Contemplating sins(Juniper)

[Johnny B. Goode]

Johnny sat on one of the filthy benches in Central Park in the middle of New York. He wasn't that far away from where he had been born a little more than 130 years ago and it was bearing down on him. Hard. He had sabotaged the light bulb of the nearest lamp so he was sitting in mostly dark. The light from another lamp cast dark shadows on his pale face and he looked ready to murder if you tried to bother him, so most people when they saw him just tried to steer clear. He was sick and tired of looking at couples. It made him physically ill and right now he was in a state to rip the hearts out of every lover who came within arm's reach of him.

I don't get it. How could you let people in that close to you? They know all of your secrets,all of your feelings and hopes and dreams. That doesn't sound very appealing to me. He crossed his arms like a sullen child and tilted his head back so he could look at the stars. He hadn't seen the sun in so long. When he had been alive he would go outside and was so tan that he could almost be mistaken for a negro child. But now that was gone, with his blood and his life and everything that he had once loved. I don't love anything now. This has even taken away my love of God. I know now that there is no such being. Or, if there is, then he is a cruel and vengeful god and only created mankind to be the food for Satan. His mood darkened and he sunk down into the seat of the bench, stretching his legs out to their full extent, his feet forming a V at the end of his skinny legs.

Johnny was lost in memory when, all of a sudden, he felt a pair of very small hands on his left knee. He jerked himself out of his own mind and looked down. It was a child of about two years old. He was on a light night outing with his parents and, as he had just learned to walk, he wanted to exercise his new found freedom as much as possible. He had seen the man sitting in the dark and felt he needed a hug. Who better to give it to the man than him? After all, he was Mommy's Best Little Hugger.

Johnny leaned forward, pulling his legs underneath him on the bench and crossing his feet as he went. He picked up the small child and set the fellow on his lap. "Hello." The little boy caught Johnny by surprise and hugged him tightly around the middle (or as much of it as he could fit his tiny arm-span around) and squeezed. Johnny's mismatched eyes widened for a moment and then burned with a murderous desire. The boy smelled like chocolate and sweets and the calming essence of warm milk. Johnny bared his fangs as he struggled with the urge to devour the little boy. Then his mother called to him.

"Hey! You! Give me my child! Please don't hurt him! He is only two he hasn't hurt anyone! Please!" She started to sob. She was running toward them, her high-heeled shoes in one hand and the hem of her long skirt in the other. Wow, she looked like a fantastic mother. Johnny rolled his eyes and tried to pry the child off of him as he stood up. The little boy clung harder to him, apparently not minding the hard coldness that was Johnny's chest.

The mother reached the pair and Johnny handed the little brat over to her. He had felt very odd standing there with the child's head resting on his shoulder and his own arm supporting the child's weight so he wouldn't tumble. What the fuck do I care if the kid falls and hurts himself? He's not my brat. But the words didn't sound convincing even in his head. The mother's hands yanked the child from his arms and looked back once, as if trying to figure out why her child had come to the scariest man in the park. The little boy looked over his mother's shoulder and waved until they were both out of sight and Johnny was left standing there in the mostly dark, looking suddenly lost.

[Juniper Jackson]

[atrb=width,450,true][atrb=border,0,false][cs=0][bg=000000] Juniper Jackson had come to New York City for a baker's convention, everything had gone great, the judges had loved her special cakes and she'd managed to win every contest that she'd participated in. Tomorrow she would be returning to Paris, but as usual she hadn't been able to fall asleep in her stuffy hotel room. She'd wanted to be out in the night air. Most of the time, when she couldn't sleep like this, she would go to a club, but all her sexy club wear was at home and she hadn't thought to bring any with her, which was pretty dumb considering it was one of the biggest party cities in the world. Of course, she could have bought some except all the clothing stores were closed at this hour. So she had abandoned the idea of going to a club and had decided instead to go explore the famous Central Park. It would have been a lot more interesting for her to explore as a wolf but she had a real fear of being caught by someone with her clothes off when she shifted back. Juni had made her way here from her fancy hotel and was busy taking in the sights when she heard a woman crying out in the distance. Juni ran in that direction and stopped cold when she smelled a vampire, it was clearly the man who was the vampire. Juni had never actually come in contact with a vampire before, but she knew that they existed and her werewolf mentor had taught her to recognize their scent. Normally she did her best to avoid them at all times, but she felt the need to interfere here and make sure that the vampire didn't go after the mother and her child, though what kind of mother was letting her child run around a notoriously dangerous park late at night was a question that surely required an answer. Juniper approached the vampire. "I hope you don't plan to go after them Mr. Vampire Man. I don't feel as though I can allow that to happen." She might not have been very experienced in fighting, but she knew that she would do just about anything that she could think of to stop this vampire from going out and killing those innocent people. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Dedicate It: Johnny Comment It: Sorry it's so short, I'm still trying to get the hang of her!

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[Johnny B. Goode]

Johnny stood there, his arms dangling freely at his sides and his legs barely holding him up. He didn't know why but the encounter with the little boy made him feel... warm. It was a feeling that he had mostly forgotten and it made him sad that it took a child he didn't know at all to bring out something good in him. He almost entertained the idea of letting a smile flicker across his face, but he didn't know if he was quite ready to be actually happy yet. He shoved his hands into his pockets and shuffled his feet, and the urge to get emotionally close to someone was fleeting but it was the most he had thought about it since his very early years in his death. Maybe this means that I am returning to my old self. God that would be horrible. He rolled his eyes and was preparing himself to go hunting when a very pretty wolf came up to him.

He looked her up and down, guessing that she was fairly new to the whole wolf thing and smirked at her words. ”I feel no need to explain myself to you. Nor do I feel the need to prove that I was not in fact going after them.” He sat down on the bench, all his warm feelings forgotten for the moment and he was back to his old self, cold calculating and cynical. ”Do you think so little of us as to think that we would go after children and their pathetic ‘mothers’? I know some leeches find it enjoyable, but not all by any means” He put air quotes around the word mother to show that he didn’t think much of the parenting skills of the blond child’s mother.

Johnny laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back into the seat of the bench, stretching his long legs forward once more and looking quite relaxed. ”Do you really think that I have nothing better to do than to hunt innocent children? No, Lady, I do not think that you have the right to judge a whole species from a few mindless and inconsiderate drones who feel it necessary to kill anything that still breathes.” He felt a pang of thirst and cursed himself. He would have to get rid of the wolf before he went hunting. He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and studying his hands. They were strong and pearly white, the fingers were long and looked like they belonged to a concert pianist. I could probably pick up the habit. Or I could just focus on… something else. During his first 50 years he had tried to pick up the bassoon but he couldn’t find a teacher that could actually play and he was far too impatient to teach himself so he gave up on it.

Johnny looked back up at the wolf and scooted over on the bench. ”Would you like to have a seat? I don’t get a chance to chat with a lot of wolves. Especially since most of them try to detach my head from my body before I get the chance to offer them a drink.” He smirked as the words left his lips but his left hand went to the puckering scar the ran all the way around his neck, remembering when that happened. His mismatched eyes sparkled in the half light and he was almost sincere about wanting to just cha. Not that he was looking for a fight, but it was still hard for him to accept the fact that wolves had to have been people first too and not all of them hated vampires so much as to kill them on sight.

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[[ooc. perfectly fine. I don't know where these long posts have come from, I usually have trouble getting to 500 words.]]

[Juniper Jackson]

[atrb=width,450,true][atrb=border,0,false][cs=0][bg=000000] Juniper was shocked at the amount of disdain she heard contained in the vampire's voice and she felt bad about judging him. Cause that was exactly what she'd done. But all she knew about vampires were the stories she'd heard, and no one ever told stories about the nice vampires. A faint smile passed over her features at his use of air quotes on the word mothers. At least they were in agreement over that, if nothing else. Juni took a small step forward looking at the vampire with obvious curiosity. His skin was mighty pale and he even looked dead. She listened some more to his ranting and continued to feel bad. When he asked her if she wanted to take a seat she accepted the offer. She walked over to the bench and sat down next to him, angling herself towards him. "Look, I'm really sorry. I've never met a vampire before, so all I know about them is what I've heard. And who tells stories about nice vampires?" If she knew what he was thinking about her, she would have been indignant. She may not be an incredibly experienced werewolf, but she wasn't new to it by a long shot, she'd been a werewolf for nearly ten years now. Being changed in the middle of high school had given her a pretty good length of time to get used to the change, she could shift better and faster than a lot of the wolves she knew, and she didn't spend time fighting her wolf like a lot of werewolves did. When her wolf got antsy and wanted out, Juni let it out. She only caged her wolf on full moon nights, when she wouldn't have any control over things. She and her wolf were in better synchronization than most werewolves she knew. "I don't understand why werewolves and vampires can't get along. I mean, if not all of you are crazed killers than what's the problem? I really am sorry about judging you though, I normally don't do that. I just, I smelled vampire and I saw a little boy and my mind just went, 'oh shit!'" She smiled gently. "I hope you can forgive me! Oh I'm Juniper by the way. You can call me Juni if you want though. Juniper is such a mouth full." It really was, her whole name was a mouth full. Juniper Jackson, alliteration and length combined to create something truly strange. "What's your name sir?" She really didn't want him calling her 'lady' anymore, it just sounded mean to her, the way it was all capitalized and such. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Count It: 455 Dedicate It: Johnny Comment It: There, a little longer that time. Dress It: this

[Johnny B. Goode]

Johnny smiled, though it was not the warm one that he had contemplated earlier, it was tired and fake and he knew that it usually wasn't very flattering but it was polite to do something other than scowl or let your face remain blank when someone was talking to you so he chose to let the fake smile take over. He looked at her and saw that, while she was young, she wasn't as green as she looked from afar. She certainly was pretty though, and she had a nice body. Nice rosy cheeks that looked not as made-up as some of the girls these days. Johnny was not too fond of the perfect pancake face look with the hiked up skirts and the breasts practically jumping at everyone who had the misfortune of getting too close. He liked his women with a little class and it seemed that this wolf had some.

Johnny nodded politely while she apologized to him and was a little surprised to hear that she had never actually met a vampire before. He was a little proud of himself to be the representation of his species and he reminded himself that he would have to be on his best behavior despite his slowly, but consistently, growing thirst. "I'm not sure why the feud has lasted this long either. I mean, even if wolves are mortal and they can carry grudges just as well as humans can, at least the vampires can learn from past mistakes and try to make a truce with them. But no, both parties are to blame and it has made making new friends very difficult, at least for me."

She proceeded to tell him that her name was Juniper (but everyone called her Juni) and a grimace passed through his defenses if only for a second. "I once knew a Juniper. You look nothing like her of course, and I certainly hope you act nothing like her too. She was the one that gave me this," he pointed to his cloudy white eye, "but you seem much kinder." He let himself settle into an easy, unreal, smile again and crossed his legs at the knee and laced his fingers over one of them.

He was slightly amused at the insistence which she asked him to forgive her. He nodded and chuckled lightly. "No need to apologize. If anything I should be apologizing to you. I didn't mean to speak so harshly to you. It isn't your fault that you have not met any of us, and I might even be grateful that I am the first one you meet." He shifted his position, only slightly, but he was growing uncomfortable with his thirst. Why do I always wait until I am starving before I eat? It makes anyone who meets me, like this young woman here, think that we must just be bloodthirsty constantly and gives us all a bad impression. "I guess, if you had met one of the bloodthirsty-er vampires, then you might have had the wrong impression about us all your life." He wasn't trying to sound degrading. But he had the perpetual insistence in his mind that anyone younger than him needed everything explained to him. Mostly very young vamps and humans and wolves.

"My name is Johnny Goode. But you can call me John if you prefer." He hated the full "Jonathan" and had never in his life (or death) used it except in the few years of school that he had actually attended.

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[Juniper Jackson]

[atrb=width,450,true][atrb=border,0,false][cs=0][bg=000000] The fake nature of Johnny's smile did not escape Juni's attention, and neither did the slightly depressed quality the air around him held. Something was seriously bothering this vampire. Though, to be honest, when you have forever to live, you have a good long time to get scars. Juniper couldn't imagine life as a vampire, she'd just managed to get used to live as a werewolf a few years before this. There was no way that she could face an eternity with her regrets and sorrows. She had her fair share of those too, her parents death, her lost love, her cousin's untimely death though she didn't know the full story of that one. If she had known the true cause of her cousin's death, she might have been one of those werewolves that tried to take Johnny's head off on site. Tanya and her twin children had been ruthlessly murdered by a vampire with a stupid grudge, along with a club full of innocents. Johnny's words about the relationship between werewolves and vampires, the vampires like the one who had killed Tanya made some werewolves instantly hate them. And Juniper had heard of werewolves that hunted down vampires, even ones that hadn't done them any personal harm, and killed them. Those wolves would surely make the vampires wary of werewolves. It was a horrible circle that would probably never stop. It was worse than the horrible circles that humans went through with each other. "Well, I personally have no problem with you being a vampire so should a friendship result from this encounter it will be based purely on whether or not we are compatible in that area or not." The expression on his face when she mentioned her name nearly made her laugh, how ironic would it be if he were to discriminate against her based on her name. Luckily that didn't seem to be happening, she did wonder however, what it was this other Juniper had done to him. She looked at his milky eye and grimaced in sympathetic pain. "I certainly hope that I am nothing like a woman who could do that to someone. I usually try not to hurt anyone unless they provoke me to it. Sometimes being kind doesn't suite me as well as I'd like but I try to stick to it as much as possible." She agreed with him that it was probably better for her first vampire to be one that wasn't a werewolf hater, or a merciless killer. If not, she probably would have been biased the rest of her life. "Well how about neither of us apologize and we just call it an even misunderstanding." Juni noticed that the poor man was fidgeting and she realized, it was pretty early in the night. "Have you not...um...eaten yet tonight?" Juniper ignored his introduction of himself, waiting instead for his reply about eating. Something would have to be done about that, she wouldn't be responsible for a vampire going hungry and eating the first thing he came across. That would not be good, he might lose all the humanity that he seemed to have and kill something like that little boy, something innocent and stupid enough to cross his path. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Count It: 557 Dedicate It: Johnny Comment It: La la la. Dress It: this

[Johnny B. Goode]

Johnny nodded in agreement with her statement about their very different species not having anything to do with their being friends and he let a little of his genuine self shine through his polite mask. I do like her. She seems to be very down to earth. It is rare to meet a young girl who is actually aware of her surroundings beyond the reach of her flipping hair, but one that has been having lies about us whispered in her ear is almost unheard of! He put both of his feet on the ground and rubbed the back of his neck before lacing his fingers behind his head and looking up at the stars, "No, no, no. You are nothing like her. She was shorter, much so, and had very dark hair. And she had such... cold eyes." He lost himself in the memory for a few seconds, the polite mask slip from his face and it just went blank. And then he let his arms drop and his head slide forward and his eyes shifted over to Juni. "I'm sorry. There is nothing that you want to hear in that story. That is a good rule to live by though. No one deserves a second chance, but everyone deserves a first one."

He swung his feet back underneath the bench and crossed then at the ankles, right over left, and turned fully toward Juni, a slightly embarrassed set to his lips. "Sorry. Is it that obvious?" He didn't like admitting a weakness to anyone, and it bothered him that he had been so forthcoming with the information. I just can't seem to do anything right can I? It is ridiculous. I might as well be telling her my whole life story and crying on her shoulder. He rubbed his bad eye and then looked back to Juni, wondering what she was going to do. Let him go? Follow him as he hunted to make sure he didn't kill an innocent? Would she keep him here and make him suffer as punishment for something he could not control. No, that does not seem what she would do. But, then again, who am I to judge what she would do? I have known her a grand total of what ten minutes? Less maybe?

Johnny leaned back and crossed his legs, so his right ankle was over his left knee and he crossed his arms over his chest not in defiance but with the intention of letting them do something besides hang there uselessly and lamely. "It's uh- nothing I can't handle. I will just have to make a stop at the local hospital on my way home tonight. It is no big deal and I have dealt with worse on a long walk with no one around." He let the polite smile cover his own true embarrassment.

[[ooc. sorry it took me so long to reply there were some problems at school that needed tending to]]

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[Juniper Jackson]

[atrb=width,450,true][atrb=border,0,false][cs=0][bg=000000] Juni was relieved to hear that she wasn't like the other Juniper. And the description just proved to her how unlike that girl she was. Dark hair, short, and cold eyes, none of those adjectives could be used to describe Juni accurately. In fact, she had some very good friends who would be happy to declare that she was one of the warmest people they knew. How could a bakery owner not be warm and mushy? It just wouldn't make any sense. She was sorry she had brought it up however, when she saw his face go blank. It was clearly a sore subject that she would avoid in any future encounters. "Well it's very reassuring to hear that I'm not like her, but very sad to hear you say that no one deserves a second chance. I think quite the opposite actually. Except in the most extreme circumstances, which I think that woman would fall under of course, I think everyone deserves a second chance." Perhaps this belief stemmed from a very desperate wish to have her own second chances, at her whole life. Or even from her wish to have a certain someone come to her and ask for a second chance. Both were equally unlikely to happen so she pushed those thoughts very very far away. Instead she focused on him and his feeding problem. She smiled abashedly at his question and shook her head. "No no, it's not that you're an easy read...I just, well I'm pretty good at reading people. It wasn't obvious at all, I've just learned how to tell certain things about people, like when they're uncomfortable. And I didn't think that it was me making you uncomfortable so I figured that maybe it was because you were hungry." Juniper watched as he rearranged himself and smiled as she did so herself, pulling her leg up underneath her and twisting her body so that she was facing him. Her arm rested on the back of the bench and bent at the elbow, her head resting on the closed fist, the other rested in her lap. His words surprised her, rather than using her question as an escape, he had waved away the problem like it was nothing and stayed to talk to her. A genuine and sweet smile spread across her lips. "I'm very happy to hear that you'll be going to a hospital to quench your thirst. I mean I guess I understand that vampires have been feeding off of humans for centuries but something about it just makes me...twitchy. I don't know what I would have done if I'd been turned into a vampire instead of a werewolf. I don't think I could ever drink blood from a human, you know. And even as a werewolf, I'm constantly afraid that I'm going to get loose and hurt someone on a full moon." She shrugged, as surprised as he had been that she was sharing so much. But when awkward silences threatened, she began to babble. Right now she was simply babbling. "I'm sorry, I tend to babble a little when I meet new people. I don't mean to share so much of my personal life with you. I'm sure that can't be too comfortable to sit and listen to." Juni let out a soft giggle and then turned away to sit on the bench in the proper fashion. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Count It: 591 Dedicate It: Johnny Comment It: That's okay, I totally understand. I'm not impatient, you take as much time as you need on replies! I can wait. Dress It: this