dexter ain't shit; richard, delilah, welcome to xana

[soursanguine]

For as mundane as most of their world seems to be, that hasn't stopped Richard and Delilah Vasko from having some problems with the doors in their house. Specifically, the closet door of Richard's Workroom, which is really the single most inconvenient door to open to a place it shouldn't.

...Other than the bathroom door, really.

Comments

[soursanguine]

Upon noting one person who can only be a certain other individual, Delilah stares up at Richard with a mile-wide grin. "I know that voice!"

"Yes, but-"

"So? That's not unusual at all, really. Brooooooooooody!" Delilah grins and dashes over to the girl, leaning in for a quick hug while Richard trails behind. (The unpleasant, alien part of all this for him not being any homophobia or discomfort regarding gender--it's that Brody makes, in his estimation, a rather cute girl.)

Grinning hugely, Delilah leans back and gives Brody the once-over. "You look adorable!"

Richard nods in greeting, an appraising eye drifting over Brody's slightly disheveled look. "How's it going, Brody? Funny you should say that, because we've never come here before. But it seems like now our house opens to here, so I suppose we do now." Cute or not, it's a relief for Richard to see a familiar face, and now he's seventy percent less likely to nail the door shut when he gets home.

"So what are you doing here," Delilah says, her smiler calmer and more natural. "We haven't seen you for awhile! Are you just passing through here, or do you live here, orrrrr...?"

[campjesus]

Her reaction -- a quick, nearly violent jerk back -- is instant and reflexive, but not very surprising for someone who seems so avoidant of physical contact (strangely, while still managing to fail to wear pants on a regular basis.)

If the scrutiny makes her uncomfortable, she masks it behind a sort of sheepish shrug and pleasant look on her face that says oh, well, sometimes you freak out a little when people try to touch you, what can ya do. The clothes she's wearing are ... not her style. At all. They're men's clothes that are too long and too baggy, nothing is black, and they look like, although she washed them before she wore them, someone (Harvestman) did something so unspeakable to them that no amount of OxyClean will ever make them look like they did out of the factory. "Aight. I had you pegged for newbies. I'm a bit out of the loop though, there's all kinds of new people coming in I oughta know that I don't, it's a problem." ... in that clearly Brody is required to know everyone everywhere and be all up in their business at any given time.

"Passin' through. I come around here now and then, it's a good resource." You know, a veritable fountain of extravagantly and unreasonably wealthy good Samaritans with nothing better to do with their comically huge stashes of Scrooge McDuck-esque gold than shower the less fortunate and more hot in it. "Wouldn't live here though, shoot. It's only a matter of time before an alien tentacle monster infestation breaks out and home owner's insurance don't cover that." It is way easier to make jokes than, like, be honest, ever. "From your house, huh? Y'all should pick up a PINpoint then -- unless you already have one." Do they? She can't recall ever asking, she just sort of assumes everyone does and is surprised and a little taken aback when they don't, it's become such an important fixture in her life. Mostly in that it enables universe-hopping to evade the law.

[soursanguine]

Richard gives Brody a look that could very nearly pass for, if not sympathetic, then "vaguely understanding" in response to her reaction. Delilah gets a free pass because, well, it's Delilah--but fuck most of the rest of the world if he's not expecting said contact.

"Yeah," Delilah says with an apologetic smile, looking briefly up and down the street, "it seems like they've got an awful lot of things to do and places to go here! It's a huge place."

Richard blinks at the 'alien tentacle monster' joke and makes a (mental) pair of additions to his Xana-to-do list: security, local drugs. Sometimes a bit of work is in order to make things more acceptable. Meanwhile, Delilah shakes her head. "We don't have one yet, we just met a nice gentleman called Harvestman who told us about them and showed us his."

Her husband nods. "Yes, we were just on our way to find where to get one, as a matter of fact." Then, eyes flicking towards the sign, he asks, "Are you panhandling, Brody? If you help us find a place where we can get a PINpoint, we'll buy you lunch."

He may not be a generous man, but he does believe in little trades.

[campjesus]

"They usually have a vending machine in most of the stores. They're free, I dunno why they bother with a machine, but." She turns, peers down the street -- it can be a little difficult to acclimate oneself to Xanadu, since Nexus cities are chaotic by nature and have been known to shift around of their own volition, but she's pretty sure she knows where this is. "If you check Stig, down the street, there -- it's the bar-slash-tattoo parlour -- I think they got a bowl of 'em out for newbies."

Pause. She appreciates people who barter -- she's spent long enough on the street that it drives her nuts when people just want to give her shit -- but... "I don't eat much these days." ... ever, she means, really -- there's places here that cater to her type, but she doesn't go there. If they're serving human, she doesn't want it, and anything else might as well be ipecac.

(Trying to starve the monster out of you is ineffectual at best, dangerous at worst, but she's not the first one to try and won't be the last.)

[soursanguine]

Ever the cheap man, Richard gives Brody a pleased look to know they're free and glances down the street towards Stig. "Christ almighty, free teleporters. Now I just need that jetpack NASA's been promising and we'll be all set."

Then at Brody's words, he arches a brow and finally shrugs. Eating is, in his (often drug-addled) opinion, overrated. Delilah's the only reason he weighs as much as he does now, and that still doesn't look like much. "Fair enough." Although, in the back of his head, he briefly remembers Brody's seemingly overnight transformation from pale and starved-looking to paler and dead-looking, he writes it off. No point in subscribing to theories until there's actual proof.

"Oh, Brody." Delilah frowns a little. "You know that's not good for you."

"Darling, let Brody do what h- she wants." Still getting used to that. "Eating and sleep are both rather overrated pastimes, anyways. Although," he smirks a bit towards the girl and asks, "what in the world are you out here panhandling for if you don't want food? You're too young to be a boozehound, Brody."

[campjesus]

"I feel like a jet pack would probably actually be a big pain in the ass. You'd have to haul it around with you everywhere when you couldn't use it. And with the way people steal bikes..." Yeah, Easy was bitching about his stolen Giant for weeks until Brody finally bought him a new one. Why a man in his 50's is still riding a bike around is anyone's guess, although he is kind of a freeloading hippie.

"My roommate and I are moving. Long, boring story, blah blibbity blah drama." That right there is why he got kicked out of the vampire club -- okay, he engineered an escape, but if they didn't think he was so damn important to their cause (ending the world, hooray!) they would have had him culled a long time ago. Vampires are serious creatures, understand. She glances at her sign, shrugs, and tosses it over her shoulder; it lands in a trash can as if she did it on purpose. Unfortunately it was sheer coincidence since super basketball abilities are one of the few things dead people don't get, where she's from. "Didn't feel like doing any actual work. And I'll have you know," she points, very seriously, with one of her hands, "that where I come from we're all booze prodigies. We start early out in the country, ya hear? Don't you tell me what I can do."

[soursanguine]

Laughing at the bit about booze prodigies, Delilah waves her hand. "Don't worry about Richard, he just likes to tease. He probably started about as early as you did. And moving, huh? Ugh. Let us know if you need help hauling stuff, we'll be happy to give you a hand."

This earns her a look from Richard. Sometimes, his helpful wife is too helpful for his tastes--especially when it involves him hauling other peoples' things around despite his bum leg. "Well, as an artist, I can certainly understand your desire to stay away from the nine-to-five. I hear panhandling is pretty good money, actually. If you know how to do it, anyways. Do you do well enough?" Clearly, this has crossed his mind at least once before--and he is considering a proper job these days if only to kill the boredom in the hours he doesn't spend working on his art, or his...'art'.

Really, it's just a matter of figuring out which Delilah would hate more; panhandling, or dealing. Or maybe a hit-man; the world always needs more hit-men, right?

[campjesus]

"Yeah, for sure," she says, a little absently, because it's really awkward to have to admit to people that you have nothing to haul. Everything she owns fits in a single garbage bag. Hell, it probably all fits in a single plastic Target bag. Then again, she can always make googly eyes at people until they help with furniture -- the days are getting longer and soon enough, stores will start closing before sunset.

"Ain't too bad. The thing is is that like, these places are full of people who're loaded and love throwing cash around at plucky down-on-their-luck urchins." She points at herself in the chest, like, that'd be me, yep. "You do it in the real world and rich people just tell you to get a job and cross the street so they don't have to get near you." Nothing gets her going faster than people telling other people not to give money to the homeless because it only encourages them and just supports their habits. "If you do it full-time and you're like, white, and attractive, and don't smell too bad, and are funny, and in a good neighbourhood, you can make okay money."

[soursanguine]

"Well whatever it is, it can't be worse than the money I rake in painting." Richard chuckles and digs for his cigarettes, ducking his head to light his second since walking through the streets of the unfamiliar city. He offers one over to said plucky down on her luck urchin, adding, "Just stay safe. I can't imagine that even in a...presumably magical nexus, the streets are particularly comfortable and safe."

There's an unspoken question there, one that Delilah ends up covering when she asks, "Speaking of safety--is this a pretty safe place, Brody? If half of our house is going to be here..." She drums her fingers on her chin while Richard chuckles and drapes his arm around her waist. "I'm sure it's fine, darling. God knows that strange things happen in bizarre places like this, but I'm sure it must be at least...moderately sane. Hopefully."