Stormyx

Vanguard: Calder City

Oh ours will be here in December/January and I'll suffer through it then

Vanguard: Calder City

So how are people doing after all of those heatwaves and what else happening in the world?

@Theyra

No heat wave here down under, been very rainy and chilly but should start to warm up again soon!

Vanguard: Calder City

_Eve

Death and all her Friends - XI Marone

^{_{_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

Eve watched across the way as she settled into her seat at Silvio’s. At hers. Time really didn’t exist, she’d been here before and would be here again. She couldn’t tell which Eve was sitting, the one that was thirteen and new, feeling the leather upholstery for the first time, wide-eyed and parentless. Eldest only daughter; now youngest third child. Was she the one who was seventeen? Caught out after curfew with a boy, fractured wrist from falling off the trellis after midnight. Was she twenty-one again and celebrating Ralph’s engagement in her pajamas, with a glass of champagne at eleven am, and fast food fries and Ralph’s awkward announcement and Cosima’s beaming smile? Or was she twenty-two and alone in the kitchen in the dark of the night making sense of something that had happened to her that still didn’t make any sense at all. It was just compartmentalised away next to the other baggage she’d gathered up over the years.

The household kitchen was just a place. She’d observed so much of the human condition here.

Beyond the glass panes that were the window to the indoor pool and she saw a woman swimming lazy laps in a bikini, hardly ten years older than Eve. One of Silvio’s girlfriends. He’d never remarried after his wife died, he’d just gotten older but the girlfriend of the month stayed the same age. The girlfriend climbed out of the pool. As expected, the glamour filters had been sculpted onto her skin and she did in fact have a perfect face and she was probably an exotic dancer or model of some kind; that had always been Silvio’s type. ᵂʰᵒ ᵈᵒᵉˢ ᵗʰⁱˢ ᵍᵘʸ ᵗʰⁱⁿᵏ ʰᵉ ⁱˢ ᵖⁱᶜᵏⁱⁿᵍ ᵘᵖ ʷᵒᵐᵉⁿ ˡⁱᵏᵉ ᵗʰᵃᵗ? This girlfriend was moving around in the space of Silvio’s grief and stress for the day and Eve wanted to think it unhealthy but she remembered her own reaction to it all was to shred her apartment to pieces and then fire double entendres at someone unsuspecting. Eve was the wink wink to her father’s nudge nudge. They were not all that different. They both turned their pain sideways.

“I’ve got prosciutto and melanzane,” Silvio said. Opening the fridge to take out a small platter. “Come on, eat something.” He said, placing the antipasto platter in front of her. 𝙶𝚊𝚋𝚊𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚕？ 𝙾𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 The same one she’d seen a thousand times before with the same gaudy little bowl, the chip still there from when Ralph had sent it rolling across the bench while fighting Joey for the last olive. They weren’t even children when that happened; they were two grown men at a wake. The platter always got brought out for occasions and holidays. Today the platter was out because Michael Marino had been shot and nobody really knew how to deal with it unless it was with gabagool, prosciutto, and sundried vegetables.

He was being soft with her, she could tell. She could feel the restraint in his body, the awkwardness. He poured her a coke in a glass and placed it in front of her, coasterless. “Thanks,” she sighed.

“Funeral will be in two weeks,” Silvio sighed. “Marone,” he continued. His own can gave a crisp crack as he opened it, the fizz filling the silence. ᴵ'ᵐ ʲᵘˢᵗ ᵍˡᵃᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ᶜᵘⁿᵗ ʰᵃˢⁿ'ᵗ ᵖⁱᵗᶜʰᵉᵈ ᵘᵖ ⁱⁿ ʰᵉʳᵉ. “Shoulda seen your aunt Rosalie,” he shook his head. “We’re going to need to fall around her, Eve. And the girls. I got some shit taken care of for them. Food, meals on wheels or whatever. Just for now, you know.”

Eve sipped from the glass, the full sugar burst onto her tongue and fired off into her blood. She always drank a diet. M̷y̷ ̷w̷i̷f̷e̷ ̷l̷i̷k̷e̷d̷ ̷D̷r̷ ̷P̷e̷p̷p̷e̷r̷,̷ ̷t̷h̷e̷ ̷c̷h̷e̷r̷r̷y̷ ̷o̷n̷e̷.̷ In her mind she did think of Rosalie, pictured her falling over herself in tears with that all-exhaustive, all-consuming grief. The way that the wound of his absence would sit in the wrinkles around her eyes and she’d carry it in her body and it would be heavy for the longest time.

Maybe things are ‘a long time’ until they’re not.

Beside that she pictured the very real images and replays of all of Michael's goomahs over the years that Eve had seen through his eyes and from his perspective.

“I’ve lost guys before,” Silvio continued, snapping her from her thoughts as he moved around the space. “This was something else, shouldn’t have happened.” He paused. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

“It’s okay,” Eve said with a shrug. ǝʌƎ ʎɐʞo ʇ,usɐʍ ʇı She was the fifteen year old about to let him make an excuse for himself.

“It’s not,” he added, taking a seat opposite her at last. “But you have to understand from what I was seeing. Things are just changing so quickly Eve, new families popping up in every district. Never used to be like this.” He took a sip from his own glass and sighed, placing it back down and getting himself back up. “I just– I needed you to be there, and when you didn’t answer–” Eve already knew he was reaching for something stronger, and he did, pulled out a bottle of scotch. Some thirty year old thing, and a glass. Eve saw in the cupboard a bottle of vodka that she knew to be entirely water. Eve and Joey at eighteen and nineteen had gotten into the actual stuff years ago and that was when Eve realised she enjoyed the kind of sickness that the excess of alcohol made her feel the next day. It would be another year or so before she found coke. Silvio glanced over his shoulder to look her up and down and then got a second glass.

“I just wasn’t thinking straight when I saw him,” he said as he sat back down.

ᴵˢ ʰᵉ ᵉᵛᵉʳ ᵗʰⁱⁿᵏⁱⁿᵍ ˢᵗʳᵃⁱᵍʰᵗ?

“And you needed me to tell you what had happened.”

“I just wanted to know who did it, wanted to do something.”

“That’s not how it works–”

“Fine,” he shrugged as he sipped from the glass. “But I woulda settled for fuckin’ anything, just. Something to say I’ve done enough to figure this shit out.” He toyed with the glass in his hand. “You know what the worst of it is?”

Eve shook her head.

“I knew the second I saw you that you didn’t want to do it. And I asked anyway.”

He didn’t ask you. “But you didn’t ask.”

His eyes sharpened and he gave a wry smile. “No.” He drank again. “I didn’t.”

What was she to tell him? That he had made her afraid of him, and of herself? That he pushed her to the wolves as he always had. For what had she done really? Nothing she hadn’t for him already. ʇןnɐɟ ɹnoʎ ʇou s,ʇı ǝʌƎ Neither of them spoke for a while, and Eve let herself rewind to family breakfasts at fourteen in the room. Her making toast and eggs and bacon. Fetching cereal while Ralph and Joey wolfed it all down and knocked it all back and made a mess and maybe there would be a slice of bacon left, always the one closest to overdone and the piece of toast that was a little burnt and the last dregs of the milk; she’d make her breakfast from that after they’d all gone and left and she didn’t push in and she didn’t do anything that would make them dislike this stranger.

“I called it in, Eve,” Silvio said then - breaking the silence. “Had to. They said they found some concrete traces from wheels of a van. They’re looking into it.” Eve knew how much it would have killed him to involve the police but she also knew that he had no choice with this, not really. “They’re getting those kids out today,” he added with a tone of disbelief in his words. “They’re not - we’re not – not suspects, you know. Got nothing on us, on you.” Because that was what mattered, what really mattered to him. Whether or not he could get booked for it, whether he was snitching on another gang. How it all made him look and whether it pushed or pulled at his standing. That was all that mattered. It was hideous. He was trying to reassure her and she thought back to her anxiety spiral of the morning and the doom she’d scrolled herself to and only some of that weight lifted. She sipped at her scotch.

“I hated seeing you that way, I didn’t know – I didn’t realise. I thought you were–”

“Dying?” she cut in.

Silvio winced and looked away briefly. Yes, that was what he had thought.

“Jimmy pissed himself,” he said, meeting Eve’s eyes again and right then she could see herself in the reflection of his own, blue like hers. Like pools. “You scared the piss outta Jimmy. Even the dog didn’t piss.”

“They shouldn’t have been there, why were they there?” Eve asked but her voice was too quiet but something was rising in her chest.

“Jimmy’s only ever thought of you as a sweet kid–”

ᶠᵘᶜᵏⁱⁿᵍ ᵗᵉˡˡ ʰⁱᵐ ᴱᵛᵉ. ᴸᵉᵗ ⁱᵗ ʳⁱᵖ.

Tell him

“But I’m not sweet though am I?” Eve cut in. “I’m not a sweet kid.” I'm a woman. She hesitated on her words. ˙sıɥʇ op uɐɔ noʎ 'ƃuıoƃ dǝǝꓘ He’d stopped in his tracks - glass halfway to his mouth, his eyes fixed to her in expectation. “Your friends think I’m a sweet kid, I know they do because all I do is keep quiet and smile and nod. Because you tell me to. Do they know what I’ve done for you?” she spoke daringly, ᴱᵃᵗ ˢʰⁱᵗ ˢⁱˡᵛⁱᵒ letting a match dance over the length of fuse that had always been there. His jaw had tensed, his eyes darkened just so to have her back down, bite it back, blow out the match. “But then. But then,” she continued. “Out there, people look at me and they think I’m crazy. I’m trying too hard. Or they know I'm a Raciti, so I must be spoiled or trouble and they assume I’m a brat and maybe I am.” Nobody sees that I'm Eve.

“Eve–”

“Everyone has an idea of who I am and what I should be except for me and shouldn’t I get to decide?”

“Honey–”

“Maybe I was dying. Maybe I do die a little bit. I don’t know. Nobody has explained this to me." She took a breath. "But I go somewhere else and then I am all of those people and they're me and then I wake up. Back into the dark after tasting all of it. Do you know what that’s like?”

He thought about it some. He did not know. He did not answer.

“It’s not sweet,” she paused, her lower lip trembling so she brought her glass to her mouth and drank again. He waited. “It’s always scratching at me. All of these voices that want out of me. Clawing to get out.” ᴶᵃˢᵒⁿ ɐıʌıןO C̷o̷n̷n̷o̷r̷ 𝙻𝚘𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚣𝚘 Paloma

He said nothing, just averted his eyes and returned awkwardly to his drink. She finished her own in a single mouthful. The only sound between them was the gentle splashes from the pool from beyond the glass.

"Funeral is two weeks away," he said after some length of time where they both sat with that silence. Drawing them back full circle to the start, to the point that mattered and made sense. "You'll be there. You and your brothers."

“Of course.” Surprised and unsurprised all the same at the way he refused her subject. She once again wished she could tell him more about how she felt. Explain why she so often sat in silence around him and start to unspool why they orbited each other like this.

The ghosts of herself all breezed past her then; all pieces that in their totality that didn’t fit right. She was a girl once, she was a grown woman now. She was here and and she would be here again next year and the year after that and she’d see this version of herself from beyond the moment and with the hopeful and keen hindsight that she could've, should’ve handled everything better. Maybe one day she’d have it together, and it would all be worth it and she could gather up each ghost of herself and reassure them that it was all worth it. It was all worth it. And she’d eat an olive from the same bowl.

Vanguard: Calder City

_{Eve; featuring Qing @Hound55}

Death and all her Friends - X Fair Trade

^{_{_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

Eve woke up feeling like shit.

Physically? Shit. Mentally? Shit. Spiritually? Absolute shit.

Every layer a festering wound that she attempted to salve with handfuls of dramamine chased with cold black coffee as Petula Clark crooned through the tinny little speaker in her bedroom. She sang of pretty neon signs, forgetting all of your troubles and cares if you simply went downtown. Eve had been downtown and it was as shit as the rest of Calder City and certainly not something to be romanticised. What did the woman even mean anyway? What was downtown? Eve imagined that had Petula Clark spent a night downtown in Calder City, she would have left mugged or having witnessed some strange crime with an even stranger climax of one of the Vanguard swooping in to “save” the day.

She looked like shit, too, she discovered as she looked in the mirror. All red eyed and filthy to the bone. Messed hair, bruised knuckles and dirt at the edges of her skin. She tried to fake a smile in the mirror but it turned sour and threatened to pull her to tears. She took in a sharp breath to brush it away for now. It took a long soak in a filled bubble bath to wash what was on the surface away. Fragrances of pink pepper, bergamot, musk, and coconut floated through the apartment. She scrubbed away at it all, lathered, soaked, and repeated the routine again until her skin felt raw. Her mind was even more so. Stuck in violent replays that she felt across the body. She felt as though her entire spine had been yanked out and then stitched back in. The sadness for Uncle Mikey had found itself at the bottom of the current totem pole and that hardly seemed fair. She had seen just how bad of a man he was and all of his ugly sides and still she knew she would miss him and it wasn’t as simple as the world being better off without him. It would just keep turning.

When it came to the four Greys – that was different, it was only when she thought of them that she felt any kind of calm at all. She knew that Silvio had called the whole scene in. He’d looked at her face and had made the decision then that the only action was to remove this from his plate – despite that questions may come. This was bigger than him, bigger than the family and he’d done it for Eve; his attempt to gain back some kind of grace with her. Their spirits did not torment her at all when morning came, and there was a wondering that came over if that when on their way out they patched up a leak or two. Eve couldn’t explain it. All they had wanted was to be found. She imagined that there would be one hell of a police set up down there and she thought of Dominic Dusk then and whether he’d find out, and if he’d tie his own theories back to her sooner or later.

What exactly would the police do with her? If they really suspected her of anything? And if not, if they discovered the way in which she was able to find the bodies – or the way in which the threads had decided she would, perhaps. Would they take her away to one of the Vanguard? Would Silvio sell her out to save himself? Was he now implicated in it on account of his man being at the scene? In her naive mind it all seemed straightforward. Michael had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and was killed for it. It just so happened that Michael had a history of having dirty hands and the Calder City police would be all too happy to have a pin in the Raciti family now for one of the big mysteries. Eve had left Paloma Torres all alone, but she’d also been able to gift all of Paloma’s research to Dominic Dusk; it just so happened he’d caught her in the act of something twice now, and there was a third time he’d likely happily connect the dots on.

Only Eve was sure as sure of her innocence. Panic set in. Everything was a mess and nothing made sense. Eve let herself sink below the surface of the water.

---

The apartment looked like shit.

Like, really, really, really shit, highlighted even more by the harsh light of the early afternoon. The wall mount was hanging on by hopes and prayers, it seemed, and they weren’t being answered. Glass and ceramic all over the floor, and books had been torn from the shelves and strewn about. Carrie’s spine, too, had been broken and the paperback lay splayed out and crumpled on the floor. Water from a vase of flowers had spilt all into the fabric of the couch and left a fine stain too. When Eve approached and touched the wall mount, it gave way entirely with a crash that barely had the effect of making her jump; the chaos was not that chaotic when it followed her everywhere. But this, this she could fix today. Or at least, she knew someone who could. That same someone who could was someone who had liaised with death like she had, and maybe he had answers.

”Qing?” she spoke into the phone. ᵀʰᵉ ʰᵃⁿᵈʸᵐᵃⁿ ᵃᵍᵃⁱⁿ, ᴱᵛᵉ? ᴿᵉᵃˡˡʸ? ”It’s Eve, you know. Demon fusebox. I… Have some more work for you today, if you have time. I’d… Appreciate it. If you can’t today just let me know if you know anyone who can?”

“Ace of Tra–” The phone muffled as it was repositioned, presumably for work, on the other end, as Eve announced herself.

There was some hesitancy as he presumably manipulated whatever he was working with on the other end of the call. “Yeah, I’m available. I’ve only one other job today, and it shouldn’t fill my day. What are we talking here? More problems with the wiring? Do you want the breaker conversion today? Just–” Another muffle on the other end as he tried to better position the phone. “Just trying to get a sense of what I need to pick up for the truck to do the job, before I get there.”

Eve paused and surveyed the damage again. “Unrelated issue… Wall mount needs fixing. I think a bird flew in… Uhh.” ᴬ ᶠᵘᶜᵏⁱⁿᵍ ᵇⁱʳᵈ?

“Well, I should be done here around midday. Call it one o’clock. Then I’ll be right there, is that okay?”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone.

“Is that– Is everything okay?”

“Peachy!” She chirped back. ᴵ'ᵐ ᶜʳⁱⁿᵍⁱⁿᵍ ⁱⁿ ᵐʸ ᵍʳᵃᵛᵉ “Nothing wrong here. Just, the wall is a little…” she wandered over to it and ran her fingers into the chipped out plaster. “There are chips in the wall. The whole thing just fell. I don't know what happened but 1pm is fine. That's fine.” That would at least give her some time to sweep away much of the glass. “Do you like bagels?”

“Do I like what–?” Qing was clearly preoccupied with whatever work was keeping him busy at the other end of the phone line.

“That’s fine. That’s all fine. I’ll see you at one.”

The knock at the door was familiar from the night prior.

Eve answered the door. Qing stood there alone with his tool belt, screwdriver already in hand.

“Oh.” Unable to hide brief disappointment, before gathering herself. Previously unsure what to expect when she called him again.

“Were you– were you expecting my father to be here with me?” He had one brow cocked in curiosity. He once again walked past her into her own apartment to get to work unprompted, slightly shaking his head.

¿ǝɥ ʇ,usı 'ǝɯospuɐɥ ןןıʇs s,ǝɥ

“Alright so where’s this…”

Qing stopped in his tracks.

“A bird, huh? Never known an ostrich to fly up into an apartment before…” He pointed at the screwdriver in his other hand. “This isn’t gonna be enough to get the job done here.” The wall mount was bent in a way that couldn’t have possibly been caused by a bird trapped in an apartment.

Then he noticed what was missing.

He couldn’t remember what exactly had been there, it wasn’t his apartment, but there were small things missing from her shelves. Pretty little personal touch things that he couldn’t put a name to, but changed a house to a home.

“I’m a freelance… Freelancer… Dancer.” “Not the Canaries– ballet.”

The ballet picture she’d pointed to was gone.

It was the night before.

He stepped slightly forward and around the corner at the television waiting to be mounted. A thoroughly shattered screen. Spider-webbed with cracks around a central point. Small central point. He looked around the room. A heavily scuffed corner on a coffee table. A picture began to solidify in his mind.

A strange man in her apartment. Fixes things. Next day, all of her stuff gets broken. He gets called up to repair something that was clearly beyond repair.

What kind of domestic incident had he just found himself in the middle of?

She’s a nice girl

Thanks Ba… now I’m seeing her as a person who needs my help, instead of a situation I should run the Hell away from.

“Uhh… Eve? I’m not here about re-mounting a broken television, am I?”

Eve's eyes scanned over the room too, and then back to Qing, and then back to the room, and whatever penny had dropped for him, suddenly did for her. ¿ʞuıɥʇ oʇ ɯıɥ ʇɔǝdxǝ noʎ pıp ʇɐɥM She'd tried her best to clean but the place was still, a visible disaster that was telling quite the story. “Oh God,” she said, frowning. “No, Qing…” her voice was softer and she turned to look at him. “No. I'm… I'm the bird.” She tried to smile, but it fell awkward along the way and she bit her lip instead.

“I… Messed my own apartment, so yes. Yes you are here to fix it, preferably before my Dad sees it. But I'm the bird.” ʸᵉᵃʰ, ᵃ ʳᵉᵃˡ ᶠᵘᶜᵏⁱⁿᵍ ᵇⁱᵍ ᵇⁱʳᵈ. What did she expect him to think? Maybe to not think at all and just fix the problem, but there was something sweet in the fact that he had – if not also tainted with sudden embarrassment. “Do you think you can fix it?” She asked. “I should have been more… Transparent about the damage.”

“You? Your Dad..?” Qing collapsed onto the lounge and dropped his head back, staring up at the ceiling. “You have… no idea, how relieved I am to hear you say that. That’s it though, right?” He returned eye contact. “I’m not gonna come back here in a week and you’ve, like, ‘walked into a door frame’ or ‘fallen down the stairs’, right?”

“I don’t fix TVs. My father– my father has a shop though. Hell, if I told him that it was for you and that you called me the day after he’d probably have it fixed within the week…”

She smiled at that. ᴰᵒ ʸᵒᵘ ʷᵃⁿᵗ ᵗᵒ ᶠᵘᶜᵏ ᵗʰⁱˢ ᵍᵘʸ?

Sucks to be Mrs Wing… Qing thought, With her month-long wait. He pictured Bo Wen pulling favours on parts all across the city to get it done for his potential future daughter-in-law over the next 24 hours.

“Maybe– maybe we could get you a rental and I could hang that? I don’t know. My father knows some people. You’d want to find the same make and model. In all honesty it’s probably easier to get a new one. But if you’re more worried about your father, maybe that’s worth it to you.”

“Either way, I’m going to have to get you a new wall mount. That’s toast. I’m actually… kind of impressed that you managed to do that.”

“I can fix your wall while I’m here though. Just came from another drywall job. People wanted me to put up a new wall so they could build a nursery.”

“Okay first of all, you don't need to worry about me falling down stairs… If I do that, I'll call a doctor, not you. Unless you're also a doctor and you haven't told me. I have a pretty nice doctor though.” She was thinking through everything he'd rambled on about.

“Don't worry about the TV either, I have another in my bedroom I can bring that out for now. Maybe… Maybe it's just better broken I don't know.”

That’s the second time someone’s considered if I were a doctor in the last twenty-four hours.

“Better broken? Why?”

“The TV? It seems like trouble to fix or something… And I have another, I mean you can take it and fix it if you want. I… Barely use the thing. Although that's not true sometimes I watch things– nevermind. Not important. I'm just… If all you can fix is the wall let's just fix the wall.” She glanced down at him on the couch and tilted her head. “Want your bagel now?” C̷o̷u̷l̷d̷ ̷I̷ ̷g̷e̷t̷ ̷a̷ ̷b̷a̷g̷e̷l̷?̷ ̷M̷y̷ ̷w̷i̷f̷e̷ ̷a̷l̷w̷a̷y̷s̷ ̷l̷i̷k̷e̷d̷ ̷a̷ ̷b̷a̷g̷e̷l̷.̷

Qing looked up at the customer. Then realised he was looking UP at the customer.

“I’m sitting on your lounge. I shouldn’t be sitting on your lounge… Job to be done.” He got to his feet.

“Oh and you might want to check your pants too, that thing took a vase of flowers in my whirlwind.” ᴵ ʰᵒᵖᵉ ⁱᵗ ˡᵒᵒᵏˢ ˡⁱᵏᵉ ʰᵉ'ˢ ᵖⁱˢˢᵉᵈ ʰⁱᵐˢᵉˡᶠ. ˙uosɐᒋ

“I don’t– think it was still wet?” He turned around on the spot, looking over his shoulder.

Eve smirked, tilting her head again as a thought began and quickly turned into words before she could stop them, “looks pretty peachy from my angle,” she said, eyes on his buttocks. ʸᵒᵘ'ʳᵉ ᶠᵘᶜᵏⁱⁿᵍ ᵏⁱˡˡⁱⁿᵍ ᵐᵉ

Qing looked at the screwdriver in his hand. “Uhh… if I’m fixing the wall. I’ll go get–stuff– filler. Bonding– Wall-fixing stuff. From. Van.”

Qing walked quickly back out the front door and jumped in the back of his van.

Putty knife, poly-filler, bonding agent… He tapped the back of his belt, checking the sandpaper was still there.

“Looks pretty peachy from my angle.”

Qing cocked his own head to the side for a second and took a moment to regain composure, before returning to the apartment.

Meanwhile, back in the apartment, Eve had sat herself by the kitchen bench, a change of t shirt and in front of her, two takeout boxes. One of which she was eating from. “Food?” She asked as Qing walked back in. “It's chicken and cheese. Downstairs. They make good ones. Got one for you dad too.” It was said so matter-of-factly. N̷o̷ ̷s̷m̷o̷k̷e̷d̷ ̷s̷a̷l̷m̷o̷n̷?̷ ᴸᵉᵗ ᵐᵉ ᵍᵘᵉˢˢ, ʸᵒᵘʳ ʷⁱᶠᵉ ᴸᴼⱽᴱᴰ ˢᵐᵒᵏᵉᵈ ˢᵃˡᵐᵒⁿ Y̷e̷s̷ ̷a̷c̷t̷u̷a̷l̷l̷y̷,̷ ̷h̷o̷w̷ ̷d̷i̷d̷ ̷y̷o̷u̷ ̷k̷n̷o̷w̷?̷ “And I have OJ, or if you want to get straight to work. I'm ready!”

Qing immediately noticed the change of shirt.

ᴰⁱᵈ ʰᵉ ʲᵘˢᵗ ᶜʰᵉᶜᵏ ʸᵒᵘ ᵒᵘᵗ?

Looks pretty peachy from my angle. “...or if you want to get straight to work. I’m ready!”

Qing turned and in rare stunned silence returned to the room to get to work on repairing the wall.

He began to knock off the loose plaster around the most prominent hole with the putty knife. Then he felt a presence to his side, and did his best to stare straight ahead at the work at hand. Then he pulled the sand paper out and worked around the edges.

“So you’re making the hole bigger..?” She asked. ...ᴷⁱˡˡ ᵐᵉ ᵃᵍᵃⁱⁿ

“I’m making sure that all of the loose, crumbly plaster which is no good comes out, and now I’m roughing the edges so that the new plaster has something to properly hold onto once the bonding agent gets added.”

“If you say so,” she added, watching him closely with her usual curiosity. She reached toward his pocket and took a piece of sandpaper of her own, mimicking his movement carefully.

Qing watched as she removed a second piece of sandpaper from his toolbelt, and ran his eyes up her to her face in one long stare, while she crouched unreasonably close. Before soundlessly turning his attention back to the work at hand.

As Eve continued copying him, she breathed out, furrowing her brows like the silence was offending her. “Say, would you rather have a bionic arm or a bionic leg?” B̷i̷o̷n̷i̷c̷ ̷l̷e̷g̷ ᴬˢ ˡᵒⁿᵍ ᵃˢ ᴵ ᶜᵒᵘˡᵈ ˢᵗⁱˡˡ ᶠᵉᵉˡ ᵉᵛᵉʳʸᵗʰⁱⁿᵍ... ᶜʸᵇᵉʳ⁻⁻ OOOu She asked, before turning to look at him, already ceasing from the work. “I think I'd go arm… I'm pretty fast as is, but with an arm I'd be able to open anything. Get into all kinds of trouble.”

“I– what?” He stammered, bewildered. He paused and thought for a moment. “Definitely leg. I use my hands and arms too much. I wouldn’t want any… you know... Loss of sensation, for my work.”

“You do have nice hands,” she shrugged. ˙sǝop ʎןןɐǝɹ ǝɥ “Might not get to be so precise with them if they're all metal and stuff. You're right.” She continued with her corner. “So how do you know when the edges are rough enough?” She asked.

Qing flushed, then silently looked to regather composure, sanding well beyond what was necessary because he wasn’t ready to speak again yet.

“That should be enough.” He confirmed her voiced thoughts.

“If you say so,” she repeated, placing her own sandpaper down. “So now we fill the hole?” ᴶᵘˢᵗ ᵃˢᵏ ʰⁱᵐ ᵗᵒ ᶠᵘᶜᵏ ʸᵒᵘ ᵃᵗ ᵗʰⁱˢ ᵖᵒⁱⁿᵗ ɯıɥ ɥʇıʍ ƃuıssǝɯ ʇsnɾ s,ǝɥS

Qing opened his mouth to speak and then promptly closed it again.

He produced a small unlabelled tub from the few he’d retrieved from the van.

“This is a bonding agent… you can also use watered down PVA– err… polyvinyl acetate. Need to use this, because the plaster will suck all of the mois–”

Qing turned and stared straight ahead. Nope. Qing considered how to rephrase it.

“The filler will crack, dry out and be no good if we don’t use this stuff first.”

ᴳᵒᵈ ⁿᵒʷ ᵗʰⁱˢ ᵈᵒʳᵏ ⁱˢ ᵈᵒⁱⁿᵍ ⁱᵗ. Eve looked at the substance and blinked, unable to stop herself from pressing a finger into it. ¿ʎןןɐǝꓤ ˙˙˙ǝʌƎ “Huh. Yeah it's sticky.” She looked back to Qing who wasn't as amused as her. “Oops,” she said with a slight smile before heading off to wash her hands in the kitchen. “So what do you even do on your days off Qing?”

“What are those?” He glibly muttered.

“I tend to…keep myself pretty busy. And the nature of the work does, even if I don’t. Or at least seems to. People always need something fixed.” I have a backlog of extended family who want me to fix things for free or at cost, and they have to wait behind the general paying work.

“I can't be helping…” S̷e̷e̷m̷s̷ ̷l̷i̷k̷e̷ ̷a̷ ̷n̷i̷c̷e̷ ̷g̷u̷y̷,̷ ̷I̷ ̷n̷e̷v̷e̷r̷ ̷h̷a̷d̷ ̷a̷ ̷l̷o̷t̷ ̷o̷f̷ ̷d̷a̷y̷s̷ ̷o̷f̷f̷ ̷e̷i̷t̷h̷e̷r̷.̷

Qing worked at applying the bonding agent. Brushing it on liberally. It was a product he believed heavily in, rather than making his own homemade PVA mix on the cheap. It kept the moisture level perfect, he’d always preferred ‘perfect’ over ‘cheap’ when it came to what he used. He didn’t feel comfortable with corner cutting solutions that he didn’t have the customer fully aware of. The products he used, he needed to have faith in.

“Other than that, I try and take care of my father. He hasn’t had it easy since we lost my mother.”

“Oh,” she sounded as she stepped back over to him, wet hands wiped onto her t-shirt, “I'm sorry to hear that,” she added quietly. “He's such a sweet man.” She gave a small smile. “Has it been a long time since– sorry, that's. That's nosy.”

“It’s okay. People, can’t really tell much from the outside from what I can see. A lot of…outward smiling. Tries to be a positive person for other people. But it’s the kind of thing that for him I don’t ever think is going to seem like ‘a long time’. We’ve a room upstairs which is all her stuff, untouched, unlived in.”

He thought back to the blanket he saw Shenden wrapped in last night.

“At least… that’s what I’ve mostly thought. Maybe things are ‘a long time’ until they’re not.”

“He’s not someone who lets his problems become other people’s problems.”

“He's strong,” Eve said. “You're lucky to have each other through it,” she added. She once again followed what he was doing in fixing the wall, applying the mixture where it needed to go. “I'm sure she would like her things used, touched. If… If they remind you of her you know. But I get it. I wish I had stuff from my mom.” She looked at Qing then and wondered who was taking care of him like he did his father. Busying himself fixing everything else for everyone else. Fixing a stupid hole in her wall. ˙ɯıɥ ɥsnd ʇ,uop 'ǝʌƎ sıɥʇ punoɹɐ ʎןןnɟǝɹɐɔ dǝʇS

She was quiet for only a moment longer before she gave a smile, “what was she like?”

“An asskicker.” Qing smiled.

“Wouldn’t settle for anything less than everything you had. Very few Chinese American tradesmen would say Tigermom pushed them… but most aren’t learning every trade. But she never pointed at the kid I went to school with who moved into law. More pushed me to… Being more of whatever I was going to be.”

“She sounds pretty cool,” Eve smiled. “Is that why you and your dad are so wild? She’s not keeping your asses in line?”

“My father’s… not an easy ass to kick.” He laughed. “He made himself a soft spot for her. Or as soft a spot as she was capable of having.”

Eve glanced sidelong at him, having considered what he’d shared. “I think you’re more like your dad than you probably think, I don’t think your ass is easy to kick either.”

“Peachy, huh?” He joked.

“Very.”

“I don’t think I’m quite the same. He wins people over pretty easily.”

“But no… mine’s not that easy to kick either.”

“You seemed similar to me, but yeah, fine, different but the same.”

“Do you– remember much about your mother?” He felt the energy shift. “Sorry, you mentioned her earlier…”

Everything. “Umm,” she thought about it. “Well… My mother was a nurse. She loved music. All kinds. Absolutely every kind of music. She was an asskicker too, probably.”

“Well yeah, she was a nurse. Most of ‘em have to be.” Qing remembered the efforts the Doctor and Shenden had to go to to not let Rock go before he was ready.

“She was just a good person, I think.” Eve nodded. “Knew what to do, always. And my Dad too. Super couple, honestly. Annoying, in hindsight.”

All the more reason to get this place all back in order before he notices, I guess… Qing thought to himself. So he doesn’t think less of her. Parental guilt, he knew all about that.

He chuckled to himself, and went back to brushing on more bonding agent.

“Sorry… was talking so much the stuff we brushed on needs reapplying.”

He opened up the tub of filler, and dug the putty knife in.

“You do talk a lot by the way,” her gaze turned to the new tub and she looked at Qing, and the tub, and back to Qing. “Now that looks like something I want to stick my finger in.”

“I get that a lot. Just don’t get this stuff near your eyes or breath in any dust residue of it…”

As she pressed her finger against it, she glanced up at Qing, and once again the words were already on their way out before she could stop them, “so I guess you’re going to fill the hole now.” ᴼʰ ᵐʸ ᵍᵒᵈ ˢᵗᵒᵖ noʎ ɯoɹɟ sıɥʇ sʇǝƃ ǝɥS ᴺᵒᵗ ᵗʰⁱˢ, ⁿᵒᵖᵉ. ᴺᵒᵗ ᵗʰⁱˢ.

Qing didn’t fluster this time. He saw it coming all the way. He merely sighed in response and slapped a blade full of the plaster filler onto the wall. Spreading it through the hole and overlapping the wall.

“Nice try. Not getting me twice with the same line.”

ᵀʰᵉ ᵒⁿᵉ ᵗⁱᵐᵉ ᴵ'ᵐ ᵒⁿ ᵗʰⁱˢ ᵍᵘʸ'ˢ ˢⁱᵈᵉ She laughed at that. “Not even a twitch of the eye? Come on.”

“Now, we wait for that to dry. Sand it down to meet the wall. Paint it. And that’s basically how it’s done.” Qing ignored her pleas. “Got any of the old paint in storage anywhere?”

“That’s it huh?” She looked at it with a raised brow before slapping her hands together and brushing them across her t-shirt. “Not too bad for my first time? – paint paint, paint. I dunno. Maybe, somewhere?”

“Not if you wind up satisfied with how the hole got filled, no.”

“I’m pretty satisfied,” she chuckled. “But, if we have to wait – you, food. Mangia! Mangia!” She clicked her fingers. “Not in this Italian household will you not eat lunch.” She moved through to the kitchen again. “Not taking no for an answer,” she added from behind the fridge door that was suddenly opened. “I’ll check the cupboard for a paint.”

She pottered down the hall.

Qing moved to the kitchen table and pulled out his phone. “Just a second, I’ll make a call about…” He trailed off as the dial tone rang.

”Hey, Ba, it’s me. Look, I’m at that nice girl Eve’s house from last night. She called me up this morning and said she had some other work for me. Well, amongst the stuff I’ve been doing here she seems to have a television with a broken screen. I was wondering if you could give me an estimate for time and cos–”

Qing winced and held the phone away from his ear to protect from the sudden outburst.

“Yeah, okay. Sure. I thought it might be like that.” He hung the phone up and pocketed it again.

Eve paced back down the hall, having heard the other side of the phone from rooms away. “I found this paint, I don’t know if it’s the same one, but… Who cares, going to get covered up anyway.”

“Five days. And between you and me, I’d be surprised if he didn’t get it done in three… Especially when I give him his food and tell him you were thinking of him as well.”

“He called me pretty. Of course I’d think of him,” she said nonchalantly, making her way to the sink to wash her hands again, leaving the tub of paint on the bench. “Five days, sure. It’s not urgent though, please don’t go out of your way for my television.” Whether he wanted one or not, she poured an orange juice for Qing, and placed it in front of him – thinking through her next question, biting back on it only slightly.

Qing laughed at her hospitable request to not trouble himself.

“You have no idea what that old man is going to make my life like in the interminable minutes between when he has finished repairing your television and I have delivered it. ‘Qing! You deliver tv yet?’ ‘Qing, I tell you tv finish!’, ‘Qing, why I still see pretty lady tv here?!’”

He realised what he said in the painful second’s gap after he finished imitating his father.

“‘Cos that’s, you know. What he’d call you.”

She smirked and nodded. “Sure Qing, sure.” She’d won back a momentary fluster from him. “I’m serious though, I have another one I can use and if you have other customers, or, a chance for a day off,” she gave a wink. “Which you didn’t answer, by the way. Maybe I asked it wrong. If you did have a day off – what do you want to do?” she added with a point of her finger. Just a little more, and she’d play her trump question, and only hoped he wouldn’t flee the scene immediately after.

“Oh. Ohhhhh. Were you asking me out? I took that as a hypothetical. Like ‘what do you do for fun’ cultural thing.”

What DO I do? He scratched his chin at the beardline and genuinely thought about the question. It’d been a long time since he’d had a day where he didn’t have some kind of work at hand.

“I mean, I guess I’d see a movie or something.” Then he remembered she was involved with dance. “Never really seen theatre since, like, school dragged us out to a local performance. That might be something nice if I had someone who could talk me through understanding it better?”

“Mhmm, you would sit and yap through a theatre show too, wouldn’t you?” she said with a raised brow. “But alright,” she added, genuinely surprised he’d given her a genuine answer and she felt something in her chest that caught her off guard. “Now– Now I know how to ask, where to. What to ask you out. I’m glad.” She blinked, and picked up her own glass and busied herself with it. “So, you just. Wait for that.”

“Well, I’m guessing the performers wouldn’t talk back to me if I asked them point blank during their show… So Hamlet, why’d you kill that guy?”

“And if you just paid attention, you’d find out – mistaken identity!”

“...”

“Well I guess we aren’t seeing Hamlet then.” He spoke up. “Spoilers…”

“We’ll start you on The Lion King,” she shrugged, stepping out of the kitchen again. “Qing, I actually need to ask you something serious, and… I might need you to trust me to ask you.” The mood shifted with a whiplash.

Qing leaned in. He had no idea where this was going or what she meant by that description. But his face gave tacit unspoken agreement.

“Are you… Energy sensitive?” she asked, speaking almost conspiratorially. “I… Think you might be, attuned.” She’d wanted to blurt it out, question him – point a finger, ask him straight up; something guided her, thread unseen, with another approach.

“You tōng líng zhě..?” He closed his eyes and repeated the translation. “Psychic. Like, supernaturally… a medium? Or something like that?”

“Medium, maybe that. Psychic… I think so,” he hadn’t mocked her like Dominic Dusk, so that was a start. She braced to test the water more. “I suppose you could say I’m a little acquainted with death… and death energy. Traces and the like.”

What are you accusing me of..? You telling me you can ‘see’ what little’s left?

“Okay.” Qing said, remaining non-committal.

“You have an energy about you that is like mine, but different,” she tilted her head, looking closely into his eyes. “Like you’ve spoken to spirits too. Maybe I was wrong,” she added at the end, drawing back.

“Ohhh. You’re talking about shen.”

“Y..Yes. That’s exactly what I am talk-” she replied, blinking. “What’s that?”

“Well… it’s part of the three pillars of vitality. Bridging between your physicality,” Qing pounded his chest to demonstrate his corporeal form, “and consciousness.”

“You’ve got your jing, your chi, and then your shen.”

“So, I felt your shen?” she asked, holding her own hand against her chest.

Qing stared at her for a few seconds.

“Well… what was I thinking?” He asked her.

“I’ve never been able to read minds, I’m not that kind of psychic.”

“Well then it wasn’t my shen. Shen pertains to… human spirit… psyche… That of the soul which you would attribute to the mind. Am I… making this clear?”

“A little?” She looked away and out across the room. “Mine got so overwhelmed last night I pulled a television off the wall. Maybe… I don’t know, I thought I felt something on you. In you, with you.”

The spirit transforming to actualize potential… He thought. Furthering life within a form, outside of its form…

“You’re not crazy. But what you sensed on me was something different. Interesting that it was familiar. Perhaps not surprising, but interesting.”

“Different how?” she asked, returning to his gaze again, all curiosity in her eyes again.

“Because the energy you describe that I am sensitive to. It’s called ‘chi’. Whilst the shen is of the spirit, the chi is more…the energy of life itself. The breath of life.”

”Chi,” she repeated back to him. ”The breath of life, that sounds nice, actually,” she thought it funny then, what he explained didn’t quite feel aligned to her – but were they sat here, life and death both? ”So you don’t… Feel anything from me?”

“Doesn’t work that way.” He smiled. “You’re outside of my form. My system.”

”Just my luck.”

“Think of it like water. Water takes the form of whatever it’s in. The same vessel, I could.”

It sort of made sense to her, ”so you’re saying if I was wet, you could feel me?”

Qing flushed immediately.

“Now you said you were going to keep things ‘seriously’.”

”That one was right there, I’m sorry.” She shook her head as she said it as if to shake away the impulses of humour again. “Okay, serious mode back on. Your chi, that’s your energy, what do you do with it? I mean… What can you do with it?” she asked, the seriousness had returned as quickly as it had left. ”Am I allowed to ask you?”

“Well… I guess it’s not such a big thing here. But it’s part of what saw my family run to America.”

Breathe in.

His arms moved as he pooled that which flowed within his form.

Breathe out.

He extended, let the chi flow into his fist and held a steady glow.

Slowly he let it dissipate and the glow from his hand faded until it was normal once again.

“That wasn’t particularly practical… but it’s a decent enough visual demonstration.”

Her own hand reached out gingerly to his and her fingers brushed where the light had been, as if to feel that it had really been there, or really gone. ”I think I understand,” she breathed out. ”I don’t… I can’t do anything like that… Why would that mean you… Have to run here, and leave your home?”

“Well, to skim over… decades of Chinese history. The Cultural Revolution saw the Chinese Communist Party cracking down on a lot of traditional elements. Such as certain teachings that my family had devoted themselves to learning, so they could better understand…” He held his fist up again, in silent demonstration. “Even the modern CCP still targets practitioners of qigong. Albeit with more subtle movements. People just disappear. The real tragedy about it is… most of these people, for them, learning qigong, it's limited in terms of how much they can get out of it. But my family… we’re the real secret reason why the Party was scared of qigong as an issue in the first place.”

“A power they couldn’t control. Held by the individual.”

There was nothing awkward about what Qing said now, only his own truth and there a pride in it; she watched his fist. ”So qigong is really important to you for a lot of reasons.” She had no experience of her own to compare it to, but she understood all the same. ”So your… Dad? He has chi too?”

“Close. EVERYONE has chi. But yes, my Dad is chi-sensitive and can manipulate chi within his own form as well.”

”In his jar of water?”

“Yep. Just like his mother could. And her mother again. Four generations.”

“I don’t… I don’t think what I have is shen, Qing. You talk about something that’s beautiful I don’t think… I don’t think what I have is very beautiful.”

“I think it might just be able to miss some of the beauty when dealing with the shen of people.” He mused. “Uhhh… It wouldn’t surprise me if people’s innermost thoughts, their unspoken moments, that which they hide most from the rest of humanity - people don’t really hide their most beautiful aspects from the world, most want to give off as good impression as they can. How to put it… People are capable of great acts of good, but also great evil. The parts which only you can see… wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a lot more darkness dwelling there.”

“But that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything beautiful in the human spirit.”

Mrs Wing was just a different shade of red.

“I just can’t believe that everyone is a net negative. A waste of chi put to ugly use.”

”No,” she forced a smile. ”There is a lot of good, there is so much of that. But, still, to endure it. It’s a lot to bear.” The happy ones are the worst. She stood up then, paced back toward the wall and toyed with her own fingers as she looked at the patched up hole. ”You did a good job with this,” she said, changing the subject and glancing back over her shoulder with a smile.

“Ehh… Your beginner’s luck. Mixed with having a good teacher. Still have to sand it down and paint it, though.” Qing held out a piece of sandpaper for Eve.

“Or does it lose its appeal when you don’t get your own sandpaper?” He smirked.

”It is a lot more fun to pick it out of your pocket, yes. But maybe I’ve teased you enough this afternoon.” She took it from his hand. ”And so I’m clear, what you’re asking – the part that is next is that you want me to rub the hole?” ʸᵒᵘ ᵈⁱˢᵍᵘˢᵗ ᵐᵉ, ᵇᵘᵗ ᴵ'ᵐ ᵃˡˢᵒ ᵖʳᵒᵘᵈ. ᵂʰᵃᵗ ⁱˢ ᵗʰⁱˢ ᶠᵉᵉˡⁱⁿᵍ? She stared dead on into his eyes with a raised brow; the beginnings of a grin fighting against her. Until he broke eye contact and shook his head with a chuckle.

“That’s the last one I promise,” ᶠᵘᶜᵏⁱⁿᵍ ᵇᵉᵗᵗᵉʳ ᵇᵉ she laughed as she got to work.

Qing went back out to the van and dug around.

He returned a few minutes later with a simple metal framework and a spirit level.

“I found this in the depths of the van. It’s nothing fancy. Won’t extend or swivel. But it’s a wall mount. And you can have it for free.”

”You’re not giving me things for free,” she said, ”But alright, let’s go. I’m keeping all of my drill jokes to myself, but I need you to know I have them.”

“If I didn’t look right then, I wouldn’t have known that I had it. Not like I’ll miss it.” He reasoned.

”Bagels for wall mounts, fair trade.”

“Fair trade.” He agreed. “But now you’ve got me nervous about using my screwdriver.”

Storm's Vault

Vanguard: Calder City

<Snipped quote by DocTachyon>

Dani and Scott.

Different views of the Cape scene.

I've been liking the glimpses from the fringe we've been getting with Ace and Rock's stuff... I think it'd be interesting seeing how their experiences and views contrast.

@Hound55

On that note, I'm keen for Eve to cross paths with a classic Cape too. I can't imagine her holding back her thoughts.

Vanguard: Calder City

Question for the class. If you could initiate a crossover between two characters who haven't met yet, what would you pick? Bonus points if neither character is yours.

For my money, I might like to see Archie and Eve. In particular I'd like to see how Eve's power interacts with Archie's book/phone and mag'ik that brushes against her. Also I'd love to see how Archie's awkward ass handles Eve's rather forward personality.

@DocTachyon

I have thought often of how those two would interact.

For me, I'd really enjoy a team up of Ace and Bret, actually. There would be something tantalising about Ace and his youthful spirit alongside Bret's more no-nonsense, very disciplined and experienced approach to getting his hands dirty.

Vanguard: Calder City

I've been enjoying everything.

It's nice to be part of an RP that is this active, and showing little signs of slowing down.

With Vanguard, the world feels genuinely lived in and it has it's own vibe, something which @Lord Wraith remarked on -- that it doesn't feel like Gotham-lite or a Metropolis, but like it's own place and I think that's much to do with the stories everyone is weaving and the lore we're building up together. Everyone also feels respectful of what everyone else is building too, which is huge.

I genuinely don't have a favourite character, if I'm honest. I lean more to having favourite moments and the opening scene for Archie was one of those -- the introduction of his world felt so realistic and all of the side characters have a lot of colour and distinct characters. I also thoroughly enjoyed the Wretched Rat reveal, it really got under my skin when I read it and it's made me want to go back and find other breadcrumbs.

I am also a fan of watching characters react to other PC after meetings, so the moment in the van with Qing and Bo Wen after they were at Eve's tickled me a lot, and their relationship and dynamic is one I'm thoroughly enjoying. @Hound55

@DocTachyon writing Rock in his fight with the count was just a phenomenal moment and “You're looking at him.” gave me CHILLS in real time.

Equally, I'm enjoying the Bret and Sienna story @Melissa and @BrutalBx which feels like it's is own thing but actually it links in to a lot of what is going on. The chemistry between the two of them is simmering and delicious to read and I enjoyed collabing with Mel, and seeing Sienna even in that post reflect on Bret.

What I would love to see is more collabs for these interactions that I enjoy and make my brain tick. I'm always down to jump in with others as well for collabs, a lot of the fun for me is just having Eve bounce off other characters and see which version of her is going to come out. Collabs I find are challenging in a good way and might force me to pivot a bit on paths I thought I was sold on for the character which is what happened when I collabed with @Sep. Shout out to him for crafting out a big plot like he is with the missing Greys too, leaving toys and such in the sandbox so to speak for us all to play with and find ways to make connects with characters.

Vanguard: Calder City

_Eve

Death and all her Friends - IX Volare

^{_{_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

Medaglia’s had never changed.

Let's fly way up to the clouds, away from the maddening crowds. We can sing in the glow of a star that I know.

A family owned restaurant in the Italian district of Calder City. They continued to cook with the meat from the Italian butcher two doors down, made their soffrito with vegetables bought from the Italian grocery, and served biscotti baked by the same Italian deli. The same furniture had been giving the same little Italy aesthetic for twenty-five years, at least. The same paintings, the same flags, the same collages of photographs of a homeland none of the family had been to created the authentic heritage vibe that every Italian family in Calder City coveted, and that’s how the money kept turning through it.

ᵂᵉ'ᵛᵉ ᵃˡʳᵉᵃᵈʸ ᵇᵉᵉⁿ ʰᵉʳᵉ.

It wasn’t the food; the menu hadn’t changed - still the same dishes, still the same chefs. New waiters tonight. Four new waiters and Eve had never seen them before, all young. Grey outfits. Shaved heads. One of them appeared teary eyed leaving the kitchen with a tray of plates. She watched as they collected glasses and remained in the register of service and yet their very being here had disturbed continuity. This had always been the same restaurant. Always the same table. Always the same seats. In attendance tonight, Silvio Raciti, four captains, a pitbull, and Luca. A circular table lit low with candles as Dean Martin crooned over and over, sometimes forwards, sometimes backwards.

Just like birds of a feather, a rainbow together we'll find.

And Eve. Head of the table tonight, all eyes and no eyes on her.

The captains and Silvio disappeared, leaving only Eve and Luca in the darkness; a feast spread across the table. He moved to her side and picked her up by her waist. He held her carefully at her chin like it were a cup and he could drink from her lips. He sat her down at the edge of the table and then pushed the food away and off of it. She’d been here before but not for some time and nor had a desire even been there to go again until now when the heat rose between them. The dishes all fell away but didn’t make a sound of landing. He laid her down on the table in the middle of Medaglia’s and brought his hand between her thighs and she opened to him with a sigh. Your love has given me wings. Eve turned her face as Luca moved to kiss at her neck. Carravagio’s painting on the wall, the one she’d seen so many times. Judith Beheading Holofernes. It had darkened now and was different; the image of a man with half a face instead and no woman with a blade but a man with a gun and Eve remembered that this wasn’t real, but that the face had been someone once and then everything was different again. The scene reset itself and Eve wondered how many times it had.

Luca sat once more beside Silvio and the captains either side of her and the food was back and the record continued. Luca refused to look at her now. He didn’t always come to dinner, but when he did, he’d opt for raw meat.

ᵂᵃᵏᵉ ᵘᵖ ᴱᵛᵉ

There was silence at the table, save for the music and the waiters moving in the background. She could focus on little else but them and through the dark, cut in the lines of light she watched them mouthing words at her.

Silvio then began to choke and clutch his chest and Eve rushed to his side but found herself out of Medaglia’s and back in her own apartment like she had been there the whole time, staring at the fusebox as it smoked, a presence at her side speaking to her but she could find no face. “This is a Lovecraftian horror beyond all human understanding. I think I just saw a tentacle in there, and it called out to me in ancient languages, heretofore unheard, trying to take me into its thrall…”

As she tugged at the fusebox the metal gave beneath her hand first and the latch softened to her. The wires inside seemed to pulse against her palms and as she pulled harder on it. Everything began to feel soft and warm in her hand and bundled cables thickened and twisted into corded muscle slick with blood and before she could understand it, both of her hands were deep in Silvio’s chest, her fingers tying up muscle to each screaming muscle like loose ends while everything else inside of him writhed and tore and moved. His ribs were cracked and opened like wings and his face contorted in agony. She did not know how she got here, only that she needed to put him back together again, somehow.

ᵂᵃᵏᵉ ᵘᵖ ᴱᵛᵉ

And then a warmth slipped into the atmosphere and the darkness moved away as another man appeared. There was a steadiness to him that had long been missing from Eve’s life, she realised. Something swelled in her chest as she saw him. His smile curled slowly, like she’d earned it from him by being clever. She felt seven years old all over again. “Playing doctors, sweetheart?” he asked, kneeling beside her. “You’re doing a great job.”

“I’m trying to be like you,” she answered with a smile. It all felt so real, the slight silver to his hair was the same as she remembered it to the strand. “But I don’t know what I’m doing,” she added. She was up to her elbows in Silvio’s gutrope.

“Of course you do,” he replied with a soft laugh – his eyes sparkled with the confidence he was trying to inspire. “You always do.”

“But he’s dying,” she said.

“So you get to decide what happens to him.”

Eve smiled upwards. “I do?”

Before the figure could answer, there was a hand on her shoulder and something in the depths of the dream was beginning to tremble, Awareness becoming aware of itself and growing impatient.

ᵂᵃᵏᵉ ᵘᵖ ᴱᵛᵉ

“We’ve come to get you out of here Miss Eve.” Those four youths, lined up in size order like Von Trapps and the shortest of the bunch could not have been much older than fifteen. “These threads are too old and we don’t want you to slip too far.”

“You didn’t show me anything,” Eve said slowly, her eyes scanning each of their faces.

“We showed you enough.” One said, the shortest of them.

“We’ll be okay Miss Eve,” Then in the darkness, a trail appeared that was woven not of blood, but memory. "We get to go home now." Quiet, glittering breadcrumbs were now lighting the way. Everything else was gone. Even her hands were clean but what remained was no less otherworldly; a glint of aureate shimmer. She looked down the pathway as everything else moved away. "Just don't look back."

Her heart could not understand such a command. She knew what she was leaving behind here.

“You’re sure you’ll be okay?”

They nodded. “You have miles to go and a mountain to climb.”

ᵂᵃᵏᵉ ᵘᵖ ᴱᵛᵉ

She fell forward – returning like a swimmer breaking water as the possession let her out of its grasp, voices and images and strange lights drew off into the far distance. She coughed and wheezed, rising up through her spine again – that same puppeteer's string pulling her back upright so that her bones could settle back into her own flesh. She was back to the waking world once more. Every limb was trembling and shaking; the worst of it was the abominable taste in her mouth and the intense feeling that she may never be clean again.

She opened her eyes and saw Silvio in front of her.

---

The evening had become soft at last, and the sun was a streak of gold and waiting as Eve returned to her apartment. She’d ran hard up every step of the building up and away from Silvio; not even closing the passenger side door in her escape. He had not followed. She was slick with the sweat of it, her throat ached and bruises had formed across her hands and surely they were now running down her spine too. There were marks she could not explain and her body was keeping the evidence of what had happened.

There was so much energy in her chest left unexpended. Bright and screaming and squirming and homeless. An anxiety that was pressed to her chest and the two of them were well acquainted already but here it was once again to skip through foreplay and get straight to fucking everything up. It whispered and whispered at her as she placed a hand against her wall-mounted television, feeling the pressure rise and gather under her skin. This sudden storm hadn’t blown in from a strange place. It was in her, it was just her. It was always her. Her arm tightened and her fingers curled behind the frame and the bracket groaned but the wall could only resist for so long until the whole thing came apart with a violence. As she watched the screen shatter against the corner of the coffee table, her breaths came quicker and all of a sudden everything was a target and her vision either darkened or turned red; her future self would surely not remember but the present Eve knew exactly what she wanted to do. She lunged at a shelving unit – all topped with pointless and useless glass knick-knacks and she slammed her forearms down and swept them away and sent them to the floor to shatter. Bright bones rose up and fell; falling and falling. Next she went for the photographs on the wall.

Family photographs, only they were all of her with Silvio. With Ralph and Joey. With Silvio and Ralph and Joey, a picnic photo with Uncle Mikey. They became ripped from the walls and tumbling down. Faces she loved and faces she feared and faces she didn’t see herself in. The rage that called her name had her running headfirst to it. Lastly, she found that damned portrait. Her ballet photo, and she held it until her knuckles blanched white. Her jaw was so tense that it rang blinding pains up into and beyond the fillings in her teeth. Not only did she toss it to the floor, she stamped and stamped on it until the photograph was pulled away from the broken glass and fluttered over and away in the room.

Eve stood then, breathing hard and the apartment was a quiet chaos, but what had been built and bottled inside of her, for the time being, was silent.

Vanguard: Calder City

_Eve

^{_{_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

It must have been gone 2am when they arrived at the yard, Michael Marino’s concrete yard. Just like Luca had said when he'd found her returning to her apartment. He'd been waiting. Missed calls. Something was urgent, and no it wasn't going to wait for the morning no matter how much Eve protested to sleep instead. "What happened?" she'd asked, and he'd given nothing. A big, dumb, nothing that had only made her worry. But there he was, Michael Marino, face down in wet concrete. His phone had bounced just inches from his hand mid call and was weighed upright. Even in the dark, three distinct gunshot wounds could be made out across his back. One of Silvio’s longest running Captains. Luca's captain. Silvio's childhood friend, groomsmen at each other's weddings. Reduced to this. Shot in the night, and Silvio wanted to know who. Not just Silvio, four of his other Captains had come too and one had even brought his pitbull with him.

"He's on antibiotics, Sil," he'd said with a shrug. "Need to keep an eye on him."

"If that mutt fuckin' pisses," Silvio had hissed out through gritted teeth before glancing at the hound. He shook his head when he turned away he saw Eve on her way over, the apprehension in her step, the exhaustion in her eyes. "Where the fuck were you?" he asked. He felt so much taller than her in the dark. "Called you four times."

"I'm sorry. I'm here now," she answered, she'd drawn her arms around herself. He'd asked for her gifts before. Never like this. Never for a body so fresh. Never one of his own, one of the family. Never with witnesses. "What's going on?" she asked, her hands twitching and trembling with the tension; she already knew. There was a smell here that had not struck the others, it seemed. It had not even found its way to the nose of the pitbull but it was thick as syrup; cloying and sweet and rotten. Eve raised a shaky hand to her mouth but it did nothing to filter the air or the sight. The rot coiled and all began to stir like insects in her ribcage.

"I... Don't want to. Something is wrong," she said, quiet and retreating.

"Eve," Silvio said. The other Captains did not look or pay attention, but they were each of them listening to everything. "I need to know who did this, I need to know now. They were gonna bury him in his own yard." He was clouded by a grief she had never known in him; a grief that sat beneath with a cold rage. He spoke some unintelligible curses under his breath. "You're not leaving until I know."

"Please," she whispered.

"I'm not asking you twice." He held a pause, unable to look her in the eye. "I have to tell his wife. I have to tell his daughters."

It took her a moment to realise she wasn’t just going to be able to walk away from this, nor did she want to, when she really pressed herself. She’d grown up with Michael too but she dared not think of it right now. Pushed past how she’d had her first kiss with a neighbouring boy in secret at a family barbecue at Uncle Mikey’s. She'd gone to the movies with his daughters. They'd spent weekends at a lake house together. She could barely think about how his wife was the closest figure she had to a mother of her own and then it just stung that she thought that, and how they weren’t even all that close anyway.

Her gaze passed over the Captains as they stood around and away from the body, none daring to be too close and none daring to catch her eye. Only Eve was given that luxury, to be beside him in death. “Whatever you see,” she whispered in Silvio’s direction, “don't interfere.” Her breath trembled through her teeth and her legs moved before her mind could decide against the course of action, she was pulled there, by a death thread pleading for a witness. Toward the sight of his slaughter she moved, and it was as if she were about to pray and worship beside him. She slipped down to the ground, to her knees. The concrete held shallow pools of his blood now. Her eyes closed in surrender.

Michael’s life was rich.

A childhood of abuse and teenage years of petty crime all came to the surface like watercolour inks dropped into water, to float in the dark pale with Eve. His wife, their wedding. Silvio and Silvio’s late wife, the birth of his first daughter. Special moments, blooming and awakening in melody of colour; then interspersed with the job and the family.

Michael’s life was violent.

So many fights, chasing down debtors when he was younger and had the stamina for it. One such evening, Michael Marino didn’t speak, didn’t scream; he only moved. One strike after the other until the man beneath him no longer made a sound and his own hands were bloodied to his knuckles, one finger crooked slightly where it had met tooth, bone, or both. He waited to confirm a rise and fall of the man’s chest and he tightened his jaw before he walked away. Another memory where he had taken Luca, younger by only a few years or so and handed him a gun. Pointed to another strange, nameless man. Some victim, someone who he claimed deserved it. Michael watched as Luca fumbled and took a shot. It should have taken the man between the eyes, but as the shot broke apart into the air, the round tore his face instead. Brow to cheek with a wet spray as half of his face opened like fruit. He did not fall, but screamed from half a mouth; a horrible, horrible sound. Luca’s grip failed again and the barrel wandered as the man clutched the ruin of his face. The muzzle hovered above the broken face and fired in three more callous shots that echoed infinitely. Eve screamed a silent scream too.

Michael was happy.

His family home was perfect and he smiled and laughed with his wife and made love to her and shared family dinners with his children and invited his friends and their families to events of importance. Attended funerals together. Family but not by blood. Michael also had a string of mistresses over the years and some of them he was violent with; a side to him that did not exist in the walls of his own home and maybe they were his outlet for desires that did not belong within a white picket fence. Eve saw herself much younger too, memorialised in this death thread playing with his daughters just as she herself remembered, and it had been so long since this had happened that it scared her.

Every glimpse of Michael’s life moved until the end where it was too hard to say for it was so sudden and he didn’t even know. The concrete yard was dark and there were sounds and then there was nothing. He'd watched before he locked up far too late, he heard something, and then his eyes thought they saw something. A hand sinking into the concrete. He hadn't poured it. Someone had broken in. He wanted to shout out. Incensed someone would have the audacity to break into the Marino concrete yard but then that was it. Three gunshots again. Clean, didn't miss. Pushed a wheeze out of his lungs and that was it. When he hit the floor and wasn't yet dead his instinct was to call Silvio and the call caught the last of his death rattle and then that was it.

Michael Marino died

His secrets and his life belonged, in their pieces and their colours to Eve now.

That should have been it, Eve should have left the thread and returned but she could no longer feel herself.

Something else, someone else called. Clung to her for witness. One by one and four in total. All at once, pushing their remnants and their dreams, laughter, and pain all swimming up through the concrete blanket under which they had been buried. Four more missing greys, discarded into another concrete cage seeping liquid into their lungs. Their last ragged threads, final desires, and dying embers of hope just before the knife. All crowded into her mind, screaming over one another. She instinctively drew her hands to her ears, despite the fact none of it was really noise and nor could it be heard outside of her head. It was a chorus of agony too crowded for mercy. From the ground, from beneath the concrete they came crawling and crying.

Eve’s spine arched one vertebra at a time and she shuddered back in a cruel and forceful motion as if someone was pulling her strings and folding her backwards over herself. Her eyes shot open moon white as the vision tore into her.

The sound of a voice, disembodied, the same in all four threads, tying them up tight together in a knot.

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔱𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔬𝔩𝔡 𝔭𝔯𝔞𝔶𝔢𝔯𝔰 𝔠𝔩𝔦𝔠𝔨 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔰𝔥𝔲𝔡𝔡𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔪𝔶 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔞𝔱 𝔦𝔫 𝔞 𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔶 𝔯𝔢𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔰𝔞𝔩.
𝔚𝔥𝔢𝔫 ℑ 𝔦𝔪𝔞𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔡𝔢𝔳𝔬𝔲𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔪 𝔴𝔥𝔬𝔩𝔢, 𝔰𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔦𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔡𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔪𝔢 𝔰𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔰 𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔢 ℑ 𝔥𝔞𝔳𝔢 𝔞𝔰𝔨𝔢𝔡 𝔦𝔱 𝔱𝔬 𝔡𝔬 𝔦𝔱𝔰 𝔱𝔯𝔲𝔢 𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔨.

Her own memories blended with the corruption of the burial ground, the sinking sand. The two worlds bled as one and held her within. On the other side of her vision her waking body had stopped breathing. Tears had pooled and her fingers twitched and fought and her skin turned waxen. Her expression was caught somewhere between torment and the ecstasy of the violence and all the memories of it that had been imprinted upon her in the darkness.

Silvio watched from the sideline, his own hand trembling in the darkness. “Eve?” he asked, breaking the silence with the rasp of his voice.

“...Honey?”