I Moderate (i_moderate) wrote in we_archive, @ 2006-06-20 00:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | daniel osborne, georgia lass |
i_avoidliving Blood and Recovery [ Oz ]
The power of soup. Apparently Death made a pretty mean minestrone because she was somehow able to convince one of her youngest employees to go back to work again. Even everyone at Happy Times seemed pretty pleased, though the pile of work they'd left for her to catch up on was not so pleasing.
After five she had a quick reap, and then George could go back to bed. Unfortunately it was at a butcher's shop. The good news was that even though the butcher had managed to chop off four of his own fingers, he was going to be okay. In fact, the fingers could probably be reattached due to the quickness of EMS. The bad news was, the infamous finger chopping knife had been thrown into the air out of shock and it embedded itself deep into the skull of a customer. That particular man was not going to be okay.
And neither was George's favorite work shirt. Sadly, George had not learned her lesson when it came to getting some distance on her reaps. She'd dodged bloody finger man, but knife in head guy managed to get out a few good spurts.
Damnit.
But in the grand scheme of things, fingers were saved.. souls have moved on.. and George could go to bed. She walked through the halls of her apartment and thought for all the times she'd had "slushy" spilled on her she was going to have to work out a lie where she worked at a convenience store or a Dairy Queen or something...
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 06/20/2006 02:59:39
This City was strange, stranger than Sunnydale and thatwas saying something. People who smelled like they where rotting, but maybe they weren't, people who just smelled odd, streets that moved, oh well. He figured it could be worse. So far no apocalypse seemed to be looming on the horizon, so he spoused he should be thankful for that.
He however was not thankful for the lack of air conditioning in his apartment which necessitated him having a window open and the door open to try and achieve some sort of cross breeze. And speaking of breeze there was definitely an odd cent on it tonight. He got up from the floor (he had been attempting to meditate) and looked out. Strange Neighbor Girl. Covered in ... was that blood? Smelt like blood.
Oz asked in what passed for an Oz concerned voice (which meant to a casual observer it would sound like his normal voice): "Hey, are you okay?"
From: i_avoidliving Date: 06/20/2006 13:08:02
"Slushy. Someone spilled slushy on me."
Luckily her jacket was dark enough that she was able to pull off the slushy excuse to the casual observer. Unfortunately, George didn't know that Oz would be more than the casual observer.
She looked irritated, but then again George's full time job did regularly irritate her with all its unpleasant surprises and twists. George stared blankly at Oz.
"I'm fiiiiiiine."
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 06/20/2006 17:02:27
"Okay. See, you say your fine, but umm, i think the person who spilled slushie on you might have been spiking their slushie with something like ... blood." Maybe the girl didn't know she had blood on her, but Oz felt she should know. If someone went all quasi Carrie on him and spilled a blood slushie on him, well he'd want to know. Or maybe the girl was a vampire and drinking a blood slushie ..
But Oz wasn't going to ask her if she was a vampire. That question hadn't gone over well in the drug store.
From: i_avoidliving Date: 06/20/2006 20:30:25
"It's just a slushie, quit being mental!" she replied quickly, clearly agitated. How would he even be able to tell? Sure if she were wearing a white or a light shirt, the slushie story would have been impossible to swing and she would have just said car accident (never mind she didn't own a car).
"No one spikes slushies with blood. That would just be gross."
Unfortunately for George, the material on her shirt didn't have any of a fake fruit scent. So she was probably right about people not having blood in their slushie.
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 06/21/2006 03:13:37
"It would be gross, but hey it must have happened because you have blood on you. I mean I'd be upset too. Just you might want to get to work on getting that removed. Blood stains are a pain to get out."
Oz was being calm, because, well he was pretty much always calm. And okay, part of him realized being all blood stains are hard to get out, might make him sound creepy, but hey. Getting bloodstains out of clothes was just one of those skills he had picked up.
From: i_avoidliving Date: 06/23/2006 19:11:42
"The fuck is with your blood fixation? It. Is. A. Slushie."
She just didn't want to budge. Rube would have known what to do. So would Didi. Why couldn't George handle things as smoothly as either of them did? She had to convince her neighbor, or at least stay in a state of denial, lest he think she was a serial killer or something. That would be bad.
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 06/24/2006 15:40:25
Oz wasn't thinking serial killer, he was thinking vampire. Or person who had just participated in a dark ritual to summon forth an evil demon that was going to try and kill everyone in The City.
Living in Sunnydale could so of warp a person's thinking.
"Not a fixation. It's just, a fact. You have blood on you." He sniffed, lots of blood actually and no ... slushie smell. "Where you at a butcher shop?" Just a random stab in the dark there, he hopped that was the answer and not; 'no i was just slaughtering innocents to raise my dark master'.
From: i_avoidliving Date: 06/24/2006 17:04:10
George's eyes grew approximately 4.3 times bigger. Now she was just a little freaked out. How did he know about the incident at the butcher's shop? Did he know she was a reaper?
"How the fuck did you know that?"
Was he stalking her? Maybe he was stalking her. George quickly patted herself down to check for mace, conveniently forgetting the fact that she didn't have any.
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 06/25/2006 08:34:32
"Well I mean you have blood on you, if it didn't come form a spiked slushie had to come from somewhere." Oz shrugged; "Butcher shop, hospital, morgue. I guessed."
From: i_avoidliving Date: 06/25/2006 09:35:59
George normally didn't deal with hospitals as most accidents happened outside of them, but that didn't mean she'd never gone in one for a reap. As for morgues, you only had to go to the morgue if you really fucked up the job.
The more Oz spoke, the more George was convinced that she'd been found out. Her mouth dropped open in a large O.
"But how do you know all this!?"
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 06/25/2006 11:10:07
Oz shrugged; "I read a lot of Sherlock Holmes as a kid." When you eliminated the obvious and all that … plus he figured it helped that he had a super sensitive nose and could smell the blood on her. He was just glad it was from a butcher shop. "There's no shame on getting blood on you, it happens."
Or he guessed it happened. All that raw meat in butcher shops … well it made the wolf a little antsy sometimes. So Oz avoided places like that, and he had never really been one to pop into a butcher shop for fun before Jordy bit him…. So really he was just trying to make his neighbor feel better.
From: i_avoidliving Date: 06/25/2006 21:16:41
George stared at him and narrowed her brown eyes at him. She wasn't sure if she was really supposed to buy his nice guy act or if she was supposed to shove him against a wall and interrogate him.
"....Sure."
Part of her wanted to shove him, but then George could just be tenacious like that. Slowly, she started to back away.
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 06/26/2006 02:11:35
"Seriously, you might want to think about letting that soak. Blood stains are a pain." Oz, ever helpful. Than, seemingly out of the blue; "Do you know what type of policy this place has on dogs?"
From: i_avoidliving Date: 06/26/2006 21:05:54
Blood stains are a pain.
"No shit, tell me about it."
George paused. It could have been considered one awkward bonding moment or she might have just oddly suggested that she received blood stains often (which had a distinctly undead connotation she was trying to avoid).
Do you know what type of policy this place has on dogs?
"Uhh.... I don't really know. I had a dog for a little while and no one yelled at me so I think they're okay. ...I don't really talk to the management."
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 06/27/2006 17:12:40
"Yup." Oz in his travels had once gotten blood stains on his favorite coat. This had been after his departure from California when things had gotten a little more violent he thought about that for a moment before offering; "You got to get them out before they set … and this conversation taking a turn for the creepy."
Oz didn't see any reason to not state the obvious, and figured if he didn't his neighbor might. She seemed rather blunt.
"Good to know. I don't have a dog. Was thinking about it."
Was actually thinking about how to cover any possible "dog type noises" that might someday emanate from this apartment.
From: i_avoidliving Date: 06/28/2006 21:51:22
You got to get them out before they set … and this conversation taking a turn for the creepy.
George considered what he said for a long moment, while one eye brow took a curious turn upwards. He wasn't a reaper, was he? How was it that he had so much experience with blood stains.
"What exactly do you.. do?"
Okay, the dog thing was nice but it was going to be so much more comfortable if she knew there was another reaper around. Didi was nice, but George almost never saw her. She used to meet with her fellow reapers almost every day. It was lonely without them.
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 06/29/2006 03:54:02
"I'm a musician." Well it was sorta true, "or I was a musician. Right now I'm .. unemployed." He didn't add that his resume also included a stint as a member of the Scooby Gang, and that he was also a werewolf.
That kind of thing tended to freak people out.
"You?"
From: i_avoidliving Date: 06/29/2006 10:16:48
"Oh," George replied at first. She thought maybe if he was a reaper he would have hinted at it, but if he was George hadn't caught onto any of the signals and so she couldn't help but look the tiniest disappointed.
"I work part time at an employment agency." Using the same level of courtesy as Oz, George didn't mention that she was a reaper that collected the souls of the dead and helped them move on.
"My name is George."
It seemed as good a time as any to give him her name.
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 06/29/2006 14:52:38
The tiny hint of disappointment was kind of weird – well actually in the context of this conversation it wasn't that weird – most people though musicians where cool. Not that Oz cared about people thinking he was cool … honest.
"I work part time at an employment agency."
"That must be …" Exciting? Interesting? "Cool."
"My name is George."
"I'm Oz." A beat, "I use to be from California." He was just trying to casually work in the whole; 'not from this city' thing into the conversation. Maybe George was a native. Could give him some … tips.
From: i_avoidliving Date: 06/30/2006 13:35:44
"...So... you moved here?"
George looked a little surprised. Most the people at Happy Times didn't realize that they had ever been anywhere else but the City. So the fact that someone else remembered that this was some new, weird place gave George a little hope. Didi remembered she was somewhere new, but she'd been so casual about it.
"...Cuz I'm from Seattle."
Or Chicago. She was pretty sure that she was from one of those places but it was getting harder and harder to remember. But there was no need to confuse Oz, it was better just to stick with Seattle.
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 06/30/2006 18:57:22
"...So... you moved here?"
"Could say that. Could also say I was driving down the highway and than … I was here." So the weird was starting to work it’s way into the conversation. Which was good, as time had gone on in Sunnydale it had started to seem that everyone was aware of the weird.
"...Cuz I'm from Seattle."
"Cool." Said in Oz's enthusiastic tone, "So I'm not the only one form away."
From: i_avoidliving Date: 07/01/2006 11:58:10
Could say that. Could also say I was driving down the highway and than … I was here ... So I'm not the only one from away.
"I was at work and when I left somehow... it was kinda like the building was just here, and no one else seemed to notice. But like, I don't know anyone else here."
Didi had tried to explain it, but then George hadn't felt very cooperative at the time. She looked down at herself and the blood.
"I should probably take care of this? You wanna come in?"
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 07/01/2006 13:39:34
"Me either. Lots of weird people."
Like the people whom he had meet in the drug store. Well, to be fair OZ had to admit that he himself probably was a little weird. What with the keen sense of smell, and the 'you wouldn't like me when I'm angry' thing he had going on.
"I should probably take care of this? You wanna come in?"
"Sure." Why not? Friends where good to have. And he did want to find out about the blood stains. "I just gotta blow out the candles." He shrugged; "I was mediating."
From: i_avoidliving Date: 07/01/2006 21:46:03
"Oh." Pause. "Are you Buddhist or something?"
She asked innocently enough, the idea was interesting to her. She didn't know very many zen-like people, but Oz spoke like he was a little bit zen. (Okay, Deloris Herbig could have been considered zen in an OCD webcam loving sort of way, but that was probably less spiritual than it was manic.)
Oz was just kinda cool.
She opened up the door to her apartment and waited for him.
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 07/03/2006 13:08:05
“Or something.” Oz agreed as he ducked back into his apartment to blow out the candles and the incense. Being safety conscious was important after all he wouldn’t want to start a fire or anything like that.
“Knew some Buddhist monks for a while. Very cool. Very laid back..” This said as he exited the apparent and shut the door behind him. “Right, so you need to get some stain remove for that jacket, you have some?”
From: i_avoidliving Date: 07/03/2006 14:21:57
"Nah, I got some," said the girl without scent. The apartment, however, did have a strange funk to it. The kind that messy guy apartments left. George, while not the cleanest person, was not quite that messy.
She entered her apartment and invited Oz in after her. Most of the clothes from the previous tenet had been stuffed into various corners and crevices. Opening up a closet, George pulled out an industrial sized bottle of strain remover.
"You knew Buddhist monks?"
Man, all George had ever done when she was alive was manage a fast food joint.
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 07/03/2006 17:35:52
"Yhea, meet them when I was in Tibet." Oz's apartment was rather sparse and filled, well only with his stuff. The girl had no scent, that was for sure but the apartment was layered with smells.
It was ... disconcerting. He glanced around; "You have a roommate?"
He was getting that hair on the back of the neck rising up feeling. What if she had killed her roommate? What if her roommate had been some horrible demon thing like Buffy's had in their first year at college? What if what if what if.
From: i_avoidliving Date: 07/03/2006 22:53:14
"Nope."
George picked up a t-shirt from the floor and stepped into the bathroom. The apartment was a studio, and therefore tiny and cramped. There appeared to be no clear line between the kitchenette area and bedroom/living room.
A few moments later George reappeared with bloody blouse in hand and clean t-shirt on. "So you went to Tibet?"
George had never left the lower 48 states. Not even for Canada.
"...Was that like for school or something?"
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 07/04/2006 02:45:11
Okay. Maybe she just didn't clean. That was cool. Sure his Scooby Sense was tingiling, but hey. This whole City place was weird, made sense that everyoen who lived in it be a bit ... off.
"Naw. Just for personal reasons. I wasn't always this calm." Oz was being serious. He felt he was more zen now. "I wasn't so big on the school thing."
From: i_avoidliving Date: 07/04/2006 08:05:31
George let the personal reasons go. She was dead, she wasn't supposed to be getting this personal with the living anyway, was she?
"Me neither," referring to college, "I dropped college after the first semester."
George started to spray the bloody shirt with the strain remover. If Oz was starting to get suspicious now, George was oblivious to it.
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 07/04/2006 18:08:05
"I didn't make it through my first semester." Not that he was bragging or that this was some sort of contest to see who had less education than who. She sprayed that stain remover on like a girl that had done it before.
Oz knew he was about to enter into socially awkward territory. But oh well. If he was living next to some sort of demon thing, he wanted to know. He just wished that Giles was here. Or some of his books where. He could do research and stuff.
Or he could just ask.
In the end being direct was the Oz way.
"Umm, don't want to pry, but. You don't have a smell."
From: i_avoidliving Date: 07/04/2006 21:57:30
George paused awkwardly. Looking up from her shirt she replied flatly, "Is that supposed to be some kind of weird compliment?"
George had only been aware of her missing scent once while breaking into her living family's house to retrieve personal effects. It was one of those queer details a grim reaper could easily forget from time to time.
"Cuz... you don't smell either?" she tried to offer back.
This wasn't some kind of weird flirting, was it?
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 07/05/2006 17:32:17
"Is that supposed to be some kind of weird compliment?"
"Well. I mean I guess. More of a statement of fact than anything else."
One of Oz's personality traits was not to feel awkwardness. Or rather he did feel awkwardness but only when it had reached a certain level. This conversation hadn't quite got there yet.
"Cuz... you don't smell either?"
"Well that's the thing. I do. Everyone does. Except you. It's … different." Well it was. "I'm guessing it's supernatural in nature."
Stab in the dark there. And not flirting. Although this is Oz. In the past he has flirted with animal crackers.
From: i_avoidliving Date: 07/05/2006 21:17:24
"Uh... I don't know what you're talking about."
But George flinched. She was not a particularly good liar, nor was she very persuasive. If Rube was still her boss this might have been the time when George pretended to get offended with a good shoving of the new guest out the door. But Rube wasn't her boss, she had no way to contact Didi and...
...George was kinda lonely.
Still, she would feel a bit remiss in her duties if she didn't at least get a little defensive: "What's with the smelling thing? And how did you tell it was blood on my shirt? Hm? Because I think that's a little weird, don't you? People don't exactly go around smelling each other!"
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 07/06/2006 08:05:22
"What's with the smelling thing? And how did you tell it was blood on my shirt? Hm? Because I think that's a little weird, don't you? People don't exactly go around smelling each other!"
Oz gave a shrug of his shoulders, she hadn't cine right out and admitted that she supernatural, but, well close enough.
"I could tell because I'm a werewolf. My cousin bit me." This last part added as kind of an afterthought. Oz looked over at George, expecting her to be … well okay with this. She didn’t have a smell, she was obviously different too.
From: i_avoidliving Date: 07/06/2006 13:46:50
....
George opened her mouth and then closed it.
She opened her mouth a second time and again closed it.
Finally:
"Werewolves don't exist."
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 07/06/2006 16:11:09
Okay. She wasn't taking this as well as Oz had thought she would. He was sure that that the general populace didn't think that she … well …. Whatever she was he bet the general populace didn't think she existed.
"They do." He shrugged again, "I'd show you, but well, it's not pretty."
From: i_avoidliving Date: 07/06/2006 20:46:08
George once meant someone who was schizophrenic who could see gravelings. Maybe Oz was insane with split personalities or something. His other personality claimed to be a werewolf.
George was oddly comfortable around crazy people, she was finding.
"Well, maybe next full moon you can, um, show me."
Crazy. Definitely crazy.
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 07/07/2006 02:43:01
"Well see. Full moon, doesn't affect me. I've been fixed." A slightly pained expression crossed his face. "Not 'fixed' fixed, just … I learned. To control the wolf." He was quiet for a moment before adding; "In Tibet."
Okay, enough about him, really.
"So what are you?"
From: i_avoidliving Date: 07/07/2006 08:42:52
"Uh huh. Sure."
George was supposed to cover the murders, suicides and accidents. She was pretty sure that getting mauled by a werewolf would fall into one of those categories somewhere. She'd reaped a few people mauled by a bear before. That was close wasn't it?
(There wasn't some kind of secret supernatural division of reapers, were there? Granted, she hadn't been reaping long but she was pretty sure someone would have told her about something like that by now.)
"Okay, well the thing is... I can't really tell you. I don't think my boss would let me."
Of course if he guessed... but then who would think a young woman was a grim reaper? Weren't they supposed to be skeletons in cloaks or something?
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 07/08/2006 06:51:40
Wait, hadn't she said she worked at a temp agency? Oz had a sudden vision of a temp agency run by supernatruals. They could rent themselves out for Halloween parties, haunted houses … He shook his head to clear it.
"Well. Your not a Watcher, they smell. And so do Slayers." Heck everything he had run across had smelled. He took a hesitant step back, moving towards the door. "You work for the army guys?"
One run in with the initivate in his lifetime was enough thank you.
From: i_avoidliving Date: 07/08/2006 09:44:41
"Watcher? Slayer?-- What!"
George watched Oz take a step back. If the army scared him, George could just imagine what he would do if she told him she reaped souls for a living.
"No, I'm not with the army!"
George was pretty sure people in the army had a smell, too. Was Oz previously dogged by recruitment people or was he just one of those paranoid types that generically distrusted the government?
"Look, I'm sure you don't go around telling everyone you're a werewolf, do you?"
But as soon as she said that, George began to wonder. If he was crazy he probably did.
"And I have... I dunno.... rules and things I have to follow. Or something. I'm pretty sure, anyway. So its nothing personal, but my non-smelling ways will just have to remain a mystery."
And George was going to have to buy some perfume.
ooc: so i know i'm probably getting ahead of myself but i have an idea for another george/oz scene and i have some willow/oz ideas. prefer a pm or an e-mail?
From: i_howlatthemoon Date: 07/08/2006 16:08:25
ooc: no no jumping ahead is good! Ideas for ploty thing are also awesome! Give me a PM eh! ^^ .
"Okay."
Yes that was Oz's reaction to everything George had said. If she wasn't going to tell him, well she wasn't going to tell him. Oz really wished there was a Giles around, he could flip open a book and find out about things that didn't smell.
And he didn't go around telling everyone, just other supernatural type people. Although he was starting to wonder. She was awfully defensive, and well they where all supernatruals together weren't' they?
He just hopped she wasn't evil. Leaving next door to evil could be a pain.
"Well. I just thought you should know, that I know that you don't smell." For Oz that was quite the speech.