lrivkin

[lrivkin]

The mask is itchy. The scars are worse. She's going to scream at the next person who asks her why she's wearing a mask, and what the marks are that they can see underneath it when she turns her head just so. It's not anger that burns at her, it's shame. It's the idea of being seen as lesser, as some hideous thing not worthy of companionship.

Lara knows Birdie has things to take care of, but it doesn't stop the frantic searching with her gaze. Daniel's here, too, she knows, so it becomes less about finding Birdie and more about finding her brother.

She does. But as she starts to approach, he turns and gets pulled away for something else, which leaves her with one of the dates. Her eyes narrow and she turns toward her, lips pressed into a thin line. "I'm surprised he hasn't introduced us, yet." / @nivokova

[lrivkin]

LARA RIVKIN @ The Conclave

The mask sits on her face like weighted concrete shoes, weighing her down and reminding her just how much she's exhausted of her new look already. She pulls it tight, adjusts it, and hopes people don't stare.

Lara arrives to represent CLAN KANEMARU, being escorted by @birdieofprey. She covers the facial scars from the cursed dagger as best she can, and averts her gaze from people looking a little too curiously her way. She's here to step foot into her own clan more politically after having refused to for so long.

[lrivkin]

"You should have." She agrees, but still sinks into the feeling of his arms around her - once upon a time, she should have realized that his skin was a little colder, his heart (though full of love for her) never beat. What a stupid little girl she'd been, back then. Ignorant and wishing on some distant star that the love she'd found and used to make her mother angry was real and true.

Lara swallows, but looks up as she hears commotion in the changing room -- she knows what they're doing, clamoring to hear what's going on, for the next little bit of gossip to get them through the next shift and beyond. It almost makes her laugh, but she finds she can't gather up the humor here in a dead man's arms.

The kneejerk reaction here is to tell him no, to swat him away, to continue being angry. But she's tired. She's been tired. The ache in her face and her neck and her bones is the exhaustion of immortality made manifest. There's no energy to push him away, to hate any longer. She just wants bits and pieces of who she used to be back. Daniel, now Ray.. And a new love, a new life, staring her in the face.

She sniffs, tries to ignore the heat in her eyes.

"I still got room." She murmurs, her hands digging into his back, like a lifeline. Anger can blossom later. She can snark when she's had some rest, when she knows whatever else he's kept from her all these years. "We'll figure out what we are now."

She gets further away, backing up like he is just a ghost she'd long made peace with and despite that, no part of him — no good part of him, says he should leave. She can't exorcise him from her doorway, he's too deeply woven into her blood, into her memory. This can't be how they begin again. Straight to the ending. Garrick only wants to reach for her, drag her to him so she doesn't have to steady herself alone. But that's not for him to do anymore, she's had decades without his comfort; to learn to live an immortal life of her own volition.

Lara looks right at him and his world stops. He's never forgotten his infatuation turned something else, knows that her power, even mortal, had wrapped gentle chains around him. He'd allowed it. Balancing Brooklyn and Lara in each hand like he could shape a world two ways. Garrick knows why he loved — loves her, as violently as an unbeating heart can. It unfurls something dark, and possessive in his chest to hear her say it with such finality.

You were my everything. Time does not stop, even on account of them.

A soft smile offered back, crooked on his mouth: "Hope is a dangerous leverage," Garrick might have merely heard what he wished to hear in rumours. Followed the trail, because maybe it would lead to something. But he didn't know what he'd fine. Whoever Lara Rivkin is now, even if not his, he'd like to be some piece of her world. He doesn't even deserve that. Not after how everything went down.

And then her arms are around him, and Garrick doesn't need to think. He merely slides his arms underneath hers and around her chest, allows her perfume to rewrite his nostalgia. He can't help but chuckle. She can be pissed if it feels like this.

"I missed ya, too, Lara." It's as clear cut as he can make it, slithers of a gentleman gone. Garrick's hand lifts on her back, and strokes over her hair, softly. Treasuring the moments she'll let him have. She's given him more than he's ever given her. It's quieter, in the fragility of the moment: "I should'a been there." It'd been messy, and he still doesn't know where to start unravelling the lies. He's not perfect, and even if she were drawn to aa scoundrel then. He still is one, a greaser who does his hair a little less slick now. How can he let her go again? Garrick can hear voices, and noises of others outside the door, in the corridor. Imagines how volatile he'd be for a single peep outta them interrupting this. He'd always tried to keep Lara from seeing the unsavoury parts of the man, but that hadn't done squat in the end.

Garrick holds her, as close as she's comfortable, calloused hands working softly on a shoulder, and her hair. Memorising the details he tells himself he'd never have forgotten. "You still got room for me? Even if it ain't what we were..."

[lrivkin]

end.

Lara's features are soft when she looks at Vanessa, understanding exactly what must be going through her mind -- it's times like this where she realizes buying the Cabaret was the right choice. How many other people here felt the same way? Used, thrown away by previous owners without a care in the world? She does laugh a bit, though, at Vanessa admitting that she hadn't considered an option.

"We wouldn't need companions if we could think of everything ourselves." She reaches back across her desk to pick up one of the little trinkets she often plays with when she needs something to do with her hands other than pick at her acrylics or the paint on them.

She tosses it back and forth with a soft hum. "Generous, sure. I call it selfish." Anything to downplay the actual kindness she's displaying here - there's a reputation to uphold. "But it suits me well to not have you eating the clientele, no matter how much we hate them."

Another soft laugh. "You're welcome to take some time off if you need it, the position will be here and ready when you are."

[lrivkin]

He didn't know she looked - and that's shocking to her. She'd made waves, but he had to have been running from something. All those sweet nothings, the ring on her finger -- He was always going to make her into this, and maybe she'd have loved to rule the underworld with him. She steps back and leans against her desk, taking breaths they both know she doesn't need in an attempt to center herself.

The movement of her face has made the scars ache, and she gently scratches at the perpetual healing itch from them, rubbing deft fingers over the patchwork of her neck. With a swallow, she looks at him - really allows herself to look.

Her eyes burn, but they don't water over - she'd cried too many tears over this man years and years ago. It's just latent memories and latent affection for someone she's tried to hate in the after of it all. She sniffs, follows his gaze around.

"Must have been a hell of a tip. Fuck's sake, of course I looked for you - I loved you. You were my everything." Someone else had taken that label of 'everything' now, despite the hardships of the last few months.

She allows herself more time in the space away from him, heartbeats that don't exist count the time. It's minutes before she steps away from the desk and closes the distance - this time to wrap her arms around his neck in a tight hug. "I'm so fucking pissed at you."

It feels nice to be here, to touch him again - even if the love she had for him has long since gone. He's a comfort, a reminder of a life that she could have had. "But I do miss you."

Yeah. He does. Garrick deserves all she'd like to dish out at him. Whatever she does to him, it cannot hurt more than watching the woman he'd known tremble in his presence. Radiating with everything he'd uprooted for both of them. The wrath in her tone, the way her muscles tense with exertion. Garrick can't stand it. None of the versions in his mind have him staring at a fractured beauty, who is everything he'd hoped she'd be — she did all that, without a dime from him.

"You always did know how to raze a little hell, didn't ya?" Whether she realised it back then or not. She was a point of contention amongst the Rays for longer than she'll ever know. A distraction that Garrick knows he'd let derail him, time and time again, if they could ever go back. If he could go and do things differently. He'd have told her, instead of keeping her arm's length from what he was. Even if she had deserved better than a greaser and a gang of hot rodders.

His hand drops a little when she pulls away from him, hovering there, inches from her features. Still a man who'd take, before he'd ask about it. Garrick's brows knit together when she talks about how she searched.

"Yer looked for me?" Garrick hadn't gone back to New York, not after the way he'd left it. Cutting ties seemed better. Lara had been his only reason he'd ever consider returning, but he hadn't heard of Rivkin or a new immortal making waves. He wasn't sure if she perished or — "I ain't never wanted to leave you, doll" But what did that do, now? "Jus' know that." He cannot imagine what she must have thought upon waking up, covered in blood. New hunger, no guidance, just a city to roam at night with plenty of folks desperate to become something in the night.

Garrick steps back when she pokes.

It tears him up that she wants her distance, that there are decades of unknown between them. A life lived without each other. She's right, he can't have expected anything more than a semblance of closure. He's not a saint, and she's never looked at him like he is one. Just the poison that turned her into this.

But he would have liked to show her the world.

Garrick finally lowers his arm. Makes no more attempts to close the space, if she'd like to gather herself away from him. He wants to know so much of what he's missed, he wants to know how she built herself a dark little tower, that ain't to be struck down. He'd like to know how she works, what she'd gone through after they parted. He'd like to hear her stories that she got to have, because of a choice he made seventy years ago. He'd like to know her again, even if that's all she'll let him do now.

He'd like to rip the teeth out of whoever made a canvas of her face, too.

"You like it?" He asks, looking around at her dressing room. Odes of her, in perfumes and make-up. Clothes of the more skimpy variety hanging on rails, lavish chairs with cushions and blankets. Garrick isn't a fool, but he won't think about where he is. What she's made, and how she got herself there. It'll boil his blood in a way that he has no right to. She's not mine. All that he has left of her is memories and a bond of blood.

And then she calls him Ray. And he remembers how deeply woven the lies started. No wonder you'd never found me, peach. Looking for a man who only existed in New York, and nowhere else. His smile is solemn. Garrick doesn't know if he can keep that lie strung along, without having to confess a slew of sins she won't care for. She's made clear, Lara does not want an old greaser back in her world.

Why is he there?

"I heard a rumour. New Madame of this pad. Yer name, I couldn't ignore tha', could I?" But Garrick doesn't imagine she's asking why he's there. As much as she'd like to know why fate brought him to Port Leiry. "And 'ere you are. Beautiful, powerful. I'm seventy years late, doll, I know, but I did pick right back then." She'd have made a hell of a queen of Brooklyn.

There's another life they didn't get to live, and he'll never forgive himself for that.

But he'll settle for trying to earn her amnesty.

[lrivkin]

Lara's features are soft when she looks at Vanessa, understanding exactly what must be going through her mind -- it's times like this where she realizes buying the Cabaret was the right choice. How many other people here felt the same way? Used, thrown away by previous owners without a care in the world? She does laugh a bit, though, at Vanessa admitting that she hadn't considered an option.

"We wouldn't need companions if we could think of everything ourselves." She reaches back across her desk to pick up one of the little trinkets she often plays with when she needs something to do with her hands other than pick at her acrylics or the paint on them.

She tosses it back and forth with a soft hum. "Generous, sure. I call it selfish." Anything to downplay the actual kindness she's displaying here - there's a reputation to uphold. "But it suits me well to not have you eating the clientele, no matter how much we hate them."

Another soft laugh. "You're welcome to take some time off if you need it, the position will be here and ready when you are."

Sipping on her drink she listened respectfully, ready to nod and agree and still go with what she had half decided when she came in the room. Vampires held power in different ways, but by and large, in Vanessa’s experience that power manifested in cruelty and pain. They held court by bleeding their friends and enemies alike, never letting you know where you stand to keep you spiraling in that uncertainty and scrabbling to keep your footing to not end up the prey. It has always made sense to her, they were predators who fed on the blood of men to survive. Why wouldn't that lead to cruelty? But watching Lara hold power felt different. She had strength but didn’t need to prove it or justify it with threats or flaunting of might. It was surprising, and made her respect the younger vampire all the more.

When Lara offered an option for her to still be a part of the Cabaret, still keep her home there, just without the clients and the men. it actually stumped her for a minute. Somehow so out of left field, despite spending god knows how many hours in her sisters' business, she had forgotten about all the behind the scenes work that went into running a club like this. It hadn’t occurred to her that she could work in a place like the Cabaret without feeling like she was selling herself, her own self worth and image so tightly tied to how she could perform for others, twist and mold her body into the object of their desires. She had escaped the European courts that had been her torturers stages, but the wounds he had left on her had scarred so deep into her soul that more than a decade later she still struggled to see herself as a person outside his vision, something other than the broken ballerina he trotted out for a night of amusement.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted, “I have so many years of life you would think I’d be a little less lost” It was embarrassing, close to a century older and yet she saw the freedom and surety in the other and felt like she was the young one. She had spent so little time with freedom, with power to make any meaningful impact on her own life, that she sometimes felt like she was floundering and the only reason she was able to survive was thanks to Aoife cleaning up her messes and filling her bank account. “That is very generous, and l would really appreciate you still allowing me to be here and have a home here without dealing with the clients who I am one wrong breath away from eating”

[lrivkin]

Lara turns, hand still rubbing at some of the stiffness that's slowly melting away with each sip of her bloody juice pouch. She hums, though, and stifles a bit of a laugh before swallowing the rest of it down and setting the empty bag on the nightstand. She'll clean it later when she isn't making sure her brother won't go run around and do something stupid. Her gaze shifts to where he's pointing, and the sigh she heaves is exasperated, mostly. "I'll get some new ones, don't worry."

She shifts, and tugs at his arm to get him down into a tight hug, her arms thrown around his neck. "I appreciate you trying, but I don't need you to be my bodyguard, okay?"

Her hand rubs a soothing circle on his upper back, "I don't need you running headfirst into danger because you wanna get even or protect me." Squeeze of his shoulder, then. "Besides, you'd have a long, long list of men to kill if you knew the half of it."

"Look, I didn't exactly have my own head screwed on straight for a while there," He said. He doesn't know if he ever turned any 'it' off, but he does know, at least to a degree, what it's like to feel the kind of grief so heady and thick with bad air that you wish you didn't have the capacity. He's thrown himself into The Work before, just to have anywhere to look but in the mirror, or behind him. Move forward, left-right-left, keep marching, and never stop so it can't catch you.

In this, he can understand people like Birdie, like this other guy. He can understand - and that's precisely why he doesn't trust them.

"Good, he needs space for the other heel. I uh... I grabbed those, by the way." He nods over to her broken shoes in the corner. "I uh, I think you need new ones."

"I'm out for this guy, Lara." He says; his hand hasn't left her shoulder, her back, like if he does she'll fall back unconscious or disappear or something. "I just got you back, I don't play around with people who think they can lay hands on you this way."

[lrivkin]

She jabs her finger at him, hand shaking with the force of it and the emotion behind it. "Deserve a whole hell of a lot more than that." In an instant, she's transported back to the 50s. Her hair is in the wind, she's laughing about Ray tearing up the asphalt, spinning and screeching to make her laugh. How many years has she loved him, and how many year since has she hated him? And yet, here, confronted by his face for the first time in decades, she can't decide what emotion is plaguing her.

She's frustrated by the fact that she can't just cut and dry be angry.

His fingers brush against her face, gentle and fuck him, loving? Her lip curls, twisting up the scars to pull at her skin and make her visage even more disgusting. Lara decides he's had enough of that, and shakes her head away from the touch. "You do not get to waltz in here, pretend like everything is fine, and that I didn't chase you down for twenty fucking years without a word."

She finally juts her finger into his chest, pushing him back just a half step. The space helps, and she drops her hand, still barely able to stop shaking. But he brings up the Cabaret instead of their history, and she almost fucking splutters at him.

"You -" Huff of a breath, head hanging down in an attempt to gather herself. "Yeah. Yeah, it's mine. Recent." He doesn't deserve to know that she danced and fucked her way around Port Leiry for a buck, saved up the money from that to buy it. She flexes her hand by her side. "Why are you here, Ray? After this long?"

There should be no surprise that she moves with a speed that he'd imagined many times over the lost years. A grace that suited a girl who overlooked Brooklyn with him, yearning to play in the darkness until Garrick had thrust her into it without apology. He'd thought he would have had time to apologise; he thought there would be so much time with her. He'd believed a lot of things, decades ago, like how he might've upheaved New York with an agenda of freedom, and burned the offices of those who said no. But it didn't happen that way, and there's nothing here that could've prepared him to face her, even after all the time he's been sipping drinks in the Cabaret, waiting.

He's waiting for security to dare try haul his ass out of there. Really, he'd like to see them try — just so Lara can watch.

But her eyes — he's lost in them, differently than before. Burnt hazel and a ghostly grey-white greet him. There's a flash of a face that both is and isn't a girl he once knew. Lara —

Smack.

Head snaps sideways — because she's got a fuckin' belter of a swing. It burns his cheek and nearly knocks his head into the doorframe. Garrick pauses, teeth nab his lower lip as he cracks his neck. Nods, like that's not too shabby for a girl he'd almost got to call his wife.

"Yeah. Deserved that." A lot more, too, than a shiner that'd heal up too quickly so she might get to do it all over again. When he twists back towards her, he's searching her face. He's imagining painted pictures of them in his mind — black and white photographs that'd been lost to the flames, but he's kept hold of one. Of the night they stood on the bridge with the smell of a Montclair's exhaust on fire behind them after they'd goosed it from Manhattan to Crooklyn. How is he supposed to verbalise that it wasn't supposed to go down that way, after?

He really should have come with some sort of floral arrangement, he decides or something precious in a gift box. But he's shit out of luck now.

Garrick's never been good at asking, and he's shattering the space that Lara already breached — he reaches out to brush a thumb along her jaw, passing over the edge of a blackened, grey-ish scar that thinly slices through her skin. There's guilt, rage, and a lot of violence turned internal cursing that desires to make a pancake of whoever did this. How long? He can't tell; he's not seen such harshness on one of them that leaves such ruthless damage behind. Not entirely like this. But it doesn't change anything for him, not time, or what's lost. She's here now, and so is he.

God, she's beautiful. Makes a man think terrible things, given the timing of it all.

"I missed a lot," Mostly you. But she's never going to believe an old mobster for his word. Everything he wants to say comes equipped with the knowledge that he's let someone get a piece of her, and she's had to learn a life he gave her without a teacher. There's nothing he believes could make this any better; it's an old wound that he's ripping open. It's a soft lilt, because he's absently reaching with his other hand to brush those loose tendrils out of her face: "You did real good, didn't ya? Look at this place, yours I hear."

[lrivkin]

This version of Birdie is unlike the two previous ones she's gotten to know. She's soft. It reminds her directly of the morning after when she'd gotten so freaked out that she'd made the decision to ruin it then and there. Only now, she doesn't want that, she wants to take the leap, feel the wind rush against her face, embrace the biggest fear she's ever had.

They shift again, and Lara sits up brushing the parts of her lips that aren't sore against Birdie's. "You're worth my time."

It's barely a kiss, but it gets the job done. She shifts again, laying back down against her. She's tired, she's hungry, she's in pain. "I want you around. That okay?"

It's all fine, what Lara's saying. She could have gone for him sooner. She could have not acted like such a fucking Saint about it all. If she'd have just not gotten hung up on morals and right and wrong, if she'd had just fucking had a spine enough to deal with the ugly facts of what she was and what she was doing, he would never have gotten this far.

"Yeah." she says. Her thoughts travel to the knife, now sat in that jeweler witch's hands - she has to believe it's safe there. She's a neutral party. She doesn't care where it goes, she just wants it far away from them.

The stroke along her face tips her gaze back to Lara, where she scans the unhidden side of her face. "I am. I am." She nods.

Her head falls, gently, into Lara's. There's a curl along her skin, a feeling of undeserving that ripples across her being. She tries to chase it away with the same rationale Lara's offered. It almost works. She's mostly content to sit here, to crucify herself in silence so Lara doesn't have to hear it.

But then she decides to act out of character.

"I'm gonna take that as like... tacit confession that you don't think I'm not worth your time then?"

She forces the smile, for the joke, a Hyena grin, but it fades quick, because its hard to maintain glee through the guilt, and it turns into a much sadder smile.

[lrivkin]

Breath doesn't come but her shoulders move like she's inhaling deeply, and she brings her drink to her lips to wet them before continuing. No show of how it tastes or what it means. It's simply.. a drink to her. "The Masquerade was a shitshow. A party, but meant to lure people into a false sense of security. It turned into a hunter massacre by the end of it - running scared and running for their lives. Ridiculous, sloppy."

She likes a little fun, that's why she's in Kanemaru, and not Pretorius or Reardon -- fuck that weird little family in the big house. She hums at his flirting, but shows no sign of returning volley. Months before now? Perhaps. But she's got someone she's waiting on now, despite what her appearance and choice of career might say.

..but she does love the attention. Sits up a little straighter at it, in fact.

He brings up a good point, though, and has to concede that. "So, in that case - What can I do to help your bottom line while keeping mine intact?"

“Mess because it’s a strip club with a reputation,” he answers. Gael laughs, low and easy. It's a joke, they're both smart enough to not unpack. He watches her talk, nods when she mentions the previous owner - filed under names he already knows too much about. “Heard of the Masquerade,” he says. He was off, doing a job. Climbing a ladder. “Didn’t attend. Had a feeling I’d rather hear about it secondhand than get blood on my shoes. Tell me about it."

The drink sits between them like an unspoken contract, and Gael doesn’t rush her. Just offers her that comfortable quiet, like he’s letting her decide how much of herself to show. He smiles when she talks about the stage. “You were probably born for a few stages,” he replies. “Some velvet, some marble. Depends on who’s watching, and what they’re worth.”

There’s no judgment in his voice, just curiosity. A polite interest that gives nothing of his own away. Is this flirting? Maybe. She makes it easy.

“I respect you coming here direct,” he says. “And I hear you - loud and clear. Reardon’s not in the business of stealing what’s working. We’ve got our own stage to run.” A beat. “But if someone’s crossing lines under my flag, I want to know about it. You’re not the only one looking out for your people.”

He sets his glass down, slow and steady. “We’re not here to gut each other, Lara. You care about your performers. I care about my structure. We can work with that.”

[lrivkin]

Arms crossed tightly over her chest, she watches Dani move about the space. She feels out of place in her own home, and has always felt that way when magic came up. It's not like she ever made any long lasting friendships with those who practiced - she'd been too busy fucking and partying to think about much of anything other than living large in a world that didn't want her. Jac is the first.

There's a lump in her throat if she thinks too hard about it, so she grasps onto the question like a lifeline.

"Brownies, cupcakes, pies. She was able to figure out that blood is a great substitute for eggs, which means I can actually taste what she makes." She traces back and forth at her lower lip with her thumb. "She's a great baker, actually. Don't know if that's a new hobby or not."

Back to magic, and Lara's lips twist in confusion.

"What's that mean, then?"

"Hmm. Then whatever it was she was doing she knew was dangerous. She didn't want anyone finding out," Dani grumbles. Jac could be fiercely determined when her mind was set to something -- so even knowing full well that her magic wasn't the strongest, whatever this ritual was meant to achieve was something she believed was fully necessary.

She follows Lara to the room and steps into the space cautiously. Her own connection to the element of air is virtually nonexistent, but she doesn't notice anything strange with the room's aura. "Please, call me Dani," she insists, even if the witch isn't certain she's endeared herself to the vampire much. Well, the feeling is somewhat mutual, but they aren't really enemies here. "What, um... what kind of things did she bake for you?"

Danielle kneels down, looking at the things that were tossed around the room in a haphazard, breezy manner. There's a few bowls knocked around, though the contents are unclear.

The elder Feng sibling closes her eyes and searches for her own element in the space -- that's when she finds the quartz, sand, and salt. She pulls the grains from the carpet, holding her hands gently aloft as the earth and minerals swirl gently. There's nothing unnatural about them, though there is a consecrated energy to them. Spell components. Dani guides the materials back into one of the bowls, and gently places the whole quartz inside. "Oh, Jac, what did you do..."

Kneeling down, Dani spots a slip of paper, its face faded but unmistakably a ritual of some sort. "I think," she says, studying the image. She can't really read most of this -- so she doubts Jac could either. No wonder everything had gone wrong. "This is some sort of spell to strengthen power... but it looks like a sacrifice and binding. Shit."

[lrivkin]

Her power isn't powerful? Could have fooled Lara - she's always been impressed by what Jac could do, even if it was minor. But whatever, she's not here to get in between sisters, even if her opinion of Jac's family is less than stellar.

"No, she absolutely did not tell me anything. I came home, I found her like that." Lara knows its better to not push, but she can't help the roll of her eyes - family's hard to deal with on the best of days, but she also can't imagine herself reacting any differently if it were Daniel in some sort of fucked up magic situation she couldn't do anything about.

"Come on." She motions, turns heel, and leads Dani towards the bedroom. The ritual area hadn't been touched at all - for fear of doing something irreversible to her friend. "Nothing's been moved, not the ritual stuff, not her things. Nothing. All the same as when I found her."

She clicks her tongue against her teeth, though, as she leans against the doorway. "I don't know shit from fuck about magic, Feng. We barely talk about it, and our schedules are opposite ends from one another - I saw her a few hours out of the day, sometimes she'd bake things for me, and I'd try to get her out of the house and make friends. I don't know what this is. I don't know what she was thinking."

"I'm freaking out because she's in a coma after using blood magic -- knowing full well her power isn't... well, powerful!" Dani would like to think she's not 'freaking out,' per se, but is it such a crime to be worried about her sister? That was the thing, they never really had to worry about Jac. Jac was safe, she was quiet. Reliable. Now this... there's nothing they can do to help her, apparently.

Dani resents the vampire's comment -- assigned friend? Yeah, maybe they weren't the closest of sisters with 6 years and a sibling between them. But acting like Jac was forced into something she didn't want... Danielle cares for her little sister. She's just not in a position to micromanage her life.

"Obviously," she repeats with a little bit of sarcasm. Her element may be earth, but Dani is kind of tired of being expected to be calm, stable, and rational all the time. She might be taking out her frustrations on the wrong person, but... if Lara really is a better friend to Jac than she is, why did this happen in the first place? She doesn't believe the other woman could have done nothing. "Congrats on being gainfully employed. I am too. And I know you're her roommate, not her babysitter, but she really didn't... tell you anything about what she was attempting to do? I'm sorry, I just -- I don't want to lose her like this."

Dani runs a hand down her face with a sigh. "Can I see her room? Did you clean anything after the ritual? Maybe I can try to figure out what was going through Jac's head... especially now that she's trapped in it."

[lrivkin]

Lara feels at home in the Cabaret, relaxed here in a way she doesn't at home - not after the past few months. Jac is.. still unwell, her sister blames her for something she couldn't control, and she and Birdie are still figuring things out. Here, she doesn't have to think about dumbass personal shit, she can just help manage the girls and think about their problems.

Jeanette is a welcome addition to the club's.. well, not employee, but a contracted worker, really. She enjoys the company she provides because she doesn't have to think so much around Jeanette.

That doesn't stop her from flinch at the nickname, though. She sets down her blender and looks up, the scars barely covered and offers her a smile.

"If you can make this look good again, I'll give you the biggest tip you've ever fucking seen."

who: @lrivkin where: satin cabaret

Jeanette's been to the cabaret dozens of times before to work with the girls and make them pretty for that creepy audience, and maybe the most surprising thing about it was how chill it was. Not everyone there was a vampire, but that was a vampire house, and Jeanette always heard from other wolves to stay away from those folks. She didn't see it that way. To her those were outsiders, just like her. Dangerous, yeah, but so what? She had fangs. too.

And maybe it's because of her mindset that not only she had a good time with the cabaret girls, but even made a few friends. It was one of them who called her there that night, in secret. It'd been a few weeks since she'd seen Lara but Jeanette could tell by her tone alone that something was up. The cabaret was much quieter than usual, and there was definitely a chance that this was some kind of trap, but still she made her way backstage and knocked on the door Lara said she'd be waiting for her. "Yo, gramma, are you ready to look good or what? I'm waiting.

[lrivkin]

It's her first night at the Cabaret since her incident - Her face has barely stitched itself together, but there's no need for bandages now. The cracked, blackened scars have stopped oozing whatever foul dredge they wanted to produce. All she's left with are the thin scars of knife marks dragged through her face, puckered and gray-black against tan skin. The scar on her throat looks the worst, but it's her face and eye that bother her the most. Once a beautiful hazel, it's permanently a faded white-gray color, and she can't see a lick out of it. It's either all blurry or a pinhole or both.

The stares at the Cabaret had left her feeling like she wanted to carve a hole into herself and pull into it bit by bit until she was nothing but a black hole, ready to destroy. Before, she would get looks that allowed her to preen and flounce, but now? She's no more than a troll under a bridge from some folklore or fairy tale that's completely culturally insensitive.

The office provides some semblance of comfort - the desk, the couch, the vanity where she can sit and try and cover up some of the damage. It had started as an attempt and turned into full blown frustration -- there was no color to match to drown it out, and even as she got close enough - the texture of her skin alone made her want to vomit. So she'd wiped all of it off and now sat staring at the damage once more to assess -- From afar maybe she could..? Her days as a working girl were over, though.

The cracked part of her face isn't facing the door, so when she hears a familiar voice -- A voice she'd spent chasing for years and years only to give up because there was no trace. Her head whips without a thought to see him.

The look on his face sends her through a litany of emotions - affection, grief, rage, yearning. It's the fucking 'hey, doll' that has her spluttering, like he didn't just run and leave her. Before she has a chance to stop herself, she's spun out of her chair and closed the distance between them.

It looks like she might be going for a hug at first, but her hand cracks hard across his cheek in a slap he's deserved for 70 years. "You dickhead."

For: @lrivkin

It is strange how different yet the same monuments are. From the butchery on Main to the laundromat on Sixth, some parallels will forever remind him of another place. Even the concrete beneath his feet is new, repaved but reeking of an ancient life that came before. If it is not the first of things, then it will always be compared to something older, more primitive.

It's two months of getting the lay of the land. Learning another city. Picking out the dealings in the dark and a soloist in searching for a rumour with life. Cities that come alive at night are more dangerous than they'll ever be in the daylight. But he'd come for the promise of seeing a glimmer of the sun again.

History is bedeviled to repeat itself with him.

'The Satin Cabaret has a new Madame—'

He's not a frugal man, but he's cursed to be a defiantly hopeful one. And maybe it's just a rumour, or a real shitty coincidence. But the Madame has a name he's not heard in seventy years. Two months of sitting at the Cabaret bar, imagining more than just the city streets in the eyes of those he's never seen before. It's why he reeks of diesel and oil by morning. Because she's not there.

'She's been away, she'll be back soon.'

He'd said that to himself so many times. A liar can recognise when they're being shafted down the gutter. It's a waste of time, and there's no speech in his head curated enough to ever be said somewhere other than his dreams. But he's got so much damn time, that he's still there, every night between getting behind wheels to just know if it's the same woman. He has to know. Has to.

It's all very beatnik in the Cabaret, that he's idly stirring the Mai Tai in front of him and wondering which one of these nights he's going to cave in. Whilst he's dressed in a jacket and a shirt, convincingly enough to be let in the door. He's not paid for the Mai Tai, and there's no bills in his pocket that mean he's got anything these women want.

"You said you were waiting for—?"

The voice tears him out of making waves in his drink, to the man behind the bar. A door closes, a flash of hair, and a clack of heels. Garrick turns back to the person speaking, "Yeah, is she here?"

"Just got here." A vague gesture towards the door has him abandoning his drink and slipping towards the closed door. There's a protest, "Hey man, you can't just walk in—"

Garrick gestures to the bar, "Well ain't that a bite." He's doing it anyway.

It's unclear if the door opens willingly, or if the click, snap is something broken. But he's in, kicking the door closed behind him. There's a corridor, less satin, more low-lit circus, as he scours the dressing rooms and dodges past shocked faces to see a stranger in the walls.

She's got her name on the door. If his heart had beat, it would have swelled and stuttered in amongst pride and anticipation. He steps around the corner, shoulders himself in the threshold of the doorway as she powders and puffs. It's a side profile of hair and mirrors, but it's her. He'd know those hands and those legs. All that electricity begins to shock him into a former self, dredges up something older.

Words come first before eyes that rake:

"Hey, doll." Maybe he should have brought flowers or a heart in a gift box. (She might like his, even) Given her keys to a Carrera he'd have to steal to acquire. Garrick only has to look around to know that she's made something of a world, without him.

It burns a little, actually. Underneath the proud. "Nice place you've got."

[lrivkin]

Inside her mind? What the fuck goes on in witch circles? Lara stares at her like she's grown another head - while also trying to make sense of what she's saying. It's been almost a hundred years since she was born and of the years she's stalked the night, not a single damn one of them explained how the hell any of their things worked. So she's not really all that useful here -- other than to be upset that her friend is hurting.

"Maybe because she knew you'd freak out? Like this." She gestures with her hand up and down Dani from head to toe -- "Or maybe she just wanted to have a friend to herself rather than an assigned one."

Her jaw clamps shut at the accusation, eyes narrowing. There's been plenty of people over the years she's compelled and bitten, not a single damn one of them had been Jac.

"Why the hell would I try to compel and bite her? I outsource my blood.. obviously." Another gesture to her mug. "And I don't really need to brainwash people to get along with them." She raises her hand again, in a 'stop' gesture. "Listen. I don't have any clue why you don't know about me, but we've been living together for a while. I care about her. But I'm a vampire, there's nothing I could have done - especially since I didn't even know she was planning on it. I have a job."

"That's fucked."

That's all she has to say? Not that Dani is doing much better at articulating all that's going on with her sister. But... Lara, her name was? Yeah, it was fucked. Why hadn't she been around to stop Jac from doing the ritual?

"Yeah, it's fucked. And all we can do is try to dress the wounds as they appear. Something is... something is attacking her from inside her mind."

She hates being so shut out -- not that the sisters were the greatest at keeping in touch, but now there's no option to speak to Jac even if she wanted. And now there's vampirism in the mix?"

"No, Jac didn't tell me about you. And now I'm wondering if there was a good reason for it," she says, voice tinged with suspicion. Is the anger misdirected? Probably. But Lara didn't strike her as the type to be an unfeeling, uncaring roommate. Then again, as a vampire, maybe...

"Be honest with me, have you ever tried to compel my sister? Or bite her?" Dani doesn't know how strictly Jac has protected herself, but at the least, the Feng family know the proper herbs to ward off vampire influence. Whether her sister was keeping up with that regimen or not was something else entirely.

[lrivkin]

Lara doesn't usually breathe unless she's public-facing. Will she ever be again? Will this ever heal? How many years will it take - if it does? But here, she allows breath to flood lungs that have been dead for 97 years, hoping that the sigh will make her feel better, somehow. Laying here, though, against Birdie - it almost feels like things are normal.

Other than the searing pain in her face, of course.

"I'll have to thank her, too, then." She squeezes Birdie's hand tight, wondering what the next step is here. "Don't apologize. Seriously." Lara sits up to look at her fully with her good, uncovered eye. "You didn't do this - You had no idea he had something like that. Right?"

She lifts a hand to brush along Birdie's cheek with her knuckles, "Be here with me, not there."

She shakes her head. "I'm not." About her brother. "I don't blame him, I kind of am." She tries not to pound herself in the face with it - not here, not in front of Lara. The guilt will be there; it'll be there today and it'll be there tomorrow, and she's not sure how long it will stay, but it's not for here, or for now. She has all of forever for it - she can spare now for her.

Birdie stands, side-saddles the bed, helps Lara to sit up.

Her eyes search over the bandages wrapping her face. The stupid nickname, pressure of Lara resting on her, both are an incalculable weight on her shoulders, one that threatens to push her below water, to drown her, but their hands twine together, and that, alongside Lara's soft, violent question, pull her back above the water once again. Birdy's grip tenses, her rough hands feel strange on Lara's soft palms.

"Yeah- No. Sort of..." She bites at her lip. "He's dead, I let Anika have it. I was... I was done with him."

Birdie's other hand slips to her own face, wipes at her mouth, paws at her face. Funny, all the lack of a heart and life and the body still knows how to feel awful, he way her jaw aches at the back, the way her nose feels like it wants to run, the way her eyes sting. "I'm so fucking sorry, Lara."

[lrivkin]

Lara allows her face to soften - she gets it. The job wears on them all after a while, especially when they're as old or older than they are. The previous owner's name gives her a soft pause, closing her eyes against it as if to ward it off. It only lasts a moment, though, and she nods. "No, I understand. Completely." She'd wanted to get out herself, but since he'd left.. It's better now, with her at the reigns instead of him. There's still a long way to go to get trust though, especially since Lucia's been gone for..

God, she doesn't even know. Things have been so fucked lately -- she rubs at the bridge of her nose with her thumb, thinking.

"I'm not going to hold any hard feelings if you really do need to get away from this -- this life is hard, even harder when you have shit like we have in our lives." She speaks softly, not down to her - Vanessa is a friend, not just an employee.

"But -- And you can say no, I don't want you here if it's gonna fuck you up, but what if you move off the floor? Completely away from clients, full back end work?" She gestures to the office with a flick of her wrist, "Get you an office, you could do books, be a manager, help the girls out - Whatever you need or want to do, I could find a place for you. If you want it."

Vanessa had been dancing around the subject for months now, unsure what she wanted, but knowing that the Cabaret wasn’t feeling good like it once had. She had been ready to march over to Markus and tell him she was done, fuck the consequences, and then he was gone and the fragments of determination she had was gone along with him. So she had stayed, half committed and questioning every moment.

Stepping into Lara’s office the change was immediate and palpable. Comfortable, fashionable and somewhere she didn’t feel her skin begin to crawl the moment she crossed the threshold like it had previously. Taking a risk, acting against her better instincts she dropped into a chair and allowed herself to lose all pretense and poise. “The clients have been wearing on me,” she admitted, “But really it was Markus, his manipulation and (word for debauchery and violance). I saw all of that and suddenly I was back in Europe, under the thumb of a man who found it amusing to make others bleed for no other reason than to cause pain.”

“I’m still trying to figure out where I can carve my own life out, and what it means to be in a clan that isn’t run by an evil narcissist. And I just don’t know if being here is part of it.”