multiversallogs | a night at the vault

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a night at the vault

Who: Rex & Cindy. Open.
What: Taking care of business.
Where: The Vault.
When: SOME DAY.
Notes: Feel free to start a new thread if you want to run into Rex at the Vault :B Also, here is a polyvore.
Warnings: Not really. YET.

Why does she want to meet here, of all places? The Vault brings Rex back to his arrival in Baedal, where he stumbled, confused, into the Vault, paying an exorbitant cover price for what he thought was just a high end lounge and nothing else. That was where he'd met Cindy-- well, face to face, anyway-- and learned that the Vault had... quite a lot to offer to one with diverse tastes such as his. At the time, however, he'd been hurting from his separation from Iago, and he didn't want to partake of what the Vault had to offer. He'd avoided it since that first night.

Until now. Still hurting, but tired of holding back for people who always, always disappear, Rex isn't as afraid of the Vault as he was all those months ago. He's still a little awkward, certainly, but he's trying not to show it as he sits at the bar and waits for "Cynthia." She wants to meet with him about Wichita-- fair enough. As long as he keeps his ex partitioned off in the "Business" sector of his mind, away from the "Personal," then... this will all go smoothly.

Or as smoothly as things can go, given the circumstances.

He's just doing a favor for a friend, after all.

Rex tries to look impressive as he considers his drink, takes a sip. His suit fits him much better than the last-- now that he has money to spare, he can afford higher-quality clothes. Tonight, he actually looks like he belongs here with the other customers.

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"But it's a pricey sex club," Rex tries, before he looks down at his tie and tugs on it experimentally. With a small degree of self consciousness, he begins to unknot it and slip it into his pocket. There, that's more... casual. He takes a drink, hoping it'll help him loosen up a little more, then sets the glass down when she mentions Wichita.

Even though he won't admit it-- and he won't let it show on his face-- Rex is fairly concerned about how that went. Wichita didn't exactly fill him with confidence when she admitted that she was looking for somebody to con-- not that he has a problem with that. The con artist thing was part of the initial attraction. But the fact that she'd even considered conning Cindy for a second?

He's just glad she's not dead right now.

...

Probably not dead.

"Wichita," he repeats with a nod. No awkwardness around that topic here, nope. "Did I lead her astray?" There's always the chance the two didn't click, that Cindy didn't have a job worth looking into, or Wichita didn't have the right skills for her line of work.

"The less clothing you're wearing, the less time you spend taking it off in a pricey sex club." Cindy's not even looking at Rex as she speaks, eyes busy scanning the crowd. The Vault isn't that packed tonight, even though things are going back to normal and people's desires and fetishes are raring to go.

No, Wichita is not dead. Lucky for her, huh? Had she even thought of conning Cindy, the meeting wouldn't have even gotten past the phone call stage. The kid's got potential, but she needs a lot of work and besides, Cindy is so much more interested on how Rex and Wichita know each other. That awkwardness is as clear as day.

Cindy leans her head back with a smirk on her lips. "Depends on where you were planning on leading her."

Rex, for his part, has stopped scanning the crowd and keeps his gaze alternating between his drink, the neutrality of the bottles lined up behind the bar, or Cindy. He doesn't want to look like a man on the... prowl.

"Into a job, ideally," he remarks. Because he's such a good guy who looks out for all of his friends like that. "I know the city can be difficult for people starting out."

She doesn't immediately answer, choosing instead to turn around and sip at her Sidecar. Into a job. Does Cindy look like she's running a foghunting business here? It's really just her and a handful of other people who are crazy enough to brave the fog and all it holds. Sonja got her in, but if Cindy sent Wichita to Sonja... well, that wouldn't have ended well at all.

"She needs to do a lot more preparation before she can get in properly. Mainly stop looking like an idiot at carry that gun of hers."

"She brought her gun to the meeting?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. "I suppose she's lucky the Militia didn't frisk her." There's no small amount of bitterness in his voice there. Rex hasn't had any run-ins with them personally, but he isn't the Militia's biggest fan. Police states aren't generally a concern of his, but the transmissions from a few months ago hit a nerve with him. "Anyway. Thanks for talking to her, giving her some kind of idea how to conduct herself. I know you're not exactly running a charity for unemployed women here."

"She's lucky nobody took that gun from her and shot her with it." On an everyday basis, Cindy's last concern is the Militia, though she feels their presence daily. Her biggest worry right now is the regular people she passes by, not so much for her, but for Wichita. Clearly, Wichita isn't big on concealment.

"Or a charity period," Cindy mutters into her glass. It's still a wonder why she didn't tell Wichita or Rex to go fuck themselves into oblivion. "I'm not taking her out anytime soon."

"She comes from a strange world," he says with a slight shrug, as if that explains everything. In the apocalypse, he assumes, carrying one's gun at the ready is an asset. "I'm sure most people thought she was still on the lookout for monsters."

Rex nods, reaches back to rub his neck. "That's fair." For however complicated their history is, he wouldn't want her to go out and die, after all. "Did she seem well?"

"She has spunk, but spunk won't save you out in the fog," Cindy confers as she pulls out a cigarette from a sleek gold case that's been stashed in her clutch. It's slipped between her lips but stays unlit for a few moments longer. "She admitted she's a shit shot, so somebody has to show her how to not shoot herself in the foot. Plus she needs another weapon, something without bullets, and physical training because when all else fails, your fists might be the only things to save you."

Rex groans a little and rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. Bad shot, needs a weapon without bullets-- two things that he can help with. But it's not exactly conducive to their mutual goal of staying away from each other. "You're right, spunk's a poor substitute for a good weapon. I suppose she can't talk her way out of the fog."

"Only if she's fluent in monster." The cigarette's lit and Cindy takes a few long drags as if she hasn't had nicotine in months. She's curious about something and she considering ways of asking about it.

"Who is she?" To him, Cindy means. Rex never seemed like the type to help a stranger.

Rex looks at Cindy, frowning slightly at the smoke. It aggravates his throat a little, but he says nothing. He'll always be sensitive to smoke, even after the surgeries.

Funnily enough, it only reminds him of the time Wichita got him high with a nebulizer, knowing how much smoke bothered him. There's a small wince, and he takes a long drink.

"My ex."

Who he's still not quite over, which is probably painfully obvious by now.

Cindy's head, which was pointed away from Rex, slowly turns towards him, showing a far too entertained grin on her lips. Well, well, well. Isn't this an interesting turn of events? Not that Cindy didn't have an inkling Wichita was more than just a friend to him, but she assumed it was just a one off thing. Look how much of an ass she is now.

"And who dumped who?" Gosh, can she be anymore tactful?

He hunches his shoulders a little, a slightly defensive posture, as his frown deepens. "I dumped her," he mutters, half-tempted to add a disclaimer about how it's complicated and he wouldn't have dumped anybody if Iago and Wichita would've just been happy with a totally Rex-centered compromise where everybody won.

"She vanished, returned, vanished again. So I went with Iago. Who just vanished, himself," he hisses into his glass before taking another drink.

Rex certainly knows how to pick 'em.

Call it a foolish notion, but she feels a little sorry for Rex. Granted, most of the time Cindy thinks he's a pitiful puppy in need of a newspaper to the nose, but this time... well, abandonment is abandonment no matter who you are. Lord knows Cindy knows those feels.

"That's why I fuck 'em and don't love 'em," she says in her very own sympathetic way. "No one gets any feelings and no one gets dumped because there's nothing to dump."

Rex shakes his head. "I wish I could do that. I certainly didn't intend to fall in love." If anything, his first time with Wichita-- hell, his first time, period, full stop-- was meant to be nothing more than one night of fun. Instead, they found themselves seeing more and more of each other. "In any case, it's over. I'm trying to be... friends." As much as that's possible with the giant, awkward elephant in the room. "And part of that involves helping her stay alive."

"You don't want to be friends." Cindy's just going to call shit like she sees it. The fact that Rex is hesitant when he speaks about Wichita means that being just friends isn't going to end the way it's supposed to either way. Somebody is going to want more and maybe they both will. Maybe they won't. Cindy wouldn't say she's afraid of the inevitable fallout, but for Rex's sake, she's considering how much would it take to get him drunk.

Rex is silent for a moment, mulling over that statement. Fuck it, he needs another drink. Ordering a scotch and soda-- he can afford these kinds of things now, damn it-- he starts to finish off his first drink. "Friends or nothing. Those are the only real options." He can't imagine actually attempting a relationship for a... third time now? Fourth?

As much as a part of him wants to. It's habit, he figures. The safety of something... familiar.

Familiar, but unreliable. Then again, who isn't unreliable? Everybody vanishes-- even himself, if he considers all the people he left behind on the Barge.

It's time to sulk and take another drink.

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a night at the vault

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