ArchivedLogs:Staying Alive

Staying Alive
Dramatis Personae Claire, Parley, Murphy
In Absentia	2013-04-16 In the interests of keeping Parley alive, Claire calls in 'the big guns'.
Location Claire's Apartment
Knock? Just one knock. That's IT. It doesn't even sound certain, like someone dropped a broom agains the door. Except. << (...mew?) >> With surprising speed, the door is opened - exposing Claire, dressed in a pink-and-white blouse, solid-pink skirt that reaches down to her nobby knees, her hair done up behind her - armed with her walking stick and a water bottle spritzer. The latter is instantly deployed - firing a brief /mist/ at Parley's nose. But no sooner has she fired it than is she opening the door wider, ushering him in with a crooked - albeit tired - smile. << {Mew.} >> "Ah!" Misted right in the EYE. Parley kind of /jumped/ at that, and picks into Claire's apartment with his dignity crumpled, grinding at his face with the fist of one hand and the back of his wrist with the other. Groom. GROOM. Slipping out of his shoes and flannel, he looks far healthier than he had yesterday; there's glossy lattices of scarring running up his arm, under his sleeve, but it's pink and healthy and knitted, regardless of the ragged restless-underslept darkness around his eyes. "-Claire-..." She's pretty much the only person he calls by first name. Watch out. He's /milling/ off into her apartment. Creep. Stall? Creep. << (...it sounds better in French.) >> "Of course it does, dear. {/Everything/ sounds better in French.}" Claire clucks her tongue as she slips back into her apartment, no doubt with Parley /creeping/ after. Kittens are soon emerging to spy the returning warrior with his numerous injuries, emerging from every nook and cranny; Booger seems to have recently established herself as the ringleader of the pack - the dark, fuzzy kitten with a white spot on her throat approaches Parley with a brazenness that puts her compatriots to shame. Then head-butts his ankle. And mews. "There's food in the refridgerator, along with wine," she informs Parley as she heads off to - her bedroom, apparently. Opening a closet. Ka-clunk. Clunk. Thunk. Clunk. "You can take the couch for now - it folds out into a bed." She seems to have decided, without asking Parley, that he's going to be staying here for now. "By the way, does anyone know you're here?" "Wh- no, but," Parley says this with a tight... /distress/, in complete contradiction to the crouch he makes to put a hand against Booger's side and /bowl/ her over. Dominated. He grabs handfuls of her cheeks to shake her by, like '/where's my money'. His head is turns to the sound of clunking around, his mouth compressed. "-- you know I can't." He has to raise his voice slightly to be heard, "It's not safe for you." "Yes, it is," Claire informs Parley, even as she emerges from her bedroom - now clutching a big, thick comforter with a set of pillows on top under one arm - the other arm still locked on her cane. It is /tricky/, learning to manipulate your environment when you need a cane to walk, but Claire has had time to master the art. "Whatever's after you, it would have to /find/ you here, first. And if it did, it would have to risk coming after me - a public figure. A /lawyer/, with lots of /lawyer/ friends. And if it /still/ came --" She eyes Parley for a moment, lips thinning. "--it would have to get through me." She says this as if it /wasn't/ an easy feat. Parley moves kind of like an egg yoke; a sort of underhand dip and a liquid rise up the far side and he's suddenly at Claire's side, taking the pillow and comforter from her, "It's common knowledge that I work for you." He contends, going for calm monotone. He stands hugging his Pile Of Cloth, eyes squeezed shut and mashing his face into it. "-- I was thinking I should," muffle-muffle he leans his back against the wall, peering over the pillow with eyes that are - hard. Critical. When they open again, "Probably resign, if anything. If I'm not at the Lofts, you'll be the next place looked. ...and Mr. Holland isn't wrong. The less people I involve, the better." "Bull-/shit/." Claire's response is immediate and sharp; it's coupled with one eye giving him a narrow glare - the other giving him a wide-eyed gawk. "The /more/ people you involve, the better." The comforter and pillows are surrendered; Claire's other hand returns to the cane, as if to steady herself atop of it. "And even if - whatever this /thing/ is - comes here, he'll regret it," she tells him, adding: "Parley, this is not the time to cut off your allies and run for a dark, deep place to hide. This is the time to /fortify/ yourself. Make the cost of touching you too high to pay. You are not leaving this apartment," Claire adds, and there's a pulse of primal maternalism to her tone - a vicious tigress ready to chomp her jaws atop of anyone who threatens a cub. And drag said cubs back to the den should they try to wander away. "I'm calling Mr. Law," she then announces - as if this act itself signifies what might be the coming of the apocalypse. Though she has never elaborated on her relationship with Murphy Law, Parley would know that this marks the first time she's spoken his name /without/ a series of curses soon following. "Kssh," Parley actually makes a sound like it /chafes/ when Claire suggests involving /more/ people, "I don't think I would be comfortable with that." He does have comforter and pillow, and the laws of gravitation find him carrying them restlessly to the couch where all soft things belong; his eyes are fixed towards one window, scanning the outside world and contemplating the number of stories up they are. "I seem to only rack up more and more debt to people." He possibly nearly /buries/ Booger in blankets when he drops them down and then climbs up onto the pile, crosses his legs and /burrows/ down into it. He has, in the few weeks he's been free, mastered the art of making a bed-nesting. "...I can stay the night -Murphy Law?" That name does get him snapping his head around, a hand raised up to push his fingers into his hair and just... take a handful of them. One of his eyes is squinted nearly shut. And he hisses, "You already brought in Jackson Holland. That's more than enough /help/ I need." Booger is happy to be nested in blankets; she quickly clambors to the top, however, claiming her spot as master and surveyor. Soon enough, she's making herself a nice little nook - no doubt to roost and lay her eggs. Sometimes, the feline is frighteningly /reptilian/ with her mannerisms. "This isn't about debt. You don't /owe/ these people anything, Parley. This is about keeping you safe - for God's sake, what do you think /I'm/ going to do if they find you mauled to death in an alleyway one night? Just 'get over' it? When you enter other people's lives," she tells him, reaching for her cell-phone on the table, "you carry a responsibility to not /exit/ them pre-emptively." She doesn't dial the number, though. Not yet. She's frowning, just a bit, at Parley. "Murphy's - he'll help us figure out a plan. He's /dealt/ with this," she waves toward him with the cell phone, "sort of thing. Monsters. He's lived in that world, before. He is a terrible man who has done terrible things - but he knows how to keep people safe." "Parley, I do not want you to die, do you understand? Going about this alone - it will probably get you killed. /Please/, let me help you. If not for your own sake, for /mine/." While Claire talks, Parley has closed his eyes, sealed off a hard barrier with a folding of arms with a strange periodic /twitch/, ticking his head to the side and back, that... /restless/ energy humming through his shoulders. "I'm not unfamiliar with terrible things." He says quietly, almost bored, "Nor doing them." He looks back at Claire, meeting her clear sharp eyes with his own dark, obscured depths. "I don't want you to be unhappy." His voice has a /rasp/, almost hungry, or angry, but it's hard to tell through a set near-monotone, one of his hands gripped up in a fist amongst the blankets. "I -- will talk Mr. Law on one condition." "No. I figured you - aren't," Claire replies, and for a moment, her tone is a bit more vulnerable than usual; less guarded, less /steely/. But when he mentions speaking to Mr. Law - it quickly returns, swelling back up to reinforce herself - rising to meet his challenge. "...alright. What is that, Parley?" Arms folded. Watching him. A hint of worry in her voice - speaking to the volume that churns beneath the surface. "Don't," Parley opens a hand, turns it over, closes it again until the knuckles stand out, watches this process, "tell anyone else about what I'm doing. Not without asking me." It's hard to call his state 'tense', it's nested, draped in place, folded around Booger loosely as though the two of them had equally traded in their spines. But his forearms are flexed, complicated with little cords running longways in cables. "--I need to be able to trust you, Claire." "Alright. I won't involve anyone without your permission, first," she agrees. And then she's dialing the phone. Claire pauses, part-way through, and steps forward to hand the phone to /him/, instead. "...just tell him Claire Basil is calling in a favor," she says, with more than a little distaste. "...the less I interact with that man, the better." The number is typed in; all that remains is to hit 'talk'. Then, a bit softer as Claire palms the phone over: "I'll make you some soup. Rest for now." The comforter is cool against skin; so are the pillows. She steps around to turn on the AC, then move to the kitchen to do just that. Parley's hands are delicate, in handling the phone from Claire, issuing a brief pressure on her thumb, squeeze, and then a release. He nods to her, watches her walk away -- oh /crap/. And now he is sitting here. With a PHONE. And a number. He eyes those ten numbers distrustfully -- and then hits Talk hard, with a recklessness thumb-jab that seems entirely in spite of himself. Bring it ON. And then, bizarrely, as the phone begins to ring, he /ooooozes/ out across the couch, props an ankle up on a knee and tosses his arm around Booger like she's his sweet new girlfriend. His head to dangle off the edge of the couch negligently, hair falling back off his forehead. On the third ring, there's a click. And a voice. It sounds a little like... ...a little like someone who gargles sulphuric acid mixed with spent cigarette butts and shards of glass. "Th'fuck," Murphy Law asks. Not 'hello'. Not 'Yes?'. Not even 'Law speaking'. Just 'Th'fuck'. Obviously, this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. "Ahh?" Parley makes a curious little hm? into the phone? With his eyes drifted off towards the kitchen where Claire has vanished? "Hello. Is this Mr. Murphy Law?" He enunciates so cleanly and /innocently/ it nearly brings out the slightest of Engrish inflection in his tone. "You ain't Claire." There's almost /indignation/ here; like how /dare/ you not be Claire. The man on the other end sounds sluggish, too - like he's just starting to wake up. Or coming off one hell of a bender. Funny, considering it's - what - mid-evening? "Th'fuck are -- yeah I'm Murphy, what do you want." "I'm glad you answered the phone, Mr. Law." Parley, hanging upside down on the couch, finds himself smiling so slightly at the /disgruntlement/ in the voice. A secretarial little dagger smile. Even beneath the hand pressing hard at his forehead, as though a headache pulsed beneath it. "My name is Parley. I'm assistant to Ms. Basil." He leaves that pause to hang in the air. "My employer would like to call in a favor." "Parley." Murphy pauses for just an instant. Then: "You're one of the labrats. Wrote that shitty article. Th'fuck you working with Claire for. Nevermind, I don't give a fuck. Favor officially pulled. What is it." Creeeeeak. Something in the background bangs loudly; a trunk? A car door? Someone's head? "Or is this a house-call kinda thing." "-- that's quite the memory. I've been directed to speak with you." Silently, Parley clicks his teeth - not at the article critique, but at the /labrat/ part. But it's mostly bland. "I hear you deal in monsters. I happen to be running from one. And need to get off the grid for a while." "House-call," Murphy responds. "Meet you at Claire's place." He waits for a contradiction. If none is given, he then clicks without another word. No answer comes, because Parley hangs up first. Then sets the phone down on the ground and places both hands over his face. And rolls over for a moment onto the couch, putting his back to the room. This does mean he's spooning Booger. Sadly, he doesn't seem to be appreciating it.