[right]Eva & Henry at Henry's Sunset Lounge[/right]

When Connor rumbled up to her, she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her white leather waist cut jacket and smiled and declined the inivation, "Tell him to meet me in the back. By the loading dock." It was not a thing easily done. There was no stop in Eva's mind, and the willpower that she had once prided herself on was being subjected to the fault lines that had bellowed to life the moment of the Kid's last twitch against her fangs. When her diablerie was complete. Diablerie, the word stinging deep as she walked to the side alley of Henry's, and she found herself sliding into shadow. 

Los Angeles liked it's tall buildings, even if few of them were what someone would call a true skyscrapper. Rooftop terraces and parking garages were the rage, even as the sun set now there was no direct sunlight for her to get hit by, only shadow and the orange glow start of twilight in the City of Angels. The side alley connected to a back street; the back doors and a few various loading docks to various surrounding businesses, but Henry's was at the end. When she slipped into the back street from the side alley she could smell the only living person was down the back street; a homeless man by every available measure that was quick to shuffle out of the back street and on his way upon seeing her. 

For a tick of time she felt badly about it; the back street was prime hunting for goods thrown out by high brow businesses. Given in her roaming the streets of Los Angeles she had seen a few fights between homeless over a certain street corner, or underpass, or back alley. When your next meal was uncertain and getting to the right garbage bin first, or having the good spot to beg for money, can mean a decent meal or a beer soaked chips. The smarter ones she had seen knew exactly when and where to find the best discarded food, some of it because it was simply "imperfect" and not because it was bad in anyway. 

The complexities of a city she called her own never did cease to amaze her. 

The steel grated stairs to the back dock were cobwebbed, random bits of breeze blown trash gathered around the dead end of the backstreet that was Henry's back dock. The leather jacket was stretched over the gray tank top, tightly fitted jeans slashed with holes along the thigh and white Air Jordan 1's on her feet. Her body turned and slowly descended to sit on the steel grated middle step of the dock stairs, her upper half leaning against railing. It was just too heavy, sometimes. The weight of it all. It started with diablerie of the Kid, but it had nothing more to do with Christopher. 

The Kid was at peace. A warm and playful voice in her ear artistic in nature and grand vision in scope that came to her like a daydream. 

The pressure came from the rest of them. All of them. Antediluvian, methuselah. There was some trace of nearly every one of them, and some were so intense it reminded her of getting air knocked out of her lungs. A very old thing to be so unpleasantly reminded of. The first night was the worst; it came in rest and dragged her into a far deeper state of unconcious. Since her eyes snapped open the next night they had all been there. A distant hum in the back of her head most times, but sometimes a chaotic and clashing cacophony discordant with every other thought and whim and sensation. 

"It's just one generation." A simple statement spoken in wounded tone. The Kindred the world knew as Eva wasn't one for displays of vulnerability, but even she had wipe a tear or two from her eye with fingertips decorated plain with glossy white fingernails. A few sniffs, a heavy sigh, and she was standing and turning around with the sound of the  back door of Henry's behind her. These were the moments she'd feel as if she were in this all alone if it weren't for him. And there he was, looking all hard edged and more. It was enough to inspire a small smile on her lips.

No matter who was watching she climbed the few steps with the cushion and high ankle support of the Air Jordan 1's, to say nothing of unnatural quickness and grace, and was upon him in the blink of an eye. Her arms wrapped him up by the shoulders and for a moment Eva just clung, holding and hugging into his body, her voice so quiet and faint as she whispered at him, "it's coming, I hear it."

Her body slid down off him as she found the floor below with her feet again, and turned her face to look directly up and at him. At the concern. "Get ready." She nodded at him several times quickly, as if to point emphasis on it all. "I can't stay long. I'm still not 'me' right now. I just...had to say hi," her voice said, big brown eyes staring into his saying everything else that Eva could not, or dare not, say aloud. 

"Then say hi." His voice was soft when he spoke to her in turn, barely more than a whisper as he sunk down beside her, coming to rest on the step just above her, his turn to hold her by the shoulders, a protective embrace that threatened the complete obsoletion of the rest of the world. Nothing here but us. As he spoke, one of his fingers reached up to his own mouth, sliding his thumb across the sharp point of his right canine, the shot of true pain enough to heighten his own senses. As she turned up to him he pressed the tiny wound of his digit to her lips. No other kindred could have been trusted with the blood of ages, a bloodline so removed from humanity even in his deliberately weakened state to be aflame with potential. To try to drink from him like you would a kine or other kindred would mean certain doom for the vampire who tried, the veins burning with the power. Just a taste? Just a drop for the kindred who had shown again and again that the spark of humanity had not fully died within her? A balm to keep voices almost as ancient as the blood she tasted from overwhelming her. Henry's eyes tensed as their souls met, as part of him was brought into her. It did not feel as new as it should have.

Afterwards his hands held her, just a few further moments of denying the outside world, of ignoring the screams of his past which warned him yet again of the spiral this vampire woman had begun. Her voices were more real than his, he had to remind himself of that, but the ones he heard dripped from the memories of every day of his long, long, life. His right hand squeezed her cheek, in a manner that could even be slightly condescending, a moment of teasing so that they did not end on melancholy.

"Stay Safe."

As if any of them could.