2019-08-30 - This Won't Do At All

It was mid-evening when the text message went out.

"🇼​🇦​🇳​🇹​ 🇹​🇴​ 🇸​🇪​🇪​ 🇸​🇴​🇲​🇪​🇹​🇭​🇮​🇳​🇬​ 🇳​🇪​🇦​🇹​?"

Which, if it were anyone but Carver would be a loaded question.

Actually, with Carver it's still a loaded question, but there's far less chance of the follow-up being someone showing off their dick. By late evening, with the sky turning a burnished red as the sun faceplants into the horizon, Carver's at home. Which is weird to think about. He seems to have settled in pretty well, leaning out over his sunset-facing balcony in the usual waistcoat attire he's so very used to. There's no signs of bandages, no signs of cardboard boxes from moving in, and there's definitely the sign of a double scotch slowly being finished off in a tumbler that while gripped by well-trained fingers still may well be aware that one untimely cough could send it tumbling into the waters below.

The lighting isn't low, but it's definitely sedate, and music fills the ground floor through multiple wall-mounted speakers, the source of which would be his phone docked on the kitchen island. The front door is unlocked, he's got liquor, and a cover of Neon Trees -Everybody Talks by PMJ is playing.

Oh dear God. Carver's settled.

Of course the return reply is simple: 'Silly question, silly Brit.'

It could mean anything. Literally any thing, any place in the world, any weird item, jar of slime, pretty butterfly, a pile of baby teeth, or an infomercial on some cable gadget that he thinks is just awesome. Still, the answer is the same.

Is there a knock? No, there's no knock. Lucinda just comes wandering out onto the balcony right behind Carver at some point in his evening, a reasonable amount of time after his text. If a little thing like a lock stopped the blonde, she'd be pretty bad at what she does (it's unlocked, though, so she doesn't have to waste time fiddling with it). Which she doesn't tell anyone, so it's not like they'd know. Carver might know. Carver knows things.

Luce has a new pair of yellow high heels, and she's wearing them as she clips across the deck. She moves in slowly, smiling at the music. "Isn't this lovely." Often this phrase slips her lips in sarcasm. Tonight she genuinely means it. "Makes a girl want to dance." She makes her way across to stand beside the man of the house.

Carver's little twist is relaxed at the sound of another voice in his house, keeping his glass held firm as he shifts to lean a forearm on the timber railing, greeting both the noise and the sight with a casual little smile and a shrug. Because, you know, outright buying a house is the smallest thing in the word. Barely worth noting. Like her affinity for locks. Carver had never noticed that, and certainly didn't leave the front door open to save her the bother.

Not at all.

"You should. This place needs some fun in it. Mels would have already scribbled something on the walls and turned any paintings I hung up upside-down." He greets her once she's stood beside him, pointing down to the glass that awaits her on the balcony's table. Yes, he's rocking a poker-face with the topic he just casually threw out, but that's so very him. And it explains why there's no art or decoration hung up. Old habits, they don't die easy.

Lucinda rests her hands on the deck's railing. She looks out over the view, which is really pretty remarkable, considering the location. It's hard to compete with some of the views they've seen, but this one is pretty damn nice. "Upside down, yeah? You know it's only worth hanging paintings if there's someone there to hang them wrong-side-up while you're sleeping." The blonde leans over the rail to look down, as one does.

She bends to sweep up her glass without comment, until she says, "Oh, yum." She mms. "No sign of her?" She didn't think it was possible for, well, that to happen. She may move slightly closer, but doesn't touch Carver.

Carver's hand runs up through his hair. Still shortened, yet somehow managing to be taking casually askew from the slight breeze coming in off the ocean. Which isn't all that weird. Lucinda's known the guy for long enough that it's obvious Carver could have ruffled hair in a vacuum. The sip from his drink is slow and measured at her question, coming just after it's raised in her direction at the sound of approval that comes when she's snatched up her own glass. "Not a one, pet. Honestly think this mighta been it."

The glass is rested on the railing, and Carver shifts his way along to do something of a nestle up with his back against the corner of the balcony. Which, naturally, means there's a glance at the shoes, and he can't cover the little escaping laugh. "Jesus."

"So, this place. It's very grown up and committed and ..." Lucinda looks around. "It could be lovely, really. A castle of your very own." She leans on the rail. There's a moment before those bright blue eyes turn to Carver again. "Did you buy a house with a balcony so you could throw yourself off of it?" She turns more to face him, crossing her legs at the ankles.

"Or have you decided to settle in, put on some weight, and be damned the babies and potential gainful employment that eventually com — you haven't gotten a job, have you?" Lucinda watches Carver from what is now her side of the deck.

"Lucinda Bellamy, I am shocked you think I'd ever do such a heinous thing."

Carver honestly looks hurt. There's a hand over his heart and everything. Luckily, it's the hand with the glass in it, because the other flips up to press back against his forehead, lest he faint in the most overblown of stage fashions he can muster. Which would be awful, what with the balcony and all. "Well, the balcony, maybe." His mouth twitches, he gives a little sniff, swigs the rest of his drink and is back to that lackluster smile in the space of a blink, leaning forward to place the empty glass down on the table, shaking his head once more at the shoes before giving her a little beckon to follow him inside. "But I'd never get a job."

"I wouldn't know where to start."

"Shhh. Don't say that name so loudly." Luce smirks a little and glances over her shoulder as if to check for listeners, you know, off the side of the balcony/in the ocean. "I got into a lot of trouble with that name." Quite a lot. Probably there are still people looking for her even now. Some folks have zero sense of humor. "Which thing? Drop into the ocean or — ah, the job."

Now that she's settle in with a drink, she sips and then puts it down. She reaches up to tug off her leather jacket, which is really too damn hot in warm weather, and drops it across the edge of the table. "If you ever get a job and it's not a con, I'll do the humane thing and slap you as hard as I can."

She laughs softly on the heels of his not knowing where to start with employment. "I know, right?" The pair of them.

Turning towards the door, Carver mutters "Make allowances for getting a job as groundwork for a potential con, and you've got a deal. We're not having Toulouse again." At least she gets eye contact for the words, as he's totally looking over his shoulder for a touch longer than he really needs to at the noise of her jacket being pulled away. "C'mon, Blanc, Grab your drink, you need to come see the important bit."

Which, while ominous, just comes to mean that he didn't solely invite her around to enjoy the ocean view. There's actually something she'd be interested in on a professional leve-Oh, nope, that's a trap door hatch leading to a basement tucked in beside the kitchen, and totally isn't unsettling at all as he bends down to haul it open.

"Right, with the view and the drink," Luce says, "I'd forgotten." She drags her jacket inside to toss it down somewhere, just in case the rain really starts up again, as it seems to do so often here. She watches Carver for another beat before she carries on after him, her heels clicking away across the hardwood. "Sure, always forgive any legitimate work done in pursuit of something shady." Of course!

Luce pauses there in the kitchen. "Really?" There's a smirk in that single word. "Oh, okay." So it's not just a gag. Really going down there. "Gents first." Fuck if she's going down into a trapdoor hole first, no matter who's opening it. Of course he has a trapdoor in his kitchen.

"You'd be surprised how often I forgot something I was supposed to do when I was out on that balcony." Carver agrees, brushing his hands clean once the hatch is open, flashing her a little smile at the understandable reticence. "Come, Fortunato! There's the finest of wines down here!"

And down he goes.

Down the single flight of banister-absent wooden steps, this murder dungeon is... Actually really homely.

Sure, the sizable space seems to be stone-hewed, or at the very least facsimiled up in weathered concrete to get that effect across, but the floor is comfortably carpeted, three of the walls are lovingly walnut panelled, and there's even a couple of very comfy looking arm chairs in here. Measuring roughly 20x30 feet, a longer, unpanneled wall is completely and utterly lined with wooden bookshelves. Most of which even have books filling them, interspersed with the occasional lockbox in metal, wood, or as is the case with one particular shelf: Tupperware.

The room as a whole is lit by numerous wall lights, brass fittings and frosted glass shades that bathe the space in slightly tinted light, plenty enough to read by, even if the large desk pressed up against the wall opposite the bookshelves has it's own light sat atop it. As well as a bundle of books. And folders. And a pretty full ashtray.

A corkboard, pinned to the wall next to the desk completes the notion that this space is a place of study, research, collection... and just chilling. The dartboard with three knives in it, easily aimable from the desk chair would suggest that far, far too much time is spent down here. The fact that that dart board sits next to a wooden door that opens to sheer rock should be ignored. It's probably just a quirk of the previous owner.

By the time Lucinda descends, if she so chooses, Carver is sat in one of the comfortable chairs, legs outstretched with another full glass of a darker looking liquor in his hand, an ashtray resting on the arm of the seat as he pats around for his smokes.

"Holy fuck. You made a library." Lucinda just stops when she reaches the bottom of the steps, after carefully picking her way down in heels, that glass still in hand. She just stands there going a little misty-eyed. She fucking loves books.

Her gaze slides around the space, taking in the collections of things, the clusters of items, the knives, the board, the chair, the ashtray. "You've gone and made a lair." She turns on the spot, taking in the full effect. She then she prowls over to one of the shelves and pokes around at a couple of books, to check the titles, and prod a tupperware container there. Poke, poke. She gives it a little rattle. Always touching things.

"I'm so proud. Subterranean and creepy, too."

"Holy fuck I made a library." Carver agrees, taking a sip of his drink to hide the too-pleased smile that threatens to slip past the edge of the glass. "You don't want to know how much it cost to get someone with a truck to drive them out from Flathead." Does Luce know about his time in Montana? Definitely not. But apparently, that's where most of his collection ended up for a good while.

While she touches and rattles and reads, with such titles as 'Brabantsche Yeesten', 'A Treatise on the Astrolabe', 'Historia Compostelana', and 'The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne', he points out a small wooden box on one of the shelves, held shut with but a simple clasp. "Souvenir you might recognize in there. Always promised I'd give it back. And I wasn't lying, it really came in useful." Luce is... Luce is probably well aware that some of those books could be easily considered as valuing in the thousands.

Not that that seems to concern him. He's stretching out with a smile. "Think this place belonged to a survivalist. Figured I should do something with it."

"Are you aware, Ali, that there's a huge fucking tarantula in this box?" Lucinda's question is a question, sort of, but mainly it sounds like a statement. An incredulous one. The box doesn't have air holes, but the tarantula doesn't look like it's dead. Neither is it moving. Little odd, that.

Most of her collection is still in Savannah, but she doesn't talk about it much. She was going to have it shipped, but her trailer's a bit small.

Finally, she moves to the latched box on the shelf. She picks it up and undoes the latch with a flick of her thumbnail, short as it is. She glances over, then lifts the lid. Inside, nestled into a bed of black velvet, is a very small turnable hourglass on a delicate gold chain, its housing a fine filagree in the art deco style. The sand inside of it is emerald green ground glass. She pulls it out and smiles, chain looped around her fingers, hourglass dangling from it. "Thirty seconds repeatedly well-spent?" She latches the box closed and replaces it, reaching up to slide the chain over her neck, letting the hourglass fall outside of her shirt, where it hits about four inches below her breasts. The sand remains in the bottom.

His drink hovering about an inch from his face, Carver's eyes glance up to Lucinda.

He blinks. Once. Twice. Sips. Three times. "Uh." Hm. "Hm." See? His legs cross over at the ankles, and he takes a long lingering look at the knives sticking from the dartboard. "Would you believe me if I said I was holding it for a friend? Also don't touch the sides." He probably should have said that latter part first, but experiences earned are all the more learned from. Or something.

With the bottom-most heel of his feet rubbing lazily back and forth along the carpet, there's a little click from his tongue when she pulls out the hourglass. And something of a look of regret, if she looked hard enough. He's heavily focused on her face as she slips it on, seeming to find some semblance of wherewithal once she's completed her ensemble and staring less like a loose animal trapped behind a fence when he raises up the glass again. "Back where it belongs: Under your tits."

Well, we said some semblance. "Never got to use it, love. Had to barter it. Stealing it back was a bitch and you're welcome."

"You didn't think I was going to stick my hand in a box with a spider in it, did you?" Honestly, Carver, it's like you don't know Lucinda at all! The first rule of spiders is do not fuck with, unless, of course, they're made of gemstones. Then you get what you get if you do, but you also get sparklies. "Let's be honest, 'I'm holding it for a friend' is basically the answer to everything. So yes and no." To would she believe it.

"Yes, under my tits." She sighs softly. "Home sweet home." She pats the chain lightly, almost reverently.

Luce's eyes narrow ever so slightly when he says he had to barter it, but she relaxes again when he mentions stealing it back. Obviously he stole it back. It's in her possession again. "Thanks for returning it mostly intact." The sand used to be peacock blue-green.

"Look under the velvet. Mels had a present for you, too."

Carver's patting down his pockets, remembering the fact he was looking for his cigarettes before the look on Lucinda's face completely threw him off track in some weird nostalgia-haze he wasn't quite prepared for. Tapping one out, the lighter isn't even looked for. He always knows where that is.

If she's going to look for the single emerald-encrusted ring hidden underneath the material, it'll be at about the same time as he's exhaling a cloud brought by a drag that threatened to implode his cheeks, the cherry burning bright. He makes no mention of the fact that last time either of them saw it was on the index finger of a man with a very long memory and a very short temper.

Luce was just about to head over to have a sit, but she turns back to pick up the box again. She undoes the clasp, pulls the top open, and pokes around until she finds the loose edge. She pulls it open and peers into the bottom, reaching in after a moment to fish out a ring. A sparkly little ring that looks so familiar. "This... oh." Oh. "Oh." Luce sniffs. "Mels. You little shit." She closes the box again and puts it back on the shelf, slides the ring onto her index finger and holds it up to the light. It's ridiculous. Of course she loves it. "What an asshole." She could be referring to the original owner or Mels. Potato, potato.

The blonde wanders over to the armchairs and drops to sit, kicking her feet up on the coffee table after she nudges off her shoes. "Damn. What a cutie." She rests her hand on her thigh, watching the ring sparkle.

Carver is pretty focused on his drink as Luce has her little reunion, his smile both as weak and genuine as he can muster, but still having to cover the slightly sound of a laugh with the rim of his glass once she calls Mels a little shit. "She never talked to me about it. We saw him in a hotel bar about a month later, I lost track of her for the night, then she showed up in the room about four hours later and handed it over. Not a word."

Luce is offered a little shrug as she sits, and Carver's feet uncross to settle into the carpet proper. There's an immediate drain of any tensions from his shoulders as he does so. It's... Completely normal. Yup. Absolutely. "And yes, yes I am. But I'm pretty sure she did it for you."

"Of course she left it for me." Lucinda finally looks up from the faceted gems and turns in the seat, leaning her elbow on the arm, tucking her chin into her hand. She watches Carver with those bright blue eyes, her gaze intent, focused. She mms and idly brushes over-long fringe from her eyes with the other hand. It's long enough to touch her lashes again.

She glances once, slowly around the room. "You're on the raggedy edge, sweet. Tell me what I can do to help. Anything." This is a dangerous phrase in some rooms. In this one? Not so much, not really. The Veil's weird. This is just life, not nearly so strange.

If anyone said that last sentence out loud to Carver, he'd look at them like they were insane. The Veil's simple. Don't trust anyone or anything, take joy in all things, run away and don't look back when you have to, and someone who tells you they'll stab you in the face is the most honest person in the room.

Life is hard. Feelings get involved and sometimes the most honest person in the room is the one that lies as easy as breathing.

With the cigarette clamped in the corner of his mouth, Carver's taking mostly idle drags and watching his drink, likely unaware he's being gazed at until she asks her request, causing him to look up as if awaking from a too-deep thought. Or reminiscence. Sometimes the two are far too difficult to separate. "Shit's weird and I don't like it." He states after mere moments, watching her with a little expression of regret as a hand rubs a little awkwardly at his thigh. "I've spent twenty years being woken up at 3am by Mels throwing something at me. I'm getting a full night's sleep regularly, now, Luce."

The hand rubs his face instead.

"How the fuck do you people do it?"

"Casual sex, alcohol, and a lot of high grade recreational drugs." Lucinda's reply comes without a hint of hesitation or humor. She's absolutely fucking serious about all three of those things. And then, "Plus I have a lot of cash." And sparkly, ill-gotten goods. She does so enjoy those. Suicidal decisions aside, and a swath of enemies quite wide, acquired in her... less moral days.

Now she's pretty much into obscured texts and artworks she thinks might reference the Veil. Easy, right? "You've been sandwiched into the land of everything's upside down to remember that people are really pretty simple. A lot of them are well-meaning and nice, but most are fucked up in some way. You find the kink, you find the key, and then it's just a matter of whether or not you're willing to put up with it long enough to get to know them better for whatever. Friendship or more."

She drops her hand to the arm of the chair, tipping forward to the edge. Her feet come off the table. "I recently learned I don't like sleeping with men who do a bunch of blow and stop cooking food for me. I also do not enjoy roommates who shatter furniture when they forget how to use their words. I do like ice cold vodka and the dispensary makes amazing pot sweets which go great with cold, day-old noodles from the local confused Asian food restaurant." Is it Chinese, is it Thai, is it Korean? No one can even tell most of the time.

"Tried the first." Carver actually winces a little, raising up fingers to count them off. "Actually think I bought this particular place in a spite response to that. Working on the second-" The second finger goes up as well as the glass he's holding, just to make the point. "And Christ, I wish drugs still worked. You know it was the only way I could hop back and forth for a while?"

She probably doesn't. Scratch that, she almost certainly doesn't, but Carver needing medical assistance to go back to where he considered home would definitely do something to explain a shockingly high tolerance for most high grade narcotics. "And you really think I'm built for friends, Luce?" That phrase definitely comes with a look of incredulity. And more drink. Speaking of, his hand points to a shelf. "S'a bottle there. 18-something. Probably tastes like shit and'll make you go blind, but you could buy a car for it."

His feet seem to sink into the carpet a little more after that, and his head rests back on the top of the arm chair to look up at the ceiling. More stonework. He should probably change that, as some unpleasant memories bubble around the second he lays eyes on it. "There's a spare bedroom upstairs. It's yours whenever you don't wanna deal with sleeping in a trailer for a couple nights. You already know what my problems are, and that the only food I cook are morning fry ups."

"Maybe you should have tried pretentious cocktails until the room started spinning." Lucinda crosses her legs, bouncing one over the other with a little kick. She doesn't move to get up, seeming to enjoy her perch in that particular chair. "I have to be really careful with drugs. If I walk outside when I'm off my ass, I usually wake up in the veil. I literally cannot leave the house, because if something startles me," she snaps her fingers sharply, "Slip right out of this side and into the other." She tips back into a bit of a slouch. "It's really inconvenient."

She looks at him with a somewhat blank face when he asks if she thinks he's built for friends. "What do you mean? We're friends, aren't we?" Of course they are. No response is even necessary.

"Aw, sweet. Learn to make a hollandaise sauce and poached eggs and we can be best friends." Luce is really a simple creature when it comes to her friends. Not that she has a lot, mostly because she changes her name and vanishes so damn often. She has clients and ... more clients and people she has to avoid.

Only one thing really clicks with Carver.

And because it's Carver, it's not the friends thing. There's almost a soft look of pity thrown her way. "You've still got that problem, huh? With that slipping?" Like her friends comment, it's a rhetorical question, and doesn't need an answer. Really, his face says it all. It's a combination of 'damn, you've not learned yet?' and 'Holy shit how many benders have you been on to find it 'inconvenient.' That is, up until his glass is finished off and placed on the arm of his chair, solely so he can slap his thighs with both hands, pulling himself up and out of the chair with a look of determination. "That-" A look of remarkable determination, actually. Carver's never really determined about... well, anything. "-Will not bloody do. Arse up, c'mon."

Even her thigh is slapped for emphasis, the man walking back to the rather oddly-placed door at the rear of the room and pausing for just a moment as his fingers slip around the circular handle. "We're goin' for a walk, Ms. Rabbit."

Luce glances up at Carver, brow knitting a bit when he tells her to get up. She nestles her food into the shoes she was wearing, slipping them on carefully. She moves to rise, though. "What?" She settles her feet into the shoes properly once she's standing. "Oh, good. You know, sometimes it takes me weeks to get out." She brushes her hands down her shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles. She ruffles her hands through her hair, leaves her coat behind upstairs, and makes her way over to the door.

"So if we get separated..." She rests her hands on her hips and approaches the door too. "And you can't find me, I'll see you again when I see you." She grins a bit, though, really unfazed by the possibility of things going awry. That's part of the fun, isn't it? "You'd know all about it." She pauses, then glances over. "Where's your watch?"

"We won't." Carver's certainty is almost solid enough to feel, his hand twisting the door handle with a soft click as she approaches, watching her approach and shaking his head a little and the hands falling to her hips. That might be unspoken body language of 'You fuck this up, I might murder you, but I might not if it's at least fun on the way', but Carver would never dare guess as much.

When he pushes open the door, there is no rock face. No wall. No dark and damp corridor running through the earth that surrounds the basement. There is only flowers as far as the eye can see, bright sunlight, and what seems to be a turn of the 18th century French estate, remarkably similar to Monet's paintings of the Gardens at Giverny. Weird how that happens, right?

Crooking out his arm for Luce to take as he releases the door handle, Carver throws her a little shrug at the final question she asks. "Bottom of the ocean, pet." She gets a wink for good measure.

"Brave new world."