A shadow passed through the glass and he looked up, irritation blatant on his face. He'd come here to get away from the people who were making his life at present so difficult, and someone dared to come search him out? He set the glass down and watched the figure approach him, pull out the chair opposite and sit down. Vienna smiled at him from across the tabletop, setting down a wine glass whose stem was betwixt in her fingers like that of a rare, beautiful flower. She simply smiled at him, her expression plainly easy to read; there was no anger, or malice, or sadness, all things which Caden would have expected. In fact, if anything, she looked amused. She didn't say anything for a while, just sat and sipped her wine and watched him. Caden, not one to let others get the best of him, sat and stared back. Finally, she seemed to realize this was futile and set the glass down daintily with the faintest of noises.
"Do you want to talk about last night?" she asked, gently, staring, staring.
"Not particularly." he murmured, stubbornly keeping her gaze, even though she was most likely angry as hell inside.
"Well, maybe we could talk about something else, then." she said diplomatically, hoping to watch relief flicker across his face, but the stubborn physicist didn't react, and a moment too late she should have realized that he would never feel remorse for what he did.
"Mmm." he hummed. And then waited. Staring.
"You ever think about love, Caden?" she asked casually, reclining and taking the wineglass between her fingers again.
"How so?" he asked with a sigh, humoring her even though he was disappointed in the topic choice.
"Just... how you know you love someone. Anyone."
"Mmm..." he contemplated her revision for a moment. "No. My answer is definitely no, then."
Vienna's eyebrow quirked in frustration. "How can you say that?" she demanded, setting the glass down with a solid sound that reflected her anger. "Do you not love anyone? Your parents?"
Caden took a second to think about it before replying, "No."
"You're lying." Vienna spat.
"No, I'm not." Caden sighed and sat up straight, taking another gulp of brandy before mustering up the courage to talk about them. "My father was a bastard that cheated on my mom, smacked her around and finally left us when I was thirteen. And my mother, well, she resented me from that day forward. Because I was like him. I look more like him than I do her, I act like him and speak like him and that bothered her. She meant well, but she was never proud of me. Not on any of my graduations, not on my career or my prizes or even getting here." He took another drink, longer this time, and winced at the burn. "So I decided I don't need her approval."
Vienna sat silently, wide-eyed as she processed this bit of information, possibly the most she'd ever heard him say at one time before. "Wow. I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about it. Like I said, I don't need them." Caden could feel the warmth of the buzz starting to encroach on his senses, dampening the vividity of his world.
"Well," Vienna continued, undaunted. "What about that girl you have at home? I'm sure she's wonderful."
"She's alright." he murmured noncommittally.
"'Alright'? Really, Caden?!" Vienna snapped. "You must love her a little to be living with her! Tell me about her."
Caden sighed. More brandy. His glass was getting dangerously empty and the world wasn't fading into oblivion nearly as quickly as he would have liked. At least if he passed out he wouldn't have to keep up this conversation.
"Her name is Anna." he relented. "She's pretty. Average height, small build, long dirty blonde hair and legs that go on forever. Her eyes are green. She usually keeps her lips red, but I love them best when they're just pink and natural. She likes to laugh. She worries a lot, mostly about me. She looks after me like I'm her child or something. She's a great cook, and she reads a lot. She went to university with me, but she was an art major. At first I didn't understand why anyone would study art, it seemed like a waste of time. But when I see the way she smiles when she paints, or the way she hums to herself arranging flowers, the way her eyebrows knit a little when she admires artwork, her sigh while looking at trees, just... I understand. I see the world through how it works, physics. She sees in colour and movement and shape. She sees application." He smiled to himself, a little sheepish. "The apartment is always full of flowers and pictures and light."
Vienna didn't say anything for a long while, just sipping her wine and watching him with satisfaction. That was definitely the most she'd ever heard out of him at once. "She sounds lovely." she finally said.
"Yeah. I guess she is."
"Do you love her?" Vienna asked abruptly.
"Why does that matter?"
"It doesn't matter to me, Caden." Vienna said sharply, drinking the last of her wine. "I, quite honestly, don't give a damn about you, and I wasn't looking for anything more than you were last night. Usually it's pretty rude to not tell people you're already involved with someone, but I really don't care. I don't know her, and when we go home, I'll never see you again. This doesn't affect me, and quite honestly, I don't feel guilty about it. We can fuck all you want, Caden, but if you're not going to be honest for your partner, then maybe you should be honest for Anna." Vienna got to her feet, snatching up her wineglass from the table. "If she's as wonderful as you say, then I'm sure it'd be a shame to lose her."
And then she left, heels tapping out a brisk rhythm on the hardwood floors and leaving him utterly alone in the dark to think.
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Prompt 2 complete. I like this one much better, and it came to me right away and isn't as much useless blathering as the last one is. I don't know why I enjoy writing so much more around 1-3 AM than, say, 3 in the afternoon or something reasonable. I have class tomorrow morning, dammit.
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Prompt 2 complete. I like this one much better, and it came to me right away and isn't as much useless blathering as the last one is. I don't know why I enjoy writing so much more around 1-3 AM than, say, 3 in the afternoon or something reasonable. I have class tomorrow morning, dammit.
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