Log: Vertigo & Accord Who: Valerie Reed and Jack Bantock When: Afternoon, Monday, February 18, 2008 Where: Jack's home, Queens, NYC What: V is bored and lonely and lives a sad, lonely life when she doesn't actively have a job with Sinister, so she goes to bother Jack... and then tries to crack through his impenetrable shell, because he's so uncaring that that can't be real.
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The most exciting part of the last week had been electrocuting a goldfish and pissing off the mermaid. And now life was ... back to normal, sitting at home, watching movies, and sleeping, with the occasional random killing spree of sapiens thrown in. Only the bad sapiens, of course. When he could find them. Usually he just sort of guessed. If he was wrong, big deal.
He should've gone out today, but he'd decided to stay in and watch some old movie he hadn't seen in ages. Of course, Vertigo just had to come over. She always did, and now she was on his couch, too, being ... obnoxious. But that was normal, so while she was chattering about something and trying to get him to be amusing, Jack was lighting another cigarette, more interested in rearranging the contents of his ash tray.
The truth was, Vertigo was... lonely. The thing about being a hotshot assassin and internet adult actress was that she worked from home, all of her contacts were over the internet, and when Sinister was busy with other projects she found herself sitting at home all by herself. In fact, when she wasn't working? She was sitting at home by herself with two twitchy little Sphinx cats, eating frozen Lean Cuisines and sitting around in some unwashed pajamas with her hair in a tangled mess and holes in her socks while she watched Days Of Our Lives.
Not that anyone knew that.
Of course not. No one knew she was lonely and sad, because when she sat on Jack's couch she was primped and groomed to the nines, her hair silky and feathered, and she was dressed in jeans that were practically painted on and a pale green top that was open across the back and had a neckline that practically plunged down to her navel. Her black glove was off her robotic hand and she curled the fingers. "You think I should take it in? It's rusting. I don't know what this is made of but this is the new one and it's... it was working fine but whatever it's made of is real shit. I'm worried it's gonna fall apart or something----hey, do you have any chips?"
"Whatever you want, me neither, and probably." Jack didn't really need people. He was aggravating at best, infuriating at worst. While most people, even the bad guys, craved social interaction at one point or another, Jack was perfectly fine alone. If he wanted company, he'd go get it, but it was rare. For now, he just sat next to Vertigo, lazily smoking and just letting her talk. "Don't get any in that hand, though, the last thing I need is to have you bitching about Lays in your gears."
"Oh, no, I'll----" Vertigo grunted, shifting uncomfortably, and then she was unstrapping straps and undoing buckles and screws, and she was removing the robot hand and shutting it down. "I don't want to go without a hand for God knows how long but I can't go around with some hunk of junk... ugh." Climbing off the couch (and over him) she made his way into his kitchen. "You don't mind if I raid, do you? No? Good."
"Why do you keep asking for permission when you're gonna go through my kitchen anyway?" Jack rolled his eyes, making a face at the sight of her taking her hand off. "That's gross, by the way."
"What's gross?" Vertigo called from the kitchen, using her only hand to make her way through Jack's things. She was relatively used to going through life one-handed these days, dealing with it at night and when showering and all, but that didn't mean she wasn't kind of clumsy.
"That freaky hand thing. It's what you get for sticking your hand down Gambit's pants all the time, but fuck if it isn't creepy." Vertigo was a little sensitive about her hand and Jack ... didn't care. It was still gross.
"You know what? You can fuck off, Jack, because I didn't ask him to blow my hand off, he just did it. I coulda shot him and I didn't shoot him, so... ugh." She slammed a cupboard shut and found a bag of potato chips, which she brought back with her. Flopping back on the couch, she kicked her long legs up and draped them in Jack's lap. Maneuvering the bag with the remains of her wrist, she dug her hand into the bag and pulled out a chip.
"It's not that creepy, you're just a pussy who can't handle it. So I'm missing a hand. Big fracking deal. I missed the part where it's your problem and not mine. I'm pretty sure it concerns me a lot more than you."
"But you didn't shoot him, which makes it your fault, doesn't it?" Jack snorted. "It's my problem because you're on my couch and that robot hand is fucking messed up. It's not my fault you're too busy opening your legs to shoot someone in the head."
Vertigo made a face. "You weren't there, back off. Why, are you jealous that I went after Remy and not you? I was just messing around with him."
Jack just stared at her at first --- and then he burst into laughter. Genuine, amused laughter. "V, there's a difference between messing with people and fucking them. One makes you smart, the other makes you a whore. That's why you have one hand and I have two."
Vertigo pursed her lips and brought her leg back, jamming her heel sharply into his thigh as she ate another chip. "I'm not a whore."
Jack flinched, snorted. "Liar."
"I make a living with my body in an unregulated industry because I can't hold down a real job with my list of felonies," said Vertigo with a perfectly polished pout as she licked a crumb from her upper lip. "Sinister pays, but I got a real bad habit of blowing it all on expensive shit so it doesn't tide me over----assignments can be few and far between."
She didn't mention the part that she didn't actually like sex. She didn't trust men. Men took her when she was six and invaded her----not sexually, but they experimented on her for years and sex? Sex was the closest thing in comparison and it squicked her out. She liked the control she could have by showing off her body and using sex to get what she wanted from stupid men, but she didn't actually like the act. That was where the control shifted. If Jack was nice, she might actually talk about it, but... Jack wasn't nice. She didn't want to get all Dr. Phil on Jack fracking Bantock.
"Still a whore," was Jack's easy answer. "Doesn't matter if you're getting naked on camera or fucking Gambit to prove a point. It's your thing, I get it, but maybe you should get a big better at it before going after the guys that can blow your extremities off."
"It was an oversight," Vertigo snapped. "You can't honestly say you've never made a dumb mistake." She took another chip and scowled. "You're an idiot. You have to make dumb mistakes."
"But I didn't lose a hand, honey." Jack's voice was dripping with false affection, imitating the soap operas Vertigo watched when no one else was looking. "There's a big difference."
"What have you lost?" She scooted over, putting the chips in his lap. "You can't go through life doing what we do and not get affected by it unless you're a real sociopath----and yeah, I know what a sociopath is. Baby V knows some big words, shut up."
Jack shrugged. "I ... didn't. Call me a sociopath. I like my work. I was raised doing it. Not everyone is complicated and tragic, V."
"I didn't say I was complicated and tragic," said Vertigo like it was a gross insult. "Maybe the complicated and tragic thing is that you don't have a soul." She grinned a little and snuggled up against him like that made her feel better. She prodded him in the chest with her stump. "You're a bastard and you have no friends."
"Well, look at that. You were finally right about something." He snorted, shaking his head and taking another drag on his cigarette. "Not that it stops you from trying to be friends with me."
"Oh, I promise you, Jackie, I can't stand you," said Vertigo pleasantly, using the stump to caress him, brushing it over his neck, his jaw. After all, he'd said it was creepy. "I hate you. I hate you a lot. You're a bastard and you have no friends and no soul... and that's good because I have no friends, either, and I want to claw your eyes out but you have a nicer house than me because that other green-haired tramp cleans it."
"I draw the line at flirting via arm stump." Jack made a face, pushing Vertigo's arm away from his face. "You hate me so much you bother me all the time and call me like a clingy girlfriend. Right."
"I feel bad for you!" Vertigo said. She crawled into his lap, straddling him and sitting comfortably. Maybe there was a part of her that hated the fact that he----other than Sinister himself----was the only heterosexual man who never fell prey to the charms of her looks. Who never looked at her body with desire. It drove her crazy that she seemed to have no power over him, that he didn't care.
"Tell me, what the hell are you doing with some teenage girl when we all know you like a dick up the ass," she mumbled, smoothing his hair back. Because he had to be gay. It was all a twisted kind of flirtation, neither of them actually wanting what they seemed to be after.
"I'm certainly not going to clean the house myself." Despite Carmilla flirting with him, Jack was genuinely disinterested in ... just about everyone. He was alone by way of apathy, and while sex could be interesting sometimes, it usually wasn't. People who wore their sexuality out in the open like Vertigo and Carmilla seemed to be more of a turn-off than anything. Vertigo had no power over him, and he knew it bothered her, nonchalantly continuing to smoke while she climbed all over him.
"What is it with you, Jack," Vertigo mumbled, tilting her head to one side and squinting at him. "What is with you... I can't crack you. I can't break you. No matter what I do you don't give a shit. No one can rattle you." She leaned back as if that would give her a better view.
"Because, V, there's nothing to rattle." Jack rolled his eyes. "There's nothing to break. I am completely honest about who I am, and that bugs you because you can't bring yourself to be the same way."
"Being honest doesn't make you unbreakable," Vertigo said, twisting her hand in the collar of his shirt.
"I'm content. People who aren't content have something worth breaking. I have no friends, no family, a maid I couldn't care less about, and no pets. I care more about my saxophone than I do about you, and if that breaks, I can buy a new one."
Vertigo blinked a little, thinking about this. He was right and it was kind of scary to think that he was really like that. Maybe she liked to think that there was more to him because it made him easier to handle. She didn't have any friends or family either but instead she lived in a dirty apartment with cats, feeling useless and worthless until she went out and flaunted herself and raised a little hell. And hell, it hurt that Jack didn't care about her. She wanted someone to care about her and no one did. So, she was hard and she was vicious and she was power-hungry, because when you had power and money, other people didn't matter. She could buy eternal beauty and make people do whatever she wanted and she could just dispose of people as she pleased.
Unfortunately, she wasn't there yet, so she was left struggling to scramble and scrape her way up the ladder.
"And you're not worried about breaking yourself because you have powers that make you pretty unbreakable."
"Exactly."
Vertigo brushed her fingers through his hair, looking at him like she was trying to see the cracks in his veneer. "Kiss me."
Jack cocked an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Do it."
"Why?"
"You don't care about whys, Jack. If it makes you feel better, think about how much it's gonna fuck with my head."
"But it's not going to; it doesn't work that way."
Vertigo scowled, but then she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, giving him a slow, languid kiss, lingering long enough to hope she got a response.
He returned the kiss, just for something to do -- and when it finally ended, he just made a face. "...Let's go kill people." Because that was way more interesting than V trying to crack the shell and make out with him. It probably smelled less like potato chips, too.
Vertigo pulled back and wiped her mouth with her stump, grimacing. That had been appropriately gross, like kissing a dead fish. Looks like she wasn't going to get anywhere because it was a dead end right in front of her. They were better off how they were and there was no breaking Jack Bantock. She climbed off of him and went for her prosthetic.