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.
(
the trouble with doors )
"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.
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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.)
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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."
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"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."
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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?
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"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."
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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."
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