what if I lose it all? Who: Sasha Whittaker and Marina Scherbatskaya Where: The Dog Park -- eventually Sasha and Max’s airstream. What: Sasha has finally finished the design for Marina’s tattoo and shows her, they also talk about other things like her prospecting and the new US Government presence in Austin. When: June 6th, Mid-Afternoon
Oh, if the sky comes falling down for you, There’s nothing in this world
Like any true teenager Sasha had yet to admit that he might have acted a bit on the moody and/or flippant side of things directly after his ghoul attack. He had been shaken, not because of the fight necessarily, but because deep down he knew that this was what his dad faced whenever he went out into the city and now that Marina was prospecting she could face it as well. The two people he considered his parents (albeit it was still a little weird to think about Marina that way) were putting themselves directly in the line of fire, for a kid who had lost two parents already, losing more scared the hell out of him.
Still, he had yet to apologize to his dad for his very teenager behavior. Probably because Sasha still wasn’t happy about his newfound boundaries -- which were he was basically required to have a baby-sitter all the time and he couldn’t leave camp. That last part really sucked now that Bea was free to travel, because how cool is it to invite a girl over and have to be like “Hey, so my dad or sort of step-mom is going to be hanging with us.” Yeah, that wasn’t really going to win him cool points or get him any closer to, well, getting closer to Bea. Literally the only plus side to any of this was that it gave him a lot of time to draw and he had finally -- at least he thought -- finished a design for Marina’s tattoo that he thought she would like.
Which was what had him weaving his way through camp with his sketchbook under his arm and his sights set on finding the woman in question. Sasha knew he had to be discrete and practically lost it when he had gone down one aisle of campers and nearly ended up directly in his dad’s path, but a quick dodge between two old airstreams saved him from having to find some kind of lie to feed him so he wouldn’t blurt out. “I’m going to show Marina the tattoo I designed for her in your honor.”
Sasha wasn't even ashamed of the audible sigh he let out when he turned a corner and spotted Marina, and wasted very little time in calling out to her. “Hey, Marina,” he was still about twenty feet away from her. “Have time to talk?” He hoped she’d notice the sketchbook and understand that this talk was of the tattoo variety.
“Could you look a little guiltier?” Marina asked with an amused look on her face. That kid was an open book, which was pretty funny considering the people he was surrounded with. People with no poker face didn’t last long in the world of crime, but it was actually probably for the best that Sasha didn’t have to get messed up in the things that she and Vic had to survive.
“C’mon, then,” she said, motioning for him to follow her, then led him a few rows over so they were standing between two RVs closer to the Dog Park’s walls. It wasn’t a place with a lot of foot traffic, so she figured they’d be undisturbed. “So I assume you have some sketches to show me?”
Sasha shrugged. “I told you I didn’t do the whole sneaking around thing well,” he answered once they were safely out of earshot or eyesight of anyone who might report back to Vic that his son was acting shifty. God, the last thing Sasha needed was another reason for his dad to keep him under 24/7 surveillance or something. “And ah, yeah, I mean I wouldn’t have just gone through the last ten minutes of trying to find you and dodging dad if I didn’t.” While he said this with a little more sarcasm than was probably needed, Sasha was also opening up his sketchbook to the page with the tattoo design on it.
Marina just gave him a bland look, reaching her hand out for the sketch book.
“This is what I’ve got,” he began as he handed the sketch book over to her. “What do you think? Does it work?” Sasha tried to keep the nervous tone out of his voice. Sure he had done at least a handful of tattoo designs now, but this was kind of bigger than all of those -- it ranked right up there with Maizie’s, actually, and thus that the stakes higher in his opinion.
Marina was quiet as she looked at the sketch, bringing the book closer to her face to get a better look at the details. She’d seen a fair few number of wolf tattoos around the dog park but this one was already her favorite -- and it wasn’t even real ink to skin yet. “It’s perfect,” she said finally, looking up and smiling at Sasha. “Thank you.”
Sasha felt a bit like he might just vibrate right out of his skin when Marina went quiet and studied the sketch. Did she like it? Did she hate it? He was realizing in this moment that her opinion meant a lot more to him than he had first realized. He tried to play it cool though, shoving his hands into his pockets to keep from tapping them against his leg. “Really?” The surprise was clear as a bell in Sasha’s tone and he felt a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. “God, I’m so glad you like it.” He admitted with a wide grin that was so bright it probably could have lit up all of Austin. “You’re really welcome!” Sasha was still kind of vibrating, but now it was happy energy coursing through his body.
“Noa will do a really awesome job with it,” he continued, knowing that the older tattoo artist would be the one to put ink to skin for his dad’s wife.
“I’ll have to see when she is free, then,” Marina said, glancing at the sketch once more, feeling even more excited about it. It had to be pretty cool as an artist to know your work would actually be used for something, especially something so permanent as a tattoo. “You want to keep that safe for now? I don’t want to mess up all your hard work.” Plus keeping it in the same space that she and Vic lived in was a bad idea. And the Cat House was an even worse idea. Those women were nosy as hell and they’d ruin the whole surprise.
Sasha laughed. “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t mess it up,” he started, glancing around as if he expected someone to come upon them at any moment. “But it's probably safer with me than in the same place Dad sleeps.” Sasha added, half assuming that was already part of the reason Marina wanted him to keep the sketch until she was ready to have it inked.
“I think his attention’s kind of elsewhere though right now,” he continued, knowing that the officers and most of the adults in general were all fairly focused on the US government having rolled into Austin. “Which, I mean kind of rightfully so.”
Marina nodded in agreement. Things were some serious changes happening around Austin, but especially for the Hellhounds. After living lawless for so long, the US Government coming in and putting them back in their place, well… it would take some time to adjust to. Though technically none of them had to register, scavenging and raiding trucks like they used to was going to be against the law and something told her that the military had their shit together a little better than Olinger and his patrolmen.
“Guess it kind of makes sense that we haven’t been the only group of survivors during all this shit but it’s kind of a mind fuck, isn’t it?” Marina said.
Sasha really had begun to think that Austin was the last frontier of human existence in this world. Because of that thought he didn’t hesitate to agree with Marina on how much of a mind fuck it was to think that there were other people alive out there. Not only alive, but thriving in something that still looked a lot like the United States. “Making sense or not, it’s definitely something I’ve had to wrap my head around, yeah,” he began. “Because I mean, it really felt like we might have been the last place that even resembled a city anymore.” Sasha continued, thankful that it seemed he wasn’t the only person kind of thrown for a loop.
“But now we know we’re not and suddenly new faces are showing up here and it’s just strange,” Truthfully he was excited about new people in the city, but it was also strange because they hadn’t had to live the same way they had. “And I’m not sure how I feel about registering…” Sasha didn’t necessarily have anything against the idea, especially not when he knew his dad was for it. But it still felt strange to a teenager who had spent the last couple of years living amongst the most lawless of Austin residence.
Marina’s face subconsciously shifted into a scowl as she thought about all this registering business. Honestly, it seemed too good to be true. “I just worry that they won’t keep up their end of the deal. It’s not like we have good track record with government types. How are we supposed to know this isn’t going to just be more of the same?”
Vic and the other Officers seemed to have faith that this was a new start for them and that it could be a good thing, and really, she wanted to be as hopeful as them, but it just wasn’t her nature. And maybe she shouldn’t be such a dark cloud to Sasha, but he was growing into a man. Vic couldn’t protect him forever. At some point, Sasha would need to make these kinds of decisions for himself and decide what was right for him. Having both sides to the story would only help him in finding his own way.
“What makes you think twice about it?”
Sasha let his gaze fall to the gravel beneath his feet for a moment, trying to piece together how to explain his own concerns about registering. “I don’t know, I think it’s kind of the same as you,” he began, lifting his gaze back up to Marina’s. “What if it’s all some kind of plan to entrap dad and the other officers?” Now he was getting fidgeting, edging scarily close to admitting just how scared he was of losing Vic and now that Marina was prospecting it put her right in that same line of fire. “Or you? I mean you’re both sort of Hellhounds now…” Sasha trailed off and when he spoke again his voice was quieter. “I don’t want to lose anymore people.”
He had no real concern for registering himself, after all he was too young to have a record of his own and Sasha didn’t think they would target him purely for being the son of a Hellhound. So his hesitation, his concerns, it all stemmed from the fear he carried around about losing his family. “I mean how do we know this regime is any better than the last?”
“No one is taking me or your dad away. Or any of the other Officers. If we register and we follow their rules, they’ll have no reason to. And if they do it anyway, even after we’ve been playing their game, then we’ll raise so much hell and do whatever we need to do to get them back. Okay? I can promise you that.”
A part of him felt kind of ridiculous that had had needed this assurance, but he couldn’t deny that it calmed his fears to hear Marina’s certainty that whatever might happen, they’d all be okay. “Yeah, okay, you’re right. I mean they’re dealing with the Hellhounds after all,” his face broke into a small smile. “And if you’re promising than I have to believe it, right?”
“You bet your ass you do,” Marina stepped closer to Sasha, reaching out to rest her hand on his arm. “No matter what we end up doing, we’ll be okay, alright?”
Sasha’s smile morphed into something that passed as more of a mischievous grin. “Pretty sure not even fate would dare make you break a promise,” he thought about hugging Marina then, but didn’t know if it would be weird. That thought linger for about a second before he just kind of said ‘what the hell’ and pulled his sort of mom into a hug. “Thank you for this, you know, for telling me everything will be fine,” Sasha murmured, releasing her from the hug just as quickly as he had pulled her in.
Marina returned the hug, not even finding such gestures that odd anymore. Though she wasn’t much older than Sasha, being married to his dad had given them an interesting relationship, but she didn’t really mind. It wasn’t like she’d have children of her own, so this was as good as it was going to get. “Don’t worry about it. It’s what I’m here for. But I think it’s time we wrap up this covert meeting. Better go report for prospecting duty and you have some teenage sulking to do so no one will know we were up to anything,” she teased. “I’ll see you for dinner, okay?”
Sasha chuckled at the mention of teenage sulking, partly because he knew he had sort of being doing his fair amount of it lately while grounded for his earlier encounter with the ghoul who’d got the jump on him. “Yeah, I think if we hang around much longer someone’s going to find out about this meeting, and we both know we’re sunk if anyone questions me,” he smirked. “Good luck with the prospecting stuff today, hopefully TJ isn’t too hard on you.” Sasha tucked the sketch book back under his arm and began moving in the direction of Noa’s shop. “See you at dinner.”