Participants:
| Scene Title | The Diner |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Wayward family connects. |
| Date | February 3, 2020 |
Voicemail from: An unknown number
Time: 2:17 PM
“Hey, I hope this is still your number. It’s Dottie. I’m over at the Night Owl and I ordered two coffees. One is for you. I was hoping you’d join me. Because I haven’t got any money. Oh, and I really miss you. I should mention that, too.”
“I need a pair of heels, size seven. One of your dresses. A hair scissors, a good one. A box of red hair dye - something copper, none of that fire engine shit. Your make-up bag. Uh… And cash, I guess? I think that’s everything. Hope I see you soon, otherwise I’m gonna have to dine and dash and they seem really nice here. I’d hate to do that.”
End of message.
To erase this message, press 7. To save it, press 9.
Odessa hangs up the receiver to the payphone outside the Night Owl diner and heads back in to sit down at her booth. She pulls the borrowed (“borrowed”) ballcap down a little, her blonde hair swept up inside of it, but still haphazardly sticking out here and there below the band. The tee shirt she’s wearing over her blue track pants is oversized, but it serves to obscure the shape of her slender frame some.
As far as anyone’s concerned, she’s just a tired New Yorker looking for a late lunch. And this is a risk she’s taking, for sure, but she needs someone to know where to find her, in case her faith in the oni is misplaced. She needs someone to know where to start the search if she disappears.
As one cup of coffee is drained, she pours a second from the carafe left at the table. The cup across from her sits empty and untouched, waiting for her company to arrive. It takes conscious effort not to tap her foot or her nails restlessly. Appearing too anxious will draw attention. Christ, what she wouldn’t give for some kind of distraction.
“Shit,” Odessa mutters under her breath. Should’ve asked for a burner phone.
7 was pressed immediately after. Her permanent cellphone is thrown to the couch before she does anything to fuck it up.
Later, the woman that the message was left for sweeps into the room her black trench coat trailing behind her. She carries a rather large duffle bag in her left hand and Eve's crimson glowing eyes are covered by a pair of dark sunglasses. It doesn't take her long to notice her cousin and she slows as she approaches, a hint of a brilliant jade green dress peeks out from in between the trench coat.
The duffle bag is immediately set on the ground and pushed in under the table as Eve sits down on the same side of the booth as Odessa and she pulls her close. Holding her there. Breathing deeply and smelling her hair. Pale hands clutch at her cousins face and she kisses her cheek.
"So I'm not still high from the LSD yesterday." A devilish grin and Eve does her natural motion of pulling back before any stray strands of lightning nick Odessa. "This will not make people think the Mas Girls are a cooperative sort but you're alive and here and I am so happy to see you," Regardless of the danger, they were reunited. "But we must be quick cousin," Her eyes go to the windows before returning to Odessa. "What. How. Who?"
Her eyes travel over the shorter woman's form, looking for injuries. Eve will get to the supplies later, first know what you're dealing with. Was her cousin on the hook to someone for being released? Or did she escape herself somehow? Had the Dragon found her? Had Adam? A black booted foot rests on top of the bag.
Odessa leans into Eve’s hug, returning it with a fierceness. Sure, they’ve seen each other just a month and change ago, but it’s been over a year since they saw one another on the outside. This is cause for celebration. A subdued one, in which they converse quietly in a booth in a diner in Bay Ridge.
Thankfully, the blonde appears to be uninjured, just timid, given the givens. “Mazdak,” she offers in a hushed voice. “I have to go back to where they’re keeping me holed up when we’re done here, but… I needed to see you.” Odessa smiles shakily, leaning up to press a kiss to Eve’s cheek.
Reaching to the other side of the table, Odessa slides the empty saucer and cup over to Eve and pours her some coffee. “I couldn’t come to you. It’s only a matter of time before people figure out I’m not a corpse. My window is very short.” But they’re within it now. For now, this is as safe as it can get. “I don’t know what they want with me, but I was told I’m alive because of you.”
Eve's eyes flash and she tilts her head. "They were always in the background, now they've been everywhere. All over the headlines. Extra extra.." She whispers as she moves to the seat across from her cousin, not because she wants too. If she had it her way she would latch onto her cousin and never ever let go. But her current state can be harmful and that very last thing she wants to do is hurt Odessa.
"They will be watching," Eve does agree it was smart for Odessa to not just show up at her home. Maybe not now but when they finally learn, Eve would be monitored. Not that she didn't know how to lose and use a tail.
"Who would be doing such a favor for me, for our family?" Alive because of her? Not many people would say that sort of thing. It causes Eve to give a confused smile to her cousin. "Are the others dead or was it just you?" That would be enough for Eve, she had no attachments to any of the other prisoners. Not personal ones. Her mind races with the knowledge that Odessa will need to return to her liberators. "What messes we find ourselves in."
There is another matter to touch on as well, her booted foot taps into the duffel bag between them on the floor. "Clothes, some pretty things for you. Pants! They aren't mine. But they are nice. Dresses as well, wear them. One was your aunt’s," They don't have a massive inheritance or anything like that to the Mas name, but, Odessa deserved something that her own blood had interacted with. There was power in that. "Money, 10k. Don't spend it all in one place, multiple bills. Stay fed." That's a rule not a choice.
"Phone. Two. I have a lot of burners. We mustn't ever be pinned to one place no no. Slippery as the eel that's what we are." They both were tricky sorts, "Means to defend. Every woman needs it. One gun. Two of my best knives. Bullet bullet. Keep them close. Oh and fun," Eve's grin is darker. "Pop some molly, a little green, tabs of acid if you're looking for a little introspection. Our favorite blue fairy ever and some very hot and heavy reading. Mean Heat. It's a classic!"
Odessa looks appropriately touched as Eve recounts the gifts she’s brought to her. “You are so good to me.” She reaches up and dabs at the corner of one eye with the pad of her middle finger to ward off the pricking sensation of tears there.
Then, she leans forward to confide something in her dear cousin. “I hate pants. Look at these things.” Odessa leans sideways in the booth so she can raise one leg up enough for Eve to see the blue and white striped track pants she’s wearing. “A year I’ve had to wear these.” She sits back down properly and holds up her hands defensively. “Don’t get me wrong. They’re insanely comfortable. But, boy do I ever miss skirts and dresses.”
A dreamy little sigh escapes Odessa’s lips as she imagines what flowy and wonderful clothing Eve must have brought for her. She’ll look later. For now, they have catching up to do. Schooling her features into something more serious, she leans forward again so she can keep her voice low as they talk. “I don’t know if anyone else made it out.” It feels bad to lie to Eve, but as long as she doesn’t know about Mohinder, that knowledge can’t hurt her. Besides, it isn’t as if she cares about Suresh anyway. That’s Odessa’s burden to bear.
“Apparently you have a friend who calls herself the oni?”
"Those legs were made to be shown yes yes yes!" Eve snickers and calms herself, she too can relate to hating pants. Only when she worked on cars, that was the rule her daddy taught her. That just makes her think about how cars and women weren't her father's only expertise, not everything was as it seemed with her family and Eve learns the same for her friends in this instance.
"Oni? As in ON1 as in Asi motherfucking-" Eve stops, what the fuck what the woman playing at?!! "What in the fucking balloon ducks is this?" Eve sits back in her seat and nods slowly.
"She's a wizard with the machines, technopath. Japan's finest… she went rogue. Showed us around Japan, helped me and my friends stick it to Adam once or twice or three times. Seems she went rogue again, hm." Eve gaze darken and she strokes the edge of the table as a streak of lightning zigs from her wrist to her pinky.
"Well," A slow smile, "I suppose it's good I'm so friendly. But Asi is running with a dangerous group, I can't judge because of PARIAH but the connections to Adam are staggerin- ah wait!" There are perks to traveling like a normal human, by foot or car. You could stuff things in your bra! Eve rips out a half eaten Milky Way from her bosom, "Hello my lovely." Kissie face.
“I don’t know what her real name is, but I can only assume they’re probably one and the same.” Odessa watches with a little concern and dismay as Eve pulls the half-eaten chocolate from her bra. “How is that not melted?” she asks aloud without realizing immediately. She snorts a laugh and shakes her head. It doesn’t matter.
“I can’t judge people for their dangerous acquaintances,” the blonde supposes, “being as how I myself am a dangerous acquaintance.” She shrugs, uncertain of where else to go with that thought. She takes a sip of her coffee and just takes a moment to stare at Eve, grateful to be in her presence and not surrounded by guards.
While she does this, she weighs her options of what to say next. Whether what she wants to ask for is safe or would put the people she cares for in peril. “Would…” Odessa reaches across the table to take one of Eve’s hands. “Would you tell Richard I’m alive? Tell him you saw it in a dream or you can feel it in your bones or something.”
"Strong women are always deemed dangerous," Not even getting into the fact that the two cousins are particularly dangerous. She mulls over this as Odessa makes a request and Eve smiles softly and grips the edge of the table before she nods slowly.
"I will tell him, for you. Not that I've seen you yes but that I have a feeling, that I just know. The Whispers might no longer speak on my ear but I still know things, feel things in the air. Like they are taunting me… or calling me to come home."
But Eve had learned to love her new gift and though she was not done mourning the loss of being a seer, it was…. uplifting to not see the destruction of the world and the people she loves over and over. The many visions still lay in her mind like land mines, waiting for the pale woman to trespass and remind her that life and the future could always be darker.
“I know the feeling,” Odessa confides. Sometimes she can still feel the pull of time within her like a phantom limb. A psychic pain. “I appreciate this, Eve. Really.” She withdraws her hand after another brief squeeze, sitting back in her seat with a nervous glance around. How she longs for the days when she could slip in and out of places unnoticed. So far, however, there’s been no pings of anxiety around her. No alarm, no scorn. No one appears to have recognized her.
Odessa knows better than to press her luck.
“I should probably take your gifts and go,” she admits reluctantly. “But I’ll reach out again when I can.” Brows furrowed in concern, she still manages a smile. “Thank you. Truly.”
Eve gives Odessa a smile and nod, "Go go, get back to safety you've been out enough." The tall woman gets out of her seat and looks down, whispering "You are loved, you are cared for. Please stay out of trouble, I'd had to have to poof in. Heh." Odessa knows that Eve would not hate that. At all.
Squeezing her hand one final time the dark haired woman hustles outside as the ripple of red energy begins to waft off of her. She's been in this form for long enough. She ached to be free.
As Eve stands outside she takes a deep breath and looks over her shoulder, winking at her cousin and wiggling her fingers in farewell before her head is thrown back and she shrieks and hoots in laughter and pain as her body glows within. Bursting from her pale human form into that crackling mass of crimson energy, the cloud wafts up towards the sky.
A hysterical laugh echoing around the street before she's gone.