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[Nov. 30th, 2009|09:06 pm]

spazzoid
Who: Gabe Sherlock and Alena Alkeinos
What: Kait and Leigh need to finish getting in their word count for RPWriMo
Where: Their apartment
When: April 17, 2010
Rating: TBD

As Alena looked over everything spread out in front of her on the coffee table in the living room, and actually took it in all at once, she swore her eyes glazed over. Of course, that could also have to do with the blunt smoldering in an ashtray the was sitting on top of a piece of paper that had the numbers for the caterer all the way to the florist written down on it. No one had ever told her planning a wedding was this hard! Why people willingly put themselves through this was continuing to be a mystery to her. And here she was a month before her own wedding still rushing to make sure that every last detail had been seen to, and quite frankly, it was giving her a headache. The again, that could also have to do partially with the headphones connected to her laptop that was next to her on the flooor, the ones that were blaring some random song that she wasn't paying attention to into her ears. A sudden thought about whether or not her final fitting for her dress was next week, or the week after that, caused her to lunge forward and shuffle papers around for a moment only to come up empty handed. "Motherfucker fucking goddamn, where are you? You were just here you fuckfucking titwitched piece of paper," she muttered to herself as she lifted a bridal magazine that her mother had bought.

She was surprised that her parents had agreed to pay for her wedding, especially after she had a giant fight with her mother four months ago about how she was not dressing up Lu, Marlie and Abbey in baby blue chiffon! Yvette had let her middle child - and the first to be betrothed - finally plan her own wedding, but it was times like this that Alena wished she had some guidance as what to do. Her fiancé's primary job had come to be knocking down any of her ideas that got too far out there, and it was like pulling teeth to get his actual input. Sure, sure, it was all good and nice that he was letting her plan their wedding, but she did have to admit that at times she wanted to kill him for leaving her to drown in all of this alone. "Gabe!" she shouted, pausing to take off those headphones and pick up that blunt once more. "Gabriel, put on some goddamned shoes and get your birth certificate! We're driving down to shitcocking City Hall and getting eloped. Now." Did it matter that it was about eight at night? Far after City Hall had closed its doors for the day? No, of course not. She just didn't want to look at another fabric swatch, or floral arrangement, or centerpiece, or song list. This needed to be solved immediately.
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[Nov. 18th, 2009|07:48 pm]

incertus_tutor
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Nora Deboeck and Owen Ivers
What: VACATION, BABY!
Where: ON A BEACH. IN FUCKING ARUBA. YEAH, I KNOW!
When: November 18th, 2009
Rating: Yep. R

They had finally made it! They were now officially on their honeymoon, even if they had never actually gotten married. Owen wasn't thinking about the semantics of it all right now though, and was just happy to have gotten here. The plane ride had been nerve-wracking, to say the least. Not because he had any concerns with flying, but Nora had been sure that they were going to crash and die on the way to their vacation. By the time she had become drunk enough to pass out, he was glad, and not only because it meant she was no longer death-gripping his hand so hard that he lost the feeling in his fingertips.

Yesterday had been spent doing nothing but setting themselves up in their hotel room, going out to grab some dinner, and then going back to sleep off the hours they had lost in this trip. And then after sleeping in this morning, it had been decided that they were just going to spend the day lounging on the beach. Owen had pointed out that there were many other things they could be doing, only to be told that Nora hadn't flown. On a plane. For hours. Just to go do touristy things like look at sights, no, she wanted to go lay out on a beach. Knowing that this was only the second of their eight days here, he was fine on relenting today. So here they were stretched out on that blanket they had brought down from their room, Nora sprawled out next to him on her stomach in that swimming costume that did in fact cover her nipples. And as for Owen? He was on his back in those dark grey swimming trunks, one arm thrown over his eyes to shield them from the son.

Neither he nor his pasty skin was looking to get a tan, but didn't really feel like actually getting up and doing anything right now. This was his vacation, and the sun shining down did feel amazing. He was going to enjoy this next week to the fullest, seeing as he hadn't had time off like this since the very first time he had run into Nora. Seeing as the first time they "vacationed" together had been spent taking care of and tending to her, he could only hope she didn't fall and break her ankle while they were here. It would be his luck, though.

That arm shifted slightly when he heard he speak next to him, asking him to put some more sunblock on her back. How SPF 5 could even classify as sunblock, he had no idea. But his suggestion to just not wear any - as he had done - had been shot down. Sighing, his other hand searched blindly for that bottle of lotion, finally finding it next to the bag that Nora had carried. Owen took it in one hand and moved the other to open it, keeping his eyes closed to ward off the sun. A good glob of it was poured into his hand, before capping the bottle and tossing it to the side once more. In perhaps the most ungraceful movement ever, he brought his hand closet to her to smack down on her bottom, that sunblock with it. The plan had been to actually get her back, but that would have to do.

Lifting up his head, and cracking an eye, he looked over at her as he tried to suppress a smile. "There."
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[Nov. 11th, 2009|05:30 pm]

apolutrosis
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Owen Ivers and Nora Deboeck, with a special appearance by Ginger
What: New "wife"? Meet ex-fiancee.
Where: Harrods in Knightsbridge, London
When: November 11, 2009
Rating: PG-13

To say that Nora and Owen had their differences would be a gross understatement - sort of like saying the Israelis and the Palestinians were prone to tiffs, or that vampires and werewolves didn't care for one another. Well, Nora and Owen got along better than all that, when they cared to, but today's point of conflict was shopping. Nora's philosophy on shopping was this: the cheaper the better. As long as it functioned, she was fine; she didn't need anything expensive and fancy. This resulted in her acquiring most of her possessions secondhand, and had been a major survival strategy during those first few years among the Imbued, which she'd spent on the edge of poverty. Nora had never been destitute - she'd always had a roof over her head, at least - but she'd been known to skip meals and the like, in order to save up for things she needed to pay for, like rent, and cell phone bills. Her financial situation was no longer quite so dire, and hadn't been for a while, but it was a habit she'd gotten into that she hadn't shaken. That coupled with her dislike of commercialism, and the end result was that she just didn't shop very often.

Owen's philosophy, to Nora's observations, was almost the exact opposite of hers. He wasn't a spendthrift, but his rule seemed to be: if you're going to buy something, buy the best. In his defense, he could afford it while Nora couldn't. And this was how Nora had come to live in a flat that looked like it had been plucked straight out of an Ikea catalog. It was also how she had come to be in luxury department store Harrods, with one of Owen's credit cards in her pocket, but no Owen. Oh, he was around somewhere, but Nora had been sent off toward the women's fashion department, while her partner had wandered off mumbling something about new luggage.

They were shopping for their trip - their honeymoon. Owen had followed through on his promise that they would take one, and set it all up, and they were to depart for eight days in Aruba in about a week. The trip itself was on her parents' dollar; they had offered, and Nora had talked Owen into accepting, because if they weren't paying it meant Owen was, and she would feel worse about accepting such a huge gift from him than her parents. Since Owen wasn't paying for the travel and accommodations, this seemed to be an opportunity for him to spend money on other things, including her. It always made Nora uncomfortable when he did that, though she knew he didn't mean it as charity. On the way over, he'd been talking about the exorbitant prices at which the locals on the island sold things, ripping off the tourists, and Nora could understand wanting to avoid that. But she'd almost had a heart attack when he'd proceeded to lead her into shiny, sparkly Christmas hell.

Nora had never been inside Harrods. She felt like she couldn't even afford to breathe the air in the place, which smelled of the gourmet foodstuffs that they sold in some rooms, and just of expensive, expensive things in others. Not everyone looked like they could afford to be here either, but then, not everyone was actually buying things. It was the Christmas season despite only being mid-November, but Nora passed by all the brightly-colored crap dripping in ribbons and fairy lights, and went off to women's clothing. She was supposed to be buying vacation things - a swimming costume, and light clothes that you wouldn't normally wear in London in the fall. They seemed to sell just about everything here, though, so she shouldn't have a problem finding what she was looking for. Admittedly, some of the food interested her more than what she found in the women's department - she was sure they'd passed a sushi bar a couple of floors ago - but she was on a mission here.

Even though it wasn't her money she was spending, the prices on these things made her raise her eyebrows about as far as they would go. She didn't look entirely out of place among the other shoppers, but she sure felt it, wandering between racks of clothes that held single articles worth more than the entire ensemble - beat-up leather jacket, sweater, and jeans with the ends frayed - that she was currently wearing. Nora waved off the perky redheaded saleswoman who offered her assistance quickly but politely, preferring to browse the selection alone, shaking her head at the prices. None of it was really her style, but she finally sucked it up and chose a bikini that wasn't too bad, and a long sundress. She'd meandered through lingerie as well, toying with the idea of surprising Owen with something, but in the end, she just couldn't bring herself to spend that much money on underthings. It was bad enough that she was spending so much on two things she'd only be able to wear for one week.

Finally, she queued up at the register and set her things on the counter for the saleswoman to ring up. Nora noted wryly that nobody bothered to ask how they were paying here, and obediently handed over Owen's credit card, managing to wince only slightly when the total was rung up.
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[Nov. 9th, 2009|05:05 pm]

oddoneout
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Andromeda Black and Ted Tonks
What: Making plans for life after Hogwarts
Where: The grounds out by the lake
When: May 19, 1971
Rating: PG

Ted was aware that things had been difficult for Andromeda since her family had found out about their relationship a few months ago, and he felt bad about that, but there was a part of him that was secretly rather pleased with how things had turned out so far. Sneaking around had been fun for a while, but after a year of it, the novelty had worn off, and Ted found himself longing for a normal relationship. However, the idea of breaking up with Andromeda and pursuing something more conventional with another girl never crossed his mind. Perhaps it would be better to say: he wanted a normal relationship with Andromeda. This was for the plain and simple reason that he had fallen in love with her. He wanted to be able to kiss her goodbye when they parted ways in the hallway, and sit with her in the library, and take walks with her in broad daylight. He'd been tired of looking over his shoulder all the time. He wanted everyone to know that they were both off the market, and also that purebloods and Muggleborns could get along, and even fall in love. Things had just gotten worse politically, though, and all that had seemed impossible until they had no other choice but to come clean. Her parents had found out; Narcissa had caught on to her sister's deception and told on them. And now, they could do all of that. Ted wasn't oblivious to the rumors and whispers and even the disgusted looks they got, but it didn't matter. They were almost out of school. They'd be free, soon.

Another perk of now being able to acknowledge that Andromeda Black was his girlfriend was that they could now partner up in classes. This had done wonders for his Potions marks this term; he'd been beginning to think that signing up for NEWT Potions was a seriously misguided move. They could also sit together in Charms and Care of Magical Creatures - their other shared classes - the latter of which they were currently in. It was a very nice day to spend out on the grounds, even if they were just watching an Occamy rattle around bad-temperedly in its cage while Professor Kettleburn waffled on. This was the last lesson during which they'd cover new material; from now on, they'd be going back over what they'd learned over the past two years in preparation for NEWTs in a couple of weeks. This had all snuck up on Ted, but it hit him at the beginning of the lesson when the professor had announced this - they were so close to being finished with school. And being free wasn't really a certainty, for one of them.

Ted had admittedly not been paying very close attention to the discussion; he was more preoccupied with what exactly he and Andromeda were going to do. Her family was going to try to separate them, take her away from him - of that much, Ted was certain. They wouldn't just let her go off without a hell of a fight, bringing shame to the house and soiling the bloodline all willy-nilly. Andromeda didn't seem too keen on the idea of being around any of her family nowadays; she hadn't even gone home for Christmas. Ted's parents liked Andromeda, and he'd told them a bit about their difficulties. She could stay with his family, of course - his mother had even told her she was always welcome - but there was nothing stopping the Blacks from finding her and forcing her to come back, then. By the end of the lesson, Ted had learned nothing about the creature in the cage, but that didn't matter, because he'd thought through all their options, and only one would work, if they wanted to stay together.

When the class ended and the students scattered, Ted reached for Andromeda's hand before she could turn away back toward the castle and began to walk in the opposite direction, pulling her with him toward the lake. "Take a walk with me."
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[Nov. 3rd, 2009|06:38 pm]

vincitomnia
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Owen Ivers and Max Cleghorn
What: Hunter meets vampire, asshole meets...other asshole.
Where: Outside the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London
When: November 2, 2009
Rating: PG-13, probably

Max's first visit to the Royal Opera House was when he was nineteen years old. This was after he'd enlisted in the Navy, but before he was sent to India. He didn't remember what show he'd seen there - for one thing, it was over a century ago. For another thing, he'd been bored and uninterested in things like opera, and it had been in Italian, which he didn't understand. He would much rather have spent his time on shore leave at the pub with his fellow sailors, but his newly-married older sister Clara, who was living in London at the time, invited him to go with her and her husband. In the past century and a half, though, Max had been to this opera house dozens and dozens of times. Culture, it seemed, was an acquired taste, and although it was a very different place from the first time he'd been, it felt a bit like coming home. Everyone was dressed up in their finery, and with the lights out, Max could almost pretend that they were gas instead of electric, and lose himself in the music that was popular when he was born. It was greatly preferred to whatever passed for entertainment for people of his physical age in 2009.

Tonight it was the ballet - The Sleeping Beauty. He'd left Thomas in charge back at the chantry and Spicer there to bother him, and attended alone. The dress code had changed since Max had first been there, of course, but he dressed up anyway, like everyone else was. And he was a lone figure in a tuxedo when it ended, lingering as the excited crowd thinned outside the Opera House. Max loved the ballet, yes, but there was another reason he liked it here. Covent Garden was a wonderful feeding ground, especially after a show. All the tourists who came to London wanted to catch the ballet at such a historic cultural center. Tourists were easy to feed upon; this was pretty widely known among the vampires of such major cities that attracted them. They weren't generally to Max's taste, but they were fine for a quick dinner.

Max wandered through the square, eyeing the shops with distaste. He'd liked this district better when it crowded with vendors every day selling fruits and vegetables and flowers. Now, it was more of an oversized shopping mall. He wandered down toward the river, seemingly window shopping...he was, of a sort. None of the people who would be easy to drag off for a snack appealed to Max - he'd grown finicky in his old age. So he continued to saunter along, hands in his pockets, and stopped in front of a shop that apparently sold antiques. Max stood there, reminiscing about times when those old watches and the like were used every day, completely unaffected by the chill in the November air.
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[Nov. 3rd, 2009|03:12 pm]

cruoremproditor
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Ted Tonks and Andromeda Black
What: Defining them
Where: An unused classroom
When: November 19, 1969 (6th year)
Rating: PG

Andromeda looked over her shoulder again past the desks stacked near the door to the classroom she was in, before turning around and pacing the same path she just had. According to her watch, there were still three minutes before he was supposed to show up, but it didn't stop her from cast glances at the minute hand every fifteen seconds. Just as it was like her to show up early to anything and every, she couldn't think of a single rendezvous they had ever arranged that Ted had been late to or brushed off. And yet each and every time there was some worry about it all until he did show up, and she wasn't sure why. Then again there were a lot of things that Ted Tonks made her unsure about...

One thing she knew with a certainty was that she had a vicious, vicious crush on him, though. And, she was pretty sure he knew it, too. That first month or so back at Hogwarts could have classified as hellish, but not because of anything to do with academics. No, during the tail end of their fifth year she had come to the conclusion that this crush was starting to blossom, and their correspondence by owl over the summer hadn't helped it at all. To this day it still surprised her that she, Andromeda Black, had made the first move and kissed him, Theodore Tonks, that day about a month ago after she spotted him coming out of Herbology class. What was even more surprising was that it had become the norm for one of them to snag the other after class to sneak off to snog. So this wasn't entirely out of the ordinary, but Ted had seemed... different when he stopped her on the way to the Great Hall for dinner and told her where to meet him tonight.

She had no idea what was going on in that head of his, but had yet again risked getting detention or House points deducted to come to some random classroom to see him. Raising a hand her to her mouth, she chewed nervously on a hangnail on her left thumb as she continued her pacing. It only stopped when she heard footsteps approaching from behind those heavy wooden doors, and found herself holding her breath as the door began to open. This was just some unused classroom after all, and it could be someone else showing up for a secret meeting. But as someone stepped into view, Andromeda breathed a sigh of relief as she saw that familiar Hufflepuff. "Hi, Ted," she said softly, bringing both hands to cross over her chest as she beamed over at him.
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[Oct. 24th, 2009|12:41 am]

cruoremproditor
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Ted Tonks and Andromeda Black
What: Someone needs help understanding an assignment for Muggle Studies, and what do you know? Someone else happens to be a Muggleborn who is easily talked into helping others!
Where: Muggle Studies classroom
When: March 12, 1969 (5th year)
Rating: PG

Non-renewable resources were fast becoming one of the most hated subjects in Andromeda's life. There were times when she wondered how Muggles ever got by without magic, or even were able to wrap their heads around concepts such as oil and fossil fuels. Supposedly they were used to run pretty much everything from cars (something that still mystified her to a point) all the way to heating Muggle households, and then some. There were also times when she wondered why she was still taking Muggle Studies as a course, because in bouts like this it just didn't seem like it was worth it. There had been quite a fight put up so that she could even enter this course in the first part, and she had been seriously surprised when her parents finally relented and told her she could take the class. This was after a few white lies and a lot of creative thinking on her part to ensure Cygnus and Druella that she wasn't becoming some sort of Mudblood sympathizer in taking this. Well, she wasn't per se, but the subject did interest her greatly.

There were numerous societies out there that didn't rely on magic of any kind with which to live by, and the prospect of just how they did so had been extremely intriguing. Andromeda just hadn't known how hard it would be to try and understand an entire world outside of the one she had always lived in. This wasn't one of her best classes, and that was not saying much, but she didn't need to be at the edge of failing two classes. Herbology confused her even more than Muggle Studies. Professor Sprout didn't seem to be as willing as Professor Munsley to afford her students ample opportunities to pull up their marks, though. Sometimes extra credit assignments weren't enough, and after another thoroughly unimpressive essay was turned in, her professor had come up the idea that Andromeda could perhaps be tutored by another one or her students who excelled at this class, or something like that. The gist had seemed to be that she could offer her the help of another student. She wasn't too keen on this idea at first, but the end of terms would be upon them sooner than later, and she would be damned to not at least try and make a passing grade.

And so here she was sitting in the empty Muggle Studies classroom. Dinner had just ended not long ago, and she did have other assignments to attend to, so she could only hope that whoever was going to be helping her would be arriving shortly. Just who was going to help her understand this all? She hadn't a clue, but then again Professor Munsley had always seemed a little absent-minded about quite a few things. Andromeda had been told to show up at a certain time, and so she had. In front of her sat a notebook, and next to it were two quills sitting exactly an inch apart from each other in parallel lines. It never hurt to have a spare. Her text for the class sat on the far side of the desk, also carefully arranged. That leather knapsack with her initials embossed into it sat at her feet, and she was busying herself by flipping through the notes from class, one elbow on the edge of the desk as she twisted a few strands of her hair between her thumb and forefinger.

There was a slight pause in trying to get this all to make sense, consisting simply of her looking towards the entrance of the room before she turned back around again.
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[Oct. 23rd, 2009|05:36 am]

apolutrosis
[Tags|, ]

Who: Owen Ivers and Nora Deboeck (with special guest appearances from Nora's family)
What: They visit her family to tell them they've "gotten married".
Where: Brussels, Belgium
When: October 10, 2009
Rating: TBD

It had been a month since Nora Deboeck had married Owen Ivers - or that was the story, at least. The world identified the term "marriage" with the concept of eternal and binding commitment (or had, once) and so that was the term they were using to define their partnership when explaining it to their families. Nora was no stranger to glossing over certain aspects of her life, putting a more "normal" spin on them for her parents' sake, and that was what she and Owen were doing in Brussels for the weekend. They were going to tell her mother and her step-father that they had had a shotgun wedding, probably going into as little detail as possible.

Nora doubted they would be particularly shocked. Their daughter was a spontaneous person, tearing through life by the seat of her pants. They knew full and well that she was rough around the edges, reckless, made decisions based on some method of judgment they weren't familiar with. Of course they did - they'd paid her medical bills, going through rehab and the psychiatric system. She seemed to be doing better lately, from their perspective, though this might only be because they saw her even less often than they normally had when she lived in the same country as they did. But she was still Nora, no matter where she lived, and the news that they had eloped...well, it was something she would do. They would accept that with a sigh, whether they approved or not, because Nora had her opinions and her way, and it was generally impossible to dissuade her once she'd set her mind.

Lise Jolanda von Queckelberghe, at the mature age of thirteen, was aware that her family had its drama, but was sometimes unsure of exactly what it was. Not that she would admit this. She was precocious, and felt that this meant she knew everything, even though she was poor at English and worse at geography. As far as her half-sister was concerned, Lise didn't know a lot about what she got up to. Sometimes she heard her mother (who was also Nora's mother) and her father (who was not Nora's father, but treated her just the same as Lise anyway, or would if Lise was older) worrying over Nora, even though she was a grown up. Lise was born when Nora was already a teenager, and she hadn't lived with the family since Lise was three years old. This made her half-sister seem sort of like an older cousin, or an aunt. She knew that Nora travelled - sometimes she brought presents from France or Denmark or Germany or Amsterdam, or wherever she had gone lately - but Nora had moved off with a man to live in Great Britain, which didn't look that far away when Lise had looked it up on the map, but it must be further than it looked, because Nora didn't visit very often anymore.

Lise had met this man that Nora lived with, and she had to say that she was Not Impressed. Nora was cool, and Owen did not look very cool at all. He looked like he could be one of her teachers at school, scowling at her and her friends when they spoke out of turn or laughed too loudly. Also, when he came to visit with Nora, Lise had to speak English at home. He was definitely not worth having to speak English, especially since he hogged her sister all the time, even when they came here. Nora was always going off with him, and kissing him and whispering in English too quick for Lise to keep up with, until Owen finally cracked a smile. Lise couldn't imagine what her sister saw in him. She liked it better when Nora came by herself.

Tonight, they were both here, and everyone was speaking English - even her father, who was still learning, just like Lise - and they were having lamb and asparagus for supper. Lise poked at the greens sullenly; she hated asparagus. Her mother knew this, but refused to excuse her from the table until they were gone. And so she was still sitting there after her father left the table, when he left to bring in the laundry from outside and close the car windows, as it was beginning to rain. And then Nora and her mother began to clear the table, taking the dishes into the kitchen to wash. And she was left sitting across from Mr. Scowlypants, who Linda had forbidden from helping in the kitchen, as he was a guest. The blonde teenager alternated staring forlornly at her now-cold vegetables, and looking dispassionately across the table at her sister's boyfriend. He wasn't very talkative. Or happy. Boring.

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Part Three [Oct. 23rd, 2009|04:52 am]

incertus_tutor
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Nora Deboeck and Owen Ivers
What: Eight days have passed since the world exploded.  Owen tracks down Nora to appologize for being a blithering idiot... and "proposes"
Where: A shady inn in town, and then their apartment
When: September 5, 2009
Rating: PG

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Part Two [Oct. 23rd, 2009|04:49 am]

incertus_tutor
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Nora Deboeck and Owen Ivers
What: Eight days have passed since the world exploded.  Owen tracks down Nora to appologize for being a blithering idiot... and "proposes"
Where: A shady inn in town, and then their apartment
When: September 5, 2009
Rating: PG

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Part One [Oct. 23rd, 2009|04:41 am]

incertus_tutor
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Nora Deboeck and Owen Ivers
What: Eight days have passed since the world exploded.  Owen tracks down Nora to appologize for being a blithering idiot... and "proposes"
Where: A shady inn in town, and then their apartment
When: September 5, 2009
Rating: PG

The number eight seemed to have some sort of fucked up significance in the long, not to mention at times tenuous, relationship of Nora Deboeck and Owen Ivers.  After they met the first time, it had taken eight months for them to meet up again.  And then today would mark the eighth day since Owen had last seen Nora.  Eight days since they had run into each other while out hunting.  Eight days since they had the biggest fight of their entire relationship.  Eight days since he had pulled a gun on her before she did the same.  Eight days since she walked away from him in that dark alley.  This was not the first time Nora had walked out of his life, with the question of whether or not he'd see her again hanging in the air.  Three times it had happened.  Three strikes.  But he wasn't really sure who the strikes were against.  The first time had been after they first met, and had been because he hadn't reciprocated as he had fully wanted to as she had let herself.  The second time had been because of him, or more accurately because of Them.  She couldn't take the visions and hallucinations They sent her way, and she had left.  The third time had been eight days ago.  It had been because they had gotten into the largest fight they ever had, and he pulled a gun on her to prove a point.  The odds were stacked against him.

Owen wasn't stupid enough to think that this was going to be resolved easily, if it was going to be resolved at all.  There was a part of him that was set to believe that they were through, to believe that he had fucked up so badly... But there was a much larger part of him that wasn't going to let that happen.  He was ready to do whatever he had to to assure that one way or another this was rectified.  Too much time had been spent getting them to the point they had been at that he wasn't ready to let that happen.  He still couldn't believe that he let himself get so out of hand, let the situation escalate to the point that it had.  When it came down to it, Owen still loved Nora as much as he had prior to their falling out.  There wasn't a single person that he had ever felt so connected to as her, and he wasn't ready to let that person out of his life.  He wasn't below groveling, or doing whatever he had to do to get her back. 

Those eight days had been some of the worst of his life, and it showed.  Usually he had a tired look about him, but as he walked to the hotel Nora was staying at right now, he looked downright haggard.  His usually entirely clean cut appearance had been taken over by a rather impressive five o' clock shadow, not to mention that his hair wasn't as impeccable as it usually was.  Instead of making sure he looked his best today, he had thrown on a pair of jeans and a shirt from a crumpled pile of clothes that resided on the foot of his bed.  All in all, he was completely miserable.

Nora hadn't come home that night, and honestly it didn't surprise him that much.  But then the next day he had come home from work to find that quite a bit of her meager possessions had been taken.  And eight days later she still hadn't come home, nor had they had any contact whatsoever.  He wasn't stupid enough to think that she would have answered any phone calls of his, and so he had taken to having to speak to mutual contacts of theirs to find out where she was staying.  At first the outcome had looked quite bleak, no one having heard from her recently.  After seemingly exhausting all of his venues, he hit gold.  Owen had met Emma through Nora, and wasn't even sure if it was worth contacting her, but he had no other options by that point.  She had informed him that Nora been staying with her, but no longer was.  After a bit of persuasion by him, he'd learned that she was now staying at a hotel in town.  That was a relief to hear, because he had been worried that she might have gone back to Brussels.  There surely would have been no way that would have had a good ending.

That was two days ago he found out this information, but hadn't acted on it right away.  Especially not since there was one very important part of this plan that still had to be worked out, if not one of the most important parts.  And so today he found himself slinking down the hallway towards her room, stopping in front of the room the clerk at the desk had directed him towards.  Taking a deep breath, Owen raised a fist to rap his knuckles on the door, before letting his hand slip back into his jacket pocket once more and wrap around that small box.

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[Oct. 23rd, 2009|03:40 am]

apolutrosis
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Owen Ivers and Nora Deboeck
What: Owen stumbles upon Nora mid-hunt, and is not happy with what he sees. Then, the world explodes.
Where: A back alley outside a nightclub in London
When: August 28, 2009
Rating: PG-13

It hadn't taken Nora long, upon moving to London, to find the seediest places in town. In her defense, bars and clubs and drug dens and unsavory places like that were the best hunting grounds, at least when you had Nora's experience, temperament, and hunting style. Ten years ago, she would've been one of the people that surrounded her, knocking back drinks and dancing to heavy, repetitive beats until the sun came up, oblivious to the things that preyed upon them. Nora was tempted sometimes, finding herself in places like this, to just indulge in a night for herself - forget the supernatural, and just have fun. But she couldn't. She could feel them here around her. She knew when she passed one on the street, or sat next to one on the tube. It was impossible to pretend that she didn't know; she couldn't ignore them.

Nora was used to this by now. She was used to leaving the clean, safe flat she shared with her partner and going out to put a dent in the scum of London's underbelly. It wasn't hard to find them at all, especially the Brujah, who were Nora's prey of choice. Any club that felt wrong to her was probably owned by one, and there were several in this city - enough that she wasn't yet known to them by sight. When that happened, she would have to switch up her methods a bit, but the Brujah were fairly easy to hunt, by her methods. Or at least easy to lure in. Killing them was the hard part.

She'd been here for a while now, watching. She'd danced for a while, since she wasn't drinking and it would've looked strange if she was doing neither, but she'd watched the whole time. Nora's skin crawled, just being here, pressed up against other sweaty bodies. She knew they were here, and she watched every couple that left the dance floor for someplace more private, making sure that nothing bad was happening. It was only a matter of time before it did, and hopefully she could intervene before any damage was done.

Nora stumbled off the dance floor, her hair matted down to the back of her neck and her eye makeup slightly smeared by sweat, in search of a drink of water. She blended in here, but she was the only one that noticed a young blonde man enter the club, which drew in its clientele by advertising that the Clash had once played here before they were famous. He was handsome, but she knew what he was immediately, and knew that they often were. Nora recognized the look in his eyes as he scanned the crowd, knowing what he was looking for. One of the people behind her would be it, for him...but Nora had a perfectly functional pulse. And if she drew his attention, by the end of the night, they would be safe, and he would be dead. She plastered a fake, breathless smile on her face, allowing the throng of people to shunt her toward the man. She found herself right up against the vampire, grinning up at him. Just another drunk girl. An easy meal. He wouldn't know about the gun concealed under her clothes and the spike in her boot before it was too late. Hopefully.

"Hey, handsome," she slurred, leaning into him as though she was finding difficulty standing up straight. Her hand found his, pulling him toward the door again. It was cold; he hadn't fed in a while. Lovely. The vampire smiled down at her triumphantly, following her willingly to his death as she pushed open the heavy door, leading him toward the alley at the side of the building.

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[Oct. 23rd, 2009|02:58 am]

apolutrosis
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Owen Ivers and Nora Deboeck
What: Nora has to sit out a hunting mission (thanks to Owen), and she is not pleased.
Where: Their flat in London
When: July 9, 2009
Rating: PG

Nora was in bad shape. This was an improvement from two nights ago, when she'd been in seriously bad shape. She'd dragged herself home from a night of hunting - how, she had no memory of, but it had to have been painful - only to pass out almost immediately. She vaguely recalled that this episode had started out with herself and one vampire, but he seemed to have multiplied. She found herself quite outnumbered, and could only assume they had left her for dead as the sun threatened to peek over the horizon. Nora didn't remember how it had ended, only that she'd been in a lot of pain.

Her healer - who also served as a voice of common sense, a bossy, overprotective guardian, and when she wasn't angry with him, her lover - had diagnosed her when she woke, with four broken ribs, internal bleeding, and a badly sprained knee, not to mention that much of the right side of her face was a mess of blood and gravel. Owen had painstakingly picked out the bits of dirt and rock, while Nora whimpered and occasionally coughed up blood, and pretended to listen to his usual lecture on the topic of how she was stupidly reckless and was going to get herself killed sooner rather than later. He hadn't yet figured out that this was not what Nora ever wanted to do, the second she came home looking and feeling like she'd been chewed up and spat out again. Or maybe Owen knew this and chose to ignore it in favor of being fussy and condescending. It just put her in an even worse mood. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed with him and forget about what she'd seen and what she had to do.

Two days later, and Nora still wasn't in top shape. As long as she didn't move around, nothing hurt, but she still had a bad limp and pretty much everything was still sore. Nora felt useless and pathetic, even more so because there was a party tonight and she now had to sit out. Hunters were usually quite solitary creatures, but there came some times when one or more would catch wind that something big was happening, and call for backup. Sometimes this worked better than others, depending on the different personalities drawn together. Tonight, there was a rumored pack-wide ritual of weres somewhere just outside the city. Owen was going, along with as many of the other Hunters of London that they could pull in. Nora was not - while she'd fought with internal injuries and broken ribs before, that knee slowed her down too much. She would be more of a liability than an asset.

Nora understood this, but it didn't mean she had to like it. Though a restless and independent person by nature, she'd spent the entirety of the past two days being moved between the couch and the bed by Owen, out of necessity. She was someone who liked being in the thick of things, and was displeased about benchwarming. As such, she was ready to kill something, and the only other thing in this flat worth killing was her lover, who she suspected was not healing her as fast as he could be. They'd been planning this for weeks, all of them, and now she had to sit out. Worse, she had nothing to do but stay where she was, alone, and worry.

As she watched Owen prepare from where she lay on the couch, her dread only grew. What if something happened to him? This anxiety wasn't foreign to her; she experienced it every time he went out. They didn't hunt together very often - their respective techniques didn't mesh well, and their protectiveness over one another was distracting - but at least if she was going, she would be there just in case. Nora was in no shape to be healing anyone else, even, but she couldn't stand not knowing. She had a book that lay open in her lap, but she had abandoned it in favor of staring off in thought, a frown on her still-bruised and scabbed face.

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Part Two [Oct. 23rd, 2009|02:53 am]

apolutrosis
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Owen Ivers and Nora Deboeck
What: Nora's been in Belgium visiting her family for her birthday, and comes home to Owen waiting to give her his real present.
Where: Their flat in London
When: June 5, 2009
Rating: Hard R

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Part One [Oct. 23rd, 2009|02:50 am]

apolutrosis
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Owen Ivers and Nora Deboeck
What: Nora's been in Belgium visiting her family for her birthday, and comes home to Owen waiting to give her his real present.
Where: Their flat in London
When: June 5, 2009
Rating: Hard R

Nora had never been much for celebrating birthdays. She wasn't very good at buying others gifts, and when people bought you a gift on your own birthday, you were generally expected to reciprocate. And anyway, Nora didn't want for much. Julie, her boss, had gifted her with a couple of candles from the shop, which was a very nice gesture - she was a very nice lady, if a little batty. Rhys had offered twenty-eight kisses, plus one for good luck. Nora had passed that one by with a laugh, never really able to tell if he was joking or not. Her mum had offered to take her shopping for whatever she needed, but Nora had convinced her family that all she wanted was four days of their company and home cooking, which she was getting thanks to Owen's present to her, which was the train tickets to get there and back. Nora could afford it herself - she worked, and didn't spend money on anything other than food and ammunition and transportation around London - but she'd been putting off going home to Brussels to see her family since she'd finished moving across the channel, for various reasons. She'd teared up just a little bit when she saw what Owen's gift was, and it was the kick in the pants she'd needed.

Twenty-eight was nothing special, in Nora's opinion. It felt much the same as twenty-seven had, only she was two years away from thirty instead of three, and so it was even less cause for celebration than usual. However, the birthday itself had been wonderful. Absence did make the heart grow fonder, and this especially applied to family. Despite her mum's fussing and her half-sister's general teenager-dom, it had been an enjoyable trip. And though Nora was sad to leave them at the end of her time, she was looking forward to going home. Because home had, at some point in the past seven months or so, become a spotless flat in London's Camden district, but only because that's where Owen was.

She only carried her customary one duffel bag; it made travel miles easier without suitcases to lug around, from station to train to metro or taxi. Nora had lived in cities all her life, and though she'd learned to drive in her late teens, was perfectly comfortable navigating around public transportation systems. Owen had a car, but she'd never driven it - the wheel was on the wrong side and she doubted he'd let her anyway - and it was a rare occasion that she relied on him for a ride. Tonight she just took a cab back to their flat, tipping the driver in newly re-converted pounds sterling. Nora counted the bills she had left as she climbed the stairs, paused to unlock the door, and stuffed them in the back pocket of her jeans as she entered. She dropped her bag on the floor by the door and glanced toward the sitting room, addressing the current complaint on her mind without prelude to her partner. "It's been a decade and you British still haven't adopted the Euro. I'm all for nationalism, but this conversion nonsense is just as bloody inconvenient as it's always been." She reached down to unzip her boots and pull them off as she spoke, leaving them by the door as well. Owen hadn't managed to ingrain in Nora many of his obsessive-compulsive ways, but he had at least managed to train her to take her shoes off at the door.

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[Oct. 23rd, 2009|02:36 am]

apolutrosis
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Owen Ivers and Nora Deboeck
What: Nora didn't make it home from a night out hunting before Owen left for work. She calls his office when she gets back to their flat.
Where: Phonecall
When: May 20, 2009
Rating: PG

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Part Two [Oct. 23rd, 2009|02:23 am]

incertus_tutor
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Nora Deboeck and Owen Ivers
What: Owen is sick, and Nora is COMPLETELY out of her element
Where: Their apartment
When: April 15, 2009
Rating: PG

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Part One [Oct. 23rd, 2009|02:15 am]

incertus_tutor
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Nora Deboeck and Owen Ivers
What: Owen is sick, and Nora is COMPLETELY out of her element
Where: Their apartment
When: April 15, 2009
Rating: PG

Owen felt like complete and utter shite.  This morning when he woke up, he didn't feel great... but had simply put it off as not getting enough sleep the night before.  That happened quite often when one lived with a potential sex addict.  Not that he was complaining, especially right now when there were better things to complain about.  His pounding head, or the aches that wracked his entire body, or the fact that he felt like he was burning alive while simultaneously shivering like crazy, or even the fact that his stomach seemed to think that perma-nausea was a good setting.  Thankfully he was only minutes from home, and he could only hope that Nora wasn't still in bed hogging all of the covers.  Owen didn't think that he'd be lucky, but one could wish.

It was at his bosses insistence that he leave work early today, even though he swore he was fine.  Even though he felt like he was far from that.  After she practically clocked him out herself and shoved him out of the office, he trudged to his car and started home.  God, he could wait to get this tie off, and go to bed.  That sounded like the best idea he had ever had.  Pulling up to his flat, he took his slow time getting out of his car and making it towards his place of residence.  Once inside, he threw his keys onto the small table next to the door, wincing as the dull clinking resounded much louder in his ears.  Bringing his hands up to lazily pull at the knot of his tie, he noted that he couldn't hear Nora rustling around anywhere.  She must have still been in bed, seeing as according to his calculations she didn't have to be at work for at least a few hours.  Did she even have to work today?  He couldn't remember right now.

Once he had loosened his tie enough, he tugged it over his head and just let it drop to the ground.  Owen was in no state of mind to think of being neat and orderly at the moment.  Barely lifting his feet he made his way into the bedroom, and sure enough there was Nora sprawled out on her stomach.  Awesome.  He started to undo the buttons of his shirt, but didn't get past the button at his collar before deciding it just wasn't worth it.  Kicking off his shoes, he lifted up the corner of his down comforter and practically collapsed before wrapping them around him as much as he could.  Nora's elbow was jabbing him in the chest, and he moved a hand under the covers to push her away.  "I'm going to kill you if you don't move," he mumbled in a very unpleasant tone to her sleeping figure, before groaning into his pillow.  That sudden movement didn't help his stomach at all.  Closing his eyes, Owen took a deep breath and pulled those covers tighter around him.  He wished for a quick and certain death then and there.  It had to be better than this.
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[Oct. 23rd, 2009|12:44 am]

incertus_tutor
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Nora Deboeck and Owen Ivers
What: It only took them a year and some change to finally say those three words -eyeroll-
Where: Nora's soon-to-be old apartment in Brussels
When: December 16, 2008
Rating: Hard R

And so here he was.  Standing in the middle of Nora's apartment - or what had been her apartment - labeling boxes of books according to there subject manner.  And said books had also been roughly alphabetized before going into said boxes.  Why was Owen employing his anal retentive nature over books?  Because soon enough they were going to be shoved into the backseat of his car, along with her few other possessions still lying around, and taken back to his flat in London.  And why was this?  Because, god help him, Nora was moving in with him.  It was a temporary solution to the two of them going back and forth between Brussels and London every few weeks, something that was going to be set in place until she secured a living area for herself.  How it had come to this, he had no clue.  It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but was surely going to be interesting as bloody hell.  Having a live-in... whatever they were, even if it was only temporary, wasn't anything new to him.  But, he had never had to share a living space with someone quite like her before.  It was well over a year after first meeting Nora Deboeck, and he still wasn't completely sure what his take on interesting was.

Putting the cap back on that permanent marker, he looked around at the tiny run-down space that he had spent quite a bit of time in the past year.  There were actually some pretty good memories here, he wasn't going to lie, but it would be a lie to say that he was the smallest bit happy that he wouldn't have to be trekking over to another country just to see Nora anymore.  Whether or not he was going to wish to ship her back to her native land after living in the same quarters with her, well, that was still up for discussion.  Bringing his hands to rest of his lower back, he pressed firmly while leaning back far enough to feel his back crack.  "Wench.  What the hell are you doing in there?  Does it really take that long to pack up a damn afghan?" 

Walking over to what had been her bedroom, he leaned against the door frame and unzipped his pull-over a bit more as he looked at her, before raising a brow as he looked down at the blanket in question in a pile on the floor.  "Good to know that productive streak of yours is still in full effect..."  There was the slightest bit of a smirk as those blue eyes came to rest upon her again.  He wasn't in a particularly bad mood, but after traveling all the way to Belgium and knowing that he would be the one driving back - he didn't trust her behind the wheel of his car - it was safe to say that Owen was a little on edge.  Then again, when wasn't he?
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Part Two [Oct. 22nd, 2009|10:47 pm]

apolutrosis
[Tags|, , ]

Who: Owen Ivers and Nora Deboeck
What: Annnd getting back together.
Where: London, England
When: December 6-7, 2008
Rating: PG-13

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