pleasuretoburn (pleasuretoburn) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-04-01 21:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | maddy rigby, noah restic |
Performance Issues
Who: Maddy/Noah
What: A Rescue
Where: Las Vegas, the Rabbit Hole/Area15
When: Present
Ratings/Warnings: Mentions of Violence, Fire, Etc
Noah found himself in the surreally strange position of not wanting to be alone. His sparsely decorated, solitary apartment had never bothered him before. He had also recently realized that loneliness had a particular sound. It was the fridge kicking on, the drip of a faucet that had been recently used, doors opening and closing in the hallway outside his front door. The sounds of other people living lives that had nothing to do with him or who he was.
That was also surprising. It was like he woke up one day and discovered an entire world outside himself. His biggest takeaway from all of this was beleaguered annoyance. Once again, he was at the Rabbit Hole, staring at an untouched drink that he had ordered purely out of habit. Conversations surrounded him in a wall of sound, washing over him like a white noise machine, not picking out any particular words or phrases. Just noise.
Three people, louder than the others, and most likely not people at all, came up to the bar during Noah’s ruminations. The one closest to him had to be aware that he was encroaching on the pyrokinetic’s personal space, brushing against him enough to make him lean away. Noah looked up, studying the hard set of a stubbled jaw, mirthless dark eyes, a mouth that twisted in what seemed like humor as another in their small party shared some kind of joke under his breath.
And there was nothing Noah could do about it. Not only due to the fact that violence was a no-no. Even if it wasn’t, he would still be powerless. As he had been for the past month. There were weapons and there was magic, but they held little appeal to him. And truth be told, he had neglected mastering using the former because he never had to before. All of these thoughts were running through his head when the full glass in front of him was knocked over.
It was more of a surprise than anything else. Noah didn’t particularly care about the contents of that glass that was now spreading across the bar in a small, clear puddle. Someone on his opposite side was grabbing cocktail napkins in an attempt to stem the tide. The pyrokinetic looked over at the leader of the group on his right, and made eye contact. A second later, the man’s shirt was aflame, and Noah felt himself being tugged almost violently, then pulled through a starry nothingness.
He found himself on cold concrete, his head and heart pounding. Noah looked up and saw he was outside the entrance to the Rabbit Hole’s unassuming facade. “Oh, fuck.”
Off the side of the Commodore Theater, in a skinny alley between it and the next building, a door marked ‘Exit Only’ swung open. A combat boot nudged a chunk of broken pavement against the door jamb so the two women wouldn’t be locked out. “Hey!” Maddy let the door go and snapped her fingers. “Hey! Jen! Time’s up. I’m on break.”
Jen checked the time on her cell phone. She was twelve minutes late. “I’m almost done.” She gauged how many puffs she had left on her cheap cigarette and settled in.
Maddy leaned into her personal space and took a drag. Now there was red lipstick on the filter. “Eat a dick,” she said. “Go, I’m serious.” She waited until Jen flicked it on the ground and disappeared to make a yacking face. Whatever her coworker was smoking tasted like the ashtray of a 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. She was tempted to wipe her tongue on her shirt. With a half hour to burn, she started walking towards the front of the brick building, where the scent of old popcorn mingled with street litter, and that’s when she spotted a dude on the ground.
“Oh damn.” Maddy knelt to see if he was okay, knees stretching the bright fishnet of her hosiery. “You get tossed?”
It was the fishnets that he noticed first. It wasn’t until Noah saw her face, however, that recognition clicked into place. The Bellagio and a chocolate fountain. It was actually quite a feat to stand out in a place like Vegas, but Maddy seemed to manage quite well. “Not on purpose,” he answered as he got back on his feet despite some residual dizziness. He needed to process that. On one hand, seeing that he could still set something on fire gave him a much needed boost of optimism. On the other —
Noah’s train of thought was broken by three men emerging from the Rabbit Hole. One had a large hole on the front of his shirt, with burn marks on the rest of the material. From the melted look, the pyrokinetic guessed he had been wearing a poly blend. “Well, shit.”
The shirt even smelled like burnt plastic. Maddy’s mouth opened. “OoooOooh…” In a singsong voice reminiscent of a schoolgirl watching the principal arrive, she raised up from the ground and took in the arrival of the scorchee . “Hey, I remember you!” She slapped Noah’s arm. “You never called.”
There was a time in everyone’s life when they had to decide whether to let bygones be bygones and lend a helping hand, or grab a phone and go live. She was on the fence.
“Yeah, see, I was going to call, but — “ Noah’s explanation was interrupted by the second man in the group swearing and kicking wildly at the air, as his shoes had just caught on fire. The pyrokinetic looked down at his hands with a very palpable dismay. “No, no, why are you doing this to me?”
He looked up as Burnt Shirt began advancing toward him. Noah had never felt whatever it was he was feeling now, and he didn’t much care for it. It wasn’t like he could say he didn’t mean to set this guy and his friend on fire. Nor could he admit out loud that he wasn’t, at present, able to control it.
“But something kind of happened to me.” He turned to look at Maddy, trying to psychically communicate that he needed some assistance.
Maddy’s eyes soothed. “Aww. Performance issues?”
She took a deep breath and wrapped her arms around Noah’s torso. “On a count of three, close your eyes and think of me. One.. two…” The world sounded hollow and there was a sense of lightness, like the apex of a trampoline jump, that moment when you seemed not to weigh a thing and had to fight not to flail.
“Three.”
A flash of light behind the eyelids, a whoosh of dopplering noise, and they were on the ground beside El Scorcho, a thirteen-foot, metal sculpture of a fire-breathing dragon. The smell of propane was thick in the air. This was Art Island outside Area15, an event and entertainment venue. Maddy gave his body a light squeeze. “Oh good. Your bones are here.”
There were a lot of stimuli at once. It almost felt like a drug trip on psychedelics. Being booted from the Rabbit Hole was nothing compared to it. Noah took a deep breath once they had ‘landed’. At the remark about his bones, he looked up at her with the faintest amount of alarm. “There was a chance they wouldn’t be?” He noticed the sculpture, then, and the alarm was replaced by a flash of amusement. He pointed at the dragon and remarked, “Well, that’s appropriate.”
Noah took a few pacing steps around Maddy before pausing. “I -- “ He broke off, looking somewhat perturbed. “So this...no, that’s not right, either.” Another pause. “Thank you for helping me.”
She lifted a shoulder. “No probl—-“ Maddy slapped a hand over her mouth. “Mm. Wait.” A finger pointed in the air as she breathed through her nose. In, out… In, out… The pyrotechnic fumes weren’t helping. Already a pale girl, the rest of the color seemed to leak out of her face toward her shoes. “Oh god.” She raced toward the mirrored steel of In Every Lifetime I Will Find You and puked between the lovers’ sculpted feet. Since she had skipped dinner, it was mostly liquid.
“Sorry!” she called from her bent-over position, wiping a knuckle across her lips. “Sometimes it does that if I take someone with me. You were saying?”
“I think you just puked on the feet of love,” Noah pointed out, trying not to smile. Instead, he patted his pockets before locating a pack of gum. Doublemint. He offered the pack to Maddy. “I was saying thanks.” He took a beat to access his surroundings. He had never been there before, and had a pile of questions to ask her about her power, about how she operated. The pyrokinetic also felt like there was something else he should ask her, something buzzing at the back of his brain, that he couldn’t articulate at the moment.
“I really was meaning to call you,” he added. “That wasn’t a lie. But then this whole situation happened, and now…” Noah held up a hand. “I either have no power at all, or it completely malfunctions.”
“Weird.” Maddy took a stick of gum and gave the pack back. She started chewing. Mint tasted a hell of a lot better than rehashed Coke mixed with stomach acid. “Did you hit your head or overdo it? I heard that if you do it too much, you can get desensitized. Psychic stuff. The ppoowweeerrs of the miind.” Maddy waggled her fingers.
El Scorcho flamed up again.
“Now he’s showing off,” Maddy said.
Noah looked up at the admittedly impressive flame and sighed. “It’s a long story.” A long, implicating story. He gave her a sanitized version. “It was taken from me. I’ve been spending the past weeks trying to get it back. Tonight was the first night since it happened that I was able to do anything, and it was a total accident.” The pyrokinetic remembered his conversation with Ro, his admission that he didn’t know who he was without it.
“Hmm. Like in the beginning, right?” Maddy worked the small amount of gum into shape and blew a modest bubble. “When you’re a kid and you set the carpet on fire, or get mad and accidentally teleport a pencil into your teacher’s ass. Number 2, worn-out eraser.” She made an ‘eek’ face.
That mental image halted him in his tracks, and his expression was blank for just a moment before he snorted out a laugh. Noah regained his composure quickly, then gave her a slow nod, even as the corners of his mouth twitched in amusement, trying to fight a smile. “Right,” he said. “Accidentally.” He took out the pack of gum again and put a piece in his mouth. “The first time it happened to me, I was scared. I even tried to pray it away.” The pyrokinetic paused and this time, he did smile. “There was a very narrow window of time when I believed in that.”
He walked toward the silver statue, avoiding the side where Maddy had thrown up. “Have you ever used it to like...get revenge? Or hurt someone?”
“Um. ‘No.’” Maddy made a pair of quotation marks. “I would never break into someone’s house to rearrange, steal, or destroy their personal property.” She hooked her fingers into her hip pockets and meandered around the base of a sculpture, going heel to toe with her boots, which had been decorated with paint markers. A charm dangled from the laces. “What about you? Did you ever?”
Noah’s gaze drifted skyward. His predicament had shifted his worldview, and what usually would have been a straightforward decision — to lie or not to lie — was now a cloudy one. He exhaled and looked back at Maddy. “Yeah. Lots.”
“Why?” It was easy to imagine how he might have accomplished it. Fire was a bad way to die and a good way to get rid of evidence. Maddy was relieved her gift wasn’t so readily useful for harm, considering she daydreamed about running people over with her car at least once per month. But daydreaming and doing were two different things. “I know what triggers me to wanna… y’know, test whether I can send half a body into another zip code. I’m just wondering what it is for you.”
“I have this feeling that explaining it could take hours,” Noah answered wryly. “And I’ve never really tried to before.” It was easier to just be than to examine the reasons why, at least up until recently. “But I started doing it for money, and it turns out people will pay you a lot for something they have no taste for doing themselves. I’ve never done anything else.” He paused to gauge her reaction, wondering if she would vanish and leave him there after this admission.
Maddy’s eyebrows went up. “Yikes.” Her left elbow bent into a chicken-wing shape as she touched her armpit. “I think I just started to sweat.” There was a piece of abstract art between them. She didn’t make a move to run from Noah, but she didn’t get any closer. When she spoke again, she used a stage whisper. “So you’re like a murderer for hire. People can hire you to burn their enemies to death. God, that’s like… harsh. Do you charge more for fire than a bullet? Is there a menu?!”
There was something that kept him from being as forthright as he usually was. Noah usually didn’t mind discussing what he did, but there was something new. It took him a moment to put a finger on it. Discomfort. “Yeah, I guess that’s what I am.” When put that way, it sounded too...honest. The strange juxtaposition of being in this whimsical place after literally teleporting there, and the current topic of conversation, wasn’t lost on him. “I would tell you that I’m not going to hurt you, but I’d understand if you didn’t take my word for it.”
Okay, so he ducked the menu question. Probably for the best.
“I mean,” Maddy lifted a shoulder. “I serve blood to vampires, I’m not gonna scream and run. If you made a move, I’d just poof.” She wiggled her fingers. “My ability to ‘port effectively might be compromised, what with the terror and the hurrying, so I’d probably end up someplace awful, like a Sbarro… or in Philly at that exhibit of the giant megacolon.”
“Fair point,” Noah replied, turning away from the sculpture. “I also keep forgetting that there are thousands of ways to hurt someone without being able to spontaneously set someone on fire.” Doherty, after all, had managed it. It was strange actually dealing with consequences for his actions.
Maddy pulled absent-mindedly at a frayed piece of thread on her hip pocket. “So you made a lot of enemies and now somebody’s messing with you. What do you think they want?”
“I think they wanted me to know what it feels like, to have something ripped away from me,” Noah added. “Mission accomplished.”
“Ehhhh.” Maddy made a light scowl. “Is it? It’s not, like, the same. You lost the ability to set people on fire. Big whoop! It’s not like you died or found out some...” She faltered. “Eur….o...pean? Guy chargrilled your BFF. You’re lucky they didn’t kill your beagle. That’s pain.” The blonde remembered there was a piece of gum in her cheek and started chewing again.
Noah began to shrug, then stopped himself. “But what if...the ability to set someone on fire is the only thing a person has? It’s a pretty good revenge to take that away.” He was able to admit that, at least. “Like if you weren’t able to like teleport anymore. I’m assuming you still have friends, family, and a life outside of that. It would suck, but you would probably be fine, right?”
“I’d be fine because I’m tenacious,” she corrected. “Not because of them.”
Maddy spotted a piece of litter on the ground and rolled it closer with her boot. Upon further inspection, it was a ratty friendship bracelet. “‘Porting is one piece of me. It’s not my thoughts or my feelings or my rockin’ body. It’s an ability. An admittedly cool one.” Maddy tucked her hair behind her ears and took a few steps closer to Noah without really thinking about it. “Okay, so once, I went through this cringeworthy break-up. Total devastation. I took selfies of my mascara-- You know what, we won’t talk about that. Anyway, I was all, ohhh, woe is me, this is rock bottom, where did I go wrong? And then it hit me. It’s because I put all my eggs in one basket. In this scenario, the basket is my ex. You follow? Without me even realizing it, this person was,” she started counting off on her fingers, “My roommate, my best friend, my partner, my ride because my car was a piece of shit, my lifestyle guru. When I lost them, my entire frickin’ world was gone. That’s your problem, Noah. Never call anything your whole world.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to see that’s good advice,” Noah admitted. When — if — he got his powers back, he wondered what would change, if anything. If the things he was feeling would disappear. More startling still, he wasn’t sure if he wanted them to or not. “What were you up to when you came across my ‘oh, shit’ moment?” he asked. “Were you working?”
“Oh snap!” Maddy slapped a hand over her mouth. She had totally forgotten. “Yeah. I work at Rabbit Hole.” She looked at their surroundings. “This isn’t exactly Hole-adjacent.” If she wanted to make it back on time, she would have to use her gift. “What do you want to do? You wanna come with or use a Lyft?”
Noah’s gaze automatically drifted back toward the sculpture. “I think I can find my own way. Wouldn’t want you to throw up again.” He cast around in his memory, trying to place Maddy at the Rabbit Hole. It was entirely possible he had been too self-centered to ever notice her working there.
“Thanks again for the rescue.”
“Anytime.” Maddy pointed a finger at him. “I don’t know how to end this conversation. Happy murderings.” She hesitated, then leaned closer and gave Noah a squeeze of consolation on his shoulders. “Theeeeere we go. Alright. Well. Deuces!” She flashed a two at him and circled behind the statue. She didn’t reappear on the other side.