Participants:
| Scene Title | Charlie's Angels, Full Bottle |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Teo drunkenly shares his marital woes with both his most impulsive and unpredictable friend, as well as one of the maturest and most practical, and by their powers combined, they are the ANGELS. Where ANGEls is code for stalking a woman Teo's husband slept with for no sensible reason. |
| Date | May 20, 2019 |
NYZ Safe Zone, Phoenix Heights: Cat’s Cradle
The room is large, a mid sized stage with tattered curtains hanging around it and two spotlights that face it. There were a number of mismatched theatre seats arranged in a half circle facing the stage, a long dark purple rug running through the middle of them. A chandelier that is sometimes on and only lights up halfway hangs in the center of the room. Even when music is not being performed people congregate around the stage, drinking or smoking. A 420 Friendly sign hangs near a mirror hung up behind the bar.
The bar area has a few mismatched chairs and boxes for chairs. A lone armchair is placed near the bar, the owner usually occupies it when she is in. The bar is a bunch of wood and steel welded together and repurposed as a bar, there is a black glass that is fitted around the middle of often smear from people’s knees and boot heels. A really old television set with a VHS player sits behind the bar propped up on a stand. The bar is as well stocked as you can get nowadays, there’s even an exotic alcohol or two rumored to be under the bar. A modest grill stands in the corner right next to the bar, nothing fancy just greasy food.
In the corner of the room near the stage and its green room door is another door that is usually locked.
It is an increasingly common circumstance in Teodoro Laudani's life, that he will go somewhere for dinner and then get all his calories from beer. This has in no way, shape, or form, caused any problems, per say. He's woken up a few mornings with headaches, eaten a preposterous amount of fried food, and finally caved and spent a chunk of his dwindling savings on a blender so that the disinteresting act of consuming non-alcoholic nutrient matter could potentially resemble the (significantly more interesting) act of getting his drink on.
He got through dinner with some of his oldest friends in Phoenix just days ago. And now he's waiting for Dee, but his resolve to maintain appearances has worn down today. Hard to say exactly why.
Might have something to do with the mysterious binder of papers under his elbows. Above it, Teodoro is currently leaning on the bar, head in his palms, his forehead and slightly outgrown forelocks smushed onto the heels of his hands.
Teodoro had chosen the Cat's Cradle out of semi-random association, despite trusting entirely that Emily was right and Eve lives again. His motivation to reunite with people from his old life has been uneven at best. Maybe more a matter of time management than anything; between Emily's dinner parties, being sad, and his own Extremely Dubious Extracurricular Activities. It is difficult to think about rekindling old friendships. And yes, Teo is aware that that was Emily's point.
There are no footsteps to announce the arrival of the woman at Teo's back, she's barefoot as she often is inside of this place. Dirty floors or not that's what bathtubs were for right? Eve didn't mind dirty feet. Or hands. One of those hands in question go to his shoulder, a gentle squeeze. Jasmine, lavender.. and some other green weed. Heh. Wafting from her person, that pale hand is familiar, so is the voice. The ripple of crimson lightning that forms over her hand is not familiar and the former seer quickly withdraws her hand.
"Non essere arrabbiato con me."
Her rasp is there, when he turns his head it's Eve there. Blood red glowing eyes, draped in a silk robe of the color black. Maybe she's just woken up from a nap. Not the sleep of death but.
"Sorry I didn't tell you sooner." She whispers, Eve rarely feels real guilt for her decisions. It's always necessary, a necessary evil. Maybe she's more like Adam than she likes to think. No.. Eve shakes her head and it seems like she still talks to herself. "I thought I was protecting you all." Grumbling to herself.
Teo should have known. Teo did know. Teo half-forgot, half-remembered, and maybe on some level he wanted this to happen, in that way that people want chocolate they'll regret later, or are gluttons for punishment in any number of ways. He raises his head from his hands, following that voice in a blind semi-circle until he sees her. For a moment, he suspects that the squeeze on his shoulder was its own kind of ghost.
"Oh. Holy shit," seems merited despite. whatever. Teo flattens his hair with one hand, grimacing when his fingers feel more drunk-numb than he had originally — planned? Was planning involved? He doesn't know. He studies her face, only half-listening to what she's saying. It's as if she expects him to be angry, or something, which he doesn't know why that'd be true; as a general rule, he has a very difficult time fostering any real resentment toward those he loves. (Which is probably why his current Francois-related misadventures are going so poorly. Its own kind of regrettable dietary choice, when his body has never learned how to process this.)
Besides, Teo knows he was the one who fucked off into farm country.
And Teo is for once, glad that he fucked off from that and back to New York. He opens his arms to snare her into a drunk hold, momentarily forgetting his mysterious documents. "Jesus fucking Christ," he says. "Emily's right. You did it. You're back."
"Would I ever truly leave you?" Clutching the man before shoving him back against the bar. She doesn't want any of that red energy snapping at him. "Never ever. Look at your beard." Eve grins and places her hand on her chin. A frizzle of garnet lightning pops along her face. No she wouldn't, if she could help it but Eve and Teo flinted off in their own ways. "That Paparazzi Girl, Emily. She says she's your neighbor. What a nosy neighbor." A snort and Eve is being nosy ass Eve and her glowing eyes beaming with excitement, flicking over those "mysterious documents." "I thought Ghost would have told you," that she was ya know. Alive and kicking and being her usual self. Almost usual. Fzzt.
Those eyes of her study his blue ones, squinting in concentration. She's not trying to have a vision, she's just trying to see him. Clearly.
"Your sad eyes are sad. What's droopy and drunk and furry all over?" The man right in front of Eve. Maybe it's seeing Eve, maybe he was just getting drunk at her bar in her memory. These things have happened, she was prepared to light a joint to share with him. She'd hate to give him the spins though. "I missed you."
Fzzt.
It isn't everyday that you get an invitation like this one- - but Delilah's relationship in this case has always been convoluted. She is confident she knows what she's doing, and looks the part; hair up and loose, a wine red dress with sleeves off-shoulder, short, rosy heels, simple lines and flattering seams. Not too nice for Cat's Cradle, but nice enough to treat this like something novel.
There is not enough space to be lost in a crowd here, much less during a more casual hour; it only takes Dee a minute of scanning from the door before the flicker of crackling red draws her eye to the right place. She's no ninja to sneak up on them. Just Lilah, smiling, eyes on the prize and unsurprised that Teo seems already warmed to the bartender, so to speak.
"Hey now… save some of that for me, will you?"
Teo looks at the former prophet, his eyes bigger than usual. Not quite fraught, but something close. It's a good question. Would she ever truly leave him? Are we pretending that death makes kind and thoughtful exceptions now? He grips her hand and he says, "You should know better than anyone, the ghost is a fucking nutsack." It's perhaps not the most poetic line he could have given the woman returned from the dead, but it's what he's got. He's in no mood to lie to her.
"I missed you too."
The words almost leave Teo in Italian, but in the end, it's English.
The scent of marijuana pulls Teo's attention down toward the woman's long fingers, with a guilty tingle for the incriminating papers right below, a throb of alarm at Eve's incisive question, but then the voice from behind draws his attention up again. Delilah. Look at her. Red and shod and breezily-groomed, the contrast in every italicized circumstance to Eve's barefoot, ragged urban witchcraft. "Hey, Dee." Right. He was pretending to be normal, under strict increasing instruction from his nosy neighbor (roommate, actually) to reconnect with people. (She did not instruct him to 'pretend to be normal,' it's worth noting; that's Teo's tendency to fill in the blanks as unhealthily as possible.)
"Good to see you," Teo says to the redhead. "I'm sorry I fucked off so long. You look — amazing." It's a slightly stilted reflex, but he does the thing; he kisses his thumb then reaches up to touch Delilah's cheek, patting the bar next to himself. "Eve was just making fun of my fuckin' depression beard," is actually intended as a joke, but an unconvincing one, "getting resurrected, and getting high. You know, the usual."
"Large nutsacks yes," Said thoughtfully, Eve agrees.
His various expressions and the welcome sight of Lilah makes Eve all the more interested. "Lilah! Dear! Sweet one! The Momma!" Eve twirls and then goes to sit on the other side of Teo, leaning over the bar to grab a couple of bottles. Dark and light liquor, "Drink up." Slamming glasses on the surface next.
"Depression beard?! Caro you sound like Gabriel." Look like Gabriel more like it. "Wait wait wait, two Sister Wives…" Eve looks around the bar. "Where's our third?" Maybe this was a gathering of the Sister Wives and Teoface. How wonderful! Eve has been wanting to practice her French even more, yes yes.
The buzz of that lightning is ever present. Fzzt. The bar stood beneath her smokes and singles as pieces of it flake away, floating up towards the ceiling. "Oh! Err." Hopping up off the seat, she stands. Whoopsie.
"Hey, come on, Eve, I like the mountain man beard." Delilah counters 'depression beard' and that self-deprecation seamlessly, one hand cupping against his face(and the infamous scruff), the other going to pull him into a short hug. "You aren't getting away with just blowing kisses." She slides in next to him, brows knitting at Eve's insistent production of glasses and liquor. Anything she was about to say in response is set aside carefully.
"What?" Eve gets a strange look, but she's used to Delilah being bewildered at her antics. "Third si- - ah! Jesus, Eve." Bewildered swaps tracks to surprise when the buzzing turns into smoldering barstool, red static clinging in Eve's wake. Concern comes through next, despite phrasing, hands lifted in a calming gesture. A glint on her left hand catches the moody bar lighting. "Please don't burn down the bar with people in it. Are you good…?"
Read: Are you going to combust?
What do you mean 'burn down the bar?' Teo isn't sure about the context for that question between the women, so his eyes end up tennis matching between the two, before dropping to the abandoned seat of Eve's stool. Well, shit. He squints, trying to understand if this is a Yamagato Tech Underwear Thing, how it relates to perhaps her resurrection and the 'explosion' famously described thereof, what? even as he obligingly shuffles his snout toward Delilah's hair when she hugs him. In a previous life, Teodoro Laudani was a good dog. He releases Delilah from his own half of the hug with some reluctance. It has been awhile since he. held someone.
"I've been looking for Gabriel for months and I haven't been able to find him," Teo adds in the interim, after reassuring himself that the bar doesn't, in fact, seem to be imminently catching afire. "And I'm."
Avoiding the question for as long as possible, with regard to the third 'sister wife,' and the sundry and numerous problems they have been having. Despite that it's inevitable. Despite that he knew he had only invited Delilah here because he meant to tell her; because she deserved to know, as mother of his son, part of this complicated family he constructed. Despite that some subconscious desire for catharsis led him to even bring his fucking papers in here, the folder that still rests under Teo's arms. "I'm wondering how come your butt made that seat smoke, besides yeah, sweetheart, you're hot as fuck."
"We always shave!!" As if to say: of course girl! "The beard is quite macho, fine fine." She can agree, Eve can agree. Oh! "Jazzhands/Gabriel had a depression cabin! I had to drag him out. He's out being… Gabriel. Around and around. Loving the town." Wheeeee, or around and around helping his formerly dead, disembodied girlfriend acclimate to life. Yes, totally normal. "I'll give him your number." Hopefully the last number Eve gave to her friend didn't end with anyone being murdered.
As to why her ass is seemingly on fire, a sheepish expression sweeps over her face and blood red eyes squint to half lidded slits, "Well! You see…" Eve scratches the back of her head and a chain of lightning fizzles around the crown of her hair.
"I farted earlier we should be A-Okay!" And everyone knows when someone like Eve Mas says A-Okay it might also mean totally fucked. "But when I exploded, back in January during the Crossing. Well… I got switcharoo'd! Brain is fuzzy on the exact how did I steal this ability? Were my visions stolen?" The pale woman throws her arms up, "Whose really to say! But now I don't see, not the future pathways. Not the ways the river runs. Now I… boom." Just like her good friend Boomer, how exciting! There's a jolt of pain and Eve winces and holds the side of the bar. "It's not without its… adverse effects but. Worthhhhh ittttt."
Blinkblink.
"Oh hey you never answered my question, where's our other Sister Wife!" Eve wants to talk French with Franch.
"She is, ain't she." The smoking commentary is an agreeable one.
Gabriel is alive? It's news to her. Delilah listens to Eve with a touch more intent now. She's not sure what to think - just that Samson had best be gone. Eve's explanation however, has her boggling at word choice. "You what-"
"Oh… I remember… when you came to give me the sword. After all that. And I saw you on the beach not long ago, but I had no idea what was going on with you. I was too busy with trying to keep my son away from that drowned guy." Delilah snorts, a laugh despite the topic at hand. As Eve shows her weakness of body, the redhead half-descends from her stool to reach out and steady her. Static be damned.
"Is there anything that helps? Do you need to sit down?" Henning begins. Naturally. "… Are you getting better at controlling it?"
Belatedly (drunkenly) taking his cue from Delilah, Teo leans over to grasp Eve's other arm. He is not sure this is actually a good idea, because what if she explodes their hands off? But Delilah's doing it, and Teo trusts the other woman's judgment as much as he cares deeply for Eve's wellbeing. Mysterious resurrections, power swaps, and all. Filing away Gabriel's ongoing existence in one corner of his brain, he helps steer her to the nearest mooring that seems stable, and then decides that that should probably be on this side of the bar?
"Maybe we should switch places," Teodoro says. "You sit again, I'll pour drinks." Himself. He will. pour himself drinks, mostly. And everyone else, admittedly, and he will pay for them like an adult of appreciable responsibility, blah blah, fine, whatever.
But not before he comes to the untimely conclusion that he can not avoid Eve's inquiries any longer, or the inevitable pull of inebriated honesty, that he was going to tell Delilah, probably. By coincidence of being here. He pulls up the flap that allows bar access, ushering the staticky burning, disoriented woman out, watching her thoughtfully, wondering all she's been through while he fucked off into the mountains, and how little the robot dog got to see despite the fidelity of its recording, and all the while, he says:
"Francois fucked three people while I was living in the hills, so I went up to Rochester and found out who they are and where they live and now I don't know what to do because I still want to punch something every time I think it, and sometimes the thing is him. But I don't have a history of domestic violence, and it seems pretty fucking unproductive to start now." It's spoken in about two and a half exhales, while Teo prods and rattles around the nearest bottles, dwelling over finely printed labels, diligently avoiding looking at either of his two companions, the masochistic warmth that pity no doubt shall shine from their eyes. There is already: a telltale bandage around one of his hands, his knuckles still healing from an earlier and related pugilistic encounter.
Maybe this is how the Mitchell administration survivors feel, hanging out in prison. Being a loser sucks a little less when you have someone to whine to.
There is a lot for Eve to process. Okay okay.
She looks between Delilah and Teo. Spots Delilah's hand. Looks at Teo's face. Hears about infidelity. Asking about the nature of her ability. "I didn't want to hurt Wally. No no, my farts are dangerous now." They really are. So are her burps and when she gets scared out of nowhere.
"It's.. I'm not sure. I become a cloud." That's not- "It's not a metaphor. I go boom and there's a cloud. I can go through things! It's like phasing! It is phasing! I must ask Julie. The Gift Seer will know." Eve leans forward and holds onto Delilah's arm. Static be damned. Oh hello, WHAT A ROCK. "I could ask Hamson but then I'd have to phase through his hear- is that a ring?!" Eve looks down at it finally able to voice the question.
But there's still.
"Oh… no…. Sister Wife." Allowing herself to be steadied and walked back over to the barstool. Easy does it. She slides back into the seat and leans against the bar. Pussycat Doll's Don't Cha begins playing and she bops her head. Thinking on what this means, "Do you want me to go wash his mouth out with soap? Who are these three? Do we know them? Maybe I had a vision about it we can consult the paintings." Of course.
Eve doesn't know that she likes Teo being cheated on, she knows they all go about their business. Like to draw away or it's just a habit for them but if you're married… shouldn't you just lay together? This is why Eve will never do marriage. "Frenchie's gonna French. Always."
The man who's been drinking wants to serve now- talk about blind leading the blind. Delilah seems apprehensive, but she sits Eve down beside her nonetheless. While Eve is doing her processing, it leaves her some time to listen. Teo starting as he does has her eyebrows hiking up in surprise; to her credit, the bold redhead doesn't interrupt. Not that she has much time to.
"Teo…" Delilah's tone is difficult to parse. No question that she wants to be comforting, though. She knows Teo(s) and she knows Francois, and it sounds like a cluster(no pun intended)fuck.
"That's… sublimation." Solid to gas- - "Easy," Dee cannot help a laugh, as Eve investigates her like some sort of hedge-witch with a visitor. Fortunately(?) Eve is there to dote on, since Teo is behind the bar; Delilah settles a hand on her back, at least once shying away momentarily from the static.
"No soap. Yes, it's a ring. And slow down, you don't need any names." Eve is wont to move a million miles an hour, but Delilah doesn't want to go that fast. She's tempered her speed too. It has redirected into authority, which she brandishes now. "I really, really hope this doesn't mean you're going to go find these people, Teo."
Teodoro makes Eve a drink. Gin and tonic, which — after he has a look at Delilah's face — is a very appropriate amount of gin to go with the tonic, plenty of ice, an extremely standard cocktail. Which he then proceeds to replicate for himself. See? The blind are doing a great job leading one another right now, moving at a cautious pace, groping around, using their other senses to compensate. That's just an ableist aphorism.
"Can you use your power without blowing up the bar? I'd like to see it."
Instead of answering the women's questions directly, Teo does the next best thing. He leans over the bar, past his glistening, frosty drink, and puts his fingers down on the folder he had come in with. He slides it over to Eve, and it skids to a stop against the twin g and t. "There's no cure for French ancestry in there," he warns, trying not to look at Delilah so that he doesn't have to see the Disapproval on her face the moment Eve flips it open.
And Naomi Impicciche is there, picture-perfect, her wavy dark hair floating down her shoulders in a professionally produced portrait, complexion like snow. She is a semi-public figure, her journalism photography work summarized in the newsprint clipped underneath, all of it carefully sleeved in plastic. She would appear to be brave, accomplished, in addition to being incidentally, very beautiful. Presumably, her own sister — brother — 'whatever,' are in the pockets underneath.
Teo's ruse ends rather badly, when he drinks his entire cocktail in one go, then he stares at Eve as if honestly expecting the woman to become a cloud on request.
Delilah and Eve are a great pair together, Delilah's more motherly, calm demeanor intermixing with Eve's erratic behavior. A nice contrast, her shoulders slump about the chide of not needing names, "Then now will we ever find them-whoa hello." As Teo opens the folder to reveal the knockout that is Naomi, the former seer leans over to Delilah and whispers loudly. "Oh she's hot." Real hot.
As Teo downs his drink and looks at her expectedly she looks back having a staring contest before she grins. "Okayyyy." Singsong like, she hops up from her chair and runs for the stage taking a flying leap into the air and as she does her body glows from within, a deep crimson and then she just… explodes into a red cloud of crackling energy. The streaks of lightning rain down on the floor below her but she settles there. Floating at the stage.
This feels right.
It's a good thing the bar is mostly empty. The only people here are too drunk to think much of it, oh it's Eve's new trick sweet. The crackling nimbus hums with life and power. There was no pain in this form. She felt free.
She also couldn't talk.
Though she doesn't exactly give Teodoro the eye when he mixes drinks, Delilah still sends him a more approving look for his safe bets on drinks. Atta boy. Whatever was there, however, sours back into something else when the folder slides in and Eve flips it open. Oh Teo No. Eve's leaning in does get a small laugh, a weary thing.
"Oh, uh, yeah, yeah I suppose she is." Dee is trying to stay neutral here, Eve! Even if this lady is stunning! Cut it out! Thankfully she is spared any more comments on the extramarital faces as the older woman goes sprawling up onto the stage like a dog into a pond. "Lord," It sounds like she kind of knows what to expect? Enough to shade her eyes from the glowing and crackling, a tiny bit of shying away at the ominous shape floating there as if it were straight from R'lyeh. "Is that good enough for you?" Lilah leans an elbow on the bar and tilts in to look Teo in the face. "Because I want to have a word about a thing called stalking."
It may be refreshing to have a too-honest tongue, for once.
At the compliments received by LIV TYLER, Teodoro frowns deeply over his now-empty glass. His expression is slow to change after that, even after Eve evacuates her seat, and turns into a giant crackly ball of red light, and even after Delilah does her merciful best to soften that. Of course, he knew that LIV TYLER — Naomi, sorry — is hot without either woman saying so. He stares broodily into the coalescing light of danger that is now Eve, decorporealized above the stage, jaw set, pale eyes far away, his strong brows stooped low. It is the kind of look that used to accompany deep strategizing about saving hundreds of SLC-E lives, planning out-of-country violent operations, combating evil entities from ancient times or other timelines.
But now, of course, Teo isn't thinking about any of that. Now, he's just thinking about how hot the lady is that Francois fucked.
How far we have fallen I guess. (But still: broody staring also 'feels right.') "That's a cool trick," he mutters at Eve, distractedly. It's better than looking at Naomi's unbelievably beautiful picture. "When you get outta that, you have to tell us what the fuck you're made out of it. Sure as shit ain't fire. If you could hurry the fuck up, I'm trying to avoid a subject with this one."
Teo gestures plaintively in Dee's direction. Eve can you come here and deflect the words that your counterpart is trying to have at me! Thanks!
Eve is only too happy to indulge the two, especially the broody Teo, her limited vision gives her a slight impression of a frown and she buzzed with energy and bobs over, just a little closer. As she does so, her form changes from that of a crackling cloud/ball of crimson light and lightning.
There now, as what appears to be arms and legs pushing and probing from the inside of the ball in the air. The shape of a woman begins to float there, hair an ever sparkly nimbus of blood red hair flying above her. It's.. A shape.. like well Eve. Except she's all transparent and her features aren't that distinguishable. This felt good. Really good. Her old body, that felt unnatural. This felt like how she should be, it was becoming easier for Eve to distance herself from her old body. She was changed, it was very evident.
Eve missed her visions in that the advantages in life they gave her. In that… it was the only way of life she could remember having. More than half her life. Lost in thought the former seer hovers there before she realizes she's meant to return. Back to the pain. With a surge of energy and fizz of sound the shape glitters and twists and it's like it pulls itself. Red becomes pale pink flesh, the clothes she was wearing are slowly emerging. (She's been really practicing on the clothes thing, Gilly said she was gonna put an eye out). Her face is the last bit to come into full form, it's always random. How she rematrializes. "That's it!" Waving her hands around and coughing as she winces in pain. "Feels better like that. I like to fly." Wheeeee. She's grinning and snorts rather loudly as she bounds across the room to stand in front of the two, hands on hips.
"I'm not exactly sure! But I can do other nifty tricks with it. Like freaking walk through walls!! I destroy them in the process but how fun is that!" Eve looks absolutely delighted at the fact. "You know Kitty Pryde? Shadowcat?" Taking on the airs and accent of what she believes to be a fancy woman. "I'm Bad Kitty baybay."
The very first thing that Delilah does is turn on her seat and lift a finger to place it on Eve's lips.
Ssh.
"I love you and I love that you love this new thing," Delilah looks over her shoulder at Teo, then back to Eve. "But I need him to tell me exactly why he's turned into a stalker." She turns back to him, brow pinched. "What are you thinking? Are you at all? What happens when someone feels threatened? You shouldn't have looked for them, Teo. They're not the ones that decided on what happened." That was Francois' choice, and she expertly says as much without actually blaming him for anything.
Teo:
Teo:
Teo: pours Eve another drink, after a long moment spent staring at her rematerialized person. That was quite singularly incredible, and he has seen a lot of different SLC-Expressive abilities in his lifetime. The new glass (sorry) (he shouldn't waste water) (but he's drunk) goes skidding a few inches across the bar with a flick of his fingers, its contents wobbling precariously, but none overflowing. Obviously, providing more drinks to a woman with a new and poorly controlled ability is his best idea ever. ""
At least, it's a better idea than Delilah apparently thinks Teo's… ~~~extracurricular activities~~~ are. "You say 'bad Kitty' but all I hear is 'bad pussy,'" is something that Teo would almost certainly not say if he were sober, and partly, for real, because he's trying to get away with not responding to Dee, but he forgets his plan about halfway through the subsequent five seconds. "I just looked them up."
Does Teo sound defensive? Teo: is being defensive. A little.
"And I ran into the guy for like two seconds but that was an accident and no big fuckin' deal." It was: a big fucking deal. He made up a stupid terrible lie. "Is Googling people considered 'stalking,' now?"
Eve nibbles on Delilah's finger with a grin and wink and nods though she's conflicted on where she stands on the matter. "Well you know, all our friends are really good stalkers. Sometimes you just gotta, ya know. Place a face with the name." Yea? Yea?
"Unless…" Eve takes the drink and guzzles a bit down, lightning dances down her arm and encircles the glass before winking out, little wisps of white smoke curling upwards. "My dear mio caro bel ragazzo." Leaning forward over the bar and studying his face. "Bad Pussy smells something," Sniffsniff. Hmmmmm. "Are you planning on stalking them, in person." The question is as direct as Eve always is, her head tilts and she grins wildly.
"Roadtrip! Roadtrip! We can take my- aww." Eve still hadn't picked up her car from SESA storage. Looking down to the ground she tries not to sigh too hard.
"Eve…" Despite the tone of things, Dee pulls her hand away with a mildly disgusted laugh. Looked them up, hm? Delilah waits, leaning on the bar until he does admit to running into one for 'two seconds'. She rubs her forehead.
"If you do it like that, yes." Internet stalking! And every time she hears 'bad pussy' there's an inner groan. No, don't use it again, jesus. Delilah is half ready to grab a leash for Eve before she flies off to go find people. Thankfully, she won't need to. "Calm your tits, Eve."
"Well? Are you? Because you already admitted to finding one of them…" At the very least, Delilah's tone has gone from disapproval to something more sympathetic. That he even felt bad enough to do it- - all the Teos have problems unique to them, and this is one.
There's some kind of sexy lesbian fantasy here that Teo is getting distracted by. Considering the cognitive deficit he is currently experiencing, it's very hard for him to process that series of notions while also trying to fumble his way through the moral conundrum represented by Eve vs Dee. Eve wants to go on a road trip. Dee is asking him sarcastic questions, which she's kindly dumbed down to a yes or no question, but he's pretty sure there is a correct answer.
"Nnnnyyy," he says. "I have a truck. And no specific plans. That wasn't—-" Teo gestures helplessly and nearly knocks over a bottle of liquor. But he still has enough reflexes on him to grab it by the neck."I wasn't trying to meet them.
"I just wanted to try to understand why he did it, even if I can't there. It seems fucked up not to try, right?" iNCORRECT, Teo, it is way more fucked up to try, in this case. But it's a mentality that's old to him now; he tried to fight a war that had seemed unwinnable. He tried to redeem a childhood mistake that seemed irredeemable. And of course, he spent most of his adult life fumbling around trying dramatically to keep love when he knew himself to be unloveable. "What do they say? 'It's the journey, not the destination.' And I'll never fucking get there, I know. It was three fucking places, three people." Teo stoops over and punches his fingers down on the dossier he left, LIV TYLER's beautiful face. "Months apart. He wasn't even sorry for a like a month after he told me.
"I just want to know how little I'm ever going to fucking know." Teo rests his hands on the counter. He has at this point, completely lost track of both questions that the two different women asked. Neither shoulder angel nor shoulder devil can get a proper perch on a man who can barely keep his shoulders upright. "If there's a Goddamn elephant who's going to live in my room for the rest of my marriage, I want to see what it looks like."
At this point, he's just monologuing to himself. Or maybe that ceiling light over there.
"But-"
They are talking. Uh huh. Ohhh okay. Maybe so. Well… all these thoughts run through Eve's mind.
An elephant. Eve has vivid flashes of her time in Africa, elephants. Vroom vroom. The ends of her lip curl and she flexes her hands in the fashion of riding a bike. Mmm, "Elephants," The pale woman does hear Teo and for once in this ménage she goes for something like reason.
"Oh my dear dear dear, sometimes it's best to not know. Look at me." Pointing her fingers at her forehead and buzzing from clenched teeth. "If you're sure you want to know, then we'd best be on our merry merry way. What do ya say?" Eve feels that Delilah is going Cuz DUH somebody has to be thinking straight here well relatively speaking. "If we cant talk him down we must join him, come onnnnn. Just a Peek, no kidnapping!" Scouts honor and she can PROVE IT. No fingers crossed.
Though her disapproval of his actions is clear, Delilah still listens to his side of it; there's no denying that he has some sort of logic to all of this, even if it's convoluted. She allows thim to monologue to himself for the moment, keeping an eye on Eve from the side. Her gaze moves along when the other woman starts her gesturing.
Delilah opens her mouth a little, brow furrowing as Eve just tiptoes along on her reasoning. Merry merry way indeed.
"If we can't- - what? Are you serious? Of course you're serious why am I even asking." Dee just brushes it off, a hand smoothing at some of her red hair, brown eyes to Teo and back. It might at least, you know, keep him from being completely stupid about it. Less than he's already been. "Well? What would you think about that? Cause right now I can only see this going a couple ways otherwise…"
Teo tennis matches between the women and manages to refrain from pouring himself another drink. See, they are already being very good influences (kind of).
He finds it unnerving, that the metaphorical spotlight has suddenly swung back onto him. But of course it does. It would be too easy, and rather unethical, if he were to pretend this were really all Eve's idea, wouldn't it? His pale eyes shift right and left. The handful of other patrons in this bar pretend not to be dropping no eaves, Mr. Gandalf, but he isn't looking at them anyway.
Teo cups his hands around his mouth, and then twists the make-believe tunnel so that it only points at Deililah. Which does not make him any less audible to everyone who was already in earshot when he whispers, "I wanna do it. I want to. I. I just — I need to know. At least I need to know what I can know, even if that's jack and shit, you know?"
"Exceellllleeeennntttttt."
Eve rubs her hands together and snorts in amusement, "Roadtrip! Roadtrip! Mcguff!" The main bartender AKA otherwise known as Sassy peeks his head out of the storage room and the pale bar owner waves him down, "I'll be gone for a few days. And I'll leave the note for Gilly." Because usually McGuff would end up giving too much information and though with Delilah being on the Council word was sure to reach her ears Eve would like to avoid that as long as possible.
"Should I bring one gun or two?"
Not that she needed them.
Her whole body vibrates and glitters with crimson energy.
Hopping to her feet, Eve spins and pushes off from the surface of the bar. "What are we waiting for!? This is the perfect detour from Stop The World From Ending!"
Teo rambles, but Delilah seems to understand what he means all the same. She leans on the bar with a bent brow, mouth pursed sadly. He's right, in a way. If something hurt her she'd want to know more; perhaps not quite in this way. She would have to be there.
Though of course, Eve is there to vibrate with glee in her ear and startle her back to Earth.
"None. None guns." Delilah admonishes, though she relents but a moment after. "Okay, a few. Just in case. Nothing out of hand!" She makes sure to imply ground rules. "And don't you talk about detours from the apocalypse… I have enough to worry over, Eve."
"Hmnh." Dee rounds her seat back to Teo, resigned, and supportive nonetheless; she reaches out to cup his cheek affectionately, thumb over cheek. "Alright, we'll work something out, so don't rush it, okay? We can take our time on this." Eve.
Teo automatically reaches for his next drink then puts it down again. His heart swells with gratitude.
"We're not going to fucking shoot her," is Teodoro Laudani's way of saying thank you to Eve Mas, and I promise I've got my head screwed on at only a slight angle to Delilah Trafford. "I just want to see her from like. Far away." He smiles at them. It's not one of his best smiles, slightly uneven, his nice teeth looking somehow mushed together into a disorganized row in this light. But then he fumbles his way out from behind the bar to take up his creepy stalker papers, sling an arm around Eve, unthinkingly, turn to Delilah and say, Let's go.
But what comes out instead, and maybe Dee will appreciate this is:
"Maybe we should do it tomorrow."
Teo is a little of a lot of things.
"Oh fineeee no grenades, I boom enough for us anyway." There's a snicker and she looks out the side of her eyes at Delilah and grins widely and nods her head. Yes yes, take their time. Easy does it. They aren't gonna fucking shoot her. As Teo said.
They weren't going to fucking shoot her.
Right. Repeat.
Allowing herself to be pulled in close by the man, Eve leans into the pair placing a hand on Teo's chest and the other on Lilah's shoulder. "You can't have a threesome with her unless I'm invited!" Just to lay it out there. "Ghost would never forgive me for missing out." Of that she's sure.
Throwing her head back to scream to the heavens, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I'll love you tomorrow!" Snapping her fingers together, Eve winks.
Okay, okay, group hug is basically pinky swearing, right? Delilah smiles when Teo moves away from his station at the bar, a slight bend to her brow in silent gratitude. Good. Yes. They can handle more tomorrow.
The redhead pats Eve's hand on her shoulder and barks a small laugh for her commentary. "I'm glad you've established that, Eve, I'll make a note." Not that she is taking it seriously at the moment. Dee puts a hand up to ruffle Teo's hair briefly, affectionate more than anything. "Tomorrow."
She'll never not be there for him- - it will just be on her terms.