Logs:Off Script

Off Script
Dramatis Personae Desi, Shane
In Absentia	2020-12-11 "We got all night. You could be so much drunker."
Location <PRV> B's House - Riverdale
This rowhome is not quite on the waterfront, but is an easy two block's walk away from the river through a lush and well-manicured greenspace. The building is three storeys high but narrow, topped with a small roof deck. Inside the space is neatly maintained, comfortably if blandly appointed. There are two bedrooms on the top floor, though one is functioning as a home office heavy in holographic displays and the other a workshop full of arcane high-tech equipment. Only the master bedroom on the second floor is actually furnished for sleeping in, and it is perhaps overshadowed in luxury by the immense adjoining bathroom with a large oval soaking tub. The first floor looks conspicuously un-lived-in, though the kitchen is state-of-the-art, the dining room small if perfectly serviceable, and the living room cozy with a convertible sofa, almost certainly nonfunctional fireplace, and a massive flatscreen. For a few months now nearly all pictures of Shane that have trickled back across social media to his friends -- and wow have there been many, this album tour not short on publicity -- very much give the impression of an extremely glam shark. Very fashionable, very cool, very at odds with the undershirt- and sweatshorts-clad young man who is currently perched upside-down on the living room couch, hem of his shirt slipped halfway down to his face. His knees hook over the back of the couch, head tipped back over the edge of the cushions. There's a glass of white wine sitting on the floor near his head, but he's ignoring it just for the moment as he looks across at Desi. "-- what, and she's just. Gonna be there now? Like for good for good?" Beside Shane, Desi is curled sideways with her legs tucked beneath herself and her head pillowed on one arm folded against the back of the couch. She's in a soft pale pink mock neck sweater over a long ruffled purple skirt. There's only the most cursory of natural makeup on her face and her long brown hair is gathered into a single Dutch braid that winds around her head from the right temple to drape over her left shoulder, though it's starting to fray and come undone. Her wine glass is in her free hand, though at the question she just drains the rest of it. It is not the first time she has done this tonight. "For good, gods help us." She starts to tip her glass again and aims a disapproving frown at its empty depths. "She's clearly miserable, too--at least she isn't seeing a dead sibling every time she looks at us." "I mean, if her world's just fucking. Gone. It's kinda..." Shane lets one set of eyelids close and then the other. "Shit, I don't know. Hurts my head to think about it. I thought that was fucked up enough already but -- shit. They couldn't have just sent her to Quebec?" "Apparently not, damn her--actual siblings." Desi slowly levers herself upright and reaches for the wine bottle to refill her glass. "But what were we meant to do? Say 'tough luck kid, have fun in the foster system'? You know how Luci and Matt are." Her brows furrow with worry. "I can't really think to compare how everyone is dealing with this, but on top of that--she knows about our Sera, and she can feel us. I mean feel our..." One of her hands pinwheels in the air and she takes a generous swig of her wine. "Feelings." "Send her to Quebec," is the prompt answer Shane gives to this hypothetical. It does not sound terribly serious, though. He passes his hand across his face, rolling over onto his stomach so that he can reach for his wine glass and take a gulp. "Tcccch. Remember when we were in school and vampire blood monsters were the worst we had to deal with? How'd shit get weirder." Desi laughs, the noise short and joyless but not wholly devoid of amusement. "If we sent her away, they'd fret to death, and she..." She considers this for a moment before shaking her head. "I don't know if that's better or worse than this...feedback loop of heartbreak." Her head settles back down on her arm. "I can't honestly say I miss the vampire blood monster, though this definitely is weirder. I just feel so...helpless." The last word is slightly slurred, and she grimaces. "Oh gods, I am so drunk, I'm sorry..." "I'm sorry. I got no script for how to answer this situation. Like it's just -- hard and weird and it's probably just gonna be hard and weird a while." Shane snorts, pulling himself up onto the couch and toppling slightly to the side against Desi. He clinks his glass lightly against hers. "We got all night. You could be so much drunker." "Calisse," Desi slurs--perhaps intentionally this time, slumping against Shane. "Don't need a script. If you reply with only profanity for the rest of the night it would still beat going back there right now." Her glass clinks back harder than she intended, but neither breaks--a bright two-toned sound ringing out from the contact. "To being much, much drunker."