Who: Rae and Theo Where: crafts room, fourth floor When: 11:15 a.m.
Bright roses of color bloomed on Rae's cheeks when at last she headed in from the cold. There were a few danishes (also cold) remaining from Jack's time in the kitchen. She pulled off one glove before plucking one from the plate. Holding the pastry between her teeth, she pulled off the second glove and stuffed both into her coat pocket. She took the stairs two at a time. She was forever in need of the certainty of something to do and somewhere to be so much so that even now, with neither of those comforts, she found herself pretending for her own sake. To focus too much on the reality of her situation would be her undoing. So she merely crunched on her danish, licked up cheese when it fell on her fingers, and headed back up to her room.
She dawdled there a while, finishing up her breakfast, checking the network, letting her boots and jeans hems dry out. Nothing on the network particularly caught her eye, and soon enough, she was back up and pacing again. Warm now, she laid the heavy coat across the foot of her bed, rummaging through its pockets for one of the gloves.
"There you are," she mumbled. She peered down at a small hole in the palm of one glove. She had felt it only dimly when a bit of firewood snagged the aged cloth. She had not sewn in years, but she felt confident she could quickly pick it back up. The craft room seemed the most likely option for needle and thread, at least for that which was not already set aside for wounds such as August's. She headed up to the fourth floor, glove in hand, whistling a little tune to herself.
She was still whistling a bit too merrily when she strode into the crafts room, her mood markedly lifted by the sight of well stocked shelves and cabinets before her.
The thing that followed her into the crafts room was, at first appearance, decidedly not human. It looked to be just above five feet tall, and was covered in a black, soft surface that shifted in tone with the light. As it moved further into the room, Theo poked her head out of the mass she'd made of her bed comforter in an effort to keep herself warm, even though the house itself had not yet succumbed the cold weather that had bombed its exterior during the night. Heavily frowning and looking for something to distract herself from what she considered dismal weather, she'd made her way downstairs for something hot to drink and one of the leftover cold danishes, and then back up to the crafts room where she might find a drawing pad.
Blatantly ignoring the other party in the room, Theo trudged in like a prisoner on their way to the execution block, absorbing a drawing pad and some colored pencils into the black mass that she was holding together with her hands. All of this was expelled once she took a seat near the window -- her mug of hot chocolate, the half-eaten danish -- as she glanced outside and started to sketch.
Rae let her tightly swaddled housemate settle in, all the while contemplating what to say to perhaps draw her in. The hot chocolate smelled delicious; the sketch itself was intriguing. She mulled over these things for some time, still searching for needle and thread, before finally speaking up.
"I'm Rae," she said. She passed long fingers through a drawer, at last finding a small pincushion with sharp needles stuck in. Matte black thread was nearby; she grasped this, too, and bumped the drawer closed with her hip. "I don't believe I've seen you around yet."
Theo turned slowly, as though suddenly realizing there was another person in the room. Her eyes went wide, her pencil frozen in place.
"Oh," she finally said, pulling the hand holding the pencil into her black mass. "Sorry. I thought I was alone." Theo resituated herself, the motion unclear, but she was folding her legs under her within the blanket. "I'm Theo. New around here, at least for a couple of days." She extended one pale, tattoo-laden arm out of the blanket and picked up her hot chocolate, taking a sip that seemed to ground her. "You been here long?"
"Nope." Rae studied the marks on the woman's arm. Their color was beautiful, their designs elaborate. She wanted a closer look, but now hardly seemed the time to ask. "From what I read on the network, I think I got here the day after you. They really seem to be bringing people in pretty quickly." She frowned.
She walked slowly toward Theo, as if concerned quick movement might frighten her away. She pushed the glove down into the back pocket of her jeans, where it stuck out, fingers wiggling as she walked, as if in greeting to someone behind her. "Any memory of when you were taken?" She put the thread between her teeth, biting it down to a manageable size. She stopped at the wall nearest Theo, leaning up against it as she watched the other newcomer sketch. "Not to pry… just looking for answers, since I've got none."
Theo frowned again, bringing her hot chocolate to her mouth as though to rinse away a bad taste. "I was at a nightclub. Good place to get grabbed, though this isn't the kind of grabbing I prefer." She put the mug back down, picking up her pencil and looking back to her pad of paper.
"Besides, from what I've heard, none of that seems to matter. Everyone's from a different place, different deal. U.S., Europe, Canada, all over the place. If you're looking for some kind of rhyme or reason, I don't think you're going to find it." She glanced up and out the window, then back down to her pad of paper, slowly bringing a landscape to life.
"Yeah." Rae sighed. She threaded the needle, then retrieved the glove from her back pocket. She found a seat at a desk within sight of Theo, but far enough to give her space. "Maybe not yet, at least," she said. "Sooner or later there's got to be a pattern though, right? Something we have in common, other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
She drew the threaded needle through the incision in the glove's palm. "What did you do before this?" she asked. One dark brow arched as she began her second stitch. "Got anyone who'll be looking for you?"
The pale, dark-haired young woman didn't immediately answer the other, instead focusing on her drawing. If anything, the question seemed to have made her draw more into herself. She added a tree, nude, its branches arching over its small patch of ground.
"I was a tattoo artist. I am," she corrected herself. "And yeah. At least, I hope so. I don't know. We didn't leave things so good." Theo started detailing the trunk, adding shading for the bark. She glanced over in Rae's direction. "What about you?"
"I do charity work," Rae said. She looked up to meet Theo's eyes, fleeting though their held glance was. "Fundraising and some watchdog type stuff, mostly." She tipped her chin up, subtly pointing toward Theo's ink-laden arms. "You have beautiful art. I've always been fascinated by tattoos. I only have one fairly stupid one, myself." She cleared her throat, looking back down to the glove in her hand. "How do you get into that kind of work?"
Theo shrugged. "Friends, mostly. I've always had a thing for drawing, and I guess one thing kind of led to another." She held out the left arm, which was covered in hell-inspired iconography. Rae arched a brow, eyes widening, curiosity and admiration showing in her face. "I did all of this, the drawings anyway. Kinda hard to draw on yourself." She resituated herself, turning to lean against the wall near the window. She hissed, surprised by the cold that was seeping in through the walls, and pulled the comforter tighter around herself. "What and where do you have some? Please don't say it's a tramp stamp." A faint grin hung around her lips, implying her joke.
Rae chuckled. "No, thank God." She shifted her hands, cradling glove and threaded needle in her right. With her left she reached across her thick coat, tapping her upper right arm. "English ivy," she said. "I got it in college, and I suspect it wasn't very good even then. It's really faded now." She shrugged and went back to her work. "I never could really think of anything else I wanted on my body forever. It seems like quite a commitment." She smiled softly. "I can't imagine being able to design your own. Having something truly you forever… there's something really beautiful about that."
The grin deepened. "Yeah, I can't say I disagree. The ones over here are kind of...well, they were more practice for some of the others at my shop, but I think that in itself makes them worth keeping. Not like I have a say in it anymore." She rolled her eyes briefly, one shoulder rising and falling. "A lot of people who know me would think it's hilarious that I decided on something that permanent. But that's a whole other story." Rae smiled, filing that tidbit away for future reference. Theo pulled her drawing pad onto her lap, and flipped to a fresh page. Her pencil strokes were light, eyes darting up and down from the paper. "So, charity work. Soup kitchens? You get down and dirty, into the nitty gritty? That's way more respectable than needling people with colors."
"Oh, I don't know," Rae said. She pulled the needle through one last time, then tied the thread off in a tight little knot. "You give people personal art that helps them remember or celebrate things. That's very respectable, to me. Granted, I guess some tattoos are more inspiring than others, but to each her own." She slipped the glove on, flexing a bit as she tested her patch job.
"I wasn't really in the trenches. Not for long, anyway. I did some protests and stuff but I was mostly behind the scenes, making sure charity groups were actually doing what they said. Actually helping people, spending the money they raised on their causes instead of themselves. It can be depressing, realizing how many groups take advantage of well-meaning folks. So I donated to the good guys and tried to take out the bad ones."
"Mmm." Theo's reply was half-hearted; her lack of interest in the news and industries that were not directly linked to her immediate situation made her a poor conversationalist in this topic. "Sounds like fun." She added a few stronger lines, her hand movements quick. Then she stopped, leaning back against the wall for a moment.
"That can't take up all your time, though. But gives you a much better reason for being here than me. Maybe you pissed the wrong person off? Double crossed by the Red Cross?"
Rae chuckled. "They're not especially admirable, but I don't see them going to these lengths, either. This is a little much even for the Westboro Baptist Church." She shrugged again. Moved back toward the cabinet where she'd found her supplies. She returned what she'd taken, fussing over where she placed them in the drawer for simple want of something to do. "I didn't think I'd done anything to put a target on my back, but that seems like a common theme here. One more way we're all stuck in this together."
Theo grunted in reply, reaching out to grab her hot chocolate and sip it. She wrinkled her nose at the fact that it had grown a little cold.
"So how do you like your room?" She floundered for another topic. "The lengths whoever's responsible for all of this they're going to are pretty amazing. They've got some deep pockets." She moved her pencil over the page, adding a few final touches. "Or, you know. Aliens."
"Or both," Rae laughed. "They've got deep pockets and they seem to know too much about us. My room is perfect. Eerily so. It's exactly how I'd have decorated it." She closed the drawer, then shucked her coat, folding it untidily over one arm. "But money's obviously not a problem. Earlier, Oliver was telling me about how they were all shipped off to some island, and came back to find another floor added onto the house. I mean, how do we even begin to explain that."
Theo nodded. "I heard about that, too. And somehow they were in the middle of a hurricane. The fog the other day, and now the snow... Apparently these people, or things or whatever, are capable of a lot." She frowned. "Did anyone tell you about, I guess, the experiments?"
Rae's nose wrinkled softly. "Experiments? No. Does that have anything to do with the statue across the hall?" She pressed a hand to her nape, bare fingertips brushing over the flesh that covered the implant. "Or… these things?"
The other woman shrugged. "I don't know shit about the statue, except that everything it's doing now is something new. I think it started moving maybe a day or two after I got here, so if you're looking for a frame of reference, you're talking to the wrong person. And that thing, yeah, don't know either. I think that's more just so they can make sure we're being good little guinea pigs." Theo clenched her jaw for a moment. "To be honest, aside from the screaming the other night, not a whole lot has happened to me, so I'm not sure what to expect. Everyone keeps hyping it up, but Edwin told me it's not like Hostel. I guess the experiments, the tests, are a little more personal in nature. But he didn't get more specific than that."
"That's… incredibly disconcerting," Rae said. "Saying it's not like Hostel doesn't exactly instill confidence. There are plenty of ways to be terrible without going to those lengths." She pondered this a moment, worrying at her lower lip as she did. "I wonder who might give us more insight than that? Maybe Cecilia? I'd rather know uncomfortable details and be prepared than be caught off guard."
Theo shrugged. "Good luck with that. I...am happier not knowing." She flipped to a new page, and sat back, letting her hand move back and forth over the page without any real purpose. "I mean, things could be worse. We've got this house, and our rooms, and yeah, the weather sucks, but it's not like we're lacking for anything. Not right now."
"Right now being the operative phrase." Rae watched Theo's hand move over the page, peering at the shapes it made in its passing. "We can't allow ourselves to be lured into a false sense of security. We're still prisoners, even if the prison mostly looks classy as hell." She raised one sculpted shoulder. "But I get it. I do. If I find anything out, I won't share unless you ask me to."
"Man, you sound like you'd be fun at parties." Theo was now sketching her mug, the soothing motions suddenly doing little to calm her. "You sure you're not from the military? Because that spiel right there sounded like something from a movie."
Rae laughed, blushing, slightly taken aback. "Me? No. But I like being prepared. Don't you want to be?" She picked at a thread of the coat in her arms. "The more we can figure out about this place, the faster we can get back home. That's important to me."
Theo's head bobbed, small nods implying her agreement. "Of course I wanna get back home. I just..." She stopped drawing and let her hand fall by the paper. "I don't think I'd be much help with that. And besides, from the way everyone's talking about this place, you really think we're gonna be able to outsmart the people who grabbed some of us in broad daylight? Or have our every move tracked?"
She dropped the pencil entirely, putting her hands up to put a stop to the conversation. "You know what, new topic of conversation. I just..." Theo closed her eyes, waving her hand in the negative. "So. Favorite band? Food? Where're you from?"
Rae raised her hands, gesturing surrender. "Okay, okay," she said. "I gotcha. I'm from Raleigh. Band… um. I really like Joy Division and The Cure. And food? Steak, I guess. Best one I had was a rare filet with a seared portobello mushroom underneath." She smiled, throwing all her charm into that small peace offering. "What about you? What's a tattoo artist into these days?"
"Points for Joy Division and Robert Smith," Theo replied, a smile edging back into her tired-looking features.
"This tattoo artist, at least, kind of likes everything. If I had to pick favorites, though, I guess Mindless Self Indulgence and Ludovico Technique. I'm from San Francisco. Never been to North Carolina; that's where Raleigh is, right? All that repetition in school was good for something after all. And favorite meal... macaroni and cheese."
The slight woman relaxed, leaning back against the wall she was seated near. "See? I know people think small talk is boring, but that was way less confrontational."
Nodding, Rae chuckled again. "It was that," she said. "I could really go for some mac and cheese right now. I hope that's still on the menu here." She canted her head, dark hair falling to frame her fair face. "I don't know the bands, but I like all your other choices. I guess I'm showing my age now."
Theo shrugged. "Surprised you haven't at least heard of MSI, but they're not the kind of thing you hear on the radio. No worries, though," she continued, shrugging lightly and smiling. "I won't judge. No one's omnipotent." She flipped back through her sketchbook and came back to the second page she'd been working on. Gently ripping out the page, she offered it to Rae. It was a fairly well done sketch of the woman's face. "Dunno what you'd do with this, but it's probably slightly less creepy if someone finds it in my room. So what do you do for fun, Rae?"
Rae studied the picture in her hands, smiling, abashed, at the likeness. "Hm?" She looked up, balancing coat and sketch. "Oh. Not much, really. I don't have a lot of down time. Or I didn't, I mean. I go hiking, I read a lot, watch movies… nothing special. If this snow ever stops, I'll probably go out for a longish hike if you want to come."
She smiled again, an off-kilter grin. "But listen, I'll let you get back to that. I'm sure I'll be bothering you again soon enough."
Theo shivered in response to Rae's offer, shaking her head. "There is nothing that could get me to go outside in that. We don't even have snow in California! Well, I mean, we do, but you have to go to it, it doesn't come to you." She pulled her comforter closer around her, mulling a new thought that popped into her head. "I was told there's a hot tub, though. If there's any time to use something like that, I'd be down."
"You got it," Rae said. As she headed for the door, she raised her hand and waved farewell around the paper still loosely clutched in it. "See you, Theo. And thanks."