Sell Sand to the Desert

October 11, 2017:

Elinor Ravensdale and Remy LeBeau share their first civil conversation in the aftermath of the dust-up at the motorcycle dealership. Remy manages to steal himself a friendship.

A swank NYC hotel.

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions:

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

When Elinor wakes up she'll find she's definitely not in a car dealership.

She's in a luxury hotel suite, one with highly expensive furniture and a fine view of the city. Two beds; she occupies the one furthest from the door. The other was definitely slept in at some point, and remains a rumpled mess. Huge big screen television, and a bathroom that looks palatial. There's also a kitchenette, and it seems Remy LeBeau has disdained to order from room service.

There are reasons for this. Namely, when one is renting hotel rooms on stolen credit cards one calls less attention, not more attention. Slipping out for more groceries was the wiser choice.

Thus she'll find him fully dressed in jeans and a grey t-shirt, carefully plating what appears to be a set of perfectly cooked eggs benedict. There is a carafe of what looks to be freshly squeezed orange juice, and some coffee. There are chairs pulled up to the kitchen bar, offering a spot for guests to eat in their room without having to take over, say, the dresser/desk office space with all of its plug-things-in options. He is humming, something with a distinctly zydeco flavor to it.

*

The last thing Elinor remembers is holding Julien in that cage and something not going right. After that it's nothing but darkness and dreams, so when sh ewakes up and teh place smells unfamilair her eyes shoot open. These sheets feel wrong. Well actually they feel amazing which is of course wrong because her sheets at home do not have a high thread count. She sits up and groans as the headache of the magical backlash starts stabbing her in the eye. Thankfully, it's dark, because the thought of the sun adding to this headache isn't something she's interested in. "Where the fuck am I?" She says, noticing that her normal ghost entorage isn't here to greet her either, she must be far from her apartment.

It's uncomfortable to sleep in a corset, and a long skirt and it takes her a second to put everything in the right place. Spotting Remy her eyes narrow. "What the fuck happened and why are we in a hotel room?"

*

"Julien knocked you out somehow," Remy says with a shrug. "And I didn't just wanna leave you laying on the floor of the motorcycle dealership. There might have been misunderstandings."

He puts the plate with the eggs benedict on a tray, along with the OJ, the coffee, and several things to fix coffee with. He brings it over to her and says dryly, "Don't worry. Nothing happened. I just don't have a place. You slept, I slept, I made you this lovely breakfast." And one for himself too, by the looks of it, but he's bringing hers to her first. "To say thank you, and I'm sorry I doubted you. It wasn't meant to insult. Where I come, just about anyone I met like you, they really would have been running themselves an angle."

He waits to see if she'll accept her breakfast, or at least to get herself in some sort of a position where placing the tray isn't a particularly disasterous affair.

*

"He must have broken through the cage, because my blood wasn't strong enough to hold him. I appriciate you not leaving me there to clean up the mess." Elinor says quietly as he approaches with the tray, watching as he sets it in front of her. His words surprise her, while she didn't expect him to denounce her powers again, she might have expected a flippant answer as to why he didn't believe her, and more of his arrogance as to it being her fault that he didn't. So when he's holding the try and apologizing, she stares at him as if completely confused. "Who are you, and what have you done with LeBeau?"

Still confused she situates herself on the bed, leaving room for the tray to be set down and not knocked over. She pokes at the food for a moment before she raises a brow. "This food isn't going to set my mouth on fire is it?"

*

LeBeau smirks when she asks 'who he is,' and says, "Maybe I got more to me than you see on the surface. You ever think of that?"

He winks at her, leaves the tray, and goes to get his own. "I sure hope not. You don't put Tobasco on eggs benedict unless you wanna ruin it, and you don't put seasoning on someone else's dish. It's seasoned like it's supposed to be, and it's not a dish that takes heat. Though I put a little of my own seasoning on my ham. I left yours all properly northern bland."

He grins as he talks about cooking, and pulls his chair to the counter so he can face her from a healthy distance, and eat at the same time. He does not put Tony Chacheres or Tobasco on it, though both of those items are in the kitchen, right on the counter top.

But he digs in. He'll wait for her to try it herself. The coffee, as it happens, is super strong. He had to make due with Cafe du Monde brand coffee, but it has the chicory he's used to and isn't bad. Not as good as Community, but one of the only brands they sell all over the United States, including in New York City.

*

"When ever the thought crosses my mind, the words coming out of your mouth quiet it." Elinor says in a groggy voice, but there is a smirk on her lips to show that she's teasing. "I had hoped there was more then the arrogance and one liners." Still, hearing that the food isn't spicey, she digs into to the breakfast, which is far better than the poptart she had waiting for her at home. Though she tires to hide just how good she thinks the meal is.

"Well, now that we're on the same page, we have a very large problem. Julien is angry with you. It feels like he went and found every font of rage and betrayal in this city and devoured it, that's why he was able to control so many objects at once. How long ago did you kill him." She says in a tone that it doesn't sound like a huge deal that he killed someone.

*

His lips twitch at that little quip, and he looks like he might be aiming to give one back. But then she's turning her attention to far more serious matters.

"He's only been dead a month, him," Remy says, a little aghast.

He hesitates.

Then: "You need the story to help stop his sorry ass?"

The lack of judgment, at least, seems to have decided him, though his brows have drawn down, as has his gaze. He starts picking at his food a little bit, his hunger suddenly abated. If he's concerned he's basically already kind of confessed to a murder or some such in front of two people, it doesn't show. But the killing itself?

That weighs on him.

"Betrayal," he mutters absently. "Ain't nobody betrayed him."

*

"A month?!" Elinor says, as her face pales more than usual. "That much power in one month? Shit we're fucked." She sets her fork down and pushes her plate away, having only had a few bites. Leaning back against the head board she broods a bit before she responds. "Had you believed me the first time we might of had a better chance, now we're going to need to get creative."

When he offers the story she nods her head. "I caught a snip of it. You dueled, and he sucked at it. Though knowing the whole thing might help me solve this with civility and not having to bring out the big guns." She reaches for the juice and takes a sip, waiting for Gambit Storytime.

*

"He's my brother-in-law," Remy says with a sigh. He finally cuts a bite out of his breakfast, his appetite overwhelming his upset. "Fool didn't take well to me marrying his sister. And it's possible he's powerful because of voodoo ties. He was a member of an Assassin's Guild based out of New Orleans. Who knows what kinds of old pacts they have going on? He could be a full on ghede. Anyway, they had an old fued with the Thieves' Guild, them. And when I say old I mean this stuff stretch back to the early 1800s. I don't know if he just hated the marriage or wanted to break the peace, but he challenged me. Rest is history. I couldn't back down, that would have escalted war for other reasons, so I accepted. Was gonna disarm him. Humiliate him. You'd think an assassin would be a little less sloppy, but he was always more talk than work. Probably didn't practice as much as he should have."

He looks darkly over at Elinor. "Nothin' like the look on the face of a woman you've known and loved since you was knee high after you go and stab her stupid brother in the heart."

*

"Voodoo." Elinor says as her eyes go wide. "You know, that is the reason I have stayed very, very far from your home state. That shit is intense, and if that's what he's got fueling him…" She trails off and shakes her head. It's hard to tell what she's thinking because there are nothing but thoughts racing through her head. Thankfully she's able to pull herself out of them to hear the story.

"Voodoo and Family problems. Got it." She says with a sigh, though her face softens at his last words, and she lets the snark and sarcasm melt away for a moment. "It's not an easy look to receieve. I'm sure she blames you, and it'ts only a been a month? No wonder you're wandering around and getting yourself lost in a city you don't know."

*

"She does and she doesn't."

And the grey area blaming is perhaps harder than a black and white decision would have been. He frowns a moment longer and downs some of his coffee.

And then? He just flashes a smile. "And cause there's folks from both groups who want me dead. Bona fide living ones. So there's a bit of lagniappe. You maybe stepped in a heap of trouble just for meeting me, but I appreciate the help. I guess— this is what you do? Run around the Big Apple, help people with ghost problems?"

A pause. "Do you live in an old firehouse? Cause that would be kind of cool."

Some of the flippancy has returned, the hints of real emotion swiftly buried beneath the return of his devil-may-care demeanor.

*

"That's probably worse." Elinor responds dryly as she finally takes a few more bites of her food. When he mentions the trouble she's in, Elinor sighs and shakes her head. "That's the understatement of the year." She sighs. "I wish I was a worse person, I could just walk away and let him deal with you, sadlly I have morals." With a sigh she pushes herself to her feet and walks toward the window. She doesn't open the blinds, simply pulls them back enough to see how bright it is before letting them fall close again.

"I shephard the dead." She says giving the best description of her 'job' that she can manage. "The living usualy benefit from me helping the dead, but I'm here for them. Some want to stay, and that's fine by me as long as they behave. Others, like your brother-in-law, want to take the world with them, and have to be dealt with more firmly."

She scoffs at his comment and rolls her eyes. "Do you know how expensive it is to live in one of those things? I'm not like you, I don't have money falling out of my pockets."

*

Remy gives a wry smirk. He is maybe not so burdened by the morals, at least, not to the degree Elinor is. Or at least, that's how he sees himself, in the grand scheme of things. But since he is the beneficiary of her goodwill, he's hardly going to razz her about it.

He notes the activity with the blinds, and decides his habit of leaving them firmly shut has served them both well today. They are, she might note, up on the third floor.

"You said you were a PI," he says instead. "Or at least you go and work for one. You got regular fees? Since I do have money falling right on out of my pockets I'm happy to pay for your help." He arches one russet eyebrow, endlessly fascinated: for all he knows death shepherds can't accept money or something, and then he's gotta find another way to assuage his honor and balance the scales between them. But he'll start with the one that's easy for him.

*

"How late do you have this room?" Elinor asks casually, as if she's trying to plan her route home when the time comes. When he asks about her fees she laughs at him and nods her head. "Oh there will be fees, depending on how much this voodoo shit is going to ruin my life, there will be fees. So many fees." Juding by the state of the room, he can afford fees. Walking over to snag one of the cups of coffee, she scowls at the flavor and puts it back down. Way to strong for her, but she clears her throat to try and hide that. "I'm the Occult Consultant for Alias Investigations over in Hell's Kitchen."

*

He smirks.

Thank God she's not so pure she doesn't take cash.

A relief indeed.

Whatever he thinks of her work, he keeps to himself. Instead he gestures to the coffee. "I can fix that for you," he says. "Turn it into a proper cafe au lait. You'll like it. It is absolutely the opposite of just slamming creamer into the cup. As for how long I got this hotel, as long as I want it." He shrugs. "I guess I'll stay here a bit, it's expensive but I've found a good game or two."

He's found more than that, thanks to the sale he made after he got Elinor situated last night, but for all he's often a braggart he's hardly dumb enough to brag about that. "I can also just walk you home," he adds. "Though you seem like you can take care of yourself with your…"

Here he crooks his fingers and sort of makes puppet gestures.

*

Purity doesn't pay the bills.

Raching for the cup she hands it over to him. "I'm more into tea, so the less like coffee you can make this taste the better." She sits back down on the bed and pinches the bridge of her nose. When he makes the gestures with his fingers she shakes her head. "Yes, it works great in the dark, but not so much at high noon. You could walk me home if you really wanted to, but then you'd see the shit hole I livein and I think I might save that embarrasment for another day."

Tilting her head at him she raises her brows. "You have your own sort of.." She makes the same finger waggles at him as she speaks. "Whatever that was. Something explosive."

*

Remy takes milk out of the fridge, and sugar, and sets a pan on the stove. He pours one into the other and begins to whisk it over a low heat, frothing it right up. She asks about his thing, and he says, "It ain't no magic, sha, I can tell you that much. Started happening when I was a kid. Mon pere thinks it's some sort of mutant thing. Kinetic energy. Comes in handy though, and nobody ever expects a playing card to turn into a grenade. They're not the only thing I can charge up, mind, but they're sure handy. You can take them through airport security, nobody the wiser. Not that I have much patience for TSA and the like. They never buy you dinner first."

Another toss of a wink and a grin over his shoulder, though not for long. The milk on the stove requires his attention if he's not going to burn it.

*

Elinor is curious, so she takes another bite of her eggs and moves to leans over the counter as he works on the coffee. "Ah, yes that makes sense. I've met a few like that over the years, though no one with that power. "It has to be very useful, anything can be used as a weapon. Granted they're super explosive weapons but still it's useful." She watches as he whisks the milk and shakes her head. "You wouldn't happen to know if any voodoo experts in the ciy would you? I might be able find someone with some searching, but if you had a lead that'd be great."

*

Remy gives her a helpless look. "I stayed far away from mambo and hougun in my own dadgum city," he admits. "I sure didn't seek out any in yours. I admit I'm surprised to think there might even be any, but I guess the whole world's crammed onto this island."

When the milk is properly sugared and frothed he pours it into a cup, then pours the coffee atop it. Then he sets a bona fide cafe au lait in front of one Elinor Ravensdale with the instructions: "Try this."

And gives a wry smile. "I'd have expected you to know, not the other way around," he admits.

*

"Fantastic. I'm sure there is a melting pot of an island, there has to be something. At least books. I know enough not to get invovled in it, other than that it's… All a mystery." Elinor says thoughtfully while he puts the coffee in front of her. She smells it and gives it a quick cooling blow before she takes a careful sip. There is a faint smile on her lips before she sets it down. "Yes that's much better, it goes down with out completely assutlting my tastebuds."

With a laugh she shakes her head. "You're mistaking me for someone who hands living friends." Still she gets an idea and turns to her right. She reaches out as if she is plucking a string on a guitar then turns back to focus on him. "But I'll figure it out."

*

"You got at least one living friend, you," Remy points out, with a brilliant smile. "Sure, he drives you crazy, and creates interesting nights where you nearly get run over by motorcycle armies, but look, nobody's perfect, right?"

And then he gives her a little bow. There's that ego again, right on schedule, but his red eyes are dancing as he says, "For some people the exciting adventures ain't nothing more than lagniappe anyway."

Sure, he's paying her, but she didn't know he would be when she just waded right into the danger. For all that he's a scoundrel and an ass, Remy LeBeau takes note of such things. They count with him. Which is probably why she's getting the full eggs benedict and cafe au lait treatment, to boot.

*

"He also talkes about himself in the second person, and makes a passible cup for coffee." Elinor even smirks for a second as that ego returns, she's beging to become friends with that as well, almost as if it was it's own entity. "I do have other living friends just not many who do what I do, or close to what I do."

Turning back toward the food she tilts her head. "I should probably apologize for the money you lost the other night. It was difficult to get away from that table and free Lisa, and she was the one feeding everyones cards to the tattoo'd asshole at the table. It's the least I can do after you've made me apology eggs."

She opens her mouth to say more, but is interupted by someone unseen. Her body is jolted, as if a child has pushed his way into her torso. She lightly runs her fingers over the ghost boy's head before she shrugs at her host.

*

"I think everyone uses second person. Second person is the I tense, yeah? And then third person is what I was doing. Which was douchey. I can admit it."

And the grammar lesson from someone who drops most of the gs at the end of -ing words and drops his articles every now and then isn't? Or who is also getting his tenses completely womperjawed. (He does not seem to notice the irony, or thinks it's funny, if he does, because either way, he looks mischevious as ever).

But to the apology, Remy only grins. "Losing is part of the cards unless you cheating," he points out. "Sometimes they like you a little better when you lose. You just smile and nod and gamble and be the dumb old Southern boy, and they give you more free drinks and think now there's a boy who's as dumb as a brick, we awful lucky tonight! Sets you up to come up and win so much more later, when they like you like that. Don't worry about it."

He watches this invisible exchange with some interest, and says, "There have got to be a lot of dead people in New York City. A lot in one block of New York City. Like you're living with what, 10 times the population everyone else is? It's a wonder you can ever hear yourself think."

*

Elinor thinks over his words for a moment and purses her lips. "I'm not sure that's how it goes either. It was a bit douchy, but apparently some people think you're charming so you've got that going for you at least."

"Then I am glad there are no hard feelings. I could have cheated for you, but I was curious to just how well you played a dumb Southern boy. I'm sure that works well with the ladies." When she gets distracted by Bobby, she kneels down and looks him in the eye. Realizing how weird it is for her to talk to someone who isn't there, she waves her hand in the air in front of her and the young boy comes into view. He appears to be eight or nine, and is wearing a bright green Ninja Tutrles shirt with a matching shell shaped backpack. "This is Bobby, we were neighbor's when we were kids. Now he's my little helper. Say hello dear."

The young boy turns toward Remy and gives him a bright and beaming smile as he vigously waves at him. "HI! Do you like pizza? Have you seen the Ninja Turtles? Donatello is my favorite today." He speaks rapidly, as if he's been waiting for years to ask someone else about Tutrles.

As she speaks with the child ghost her demenor changes; her face softens and a fond smile crosses her lips. "Go tell the others I'm okay, we don't need the other roomates worrying about me when I'm gone right?" She fusses over the ghosts appearance, by ruffing his hair and adjusting his backpack. "Let Epsy know that I'm searcing for a VooDoo expert, she'll know where to start. Okay? This is a very important mission right?"

*

Remy's eyebrows fly up when the boy appears; he can't hide his startlement. Nor the sudden clouding that comes over his face. Cute as he is, this is a dead child he's looking at, and if the kid seems as happy as can be Elinor's words indicate a being trapped in that perpetual childhood.

"Kinda like Raphael myself," he tells the boy easily. "He gets all the coolest lines, him."

An easy smile gets pasted over the darker thoughts in short order, as if he chats it up with dead children every day. He takes in how Elinor sends him to play courier, how she essentially sends another ghost off to conduct an investigation on her behalf. He makes a mental note: Elinor would be a dangerous person to get on the bad side of, and now that he has the full picture of that he's kind of counting his blessings that he didn't make it worse than he very nearly did.

*

"Raphael is very rude, does that mean you're rude too?" Bobby asks curiously as he turns to face Remy, and his eyes go wide. "Oh! It's because your eyes are red, that's obviouslly why you like him!" It's apparently that easy for the ghost to accept a character choice. Turning back to Elinor he smiles. "I won't fail you! I'll see you when I get home." He moves to hug Elinor again before he fades out of view.

Getting back to her feet she goes to her coffee and gives him a more serious look. "If it's crowded enough I can't tell the difference between the living in the dead. That's when I start having conversations with people no one else can see. I try to avoid it, since the idea of being committed is not in my five year plan." She looks toward the window and sighs. "So many of them ask for help that I cannot give them, somedays, all I can do is comfort them, and hope that it's enough." It's easy to see that it weighs on her, but she quickly shakes her head and returns to her coffee.

*

"List me as an emergency contact. I'll give you a number," Remy suggests. "You get committed, I'll come bust you out. And trust me, sha. I can get you out." He says it with unusual solemnity, all out of keeping with his more devil-may-care demeanor. Because now he's gotten a glimpse of the actual good she's done. It puts her on his list as someone who is worth lending a helping hand to, watching out for. He in fact scrawls down the number for a burner he hasn't given out to anyone else and pushes it over.

"Tell me if you need help with other things too."

He starts picking up the breakfast dishes, intending to get them washed and put away. There's no dishwasher in here, so it's a strictly hand-driven exercise. He doesn't seem to care about that in particular.

*

"Of that I don't doubt. I'm sure you could sell sand to the desert if you really wanted to." As he rights the number down she looks at him, again surprised at how genuine he is acting. Or maybe it's not an act, that his cocky attitude is a mask. Either way she takes the number and tucks it away for safe keeping. Who knows when she'll need the number of a very good theif that can explode all the things.

"I'll reach out to you if I have living problems." The dead she tends to take care of herself, or at least that's the burden that she's given herself. As he turns to the dishes she walks over to reach for her bag. "It'll be a while before the sun sets, I'm going to go take advantage of the bathroom that is larger than my entire apartment." She says gesturing toward that door. It's been calling to her, and whispering of it's rain fall shower head.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License