thedressingroom | (no subject)

So you'll just get off seeing someone else do it.

[yes, trust him to put it in those terms.]

[Did he have to?]

Not where I was going with that, actually.

[He smiles but it looks worn out, someone well aware the sexual schtick was tiring.]

I don't know if breaking things in anger helps much, even in proxy.

[She'd sympathise, if she had anything to measure that against.]

No? I find the immediate result is satisfying, even if there are no long-term benefits.

I reckon I'm more weary of violence than you are.

You've had a lot longer to practise it.

Have I? I ain't as old as you might think. Just less, uh, privileged.

Don't think my upbringing excuses me from experience. My sister is the prettiest sadist you'll ever meet.

But if I had to judge, I'd guess you've... twice my years? Perhaps a little more?

Fifty. I'm fifty.

[he says that with the tone of someone who is definitely counting, although the reasons why always seem to change.]

[Two and a half times her age, then.]

You don't look a day older than twenty-five. If a little rough around the edges.

[HEY don't you call him old now.]

That's how the vampire shit works.

[She wouldn't dream of doing so.]

Surely that has its uses.

You never meet nobody who says they're looking forward to getting old, do you? Because I was. I wanted to get older, less stupid. I wanted to be a granddaddy.

Or maybe I just think that, now.

...no, I can understand that. I'd like children some day.

But it's also possible that you're regretting what you can't have simply because it's been denied you. Anyway, your age is only a number. Doesn't experience count for maturity?

I don't... change much. It's a side-effect, kinda. You're frozen, and shit, I know that sounds like a fucking excuse, but the going's... slower. I don't fucking act fifty, I don't fucking feel fifty. I won't for a long time.

I actually had you pegged for the age you look, to be perfectly honest.

Does it worry you? Being... static?

Most folks do.

Well, I don't fucking like it.

Oh, I think I can tell that.

But I meant more... oh, are you going to take steps to change it? Is that even possible?

[he sighs.]

I don't know, how do you do you mature overnight if your body and brain are physically incapable of changing? You can try and get smarter, yeah, but the impulses are all the same and they ain't so deep.

Wanting an innate change that can't be enacted... I'd go mad.

Yeah, well, I got time for that.

...tell me you can at least get horribly drunk?

No. There's a reason why sex comes up so often, hon, it's the only vice I can get.

[Oh.]

That's either brillant or horrible.

Look at it as an analogy. Vampires, they represented the plague, right? So what good is a thinking plague if it stave off it's plague-carrying duties with drugs and alcohol? No, you want a plague to work, you make it focused. Make it sexually appealing and active enough to real the victims in, and bam. You got your monster made.