It's a trend of Ratter's to play music when he wants to think. Oddly enough, he actually has been thinking lately, about a great many things. Maybe he's finally growing up, or maybe it's just that with that much time on your hands, eventually you have to have some worthwhile musings.

So he sits, long legs stretched out in front of him, on the steps of one of the larger public buildings, one nine o'clock on a weekday night, watching the last of the late night strollers, and sings, ever so softly, Amazing Grace.

He isn't hunting tonight - he's more camouflaged in hunting. He's almost normal-looking here tonight, hair only mildly messy, and while his clothing's from a ragbin, some teens do that deliberately.

I suppose some might consider it an ironic song, coming from him - a song about redemption, when he cares no more for virtue than he does for the sun. He doesn't consider that, however. It's his thinking song, the song he always uses. His mother's name was Grace, you see.

This is likely more detail than you needed about a scruffy boy sitting on some stone steps and singing quietly. Ah well.

Aspen was walking in the night, as she often did, her hand protectively resting on her stomach. She was a good three months pregnant by this time and it showed, but her new maternity clothes had helped take the distraction from her some.

Pregnancy had worked wonders with her, besides making her sick and tired, she looked truly happy and older. She was beautiful really, not that she wasn't before, but this was a different kind of beauty. No longer an innocent child, she was a mother.

That's when she heard a familiar voice, singing in the square. She followed it, looking for the man she had met in the subway. It was so soft, she wasn't sure how she had heard it, but she had. Then she saw him, sitting on the steps. She smiled, walking towards him, pink converse scuffing lazily across the ground.

"Hey," she said more boldy then the last time, "Long time, no see. You sing as beautifully as you play. Mind if I sit with you?"

She wanted to sit next to him, listen to him sing, but she wanted to sing with him as well, though she didn't voice this. She was in choir sixteen years of her life, or there abouts.

(Dum di dum... Juan will bide his time until the perfect entrance.)

He finishes his song, one hand gesturing welcome, fingers pale and thin, so similar to the marble of the steps.

"Long time indeed. Few months, hasn't it been? Please, sit."

He looks her over, now that the song's done, expression vaguely melancholy. "You're looking... good." There's a slightly questioning note to it.

Aspen smiles as he welcomes her and takes a seat next to him, smiling. His statement rather surprised her and then she realized what he was wondering about.

"Oh!" she laughed, putting her hands on her stomach. Her yellow shirt fit her well and her belly didn't hang out.

"I'm pregnant, in case you didn't notice. What are you doing here tonight?"

((sorry so short...ish tired.))

"Just thinking about... heh, my boss. I don't think you'd know him."

He flashes her a slant-wise grin. "Not that I have a day job. I couldn't handle that, I think."

I think he's too relaxed tonight, he forgot about showing fang.

"I never did catch your name." And with mild, casual interest, he adds "Does the kid have a name yet, for that matter?"

Aspen cocked her head curiously, "Your boss? You never know I might know him."

She shrugged, then suddenly she realized what he was. Why he couldn't handle a day job. Oh her gosh.(hehe) Why hadn't she seen it before? Of course, she didn't know it before...but still. He's a night creature, lonesome, one of the undead. She wanted to hit herself and she suddenly wondered if he was safe. It had been three months since she had seen him...and she had learned a lot about his kind since then.

"I know more than you think about...your kind," she said softly, "And my name is Aspen. I don't know what I am going to name my son, but I have an idea. Speaking of names, what is yours?"

He shrugs. "I'm a rat. Call me that." Pause. "Ratt. Two tees. And... Colton. Grinds on my nerves." Another shrug.

"How about Richard? For the kid, I mean."

Right. Ratter's an odd boy, y'know that?

Aspen laughed softly, "Okay Ratt."

Then, at hearing the name of Colton, she suddenly became excited and grabbed onto his shirt, not pulling, just gripping.

"Oh! Colton! He's amazing," Seeing as Ratt didn't think so she quickly calmed down, "He saved my life...and my little boy. I wanted to ask him about using his name as my son's middle name."

She fell silent thinking about that night.

"I'm sorry you two don't get along."

"I just don't get the kid. He doesn't make any sense."

Part of that is probably that Colton tends to avoid talking to him like the plague (as far as Ratter can tell, anyway). It's hard to understand someone if you have no idea what they're like and have talked to them all of two or three times.

Under rather odd circumstances, each time, might he add.

"Tell me about him?" Odd, it should be the other way 'round, but....

Colton's an odd kid.

Aspen smiled, nodding her consent. She could understand how he wouldn't understand Colton. He was hard to understand, she hardly got him. He almost never talked about himself.

"Colton...well he generally keeps to him, but he really is a nice guy. He's always there for me when I need him, though I don't really understand why. He saved my life and he gets me forever now, though he doesn't seem to mind. I think he tries to live as if he were still human. He owns his own business or something and has a little girl. Her name is Celeste. A down right cutie, if I do say so myself. I don't really know how to explain him. He doesn't like to talk about himself, but he seems willing to accept most people as are...though I know he doesn't like a few."

She stopped and shrugged, not knowing what else to say about him. Of course, he was handsome, he was a good father to his niece. He would raise her right. In general though, he was a sweet guy, hardly driven by blood lust. At least from what she could see.

"Why do you ask?"

"Guess I qualify for the group he doesn't like." Pause. "How was I supposed to know the kid was his?" Jeeze. "Not like I did it intentionally. Not like I didn't return her." He adds in a mutter, "Can't believe he's still holding that grudge."

He is so put upon, y'know that?

"Just feel like if I understand him, he'll stop being so damn irritating."

Because Ratter does find Colton irritating. Colton says he wants respect, but doesn't respect anyone around him, despite age or loyalty or anything. He ignores the basic tenits of vampiric life in some vane attempt to remain human, pretends to still be one of them.

Honestly, he might as well be Enashe. Ratter might quite like humans, but he isn't one of them and he knows it and he accepts it. Unlike some.

Yes, that's resentment in there. Ratter's not one to be dishonest with himself (he doesn't care enough about what he thinks of himself to be dishonest about his own motives; he's a rat, he knows it, he accepts it).

Whatever Colton wants, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the wellbeing of the coven, just with what benefits Colton. That's more shortsighted than even Ratter is.

Aspen didn't respond. She didn't think Colton could ever be annoying, but she didn't know what sort of life he lived when the sun fell from the horizon. He could be anywhere doing anything and she wasn't about to question Ratt's motives for not liking Colton, or thinking he was irritating.

"So, don't you have better things to do than sit around her talking to me?"

She cocked her head sideways, to get a good look at him. He looked almost the same as before. She wondered if he ever got lonely, what he did in his free time...besides sing and play. That's when it popped into her head.

"What was it you were singing before I came and interrupted you?"

"I spend most of my time people-watching. The music's just an excuse." He smiles that crooked smile of his. "As for the singing... Amazing Grace. I sing when I want the world to make sense for a while."

The world doesn't make any sense to Ratter. It never has. That's one reason he became a drug addict in the first place, that quest for meaning, for clarity.

He never found clarity. He found darkness, and blood, and the wild rush of the hunt.

Sometimes, in singing, he can almost feel the daylight on his skin. But the night is just as beautiful in its way, and he never fit in with the lightsiders anyway.

He's comfortable in the dark. Not happy, perhaps, but comfortable.

Aspen smiled at his answer. Amazing grace...how ironic.

"That's a funny sort of a song for you," she said smiling. She meant no harm by it. She, of course, could understand why she sang it. Maybe it was the same reason that she did...everybody was just looking for a bit of redemption. She knew she was.

"But I suppose it is for me too, but I love to sing it. It's a lovely song, though it still makes me sad to hear it..."

She fell silent. She wanted to say more about it, but her mind was cluttered. The words played over and over in her head, making her want to cry. She was lost and she was pretty sure that's the way it would always be...and that was a fear that would gnaw at her for the rest of her life. She wished that there really was someone that could take away her pain, but though she wanted to believe it, her heart doubted.

"Whoever wrote that song had hella good thing going on, is all I can say."

Seriously though, being that able to believe that life made sense, well. You had to admire it. Ratter did.

"I like it 'cause it doesn't fit me quite right, see. Me, I'm more like that song I played for you, the wild ride one." He shrugs, made uncomfortable, and changes his tune a bit, distancing himself. Too close, too personal. The way you can be with a complete stranger, because they're no threat at all. With a crooked smile, he adds, "Maybe I just like it for novelty."

He likes it because it's something he'll never have. It has nothing to do with novelty value.

Ratter has defense mechanisms going on, it seems.

Aspen let out a laugh and nodded, "Sure did, I'll say. If only I could be so lucky as to be saved from my wretched life."

Really, she wondered, who was there to save her? She didn't believe in God, or angels...though Colton made her want to believe. How could he be what he was and be so amazing? He was always there when she needed him to be. And Bliss, now there was a man with the face of an angel and a heart of gold.


Then, Aspen thought, there was Cole. Words couldn't describe his complicity. She loved him for it, a friendly love, and she pittied his love for her because she couldn't return it in the same way. Still though, she trusted him with her life and that of her child's.

She shook her head, chasing away thoughts of him, wondering to herself how they had gotten there in the first place.

"I like it because it gives me hope," she finally said, "Even if it is hopeless to hope."

"Ah, hope. Why hope? Life ain't that bad." He grins, baring fangs. "Even death ain't that bad, kid."

He does know her name, I think. He just loves nicknames. Both as a distancing mechanism and as terms of affection.

Distant affection is Ratter's style, see. He doesn't get personal. Getting personal would be too weird, and he doesn't do weird. He does comfortable.

Aspen let out a slight laugh.

"Oh yes! Life is just dandy."

Her voice was laced with sarcasm, her eyebrows creasing in frustration.

"You don't know the half of it..."

Though she was sure he might have. Being a vampire he couldn't have had it all that easy, but being a mortal she didn't have it easy at all. She knew that life now was much better for her than it had been six years or even six months ago, but she didn't call being beaten and raped and abused since she was sixteen a good life.

"Besides, hope is a part of life. Everyone should have hope, because it keeps people going when things turn bad. Life isn't perfect and I'm sure you know that."

Ratter shrugs. "Course I don't know the half of it. I would if you explained though, kid."

He's very big on people explaining things, rather than assuming that he knew what the hell they were talking about. He wasn't a very smart man, come right down to it, and his memory for, well, anything was shot, and in general, he just doesn't know half the things people expect him to.

He makes up for this by not caring.

Aspen sighed shaking her head.

"I don't really want to talk about it. Let's just say I've been down some tough paths in my life."

She shrugged, blushing. She felt suddenly selfish.

"But I'm sure it's nothing compared to...other things..."

She didn't really know what she was trying to say anymore, her mind wandering to other things.

"Look," she said standing up, "It was nice seeing you again, but I think I should head home. Cole will be waiting for me."

She smiled and waved, then she disappeared into a crowd of people walking by. The night was starting to wear her out.

((Figured I'd end this since Aspen is no longer human))

((Sigh. This does keep happening with our threads. 'Nother one, same little time-skip to catch up with her new status? *really /does/ want to take this plot /somewhere/*))

((Don't mean to interject or sound like a stalker, but if Aspen is gonna try and join Nephim, Ratter can be the initiator kinda person... Iunno, Wyste, I'll IM you with something later.))

((Heh, already thought of that, luv. Ratter in our next thread is going to be all *bright idea*. Glad I'm not the only one to think of it.))