InsaneJournal

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Astor Bennett wants to kill things (miami_angel97) wrote in mirage_rpg,
@ 2009-02-15 02:58:00

Entry tags:

astor bennett, complete, day 32, laura moon

Day 32
Who: Astor Bennett and Laura Moon
What: Astor's not feeling well and can't figure out the thermometer
When: Day 32, morning
Where: B214, Astor's room
Status: Incomplete
Rating: G

When Laura agreed to come over and help her out, Astor shut her journal, tucked it neatly between the mattresses and rolled over in bed, groaning and clutching the teddy bears (one with a hot water bottle inside it, as per Rose's suggestion) tightly. Her eyes fluttered shut and she furrowed her brow against an uncomfortable flop of protest from her stomach after having rolled over. She really hoped that her bellyache was just that. That perhaps she'd indulged in too much sugar against Sam, Sam Winchester's advice. At least if it was that, she'd feel better sooner and she could play Candyland with Gray.

Being stuck in bed was sucky already, but being stuck in bed without Cody to talk to or Mom to make her feel better? That sucked the big one. It was almost as bad as being sick when she was at the neighbor's house cuz Mom and Dex both had to work at night. As far as Astor was concerned, there was nothing worse than being sick and not being at home. It made it easier for her that her room here looked identical to the one at home, but still. It wasn't home.

A knock on the door made Astor open her eyes again. Her mom would kill her for not getting up to look through the peep hole to check who it was, but she didn't want to move and it was probably Laura, anyway. "Come on in," she called out miserably, closing her eyes again.

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spitandviolets
2009-02-16 11:35 pm UTC (link)

Laura usually didn't knock. It was a social grace that she had forgotten. However, she did like children, and she did remember how they worked. They did not like to be frightened, unpleasantly surprised, or told the truth. She would have to, then, do her best with this Astor. It began with her remembering to announce herself. When Astor told her to enter, she was already turning the doorknob. She let herself into the room, quickly studying it to the best of her ability, which was pretty good. As she surveyed, however, her gaze found the girl, and compassion filled her core. The poor thing looked miserable.

Making her way silently to the bathroom, she grabbed a facecloth and ran it under cool water. It would be easier, this way, to explain the frigid nature of her hands. Making her way to the side of the girl's bed, she seated herself. She'd made sure to put on a little extra perfume; children were exceptionally perceptive. What the sick little girl needed was comfort, not confusion.

"You do not look well," she observed, gently setting the cloth on the bedside table. She grabbed the thermometer and began studying it. Easy. This was an under the tongue kind. It was probable that, since the planet had provided it, she would not need to wipe it down with an alcohol swab. Only one person's germs would be on it.

Looking down at the curled up girl, Laura saw herself in a way. Her own mother had never bothered to care for her when she was sick. The woman was always too busy doing things for her sister. Her father was oftentimes her savior, but he died, and then she was alone. "Is there anything that you need before I take your temperature?"

She paused, fell silent for a moment, and then remembered something important. "I am called Laura Moon. It is nice to meet you, Astor."

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miami_angel97
2009-02-18 03:11 pm UTC (link)

Astor looked over her shoulder when she felt Laura sit down, feeling too uncomfortable to try to move again, knowing it would upset her stomach even more. "Well," she said slowly, with something akin to a weak smile, "I don't feel very good."

Maybe it was the way that the light was hitting the other woman, but to Astor, she looked really pale. The girls in Astor's class always picked on her for not having a tan like the rest of them; they'd have a field day with this lady. Astor's fair skin had never done well in the Miami sun, tending to burn rather than tan any time she would try to sneak outside without letting Mom put on the sunscreen. But Laura was way more pale than Astor, if the light wasn't playing tricks from the awkward angle at which Astor was looking at the other woman.

And her eyes...both of them looked like that time when Astor and Cody had gotten a little too into their wrestling match and Cody had taken a knee to the eye. Astor had been in big trouble for that one, because Cody had screamed his head off. Even that, though, was only one eye. "What happened to your eyes?" she found herself asking at the same time she was thinking it. She paused. "Sorry, never mind. None of my business. I didn't mean to be rude," she apologized. Yeah, Mom would totally ground her forever if she ever found out... Geez, it was hard to be polite when there was no one to give you dirty looks as a warning when you started to say something that was rude or nosy.

Laura asked if there was anything Astor needed before the other woman took her temperature and Astor shook her head. "Just tell me how to do it so I can do it by myself next time I need to?" she asked.

Slowly - very slowly - Astor rolled over to face Laura, when she introduced herself. She'd need to, anyway, so that Laura could take her temperature. Her stomach only protested a little this time, though, luckily. "Nice to meet you, too," Astor replied. "Thank you for coming over to help me," she added with another weak, tired smile.

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spitandviolets
2009-02-19 01:40 pm UTC (link)

The girl was cute. Then again, there was no such thing as a kid who wasn't cute. They, inherently, possessed the ability to be adorable at a moment's notice. Even when she was sick, Astor was a cute kid. She was a young kid, too. There was a moment of pause in her mind. Fucking planet, she remarked. What the hell was it doing, dragging a kid her age to this place with no one familiar to take care of her? She wrote such long, interesting journal articles that Laura hadn't noticed just how young she was. Ten? Eleven? Another moment. It was around that age that Laura had lost her father. She knew what it was like to be alone. Her mother never gave a damn, was always busy with her more beautiful, more interesting, more promising older sister. She was the invisible one, Daddy's Lost Girl. Looking at Astor, she couldn't shake it. She just kept coming to the same realization over and over, the memories of her father.

One of those strange headaches came over her suddenly. It was happening again. Confusion. No, she wasn't alone. She had a younger brother. She liked him a lot. She spoke enough for both of them. No, that wasn't right. Laura only had an older sister. No, Laura didn't have an older sister. Her eyes closed tightly for a moment. The memories got mixed up again. She hated getting confused with the people that she met. The whole collective memory thing, that the idea that all of mankind shared one giant overbrain, had to have some truth to it. It was driving her crazy.

"My eyes?" she asked, confused though she still had that blank tone. It never went away. What was the girl talking about? She glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Oh, right. It was light out. People could see her better in the light. Her fingertips reached up, and she traced them over the dark circles. A shake of her head and she chuckled. "No, don't be sorry. You weren't rude." Her hands folded in her lap as she looked over at Astor, who had rolled to face her. "Do you like secrets?" she asked. Little girls generally liked secrets, and Laura didn't like to lie. If the girl didn't want to know, she wouldn't tell her. If she did, though, she'd be very forthcoming about it. Delicate, less blunt than usual, but forthcoming. She at least had the common sense to know that you didn't hit children with comments like 'oh, I'm a walking corpse' the same way you'd strike an adult with them.

Giving the thermometer a shake, she leaned closer to Astor. When she was in proximity, the smell of her perfume became apparent, but there was also something less pleasant, more chemical and more dank, that she smelled beneath the layer of spicy sweetness. In Astor's view, she pressed the button. The digital readout blinked 000.00. She stuck the thermometer in Astor's mouth and tapped the button again. The numbers began rising, calculating her heat. Laura was overtly careful not to touch her, not wanting her cold hands to frighten her. Silently, stilly, she waited for the thermometer to beep and let her know if the girl had a fever or not.

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miami_angel97
2009-02-19 06:29 pm UTC (link)

Laura seemed a little confused - judging by the way she reiterated Astor's question and then looked over at the mirror as if she wasn't quite sure what Astor was talking about. Astor furrowed her brow slightly. Didn't Laura know that she looked like somebody punched her in both eyes...?

But, in any case, she laughed a little and shook her head, telling Astor that she shouldn't be sorry and that she hadn't been rude. Astor tended to disagree, because she knew better than to ask questions like that so out of the blue, but if Laura wasn't mad, she supposed it didn't matter much. "Sure, I like secrets," Astor said with a grin. "I'm really good at keeping 'em," she added.

When Laura leaned closer to her, Astor noticed the perfume. It did not smell very nice, she didn't think. Trying not to wrinkle her nose - because that would be rude - she opened her mouth for the thermometer, having watched the way Laura used it. She thought maybe she'd be able to do it herself if there was a next time.

The smell was giving her a little bit of a headache, but she didn't want to hurt Laura's feelings when she was being so nice. It smelled almost medicine-y to Astor. She looked expectantly up at the other woman without opening her mouth again just yet, when she heard the thermometer beep

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spitandviolets
2009-02-20 12:51 pm UTC (link)

Beep beep beep. Laura looked down at the screen. 98.7. That was no fever. Yes, it was not the normal 98.6, but the girl was in bed with blankets on and everything else. Of course she was going to be warm. A small smile crossed Laura's face, and she shook her head. "No, Astor, you don't have a fever at all. You are as cool as you should be."

She set the thermometer down on the bedside table. Smoothing her hand over the girl's forehead, she chuckled some. "That means that you're going to be just fine. It's probably just nerves or something that you ate. It will feel horrible for a little while longer, but you're going to be just fine. Nothing to worry about at all. That's a relief, isn't it?"

Getting up, she grabbed a chair from across the room and dragged it over, sitting beside her bed. She liked the grin that the girl had. Kids usually were good about keeping secrets. Well, what could letting her know hurt? People shouldn't lie to children. They shouldn't go out of their way to make sure that they knew everything about, well, everything, but there was no harm in telling things as they were when they asked. Her sister had always said that was what would have made Laura a terrible mother. 'You never know your limits!' she said.

How to start? Reaching into her shirt, she produced a beautiful, sparkling gold coin on a gold chain. It seemed to glow with a certain radiance all its own. Reluctant to touch it, as always, Laura slid her fingers down the chain, letting the disk rest in her palm. She held it closer so Astor could see. This was the most technical description of the how and what she was that she had given. She smiled some. It was an awkward position and was probably uncomfortable for Astor. Taking the chain from around her neck, she held the coin out to the girl. Removing it was not the issue. It was giving it away that was the issue. So long as Laura wanted to possess it, as long as it belonged to her, the power of the miniature sun would keep her as she was. The moment she surrendered, allowed someone else to take it for keeps, she'd revert to being a corpse. She wasn't sure that she could ever come back. Fortunately, she knew that if it was stolen, she'd continue to exist.

"This," she said, her dull eyes studying the girl's face, "is my secret. It's magic, a very ancient, very powerful kind of magic. It is magic that belonged to a god. He was a very powerful god, a god of the Celts, the people who lived long ago in Ireland and Scotland and Wales and Britain. My husband learned a special ability. He learned how to reach his hand out and steal gold from this sun god's treasury. He learned this trick from a leprechaun. The one time that he tried, he reached out and grabbed this coin, which isn't really a coin at all, but a miniature sun, a fragment of that god's power."

Well, she was a better story teller than she thought. She had expected herself to be miserable at it. She could not, after all, lie. Sometimes, however, the truth was more interesting than any fiction could dream of being. She cracked her neck and nodded. Good, Laura, keep going.

"I did something very, very bad that upset my husband very much. He was very disappointed, but he still loved me. Unfortunately, we couldn't talk about it because I died in a car crash that was the result of the thing that upset my husband. He came to my funeral from a long way away, because he had been in jail for doing something that wasn't really his fault, and he threw the coin into the grave while they were burying me. I woke up because of the magic that is in this coin. I'm not alive, though. I'm dead. I just don't do what other dead people do. I walk around like a living person, but I don't eat or sleep or do many of the things that you do."

"This coin means a lot to me. It's my husband's forgiveness for that very bad thing that I did, because he never told me that he forgave me. This, though, is even better than him just saying the words. He gave me another chance to do things better this time, though it's a lot harder and more complicated." And I think that I failed this time, too.

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miami_angel97
2009-02-20 06:27 pm UTC (link)

Laura smiled and shook her head before announcing to Astor that she did not have a fever. Astor smiled back gratefully. "Good," she said. Her stomach still didn't feel very good, but it made her happy to know that she wasn't getting sick. At least it would only last until her belly settled and hopefully that would only be until a little later today. Maybe she could still play Candyland with Gray after all...

She shivered a little when Laura's hand smoothed over her forehead. "Your hands are cold," she gasped in surprise.

Astor watched as Laura pulled up a chair and the little girl's heart sank a little. That was Mom's chair. She sat in it to read bedtime stories to Cody in the original copy of this same room; the one back in Miami. She pushed the thought away, because there was no way Laura would know. Astor highly doubted that even if she did, that Laura would be sitting in that chair out of spite. She just wanted a place to sit that wasn't on the edge of Astor's bed and maybe Cody's bed was too far away for Laura.

The other woman took a necklace out from beneath her shirt and held it out for Astor to see, explaining what it was as Astor looked at it. "It's really pretty," she whispered, all but sitting on her hands not to touch it as Laura paused to crack her neck and nod to herself.

Astor liked stories. Laura's was interesting so far and came with pretty props. Her belly still ached, but she barely noticed it as she listened when Laura went on. The story was sadder the further Laura went on.

Was that really possible? That someone could be dead and---

Yes. Because Spike was dead. Had been for over a hundred years. Actually, come to think of it, his hands had been cold, too. And Laura was prettier than Spike had been when he'd put on his real face, so she had that going for her.

...but then something stirred and Astor looked back at Laura with a thoughtful expression. The Inside Shadow saw an opportunity and Astor's brain hadn't quite caught up with it yet. While she mulled it over, though, she replied. "Well, if you're trying to do things better, maybe that's all he really needs," she suggested.

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spitandviolets
2009-02-21 11:15 am UTC (link)

Children were her new favorite thing ever. She had expected fear. She had expected rejection. For some odd reason, neither of these were found in the little girl who had heard her tale. A grown man had acted less nobly, less understanding, less bravely. For a moment she was forced to consider L's childlike aspects. It seemed that he and this little girl alone could stomach her story and still talk to her normally afterwards.

Placing the coin back around her neck and inside her shirt, she smiled and pulled her legs up, hugging them to her. There was something inherently sad about her smile. "Well, I don't think we'll ever really know what he needs, Astor. My husband died. He died the kind of death that isn't like my kind of death. His death was a lot less random and far more painful. I'm glad he's gone, though. I don't want him or anybody else to suffer. No one should have to die strapped to a tree with neither food nor water for days. He died for nothing."

Laura didn't know any other dead people. Astor had that much on her. It was interesting, though, the girl's calm. "Thank you for listening to my story," she said, trying to be as genuine as possible. "Hopefully we can keep that between us. I prefer to tell people on a need-to-know basis, and not many people need to know. Only the ones I like." She winked at the girl. This was going better than expected.

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miami_angel97
2009-02-21 03:05 pm UTC (link)

Astor watched as Laura pulled her legs up and hugged them to her. It reminded her of her mother when Dad was still living with them. After he'd beaten her and then left for the bar. Mom would sit on the couch and draw her knees to her chest, hugging herself...and then, when she thought no one was looking, she would cry and cry and cry. The smile Laura gave was the same, too, that Mom used to give when Astor would ask her what was wrong. She'd give that sad smile, shake her head, and in a watery voice say, "nothing, go back to bed sweetheart." Seeing Laura like that made Astor sad. Moreso, when she said that her husband had died.

"I'm sorry," Astor whispered, looking sincerely sympathetic toward Laura. Astor had never known anyone who had died back home. She'd never been to a funeral; had never felt that sort of loss. She didn't understand it...but it made her sad all the same.

Laura thanked Astor for listening to the story and Astor sat up slowly in bed, shaking her head. "I like stories," she said honestly. "Especially secrets. I'm very good at keeping secrets. I have secrets from Sam, Sam Winchester and from the Doctor and from Spike and I haven't told anybody about them," she said proudly. "And I won't. And I won't tell yours, either, I promise," she added with a smile. She giggled a little, in spite of herself, when Laura said she only told people she liked and then winked at Astor.

She might not be alive and she might look a little creepy, but Astor liked Laura. Laura was fun. And Laura didn't have a scary face like Spike...at least, not that she'd shown Astor yet.

"How long have you been dead?" Astor asked, curiosity getting the best of her. Maybe she'd been dead even longer than Spike and someday Spike's skin would be even paler than it already was and maybe someday his eyes would look bruised like Laura's. She couldn't help wondering and wanting to know. "Do you heal really fast if you hurt yourself?" she also asked, thinking of Spike's hand burning on the oven and being healed in only a matter of minutes. That was so cool...

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spitandviolets
2009-02-23 12:07 pm UTC (link)

"Sorry? Well, there's nothing to be sorry about. Things are what they are. You tend not to care so much about things when you're dead. You're not so prejudiced against death once you've seen how it goes. It's a fact, just as life is a fact. How death happens, well, that's the interesting part, because it's all the same once the body has expired." Laura's brows furrowed. What was she doing? "I'm sorry. You're just a little girl. You don't need to hear about such things. I tend to forget who I'm talking to, and I tend not to notice how my words might affect people. It's not my intent to upset or scare you. You don't have to worry about death for a long time now, so try not to think about it." She didn't know that was a fact. Death could come for anyone at any time, but the probability that it would come for Astor wasn't high. Especially since the girl had a tummy ache, not typhus.

It was good that Astor liked stories. When Laura got to talking, facts usually came pouring out until she had finished completely. That made her long winded, and her tone usually made her boring. "It's not a big secret. It's no secret to give your life protecting. If somebody cornered you and told you to tell them my secret, it would be one that you could give freely. Then again, you probably wouldn't have time. I'd show up and give them whatfore. Imagine, picking on girls like that. Bullies. Regardless, it can be our little secret. I prefer that people hear it from me. That way I can see the shock on their faces. You know, you're handling the fact that I'm a person in the past tense remarkably well. Better than most adults would. Then again, you're smart. Don't ever stop believing in magic. It's real, and it's everywhere, and if you're not careful, it will get the best of you. Especially leprechauns."

She gave a sage like nod. If Laura knew that Astor though that she was fun, she would have laughed. Laura was Laura, and she wasn't even the Laura that she had been when she was alive. This Laura was a sad, pale shadow of herself. That one had been, for lack of a better word, vibrant. Not smart, not beautiful, but lively and engaging. She had lived life as best she could. In hindsight, it probably wasn't good enough.

Shifting in the chair, she leaned forward a little, chin resting between her knees. "Sam, Sam Winchester? The Doctor? Spike? I have not yet met these people. I think that I heard from the Doctor on my journal, but I have yet to have the pleasure of their company. Maybe if they come out at night I'll be able to find them. Or maybe you could introduce me sometime."

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spitandviolets
2009-02-23 12:07 pm UTC (link)

If Laura knew that Astor didn't think her face was scary she would have been thrilled. Laura thought her face was scary. She thought it was somebody else's face superimposed on her own. But, unfortunately, it was her own face, colder, paler, more tired, dead. "I've been dead for about nine months, according to the time that you go by. Time doesn't really matter to me anymore. I used to have a calendar at work, though, and I could check off the days on it. The planet realized that I don't care about time and was nice enough not to give me a calendar or clock separate from the journals. It feels like a lot longer, though. I feel like I've been dead for longer than I was alive. Life, to me, is a fleeting dream that's slipping away. It's like a light at the entrance of a tunnel, and I can barely see it anymore. It's fine, though. I get by. I think it's that I don't sleep. I get to see every second of every minute of every hour of every day march past because my eyes never close."

"I don't heal at all. My body is dead. My cells are dead." She moved the collar of her shirt aside so Astor could see the thick, V shaped scar that met at the base of her sternum. "Nothing on the inside is in the right place anymore. You stop healing when you're dead. If I get cut, a cut opens up in my skin, but I do not bleed. That hole, then, becomes part of me forever. I'm filled with chemicals and stuffing and out of place organs. Fortunately, it is very, very hard to hurt me. Because my body is dead, I no longer feel pain. My muscles and bones move without ever feeling tired. Unless one of them rips or breaks or what have you, I can run infinitely. I have superhuman speed and strength. The only down side is that I'm always cold. I don't feel heat or warmth. I have a little bit of trouble cooking because I don't notice if I cut myself, and I like to smoke but I don't notice if it starts burning me. It could be worse than always being cold, though."

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miami_angel97
2009-02-24 05:17 pm UTC (link)

Astor listened quietly as Laura spoke darkly and then backpedalled on the grounds that Astor was just a little girl. Furrowing her brow slightly, Astor frowned. "I'm almost twelve," she pointed out indignantly. "I'm not scared," she added quickly.

Shifting slightly, Astor laid back down and clutched the warm teddy closer to her stomach. Her bellyache was starting to settle and Laura was saying, then, that if Astor had to tell her secret, she should. "I don't think that'll be a problem," Astor said with a small smile. "Nobody goes out of their way to talk to me 'cause everybody thinks I'm too little. And besides, Spike's gonna show me how to fight," she added, grinning excitedly at the prospect. "He promised."

Laura pointed out that Astor was taking the dead thing pretty well. She shrugged and smiled. "You're still walking and talking..." she pointed out. "So it's not so bad. You don't have a scary face like the other dead person I met," she added, "so...it's no big deal to me whether you're technically alive or technically dead. I'm not scared," she finished with a smile. "I like you. You're helping me."

When Laura asked about Spike, Sam, and the Doctor, Astor smiled a little. "They're really nice. Sam, Sam Winchester was at the snowball fight and I met the Doctor and Spike both by accident at different times." She opened her mouth to say more and snapped her jaw shut again, because she realized that if she said more, she'd be giving away their secrets.

Laura hadn't been dead anywhere near as long as Spike had been, but she sounded more effected by it than Spike had. Astor wasn't sure she understood, so she didn't say anything further on the subject.

"Oh wow..." Astor breathed when Laura showed the scar to her. She recognized it from one of Violet's books. That was an autopsy scar. Her eyes widened as she looked at it curiously. She listened as Laura talked about not healing and she had to ball her hands into fists not to reach out and touch the scar out of sheer morbid curiosity. Part of the statement caught her ear, though.

"Superhuman speed and strength? Like Superman?" Astor asked, looking back up at Laura's face again. "You're always cold?" she asked with a sad sympathy. "Isn't there any way to warm up, even just for a minute?"

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spitandviolets
2009-03-01 04:31 pm UTC (link)

"Then you are a very brave young lady. And don't rush the aging process. Appreciate being young while you are. You never get those days back. You don't hear many grown ups saying how much they want to be grown up, keep in mind. You should be somewhat scared, though. Nothing wrong with a good, healthy dose of fear every now and then. It can be invigorating, and it can help you focus more on what's going on around you. Never a bad thing."

"It's their loss for not talking to you. Just remember that. People are ageists. They tend to only like people around their own age. Old people are too old, young people are too young. No one's ever happy. I like you, though, so if you come across any problems, keep me in mind. I'm very good at negotiating with people."

Laura would have been very impressed that the girl knew what her scar was from. Most adults didn't guess correctly. They figured she'd gotten the wound in the accident. Luckily, she'd sustained very few wounds in that unfortunate event. All of her fatal wounds had been internal, or maybe it had just been a broken neck. She couldn't remember; she'd never been told.

Superman? She actually laughed. The idea of her in spandex and a cape was riotous. She shook her head, looking at Astor. The kid had an interesting way of coming to terms with different things, didn't she? Then again, kids liked to put things in no uncertain terms.

"No, not quite like Superman. He's super because his body has really big muscles. I'm super because my muscles don't know when to stop. I can run and run and run and never get tired. I can keep running until my muscles rip. And I can lift something until it crushes me or breaks me." Hopefully that wasn't too morbid, and hopefully it made sense.

"I can warm up, but it's a little creepy. The only heat I can feel is human beings. To me, you're very warm. If I touch you long enough, I get to take on that warmth."

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