‹ Prequel: The Shadows' Child
The Gin House Blues
The Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties.
“You are all a lost generation.”
― Gertrude Stein
It was 1926 in a smoky, crowded room somewhere on the South Side of Chicago. Ceara couldn't remember the name of the place, but she liked it. The interior was dimly lit. Glowing wall lamps with frosted glass shades made the dark, wood-panelled walls shine in the low light. There was a small stage to the far end of the room where bands played and dancers whirled; tap-tap-clattering joyfully across the boards. In front of the stage was a scuffed up dance floor where girls with shimmering dresses and waved hair smiled brightly in their partners' arms. Soft, dark and hazy. It was glorious.
These were far from the main attractions though. No, the real attraction was located to the left of the room in the form of a highly polished bar furnished generously with liquor. Ceara would be lying if she said that it wasn't one of her chief reasons for being there that night. She was already well on her way to being rather exquisitely zozzled.
It had been just over ten years since Ceara had been bitten. Ten long years. She had been lost, confused and, without her sire to guide her, it had taken much, much longer to adjust to her new lifestyle than it should have. America was a new start. It was an escape from memories of her old life; and an opportunity to get used to her new one.
Tonight, however, she wasn't thinking about how hard the past decade had been. She wasn't thinking about her mother, she wasn't thinking about the constant, niggling hunger that made her jaws ache and buzz. No, tonight she thinking of little more than whether her next drink would be a scotch or a bourbon. She felt, well, almost human. The rushing ecstasy of life thrummed through her cold fingertips as the jazz music swelled and the couples danced. The bootleg booze in the bottom of her glass was just beginning to make the colours in the room slur together, pleasant and warm. Chatter and scattered laughter rose and fell over the sound of a piano. For the first time in a very long time, Ceara was having fun.
She gave a soft smile and closed her eyes, nodded her head to the music. She started doing a few jerky dance steps, tumbler in hand. She spun a lazy circle into the thicket of bodies and sighed happily. The feeling of freedom, of joy in the room, was infectious. It was only the sensation of a cold hand slipping around her wrist that stopped her dancing. Then a low, deep voice in her ear. "Your mother never tell you not to play with your food, sweetheart?"
Ceara's eyes flew open and she spun around to glare at the dark-eyed stranger still holding her wrist. A vampire. A smug, very arrogant looking one at that. She didn't want to deal with this. Tonight was about forgetting and so she snatched her hand away.
"That," she said, "is none of your business. And besides," she tilted her chin defiantly, "I wasn't playing. I was dancing. Now, if you'll excuse me." She sank the rest of her drink, slid the glass onto a nearby table, and then, giving the man one last icy look, began threading through the crowd.
"Wait!"
Ceara sighed and turned to face him, angrily, swaying just a bit. "Look," she said, "I don't want to talk to you. I just came here to dance a-"
"So dance with me," the man interjected.
Ceara opened and closed her mouth several times in a fashion she later realised must have been extremely flattering. She tried desperately to find a way out of this, her plans for the night certainly hadn't included dancing with strange vampires or, in fact, anything vampire-related at all. Just for one night. Not only that, but the arrogant, self-assured gleam in his eyes brought out her stubborn streak. The alcohol still swimming slowly through her veins made her even bolder. She squared her shoulders, tossed her bobbed hair and coolly declined his offer. Unfortunately for her though, this guy seemed determined.
"Please?"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"Because," Ceara snapped, "I do not want to dance with you."
"But why?"
Ceara made an inarticulate noise of annoyance and groaned. "Just leave me alone!"
He stepped out in front of her as she made to move away. "But I just want to dance with you-"
"Why?"
The stranger blinked owlishly. It was an oddly out of place expression on his handsome face. "What?" He said, evidently not used to having his motives questioned.
"You heard me! Why do you want to dance with me?" She gestured broadly with her arms at the pockets of women dotted about the room, some of them eyeing her tormentor with bright, interested eyes. "There are plenty of willing partners available. Just choose someone else and let me be!" Frustrated and over-warm from the crowded room, Ceara turned her back on the man and began stalking away from him once more only to be pulled back...again. "My God, don't you speak English? Because that's the only-"
"Because we're the same."
"Excuse me?"
"What I mean is," he clenched and unclenched his hands, 'that I wanted to dance with you because we're both," the man cleared his throat, " you know...different and, well, it's been a while since I've met anyone else who is different."
Ceara raised her eyebrows. "And...?"
"And...I thought maybe we could dance for a bit," he shrugged a little. "It's difficult being the only person with an 'alternative lifestyle', you might say, in this end of Chicago."
Ceara, as it happened, did know. Their kind of life was a lonely one, especially if you had no sire or brood to turn to. She understood all too well. Ceara eyed the man in front of her as all the temerity whooshed out of him. He looked at her a little uncertainly. Slowly, her resolve crumbled and Ceara sighed. "Fine," she said and, when she saw the look of triumph on the other vampire's face, rushed to add, "one dance and that's it. You hear me?"
Grinning, the man extended a hand, taking hers and kissing it lightly. "You have my word as a gentleman, Miss...?"
She paused for a moment, pursing her lips before she relented. "Kavanagh. Ceara Kavanagh."
"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Kavanagh," he said, still holding her hand. "Tristan Blanchard at your service." He stood there for a moment, lips smiling and eyes glittering in the gentle light of the room.
Ceara cleared her throat, the alcohol was making her head feel light. It was the alcohol. "Well, Mr. Blanchard," she said, "are we going to dance or not?"
Another devilish smirk and Ceara was in Tristan's arms. He guided further onto the dance floor and the song began to change. Ceara squinted suspiciously, a little jarred by their sudden change in proximity. The music was not as energetic as before, but she caught hold of the rhythm easily though and soon she became engrossed in the dancing. Her partner smiled down at her glibly, his self-assurance returning with a vengeance.
"You are quite the dancer you know."
She shrugged noncommittally. She knew she could dance fairly well. It was how she earned a living, after all, flitting about from club to club, from show to show around the city filling in for dancers; never settling in the same place for too long. Luckily for her, her nomadic existence didn't draw as much attention as it should have done. The whole world was restless nowadays, she supposed; in the shows, dancers came and went constantly. She simply allowed herself to get lost among the names and faces of countless others.
Tristan chuckled. "Not bad at all," he spun her around smoothly. "So, what's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"
Ceara snorted at that. "Does that sort of bushwa usually work for you?"
"Sometimes," he grinned.
Ceara rolled her eyes. "I already told you why."
"Ahh yes. The dancing was it?" His eyes glinted when Ceara nodded curtly. When he spoke again, his tone was almost apologetic. He turned his gaze to their feet. "Look, I'm..." he cleared his throat. "I am sorry for being quite so...persistent. I've been the only one of our kind around here for so long that when I spotted you, I just couldn't stop myself." He had the good grace to sound slightly sheepish and Ceara warmed to him a little. "So, I apologise if I was a bit brash," he finished.
Following a moment of indecision, Ceara gave him a small smile. Once the bravado was gone, Tristan seemed decent enough. "It's alright," she told him.
After that, time seemed to move strangely in an almost a dreamlike blur of dancing, the rattle of beaded dresses and the lazy crawl of blue cigarette smoke. There was drinking as well, after a number of dances, when Tristan had claimed himself to be, "Parched. Absolutely parched."
That must have been a couple of hours ago by now though, and he had just bought Ceara another glass of something (it might've have been gin, she couldn't quite remember after her third one) and another whiskey for himself. At this stage, Ceara was fairly far removed from the tenuous hold she had had on sobriety earlier in the evening. There was a strangely flushed feeling in her cheeks and across her chest. Her head and limbs felt like they were filled with air and, at any given moment, might start floating off of their own accord. She had also decided that she loved everyone in the room, even the extremely drunk man who had tapped his cigar ash into her hair. Despite all this though, Ceara managed to appear merely buzzed when compared to her partner.
After having admitted to her that he didn't drink overly often, Ceara had insisted on buying Tristan a whiskey instead of a water ("Just one then, Miss Kavanagh, if you insist.") That glass, however, had been followed by several more in quick succession until Tristan was giggling like a schoolboy at everything Ceara said, his eyes huge, dark and glassy. He was ridiculously drunk, a state in which Ceara would never see him again in the time she knew him, and sweetly funny in a way.
There was more dancing after the drinking. Ceara half-remembered having a heated debate about something inconsequential but very important, before the music changed to something slower, more bluesy. Tristan clasped her arm suddenly and pulled her easily into the mass of couples swaying around the floor. "I thought," she said as if suddenly remembering, "I said only one dance."
Tristan gave her a lopsided smile. "I love this song."
"Well, s'pose one more'll not hurt." She laid her head against his shoulder, just to reassure herself that it was still quite attached to the rest of her body, and they drifted along to the music.
"No, s'pose, it won't." They were both quiet for a while as the sound of a piano and a clarinet carried the singer's voice languidly, soulfully. Her eyes felt heavy. "Ceara," Tristan murmured, the more informal use of their names had crept in with the liquor, "you're ver' pretty y'know."
"Hm?" Ceara raised her head sleepily.
"Very pretty, " he mumbled and clumsily held her face in his hands. Her eyes widened slowly as she frantically began to try and make sense of what was happening.
"What?" She squeaked and tried to squirm away, but the alcohol made her clumsy. He gave her a soft smile, his eyelids drooping as he pressed an ill-aimed kiss to the corner of her mouth and his hand began to wander down her back. What happened next happened quickly. The entire interaction, no matter how brief it had been, seemed to sober Ceara up a little, and make her as angry as hell. Angry enough for her to draw back her arm and then, with no hesitation whatsoever, slap his face. Hard. Tristan staggered backwards looking a little wild-eyed. "How dare you?" Ceara cried out indignantly.
Tristan was speechless for a moment, and simply remained standing there with his hand pressed to her cheek. "I'm s-sorry," he stammered, shocked. She glowered at him.
"You'd better be bloody sorry!" And with that, she turned on her heel and stormed out of the club with as much dignity as someone on the wrong side of a bottle of bathtub gin could muster. Tristan snapped out of his daze and called after her, ignoring the curious gazes of some of the other dancers. He followed after her through one of the back doors and up the concrete steps that led straight into the back streets. "Ceara, Ceara wait! I didn't mean-"
"Go away!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Leave me alone!"
He stopped following then as she marched down the alley outside the joint. He swayed a little, annoyed now, she was obviously overreacting, he decided. "Fine." He cupped his hands around his mouth. "I'll see you around!" He tried.
She kept on walking, her steps weaving slightly, but her voice carried back to him strong and clear. "Drop dead!"
He gave a smile. "S'unlikely to happen, honey!"
"Oh, I'll find a way!" That was her last retort as she disappeared around the corner and out of sight, her heels clicking angrily against the ground.
Tristan leaned against the wall of the building unsteadily, the summer night was still light and balmy. He pulled a cigarette case out of his jacket pocket. "I don't doubt it, love," he muttered, rubbing his cheek and chuckling uncertainly, "not at all."
“You are all a lost generation.”
― Gertrude Stein
It was 1926 in a smoky, crowded room somewhere on the South Side of Chicago. Ceara couldn't remember the name of the place, but she liked it. The interior was dimly lit. Glowing wall lamps with frosted glass shades made the dark, wood-panelled walls shine in the low light. There was a small stage to the far end of the room where bands played and dancers whirled; tap-tap-clattering joyfully across the boards. In front of the stage was a scuffed up dance floor where girls with shimmering dresses and waved hair smiled brightly in their partners' arms. Soft, dark and hazy. It was glorious.
These were far from the main attractions though. No, the real attraction was located to the left of the room in the form of a highly polished bar furnished generously with liquor. Ceara would be lying if she said that it wasn't one of her chief reasons for being there that night. She was already well on her way to being rather exquisitely zozzled.
It had been just over ten years since Ceara had been bitten. Ten long years. She had been lost, confused and, without her sire to guide her, it had taken much, much longer to adjust to her new lifestyle than it should have. America was a new start. It was an escape from memories of her old life; and an opportunity to get used to her new one.
Tonight, however, she wasn't thinking about how hard the past decade had been. She wasn't thinking about her mother, she wasn't thinking about the constant, niggling hunger that made her jaws ache and buzz. No, tonight she thinking of little more than whether her next drink would be a scotch or a bourbon. She felt, well, almost human. The rushing ecstasy of life thrummed through her cold fingertips as the jazz music swelled and the couples danced. The bootleg booze in the bottom of her glass was just beginning to make the colours in the room slur together, pleasant and warm. Chatter and scattered laughter rose and fell over the sound of a piano. For the first time in a very long time, Ceara was having fun.
She gave a soft smile and closed her eyes, nodded her head to the music. She started doing a few jerky dance steps, tumbler in hand. She spun a lazy circle into the thicket of bodies and sighed happily. The feeling of freedom, of joy in the room, was infectious. It was only the sensation of a cold hand slipping around her wrist that stopped her dancing. Then a low, deep voice in her ear. "Your mother never tell you not to play with your food, sweetheart?"
Ceara's eyes flew open and she spun around to glare at the dark-eyed stranger still holding her wrist. A vampire. A smug, very arrogant looking one at that. She didn't want to deal with this. Tonight was about forgetting and so she snatched her hand away.
"That," she said, "is none of your business. And besides," she tilted her chin defiantly, "I wasn't playing. I was dancing. Now, if you'll excuse me." She sank the rest of her drink, slid the glass onto a nearby table, and then, giving the man one last icy look, began threading through the crowd.
"Wait!"
Ceara sighed and turned to face him, angrily, swaying just a bit. "Look," she said, "I don't want to talk to you. I just came here to dance a-"
"So dance with me," the man interjected.
Ceara opened and closed her mouth several times in a fashion she later realised must have been extremely flattering. She tried desperately to find a way out of this, her plans for the night certainly hadn't included dancing with strange vampires or, in fact, anything vampire-related at all. Just for one night. Not only that, but the arrogant, self-assured gleam in his eyes brought out her stubborn streak. The alcohol still swimming slowly through her veins made her even bolder. She squared her shoulders, tossed her bobbed hair and coolly declined his offer. Unfortunately for her though, this guy seemed determined.
"Please?"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"Because," Ceara snapped, "I do not want to dance with you."
"But why?"
Ceara made an inarticulate noise of annoyance and groaned. "Just leave me alone!"
He stepped out in front of her as she made to move away. "But I just want to dance with you-"
"Why?"
The stranger blinked owlishly. It was an oddly out of place expression on his handsome face. "What?" He said, evidently not used to having his motives questioned.
"You heard me! Why do you want to dance with me?" She gestured broadly with her arms at the pockets of women dotted about the room, some of them eyeing her tormentor with bright, interested eyes. "There are plenty of willing partners available. Just choose someone else and let me be!" Frustrated and over-warm from the crowded room, Ceara turned her back on the man and began stalking away from him once more only to be pulled back...again. "My God, don't you speak English? Because that's the only-"
"Because we're the same."
"Excuse me?"
"What I mean is," he clenched and unclenched his hands, 'that I wanted to dance with you because we're both," the man cleared his throat, " you know...different and, well, it's been a while since I've met anyone else who is different."
Ceara raised her eyebrows. "And...?"
"And...I thought maybe we could dance for a bit," he shrugged a little. "It's difficult being the only person with an 'alternative lifestyle', you might say, in this end of Chicago."
Ceara, as it happened, did know. Their kind of life was a lonely one, especially if you had no sire or brood to turn to. She understood all too well. Ceara eyed the man in front of her as all the temerity whooshed out of him. He looked at her a little uncertainly. Slowly, her resolve crumbled and Ceara sighed. "Fine," she said and, when she saw the look of triumph on the other vampire's face, rushed to add, "one dance and that's it. You hear me?"
Grinning, the man extended a hand, taking hers and kissing it lightly. "You have my word as a gentleman, Miss...?"
She paused for a moment, pursing her lips before she relented. "Kavanagh. Ceara Kavanagh."
"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Kavanagh," he said, still holding her hand. "Tristan Blanchard at your service." He stood there for a moment, lips smiling and eyes glittering in the gentle light of the room.
Ceara cleared her throat, the alcohol was making her head feel light. It was the alcohol. "Well, Mr. Blanchard," she said, "are we going to dance or not?"
Another devilish smirk and Ceara was in Tristan's arms. He guided further onto the dance floor and the song began to change. Ceara squinted suspiciously, a little jarred by their sudden change in proximity. The music was not as energetic as before, but she caught hold of the rhythm easily though and soon she became engrossed in the dancing. Her partner smiled down at her glibly, his self-assurance returning with a vengeance.
"You are quite the dancer you know."
She shrugged noncommittally. She knew she could dance fairly well. It was how she earned a living, after all, flitting about from club to club, from show to show around the city filling in for dancers; never settling in the same place for too long. Luckily for her, her nomadic existence didn't draw as much attention as it should have done. The whole world was restless nowadays, she supposed; in the shows, dancers came and went constantly. She simply allowed herself to get lost among the names and faces of countless others.
Tristan chuckled. "Not bad at all," he spun her around smoothly. "So, what's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"
Ceara snorted at that. "Does that sort of bushwa usually work for you?"
"Sometimes," he grinned.
Ceara rolled her eyes. "I already told you why."
"Ahh yes. The dancing was it?" His eyes glinted when Ceara nodded curtly. When he spoke again, his tone was almost apologetic. He turned his gaze to their feet. "Look, I'm..." he cleared his throat. "I am sorry for being quite so...persistent. I've been the only one of our kind around here for so long that when I spotted you, I just couldn't stop myself." He had the good grace to sound slightly sheepish and Ceara warmed to him a little. "So, I apologise if I was a bit brash," he finished.
Following a moment of indecision, Ceara gave him a small smile. Once the bravado was gone, Tristan seemed decent enough. "It's alright," she told him.
After that, time seemed to move strangely in an almost a dreamlike blur of dancing, the rattle of beaded dresses and the lazy crawl of blue cigarette smoke. There was drinking as well, after a number of dances, when Tristan had claimed himself to be, "Parched. Absolutely parched."
That must have been a couple of hours ago by now though, and he had just bought Ceara another glass of something (it might've have been gin, she couldn't quite remember after her third one) and another whiskey for himself. At this stage, Ceara was fairly far removed from the tenuous hold she had had on sobriety earlier in the evening. There was a strangely flushed feeling in her cheeks and across her chest. Her head and limbs felt like they were filled with air and, at any given moment, might start floating off of their own accord. She had also decided that she loved everyone in the room, even the extremely drunk man who had tapped his cigar ash into her hair. Despite all this though, Ceara managed to appear merely buzzed when compared to her partner.
After having admitted to her that he didn't drink overly often, Ceara had insisted on buying Tristan a whiskey instead of a water ("Just one then, Miss Kavanagh, if you insist.") That glass, however, had been followed by several more in quick succession until Tristan was giggling like a schoolboy at everything Ceara said, his eyes huge, dark and glassy. He was ridiculously drunk, a state in which Ceara would never see him again in the time she knew him, and sweetly funny in a way.
There was more dancing after the drinking. Ceara half-remembered having a heated debate about something inconsequential but very important, before the music changed to something slower, more bluesy. Tristan clasped her arm suddenly and pulled her easily into the mass of couples swaying around the floor. "I thought," she said as if suddenly remembering, "I said only one dance."
Tristan gave her a lopsided smile. "I love this song."
"Well, s'pose one more'll not hurt." She laid her head against his shoulder, just to reassure herself that it was still quite attached to the rest of her body, and they drifted along to the music.
"No, s'pose, it won't." They were both quiet for a while as the sound of a piano and a clarinet carried the singer's voice languidly, soulfully. Her eyes felt heavy. "Ceara," Tristan murmured, the more informal use of their names had crept in with the liquor, "you're ver' pretty y'know."
"Hm?" Ceara raised her head sleepily.
"Very pretty, " he mumbled and clumsily held her face in his hands. Her eyes widened slowly as she frantically began to try and make sense of what was happening.
"What?" She squeaked and tried to squirm away, but the alcohol made her clumsy. He gave her a soft smile, his eyelids drooping as he pressed an ill-aimed kiss to the corner of her mouth and his hand began to wander down her back. What happened next happened quickly. The entire interaction, no matter how brief it had been, seemed to sober Ceara up a little, and make her as angry as hell. Angry enough for her to draw back her arm and then, with no hesitation whatsoever, slap his face. Hard. Tristan staggered backwards looking a little wild-eyed. "How dare you?" Ceara cried out indignantly.
Tristan was speechless for a moment, and simply remained standing there with his hand pressed to her cheek. "I'm s-sorry," he stammered, shocked. She glowered at him.
"You'd better be bloody sorry!" And with that, she turned on her heel and stormed out of the club with as much dignity as someone on the wrong side of a bottle of bathtub gin could muster. Tristan snapped out of his daze and called after her, ignoring the curious gazes of some of the other dancers. He followed after her through one of the back doors and up the concrete steps that led straight into the back streets. "Ceara, Ceara wait! I didn't mean-"
"Go away!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Leave me alone!"
He stopped following then as she marched down the alley outside the joint. He swayed a little, annoyed now, she was obviously overreacting, he decided. "Fine." He cupped his hands around his mouth. "I'll see you around!" He tried.
She kept on walking, her steps weaving slightly, but her voice carried back to him strong and clear. "Drop dead!"
He gave a smile. "S'unlikely to happen, honey!"
"Oh, I'll find a way!" That was her last retort as she disappeared around the corner and out of sight, her heels clicking angrily against the ground.
Tristan leaned against the wall of the building unsteadily, the summer night was still light and balmy. He pulled a cigarette case out of his jacket pocket. "I don't doubt it, love," he muttered, rubbing his cheek and chuckling uncertainly, "not at all."
♠ ♠ ♠
Another rediscovered one shot rewrite I've been hoarding in the vaults. Hope you enjoyed!