Do you see what I see? (Satine/Nevaeh Only)

[Nevaeh]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

Nevaeh:
It was a quiet evening, class started in an hour. She had to make up the credits she missed while in the hospital. The school had checked, and yes, she had been in Winterbrooke Asylum until the mysterious vanishing act. That act had been her going to the shadow realm, but she couldn’t very well tell her student advisor that. She went with the most obvious, a drug binge. That always got sympathy, and she was ‘clean’ now. She realized her mistake, even gave him the used syringe and dime bag she’d collected from the gangland while looking for some other items. He believed her, mainly because he wanted to believe her. She smiled, shook his hand after feeding that night and got back into the college courses. Instead of Jayden getting the bill though, she paid it all off. She told her student adviser it was from the drug running, but she thought investing in herself was more worth it, instead of tearing herself down. The plan had worked, sympathy vote for this one time infraction. The man lectured her until she said she had to get to work, for almost a good long hour that night.

Between the computer classes and the night classes, work and her husband; she had plenty to keep herself busy. Busy was good and kept her from thinking about the things that happened in the more recent past. Tonight, with her books on the edge of the table and only an hour left before her first class, she sat in the cafe on the computer filling in the assignments for her first computer class. Those were not done until next week but she wanted to get ahead of the game.

The cup of coffee in the mug was half drank, very few people knew she could eat and drink. It wasn’t like the Allurist power where the food still tasted good, it had no taste. Her tastebuds had died out when she passed the brink of life into undead life. She did it to look normal, to look like a student. One cup of coffee, nothing else. She even counted out change to buy it like any other student would when they looked like they were scrounging for cash.

In the corner of her eye, sitting in an empty booth he sat staring at her. An evil, hateful look saying he would love nothing more than to attack her right then and there. He was far more clever, he waited until no one was around before he struck. The idea was to make her crazy, or look crazier than she was. He only struck when she was alone and paying attention, so he could taunt her, make people believe she was losing her mind. For now he was content to sit off in the private booth and watch her work on this fabricated dream of being a college graduate in the Fine Arts with a minor in Art History. He would take all of this from her eventually, he would make everyone hate her in time. The glare said it all.

She ignored him. Ignoring him left him weaker, as she was finding out. Not jumping when he moved into sight, the hardest of tasks which she was still working on. Not speaking to him, replying to him and feeding into his delusions. This part was working, he didn’t seem as strong as he had been before. He’d been coming less and less, his body was becoming more transparent. Either he was conserving energy or actually disappearing from her lack of attention, her lack of fueling him. She did her best to sit quietly, researching the paper she needed and making it sound legible enough to pass the class.

[Satine]

It was a night. When no one was around she slipped out from the hotel and arrived in the city more than ready to pursue what she had to abandon for the sake of rest and recovery. Bunny did a number on her and the thought of the female’s name had her ribs aching. She was fully healed but the woman still was under her skin. The recently created necromancer was pretty sure she was not going to shake the hold the walking juice box had over her until she wrapped her pale fingers around that bubbly blonde’s throat and squeezed for a full ten minutes...perhaps fifteen. It would really depend on the noises she made while she gripped tight. Thinking about those pretty eyes lighting up crying for mercy inspired her to look around the cafe she walked into.

It was just the start of the night and Satine was back out walking among the warm, the healthy and the oblivious. Her steps in the cafe had her ready to cringe but she noticed looking down that she was not half as deathly in appearance of her hands as she was originally. Things perhaps were improving. Anything was better than that extreme corpse going bad look. How was anyone supposed to stay under the radar if they looked like the worst case of walking dead? She was damned if she was going to be stuck haunting the windows outside like some banished child who could only peek into the world around her like some unattainable scene in a snowglobe.

The sensation of sheer fabric gliding over the back of her nylon covered thighs hissed gently with her movements through the cafe. It was incredibly soft but with the way she was getting used to the heightened senses everything still was intense and she tried to overpower the stimulus by sizing up each thumping pulse and warm body she passed by. A few eyes lifted from the books in front of them or the cups of coffee and followed her. She nodded, winked and smiled a bit alternately depending on if the one looking was interesting enough. The ensemble certainly was getting some attention. She grew tired quickly of the looks and took one of her ponytails in her hand and started winding it progressively tight in her fingers. If her irritation grew she would begin giving it a tug to put herself back in check or start a fire in her head. Whatever worked.

The annoying clicks of her mary jane shoes echoed and that was all it really took. Finally spotting a open chair Satine was just about to slide into it when she spotted a familiar face that she was not so inclined to feel like biting off. Nev? The female appeared rather calm, giving attention to a cup of whatever it was that she couldn’t see and using the computer? Imagine that. Satine hummed lightly as if that would make those still tracking her movement turn elsewhere. Her walk to where Nev was sitting was short and she slipped into the seat closest to her. A few voices were raised and she handled them in the other places she frequented. She acted as if she could hear no such thing.

“Hey there.” Satine tossed the way too long right ponytail from her hand and banked it over the back of her shoulder. “What are you up to?”

Satine wiggled into the seat that was beneath her and slowly crossed her red and black striped legs so that her black platform mary jane could dangle for the amusement of those still watching her. A light brush of her hand to straighten out the shelf of her lap would lead one to believe she was the one who spent time choosing the outfit. No wrinkles to be ironed out had her hand briefly reach up and make sure that hideous red cat hair clip was in the right place. As if there was such a thing.

[Nevaeh]

Nevaeh:

The computer screen flickered with a black blur of lines, letters from the typing as from memory she wrote down every word in her head. There would be at least two edits before submitting a final version into the professor, yet it seemed more toward other students versus the professors. They called it ‘Peer Critiquing.’ Instead it seemed more like the professors had given over to mind the students and the students were doing the actual work. The teachers were there for those tedious discussions that went out of control when someone took the wrong meaning to words on a screen, one could only apologize so many times for the communication errors.

As someone neared, she didn’t flinch or glance in case it was him coming from that booth in the corner. She didn’t want to give it any attention so she leaned in closer to the screen like she was inspecting the words in depth. The words were what made her look up from the laptop, “Oh hi Satine. I heard you returned to the city.” She didn’t want to stress the girl from whatever had really happened while the girl was ‘away’. “I am doing a paper on the theory of the history of paint samples and textures versus the modern age digital printing for a college course I am taking. This class is online.” At one point she had tried to convince Satine to join in the college experience, of course she had been put up to it.

With a stretch, she glanced over her shoulder casually to see if the man still sat there with the look of disdain on his face toward her. He was. He continued with those hideous glares that could spit venom. He was staring at her, and knew the second she had spotted him. His eyes bore into hers for the split second before she turned back to Satine, giving the woman he focus, “I had the weirdest dream about you. I dreamt you were running away from something, ran into me on the street and pickpocketed me. Isn’t that weird?” It had only been a dream, but a pretty vivid one or daymare, as she liked to call them. “Imagine that huh? But there was no butterflies in the dream, like normal.”

Even though Nev could tell Satine wasn’t comfortable about something, probably her wardrobe, since it looked nothing like what she had worn the last couple times Nev had seen her. It didn’t phase Nev, in fact it looked cute, especially the shoes. Compared to what Nev was wearing, she looked normal. Nevaeh was sporting a hot pink top that buttoned up the front but nevaeh seemed to think it was orange. The skirt, that was a little short for her long legs, was a pale mint green color that would be perfect for Easter. The tights were a bright yellow, but she thought it all matched, even the covered toed bright royal blue sandals. The blend of colors looked similar in Nevaeh’s spectrum of colors, since she was practically color blind. Her hair was once more a mass of knots and tangles sitting up in a ponytail holder which was her attempt at looking like a college student. One day she needed to get back to the salon and take care of those roots growing out in the dark brown color and get the fiery red redone. Between her hair needing to be brushed, washed and colored, she neglected her nails with half chipped off paint broken in places. The dirt under the nails could have made a mud pie. She looked like a miss matched bum that could be hanging out on any street corner, except that the outfit was clean and smelling of the lilac laundry soap her thrall used on them. It didn’t surprise her that people were looking at how good she had done planning her own outfit.

[Satine]

She blinked slowly as she watched Nev. It was actually reassuring to find her. Even if she had more colors going on than a family size bag of Skittles the woman had been kind to her from night one when she met her. It was hard to find people who were so willing to befriend a stranger. Even harder yet when you looked identical to someone they knew long before your silly *** arrived to town. Now the funny looks she got from Nev, Emeritus and Jayden all made sense. What a small world it was.

Satine didn’t want to pry into what Nev was doing with the laptop. As soon as she mentioned she was working on some online course she felt defeated in some small way. Jayden was going to send her to college. That thought had her eyes sliding down into her lap where she would not be surprised to find more miniature cats decorating some previously overlooked part of her wardrobe. She and Bunny needed to have a chat. Clear the air perhaps. Clear something anyways. If not air they would figure something out.

In the time being Satine found her gaze on Nev’s fingers while the female looked over her shoulder at the guy in the booth behind her. She closed one eye and stared down the toothpick holder on the table beside them then back at the woman’s hands. Her lips twitched in debating the offer of an impromptu manicure but the thin flesh line that finally formed in a tight crease said it would be overlooked for now. Nev had more important things to worry about like her education and Satine...well she was dressed up like an overgrown kindergartener and she was reminded of it as she felt a set of eyes upon her. She gave a slow and rather uncoordinated wink of her right eye in the direction the gaze came from. The table erupted into a debate between the two females sitting there. She scratched the back of her head where the ponytails were divided and sectioned off to each side above her ears.

“Question.” She spoke up and leaned in across the table between them as if to share a secret. “How come people fight and ***** so much around this town? Lately everyone seems to be pmsing or flipping their **** over over the stupidest things.”

That was a fact. Everywhere she had been lately there was some sort of argument or discord going on. It was worse than being around mom and Chester during the holidays.

[Nevaeh]

Nevaeh:
Nev came to a full halt when she heard the question. At first she didn’t know how to approach the question, “It is all of us in this small town. A town which is over run with all sorts of families but we all know each other in a way. And, when, it’s like high school.” But what she really mused over is if Satine was talking about her fight with Jayden.

“Ok so here is what happened. While you were away, Emeritus and I got married, then he left instead of us going on the honeymoon. Jayd seen me getting sad and had me move in but you see I wasn’t sad. It was my ghost that haunts me. He did terrible things to me one night and then he jumped into Luna and into Jayd. I know it sounds crazy but I never meant to attack Jayden and he won’t listen to me. I feel horrible about it. He was the closest friend I ever had and I would kill anyone who tried to hurt him.”

She said all that like it was in one long breath. On the next one she continued, “And somehow Eve was there, but I don’t remember it but the things I find out. I remember the ghost and then I remember sleeping. I don’t remember attacking Jayden or Luna.” Her voice grew quiet so that she had to lean into Satine, no other prying ears could hear.

“I went into the hospital with Doctor Charles who tried to electrocute me but it didn’t work, not at all. I woke up and he left me alone in the room. Then I stayed there for a little bit but like I said, I would kill anyone who hurt Jayden, so I did it. I killed myself because I hurt him. Now he hates me and I don’t blame him but he doesn’t know… not really. He doesn’t know what the ghost did to me!” She gave Satine a pleading look for her to understand, hopefully she would. A part of her waited for Satine to flip out on her, threaten her and walk out. There was so much that just wasn’t right about this whole situation.

“Satine, I didn’t do it on purpose. It was an accident and I lost the kids over it. I thought when you were as close as he and I were, you apologise and things are okay… I tried but his little jerkamo of a thrall won’t give him any messages. The evil thing actually threatened me. I have tried to be nice, tried to give him space but he just doesn’t believe me. He hates me. I don’t blame him at all, I hate me.”

She looked down at the computer, hitting save she waited the minutes before she knew it was going to reopen at the same point and closed the screen to the laptop. There was no way she was getting anymore work done. “I messed up. Big time. But he just doesn’t know, he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t believe me. And that hurts worse.” She looked at Satine, the desperation bled into her eyes hoping Satine would understand and not hate her as well.

[Satine]

So the manicure was not going to be enough to help the woman after all. Satine could feel her eyes grow wider as Nev informed her of what was going on while she apparently had been on vacation but really was in fact under the same roof as Nev as well. She certainly was. How could she forget. Out at that happy little place where all the flying nuns with a thing for using syringes crashed. Doctor Nilson. Satine’s nose actually wrinkled at the bridge as she pondered that name.

Oh yes. Him. Satine could see his face, his sharp suit and the back license plate of his car coming at her.That one had some issues. Her eyes rolled up slowly to stay on Nev as her face tilted down a bit when she heard he actually tried to electrocute the woman talking to her. Any sign of a receptive expression on Satine’s face went sour when she felt the teeth in her mouth start to protrude their inconvenient length while the anger slowly boiled within. The same ******** ran over her with his car. Twice. He also tried introducing her teeth to her tonsils with one near fatal punch. Suffice to say he would never be getting a Christmas card from her or one of her handmade friendship bracelets.

Satine took in the details as Nev offered them and despite what the woman may have thought, she actually felt normal just sitting there and listening. Almost. While Nev talked about attacking Jayden and trying to apologize and feeling bad she was nearly tempted to reveal her own errors in judgement. Would she understand chopping a person up and stuffing them in a deep freezer? Nev finished her purge of what had been weighing on her shoulders. As she did, it left Satine reminded that she also had a **** load of skeletons in her own closet she needed to clean out. For now it was Nev up to bat and Satine was catching. Her closet would be opened another night.

“You need to give it some time to lose the sting of getting bent out of shape.” Satine had little experience with this sort of thing. The only family or sense of relationships and boundaries she had to work from involved mom and Chester and only one of them survived living with her. Perhaps Satine was the last one anyone should be confiding in let alone taking advice from. She still owed that quack in Winterbrook some serious tread over the back of his golden head. “I could try talking to Jayden if you want. He is my boss and under the series of events seems he is my brother type thing I guess? Not sure how that stuff works to be honest.”

Satine was waiting for Nev to give some hint as to if that would be any help at all when she noticed that the guy who was watching them more than seemed warranted was getting a pretty bitter stare going. She looked to Nev thinking it was be enough that the dude would take the hint and find some other form of entertainment such as stepping outside in front of a moving bus or something. Her silver orbs did the slow tour of duty across nev and the tables in between then finally back to him. Nope. He was still there and appearing to be more sour than before.

“Alright.” Satine was feeling irritated. What was his problem? “What gives on the asshole in the corner? He an ex of yours or your husband’s perhaps?” Her focus went back to Nev. “You did say you got married right? Seriously, who the hell misses their own honeymoon?”

Satine was tempted to go shoot him in the family jewels just thinking about it. Nev had been through enough **** from the sound of it. She didn’t need insult added to injury with his dumbass antics. She reached across and patted Nev’s hands and did her best to ignore the woman’s nails. She would take care of those later...even if it meant it was while Nev was sleeping in the pillow pit. She reached over and plucked a few toothpicks from the holder and tucked them away for that purpose.

[Nevaeh]

Nevaeh:

It was in misery she sat there looking at the dark haired woman whose face bore that of her sire’s wife, expecting her to flip **** on Nev, or tell her to suck it up because she deserved everything and worse for what she did to Jayden. The truth was from what she understood, she never even actually struck him. Not once, because when she went to attack him, he subdued her with his vampire trickery. The same vampire trickery that saved Nevaeh from being electrocuted in WinterBrook with Doc. Nevaeh had gone to sleep while another personality had emerged from her subconscious leaving the sick twisted perversion of Nevaeh out to attack the man called Doctor Charles in return. But nevaeh herself didn’t know these things, surely some of it would have had Satine rolling with laughter or at least cracking a smile.

Nevaeh wasn’t as innocent as people seemed to believe her to be, she didn’t know just how deeply it ran. While she was seeing Ria one of her personalities, along with Macaria’s aid, helped slaughter someone Nevaeh knew back in high school. The only one Nevaeh was even aware of was, murder that is, when she picked up the stick and killed the man who now sat glaring at the two women with venom that could shoot out his eyes like laser beams. The other one had also been an accident, killing one of the nurses when she was first turned, starving, after sitting with her father after he passed away. She remembered that one pretty vividly, drinking her blood only to later puke it out in the nearby toilet. Things that she never mentioned to other people to defend her innocence.

“If he wants to be mad, not accept my apology then let him stay mad at me. Luna and I have been punished enough losing the kids. I kept good care of them, she was like a second mommy. I hope he hears them cryin….” she didn’t mean that, her guilt was becoming bitter. “I just mean if we were as good of friends as I thought we were, he’d try. He isn’t trying so we weren’t that good of friends, he just tolerated me so now he can be rid of me.” Hello pity party, hello trying to accept thing that just were. Be it by her hand or another, it was fated because she was crazy anyway.

“Does that mean we are siblings too? Like sisters and stuff?” Out of this she got a moment of excitement. “See I was an only girl to my parents, and had no other sisters or brothers. It is cool I have siblings from Micah even if he isn’t my real father.. daddy. But I mean he is close enough. He tries the best he can but… I am crazy. It’s the ghost. He makes me crazy enough i don’t know how anything works. Fanging or blood or real.” In weird ways she made perfect sense, even when it was none at all. If you could read between the lines of her insane ramblings. “He doesn’t care and I am learning not to care just like him. He doesn’t exist because I don’t.” She said calming herself trying to stay on point of the conversation.

The way she she talked about the man staring at them, Nevaeh had to turn to look in his direction feeding into him so that between the talking of him and now direct eye contact, he was gaining enough strength to look solid. “What do you mean? What…” she wasn’t use to anyone else seeing the man besides her or at least not admitting to it. Her focus fell back onto the raven locked woman at the table. “Yes, Emmy and I got married. I gave him a letter that came to the house but what I didn’t know was what was inside the letter. See, it was urgent family business he had to leave to take care of. He forgot to tell me because … we’ve both been alone for so long he is not used to having a wife who would stand by him. When he came back he had plenty of hurting time, and we fought. We made up though, I forgave him and told him that no matter what I was his wife, which means …… Can you really see him?”

Mid sentence she cut off the topic leaning so close her forehead nearly touched the other woman’s head. “Can you really see my ghost?” Her hand reached out now that attention was distracted from her hands, breaking free of the gentle hold to make the toothpick dispenser disappear so she could give it to Satine once they left. Her rear was off the chair, so that leaning forward was easier. Her voice was so low, it barely came out.

“Brown hair and eyes, wearing a plaid shirt over a tee shirt and jeans?” She had to be sure they were talking about the same man. Even as she mentioned him, leaning that close, the man began to rise straight through the table he was sitting at moving closer toward the two women. “Do you… really see him too?” For a while she thought only she could see him, that he was just trying to drive her mad, crazier for her deeds in the past. “Same man sitting at the table back there?” She didn’t bother to turn her head to see him drawing closer to them.

[Satine]

Satine was kind of lost as she tried to figure out what Jayden would be like mad. Outside adorable, of course. He was so sweet but there was that protective side of him that had her wondering. The side that was intent on sending her to college and keep her away from what he obviously knew was no virus. She understood why he went to those lengths. He was one of those good guys. The ones that did the right thing, stood up when most sat down even as the odds grew against him. She would have asked more about what the signs were of a truly pissed off Jayden so she could be prepared but that window was gone. It would wait for another time.

Satine had Nevaeh coming slowly across the table with the tone in her voice that had it sounding like they were about to share a very important secret. Her eyes danced once over Nev’s shoulder and found the man rising from where he was sitting. He was ignoring the table that was in the way but that is the point she lost sight of him. She was finding herself quickly distracted by the cool energy increasing between her and the colorfully clothed female as her backside left the seat it was sitting in. The space between them was swallowed up by the woman’s body taking up the surface of the table that was between them. Satine was looking at a set of eyes closer to hers than she had ever seen a set before.She blinked slowly, her eyes crossing briefly to look at the tip of Nev’s nose. It was a nice nose.

“Just a bit of natural wave? Cut over the ears?” Satine stayed where she was. Her face didn’t turn, only her eyes moved. She pulled them deep to the corner and in the direction where she would see him again. He would have to take time to get around that table in the way. She saw a flash of black old school converse and then the near miss of each step they took. It appeared he nearly glided instead of stepped and that table was no issue. She had better get her eyes checked. He went through the hard surface like it was thin air. No glow to him. He was probably holding a set of fangs behind his lips. “Converse shoes, black. He a good dancer? He seems light on his feet.”

Satine was totally unaware that there were such things as wraiths or spirits. She had never seen one and so Nev’s reference to the male she saw being a ghost left her believing it was an eccentric term the woman used to talk about someone she was not happy with or even worse. The young necromancer leaned in a bit closer since the body in question was on the move coming towards them.

“And he is coming this way.” Satine whispered. “Soon as you give the word I will give him a case of the muscle freeze. Rigor can set in. He won’t know what hit him.”

Satine’s petite hand reached over and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Nev had nothing to worry about. No one was going to bother her. Especially some ex who couldn’t get the hint when called a ghost. If someone didn’t want anything to do with you and called you that you were wise to take the hint. The consequences could otherwise be paralyzing.

[Nevaeh]

Satine had a good idea of him or not idea but visual of him, “I could kiss you for this! You are the first, no second, no first, second. You can see him besides me!” She tried to explain it clearer but that was about as clear as she got. Her long lashes brushed against the other woman’s cheek as she looked just beyond her to see he was in fact coming over. His hair fell over his ears like she said, he wore the converses. “Yeah, it’s him. Him, him him. Don’t pay any more attention because he gets strength from it. He gets stronger, more body like. We should stop talking about it -- him.” It made no matter because in that short time he was standing right there at the end of the table.

Nevaeh whispered so only Satine could hear, “Remember no one else's sees what you see, no one will see if you talk to the air. Don’t talk to the air because it means you are crazy.” She wondered why the ghost was letting Satine see her or if he had something in mind for the woman.

“Nevaeh, who is she?” The man asked with his deep voice that was smooth as silk on bare skin. “Nice to see you being otiose with your time ladies.” He was trying to provake the women, to get them to notice him and pay attention.

The woman sat back stiff as a board in her chair. She didn’t bother to look in Roger’s direction, or give him the satisfaction of an answer. “Satine, it’s time to go.” As quickly as she could, she stuffed the laptop and books into her backpack. “Do you want anything for the road?” Her face was grim, frozen with wide eyes and thin lips. If at all possible her face drained of color. The hazel eyes silently pleaded to Satine to get whatever she needed together, they needed to leave. “Your place? Mine place?” The offer was put out on the table but she really didn’t want to go to any of those places, she certainly didn’t want to go to school like this either. He was too close, too visual. The question was can she hear him as well as see him or was that special to just Nevaeh.

“I need more coffee so I grab you something?” She said shaking her cup to show it was empty. In a flash she rose from the chair and stepped right into the man and beyond him. He vanished for the second her body passed into his but came right back. She couldn’t be still, couldn’t remain anywhere he was. It was a sick joke on his part that he stuck around to haunt her.