Participants:
| Scene Title | He Know You're Offering His Dick To Your Friends? |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Melissa and Odessa talk about sex, life, and family. Not necessarily intermingled or in that order. |
| Date | December 14, 2010 |
"Abandon hope all ye who enter here."
That is the sign that rests just above the double doors that lead from the small foyer into the club proper. Once through the doors the music is all-encompassing, the heavy bass beat filling the room and senses of the club-goers. The décor is all dark, the walls painted black, the bar a sleek dark wood. The lights all have a reddish tinge to them, with the bar and DJ booth being the only places in the club proper that have more normal white light.
There are high tables with equally tall chairs circling a large dance floor, and booths set along two of the walls. But while socializing is a big part of the club, the dancing is the priority. People, some Goths, some punks, and some just people who like to dance are all packed on the dance floor. Weaving through the sea of people are servers, men and women both, dressed in black pants or skirts, and tee-shirts that have "Taratarus" written across the chest in red lettering. Likewise there are security people at the door and mixed through the club, in similar outfits, only their shirts have "SECURITY" on the back.
Tartarus is, as usual, full of goths, milling about and doing their thing, whatever their thing may be for the night. It's loud. It's crowded. It's full of drunks. Back in Melissa's office, two of the three are true. It's loud, though not quite so much, and it's full of drunks. Or, well, one drunk. Okay, so one person working towards getting drunk.
Melissa is sprawled on her office couch, one leg draped over the arm of the couch, her head on the cushions, propped up by one arm, and the other is holding a bottle of tequila. The good stuff. Her expression isn't weepy, as might be expected, or pissed. It's thoughtful. But the bottle is new, or close to it.
A fist pounding on the door is all Melissa gets in the way of warning before it swings open to admit Odessa Price. Brandishing a badge identifying her as an agent of the Department of Evolved Affairs. "Ma'am, I'm afraid I'm going to have to confiscate that tequila for testing."
A wide grin breaks out across the woman's scarred face as the badge is tucked away in the pocket of her red wool pea coat. "Thought I might find you here." Odessa gestures to the room at large. "May I join you?" She's hoping so, or this was a long trek in the cold for nothing.
Melissa jumps at the knocking and spills just a bit of the tequila. Then she rolls her eyes, grins, and sticks out her tongue. "Fuck that. You'll just have to grab another bottle. Bottom right drawer of my desk." Clearly the answer to her question is yes. "I've earned this bottle, yanno. So I'm gonna enjoy it since I don't do drugs, can't get a real fight for another five days and have no guy to bang. So dammit, it's drunk time. Better, it's drunken friend time," she says, shifting so there's room for Odessa.
"How do you feel about redheads?" Odessa asks as she opens the desk drawer in question. "Got any vodka? Or am I going to have to go requisition that from the bar?" She pauses in her quest for booze in order to unbutton and shed her coat. It's considerably warmer inside compared to outside and the difference seems more pronounced at first.
"Redheads? I dunno. I don't hate 'em or anything. Why? You gonna go red? And sorry, no vodka. But if you wanna grab some from the bar, just tell 'em I cleared it. Since you're bringing it back here they won't say anything," Melissa says with a shrug and a lazy wave towards the door and the bar.
"I work with one that… might be your type." Telling Melissa that she can have Odessa's sloppy seconds in the form of Calvin may not be the kindest, so she'll just leave that detail out. "His hair is amazing. It's all ginger-y and dreads." She holds up one finger. "Picture that for a moment. I need my vodka." She slips out of the room, making a quick bee line for the bar.
She's letting herself back into the office in short order, a bottle of Absolut tucked under her arm. "That was easy," Odessa proclaims with a bright smile. "And he wears eyeliner," she informs, picking up her thread easily.
Brows lift at that first comment, but Mel has to wait until Odessa returns, which gives her time to think. She's still sober enough to do that, and it's made her frown. "Ginger-y dreads with eyeliner? Like, probably more eyeliner than I normally wear? Kinda surly, easy to piss off? Friends with this really hot piece of ass and a couple of chicks who so totally need to cut the caffeine from their diet?"
Odessa's brows furrow, "That sounds like him, but I don't know anything about his friends. I just work with the guy. He's brilliant. And apparently knows how to have a good time." She found him a good time at any rate. "Calvin. You know him?"
Groaning Melissa shakes her head. "Not really. I ran into him once. Literally, actually. Was at this underground fighting thing. The chicks I mentioned were freaking out. I tried to calm them down, he gave me dirty looks, I deliberately ran into him, and the dickhead called me Amy Lee. I so wanted to hurt him, but I was already hurting from all the fights. Fucking radiation," she mutters. "I don't see how that guy could be brillian though. Or have a good time. Besides, I'm done looking for guys. Doooooone. I'll do fuck buddies. They're easier."
"Pretty sure that's all he's looking for," Odessa guesses. "He showed up drunk at my place around curfew, so I had to be a good co-worker and give him a place to stay the night." The implication hangs in the air as Odessa takes a swallow of vodka from the bottle in her hand. A shudder runs through her slight frame.
"Oh god. Co-worker. Are you telling me that prick is Institute on top of being an ass?" Melissa says, perhaps a bit loud. But she did have nothing but thinking and drinking to do while Odessa was retrieving her vodka! "You…I get you. You make sense. Darren. Maybe, sure. Brennan…Okay, yeah, maybe he's that fucking clueless. But what's that guy's excuse? I mean, he was there on evolved fight night. I saw a couple people I knew. Luke, Richard, and…uh…Hell, someone else I'm sure."
"His excuse for what? The Institute pays us well," Odessa admits, making a face after another gulp of vodka. "I… I don't think… The truth is, Mel, we're not evil." We're. Somebody's been drinking the Kool-Aid. "The Project Icarus stuff… That isn't what the Institute is all about. And even then, not everyone who works there is aware of everything that's gone on. A lot of it is a question of clearance, or knowledge of past history."
That isn't what Melissa was hoping or expecting to hear, and it has her eyeing Odessa like she's gone off the deep end. "Okay, maybe you're not all evil. But any organization that kidnaps people for kidnapping and turns others into literal monsters is far from nice and good in my book. And let's not talk about that, okay? It'll just get us fighting and I'm tired of fighting."
"Just… think about it. It's not all like that." And it sounds like Odessa even believes it, too. Maybe she has to to live with herself. Or maybe it comes with being former Company. Her view of what has to be done for the greater good may be drastically different than someone like Melissa's.
"S'fine if you don't want him. More for me. Though he acts like it never happened, which is a new one one me. Except a comment here or that that… I don't know. It's strange. Christ if I can't stop looking at his ass, though. He drives me to distraction." Odessa's lip curls in disgust with herself. "I can't hardly get any work done sharing lab space with him."
Melissa has blown up stuff, and gone into space, all for the greater good, so who knows where her line is really drawn anymore. But she presses way past the Institute bit to arch a brow at Odessa. "If you're already banging him, then why are you trying to set him up with me? I mean, don't get me wrong, I haven't gotten laid since Peter and that was…Hell. June? May? July? Somewhere back there. Haven't even gotten any smoochy since right after Kendall didn't really die."
"Sharing is caring, right?" The doctor laughs at herself, a byproduct of the vodka's effect on her. It doesn't take much when you weigh so little, and don't do sensible things like eat before you drink. "Tell me you don't mean you slept with Peter Petrelli." Not that she can throw stones from her home made of glass. She did make attempts at doing the same herself. But that? That was totally different. Completely.
Melissa nearly chokes on her next sip of tequila, since Odessa's sharing comment comes at the same exact time she's trying to take a drink. And when you try to laugh while drinking tequila, you end up choking instead. "Jesus, Odessa!" she says when she catches her breath, but even then she's laughing. "He know you're offering his dick to your friends?" she asks, grinning over at the other blonde.
Then she shrugs. "Yeah, only Peter I know. Banged him, and don't get me wrong, it was amazing. But next day he was all oh we shouldn't have done that, whine, whine, whine. Love the jerk, against my better judgement, but I totally moved on."
"Please. He strikes me as the type to give me a wolfish grin if I offered to set him up with the prettiest goth chick I know." Or maybe not. Odessa's not always been the best judge of character. "And God. Peter Petrelli. Yeah, that all sounds like him. You're way better off without him. He's nothing but trouble." Takes one to know one.
"Why do you think I moved on?" Melissa asks with a wry smile. "A girl can only take so much whining about how a guy's so bad for her before she moves on. Besides, it's clearly not in my cards to have a boyfriend, so…fuck buddies." There's a pause as she takes another drink, then she cocks her head and asks, "You really think I'm the prettiest goth chick you know?"
Odessa doesn't tell Melissa that she's the only goth chick she knows (well). "Absolutely." She's seen other girls in the clubs! And she certainly knows beauty when she sees it. To say Melissa is the prettiest isn't even really a lie from a lack of information to draw from. "You're a smart cookie, Mel. Boys are trouble. They either die, or fake their deaths, or… Or leave you with bruises and scars that never really go away." At that notion, Odessa tips the bottle against her lips and tilts her head back to drink until the alcohol burns her throat, clear to feeling it in her lungs, and leaves her coughing and sputtering on the clear liquor.
Melissa snorts a little, and starts to speak, but when Odessa starts coughing, she reaches over to pound on the woman's back. "Moderation there, hon. We're here to get drunk and feel good. Not to kill ourselves on it," she says, grinning. "And trust me, I've got plenty of scars that won't fade. I've been through a looooooot since we last really talked. Guys are the least of it."
A shaky, but grateful smile is flashed to Melissa as Odessa clears her lungs, eyes stinging with tears pricking at their corners. She makes a point of turning her head away before flipping up the patch over her left eye to wipe away the moisture there. "Thanks," she croaks, righting herself before she turns back again. "And you aren't wrong there. Men are the least of any of our problems. But they don't help things any, do they?"
"Fuck no," Melissa says, shaking her head then tipping her own bottle up and drinking deeply. "Peter fucked me up. Brad's not been any better. So…No guys, just fuckbuddies and work. And…Oh, here's something you'll get a laugh out of it. I've taken in someone else. You know, like I did Kendall? Except this time she's a fucking baby."
"I think you mentioned that in my office," Odessa murmurs after a moment's thought. "I still can't hardly believe it. You had a difficult enough time with Kendall. A baby. I just… It doesn't seem like you. Is she the teeniest goth to ever goth?"
"Not as hard a time with him as I'm having recently. He's got a girlfriend. Which totally made the guy thing worse. And accused me of wanting him tos tay a kid," Melissa says, rolling her eyes. "And yeah, when I figured out I was keeping her, I bought a shitload of baby goth stuff. Even got her a Christmas ornament. One of those baby's first things? Even that's goth. Like I'd keep someone in pink ruffles? Please."
Odessa grins wide. "What are you going to do when she tells you she wants to be in ballet?" She's teasing, of course. "And are you sure you aren't trying to make Kendall stay a little boy? Little boys are easier to control. He's, what? Sixteen? Seventeen now? What were you like at that age? I bet you didn't want to be treated like a little girl." Odessa can barely remember what it was like to be treated like a child. She grew up so quickly. The awkward little prodigy.
"Seventeen. And like I told him, at seventeen I was just trying to get my parents to pay attention to me, one way or another," Melissa says, shrugging and ignoring the ballet comment. "But no, I'm not trying to keep him a kid. I mean, yeah, okay. Him having a girlfriend at seventeen when I'm twenty-six and have never had a boyfriend irks me. But mostly, I just miss my house full of people. Ling's dead, I had to move out, and everyone else…" She shrugs. "They never visit. Kendall's too busy with Ferry and his girl, who I've not met yet and, get this, she's Kaylee's sister."
She shakes her head and sits up more, setting the bottle between her legs to hold it so she can light up a cigarette. "I just don't know what the fuck I'm doing anymore. Used to. With the Ferry? I knew. With Peter being jackass's mouthpiece, I knew. But now I just don't have a fucking clue."
Cigarette lit, she turns and flops down, head coming to rest on Odessa's leg. "You know, when I got Junie, I was completely terrified of her? Like, seriously. I've faced all manner of scary shit, and it didn't phase me half as much as this girl who can't walk and is just now getting teeth."
Odessa curls her fingers in Melissa's hair, a reassuring touch. "I don't know what to say. Life is so fucked up right now for a lot of us. I'm not unsympathetic. I know exactly what you're going through. But there are just… no adequate words for it, you know? Words won't make sense of it." It's the plain truth. "Sometimes I think the best answer is to get the fuck out of New York and try to start over somewhere new. But it means taking the excitement out of life. I couldn't handle it."
She smirks. "I robbed banks. I was bored, and I needed — well, I wanted the money." Odessa shrugs. "S'how I ended up in that place." Moab.
"Hell, I got out of New York. Got as far as you could go. Not to live, but it was out. That counts right?" Melissa muses. Then she grins. "Before that place I didn't do jack. But now…Damn. Explosions, killing, raids, conspiracies, and one very painful trip into outer space," she says, the last two words said with a sort of sing song, creepy quality. Think, Twilight Zone. Sorta.
Then she sobers a bit and nods. "But yeah, you're right. Though I don't think I could leave either. So much unfinished business. And speaking of, sent a message to Abby. No answer, but hey, it's a start. Though I'm not too happy with her. Not at all. But what've you been up to, hmm? Besides ending in the place that we're not gonna mention by name tonight?"
Odessa listens and absorbs what Melissa tells her with not quite indifference, but perhaps disaffection. She's not surprised by much of anything these days. "Besides the occasional situation that almost gets me killed? My life has been fairly quiet recently. Work fills my time, mostly." And a little bit of time travel, but that was an absolute disaster she'd rather not get into tonight. A buzzkill neither of them need.
"I think occasionally almost getting killed is something that all New Yorkers have to deal with," Melissa says with a bit of a smirk. And really, is she wrong? Nope. "But just work? That almost sounds kinda dull. You haven't had anything noteworthy other than a quick fling with a coworker? Who, incidentally, you can feel free to send my way. He likely won't bite since, yanno, the whole grr thing, but never hurts to try to get a quick bang."
"Maybe if he's drunk enough, he'll turn the grr into unf." Odessa's enjoying herself now. Thank you, Absolut. "Work is interesting enough, but it's nothing I can really talk about, you know? Plus, I find cutting open dead people terribly interesting, whereas most people just look for the nearest rubbish bin to vomit. So I'm a little off like that." And she's a lot off in many other ways.
"Oh gee, thanks. I gotta get a guy drunk now in order to get a little loving?" Melissa asks, laughing and poking a finger into Odessa's stomach. "And can't say I'd enjoy cutting people open, but by now I've seen enough blood and gore that it doesn't bother me so much. Though first time I shot someone, really shot them, I did spend a few minutes of quality time with the porcelain god."
"That is so not what I meant!" Odessa protests. "You know that! Just saying, if he had reservations while sober, maybe he won't if he's wasted!" The echo of previous terms is unintentional. An unconscious association. Then, she falls quiet for a moment. "Murder isn't easy. Even if it's a murder of self-defense. But it's much easier than losing a patient. Killing is a conscious choice. You chose to end that life. Losing a patient is tougher. You tried, and you failed." And Odessa's never been a gracious loser.
Melissa snickers softly at the protests, and she pats Odessa's shoulder. Or she tries to pat Odessa's shoulder, but it ends up being more chest area. Blame the tequila. Her aim's off. "I know. Had to tease. And I think you might be right. Not a doctor, but…I guess it could sorta be like when Kendall died. Since I didn't choose that. I didn't even want him to be there. Or Darren, since I tried to help him and he ended up being screwed after all. So I sorta know what you mean."
Odessa smiles faintly and tips her head down. "I'm glad you don't hate me," she tells her friend. "I had my doubts for a while." The slightly sullen edge to her suggest she still may.
"Well, can't say I was pleased when I found out who you worked for, but why would I hate you?" Melissa says, shrugging. "I mean, you've never been anything but a friend to me. You've never tried to hurt me or anyone I was responsible for. You've listened to me drunken rambling. You've done your best to make me feel better when I was fucked in the head. Not exactly cause for hate there."
"Sometimes an association is all it takes," Odessa says softly. But not so soft as to let the thumping music outside the office door drown out her words. "I'm not… used to having friends. I've lost a lot of them over the last couple years." Either to death, or to allegiance. "I'm just… grateful for you."
The bottle is set down and Melissa sits up, though it takes more time than it should. The cigarette gets put out and she turns to face Odessa again. "'Dessa, honey. If I hated everyone but association, I'd hate everyone I knew. I'm smart enough not to blame people for who they know, but what they do. Not even what they have done, depending." She leans over to hug the other woman. "So just don't worry yourself about me, hmm? You don't hurt me, Kendall or Junie, and we're awesome. And I can't see why you'd hurt any of us. We've both done bad things, but we don't do 'em for the sake of doing 'em."
Odessa wraps the arm not gripping the neck of her bottle of vodka around Melissa's shoulders and squeezes. "Makes you a better person than most," she reasons. "Thanks."
"Better person my ass. I'm just damn smart when I wanna be!" Melissa says, grinning and giving another squeeze before leaning back. "Now, let's work on these bottles of prime booze and you can tell me all about how this Calvin guy is worth the time."