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

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

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?"

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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.

"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."

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.

"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."

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."

"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."

"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. ]

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."

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."

"...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.

"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.

"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."

"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.

"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."

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 ]

"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."

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."

"Well, if he ever actually shows, I'll let you know. Or invite you to the next one." She ran a hand through her hair. "I guess you can pick some unfortunate figure from my past to be fair."

She shook her head. "Sorry," she said. "Like I said, it was stupid."

"Fucking right it was stupid. It was stupid and you didn't have the right."

Vera stood up, shrugging her jacket over her shoulders, and beginning to shove her notebook back in her bag.

Then she paused. "What is that even supposed to mean... him being nearby?"

Palmer hesitated, and then shook her head. "No idea. Sounded kind of like bullshit to me. You'd have to ask one of those ghost-whisperers, I guess." She looked away, started to put on her own coat. "He was part of my past, too, you know. We were friends."

Vera's expression froze very briefly in something like a cringe. Then she tilted her head back, eyes squeezed shut; held the pose for a long moment.

"Yeah. Yeah, he was—you were." She rummaged in a pocket and slapped a slightly crumpled twenty on the table, which ought to have been enough to cover the combined cost of two coffees and their bullshit. "And you fucked his sister."

She began to walk away.

Edited 2015-10-20 15:44 (UTC)

Palmer clambered out of the booth with impressive speed considering how tired she was, only stumbling a little—"I don't remember her complaining," she hissed, attempting to grab Vera's shoulder. Her eyes narrowed, her other fist balled and recoiled as if she were ready to throw a punch.

She appeared to remember her surroundings, though—they were in public, after all, and she was still wearing her badge—and relaxed, slightly. Just slightly. Her voice was dark, bitter. "I never said I was a particularly good friend. I guess I should say to you, too, what I said I'd like to pass on to him, if they ever actually managed to contact him—sorry. Sorry I wasn't there. Sorry I couldn't do anything."

With her back turned, Vera hadn't been ready for that; Palmer's hand on her shoulder yanked her roughly around. Her own left hand was midway to one of the inner folds of her jacket; her teeth were gritted—almost bared.

But then Palmer spoke again, and she staggered. The hand dropped. Her expression crumbled.

And then she stepped backwards, jerking her shoulder away. "I've got plenty to hate you for, Maria." Her voice was pitched low. "So...just... trust me when I say: that one wasn't your fault."

She turned away again. "I need to— leave."

Palmer let her arm drop, tucking her hands into the pockets of her coat. "I just—"

She sighed. "I'm tempted to ask what else I did, but somehow I'm sure I'll find out eventually. That, and I think we've scared the bejeezus out of the staff here enough today. We may have to find another diner to have that argument in." She shifted slightly on her feet. "I know it's not my fault. I mean, I have my educated guesses on whose fault it was, now, I just... never wanted you to get hurt. Family motto's 'protect what is ours', you know."

What a rollercoaster of a night this had been. "But—yeah, I guess I should probably go, too. I took the day off to sleep. I should probably actually do that instead of just telling people I'll sleep eventually."

Vera hesitated, and turned her head back over her shoulder, mouth partially open as if to say something more. Evidently she thought better of it, and for a long moment she just looked at Palmer instead.

"Yeah, you... go to bed. You have my number, now, if you... need anything. I mean, with this case, or your kid. I sleep at pretty weird hours, so don't worry about the time." The words were slow and slightly stilted.

"And, ah... I know I just fucking told you to 'trust me,' but you trust too many fucking people, Palmer."

With that, she began to walk away, boots heavy against the diner's tiled floor.

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