Game Thread Scene 4: Take me out to the ball game - Page 5

HexCursed · #61 Oct 6th, 2024, 04:47 PM

Witness
During a momentarily lull in the conversation, Quinn heard what seemed to be faint words, maybe something brushing against something else, and some more words. Then, the thumping sound of feet on the ground, moving hurriedly away.

NoizePollution · #62 Oct 6th, 2024, 05:19 PM

Quinn

Hot -1 Cold +1 Volatile +2 Dark -1
Exp 2/5; Harm 0/4; BullyQuinn, the Ghoul

Ashs explanation actually make a lot of sense to Quinn. If a ghost is an echo of the person they used to be, they would mimic those behaviors and expectations. The memory of the self. She considers her own situation and how they are similar, then how they are different. Her lips part to speak but then Ash shifts, or changes, or something not quite visible. The shirt and the bass fall away, leaving Quinn herself breathless as the other girl floats in a slow circle around her. She moves with Ash, circling in place to keep her eyes on the other girls, and there is no disguising the amazement in them. She can fly. Ash can fly. Nothing could have prepared her for this, and only when Ash is on the ground and her hand is on Quinns arm does her breath return. But then Ashs words threaten to empty her lungs again, her own memory of that touch still mixed and mingled in her mind.

"Honestly, I think it's what I wanted to happen, too." She takes Ash's hand by the wrist, a soft grip of encircling fingers, and lifts that hand to her face. Turning into it, Quinn lets Ashs fingers graze along her cheek as she closes her eyes. Soft traces of sensation across her skin, so welcome now where before it felt so confusing. She closes out sight to live in that touch for a second, and when her eyes reopen they're half-lidded. "Okay, I get it." She watches Ashs face through heavy eyes, and her heart flutters in her chest. To be wanted. It's not just a hunger. It's everything. God, if ever there were a perfect moment this is it. She steps in, her arm snaking around Ashs waist to draw her close. Leaning, bringing her lips down to Ashs at a pace that feels both glacial and supersonic. Centimeters away she stops, her body tensing at the sounds just on the edge of her hearing. Her head snaps to the right, toward what may have been voice or maybe just the wind.

"Did you hear that?" She stares into the dark and the trees, unable to make out anything but shadows and shapes. Was that footsteps or just her own blood rushing in her ears? Was somebody watching them? Part of her, and it's a familiar part, wants to charge off in that direction. To catch them and grab them and hurt them. It's her instinct. It's why she understands Luke, or what she envisions for him. "Was somebody there?" But then she turns back to Ash, and all her instincts fall away. She can't lose this momentum. She won't. Not again. She can't go back to that scared girl who doesn't understand who she is. Its too heavy. Too painful. She can't. Holding onto Ash, Quinn leans in and presses her lips to to the ghosts. Neither gentle, nor rough. Neither soft, nor hard. Just firm enough to declare her intentions, her desire for more. Just light enough to show her nervousness at the same. It is only a moment, but that moment is long enough to cement that experience in her memory forever. She falls into it, arms open and soul bare, as a certainty takes root in the core of her. She knows who she is, for once. What she truly wants, for once. And she isn't afraid. Opening her eyes, she does her best to search out the feelings in Ashs own.

"I just had to do that before I lost my nerve." She holds the ghost for a moment longer, finding comfort and courage in their proximity. Easing back, he keeps her hand in Ashs and entwines their fingers together as she lets the smile inside find place on the outside. She feels peaceful, at ease, and it has been a long time coming."Now what?"

OOCThis all assumes, of course, that Ash consents to it. I'd figured this was the goal of the Turn On attempt but I also don't want to presume things out of hand.

Starflier · #63 Oct 7th, 2024, 12:40 AM

Ash

Hot -1 Cold +2 Volatile -1 Dark +1
Exp 0/5, Harm 0/5, Conditions: Foolish, Morbid, TraumatizedAsh, the Ghost

”Hear what?”

It is the last cogent thought that floats through Ash’s mind for quite some time, lost as she became in those arms, and that kiss; lost as much as she dares to allow herself to become. She returns the kiss and pulls Quinn closer still with a finger through a belt loop on her jeans, and amongst the euphoria of that connection there is something else that draws her to the redhead, something new. Not sadness, nor sorrow, but a dull pain that she feels radiating off of Quinn like the dim light of a star, overpowered by everything else she feels in that moment, yet still there under the rest of it.

Adrift in her emotions, Ash struggles to return to the present even as Quinn pulls away, breaking their brief connection and asking a question of her. It forces her to focus on the here and now, and Ash runs back in her mind, wondering if there had been someone here and what they could have seen. Not enough, she decides in that moment, to waste time worrying about it. Glancing about, if only to free herself of the hold Quinn has on her mind, Ash steps back as far as she can before letting go of her hand and reaching for the shirt she’s left on the ground. Throwing it back on and retrieving her guitar, she can’t help but feel awkward in the moments after such a personal connection; it’s just her way.

”I… uh… we… you… I… huh,” she mutters, stumbling over her words as though unable to pick one, let alone the right one. Taking a moment, she focuses her mind, then looks back up into those eyes, ”Movie?”

OOCAsh will take Transference with her first advance.

NoizePollution · #64 Oct 7th, 2024, 11:18 AM

Quinn

Hot -1 Cold +1 Volatile +2 Dark -1
Exp 2/5; Harm 0/4; BullyQuinn, the Ghoul

In the lingering silence of those moments between her question and Ash's answer, Quinn's mind is a buzz of incomplete thoughts and unanswered questions. This wasn't her first kiss. Beyond Glen and Luke, there had been a couple other guys who made base hits in Quinn Stadium. And yes, there is something about the fact that it is the first time she's kissed a girl that makes it different. But there is more. More depth, more intensity, more connection. Is it because they're dead? Is being what they are somehow bridging them in a bond she's not felt before? It's not a question she can ask, but it lingers. As Ash pulls on the shirt, Quinn's lips tug into a distinct pout and she tries to keep the memory fresh. She reaches out and sets her hands on Ash's shoulders as the girl stumbles over her own tongue.

"Ash. Honey. Breathe." Her fingers tighten to squeeze those shoulders gently, an effort at a comforting motion. Comforting is not Quinn's strong suit but she tries hard when she needs to. To comfort without having been comforted is like trying to play darts in the dark. Her parents were never exactly warm, her friends never exactly close. Since her brother died, that kind of connection just wasn't ever really in the cards. "I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be the awkward, fumbly one in this situation." Her smile is lopsided, the effort to defuse the other girl's nerves leaving her feeling a bit exposed herself. A moment ago she could not have imagined what comes next, but a moment ago she wasn't supercharged on new experience.

"Yeah. Movie." She draws Ash in again, wrapping her arms over the girls shoulders in a tight embrace. It's far from the first hug they've shared, but this one is at once grateful and intimate. Quinn draws in a soothing breath and speaks, her lips close to the ghosts ear. "But maybe we don't have to pay attention to it?" Untangling again, she leans back to check Ash's reaction to the suggestion. A green light, a wave through, anything to indicate that the night has more in store. Let it be a night of firsts, if not a first night of many. She stops those thoughts dead, locks them down. Can't get ahead of herself like that. Quinn is an intense person because she feels things intensely. Quickly. It has often been a road to embarrassment for her and so she's very aware of when feelings shift, when they become more. She tips her head in the direction of the house Ash had indicated, but she waits for the other girl to lead them in.

"Oh, and that belt loop thing." She slips a thumb through the belt loop Ash had used as an anchor to reinforce the point. Her lips curl into a grin just thinking back on it, the way her own draw was met by Ash's pull. It was a small gesture but damn if it didn't feel big. Like something she'd see in a music video with the two sexiest people alive getting busy on the hood of a Camaro. "Cho reidh." Her upper teeth capture her lower lip for a moment before she thinks to translate that. "So smooth, girl." Anyone who spent time around Ash knows how she downplays herself. Be it her experience, her talent, her beauty. She'd done some of that just a minute before while describing her condition. But Quinn sees the truth quite clearly in the moonlight here. She thinks it, but thinking it doesn't feel like enough. So she gives it voice.

"You are a stellar, grade-A badass."

OOCYour court, Star. Not sure if you want to do some scene setting before the fade, or fade now and jump to after in your next post. I'm good with either but I would really like, if you're willing, to see Ash's bedroom on screen as I don't think we've gotten a look in the haunted house yet.

Starflier · #65 Oct 7th, 2024, 09:14 PM

Ash

Hot -1 Cold +2 Volatile -1 Dark +1
Exp 0/5, Harm 0/5, Conditions: Foolish, Morbid, TraumatizedAsh, the Ghost

”Why would we…” Ash said as Quinn whispered into her ear, taking just a moment to get the idea. ”Oh.”

Turning red from the compliments, Ash turned and led Quinn the rest of the way to her house. An overgrown set of concrete steps from a long ago era led up the treed hill to her house, a pleasant surprise when she’d found them a month ago. She was still curious why they were there, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, leading from a cemetery to a house built only ten years ago, but right now all that wasn't even on her mind.

The sky opened up as they neared the top, only the canopy above saving them from the worst of the rain. From the treeline they could see the house, outlined by a flash of lightning against the pitch black sky with no hint of light inside. It had been that way too often since her family had left; everything that had made it a home was gone, the life fading from it every day for months. It was just a place now, but it was still her place.

Finding her key in one of the pockets of the guitar case, she led the way in a sprint around the pool to the patio doors, fumbling a few times before getting the door open and pulling Quinn inside behind her. For a few seconds Ash stood there staring back out the glass doors, mezmerized by the rain pouring down before fumbling for light switch.

”Well, this is it.”

NoizePollution · #66 Oct 8th, 2024, 02:17 AM

Quinn

Hot -1 Cold +1 Volatile +2 Dark -1
Exp 2/5; Harm 0/4; BullyQuinn, the Ghoul

She trails close behind Ash as they ascend the steps, careful not to catch her foot on a broken section. Falling down the stairs is kind of a classic Quinn move but if she's getting bruises tonight it won't be from her usual lack of grace. The peal of thunder that announces the start of the rainfall makes her jump and she turns her face up to the dark branches above, small drops slipping through to slick her skin. The rain. She'd understated things when she said she didn't mind the rain. Truth is, she loves this weather. The blustery wind, the light and sound, the cold curtain of moisture. A storm on the outside drowns out the storm on the inside. Quinn's mother told her that when she was seven and snuck out to watch a storm from the roof of the trailer. Some things stick.

As they round the back of the house, things start to connect in Quinn's mind. Patterns. A disused pool. No lights inside. No cars. Picking up her pace, she keeps up with Ash as the ghost makes a sprint for the patio doors. Giving easily to Ash's pull to the interior, she stands just inside that doorway and drags fingers through her rain-slicked hair, casting it's weight over her shoulder. Shaking her hands, droplets of water scattering to the floor, she turns her eyes to the newly illuminated room. There is something distinct about a place that has been abandoned. It's a feeling, like a hole in the space. The furniture, the floors, the lack of presence. No personal items. No clutter. No mess.

"I didn't even realize this place was here until they buried me over there.”

Quinn hadn't caught it then. Who would have buried her? Who would have been here then but isn't now. She turns to Ash and her eyes lack the brightness of moments before. It takes awhile but eventually even Quinn can figure some things out.

"You've been here alone this whole time? Since...it happened?" Her voice is small, soft. The thought of this, the recognition of it, breaks her heart. She steps closer to Ash as she speaks again. "I didn't realize..." The words trail off. What more can she say? Why she is even bringing up what must be a painful subject is beyond her. It defies her reason for being here. But sometimes reaching out is the reason, even if you don't realize it. "I'm sorry, Ash. That sucks." She peels the hoodie off and drapes over whatever is nearest. A chair, a doorknob, anything. The Slayer t-shirt beneath has seen better days, and isn't even sized for her. A hand-me-down, but truly more of a reminder. She tries to find better words.

"I know it doesn't help but I can tell you from experience that you can be alone even in a house full of people." Her parents. Not the best. Maybe close to the worst. But at least she has them. At least they know she's here. She reaches out, snaking her hands around Ash's forearms and pulling her closer still. Her smile breaks through that sadness, taking comfort in the here and the now.

"We're not alone now." Quinn slides her arms around Ash, grabbing her own forearms to lock them behind her. "In fact, I have it on good authority that you're here with one of the coolest people in this town." Leaning in, she presses her lips to Ash's and this time she lets them linger far longer than the last time. Her words are warm on Ash's lips as she speaks against them. "I hear she's pretty strong, too." Tightening that hold, she leverages her height and strength to lift Ash into the embrace. Three quick strides to the couch and she falls over the arm onto it with Ash in her grip.

The problem with unfamiliar furniture is you just can't judge the springiness, and the couch proves to have more bounce than she'd expected. Instead of wrapped together on the cushions, both girls rebound and roll off the edge and onto the floor. Quinn manages to keep Ash above her on the descent and takes the impact on her shoulder, a dull spark of fading pain drawing out groaning laughter as her face reddens in embarrassment at the misjudged leap. She loosens her grip on Ash, but doesn't fully unwind her arms from around her.

"Dammit. That played out so much cooler in my head." Staring up into Ash's eyes, Quinn can't sort which part of the blush creeping through her is embarrassment and which is everything else. And she doesn't care. She can be embarrassed in front of Ash. She can be silly, and dumb, and genuine. And she'll be grateful for it. "I guess we can't all be the smooth one."

Starflier · #67 Oct 8th, 2024, 02:02 PM

Ash

Hot -1 Cold +2 Volatile -1 Dark +1
Exp 0/5, Harm 0/5, Conditions: Foolish, Morbid, TraumatizedAsh, the Ghost

Ash returns Quinn’s sympathetic remarks with a shrug, as though it was nothing, even as she turned her eyes away, ”Heh, what’s a little soul crushing despair now and again.”

Setting the guitar case down and resting it against the nearby entertainment center, Ash finds herself pulled into Quinn’s arms, and into another kiss. Before she has time to overthink it, Quinn is lifting her off her feet and carrying her to the couch, an uncharacteristic ”Wee! escaping her lips as they tip over the side.

As they tumble and roll and come to a stop on the floor, Ash can’t help but giggle at the fall and the blushing, before taking a moment to brush a few strands of red hair away from Quinn's face, ”I think you're pretty smooth, but maybe we should take this up to my bedroom,” she says, cutting through the mirth with her words, even as she smiles and nods her head at the wet guitar case nearby. She hops up to her feet and extends a hand to Quinn to help her up. ”Come with me if you want the tour.” It is her very best Schwarzenegger impression, which means it is the world’s worst Schwarzenegger impression, by a wide margin.

Grabbing the damp case, she opens it up to remove the guitar, the rest of the case’s contents be damned for now. Both hands full she gestures around them, ”This is the great hall.” The middle half of the house is one big open room extending right up to skylights high above. Kitchen, dining room, living room, it’s one massive space that's 'perfect for entertaining' according to the realtor, and absolutely wasted on a family that would rather just curl up on the couch and watch Police Academy for the twenty third time.

”Bathroom, guest rooms, and pantry are down that way. Parent’s studies and laundry are down the other way,” she gestures in either direction as she speaks, delivering a very abbreviated tour as she approaches a staircase leading up to a hanging walkway that connects the second floor at either end of the house.

”Parent’s room down there. I avoid it, because I’d rather not find… anything...” she doesn’t even finish that thought, just shivers, ”but if you need dry clothes, my mom has a closet full that’ll fit you, I think.”

They turn right and are soon in a hallway with a single door on either side and at the far end a window looking out on trees battered by the storm. The door on the left is enormous, extending floor to ceiling and measuring a foot wider than any other door in the place, and as they pass by Quinn can see a woodshop-made sign that says ‘Bash’. ”That’s my brother’s room. Good for poorly hidden dirty magazines, only slightly better hidden weed, or feeling extra tiny.”

Across the hall, an almost identical sign hangs from a regular-sized door, this one reading ‘Ash’, with a circle routered in over the points of the A. The door is open an inch, the room beyond dark, and Ash pauses at the door as though she wants to say something, before deciding otherwise. As she walks inside a flash of lightning outlines her against the window, and lets her get to a desk under the window to turn on a lamp before turning back to Quinn. Even in the dim light it’s easy to see that every inch of the walls, and ceiling, has been covered over with posters of athletes and musicians,

”En suite, walk-in closet, and through the closet is the sex dungeon,” she says pointing first to the door on her right, then to the door on her left, skipping right past the posters and the unmade bed piled high with blankets. ”It’s actually just a sound-proofed room for playing guitar as much as I want, but my brother thought he was being funny, right up until my friends started calling it that too. Then it got really funny, for me mostly, since Bash wasn’t threatening to rip my arms off. But yeah, that’s why my actual bedroom is small enough it looks like something the Dursleys would give to Harry Potter.”

She disappeared into the closet for a few seconds, before emerging without the guitar. She was already holding her skirt in one hand while pulling Morgan's top over her head, walking blind to the bathroom to toss them on the tile floor. ”Best get out of our wet clothes, don’t you think?”

NoizePollution · #68 Oct 8th, 2024, 06:28 PM

Quinn

Hot -1 Cold +1 Volatile +2 Dark -1
Exp 2/5; Harm 0/4; BullyQuinn, the Ghoul

The tour. It's hard for Quinn to imagine a place large enough to even justify a tour. She takes Ash's hand and gets to her feet, falling in step behind her as Ash takes the lead. The very suggestion that the tour will end in Ash's bedroom is enough to set that fluttery, butterfly feeling alight in her stomach again. She looks left and right, up and down, as Ash indicates the rooms they move through. There is no disguising the impact this place has on her, her eyes widening and narrowing in alternating moments. She doesn't stay in step with Ash, moving off to a wall to look over some piece of art or peek through an open doorway. There is just so much to it that she can't comprehend it all at once, breaking into sections in her mind.

"Look at all this space." She's awed. And envious. She assumed Ash's family was well off if they sent her to the academy but these people clearly have money money. Like Tommy or Morgan's family kind of money. Are all her friends freakishly rich, or is she just freakishly poor? Maybe both. A solid half dozen of her homes could fit in this one. Probably more. She never imagined this was the kind of life Ash came from. I mean...guest rooms? Plural? Had they just left the place after Ash died? Just up and walked off? How could it not be on the market? As she reaches the base of the staircase, she inhales a sharp breath.

"There's a whole other house on top of your house?" It's a joke. Kind of. This truly does feel to Quinn like an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Ascending the steps, her gaze follows where Ash indicates toward her parents room. Had she not gone in since they left? Quinn suspects there is more to that but Ash's excuse is as good as any. The size of this place and the expense of its furnishings has begun to get to her by the second floor. It's like being in a place where you know you don't belong. Like a dumpster fire in the Louvre. The feeling is like pin pricks under her skin. As if someone is going to step out at any moment and tell her to leave. As if Ash might realize at any moment that they're just too different. Only the mention of her brother shakes Quinn out of that.

"I guess brothers are brothers no matter when and where." She grins a bit at the description provided for his room. "I had to rescue a bunch of magazines from under my brother's bed after he died. Before mom could see them, you know?" She'd scrambled to clear out anything there that might give her parents cause to doubt that Devon was 'the golden boy' they always wanted. The hope for the future of the family. Now a family with no future. "Had to stash a little every time I took out the trash for weeks to get rid of it. Well...most of it." A shrug and a small smile given, alongside a light chuckle. She stops at the door of Ash's room as the other girl steps through into the dark.

"Do you ever get lost in this place?" She runs a finger over the Ash sign on the door, following the circle around the A with the tip. When the light clicks on she steps through and her eyes jump instantly to the walls. She has posters on her walls, sure. But this...it's like an art gallery. When Ash disappears into the sex dungeon she moves along the wall, gaze sliding over faces and groups. Some she recognizes, some are beyond her. This, though. This definitely feels like the Ash she's come to know. The mention of how small her room is draws a blank, blinking look for several moments. They clearly have different understandings of square footage, as her room back home isn't any bigger than what's left over for Ash to sleep in.

"Wow. Your place is amazing." She turns as the girl's footfalls announce her return only to be confronted with a half-disrobed Ash and Quinn's concept of amazing is suddenly upended entirely. She watches Ash fumble toward the bathroom, the invitation ringing in her ears. She's stuck in her own mind for a second, but her body soon catches up. She peels the t-shirt away and hop-stumbles forward, one foot up to grab and pull the shoe off it as she hops on the other leg toward the door. Discarding it, she uses her socked toes to dig into the heel of the other shoe and pull it free as her fingers make halting efforts with the button fly on her jeans. Why are there always so many buttons? She barely manages to avoid a face plant onto tile as she struggles through the labor required to get free of wet denim. Tile that no doubt cost more than the reconstructive surgery required from that fall would.

"Yes, please." In that moment, staring at Ash and her seeming lack of inhibition at being disrobed, Quinn feels all the more exposed. She'd forgotten that this was the girl who ran naked through a public space full of strangers. How could she have forgotten? She instinctively tucks one arm across her stomach, gripping the elbow of the other arm in a motion that makes her seem both smaller and ill-at-ease despite her desire not to be. She looks around a bathroom that would eat the entirety of her own kitchen in an effort to keep her concerns from becoming visible in her eyes. And every thought of don't be awkward just makes her feel moreso. "This where you take all the girls who hit on you in public washrooms? Feels kinda on the nose."

OOCGreat walkthrough. I want to live in this place.

Starflier · #69 Oct 9th, 2024, 12:59 AM

Ash

Hot -1 Cold +2 Volatile -1 Dark +1
Exp 0/5, Harm 0/5, Conditions: Foolish, Morbid, TraumatizedAsh, the Ghost

”What? No, you’re only the second girl to do that.” Ash’s grin fades away fast as she gets a look at Quinn's body language, replaced by a frown as she takes a step back. She had been pretty sure a minute ago about what Quinn wanted, but maybe she'd misread things? Maybe she'd changed her mind? Ruining a friendship for sex would be bad, but ruining one because she misunderstood the situation? Ash isn't sure she could handle that. ”I’m making you uncomfortable. Of course I am. I’m sorry.”

Trying not to stare at Quinn's body, she opened her mouth a couple of times to speak, always closing it right back up as the words eluded her, before finally her shoulders sag, ”I’m sorry if all this is too fast. I don’t really know what I’m doing here. This has to be almost as new to me as it is to you.” She holds up one hand, wiggling her fingers and doing the mental math before holding up another finger, ”I mean, I can count the number of days since I realized I was even interested in girls at all on two hands.”

Another step back leaves her by the bathroom door, not that she’d really need it she chose to bolt. ”And yeah, I’ve kissed girls, but I still don’t know how to talk to them. Not Morgan, not Tash, not really. Just you tonight, and at the party too, I guess.”

”But we don’t have to do anything. Not if it makes you uncomfortable, or if I make you uncomfortable. I mean, you’re very pretty, and, and legs…” she said as her eyes wandered for a brief second before shaking her head, ”but I don’t want you feeling pressured. That’s not what I want at all.”

NoizePollution · #70 Oct 9th, 2024, 03:40 AM

Quinn

Hot -1 Cold +1 Volatile +2 Dark -1
Exp 2/5; Harm 0/4; BullyQuinn, the Ghoul

Quinn's eyes follow Ash, watching each step and squirm in silent fascination. Even in her most uncomfortable Ash seems to glide, seems to know how her body moves. She blinks, her feet shift against the cool tile flooring, and while on the outside there is little going on the inside is a tempest. Quinn can see the direction this is going, can see Ash pulling away and hear the hesitation in her voice. The words hit so strong and in that moment she feels so seen. She steps over and lays a hand on the door to push it closed.

"Ash." She lowers her arms, straightens her posture, takes a deep breath. "Please don't go. It's not that. I want to do...all the things." Quinn reaches out and trails her nails down Ash's bicep, finding comfort and courage in that proximity. It surprises her that Ash is so new to this, but it doesn't surprise her that she's honest about it. She swallows down her own doubt and leans into that honesty. Her voice is soft but steady, as confident as it has ever been.

"All my life I've had the chastity line pushed on me. And that stuff was easy before when I was that nobody who just kind of slid through life like a ghost." Wow, that cast off statement has such a different context now and she wishes she could bite those words back. "Sorry." She takes Ash's hand between hers and presses her lips to the knuckles.

"But guys suck and if they weren't making me feel like **** in public they were hitting on me in private. It made it so hard to know where I stood and I would reach out for even a little kindness." And Glen had offered that. He'd been kind, and he'd been there. "After I slept with Glen I cried for like a week. It was supposed to be wonderful but it just felt awful. So I hid myself in all the clothes and tried to not be seen." It had done a lot to dissuade the attentions she could never trust, but now it seemed to be doing the same to the attention she very much wants. "I never figured out how to be comfortable in my body, but I'm getting really comfortable with yours." And that is something, too. To look upon her without shame. It feels important.

"My whole life has been pressure. Pressure to be this or that. To do or not do this or that." So much guilt, all the time. From every direction.

"But I don't feel that around you. I don't feel judged. You make me feel respected. Like I can just be me." Quinn drags one foot along Ash's calf as she looks her over. And she really looks, with the unreserved intensity that doing such a thing deserves. With another steadying breath, she steps back to discard the last of her clothing.

"And that is so attractive. I mean, it doesn't hurt that you're gorgeous but I don't think I could have opened up about this if you weren't so uniquely you." Her hand lifts to Ash's chin, tips the other girl's face up toward hers. Her thumb taps the lip piercing and she leans in to kiss Ash on one cheek, then the other.

"I want this. I want it with you. No more second guessing." The kiss that follows is deep and ready, her hands eager to explore. Her voice is breathy, barely audible against Ash's skin. "I'm so done with words."

OOCOkay, that feels better for her. Now I am good to drop the curtain.

NoizePollution · #71 Oct 9th, 2024, 09:20 PM

Quinn

Hot -1 Cold +1 Volatile +2 Dark -1
Exp 2/5; Harm 0/4; BullyQuinn, the Ghoul

Quinn lingers. Both in the afterglow and in Ash's blanket-laden bed. She's never been the 'done and run' type, at least not in her limited experiences. For an indecipherable amount of time her head was fogged by euphoric clouds and her muscles refused to allow much more than slight shifts in the warmth of the bed. As her blood settles and her senses return she stares at the thousands of eyes watching her from the walls. Her left leg hangs off the side of the bed, swinging soft and slow in a pivot at her knee. The ease that has settled on her is as much a comfort to the inside as the blankets are to the outside. When she finds her voice, she doesn't hesitate to use it.

"Dear lord, Ash. If this is you after a week I can't imagine the hearts you'll break with years of experience under your belt." For the first time in a long time, Quinn feels outside of herself. No haunting thoughts, no barbed dialogue with her own feelings. She just talks, bundled in comfort and content with this moment in her life.

She talks about her parents and how things were never great, but they were better before her brother died. How she watched her mom turn to the bottle and her dad disappear into his work. How they all seemed to forget how to love, herself included. How she can't imagine a way back for them and how badly it makes her feel to acknowledge that.

She talks about Luke and how she'd held a candle for him since they were kids. How she could never build up the courage to broach the subject. How that moment at the zoo when he truly seemed to see her was one of the most incredible and terrifying feelings. And how she has been struggling to accept that he only took notice because of what she has become. This thing that breaks her and remolds her only to break her again.

She talks about Morgan and how hard it has always been to see her take on the world without care. How badly she can relate to an absent father with ill-intent. The way she always thought she could reach her if she just tried hard enough to relate. To live in that hedonistic energy with her. How Tash is the worst and she hates herself for thinking that.

How terrified she was in that bathroom opening up to Ash. How sure she was that she was taking too big a risk, how crushed she would have been if she'd been right. And, most importantly, how grateful she is to have found a friend in Ash. This is the only point in the monologue that she actually rolls onto her side and watches Ash's face for reaction. She needs this to be okay. For having her around to be a burden that Ash can bear. More than the sex, amazing as it was, she needs to know that Ash will be in her life. The tears have been sporadic during her speech but they are strongest here.

This unburdening of her soul, so uncharacteristic and yet so necessary, leaves her nearly as spent at the activity that preceded it. The books she'd read on trauma used the word catharsis for this and she feels it almost the moment the last word is spoken. A lightening of her pain, even the physical echoes of her earlier injuries. Surely that is just in her head, though. She rolls over to stare at the ceiling again, unsure how much time has passed or if time even exists at all. The next words are a question, and she almost doesn't give it voice but that dark part of her remains and strengthens the need to know.

"What is the worst thing you've ever done to someone?"

OOCDid my very best to set Ash up for the fictional positioning of Transference here.

Starflier · #72 Oct 10th, 2024, 01:57 AM

Ash

Hot -1 Cold +2 Volatile -1 Dark +1
Exp 1/5, Harm 0/5, Conditions: Foolish, MorbidAsh, the Ghost

Laying on her side, head propped up by her left hand, Ash grinned at the compliment as she listened to Quinn talk about everything that was on her mind. Just listened. The connection between them was still as intense as it had been all night, at least so far as Ash could feel it. Underneath it all she could still feel Quinn’s pain, faint, and muted by everything else, but still there.

Ash meets Quinn’s gaze when she rolls towards her, forging a connection between them in a way Ash is pretty sure only she can do. Open and honest and vulnerable, Quinn’s suffering is right there and Ash takes it all, drawing it into herself like a deep breath and swallowing it whole inside of her own darkness. It is not an unpleasant sensation, but it is new, and she wonders just what it means; she doesn’t have to wait long.

Even as Quinn rolls away to stare at the ceiling, Ash can feel the stinging on her arm and the itching in her shoulder. Glancing over at the arm holding up her head, she can see the three red welts, just as they had been on Quinn in the bathroom at the ballgame. Interesting. She doesn’t bother to look at her shoulder, knowing that she’ll see the almost healed bite of a werewolf there. Ash isn’t sure what else she might find if she looks closer, beyond a few small bruises from Morgan's pinching fingers in the prop room, and she doesn’t want Quinn to see any of it, not yet. She wriggles her way under the covers to the foot of the bed and disappears into the closet without a word.

Grabbing the first things she finds, a red and black striped long-sleeve tee and her track shorts, she throws them on and steps back into the bedroom. Ash doesn’t head back to bed, though, instead grabbing the one bass guitar actually in her bedroom, the acoustic from the party, and drops into her desk chair, throwing her left leg over the arm. She hasn’t even set her fingers to the strings yet when Quinn asks her a question. What is the worst thing you’ve ever done to someone?

Ask us again after the next time someone hurts you.

Ash laid her fingers on the strings and played a few notes, not sure what she was actually going to play, but buying herself some time to think. The voice was the darkest part of her, the part that she did her best to ignore. It was what was left of the old Ash, the part that craved a bloody reckoning for what was done and didn’t care who paid that blood. Broken, insane, despondent, and utterly alone, but sometimes helpful like earlier at the ballpark. At least she’s coming around on Quinn, she thought, even if she knew deep down that old Ash only cared about the violence.

”Hmmm… I played a song for someone,” she said, as vague an answer as she could muster before explaining. ”The day I died we played a talent show at school, and dedicated a song to the kid who bullied us for years. Prison Sex by Tool, and we absolutely crushed it. Figured we’d be the only four people there who understood, heh, as if it's that complicated, but he understood just fine; better than we did. I got to watch from up on the stage as he just stood there watching me play. Never looked away, just stared at me while he died inside. I never said I was sorry, and a few hours later I was dead, so I’ll never have that chance. That look on his face, though, it still haunts me.”

Ash began to play in earnest, All By Myself, one of the softest punk songs around. It was a simple song, a pretty song without the lyrics, which Ash didn’t bother singing. She considered asking Quinn about Tommy’s ‘deal’, about her family, about her and Morgan, about her own deal, but after running through it all in her head Ash only came out with one question she actually wanted an answer to.

”Do you… will you go out on a date, with me? Dinner? A movie?” She glanced up from the guitar, as she kept on playing, looping around the light hearted tune. Ash knows it's not just a simple question. Not for Quinn with her family stuff, and not for anyone 'out' in the south. She still has to ask, no, wants to ask. ”I mean, it seems everyone wants to sleep with me, yay, but no one's been in a hurry to ask me out. So I guess I’ll do it, because I really want to. Go out with you, I mean. If you want.”

OOCNarrative-only use of Transference, since Quinn doesn't have any actual 'harm' at the moment.

NoizePollution · #73 Oct 10th, 2024, 03:25 PM

Quinn

Hot -1 Cold +1 Volatile +2 Dark -1
Exp 3/5; Harm 0/4; BullyQuinn, the Ghoul

Quinn eases to a half-lay/half-sit as Ash disappears from the bed, keenly aware of her absence. She counts her own breaths until Ash returns clothed and watches her take a perch on the chair, bass in hand. The story she tells keeps the ghoul's rapt attention. It seems there are always bullies, always victims, and her lips curl up slow and sly as the details play out. She knows the song, knows the implication, and the very subtle nature of this revenge seems inspired. For Quinn, at least this Quinn, revenge is a simple matter of inflicting pain. Break a bone, spill some blood, make them fear you. It has been enough to soothe her in the past, to push her pain onto others who inflicted it. And maybe it is the fact that she's never really had a talent that she could leverage in that way that has kept her from thinking outside the box like that. But the way Ash and her band mates used their music to speak truth to power both awes and impresses her.

But the regret, if it is that, catches her unprepared. Not that Quinn doesn't understand regret. God, does she ever. She's done enough to build a backlog of regret that will carry her for a dozen lifetimes, and she may well have that many. To regret a righteous and deserved bit of retribution, though. To apologize to someone who would never have done the same to you? To be haunted by the feelings of someone who terrorized you? In that, Quinn feels a gulf of distance between them. She would never. And that is once again a reminder that Ash is truly the better person.

The music, when it begins, resonates within her as music so often does. But this isn't a CD, or some radio play. Live talent is a different animal, and the fact that only she is there to hear it makes it more impactful. She drinks in that bass line, watching Ash's skillful fingers slide along the strings, and she doesn't dare speak to interrupt it. Watching Ash exist in that moment, Quinn finds comfort in her own silence for the first time in a long time. So much so that she almost misses the question, but it is a question so pointed and unexpected that she'd have to be well and truly dead to let it pass. Her eyes lift from the instrument to watch the ghost's face for a long moment as Ash expands on it, as if she'd ever need to. She slides up and out from the top of the blankets, letting the cooler air outside play across her skin as she crawls toward the bottom of the bed. Collapsing onto her stomach atop the blankets, she braces her elbows at the bottom of the bed and rests her chin on her entwined hands. Her legs, bent at the knee, sway slowly back and forth behind her.

"Yes. Absolutely. I would love that." It should be a harder question to answer. She should be drowning in doubt. Choking on insecurities. Walled up by the possible consequences. Her mind, unusually organized, plays out those concerns at the speed of thought. Her father? He would never let her date. Not after the trouble she's been causing lately. And definitely not Ash. She places that concern in a box. Her classmates? This would be more ammunition for them. More whispers behind her back, more slurs to throw as they pass in the hall. She puts that concern in the box, too. Anyone who saw them together out there, in the unfiltered world? The judgments they could make, the gossip they could spread that might get back to her family. In the box. And then she burns that box to the ground. To hell with her dad. To hell with her classmates. To hell with Memphis.

"I'm sorry, Ash. You deserve to be asked." There is a barb of guilt in her gut as she says it. Like a rose's thorn just under the skin. She'd asked so much of Ash for her own needs and she'd completely lost sight of the bigger question. What does Ash need? And, on reflection, what Quinn herself was truly seeking all along. "This is usually the point in the night when I'm telling someone that I'm not trying to make this into more than it is. That I understand we're just having fun." And she doesn't want to ask more of Ash than she is willing to give. The fact that she is willing to give this much breaks any reservations Quinn may have had to ruins. It's not like Quinn is the only one with something at stake here. For Ash to be seen with her in that capacity? To be seen romantically with Gingerella the Trailer Trash Psycho? It would paint a target on her as tall and wide as any Quinn bears. "Nobody has ever asked me out. I'm really glad the first one was you." She sighs, a slow and comfortable exhale, before tagging on.

"Just because I didn't have the guts to ask it doesn't mean I didn't want to." Ash could ask anything of her in this moment. A date? Sure. To run away with her? Definitely. To burn this city down in her name? Just hand her a lighter. When she'd looked to Ash earlier, when she'd expressed how important it was to have her in her life, she never imagined it could go the other way, too. Again that smile finds a place on her lips, unbidden but not unwelcome, as she refuses to release Ash from the lock-tight grip of her eyes.

"I promise, though. The next big, scary question? I'll ask it."

Starflier · #74 Oct 10th, 2024, 10:18 PM

Ash

Hot -1 Cold +2 Volatile -1 Dark +1
Exp 1/5, Harm 0/5, Conditions: Foolish, MorbidAsh, the Ghost

When Quinn finally said yes, Ash lost the tune entirely, her left hand sliding to a stop on the strings. She hadn’t really known what to expect, not really, and now? She felt a little giddy, a smile spreading on her face as she let the word sink in.

”Awesome.” It wasn’t exactly a great response to everything, to Quinn opening up to her like an actual person, but it was all Ash had at the moment. She set the guitar aside, leaning against the desk and went over to sit on the edge of the bed by Quinn. Running her fingertips over Quinn’s shoulder, she looked out the window at the rain that continued to fall, ”So what do we do now?”

It was a big question, or it was a small question, or maybe it was both, but she let it sit and simmer for a minute as her mind raced through possibilities. She finally settled on a ‘small question’ answer, ”Laundry. I’ll throw in a load, have everything clean and dry in no time. Wanna head down and watch a movie while we wait?”

OOCTime to move on to other things?

NoizePollution · #75 Oct 10th, 2024, 10:41 PM

Quinn

Hot -1 Cold +1 Volatile +2 Dark -1
Exp 3/5; Harm 0/4; BullyQuinn, the Ghoul

Quinn's smile doesn't fade as Ash returns to her side, the slow drag of fingers on her shoulder so much more of a comfort than it seems like it should be. It is, in fact, awesome. She's never had this, and she wants to have it forever now. She lowers herself down from her elbows and rolls to rests her head on Ash's lap and look up into her face.

"I definitely want to see the picture clarity on that TV." She grins, but her eyes narrow slightly as her a pang cuts through her stomach. Sitting up, she smooths her hair back with her fingers to try and tame it to any degree.

"I don't suppose you have any snacks here?" Her grin is lopsided and sheepish.

OOCYup, let's move along. Great scene, Star. Thank you.

Are you confused and wondering what is going on here? Check out this YouTube video to get the scoop.

Join our 13th Annual Membership Drive & Fundraiser to Support Mental Illness Research

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version [DO NOT USE] Email this Page