2019-05-18 - He does not become a monster.

A little early on a Saturday, just after the shop opens, the door gives way and in slips a woman with a certain arresting quality. If anyone else is in here, working, they may notice only that she's slightly built with a long fall of black hair, fair skin, and large, dark eyes - pretty but not beautiful. Geoff, though? Geoff will feel that thing tickling in his mind insistently. Hers is an arresting glint, sparkling light moonlit water, not some bright and blinding thing, but a dark and lulling lilt that crashes into his consciousness like waves against boulders.

Her eyes slide around the interior, glancing over art-work on display on their way to find Geoff. Physically, she lingers near the doorway. But her thoughts trickle out of her in his direction, a mute acknowledgement of his presence: she's noticed Geoff, has he noticed her yet?

Despite being so early the roots/southern rock is already playing in the shop, with the only current employee in being Geoff who'd drawn the short straw for opening on the weekend. The man himself wearing an expression the says maybe he had just a bit too much to drink the prior night, however as the woman enters and he gets that glint of a glimmer he seems to sober instantly. Standing he rolls his shoulders and dips his head to the newcomer "Mornin', what can I help you with today?" voice a touch gruff and the corner of his lips drawing up in a faint smile.

A slow-spreading smile answers the greeting, and those dark eyes shine with merriment when they settle resolutely upon Geoff, as if they intend to hang from him till the end of time now. She makes no efforts to hide that she's wiggling around in his thoughts, but she's not taking anything she finds, only sharing a little tidbit about herself in a flash of thought and feeling: she's not from around here, and finding him is like finding a shiny penny on a gray day, a stroke of luck, a thing she intends to keep in her pocket like a charm.

Her voice is low but not soft, trained. "Do you offer more services than just the obvious?" Amusement tinges the question, and she spills like liquid away from the doorway now, approaching with a little flap-flap of sandals against tiled floor. "I," importantly, "need something added to work I already have. Can you do that?"

Geoff lets out a rumble of gruff laughter "In all likelihood I can, though I'm going to need to see what I'm filling out though before I can give you a better answer." The worming around in his thoughts causes him to shift his weight, while not entirely comfortable with it he doesn't outwardly show it, "I'm guessing you're new in town?"

Straightening his posture he gestures deeper on into the shop where his chair is "Why don't you come have a seat, we can talk more about what you're wanting back there and you can show me what ink you're rocking." His eyes roaming over the woman curiously trying to pick out what ink she might have and what style he might be asked to continue.

"Just passing through." Isn't that the way of it with the enigmatic ones? She follows the gesture readily, though, slipping toward that chair and shedding the prim little cardigan worn over the prim little summer dress in the process, folding it across her lap. There's nothing immediately visible, just ridiculously fair skin that contrasts with the ink-black hair. But then she sweeps that hair back off her neck, not sitting down just yet, since it's easier to get the glimpse if she's standing.

It makes more sense why she wears a summer dress on a chilly Washington morning considering what traipses down her back. The base of her neck is the top of a dead and stunted tree, some gnarled old thing all in black and gray. The entirety of her tattoo isn't visible, with the dress in the way, but Geoff can tell that there's more than one hand in the mix: The tree, with its broken limbs in black and gray; a cloudscape in black and gray between her shoulder blades, with a pale crescent moon; a smattering of stars in aquamarine splash color through those misty clouds; a black raven stands on a dead branch; vines in startling color taper off the top of the tree, bursting in impossibly vivid blue trumpets of morning glories.

"It's a work in progress."

Geoff lets loose a low whistle a he checks out the ink "Damn, that's a hell of a piece. Yeah I think I can help you in expanding it, I'd love to add my work into the mix there." Crossing his arms he looks over what details of the tattoo he can see and asks "So would you mind if I asked what spurred you to get such a gnarly tattoo? I love the aesthetic, but not many tend to go with such a grim tat, then again ya also got life going on in there so I guess it is a mix."

Again, that slip from her mind confirms this is no lie: "I've never seen it. Glimpses only." She whispers furtively, "I quite like the mystery." And then pats her palm on the chair, a silent inquiry, should she sit here? As though she clearly hasn't done this a lot of times, just based on the number of hands that must have painted on her back over however long it took to pile up that much. Some is cover-up work, as though the next artist in line disagreed with one before him.

To answer his question, though - what spurred her? "There's always someone like we are in every town I've been to. Someone with that touch, you know? I like to let them leave their mark when I can. It's just a little proof that I've been somewhere, something permanent for an impermanent life." A questioning head-tilt, is he following her logic?

Geoff grins all that much more broadly at that explanation "I love it, you've never seen it and you essentially collect the signatures of all you meet like us in the towns you visit." Tappin his foot he examines her back the way an artist might an easel before he shakes his head to snap out of it "Yeah you can go ahead and sit down."

Crossing his arms he decides "You know depending on what the rest of the ink looks like I think I know just the thing the piece could use." running his fingers back through his hair he asks "So what brings you through our sleepy little town? Sounds like you stay pretty busy on your feet moving around? You're a touch too pretty to be a vagrant, you got some sort of con you're running?"

A smile answers the grin, and she seems quite pleased at the reception to her little mystery. Or, well, really - it's a pretty big mystery. She wriggles the sleeves of that dress loose, using the sweater to keep her modesty in tact, head bowed forward so the view is all the way down to her tailbone, where the base of that tree disappears amid a stony landscape, where the morning glories start to climb their way up. A cloud of moths here. A glimpse of cat-eyes there. Everything in nightscape.

"I'm an actress. Stage, though, before you think to ask what you've seen me." There's a 'gets that all the time' amusement for her qualification. "And this is what you do? With your gifts? Do you make it feel better or worse?"

Geoff wobbles his hand "Really it depends on the customer and how I'm feeling that day. I've got some that come to me because they barely feel the work, then there are others who seem to revel in the pain." with a wry grin he adds on "You know then sometimes I get the odd customer whose an asshat or just strikes me the wrong way and I crank it up a bit." These are admitted as if they simple facts.

Taking in the whole piece he grins and nods along "Okay yeah, I know what this definitely needs. My own little touch and another page for your story yeah? Question is do you want to know what I'm planning or do you want to keep it a mystery?"

Her: "Do you now." And she's sitting with her back turned to him, but the brow-quirk is all but audible in that intrigued little comment on the heels of Geoff's admission to 'crank it up a bit' on his difficult clients. "Even then shiny ones?" A quick, over-the-shoulder glance follows, and those large eyes of hers glint contemplatively at the second offer, a lengthy and thoughtful purse of her lips holds her in that arrested pose.

Finally, turning back, she asks simply, "Do you think I need you to tell me what you're contemplating?" The thought lands right in his mind, as clear as... well, not quite as clear as day. Around here, the days are so often drizzly. So let's go with, clear as glass: << Share. Tell me. >>

Geoff says amusedly "Clients are clients, shiny or dull." At least not verbally speaking out about the composition of his clientele. If anything prison had taught him caution, and that nobody sees or knows anything when anybody is asking.

With a brush of his thumb against the trunk of the tree he says "Thorns and a rose, that bit of warmth and brightness to draw folks in and the entangling thorns to snare them there." with a click of his tongue he gestures "Besides it will help draw a few of the elements together in an artistic sense."

"Mmmmm, no. Do you make the ones like us hurt? Don't they - " She draws a breath, holding it contemplatively. " - try to get back at you when you do that?" The room darkens just a touch when she says that, as though some of the brightness from the overhead lights themselves has contracted inward, away from her suggestion that there might be repercussions to hurting the Glimmery folks. Quietly, furtively, "You have to be careful, when you play with the wrong people."

His idea meets with her approval, so says the little nod, just a faint dip of an already bowed dark head. "I'm ready when you are."

"I don't pick fights I can't win and finish." Geoff says rather simply "Last thing I need is for someone to go cutting me up because I decided they needed a little extra pain in their life." With a shake of his head he muses "I wish there was a good gym around here to spar at, miss throwing punches and losing myself in the brawl a bit. Then again I guess growing up is partly realizing what habbits of the past were likely to dig your grave."

Perhaps as another favor for one who glimmers, Geoff doesn't bother to try to confirm that the slightly shady drifter can actually pay for the work he's about to do. Drawing the curtains around them closed for at least modicum of privacy he begins to ready his tools and inks "I don't think I caught your name, mine's Geoff."

"Reeeeeeally. Have you never lost a fight, then?" There's a touch of healthy skepticism in her voice - and, really, her voice is just a vehicle for the underpinnings of this conversation. Throughout, there are those little eddies and currents of thought that waft from her, the emotions riding close to the surface with this one, shared intentionally.

This time, the feeling is unshakable, flashing like a lightning strike against Geoff's mind's eye: the luring darkness, warm and velvety, veiled in malice and pain and suffering. Someone else's suffering, though, not hers. Never hers. They suffer, but she is safe, an agent for this suffering that's spared from feeling it herself - except when she wants to. And sometimes... like dipping a toe into cold water... she wants to feel it. Just a little. Just a shiver up the ink-covered spine revealed to Geoff now.

"My name is Megan, Geoff. I have a question for you."

Geoff snorts softly and shakes his head "No, I've lost fights and misjudged but then when I got to prison the stakes became a lot higher and I had to up my game." taking an alcohol swab he wipes down coolly the area he's about to ink "There's a difference between fighting for the hell of it and fighting to keep your place at the top of the food chain."

Those shared feelings, the third hand taste of another's suffering and of the woman's own smug security in her untouchable sadism. There is the faintest pause afterwards but he continues to carry through with what's been started after all at this point he fully realizes that to stall would lead to a world of hurt "I'm going to guess that you're not wanting me to mask the pain to day." kneeling he inks his gun and asks "And what would this question be?"

"Mhm." That's all the more she has to say about what Geoff had to do in prison, though - make no mistake - she's filed away that tidbit along with allllll the other tidbits thus far. It all sorts and sifts into the 'what she knows about Geoff now' pile, right down to just how much she's had to work to get a clear conduit from her thoughts to his. It's not always this difficult!

"I'm going to leave that up to you." About the pain being masked. At the very least, she doesn't seem like she's going to react badly either way. But what does it say about Geoff if he does mask it? What does it say if he doesn't?! "Would you trade your suffering for someone else's? Sacrifice someone else's safety and security to ensure your own?" Casual conversation while she gets her tattoo updated, hum de dum.

Geoff begins the tattoo, working on outlining delicate tendrils of thorned vines latticing about the base of the tree. He doesn't mute the pain, nor does he enhance it, in fact he seems to treat her as if she were a normal patron despite her having revealed herself to be anything but. The bite of the needle can be felt against her skin as he leaves his mark on her.

For such a powerfully gifted one who glimmers, if she can detect his feeling or thoughts at all there is definitely the recognition that she's a much bigger fish in this pond then he is and a sense of caution, but despite the suffering revealed earlier there isn't fear to be found in his emotions, just an acceptance of his current situation.

"That question is a bit too broad, if I stub my toe I'm not going to just shunt it onto a kid so I can ignore it. Really comes down to what was happening and who'd I'd be trading with." With a hint of a wolfish smile pulling at Geoff's lips he muses "Ya know I've had lots of time to read up on religion and philosophy. Schopenhauer said we gotta just accept that suffering is going to happen, the world sucks and that the ultimate way to find meaning in our lives is to just throw ourselves into art." with a click of his tongue he adds "Nietzsche took it a step further and said we have to accept the suffering the pain and just the utter level of shit we're guaranteed because it's fucking ours and no one elses. You have to be selfish with your experiences good, bad and ugly and you gotta accept them."

"Nietzche also says that those who fight the monsters should be wary of becoming one. Which sounds a lot to me like you can't win no matter what." This with a little hiss of breath at the first prick of needle. But she's gotta be used to it by now, only a little tension in her spine, the slightest natural rebellion of human flesh away from a source of pain. So, as dark as her Glimmer may be, she's still just a person underneath it all.

And she exhales through the pain, leaning far forward with her eyes cast toward the floor between her feet. "At least as an ally," another little hiss, "as an ally, you know the sword is never pointed at you. If we're all going to suffer no matter what, why not take the chance to escape it when you can? Offer up someone who deserves it, and spare yourself in the process?"

Geoff dips his head agreeably at that even if the monster can't see it "That's true, if you set out to slay a monster you have to keep track of what you're doing or it's far too easy to justify becoming one to stop one." With a gruff laugh he says "Bingo, you can't win no matter what. Life is a game we all loose, it's why you gotta set your goals and keep them achievable."

Taking a swap he wipes away the beading drops of blood "Not entirely true, for an ally to be guaranteed to never have the sword turned on them they gotta be meeting at an equal level to the other allies." with a hum he says "Back in prison there was this little scrawny guy, he'd fucked up and he'd killed his girlfriend and used poison. Which made him a bitch and we all knew it, but the A.B came to him and said that if he'd work and prove himself to them, he'd be an ally. So he worked his ass off day after day, because they nominally had his back but he was never one of them. In the end he was hung out to dry when he was sent to stab a rival gang leader. They'd gotten their use out of him and tossed him out to dry. Sure their sword was never turned on him, but everyone else's was and he was completely disposable."

Wrinkling his nose he says "Joining someone because you're afraid of them sounds like a living hell. Of course they're going to take every moment to remind you /why/ you should be afraid of them to keep their power over you."

She listens quietly while he lays out his rationale, the story about the man in prison met with a long silence. Only after he's finished does she ask back, "Do you even know what there is to fear? Do you know what can be done to people like us? Really done?"

Perhaps the moment someone is stabbing an inky needle into your back is not the best time to do a little 'show don't tell,' but it's when she chooses to administer a little dose of cold, hard reality: the claustrophobia closes around him, that long sense of being penned-in, nowhere to go, nothing on his hands but time and time and time, a seemingly endless count of seconds, the bars and the guards and the sounds of fighting from somewhere out of sight, all the lost years that he'll never get back... and all the years he could still lose...

Her voice drifts through those long, long years: "If I can do that? Oh Geoff. Imagine what they could do to you."

Geoff draws his pen back, hand trembling momentarily before closing his eyes taking a deep breath, holding it for a hair then exhaling and responding in that same gruff but steady tone "Nope, I don't know all there is to fear and it's a small mercy. I do know that if I give in to that fear, if I let it rule my life. Then I might as well just go back to prison because I'll have given up my freedom."

Then he returns to inking, once more not bothering to enhance or mask the pain taking his time to do his best job even if he is being not so low key threatened "That's a pretty nifty trick you got there, I could almost smell the sweat and blood again." Dabbing away a bead of blood again he muses "Back there in the cell /everyone/ tried to rule by fear. You say the wrong thing to the wrong guy and you'll get your teeth kicked in, talk back to the guards you need a little time in solitary. It was a jungle with the scariest motherfuckers imposing their law on everyone else." having inked the preliminary outlines he switches to the colors now "You know how you win, how you don't become a husk? You don't play by the game they tell you you have to play. They want you to join a gang, you tell them politely no and you tie your boots because you're going to have to fucking fight them over it. It's not personal it's the way it works. Someone tries to flex on you? You fight back and put him on the floor or you get put on the floor. You show them that you're not going to live under their rule. You'll get beaten so badly that you won't be able to move sometimes, you'll get broken bones, but in the end there is always going to be another meal, another snack that doesn't fight back so they'll after that rather then throw down again."

Again, she is only listening. There's no argument from her, no intent to persuade any harder than she already has. At the end of it all? The only thing there is to say from her couples itself to a soft, seemingly heartfelt sigh - and she's a convincing enough actress that Geoff can believe she really has his best interests at heart. Perhaps later, when he mulls over this encounter, he'll have to rethink that assessment. But right now? She seems to be melancholy on his behalf. "I wish that you had answered differently."

She's still then, and there are no more little parlor tricks from her. But perhaps he feels it first while he's putting color to that pale skin of hers: there's a shadow now - or there always was a shadow, and this is the first time he's really aware of it, skulking in the corner of his mind. This woman with her tattoo and her dark Glimmer is a tiny thing compared to that monstrous shadow behind her. And when she lets loose the leash around that shadow's neck, what then?

All this washes over him - not from her, but from IT. Her silence is a long spell, broken when she adds, "I hope that you don't become a husk, Geoff, but no promises."

Geoff pauses again for a hair, a hint of color draining from his skin but he keeps on with the tattoo, now switching to a dark crimson red to ink the rose nestled amongst the thorns "You know one of the greatest performance artists of our time once said 'I'm going to be honest with you, I'm a little retarded.' I do what I want even if it fucks me over."

Shaking his head he tries to keep himself firmly grounded in the moment as opposed to what's to come "So I've got to ask, now that I've made it clear where I stand and you can drop the sales pitch, what has taking that bargain cost you? Nothing is free, there has to have been some cost to you."

The theatrical voice is in play when she shakes her head faintly, careful not to move overmuch - considering the position she's in and the work he's doing. "You misunderstand the bargain. People like us? We're like ripe fruits, waiting to be plucked, bitten, and devoured. We are the richest sustenance."

That shadow stays unmoving. For now. It's a cell door closed, but a lock not yet thrown home.

"All I'm doing is making sure that I'm not the lowest hanging fruit. And that's all that you have to do. Give them something else to bite, something easier. If perhaps less filling."

"Oh I didn't misunderstand, you keep throwing people under the bus to keep doing your thing. I was just wondering what this had cost you." Geoff says as he pulls back to examine his works rather appreciatively "We're not entirely different....I'm not aiming to save anyone, but I'm also not tripping everyone I pass to keep from being eaten by a hungry bear."

"We're not talking about bears." Her back shifts faintly, carefully, testing the movement against the new hurts from the new ink, and she trusts it enough to lift her shoulders in a soft shrug. "We are talking about something tireless and ravenous. No matter how fast you run, they will catch you eventually."

She glances back over her shoulder as much as she can, aiming to catch one of those glimpses she mentioned before: she's never seen the whole thing, but she knows it in bits-and-pieces. "But I understand. So many people want to be heroes." Another of those deep, soul-sounding sighs of hers. "I miss those people sometimes. Perhaps the price I pay, thinking about all those poor souls that thought they could run forever and were wrong."

Geoff nods rather grimly "Yeah, I imagine you've walked a rather bloody path and seen many perish." exhaling he forces a faintly amused smile to his features "Well, we all have to die sometime don't we? What better way then a hungry lovecraftian slenderman." his words are definitely dark enough to suggest that he at least partially understands the level of shit he's found himself in here."

Gesturing to her back he says gruffly "I'm sure I don't have to tell you about after care or what to do now in regards to the tat." with a hint of amusement he says "I guess the only real question now boils down to one thing....Cash or credit?" Despite the the mundane nature of the question his skin is still a bit more pale then it was when they'd begun their little chat.

Serenely, as if they're not talking about horrible things, she says, "I'm willing to bet that I have less blood on my hands that you do, Geoff." She hits the word blood just a little hard in that sentence, stressing the notion of the actual substance rather than the metaphorical implication. Pain? Suffering? Sure, she's probably rolling in it; but actual blood? The tattoo guy has her beat by miles.

She slips from the chair carefully, moving with the gingerness of someone that's really trying hard not to make the little pains into big ones. "Cash. And thank you. I believe it's... exactly what I needed."

Geoff 's shoulders hunch as he says "We all do what we gotta do to get by." discarding his latex gloves in the medical waste disposal bin he heads up to the cash register to handle the rest of the monetary transaction, adding in a twenty percent markup for having his life cursed by her. Somewhere along the way his gaze has turned from the borderline friendly one when she walked into the door to completely cold and calculating like a wolf waiting for the prey its stalking to stumble.

What? It's not like, when she walks out the door, he's going to immediately find himself gobbled up by the Dark Men! Sure, after she counts out her money and leaves, sweater folded over her forearm - she's not putting that back on, not with her back all on fire from the recent needles (proving once again that she's no more than human after all) - and Geoff is alone in this shop... sure, time seems to pass with a merciless slowness.

And. Okay. When the door closes behind her, it sounds exactly like a cell door clapping closed. Yes, everything he eats today tastes like fucking prison food. And people are definitely side-eyeing him the second he walks out of this shop, like they know he's up to no-good, and they're just waiting for him to step out of line so they can call the cops, have him arrested, sent back where he belongs.

But is that really her fault? She gave him a chance, after all! Regardless... she's gone now. Clink. The door closes behind her.