Of Love and Iron Ch. 01

I. Just Another Day

Quick note: This chapter's non-erotic. I'll have this note on all chapters like this, as this was originally a novel I was writing for the NaNoWriMo and therefore not centered around sex every chapter.

Ai sat in the computer lab, a series of images flickering in bright reflections across her face.

Next to her sat a man with features strikingly similar to her own.

Looking at the two together, though, there were enough differences in their features that one wouldn't suspect them to be so closely related as half-siblings.

Where his skin was the almost brownish quality of those in Southeast Asia, hers could almost be said to be Caucasian if not for the slight copper present.

Slightly slanted, amber-colored eyes stared out from her face, while his eyes were a bright shade of green bordering on cyan.

Her muscles were finely sculpted from her weekly cheerleading, while he was lanky and built not unlike a scarecrow, standing at a full six inches taller than her.

How they carried themselves, even sitting, was what made them appear vastly different to the casual observer, however.

Ai, even sitting relaxed before the computer, appeared reminiscent of a coiled predator.

It was clear to any who cared enough to look that her mind never relaxed, something constantly occupying her brain.

Her half-brother Alex, though, sat back in his chair with an easy smile, watching her work.

A camera sat on the desk between them, with a long black cable running into the back of the monitor.

She smiled softly at her project, thoroughly piquing Alex's curiosity.

"So," he started conversationally, "working on anything good?"

"You could say that," she responded distractedly.

Grinning, he leaned forward in his chair, getting a better view of the video editor in front of her.

The new view didn't help him understand it any better, though it did let him know the subject of the videos.

Grinning even wider, he sat back once again and gave a low whistle.

The sound didn't break Ai from her apparent trance, though by the slight blush that formed he knew she'd heard him.

"You seem to be in a good mood... Wouldn't have anything to do with things on that camera, would it? Maybe a bit more risqué?" he inquired.

"Yeah, no. You think I'd edit something like what you're thinking on campus?" she retorted with a narrowing of her eyes.

He smirked at her brightening blush.

"Are you going to make me guess at what's made today such a good day for you?"

"Better than good, actually," she retorts.

"Hmm... What could it be? What could it be? Oh, right, I meant to ask before, but then you got absorbed into your own world. How's the whole Rachel thing going? Are things working out well for you?"

The blush grew brighter, and he fought hard to not laugh.

"It's... um... going a lot better than I hoped it would," she muttered.

He smiled at her tone, bringing back memories of his own.

"Getting serious?"

Ai absentmindedly scratched at her scalp, her blush growing brighter by the second.

"Who knows?"

"Who knew girls were so complex, right?" Alex asked with a snort.

"Smartass," she muttered under her breath.

"It's one of my finer-tuned skills!" he responded.

His grin faded some, and his expression became considerably softer.

"Seriously, though, things're going well?"

"I think so... I mean, Rache's birthday's coming up in a few weeks and we're planning on hanging out for it."

"Not necessarily couple-y," he pointed out.

"At any rate," she continued with a cough, "I kind of, uh, wanted to give her something unique. Not just for the birthday or the fun, but for the whole saving my ass from homelessness thing, too. So I figured, I might as well put my expensive education to good use," she said with an ever-brighter blush.

"What does one make for that kind of gift? I imagine eviction-evasion isn't the biggest seller in Hallmark," he laughed.

Grinning, Ai nodded at her screen.

"Hence the unique gift!"

Alex laughed at the sight of her large grin, the sound finally bringing her eyes away from the screen.

"What?" she demanded with an embarrassed huff.

"It's a good thing, I think. Seriously," he mused.

Misinterpreting his grin, Ai almost glowed neon as her eyes narrowed.

"Hey, Laura's more than enough for your brain. Leave my housemate-"

"I meant seeing you smiling like that," he laughed. "Mind out of the gutter."

"My mind lives in the gutter," she pointed out.

"Oh, I know. You definitely got that from dad," he laughed.

She snorted at that, shaking her head in an attempt to will her skin less red.

That she made no comment on his statement wasn't missed by Alex, who merely continued smiling.

"And how's Laura doing, hmm?" she evaded, smirking as his own face took on a slightly flushed tone...

Rachel sat in the back of her classroom, studiously keeping her eyes glued on the monitor before her.

She sat alone against the wall, her hand steadily working on her current project.

Five other students occupied the room as well, all of them sitting in the rows as far separated from her as possible.

It wasn't exactly a wonder that they avoided her.

While not going out of her way to draw attention to herself, she also made the barest of efforts to conceal her interests.

Among them was her fascination with the Gothic culture.

It hadn't taken long after her move near the campus for people to notice that she wore black and silver, exclusively with a very rare exception or two.

While she hadn't put much thought into finally being free to dress how she wanted, it was an unfortunate choice to wear her club gear to orientation.

Even sitting in the back, her fishnets and leather dress, down to her calves though it had been, had earned her quite a large number of stares and whispers both.

While the college itself had many students, her degree program, unfortunately, didn't, and so being avoided had been a forgone conclusion.

And so there she sat in the room, wearing thicker-than-normal eyeliner and lightly caked on white makeup.

Combined with the thinly framed glasses resting on the bridge of her nose, her eyeliner made her hazel eyes seem to almost glow, which also unsettled the other students.

The teacher roamed the room, checking on their work.

When he came to her desk, the man made a huffing sound in preparation of whatever Lovecraftian monstrosity she'd invented for the newest project.

"Interesting," he mused on finally seeing her screen.

She could practically feel his surprise at the bright, bubbly character slowly being shaped from the pen.

While still resembling Japanese cartoons in style similarly to the rest of her works, the woman on screen was already far brighter than what he'd seen throughout the semester from her.

Rachel slipped her headphones down and turned her attention to the older man.

"Thought I'd try out a different feel this time around," she explained.

"So I see. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes."

And then he was gone, taking the eyes locked on them back to the front of the room with him.

A woman leaned closer to the other student at her table, and her eye glanced back at Rachel while she whispered something or other.

The blonde somehow knew to be offended just from the man's responding laugh.

Ignoring them, she returned to bobbing her head slightly as the music blasted through her wireless headphones.

Her hand moved at her side, scenery slowly building itself before her eyes from the tablet she drew on.

The character winked back at her as she absentmindedly drew.

The song changed, and she found the electronic beats almost hypnotic.

Her hand slowed, and her eyes wandered upward.

Another laugh sounded through the quiet pulse of the electronica, and she could only sigh as her thoughts left her.

As her mind left the present, she pondered briefly on how so much could possibly change while almost everything stayed the same...

A seventeen-year-old Rachel King sat at her desk, humming quietly to herself.

A faint scratching sound filled the mostly silent classroom as she sketched.

Others sat around her, a mutual agreement to ignore each other whilst waiting for the buses to clear out sitting in the air between them.

Somehow, the idea of her art or their gossip entertaining the other party seemed utterly ridiculous to Rachel.

"Hey, did you hear about the freak show?" one of the women near her asked.

Rachel's ears perked despite her lack of interest, and she mentally smacked herself.

Her sense of curiosity prevailed through the mental tug of war, though, and she found her hand slowing as she listened in.

"You mean that new club, right?" another woman asked with a giggle.

"Yeah! Have you seen the people going there?" the third asked with a nasally voice that made Rachel wince.

Unable to help herself, Rachel turned her head and looked at the three.

"There's a new club?" she asked.

All three turned to stare at her, seeming surprised.

Whether surprised that she deigned to talk to them or surprised that she had any interest in their discussion, Rachel couldn't guess.

"It's called the Black Dead, or something," one of them, a brunette, finally answered.

"Naw, it's weird. There's a jay in it," another girl with bright scarlet hair corrected.

Rachel's eyebrow rose up at that.

"D-j-e-d?" she asked.

"Yeah, that's it. Weird," the last responded.

"Bunch of freaks. I saw them the other day, getting together on the edge of town. A whole bunch of Goths and freaks dressed up like vampires," the redhead laughed.

Rachel fought a wince, the horror novel in her purse suddenly shining like a beacon to her mind.

For a brief moment, she thought the brunette also looked uncomfortable, though the expression vanished the instant she noticed it.

"Sounds like quite a show," Rachel mused with a laugh.

Had they cared at all, they would've noticed the somewhat nervous quality to the light sound.

As it was, they returned to their conversation without another word.

As she turned back to her drawing pad, Rachel's eyes slipped over to her purse, and more importantly the Carmilla print hanging out from it.

Somehow, she doubted any of the three even knew what the story was, much less that it was a horror, but she suddenly found the book burning in her mind.

It wasn't necessarily that she cared much if they saw it, since she made no secret of her love of horror.

Still, she imagined that, given the conversation, they'd start spreading rumors in a heartbeat if they knew she had a book both Victorian and with vampires.

Shaking her head, she put her attention back on her sketch and listened quietly for the distant sound of the buses leaving.

Her mind, though, was suddenly distracted from her drawing.

She wondered about the club, debating on her thoughts of having such a club so close to her.

It wasn't even an hour later that she decided that she was going.

At the very least, she might find some good music.

She was quick to change, and she was gone again from her home with an improvised excuse to her parents.

Another half hour passed, and she found herself standing in front of the Black Djed.

It was a relatively subdued building, sitting in what could have served as a restaurant at some point.

An Egyptian symbol, made of wrought iron and painted black and gold, hung above the door.

Rachel assumed that was the 'djed' in question, and briefly stared at the strange symbol.

It was a large tower, with three curved discs on top of the stand.

Around its entirety was an ankh, designed with a strange curvature to the arms, which then each ended in three curved spikes.

Metal lettering with the same coloring were in lines directly above and below the symbol to name the club.

A thrill worked its way through the blonde, and a grin worked its way onto her lips.

Taking a deep breath, she worked her way to the door...

Rachel jerked her head to the side, sighing at the out-of-nowhere distraction.

She briefly pondered on whether she might have ADHD, but was soon distracted from the thought by her unfinished illustration.

Knowing that her brain wouldn't get back on track any time soon, she quickly went to work backing the work up so she could continue in her, hopefully, less distracting room.

With another sigh, she headed for the door.

The teacher didn't look up from his own computer as she left.

Just as she passed through the door, Rachel made an appreciative hum of the painting coming to life from his own tablet.

With the reminder that he taught the class for a good reason, she headed for the apartment.

She found herself glad that the weather reports, for once, had been correct as she started walking the short distance off campus...