The First Laundry Day

[Admin]

Mason leaned against the counter top; her arms folded over her chest and stared as the dryer tumbled the clothes round and round, still half expecting some kind of catastrophe. This was the first time she’d ever washed her own laundry. One of many firsts since leaving her coven to live on her own, most of them domestic related. She had surprisingly little confidence in her ability to perform any new task if it didn’t involve politics, giving orders, or killing a person, three things which were quite rarely found in her new quiet, apartment life.

The dryer buzzed and Mason nervously opened the door, pulling out one of Adrian’s shirts. Since he left the task to her, she used his dirty laundry as her experiment batch. Mason’s laundry basket was still sitting on the floor waiting to be washed only once she established she could do it without destroying the clothes. Mason didn’t mind her clothes being destroyed by cuts, tears or bloodstains but getting ruined in the wash? She couldn’t accept that.

She held Adrian’s light blue dress shirt out in front of her, then switched her arms to look at the back. It was still three or four sizes too big for her. Still an even light blue, and amazingly lacking the stain for which it was thrown into the wash. Adrian had been teasing Mason as she attempted to bake a chocolate cake. It wasn't going well and Mason’s temper being what Mason’s temper is, she had picked up the bowl of ruined cake batter and thrown it at him covering his shirt, and better yet, his face with chocolate cake mix not fit for the oven.

Having determined that the shirt was clean and she could, in fact, do the laundry, Mason buried her face in it, hiding a smile which caused her smile to widen further as she felt the wonderful heat left over from the dryer and the lovely smell from the detergent. I like doing the laundry, Mason decided. But only as long as she didn’t have to fold it afterward.

After pulling all of Adrian’s laundry out of the dryer and haphazardly dumping the clothes back in the basket, Mason went back to the washers and sat on the floor next to her basket, pulling clothing items out one at a time and carefully reading the tags for washing directions before throwing them in the machine with a slight smile.

[ElliBleu]

It wasn't much, really. Adrael hated getting behind on his laundry, never having more than maybe a load and a half that needed to be done. Today he had a basket filled with purple and blue towels, balanced between an arm and his hip as he made his way downstairs and though the short hall. He kept his eyes down, watching the white toes of his Converse flash out from beneath his jeans as he walked.

The hum of the machines was expected, but the male froze as his oversized ears caught the muted rustle of fabric. Subconsciously starting to chew on his lower lip, Adrael moved to tentatively peek around the doorframe as his tail swished uneasily behind him.

A lone girl- woman?- was inside, petite enough to pass as a middleschooler. Addie blinked, tilting his head curiously. She was even shorter than he was, and her hair a snowy white as distracting as his own multi-colored locks were. She was staring intently at a shirt she held in front of her- a mens shirt, meaning she most likely wasn't doing only her own laundry- before pulling the shirt close and hugging it tightly. Like it was a treasure far more valuable than any dress shirt.

The demon quirked a nervous smile at the odd behavior, the expression faltering as she haphazardly tossed all her dry laundry into a basket. Where it would just get wrinkled and need to be ironed later. Why was she making more work for herself? He blinked again as the woman seated herself beside a basket filled with more of her clothing. Her methodical scrutiny of the instruction tag stitched into each article was rather weird. Sure, everyone had those one or two things you just didn't know how to wash or dry, but to read each one...?

Adrael sighed, shifting the basket up a bit higher before stepping into the laundry room. His ears tilted back uneasily, berating his inherent good manners and bashfulness. "Uhm... Miss....?" he offered politely, dipping his head a bit and setting his own basket on the nearest washer. "D'you need any help? And I hope you don't mind if I do some of my own..." he trailed off, using his striped tail to gesture vaguely at his towels.

He was really bad at this sort of thing. In the future he'd stick to doing his laundry long after everyone else had gone to bed.

[Admin]

Mason smelled the boy in the hallway before he peeked around the doorframe, though she couldn’t quite tell what he was; like nothing she’d ever smelled before…well, almost like nothing she’d ever smelled before but she didn’t like thinking about that.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a colorful head and a massive pair of unnatural ears peek around the corner at which she rolled her eyes. The most incredible thing Mason had ever seen walked through the door in the form of a young man barely taller than herself and with the longest tail Mason had ever seen on any creature.

Mason spared his offer for help a mild glare then rolled her eyes again when he asked if he could use the public laundry room that was empty save for herself.

Realizing the timid seeming young man would stand awkwardly in the door way until he had an answer, Mason sighed and said, “Of course you can do your laundry and no, I don’t require any assistance….thank you for offering though…” Mason said the last part a bit awkwardly, unused to thanking strangers but figuring she may as well attempt to be polite to the people she’d be sharing a building with for the foreseeable future.

[ElliBleu]

She glared, and Adrael immediately dropped his eyes to one side. Apparently she was not a social type.

Perfect. This would be the most awful laundry experience ever. And he'd spilled bleach on himself before. More than once.

An ear twitched when the petite woman sighed, cautiously looking over to her again. If she wasn't particularily friendly, at least she was pretty. She seemed to reassess her initial hostility, and if her reply wasn't entirely sincere, it was something.

The demon nodded and offered a small, nervous smile as hisears slid backwards a bit. For such a tiny individual, the white-haired woman was exceptionally intimidating. "N-no problem. Thanks..."

He turned to his laundry basket once more, opening the washer it rested on and hastily adding the towels. He decided the silence beyond the hum of the machines was a particularily uncomfortable one, pulling himself up to sit atop the washer full of his towels.

Curling his tail around his legs, Addie couldn't help but wish he'd stuck to routine. Or that someone else would wander into the room. But then again, that might just make it a three-way party of awkward.

It hadn't quite killed him yet, and everyone was always telling him to talk to people... Mirroring the previous sigh, Addie quietly spoke up. "...I'm Adrael."

[Admin]

Mason ignored the strange boy’s thanks and went back to starting her washing machine so she could finally be done with laundry. It turns out that she didn’t mind doing it as long as she was doing it alone.

The boy sat on his washer and hesitantly introduced himself. Mason failed to suppress a sigh as she glanced back up at him in a flash of emerald eyes.

“Mason Kaydence Blake,” she said briskly. “And consider yourself lucky if that name means nothing to you.”

Mason hit start then went over to the small shelf that held various detergents and softeners and sat atop the frail thing, pulling her laptop on her lap to continue with her work. She may have left the Coven in Jess’ capable hands but she hardly cut all ties, and the older vampire still appreciated Mason’s input and advice since Mason had far more experience in ruling that her aunt Jessica did despite Jessica being older.

The work wasn’t strenuous though, and hardly required Mason’s full attention so she had ample time to examine the boy and search his face for recognition upon hearing her full name; a name that was known to many in the world, and not just vampires.

[ElliBleu]

No, the name meant nothing to Adrael. Not that he was particularly cultured, but... Maybe later he'd look it up. Or ask Belial. He probably had a lot of random information for the sharing. Thinking it would be rude to not reply- though he really would have preferred not to- the demon shook his head. "I guess at least I'm lucky in that respect, then."

He could feel her watching him, having a hard time keeping his own eyes away from her startlingly green ones. Something wasn't quite right about her, even Addie could tell that. Sure, he was shy and timid but never had another woman, besides maybe his mother, intimidated him so much with so very little. The striped fur in his tail bristled out under her scrutiny, his ears taking on an uneasy angle.

What the hell had he gotten himself into? On the way downstairs he'd already been cornered in the stairwell by an alarmingly chipper young woman with a furiously wagging bobtail and been given an icy stare from another unusual girl with a mop of purple-red hair as he crossed the lobby. He was starting to think this building was some sort of gathering place for unpleasant women, making a mental note to check his lease when he got back upstairs. He wasn't sure ow he'd manage if he'd agreed to live here for a long while.

Lifting a hand to his head, he nervously ran it through his hair, finally looking back at Mason.

Adrael was curious about her, really. But too naturally shy and very disinclined to blatantly ask the woman what she was. Swallowing and resisting the sudden urge to nervously twist his tail between his fingers, he spoke up and made sure his tone implied she was welcome to not answer. "I'm guessing you're not from around here...?" Hopefully the uncertain waver in his voice could be attributed to the shaking machine beneath him.

[Admin]

The strange boy left his question open for an actual conversation should she answer. Mason debated with herself. She had left the coven just as she’d wanted to do for a very long time. She had left with Adrian, her long time on again, off again partner and love of her life. She’d left her little remaining family and her very few friends behind including the most unlikely friend; River, the werewolf that had started it all. At least, Mason was fairly certain she’d left the puppy behind but the girl had an incredible knack for finding Mason, particularly when she was least wanted.

Mason had left to create her own life, free from coven politics and free from the oppressive atmosphere that had created her. Adrian had somehow, for the most part, escaped being so adversely affected by the distrust, the backstabbing, the greed, the power, the killing…but then again, she’d always considered him so much stronger than she was. And now, out on their own, she was using his strength to leave the woman she was behind…somewhat.

Out here, among the humans and the non humans alike, Mason was learning that she didn’t need to distrust everyone she met immediately. Adrian was teaching her that what a person is didn’t determine what kind of person they were. Well, River was mostly responsible for that lesson. The most difficult lesson so far was the one that said that Mason’s survival didn’t depend eliminating every potential threat she met.

A few years ago, she probably would have killed this strange, shy boy soon after meeting him simply because she didn’t know what he was but he obviously wasn’t human and could potentially be very powerful. But now, here in this apartment complex, in this laundry room, she was having something of a conversation with him. She knew his name. And she was surprised to realize that she actually wanted to know a bit more about him. She told herself that it was because he lived rather close to her and it might be useful someday to know her neighbors but she knew that it was really because it would be to her advantage to know everything of importance about her neighbors in case they ever became a threat. Either way, she decided to play along and answer his question.

“No,” she began,“I’m not from around here. I’m from…well, Europe originally but that was such a very long time ago….millennia, really Most recently I made my home on the east coast. But my…Adrian and I decided it was time for a little change. Huge change actually. So we left our Coven and came to live here on our own. I’m still adjusting. It’s….different. Very different. There are so many humans. And so many others. And so few of me. Which was the plan, really….”

She was babbling. She couldn’t recall ever having trailed off and lost her thought so often in one paragraph before. And she knew that she’d never told a complete stranger so much before in her life. And if she had, it would have been mostly lies.

Realizing she was forgetting the next half of this polite conversation structure, she asked Adrael, “And you? What’s the condensed version of your story?” If it were truly polite conversation she’d probably add ‘if you don’t mind my asking’ at the end but that implied a choice and she’d already decided that she wanted to know and therefore didn’t plan on giving him such an implied choice in answering. Not to mention she was hardly accustomed to anyone not answering a question of hers or being required to offer such an option. Not being in command of everyone around her was beginning to get on Mason’s nerves.

[ElliBleu]

Addie stopped listening, any thought having immediately died upon hearing that this woman had evidently been around for millenia.

Millenia. Plural.

The rest of what she said would probably have flown over his head anyway. He didn't know what a coven was, what she could be if she wasn't human and was more than two thousand years old.... It was so long, such an unbearably incomprehensible length of time, and to have to live through it all when his 23 years already were weighing so heavily on his shoulders....

It made it hard to deny those pictures he'd boxed up a few weeks ago, how his mother today looked exactly as she had when he was a child, how he was still much the same size he'd been as a teenager... His ears flattened against his hair, fingers constricting on his tail until it was almost painful. He wasn't supposed to think about things like this, or else he'd wind up right back where he had been lying on those couches and falling in and out of hospitals... It was too hard to breathe suddenly, the hum of the washers decaying into an erratic, mechanical growl that buzzed painfully into his head.

Adrael stared wide-eyed at this terrifying, beautiful woman still muttering out scattered words. What was she? Why was she here, why was she talking to him like this, why was he not halfway back to his room already? She addressed Adrael directly and he jumped fearfully, glad the working machinery below him could be blamed for his sudden shaking. Her eyes were too green and suddenly everything was swimming in a haze of white and emerald.

Sharp teeth clamped down on the inside of his lip, the burst of pain pulling him enough out of his sudden breakdown to at least make it through the rest of the laundry. He swallowed the blood, throat working a few times as he struggled for words he didn't really have.

"I--- I'm a half-breed, grew up with my m-mother. Never knew my father," he was staring at the floor tiles, hoping their monochromatic steadiness would keep him sane enough. "We had a lot of- problems, and I moved out as soon as I could. I've been on m-my own since then... so... here I am." The striped fur on his tail wouldn't lie flat, even when he managed unlock his fingers and try to forcibly smooth the bristled fur.

He had little faith in anything, but dared hope this woman wouldn't ask for more. He couldn't share more, not without breaking down. And a laundry room with a millenia-old stranger was a less-than ideal place.

[Admin]

Mason’s nostrils flared as she smelled blood suddenly coming from the boy she was talking to. She had heard his pulse quicken remarkably and had sensed his panic. Something she had said had bothered him and had bothered him a lot. Not really wanting to make the strange young man any more uncomfortable than he already was, Mason let the story of his life go for the time being.

“You’re bleeding,” she said absently as she refocused on her computer, waiting for her laundry to finish and wishing at the same time she trusted the communal laundry room enough to just leave it here. She probably wouldn’t ever trust her neighbors that much.

Not really wanting to leave the conversation where it was, Mason said, “Adrian and I are on the top floor. I noticed, smelled and sensed some rather interesting people on my way down. More creatures than people really. You and I are hardly the only non-humans in this complex. Have you noticed much about the other people here?”

“I wonder if there are any werewolves here,” she mused quietly more to herself than to Adrael. “That could certainly complicate things a bit…”

[ElliBleu]

Of course he was bleeding, his teeth weren't too dull and he'd bit himself pretty hard. The woman changed the subject herself, though, so maybe she wasn't so bad. The towels were on their last rinse cycle now, too. Not too much longer and Addie could pretend to be distracted switching them into the dryer.

Swallowing thickly, the little demon expertly squashed down the suffocating worries for revisitation later and almost thankfully followed the topic switch. "I-It's a pretty motley group. Makes me feel like less of a freak." His tall ears twitched almost automatically at the statement. It really was a bit easier to feel almost-normal when there were people with wings or tails or unusual hairstyles or mannerisms walking around everywhere.

And with his ears Addie really couldn't not hear Mason's little afterthoughts. "Werewolves?" he echoed curiously, tilting his head a bit to one side. "Don't like dogs, then?" He smiled at Mason a bit, in a rather in-over-my-head and desperate way. This wasn't so bad, he could do it, just a bit longer. Keep on the safe topics. "'Cause there's a strange, uh--" he paused, hopping off the washing machine and opening the lid as he looked for any description. "A strange... redheaded girl who has a dog. Gave me a dirty look when I asked if it was nice. So if you don't like dogs you should probably stay away from her..."

He trailed off awkwardly, rubbing the side of his nose with a knuckle.

Maybe it was a little hard.