[Rosalind jerks, a whole-body thing that's a fair bit more of an overreaction than that prod really warrants. Her fingers curl tight around her drink, and it takes her a second to turn around. But once she does, there's nothing but that familiar haughty look.
Or . . . some form of it, anyway. Truth be told, Rosalind looks tired, and drops that arrogant expression in favor of something more relaxed.]
Hello to you too.
[She glances around. The place is starting to get crowded, but not hideously so, and she nods towards a free table in the back. Privacy, that's what she's after.]
Shall we? Order quick and I might be inclined to let you put it on my tab.
[Oh dear. Some of that keen shine has worn off. He'd chalk it up to the late hour, but the social call is unexpected enough that he might need to draft up a few alternative theories.
He rolls his eyes and fires off an order lickety split (Double scotch, on the rocks, good shit that sits in the back in crystalline bottles and doesn't sputter on the rail) and takes the drink with him to that private spot. The place isn't bumping yet. Give it another hour and seats will be prime real estate.]
So what's the situation? [He'll pull out her chair and take his own seat with a smooth lean. Something of a teenager lingers in the way he moves, albeit with improved posture. Could be something to do with how lanky he'd stayed from youth to manhood, and the way he clung to the boisterous jokester he'd been since birth.] As flattered as I am that you're so hot for me, I've got no illusions that there isn't a sharp point to you calling me up.
[For the record: she will, actually, pay for his drink, as well as her own. It doesn't mean anything, but it's a vaguely nice gesture from a woman who normally abhors doing anything remotely agreeable or kind.]
. . . I wanted to ask . . .
[She glances away for a few seconds. Her fingers fiddle with her left cuff, tugging absently at it as she tries to think how to word this.]
. . . you seem to treat life as-- as one joke after another. That isn't meant to insult, I'm speaking factually. You thrive upon impressions and humor, and that gets you through day after day, yes?
[She's tense now, her body stiff not from arrogance or snobbishness, but nerves. She hates asking things; she hates even a hint of vulnerability. But that's the point, isn't it? She despises looking as though she doesn't know everything, but that's foolish.
Weakness, Ardyn had called her pride. He'd warned her about it, time and again, and over the past month he'd taught her a lesson about it in his usual sadistic manner. He'd fought her before an audience craving blood and humiliation, and instead of simply giving in and ending things quickly, her pride had made her draw it out, so she'd refused to give in and submit to him even in show.
It had ended in the worst way: he'd held her up before all those people, his hand around her waist and his blade at her throat, and he'd given her a scar just to make sure the lesson sank in. Pride will kill you, because she is far too rigid and stubborn for her own good.
To be fair: it was a behavior and emotion that had served her well in her old world. At home, pride had been her only ticket upwards. She'd built a career out of her pride; she'd clawed her way through a field that loathed women all because she was arrogant and snobbish and presumptuous, always assuming others would simply bow to her genius (because they so often wouldn't, and assuming left them in the dust). She'd alienated everyone, she'd never made friends, but that hadn't mattered, because she'd found success as a scientist. But here . . .
Here, it does nothing for her.
So what do others do? How do they manage to live their lives without constantly throwing up a wall? That's what Rosalind aims to find out.
She looks back at him. There's something earnest in her gaze now, something he's not seen before.]
Tell me why. And don't answer with something factious, please. You do it even when you aren't in a good mood. I should say you do it aggressively when you aren't in a good mood, given how often you do it around me and your own feelings regarding me. Why?
[Richie is, uncharacteristically, silent as the grave. As he watches her work through the unease the divot between his brows deepens to a canyon, the lines at the corners of his mouth broaden and crack up to his nose, which then wrinkles itself across the bridge. He leans back. If there was any sense in the request, he's about as likely to find it as those wet ends trawling Loch Ness were to find a dinosaur.]
What on earth? [He doesn't have an end to that sentence. It's the whole of his sentiment. Firstly, she's not the type to get personal. On the opposite end of that spectrum in fact. Secondly, even if she were? It's the kind of shit you never pry at directly. Hey you, what's that quirk making you tick? What's the deal with that? I'm no shrink but I'm dying to know, and I want an answer here and now, you got me?
Richie scoffs. He can't decide if he wants to answer. Or how to answer, outside of "that's just the way of things, doll face." In truth he's more keen to take a pinch at whatever's buzzing in her bonnet. She's been rattled and rattled good, that much is plain.
He purses his lips and leans back in, elbows on the table and frowning by fractions.]
Kid, people turn out how they turn out. You got good at the books, maybe got a good pat on the head or beat out your peers for it, so you kept at it until you were queen of atoms and all the tiny things. I made a joke, people laughed, so I kept making them. Haven't you ever heard the one about laughter being the best medicine?
What's gotten into you? [He goes for his glass, but doesn't quite lift it to his lips yet. Seems too cavalier for the moment, but the cool drink feels good to hold. No better than a crutch.] You don't look like yourself.
[No. That's a defensive sentence; a sharp little barb meant to throw someone off her trail. She tries again:]
Kid . . . as if I'm not your age.
[That's a little better. More honest, and thus her voice takes on a more exhausted tone as she says it. Her fingers dance over the rim of her glass. It's a weak drink, made more for taste than to inebriate, and abruptly Rosalind wishes she'd favored the latter and not the former. She hates the thought of being tipsy in front of someone she doesn't trust, but she hates the thought of baring her soul more.
In truth, his answer frustrates her. She's never been good at this part of interaction. She's asked someone something and they ought to answer; that's how it works in science. You ask a question and you get a fact, it's a simple as that. Shouldn't that work when it comes to people? They're always baring their souls in other ways. Crying, laughing, embarrassed, angry . . . why not this too? Why not analyze themselves? It's a far sight more clever than the usual litany of emotions they show.]
It's been a long month, Richie. A lot has happened. But if you're asking what prompted this . . .
[Her hand comes up, slender fingers absently brushing against her throat.]
A man rammed home the lesson that my pride is my undoing in this world. But I know no other way to act.
[So she asks what guides others. It's painfully logical, and thus perfectly fitting within her worldview.]
[Luckily she does. Look, there's a large difference between getting irritated by someone and willfully wishing them ill. He'd no sooner like to see her out of sorts than he would Boxer or Steve or Sandra, and he's more than certain she feels the same. She keeps jumping in to teleport him out of trouble, after all.
He gets a sense. Kind of like the Spidey variety, though perhaps not as useful or pointed. Watching a woman who sits on top of the world turn skittish as a mouse, well, that's a warning sign. When her fingers brush her throat, he realizes that her collar is just so high, and her sleeves just so long. She's missing the extra rouge and the sunglasses at night, but it seems too obvious now.
His knuckles go white around the glass. His fury tends to be explosive, but that's on the scene. This is after the fact, and in a bar with a burgeoning crowd and a girl he doesn't know so well sitting across from him, looking bared and raw. For now, his rage shows in the way his mouth has settled into a flat line of control. The squaring of his shoulders.]
Did he hit you?
[It takes a real pig to lay hands on a woman, no matter how extraordinary and capable she may be. Sad fact was that the world was a hog farm. It happened more than anyone liked to think.]
[Barbaric, she might have said in other circumstances, but there's few things more barbaric than what had gone on during the riots.
Both hands come up now, tugging absently on the buttons of her collar. She refuses to look away from Richie as she does this, in no small part because she wants desperately to do so, and she still has her stubborn, idiotic pride.]
. . . it was almost a favor, if you can believe that. Both times. In Olympia . . . I was dragged in front of an audience baying for blood, and so was he. We were meant to put on a show, and I protested. I told him I wouldn't submit to him. I told him that he ought to teleport us out of there, because I lacked the energy to do so. He refused.
[She shrugs.]
It would have been easier to simply submit and get it over with. As it stands, I drew it out, and so tensions mounted. Sooner or later he caught me, and told me that I ought to learn to let go of my pride. And to be sure the lesson stuck, he gave me this.
[It's a vivid scar, bright white even amidst the paleness of her skin. It's curved along the bottom of her throat, just above her collarbone, just a little lower than where a man might aim if he wanted to slit her throat.
She lets him see for a few seconds before she starts buttoning her shirt back up.]
Wyver was worse. That was simply sadism.
[And she doesn't unbutton her left sleeve, because one thing at a time.]
[His unease doesn't dissolve at her insistence. The minute she mentions the plays, he's back to balking.
Oh yeah, he remembers that shit. Pardon him saying so, but any time he's parked his ass in public seating and waited to be entertained, nobody tried to pig-stick Richard Pryor. They were happy to let the man go about lampooning and keep his blood in the veins, where it all belonged. If anyone bled on a stage it was always corn syrup.
She keeps her eyes locked to his like a sniper's aim, and he feels the shot as she pulls back and shows off the scar. His horror reads plain in the drop of his jaw. Fuck, what did this cat do in Wyver that was worse than drawing knives over necks?]
Jesus Christ, Ros, what's this company you're keeping? That's no friend and no favor, fuck learning lessons. You're haughty, sure, but that doesn't excuse shit like this!
[He's restless in his seat, back thudding against the booth cushion and ripping his attention from her to cast steely stares out to the other patrons. The muscles in his jaw clench and unclench as he works down his outrage.
All right. He'll give it to her that the crowds were restless and wouldn't have let any one of them off stage before seeing some crime and punishment. That didn't excuse going for the neck, marking her up like a serial killer's runaway bride. What happened next? What was worse?
He turns a hard eye back to her. The buttons are fastened once more, but he's not feeling any better for it.]
[Obviously. She's never seen him so angry, except perhaps save when they confronted that mob. And even then . . . she'd blamed that on morals, on that mist, on good men being incensed by terrible deeds. Those thugs were about to burn defenseless people to death; of course he was angry. It was completely understandable, and even then, it was more contained than this. But how he acts now, the way he spits out those words and jerks in his seat . . .
Is he angry for her?]
I don't--
[But she cuts off her wondering question before it can be asked. Instead she glances down, focusing on her fingers for a few seconds, before focusing back up on him.]
He's my husband.
[It's almost a joke, and she hastens to elaborate before it can be taken the wrong way. She does wear a ring on her left hand, but that's not for Ardyn.]
You remember that ceremony in Wyver? That joke of a marriage that meant you had the ability to exchange abilities? We were married. He gained my ability to teleport. And in return . . .
[In return, she'd gotten fire in her blood, a curse that leaves her aching every minute of every day. A horrible disease, a living thing that resides within her, and she wakes up screaming from the nightmares and pain both sometimes, though she's too proud to ever admit it.]
The ability to disguise myself. That blast of energy. Both his in origin.
[She watches him for a few seconds. But she's answered his question and then some; surely she's owed a question in return? And she truly can't puzzle this out, because it doesn't make sense.
It's not that she thinks Richie hates her. Hate is too strong a word, but he surely doesn't like her. He thinks she's haughty and snobbish and annoying, and he isn't entirely wrong. He finds her tiring. He'd have happily left tonight instead of meeting with her if he could have gotten away with it. So why is he angry that she got hurt?
Surely he shouldn't care. Perhaps he isn't sadistic enough to be gleeful about it, but why isn't he focusing on the facts? He'd stared at her scar in horror, and that leaves her stomach twisting, her heart pounding for reasons she doesn't understand. The fingers of her left hand curl, because if he's this angry about Ardyn, he's going to lose his temper over Tani.
It must be morality. It must be that he hates the thought of that kind of thing happening to a woman-- not Rosalind, but a woman, frail and weak and in need of a man's protection. That must be it. Because what else could it be? That he cares about her?
[Really digging yourself a bigger hole here, lady.
He gives a squawk of outrage at the word—] What?! [—but the qualifier only makes it sound worse. No, he hadn't been told about the Wyver marriages. He'd skimmed it over in books he's read since he's come around here, now that he's thinking about it. Probably laughed at what a crock of horseshit it sounded like and kept on flipping pages.
The idea sounds preposterous even now. The reasons for engaging with it, the terminology. Marriage for power, a theme in history but this time it's coming with bigger bonuses and bigger drawbacks.
He sits under the onslaught of refuse, glowering. What happened in Wyver, kiddo, what the hell kind of price was this to pay for power?]
Oh, Jesus, I'm so sorry. Congratulations are in order, no? [He scoffs, shaking his head.] Fuck, why wouldn't I be angry? This is disgusting. The man's a pig and you need to cleave that wedding ring in two. Anyone that figures a lesson should be learned through fists or knives is a goddamn disgrace to humanity. And eventually, they slip. All it takes is once.
[Beverly's father was a case in point. He remembers hearing about her mad dash from the old man, raving mad and pushed to killing hands by the thing that lurked deep under Derry. Hell, the Corcoran's were an exemplary scene, fucked up family from the get-go. Eddie had been taken by It, but his baby brother Dorsey...when they'd exhumed the body to investigate during Eddie's disappearance, they'd realized that dent in his skull hadn't come from no fall off any ladder. It had been battering, probably a hammer.
Things went wrong. They rarely ever got better with bruisers. This might be an arrangement made devoid of affection, but whoever this fuck was still saw fit to bring Ros to the school of hard knocks.]
[She won't get answers while he's so furious, but the question nags at her, choking her throat and making it so that she has to take a deep breath before she can think to resume their conversation. Why, she wants to ask, because what he offered wasn't anything close to a satisfying answer.
Why wouldn't I be angry? He says it as though it's obvious, but she still doesn't understand. Why would he? Why does he care, why is he looking at her like that? Dorian had looked at her the same way when he'd learned about Ardyn, but at least she understands with Dorian, because Dorian is fond of her. Richie--]
You asked a fair few.
[She knows what he means. Who is he, but if she tells him her husband's name, she's almost certain Richie will do something foolish. Richie Tozier, who charged at a mob that was sure to kill him because he hated the thought of innocents burning alive. Hell, Richie Tozier, who came running armed with naught but an iron bar and a prayer, all because he saw a strange woman in need and decided he couldn't just pass her by.
Brave, foolish, insufferable Richie Tozier . . . what will he do if she gives in to that pathetically needy impulse and tells him everything?
Worse: what will he do if she tells him the whole story? Oh, yes, what a fun little tale that would be. Oh, Richie, save some anger for later, because Ardyn wasn't even the worst part. At least Ardyn didn't insinuate he was saving me from the pyre just because burning up my body wasn't the most fun they could have at my expense. At least Ardyn didn't arrange a situation so that a gang of men looked at me and reached for me and did you know, Richie, I still have nightmares over it? Isn't that silly? Nothing even happened, he claimed me and dragged me away and let me go, but I still see the looks they gave me that night.
At least Ardyn didn't cut me so deeply I nearly bled out, Richie. At least Ardyn hadn't held my arm over a pyre until it burned, just to see if he could get me to scream.
He'd kill Tani. Foolish boy, he'd take off running, teleport his way to Wyver, armed with self-righteousness and fury over a woman he doesn't even like, and he'd find that Tani was a skilled hand with a blade.
What a stupid way for him to die.
Her right hand clenches at her left forearm, squeezing tightly enough that the scar aches. She realizes what she's doing a moment later and reaches for her drink instead, finishing it off with ease.]
Promise me you won't do anything. That you'll stay here with me and not take off running for him.
[It's not for Ardyn's sake. She wonders if he'll realize that.]
[It's not like he's kidding himself. He's no one man army. Richie's done a bit of climbing on the food chain, but only in the aspects where he had a bit of hope. Talent, music, comedy, charisma, money. Nothing except the last really helped in a fight, and that was only after the damage was done. Paid off your medical bills and funded the ensuing lawsuit, should one arise.
And wouldn't you know it, money's the only thing that didn't follow him over to the new world.
It's still hard to soothe down the hackles once they're riled up, once the snarl's curving in his lip and that blissful blank slate stifles his mind so the epithets of fury can be scribbled all over it. He'd have snapped if the guy was in front of him now. Just like he'd snapped the last two times he'd met Rosalind, outside Shades Darker and outside his own living quarters. Richie had a hard time suffering bullies.
Luckily for her, the public setting and her sensible plea both help to weave reason back in. Sure, if he's the one that goes in guns-a-blazing, who gets to pay for it? Wouldn't it be the the little lady with the red coiffure right here? Sure it would. She'd be wearing the reminders of his foolishness with the same haute couture coverings and thick foundation. Powdering new bruises and smothering new scars with the latest in turtleneck fashion.
Fuck. He hated this. Richie bites his lip. Wipes at his eyes, unable to look at her any longer as he pinches at his brows.]
Okay. I get it, okay? But what are you going to do about it, then, Ros? Maybe I can't help you, but there's gotta be someone that can. You can't stay tied to him, you know that right?
[There's three words she doesn't usually say. To anyone, frankly, never mind a man with whom she isn't all that intimate. God, he doesn't even like her (and yet he'd wiped his eyes, is he crying? Why? For her?), and yet here she is, secrets and fears slipping past her lips, shivering as they come to light. Why? Why him, why him?
She doesn't know. She doesn't know a lot of things, she thinks bitterly, and then scolds herself for that thought, because she won't be self-pitying.
But ah, Ardyn . . . she doesn't know what to do when it comes to Ardyn, because despite all of Dorian's warnings, despite her own knowledge of what a selfish and uncaring man he is, Rosalind still isn't certain she wants to give up her powers.
They hurt her, no doubt. They really do, and she doesn't know how Ardyn managed to survive two thousand years with this disease screaming in his veins. She's not even lasted half a year with it. She wakes up sweating, scratches on her skin, feeling as though someone's set her blood alight. It hurts, and living with Dorian's obvious loathing of it doesn't help matters.
But it's useful. It's beyond useful, and stripped of nearly all her powers and cosmic knowledge, Rosalind clings to it like a security blanket. It isn't what she's used to, but it's better than nothing, isn't it? And it's come in handy more than once. God, she walks home disguised as Robert nearly every night, and that's to say nothing of how useful it had been during the riots to be a man instead of a woman (when she had the energy to sustain an illusion, anyway).]
But yes. I know.
He said he'd grant me a divorce if I asked him for it. And truthfully, I think he's being honest. His style isn't possessiveness. He won't try and keep me.
[In no small part because he knows she's fascinated by him. Why bother exerting force when she'll come running on her own? But god, that makes her sound pathetic, and her mouth pinches. When had she become so foolish? But it isn't foolishness, exactly. It isn't that she thinks he's a good man, or that there's secretly something loving waiting for her.
But he is who she will be. He's immortal, ageless, invulnerable to death, and if all goes as planned, someday she'll return to that glorious state of being herself. So how can she not be fascinated by a man who, for all intents and purposes, is her future?]
. . . Ardyn Izunia is his name. [She takes a breath, hesitates, and then:] You can't help me with him. But you might be able to help me with something else.
[Not crying, sorry. He's trying to tame his exasperation and his ire, please hold to resume contact with these baby blues.
Richie does rise to look her in the eye then. If anything, he just looks plain weary. All this horseshit and his hands are tied. Ros isn't even the only one he's impotent to help here. Most everyone he's met is raw about something. Past or present, and none of it is as mundane or minor as the kinds of favors and shit talk you walked your friends through back home. All of their lives were lived in heightened states. We're all dying, baby, and surprise! Most of us aren't going so slow about it either.
He takes her affirmation, and her trust in giving the name ("Ardyn", what kind of dime store bodice ripper bee-ess name is that?) and has to let it go. Punt it aside, play nice, and find something safer to talk about.
But of course, this is Rosalind, and his confidence at her ability to do low key is minimal. Richie sighs and takes a swig of his liquor. It's still tossed back with a touch more force than necessary, pardon him. A humor this sour is hard to shake.]
Oh? And what pray tell would that be? I don't do autographs and I can't fix leaky plumbing. You're not looking to have a pickle jar opened, are you?
[No she can't, but that's neither here nor there. Rosalind glances around, catching the bartender's eye. She'll go get something stronger in a minute, because frankly, she doesn't want to end the night sober.]
But you can walk me home, when we're done here. And you can at least distract me until then. Surely you've a story or six up your sleeve? Or you could simply tell me of home.
[you can rip the fabric of time and space apart but you can't plug a leak? shameful.]
All right, all right, I'll walk ya. [He finishes his drink shunts it to the side, not missing her glance to his coworker. Another one for the road, huh?]
Stories from home? [He tuts.] What would you want to know? My life was pretty plain beans compared to a gal like you.
[There’s that arrogance, though there’s something wry twisted in her smile as she says that.]
Go on. I’ll tell you something of mine, something ordinary, even, if you tell me something of yours. Job? Childhood? A girlfriend? You can’t tell me you don’t have an anecdote or three, I refuse to believe it.
[For that, Ros, you're getting one brow reaching for the sky and a tilted frown.]
Well goodness me! If it's so fantastic, why aren't you starting us off baby? Knock my socks off, go on. If you take the loafers with them I'll buy you drinks for a week.
[Because whoo boy, he's sick of his own story. If he could kindly have whatever cosmic force that spared him in the first place come back and scoop out all the rotten chunks out of his grey brain soup, he'd be whistling Dixie. It doesn't make for lighthearted fare, and he's left too many breadcrumbs around already to trust himself.
So fuck the childhood stuff, then. She's too sharp not to stick a beak in and crack that nut open. Jobs, then.
Richie leads the way back to the bar, where Señor NPC Arnie is whipping up whatever the lady signaled for. He's fishing for the pack of smokes in his shirt pocket, already feeling that twitch in his fingers. The time between bliss, calm, and crave has been shortening again.]
I used to be a D.J. You know what that is?
[Her era is still a murky matter, as is what she might have picked up in her time here since.]
[She'll be more than happy to regale him with a story or three, but that's after he finishes his turn. Truthfully, she isn't even digging for anything particularly outlandish (though she would be fascinated if he brought something up). But she mostly wants to understand this man, because she's realizing she all but poured her heart out to a man she barely knows.]
I don't, no.
[One of the few times she'll admit that, and the second time tonight she's said it. What a record they're setting here.
It's whiskey Rosalind signaled for, because tonight is not a night she wants to face sober. Dorian is rubbing off on her, it seems, but there are worse habits to imitate, she supposes. She could indulge in a cigarette.
Maybe she will anyway, she thinks; he can spare a puff or two on the one he's lighting up.]
Though I'm going to guess it's people-oriented. You're too chatty to be cooped in the back of a shop all day.
What do you mean? I'd have a rip-roaring good time in the back of a shop. All that unsupervised paid time? Ooo-wee, all the things I could get up to when the boss man isn't looking.
It's a radio job. Voice work, as you might figure. I hosted the rock-n-roll segments on a Los Angeles station. Picked the tunes, did interviews, comedy bits. Two bit entertainment, sitting just under the real greats, you know, but it made me just shy of wealthy in a pretty short span of time. [He works a smoke into his mouth and lights up, forgetful for a moment until he sees the drink being slid to her over the wooden grain of the bartop.] Oh. You want one? After your drink?
[Not that she can. Not that he does that now, or has a recording of it. But she imagines he'd be quite good at it, and it'd be interesting to see him in his element, putting those voices to good use (beyond driving her up a wall). Rosalind sips at her drink, shuddering at the sharpness of it.
She's a little surprised when he offers her that. A moment's hesitation, and then she offers him half a smile as she sets the glass down.
If she's going to forget her grief, she might as well go all the way. Nothing better than throwing yourself face-forward into something else, is there?]
I think--
[She reaches for the cigarette, plucking it from his lips and putting it to her own. Inhale, exhale, and then she offers it back to him, smoke slipping past her lips.]
--you wouldn't mind sharing this one. Would you?
Edited (hello html my old friend i've come to fight with you again) 2018-03-25 20:40 (UTC)
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Or . . . some form of it, anyway. Truth be told, Rosalind looks tired, and drops that arrogant expression in favor of something more relaxed.]
Hello to you too.
[She glances around. The place is starting to get crowded, but not hideously so, and she nods towards a free table in the back. Privacy, that's what she's after.]
Shall we? Order quick and I might be inclined to let you put it on my tab.
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He rolls his eyes and fires off an order lickety split (Double scotch, on the rocks, good shit that sits in the back in crystalline bottles and doesn't sputter on the rail) and takes the drink with him to that private spot. The place isn't bumping yet. Give it another hour and seats will be prime real estate.]
So what's the situation? [He'll pull out her chair and take his own seat with a smooth lean. Something of a teenager lingers in the way he moves, albeit with improved posture. Could be something to do with how lanky he'd stayed from youth to manhood, and the way he clung to the boisterous jokester he'd been since birth.] As flattered as I am that you're so hot for me, I've got no illusions that there isn't a sharp point to you calling me up.
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. . . I wanted to ask . . .
[She glances away for a few seconds. Her fingers fiddle with her left cuff, tugging absently at it as she tries to think how to word this.]
. . . you seem to treat life as-- as one joke after another. That isn't meant to insult, I'm speaking factually. You thrive upon impressions and humor, and that gets you through day after day, yes?
[She's tense now, her body stiff not from arrogance or snobbishness, but nerves. She hates asking things; she hates even a hint of vulnerability. But that's the point, isn't it? She despises looking as though she doesn't know everything, but that's foolish.
Weakness, Ardyn had called her pride. He'd warned her about it, time and again, and over the past month he'd taught her a lesson about it in his usual sadistic manner. He'd fought her before an audience craving blood and humiliation, and instead of simply giving in and ending things quickly, her pride had made her draw it out, so she'd refused to give in and submit to him even in show.
It had ended in the worst way: he'd held her up before all those people, his hand around her waist and his blade at her throat, and he'd given her a scar just to make sure the lesson sank in. Pride will kill you, because she is far too rigid and stubborn for her own good.
To be fair: it was a behavior and emotion that had served her well in her old world. At home, pride had been her only ticket upwards. She'd built a career out of her pride; she'd clawed her way through a field that loathed women all because she was arrogant and snobbish and presumptuous, always assuming others would simply bow to her genius (because they so often wouldn't, and assuming left them in the dust). She'd alienated everyone, she'd never made friends, but that hadn't mattered, because she'd found success as a scientist. But here . . .
Here, it does nothing for her.
So what do others do? How do they manage to live their lives without constantly throwing up a wall? That's what Rosalind aims to find out.
She looks back at him. There's something earnest in her gaze now, something he's not seen before.]
Tell me why. And don't answer with something factious, please. You do it even when you aren't in a good mood. I should say you do it aggressively when you aren't in a good mood, given how often you do it around me and your own feelings regarding me. Why?
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What on earth? [He doesn't have an end to that sentence. It's the whole of his sentiment. Firstly, she's not the type to get personal. On the opposite end of that spectrum in fact. Secondly, even if she were? It's the kind of shit you never pry at directly. Hey you, what's that quirk making you tick? What's the deal with that? I'm no shrink but I'm dying to know, and I want an answer here and now, you got me?
Richie scoffs. He can't decide if he wants to answer. Or how to answer, outside of "that's just the way of things, doll face." In truth he's more keen to take a pinch at whatever's buzzing in her bonnet. She's been rattled and rattled good, that much is plain.
He purses his lips and leans back in, elbows on the table and frowning by fractions.]
Kid, people turn out how they turn out. You got good at the books, maybe got a good pat on the head or beat out your peers for it, so you kept at it until you were queen of atoms and all the tiny things. I made a joke, people laughed, so I kept making them. Haven't you ever heard the one about laughter being the best medicine?
What's gotten into you? [He goes for his glass, but doesn't quite lift it to his lips yet. Seems too cavalier for the moment, but the cool drink feels good to hold. No better than a crutch.] You don't look like yourself.
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[No. That's a defensive sentence; a sharp little barb meant to throw someone off her trail. She tries again:]
Kid . . . as if I'm not your age.
[That's a little better. More honest, and thus her voice takes on a more exhausted tone as she says it. Her fingers dance over the rim of her glass. It's a weak drink, made more for taste than to inebriate, and abruptly Rosalind wishes she'd favored the latter and not the former. She hates the thought of being tipsy in front of someone she doesn't trust, but she hates the thought of baring her soul more.
In truth, his answer frustrates her. She's never been good at this part of interaction. She's asked someone something and they ought to answer; that's how it works in science. You ask a question and you get a fact, it's a simple as that. Shouldn't that work when it comes to people? They're always baring their souls in other ways. Crying, laughing, embarrassed, angry . . . why not this too? Why not analyze themselves? It's a far sight more clever than the usual litany of emotions they show.]
It's been a long month, Richie. A lot has happened. But if you're asking what prompted this . . .
[Her hand comes up, slender fingers absently brushing against her throat.]
A man rammed home the lesson that my pride is my undoing in this world. But I know no other way to act.
[So she asks what guides others. It's painfully logical, and thus perfectly fitting within her worldview.]
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Come off it.
[Luckily she does. Look, there's a large difference between getting irritated by someone and willfully wishing them ill. He'd no sooner like to see her out of sorts than he would Boxer or Steve or Sandra, and he's more than certain she feels the same. She keeps jumping in to teleport him out of trouble, after all.
He gets a sense. Kind of like the Spidey variety, though perhaps not as useful or pointed. Watching a woman who sits on top of the world turn skittish as a mouse, well, that's a warning sign. When her fingers brush her throat, he realizes that her collar is just so high, and her sleeves just so long. She's missing the extra rouge and the sunglasses at night, but it seems too obvious now.
His knuckles go white around the glass. His fury tends to be explosive, but that's on the scene. This is after the fact, and in a bar with a burgeoning crowd and a girl he doesn't know so well sitting across from him, looking bared and raw. For now, his rage shows in the way his mouth has settled into a flat line of control. The squaring of his shoulders.]
Did he hit you?
[It takes a real pig to lay hands on a woman, no matter how extraordinary and capable she may be. Sad fact was that the world was a hog farm. It happened more than anyone liked to think.]
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[Barbaric, she might have said in other circumstances, but there's few things more barbaric than what had gone on during the riots.
Both hands come up now, tugging absently on the buttons of her collar. She refuses to look away from Richie as she does this, in no small part because she wants desperately to do so, and she still has her stubborn, idiotic pride.]
. . . it was almost a favor, if you can believe that. Both times. In Olympia . . . I was dragged in front of an audience baying for blood, and so was he. We were meant to put on a show, and I protested. I told him I wouldn't submit to him. I told him that he ought to teleport us out of there, because I lacked the energy to do so. He refused.
[She shrugs.]
It would have been easier to simply submit and get it over with. As it stands, I drew it out, and so tensions mounted. Sooner or later he caught me, and told me that I ought to learn to let go of my pride. And to be sure the lesson stuck, he gave me this.
[It's a vivid scar, bright white even amidst the paleness of her skin. It's curved along the bottom of her throat, just above her collarbone, just a little lower than where a man might aim if he wanted to slit her throat.
She lets him see for a few seconds before she starts buttoning her shirt back up.]
Wyver was worse. That was simply sadism.
[And she doesn't unbutton her left sleeve, because one thing at a time.]
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Oh yeah, he remembers that shit. Pardon him saying so, but any time he's parked his ass in public seating and waited to be entertained, nobody tried to pig-stick Richard Pryor. They were happy to let the man go about lampooning and keep his blood in the veins, where it all belonged. If anyone bled on a stage it was always corn syrup.
She keeps her eyes locked to his like a sniper's aim, and he feels the shot as she pulls back and shows off the scar. His horror reads plain in the drop of his jaw. Fuck, what did this cat do in Wyver that was worse than drawing knives over necks?]
Jesus Christ, Ros, what's this company you're keeping? That's no friend and no favor, fuck learning lessons. You're haughty, sure, but that doesn't excuse shit like this!
[He's restless in his seat, back thudding against the booth cushion and ripping his attention from her to cast steely stares out to the other patrons. The muscles in his jaw clench and unclench as he works down his outrage.
All right. He'll give it to her that the crowds were restless and wouldn't have let any one of them off stage before seeing some crime and punishment. That didn't excuse going for the neck, marking her up like a serial killer's runaway bride. What happened next? What was worse?
He turns a hard eye back to her. The buttons are fastened once more, but he's not feeling any better for it.]
Just who is this shitrag?
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[Obviously. She's never seen him so angry, except perhaps save when they confronted that mob. And even then . . . she'd blamed that on morals, on that mist, on good men being incensed by terrible deeds. Those thugs were about to burn defenseless people to death; of course he was angry. It was completely understandable, and even then, it was more contained than this. But how he acts now, the way he spits out those words and jerks in his seat . . .
Is he angry for her?]
I don't--
[But she cuts off her wondering question before it can be asked. Instead she glances down, focusing on her fingers for a few seconds, before focusing back up on him.]
He's my husband.
[It's almost a joke, and she hastens to elaborate before it can be taken the wrong way. She does wear a ring on her left hand, but that's not for Ardyn.]
You remember that ceremony in Wyver? That joke of a marriage that meant you had the ability to exchange abilities? We were married. He gained my ability to teleport. And in return . . .
[In return, she'd gotten fire in her blood, a curse that leaves her aching every minute of every day. A horrible disease, a living thing that resides within her, and she wakes up screaming from the nightmares and pain both sometimes, though she's too proud to ever admit it.]
The ability to disguise myself. That blast of energy. Both his in origin.
[She watches him for a few seconds. But she's answered his question and then some; surely she's owed a question in return? And she truly can't puzzle this out, because it doesn't make sense.
It's not that she thinks Richie hates her. Hate is too strong a word, but he surely doesn't like her. He thinks she's haughty and snobbish and annoying, and he isn't entirely wrong. He finds her tiring. He'd have happily left tonight instead of meeting with her if he could have gotten away with it. So why is he angry that she got hurt?
Surely he shouldn't care. Perhaps he isn't sadistic enough to be gleeful about it, but why isn't he focusing on the facts? He'd stared at her scar in horror, and that leaves her stomach twisting, her heart pounding for reasons she doesn't understand. The fingers of her left hand curl, because if he's this angry about Ardyn, he's going to lose his temper over Tani.
It must be morality. It must be that he hates the thought of that kind of thing happening to a woman-- not Rosalind, but a woman, frail and weak and in need of a man's protection. That must be it. Because what else could it be? That he cares about her?
No. That makes no sense.]
Why are you angry?
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He gives a squawk of outrage at the word—] What?! [—but the qualifier only makes it sound worse. No, he hadn't been told about the Wyver marriages. He'd skimmed it over in books he's read since he's come around here, now that he's thinking about it. Probably laughed at what a crock of horseshit it sounded like and kept on flipping pages.
The idea sounds preposterous even now. The reasons for engaging with it, the terminology. Marriage for power, a theme in history but this time it's coming with bigger bonuses and bigger drawbacks.
He sits under the onslaught of refuse, glowering. What happened in Wyver, kiddo, what the hell kind of price was this to pay for power?]
Oh, Jesus, I'm so sorry. Congratulations are in order, no? [He scoffs, shaking his head.] Fuck, why wouldn't I be angry? This is disgusting. The man's a pig and you need to cleave that wedding ring in two. Anyone that figures a lesson should be learned through fists or knives is a goddamn disgrace to humanity. And eventually, they slip. All it takes is once.
[Beverly's father was a case in point. He remembers hearing about her mad dash from the old man, raving mad and pushed to killing hands by the thing that lurked deep under Derry. Hell, the Corcoran's were an exemplary scene, fucked up family from the get-go. Eddie had been taken by It, but his baby brother Dorsey...when they'd exhumed the body to investigate during Eddie's disappearance, they'd realized that dent in his skull hadn't come from no fall off any ladder. It had been battering, probably a hammer.
Things went wrong. They rarely ever got better with bruisers. This might be an arrangement made devoid of affection, but whoever this fuck was still saw fit to bring Ros to the school of hard knocks.]
You didn't answer my question.
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Why wouldn't I be angry? He says it as though it's obvious, but she still doesn't understand. Why would he? Why does he care, why is he looking at her like that? Dorian had looked at her the same way when he'd learned about Ardyn, but at least she understands with Dorian, because Dorian is fond of her. Richie--]
You asked a fair few.
[She knows what he means. Who is he, but if she tells him her husband's name, she's almost certain Richie will do something foolish. Richie Tozier, who charged at a mob that was sure to kill him because he hated the thought of innocents burning alive. Hell, Richie Tozier, who came running armed with naught but an iron bar and a prayer, all because he saw a strange woman in need and decided he couldn't just pass her by.
Brave, foolish, insufferable Richie Tozier . . . what will he do if she gives in to that pathetically needy impulse and tells him everything?
Worse: what will he do if she tells him the whole story? Oh, yes, what a fun little tale that would be. Oh, Richie, save some anger for later, because Ardyn wasn't even the worst part. At least Ardyn didn't insinuate he was saving me from the pyre just because burning up my body wasn't the most fun they could have at my expense. At least Ardyn didn't arrange a situation so that a gang of men looked at me and reached for me and did you know, Richie, I still have nightmares over it? Isn't that silly? Nothing even happened, he claimed me and dragged me away and let me go, but I still see the looks they gave me that night.
At least Ardyn didn't cut me so deeply I nearly bled out, Richie. At least Ardyn hadn't held my arm over a pyre until it burned, just to see if he could get me to scream.
He'd kill Tani. Foolish boy, he'd take off running, teleport his way to Wyver, armed with self-righteousness and fury over a woman he doesn't even like, and he'd find that Tani was a skilled hand with a blade.
What a stupid way for him to die.
Her right hand clenches at her left forearm, squeezing tightly enough that the scar aches. She realizes what she's doing a moment later and reaches for her drink instead, finishing it off with ease.]
Promise me you won't do anything. That you'll stay here with me and not take off running for him.
[It's not for Ardyn's sake. She wonders if he'll realize that.]
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And wouldn't you know it, money's the only thing that didn't follow him over to the new world.
It's still hard to soothe down the hackles once they're riled up, once the snarl's curving in his lip and that blissful blank slate stifles his mind so the epithets of fury can be scribbled all over it. He'd have snapped if the guy was in front of him now. Just like he'd snapped the last two times he'd met Rosalind, outside Shades Darker and outside his own living quarters. Richie had a hard time suffering bullies.
Luckily for her, the public setting and her sensible plea both help to weave reason back in. Sure, if he's the one that goes in guns-a-blazing, who gets to pay for it? Wouldn't it be the the little lady with the red coiffure right here? Sure it would. She'd be wearing the reminders of his foolishness with the same haute couture coverings and thick foundation. Powdering new bruises and smothering new scars with the latest in turtleneck fashion.
Fuck. He hated this. Richie bites his lip. Wipes at his eyes, unable to look at her any longer as he pinches at his brows.]
Okay. I get it, okay? But what are you going to do about it, then, Ros? Maybe I can't help you, but there's gotta be someone that can. You can't stay tied to him, you know that right?
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[There's three words she doesn't usually say. To anyone, frankly, never mind a man with whom she isn't all that intimate. God, he doesn't even like her (and yet he'd wiped his eyes, is he crying? Why? For her?), and yet here she is, secrets and fears slipping past her lips, shivering as they come to light. Why? Why him, why him?
She doesn't know. She doesn't know a lot of things, she thinks bitterly, and then scolds herself for that thought, because she won't be self-pitying.
But ah, Ardyn . . . she doesn't know what to do when it comes to Ardyn, because despite all of Dorian's warnings, despite her own knowledge of what a selfish and uncaring man he is, Rosalind still isn't certain she wants to give up her powers.
They hurt her, no doubt. They really do, and she doesn't know how Ardyn managed to survive two thousand years with this disease screaming in his veins. She's not even lasted half a year with it. She wakes up sweating, scratches on her skin, feeling as though someone's set her blood alight. It hurts, and living with Dorian's obvious loathing of it doesn't help matters.
But it's useful. It's beyond useful, and stripped of nearly all her powers and cosmic knowledge, Rosalind clings to it like a security blanket. It isn't what she's used to, but it's better than nothing, isn't it? And it's come in handy more than once. God, she walks home disguised as Robert nearly every night, and that's to say nothing of how useful it had been during the riots to be a man instead of a woman (when she had the energy to sustain an illusion, anyway).]
But yes. I know.
He said he'd grant me a divorce if I asked him for it. And truthfully, I think he's being honest. His style isn't possessiveness. He won't try and keep me.
[In no small part because he knows she's fascinated by him. Why bother exerting force when she'll come running on her own? But god, that makes her sound pathetic, and her mouth pinches. When had she become so foolish? But it isn't foolishness, exactly. It isn't that she thinks he's a good man, or that there's secretly something loving waiting for her.
But he is who she will be. He's immortal, ageless, invulnerable to death, and if all goes as planned, someday she'll return to that glorious state of being herself. So how can she not be fascinated by a man who, for all intents and purposes, is her future?]
. . . Ardyn Izunia is his name. [She takes a breath, hesitates, and then:] You can't help me with him. But you might be able to help me with something else.
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Richie does rise to look her in the eye then. If anything, he just looks plain weary. All this horseshit and his hands are tied. Ros isn't even the only one he's impotent to help here. Most everyone he's met is raw about something. Past or present, and none of it is as mundane or minor as the kinds of favors and shit talk you walked your friends through back home. All of their lives were lived in heightened states. We're all dying, baby, and surprise! Most of us aren't going so slow about it either.
He takes her affirmation, and her trust in giving the name ("Ardyn", what kind of dime store bodice ripper bee-ess name is that?) and has to let it go. Punt it aside, play nice, and find something safer to talk about.
But of course, this is Rosalind, and his confidence at her ability to do low key is minimal. Richie sighs and takes a swig of his liquor. It's still tossed back with a touch more force than necessary, pardon him. A humor this sour is hard to shake.]
Oh? And what pray tell would that be? I don't do autographs and I can't fix leaky plumbing. You're not looking to have a pickle jar opened, are you?
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[No she can't, but that's neither here nor there. Rosalind glances around, catching the bartender's eye. She'll go get something stronger in a minute, because frankly, she doesn't want to end the night sober.]
But you can walk me home, when we're done here. And you can at least distract me until then. Surely you've a story or six up your sleeve? Or you could simply tell me of home.
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[you can rip the fabric of time and space apart but you can't plug a leak? shameful.]
All right, all right, I'll walk ya. [He finishes his drink shunts it to the side, not missing her glance to his coworker. Another one for the road, huh?]
Stories from home? [He tuts.] What would you want to know? My life was pretty plain beans compared to a gal like you.
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[There’s that arrogance, though there’s something wry twisted in her smile as she says that.]
Go on. I’ll tell you something of mine, something ordinary, even, if you tell me something of yours. Job? Childhood? A girlfriend? You can’t tell me you don’t have an anecdote or three, I refuse to believe it.
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Well goodness me! If it's so fantastic, why aren't you starting us off baby? Knock my socks off, go on. If you take the loafers with them I'll buy you drinks for a week.
[Because whoo boy, he's sick of his own story. If he could kindly have whatever cosmic force that spared him in the first place come back and scoop out all the rotten chunks out of his grey brain soup, he'd be whistling Dixie. It doesn't make for lighthearted fare, and he's left too many breadcrumbs around already to trust himself.
So fuck the childhood stuff, then. She's too sharp not to stick a beak in and crack that nut open. Jobs, then.
Richie leads the way back to the bar, where
Señor NPCArnie is whipping up whatever the lady signaled for. He's fishing for the pack of smokes in his shirt pocket, already feeling that twitch in his fingers. The time between bliss, calm, and crave has been shortening again.]I used to be a D.J. You know what that is?
[Her era is still a murky matter, as is what she might have picked up in her time here since.]
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I don't, no.
[One of the few times she'll admit that, and the second time tonight she's said it. What a record they're setting here.
It's whiskey Rosalind signaled for, because tonight is not a night she wants to face sober. Dorian is rubbing off on her, it seems, but there are worse habits to imitate, she supposes. She could indulge in a cigarette.
Maybe she will anyway, she thinks; he can spare a puff or two on the one he's lighting up.]
Though I'm going to guess it's people-oriented. You're too chatty to be cooped in the back of a shop all day.
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It's a radio job. Voice work, as you might figure. I hosted the rock-n-roll segments on a Los Angeles station. Picked the tunes, did interviews, comedy bits. Two bit entertainment, sitting just under the real greats, you know, but it made me just shy of wealthy in a pretty short span of time. [He works a smoke into his mouth and lights up, forgetful for a moment until he sees the drink being slid to her over the wooden grain of the bartop.] Oh. You want one? After your drink?
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[Not that she can. Not that he does that now, or has a recording of it. But she imagines he'd be quite good at it, and it'd be interesting to see him in his element, putting those voices to good use (beyond driving her up a wall). Rosalind sips at her drink, shuddering at the sharpness of it.
She's a little surprised when he offers her that. A moment's hesitation, and then she offers him half a smile as she sets the glass down.
If she's going to forget her grief, she might as well go all the way. Nothing better than throwing yourself face-forward into something else, is there?]
I think--
[She reaches for the cigarette, plucking it from his lips and putting it to her own. Inhale, exhale, and then she offers it back to him, smoke slipping past her lips.]
--you wouldn't mind sharing this one. Would you?