of their own that they had to attain to.

He walked toward her to talk, “Are you alright?” His voice had lost the fury that it had just owned.

“I’m fine; I can’t say the same about him,” Clair calmed down as well. His voice had a euphoric affect that caused any sense of unease to vanish.

“Atta girl,” he winked with a smile that would have brought Clair to her knees if she had been younger… and not engaged.

She shook her head, “No, I’m serious. He basically lit his head on fire.”

“Wait, what?” Liam almost laughed.

“He had this sort of flame in his hand and he put it against his face,” Clair couldn’t believe that she was saying this with a straight face.

Liam muttered a word under his breath that Clair couldn’t quite hear. She asked him, “Sorry, what?”

“Uriel.”