Strictly Business [Closed] - Printable Version
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RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - megs - 08-10-2017
Drusilla’s ears made a flat plane off either side of her head as he referred to her as 'the party girl.' Her tail swayed slowly behind her knees as she witnessed that gentle shake of his shoulders. The greeting was playful, and wildly different than how he had sounded like he would be on the phone. She cocked her head at him, a small smile pulling at one corner of her mouth. “Good morning,” she replied, as if she hadn’t heard the epithet, or the suggestion behind it. Green eyes surveyed him, and his work from where she stood just past the threshold. It was almost as if she expected that he would hit himself instead of the nail with the hammer. As soon as it had been pulled from his pocket, her ears had pushed to attention and she crossed the room. It wasn’t that she had ever noted him as particularly clumsy or incompetent. Perhaps, she just naturally worried too much. It was most likely that she had been looking for an excuse to get closer to him. “Are you alright,” she asked as she stepped next to him and took his hand in hers. Though he’d barely bothered to complain about the contact she inspected his thumb for injury.
She looked up at him, but didn’t release his hand as he teased her. Her ears swiveled backwards, and she made a face. Something between a pout and a frown. “Nooo,” she lied, unconvincingly; the fib was heard in the way she elongated to ‘o’s. “I was a very responsible and conscientious drinker.”
“What’s this?” she said suddenly, tail swaying curiously as she released his hand and dropped her gaze to the large and wrapped object leaning against the wall next to them. She reached out and popped one of the air filled bubbles with her index finger and giggled quietly when it snapped loudly.
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - saronym - 08-10-2017
“I’m fine. It’s nothing.” He said patiently watching as she inspected his thumb which showed no sign of the blow that landed on it. His thumb rubbed across her fingers as if to prove that it was functioning correctly. Eyebrow arched in quizzical amusement as she denied what was plainly obvious to him. That she was indeed hungover. Not that she looked bad. Not at all. Drusilla appeared her normal self, only just tired looking. And he didn’t mind that faint crease under her eye that signaled her lack of sleep the prior evening, nor did he mind the kind of sleepy glaze to her eyes. It was kind of adorable. He was noticing just how adorable she was dressed down in a hoodie and form fitting yoga leggings.
“Take it from a serial substance abuser-” He began sagely as if he hadn’t admitted a serious fault. He turned back to lining up the hanger again and coaxed the nail into the wall with gentle taps of the hammer until it was fully settled. “-hair of the dog that bit ya’ goes along way.”
He realized that the conversation would take a turn when he showed her just what was wrapped up at their feet. Even though he had been preparing mentally for the moment of confronting her, his heart leapt in his chest and began pounding more intensely as the moment drew nearer. He wasn’t sure anymore just what he feared of the conversation that would come. Maybe that the growing romantic feelings were misplaced in her afterall. Maybe that the truth of what happened all those years ago that had shaped his adolescence and adult life would be radically altered.
Both things to be feared.
Maybe he was afraid that his generally positive impression of Drusilla would be confirmed and he’d be left deciding just what to do with all those other feelings he had for her.
Terrifying.
The hammer was abandoned to a nearby bookshelf and a pocket knife materialized in Owen’s hand from some pocket or another. His fingers flicked the sharp blade free and he bent to cut away the bubble wrap and tape that secured it. By near sleight of hand the blade was settled back and disappeared into his pocket again. He pulled away the wrappings and lifted the frame holding it out from his body for her to see. The map of the Veridian Isles she had given him just moments before she had murdered his mother.
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye but kept his gaze on that map. “I had it restored and preserved. I did a lot of damage to it over the years. I was obsessed with it. I traced all the borders over and over. I used to be able to draw it from memory with my eyes closed. That's something isn't it?” He lifted the frame and peered behind to line up hook and hanger until it settled on the wall. Owen reached for a level on the bookcase. He confirmed the frame was perfectly straight before he stood back to stare thoughtfully at it.
“But I came this close,” he demonstrated a small distance with his index and thumb to her, peering at her with one eye between those fingers, “to throwing it away once. I was, I think, maybe fourteen or fifteen? Very angry years. Darcy stopped me though, luckily.” His hand moved to his chin and he rubbed at the stubble that grew there as he studied the map. “It came to my attention a few years back that this is part of a set, no?” He looked at her for confirmation of what he knew was true. “Anyways, I never had the money until recently to bid on the others, but” he gestured with futility, “Someone beat me. I contacted the auction organization and asked them to put me in contact with the buyer or a broker, anyone, so I could buy the others. But-” that same futile gesture. “No dice. Oddly enough that buyer never bothered to contact me to make an offer for mine. So the set is eternally incomplete. I don't get what that's about at all.”
He shoved his hands self-consciously into his pants pockets. They hardly fit. “My unhealthy obsessions aside. I’m glad I kept it though.” He turned half towards her and one shoulder lifted as if he might shield himself from something. A posture that advertised his feeling vulnerability in the conversation. “I don’t want to be the type of person who throws away things that sort of constitute who I am. Even if ...uh… the memories suck.” His smile was sad and his eyes rolled upwards as he qualified his statement. “Not that I believe that things make me who I am. But you know - it's like an artifact from my history - something like that.” He shrugged giving up on whatever it is he was trying to say.
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - megs - 08-10-2017
Drusilla frowned and hummed her disagreement. Her gaze shifted to watch as he returned to his task. Her ears spring forward again and her tail appeared behind her shoulders. It was swayed in a slow and content rhythm. “I’m not sure I’m ever going to drink again,” she complained. “I’m certainly not going to right now.” She laughed and made a face, before shrugging her shoulders and crossing her arms over her chest. After popping two more bubbles she took a step back to allow him cut away at the protective bindings on the mystery object without her being in the way. Almost instantly, she recognized the worn edges of the Veridian map she had given him all those years ago. Though more worn now, then they had been then the whole of her home country and the legend and notes written in fine Veridian calligraphy were entirely discernible. Her breath caught in her throat, stuck on a hard lump that had formed there. Without the sound of her own breathing her heart thundered in her ears. The silver furred appendages pressed flat to her hair in time with her tail which quickly dropped to the floor.
She kept her eyes on the map as he spoke. She couldn’t bear to look at him right then. Drusilla forced herself to breathe again; she tried to keep it steady. In the back of her mind, she had always known that it would only be a matter of time before they came to this. To what had happened between them. It only made sense with what seemed to currently be happening between them and the arrival of this map that today would be the day to do so.
Drusilla tilted her head and look up at him as he gazed down at her from between his fingers, and nodded slowly when he asked if it were part of a set. It was indeed. There were five pieces in total. Owen owned the Isles as a whole. The rest of the set contained the four individual islands in greater detail. Drusilla didn’t reveal that she also owned the other four. A struggling museum had been trying to raise money to stay afloat.
He continued speaking, which was fine. Drusilla was willing to listen and she didn’t know what to say to him anyway. That aside, she didn’t feel as if it was her place to lead the conversation, but all in all she knew they were done pretending that there was no dark history between them.
Drusilla cleared her throat, looking down at her shoes. Arms crossed tighter, almost as if hugging herself. “I’m...well, it’s good that you kept it.” She stopped looking at her feet, but still didn’t look at him. To the map, to the opposite wall, to anything else. Her brow furrowed and for a moment she looked like she was in pain. It occurred to her that despite admission of what truly happened that night, there was nothing to say this conversation would go well. Nothing that guaranteed her life or their friendship.
“You have questions,” she said, and in turn it was not a question. She knew he did, and she gave him the forum to ask them with the gentleness of ripping a bandaid off.
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - saronym - 08-10-2017
It didn’t sit well with him the way she seemed to crumble under the pressure of the conversation. Not that she was a mess, no. But he could tell that the topic stressed her greatly and it reminded him too much of the broken catgirl that his mother had helped into their home. Played the victim before she turned murderous. Was that her game then?
“Yeah, I have questions.” He confirmed her suggestion with an aggression that underlined his growing emotional response to the situation.
“First off,” he turned to face her more squarely and pulled his hands from his pockets to put him at full readiness to confront her. “How dare you cross the threshold of my home knowingly and to my face pretend to be someone you’re not.”
After chastising her this way, he turned gruffly and moved to his desk where he ripped open and drawer and pulled out a file he had never shown her. “You know,” he said while he flipped open the file and rifled through the pages. His voice was somehow softer. Paradoxically so, after he had chided her bitterly just a moment before. “Drusilla is not a bad name. I like it considerably better than Rylan.” He spat the first name she had ever given to him back at her. “But Julianna is the prettiest. And it suits you. And it’s an insult to my intelligence that you ever called yourself something different. To me. Of all people.”
Like an interrogator, he flipped pages around and set them on the desk one by one for her review. First the official CAF investigation his mother’s murder with copies of the statement he had given to military investigators nearly two decades ago. They had given him lined paper and a pen to write, in his own words, what had happened. His ill-formed juvenile and almost pain staking handwriting filled several pages. There were pictures of the scene and his mother’s body. Finally, he placed the CAF order for the execution of the pre-judged murderous Queen with his signature as the agent working on the case on the desk.
His index finger pounded on a picture of his mother’s corpse. “Why did you do this? Why did you murder, in cold blood, a woman who invited you into her home, and tended to your wounds? Why did you let me see it? Why did you let us go? Why did you let me live?”
He shoved papers concerning his father’s murder at her. “Did you do this too?”
Owen was hammering her with all the hard questions he had desperately wanted to ask her all these years. His hands were splayed out on the desk and he leaned over it staring hard at her. Until his head collapsed down and his arms slackened. He stayed poised that way, hunched, bent over almost with the weight of the pain he had carried for so long that he seemed unable to anymore.
“I want to forgive you.” He admitted quietly to the desk unable to look up at her then until he forced his gaze back to her. “I just - I have this feeling about you. You’re not -” He sighed heavily blowing hair hard from his nose but he couldn’t explain what he meant. “You don’t seem capable -”
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - megs - 08-10-2017
Drusilla let her arms fall away from her body. No longer clinging to herself, no longer protecting herself from the anger that she deserved from him. She didn’t shy away from his gaze any longer. She looked up at him as his tone turned hard and he admonished her for her boldness. It was deserved. Walking into his home the morning of the interview and nearly every morning after had been damn near disrespectful. Selfish, even. Her ears remained flat on her head. She didn’t answer, because she wasn’t entirely sure that the question was for her, so much as it was meant to be a reprimand. His tone changed again as he moved to the desk. Her countenance remained much the same as she followed him towards it. She stood on the other side, the neutral mask she usually tried to employ with him was failing her. The weight of his every word piled on her, and with each new sentence her ears broadcasted her shifting feelings. Pinned backwards at first, and then pushing to attention when he complimented her birth name. “Calling myself something different wasn’t something I was doing to you,” she explained. Her ears fell again. Her gaze dropped to the papers that he was lining out for her. “I’m supposed to be in hiding,” she continued, lifting a hand to gesture at the files. Warrants, and contracts, and dossiers; all demanding her arrest or her death.
Drusilla sighed and closed her eyes. When she opened them she forced herself to look down at the picture he was pinning with his finger. She didn’t need a picture to remember the scene, but seeing it there on his desk made her stomach turn. Her eyes slid then to the picture of his father, mutilated in much the same way as Ishara. She didn’t do it, but she felt she was responsible for it, too.
“I didn’t do it,” she said quietly. “But I didn’t do enough to stop it, either.” Drusilla had always carried her own guilt for not being in control of the monster that had slain his parents. Her sigh matched his. She didn’t know where to begin. She didn’t know how to explain without sounding like a complete lunatic. She couldn’t think of anything else than to be forthright. “My body is the vessel of a demon," she said softly. "It’s called Belial. When I was younger I couldn’t control it. I would black out and wake up in places I didn’t know.” As she spoke her tone wavered, thick with tears that shined her eyes. “I don’t know why it killed your parents,” with this admission, this tears spilled over, leaving wet tracks down your cheeks. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t do more, but when Ishara helped me that night I didn’t know who she was. I didn't know what was going to happen”
Drusilla sobbed once and pulled her sleeve over her hand to paw at her face. Her tail curled tight against the middle of her back. Her ears hurt with the pressure of being pinned to her head. “Belial spoke to you that night, and I don’t know why they let you go. I don’t know why they did that to you, but it wasn’t me. I couldn’t...I can’t-” Whatever else she had meant to say was lost in the onset of her breaking down. She hid her face in her hands, but it did nothing to muffle the agonized sound of her crying.
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - saronym - 08-14-2017
Denial wasn’t something he was expecting from her. I didn’t do it, she claimed. He couldn’t suppress the dagger sharp “what?” he uttered that came on the tail end of her claim. The gaze he settled on her was furious and indignant, pre-judging what was to come next. He felt himself preparing to fight. All this emotion swirled in the space of seconds before she qualified her statement which only confused him further. His eyes narrowed and another fierce “what?” demanded explanation.
His eyes flicked incredulously over her figure when she explained that she housed a demon as if he might see evidence of that internal state on her outside. The explanation she gave was deeply unsatisfying. A demon did it and she had no answer for it’s motivations. Only that she didn’t do it herself.
And this pile of shit was what he was supposed to accept?
He had been ready for every piece of the puzzle to fall together neatly so he could sleep at night. So he could stop wondering the why of what happened that night. All he knew now was the proper who. If such a claim could be believed. There were those eyes he had seen that night that could now be more easily explained if her story was true. Besides, he’d seen enough crazy shit in the military to know that he didn’t know the limits of possibility in the physical world and that was good enough for him to tacitly accept what she claimed to be true.
But that didn’t make it any easier on him. He wanted to break something. He wanted to shake her. He resisted the urge to do anything drastic mostly because she was already broken down and sobbing rather pathetically. It didn’t seem there would be anything he could do to hurt her more than she already was even if he wanted to.
Owen looked away from her shaking figure and stared at the blank space of wall across the room. He chewed at the inside of his cheek while he let her continue crying for the moment. A part of him felt for her. A big part. And for himself too. They were both victims, he realized.
He broke his silence with another heavy sigh as he shoved away from the desk. His face was a neutral mask as he rounded the desk to meet her. For a few moments, he was statuesque before her, regarding her almost indifferently as she cried. He pictured himself standing over her that way and how cold he must have looked. This wasn’t the scene he had imagined but here he was.
“It’s okay,” he said his own voice sounding hollow to him. “I forgive you.” Owen pulled the sleeve to his sweater down over his hand and wiped diligently at the tears on her cheek as if to show her she could believe what he said. That he was working at forgiving her. That he wasn’t terribly happy at the moment, but he would be okay in time. And so would she.
His hand fell away from her face. The limp weight of it landed flaccid against his own thigh. “I’m too sober for this shit.” He joked blackly. “And so are you. So...” the hand that fell was filled with life again as it moved with purpose to wipe at tears that still leaked. “How about that Irish coffee? Or something.” His touch was more a coax as he took her arm to turn her around and lead her to the kitchen where they could prepare whatever drink she would agree to share with him.
"How did that happen to you?" He asked quietly while they walked.
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - megs - 08-14-2017
Drusilla didn’t need his tone to now he was incensed by her responses. When he moved from behind his desk to tower over her, her hiccuping sobs silenced at once. Face still hidden in her hands, but it was obvious the tears continued to flow by that shuddering of her shoulders. She’d taken his looming as a scolding and endeavored to be quieter in her despair. She wondered if he thought her foolish, thinking she had any right to be upset. There was a silence, she could feel him looking down on her. Literally and figuratively she was sure.
I forgive you. The phrase drew another burst of a sob from her but the sound got stuck in her throat. Her ears twitched but remained pressed against her hair; her tail was lifeless, so much so that it dragged on the floor, which it almost never did. Her hands fell to her sides and she dared to look up at him. Red faced and glassy eyed. She almost flinched away from his hand, as if she’d expected something other than the softness of his sweater smearing wetness from her cheeks. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth to still the quiver that had started there. She wanted to lean her face against his hand. She wanted to say something to him, but she didn’t have the words.
His joke did nothing to lighten the mood, which was unsurprising given that was not the intent. Drusilla sniffed and pawed at the opposite side of her face where his own hand continued to brush away the evidence of her breakdown. She acquiesced easily to his touch, turning and moving with him to the kitchen.
“Uhm…” Drusilla sniffed again, and considered his question. Her own voice also sounding strange. The pleasant sound of it was waylaid by tears and a stuffy nose. “From what I understand, Belial is a pact demon. It gives you something you want for something it wants? My, uh, mother apparently made a deal with it. She wanted to end the war. The-” another small sniffle. Her ears perked to attention. “The Hagma War, between the Veridian lynxes and the dragons. In exchange for the means to overcome the dragons and win the war my mother dealt with Belial, who in exchange wanted a vessel. It chose me.”
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - saronym - 08-15-2017
Owen parted from her side when the entered the kitchen to go to the liquor cabinet to pick his poison. The bottle of Jameson was front and center for some reason and he snatched it out. The sound of glass dragging across the cabinet provided the backdrop to Drusilla’s childhood story. With a full fisted grip Owen twisted the cap off and brought down two of the coffee mugs that Drusilla had stocked for his kitchen. The nicer ones. It was weird to him just then how the evidence of her influence in his life and lifestyle could be seen in every room of his house. She of all people had picked out the mugs he drank from everyday. Made the food he ate. Laundered his clothes. Answered his calls and set his schedule.He couldn’t think of anything comforting or good to say and silently poured splashing shots for the both of them into the mugs. He estimated the amount by eye and then shoved a mug towards her with his index finger.
“That wasn’t very motherly of her.” He said sardonically even though it might have sounded insensitive. The worst thing his own mother had ever done to him was make him sit still when he didn’t want to while wearing a suit.
Owen didn’t wait for her, he raised his glass looked as if he might toast her but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have anything positive or anything worth saying. He took the shot and cringed when it burned his throat and sternum as it slid down. Though he made such a face, Owen poured himself a second shot and then turned to face her.
“So, you know I have to ask -” he paused to take that second shot and cringed again. “Why did you continue with that interview that day? Why did you accept my job offer? What’s the point? You just curious about me or something? Just wanna know what kind of man I became, I guess.”
While he spoke, he used the same mug and filled it with black coffee with another splash of that whiskey. He held up the half emptied pot to offer her some if she wanted it.
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - megs - 08-18-2017
Drusilla laughed. There wasn’t anything she could have done to stop it, it just bubbled up out of her from somewhere near the pit of her stomach. Though, it wasn’t a joyous sound. Derisive and bitter and somehow pushed from between clenched teeth. “No, it wasn’t,” she agreed, darkly, about her mother, before lifting the mug that had been indicated for her. She lifted the mug to her lips and let her head fall backwards to down the shot with a practiced ease. Though the motions were familiar, the burn of straight liquor was not. Her head fell forward again. Drusilla squeezed her eyes shut and coughed behind her hand. When the fit subsided, she concluded with, “she wasn’t really in the running for any mother of the year awards.” A warm feeling spread through her torso, but she didn’t immediately feel better. Initially, she mostly felt worse. A straight shot of whisky was not the hangover brunch she was used to, and for a brief moment she regretted not going with Renton. But Drusilla knew it was better this way; she knew these were things that needed to be discussed between them.
Lifting a hand she declined his offer for coffee and set her mug back on the counter. Her ears twitched, following the cadence of his voice as he asked more questions of her. She didn’t answer immediately, one of her ears fell to the side and it matched the tilt of her head. Her gaze dropped away from his face and to the mug in his hands. Her tail swayed and she appeared thoughtful, because if she were honest with herself, she’d never really admitted to herself or anyone, why she had stayed.
“I was...surprised, honestly,” she admitted. “That you didn’t just kill me that day. I had mostly expected you to, but you were professional and courteous, and I knew that you had questions. At some point you would want to ask them and you deserved whatever answers I could give you. I also felt that whether you found those answers satisfying or not, you also deserved to kill me-” she looked up at him again. “-if you found that you still wished to do so.”
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - saronym - 08-18-2017
It was strange. The way she seemed so endearing to him coughing in protest to that biting shot. There was more warmth in his gaze as he watched her deal with the after effects. “I’m sorry.” He said quietly on the tail end of her critique. “About your mother.” Stranger still that he was the one who felt he needed to apologize about her mother to her of all people. But he felt bad for her. For the terrible thing her mother had done to her. He had a soft spot for children and he imagined her then a frightened girl betrayed by the one person who she probably looked to the most. Her mother: a god-like figure demonstrating to her that the world would be a cruel and unforgiving place. Owen wasn’t clear on whether the event had taken place in her childhood, but he imagined it that way perhaps because she seemed so vulnerable. He never had any such experiences with his own parents. Only positive images of them.
“Professional and courteous?” He asked with obvious disbelief. “Are we remembering the same day?”
Owen huffed into the steaming mug before he took a sip. “I purposefully intimidated you. I dared you into demonstrating your abilities. I threatened you.” Owen’s lips pursed together thoughtfully and his eyes rolled towards the ceiling as he seemed to replay the events in his mind. “Or was I too subtle?”
He paused for a moment, and turned his gaze down to stare at his own reflection in the black coffee. “You were scared of me.” His voice was almost a whisper. “The way you were scared of Shrader. Part of that feeling you’ve felt for me.” Owen sighed and his tongue darted to his upper lip as he thought how best to proceed with expressing himself. “And you should have felt that way. I did want to kill you. Fuck, I almost did. Almost. But - it didn’t - it didn’t feel right. And I realized that I didn’t want to be the type of man that a woman like you was afraid of.”
He scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. “So. You don’t have to be.”
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - megs - 08-18-2017
Drusilla shrugged her shoulders and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see the way he was looking at her right now. She was in such a mood that she mistook the warmth in his gaze for pity, and she didn’t want that. “It’s…” she almost said fine, but that seemed inappropriate. Not fine as in it wasn’t a terrible thing, but fine as in it wasn’t the worst thing that her mother had done to her. As in there was nothing to be done about it now. Drusilla didn’t finish the sentence, but her eyes opened, skirting to the side to stare hard down at the dark granite countertop. She shrugged again and shook her head in a clear indication that she wasn’t going to finish. That she didn’t know what to say. Her gaze darted back to him and she moved to lean against the counter. The emotional turn the day had taken was draining her, sapping what little energy she’d had leftover after last night’s outing. She crossed her arms again, hands hidden by the sleeves of her hoodie. “Those things are professional and courteous for you,” she replied, and it could have sounded like a joke if she’d been able to pair it with even the smallest smile. She took to looking at the floor while he spoke, it was harder to look at him the more he said.
“I was,” she agreed with a small nod of her head. She chewed on her bottom lip as she remembered the way he used to make her feel. He wasn’t wrong, the feeling had been similar to Shrader. Large and intimidating men who she assumed had harbored and intention to her hurt her. Her ears made a semicircle around her head, swiveling from the back to stand at attention again. She remembered the day he was speaking of, the one where he’d almost killed her. She remembered being on the phone with him, and standing in his bedroom window and following his direct instructions.
She didn’t feel the same way now, as he probably knew. There was a closeness and a comfort between them. She wasn’t sure if that had been intentional of his not wanting her to be afraid of him, or if it was something that had happened by accident over their extended exposure to one another. “A woman like me,” she repeated. She sighed heavily, before lifting her gaze to his face. “What exactly is your impression of me now?”
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - saronym - 08-19-2017
Owen’s laugh, if it could be called that, was no more than a self-conscious blowing of air from his nose. He folded his arms over his chest and nodded slowly. She wasn’t wrong in characterizing his behaviors that interview day as professional for him. It was true. And it would have been funnier under other circumstances. He made a kind of pensive clucking sound in his mouth and said ‘yeah’ as if resigning himself to the knowledge that he wasn’t quite a pleasant person. Soon, she was asking him questions. A question that is. A difficult one.
His arms unfolded and he shrugged in one fluid motion. “I don’t know.” He hid his hands away somewhere in his pockets and looked as if he might try to describe his impression.
“I don’t know what to think of you sometimes. I guess I could use all the words people use when they want to make each other feel good. You know? Smart, capable, talented, beautiful, kind. They’re true of you. But - that would describe anybody.”
He paused and gazed at her for a long silent moment. His eyes seemed to study hers. They made hardly noticeable saccades as they fixed on one spot in her eyes and another. His brows pulled together into a serious frown when he started speaking again. He spoke fluidly as if reporting every thought that came to him of her but seemed to filter them with carefully selected words so that he could convey what he felt as precisely as possible.
“You’re not like anyone else I’ve ever met though. You walked into the home of a known killer holding a lifelong grudge against you and faced him to answer for a crime you didn’t even really commit. I don’t know what to think of that. Or many of the other things you do. You were concerned for my safety. You patched me up one night and put me to bed, you remember that? I never could figure out why you did that. But you’re also infectious in a way. You have this positive energy, a bent towards life that pulls everyone around you in. My friends, me, people at work. Everyone loves you. Its funny though. How that’s true but how you also stand in this strange way sometimes. Like you’re apologizing to the air for existing. A self-conscious queen?” Owen shook his head, one hand appeared from his pocket and scrubbed through his hair.
“There’s more to you than meets the eye, I suppose.” He concluded using her own words. What she had said about him during their interview. "Does that answer your question?"
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - megs - 08-22-2017
Drusilla was surprised by his answers. She didn’t bother masking her features. Instead, she allowed her ears and her tail to broadcast her bewilderment. Her tail flicked back and forth near her knees and her ears stood at attention. Still leaning against the counter, she crossed her arms again. One hand idly moved up and down the opposite arm; as if to comfort herself. Truthfully, the benevolent things he said about her made her want to cry again. She didn’t feel as if she merited such kindness from him; couldn’t fathom how he had come to such conclusions with the previously unspoken history between them. A phrase stood out. Everyone loves you. She could tell by the way he was speaking that every word and phrase had been chosen deliberately to get his point across. Those words hadn’t been a mistake, or a slip of the tongue. Everyone. She was confident enough in how well she knew him to know he was speaking of himself as well.
“Yes, it does,” she replied quietly, turning her gaze back to the ground. Drusilla’s eyes felt wet and hot, but she didn’t want to cry again. Her arms unfolded again so she could rub at her face with her sleeve. “Thank you,” she continued, because she knew those may have not been the easiest things to say. She sighed heavily into her hand and fidgeted on her feet. Mannerisms were being displayed that were so unlike her and like her simultaneously. She was hungover and drained, physically and now emotionally.
“I’m really regretting going out last night,” she admitted, aloud, followed by a small laugh. “This is the last time you convince me to come in on my day off.” She tried to joke, wanting to push the moment into something lighter; she joked as if he had had to do anything to convince her when they both know that wasn’t true.
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - saronym - 08-22-2017
Owen watched her with obvious curiosity as she recieved his evaluation with her. Her posture was incredibly defensive which only proved his point that he had quite a grasp on her interior state, on how she thought of herself. She folded inwards as if hearing not unkind truths about herself made her uncomfortable. In fact, there was a redness to her face and her eyes became glassy as if the truth wounded her quite deeply. It didn’t seem to be the bad kind of wound, more like surgical drainage. The incision was necessary to drain the infection underneath. Owen was glad for this insight and that he hadn’t just leveled platitudes at her. He liked to think that she might benefit from further kind words from him, though he wasn’t sure he could attribute such power to himself yet.Her joke that implied her hungover state pulled a smirk from him. He rolled his eyes knowing full well that when he called she would come regardless. And she already proved this in the way she phrased her statement.
“The way you phrased that tells an interesting story. You regret going out last night. But you don’t regret agreeing to come in on your day off.” He pursed his lips and arched his brow at her as if he’d just check mated her and revealed some way she felt about him.
He sipped the spiked coffee loudly as he let his verbal victory settle over her. “I guess you should spend more time with me than the degenerates I call friends.” Owen, like Drusilla, was eager to push past the uncomfortable conversation into something lighter. They had went through enough emotional trauma together for one Sunday morning.
“Speaking of which, I thought it was strange that you went home with Renton and not Sanders last night.” He frowned and rolled his eyes up towards the ceiling. One side of his face pulled up like a half cringe as he considered how that sounded. “Not that I’m making a value judgment on who you go home with. Or saying that if you're seeing someone you're obligated to go home with them...I just thought - you know - you and Sanders were a whole... thing.”
RE: Strictly Business [Closed] - megs - 08-25-2017
Drusilla laughed. An amused hum behind closed lips at his suggestion. They both knew that he was right. That she didn’t regret coming. That she would always come when he called as evidenced by her currently standing in his kitchen. “Maybe I should,” she agreed to Owen’s suggestion, laughing again at the way he referred to his friends as degenerates. She even went as far to say ‘maybe I will,’ with a soft sort of seriousness in her tone that didn’t match the teasing smile she was trying to wear. Drusilla let it remain unsaid that she would spend every day with him if she could. Even if the used work as a pretense; even if they didn’t. Who knows where their relationship, working or otherwise, would go from here.
Her ears perked to attention as Owen went through the motions of breaching a new topic. Her head tilted to the side, and she looked up at him curiously as he finished his questioning. Ears twitched atop her head as her tail fell towards the floor. “Sanders and I are just friends,” she explained. “He actually hit it off quite nicely with my roommate last night. Renton took me home, and she stayed out with him.” She let her arms fall to her sides as she pushed away from the counter, she glanced down at the lacy tops of her shoes before her eyes skirted back up to Owen’s. “Sanders has always been very clear that he just wants to be friends.”
The cowboy’s explanation to this, of course, was still that he strictly saw her as Owen’s girl.