( closed ) when we die, i believe we go to a better place; no where.

[asklepios]

Who: "Vanessza Bernát" and Jason Todd
What: Winning friends and influencing people.
Where: Benny's apartment in Syriac Well.
When: Vaguely nowish.
Notes: JILLI AND I HAVE BEEN REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THIS, IT'S KIND OF PATHETIC.
Warnings: Threats of medically expert violence, discussion of alarming things, specifics to follow when the thread progresses.

She takes her shoes off outside the apartment.

It means she's quieter when she comes inside, slipping the door open and closed again with so-gentle hands, stocking-feet and carpet and experience, the kind that means she already knows there's someone inside who shouldn't be. She can hear him in the next room (the scrape of the entrance to the crawl space, that's going to be a problem) and she makes a decision without breaking stride, a side-trip into the spare room for syringe, pulling the cap off the needle with her teeth as she keeps moving.

The apartment is too cramped for the sword and he's between her and the crossbow. It wouldn't have been ideal, anyway.

While there are worse ways to be greeted by a woman than her hand on your inner thigh, Jason would be forgiven for preferring some of them to the prick of a syringe through his jeans and a (mostly) French accent floating up with her perfume (Guerlain, Shalimar, he probably saw the bottle while he was going through her things): “An air embolism is not a fool-proof method of killing someone. An artery is almost ideal, but how much air is needed and what it will actually do to your body, these things, they vary. If I don't care for your explanation -- and you will give me an explanation -- then you and I, we will play the odds. Regardless of whether you live or die, it will not be pleasant. Am I understood?”

(She sounds like she's talking to a patient.)

Comments

[asklepios]

It's really more of an oversized paws thing than a looming thing, which lends further support to her initial impression of him (...essentially 'ffff boys' and really, Jason, easter is a while away yet); it is, from her admittedly unique perspective, kind of endearing.

“And you need a doctor.” So he wasn't looking for the sniper scope or the crossbow, not in particular, but once he started finding...it's not hard to paint that picture in her head. She's given him an awful lot to think about before she even walked back through that door, she can tell, and she's not without interest in the conclusions that he might be drawing. It's in his best interests to keep her secrets if she comes aboard - quid pro quo - and that doesn't escape her, either.

He probably needs more than just doctors, but there are limits to how much she'd be willing to offer; her kind just don't make for good team players, on the whole. The Nahashi may have more organization than most, but feet on the ground, they still do most of their work alone. It's the nature of the beast.

[goodsoldier]

"Among other things." He doesn't bother to move past the mutual, tacit acknowledgment of her much wider array of skills. "You're set up for this already. And it's a heartwarming cause. But I'm sure we could find something to do for you. If not, I won't impose again."

It is at best an implication he won't be a pain in the ass about her secrets, though obviously not a promise; Jason doesn't see much gain in that. Even if he uncovered some kind of leverage, which is work he has no time to do, what would be the point? Blackmailing for medical care seems like an extravagantly flawed plan.

[asklepios]

He's correct, and in some ways very specifically correct; not everyone who passes through her spare room is so altruistic, but Benevenuta certainly has some preferences about who and what she supports, when she takes the time to do so. It is what she is-- even now, she still finds a space inside herself for idealism, however pragmatic in its application.

There is indeed recognition of a mindset here, on both sides. (He is so young, she thinks, but it's an abstract thought and more admiring than despairing; mortals only have so much time to do the things that matter to them. She can value the choices they make, and hope that they do, too.)

“I'm not uninterested,” she says, after a measured pause, resting her hand flat on the kitchen island between them, considering. “What are you putting together?” In slightly more detail than 'fuck the Militia', she means, as pleasantly visceral as that is.

[goodsoldier]

It is possible he'll spend the rest of his life comparing certain kinds of women to Talia, if only in a fleeting way. First it was the woman on the network with her studied candor. Here and now, it's the deliberate way she moves and speaks, the sense that she is immovable by outside forces. Possibly it was the perfume as well, because the comparison rises and fades like a sense memory, Talia disappearing from his thoughts as easily as she had from his life.

"A network. They're all out there, waiting to be connected. Waiting for support, to pool resources and information. To coordinate." Jason pauses to consider his pitch. "We can't destroy them. Five hundred years of growth and integration? That's too much to take down." He has no idea what five hundred years means to her. "But we could cripple them, if we learn enough, if we're fast enough, if we can time it right..."

His gaze abruptly refocuses on her, aware he's dreaming big before they've taken a single step. Pragmatic goals reassert themselves. "Or we can just do whatever we can about the worst of them."

[asklepios]

Her first thought is that they're going to get themselves killed.

Her second thought is that that's almost certainly why he's standing here; that is, after all, the work that she does. She can hear the argument in her head already (mortals die, it's what they do, getting involved in something like this with them is a bad idea), but just like that she's already rationalizing her side of it. She's just a doctor, she is a doctor, it's an ideal line of work for support.

“It is a heartwarming cause.” Slightly dry, but not insincere; there is a quiet sense of purpose to the way that she speaks, just like the way that she moves, like she doesn't put anything into the world without being absolutely certain it's what she's chosen. God knows she'd cheerfully choose dismantling the Militia.

The thought does cross her mind that Rex hadn't struck her as the for-everyone's-betterment type, but in Baedal, perhaps you don't need to be to come down on this side of the argument. Their options, particularly as new arrivals, aren't ideal.

“What are you working with at the moment?”

[goodsoldier]

He smiles as if he knows what she's thinking, though he doesn't. Her flawless composure means that so much more is going on in her head than she's saying purely by default, but if he doesn't need to imagine being in her position (something he lacks enough context for anyway) to guess the line of thought any sensible person would take. His smile is hard and cynical and young, the first two attributes fairly earned and the last one unavoidable, as he is what he is, which is ambiguously twenty-two.

"Not enough. But that's changing." Jason considers his words for a moment, then says, "It's experience that most of them are lacking." His assessment is not without awareness of the hypocrisy in saying that, but he's thinking specifically of urban warfare-like operations, and even if he knew Hermione had fought a goddamn war, he wouldn't think what she went through is directly analogous. And it is a fishing statement, of course. He doesn't expect Vanessza to bite, but it is as transparent and honest as it is calculated.

[asklepios]

In response, her fleeting smile is reflexive (a reflex that she allows) and aware of the inquiry and its conscious transparency. Though, as come as no surprise to him, she politely declines to answer. Typically.

“That will change, too.” This is a sink or swim thing that he's talking about - they will get good, or they will get dead. There's only so much she'll be able to do for them, as much as some people do seem to have an alarming amount of faith in the godlike powers of the medical profession. (Striving to meet it is exhilirating; failing it exhausts her.)

After a moment, “I accept but do not require payment for what I do,” because she is that kind of idealist, but not so starry-eyed she doesn't grasp that there are many people who can't trust getting something for nothing and feel more comfortable paying her somehow, “and I will do house-calls if I need to. I'd be very grateful if your network could contribute to the cost of my supplies, but I won't make that a condition of my involvement. We can call it a trial basis, for now.”

It is, at least partly, because at this point she'd rather keep Jason where she can see him.

[goodsoldier]

He lets her see that he has to mentally shift around some expenses to calculate what he can give her before he nods. Not many, though, he's just very careful about money now.

"Then thank you," Jason says, shifting his weight slightly before taking out his notepad and a pen. While writing his CiD number down, he thinks vaguely and insanely of having business cards made. Civil Unrest Inc. No. Closing the space between him and the island she stands behind, he offers her the paper rather than putting it on the counter.

[asklepios]

Accepting it with a brief glance at the number written (she'll commit that to memory, later), Benevenuta holds the paper between two fingers and taps it absently on the island before she folds it neatly in half, pinches the edge with her nails and tears along it to trade him back her own CiD number with the pen from her pocket. It's readily available on the cohort network, but even so.

The small smile she offers him, polite but not insincere, is more or less the same expression that appears in a number of photographs from her suitcase, beneath blonde pin curls and a dark red bouffant and long, straight center-parted hair with oversized white-rimmed sunglasses. Unchanged and always changing; immovable. Incongruously with that impression, the expression peels back the weight of experience that she'd let herself wear for the conversation-- all at once she's only Vanessza Bernát, twenty-something Parisien doctor with a bleeding heart and quiet lifestyle.

“I will forward you my new address,” she says, use the goddamn door next time implied with figurative underlining. “There's an apartment at ground level with more space.”

It'll be more convenient, for numerous reasons; she'd been planning the move already, but 'I hate other people knowing where my things are' is sufficient impetus to move it up.