Patreon LogoYour support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)

Driven Between Sun and Moon [Damon and driven]

Joined
Aug 4, 2013
Clutch, shift, gas.

A small smirk curled the corner of the driver's lips upward as the blow-off valve of the sizable turbocharger that peaked beneath the hood of the black MkIV Toyota Supra whistled. Eyes of a rich, deep amber darted down to glance at the speedometer to watch the glowing orange needle rise to sixty - then - seventy miles per hour. God, she needed this; she needed the freedom of her growling V6 barreling down a dark back road, windows down and playing with the wisps of curly black hair that escaped from the confines of her long braid. She settled back into the bolstered Alcantara Recaro seats, leisurely shifting into fourth gear as the little needle crept upward into the hundreds. She had long-since determined that these beautiful crafts of machinery were truly the best part of the modern day and age.

Her mind wandered as she steered the car around a long, arced left turn. Marissa had been forced to move once more, arriving in the town of…of…oh what the hell was the name of it, again? She had gone through and lived in so many hole-in-the-wall towns over the years that she barely paid attention to the names any longer. She had worked her way from Italy to Germany, and then eventually into Ireland and England, dancing her way around the various wars and skirmishes the best that she could. The sounds of battle were still a trigger for her and made her fangs ache and her blood lust rage against her self control. She had kept to smaller towns even then. Densely populated areas made her anxious and as the industrial era blossomed, the advance in technology and machinery had not helped. She would get restless if she stayed in one place for too long, not to mention the other dilemmas of her condition just made it easier to keep moving every so often. She had stayed in and around England until air travel had become the norm. By then, she mustered up her courage to take the tense eight hour flight to the United States to settle and explore there.

She had actually been loath to leave her previously comfortable home in Lilydale, New York. The psychic town - immediately aware of what she was and why she was lying low - had taken her in without question or fear, which was something she would never forget. However, the tourist industry had begun to treat the town as an attraction and the various visitors were starting to make her uneasy. This fueled her decision to move on with promises to return at some point down the line. She did plan to return as needed. It was a rather strange feeling to know that she had found a possible home to return to someday.

Marissa brushed the thought from her mind right along with the lump in her throat and tears in her eyes. She just couldn’t let time get away from her like she usually did. While she might not have looked a day over twenty-five, she was certainly well beyond the modest twenty-six years old she claimed to be. She had grown to perceive time as nothing but a blur after the first century or so.

She shook her head and let her right foot ease off of the throttle as the engine noise steadily declined right along with the needle of the speedometer. The sun was beginning to creep over the horizon, and the roads would, inevitably, begin to be populated by those making their way to work, school, and so on. That also meant that the police force would be much more active, not to mention the roads much less free to her reign. She downshifted with a dance of her feet as she slowed, falling into the flow of the appropriate speed limit with a little breathy sigh. The exercise in freedom had felt good and relieved her of some of the stress of her move and the opening of her garage. She had not given herself nearly enough time to explore, something she chided herself for often. Things had been quiet, though, and she had finally made the decision to wander into the wee hours of the morning.

With her driving style adjusted to that of normal traffic, she made her way through town and directed herself back into the neighborhood that was her new home. She was only renting the nondescript house, of course. No point in buying when her time in any one area was generally limited. She was expecting one final moving truck: a large delivery from the friends she had left behind that had insisted they contribute to her move. The thought brought a smile to her full lips as she pulled into the driveway, the garage door opening at the press of a button as she eased her vehicle into the cover of it. With the turn of a key, the engine was silenced, the car left securely in gear and then locked as she stepped from the garage and let it close behind her.

Her arms stretched lazily above her head and caused her white tank top to inch up above the waistband of her black shorts and give a peek of the smooth, toned pale flesh beneath. The suns rays were still low over the horizon and not yet flushing the grounds around her, contributing to the quiet of early morning. The newspaper, however, was already awaiting her at the end of the driveway, and so she traipsed down and stooped to pick it up...

...when she caught whiff of...something. Again.

She straightened and tensed, her eyes narrowing as associative neurons fired and connected the scent to a memory, one she had hoped to avoid for as long as possible. It was not overwhelming, the reason she had brushed it off the first time she had caught wind of it. But for it to persistently tickle her olfactory nerves when she least expected it? There had to be one somewhere, and the thought made her upper lip curl upward into a sneer.

Just fucking great. If she was lucky, they just might avoid each other for the duration of her stay. Too bad she was rarely so.

***

"Mariiiii~ c'mon out with us tonight, eh? I've got people to introduce you to!"

Marissa pinned her cellphone between her right shoulder and ear as she leaned over the engine bay and eased the dipstick back into the block of the 2JZ. "I never said I wouldn't," she laughed, her accent neutral after years of living under the radar. "I just needed a little time to tune up the Supra if I'm gonna actually be debuting at this race of yours."

The male on the other side of the line hooted. "Fuck yeah! Do you know where Isla Pandora is?"

Marissa straightened, pale brow furrowed as she scanned the map she'd been formulating in her head. "Is that the one off seventy-third and Russel?"

"Hell yeah it is! Take a cab and meet us at nine. We're gonna have to break you in the right way: you're gonna get sooo shit-faced."

Marissa's eyes rolled. Her becoming "shit-faced" was wishful thinking at best. "Whatever you say, Jack. I'll see you guys there." She cut off Jack's sing-song toned farewell with the touch of a button and then set her hands on her hips as she surveyed the resting vehicle in front of her. Being a vampire, she did, in fact, prefer the nightlife, though the notion that she would dissipate into dust in a little sunlight was preposterous. The hilarity of some of the vampire superstitions were endless. At any rate, she had a party to prepare for.

In just a few hours, the vampire stepped from a cab in a pair of tight-fitting, blue skinny jeans, black heeled ankle boots and a grey long-sleeved crop top. Agile hands tousled her loose tresses as she stepped up to the door and dug the necessary cover fee out of her pocket before crossing the threshold of the club. She supposed they were very much going for the "beach" theme; the dance floor was colored with reflective, marbleized blue tiles she presumed were to mimic the ocean, faux palm trees of various heights lined it and the various paths to a large, long bar on the east wall. The lighting was predominately in reds and blues as music pulsed from an array of speakers and throngs of people gathered to dance or around tables and booths. She slipped a hand into the front pocket of her jeans as she scanned the crowd, glad she had fed not-too long ago. There were a bit too many people gathered for her to have to worry about any temptations.

A familiar face tucked into a large circular booth near the bar caught her eye and she smirked as Jack's familiar blond head perked up when he made eye contact. Two hands flung up into the air to flag her down and she shook her head as she approached the group. So she must be social.
 

[td]
Kurt's phone rang with its customary tone, filling the air with the first notes of a heavy metal song. A click of the button swiftly dispatched the tune away, as the lycan put his mouth to the speaker.

"Volkov speaking", he growled in a low tone into the phone.

"Hey, bro, it's Jack! Wanna hang out tonight? There's a friend of mine coming to town tonight, and man! You gotta meet her, she's just like you! Won't spoil the surprise for you, though, so if you want to know more, you'd better come to Isla Pandora!", the man at the other side of the line claimed, trying to keep the mystery as a leverage over Kurt's head.

Kurt was, after all, not one of the most sociable individuals around. He was a man of few words, as he defended that actions showed the true mettle of a person. Rather than speaking, he preferred to go ahead and show others how things should be done; rather than socialising with others, he preferred to do things on his own. This was the exact reason why he got the epithet of 'Lone Wolf' by most of his friends, which actually struck rather close to the truth. Most of his acquaintances, however, were blissfully oblivious to Kurt's true personality and nature, and he expected things to continue like that. He wasn't one to let others get too close to his comfort zone.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll show up. Eight-thirty?", he asked back. "Sounds good, my man! See you at eight-thirty, bro! We're gonna get wasted tonight, mark my words!", Jack replied a bit too enthusiastically for Volkov's taste. With a brief growl of dissatisfaction and a succinct farewell, Kurt turned off the phone and began getting ready for the event.

The lycan walked to his closet and pondered for a brief moment on what he should wear for this night - after all, despite not being a social person, he also did not want to run the risk of making a bad first impression on whoever the unknown woman was. Kurt settled down for a white shirt that clearly revealed his muscles underneath, a pair of stonewashed jeans pants and a hefty black leather jacket that completed the whole 'outlaw young spirit' kind of outfit. Satisfied with the result, he sprayed a dash of his perfume against the surface of his neck rather faintly, as strong smells commonly annoyed him to no end. When he was all set for the evening, he grabbed the key to his white BMW i8 and stepped out of the door.

Despite his car, Kurt was not actually a person of rich ascent. He lived in a very modest house and worked a series of oddjobs here and there to get extra money; still, his car was his most prized possession, to the point that he would easily spend three whole months of his earnings just to substitute the current turbocharger for a better model. With hope, however, his financial situation would change. Kurt had met Jack when attending some reunions of the street racing clubs, and his friend told him that he could arrange an opening in the next competition that was about to happen. The prize was not a huge amount of money, but Kurt was fully aware that winning would begin to pave his path to notoriety - fame can be as important, if not more, as money.

The male opened the door to his vehicle and slung his body over the leather seat, taking in the smell and the texture of being in his own element. Kurt felt alive every time he entered in his own machine, as if it was an extension of his limbs. The car and the lycan, they were interchangeable; they were symbiotic hunters that rushed into the night. With a prodding of his foot, the accelerator was pushed and the engine began roaring loudly as a predator that had been unleashed - he stuck his foot to the gas and began marching from gear to gear as the needle of the tachometer bounced up and down in the blink of an eye. Luckily so, Volkov's house was located on the outskirts of the town, right next to a highway. This allowed him to let his car race down the path to the city in whichever ways he seemed fit, without getting tickets too frequently for speeding.

His car dashed through the road and into the entrance of the city, signalling that the speed for that way was 40 miles per hour. Reluctantly, Kurt nudged his brakes and lowered the speed to a measly 50 miles per hour, knowing that no one would ever stay in the way of his car. They never did.

At last, the visage of the bar appeared through the windshield - Volkov looked at the clock and saw that only 14 minutes had passed from his departure to his arrival, which granted him more than enough time to find a parking space in the vicinity. After circling the block twice, a space opened and he forced his way into the slot, with no regard for anyone else. That spot was his.

Kurt stepped out of the car and locked it, taking the steps into the rendezvous point that was previously scheduled. He was a little ahead of schedule, but Jack seemed to be more prompt than him nonetheless; the colleague's right hand shot in the air to indicate the booth that he was currently occupying.

"Hey, if it isn't Kay, the man of the hour! How you holding up, bro?", Jack asked in a tone that seemed too excited for Kurt to register. The lycan could only emit a low growl of dissatisfaction as he bumped fists with his friend. "Told you to not call me this way, but it seems like asking you never works. I think you promised someone else would be with us tonight, though?", Volkov asked in return, looking around to see if anyone else was nearby.

"Yeah, about that, I kinda forgot to tell you that I invited you over before her arrival. We both know that you're an ass before you've had a drink, and I don't want you to screw up your chances before you begin talking to each other. You're welcome", Jack replied with a too-satisfied smirk, which elicited a rare short smile from Kurt's lips.

The man ordered a shot of whiskey and began talking to Jack, awaiting for the arrival of the friend that the colleague seemed to keep shrouded in such mystery.​
[/td][td]                                           [/td]
 
Marissa took a breath and approached the booth, unable to see the face of the stranger that had his back towards her. Jack, on the other hand, was still too excited for his own good; he might as well have been a puppy wagging his tail. Her gaze drifted to the bar first, though, and she decided that she was going to need alcohol before she made nice. The blond held up a hand as she came within earshot and called over the music.

"Marriiiii!" Her eyes rolled but she smiled nonetheless. Jack was nothing if not eager. "You made it!"

Her left hand smacked his right as she approached and only lingered a moment. "Told you I would. I'm gonna grab a drink really quick and then I'll be back." He pouted and opened his mouth to protest but she was quick on her feet and already halfway to the bar behind him. The open spot she had pinpointed had been filled, and it seemed the rest of the club had her idea of a refreshment. She sighed but fell into line behind two men chatting amiably at the driftwood bar top. When they had received their drinks but remained standing there, she cleared her throat and offered a small smile.

"'scuse me, gentlemen, can I squeeze by for a sec?"

They turned at the sound of her voice and the taller - and clearly more bold - of the two grinned broadly...and made a point not to move. "You surely can."

The nicety faded from her expression and a slender brow arched high on her forehead. She wasn't in the mood for this. When next she spoke, her tone was lower, laced with a sultry sweetness that belied an underlying threat. "Then move." Two pairs of eyes glazed for a moment as they each took a step back and provided her ample space to slide up against the bar and flag down the bartender. She started simple - a beer - and requested a tab be started before turning and making her way back to the booth. The men behind her blinked and resumed their conversation as if nothing had happened. She didn't use that little perk of her condition often, but it came in handy for simple things.

Jack seemed to be animatedly talking to the - admittedly - handsome stranger, but seemed to realize that she was approaching again, because he swung back around to see the bottle of beer in her hand and pouted. "Mari, c'mon! You're really drinking beer right now?"

She lazily slugged his shoulder when she was close enough and slid into the booth beside him. "Calm your shit, man. I came out, didn't I?"

Jack grinned mischievously and jostled her shoulder as she attempted to take a sip from the bottle in her hand. "What'd I tell ya, man?" he goaded as Marissa set her bottle down onto the table. "Anyways! Kurt, this is Marissa Rossi. She's a bad ass with a bad ass car who came to town and is opening up a shop on top of it!"

Marissa rolled her eyes but smiled genially as her amber gaze shifted to the stranger and extended a hand over the table. Something tightened in her gut momentarily but she dismissed it for the time being. "So you're the stranger Jack has been trying to get me to meet. Pleasure."
 

[td]
Kurt watched intently as Jack's friend entered the premises, trying to understand in which way the woman was 'just like him', according to his friend. She didn't seem like the type of woman he usually went out with - surely, she was beautiful and graceful, but there was something that did not match. Something was off, not to mention that she looked too sociable as company for a man that was as openly misanthropic as Kurt. The lycan shook his head, deciding to not worry about it. When the time was right, he'd discover what Jack had meant.

"Marriiiii! You made it!", shouted Jack a little too excitedly, eliciting a short grunt from Kurt - not the kind of derisive grunt, but one of amusement that seemed to imply the phrase "you are impossible". The woman seemed to take that as the appropriate opportunity to take off and hit the bar, so Kurt decided to probe his friend for more answers.

"Man, I think you're totally wrong in your guess. She doesn't seem my type", stated the lycan to his friend. "Are you sure you're not mistaking me for someone else?"

"I stand by what I said, Mister Volkov", Jack said in jest, mocking the way that Kurt usually picked up his phone. "She's the real deal for you, but I'll let you know why later. Can't spoil the surprise now, so now shut the hell up - she must be coming anytime soon", the friend proceeded to speak right before he turned around and saw the woman arriving at the premises.

"Anyways! Kurt, this is Marissa Rossi. She's a bad ass with a bad ass car who came to town and is opening up a shop on top of it!", came the sudden revelation. Wait, what? Was she also a car aficionado? Kurt was taken aback and had to restrain his mouth from spewing the stream of questions that started to form into his brain.

"Easy, now", he thought inwardly, stretching his hand and giving the woman a handshake that was fierce but not overwhelming. Marissa mentioned that Jack was trying to bring her closer to Kurt as well, which came to show that the devious man orchestrated every little detail. Jack was a spaz but he was not dumb.

"Likewise. So apparently you are a fellow driver as well. I know this will sound like a very strange first question, but what's your ride? I also guess, by the way that Jack referred to everything, that you plan to open an auto shop - is that going to be a repair shop, an auto parts shop, or both?", Kurt said as he played it cool, disguising the excitement he felt at talking with another person that shared his passion.​
[/td][td]                                           [/td]
 
Marissa returned the handshake firmly, pleased when his grip was neither weak nor overwhelmingly firm. She found many men either acted as though they would break her or acted as if they needed to overpower her, neither of which appealed to her on a first impression. She returned her hand to her bottle of beer once it was freed and took a swig, though her gaze remained on this "Kurt" character as he tossed some questions her way. They weren't particularly surprising, though his clear interest in cars caused the tension in her shoulders to ease. This, at least, was a conversation she could handle.

She flashed a grin and shrugged nonchalantly. "You could say I dabble in the driving arts a bit," she laughed lightly. "Not a strange first question at all. Actually, my kind of first question." Her head tilted as she brushed the curly strands of dark hair away from her face. "I have a MkIV Supra with a fifty-four millimeter turbo. Rebuilt the 2JZ under the hood, myself...which probably helps answer your next question," she mused. "Ideally, I'll get more performance work than regular repair work, but usually that regular repair work pays the bills more than the performance aspect of things...at least in the beginning." She shrugged. "But I do a little bit of everything." She'd had long enough to dally. And she also wouldn't mention that she bought the Supra brand new back in the day...

Jack sat back with a smug smirk on his lips as he watched the two begin to converse. He leaned forward on the table when she finished explaining her garage and waved his hand flippantly. "Don't let her fool you...I can almost guarantee she'll be building and tuning all of our rides before long."

Marissa's eyes rolled. "He thinks I'm a genius because I fixed his car."

"You are a genius!"

"It was just the fuel pump, man! Seriously, we gotta make you wrench more."

He snorted and waved a hand flippantly. "They told me it was water in the engine!"

She shook her head yet again. "And your first mistake was believing them." She turned back to Kurt. "What do you drive, then?"
 
Back
Top Bottom