don't you know we could be? [ open ]

[ghostlighter]

WHO ghostlighter (AU), Etana, and YOU.
WHAT Taking a small break from his neuroses by getting out around everywhere.
WHERE Everywhere. Seriously, unless it's some super-seedy alleyway or whatever, you can probably assume he walked past for one reason or another. Specific places include: the Jōkiryu Onsen; Hell House; the library; the Island.
WHEN Today, the

Comments

[ghostlighter]

Chris wasn't usually the type to stop on a street corner and listen to random performers. Growing up in San Francisco, it wasn't exactly uncommon. This one caught his eye, and he glanced over toward her, brow furrowed. Her voice sounded familiar - before he could really follow up on the thought, someone pushed past him with the urgency of being incredibly late for some very important date (or maybe just trying to get out of the awful weather), and Chris stumbled aside. Etana yelped at his feet, snapping her teeth quietly at the passer-by, while Chris found the back of his foot catching on the edge of the guitar case and tipping it over in something of a fantastic clatter.

"Hey, watch it-whoa!"

Chris slammed against the wall, momentarily dazed from where he had only just regained his balance instead of falling to the pavement. Well, that wasn't one of his shining moments. Etana stepped out of the main thoroughfare and turned to give the rapidly disappearing man a glare. "Jerk," she muttered, before turning to properly regard the overturned guitar case. "Good one, Chris."

[diana_abel]

There were quite a lot of things to be startled by. The sudden appearance of a talking fox definitely ranked high up there. But this was Bete Noire and Diana feared she was losing her sense of wonder, because it definitely didn't throw her nearly as much as it would have back home.

A boy stumbling over her? Well, that was just old hat.

She stopped playing, a smile tugging up the corners of her lips. "Been awhile since a guy fell for me," she teased gently. It might have been her fault, she supposed. Awe could sometimes be a little unpredictable. But she was more inclined to blame the jerk.

Well, she could take 'agreeing with an animal' off her bucket list now.

"You okay there, tiger?" she asked the guy.

[ghostlighter]

"Yeah," Chris answered. "I'm fine. Sorry about-" He gestured toward the mess, then crouched down to fix the case and start depositing the earnings back into it wordlessly. Etana delicately grabbed a few bills in her mouth and did the same, careful not to get any saliva on them.

As he did this, Chris looked back up at her, expression contemplative. It was a little different from simply talking to someone over the network, but he did recognize her. Great, the girl Wyatt had told way too much to. "We've spoken before, haven't we?"

[diana_abel]

Diana knelt down to help the boy and his loyal bet collect her things. She'd sensed something familiar about him, but just kinda chalked it up to the fact that she stalked the network pretty mercilessly, during the day. But he was right. His voice wasn't something she'd encountered with a passing glance. Nor was he one of the anonymous callers on her show. They'd definitely talked talked.

"Yeah," she said, biting down on her lower lip as she tossed the condom back into her case. "I think so. Your voice sounds familiar." She offered him a hand. "I'm Diana?"

[ghostlighter]

Although his lips pursed momentarily, Chris let himself relax and shook the hand. "Chris," he introduced. He nodded down toward his dæmon and added, "Etana." Seeing as her mouth was full of money, she simply raised a brow at him and continued her work in silence. Introductions were usually something she handled herself, thank you very much.

They both recognized her. Maybe not by face, but this was definitely the Diana that Wyatt had mentioned, the Malkavian (whatever that was), and it put Chris somewhat on edge. At least she probably didn't know he and Wyatt were all that connected... Well, a guy could hope, anyway.

[diana_abel]

Chris. It took Diana only a couple moments of thought before she realized exactly where she knew him from.

Well, fuck a duck.

She withdrew her hand. Pulselessness tended to put people on edge. Then again, she had no real way of knowing what Wyatt had and hadn't said about their conversation in the basement. There were brothers and then there were brothers. There were plenty of things that Diana would never mention to Selene after all. Things that she would mention to Artemis without hesitation.

So the bottom line was she didn't know where she stood.

Fantastic.

"Oh, yeah. Chris...Perry, right? The grammar Nazi." She smirked slightly, pushing her guitar over her shoulder to let it rest against her back. "Nice to meet you face to face. As opposed to face to talking box."

[ghostlighter]

Interesting reaction. Chris pulled back shortly after Diana did, shoulders huddled just enough to block out the miserable cold that had taken over the city. Her constitution wasn't really noticeable when his own hands were not all that warm.

"Yeah, same," he greeted, eyes narrowed just a bit as he tried to figure her out. Had Wyatt said anything more about him, or was Diana just like this in person? He wouldn't put it past anyone to be an oddball, not around here, but it still set his nerves alight. Etana weaved around his legs silently, using them as something of a windbreaker. "Mind if I ask you something?"

[diana_abel]

"Not at all," Diana replied, watching the fox.

This was actually probably the most convenient course. Let Chris do the talking. It might give her a good indication of where she stood. Or at least what he knew.

But Diana had been taught to remain on the offensive, so her eyes slowly drifted up and she channeled her auspex to get a good look at his aura.

And his aura made absolutely no sense to her. There was an extreme lack of color. It wasn't some kind of pale, washed out tone, like she'd see on a vampire. It was more like a black and white TV screen. But at the same time, there were sparkles. Lots and lots of sparkles.

Oh boy.

[ghostlighter]

Welcome to the sight of a half-dead man still immersed in his family's ridiculous magical heritage, Diana. Being part-witch and part-whitelighter while half of his powers were still suppressed probably didn't help the aura issue all that much.

"What are you doing out here?" Chris asked, giving a pointed glance around them. He didn't really get it. There hadn't exactly been a lull in the awful weather, but surely there was something else she could do for cash besides play on street corners. He realized how easily the question could be brushed off, and raised a hand while he added, "I mean, when it's like this out."

[diana_abel]

That...was a surprisingly good question. Sometimes, Diana sort of forgot about things like weather. She could still tell hot and cold, bright and dark, all that stuff, but it never really entered into the equation. Not unless she was wearing something that couldn't get wet. And that didn't happen too often, since most of what she owned was made of plastic.

She shut off her auspex, running a hand through her hair. "I guess," she admitted, "I thought people would be going crazy with the post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping." She shrugged. "Back home, this is about the time when you'd see a bunch of rental Santas out on every corner, ringing their bells and collecting donations. I figured I'd give it a shot."

Diana smiled wryly. "Not exactly my brightest idea."

[ghostlighter]

Chris raised a brow, mouth quirking in agreement. "Still..." He looked down to the guitar case, head tilting to the side in some approximation of a shrug. "Looks like you're not doing too bad for yourself."

"You missed Black Friday," Etana chimed in. She didn't know if Diana had been out during the craziest of after-holiday rushes, but it wasn't quite Christmas season yet and sitting out on a Tuesday seemed an odd choice to her. (That was, of course, ignoring rampant consumerism saying that Christmas season had started way back at Halloween.)

[diana_abel]

Diana couldn't help but laugh. It was a talking fox for crying out loud. She glanced down at Etana, shrugging one shoulder up to her ear. "I'm not a huge fan of Black and Blue Friday," she said with a gleam in her eyes. "Call me old fashioned. When I was growing up, the holidays were so not about bone-checking your neighbor to get a two dollar waffle maker."

Besides, she couldn't eat waffles.

She turned her attention back to Chris (and really hoped that wasn't rude). "I should probably start doing holiday songs, but it's still November. Seems a little early. I guess we can chalk this whole endeavor up to being a scouting mission or something. Clearly, this is a good corner." She glanced down at her guitar case. "Unless you want to be paid in condoms. In which case, it's a pretty suck-tastic corner."

[ghostlighter]

Chris's expression twisted a little at 'suck-tastic', bemused more than anything. "I don't know about all that," he admitted, "but I, for one, would just appreciate no holiday songs at all. That's so overdone." It was just the sort of thing one grew up to get annoyed at, as long as you weren't the type to absolutely love it.

"Where did you grow up?" asked Etana. For Chris, and thus Etana, Black Friday had always been like that. She was fairly put out at the shift in attention, yet said nothing of it; it wasn't enough of something to get worked up over. A lot of people thought of her as "just an animal" (insulting, but she could take much worse and wasn't expecting much better by now).

[diana_abel]

"Moved around a lot," Diana said with something of a sigh. "I was born in Notting Hill, but I've spent most of my life in the States. Hence the accent. Or lack of accent, depending on your point of view." It felt really weird to be talking to a fox, still. But whatever. She'd had a conversation with several mythological figures. She could handle it.

She shrugged. "Prior to Bete Noire, it was Phoenix, Arizona. 2009." Apparently, the past for certain members of the Halliwell clan. "Of course, in my world, it wasn't Phoenix so much as the ruins of a city that used to be called Phoenix. What what are you gonna do?"

A pause. "That's what future maps will read. 'The city formerly known as Phoenix.' Like the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. Before he started going by that weird symbol thingy, instead of a name."

[ghostlighter]

"Notting Hill must be a pretty secluded place," Etana surmised blandly. She didn't entirely believe it, but then again, there was no way for her to call bluff even if she felt like doing so.

2009 was much too early to coincide with Chris's timeline, but he found himself frowning anyway. No matter the universe, city-wide destruction was never easy to think about, not when one understood the price that came with it. "What happened there?" he asked.

[diana_abel]

"Supernatural idiots happened," Diana said with a slight shrug.

Okay, so Wyatt clearly wasn't having happy, fun, sharing time with Chris. That was good, right? He'd kept his promise? Diana could live with some people in her life actually following through with things. It would certainly be a nice change.

"To be honest, the occult isn't really my area of expertise." It was sort of true. She knew enough about Cainites to get by. And plenty about dhampir. But there were some things beyond her. Like the things Kait had explained. Dragons? Spells? Spells turning people into dragons? Yeah, that was outside of the norm, even for a vampire.