Under the bridge downtown (Reserved)

[skeggsismad]

Normally Ransom did not venture outside of his crammed apartment room after the sun had sunk behind the hills. The evening was a time for unwinding and relaxation from the bundles of stress that the boy managed to accumulate in the span of a single day, as well as those underlying factors that had been exhausting him for years and years. Tonight, he had customer.

  Well…maybe a customer. He reminded himself for the seventeenth time tonight. The mortal didn’t want his hopes that were rising slow and gradual like a hot air balloon to burst open, sending him from one minute heading to the skies and the next plummeting into the hardened ground. If he could prevent himself from building expectations, he figured he could save himself from the fall. The only problem was…no matter how many times he thought it, the boy couldn’t seem to convince himself. His nerves rose and subsided with his every inhale and exhale- and that’s just how his life was.

As he walked down the street that he had been on just yesterday morning, the boy looked as if it could have been the same day. His wardrobe was essentially the same shirt and pants cloned with a few variations and while tonight he was wearing a long sleeved knit underneath his hoodie versus a t-shirt he had been wearing the previous day, the article was zipped up so far that it would have been impossible to tell. The only indication that he hadn’t rolled out of bed in the same pair of clothes was the fresh scent emitting of them of laundry detergent. Being that he wore no cologne or body sprays, the fragrance was his defining feature.

If the sound of the cars on the street and chattering crowds passing by wasn\'t enough noise pollution, a variety of what if’s spun around in the mortal’s head to overwhelm him.

What if Isabella was joking? What if I do something wrong? What if the numbers I did are wrong again and…

His attention was then drawn back to the manila folder in his hand- inside being a piece of computer paper that typed on it were the fees and payment agreements he had revised. Ransom had been a nervous wreck that day, going home to try to figure out how he could price higher without feeling guilty about it. He had tried the mean guy persona on Isabellla and it really hadn’t worked. How could he go there with this number- five thousand dollars for the portrait- without feeling like a sort of insensitive demon?
 
Aside from the prices, there were other things that the boy should have been worrying about that were to be found on that paper. Ransom had been sure to run the grammar and spellcheck several times to be sure that his lack of education didn’t shine through and he seemed professional, but it had been words that were spelled correctly but used out of context or opposite of it’s meaning that he hadn’t caught wind of.  

Arriving at the door now, the boy stood there hesitantly while replaying the instructions he had been given in his mind. Clearly the closed sign was on…and no one was supposed to be coming in. If someone was there, they’d be waiting for him…they’d know that he was here and why he was here and it would be fine. There was a swelling fear inside of him that somehow, no matter how illogical it seemed, he’d knock on the door and someone would answer and he would have gotten it all terribly wrong.

  I don’t belong here . He thought as he turned his back to the door, looking across the street and then tilting his head from one side to the other, scanning the crowd.

If I just go home now, no one will notice. In fact, it was so tempting to walk away and not confront his anxiety head on that one of his feet took a step forward and the other froze midair, ready to take that plunge, before reasoning set in. Ransom could hear in almost a perfect echo the tone of voice that Ryker might talk to him in, if he had known this was happening.

“Don’t run away from this. You want this, remember? You should just get what you want Ransom. Relax.”

In light of the internal dialogue, the boy turned on his heel to face the door, lifting his fist from the pocket of his jacket to knock on the door with his knuckles. Bang. Bang. Bang.

With that, he waited. It was now nine o’clock, on the dot.

I don\'t ever wanna feel like I did that day
But take me to the place I love,
Take me all the way.

[Trillian]

"Eric, you say?"

Helena watched as Isabella poured herself a cup of coffee from the percolator, the steaming liquid dark and bitter.  The smell of it wafted strongly throughout the living room.  Helena hadn\'t told Isabella that she quite liked the smell of coffee, but because the vampire didn\'t complain, Isabella had guessed as much already.

There was no answer to Helena\'s prompt, not that she expected one.  Isabella was a woman of few words, and this was likely the reason why Helena hadn\'t tired of her in the many years they\'d been together.  Their relationship had formed quickly but their bond wasn\'t weak because of it.  They seemed to understand one another.

"He\'s at the door," Helena said, tapping her lips thoughtfully and looking upward at the ceiling.  She hadn\'t heard anybody knocking, but could feel someone hovering.  Why did men do that, she wondered?  Isabella had described him as \'kind of nervous\', and Helena supposed he might be standing there working up the courage to knock.  If that were the case, then how delightful.  If not, if he was a looky-lou, then she would ensure that he would be making his very last judgmental stare tonight.

Isabella raised her eyebrows but didn\'t question Helena\'s declaration.  She took the time to have a single sip of her coffee before moving towards the pull-down stairs set on the south wall.  Reaching up, she pulled the ring-cord with ease and the stairs began to descend.  With her mug in hand, she climbed the steep stairs, but before opening the trap door she looked towards Helena enquiringly.

"I\'ll come up," she answered the silent question while nodding, and Isabella returned with a curt nod of her own before opening the trapdoor one handed, careful not to spill her cup of black coffee.  She was dressed in pale blue jeans and a white t-shirt, with white runners once again on her feet.  After ascending into the shop proper, there was a knock and Isabella glanced at the clock to see what time it was.  There were a few clocks on the wall, none of them quite on the nine o\'clock mark, but all of them were close enough for Isabella to understand her painter was on time.

She headed for the front door but didn\'t open it right away.  Instead she stood on the other side of it and took another sip.

"Hang on a minute," she spoke through it, and peered through the shelves where she would be able to see if Helena had followed her into the shop.  After a moment passed, she heard the other woman closing the trapdoor after herself with a hollow thud, and a swishing sound of her foot on the rug, making sure the corner hadn\'t flapped up, hiding the entrance to their living quarters.

Isabella turned back to the shop door and opened it.  There was no bell ringing above the shop door, for it was unnecessary.  She took a long look at the mortal young man in front of her before asking a question.

"Where\'s your portfolio?"

She\'d expected him to bring some samples of his work.

[skeggsismad]

Tapping his fingers against his jeans, the young man waited for the door to be opened. With every moment he had to wait the more his discouragement grew. The idea that this had all been a mistake and he was unwanted here was extremely tempting to cave into. Ransom was nearly about to walk away, go home and forget all of this.

Then, behind the door, was Isabella’s face. He was relieved and yet somewhat apprehensive at the same time to see her again. Though he always felt at unease with people, the way that the women in question conversed with him always increased his anxiety. It wasn’t her fault, really…it was only in the way he interpreted things.

She said something and loudly enough that he could clearly hear it through the glass. Ransom didn’t pay attention to what she was looking at carefully…and instead focused on why he could possibly be asked to wait outside. Had he come too early? The human grabbed for his cellphone and pulled it out of his jeans pocket, turning it on and automatically being assaulted by the sound of the phone’s startups, a million text messages and likely the same amount of missed calls…all from the same person. By now it was a few minutes past the time he had been asked to be here, but he knew that meant he had been more than on time since he’d been waiting to be invited in.

He was soon distracted and consumed by the device, and when the door was opened and the voice run out…Ransom completely dropped his phone, breaking off the back casing so that the battery and inner workings of the phone was exposed. The boy looked horrified, in an overly exaggerated way…not the usual type of shock one might display at having dropped and broken an object.  The manila folder he had been holding was dropped as soon as the cellular device made impact on the ground.

I messed up. She’s going to think I’m worthless.

As quickly as he could, Ransom attempted to bend over to grab the phone, but stopped midway with a pained expression on his face, straightening back up and instead deciding to attempt to kneel down to grab it. That appeared to be just as painful, but the boy stuck with it, gritting his teeth and snuffing out any sounds that wanted to escape his body until he reached the broken phone pieces and leaned over greater to grab the pieces of paper. He did it all quickly enough the second time around that even if someone had stopped to help him pick it up, it would have been in his hands before they could start.

Obviously, Ransom was flustered. When he stood up his face was deep cherry, and he fumbled with cellphone pieces in his hands, putting the manila folder under his armpit momentarily until he assembled the thing back together and slipped it back into his pocket, forgetting to turn it off.

When the frenzy was over he forced himself to look back up at Isabella, regardless of what she might think of him now. His inner dialogue was filled with horrid thoughts of what she might be secretly thinking of him, but for now he tried to put it aside to respond to the question.

When he remembered she had asked for his portfolio, it didn’t register in Ransom’s head that it might be a different thing altogether than the estimate she had asked him to draw up the day prior. Grasping the folder from underneath his arm, Ransom extended it towards Isabella with a polite smile, hoping and praying she would be pleased with the content of the document he had spent hours upon hours perfecting.

[Trillian]

Isabella watched as the phone slipped out of the young man\'s hands and tumbled onto the ground.  She had no intention of helping him pick it up but didn\'t miss the expression of pain on his face on both attempts he made.  Thoughtfully, and while taking another sip of her steaming coffee, she watched as he swept up the pieces at her feet and stood up in order to assemble them before making the phone disappear.  She said nothing throughout this process, merely watching him work until the phone was gone, and then her gaze flicked up from his hands to his embarrassed face.  She stared at him until the Manila folder was handed out to her, and she took it in order to thumb it open single handedly and glance at the end total of his quote.  It looked more realistic than his guesstimate had sounded the previous night, so she closed the folder with its one piece of paper and gestured with her head for him to enter.  When he didn\'t move fast enough for her liking, she prompted him.

"Come inside, to the space where we met last night," she said, her tone of voice as flat as ever, and once he\'d cleared the door, she nudged it shut with her sneakered foot, ensuring it properly closed and locked behind them.  If Ransom wanted out, he could thumb the latch and leave, but nobody outside would be able to enter.

Because the aisles were so narrow and cluttered, she was forced to walk single-file behind the painter (who was now empty handed while both her hands were filled) as they approached the place where Helena stood.  She was dressed in a black corset over a tight grape-colored skivvy, a ruffled and very full black skirt with red trim that looked the part of a Russian stage costume, while her legs were covered in black stockings with silver Mary-Jane shoes that were worthy of walking the yellow brick road for, so dazzling and full of bling as the were.  Her hair was straight, much like Isabella\'s, but longer and brunette, and Helena had no fringe and had piled it high on her head.

Helena saw the boy first, in front of her obviously impatient Isabella, who moved past Ransom as soon as she could do so without touching or brushing by him.  The manilla folder was handed to her and Helena took it without looking its way and set it down on the nearest surface.  Her smile was wide and inviting (but not toothy or revealing, certainly not) when she looked back at Ransom, and held out both her hands, palms up, as Isabella joined her side and watched the painter together.

"Give me your hands, darling.  A painter\'s hands should be soft and filled with the promise of their art." Her voice was soft and musical; the polar opposite of Isabella\'s harsh and blunt manner.  When Ransom hesitated, she nodded encouragement. "It\'s okay," she soothed, "I don\'t bite."

[skeggsismad]

As Isabella had instructed him to, Ransom scattered into the store quickly, preparing to follow her instructions exactly until he heard the sound of a lock and looked behind him to, stopping in his tracks to observe that the door had been locked. That in itself made his innards twist in discomfort. A part of him knew it was because the store was closed. That other, cynical part, kept raging on. He didn’t view it as locking the outside work away, but rather, locking him in away from the outside world.

He was not stopped for all that long before he remembered where he had to go and did so. Indeed, Ransom walked taking his time and looking around, careful not to allow him or the knapsack that swung at his side where it always was to hit anything. In a blink of an eye he watched Isabella cut in front of him and immediately felt guilty because he hadn’t realized he had been holding her up.

I should have moved faster.

Should have, could have, would have.

His concern quickly moved from that mistake to another possible one; Isabella had looked at his quote and he was wondering what that expression meant.

“I’m sorry that…um…it’s so much…I…” Ransom began to apologize already for what he thought to be an outrageous amount of money to charge for a painting. Surely, they were going to get mad and not want to pay for it.

Who do I think I am? He questioned. But that train of thought was all interrupted when Helena spoke to him and made an unusual request. The boy stood frozen like a statue, eyes looking up and down the woman before politely meeting her eyes. The way she was dressed, it was odd to him, and he didn’t know if it was stylish or not but he wasn’t certain what he thought of all those colors. From her face and the looks of her, she wasn’t much older than he was, and even if both of them were around the same age he still felt a thousand times inferior to the women.

Yet, the tone of voice that she greeted with him made him feel kind of fuzzy inside. Ransom couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but it made his eyes grow bigger in size and a sort of dumbfounded look resided on his face. Should he give her his hands?

I don’t want to.

He took a deep breath.

But she seems so nice.

Reluctantly, the boy raised his hands from his side and suddenly realized he didn’t know how he was supposed to hold his hands. Fumbling, he put them palm up imitating like Helena and then palm down when he wasn’t sure if that was right, either.

“I…don’t know um…how…I…” His eyes darted away from her eyes awkwardly. He knew he how he must have looked, and it made him feel ashamed.

[Trillian]

Helena\'s smile broadened at his uncertainty and she stepped forward to take his hands before they moved again.  She was quick to take them - whether he attempted to withdraw them or not, he would find himself with his hands in hers.

"You must be like my Isabella," she cooed, cool hands (but not icy, for the shop had central heating) gripping Ransom\'s firmly but not possessively.  "She doesn\'t like being touched."

"It\'s about respecting my personal space," Isabella interrupted, sounding hostile.  Helena didn\'t flinch or look over her shoulder at her blonde charge, for she only had eyes for Ransom.  She let go of one hand in order to stroke his dominant hand (whether he be left or right handed, she knew instinctively which one was used most), caressing the palm and her gently touch wisping over his fingers.  Should Ransom attempt to take back his hand at this stage, she would let him go - otherwise she continued her gentle touches, which were more exploratory and maternal, and without hint of sexuality.

"I see no examples of artwork from you, so you obviously wish for your hands to speak for themselves," she said, then turned her head slightly while still looking at Ransom so that Isabella would know that Helena was addressing her.  "A fine declaration, for our Eric has lovely hands.  Lovely, hands," she repeated, stressing.  "Would you do a quick sketch of us?" she asked, her melodic voice deepening with her question, as though she was being churlish in her request.

[skeggsismad]

Maybe he had been wrong about his initial impression of this woman. When he had casted his gaze back up at her eyes, she looked happy .
Is she making fun of me? Ransom wondered, particularly because he knew how he was looking right now, and if she was smiling she was either trying to be polite about his nervousness or was making a joke out of him. The boy dared to look at the as of yet nameless woman’s face a bit longer, deciding that he couldn’t tell her intentions behind it at all. At least she didn’t put him at unease the same way Isabella did.

The young man didn’t do anything in response to the statement that compared him to Isabella. He honestly had never considered himself in the same league of Isabella, and thinking that they had similarities made him feel strange. When she then chimed displeased about that sort of comment, the conflict seemed to him similar to how teeth being dragged on a chalkboard made him feel.

The real thing he was trying to avoid thinking about was that no matter if he was being compared to Isabella or not, what had been said was true. He didn’t like to be touched. He didn’t want to be touched. And yet he was letting this woman do all sorts of touching to his hand, in weird ways that made him feel more than uncomfortable. Ransom tried to tolerate it…he wanted this job, and he didn’t want to upset her. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been touched in worse ways. But his threshold was getting closer and closer by the moment. He grit his teeth and bared it.

Just don’t think about it.

His muscles stiffened and his body composure was as straight and inflexible as a metal plank.

Ransom realized that he didn’t  know her name, but strangely, she knew his. He was able to piece it all together when Helena asked him to sketch the two of them in a tone that was different than what she had been using before. Was she furious with him for not bringing a sample of his work? The boy suddenly jerked his hands away from Helena’s grip, shoving them deep into the pockets of his hoodie and looking from the ground to Helena, mouth hanging open like he was about to say something. But he wasn’t sure what to say. Apologize? Agree? Thank her for the compliment?

“I..I guess,” He mumbled. Sketching wasn’t his best work and he was suddenly anxious that if he did this, even though he was fair at sketching, they wouldn’t want him to paint because they’d think that was his skill level at that art too.

“…But I’m…not that good at sketching. I…I paint. Um..” Ransom drawled on, as if he had more to say, though the sentence had ended clumsily there. His hands began digging in his knapsack bag until he pulled out his sketching pad and a case where he kept his pencils, looking towards the two women with his materials, unsure of how this was supposed to go.

“You…you can pose…how you want…”  He began to try to calm his body then, closing his eyes and pacing the movements of his chest. He knew that somehow it was like his muscles could remember stress, and when he got stressed out when he was drawing he couldn’t move his hand and his stokes would become rigid and everything turned out all wrong. He had to be relaxed while doing this and as hard as that was for him, it wasn’t an impossibility.

[Trillian]

Isabella always sounded patronising or hostile when she spoke.  It was difficult for most people to understand if she despised everything or if she simply had no other way of talking.  Right now she was staring at Helena while she recovered from Ransom pulling his hands away from her.  Isabella could only see a portion of her profile, so she was hard to read.  The painter, on the other hand, looked extremely uncomfortable.  Surprise, surprise.

Helena, meanwhile, retracted her own hands after Ransom pulled away from her.  She linked her fingers together and held them protectively to herself, upon her bosom.  She nodded encouragingly as Ransom spoke, to let him understand that she knew the difference between sketching and painting, and once he pulled out his sketching articles, Helena immediately shook her head.

"Oh, goodness, no.  I dare not insist upon your doing something you feel is beneath you," she said, apparently shocked on his behalf.  She moved forward then, and reached out for the pad and pencils in his grip.  She stopped halfway, however, in order for him to place them in her hands rather than simply taking them off him.  If he didn\'t do as she gestured, however, she would simply stand there for an awkwardly long time until he put them away himself or gave them to her.  She wouldn\'t move from her position until there was a definite choice from him.  "I apologise, most deeply."

[skeggsismad]

Helena’s remarks were followed only by a dumbfounded expression that rested upon the young man\'s face. When she had extended her hands to grab from his sketchpad and pencils that he considered almost sacred, Ransom pulled them to his chest out of her grasp, making sure he had a firm grip of them so that there would be a struggle if she attempted to take them away. He was going back to a place in his psyche of early years- a time where everything he owned had to be guarded or else his mother would come and destroy everything. Having soothed himself moments ago under the impression that he was going to be sketching the two women, Ransom had found equilibrium and was keeping his anxiety under control for the moment. However, the way that Helena had worded things sounded too complicated for him to easily understand, and the human found himself a little lost at what was happening.

He looked to the ground and lifted one foot at a time, trying to see if he was standing on something and that’s what this was all about. Hadn’t she said something about a thing being beneath him? He took a careful step backwards, hoping that this would solve whatever conflict they were having, looking back up to Helena with a blank expression. Ransom knew that he could have asked for clarification, but he had just met the woman and if he did that he was afraid she’d think he was stupid. Who wanted to hire a painter who acted like he was mentally incapable? Nobody. Ransom’s thoughts echoed, though he did hope that maybe she’d explain further without him having to ask.

[Trillian]

Helena remained as she was, her hand out for the items, amazed at his actions.  As dumbfounded as he felt, she looked.  She\'d obviously insulted him, and she was both incensed and challenged by the fact her charms obviously didn\'t work on him.  Everybody liked her.  Everybody.

"How about we skip the business courtesies that have no real meaning," she said, her smile a little shallower now that she thought he didn\'t like her, "and go directly to what you do best.  There\'s no need for sketches or portfolios, and that rot," she said, her outstretched hand now being waved in the air above her head as though shooing away a cloud.  She returned it to her bosom, but continued speaking.  "I\'m happy to take you on your word that you\'re a most excellent painter."

"And if he\'s not?" Isabella asked, as though Ransom wasn\'t right there in front of them.

Helena looked over her shoulder at Isabella with a warning look, while her protege merely lifted her eyebrows and then shrugged.  Helena turned back to face Ransom with an embarrassed chuckle.

"You\'ll have to forgive Isabella, she\'s had to deal with rather untrustworthy souls, and as a result she\'s lost her confidence in people."  Helena took a step forward towards Ransom, to close the extra space he\'d created between them.  There were still a couple of steps to go before she was directly in his space, however.  "I\'m the one who\'s paying, and I\'m happy to go ahead with the painting."  She took a gamble.  "I like you, Eric.  You seem an honest sort."  Her smile was wide and reassuring once more.

She heard the tiny sigh Isabella made behind her, but only because she had enhanced hearing.

[skeggsismad]

He’d done something wrong, somehow and somewhere down the line. The woman’s face had dropped and he didn’t know why it had, but he felt personally responsible for it in ways he couldn’t describe. His muscles started to tighten up again and tension rose in him; the temporary relaxed state he had been when he thought he was preparing to sketch had faded and he was now back to his usual composure of fretting.

Soaking in Helena’s words, Ransom didn’t know what how to respond to having been told he was probably an excellent painter. It flushed his face red but he didn’t say anything in response, opening his mouth as if he were going to speak but no words flowed out, his jaw permanently fixed in suspension.
Isabella’s voice soon cut into his uncertainty- because she seemed to be upset, too, and he always felt compelled to respond the instant that Isabella said anything to try to curb any hard feelings. He never felt his actions were adequate, but it was that high strung feeling that welled inside him that caused him to react in such a way.

“I…uh…I’m sorry. I didn’t know that…I should have brought them um, I mean…I’m sorry that I didn’t bring what you wanted.”

He spoke and finished his statements even while watching Helena face Isabella, intent on babbling it out before anyone else spoke up and he got interrupted. Ransom typically wasn’t the kind of person to talk over another, and so he always felt pressured to speak quickly in a conversation with multiple people before someone else decided they had something important to communicate. At the same time, he took Helena’s words as an indication that he should put his materials away, opening his knapsack and slipping the objects back into their proper place so that he was no longer gripping them tightly to his chest.

It troubled him deeply when Helena spoke of Isabella’s distrust of people, simply because he had been compared previously to the woman he wondered if Helena thought the same of him. Did this woman think the reason he was like he was boiled down to not being able to trust people, too? If she did, then she was right…and that was the most frightening bit of it all. Ransom didn’t want anyone to be able to psychology read him, and if they did, he wanted them to keep it to himself so that he didn’t have to deal with it. Although his eyes bulged for a moment as it happened, Ransom made no effort to protest Helena’s steps towards him, nor did he step further backwards in reaction.

 “Oh.” He finally said as he responded verbally, nodding his head. The moment after he second guessed himself, deciding that what he had said sounded somewhat causal and unconcerned. Ransom expanded his train of thought.

“Oh okay…um…you’re forgiven…or…she is…or…I don’t know if that’s what I was supposed to say or...”

Ransom’s hand went to the back of his neck behind the locks of curly hair that flowed there, massaging it nervously, eyes that had once been looking into Helena’s darting erratically around the room.

Subconsciously, when Helena had said that she liked him, it did propel his self-worth quite a bit. Ransom didn’t realize it on the surface but the flattery was like sugar; it tasted good, and he wanted more from Helena, craving the approval of others like a smoker needed nicotine.

“So…um…”  He droned on, with no real point. To him, the conversation had dwindled to practically an end and he didn’t know what was expected of him now. Obviously the two still wanted something, because they were both still standing side by side and looking at him.

[Trillian]

"How did you want to do this?" she asked at the same time as he\'d made his \'so, um\' comment, which hadn\'t been much of a comment to begin with, but Helena thought she\'d interrupted Ransom and caused him to stop talking.  He said precious little, and she wanted him to say more, so was upset with herself for stopping what might have come.  She doubted he would continue with his original thought.  He had a fairly bad stammer; she didn\'t know if it was a speech thing or if it stemmed from his nervousness. "Oh, I\'m sorry," she said, sounding genuinely sorry, while covering her mouth with the fingers of her right hand and widening her eyes.  "I\'m taking over, aren\'t I?  I keep doing that to people, you mustn\'t let me take advantage of your quiet nature.  I do so want to hear all about your ideas.  Here, let\'s talk in the back room," she reached out towards Ransom\'s arm, intending to loop her left arm in his right, remembering only at the last minute that he disliked being touched.  "Oh!" she cried, retracting her hand suddenly.  "Almost forgot!" she stated with a laugh, then turned on her heel and strode regally towards a door hidden behind a cluttered shelf.  Isabella stared at Ransom, her head cocked to the side as she studied him.

[skeggsismad]

Ransom listened to Helena go on with a blank face, trying to figure out how he as supposed to react to her apology…was that what it was? An apology? He had been done speaking, but he wasn’t going to correct Helena and risk angering her or upsetting her. He was beginning to think now that she was easy to upset, sort of frantic like his mother had been but without the harshness. No, if he had to compare Helena to any woman he had known personally, she reminded him much more of his ex-wife.

When his arm was almost grasped, Ransom tensed, managing to control himself to not fly off the handle this one time- especially since Helena had pulled back so quickly. His eyes were full of fear and shock, but he didn’t say a word further about it, allowing the female to say her amends. He even smiled politely back when Helena laughed, a smile that stuck to his face for a brief moment before fizzling out as quickly as it had come on. By now his focus was on Helena and he was nonetheless unintentionally ignoring Isabella, perhaps forgetting she was even there due to her silence. Putting considerable distance between him, he did follow Helena slowly and began to formulate a response to her question in his head.

“Well..um…it will take a few sessions, to do it. Maybe here. I don’t know…um…wherever you want…but probably the same place each time. And uh,” Answering Helena\'s original question, even though she now had her head turned from him.

 At that moment, his phone started to ring, putting a pause on whatever he had been about to say. A horrified looked crossed Ransom’s face before it melted into a mess of flushed red, his hands reaching for his pockets when he wasn’t looking and failing to even find his pocket the first couple of times he reached. Finally he dipped his head down to look and slipped his hand in, the ring still going on as he did so, opening the phone in order to turn it off since it was an older flip phone  of about five years and that was the only way to do it. As soon as he did that, though, a female voice could be heard from the other line,

Yeah, of course you’d answer now when I’ve been calling you all-

Ransom hung up the phone as quickly as he could, pressing the ‘end’ button until it completely shut itself off. He hoped that nobody would ask any questions, although being that he didn’t know either of the woman might be a supernatural, the thought never crossed his mind that they would have been able to hear the voice on the other line of the phone being that they were further away from it than he was, and he could only barely hear it when it wasn’t pressed up against his ear. It was impolite to have his phone on and he thought he better say something about it.

“Sorry…I um…I forgot to turn it off.” Ransom explained softly, although it was not apparent who he was speaking to since he was not looking directly at anyone as he mumbled the words out.

[Trillian]

Isabella raised her eyebrows at his awkwardness as he mumbled an answer Helena hadn\'t bothered to wait for, since she\'d moved away as soon as she\'d apologised and laughed, expecting him to follow after her like a pup.  Typical Helena, asking questions and then ignoring the answer.  Still, Isabella was surprised Eric hadn\'t trotted after her, getting himself distracted with his phone instead.  Isabella heard the person on the other end, but only because she was closer to him than Helena, though because of Helena\'s species, she would\'ve heard it also.  Neither of them would bother to comment on it.

Isabella approached him, ensuring to keep her space from him even as she moved into his vision.  This was not out of any courtesy to Ransom, but because she treasured her personal space also.  She raised one of her hands  to gesture in the direction where Helena had gone, looking like a game show model presenting fabulous prizes for the winning.

"Hurry up, then," she prompted impatiently, though there was a wry smile beginning at the corners of her mouth. She was amused by Ransom\'s antics - who she thought of as Eric - but knew it would only be a matter of time before she lost her patience with him. She wondered if Helena would keep her claws in him, or if she\'d toy with him as any cat would a mouse, and either end him quickly or let him go, a little scratched and battered but wiser for the experience. Time would tell, of course, and this early on it would be difficult to tell which of the three ways Ransom would end up.

The back of the shop where Helena had gone was simply a storage room, though it held very little due to everything being out front and on display.  A door leading to a toilet and wash basin gave Isabella the amenities she needed without having to go downstairs, plus there was a short counter that held a bar fridge beneath and a kettle above.  The cupboard above stored cups, coffee and sugar, as well as a few other items Isabella had thought useful.  Now that the walls weren\'t hidden by things, it could be seen as a cheery though chipped sunflower yellow.

Helena was seated at one of two white folding chairs against the wall opposite the kitchenette, waiting for the painter to join her.

"Coffee? Tea?" she offered once Ransom appeared.

[skeggsismad]

Isabella’s commands jolted Ransom into motion rather hastily even if she had been smiling when she spoke them. Though the fear of bumping into Helena remained great, it seemed that irritating Isabella petrified the boy more. He slipped the cellphone back into the pocket where it belonged as he walked, not wanting to stumble in his path and accidentally drop it.

Almost habitually, when Ransom entered the new room he looked around at the ceilings for any visible signs of security cameras before tilting his head to the ground so it wouldn’t be as noticeable on film if it happened that there were. He knew often times you couldn’t see the security cameras and that perhaps was one amongst his most deeply embedded fears. It was obvious that Ransom had likely been caught on hundreds of videocameras throughout his life exiting and entering grocers and the like, but the very thought of it made the young man sick.  He resisted the urge to pull his hoodie up as he typically would out of fear that it would make him appear shady or unreliable to his prospective clients.

He made his way towards Helena, noting the surroundings and grateful that for the most part this back room was much less cluttered. If this was where they had wanted to do the paintings and a background was to be included it would take less work with the fine details, although he decided the high-spirited yellow might turn hard on his eyes after time.  Upon noticing there were only two chairs and his realization that there were three of them, Ransom stood awkwardly to the side of the chair and the table as if he were waiting for Isabella to take the seat instead of he.

As for the beverage, Ransom decided he didn’t have much of a preference. It might do him so good, he thought, to have something to manipulate in his hands as he talked to serve as a sort of distraction for his nervousness. Too, the notion that he was being offered what was probably free tea or coffee was moreover appealing: for with him being as stingy as he was, even if he had been deathly thirsty the chances that the boy would fork over a measly dollar and fifty cents for a bottled water or can of Cola remained slim.
 
“Okay,” He agreed rather than specifying which, for his characteristic indecisiveness might have placed him there weighing out the pros and cons of each option for hours on end.