Last Train to...Never Mind [Drew/Isabella]

[DREW COPELAND]

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[atrb=style, padding: 0px 15px 5px 15px; color: black;] CLARKSVILLE, TENNESSEE Drew rolled into town already with the slight roil in his stomach that he always got when he was going to see Isabella after some time apart. It was such a difficult, contradictory thing the way he missed her when he was away, wanted to escape when he was with her. He hated that, hated the way that it threw him off balance so badly to be coming or going, though things tended to settle down when he was either staying with her or well and truly away. He was only too aware that any time he tried to express what his relationship with his birth mother was like in words (he had a very anonymous and password-locked blog out there where he tried to write things out like the shrinks had kept saying when he was eighteen) he either sounded seven different kinds of emo or, even more disturbing, like a guy whining about hooking up with an old girlfriend. It was upsetting and more than a little icky, but when he could make himself be honest about it all there were certain traits in common between the two situations. He never knew where he stood with her, and though Drew was only too aware that the reasons he didn't know were mostly his own fault, he didn't know how to fix it. The driver's side window of the smoke-gray 1970 Chevelle was rolled down, letting cigarette smoke and Between Angels and Insects escape into the still, muggy air as he cruised down one of the secondary drags of town, looking for the motel where they were supposed to meet. Isabella was on assignment, some fluff piece about how Historic Clarksville was bouncing back after the floods last year, and he'd been only two states away. Plenty of excuse. They'd booked separate rooms at the same motel, and left it fluid how long they were each going to be in town. Better that way, Drew got twitchy with hard deadlines these days. He spotted the Midtown Inn and Motor Court off to the left and had to grin a little as he pulled in to the parking area. There was a thing with hunters and motels that seemed to transcend any kind of sense or logic; you almost always found other hunters staying at grotty motels, usually independent joints rather than chains. He wasn't sure if it was because that made it easier for them to stay anonymous, or because it was just a point of reverse snobbery, like so much of hunter culture. But it didn't surprise him at all to see the basic layout of the motel, and in a way it was even comforting because at least he knew exactly what the place would be like. Checking in took a matter of minutes, Drew's fake ID for this region of the country was solid and he was good about keeping money in the checking account associated with it. He pulled the Chevelle in three spots down from where Isabella's Challenger was already parked and unloaded the bags that needed to be locked in the room. Setting up a room was a ritual: close the drapes and crank the a/c up high. Dump the bag of clothes on the dresser, the weapons under the foot of the bed. Tuck a pistol under his pillow and a shotgun between the bed and the pressboard nightstand, lay out the salt and protections on the points of entry. It was soothing, in its strange way, and let him feel more solid in himself. Right at the moment where setting up was about to become stalling, Drew made himself pull on a vintage bowling shirt over his wifebeater and black jeans to hide the small of the back rig that people kept telling him was a crappy place to carry but which he actually liked and found a fluid and natural draw. He wanted to light one more cigarette, stall for ten minutes, but wouldn't let himself. He wanted a drink, numb it for a moment and instantly made the promise that he would have anything stronger than a beer for at least 24 hours because he was that frightened of the strong possibility that he was inclined toward becoming an alcoholic. Stop being a pussy, Copeland. Drew shoved the room key in his pocket, checked to make sure he had smokes, wallet, silvered utility knife and extra clips, and left his room, walking down four doors to the room number that his mother had texted him when she checked in and knocking firmly.

[ISABELLA WALKER]

( GOT A PACKAGE FULL OF WISHES )

- - - A TIME MACHINE , A MAGIC WAND , A GLOBE MADE OUT OF GOLD NO
COMMANDMENTS , LAWS OF GRAVITY OR INDECISIONS TO UPHOLD - - -

Isabella had pulled into Clarksville, Tennessee early yesterday morning and went about getting herself situated in her hotel room while overlooking her assignment. It was a nice piece over how Clarksville had begun to rebuild itself after the recent floods, but she was more pleased about the fact that she was getting away from home and going somewhere outside of Florida. Whenever she went out on assignment she always messaged Andrew, just trying to see if he was close enough that she could see him, and he’d only been a couple of states away. She woke up that morning and had gone out one more time to visit a couple of places that she had missed yesterday, gathering a few more pictures before heading back to the hotel. The muggy air seemed thicker than what was generally normal, even for the southern and more humid states, and it was making even Isabella, who actually enjoyed humid weather.

The inside of the hotel was cool and dry, however, and she took a quick shower, washing away the grime from the lower levels of the city that she had been traipsing through for her pictures and a couple more interviews with people who had been affected by the floods. The water pounded against her shoulders and back she let herself relax some, not entirely sure of what she was even going to do when Andrew showed up. Things between them, even after three years, had the tendency to be tense and she just wanted things to be normal…relatively speaking anyway. Nothing about their lives were particularly “normal”…though she had hoped to keep her son out of the hunting life that she had lived for so long. She was in there for a short amount of time, just long enough to clean up and let herself relax a bit more.

Stepping out, Isabella was drying her hair when her phone rang and she looked at the caller ID, frowning at the name that showed up and hitting the ignore button and tossing it back onto her bed. She plopped down next to it and pulled on a pair of boots, hating to walk around motel rooms barefoot, especially the cheap ones that she usually ended up staying in. Lord only knows what kinds of nasty things were on these floors and how often they were actually cleaned. She may have been living in places like these for the majority of her life but that had only seemed to strengthen her disgust for the motel room floors. She picked up her camera and popped out the memory card, crossing the room to her laptop and sticking it into her laptop to pull up the pictures so that she could start working on her article, but the pictures had to finish downloading first.

There was a firm knock on her motel door and Isabella looked up, grabbing the gun that was sitting on the table and checking the clip, making sure there were bullets in it before sticking it back in. Sure, she was expecting Andrew to show up and knock on her door at any moment, but paranoia made sure that she always checked anyway. Her gun was pressed against her thigh as she peered through the peephole, seeing her son standing outside and a small smile appeared on her face. She unlocked the handle and bolt at the top before opening the door, giving enough open room for him to enter, “Andrew, glad you made it.” She flicked the safety back on her gun and stuck it into the waistband of her jeans.

TAGGED: Drew
WORDS: 6-0-0 (even ftw?)
OUTFIT: HERE
NOTES: Sorry it sucks, I just got done typing a 5 page essay before I finished

[DREW COPELAND]

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[atrb=style, padding: 0px 15px 5px 15px; color: black;] "Hey." The smile started off stiff and awkward, but smoothed out after a few seconds. He always built things up in his head before seeing her, and then it calmed down in a hurry once he was actually there. It had occurred to Drew a few times that he was stupidly neurotic, but like so many things that were wrong with his life he didn't much know what to do about it. He stepped into the room at her silent invitation, took up a position that put his back to the wall near the door as he looked his mother over. She looked good, tanned and relaxed. Happy. Drew himsel-+f had picked up a new scar since the last time they saw one another, a tightly-curved cut mark above his left elbow, new enough that the scar was still flushed dark pink and the pinprick marks of where the stitches had been were still fading out around the edges. Djinn, he'd learned, were nasty bastards. Once he'd finished that first assessment, Drew smiled again, relaxing quickly as he asked, "So how is Clarksville recovering from the floods of 2010? Is the community banding together to rebuild? Are there stories of hope and adversity overcome? Is there a photogenic six year old somewhere who will stagger around carrying building supplies to help out as the congregation of his church works to rebuild their historic site?" The mockery was light and totally without malice, far more about the gap between the normal life that she was documenting--that used to be his world--and the way he was living. The way that the two of them flip-flopped in and out of the mundane world, the real world, amused and worried him. Already he wanted another smoke, but he didn't light one. He did let himself fidget a bit, tugging down the hem of his bowling shirt and using the motion to reassure himself that all his weaponry was staying where it was meant to be. "You eaten yet?" He'd grabbed an apple with his coffee that morning, eaten Wheat Thins on the road for lunch, and he needed something meat-based and at least a little greasy sometime soon.

[ISABELLA WALKER]

( GOT A PACKAGE FULL OF WISHES )

- - - A TIME MACHINE , A MAGIC WAND , A GLOBE MADE OUT OF GOLD NO
COMMANDMENTS , LAWS OF GRAVITY OR INDECISIONS TO UPHOLD - - -

“Hey.” Isabella leaned her head against the door, offering Andrew her own smile which was less stiff than his own smile to her, but she didn’t mention it to him since there wasn’t any need. He stepped in and she closed the door, locking the hand and bolt chain at the top, turning on the handle a couple of times just to make sure that it was actually locked. Between her OCD and her paranoia Isabella had a hell of a time being relaxed anywhere outside of her own home. She watched him for a moment, looking for any obvious signs of injury, but so far he seemed to being doing quite well, which both pleased her and worried her at the same time. He was becoming a good hunter, which was something to be proud of, but she was his mother and it scared the hell out of her at the same time.

"So how is Clarksville recovering from the floods of 2010?“ The brunette gave him a light smile while listening to him and went to her laptop, checking to make sure the pictures were still downloading and she rested against the table, crossing her arms across her stomach and giving a light shrug, “they’re making progress, and since you asked, yes, the community is banding together and helping each other. It’s a rather nice sight to see after twenty something years of monsters and death.” It was one of the reasons that she had taken the job as a journalist because it was something that could show the good side of people and it that was something that she had almost forgotten even existed with everything that she had seen and done.

Her phone rang on the bed again and she pushed herself off of the table, crossing to the bed in only a couple of steps and ignored the call. They’d get it eventually and stop calling her right? "You eaten yet?" Isabella stowed the phone in her pocket and turned around to face Andrew again, a contemplative look on her face as she thought it over, “not unless coffee has turned into a food group and no one told me about it. Did you have anything in particular in mind?” Greasy, cheap diner food was pretty much the stable of every hunter out there and she still found herself sitting down and eating at those places when she wasn’t in her own home. “But if we go somewhere then are we taking separate cars, because you’re driving scares the hell out of hell me. Unless you’re too afraid to be seen in your mom’s purple car,” she added with a cheeky grin.

TAGGED: Drew
WORDS: 4-4-7
OUTFIT: HERE
NOTES: ---

[DREW COPELAND]

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[atrb=style, padding: 0px 15px 5px 15px; color: black;]Still leaning against the wall, watching as Isabella moved around the room in that half-restless way, Drew smiled and said, "Wait, coffee's not a food group? What kind of lies has Starbucks been feeding me all these years? I kind of figured that in an valencia mocha frappucino you were getting a balanced meal. Fruit, dairy, veggies--cocoa beans are vegetables, right?--and caffeine, all in one icy cup of goodness." The smile smoothed into a grin, an expression that was actually a lot more natural to Drew than a proper smile. "All that being said, unless you've found a decent Chinese place in this town, find me a burger? Pretty please?" He didn't answer the thing about 'twenty years of monsters and death', mostly because they seemed to be setting out on the right foot here and he knew from bitter experience that there was a minefield spreading squarely around those twenty years and the fact that she'd chosen the monsters and death over him. He really didn't want to fight with her, or even get trapped into Serious Conversation mode with her. Not tonight, anyway. There'd be time for that, or there wouldn't, but he'd rather have the meal of greasy road food and laughing about popular culture with her than another round of angsting. If nothing else, Drew was getting profoundly sick of his own emo. So he heaved a put-upon sigh when she complained about his driving, but then conceded, "I suppose we can take your car. Only because it's still a Challenger, purple or not. If you ever buy a Volvo, though, we're going to have words." There was a slight pang there, his Mom and Dad had an ongoing joke about Volvos and how close or far they were from being legally obligated to buy one. Any year they voted a liberal ticket it would edge them closer, but when Dad was finally brought to see that hiring a landscaping service was massively cheaper than buying a riding mower they got to edge away from the dreaded Day of the Volvo. But as Drew had just this second decided that he wasn't doing emo tonight, he let the slight hurt happen and let it pass away again, instead asking, "You getting an obscene caller or something? You want I should go find him and beat him up for youse?" His Jersey Boy accent was terrible, so bad it crossed the line back into being good again, and he couldn't help but laugh at his own idiocy, even as he knew that if, by some impossibility, she really did need his help dealing with anything it would be huge for him.