winter just wasn't my season
Phoebe Donovan woke up bright and early this Saturday. She is usually lazy about such things on the weekend, but today is different. Today she is excited. Bean has come up with a fabulous idea and Phoebe intends to help
( Read more... )
Comments 133
The edge of a pier wasn't a shocking place to find a young woman; Xellos was used to humans and their useless need to contemplate their own fates as if they were of some vast importance. But this woman is troubled, and therefore interesting enough to draw Xellos over.
"Hello!" he says in his girlish voice, around his mouthful of candy. He waves a tiny, chubby hand for good measure.
Reply
But she knows better.
Her other hand is curved around her throat when the little girl says hello. Her throat, as she flashes back to a man's hand closing in on it until she couldn't breathe. Some nights it feels his fingers are still imprinted in her skin.
"Hello," Rachel says in a raspy voice, turning to the little girl. It shouldn't surprise her, the fact there's a little girl who looks exactly like the infamous American child actress. Then again, that isn't what matters right now.
Rachel leans down to get a better look at the girl. "Are you here by yourself?"
Reply
Xellos eyes the woman's hand, noting the flash of emotion she'd felt as it had been against her throat. Interesting.
He gives a nod and a calm but charming smile, aware that his lips and chin are discolored purple by the blue and red of the candy. "It seems so. I haven't seen anyone that I know yet, so I thought I might have a snack while I search."
He gives another lick on his lollipop. "Are you looking for someone too, Miss?"
Reply
"You shouldn't be out here by yourself," Rachel says quietly, reigning in her emotions as they teeter on the edge. She's a child, and children shouldn't be exposed to certain things. Children always are.
Thoughts of Bruce are stolen away by the question.
Are you looking for someone too, Miss?
She was. She is not anymore.
"No." Rachel gives her a faint smile that only serves to make her face look sadder. "No, I'm not. I'll help you look, though. How does that sound?"
Reply
She had a gun pointed at Calisto this night. After she'd stabbed the Doctor. She was worried enough for his life that she could have aimed the gun for her head, pulled the trigger, prevented so much. It's useless to have regrets and usually she doesn't but tonight they seem to rest heavily on her heart. For whatever reason.
"Fancy meeting you here," Martha says with a small smile when she recognizes who it is that's standing there and then because she noticed the shaking of her hands as well... "Are you alright?"
Reply
No, she wants to answer. It's the truth and she doesn't lie, does she?
"Have you ever woken up late at night with this...tightness, this heavy weight pressing down on your chest, and asked yourself..." Rachel stops as she draws a sharp breath, "how did I get here?"
Reply
"Yes," she says. "Many times before. It's been... awhile though. I think-"
She pauses unsure of where she's going with this but realizing that it's necessary. It's been a very long time since she felt that way herself but she can remember it. Endless nights and days. The questions. That question especially which always seemed impossible to answer.
"I think this city... what happens in it, the people in it... it has a way of getting you to think things, feel things that you shouldn't have to, that you'd never imagined asking yourself before but here you are," she says and gives a a soft, sad sigh. "Wondering them. Thinking them. Feeling... whatever it is that perhaps you even swore to yourself you'd never feel." A desire to kill. A burning, endless hatred. A darkness. A helplessness and a hopelessness. She remembers feeling those emotions too while thinking that question, tightness in her chest, driven to walk along the sidewalks at any ( ... )
Reply
She stops.
Gotham was terrible and beautiful, all at once. Gotham was filled with crime, but it was hopeful, too. Hopeful in a hopelessly miserable way that never let her live anywhere else. It was gritty and unrelenting and dirty but it was alive.
She wants to feel alive again. Closing her eyes she knows it's there, close enough to reach, close enough to touch. It would be easier if it remained untouched. Rachel latches on to it despite that. She is not here to do what it easy. To admit the weakness, to admit she is lost, to admit there is a certain kind of darkness in her now, too--it isn't easy. It hurts.
"Something's missing," she answers in a whisper. "Something's missing...inside, and this time I don't know how to get it back. I ( ... )
Reply
...He's starting to think the way Phoebe talks. That is somewhat disconcerting.
Around lunchtime, he gives up on just following and joins her as she tacks up another flier he can't read. He can pick out letters, but they don't mean anything.
"Ehm," he says. He's been trying to speak more English, despite having the journal now. It's actually made learning things a little easier--a local librarian has been giving him lessons, and having his journal there to translate the words makes things infinitely simpler.
Of course, struggling through English with a teacher and trying to speak it in front of someone fluent that he cares about are two very different things. With a little internal flail, he defaults back to the journal.
Wat arr you dooing
Reply
Phoebe doesn't noticed him at first, so intent she is on putting up all the fliers and listening to her ipod.
But then he speaks and Phoebe squeals a little. A Tomei!
Just the person she wanted to see.
"I'm recruiting!" She answers, a beaming smile blossoming on her face. "I was totally going to tell you about it, too."
Reply
He smiles back at her, because it's a Phoebesmile! "Ice cream?"
Ice cream makes sense. It does not matter if it's almost the end of November. Ice cream.
Reply
She slips an arm around his--and oh God, Tomei, if this is considered improper she will pout--and tugs him along.
"Ice cream, yes. Perfect!"
Then, slowly and a little louder, she asks, "HOW ARE YOU?"
Reply
Elizabeth did not know that Josef was in the park. Obviously. It's not like she keeps tabs on him all the time. There's a person that's dying in a few days. Murder. So many murders in this city. Every day. She doesn't want to admit it, but she's tired. She should have taken a break again even a day to not move from her bed and bury her face in her pillow until she found her strength and energy again and went out one more time. But she can't keep herself from looking. These people need help. If they die alone because she was too tired? That rests on her heart. That's her fault ( ... )
Reply
Rest assured, Elizabeth, this woman's death will not be by Josef's hand. He's in one of his rare moods, studiously observing the chess match going on in front of him. The woman goes unnoticed by him.
Someone else's hands will spill with her blood.
Josef leans in once Elizabeth is nearby, unhooking a finger from the coffee cup's rim to point at the two men playing at the table across from them. "The man with the awful fedora is about to lose his Queen. He's getting cocky, you see. That's when you make mistakes."
Josef finishes the last bit of his coffee, before tossing it in the trash bin a good distance from where they sit. He finally turns and grins at her. "Hello to you, too."
Reply
Right. They had sex. This should be weird. She's seen him naked. Oh God. Blushing already. She bites down on her lower lip and tries very hard to focus on this game that she's sure she will never ever understand.
"Hi," Elizabeth says and then she glances up at him and a grin slides across her slightly pink face that matches his. "I was- Uhm. Only passing through." But she saw him and had to... say hi. "The chess distracted me though. So. You know... here I am..."
Reply
"Elizabeth." He gives her a look. A 'pfft, please' sort of look. Yes, he can manage to convey that with an expression alone. "That does not apply to me. I also thought I said it wasn't cockiness if it was inevitably true."
It seems long ago, that day he met her. His nose brushes a strand of her hair as she moves closer and he in turn, does not back away. "The chess distracted you. I'm chopped liver." He leans back, feigning a hurt look. "I see how it is."
Reply
He picks up a fallen flier realizing that hey he reognizes the backside of that pretty blond walking in front of him. Xander runs to catch up with her, holding the flier in his hand. Yeah, he does not recognize the name Dumbledore. At all.
"Hey, Pheebs, what's with the fliers?"
Reply
The last time she saw him there was Plague chaos and lockpicking and bowling alley shenanigans and yeah, never a dull moment in Chicago.
"Why halo thar, cu--manly man! I'm recruiting."
Reply
Xander should really read his journals more often but considering the last time he read, there were plagues. He may be avoiding bad news.
Reply
She places both hands on either of his shoulders and stares up at him with wide eyes.
"Foo, you've never read Harry Potter? Even I've read them and I'm lazy as all fluck!"
Reply
Leave a comment