Participants:
| Scene Title | You're Getting Married and I'm Not Dead |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Fuck |
| Date | March 28, 2020 |
Jackson Heights
A quiet evening after finishing work, Zachery Miller has not a care in the world except for maybe twins on the way, a new bride and a nice position in the company that he sort of betrayed but not really. All in all this night is good for the scientist doctor man.
As he strolls from work there is a woman perched on a nearby rooftop clad in a long dark red jacket and long, thin black dress. Her feet are bare but her eye makeup is one of crimson and gold shadow. Her lips painted a jet black, Eve was looking for an old friend. Upon spotting him she leans backwards with a chuckle, "Oh hello Pearly." She leans until she's falling over the edge and without a scream her body ceases to exist and in its place a blood red fog trickles down into the alley below. Pulsating and curling around the railings of the fire escape before it gently carpets out along the alleyway floor.
Eve's perceptions allow her to ping onto Zachery's light shining her way, if she could lick her lips then she would do so now alas the fog stays there, curling upwards towards the rooftops. A strange sight for the doctor to walk past in three… two… one…
"Fucking- fuck!"
The scrape of heels over sidewalk is what marks the end of Zachery's otherwise peaceful walk to his ride home, the abrupt stop upon noticing the fog nearly knocking him clear off of his feet. His mouth drops open as he turns to face it fully, hands immediately curling into fists,
For a moment, it looks like he might bolt. But then he breathes out, simply, "Christ in fucking shit, please be the devil I know."
The fog breaks apart and clashes together softly, almost creeping over his foot. For a fraction of a second a tendril of crimson does lay over his shoe and he's hit with a wave of fatigue like he's ready for sleep. The effects soon wash away due to the contact being brief but the fog is moving yet.
She just wanted a tiny taste.
Without any lightning crackling or the red lights glowing within the red mass you wouldn't think it was Eve maybe but that changes the moment Eve Mas' face pops out of the mist. Her grin is entirely too wide and eyes just as wide, her head tilts and then does a full turn upside down and then right side up before the rest of her form materializes. Within seconds it was as if the mist was never there, a lone long strand of crimson smoke wraps around her body and slides up her nose and into it. She burps afterwards and the faintest hint of red puffs out.
For Zachery there is a very wide grin showing off all her white teeth.
Crimson colored eyes wink and then peer intently at the man. The good news was that she didn't have gold eyes right now. "Pearly, Pearly, Pearly," Standing further in the alleyway Eve tilts her head and grins madly. "Did you miss me? Mmm?"
Owing to the fact that it's probably too late to run even if he did consider it, Zachery stays in place. The fatigue is new, and she shakes his head with a blink of fake and real eye both.
The little show that follows has him breathe out a unstable chuckle, frozen in place with an unamused and perturbed expression, before he fights back a shudder at how instantly he can pick up her form again, even if only rudimentarily.
Her grin does little to dissuade him, though he has to scrub a hand roughly over his face to get his eyebrows to come back down, while he looks her over and then finally answers, "I did, actually, believe it or not," leaves him calmly.
Less calmly, a second later and laughed out, is: "What the fuck happened to you?!"
"Well I died of course silly!" Eve claps her hands together and snickers before placing both pale hands on her hips and cocking her head to the side. "I was on a boat, had to find Adam. Take him out, make him sing to the high ceilings of the galaxies, you know the way." Zachery probably did not know what the fuck Eve was talking about but then. "Mother and Father showed up, barely any emotion in those gold rings of theirs."
One hand goes to the wall and she uses it as a support for her weight, "And then I was in your favorite place!" Her grin that might have faltered at the sound of those events is back in full force. "A morgue!" Tadaaaaa! "The people were so nice I wanted to ask if they were friends of yours but I figured better to scoot then answer questions when I had my own!" Heh.
Her long hair pulls in the wind and she raises and eyebrow at the doctor, "Pearly, you were there. Weren't you." The look of mischief fades until there is just a pinprick left in those red eyes. A beat.
"Spill the tea! What happened? What was I like? What did I say? Did you talk to me? How was my hair?" To ask these sort of questions to Chess would be slightly more traumatic but she knew that her doctor friend here had a stomach of steel.
Unable to quite know what to do with himself, Zachery shifts his weight and - after a brief glance over his shoulder - starts to wander into the alley. To maybe get a whole five percent privacy rather than be out in the open, discussing this.
Having accepted Eve is a storm he just needs to let wash over him, apparently, he listens while pacing restlessly back and forth within the already cramped space, stepping over a torn garbage bag and past a dumpster.
He's still trying to put a reply together when that last series of questions comes, and he halts his step to look up at her. "I, ah-… yeah - yes, sort of." He starts to answer, running a hand through his hairline as he turns his monocular gaze upwards and recalls the day. "I didn't get to really see you except on the television screen, and even then I… it wasn't… it was mostly talked over, and then once I was finally on my way there, you… had just exploded?"
He looks back at her again, askance. "Maybe?" There was a lot going on. "Was that you dying?"
"Ah!"
The wild woman's brow furrows and she nods slowly, "Not the juiciest tea but an A for effort Pearly." Though the seer would be lying if she said nothing he said was useful. "I love a good boom." Tapping her fingertips together Eve sticks her tongue out and laughs before walking in a slow circle, her pace only quickens as she speaks. "They dropped a nuke on It, The Founders. Didn't do a thing, so not man made. Mmm mmm. One of us.. a Gifted…" There could be a multitude of Expressives exhibiting that sort of gift but the name that comes to mind is one of family: Boomer.
"I see I see," Running a hand through her dark mane Eve misses the lightning that would pop from her fingertips but she didn't miss the feeling of constantly being pulled apart by the seams. "Well! I suppose it was me dying again! Isn't that wonderful?"
Blood red eyes study her fingers and she smiles and sighs dreamily. "I didn't just come back… I came back all new and improved. Something more. The word is more gifts have awoken, strength in numbers ho ho!" Eve screams it out and claps her hands together before rushing towards Zachery and leaning in close towards his face, nose to be more specific. "Enough about me! What's new with you? Your eye seems a little clearer than usual." If only she had a bag of drugs….
"That's because it is," Zachery's reply leaves him crisply, especially considering he's still slightly leaned back from when she closed the distance between them. "Comparatively."
He looks away for a second, smirking past a bit of discomfort that shows more easily on his brow. "Where you've died and come back to life again, Eve, I've settled down." Spoken as if it's the punchline to a joke, a grin now spreading on his own face. "In what sort of mad world are we living that these seem equally unlikely events?"
His hand lifting by his side and then toward her face is dual purpose - to boop Eve on the nose for effect, and to steal just the brief amount of skin contact he needs to clear the information she's providing.
"Pearly a well behaved husband. Golly Gee Me!" Eve giggles as Zachery boops her on the nose and she goes in to pinch his nostrils together with a grin. "Got ya nose!" Heh heh. Releasing his nose and twirling away from the man she looks at him through long lashes.
"The lady lucky lady who is it? Wait a minute!"
The gears turn til a lightbulb pings for the dark haired woman and she tilts her head back and laughs aloud, "We gotta have a Bachelor party!"
Eve knew all about throwing a good party and she was friends with a few strippers too! "One last hoedown before you bro down! Mmmm I can see it now, Locomotion Annihilator slamming her voluminous body on the floor. It should be in an office! Right? Classy!"
Scoffing at the grab of his nose, Zachery's full response remains subdued — he looks more confused than anything else, brow knitting with the mirth of his grin releasing the pinch of eyelids.
Eve is watched, for a pause. Observed.
Of all the things that have popped into his head and questions asked, none of them are truly addressed with his next contribution to the conversation, incredulousness sinking its claws into his voice when he says, "… You think I didn't have a bachelor party?"
His upper lip pulls up in confusion, before a partly stifled laugh overtakes it just as everything that's been said finally registers. "Actually… I'm not sure if I had a bachelor party. Certainly not with anyone with a name that sounds like it might be a model of cowcatcher."
Options considered, he takes a step back, the way he came, as information is stored away for slightly later. "Alright, Fanny, let's go. I can drive, you can lead the way, I'm all yours." A husband in a week, yes. Well behaved? That remains to be seen.
"Wait," Eve stops and looks closely at Zachery, squinting at him so. Maybe she's offended that he had a party without her. Surely there were drugs involved. "You're coming willingly. Hm."
"Alright! Best if you bring the car here, can't be all out in the open ya know. Lots of eyes, lots of whispers. The Feds come running. Hehe." The pale woman fluffs the back of her hair and grins at him, suspicion maybe averted for now. There was a certain stupidity to partying in the Safe Zone while you were technically on the run but Eve honestly thought of it all as a misunderstanding.
That would be woefully understating that gravity of the situation of mass murder but Eve has never ever seemed to take the things seriously that she should. So intent on doing her duty, did she believe the law didn't apply to her?
As if Eve's given him just enough time to start doubting himself, Zachery stands still, and then… steps forward again, back into the alley.
"Wait," he says abruptly, as if in an echo of Eve's own hesitation. But he has concerns of his own, and they bring him ever closer to Eve as he watches her face with obvious fascination in the angling of his head. "Putting aside for a second that going with you is madness, I've got a small concern. That being… are you— you? Because you're not new." He answers his own question, before adding hastily, "Not… completely? You've… been crushed?"
Or has she? "No." The puzzle pieces are all before him, but it takes him a moment to figure out exactly how they were torn apart before they came to be the way they are now. Once he's got his solution, it leaves him with a no small amount of satisfaction pulling at a corner of his mouth. "You've fallen."
The next actions happen in a matter of seconds, Eve turns her head and then flies at the man, "What do you know of falling Pearly?" There's a look of confusion on her face but also it's as if she remembers what he's saying. "Crushed, broken, thrown the side. I'm sorry." She whispers the last bit. A flash of a memory in her mind and she throws her head back.
A face.
Her face with burning molten irises.
The sky.
Pain. Bliss. A robotic face.
The pale woman gasps and sinks to the floor clutching her head. "That's not me that's not me." Frantically Eve claws at the ground and searches desperately for something, anything to look at her reflection. Eve finds it in a small puddle of water, droplets leaking from a pipe. Causing the surface of the water to ripple outward.
The eyes that stare back at Eve are not her own, blue. The hair that hangs off of her head is lighter, blonde. Her skin tone is a little different, her shoulders aren't the same but she knows that face.
"That's not me. That's not- am I me?"
As she speaks the reflection in the water of her fallen friend just holds a single finger to her lips and mimics shhhhh. Eve's breath comes ragged and she slowly nods her head at the reflection. "Shhhh…" Shoulders quake and she sits on the damp ground. Staring into the water.
Meanwhile, Zachery stands where he was, arms up at his sides and shoulders squared defensively - unsure what to do with the response he's inadvertently drawn out, his eye keenly on the prone form before him and his expression a startled flavour of confused.
What does he know of falling?
Something new pulls at a corner of his mouth - something that sits more easily on his face for the fact that no one is looking directly at it. A wince of sympathy, paired with an introspective glance toward the adjacent and brighter street.
So much of the last six months or so has been hard - no - impossible to process for so many people in this city. As for Eve — he can't begin to imagine the scope of her experiences.
What he knows of falling almost isn't relevant so much as what he knows of keeping on going regardless.
"Eve," he says firmly, finally, fascination exchanged for something sterner as he steps forward one more time to stretch out a hand toward her. "You're alright. Up you come."
The woman called for isn't all the way present and she absently tugs at a bit of her wild hair while looking into the puddle. "No no no don't you look at me like that!" She begins to sob, her shoulders shaking frantically and her face in her hands. As Zachery comes to pull her up, she throws her weight on the ground and cries out. "No I don't wanna go to the petri!! Help help there's a mad man here!"
Her voice echoes around the alley and then she turns around to stare up at Zachery with a glint of mischief in her eyes, "And a mad woman, heh." Then Eve is howling in laughter, clutching her sides as if someone is kicking them. Maybe Jessica and Niki mentally were going to town on her for the murder by her hands. "They live inside now, the both of them. Blonde like guardian angels," Her gaze unfocuses, staring up into the dark sky.
"Or am I living inside of them?" There is power in knowing what you are, this is a question that Eve must answer. One way or another but she continues to laugh lightly while looking up at her friend. "We should probably hurry and scurry, my yodels carry." HEH.
"Or you can join me here! It's firm!"
Zachery has been in an alley with an unwell ground-bound woman once before. The fact that this one is screaming for help doesn't make this scenario any better, and yet.
And yet.
He waits for the worst of the howling to cease and considers his options while instinct has him pulling a glance over his shoulder just in case. Then, against his better judgement, he wastes no time in taking another risk - stepping forward to lean his previously helping hand on the grimy alley wall before bracing himself and lowering his ass right onto the floor beside Eve.
He's doing a lot better than he was, that other time, after all. Maybe it's confidence that has him looking in Eve's direction, ever so slightly smugly. Waiting to see what she'll do with a bluff called.
"Well fuck," Eve snickers and pats Zachery's leg as he joins her on the ground, grime and all. "Very strong, supportive yes? Like a good friend, the ground is always there!" It sounds like an infomercial.
She lays there for a time, Zachery sitting before Eve pokes him in the ribs hard, "You read me," It isn't a question. The seer comes to a kneeling position and faces towards the one eyed man while raising her hand to his cheek and clapping it there. Crimson eyes bore into the lone blue and her smile is gone, there's slight worry in her eyes, fear even.
"Again," The please is implied by her eyes. "She fell from the tower, down to the ground. A strong love. A mother's love."
Though he's here voluntarily, there is still tension in the way Zachery lifts his face when the hand finds it. He doesn't turn away, though.
"Christ, Eve. I can't begin to understand exactly what the fuck—…" What the fuck what? What led up to the situation in Detroit? How she's landed herself this body? How the fuck she's even the fuck here? All of the above. Frustration makes way for distraction as he tries to make sense of what's before him.
"You're in a bad way," is what he settles on, keeping his voice as level as he's able to while something closer to concern makes its way onto his face. "Mended, but not whole, like someone irreparably popped a bike tire and instead of replacing it, just melted a new one up against the inside of it - or around, or…" He shakes his head, studying her face to try and get something from it that her words aren't providing. "Eve, this is not sustainable."
It takes a moment but Eve drops her head and looks at the ground, fingers playing with broken glass. "Mended, still broken. Just as always but now there's a tick tick tick, clock running inside. Backwards." She snorts because it's ironic given the clock that spins backwards preceding the Oracle Room. Clocks that run that way, Eve.
Apparently they did.
She had suspected something wasn't right, the visions in the mirror. The words of the people in the morgue:
She didn't look like that earlier!
"I didn't look like this earlier," She comments slowly and starts to push herself to stand a blank expression on her face. The light is gone and she stares down into that small puddle of water, red eyes meeting twin blue. "I don't… think this body is mine Pearly," Eve's hands clap to her chest and then shoulders, checking, she feels like her but then again… not. One look in that puddle of water tells her as much. A permanent state of limbo.
"The woman that waves to me in the glass, I know her. A friend. Memories, of her? Of her death. Memories. Flashes. She had a precious child. Mine." The woman's fingers curl in the material of her dress and she bangs the back of her head against the alley wall. "No stupid, not ours. Hers." His friend falls silent again and she seems to be about to walk out of that alley, away from the unconventional truths that she was being faced with.
Bending over to brush Zachery's forehead with her fingertips, "How long?"
It's a strange thing, trust and how it's earned. Zachery doesn't flinch at the touch, staring upward with fascination keeping his eye locked on its target. If there's any fear within him, it is overridden by the mystery of it all. The puzzle unsolved.
"It's— you're an unusual case," he admits, annoyance with his own uncertainty sounded off with a click of his tongue before he starts to get to his feet again, out of the muck. Slowly, and maintaining eye contact - as though despite his lack of outward fear he still wouldn't want to assume she won't go for the throat if he were to rise too quickly.
His voice a flat sort of serious, he concludes, "I wouldn't hold out for a healthy Christmas, Eve." An unplanned chuckle leaves him before he can think to stop it, sheepish grin awkwardly surfacing onto an otherwise still wry expression. "Oh. Christmas Eve." Get it. That's gotta be a first, right. Yeah.
The joke doesn't offend Eve, she even smiles softly and snorts. Her shoulders shaking and she nods, "I never really liked Christmas, never got that Easy Bake Oven momma promised." She did like the carols though, Eve beams but the smile doesn't quite hit the same, her lights don't light up. "You're a Punny Pearly,"
A punny friend.
Eve removes her fingers, "I love you Pearly but the things we've learned tonight," She looks vacant and her brow furrows, "I don't think it would be good for the brain to party," Not right now. The sigh of relief from the universe surely can be heard somewhere in the distance. "I need something from my Pearly, if you please." She doesn't break eye contact and a slight gust of wind blows wayward strands of hair out of her pale face.
"Tell no one of my affliction. Lots to do, and do to lots. People like us, have to trust each other. Work together. No time for heartbreak, the family will worry and hover like bees. Bzzzt," Eve whispers, waving her hand in the air as if you ward off the insects. "Pinky swear?" She holds out her finger for the man.
No disappointment is found on Zachery's face, nor surprise. Of course it's a bad fucking time for messing around with parties, who were they kidding?
Other than - almost - themselves.
He eyes the proffered hand with his grin gradually subsiding under the weight of more solemn matters. Darting a gaze off to the side, he finally shakes his head. Not in refusal, his following dry stare implies, but more of a— he can't believe he's fucking doing this.
His pinky finds hers, in the middle of a deep sigh. "How about a Pearly swear, then. I won't tell a soul, not even—" His eyebrows come up. "I never answered your question. About the lucky lady. Be bad news for both of us if I told Future Wife Government Agent Nicole about you pretty much at all, wouldn't it?"
Their pinkies interlock as Eve gasps at Zachery. "Miss Drang herself," Fanning her face with a flutter of her eyelids, "How electric," It does present a problem though, or, maybe not. Breaking contact with the man as they have already bound themselves to a verbal, binding contract. Eve's grin brightens.
"Maybe not a good idea, to make her worry so much! She's such a nice lady!" Eve looks innocent, "She would never want to be in that position, pulled by rope, taunt on all sides. We love our drugs, all three of us!" She says it so pleasantly but the undertone of: I'm sure your future wife does not want to deal with this in any way shape or form. "We should do them together sometime! ….when I'm not wanted for murder heh."
"Oh and maybe make sure you talk to Lady Zeus about your Future Wife! Permissions are always needed! They are rather close mmmm!"
Blood red eyes avoid the puddle and the face that isn't hers staring upwards as Eve moves back a step, further into the alley. She stops, tilts her head and licks her lips. "I'll see you soooon Pearly. Don't lose that other eye, I need you to spot me. For my next trick," She cackles as her body fades from existence and becomes that blood colored fog. Her laugh is hollow though, the edge it usually carries not heard.
The fog lifts, the fog drifts off into the sky and Eve is gone.
Hours later…
???
A low whine emits from a collapsed shape on the forest floor. And a dark haired man can be seen twitching and unable to stand. The blood red mist encircles him, ensnares his energy as Eve feeds from that bright, shining white light.
The mist slams together and Eve appears on hands and knees by the prone man, gasping for air and swaying from side to side.
Shaking the woman looks at her hands, squinting to see a difference. She closes her eyes, envisioning a clock spinning backwards, giving her more time. The truth of the matter though is that Eve is missing something and she feels no change whatsoever.
Christmas, you have until Christmas.
Do you remember your warning to the Plague?
When first snow drops…
So do you.
Eve throws her hands up into the air in disgust and looks down at the man with a sympathetic expression, "Don't worry sugar lump, you'll be fine in no time. Didn't work, all for nothing. Get home safe!"
The woman frowns and poofs out of existence.