multiversallogs | blow a kiss for all the hearts they gon drop

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blow a kiss for all the hearts they gon drop

Who: EVERYONE IN THE WORLD
What: When it's time to party we will always party hard.
Where: Megan's apartment, Howl Barrow
When: Sukkardi/Saturday night
Notes: Threadjacking is encouraged. Also, again, if you want to tag in but your character wouldn't just show up, feel free to assume Megan befriended them somewhere and dragged them over/invited them personally.
Warnings: Preemptive warnings for drug use, naughty language and sexual situations.

Megan's housepartment (it looks like a house to her, but the realtor assured her it is an apartment, okay, whatever) is a quaint little thing in the middle of a friendly, middle class Howl Barrow street that is deceptively tame by day and comes alive by night. Her neighbours are super chill, which is her favourite part of living here -- she asked around about a party, if the noise would be a problem, and nobody had any problem with it. Howl Barrow rules.

The inside's a bit furnitureless right now -- she's got a few mismatched chairs and a pull-out sofa, that's about it -- but she's already started decorating a little, hanging art on the walls and putting up nice curtains. (Nobody is allowed to puke on her new curtains.) She's well-stocked with a wide selection of alcohol, ranging from mid-price beer to hard liquor, and snacks, nothing fancy.

She's got her bong out too, yeah.

By 7, there's already a couple people milling about and drinking -- coworkers from the Vault, mostly. Music's playing from an old suitcase turntable set up on the kitchen counter, it's something Baedal-native, hard rock, and in an alien language.

For the shy and/or drunken Snow Whites, there's a friendly, fluffy ragdoll cat lounging around, casually draping herself wherever is most convenient for attention and adulation. Caution: do not give cat beer.

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If nothing else, she'd have empathised. Immensely. "I knew it!" And she does take her triumph in this matter very seriously. See? Her face just got all serious. Apart from the way that her gaze is kind of bleary from the alcohol she's been sipping at steadily. It makes the fact that her eyes don't quite match a little bit more evident, if someone happens to be in the habit of making eye contact with drunk girls at parties.

"I'm in General Surgery," she supplies with a shrug. "As a surgeon." Because she not-so-secretly wants people to know that she's not just a plucky nurse's assistant. (She certainly looks the part.) "I'm 'Dessy. Well, Doctor Odessa Wander, if you want to get formal." She doesn't seem like she wants to.

Ever since that initial once over, Rex is casually avoiding really looking at her. He's over Wichita, really... for the most part. But Rex has always had a difficult time really letting go of things (much like his sister. It must run in the family), and the last thing he needs or wants is to start conflating any lingering Wichita issues with his coworker.

"Impressive," he says musingly, then offers his hand for a shake. "Rex. Dr. Rex Lewis." He chuckles softly. "I know the title must seem strange, given the job... It's PhD, not MD."

Letting go is overrated, Rex. It's okay. Odessa has all the sympathy and understanding on that front. She makes sure to wipe any condensation from the Ubiquitous Red Cup™ she's been passing from hand to hand away on her wool skirt before reaching out to shake. "Ooooh," she all but purrs. "A PhD. Colour me mutually impressed." And visibly interested.

"It's a pleasure, Rex. What's your field?"

Don't purr at him, it makes him feel weird. Rex gives her a quick, firm handshake and quickly withdraws. "Biomedical engineering. But I served as a medic for a while in the army, so." He shrugs. "I have experience with trauma care. There's no shortage of excitement, at least." But he's certainly not looking to make a career out of it.

Odessa's good at making feel people decidedly uncomfortable. Call it a gift. "Ahhh. Engineering," she murmurs knowingly with a small nod. That explains a few things, in her mind. "Absolutely fascinating. I've dabbled in genetics and virology, myself."

Another sip of bright blue liquor (liqueur? it's delicious, whatever the fuck it is) passes her lips before she continues. "Takes a very cool head to handle E-and-T," she observes. "Then again, I understand the army preps you for that pretty adequately. Trial by fire and all."

Wichita's face with a scientist's brain. Well. This is dangerous. He eyes her with interest, a small, genuine smile playing at his lips now. He'd studied genetics, always useful knowledge to have when manipulating the human body on the level his nanomites did. And, on the Barge, his studies expanded beyond his imagination. With aliens, mutants, meta-humans and more, the opportunities for research were vast, opening doors he'd never before thought possible. He'd even dabbled in virology, himself, although it was, for once, to altruistic ends.

But none of that needs to come out right now.

"Dabbled?" he repeats, a twinge of amusement in his voice. "They're fascinating fields. Easy to get sucked into-- I mean, virology's practically infectious." Oh, Rex, you are such a nerd. "I'm surprised you only dabbled." He sounds like he's teasing, like he's more familiar with her than he should be-- the lines between her and Wichita blur the more he talks (not to mention the more the alcohol hits his system). Rex seems to realize this as he furrows his brow and clears his throat, as if summoning a wall back up between them. He can't afford to relax around her.

Luckily, talk of the army... plus fire is enough to put Rex on edge again.

"You could call it that."

That joke, Rex? Was so corny. But Odessa laughs at it, and genuinely. Just corny enough to be unexpected. Ah, nerd humour. "Well, I've done more than just dabble where I come from, but I don't exactly have a degree. It's complicated." She'd say it'd be less so if she hadn't been drinking, but that's not really true. Her life sort of borders on the improbable and outright ridiculous. In her opinion.

That she's struck a nerve isn't entirely lost on her. "Sorry," offered quietly. "That was callous." She often is, if we're honest. But she knows enough about people to know she needs to try to be less so if she wants to foster friendships. Or alliances in general. She looks appropriately dismayed at her flippant behaviour. "I forget not everyone... I'm sorry."

Complicated. That could describe so much in his own life. Rex nods, musing, "I know how that is. Still, a good scientist can accomplish a lot, even without a degree."

He frowns a little, almost imperceptibly, and shakes his head, holding a hand up briefly. "Don't worry about it. It's not like you could know from looking at me." He laughs shortly, bitterly, like that's some kind of private joke. Unconsciously, he brings his fingers to his hair, tugging at a lock of it once before bringing it down. Still strange, feeling that sharp, quick tingle in his follicles when he pulls. Rex hadn't known that feeling in years.

While it's almost like he's testing himself to make sure he's still intact, to anyone else, anyone who doesn't know about his old injuries, it looks like a run-of-the-mill nervous gesture.

"And anyway, it wasn't long before I went to the private sector," he adds, hoping to put the subject of the army behind them.

Oh, Odessa recognises that bitterness, and those tendencies. She closes her eyes briefly, pressing her fingers over her left lid self-consciously. She's good at hiding the scars with make-up, but she didn't exactly pack any for this move. Her hand drops to her side again quickly, an easy (albeit fake) smile to accompany.

"Private sector's better," she agrees. "I did the opposite. Private to government. S'a drag." Never mind that she was unwillingly drafted. "Science for hire is surprisingly fulfilling, non?"

His eyes are drawn to the movement, and he looks at her face again, this time focusing on the left eye. Scars are fascinating to Rex, and he's not staring out of revulsion or morbid curiosity so much as admiration. His own would've been a source of pride, a testament to his will to survive, if not for the physical limitations they'd forced on him. There's something beautiful about imperfections carved into an otherwise flawless face.

"Mm, absolutely. I guess I'm a mercenary at heart."

She again notices him staring, and she can't blame him. Colour might creep into her cheeks, but she's already flushed from the alcohol, so it's difficult to tell. "It's glass," she says of her left eye. (In her mind, before he can ask.) "I wanted bionic," she quips, "but apparently that's still more fiction than science."

Without missing a beat, she follows up on his sentiment. "Mercenary is sexy." There's something cold about the curve of her scarred mouth. "Mercenaries know how to survive."

Although he's curious, he doesn't ask how she lost her eye. He just nods a little and takes another sip from his nearly-empty cup. "Bionic eyes aren't out of reach." Well. "Not where I'm from, anyway. Given the right materials, what features you'd want programmed..." And he's already brainstorming. After a beat, Rex is brought back to reality, just in time to turn beet red at the "sexy" remark. He scans the crowd for Iago with renewed urgency.

"Survival's a specialty of mine," he says distractedly. "I guess that's why I'm working in trauma now. Sharing the wealth."

"Well, well, well. Where were you when I was dealing with this?" She's deceptively blithe about the loss of her eye, but she's too buzzed to keep her body language from betraying her. "Too bad this place is some kind of technological anomaly."

She shrugs it off, tying the two threads of their conversation together neatly with, "Survival's the name of the game. Whatever it takes, right?"

Rex winces briefly. Stop saying things that Wichita would say, damn it. He's quiet, then downs the rest of his drink and nods. "Yeah." He rubs the back of his neck and looks around one more time. "So, what did you study? With virology, I mean. Was it just a general interest, or..."

Or was there some kind of, oh, plague in your world that turned people into ravenous cannibals?

Funny you should mention it, Rex...

"I crafted vaccines, mostly," is almost true. If you're going to develop a virus, you should probably also create its cure. Just in case. "I was contracted by... Let's call them private interest groups. They hand me a problem, I find a solution." The corner of Odessa's mouth ticks upward faintly. "It's fascinating work. And there's a certain power in the knowledge that you can be either the saviour or destroyer of humanity."

Not that she would ever strive to be the latter.

He cants his head a little as he listens, unable to hold back a smile that comes out more like a smirk. It's just so rare for Rex to find a kindred spirit on this level. Rare and... probably not a good thing for society-at-large. "And isn't that what drives the best of us?" he remarks playfully. "I imagine it's how the scientists working on the Manhattan Project must have felt. Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." J. Robert Oppenheimer, Father of the Atomic Bomb, a hero of his. "The moments that... inspire such awe, that put that power into perspective, they're really very fulfilling."

Or disturbing, in the case of certain demonstrations of Rex's projects.

"Not to mention fun."

"I like you, Doctor Lewis." Odessa laughs quietly. They say opposites attract, but also that like attracts like. This is definitely a case of the latter. Which probably only solidifies that the notion that this is not good for society-at-large. "Most people walk away when I mention virology. I had a feeling you understood, though. I could just... tell."

She leans forward sort of conspiratorially. "It's always such a pain in the ass when you have to clean up after someone else's incompetence, though. I had an old colleague who attempted to synthesise abilities - create the superman, I suppose - and instead she wound up creating these..." One hand waves through the air for a moment as she tries to think of an appropriate word for it. "Zombies.

"I'm serious. These people just went fucking nuts and attacked everything." Wide eyes and enthusiasm are traded away with a shrug, for a passive expression that edges on bored. "Until their cells deteriorated. Her test subjects wound up resembling cherry cobbler." Can you imagine?

He was going to comment on something else-- on cleaning up after others. Oh, how he knows what that's like. But something else catches his attention instead and derails his train of thought entirely.

"Zombies." She can't be serious. Was she or wasn't she some kind of... alternate universe Wichita? Every time Rex leans one way, she says something that pushes him in the other direction. There's a strain in his smile again, and the expression's practically stuck on his face-- almost a grimace-- as he forces out a soft chuckle and looks down at his empty cup.

"You..." He shakes his head and brings his eyes up, forced smile sticking on his face. "...remind me of somebody." Testing the waters a little. "You don't have a sister, do you?" A playful question, but pointed-- if she really was some other dimension Wichita. One thing she and Rex had in common, after all, was their attachment to their sisters.

Edited 2012-01-21 19:21 (UTC)

If presented with this theory, Odessa might be inclined to believe it herself. She's seen alternate timelines in action more than once before. Calling herself Wichita wouldn't at all be out of the ordinary for her. When Rex asks her about a sister, she smiles widely and shrugs. "Oh, maybe somewhere. I wasn't raised with my family."

There goes that smile. Even she can only crack wise at her own expense so much. "Could be that there's a better version of me running around out there somewhere. Stranger things and all."

"That's unfortunate," he murmurs, then purses his lips slightly in thought. "Maybe you have an evil twin." A beat, then he adds teasingly, "Or maybe you're the evil one." Really, with Wichita, it's hard to say. She wasn't exactly a morally upstanding person. That's one thing Rex loves-- loved-- about her. "Tell me you don't have any family in Kansas."

That elicits a giggle. She's got him on a hook now, she realises. He's on his way to convincing himself that she could be someone he used to know, or at least related to her. "I wouldn't know if I do or not, to be honest. If she's my good twin," and she'd have to be. It takes quite a bit of talent and malicious intent to be worse than Odessa - and that's if you ask her, "then I hope I do have family in Kansas."

She leans a little closer then, not encroaching, but entreating. "What's this friend of yours like?"

When Odessa leans closer, Rex almost reciprocates, but he catches himself and stiffens his back, keeps from getting too comfortable around her. Even though they share a face, Rex is hesitant to actually share any details.

"She was..." Keep it vague. "Tough. A survivor." A cutthroat con artist. Somebody as vicious as he was (was, because he knows they made each other softer). His first girlfriend. First love. First everything, and she really doesn't need to know any of that. "That's all."

Edited 2012-01-26 04:30 (UTC)

"Then we definitely have something in common." Her expression softens, and it's due to conscious effort on her part to keep herself from looking too predatory. She doesn't want to spook him, and he looks like he might be the type. Easy, 'Dessa. You have to work with this guy. You've got time.

"You'll have to tell me more about her sometime. I'm sure you have plenty of great stories from back home. Can I get you another drink?"

"Nothing as exciting as yours," he claims, although that's far from the truth. He's got a pretty excellent story involving the destruction of the Eiffel Tower, for starters. Not to mention some zombie stories of his own. Killing a vampire or two. Taking over a space prison. Blowing up said space prison...

"And no, thanks. I think I've had enough to drink tonight." Any more, and his tongue might get looser than he'd like-- in more than one sense. He'll take looking like a boring buzzkill over that. "That blue stuff is pretty strong."

"Excitement isn't always a good thing." She stares into the bottom of her glass then, not terribly contemplatively, but more because she's curious about how much of that blue stuff is actually in there. "I know," she remarks on it. "It's pretty fabulous. I may have to tell vodka I've found a new love."

She giggles at herself. Not because she thinks she's terribly funny, but because it seems the right follow up to her dorky comment. Like it's to be expected. "I'm glad you came out tonight. I was hoping for a chance to get to know you better."

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blow a kiss for all the hearts they gon drop

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