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[sleepingstar]

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[She had meant to select the voice option, but it's hard to use the device properly when you are completely covered in blood. She's curled up in the bathtub, having tried to wash the blood off in the shower to no avail.

She doesn't look upset, though. Perhaps mildly annoyed. She doesn't like leaving a mess, but it's kind of impossible to avoid.]

Does anyone know how to get bloodstains out of a mattress? [Eternally practical. Her nightgown is a lost cause, as are her sheets, but they're cheap enough to replace. Mattresses get a bit more pricey.]

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action;

[mortemscintilla]

[ He could've told her the post was unnecessary. The mattress is soaked through. No amount of ammonia solution, hydrogen peroxide, or corn starch can salvage this mess. In the end, Hei's resolved to simply discard the mattress. Pricier to replace than sheets, true, but in the end, it's all blood-stained semantics. ]

[ Blotting out a better part of the seepage, ignoring the copper tang hanging heavily in the air, he props the mattress up to dry in the balcony -- tilted sideways, so no-one on the floors above can see the blood. Once that's done, he makes his way to Pai. It's like a tailormade crime scene in there, red smeared over the tile floor and Pai sitting in the bathtub. The memories gathering quietly under the surface of his mind are inevitable. South America. Even as he marches through the wooden maze of the house, South America is expanding and unfolding in his mind, stretched open and as searingly green as Amber's hair, with its straight-lined barracks and cracked-open gray mornings too sharp to breathe in and all of it scorched and clawed over, split open, by the black and red gashes of warfare. ]

[ Yet somehow it's freeing to have South America in front of him for a change, as opposed to lingering behind him, breathing down his neck. ]

[ Arms folded, he leans against the bathroom doorjamb, regarding Pai quietly, ]

Should I take you to the Beach? The Drowning Pool?

[ Some place that'll wash the blood away. (Literally, not figuratively.) ]

[sleepingstar]

[She's picking at her blood-soaked clothing, debating whether to take it off, when Hei walks in. She shakes her head at his question.]

It's a curse. It's not going to wash away.

[mortemscintilla]

[ The tiles are very white. A lot of things in this very under-designed minimalist apartment are white. Crossing over to the tub, Hei stares at Pai for a moment, trying to reassemble the whole curse in his mind. He's seen instances of it before on the Network. But he's never been hit by it personally. He's not interested in washing the blood off. He wants to put Pai in an environment where the spillage is a mere speck -- like in a huge body of water. If he encloses her in a narrow space, like the tub, it'll end up overflowing. ]

[ Avoiding the mirrors -- he's been doing that a lot lately -- he settles on the tub's edge. His face is pale, hard-edged, bright. Exhausted but charged. Less and less sleep as the nights pass, but he doesn't care about that. It's no different from being back at home. ]

[ At length, ]

The tub will overflow, if you stay here.

[sleepingstar]

[......Pai looks at him blankly, then points to the drain, which is open. The blood slowly oozes off of her and slinks down the drain.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ That's blood Pai. Not water. Once it starts congealing, it'll drain slower. Where will you be then? ]

[ He doesn't say that out loud. He simply points to the blood clotting and scabbing the tub's surface to get his point across. ]

[sleepingstar]

[.....FINE. Point taken. She picks again at her outfit, disliking how it sticks to her skin. It's amazing what you can get used to in only three months; this wouldn't have bothered her in South America.]

Whichever you think is best. [Water is water is water. She really can't be bothered to care.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ A tired half-smile passes over Hei's face like a momentary shadow. In South America, there wasn't a moment when their clothes weren't blood-splattered or otherwise grimy. It had never made a difference to him. Still doesn't. Hygiene and hot baths are a luxury -- one that can, in the wrong circumstances, be snatched from you in an eyeblink. You have to learn to live like a cat, to scrub the muck off and still be an arrogant, even dangerous creature. ]

[ Life in the City has a way of making you forget that, though. It reminds you that you aren't a beast. You're a person. ]

[ Reaching out, he picks the blood-stiff strands of hair off Pai's damp cheek. ] How would you like to make some money? [ One more thing the war has left him with. The instinct to take advantage of every calamity, to twist it around to suit Pai and himself. ]

[sleepingstar]

[That gets Pai's attention, briefly pulling her out of her -- Contractors don't get into funks; Contractors don't have moods, but for a moment, Pai is more herself again.]

How much do vials of blood go for in the Underground?

[mortemscintilla]

[ Here's what they don't tell you about survival: it's not a static moment, it's a process. And there is always more than one layer, added hour by hour as you live on. Hei's smile flickers into something a degree more solid when Pai's sulk fades. (He loves her best when she's this way. Riven with ideas so electrified that she burns brighter and more evenly than anything in the vicinity. Tuned in, switched-on, calm.) ]

[ He drops his hand, indifferent to the red in the whorls of his fingertips, ]

Depends on the blood. [ A beat, ] With the curse, it won't be a specific type. A cocktail -- of several liters -- should go down well for a dozen rainbow coins.

[sleepingstar]

Is there a bloodtype that's generally preferred over another? [Inquiring minds want to know. For perfectly innocent reasons.

But, more importantly --] How many bottles do you have?

[mortemscintilla]

[ Perfectly innocent, his aerobicized ass. ]

[ He raises his eyebrows at her -- her skin and clothes streaked with dried blood, half of it matting the ends of her hair, but with such a po-faced sweetness about her expression. He's always liked that look -- and trusts it not at all. Keeping any suspicion off his face, he reaches for a sea sponge on the shower caddy. Dipping it into the tap water, he daubs Pai's cheek with it, watching the runnels of blood flow down, red against white. More replaces the clean spots, as if she's perspiring red. ]

[ In reply to her question, ] Plenty. I'd take you straight to the Underground 'blood clinic.' But there's a risk they'll want to keep you.

[sleepingstar]

Would they be buying, or would they take a cut? [Because if they're going to take a cut of the profits, Pai doesn't see why they don't just bottle it themselves. She doubts they have special tools for collecting blood from skin as oppose to taking it from a vein.]

[mortemscintilla]

They always want a cut, unless you haggle.

[ He reaches out, after a beat, to rub his thumb across the bridge of her nose. The red smears away, leaving a thin streak of pale skin. Almost at once, blood seeps back from the pores, glossy and slick-looking in the bathroom lights. With an exhale, he wipes his hand on the grubby hem of his T-shirt. ] Avoid doing too much business with them.

[ The unspoken message is I know you're bored and Don't do anything too risky after the curse ends. ]

[sleepingstar]

Why do business with them at all? Get a funnel and some bottles; I can bottle it myself.

[mortemscintilla]

They have a monopoly on the blood-trade Underground. There's few better alternatives.

[ But enough about these snotty NPC vampires. ]

Once the curse ends, I'll take you to a pet store.

[ Not a non sequitur, when you consider Hei's thought-process, and the concerns that keep cropping up where Pai is concerned. ]

[sleepingstar]

[Pai gives him a small, puzzled look.]

What would I do with a pet? [It's not like you do much with your lizard, brother, except spend money feeding it.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hey. He and the lizard exist in a state of harmonious indifference. It's a beautiful thing. ]

Anything you want to do. [ There's a smile in his voice, a little dry and a little playful. How does the Buddhist folk medicine go? Having trouble with human relationships? Try plants and animals. Hei's reasons for getting Pai a pet aren't that straightforward, true. But there's such a dearth of activities in the City, that she'd enjoy. She'll spend her time living like a middle-aged matron stuck in beleaguered post-war UK, if this carries on -- caught in a head-space where it rains all the time and there is a ration on sugar. At least, it seems that way to Hei -- a stale, drab, isolated existence. The air in the house might as well be suffused with some soporific drug -- even on the sunniest, freshest day, with all the windows open, all Pai seems to do at home is nap and loll. Sometimes they bake together, colorful sugary cakes with inches of icing, sheets of gooey cookies. He feels vaguely proud of those co-productions -- like they seem to indicate that she's still a normal girl, because isn't it the height of girliness, to manipulate sugar into shapes? Is supposed to have something to do with love. ]

[ It's absurd, of course. They eat most of what they've baked while watching TV, and there's never much to show for those lighter moments. Nothing worthwhile to offer her. That's the way it is. Nothing to offer. It fills him with pangs of sympathy and loneliness for her, like splinters cutting his palm. ]

[sleepingstar]

......but there's nothing I want to do with a pet. [She knows what he's trying to do, the problem he's trying to solve. But a pet isn't going to change the fact that she's the only Contractor in the city, or that there is nothing she can do with her abilities and her intellect. A pet will only demand affection that she can't give it and waste money on food and other necessities. They're affluent in the City, true, and can certainly afford the expense of an animal, but that doesn't mean they should just throw their money down the toilet.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He knows the pet won't change anything. He and Pai aren't normal people -- whatever the word normal encompasses. They're trained to be living weapons, dangerous and finely-honed to the exclusion of all else. In the City's cloistered environment, it's inevitable that they'll feel marginalized, their talents stymied. Pai, in particular, is fresh off the terrain of Heaven's War. Nocturnal prowling in the Underground, peaceful outings with Hei, the distractions of curses, help only so much. Situational awareness for countering potential threats is one thing. Existing in a state of hyper-alertness, 24-7, because you can and will be killed if you slacken your guard ... ]

[ That's something else entirely. ]

[ Everything Hei is introducing to Pai ... it isn't a cure. It's a palliative. But it's still better than nothing. ]

You'll think of something, once you get one. [ A beat. ] Any animal -- or creature -- you like.

[sleepingstar]

[He says that like there's a kind of animal she would like, except she's incapable of caring. Dog, cat, rabbit, goat -- they're all equally useless to her.

She shrugs.]

I need rainboots, a rain slicker, and a wide brim hat. [Perhaps that way, she'll manage to get to the Underground with minimal fuss.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ There's so much in the City that's useless, if they're focused solely on pragmatism and functionality. Hell, things like TVs, a full fridge, Imugi, air-conditioning -- Hei knows they could do without all that, too. But back home, the asceticism was a matter of necessity, not choice. Granted, he and Pai are hardly extravagant types. It's not in their natures to gravitate to frivolity. For another, there's a difference between Hei's streamlined self-denial, and Pai's minimalistic, Contractorly apathy. But ... ]

[ But he wishes she had something to call hers. Something to lay claim on, other than a strange, moody, volatile sibling who still doesn't know himself. ]

[ When she shrugs, he knows she's not changing the subject so much as dismissing it completely. He doesn't argue, though. It's one thing to be concerned about her isolation. It's another to force those concerns, those ideas of her, down her throat. Instead, with an exhale -- not defeated but conceding -- he straightens. ]

I'll see what I can find.

[sleepingstar]

[She nods in acknowledgement, and while Hei goes to rustle up the waterproof clothing, she slips out of her blood-soaked clothing. There's really no point to wearing it anymore, and she'd feel more comfortable naked. The pet subject has been completely dismissed from her thoughts; the discussion is over, no need to spend any more time thinking about it.]