(Closed) Valentine is done, here and now they're gone

[summertimeblues]

Who: Richie Tozier (summertimeblues) & Sandra the Unseeing (tutorb)
What: Two sad old people drinking wine, that's kind of a date right
When: Mid-march
Where: Inside Sandra's crystal ball because that's possible i guess, what is pyre. also it's in Olympia
Warning(s): Uncertain...will update if anything needs updating, we're winging this

Comments

[summertimeblues]

[After a little preface and fetching keys from one Yusuke Kitagawa (and how strange is that, ladies and gentleman? A grown man getting permission and access from a teenage boy to go see a grown woman in her own home?), Richie Tozier is next seen slipping through the door of the much improved and more spacious digs his former neighbors have escaped to. Really lovely for them, but shucks and golly, he didn't realize how much he'd relied on that Rat Pack for company. The whole lot of them were good folk, even if Sandra was probably the only comparable person around in age. He misses cooking them dinner and needling the kids. Fuck, he even misses the underside of Red's foot. His toes and shins are a smooth and fleshy pink for the first time in weeks, and no one else has the wherewithal to stomp out his bullshitting before he really gets rolling.

On the bright side, it gives him an excuse to leave the apartment and not just go down the hall. Sunshine was good for you, who knew?

He removes his shoes and hangs his coat, humming old tunes under his breath. Not one of the ones he's got tucked up in the heavy sack he's got under one arm (the turntable was light but stopped seeming so after the first five blocks). It's an Iggy Pop jam, maybe not the brightest light in that superstar's cluster but it's wedged in his brain all the same. As he surveys the place the lyrics come loose. His vocal gymnastics don't extend wholly into the musical, but inside that thoughtless murmur he's got an approximation of the Michigan sensation.]

In the last ditch (in the last ditch)
I will be true (I will be true)
Sweetheart, I'm telling you (sweetheart, I'm telling you)
Here comes the zoo...

[He stops at the kitchen, peering around. Nice place, good counters. He's even a bit jealous.]

Hallooooooo? Sandy?

[He switches arms for his precious cargo, and goes instead to the living room.] Where are they stashing you? Don't tell me you've been snatched up in another robbery.

[tutorb]

[ Well, when the grown woman has no legs of her own (nor hands, nor eyes, nor anything), desperate times call for desperate measures. Though she's heard it's plenty nice, the new space really is of little consequence to her, even if her special tree the teenage boy in question had constructed had been destroyed and burned away. It was the thought that counted, and no good thing could ever last. Now, with the apartment empty save for her, the Crystal is tucked away, beneath the coffee table rather than on it in the event they were ransacked again. ]

[ Waiting as she is, Sandra catches the click of the lock and creak of the door long before the hums and mumbles reach her through the quiet house. That lonely fellow with his well-strung vocal cords found his way in after all, though she'll at least wait for her Marco to cry Polo. He should know the living room is where she always ends up. ]

If only life would be so riveting. [ It's on a facetious lilt that the ghostly figure appears, hovering cross-legged over the table, greeting him with a grin and a fan of her fingers once he draws near. ] You know, perhaps in the future, we ought to always ask for the key upfront before we go dangling you off the side of a building. This has been so much easier.

[summertimeblues]

[Richie dons a smile the minute that green glimmer illuminates the room. A sight that should unnerve him, send him hopping out of his skin, but by now? Old hat, and a welcome, friendly one at that. Idly, he wishes Bill and the gang could be awake to see this shit. They would never believe it if it was coming solely out of his mouth. It'd put the shock in their tops for sure.]

Oh yeah? You think old Lenchy Dertits would slip me the keys if I flashed him some leg? He'd probably do it if I gave him a peep at my organs, but there's only so far I'm willing to go for Voss. [He sets the record player down, along with the albums he's carted over. There's a glass tap on the coffee table too, though he only hums happily and narrates nothing for her.] How've you been, hot stuff? Gotta say it's been all too quiet in my neighborhood without the punks around.

[tutorb]

Flash him some chest at the very least, Richie. Give him some promise of organs, that might just do it for him.

[ As he makes himself comfortable, Sandra's chin jerks up ever slightly, following the clunk and clatter of objects being set down—technically—somewhere above her, with the Crystal still sitting beneath the table. ]

Oh, bored as ever. Whatever the punks have been up to, they have been just as busy out of home as well. I had half hoped them to be homesick on your couch, but apparently not.

[ A shame. She cannot say the thought of Bill and company, whoever they might be, is an infrequent one to cross the man's mind, but in the grand scheme of things, it's beginning to feel particularly, poignantly pining. Neighbors made for easy heckling, but they made for easy obligation as well. Out of sight, out of mind, as soon as they're beyond a door over. ]

[ Well, he hasn't forgotten her, apparently. A small thing, but it warms the edges of her habitually Cheshire smile. ] And yourself?

[summertimeblues]

You coach a lot of nubile young things on how to tempt a sadist?

[Nevermind that he's neither nubile nor young.]

If they were lounging on my couch they'd come back smelling like it. I still haven't gotten the smoke out and I've tried every trick my mother taught me. I'll be following your suit soon enough I think, but damn, I haven't quite got the savings yet. Won't be long, I hope. I can't stand living there much longer than a few more months. Not as banged up as the place is.

[He trickles back into the kitchen. His own glassware had been half smashed up, but it seems like the older half of the household had their priorities straight. He plucks two wine glasses from a tall shelf and strolls back in, cheer evident and blossoming in her presence.]

I've been better. I'm a bit bushed, truth be told, helping people clean up and playing baby-sitter. I haven't had the stones to join the crews hunting down the rioters. I think I've thrust myself into one too many situations I wasn't ready to handle lately. Gotta take it easy for a bit.

[He puts the glasses on the table, which is when he realizes that she's not actually on it. The tail end of her spectre glow is tucked somewhere under its wooden pettiskirts. Richie dips down and fishes out the crystal to put it topside. There. That's better.]

I realized a few things, too. I never introduced you to my pals Jimi or David, did I?

[tutorb]

No, but I would hazard a guess my job experience is a bit more transferable than most.

[ If it makes you feel any better, you're still young compared to her, buddy boy. Technically speaking. ]

[ She listens to him lament, all his incredibly human grievances, things she has not paid a thought to in centuries. Money, squalor, the sheer exhaustion of existing, being run ragged for daring to be alive... Things that she does not envy, though they come with all she does. He stays within earshot, but he wanders noticeably, and her head tilts after him until he returns. ]

Perhaps we ought to switch positions for the week, I do not recall the last time I was so antsy. [ She's always idly miserable, of course, but who knows, maybe the Crystal would make for a nice, distraction-free escape for someone with the ability to leave it at any time. ] Well, whenever you are feeling up to a little more dirtywork and would like to wrangle a bit more pay out of our dear Overseer than strictly necessary, you know where to find me.

[ She really couldn't care less if he took her share of the spoils, being what she is. If at least one of them could use it to get out of their miserable little trap, all the better. But more importantly, he keeps getting things and moving them, and her patience is finally fraying to a snap. ]

You have other friends? [ Maybe not the best of jokes for the moment, but affording it her own chuckle softens the blow a little. ] Go on, you said you had something for me, just how much have you brought over?

[summertimeblues]

[Only technically, thank god. Gal's still got it 800 years later.]

Oh please, you know you'd come back to me frothing and mad as a hatter inside that crystal. I'm all ants in the pants, I can't sit still and I can't stand a lack of company. [Hence why he's over here with you. He might like to have his place clear to sleep and eat in but the bulk of his time he needs filled with voices, humanity, shuffle and bustle. And barring that, hard work or hard play. He's never done well with idle things.] But you've got it. You're already my top pick for snooping, but maybe we could try something different next time. There's loads of stuff that comes up, we can afford to get creative.

[He's setting a record on the pin when she roasts him. She can't see the stink face he makes, but the scoff comes through loud and clear.] You caught me. I'm only friends with you because everyone else keeps walking away.

[The record hiccups before the needle crosses the real meat. The music starts after a turn and a half. He's going a little more mellow for the start, unsure if her familiarity with music goes beyond lyres, or the minute samplings of times and places they played at the gala.]

It's just a thing or two. I'm not even sure if this is gonna be up your alley, but this is David Bowie. He's a musician, from my home. [He drops into the sofa and yanks the coffee table close, so the lips of the wood and the sofa cushions kissed. Easier reaching, and that puts the ghost of Sandra within friendly distance.] Someone upstairs saw fit to give me records from the old days. I can play them whenever I want now. Dream of better days.

Do you like it?

[tutorb]

[ Dermatologists hate her! ]

[ She chuckles at that; she should know far better, and does, but the thought of him running restless circles around her court is a tickling one, at least briefly. Though the fact that she, of course, neither technically has to sit still, nor is technically alone in this orb, she will keep to herself. ] We certainly can. I would hate to fall into a rut with something I have only just discovered.

[ Or rather, rediscovered. Something that she's good at again. Sneaking, ratting things out, even if she can only achieve it by proxy. She leaves her smirk on to match his scoff, though she remains silent in favor of listening to his tinkerings with... whatever it is he's brought. ]

[ As the device clicks and hums and scratches—soft, foreign noises, that somehow sound as if they could be much louder, were they not produced by such practiced hands—her smile fades in favor of attention. An ear tilts to the scratches as they smooth as if by witchcraft into a gentle beat, and the voice that picks up under Richie's feels strangely haunting. A different voice, for sure—colder, but bolder, perhaps—still a melancholic ambling that finds her vaguely nostalgic. ]

[ The sound, as it plays on, turns out to be much simpler to lose oneself in than the lyrics. Though she is used to that by now, Tariq forever spinning verses in a language she could only partially grasp, electric irons and TVs are hardly the worst of her ignorances when it comes to enjoying a tune. ]

Better days indeed, [ she hums faintly, though maybe better isn't the word for hers, there are certainly things she found herself missing from home. Such as, surprisingly, a mourning old man with a lute. ] I think it is rather pleasant, I must admit. As well as fascinating, that you can reproduce these songs whenever you wish... Do you have an awful lot of them? I am not sure I could imagine myself listening to this for more than a few days.

[summertimeblues]

I have a few. Ten records, five that I know and five scattered around three decades after my time. Kind of funny, hearing future sounds after the world was supposed to have ended, but the way they're telling it there's a few versions of Earth that made it into the twenty-tens.

[If not further. But he has no music beyond that. The furthest he got was Daft Punk, and that had been a trip that felt both foreign and familiar in the best way. He's probably is missing out on all sorts of terrible in betweens. Whoever did the selecting didn't have a bad ear, but a zeitgeist was difficult to capture over the course of five albums.]

You can borrow them for a bit if you like. Get one of the kids to set them on and do the flipping for you. I'll manage without for a while.

That's not all, though. I know last time I got sucked into your snowglobe I got to keep my clothes on, so here's my thinking: if I hold on real tight to something, do you think it will pop inside with me? I'd like to share it with you in person.

[tutorb]

[ Earth and twenty-tens offer her little frame of reference, let alone for the concept of multiple worlds of the same design, but it seems like a conversation for another time, the way he bounces onward through his topics. The way he seems so eager to shower her in gifts and favors, she can't quite help cracking her smile out again to laugh at his expense. ]

You are just so bent on spoiling me today, aren't you? Perhaps you ought to keep them. Then if you would be willing to fetch me, I would get out of the house, and you would not want for company. Two birds with one stone.

[ She would indeed like to hear the rest of what he has to offer, but that can be worked out another time. For now, she hums thoughtfully. ]

I cannot say I have tried such a thing before, but I do not see why not... [ Most of what she pulls in is tied fast to the Rites—raiments and sacred masks—but he does have a point. Clothes, accessories, baubles of all sorts make their way in... It's entirely possible something of less consequence can sneak through as well. ] Well. We will not know unless we try. Though I would, perhaps, hold it close to the ground or something soft, in the event that it does not come along.

[ Go on then. As soon as he's ready to touch the Crystal, she's ready to dig her claws in and yank. ]

[summertimeblues]

Sounds like a deal to me. Give me a ring anytime, babe, I'll leap at the chance to get you out of the house. Change up the audible scenery.

[He'd said as much on the phone, but it bears repeating. He means it wholeheartedly, too, and if she counts this as spoiling then her standards must have sunk pretty low indeed. Did no one in the times long passed have an ounce of consideration for her plight? Surely someone must have stuck around for a lengthy word or two. Gotten her a thank you card, shook her hand for teaching sports so good.

Not so, considering that the idea of taking baubles in seems so novel to her. She can't see him frowning. Which is good, it might get construed wrong. It just breaks his heart a bit. She's come so far around from being lonely that kindness fails to occur as an option anymore. Just a curiosity, another bitter joke to rifle off. She's probably been telling the same ones for centuries.]

You got it. [He situates the wine glasses in one hand, stringing the stems through the gaps in his fingers, and tucks the bottle under his elbow. Since he's sitting on the couch they'd just hit pillows, should they drop. With his free hand he brushes the surface of that green dome, and down he goes.

It's still too quick for him to make sense of the trip before his senses return to him (he'd ask to set up a fly on the wall, peep that freakshow as he's swallowed up whole in glimmering lights, but he'd probably lose his damn mind watching it happen) but he lands with steadier feet this time. Small miracles, and it helps that he's being mindful of carting glass.

He grins down at his bounty, and gives a little laugh.]

Eet verks!! Eet verks! [Any old German madman with a beaker will do, he didn't always aim for specifics. She's standing none too far away, petite and pretty against the billowing blacks and greens. Just like he'd left her.

Richie strolls over, pulling the wine out from the crook of his elbow by the neck and slings that arm around her. The edge of the bottle might tap against her shoulder and spoil the surprise, but hey. It was only a matter of seconds now.]

You look gaw-giss, lady, long time no see!

[tutorb]

[ She may not be able to see his frown, but pity always stings the senses like a pungent odor. It hasn't been, necessarily, that no one has offered her a speck of kindness for her service. Moreso that she has existed under such strict conditions for so long, she has learned to curtail such gestures herself. She would not call it a fear of punishment—after all, the Scribes would be hard pressed to punish her any more severely than they already have—but it made living easier in the long run. Anticipating nothing to avoid the letdown. And not to be harangued by the ghosts of Rites past for having an ounce of fun. ]

[ No, she has, as a matter of fact, been asked more than once as to how her day had been, if only by the same person. And were it not for that weary old Reader lying cold and asleep up among the stars, she may not have even had the will to invite herself over so boldly just now. And even if it is fueled by pity, the way he snaps the idea right up leaves an undeniably warm feeling in her chest. ]

[ She stands hugging it close, arms folded as they often are in the chill of the Crystal when he appears. With, from the loud and manic sound of it, his gifts in tow. ]

And you are looking sprightly as ever, I presume. [ Take it or leave it. With that arm snugging around her shoulders, she shrugs her own arms loose to wrap one around his waist to return the greeting. But the other is quick to catch his none-too-slick maneuvering and her hand springs to pin the smooth glass object against her side, sloshing its contents ever faintly. Not to yank it from him, but to feel out its cylindrical, narrowing shape with a piqued curiosity. Her brow furrows, though not for more than a second before she shoots him a grin. ] Do tell me this is what I think it is.

[summertimeblues]

As handsome as a stallion in on the Western front! But better smelling. [She's quick to make a grab for the goods. His grin broadens and he'll press the bottle into her groping hand.]

Oh it is. Pop it open, get a whiff of the nose on that Shiraz. I hope you like reds, I like a heartier vino myself. I brought glasses, too.

[He'll pull off and hand her one once she's worked the bottle open.] It's about a fraction of a consolation prize, but I figured if anyone could use a sound drink after eight hundred years of coaching service, it's you. Let's drink up, Sandy.

[tutorb]

Please, you may be a garden of roses for the other senses, but your face is long enough, I do not need such a mental image. [ Taking the proffered bottle in one eager hand, she disentangles the other to feel up the side of his neck and give his cheek a proper pat before setting to work on the cork. ]

I do not think could not say. By this point, I have surely lost all taste for the stuff.

[ After all, her nose may be good, but it's been deadened and accustomed to nothing but the sober scent of smoke and ash that permeates the realm. As soon as the cork comes loose, the whole plethora of scents strikes like a punch, sharp but sweet and delightfully new again. It isn't entirely without a pinch of enthusiasm that she takes the glass and carefully splashes a measure into the bottom half of it, before passing the bottle off. ]

You deserve a proper toast for all this, Richie, this deserves savoring, but you will excuse my impatience, [ she says softly, before knocking back a healthy swig, her brow furrowing at the ill-remembered twinge of alcohol before almost laughing into the drink. Red or white, cheap or exquisite, it doesn't matter. Compared to smoke and ash, it tastes incredible. ]

[summertimeblues]

Long? [Since when? By whose definition? He takes the cheek pat sportingly before giving a light scoff.] You need to double check it, then, my face is a perfectly average length and shape. We whipped out the measuring tape at the doc's and everything, and he said "Yessir, that's a regular man's face, by gosh and by golly." I demand a retest. Even if you slap me again!

[He had planned to toast, of course. It's the way of things, marking momentous occasions with chintzy clinks. Yet when she pops the cork and throws it back, he finds himself altogether unbothered. Richie bursts out laughing, then gives her a hoot and a holler, a round of applause.]

Coming 'round for the victory glug is the one and only Sandra the Slam Dunker! Watch closely now, she's pounding back the Shiraz with her trademark move: the one thousand year fast! Nobody before and nobody since will match that effortless grace of not having a solitary fuck to give!

[He peels off the sports recap with a two fingered whistle.

Man, what a woman.]

[tutorb]

[ By the definition of someone who's only had their own soft, round face to touch for centuries, probably. At the tail end of her drink and the tail end of his speech, she can't help a scoff of her own, though it's a jovial one, try as it might to be exasperated. But she can't quite quell the tip of her tongue as she waves off his blustering with a, ]

Oh, beep beep, will you.

[ It was something, as she understood it, that had crept onto her tongue the more she pried. Something like a lid, a stopper, a muzzle among friends when one such trashmouth ought to quit running. But she'll reach out and oblige him again, not with a slap, but a hand laid flat to the side of his face, fingers tracing the crinkles round his eyes, thumb brushing the dumb laugh lines around his lips, ]

Well perhaps if you would unclench that shit-eating grin once in a while, the world would realize how long it is.

[ With her hand still stationed, it finds the crook of his jaw, pulling him closer, tipping his chin to turn his attention to— ] Now shall we share this properly? [ —their glasses. ]

[summertimeblues]

[um

please rewind for a sec]

Beep beep? [He pulls back some, blinking. What the fuck? If it had just been something like, oh, say, calling him Trashmouth, he could pass it off as her own invention. Inside joke that may be, but it was an obvious conclusion to draw when it came to his vernacular. Beep beep was pretty far down the list of creative ways to say shut up, and Sandra was from a land (presumably) where there was nary a car horn in sight. So how...

He takes the face patting in the midst of his stupefaction. She's pulling at his chin to draw his focus back to the glasses, the wine. He wets his lips.

All right. Not a big deal. It's probably nothing. Maybe Akira told her about it, he'd beeped him when they went on their little trip for Voss.]

Yeah. Sure. [He pulls out of her grip, shooting her one last perplexed glance and fetches the wine for himself. He tops her glass up first, then his.]

How much can you actually tell about me just by patting around? I've always wondered...it seems pretty weird, seeing through your fingertips.

[tutorb]

[ yeah, what. ]

That is what you say, is it not? [ The royal you. It's what is always said to Richie, from the little she's gleaned, but it could be what Richie says to Akira as well. The disbelief was tangible beneath her fingers, slackening his jaw, but her own smile remains placid even as he pulls away. ] I can tell quite a lot about you, frankly. Though I would hesitate to call this seeing.

[ That... That's Reading. It's true, his face stands out in a delightfully mappable topography, but really, so would the scales of a sea creature, the knots in a slab of wood, the vicious spines of a desert plant. Anything besides the smooth, textureless floor stands out like a sensory symphony, even just skin that is not her own, warm and worn by years she'll never see. It just so happens that his face is the first thing in centuries she has been invited to touch, when he took and pressed her icy palm to the hollow of his cheek. ]

I believe I have rather lost my grip on how anything should look, by now, let alone a face. My fingers lend me little insight. [ Maybe it's just nice to touch things (to be allowed to touch things) but that's neither here nor there. Her glass filled, Sandra folds to the floor with grace to sit upon her knees. It probably isn't much comfier than standing, but it seems like the better of the two spots to enjoy a drink. She raises her own as if to coax him down to clink it. ] Well? What shall we toast to? Perhaps we could double up our wishes on your health, since mine is hardly in question.

[summertimeblues]

[Richie's mouth twists, both amused and a touch sore for her sake.] Well as long as my melodious tones are coming through loud and clear, you've got the best of me anyway. [He (perhaps too boldly) tugs at the lobe of her left ear, grin slapped back on.] I ever tell you what I do for a living? Or did, rather. I wasn't always wiping bartops, you know.

[He raises his glass in kind, humming after the thought.] Oh, hang my health. Let's drink to the weird universe. The worlds might be winking out, but it brought a bunch of absolute misfits like us together. I never thought I'd meet someone like you, Sandy. [He clinks his glass to hers and takes a sip when she does, pulling off with a satisfied sigh.] Come on. Race you to the bottom of the bottle, baby. Let's swap some stories and liven up this joint a bit.