Pete Wisdom is saving the world...from itself. (mister_wisdom) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-06-18 02:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, neena thurman (domino), pete wisdom, romany wisdom |
"The sword is danglin', Petey. Best be prepared to dodge."
Who: Romany Wisdom, Pete Wisdom
What: Breakfast foods, tarot card premonitions, dream discussion.
When: Earlier
Where: Domino's apartment, since it's a very happening hippy smelling, messy place.
Rating: PG13, language
Status: Complete!
Note: Need a tag remove for Domino, please! The autoform filler went squirrely on me. Thanks!
After finishing his can of hexed lager and deciding it was better to face the one great evil in person, Pete closed the laptop, unplugged it, and snuck out of the room as quietly as he could. Thurman didn't seem to have the same affection that he had for squeaky floorboards (excellent warning system in flats for home invaders under cover of darkness), so he was able to make his way out of the room, with relative ease.
Romany appeared before him, as though apparating like a ghost. She thrust a plate into his face, "Eat."
Even if he knew that Romany was lurking around, Pete hadn't expected her to just about pop out of the woodwork like that. Both hands fumbled with the laptop before it hit the floor and he looked like he just about had a heart attack. Albeit it was one more based in anger, than fear.
Once everything was set right again and his heart had gone back to its normal high pressured state, he snatched the plate away with his free hand and gave her a good, angry staring at.
"You know how I feel about ghostly popping out from around or behind things. I hate ghosts. They're not as fun as ninjas or other organized crime, to fight against. And if I wasn't carrying things, you could've been full of bullets. Stop trying to be full of bullets!" he whispered, keeping his voice down because Dom was still probably needing to rest. Of course, though, with the root of all that's evil there, and Dommy with her arsenal, he felt safe enough to simply leave his guns in the bedroom, and have breakfast in his t-shirt and monkey face print boxer shorts. "Breakfast looks good though. Wot sort of evil did you add to it?"
Giving Pete a heart attack was one of Romany's life goals, and she was determined to accomplish it someday. Maybe that way he'd calm down a bit and take care of himself.
"You don't fight ghosts with guns or fists, Petey." Romany clucked her tongue, like that was common sense. "Ritual an' shite." That's a technical term. "I added seasonin's an' a little bit of sugar, to this 'ere."
"Was it witch seasoning?" he asked, staring down at it...what'd she add sugar to? Nothing on the plate needed sugar. Ugh. And besides, at the rate he's going, he would drop dead from a heart attack instantly, but he'd probably die with a smile on his face, like he'd been waiting for that to happen all his life. "That's why I hate ghosts. B'cos rituals are shite and ghosts fight really bloody unfairly."
With a shake of his head and a roll of his eyes, Pete made his way over to the table and sat down with his plate and his computer.
He proceeded to simply stare at his plate, like he was eleventy billion miles away.
"Of course not." The sugar was to counterweight some of the seasonings. It made it tastier and a little bit addictive. Romany liked to use it some of her dishes. You usually couldn't even tell! "Everythin' all right?"
It was quite a few seconds later before his eyes blinked once, twice, and he glanced over in his sister's direction. "Hm? Did you say summat?"
Romany enunciated each and every word, staring at him like he was stark raving mad, "Are you all right, Petey?"
His entire expression was blank for a moment, before it twisted up as much as a human face could twist up, in disbelief.
"Fuck off," was his rapid fire response, "I'm fine enough. Why're you asking? Stop pestering me. You're nagging. Don't nag. I don't like nagging."
Both hands flapped in her direction, like angry bird wings.
"You're protestin' to much an' y'look like a bloody parrot." Romany started flapping her arms, mimicking him, "I'm Petey I'm fine stop pesterin' me, don't nag I don't like naggin'!"
She dropped her hands to her sides and took the plate away, "Talk or yeh don't get any breakfast."
Bangers. They were being held hostage.
"Oh, you are not." Now he simply sounded very much angry that someone would hold his food hostage. "Wot's next? Going to pull on my hair or my ear to drag me into a corner, until I tell you that I'm not awake yet and I zoned out for a second or the likes? Put that plate back down. Or...oh to hell with you."
He bolted up onto his feet and started to make a retreat to the bedroom. While he was being as quiet as possible, he was very close to stomping, and would have, if someone else wasn't around in the vicinity. He came back one minute later with a flask in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, proudly proclaiming with a triumphant glare, "Cigarettes and scotch are my food."
Problem solved!
"Yes." Romany replied, not flinching from him in the slightest. Being a Wisdom, she had a natural immunity to just about anything Pete could throw at her. While balancing the plate, her foot shot out, nudging the chair into Wisdom's legs. Then her free hand snatched the scotch and replacing it with the plate of food. She'd give him this round: And get him back, later.
His butt landed on the chair so hard that he coughed out a little puff of a cloudlette from his lips as it made contact with the seat. But he won, and that was all that mattered right now. Or, at least, for the next few minutes, until other things weighed heavily on his thoughts again.
But he'd simply deal with those things as he went, and as he had been, so far. Alcohol helped! And smoking kept him from wanting to kill everyone, immediately.
"So wot do you think your cards were telling you, that you had to travel all the way here? It's really summat that serious?" he asked her, while digging in and alternating between smoking and eating.
"Change. Big change. Pain, torment. Possibly death." Romany lit up a cigarette, speaking as though talking about the weather, "Wot'r yeh involved in, Petey? You can tell me, I've got clearance." Again, Robert. It paid to love sex.
Robert really liked her, too. She didn't call him Fat Bastard like her verbally abusive little brother did. He wasn't even fat! It wasn't his fault that his mum hereditarily passed down her basketball shaped skull and prematurely progressing hairline loss onto her children.
"You know I don't want to do that." He was used to...sharing the information with those who were in the know, and working on his own. It was simply better that way, and more effective for him. He didn't have to worry about anyone else, and he didn't care about himself, so there was a lot less danger involved. Sure, it wasn't up to regulations, but he'd earned enough leeway with things he had done so far, to be cut a fair amount of slack. And for them to occassionally torture him with assignments such as this. "You can't honestly tell me you've got actual Interpol credentials. If Fat Bastard gave them to you, they're faked. Interpol's not going t'hire a psychic. The international community would flip their collective feckin' lids. So I'm afraid I still can't say."
He jabbed a piece of toast into the yolk of the egg until it was good and mushy, and then popped it into his mouth and started chewing, like that was that.
He was also amazing in bed. A considerate lover who really know how to handle a woman. She'd been with him more than once.
What. He was useful.
"Petey, yeh can get your shite off your chest an' maybe I can help. Remember the chicken bone thing?"
"Which chicken bone thing. Is that the time you bought entirely too many rotisserie chickens from the super stores and took the meat and everything off them, boiled the bones, and made amulet necklaces out of them for that festival...or the time you were throwing chicken bones in my bed t'keep the boogie man away when I was four, or that time you mailed off chicken bones to all the members of Parliament and mum said they could simply arrest you but dad talked them out of it and then screamed at you every time you were around an' about, for a week..."
There were obviously several instances of chicken bones. She was going to have to be more specific. In fact, Pete looked ready to go on mentioning every instance of chicken bones plus Romany he could remember, before he dropped his fork with a clatter and angrily stubbed his cigarette out on one side of the plate. But it was better than using Dom's table, one supposes. And luckily he missed his bangers.
"You know wot? No. No, it won't help. It's ne'er helped. And you know wot else? I don't want t'get it off my chest. All right? I didn't want you here in case summat happens. Why can't you simply just let shite happen on it's own, an' not meddle sometimes? Romany, go home."
"The chicken bone killer," Romany replied, rolling her eyes. The rest of that didn't count. She sat at the table across from him, "Y'know I'll jus' keep badgerin' yeh. I can't leave, not when disaster is about t'befall. The sword is danglin', Petey. Best be prepared to dodge."
"All right, feck it." Pete threw up both hands and shrugged his shoulders up, tight. "Romany? I'm not dodging. Be prepared for that."
There, said it. No takes backsies.
"Then I'll push yeh out of the way. Like I did last time." She pointed her fork at him, pointedly, "Someone 'as to watch out for yeh. You're my baby brother. It 'as to be me."
"All right. How do I explain this so maybe you'll get it through your occult addled skull..." he slapped one hand over his eyes and rubbed, vigorously. "I don't want you to push me out of the way. Got it? Understand? Peter no wanty?"
"That makes it more important that I protect you." His sister took a long drink of orange juice, and wiped her mouth, before adding, "I can't torment yeh if you're dead. Well I could."
"You know I humor you and I don't really believe all that shite, all too much. I mean, the afterlife shite. I know there's weird shite now, but I pretty much think it's all...driven by mankind. Or that same eerie sensation people had, where they saw a giant squid off the deck of the ship and thought it was a monster. That. There. You're not tormenting me." He picked up a sausage and pointed it at her, for emphasis. "Because there won't be anything of me after I'm dead, for you to torment. That'll be brilliant."
He took one very big, very angry bite out of that sausage and began chewing, like a starving dingo.
Romany snorted, "So wot 'appens if you die tomorrow an' then next week, a bunch of folks die that yeh were 'sposed to save but you couldn't 'coz yeh were dead?"
"Then that's life," Pete was saying while chewing and taking another bite, totally undaunted by the food in his mouth, "I just want to finish this case and then I'm satisfied with wot I've done so far. Oh...and if I find out Fat Bastard tells you anything about it? He can lose his job. I will hang him. By his tendons. I'm not joking."
Pete didn't think he was really saving anyone or anything. It was simply one last criminal in a long line of criminals. That's all. Kill one? Another one pops up, afterward. Endless cycle.
Romany kicked him under the table, giving him a dour look and then shaking her head, "All I can say is there's somethin' comin' an' it'll affect more than just you. So I need yeh to be alive until it does."
And she cared. She genuinely cared and he broke her heart when he got like this. She hadn't spoken to either of her parents in years when their mum had been shot. She couldn't stand to talk to their father, because it was like talking to some...thing...that only pretended to be their father.
That left Pete to be her family, and by god her evil little brother was still her little brother.
"There's more than just me around," Pete responded while clenching his teeth and kicking her back under the table, in retaliation, "to sort things out. I keep telling you people not to rely on my being around, for a reason."
He didn't look as though he enjoyed saying that to her, because she really was - despite the name calling and labeling her evil - his only family as well. But in Pete's mind, one couldn't live forever, and he still had that feeling of something looming and breathing down the back of his neck. Even more so now, since he wasn't sure if he had his facts all wrong while he was awake, or if the dream was the real version of it...or what was going on.
If he asked Romany, she would start her dream interpretations and that could take hours and it was tedious. Today was for resting.
He didn't feel too restful.
By that point, the rest of his food was gone so quickly, that he looked like he'd inhaled it all.
"But Petey, I drew the cards for yeh. Or those 'round yeh. So I'm 'ere an' I'm not leavin'."
And that was that. She was eyeing him sourly. Like he'd given her indigestion. Which was the Wisdom expression of 'I love you' at least within the blood family.
"They're wrong," he snapped back at her, looking around for a cup of coffee. She probably smoked too much weed and forgot. "And no one else is working with me, so that's that. I can't talk about it here anyway. Thurman's got her own shite to worry about, and our jobs right now aren't the same. So I don't ask, she doesn't tell. And it works both ways. Better off not knowing."
"The cards 'aven't been wrong." Romany fell quiet for a moment, "I've interpreted them wrong before. But they've always meant somethin'. An' this has been specific. Same cards. Same order. Four times in a row, four nights."
"Look. I know you've helped Scotland Yard more times than I can count but this is a whole other situation with entirely different rules and circumstance. Is this really something you had t'come all the way out here for, when you could've told me o'er the phone?"
He scooted the chair back and stood up, walking into the kitchen in search of coffee. It was a full minute of opening and rummaging through cupboards and their contents before he found a cup of a suitable enough size to hold coffee plus some of Domino's liquor, and he poured himself a cup before spiking it.
Pete also looked profoundly annoyed. Because his sister was here with him, now. Not that he didn't love her? Because he did, to pieces, but admitting that was hard because she was a hippy weird ass too and he had trouble saying things like that to family or...to anyone. That wasn't something he took lightly, when he said it. It invited life to try to piss on his parade, and everyone always either died or they went away in the end, anyway.
He was very worried, that because Romany had inserted herself into the situation, she was going to end up hurt because of it. Since she was as stubborn as he was, it was going to be difficult to get her to go home.
"Could've told me o'er the phone," he reiterated, before taking a big drink of freshly spiked coffee and heaving out a sigh of relief.
"Yes. Because you wouldn't believe me if I told you over the phone," Romany replied, glaring at him. She kicked him in the shin again, as if to emphasize her point, before he'd gone off to get coffee.
Then she watched him putter around, eyes narrowed, "I couldn't 'ave. The cards came up again, last night. While yeh both were restin'."
And she was damn sure she was reading them right, this time. She'd never forgiven herself for not understanding the cards she'd read for Kitty. She could have stopped her from leaving.
If it was something Kitty related, then Pete would have been all over it like a donkey on a waffle. But no, he didn't know. He never knew anything about any readings regarding Kitty, or he might have maybe given it more validation, upon further explanation.
Dangerous things, however? Pete shrugged them off. A large part of him didn't care anymore. It had started not caring, years before. And that's where he was, now, standing in a former co-worker's kitchen, with his insane sister trying to save the world with her tarot cards, drinking coffee and thinking it was all bollocks. Whatever was coming for him, could have at it. He might even wave and offer it a cigarette. Or a delicious biscuit.
"I don't believe it entirely now, but I know you're involved in some very weird shite. Are you looking for a flat for us? At least then there won't be a known address for me, which would be convenient." No home invasions, that way. At all. "Let me know if you need money. And stop sprinkling those smelly fucking oils all over the place. It gave me bad dreams last night."
It wasn't something she would bring up. Kitty was a sour point with her, understandably. One didn't spend six months all but wiping their brother's arse and want to be pleasant to the woman responsible.
"I've been lookin'. It'll be under a mate's name." Who she'd slept with. Of course, "No 'Wisdom' attached to it at all."
She looked offended, "I 'ad to fight yeh stench!"
"Good, no name associated is best. Don't bring too many people 'round, it's hard t'know who to trust. And I want creaky floorboards, if we have to pry up carpeting and rig them, ourselves. Second story, and some way to get out the windows if need be," he was saying, while pointing at her, like she knew the drill.
He took a long drink of coffee, draining the entire contents of the cup, and then dropped it in the sink so that it sounded almost ready to break.
"None of that shite, either. I'm serious. I don't need any help sleeping or having dreams, and that was beyond mucked up. No more. It smells like a hippy orgy from three decades ago, rubbed themselves all over everything and the smell's ne'er gone out."
"Yeh know I don't bring men home, Petey. I stay at their places." She winked saucily, "I know what yeh need. It'll be clean but it'll 'ave creaky floors an' second story. An' the oil is for meself!"
"It's not for here though." Pete looked and sounded tired all of a sudden, while he was standing in the kitchen, staring down at her. "Do you remember...when mum left...how old was I?"
"I don't...ten maybe?" It was a long time ago. Long ago for Pete, longer still for her.
"...that's wot I thought. I was still pretty..." He just waved a hand around at whatever height he'd been, around about, at the time. "I just had the most fuckered dream. Where I was, like..convinced I was twelve or some shite like that...an' our stinky fucking failure of a father, was giving me some speech afterward. I mean, he did give me a talking at, afterward but...don't go into profiling, remember some woman in Hounslow doing in her husband and kids with rat poison...don't trust women... a whole running one’s mouth about, there. You don't remember me ever saying anything about that, do you?"
If he had told anyone, it would've been Romany. And Romany, only.
Romany looked at him like he was crazy, "I remember you talkin' about it. But nothin' 'bout women, or not trustin' them. Nothin' about the 'ounslow thing an' I know yeh wouldn't 'ave omitted that. Jus' that 'e was apathetic."
"She said she was going to her sister's in Bromley. I thought our aunt lived in Bexley," he said, slowly, like he didn't trust himself now, or what he remembered. "I don't know, when he was talking about not going into criminal profiling, he said it rots your soul seeing all that evil. I ne'er heard him do that, but...the rest of it...he was the same. I mean, treated things the same, so did she...."
Pete looked like he was thinking long and hard, staring at a far wall, going through the details again, in his head.
"Huh. I guess it was just a bad dream," he concluded. It must have been Romany's fault, somehow.
Romany nodded her head, "Bexley. Our aunt was a tart." Says the admitted tart. She tilted her head, "Well, 'e was right. Dream!Da', anyway. It does rot yeh soul. Maybe yeh subconscious is jus' imposin' that realization onto a convenient memory."
She wasn't sure why it was that particular memory, though.
"No. Maybe. I don't know." He rubbed one hand down over the entirety of his face, and reluctantly admitted, "It seemed really vivid. Like...when he said it...I was staring right at the bastard...and his eyes...it was like looking into a fucking mirror."
He almost vividly shuttered, because he didn't want to grow old and turn into that. And he could all too easily see it happen. Or happening. Which was another reason why a death wish wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Live fast, die relatively young. No way did he relish ever hitting thirty-five.
"One thing was consistent though. Mum's sunday roast still was like chewing on shoe leather," Pete said, finally, and then he eyed Romany for a long moment, before suggesting, "I'll give you summat t'keep you busy. Find out if there's anything strange here, that's giving people dreams. Or causing strange things t'happen. Ley lines or the likes. Whatever it is...because if you go back on that valar net, there's people mentioning it. And if it's starting to happen to me, it's a matter of time before it affects you or Thurman, too. I'd rather we keep our wits about us."
Romany wondered if Petey wasn't already well on the way to becoming that. It was one of her greatest fears, to find Pete had become their father, or some sort of...comatose vegetable.
"Dreams? Y'think there's somethin' givin' people dreams?" Romany thought about that for a long moment, "Ley lines make sense. Some kind o'psychic vampire per'aps."
She nodded, "I'll look into it. I'll ask on t'net tomorrow, see if I get any bites."
"Wot was that other shite I'd read about...limestone deposits...underground water...electromagnetic assaults on the temporal lobes?" He shrugged, unsure of any of it. "Anything like that. Try t'be subtle, would you? I know I'm asking for too much. But saying psychic vampires is pushing it a bit too much, sis."
"I'll do the research. I was thinking of openin' a shop." You can never have too many magic shops. Romany patted his hand, "I'll just ask if anyone 'as 'ad vivid dreams, about anything."
"Right, well...." He retracted his hand, but only so he could rest it on top of her head for a moment, and letting it slip down over her hair, careful not to knock her beads out. He bent just enough to peck a millisecond, extremely awkward kiss, on top of her head near her forehead. That done, Pete grabbed his laptop and then started to head back to the bedroom. "Shop's not a 'orrible idea and cheers for the breakfast. It didn't come out half bad and I don't feel horns growing out of my forehead, quite yet."
She smiled at him. Without any malice or sibling rival hate. Just a smile for her baby brother, "Bring some to the bird. I'll be out for a bit, an' I'll be back later."
"Oh, right. Will do." He swung back around and started piling food onto a plate. "Where are you off to?"
"I need to stock up on some things." Namely weed. It would be nice to see Gandalf again, too. Now there was a man who knew what to do with his hands.
If Pete knew, he'd probably puke a little more in his mouth, today. Luckily, he doesn't know.
"Keep it legal. And nowhere near me," he warned her, then nodded to let her know she was left to her own devices. "Call if you need anything and...the car keys are over...there...somewheres."
He aimlessly pointed off in the direction of where he'd thrown the keys last night, over by the door. Plate in hand and laptop in the other, he nodded at her as he walked back toward the bedroom again.
"And be careful," he was saying as he retreated, but he didn't mean be careful with the car.
Someday, she'd share. She was saving that for a particularly good time, when she most needed to pull the 'mess with bro's brain' card.
"It'll be legal," She assured him, as she got up and grabbed the keys. As she exited the door, she added, "In Amsterdam."
Then she was gone. There was the sound of squealing tires, the slamming of metal against metal and then Romany was gone.
Bad driving was clearly a family trait.
"...buuuuuggeeeeeerrrrr." Pete set down the plate and went back to lock the door up that his sister - naturally - forgot to do, at all.