Saturday, October 29, 2011

Chapter 25: Outlaw

For her birthday, Tearney bought herself a motorcycle. Not particularly eager to tell her mother about her new petroleum burning ride, she decides to take it for a long ride.

Inside, her dragon's blood burns, desperate to take wing; driving fast with the wind blowing through her hair helps satiate the demands of her inner dragon.

She rides for hours, leaving Brooklyn Heights behind, until she finds herself stopping at seedy dive bar next to cheap motel off the highway just a few miles outside Sunset Valley. Tearney walks into the mostly empty room, only to find a familiar head of hair seated at the bar.

"Hey, beautiful," she says, coming up behind him, "Can I buy you a drink?"

"You can do a lot more than that, sweetheart," Amit answers, not missing a beat.  He gets up from his seat to give her a friendly hug. "What the hell are you doing out here?"

"I bought a motorcycle today, I was just taking it out for a ride," she answers, "What are you doing here?"


"Working," he answers.

Their families have always been close, and Tearney knows that Amit has followed his father Tobin's footsteps and is walking the path of the professional criminal. She leans in close to him and whispers, "Are you going to rob this place?"

"This place?" Amit laughs, and then leans in to whisper in her ear, and nuzzling her neck a little while he's there, "No, I'm just killing time here until after midnight. Then I'm heading in to Sunset Valley to pick something up."

"Happy birthday, by the way," he adds, reaching a hand out to stroke her cheek. Tearney grabs his hand and pulls it away.

"You don't want to do that," she warns.

"Of course I do," Amit smiles, "You're the one always pushing me away. Why is that, Tea?"

"Because you flirt with everyone, and I don't want to just be another notch on your belt," Tearney answers, knowing that's only partially true.

"You're not like all the others, Tea," Amit says, "You're a dragon, for one. Let me taste your fire."



He's just being playful, she knows, but she struggles with her inner dragon constantly, and having it made light of outrages her. "You want to taste my fire?" she snarls, "You have no idea what it's like, to carry this around inside me. I burn, all the time, and the only thing that puts that fire out is pain. I'm constantly fighting back the urge to hit people, to get into brawls where I can bite and scratch. I don't want to be celibate, Amit, but I can't see any other way around it. I don't think I could control myself."

Amit takes her anger in stride. "I've got a room at the motel," he says, taking her arm gently, "You can bite and scratch me all night."

"That's not funny," she says, twisting her arm away from him.

"I'm not joking, Tea," he answers, "I want to help you."

They barely get into his room before she's ripped his shirt off him. "Are you sure about this, Amit?" she asks, giving him one last chance to escape.

"Oh, I'm sure," he answers, pulling her hair.

Tearney wrestles him into the bed, and gives him a taste of her fire.


It was rough, and it was painful, and it sated the dragon. Amit lay quiet beneath her, Tearney nestled under his arm, listening to his heart beat.

"Amit?" she spoke his name softly.

"Mmm?" His fingers were drawing lazy circles on her back.

"Are you okay?"

"Never better," he smiles, "I'm - oh, crap, it's time." A low buzz was coming from his pants, crumpled on the floor.

"Why don't you come with me?" he asks once they're dressed.

"What? To a robbery?" Tearney laughs, "I'm not criminal."

"Criminal is such an ugly word," Amit says, "I prefer outlaw. It's so much sexier, don't you think. Anyway, this job is  piece of cake. Just follow my lead and you'll be fine."

Tearney has to admit the idea of sneaking into a place late at night to steal something excites her. "What are you stealing?" she asks, as though it matters.

Amit flashes a wicked smile, "It's a surprise. You'll love it."

So Tearney follows him as he breaks into Sunst Valley's art museum. The galleries are filled with priceless treasures, but he doesn't pause to look at any of them, leading her directly to the hall of antiquities.

"Oooh," she breathed when he showed her the golden cobra statuette from Egypt. "Can I take it?"



Amit smiles and takes her into his arms, "Of course, sweetheart, it's your birthday gift. I was going to bring it to you, but it's so much sweeter to have you here with me."

Tearney looks him in the eyes. He's a skilled liar, but she can usually see through him, and he seems to be telling the truth. He really did come out here to steal this ancient, priceless cobra just for her. "I can't believe you'd do this for me," she says.

"I'd do a lot more, Tea. Just give me a chance," he says, his lips brushing against her throat, "Let's make love, right here," he whispers, moving her toward the viewing bench.

"Are you crazy?" Tearney gasps, pushing away his groping hands, "Shouldn't we just finish the job and head back home?"

They should have done exactly that. Amit allowed himself to get distracted, and did a clumsy job of breaking in, and must have tripped a silent alarm.

"You!" the intruding cops yells at him, "On the floor, now!"

Tearney had thought she'd lulled the dragon to sleep, but nothing rouses her fire more than authority figures. Without thinking, she springs onto the officer.

"Tea, don't!" Amit shouts to no avail.

Amit has no idea what to do here, he's a burglar, not a fighter.

Tearney had her rage, but the cop was better trained, and cuffs them both and takes them in, charging them both with attempted burglary, and Tearney with assault on a police officer.

Tearney sits on the cell's hard cot. "Happy birthday to me," she sighs, wondering how she's going to get out of this mess.

Just as she's settling back into the pillows, Amit appears in a beam of light.

Tearney leaps up from the bunk, "How...?"

"Elfin magic," Amit explains, "My mom was always pushing my Dad to reconnect with his elfin heritage, and with her help, he learned a few spells that helped him in his trade. It's why he's never been caught."

"Maybe you should have done something before we got caught," Tearney observes.

"This is all my fault," Amit says, "I was distracted, I didn't sense the cop's approach. Once she saw us, it was too late. We can't use the teleportation spell in front of outsiders, it would ruin everything. But now we're alone, I'm going to get us out of here."

On impulse, Tearney grabs him and kisses him.

"Stay close to me," he says, lifting his arm dramatically.

His hand swoops toward the ground, and a cloud of magic dust rises around them.

"You did it!" Tearney gasps when the dist clous clears and she finds herself in Amit's family home.

"Titania?" Amit notices the ancient fairy over Tearney's shoulder.

Sunset Valley PD had already called the Archers and the Romans, informing them of the arrests. Amit explains the situation to his father, knowing he screwed up. "You know you shouldn't have brought her with you, Son," Tobin chides, "Never mix business and pleasure."

"Lesson learned," Amit answers, "I'll keep it professional from now on."

"You know you haven't completely escaped," Tobin says, "They know who you are, and where you're from. As soon as they notice you're gone, they will be here, looking for you. You can't stay here, either of you, you'll have to go into hiding."

"Where?"

"I have some...connections...out west. I've already made some calls for you, got you a place to hide out."

Titania then explained her presence in the house. "I can put a glamour on the two of you, so you can get out of town without be noticed or stopped. But it won't last long, you'll need to get out tonight."

Amit goes up to the nursery and wakes his sleeping daughter, Tennyson. Life on the run isn't going to be easy, but he won't leave her behind.

"Dad, I'm so sorry," Tearney says when Aymeri meets her at the door. She insisted they make one last stop before leaving town, so she could say goodbye to her parents and siblings, "Where's Mom? I want to see her before I go."


"Everyone's asleep," Aymeri says, "Your mother is a terrible liar. When the police come around here, asking questions about you, it's better that she not know that you came back here. They'll have the truth out of her in an instant."

Tearney nods sadly, knowing it's true. "I'm sorry," she apologizes again, "You must be so ashamed of me."

"I'm not ashamed, little dragon," Aymeri smiles, hugging her, "You have a lot to contend with, and you've held yourself so much better than I ever did. I had thousands of years to mature, you have but one human lifespan. I'm proud of you, daughter, I always will be."

______________________________________________
Challenge Notes:
Most of this chapter takes place in an alternate save in Sunset Valley. I made a copy of the REd Rendezvous in Twinbrook, made it a residential lot and moved copies of Amit and Tearney into it, along with some random Sims to be the bartender and customers.
The hotel room was set up in the 2nd floor of the bar. And the Sunset Valley museum was really the SV museum, I just changed the displays. And, yes, I know I did a sad curatorial job there, mixing Chinese, Greek and Egyptian pieces all in the same gallery. But, it's Sims, lol.
So, because it was an alt save, I'm not counting Tearney's fight with the cop as one of her weekly fights for the Fighter requirement.
Her generation will truly begin once we've made the move to Appaloosa Plains.
I'm currently working on that town, fiddling with the community lots, making over the residents and their houses, and building a house for Tea and Amit.

7 comments:

  1. Pretty sure there's one word that sums up this whole chapter: HOT.

    This whole chapter had me smiling like an idiot. Amit is totally awesome, and his interactions with Tearney almost made me swoon multiple times. He makes the bad-boy thing look so good <3.

    Love how you incorporated the elfin magic.

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  2. Can't wait! And a wonderful way to write a quick move. I'm still working on mine. *shrug* Wanna write it for me?! Lol.

    And I love the way you are developing Tea and Amit's relationship.

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  3. ;.; This was so sad.

    But yay elf magic. ^.^ And fun outlaws, yeehaw!

    Titania must have softened a lot, I think.

    Also wondering what those connections are!

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  4. Woo, elfin magic + dragons = awesome :D

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  5. Oh WOW, this got my knickers in a twist, thats for sure lol

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  6. Gosh, you make the whole moving thing look easy. Really just seamless. Great chapter!

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  7. Thanks, guys!
    Moving may look easy, but it wasn't. Creating the sets in SV took a bunch of time, and getting the photos was a pain.
    But I did get lucky in that the roll of Criminal as my secondary career provided a really plausible reason for why they'd have to get out of town fast.
    And I'm lucky that SP provided me a family of career criminals with elfin magic up their sleeves, lol.

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