All of these lines upon my face tell you a story...

[brandedfirst]

Who: Brando, OPEN
Where: Mickey's Bar in the South side of Chicago
When: 7pm
Summary: The rift is widening. Brando's looking for new recruits for the hotel. Specifically underground the hotel. Everyone there is part of the army. The army's never quite big enough. Not exactly his job, but he likes this better than his job. And Brando tends to get

Comments

[worseforfears]

As opposed to the other angel of death, who she's not really going to talk to because who wants to talk shop when you do what they do, Becky knows exactly what she's doing at the bar.

She's drinking.

Alcohol, it must be admitted, is not her numbing drug of choice, but she's broke at the moment, and she has to get this last death out of her head, because it was just too much.

(Poor little Jessamin, she was only eight, she was so scared and hurting so much--)

She doesn't understand how people can be so... despicably cruel to each other.

She doesn't look up, though. She doesn't want to risk seeing another, not so soon after the last one. So she'll just sit at the bar, staring at the wood and drinking a beer.

[brandedfirst]

Brando moves to sit next to her so smooth and quiet that it's like he's made of liquid. But he's not. That's just how he moves.

He lights a new cigarette and presses it between his lips, blowing out a smooth trail of smoke.

"You can look at me. I'm not going to die," Brando says in his smooth, deep, commanding tone. Just like liquid.

[worseforfears]

"You don't know that. That's sort of the point." But she looks up at him, her blue eyes shadowed. Sometimes, oh sometimes, she can move on. Pretend she can just live. But not this soon after. That poor little girl...

"You know, it never gets less weird, having people just... know about me," she comments, taking a swig of beer.

[brandedfirst]

"I know," Brando says, and even if he doesn't know, he doesn't have to.

After 900 years of living, he's not really opposed to dying. It doesn't take long, looking in her expression to see just what it is that has her drinking this time. Of course, without the helpful (annoying) psychic connection, he'd known. A death. That's what always has an angel of death drinking or doing drugs or slitting their throats...

He smiles at her next words and glances sideways at her. "It will, sweetheart. It just takes some time."

[worseforfears]

"I guess," she says. "If I have enough time."

It's not like she doesn't know. It'd be impossible not to know, even if she hadn't met anyone else who could tell her about those who'd come before her.

No one could survive long living like this.

[brandedfirst]

Brando presses his cigarette into the ash tray and finally, turns to look at her.

"You'd be surprised, Becky."

It'd always been surprising to him when another year passed and he was still living.

[worseforfears]

Becky, startled, looks back up at him again, an extremely rare event - she hardly ever looks at someone twice. After all, you never knew when you'd suddenly see their death, even if you looked at them safely only moments before.

"How d'you know my name?"

[brandedfirst]

"It's one of those annoying abilities given to you when you've been alive far too long."

Brando knows why she is startled and what a rare event it is that she's looking at him twice, which is a terrible thing. She has those beautifully shadowed blue eyes.

[worseforfears]

And she doesn't look away - an even rarer even. Brando should consider himself lucky, most people don't get that good a look at her eyes. And they are such lovely eyes.

"You're... you're a first," she says, her eyes widening. "I've heard about you, you've been alive about... a thousand years!"

[brandedfirst]

Brando does find himself lucky on the aspect of seeing her eyes anyway.

He smiles at her surprise and at getting to look into her eyes for a little longer.

"980 to be exact. I'm the youngest." The smile grows a little crooked to show that he knows that being the youngest in beings that are older than nine hundred is not saying much at all. He just likes to pretend it does.

[worseforfears]

"You're still a hell of a lot older than I'll ever be," she says with a bitter laugh.

Down the beer, motion to the bartender for another. Make sure you don't make eye contact.

She's got this down pretty well.

"But... you're... I dunno, important," she continues. "Why are you talking to me?"

Somehow, the fact that she's one of only two of her kind in the whole city isn't part of her worldview.

[brandedfirst]

Brando doesn't say it out loud, but he envies her for that. For not having to live as long.

He laughs at that and shakes his head.

"I'm not important. I'm just old." Brando raises his eyebrows at her. "Have you met another First?"

[worseforfears]

Becky shakes her head and looks down. "No. I met another angel who did. In Europe, about twenty years ago. He sort of sounded like a real ass," she adds, snorting derisively.

She obviously thinks that he wasn't really all that, if he was an ass.

"You still haven't answered my question," she points out. "Why are you talking to me?"

[brandedfirst]

"They are. Asses. Most angels are lucky if they never meet one. It's certainly not as great an honor as they'd like you to think."

Brando smiles at what she points out, resisting the urge to ask, 'Why not?'.

"Ever hear of the Conrad Hotel?"

[worseforfears]

"It's downtown?" Becky shrugs. "Not exactly my part of town."

She tends to fit in in the poor places - everyone high and helping each other just because if they don't help each other, they'll all die.

As she knows from experience. Second hand, of course, but...

[brandedfirst]

"It's ours."

Specifically, it's his, but... that's beside the point.

"The largest opening in the rift exists under it. We have our base of operations there. I wanted to offer you a room to stay in there. Underground with other angels, people who have come through the rift..." Yes, offer. Most First Angels would... honestly, command it.