[psl] 2015: Crawl 'til dawn, on our hands and knees

[firewatcher]

The end of the first night of the rest of her terrible garbage life saw Palmer in a situation she never imagined possible: in the first all-night diner she could find, sitting across the table from Vera Volkov, back from the dead.

Or—Liv Lazzari, now, wasn't it.

That was going to take some getting used to. That, and the fact that despite the drastic changes to her appearance, Vera—Liv—still didn't look a day older than when Palmer had seen her last, over twenty years ago. Not worth the price of admission, in Palmer's mind, but it felt a little unfair. Palmers tended to start showing age early, and she herself was no exception.

Palmer leaned on the slightly sticky table with one elbow, absentmindedly stirring her coffee with the other hand and biting back a yawn. "Is every night in hell this eventful?"

Comments

[wolfatyourdoor]

She threw up her hands, then dropped them heavily against the table. "Yeah, you know, I'm pretty sure I would be. Everyone—" Vera paused, looked away, then began again, her voice lowered but no less hard. "I was so sure I was gonna die of fucking AIDS if the leeches didn't get me first, and then I had to go and fuck up and get outed, and my parents—"

But she cut herself off again, and looked back at Palmer. Her expression was nothing short of hateful. "I kept your secret, Masha. Guess I shouldn't have bothered; I was just some phase you had to get over."

With that she went back to her former pose—arms crossed and turned away.

"—Fuck, I need a cig."

[firewatcher]

"Didn't matter anyway," Palmer said, her voice low enough to sound a little like a growl. "Your relatives from out of town came in and made enough solid accusations that Mom and Dad put Andy in charge. Died before I could change their minds. I'm sure they would have loved to think of my wedding as proof that they'd been wrong, too, if they'd lived that long."

She leaned on the table with both elbows. "Vera. Vera, look at me."

[wolfatyourdoor]

The sky outside the window was beginning to look properly bright, oranges lightening to the same yellows as the Vegas city lights. Vera's eyes shifted sideways towards Palmer, still narrowed—hostile. But considering. It was true—the rest of her family had fucked that up plenty all on their own.

Finally, she shifted her weight and leaned against the table as well, head resting heavily on one hand.

"What, Palmer."

[firewatcher]

She studied Vera's face for a moment—beneath the hair and the scars, there was every familiar curve and angle that Maria remembered. Her heartbeat sped up; a feeling long-buried trying desperately to sprout again.

Palmer took in one long, ragged breath, and then leaned across the table to kiss her.

[wolfatyourdoor]

Vera froze in place beneath Maria's lips, eyes wide—this she hadn't expected. But already her mouth was parting. And then her left hand went to the collar of Maria's jacket, roughly pulling her in close with a small noise of frustration.

She never did have a whole lot of self-control in love. (If the waitstaff at the diner weren't going to remember them before, well, they'd sure as hell had made enough of a scene, now.) And for a long moment she indulged herself.

[firewatcher]

She'd made so many stupid, stupid choices in the last 24 hours and this might be the worst of them, but when Vera pulled her closer all inklings of regret vanished. Palmer brushed her right hand up through Vera's hair to cradle the side of her head.

It had been how long, since—well, best not to think about how long since anything. But, dear God, had she missed this. She sighed, a low, pleased humming noise muffled by Vera's mouth pressed to hers. Oh, she was so going to Hell.

nice icon keyword you got there

[wolfatyourdoor]

Maria's heartbeat thudded in her ears, so close it could almost drown out the rest of this—the sticky table, the faint uneasy hum of the diner's fluorescent lights, every paranoid thought. Vera leaned into Maria's hand, and dug her nails hard into her shoulder—and deepened the kiss.

Then, abruptly, she paused; stiffened. A moment later she bit Maria's lip sharply, hard enough to hurt, and shoved her away with both arms.

"—Get the fuck away from me." Russian, again. She'd clearly meant to sound angry; the venom came out half-confused.

THANKS IT WAS 1000% INTENTIONAL

[firewatcher]

Palmer let Vera push her away; honestly, she probably deserved that. Expected it, even. Still, though, she folded her arms tightly across her chest again and looked Vera in the eye. “Still think it was a phase?”

[wolfatyourdoor]

Vera mirrored the pose, glaring. (Still, she studied the rate of Palmer's heartbeat.)

"...Fine. It's not like it changes anything, but you can keep your--" she waved a hand, "--lesbian cred, or whatever you want to call it." Her cheeks were flushed.

Now it was her turn to down the rest of her coffee with a swig. She shoved her mug to the side of the table, but none of the waitresses looked particularly eager to approach them with a refill.

[firewatcher]

"It was never about the—oh, whatever. Think whatever you want, I guess." She shook her head, letting a breath out slowly, trying to slow her heart rate. It wasn't working as fast as she'd like. There was a coppery taste on the inside of her lip where Vera bit her, reminding her that the whole thing had been real.

"God, what were we even talking about? It was important, it had to be." She frowned upon remembering. "Oh, right. Ghosts. Ghosts."

[wolfatyourdoor]

Vera looked torn between holding her own scowl and smirking at some apparent private joke.

"...Yeah. Ghosts." She gave her head a rough shake, as if to clear it. "Anyway, these...ghosts of yours..." With a sigh, she dragged a hand through her hair again, then dug around in the bags she kept on her belt for a notebook and pen.

"Unless you're suddenly some kind of medium, which I doubt, it's not like there's a large group of so-called people you could've gotten this intel from. I'm impressed you got whichever one of them it was to open up to you—real skittish lot, from the little I can tell." Her breathing was still a bit ragged.

[firewatcher]

"Look, I'm a cop. Lotta folk find that inherently trustworthy, for some reason." She shrugged, not bothering to hide her slight smugness. It was nice to be on firmer ground after that... episode.

"Anyway, I can neither confirm nor deny any details about my source at this time. I want assurance that this won't just go nowhere and mark me as even more of a troublemaker, before I take this risk." She snorted. "I know how corrupt systems work; I work for one, after all."

[wolfatyourdoor]

That got an uncomfortable look out of her, her mouth twisting into half a grimace. "I don't actually know if I can make that kind of promise, Palmer." She still put a slight emphasis on the name, keeping it a subtle dig. "There's all those factors I mentioned before. I can't just— I can't put them down like we used to."

Vera looked away. Not the greatest feeling, having to admit how well they had her whipped.

"Maybe if you...I don't know, showed me some of these bodies or something, I could take a look for myself. If I'm really lucky, he'll have gotten careless, maybe gotten some of his blood on one of them, and I could..." She trailed off, awkward with the realization of how this was going to sound; she'd almost forgotten what it was like to not take her own unnaturalness for granted. "...I could track him by that."

[firewatcher]

"You—what? Okay, that's..." She trailed off, looking uncertain and a little alarmed. "Well, that's... dead useful, at least, if kind of unsettling. Good God. Anyway—" She ran a hand through her hair, a sort of self-calming motion. "I'm going to get a team out there to retrieve some of the bodies real soon. If one of the lab boys finds something that might be useful to you on 'em... I'll give you a call."

Palmer grimaced. "We can't put them down like we used to, I guess. I get the impression that a repeat of my performance with Uriel Jones would not exactly be greeted warmly. More like the opposite of that."

[wolfatyourdoor]

"You realize that as soon as your team touches this stuff, it's gotta be your problem, not mine? By all means, arrest the monster if you can—it's better than I can get you. But I can't help you with anything...fucking...traditional." Read: anything legal, or even pretending to be.

Vera tried to crack a smile, but it came out more of a cringe. Назва́лся гру́здем — полеза́й в ку́зов, like her mom would have said.* She began jotting down notes, which conveniently enough allowed her to avoid looking Palmer in the eye as she spoke.

"And look, if you want me to help... with anything, I guess... you really don't fucking know the half of it." She paused; gritted her teeth slightly; dove in. "We always knew they thought of people like livestock; that if they got close enough, they could find us where we hid, and could go mad just smelling a bit of blood, but— it's more than that. They can smell even a drop of it across a room—from further, if they're old, or they've got those special senses some of them have, plus they can track you if they've...tasted you. They can see in the fucking dark, because of course they can. And the reason it's so fucking hard to hide from them is that they can hear our goddamned heartbeats." Vera tilted her head back as if to laugh, but it wasn't funny at all, and she dragged a hand down her face instead. "You know the best part? Turns out, even as one of their fucking pets I'm still a freak, so I can do all that too— 'cept with their blood instead of ours."

And then she leaned back in her seat, eyebrows lifted in a weak attempt at self-deprecation, as if admitting how unnatural she was somehow made it better.

"...I hadn't figured your heart got like that around me because you still wanted some, but hey, you're full of surprises."

[ *"Назва́лся гру́здем — полеза́й в ку́зов" translates as, "If you called yourself a milk-mushroom—get into the basket," and is the Russian equivalent of "in for a penny, in for a pound." In a related story, Russian proverbs are bizarre. ]

[firewatcher]

Palmer sat stock-still for a second, her mouth hanging open, before she shut it abruptly with the snapping sound of teeth clicking together. "Well, that's it. Forty-two years of monster-hunting and I am literally killed by embarrassment. That's fucking creepy, Jesus Christ."

She shook her head as if to clear it, and switched to Russian. "All right. Well. That's new information, good to know, thanks. Shit, that's... well, yeah, that explains a lot about them." A minor, perturbed pause. "Sorry, that's got to be... real weird. Okay. Yeah." She massaged her temples. "Maybe I can get you in before my team, I don't know. I guess I just told you because I figured you should know, even if there's not much you can do on this right now. Maybe we can't get him on this right away, but I can be a little patient."

[wolfatyourdoor]

Vera crossed her arms across her chest and sank into her shoulders, avoiding looking at Palmer.

"Yeah, turns out the people avoiding my delinquent ass back in high school really didn't know the half of my potential." It should have been funny; it just came out bitter. "Look at me, all grown up."

She leaned against the table, but still didn't quite lift her face. "But yeah, I'm sure it's real goddamned embarrassing for you." Switching again to Russian, she went on, trying for a more businesslike tone. "Look, when it comes to this stuff, my hands are tied. In the end, I'm just a ...ghoul," she stumbled very slightly over the word, "but I've got my connections and I'll use them. Try not to call your people just yet so I can at least...check on things, but I want the beast to burn for this. It's been too long since I got any of that, and personally I'm really not all that patient."

[firewatcher]

"...all right," said Palmer, finally. "I'll hold off on doing anything big—I have some people who I know can be discreet, anyway. She rubbed at her temples with both hands. "What a headache, all of this. Everything is headaches. And I still don't know how I feel about this ghost thing. Even if..." She pursed her lips, looking away.

[wolfatyourdoor]

"What is it, Palmer? Even if what?" She casually blended the Russian and English, but her expression was cautious, attentive—and she was looking back at Palmer again.

Granted, it was easier to look at her when she wasn't looking back.

[firewatcher]

"I guess I... devised a kind of test. The ghost 'expert' I talked to—they said they might be able to... contact a ghost, if I could give their name." She shrugged, not meeting Vera's eyes. Her heartbeat had settled down, but this topic was starting to raise it a little again. "I guess I'd already seen one dead person already that night, so I figured why the fuck not."

[wolfatyourdoor]

"Alright. Fair enough, I guess."

Vera leaned back into the diner booth, crossing her legs and folding her arms, affecting nonchalance. Hard to sound as calm as she wanted to look, though, with Palmer not meeting her eyes, and with her heart picking up like that.

"So...who did you ask to see? I, ah— I guess you don't really have a shortage of options." She grimaced.

[firewatcher]

"Hah, yeah, sort of spoiled for choice on this one." Palmer crossed her arms, uncrossed them, clearly uncomfortable. "Not that I actually got to see any real ghosts. There was a pretty spooky, well-timed cold gust of wind, but that doesn't prove anything, right?" She hunched her shoulders up around her ears a little. "Anyway, d'you know that ghosts are apparently big rum fans? I thought he might still be more of a vodka person, though."

God, this had probably been a totally bad idea to bring up. "I... asked about Vasily."

[wolfatyourdoor]

Across the table, Vera's eyes went very slightly wide.

"What." She sat forward; leaned against the table; pushed herself back again.

"Maria... you... you fucking did— what." The words were low, slow, tightly controlled.

[ link for STs: here; note image title/description below for explanation ]

[firewatcher]

"It was a really stupid idea. I—nothing happened anyway. Something about how his ghost wasn't in this world but the underworld, nearby, or something?" The words spilled out of her mouth, running into each other. "Kind of a crock, I think. Not very convincing."

Palmer laughed, a little shakily. Tiredness? Nervousness? Difficult to tell. "I don't even know why I went through with it, honestly."

[wolfatyourdoor]

She wasn't done.

"What fucking gave you the right— Palmer. Of all the people... So it's some kind of bullshit to you, and you figure you're better off playing with my past instead?" Her voice had gone low enough to almost be a growl.

Then she tilted her head back, and let out a short, sharp laugh. "Fuck, you didn't even invite me to this reunion seance with my own family."