because your kiss is on my listorangetoughguyDecember 23 2010, 04:45:48 UTC
[Blargh. Talk about mistaken identity. Either way Freddy ain't pleased he kissed the guy at all. What the hell is wrong with this place? He pulls his collar tighter around his neck, thinking maybe he should give up on finding Claire after all. Who knows if she would've been pleased or displeased to see him anyway. He popped a nicotine gum for her too. Fff.]
because your kiss is on my listadamantinedDecember 23 2010, 04:58:17 UTC
[Claire is outside, not having immediately vacated the area in favor of digging through her purse. The cold air fans her breath out in white fog, easily visible underneath the bar's lights and a warm wash when she tosses her back to look up as soon as the door opens. Something in her prickles when Freddy comes out, not unpleasantly but almost anxiously: like running into someone she's just had a fight with.
because your kiss is on my listorangetoughguyDecember 23 2010, 05:01:33 UTC
[At least she's not the one who messed up his face and he'll never let anyone think it was. Fff. Her voice catches him by surprise, Freddy having already figured if she wasn't inside then he wasn't going to see her at all.]
Hey. [He comes a few steps closer. Not too close. At least not yet.] Thought I'd find you back in there. Ran into the other help instead.
[He hooks a thumb over his shoulder to the establishment run by a guy who looks like a taller more sophisticated version of the doctor guy. The accent just sounds more posh okay?]
because your kiss is on my listadamantinedDecember 23 2010, 05:36:21 UTC
[Squinting across the space between them, Claire can pick out small details, lasting bruises and the discoloration of his skin. She swallows down something that tastes like concern and shifts her bags, setting them down just in case she's going to be here for a while.]
The other help? [There are a number of staff actually on tonight, so he could theoretically be talking about any of them, but she has a fairly good idea.] You mean Peter? Did you run into him or run into him?
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled farworksmartJanuary 8 2011, 21:15:07 UTC
[Saturday evening, 10:52pm. Twenty two hours and eight minutes without a sip of black gold means Chase considers his challenge won, and there's been no sign of fatigue in him or the tune he's been whistling under his breath since taking the lobby steps to building 12 two at a time and punching the 9 on the elevator panel. He's kept to his end of the deal, and he feels fine about it.
It's only at Claire's door, patting the small pack of caffeine pills in his inside breast pocket, that he pauses and gives himself a minute to adopt a suitably hangdog position. Shoulders slumped, corners of his mouth both sullen and irritable. Even his knock is lacklustre, once and then twice, weaker, against the wood panelling.
It wouldn't do to be accused of cheating, after all.]
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled faradamantinedJanuary 8 2011, 21:35:51 UTC
[She's not necessarily been waiting, but Claire has been expecting. It's taken every ounce of fair game that she has not to pick up her phone several times during the day in order to text variations of 'so how tired are you?' or 'I could get used to this coffee flavor' in an effort to rub it in. Having mostly occupied her time with cleaning up and finding excuses to ask Ginny what her plans were for the night and get rid of her, the dining room table is actually getting used for something other than folding laundry as she flips through a magazine and eventually tries not to look too smug at the sound of pathetic knocking
( ... )
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled farworksmartJanuary 8 2011, 21:46:17 UTC
[There's some kind of caveman grunt in response, Chase returning her amused appraisal with a gimlet stare through eyes that might as well just be narrowed out of effort to keep up the lids. He lifts a hand, one finger raised to punctuate the next point, the obvious direction of this day of (presumed) suffering.]
This reward. [The hand wavers, and eventually decides her shoulder is as good a resting place as any. They won't stay out in the hallway together for long.] Tell me it's going to involve you doing the lion's share of the work.
[The carefully constructed mask almost slips along with the upturn at one corner of his mouth, but he stifles it, backing her further into her apartment and, with supreme effort, kicking the door shut.]
Thought I might have to call up and request it in the lobby.
sunset always seemed sweeter after you've travelled faradamantinedJanuary 8 2011, 22:03:22 UTC
[His reaction only means that she has to work harder to keep any and all traces of amusement from breaking the barrier between thought and action. She's not very good at it, but she makes up for it by turning underneath his palm in an attempt to offer her very alert and awake shoulder as some kind of a crutch. Claire only turns back at the last minute to lock the door, which does a decent job of allowing her the opportunity to collect both her grin and her immediate reaction. Not that she wasn't planning on doing the lion's share, but admitting it aloud is different. She scoffs anyway.]
I would've sent a stretcher if I thought it was going to be this bad.
[She might be pandering to the way he's acting, but she can't deny that after yesterday's string of Network posts, having something light to come back to is a nice feeling. Either way, her steps are moving them helpfully through the apartment, from hardwood to the carpet of the living room. He should be familiar with the path even if it's been a while since he walked it.]Are you
( ... )
my ears, my eyes, my brain is slowly busting, black smoke, red skyadamantinedMay 23 2011, 09:08:25 UTC
[Locking up around three in the morning isn't exactly something that Claire is unfamiliar with. Although she doesn't typically have to, there's some small amount of experience in dealing with both Peter and Caspian being indisposed thanks to curses. The responsibility of closing up the Blue Light doesn't always fall to her, but it has enough in the past that she has a system to it by now: check that all the chairs are up off of the floor, make sure all the bathroom stalls are empty, do one last sweep of the liquor cage, and shut off all of the lights before locking the door behind her
( ... )
my ears, my eyes, my brain is slowly busting, black smoke, red skymakinghoscroakMay 23 2011, 09:22:50 UTC
[All her caution gains is time because eventually, once they're a block away from the establishment, a clicking sound begins following Claire Bennet in the dark. Shira has found himself a pair of shoes that he must admittedly concede fare a whole lot better than his sandals. They don't have heels though okay?
It's just unfortunate that Shira himself has hair like virgin snow. A modern world would call it ironic but the man doesn't come from any such place. His white hair is natural and a testament to his own madness; he made it so.]
my ears, my eyes, my brain is slowly busting, black smoke, red skyadamantinedMay 23 2011, 09:37:41 UTC
[On a scale of one to ten, the clicking of footsteps behind her falls somewhere around or below a four. She's started the trek back to her apartment alone enough to understand that actually completing the trip without once hearing someone moving around behind or ahead of her is more concerning than the reverse. Now, though, the footsteps that trail along aren't as casual as is normal, and that draws and holds her attention, forcing her to stop
( ... )
my ears, my eyes, my brain is slowly busting, black smoke, red skymakinghoscroakMay 23 2011, 09:53:38 UTC
Surprise.
[Shira's voice is casual, almost lazy, which only further complicates the situation because it betrays his blinding speed. He's not superhuman, hardly, but he's physically adept as all men of his station and employ are molded to be. Some people call it savage the way the government cultivates strength to its fullest potential in human beings only to exploit it for money. What they found in Shira was gold; he doesn't care much as long as he has a roof, some food, and some fun.
From one click to the next he's already lunging for Claire. No means to break the skin just yet. He'll have to drag her into the darkest shadows first. He won't be disturbed when in the company of someone beautiful, even if she is a white-skinned, blue-eyed, blonde-haired barbarian.]
come sail your ships around me, and burn your bridges downadamantinedDecember 31 2011, 02:11:12 UTC
Pressed to find a logical reason for it, Claire could and probably never will be able to explain how she knows. She supposes Peter felt the same way upon discovery, the sort of tugging behind a breastbone that doesn't want to go but knows that it should, some sort of flutter in the lungs that can't be amounted to lost breath but can't exactly discount it either. She feels short of breath, like she's run and run and is finally at the end of it, whatever that means. Three years made her feel immune, even if certain months had rocked her security in believing that absolutely. Three years and a scant amount of trips back home only to suffer the City's vertigo one more time here, one more time there
( ... )
He's waiting where he was, in a kitchen with a cleaned-out fridge, with no signs that at here, the table in the centre, not forever ago, there were the kind of meals you have with family. First with three of them, then two, and a cat, and guests drawn in from surrounding apartments. He used to be able to call out of his window and know that his voice wouldn't be lost. It could be a memory or the television's dumb trick of switching to teen dramas while he slept. Either way, he's not surprised when his knock receives an answer, and just waits. If she knows to come in, she knows where to find him.
"I found something," he says, when she does. "I think it might be yours."
In his palm, when he turns it over and spreads his fingers out, is a gold token. He couldn't say what it's for, or why he could make this guess at ownership when there's another, identical, sitting in the same drawer.
She hasn't been in here since he got back, which would explain the dust. Some part of her, small and tucked away though probably easily visible to anyone who looked long enough, had kept the hope that he would come back just five minutes further down the road alive by keeping the floors swept and the dresser dusted. It hadn't taken long for that habit to be dropped, and there's a certain curl at the corner of her mouth, downward, to see the place like this. Here, where she sat across from him with chocolatey fingers. There, where she would leave her shoes. She could never bring herself to open Peter's door, and she wonders if anyone will keep hers sealed as well
( ... )
Comments 276
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Well, that is somewhat true.]
Oh. Hey.
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Hey. [He comes a few steps closer. Not too close. At least not yet.] Thought I'd find you back in there. Ran into the other help instead.
[He hooks a thumb over his shoulder to the establishment run by a guy who looks like a taller more sophisticated version of the doctor guy. The accent just sounds more posh okay?]
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The other help? [There are a number of staff actually on tonight, so he could theoretically be talking about any of them, but she has a fairly good idea.] You mean Peter? Did you run into him or run into him?
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It's only at Claire's door, patting the small pack of caffeine pills in his inside breast pocket, that he pauses and gives himself a minute to adopt a suitably hangdog position. Shoulders slumped, corners of his mouth both sullen and irritable. Even his knock is lacklustre, once and then twice, weaker, against the wood panelling.
It wouldn't do to be accused of cheating, after all.]
Reply
Reply
This reward. [The hand wavers, and eventually decides her shoulder is as good a resting place as any. They won't stay out in the hallway together for long.] Tell me it's going to involve you doing the lion's share of the work.
[The carefully constructed mask almost slips along with the upturn at one corner of his mouth, but he stifles it, backing her further into her apartment and, with supreme effort, kicking the door shut.]
Thought I might have to call up and request it in the lobby.
Reply
I would've sent a stretcher if I thought it was going to be this bad.
[She might be pandering to the way he's acting, but she can't deny that after yesterday's string of Network posts, having something light to come back to is a nice feeling. Either way, her steps are moving them helpfully through the apartment, from hardwood to the carpet of the living room. He should be familiar with the path even if it's been a while since he walked it.]Are you ( ... )
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It's just unfortunate that Shira himself has hair like virgin snow. A modern world would call it ironic but the man doesn't come from any such place. His white hair is natural and a testament to his own madness; he made it so.]
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[Shira's voice is casual, almost lazy, which only further complicates the situation because it betrays his blinding speed. He's not superhuman, hardly, but he's physically adept as all men of his station and employ are molded to be. Some people call it savage the way the government cultivates strength to its fullest potential in human beings only to exploit it for money. What they found in Shira was gold; he doesn't care much as long as he has a roof, some food, and some fun.
From one click to the next he's already lunging for Claire. No means to break the skin just yet. He'll have to drag her into the darkest shadows first. He won't be disturbed when in the company of someone beautiful, even if she is a white-skinned, blue-eyed, blonde-haired barbarian.]
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"I found something," he says, when she does. "I think it might be yours."
In his palm, when he turns it over and spreads his fingers out, is a gold token. He couldn't say what it's for, or why he could make this guess at ownership when there's another, identical, sitting in the same drawer.
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