Oh Suzie Q, baby I love you. [ Verbena ]

[Vigilant (DELETED 4176)]

*** The following roleplay is from yahoo logs.

Saturday, September 14, 2013
West Towers
7:53 PM



Verbena: "What do you mean, 'Verbena is out'?" She pushed through to the living room where the computer was, where she knew he was sitting. She shook the cell phone in hand at him. "What the hell is that?"

Vigilant: Before he had even hit enter, Roy knew that there was an outburst like that coming right for him. He leaned back in his chair and locked his fingers over his stomach. Calmly, he replied. "I don't know how many there are, but there are a good number—strong too. Isn't it enough that we still have a group of hunters with your face? I'd rather not add Paladins to that too—they're more dangerous. Religious zealots, I'm certain."

Verbena: She moved in on the space of the desk and turned so that she was leaning back against it, so that she couldn't be ignored with just a turn of his head or a lack of glances in her direction. Still with the phone in hand, she crossed her arms over her ribs and stared.
"Oh! Right. So, you get to do something stupid, but I don't?"
"Or, rather, you get to do something stupid now that I already did? ONE mistake, and I'm forced to sit to the side while YOU give YOUR face to someone that's...what?" She ticked them off with her fingers as she named them. "More dangerous, more powerful, and more massive in numbers."

Vigilant: Both of Roy's nostrils flared simultaneously, but he wasn't angry or even annoyed. "Half of my job as your Maker is to insure that you'll be safe. Remember what we saw Legion and Phoenix do? We're supposed to act normal, like we're part of some family and in a reality where I give a **** about them, but that doesn't mean I have to sacrifice you in the process," he explained.
"We both know that death isn't permanent here, but if they get ahold of you—these stronger humans—they might take you out of the city, torture you and then kill you," he explained, eyebrows heavily furrowed.
"I won't have that."

Verbena: "But, I'm supposed to?" she asked.
Unfolding her arms, she put the phone by the computer and latched her hands on the edge of the desk to support her lean. The 'outburst' wasn't serious when she began it, when she marched from the bedroom to confront what she'd read, but the narrowing of his expression changed that.
Sara could feel the shift, the full gravity of the potential situation settling down around them. She shifted her weight.
"We do everything together, Roy. We work together, we live together. No one can say my name without yours coming up, too. They could 'get ahold of me,' anyway. So, either we both do it, or neither of us do it. Preferrably both. You'll be there! I wouldn't do it, without you. You'll be able to make sure that I'm safe!"

Vigilant: The muscles in his jaw tensed when his gnashed his teeth together. His mind was already set and made, he wasn't going to risk her life just to get a little payback for Phoenix, but if he didn't risk at least his neck, then loyalty might be in question. After all, with Legion all but MIA, he had to step up as a force to be reckoned with.
"No," he said. He had already closed out of the Crow program, more inclined to go through police records that he still knew the passwords to. On the desk lay his phone and buried behind the dark screen were two missed calls from Jimmy and a text message. Things were closing in on them. Immortality and power came with a price tag bigger than a Dolce and Gabbana purse.
"Sara," he started, looking up to her face. "You're my sister, you're my best friend, you're my lover but most importantly, you're my progeny. We've hardly been immortal six months and yet here we are. The impulse to turn you wasn't just to save your life or add some comfort in this new world I was drug into, it was to teach, to make something—someone—that would embody all of the right morals and be quick as a whip. You're it. You're my new legacy and if we both die, that leaves nothing. If we both die, who's going to make sure our parents see old age as they should? Or Mikey—his family? Who is going to take care of Jimmy," he asked.

Verbena: As she watched him, she was silent and listening. Her blue eyes stayed focused and pinpointed on his face. Only once did she try to say something, her lips parting for the breath it would take, but he filled it.
She was it, he said.
She was his new legacy and they, together, had a lot to do in life. If one couldn't, the other was supposed to pick up the slack.
"And I get that," she said, reaching up to tuck back hair from her face as though it would somehow let him not see that she truly did understand.
How could it have not made sense? That was what people did. They worked, together, to pay bills, together, and to fend for the better of the other. Like a couple with children, both of which worked to put food on the table. But if one wasn't there, anymore, the other couldn't not bring home the groceries, or cook, or make sure the house didn't get foreclosed on by a bank.
"But, how do you ever expect one of us to do that without the other? Would you honestly be able to? Am I the only one that's weak? Would you be able to keep watching over Mikey at a distance?"
It was futile. It was a pointless argument because she wasn't getting involved and that was all there was to it. But, as far as she was concerned, Phoenix wasn't worth either of them.
Then again, no one ever would be.
Sara scratched her forehead, finally, and nodded. When she eased herself to stand from the desk, she took her phone with her. "Okay. Alright...I'll keep my nose out of it."

[Verbena (DELETED 4198)]

Saturday, September 14th, 2013
Mausoleum
8:42 PM


Somewhere, someone or some thing – some terrestrial, universal, incorporeal thing – was laughing at Sara Joyce Johnson from the best seat in the house. If she were anyone else, she might’ve been, too. After all, people made a killing on movies that featured protagonists that, while keeping their noses out of trouble, ended up walking right into more. And with each sticky situation came an all new adhesive that made it harder and harder to crawl away from.

If quitting a job put a bounty on her head, she might’ve stayed away from the Mausoleum, altogether, or -- Hell -- just stayed in the bedroom where she was, all lost in the bed with the pillows and the sheets piled up around her and To Kill A Mockingbird bent back in her lap or above her head. At the very least, she could’ve prepared herself – as much as anyone can be prepared for an attack. Instead of, ‘The Mausoleum is awfully loud, tonight,’ she could’ve been more focused on, ‘How fast can I run?’ Or, as she put it, ‘How far should I back up to keep my nose out of it?’

She’d sent an email, to do it; to quit the job. In fact, both of them had, she and Vigilant. She’d gotten in direct contact with CC herself, instead of the pompous, ‘Hi, I’m forty-two and my breasts still touch my chin’ Ginger. It wasn’t Leo, or Cricket, or Andrew the Bouncer. They hadn’t called anyone else, or typed up an email to anyone else, but CC.

Cinnamon ‘I own you’ Cherrywhip.

They’d been employed at Silks for three months, or less – Verbena a server, and Vigilant as security. They’d been asked personal – far too personal – questions just in the interview alone. And the incident with the window? Well, that was another headache entirely. How many ‘I’m sorry’s did Sara have to say before the point would ever finally get across? How many times was she supposed to pay for a single pane of glass just to make up the difference?

Apparently, the going rate for a window was one special private dance and 'negotiable' buys that involved a lack of clothes, a strange man, and a special sheen of shame between the nameless.

Not to be too crude, she'd thought, but I can't be bought by anyone that doesn't know my real name.

She'd been professional and polite about it, though. Instead, it was written as, "I'm not the girl for the job."

If only she'd have known...

Her shoulder brushed the rough face of the stone wall that she walked along side of, using the texture as a sort of guide to the north entrance of the catacombs. The light from her cellphone screen played reflections with individual strands of hair -- those fly-away pieces that tickled her nose and cheeks.

1 Missed Call!
1 New Voice Message!

“Sara…Honey, it’s Mom," the voice called against her ear.

On the other side of the chamber, strawberry-blonde hair and extensive tattoos caught her attention.

"Please, call me back as soon as you get this. Is something going on? I tried to call your brother, and it just keeps going to voicemail."

The ache started in that tiny little spot at the base of her skull, gnawing in with a persistence that was brutal until it was buried deep between her temples. Just like that, her thoughts scattered. With every time she blinked to bring them back, webs of pain encased her brain, instead.

"Sara, if something’s happened with Roy, I…want to know about it.”

“Mom?” she asked.

“Jimmy...” the voice started, and stalled.

Sara could hear the breath she took on the other end before her mother continued. “Look, just call me back. Okay, sweetie? I love you, very much. Call me back, Sara. Bye…”

The sharp beep that interrupted the silence after the click was the only thing that called her back to the message. Her mother was gone. Her voice was replaced by an automated system that called off numbers, one about deleting the message and the other to save it.

She shoved the heel of her palm against her forehead and dug the tendons against the bone. It didn't help. The thought of where she was and what she was doing was so goddamn elusive, she called after it with a sharp gasp. She fingered her house keys from her pocket and gripped the phone in her other hand. They jingled and swayed by the ring hooked around her finger.

Before she could shake up the one to her apartment, they slipped from her hand. Under the dim light, Sara watched them fall in slow motion. With every fracture of blurred vision -- coming in twos and threes and fours -- she saw them become smaller and smaller the closer they got to her shoes before they finally crashed noisily to the floor.