WELCOME!

[comatose]

Andrew laughed, shaking his head. “Actually, it’s not that bad. The colors are all really nice together,” he offered as he nodded is head up and down her ensemble. That pattern was really dated, as was the silhouette, but Andrew kept his mouth shut. Besides, this girl was gorgeous. You could probably put her in a trash bag and she’d look like attractive avant garde.

He raised an eyebrow at the mention of her brother. So he was a slayer, huh? Andrew gave a meaningful glance to the stake in the wall, but he didn’t say anything. He had things in his past he was not proud of and would not like people delving into. He could respect the privacy of this girl and not talk about the elephant in the room if she wanted.

“Ahaha, really? I am working with the folks in the graphics department on fixing up the airline’s logo. That calligraphy font is really dated,” he said, smiling, “Besides, stewardesses always make a photoshoot better. Always. It’s like geisha--- well, maiko. But they do really well for photoshoots and ad campaigns.”

Andrew listened intently, nodding his head on occasion. She was actually pretty smart and had a little sass to her. he had to admit, he liked that.

He liked her even more when she requested he pose for her. “Well? Uh… mm,” Andrew considered the somewhat of an offer for a moment and then grinned, “For me in particular, you’d just have to pose for one of my shoots. How about it?

But when you are actually having to pay people, try the local college’s art department. Students there will usually pose for about ten or fifteen bucks an hour.”

[nmiss]

Brittany listened happily, almost light heartedly, as he talked about his work. She could tell that he really liked what he did and that made her happy for him. He obviously had a more up to date sense of style than she did for she could see the look in his eyes that told her there was something off about the outfit she was wearing.

"The colors are really nice together."

She had no doubt that he was being truthful in that. But it seemed he couldn't quite bring himself to utter any lies about the ensemble. She respected him for that. He had the rare gift of praising the possitives without mocking the negatives.

She wondered what the new airline logo would look like and was about to ask him what a Geisha or Maiko was when he threw out a shuggestion that nearly made her fall out the window.

“For me in particular, you’d just have to pose for one of my shoots. How about it"

She caught herself and looked at him in shocked confussion for a moment.

"Pose for one of your shoots?" She blushed. He was joking. Wasn't he? Charon had often told her she was attractive but the truth was she always believed that he was predisposed to think she was beautiful no matter what. She knew she had some attractive qualities to her but she had never thought of them as being eniough to warrant anyone wanting to photograph her. There was only one way to find out whether he was pulling her leg or not.

"Um, alright," she agreed nervously "but I warn you I am really camera shy and I don't know thing one about posing."

If he was serious it might be fun. Besides she didn't think any of the pictures of her that resulted from such a shoot would actually end up in any publications or anything like that - after all that's what professional models were for. Wasn't it?

[comatose]

Andrew smiled at this. “Great. I think you will have a lot of fun—and I don’t know. I think all the snooty, special things they teach models nowadays make shoots look way too staged. It needs to look a little more natural and so I think you will actually do better than your average Tyra Banks,” he said, again being honest. Besides, she was very pretty- and a different kind of a pretty. Brittany wasn’t your average ghostly thin waif wandering around with long, unstyled hair. admittedly, she was not an incredibly versatile looking girl, but what did Andrew care for that? there were millions of models, it shouldn’t matter if one girl looked good in five million different kinds of shoots if another girl looked incredibly in just one.

It was this sort of logic that had gotten him this far, so he had no reason to doubt this idea. even if no one else in his line of work seemed to agree.

“So, do you have a number I can contact you at? A certain time you’re not busy….? I’ll write some stuff down for you, too, if you really want me to pose for you,” he said, still a little mused. It was not like he thought he was bad looking or anything, it was just a strange request. Andrew himself was not really… model material.

He was a little too funky looking, but then, he supposed, painting is a very different animal. You are able to tweak things more.

“There is a real fantasy to that kind of art, isn’t there? Painting, I mean. It must be nice to have it be that easy to make something in your head come to life, without all the models and the lighting and text and junk,” he mused aloud, looking over at her again, “How long have you been painting?”

[nmiss]

"Um, I'm busy almost all th time," she replied, "I'm sort of wary of letting myself be idle. Afraid if I don't keep busy I'll end up like the rest of my family and start hun ... I mean that I'll either start to get lazy or something like that" she mentally slapped herself for letting even that much slip out as she pulled out the cell phone she carried with her everywhere, "that's why I keep this thing with me. Do you have something to write the number down on?"

"Actually, I think there's far more fantasy in the shots you see in those fashion magazines of yours," she replied to his statement about painting, "I paint what I see, sometimes it's a pretty picture and sometimes it's not. But it may seem like a fantasy picture to some because not everyone sees the world in the same way. The magazines seem to be dominated by straight haired, blue eyed blondes who look like they would fall over if you blew on them with a few token brunettes and ethnic women thrown in here and there with red heads showing up the rarest of all. I don't know though. I don't read many fashion magazines."

She hoped she hadn't insulted him. Maybe it was his job to find those models. Maybe companies like his really did think that pictures of blond bimbos really was what the world wanted - maybe they were right.

"I've been painting since I was six years old. It was introduced to me by a kind lady who I owe a lot to. And I went to a art school durring the first half of my teenage years - kept changing my major between painting and music. And now I have a question for you ... Who, or what, is Tyra Banks?"

[comatose]

“Idle hands are the devil’s tools, right?” Andrew said, smiling pleasantly. He really couldn’t care much what secret she was so set on hiding. As far as he knew right now, anyway, it was not hurting him any so why meddle when she so obviously did not want to share?

“I can actually just tell you the number and you just type it in,” he said with a light laugh. He gave her his cell phone number with a proud smirk for still being “old fashioned” enough to memorize numbers. “I’d give you my work one, too, but… I tend to ignore those. What can I say? I’m lazy.”

Andrew nodded at her explanation for why she saw fantasy in both genres. It was a very interesting perspective on things… He really liked it, actually. Maybe he could keep in touch with Brittany, picking her brain for new concepts and different opinions would definitely be nice.

“I definitely can see that. If I had my way, our shoots would be a lot more realistic looking. But, since I can’t have that, I have been doing my best to inject a little obvious details so that the shoots look orchestrated or something. lately, I get my way more often so we’ve been creating a lot more ‘slice of life’ style things, though,” he said, “but the thing I really like about painting is that it’s so much more up for interpretation. And it’s always changing, whereas things like fashion… they tend to go in a big boring circle with small, small changes that are probably just borrowing from something else, anyways.”

“Art school, eh? I don’t think I could handle that many creative people in one place,” he admitted with a grin, “And…uh… Tyra Banks is a very famous super model. You should google her. Er… you do know what Google is, right?” Maybe Andrew should bring her a stack of”educational” magazines next time he saw her. Brittany could use a little updating on information, it seemed.

[nmiss]

"Yes, they are," replied Brittany in relief when he seemed to simply shrug off her mistake. She liked this guy - he was so easy going and relaxed; she wished she could learn to be that way.

Then suddenly she found herself having to press buttons quickly on her phone to get his number programed in. She repeated it back to him to make sure she had it right and then asked, is your name spelled A N D R E W?" as she worked on labeling the entry, "Or is it something else?"

"It sounds like you're what's up and coming in the magazine business then," she told him with a smile, "those same old same old magazines need some thing different - something that will make the readers actually imagine themselves wearing the cloths in them. I mean that's what they're there for right? To sell cloths?"

"I didn't really notice, I was a bit of a recluse back then. I still am. I applied in secret and I'm not proud to say I refused to eat until my parents agreed to let me attend. They didn't like it and pulled me out after only a few years. They weren't too big on education so yeah I never graduated if you're wondering. They always said it was a waste of time and there were more important things to do. But I always found ways to study anyway. There was only one real friend I had there, at the art school, anyway - and he's been gone for a long time now. I still miss him. He was going to be the best sculpture the world had ever seen - I still have some things he carved for me. "

[comatose]

“Mm hm, you got it right,” Andrew affirmed, “I’m not fond of the prissy trend to add and take away letters in my name to take it look cool. One of the assistants for the head haunchos at Virgin prefers to be called ‘De-boar-rah’ . It’s really incredible… I call her Debbie.” He grinned at his own joke as he sauntered over to an available, if very dusty, sofa and lounged in it.

“I hope I’m still what’s up and coming,” he said with a snort. Andrew nodded in approval to Brittany’s idea of what the magazines were like and should be aiming for. “You’re right, though I’m more interested in selling an entire lifestyle. Clothes are nice, but furniture is a lot more expensive. So are some concert tickets and going to clubs every Saturday night.”

Andrew’s smile faded when she talked about her friend at the art school. He nodded in a silent understanding. “I know that’s rough, but.. hey, at least you get to see the happy memories that his sculptures leave behind, right?”

[nmiss]

She looked out the window at he cathedral across the street, with its buttresses and gargoyles, and smiled sadly at the memories that it dredged up. "Yes, and he would have loved Sangre," she replied finally, "and, I think, Sangre would have loved him. He was a rare soul. The world lost a great artist when he died."

Brittany wondered what Andrew would say if she told him her friend had also been a young incubus just learning to understand the 'needs' that were common to his species and that it was because of what he was that he had died. As she thought of him a strange thought occurred to her and before she realized what she was doing she was asking him something.

"Would you like to see some of his sculptures?"

[comatose]

Considering it was still painful to even think his own lost friend’s name, Andrew was surprisingly well equipped with understanding as Brittany spoke about the artist. He just nodded in silence and knowing that at least when he did occasional vent, he was not looking for a reply. He was looking for someone to listen.

Losing friends was a rare and difficult thing. And it felt strange when you took the emotions from an object, like something so bitter you knew it was a mistake, but then... it was like whoever left those emotions wanted to share. That was how desperate people were to get rid of that kind of pain.

“Yeah, I would,” he said almost automatically to the offer, “I would love that.”

[nmiss]

Brittany smiled when he accepted her offer.

"Okay, they're at my apartment," she told him, "it's a set of sculptures actually; a little chess set he made me out of marble and obsidian with a board to match. I take them out when I want to remember him. Unfortunately I don't know how to play and he never got the chance to teach me."

She looked down to the street below for a moment, "They're at my apartment. It's a bit of a walk. Do you want to see them now or meet again and see them later?"

[comatose]

“Maybe I can teach you.” But not with that set. No thank you. Andrew just sort of shrugged. He usually would get to go home after his “sight seeing” in the haunted house, to give himself a chance to soak up all the spooky stories he gets a hold of. As he was finding out, though, if he didn’t rest after using his ~ability~ that much, he really did get exhausted.

“I probably should be getting back to my own place tonight. Maybe we can go after the shoot, yeah?” he suggested instead, “But down the street is on my way, so I can walk you home if you want. In this city… that’s probably a good idea.” And not just for Brittany. Andrew didn’t get it- maybe he smelled good or something really sickening like that, but there were also vampires stalking around when he was alone.
So. Messed. Up.

[nmiss]

Brittany had to stop herself from rolling her eyes and laughing at him. It wasn't as if she hadn't been out in the middle of the night all alone in Sangre Del Angeles before. But she managed to control herself and smiled and him instead.

"That would be very kind of you," she said "it is quite a long walk though. Are you certain? Oh and um, when would the shoot be? As a freelancer I pretty much have control of my own schedule - so I'd be free for anytime. Though I prefer night time. And Thank you I would really love to learn to play. I'm actually thinking of lending the chess set to the museum as part of the local treasures display. You could wait to see it till then if you wanted."

She couldn't believe how easy it was to be with Andrew, she'd never found it easy to be with anyone but Charon and Emmet and, what was his name? Ah yes, Gabrielle - there was a soul she wished she had gotten to know better.