The Vardo

[Scuttle Buttin']

A short, small wind kicked up as she emerged at last from her safety and security, as predictable and stupid as ever. A thrown bolt and his task became exponentially harder. She kept home field advantage, as it was, and getting to her... at best, it would be a waiting game. But no. She had to show him that she wasn't scared and come marching out... with...

In the shadows, his eyes narrowed, squinting, the light rolling around so he couldn't quite see what was in her hands at first. The phone, yes, it's screen still glowing brightly, sending it's image out into the darkness, a few small inches of glowing knife against bright, white throat.

A bat.

He almost laughed aloud when he finally saw what it was, and in the darkness his head shook, once, disappointed. She stopped a few strides away, just to the side of the fire, the circle of light swimming over her feet like waves on the beach. The phone slid smoothly through the air, lit screen tumbling over and over until it landed with a muffled thump between his feet. He was actually a little impressed with the throw.

"Trouble?," he answered when she'd finished, his tone entirely innocent and curious, "Who wants trouble? You told me I should drop by sometime, and..."

His hands pulled from the pockets of his jacket, and in one the knife was still held, the blade flashing yellow in the light, and he held them out to either side of himself.

"...here I am. And you..."

His voice trailed off, and he clicked his tongue. Elbows back on the armrests of the chair he sat in, he let the hand holding the knife rest on his leg, letting the blade reach into the yellow sphere. Leaning forward, he moved almost fully into the light, blue eyes sparkling in the clapping, popping firelight.

"Every time I give you a little bit of credit for being smart, girl, you make me regret it. A baseball bat? How fucking stupid..."

Unable to continue, contempt etched into his features, he rolled his eyes and sat back, one leg lifting and crossing casually over the other.

"This is going to be hard for you, apparently, but try to focus here. If someone comes with a knife, you don't bring a bat. A bat is slow. You have to pull your arms back to swing a bat."

The knife is lifted, his wrist rotated, reflected light cast around the little circle they share now.

"If I really wanted to hurt you... well."

The knife was lowered back to his leg, and he snorted a short laugh.

"I was going to say that you're smart enough to realize that you wouldn't be able to stop this knife, bat or no. But I guess you're not, are you?"

He arched his back against the chair, joints popping, a satisfied little exhale let loose as he got more comfortable. His eyes slid from her to the fire, and he lifted the tip of the knife and began to tap out a rhythm against the leg of his pants, one of a thousand songs that made a quick stop in his head during the day.

"Anyway," he said finally, his tone that of a person irritated with the subject at hand and looking to change it, "You really should get rid of the bat, girl."

He paused, and even with his face obscured by the shadows, he knew she'd hear the terrible little smile on his lips as it crept into his voice.

"Because if you don't, I'm going to fuck you with it."

His legs uncrossed and he sat forward again, face back in the light, the smile gone from both his lips and his voice.

"And if you threaten me with it again," he said, the tip of the knife now off his leg and pointed in her direction, "I'll fuck you with the fat end of it. And the knife handle will find a different hole to fill."

 

[saysalice]

"Trouble?"

At once, it was hard to breathe. As if someone had laced her into a steel-boned corset - acid green, like the taste in her mouth - and then jerked on the strings, cinching her waist too tight, crushing her ribcage in a bear hug, forcing her to take shallow breaths.

Him.

"You told me I should drop by sometime, and..."

She drew a sharp breath as she watched him take the knife out and deliberately place it where she could see it.

"...here I am."

With that knife. Something inside her started shuddering, but outwardly she was stone-still. She had invited him. Very slowly, she turned her head over her shoulder to gauge the distance back to the vardo. Had to be him. At the sound, that contemptuous little cluck, she flinched - feeling it in her face and shoulders. When she turned back, he was leaning into the light so that she could see his face, like he'd made her acknowledge the knife. Her chest rose and fell heavily, and she tightened her grip with both hands on the bat. Him with a knife.

Her mind was racing: think! think! as he was calling her fucking stupid, as her knuckles ached, squeezing the smooth unforgiving wood between her fingers. And still -

He's got a knife - fucking hunting knife - look at it! The reflected flames gleamed on its mirrored surface, on its keen edge, and she blinked away. Looked up into his face again - contemptuous sneer - and felt something unwelcome twist in her belly. Blinked away. She was trying to listen, but only caught snippets until he sat back again, sinking into the shadows.

"If someone comes with a knife, you don't bring a bat," he was saying.

Don't bring a bat. She adjusted her grip, feeling her fingers slip, slick against the wood. Don't bring a knife to a gunfight. Why, oh why hadn't she asked Marnie to get her a gun?

The flash of light caught her eye as he played with it, showing her how easily, how liquidly it moved in his hand. She'd never even hit a baseball - did she believe him?

"If I really wanted to hurt you..."

She hated the way her heart lunged suddenly in her chest like a tiger in a cage. He didn't need the knife.

she was glad he'd brought it

NO. Fuck - look at it. She made herself watch as he toyed with it restlessly, made herself imagine in crimson detail the ease with which he could pull such a knife through the soft belly of a deer, spilling its steaming guts onto the forest floor. She made herself imagine the sound of it, the coppery smell, the warm wet spatter on his bare hands.

He didn't need a knife. She'd invited him. So why bring it? What were his plans? She didn't know him, with a knife.

If I really wanted to hurt you...you wouldn't be able to stop me.

She stifled a shudder. He didn't want to hurt her - did she believe it? He didn't need a knife to take what he wanted...did he? What did he -

He was speaking again, telling her to put the bat down. She snorted a harsh, incredulous little laugh, tossing her head to swing her curls out of her eyes.

he doesn't really want to hurt you - are you sorry?

Oh, I'm stupid...

I am stupid

...but I'm not -

What he said next - so easily, and with a quiet smile in the dark made her blanch in horror, made her weak. A low moan died in her throat before it could escape her lips, and now as he leaned into the light, not smiling, she could feel herself beginning to tremble, the shape of the bat a long stuttering shadow in her hands.

She winced again as he gestured at her with the knife, an extension of himself, and told her frankly how he would use her weapon against her. Did she believe him? Yes. Her grip went limp in reflex, fingers tried to drop the bat, but she clenched her jaw and made herself hold on.

Hold on.

Stupid, to leave the safety of her little cabin. Not to make him work for it, expend all that energy breaking down the door. She could see herself, ready with the bat, taking the first swing at his panting head the minute he crashed through. She wouldn't take her eyes off him again, but considered sprinting back to the vardo, diving under the stairs - stupid to drop the key - could she get to it, get back inside before he -

Her gaze darted past him, just once, to the dark forest beyond. Could run. She knew these woods - even in the dark, she would know the hidden trails, know the deadfalls and burrows and streams. Sitting all this time by the fire, his eyes would need crucial minutes to adjust - she could run, hide, evade him.

Except that he might not chase her. With her scampering through the forest, he could comb through the thin brown grass at his leisure. He knew her weakness, knew sure enough how to bring her back. Everyone did. A single card from the tarot deck flashed in her mind's eye:

She couldn't run.

He was watching her patiently, unsmiling as she considered her non-options. Her lips tightened on a grim smile, and she let the bat fall to her side, keeping her fingers curled firmly around it - the narrower end of it. Under her nightgown, she felt her cunt clench worriedly at her choice.

"Stupid." It felt slightly obscene, to say the word aloud. Testing her voice: tremulous, an octave higher than her normal speaking voice - understandable, given the circumstances. Her blue eyes met his steadily, but she couldn't slow her racing pulse. "Wouldn't it be very stupid to give up the only weapon I have?"

She swallowed, pressing the bat into the ground for support. "You put that knife to my throat while I slept. It scared me. I don't want..."

Her voice failed her. She couldn't repeat his explicit threat.

"You put the knife down, and I'll drop the bat. You don't need the knife."

She let out a shuddery breath, and pushed her hair off her face, trying to be calm, knowing well enough what even this compromise would mean.

"Put the knife down. Throw it into the woods. Play nice, and I will, too."

 

[Scuttle Buttin']

Sitting there with his face warmed by the fire, he sighed quietly to himself as she began to prattle on, offering deals, exchanges, suggestions. Useless blather that dribbled from her brain and out her mouth in an intermittent, fairly ineffectual stream. He couldn't help but to laugh when she told him to throw the knife into the woods, a sound that rose above the fire and seemed somehow too loud in the stillness of the clearing. Shaking his head slowly, he let his eyes drift to the fire, and left her to stand in the semi-dark in her nightgown with her useless security blanket of shaped ash.

"Alright," he said at last, and stood from his chair as he did. His eyes were back on her now, but instead of advancing on her, he only turned so he might face her more fully.

"I drop the knife, you drop the bat, and we play nice? That's the deal you're offering me?

His head shook again, wide eyes blinking in the night as chin and forehead moved in opposite directions, tipping head head to the side.

"But what if I have no intention of playing nice? What then, girl? We just... go at each other, right here?" he asked, his empty hand sweeping across the expanse of the clearing around them. "I'll run at you with my knife, and you'll try to get a hit in before I make new holes in you that didn't exist before?"

His head straightened, and shook at her again. The faux curiosity that had been sketched across his features were wiped away, and a knowing, hungry grin replaced it. His teeth gleamed in the unsteady light.

"I think not. See, I'm going to need that bat now. I told you what would happen if you didn't drop it and, unless the shadows are playing tricks on me..."

The knife was lifted, and he pointed to her side with it.

"There it still is, in your hand."

His eyes lifted back to her face, and a slow, pitying shake of his head began.

"Poor, stupid girl. She thinks she wants the most terrible things, until confronted with them and it's much too late to take it all back. But..."

He paused, and his eyes slid to the left, then the right, and then settled back on her. Leaning forward on the balls of his feet, his voice lowered to a conspiratorial tone.

"I'll share a secret with you. Just me and you, okay? You must promise to keep this to yourself, though: I don't give a single, solitary fuck what you want."

When he stood from his chair, they had looked almost like perverse gunslingers in the wild west, forty pace apart and ready to face off against each other. Now, he began to swallow up that distance between them, his feet still quiet on the soft, cold ground. He walked with purpose, free of hesitation or change in direction, one foot steadily placed in front of the other, carrying him closer, closer, closer...

"You may be thinking about swinging at me," he said when he'd disposed of nearly half of the distance that previously separated them, the knife lifted into her field of view as he did, "But I really can't be held responsible for how I react if you do. Something you may want to think about..."

He intended to fit his hand under her chin and across her throat, put her in his grip and not let go until he was well and truly done with her. Whether or not she forced a change in his plans, however, was entirely up to her.