So Long Salvation

3

First things first, I wanted to tell you guys that I went back and changed a few things in the first chapter. Nothing major, I just fixed a little bit of Pete's part so that any time he mentioned Mikey, he called him "Michael" instead. But that's it.

Yes, another badass feminist song :D
I'm sure a bunch of you have probably heard Just a Girl by No Doubt, or at least heard songs by Gwen Stefani, but if you haven't and you didn't click into it at the top of this page, I recommend that you do that. It's a great song

Now, hear me out. You know when you have dry skin on your lip so you peel it off with your teeth, except then that piece of skin is raw and you can taste your blood? Do you think vampires do that? Like, they can prick their fingers with a needle and suck the blood from themselves, obviously not for sustenance, but they wouldn't be losing or gaining any blood just re-tasting it because they like the taste? Imagine if humans had candy blood or something. We could peel the dry skin from our lips and taste candy in the new raw skin….

Mikey

Mikey probably should have expected, barely three days since the calamitous family dinner, to wake up to a green and gold letter suffused with details about a specific, most-likely sham shadow figure. Donna and Donald Way never were tactful when it came to their job.

And while Mikey is fully aware he can say no and make the choice not to check it out, not to indulge in their terrible apology, he has been eager to get back out. It doesn't matter that this commission might not actually be anything, that he might just be wasting time better spent doing something more productive, because there's always a chance--miniscule and practically nonexistent as it may be--and Mikey doesn't actually have a more productive thing to do at the moment.

He settles for reading the letter over a fresh cup of Earl Grey, because he is still fostering a sore anger at his parents, and he's not that much of a masochist to finish reading it without some sort of distraction. (Hot tea, as it turns out, is not actually the most safe choice of distraction, considering every time he needs to use it, needs to take an angry sip, it scalds his throat.)

The details of the commission are simple: a shadow figure by one of the Northernmost neighborhoods--near Grove Park, which is not surprising; the place is riddled with shadows--the family only reports sightings at night, and the subject of the sightings seems to be alone and without any discernible goal. (Not that vampires ever really have a goal besides death and upheaval, and especially not that, if there was an extreme case in which there was a separate goal, any untrained, mere citizen could discern it.) 

As soon as Mikey finishes his tea, he burns the letter and sets about gathering the supplies he'll need.

The commission isn't a particularly in-depth, high-stakes kind of deal, so Mikey figures he won't actually need much and settles on bringing a vial of holy water, a blade--holy water does more damage in direct contact with a bloodstream--and his box of matches. Mikey will, of course, also have his cross necklace and his coat.

Then, after all this has been collected and piled on the table near the couch, he grabs out the new paper and quill he bought and begins a letter to Gerard as he waits for nightfall.

**

Nightfall took longer to arrive than Mikey had hoped--although that was probably, in part, due to his eagerness for it--and a letter was not, unfortunately, enough to fill the time.

Thus, Mikey had to busy himself with the more mundane household chores he shares a similar disdain for with the rest of the world, like washing his dishes and sweeping his floor and changing out the linens on his bed.