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Futuristic ・ＯＵＲＯＢＯＲＯＳ.

birth of venus

birth of venus

𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑦 𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑙.
Roleplay Type(s)





















  • intro






























    it's oh so quiet



    Björk


























    THE RENDEVOUS.



    D
    eep in the earth,
    somewhere in England…

    Sprawling structures of concrete spread beneath an unassuming country house, spanning into two widespread floors to function as a laboratory. Quiet and cold, a far cry from lovingly warn brick and warm wooden floors only a floor above. Each step taken within echoes sharply through its halls with nowhere to go. No relief was found from sound, one was faced with the acute knowledge of their presence and how unnatural it felt as you descended the spiral staircase into each level. One couldn’t shake the feeling of something being held within, watching with every movement echoed.

    Different square rooms held different types of equipment, old storage boxes, workbench and engineering areas, but the largest of all had been turned into an observational room. It was clear that the room had been used in the past for dreamsharing, built with the very intention in mind. Hooks and shelves lined two walls, easy setups to hook dreamers up to their IVs to connect to a PASIV. Dimming lights flickered above on the ceiling, illuminating multiple plush armchairs once arranged in a circle now pushed to the walls of the room, all but one.

    In the center of a room lay a man spread out across an armchair, long limbs covered in a blanket and arm hooked to an IV drip bag. He was being watched, carefully so, and could feel the weight of the observer’s gaze the moment he slowly blinked awake. In one stiff motion once consciousness was within reach, the body of Timofey sat up and looked directly at the witness through the one way window, fixed with an unnaturally casual smile and pitch black eyes.

    You asshole, Tasya thought to herself. She had only been minutes late to changing his sedation drip – dealing with him awake was too fucking creepy. An acute headache pressed into the sharp edge of bone directly behind her right eye, blooming in pain.

    The fluorescent lights of the lab flickered briefly between the metronome thuds in her skull. Timofey’s body was sallow under the white lights, all washed out skin, towhead blond hair and thumbprint eyebags punctuating his vision. He was poised more casually now, almost as if it were a practiced effort, the set of his shoulders so uncanny. There was nowhere for him to go, hands and feet cuffed to the chair and directly shackled into the floor, and so when Tasya entered the room to change his drip bag, he only sat patiently. Whatever waited knew what was to come, knew that ripping at his wrists and feet to try and escape was a futile effort now. A wound at the base of Tasya's back throbbed, as a reminder.

    A chill ran its fingers up the base of her spine, the temperature of the observation room easily a few degrees colder. Tasya avoided the uneasy stare of her brother, only patiently replacing the medicine for his sedation in the continued effort to keep him asleep. Whatever smiled from behind his unyielding stare was not her brother, only wearing his skin. It unnerved her.

    Five days since Tasya had found him. 'Was I too late? Is it possible he's even still in there? What else can be done?'

    The doppelganger held his arm aloft as she replaced the tube of his butterfly IV, and gingerly set his arm back down. They did not comment on the way her hands shook, or how she refused to make eye contact, but Timofey did suck in a breath to form words around his tongue the minute the drip began anew.

    “I’ll be seeing you soon.”

    The medicine was quick, not even thirty seconds before his eyes glazed over and slipped closed once more, and Tasya could breathe easier.

    –

    The letters had been sent out on day six.

    Stomach uneasy from the mix of liquor and leftover somnacin, Tasya cursed at herself, sat down at her desk, and looked through everything. All of her contacts, memorized or written, exploring the possibilities and their capabilities. Spread out over her desk was now a week’s worth of a maniac’s notes. Lists of contacts, their known skills, the anatomy of the team and what moving parts were needed where, alongside pages and pages of handwritten accounts of what Tasya witnessed inside of Timofey’s head.

    It had been a long few days, commiserating over the puzzle pieces she knew lurked in Timofey’s psyche – she had spent all hours of the day trying different tactics, dropping into a dream with him as the subject and exploring the raw subconsciousness and memories within. It was too much, too fast, but each new dream gave her a new perspective (at the cost of her waning sanity) at understanding what could be unfolding and where he could be, deep within. His dreams were dense, populated by what she assumed were some of his memories as they overlapped in the structures innately created. But to go so deep into layers upon layers of dreams took bodies, she needed people she could trust reasonably.

    The list had been written on the back of an Asda receipt, and in some positions other names had been crossed out repeatedly before her team was circled, one by one. Trust was a tricky word for the woman; there was trust in a job well done, a reliability to their assets and skills that she was aware of. In this, she had the utmost confidence in her team. But a delicate man required a delicate hand, and the gnawing worry of allowing such a group to enter her brother's mind was a well of guilt that overflowed at the worst of times.

    As the date of their rendezvous approached, Tasya kept busy with house cleaning. If everything went according to plan, which she knew it would, they would be arriving at her home soon after their meeting. The sprawling halls of her country home had seen many a party - if Tasya wasn't paying attention, she swore she could hear music from a far off room, echoes upon echoes of memories. As much as she loathed the idea of company, other industry professionals actually sleeping under her roof, it would make organization far easier. She had hired two housekeepers only days before to get the bedrooms ready, and paid them handsomely for their time.

    It wasn’t lost on her, the slap-in-the-face realization that this would be the first time she hosted guests in many, many years.

    Tasya's home was approaching the southern coast of England, only a handful of miles before you were facing the English Channel, with enough acres of land and solitude to reasonably assume she’d spent a lot of money to have her peace and quiet. If the wind was right, you could smell the salt of the sea. Early February left the days washed in grays and blues, overcast skies and drizzling cold rain biting your skin. Tasya enjoyed the quiet – it truly was a relief for her, with such a chaotic life she led. There were times where she wasn’t home for months.

    Inside the house, tall white walls and exposed wooden beams, more spacious than it seemed. Checkered tile floors lined the hallways, transitioning into deep colored parquet wooden flooring for the bedrooms and parlor rooms, and well placed textures, plush area rugs in the living room, a cozy but open kitchen with window sills and hanging planters of green vines but only a table for two. Some areas of the house seemed unused - her kitchen had brand new groceries delivered after months of surviving off of restaurants and fast food, but her deeply plush sectional seemed well loved with blankets and pillows aplenty. Though her country home was smaller in comparison to other estates, there were easily twenty or more rooms, various bathrooms, sitting areas, not to mention her home office. The center foyer swept into the center area, punctuated with a tall spiral staircase leading into the second floor. Above their heads, plenty more rooms. Two doors at the end of the hallway were marked with distinct Do Not Disturb signs. Off limits.

    It was a lovingly warm house, if it weren't so empty. The idea of having people in it for once would have been exciting if it were any other occasion. But each step that echoed in her home was a reminder of what waited for her, below. I'll be seeing you soon.

    –

    The day arrived without great fanfare. In the time leading up to the meeting, Tasya had thoroughly dusted her entryway and sorted her files not one, nor twice, but four times, and then arranged the groceries in the kitchen to whatever seemed the most...human. She steeled herself for the meeting to come. What little familiarity that was left in Tasya, for a woman so flighty in her own vices with new stories like new coats, was almost drained from her. The slight dishevelment in her hair, the wrinkles in her jacket. The house would not be left unattended in her absence; a trusted colleague was tasked with babysitting for the night. She took a breath, stilled the newfound stutter in her heartbeat, and got to work.

    A few hours ahead of time, Tasya had hailed a taxi and quietly slipped into the warehouse whose address she had listed in the letter.

    The afternoon sun slipped below the horizon as she tittered around nervously in the space, setting up for a civilized meeting. Armed with a leather briefcase, a large totebag, and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, she took her time in setting up a large meeting table for their briefing and carefully organized her notes into different files. A coffee pot and tea kettle adorned a table to the side, small refreshments for their time. Eventually, Tasya poised herself in a chair and poured over her notes, two hours before their meeting time.

    And then came a polite knock. She lifted her hand to check her watch, eyebrows raised at their early arrival. 'Well, let's get started.'

































intro



cast








OUROBOROS.



are you still
dreaming
?








time



8 PM, roughly.







date



feb. 8th.







location



london







status



closed











ic





cs





aes

















♡coded by uxie♡
 



sasha.





































  • mood



    upside down smiley emoji
















On Tuesdays and Thursdays Dr Helen Ingham-Butterworth did not hold office hours or afternoon classes, and so she and Sasha met at four for yoga and tea. Sometimes they succeeded in dragging Sasha's younger sister, Lilya, away from her own work at the university (she did something with mathematics that Sasha did not pretend to understand, and simply trusted that she was smarter than he was), but usually it was just the venerable experimental psychologist and her troublesome middle son. And mostly it was fine, except that his mother had recently decided that thing he ought to do was get several degrees and join her team studying the psychological effects of long term PASIV use.

"This will take almost a decade,"
Sasha pointed out. They were in his mother's favorite tea room, both of them a little under-dressed compared to the other clientele, in their slightly sweaty athleisure. Sasha suspected that both he and his mother were better versions of themselves after exercise though, which was probably why neither of them had said anything they had regretted yet, several weeks into the endeavor.

"The time will pass anyway," Helen said briskly, buttering a scone. It was an infuriatingly Helen thing to say. "Besides, you won't want to do extractions forever, hm? The solicitors are getting involved, you know. It won't stay the wild west for much longer."

"Maybe I want to do something else,"
Sasha said, more out of stubbornness than any real feeling that he knew what he wanted to do with his life. (And it was annoying that he didn't. Wasn't he supposed to know by now? He was in this thirties, for God's sake.)
"Maybe I want to..."
He trailed off, casting around mentally for something.
"Maybe I want to move to country and raise chickens."
He was thickening his accent on purpose, sliding dangerously close to cartoonish Soviet villain, because the longer he spoke with his mother the more he picked up her accent, and he hated the way her BBC approved RP accent sounded in his voice.

Helen raised an eyebrow at him. She set her scone down and lifted her tea cup, but she only studied him over it, instead of taking a sip.

He had overdone it with the accent.

"You can do whatever you want, Sashen'ka," she said after a moment. "You aren't fifteen anymore. I just want you to be happy."

It should have been sweet. But it just made him feel, once again, like a disappointment. Just be happy. Like it was that easy. Like there was something wrong with him.

Sasha changed the subject.
"I will be out of town for a little while."


"A job?" Helen asked. Sasha wasn't sure if she sounded disappointed or not. He tried not to assume she was.

"An old friend called in a favor."


"How long will you be gone?" Helen sipped her tea.

"I'm not sure."


"Hmm. Keep me in the loop."

"Always,"
Sasha promised. His mother snorted like she didn't believe him.

***​

Sasha didn't care for England in general, but Oxford was fine, if he had to be there. London was everything he hated about England condensed into one terrible, gray, smelly city and its terrible, gray, smelly river. (He missed Moscow so much, like a half-healed stab wound to the chest.) Outside of his family there were very, very few people who could get him into this city that he hated so much.

Tasya Kuznetsova was one of them.

She hadn't sounded like herself in the letter she'd sent. Under the polite, professional tone there was an air of desperation to it that made him nervous.

Sasha didn't see evidence that anyone else had arrived at the warehouse when he got there, even though he had parked some ways away and taken a rather meandering path to the address. Old habits, scouting out the location, ect. So he knocked at the door, and waited.

Tasya was always pale, and thin, in a way that made part of him always feel the urge to feed her, but she looked downright wraithlike when she answered the door. If anyone else had been present he would have stayed professional, but no one else was, so he didn't.

"Tasyen'ka, are you okay? What's wrong?"


































Wolves



Sam Tinnesz










♡coded by uxie♡
 
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Keeping focus while at the heart of chaos took practice. Sure, some would argue that such mental fortitude only appeared as a natural ability. Some would perhaps argue it was an art form, something that could be mastered. Controlled.

Fredrik Nordkvist disagreed with both of those statements, for in reality such focus came from years of experience of walking side-by-side with Death himself- and getting away with it.

It took not only experience but the wisdom to see ones own limits and the finesses of never straying too far not too close to the edge. Always balancing, an act that required focus on its own. Focus.

The word practically echoed through his mind as he drove an all-terrain car almost as rugged as himself into a labyrinth of warehouses in London. Parking close but not too close Fred- dressed in a mix of lumberjack chic and outdoors clothing, wearing a navy blue baseball cap, a red and black flannel shirt and green utility pants- secured his vehicle and made his way to the given adress on foot. Slowly, his focus diminished in favor of lingering thoughts. A part of him wondered if the legendary Tasya Kuznetsova had mailed him by accident, whereas another part of him reminded him of his stellar work thus far.

Reputation travels fast. Let's just hope I can deliver what she wants.

Upon nearing the warehouse Fred stopped to take in the view and observe his surroundings. His gaze moved to scan for cameras, suspicious vehicles and people lingering about. Spotting only one person so far- one who entered the same building he was supposed to go to- Fred began to cross the road. As he approached the warehouse he looked to his right, his eyes fixating on a man in ragged and torn clothing standing in the middle of the road.

The man smiled at Fred, blood oozing out between his teeth and the many gunshot and shrapnel wounds which had riddled his body. Sanguine red splashed down onto the large 'INTERPETER / TOLK'-patch attached to the front of the mans now damaged vest.

"You'll save my family, right?"

Fred stared at the ghost with a stern expression set in stone. His fingers trembled slightly but his heartbeat remained unchanged. The ghost smiled again, right before vanishing out of sight and out of mind.

Sighing, Fredrik returned his focus to the warehouse and approached. His steps slowed and he adjusted his baseball cap slightly, pushing the brim upwards, as he approached the stranger at the door. Upon spotting Tasya he offered a polite nod. "Miss Kuznetsova," he said with a calm tone.

His gaze then shifted to the man already at the door. Fred extended a scarred and weathered hand;

"Fred, nice to meet you."

birth of venus birth of venus wickedlittlecritta wickedlittlecritta
 
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chelsea.
































Chelsea woke up to the sound of the pilot coming on over the intercom to inform them that they were to be landing in London shortly. She pulled up her eye mask, squinting against the never-quite-dim-enough lights within the cabin, flinching from the way it seared against her retinas, making a noise of disgust as she did so. The adrenaline of being conscious kicked in a moment later, her fingers scrambling to her phone to check the time, as if concerned she had been dropped into a wormhole that had caused her flight to be delayed so severely that she was late to the meeting debrief. With a sigh of relief, the half-insane possibility of being hampered by a solar flare turned out to still be half-insane, and they would be touching down in London by the late afternoon, as planned. She let her eyes fall shut for another moment, a brief glimpse of the darkness of unconsciousness that she was unfortunately not able to remain in, before she hauled out her backpack from underneath the empty seat next to her and began to collect her items, checking and re-checking that her wallet-passport-keys-ID were all in their appropriate spots. Nothing was out of place, as was expected— money meant that she could afford to book a seat in business class and an empty one to avoid having to sit next to a stranger, to worry about asking them to stand that she may have to use the restroom. What was money for if not to alleviate some of her endless racing thoughts of disaster, to mitigate risks that never would come to fruition in even this irrational, chaotic world?

As expected, they landed in a timely manner, the dull late-afternoon sunlight still stretching across the dark clouds of London. Chelsea made her way easily through customs, nervous that she had brought the somnacin with her, despite the fact that it was being shipped to Tasya’s house, alongside all the other equipment that she had rattled off. She had prefaced the list with long-winded explanations and excused, and received a rather lame, “Sure,” afterwards, a word that seemed to unplug the nervous energy in her chest and let her drink three glasses of wine that stained her teeth and lips without tying herself into further knots.

Finally, finally, she arrived at baggage claim. Once she collected her tastefully sized suitcase, she wheeled herself out into the noise of the city, finding a taxi that would bring her to one of the coffee shops that she had pinned in her phone, downing two cups that made her hands shake and her eyes remain as heavy as they had been when she snapped them open. The bland sandwich that she shoved into her mouth for a hopeful spike of energy only reminded her of the fact that she was in London, where mayonnaise was the only condiment and pepper was deemed the only necessary spice.

The remaining few hours were spent idling in the coffee shop, noise-canceling headphones pumping soothing music as her leg jittered from the caffeine and the usual pre-mission nerves. There was nothing technically unusual about this—Tasya was a well-respected industry titan, Chelsea had a reputation as a well-qualified chemist that had enough laboratory and field experience that she would be able to handle anything that was thrown at them, and there was a sizable chunk of change that was to exchange hands. The dull throb at the base of her skull warning her that something was amiss was normal – and she could almost believe herself, if it weren’t for the whispers that something had gone wrong.

Finally, it ticked closer to eight in the evening. The delicate balance of arriving on time, but not too early so that she would be first was starting to make her palms sweat. Another taxi ride, dropping her off some ways away, a raised eyebrow from the driver letting her know that she was seeming skittish as she smiled so tightly it pulled the corners of her eyes down. She let herself hover for another second until she saw figures start to appear, the war of balance tipping in favor of “Oh god, I’m late,” even though she was on time. She hurried over, adjusting the strap of her duffle bag as she headed to the door.

She recognized two faces—Tasya, looking a bit more worn down than Chelsea remembered (the throb was starting to turn shrill, the hairs on the back of her neck starting to raise as the chant began to grow louder in her head; wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong) and Sasha. She grimaced slightly—while they were both dressed casually, Chelsea’s black coat had a stain on its sleeve, darkening the fabric and appearing starkly. There were splatters on the bottom of her jean as well, and her shoelaces were fraying at the end. She hadn’t even bothered to redo her hair, resulting in more fly aways than were probably polite or lab safe, and her face hadn’t been washed—

Breathe. In, hold for three, out, count to three. A brief moment where the focus was on making sure her breath remained steady, that she had a clear enough head that would be focused on the task ahead gave her enough time to glance about to examine the man she did not recognize and say,
“Hello, hi, um, I’m Chelsea,”
glancing at the hand not for her before turning back to the other two that she did know, that had dealt with her brand of permanent neurosis that would fade away once she had a night of rest in her.
“Hi, hello, nice to see you both again,”
said in a rush.
“You look well,”
she lied to Tasya, and offered to Sasha blandly.


































cigarette daydreams



cage the elephant










♡coded by uxie♡
 

01
cinnia.
the nurse
warehouse, London
Feb 8th
oh god, strangers
outfit
interactions

all present (tasya, sasha, fredrik, chelsea)
Flying economy on a low-quality commercial aircraft was definitely an experience, in the most derogatory manner of speaking. Boarding had been filled with the frantic bustle of too many bodies in too close of a space, the stop and start of people blocking the aisle as suitcases were shoved into overhead compartments, somebody's child wailing a foot away from her ear. Cin endured it all with a bland smile frozen to their face, subtly shifting their backpack away from the baby's drool-coated hands.

They'd flown before, dozens of times, but never like this. Those trips consisted of stretches of rest snatched on private jets, during transatlantic flights between jobs. Or the tangle of PASIV lines in an enclosed first-class cabin, and sleep that felt more like waking up than anything else in this faded half-life. Nothing like this chaotic, awful display of messy mundanity.

Finding her seat, she slid her bag under the seat in front of her and immediately leaned their head against the window. At least Tasya had been gracious enough to buy her a window seat, even if it was on Spirit "make your soul leave your body" Airlines. Blocking out the suffocating pressure of being trapped in a five-meter wide metal tube with four hundred strangers was almost worse than anything a mission had ever thrown at her—it wasn't, of course, though hell if it didn't feel that way right now—but at least they knew the steps to this dance. Focus. Compartmentalize. Shut it down. The drone of the engine rumbling unsteadily to life drummed like a bassline through her skull, a blessed distraction despite the rattling note. Sleep didn't come so easily anymore, one of the myriad sacrifices offered up on the altar of dreaming, but white noise was a familiar companion, a tether to a space where their ever-active mind could float and think of nothing at all. So she closed her eyes, emptied her brain, and willed herself to drift.

The relief of getting off the plane ten hours later was knife-sharp; they felt it like a physical blow to the chest. Slinging her sole bag over her shoulder, they made their way to the airport exit as fast as they could without seeming obnoxiously rushed, vowing all the while to never, ever repeat that experience. Even if it meant dipping into their precious bank account, or pissing off Tasya with their demands. Who knew that a life of crime would turn them into a snob?

London was a city she'd known in passing, like a barely-remembered acquaintance, a footnote in a chapter of her life lived so fast that all the glittering snapshots blurred together. Five years gone, and the sky was still that same eternal not-quite-blue shade of gray, but for all her prodigious spatial recall, she no longer recognized the streets. She fumbled a bit with the maps app on her newly purchased smartphone, unfamiliar with the layout and annoyed with herself for not figuring it out beforehand. After what felt like a small eternity, she managed to locate the area on the map, murmuring a distracted apology to the irate cab driver whose patience was visibly bleeding out by the millisecond. "Sorry for that. Corner of Hemingford and Richmond, please." Tacked on a smile for good measure, a little belatedly, but the cabbie's eyes were already on the road as he aggressively wedged the taxi into the bustling stream of traffic.

The cabbie dumped her a ten minute walk from the address in Tasya's letter, at an intersection close enough to the main road that they could feasibly be headed in any direction. They pretended to be rummaging for something in their backpack, waiting until the cab was out of sight to begin walking. They took a roundabout route, tracking window movement and fellow pedestrians out of the corner of her eye, shivering a little in the February chill. Old habits died hard, and many of them not at all.

She stopped when the warehouse came into sight, ducking under the shadowed overhang of a nearby building. Just in time to catch the tail end of a dark-haired figure disappearing into the building, black coat flapping with their hurried steps. A glance at her watch told her that she was early, but not unforgivably so, and now they knew that at least one other person had arrived. Better than being in an empty room pinned under Tasya's too-clever eyes, the sole object of her attention? Worse, to have to win over an unknown number of what would almost certainly be strangers, to play the social game of proving all over again that you can trust me, I know what I'm doing, I deserve to hold your life in my hands? Cin wasn't sure. Hesitating, they fiddled with the cuff of their jacket, dark denim worn pale by the habit of restless fingertips. At least it wasn't frayed to threads yet, like most of what passed for her wardrobe. A half-hearted attempt at respectability. First impressions mattered, after all.

The issue was, they weren't even sure they wanted the job. Or rather, they knew that they wanted it, wanted it with a fierce and aching hunger, and was just as aware that they shouldn't. Carrion feast, saliva between her teeth and nausea roiling in her gut, the poison they'd learned to love the taste of. Every drink was a question, a dare against the universe: is this time the one that breaks me? Balanced against four million dollars, a favor from an industry legend, and the chance to feel truly alive again. She just wished that for once, her love could be a cleaner, simpler thing.

Hesitating was doing them no good, never did anyone much good, and hadn't they already made their decision? The narrow streets of London seemed to lean in, worn buildings crowding over her to say, you're here now, yes you did. So they squared their shoulders, smoothed out their expression into a pleasant mask, and made their way silently into the warehouse.

There were four people already inside, which was somehow both more and less than she'd expected. They offered a quiet nod of greeting to anyone who glanced their way, lingering just inside the entrance of the room. Tasya cut a striking figure as always, all pale hair and impeccable poise, the commanding presence in the room. But there was something threadbare about her posture, a hint of tightly-checked tension whispering that the woman of steel from Cin's memories was perhaps unraveling at the edges. It didn't look right on her. The sight filled their chest with a bitter, uncomfortable sort of sympathy. They turned their gaze away.

Two of the others were strangers to her, and she mentally catalogued them, shifting on her feet for a better look. The man closer to Tasya had the tall, lean build of a runner, his mop of blond hair flopping over bold European features. She almost smiled despite herself at the pairing of tracksuit jacket and striped runners. Valya, I found someone who agrees with your sense of style. The other man was very pale, and held himself distinctly like military. Their Pragmatist, was the most likely bet. Or at least, one of, since she had no idea how many people Tasya had seen fit to assemble for this team.

The last member of the quartet was a blessedly familiar face, even if Cin had to momentarily scrounge in their memory for the name attached. "Chelsea, hello." They stepped up beside the woman, voice pitched low as to not interrupt any ongoing conversations. Two precise seconds of eye contact, a friendly smile, don't look at her like you're assessing her. Even if they were. Brilliant, self-deprecating Chelsea, older now, more frazzled than they remembered her being, (and yet not the most frazzled they'd seen her, not by far—the memory of a cigarette between shaking hands and a hummingbird pulse beating away like a trapped creature at her throat, hollow panic splashed across her face like a wound—) with flyways coming off her bun and radiating fidgety anxiety. A palimpsest, like this city, like this life, half-remembered and half-forgotten. "It's been a while."
coded by natasha.
 
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scroll








THE CHEMIST.



YANAN.













mood

Tired and Confused.











outfit

blue, red, white tracksuit, boots.











location

Warehouse, splendid grimy London.











interactions

Everyone (Tasya, Sasha).
















"I don’t want to pry," is something people always say but never mean. Everybody loves to pry and ‘be in on it’. Especially if the man of the house is leaving for an indefinite amount of time.
"Have you met someone? Are you going to sell this house after all, with me in it?" Lloyd asks. It is funny, haha-funny not holding your tensed up belly-funny, because Lloyd is the name he first came up with as a moniker for when people struggle and stumble over the many syllables of his name.

Yananavit?
Yanovaic?
Yakovic?

In this green house in Chelsea, London there subsists another Lloyd, the housekeeper he ‘didn’t want’ just like fathers that didn’t want that cat; who wipes coffee stains from mahogany wood, cuts the grass in the fairy tale garden (yes. cuts, not mows) and replenishes forget-me-nots in the almost antique vase in the living room. It has been ages since Yananovic reverted from this nickname and had chosen Yanan instead in an attempt to own his heritage and his father’s affection for unique and terribly long names.

"You know, I did think about it."

"And so?"

"The thought didn’t look twice before it crossed my mind. So it got run over." He haha- laughs.

Loyd, he can tell, wants to curse him but holds his mouth shut by grinding his teeth. Yanan likes to upset people, especially Lloyd. It is a fruitful business.

"I need to go somewhere because I was asked to," he says.
The proper assistant’s face de-clenches but there is a kind of hopelessness that you only see from award-winning actresses who play war widows.

"Is it far away then? You never really tell me much when you go places, Dr. Borgov."

"I could do what I need to do and come back for dinner, go there again and even return for sleep, Lloyd, it’s in the same fecking city," he mocks Lloyd’s irish accent but he is pretty decent at it so it's okay. Lloyd nods, relieved, as if he cares about Yanan despite it all.

"Have some tea before you leave. It‘s baltic out today."

And then he does.


• • •​

​

He doesn’t take the car because he knows there will likely be more people and he will under no circumstance carpool strangers around traffic heavy London, so he catches the tube at South Kensington and off he goes. His outfit is subtle and exactly how rich people dress: cosplaying the poor in a blue and red and white tracksuit with a retro touch, it is really an ode to Mother Russia but he doesn’t notice. Some kids perform a flash mob during rush hour in his Tube compartment, so he slips his headphones over his ears and closes his eyes for a bit. The light blonde dye job of his hair was performed a few weeks ago as an idle attempt to disguise the sets of greying hairs near his temples.

He arrives quite a few minutes late and he still needs to walk for another five. The cold air doesn’t faze him, he just wishes he could be a warmer person altogether. In his ears drums the voice of Sade and he turns left on the plot of the warehouse as he sings:

"My brother's been laid off
For more than two years now
They gotta listen to the blues"

He, too, listens to the blues. He is hungry and thinks of the Indian corner shop he saw when he exited the tube. From the looks of it, it will give him food poisoning but he will roll with that. Slipping through the door, Yanan sees a few backs of heads and they look a bit like bowling balls, in different colours. He has to wipe his glasses dipped in fog. There are so many eyes to count that he gives up after landing on the ones he knows: Tasya. Does he not know anyone here? The balloon of feeling outdated and archaic inflates. He is a fossil of the industry, dust sits on his tools and the tip of his nose and it just starts to tickle before the sneeze sets in.

The scientist finally sets his headphones off and they drape his shoulders. They roar through echoes of the warehouse:

Help them to live long. Help them to live life. Help them to smile. Don't let them stay home and listen to the blues.

He looks at Tasya and thinks: You look ghastly, darling. He doesn’t know if he should give her a hug. Maybe she cries but Tasya is not a public crier, or he hoes so. He watches himself approach Tasya and is curious to what happens next. Yanan barely touches her and plants a kiss on the side of her hair. It is clear that he whispers something to her, then makes way.

He looks at the other faces and wonders if the industry has changed at all, not that he is particularly interested in a recap. Then, almost instantly, he notices the man in the other tracksuit and eyes him up and down. He gives it a big think if he should say something.

Yanan squints.

"Well that’s embarrassing. We look like two ugly twins dressed by a mother colorblind."




♡coded by uxie♡
 
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scroll








THE ARCHITECT.



TASYA.













mood

Tense and cold.











outfit

Beige trenchcoat, black turtleneck and slacks.











location

A warehouse somewhere in London.











interactions

Everyone.
















Tick, tick, tick.

The watch on her wrist ticked, slowly, steadily - a metronome, keeping rhythm in the back of her mind throughout the onslaught of overthinking. Counting down the hours, minutes, seconds until this would become real. Long digits rubbed along the length of her neck, dipping under her turtleneck to graze over tender bruises, before digging into tense muscle in an attempt to alleviate pain. The attempt was futile, the pain had been incessant and ever present. At various points in her life, Tasya had become acquainted with pain. Echoes of hunger, cold biting through her extremities, of getting her stomach pumped, black eyes and a fractured arm, but this was unlike any other - the foundation of monuments, cracked. Her throat hurt, her back was branded with a white hot sear of pain, dulled by carefully dosed medication. The physical wounds should have been real enough, a blaring red flag of a situation getting out of hand far too quickly, yet Tasya would not grant such a thought any permittance until the mission briefing was through.

A knock, a sigh. Lets get started.

The door opened with a creak from the hinges, and Tasya blinked hard once, twice. Out of all the invitations sent, somehow she had not anticipated the face of Sasha quite so early. It was second nature at this point, the way she immediately gave him a once over. The tracksuit earned a wince, the closest to an affectionate thought she could bear. Never change.

There was no question of the blonde's amorphous nature; each invitee that knew the woman knew a facet, a fragment of identity, whatever she chose to wear that day. The only constant - sunglasses, a testament to her pretentiousness, her ultimate signature. Black raybans were a permanent installation - occasionally, a change of frames depending on her outfit, but always returning to the same style. Aloof, removed, obviously a wall of defense but one she wore with style and ease.

Now, it only served to reflect Sasha's face back at him. Flickers of emotion were gleaned from the set of her lips, from the scrunch of furrowed brows. Her mouth opened once before closing with a click. His words were almost too kind, and all at once she was reminded of her brother, and was forced to swallow hard to even muster up a reply.
"It's- it's complicated, I'll explain soon enough."
Her reply was evenly paced yet echoed a weariness.
"You're looking well, Sasha. Please, do come in, take a seat. There's coffee if you'd like."


One sole arrival would not satiate the hunger of fate. Soon, a relentless onslaught of her own making, familiar faces filing through the entrance of the warehouse. There was another tall man now taking up the doorway, and familiar voices only steps behind with seconds to spare. Tasya glided to one side, ushering each arrival in with a gentle wave of the hand.
"Mr. Nordkvist,"
The woman replied with a tight smile. Not needing to deal with pleasantries or small talk was a small relief - He was all business, and for once she could greatly appreciate that, given the complicated state of her colleagues.

That's one, two... five out of eleven, so far. Tether, pragmatist, chemist, nurse...

A hand crept up to tuck flyaway hairs behind her ear as dark eyes swept over Chelsea. Dark lenses hid the bottom-to-top once over, brow smoothed over as Tasya offered her a nod in greeting. Whatever tender layer Sasha had peeled back for the slightest of seconds was scarred over now; a nervous energy rolled off Chelsea in waves, held in the set of her shoulders and the falter of her steps. Tasya could not let herself succumb to anxious fits just yet. There was still work to be done.
"Likewise, Chelsea. You haven't changed a bit."


And another task on her to-do list - ice blue eyes, a nagging question that Tasya allowed herself the small satisfaction of cracking. Cinnia was unerringly frustrating to track down, much less send a letter to. Cinnia had even had the gall to ask for their ticket paid. Considering the handsome sum that was promised for a job well done, Tasya had sent them an economy class ticket with a chagrined smile. 'Don't forget to talk to them at the house.' The details of nurses were already vague enough and so she had become committed to the pursuit of knowledge.

Whatever words of greeting she'd try to conjure up died in her throat. For one so well acquainted in the arts of silver tongues and smooth talking, her energy was thrumming at an all time low, tense and slightly harried by all of the bustling entrances all at once. Dark shades glance over the group so far before pausing at the sight of Yanan. 'Another tracksuit, why am I not surprised?'

There is a stillness set in her shoulders as the two regard each other. The blonde's head tilts, stray hairs tousled by the movement. God, how long had it been since they last saw one another? Tasya knew she'd dwell upon this later as if ticking off a box in her endless mental to-do list. Yet, her posture slumps in the slightest when Yanan takes the first step. Her hand touches his shoulder in greeting for a fleeting moment, with a weary sigh from the kiss and small exchange of words. Time had taken its toll, but they knew each other cold.

'Straighten your shoulders, fix your damn face,' she thought to herself, stepping further into the warehouse as her guests slowly mingled, filing into seats at a large meeting table. 'Plenty of work to be done.' In an effort to busy her hands, the woman poured herself a small coffee in a paper cup, ichor black and sickeningly sweet.

"Another set of twins. How auspicious."
Perhaps not the best time to joke; she floated near the head of the table, her sitting area occupied by piles of manilla folders and chewed-on pens. Tasya resisted the urge to check her watch for the umpteenth time, or to check her phone in case Soren had tried to contact her, the ticking echoing as if its gears ticked within her own skull. Tick, tick, tick. Time is not a luxury here.


♡coded by uxie♡
 



sasha.





































  • mood



    upside down smiley emoji
















Sasha supposed he couldn't have expected another answer from Tasya, especially not with how many other people arrived so soon after him, but that didn't mean he had to like it. He frowned at her.

"Будь по-твоему, Тася."
he told her.
"Я здесь, когда ты нуждаешься во мне.
As he moved past her, further into the room, Sasha squeezed Tasya's shoulder. He made himself a cup of tea and watched Tasya greet everyone else who entered after him. Nordkvist looked vaguely familiar, with a military bearing, though Sasha couldn't immediately place where he might know him from. The two young women he didn't know, nor the third man who entered after them.

"Well that’s embarrassing. We look like two ugly twins dressed by a mother colorblind."

Sasha raised an eyebrow. The other man, his hair bleach blond and his speakers playing something audible from across the room was also in a tracksuit, though his was a flashier white, blue, and red combination than Sasha's own, more subdued, black and white.
"Speak for your own mother. I'm not the one dressed like a flag,"
Sasha said. He took a sip of his tea (black with sugar and lemon) and looked them all over again. There was something frazzled about all of them (even Nordkvist, though he hid it better), which Sasha had come to associate with dreamers. You didn't make a living in dreams if you had a real life you could stand, after all.

He knew exactly what that said about him. He just tried not to think about it too hard.

































Wolves



Sam Tinnesz










♡coded by uxie♡
 
Fred lowered his extended after it was left hanging by the man dressed in a tracksuit- who was busy speaking with Tasya, in what sounded like it could either be Russian or Serbian. His eyes darted between the two until Tasya ushered him in, to which he responded by lowering his hand and offering his employer a quick nod.

“Hello, hi, um, I’m Chelsea.”
Click to expand...

Once inside the warehouse proper Fred turned to respond to the voice behind him. He offered the lady a polite nod. "Fred, nice to meet you."

At this point the response was more or less automatic and while some were likely to detect the autonomy of such a response Fred knew from experience that by presenting himself with his first name he'd appear more relaxed.

Or so that's what his instructors had told him all those years ago.

For a brief moment he considered flashing a smile at this new acquantaince but that would've felt faked and as such he followed up with another nod before seating himself at the table. Crossing his arms, Fred watched from the relative safety of his newfound position as more of the team arrived- in this case another lady he'd never seen before and a man in a tracksuit so unique he probably would never forget seeing it.

He watched the two newcomers and offered both a casual wave while staring at them with an expression void of any emotion, as if he was a statue that had come alive, before pulling down the brim of his baseball cap further.

FloatingAroundSpace FloatingAroundSpace zara3447 zara3447 mangomilk mangomilk
 



the nurse.





jordan auclair.



































rabbit heart
















location

the warehouse, london.






outfit

a layered, unassuming ensemble that blends into the dreary skies of london.






interactions

n/a.






tags

n/a.












’—ETA two minutes. Young male. Motor vehicle accident. Condition critical.’

Controlled chaos erupted as preparations were made among the graveyard shift at the Brooklyn emergency hospital. Jordan beelined from the ICU to Dr Hernández in the break room; his third scolding, black coffee tonight being abandoned. A disappointed sigh escaped his moustached lips. Fourth emergency this shift, Jordan empathised.

Jordan used to drink coffee but it took time to consume the precious liquid—time that Jordan or most of her colleagues didn't have. Jordan's preference had shifted to caffeine pills; evident by the now empty blister packet that was in her scrubs and the slight shake in her left hand. Jordan avoided recalling it was full before the start of her shift.

The all-too-familiar bang from the gurney against the double, swinging doors started the well-rehearsed performance; scrub-clad and white-coated individuals worked in harmony as the patient was wheeled down the hallway. As an emergency nurse, Jordan was tasked with his initial assessment but considering the heavy haemorrhaging pooling from his chest — implying some form of internal bleeding — he needed to be prepped for surgery ASAP.

‘Please, please! I have children—‘

“Sir, we will call—“ Jordan peered down towards the man, his eyes were shut, while the oxygen masked was fogged up. It wasn’t him. Were her ears playing tricks on her or were they back?

“You alright, Jord?” A concerned Jackie, whose hair matched the blood now smeared on her scrubs was running on the opposing side of the gurney.

“Y-yeah, just, uh, habit.” Jordan’s voice was unconvincing but thankfully saved by the temperature drop of the operating room. Once you stepped foot in here, all personal matters were set aside. All that mattered was the person in front of them.

Dr Hernández’s eyes were all that were visible, equipped with a surgical mask and gown; his stark white hair tucked away in the skull cap. Jackie and Jordan followed suit, latex gloves snapped on in unison.

‘Just tell me—how much do you want? I-I’ve got money!’

Jordan tried to focus on Dr Hernández‘s instructions. Her psychologist’s words came to mind: Don’t ignore the voices, acknowledge them—then you would ground yourself. The moment. The amygdala is trying to help you but we know it hasn’t processed what has happened. So—you remind it. Remind yourself you are safe, this isn’t happening again.

Then ground yourself, Jordan.

"Straight clamp, Nurse Auclair." The voice felt distant, she tried to hone into the words, almost weave and lace herself into a comforting hug with each syllable. Jordan passed Dr Hernández the clamp. Yes, you’ve got this.

‘Why? Why do you keep healing me? Why? Just let me fucking die!’

Jordan dared to peer towards the source; the nude patient was sat up, pin straight, the mask was gone from his face and replaced with the burlap sack. Fuck. Fuck! N-No, this wasn’t right. All around him her colleagues were gone, replaced with other almost nude individuals — both men and women. They all just stood there. Staring at her.

One stepped forward from the pack causing Jordan to stumble back.

‘You think we’d leave you be?’

“I-I, I’m sorry. I just…” Jordan clattered into the surgical cart, making her lose her balance. The figure took another step closer.

‘Jordan…’ They all chanted her name in some disembodied symphony. Jordan scooted back until she was against the cool, tiled wall.

“Jordan? Jord? Talk to me.” This voice was louder, more distinct—yet distant. Focus on it. Ground yourself.

Visions melted away, revealing reality beneath. Everyone was staring at her with a mix of concern and pity. Jackie was by her side, thankfully more concern than pity on her face. She appreciated that.

“Nurse Gillard, please escort Nurse Auclair from the operating room. Nurse Chen, scalpel please.” Dr Hernández barely took note of Jordan.

All personal matters were set aside.

​

“So…you going to tell me what the fuck is going on?” Jackie tended to the cut that now marred Jordan’s forehead. She had explained how Jordan’s tumble had led to one of the surgical instruments seemingly slicing her. Thankfully it was mainly superficial. “Unless you want to keep up the facade that your head has seen a pillow in the last week.”

Jordan’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. She never expected her problems to bleed into work. Jordan did like Jackie. She was reliable and thoughtful, yet had a cool casualness about her. Jordan wouldn’t say they were exactly friends, but they also weren’t “just colleagues”. Jordan had been forced to a local dive bar a handful of times after a particularly trying shift.

“I know. I’ve definitely got some shit to sift through.” Jordan admitted and one of the metaphorical bricks instantly dropped from her shoulders. She felt the same way when she sent the message to her ex-girlfriend, Meg. Her psychologist said the more she let people in—the less alone she would feel. “I promise it will be over soon.”

”Jesus. That sounds like a cry for help.”

”No. Not like that—I’m going on a holiday of sorts. A vacation to London.“ Jordan nodded along, reassuring herself, as she stretched the truth. At least the destination was true.

”A vacation, huh? Who knew Nurse Auclair would use her annual leave?“ Jackie jeered, disposing the cotton ball. “Well get a facial while you’re there, those bags of yours will be considered checked-in luggage at this rate.” Jackie poked out her tongue teasingly, her tongue-piercing snaking out between her front teeth.

“Ha-ha. I know, I’ve uh…really been struggling with sleep.” Jordan despised mentioning sleep, her body aching in some karmic protest for denying it of rest.

”I get it. We all got our problems, Jord. I ain’t here to judge you. Just look after yourself—alright? You work too fucking much. I worried about you.”

“Thanks, Jackie. I’ll be better soon. This trip will fix it. I know it will.”

I need it to.

​

Jordan was taking no more risks with these hallucinations of hers. A concoction of music blaring through her wired earphones and a handful of sleeping pills created a lullaby that graciously afforded Jordan a few hours of much needed rest as the plane soared through the clouds.

However, it wasn’t the plane or even the ride through the busy city that dragged Jordan face first through the muddy realisation of what she had agreed to. It was only after she knocked on the door of the disclosed location, that Jordan recalled the black envelope slipped under her apartment’s door.

It had been years since she had touched the PASIV device. Years since she entered the dreamscape of another. Years since she had effectively ripped someone into tiny shreds. Not long enough.

No. This time will be different. You will help people.

Jordan stepped back and forth from the front step that led to the warehouse’s entrance — a total of thirteen times — thankfully her psychologist wasn’t here to tell her to do otherwise. She didn’t need to deal with more exposure to not following through her compulsions right now. Jordan was about to face the item that sat at the top of her hierarchy of exposure—one that had her teeming with nauseating anxiety.

Jordan let the earphones drape around her neck—just in case they were needed at a moment’s notice.










 
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Oliver Brazzos



  • .



It's not that he was trying to be late, but that he simply wanted to maximize his time off between gigs. It also didn't help that it was Tasya of all people pestering him for an utterly impossible task.

Petty, stubborn, pretentious Tasya Kuznetsova who kept stuffing letters into his P.O. Box, in his actual mailbox, and then his deliveries . Despite his numerous rejections, she never wavered and even went so far as to send some twink to hand deliver an envelope containing the exact same note as all the others. Perhaps the most unhinged part of the whole affair was the fact that each letter had been handwritten, the lines varying ever so slightly from copy to copy.

Had she not heard of a copier? Or was she just that determined to wear him down? Nonetheless, Oliver finally caved after a bad acid trip left him huddled in a corner with a pile of unopened mail. He played it off as doing her a favor out of the goodness of his own heart, but mostly, he wanted the money.

Three days after accepting the job, he picked up a gig in Nova Scotia where he'd net himself another hundred thousand dollars and one in France for the CEO of some start up for Bluetooth sneakers. It wouldn't be until the night before the meeting that he finally landed in London and it wouldn't be till late evening that he overcame the jet lag. It wouldn't be another thirty minutes before he took the bus to the edge of London with a cup of coffee and a briefcase in the other.

Once he got to his stop, he gave the driver a short thanks and sauntered over to the warehouse, zigzagging every so often to ensure he wasn't being followed. Though the building was hidden, there was no guarantee that he might run into some old enemies or better yet...

...children. He lowered his sunglasses just so to make out Cinna,

"Oh-ho, Cin! I haven't seen you since you were ye high!" Oliver exclaimed, measuring his hand slightly above his waist. His expression dropped a notch, eyes full of knowing. "Sorry to hear about what happened with Glear. I always hate losing someone to the hells of retirement."





/* ------ credit -- do not remove ------ */

© weldherwings.
 
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chelsea.





































  • mood



    thinking about chain-smoking
















Chelsea offered the man known as Fred a tight—smile? Her lips pushed together, the corners of her mouth did not turn up, resulting in an expression that conveyed uncomfortableness more than anything else. When she received no similar gesture in return, the expression became more pinched, her brows joining her lips in furrowing together in concern. She wondered if he was the sort that found smiling rude—she knew from experience that many people from Europe found American’s impulse to provide a smile to coworkers to be disconcerting and another transgression to tac on the list of many they that perpetuated, including microwaving their water for tea. (Chelsea did not participate in that abomination of a ritual, the etiquette of drinking tea having been drilled in her head by her mother.)

Finding herself alone as the sullen man wandered off to a table, seating himself in place and pulling down his cap like he was a father planning to sleep through his child’s ballgame, she considered digging through her backpack for her pack of duty-free cigarettes to light up. Before she could begin debating whether it would be deemed rude to smoke in front of all these people, someone spoke to her directly and purposefully. Chelsea turned her head to see Cinnia, who was offering her a smile. Unfortunately, she could still only afford a flattening of her mouth in return.

“Cinnia,”
Chelsea offered, her voice not breaking and with a shade of surprise and suspicion painted on it—what are you doing here? As far as Chelsea understood, the other had slipped out of the industry at some point in time in the not-so-recent past. Why was someone who had not been in action in years here, at the behest of Tasya? On that note, why was there a stranger amongst their number? Her eyes widened and she turned away from the other woman’s expression to exhale slowly, a desperate grasp for some calm—how many bridges were smoldering ash? The numbers on the invitation had enthralled her more and wiped her of her senses, it seemed, as she had not considered why such a high price tag had been slapped onto a mission that they still had not been told about.

The cigarette is no longer considered rude, she decided, and swung her backpack off to start digging in.
“It has been many, many years. What has pulled you back in?”
Blunter than she usually was, the nerves starting to scream—something is wrong, something is wrong, something is wrong.

The next something came wandering through the door—Yanan, a man she knew of, including the fact that he had dipped once his wife had tragically passed. So now that was two bodies that had been pulled out of the abyss back into the game. She gave a noise of urgency as she failed to find her cigarettes, squatting down on the floor so she could rifle through with more ferocity before she managed to drag them out, the sigh of relief deafeningly audible as she flipped open the carton and shoved a stick between teeth. The sigh turned into a scoff of annoyance—where were her matches?

Plunging back into her bag, she barely heard the introduction of Oliver to Cinnia, his far friendlier and more enthusiastic than Chelsea’s interrogating question. She was curious as to how they knew each other and who this Glear was, but the sound of the door flinging open was what made her actually look up.

Oh, we are all going to die, she thought, her mouth parting almost enough in shock to cause her to lose her cigarette as Fausto Nobrega appeared, as if death itself had arrived to drag her ass to hell. He was speaking to another woman who had not yet entered the warehouse, grinning wide with an oversized woolen jacket casually draped over his shoulders, chattering away to her.

“Hello there, how are you?”
he was saying to her, far more cheerful than anyone else.
“My name is Fausto, but you can call me tonight or tomorrow.”
If he threw in a wink, it was hidden behind the shades that were perched on his face.

He turned to look inside, the grin nearly maniacal as he made a beeline for Oliver, swinging an arm over the other man’s shoulders, continuing his tirade,
“Local greying otter seems to have washed up in London, eh? Shouldn’t you remain near your usual stomping grounds, you’ll strain yourself around the Europeans at your age, you know?”
He turned to glance at the others, seeming to hone in on the similar enough tracksuits that Sasha and Yanan were wearing, saying,
“Ah, shit, Tasya, were we supposed to be looking as shit as you, or are those two having a competition on who can finally take tracksuits out of their misery forever?”


Finally seizing upon the matches, Chelsea stood up and offered a loud, false
“Is it okay if I smoke?”
before striking one and lighting the end of her cigarette. She took a deep inhale, allowing the acrid smoke to fill up her lungs, imagining the harshness of it tearing through her mouth and her throat and swirling in her stomach before she exhaled, having enough sense to turn away from the other standing around her.

Fausto was staring at her now with his shark-tooth smile and hidden expression. Before he could say anything, she waved the pack in the general direction of Tasya.
“Need one?”
she asked grimly.

































cigarette daydreams



cage the elephant










♡coded by uxie♡
 

02
cinnia.
the nurse
warehouse, London
Feb 8th
tasya, are you building a job crew or a baseball team?
jacket
interactions

tasya ( birth of venus birth of venus ), chelsea ( FloatingAroundSpace FloatingAroundSpace ), fredrik ( Viper Actual Viper Actual ), oliver ( Steve Jobs Steve Jobs ), fausto
A single glance is the sum of attention Tasya graced them with. Curious, piercing, and blessedly brief. To her silence, Cin offered a measured dip of their chin, an absolution and an acknowledgement of being at the bottom of her current priority list. Don't worry, I won't be the one making trouble for you. And if the gesture came out a little stiffly, well, she had two words to say about that: Spirit. Airlines.

The military man—"Fred, nice to meet you"—let her off similarly easily, with nothing but a wave. Cin returned it with a brief lift of their own hand, channeling amicable affability to his stone-faced blankness. Smile, smile, don't let it slip. Exhaustion is no excuse for a poor bedside manner. Are you or aren't you a professional? Even if Chelsea herself wasn't really trying, the tight-set line of her mouth closer to a grimace than anything in the realm of gladness or joy. There was certainly nothing approaching happiness in her voice when she spoke, frayed nerves like sparking wires lingering just under the surface of her wary tone. "It has been many, many years. What has pulled you back in?"

They thought, many many years, and they haven't been kind to you, have they? They thought, you're looking at me like you're seeing a wraith. And maybe they are, a relic, a remnant, the ghost in the frame. Hasn't anyone told you that in this profession, the dead don't stay down? But perhaps Chelsea knew, and that was what had put that suspicious light in her eyes and that uneasy nicotine shiver in her ash-stained fingertips. Rightly so, if they had paused to think about it. Their presence on this mission was a bright yellow warning sign. Tasya Kuznetsova has gone dredging in the River Styx, and a restless ghost has answered her call. What would have driven the woman to it? Nothing good, certainly, and they should have known better than to throw themself blindly headfirst into this magnitude of trouble.

Cin's reply came a beat late, the smile unwavering, light and cheerful despite her businesslike words, despite the uncomfortable crawl of her thoughts. "Why we all keep coming back. Because of the money, what else?" She kept her expression very steady, and did not say, because the last five years have felt like sleepwalking, a purposeless mess of cobwebs and slow decay, a monochrome mimicry of living. Did not say, because this is all that I was made to be, all that I know how to be, and I have tried and failed to change it. And certainly did not say, because I do not know how to walk away from anything I've ever loved.

Timely distraction arrived in his signature flamboyant style, a pink and olive echo of a resurrected past. For a moment, the sharp memory of whiskey stung their nose, the phantom texture of rolling paper chafing between her fingers. "Ol— Mr. Brazzos," she said, pairing the correction with a self-conscious little laugh because hell, she's never called him that before in his life, and they both knew it. Nursing school and her own militant perfectionism had apparently done too good a job of grinding manners into her. They dropped their smile, body language shifting to textbook respectful attention. "Thank you for saying so. I reckon he's happier, though, that he doesn't have to wait until after the job to crack open a drink now."

More than Tasya, more than Chelsea, it was Oliver's broad, drawling vowels and practiced joviality that drove the point home. You came back to this life. Runner, rabbit, nowhere girl. You're not getting away so easily this time. The realization wrapped like a vice around her ribs, confining enough that they had to inhale through the pressure, senses fuzzing to cotton and static for a long, suspended moment. He's not Glear. None of them are. You're not doing that again, and not even Tasya can make you. You're here to be their Nurse, nothing more and nothing less.

Someone was probably talking, and they were distantly aware of the pleasant blankness frozen to their face, the mechanically straight set of their shoulders indicating an attentiveness that was fully a façade. She didn't know how long the anxiety had her in its iron-clawed grip, but when she blinked her vision clear again, a new face had joined the conversation. Dark curls and olive skin, too-pretty features spread in a too-wide grin. They raked a distracted glance up and down the newcomer's frame, registering less the words he was saying than the brash, unrelenting stream of delivery, skin prickling with the overstimulation of more social interaction crammed into the past day than the last half decade. Absently, she wondered if Tasya had hired him as... entertainment? They hadn't thought it would be that kind of a business meeting. But no, that sort of meeting would be happening under the glitzy neon lights of some low-lit bar in generous, sleazy Vegas, not uptight industrial London.

Forcing herself to refocus, she scrutinized him in earnest, grateful for the grounding, acrid tang of Chelsea's cigarette. The arm he had around Oliver spoke of familiarity, contrasting with the antagonistic curve of his toothy smirk. He moved with the swagger of someone used to walking around armed at all times, as if the universe was a dick-measuring ground for the man with the biggest gun, but there was just something vaguely sad about the alarming amount of overcompensation that thus far appeared to comprise his personality. From much personal experience, bark was almost always adversely proportional to bite. They were worn out enough that the brief urge to pat him on the shoulder and encourage him to take a nap, or touch some grass crossed her mind. Sensibly, they crushed that thought before it could go anywhere.

They took a step back, taking in the rest of the newcomers, weariness threatening to tug down the corners of her polite smile. This was, by far, the worst part of the job. So many new faces, new names, new habits to learn. Who flinched at the recoil, who charged at the gun. The loud-mouthed newcomer seemed like he was the type to stare down the barrel. All in all, slim odds that nobody's blood would be coating her palms at the end of the day. There was probably something very wrong with her for thinking that it would be easier to push a bone back into their flesh than to smile and make conversation with them.
coded by natasha.
 
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soren.





































  • mood



    dinner with friends.
















Behind a door in brickyard London there’s a cage. And behind the cage there’s a messy room plus office with shelves and labelled jars and all manner of medical devices and tools and scrap hung up on the walls. At the far end of the room there’s a leather-backed chair with tall examination lights standing giraffe around it. And it’s an evening in February – the sun in the dirty window is going away fast.

Soren is holding open a duffel bag and Dr. Naciri, who smells like whiskey, is offloading into it rolls of cotton gauze, PN formula, syringes, hypodermic needles–

“Stop.”


And Dr. Naciri does. Holding his hands up like he’s still a surgeon.

Soren lowers the bag to the floor, takes one of the needles out, taps it with their pointer finger.
“These are blue. We need the orange ones.”


“I’m minding my stock. I’m low on twenty-fives.”

“If you’re not out of twenty-fives, then take these back.”


Naciri looks at them, for a second, like they’re totally out of it.

“Where intravenous… where intravenous is concerned there’s – hic. – really not a world of difference between a twenty-three and a twenty-five.”

Soren looks him dead in the eyes.

He blinks. They don’t.

“When Tasya Kuznetsova asks for twenty-five gauge needles, she expects twenty-five gauge needles. Take them back.”


He does. With a groan and another hiccup. “So she finally found someone who’s, um… unafraid of those, what… hic. nasty distinctions, huh?”

Soren doesn’t really understand what he just said.
“I guess.”


Naciri burps and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “How is she? Been a while since she’s called in on me… the wicked little critter creeping around.”

Not well.

“She’s fine.”


“And she pays you to lie for her, too. Must be a really great deal.”

Right away:
“I wouldn't speculate on things outside your area of knowledge, here.”


“Oh. Hic. I know. She never shows up down here if things are going well. Not in person, nor in spirit.” And Naciri’s rifling around, very interestedly, for something he thinks is lined somewhere against the back wall. He has a keyring attached to his belt that gets very noisy when he moves like this.

Soren doesn’t know what to say. Their eyes meet the seat of the chair in the back and it makes them think for all of three seconds about wood and concrete, about comfort and injury, about twins. Soren doesn’t have any siblings. Just cousins with round faces and only a little hair left.

“Okay. Sodium thiopental.” And he comes out with little bottles clattering in his hand.

“And the other thing?”


“Yes, I remembered. Just need to see if I hic. have some. This is an... an... extra treat.” In the bag.

Soren is unamused. They roll their eyes as they close them. Naciri goes around to his desk, in the other far corner, and begins testing every individual key of his keyring on the lock of the bottommost drawer.

They feel like, if they tried, they could touch sleep. Right here, in this room, feet planted. The night is coming down so hard they can feel it like their teeth were just cleaned.

They feel old today. Like old bones, like an old responsible animal. Like a donkey. It started with a headache. It made them adjust their headrest like eight times during the drive up here.

There’s a calendar up on the wall behind Naciri’s head that has not been turned in months. By next year Soren will be out of school, and so will Mum and Dad, maybe. You can buy a parole board with four million cash and still have most of it left behind, right? For vacations. Other things.

“My patience is–”


The drawer unlocks and Naciri goes "A-ha!"

He fumbles around for a moment and comes out with a package wrapped in brown paper. He’s putting a little bit of spark in it now, a little bit more levity – the show’s almost over. “Okay. Some Mombasa Special for the lovely lady.”

Soren takes them. They’re heavy in hand. They go in the bag.

“That? Right there? Do you know about this?”

...Are you asking me a question?

“...No, not… no.”


“That hic. is the deepest, best sleep of your life. Precious hours. Without a squeak. Just ask her about it.”

Soren takes in this information. Unlucky to be reminded of what they already know. They part their lips and then bring them together again, loudly.

Naciri sees the sort of bruised look that they're holding. “Oops. Maybe I shouldn’t techni – hic. – um. Say that. Hippocratic Oath.” He crosses himself, head and heart, slowly, drunkenly. “Technically.”

Soren zips up the bag and takes it up on their shoulder. It hurts. They could mewl out like a trapped cat right now.

“Thank you. It’s... been arranged to have your payment made by courier within the next few business days.”


“You give her my best hopes and well wishes, right?”

“I will.”
They aren't sure – is this a lie?

“I know you will. You – hic. – seem dependable.”

And Soren leaves the same way they entered.

***

A mist travels over London as the day darkens. Sky the colour of a landed punch and getting worse.

After everything, the back of Soren’s Volkswagen has been filled up with groceries for the coming days. Some essential items for the man under the floor and some bundles of plans and folders that Tasya, attention elsewhere, had forgotten to retrieve from her study. Orders carried out. Last minute preparations. Plumbing for fixes to make, errors, things that were missed.

A wind slices up the Thames as Soren drives over it, window open, cold burning rough on the skin of their hand. They’re a careful driver. They know there’s no way they’ll be early to the spot now. That’s fine. They don’t react. Not to the traffic or the drunk hobbling jaywalkers that tick the minutes on their car display. They don’t look at their phone.

They’re used to this kind of work. They’re used to running around, feeling tiny in the big city at night. It’s basically who they are. They’re not nuts about it, but it’s not the worst thing. It’s not a sadness, or an embarrassment.

They pull up to the warehouse. Many cars there already. They shut the engine off and then they don’t move. For ten seconds, twenty, thirty.

Why? This isn’t the time to quit. That was before, when they could’ve stopped at the top of the front steps and gone back. Before they actually saw the stairs leading down, her blown-up collarbone through the top of her white shirt, before they saw how serious and sort of breaking she was. They have to help her, don’t they?

Because she thinks she helped them, right? In Budapest. And that’s a sadness. And they know they never disputed that. Sometimes, they have issues around the mechanics of integrity. Like it becomes a puzzle they can't make work right in their head so they take a little money from places they shouldn’t, steal from the clothing store, let people believe what they think makes them feel good. Just little stuff of that nature.

They could leave now and make Tasya Kuznetsova, queen of dreams, a crazy woman.

Or they could just surrender and try to make it nice, if they find that it matters to do so. And make four million while they do it. So, for that reason and every other:

Soren heads in, and Tasya is at the front of the room in priest-black, composed for the time being but clearly only with considerable difficulty.

They breathe in the warm air of people talking, whispering. They don’t feel fear but they’re tight in the upper arms, the biceps, as they are every time they do this. The new people, the new team, the new bullshit. Braggadocio and drama and slippery ethics. Wheezing laughter of old fuck-buddies. The business lunch. Or, really, it’s so late in the day, so: a dinner with friends.

Soren cuts a path through the thickening crowd, not invisibly but not trying for it, up to the front table. Without speaking a word, they take off their backpack and forage through it for a few papers that they lay down in a spread above the notes that Tasya is reading from. They look her in the eyes for a moment, with a little bit of hardness, and at the same time, a little bit of apology.

Then they go to the back of the room and pour themselves a coffee, right up to the brim. Waiting for the work to be gotten to, and ready.

































coffee



sylvan esso










♡coded by uxie♡
 
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ziva chan
the forger
the warehouse
like a cat about to pounce
drippin'
interactions

everyone, fausto, tasya, yanan, sasha
The pristine white letter had sat in Ziva's mailbox like an omen, though of what she was uncertain. The only way to find out was to open the letter, one perfectly manicured nail slipping under the envelope and tearing it clean through (after checking it for poison, of course. For some reason, a lot of people wanted her dead. They simply didn't appreciate her charm). What lay inside brought a cheshire grin to the forger's face, a once in a lifetime opportunity had landed on her doorstep. And above all things, Ziva was an opportunist.

It wasn't that Ziva particularly enjoyed others suffering, it was just that their pain typically opened doors for her that were usually tightly sealed shut. Morality wasn't something near or dear to her heart, guilt didn't crush her with its never ending weight, taking advantage of a person in need was simply business. Nothing personal (unless it involved Fausto, then it was always very personal). In fact, the Forger quite liked Tasya as an associate. She was one of the best in the business, which had earned her the respect of many dreamsharers across the globe, Ziva included. Which was exactly why to be owed a favor by Tasya Kuznetsova was a canary in the cats mouth.

Giddier than she likely should've been, Ziva prepared for the mission briefing in a state of money induced mania. Dollar signs were her love language, the one hard truth she'd been raised on was that her worth was in how much money she brought home to her father. Even now, countries away, he would praise her when he learned of a job well done, her name whispered like a curse in the seediest of hellholes and back alleyways. From a poor, scrappy little thief to a world renowned dreamsharer, Ziva had done well for herself by capitalizing on the misery of others.

Whatever mess Tasya had gotten herself into, no matter how poor their odds or desperate the situation, Ziva would thrash and claw and climb her way to a successful mission. Desperation was a cruel mistress that the forger had both fucked and been fucked over by, it had taught her how to repress her own emotions and hide behind a facade, to be anyone but herself. If this whole dreamsharing thing didn't work out, she could make a killing in Las Vegas.

With no one at home and no stability to hold down, Ziva didn't need to prepare much for this contextless mission. She could never return to this townhome again, a ghost without a tomb, and no one would notice except the stray cats that frequented her yard for food. A suitcase had been her only home since she was born, never in one place for too long, no roots to ensnare her. There was nothing of sentimental value to her besides her talisman, always tucked tightly at the bottom of her go bag. Unattachment was freedom, or so she told herself.

The morning of felt akin to waking up on one's birthday, knowing that there was a shiny present waiting for you, though you'd have to be patient until the time arrived. London was a dreary city, too much rain and not enough seasoned food for her liking. To pass the time, the former art thief visited the nearby museums, gauging what could be worth stealing and what was likely a fake. Grifting was a delicate art form, and if it were respected as such Ziva would be hung in the Louvre beside the Mona Lisa.

Greedy hands riffled through passing pockets, a surgeon removing vital organs with exact precision so as not to make a mess. Slipping into the crowd and dancing past security guards and cameras alike, thieving was an intense tango that Ziva could do with eyes shut. Abandoning her former work for dreamsharing had been like hitting the jackpot for the Forger, but that didn't mean she didn't enjoy a good grift with her own face every now and again.

The sun had set long before Ziva finished her meal off with a bottle of merlot, sorting through her newest prizes under the table to decide what was worth keeping and what would earn her a nice price on the market. According to one of the five new watches she'd fastened around her wrist, if she didn't hurry, she would be late to the mission brief, though the time of others wasn't generally something she respected. One of the cards she'd swiped on the street earlier paid for her meal, and then she was on her way to the designated meetup, layers of freshly pickpocketed necklaces dripping from her neck.

~~~~

As if the universe decided to have a little laugh, Ziva found herself approaching the warehouse at the same time as perhaps the worst possible person to be assigned to this mission. Fausto, that bastard. Only years of painstakingly strict muscle training kept her mouth from pulling into a snear, the edge of her lips curving into a haughty smirk instead. Quickening her steps, Ziva secured her spot to the door first, slipping past it before promptly slamming it onto the Pragmatist's foot.

"Hello, darlings." Fashionably late and decked out with her latest bounty, Ziva arrived with a shit-eating grin upon her red stained lips. No falter, no hesitation, not even a flicker changes her features, mask perfectly in place as she spots her competition, her prey. Metal clinks like golden rain against her tawny skin as she walks, arms spread wide to wrap Tasya in a hug much more familiar than they actually are. Warm lips meet cold cheeks as Ziva greets the architect with two overly familiar kisses, sliding a silver plated bracelet onto her wrist as she does.

"A little gift, for you." She winks, before whirling on the two men unfortunate enough to garner her full attention. Scarlet lips meet two pairs of cheeks and then she's assessing them, eyebrow quirked ever-so-slightly.

"Matching....how...adorable." She coos to Yanan and Sasha, the diamond ring she's just slipped onto Sasha's pinky finger serving to break up the horridness of it all. Normally, Ziva is not one to go around handing her earnings out, but Tasya is about to deposit a mighty fine check into her account and she owes Sasha for all the groceries she's been sneaking into his house and taking for herself.

"What a fine little crew you've gathered here, Tasya." Draping herself against the nearest chair like a haphazardly thrown silk scarf, Ziva assesses everyone from the corner of her eyes, making note of who she knows and who she does not. Whatever Tasya had gotten herself into, it must've been serious to warrant a crew this large. It was a good thing Ziva quite enjoyed a challenge.

coded by natasha.
 



soren.





































  • mood



    dinner with friends.
















A few days ago, when Soren first saw the names on Tasya’s list, they thought – idly, under everything else –
I’ve heard a few of these before.


Now they drink small mouthfuls of half-warm coffee, standing back behind the mindless gabber, and pick some of them out. A word they're still getting used to – coworkers.

Fausto Nobrega. Tasya said something about him being an “old fox”. And when Soren looks at him it’s like, yeah. An old fox. Having slowly fattened from all the promises he’s eaten. Being a man of his repute, in this line of work, there must have been so many. That’s one.

Two. Oliver Brazzos. Tasya actually had a photograph of him (surveillance – hotel lobby – Hawaiian shirt) lying out on her kitchen table. As much a sneak as a salesman but very, very well-regarded, they’d heard. A real professional. Like an island of virtue and chipper good manners in the middle of all these other men, their ugly unprivate struggles, and he sounds so familiar, too, Brazzos, like someone they might have run into when they were younger. They don’t really know how to feel about that.

A few are easy enough for them to throw their best ideas at. Sasha Romanov, four. Fredrik Nordkvist, six. And on.

And with this new woman, loud, brandishing kisses like the worst sort of weapon, that’s eleven. Eleven dreamers. Eleven if not unkempt, stuck, shuffling tired, then eyeing the others with uncertainty. Uncertainty being where they live. Like the stories they are. All the stories around them now, it’s like Soren's found the historical centre of this industry. The hall of monuments.

Though what they were for – harder to say. Monuments to wrongheadedness, to the worth of a dollar, to bad destiny? To a life unsustainable? To a life maybe too sustainable for all the good it brought people?

Faces awake and too bad for them. Did it do that to everybody? Age them? Soren puts their hand on the back of their neck, to try and warm it.

And then Tasya at the fore of it all, of course, the governor-witch, sitting on her throne dressed in sandpaper, crown toppled halfway off her head. In the time since she’d called on them, invited them to their queendom to work alongside the dreaming famous, they hadn’t seen her once escape a state of restlessness, obsession. Mind moving towards refinement, empowerment, always. Some part of her physiology always fidgeting with it. A knee and a leg, or a hand inside her coat pocket. A lot of pills and cigarettes and little dizzy spells that maybe she thinks they haven’t noticed. Or else laid out, sedated, straighter-haired and afraid.

Not long from now, Soren thinks, eleven will become twelve. And then they will all sit down, and Tasya will talk shop, say things to the group that Soren probably doesn’t know yet. Top secrets. Hidden out of convenience. Soren doesn’t hold it against her. They doubt Tasya would have ever asked them here if she thought they would.

Then suddenly there’s this icy, implicating edge to the air around them. Soren turns. The warehouse door is closing but there’s no one in front of it.

Soren has been too awake too long for them to want to really think much about anything. A minute goes by and the urge to do it is gone. They touch their head, their eyebrow. Another cup of coffee. What if twelve never shows up? Four million dollars. How many jobs would they have to work, to make the difference?

Soren’s not worrying. Or confused. Just impatient and playing little number games in their head. Confused is maybe fourth on the list of things they could be right now. If they wanted to be.

Now there’s a smell.

It’s heavy. It rules over all the other scents, the coffee, the sprays that the men use. Soren could gag. What is that?

Menthol?

Suddenly, body heat.

So close, right there, and a voice:

“Student.”

































hyperlips



com truise










♡coded by uxie♡
 
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del.
































Soren is not the kind of person to jump away from the new. But now there’s a woman right next to them where there hadn’t just been. Tall, blonde, like she could have been born in the snow, with wild raven eyes sort of dark and taxidermied under these warehouse lights.

She’s smiling in a way that makes them feel just a little bit dirty, boring, ashamed.

They have no idea what to say, what not to, how to treat this. Is this, like, a situation? “What?”

“You’re the student. Ha.”
And the ha is like a breath.
“It makes sense. She couldn’t help it. Too tempting.”


They don’t say it like a question: “What are you talking about.”

She quirks her mouth like she’s the devil himself.
“You’re smart. She must really need help this time if she’s really asking for it. Not just friends she can have sex with.”


Soren throws their eyes across the room at Tasya, like: Are you serious? Who is this?

And Del follows those eyes, stepping forward, and is taken aback, but not really, by how the elder architect looks.
“Oh no! Someone killed Tasya! Who will pay out our four million euro now?”
And she puffs on her e-cig, somehow it’s athletic when she does it, and she steps forward more. Into the light proper. So everyone can see her equally.

She basks a little in the effect her presence has on them. They keep their distance. Form aisles without really knowing it. She’s dangerous and a bit political, a question, and she likes it that way.

“Animals in the jungle. Oh wow.”
It’s like all the other sound in the warehouse is gone. All the handshakes and chairs pulling out, pushing in.
“Some twits and crumbled cookies for sure. Are you desperate? Tasya? Wow.”
And it’s ear to ear with her. If you’d never seen her before, you might think this was the best day of her life. She spots Fausto as her eyes travel across her audience and she winks at him, bares the root of a tooth and her tongue.
Nice to see you, baby man.


And then, sitting not far from where he’s standing, is someone Del has never met, or seen before, but knows by sight alone. She knows who the other woman is instantly. If there were any comparison, if she were just bad or average at the things she does, she might call this other woman her rival. But she’s the best, so she doesn’t.

She half-points at the other forger.
“Really? Okay.”
Dismisses her with the effort of a few dancing fingers.

Good. It’s just silly now. It’s business as usual. The song she sings to herself.
“This will be such old fun.”
She has the idea to remove the baldy's hat from his head as she takes the chair next to him.
“So exciting. Naked soul. Lubing up to battle it out. Real as it gets, yeah? You’ve got something good, yeah? Okay. Go. Start.”


































has ended



thom yorke










♡coded by uxie♡
 
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the nurse.





jordan auclair.



































rabbit heart
















location

the warehouse, london.






outfit

a layered, unassuming ensemble that blends into the dreary skies of london.






interactions

dodging faust, ignoring chelsea and infatuation for del.
















Her shoulders didn’t slump inwards as much as she entered the warehouse; a once pitiful attempt to hide from the guilt that weighted heavily on her. Unpacking one box at a time had done that, leaving her walking straighter—more confident. For years she had left the room that occupied her mind in tightly-sealed boxes. It was Dr Cho who helped her unpack the first box while she waited with bated breath for the caricatures of those who haunted her to unfold themselves from their confines—limb by limb. She thought they would descend on her. Ravishing her. Yet, they didn’t. They stood there. Dr Cho would have her talk to them.

She sat in the brick-stoned, neat Brooklyn office of Dr Cho—clinical psychologist with a specialised interest in trauma. He had a small stature with a gentle voice; his leather sofa almost consuming him.

“I need you to envision them in that chair.” Cho’s eyes lingered on the empty sofa in front of her. On the sofa was merely a photo, or rather a sheet of paper with a pixelated picture of a smiling woman. Jordan had found it online, what appeared to be a profile picture from some social media site. It wasn’t like she knew her personally. All she had was a name. Jordan had all their names written down—no. More than that. She had them memorised.

Jordan nodded gingerly, following along with Dr Cho’s instructions, she began to describe her in detail:

“I only saw that smile once. That well rehearsed smile. She wore a black dress. Frankly, she was stunning. I remember her hair—“ Jordan could see her. The sheet of paper was replaced by the woman, her platinum hair carefully brushed to the side and cascading down her slender shoulder. We destroyed you. I tried to fix you but I failed.

“When you are ready you tell her what you told me. Everything Jordan—tell her everything.” Dr Cho’s voice became distant, her eyes unable to leave the sweeping, mascaraed eyelashes of the woman in front of her.

Before Jordan could speak, Dr Cho interjected—reading her thoughts as usual.

“You must say her name.”

Jordan tried but her mouth just gaped open as silence seeped out. It would be real once she spoke her name. It would make all the horrible things they did to her real.

Jordan couldn’t do it.

“What’s her name, Jordan?”

Jordan’s eyes welled up. She shook her head like a scolded child.

“I can’t—I can’t do it.” Jordan wanted to look at Cho but it felt as though the woman’s manicured fingers had dug into her chin—making her look at her. At what she did.

“Jordan. Focus—you’ve prepared for this.” Jordan couldn’t tell if that was Cho’s voice or her own.

“Ma…” Jordan’s bottom lip trembled, tears already spilling down her cheeks. The woman’s glare was frozen—her eyes mirroring the expression in the picture.

The smile was gone.

“Ma—Maria. Maria. Maria.” The forbidden name flowed from her mouth. It was endless. The tears didn’t stop. It felt so good to cry. The reinforced dam behind her eyes was finally broken after all these years.

For the next thirty minutes she told Maria everything through her sobbing.

Then she looked up to find Maria was gone. Free from the confines of Jordan’s brain. All that remained was the picture—her expression seemed more at ease? More at peace.

​

Jordan could only give this man—Fausto, a tight-lipped smile. Shades in this grim weather? Jordan presumed it was best she didn’t see where his eyes were gawking when he made his awful pick-up line.

Jordan slinked further into the warehouse; a wounded animal that wanted to avoid the attention of her predators had left her wanting to hide.

Jordan took refuge in one corner of the warehouse. Here no one could approach her from behind. It was a habit that had developed after she left the “team”. Her employers assured her she would be left alone but Jordan didn’t believe them. It wouldn’t be the first time they lied to her. Their lies are why I’m like this.

Some days she swore she could see people in cars. Watching her. Making sure she remained silent. Or maybe the lack of sleep was making her paranoid?

Jordan did what she liked best—people watching. When she got home from the hospital, the sun would be rising over the old Brooklyn buildings. Jordan would perch herself on the fire escape of her apartment. Sometimes a smoke in hand—watching people go about their days.

It appeared that most of the dreamsharers knew each others. Pleasantries blew the dust and cobwebs off their last interactions for some. Others appeared closer—like old friends who had worked together in the past and stayed in contact.

For Jordan she was an outsider. No—more than that—an outlier. One that had no past interactions with Tasya. All she knew was Tasya was something of a legend within the dream sharing hemisphere. Some people on her team would reference her. That was how she knew the letter was legitimate. Jordan didn’t question how Tasya knew of her but wasn’t oblivious to the unique abilities that she possessed. Jordan had been offered other positions from other mysterious organisations after she left. The letters scrunched, doused in lighter fluid and burnt in a metal bin.

By extension everyone in this room was alien to her. Jordan observed their conversations, methodically matching names to faces. She would repeat each of their names in her head a total of thirty-three times. They began to feel familiar in her mind.

Only one stood out as someone Jordan knew. She wished she could sink further into the corner, until she was invisible to her.

Chelsea. Not officially part of her “team” for long but enough to remember the chemist’s face. Heat seared her cheeks. What if she told them who you were? What you did.

Jordan thankfully had a welcome distraction come through the doors in the shape of a tall, blonde woman who immediately caught Jordan’s interest. The way she spoke; commanding the room without even asking for it. Dethroning what appeared to be a straight-edged, military man—Jordan couldn’t help but stare at her. The warehouse lights almost creating a spotlight on her. Jordan couldn’t put her finger on it. Was it the fearlessness she displayed that was unparalleled or maybe it was the fact Jordan could see through it. All Jordan did know was that she was a mere apprentice at hiding it in comparison to this woman.

For now, Jordan would stay in the shadows. Allow the others to shine and bask in their reunions. Jordan needed to prepare herself for what was to come.

For good measure, Jordan pressed an earphone into her ear—the sweet sounds of Chopin occupying her mind.










 
In the minutes that followed since he sat down several additional members of the team had manifested themselves.

Feeling quite content where he sat, Fred silently watched and observed the growing number of people. When Brazzos appeared Fred was happily surprised, with the man being the only one besides Tasya herself that he either knew of or had worked with.

After greeting the man with a wave Fred's attention shifted to another man whom radiated either massive confidence or a large sense of insecurity based on his overly pushy and flirty behaviour.

Being the swede he was Fred couldn't help but frown slightly as such behaviour was usually taboo back home.

Nonetheless he offered the man a curt nod, slight frown included. He did, after all, remind Fred of some of the people he'd served with back in the day, though the comparisons might be fewer or more depending on how the man was when he wasn't actively flirting with everyone around him.

Fred then watched another lady enter with a confidence that wholeheartily matched that of his previous observee. Her looks did little to distract Fred as her manners and very gait betrayed her concealed lethality.

Against his better judgment he turned towards her and offered yet another curt nod. "I'm Fred, ni-"

“So exciting. Naked soul. Lubing up to battle it out. Real as it gets, yeah? You’ve got something good, yeah? Okay. Go. Start.”
Click to expand...

Slowly turning towards his new chair-neighbor, Fred almost looked like a statue that had come alive. A single eyebrow raised itself as Fred tilted his head slightly.

"I'm sorry?" He half-asked, half-wondered as the woman's sudden approach caught him off guard.

"Have we worked together before?" He asked, already knowing the answer but opting to appear more dumbfounded than he actually was.
 
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scroll








THE ARCHITECT.



TASYA.













mood

Apprehensive with finality.











outfit

Beige trenchcoat, black turtleneck and slacks.











location

A warehouse somewhere in London.











interactions

Everyone.
















There were a steady flow of arrivals now. The ticking was relentless, beating a rhythm into her skull from the inside. A constant beat that she was sure nobody else heard, the irregular beats of her heart against the doomsday clock running in her brain. The desire for the slow inhale of nicotine, the burn of liquor, for something stronger had saliva pooling in her mouth at the thought, tongue sucking at the back of her teeth for the remnants of her last smoke.

It had been a weird, delicate dance. Soren never asked, Tasya never told. She assured herself she was a professional - she did not have a problem, even if the only thought that gave her respite was the bar cart in her master suite bedroom. Problems were for those who could not solve them. Tasya had yet to find a problem she could not solve, of course. (Of course, of course, of course she would not acknowledge this situation as a problem, this was a puzzle to solve, a zoetrope of moving parts to put together and try to form a proper picture.)

Perhaps the onslaught of the past was a form of self punishment, surprising nobody, not even herself. This could be a biblical reckoning through any other lens - a worst case scenario, a punishment doled out Old Testament style, pride and hubris leading them into the recesses of a troubled mind. The worst example of what dreamsharing could do to them, a room bursting to the brim with divinity, a warehouse of demigods walking the line of reality and dreams and coming back alive each time.

Tasya did not believe in God for a long, long time. The idea was amorphous in her brain, different manifestations painting themselves into different scenarios - a pulsing white light in a pulpit when she did not close her eyes to pray as a child, a man in the sky and in her dreams when she betrayed the very few people to take up significance in her life, the peering eyes of the Virgin Mary when she learned the curves of other people's spines. Now, if He was real, she was sure he'd have his bone to pick with her.

Though her eclectic selection of team could also point to a sense of paranoia as well, a nag that had begun to haunt her in the past months. Trust wasn't a double edged sword, trust was the bloodletting of that very sword embedded in her gut, iron spilling iron.

Tasya blinked hard, mental filing cabinets sorted photocopy by photocopy. Flickers of faces, annexed into proper categories, a plan that would make up a rather horrifyingly detailed corkboard if she brought it into reality. (And there were versions, minefields of papers and maps, small scale architectural level plans, but nothing was painting the picture she hungered to see, the complete idea of what they would embark upon. It was impossible to conjure it up herself, yet she persisted.) Her thoughts were nearly pure images, Xerox-style scans of dossiers and moments from missions past. There were safe picks, reliable, professional - Soren, above all of course, and then Fredrik, Jordan, Oliver, probably Cinnia, probably Sasha. 'I'm here when you need me.' Thank god he was, at the very least, dependable.

(Oliver’s arrival was perhaps the biggest relief of all. She was pained to admit it - he did excellent work, a resume of jobs she had only dreamed of. The cost of the courier was well worth it.)

It was questionable to put Chelsea in such a category. A lack of morals was needed for this mission, a lack that was also her own lack, and yet a lack that gave her pause. She had no room to judge, and yet-

Tasya walked the few paces over to her slowly, a forced casualness set in her spine and a smooth, black metal lighter at the ready. Anxiety echoed through the flurried motions of a cigarette dropped from Chelsea’s own lips, painstakingly looking for matches. Her eyes followed Chelsea’s line of sight from behind black lenses, faint blonde eyebrows raised in muted surprise. The surprise was unneeded - she had known he would come, and she did not have the time to unpack the flicker of images that followed. Blood on marble floors, bodies in backseats, what else was new? She was firm in her choice that Fausto knew more about Timofey than the rest of them, likely. None had taken hit after hit from her brother, exchanged blows and bullets and God knows what else. It was justification enough, though regret rang through the purse of her lips.
“God, must you always announce your arrivals?”
Was all the blonde retorted.

She took the offer from Chelsea; in one smooth motion, the cigarette was placed and lit, smoke unfurling from her nostrils like an odd pale dragon as she returned back to her seat to find Soren placing files upon her spot.

The shared look says enough, Tasya only responds with the minute tilt of the head, eyes closed to nod. Would it be a cliche to say Soren reminded her of herself when she was younger? The mere thought made the smoke rolling over her tongue ever more acrid. In reality, the pragmatism of Soren’s movements, the ways in which they understood and observed with owl eyes was a feat rarely seen nowadays. Soren never pushed. For now, it was appreciated.

Suddenly, an invasion of personal space, and Tasya tilted her head just in time before her cigarette was crushed against the expensive cashmere adorning Ziva’s shoulders. A puff of smoke exhaled in surprise, an exchange between two friends. Ziva was a woman who loved a challenge, and for Tasya could be a breath of fresh air. Painted lips greeted her with a quick kiss on both cheeks, and Tasya’s brain barely caught up with her body to return the greeting. The smell of too-ripe cherries, gourmand perfume, and cold silver flooded her nose before she realized the gift Ziva had slid onto her wrist.
“Always a pleasure, no gifts ever necessary.”
She responded in earnest, lashes fluttering as she examined her wrist, delicate metal and diamonds glinting under the fluorescents. Obviously stolen, as it didn’t entirely suit Ziva’s tastes, but she didn’t take it off.

The ticking, the counting, it never ceased. Dark eyes glanced skittishly behind her glasses, counting repeatedly. And, well.

Quelle surprise.

The scattered handfuls of chatter quiet down as their final piece of the puzzle comes to light. That shark’s grin, it takes all of the simmering poise Tasya has to not reflect the grin back at her. Cheeks pulled, teeth bared, an action she remembers mirroring once upon a-

(
”Would you believe me if I told you what I do for a living?”
Somewhere, in Europe. The architect leans back, head tilted to look at the other blonde from a completely new angle, as if Del were walking on walls, floating with no weight.

The woman grinned back at her, almost mocking.
“No. Am I supposed to?”
)

”Not dead quite yet,”
she surmised, happy to take another drag as Del stalked alongside the table, mouth open as if tasting for blood in the air. Soren’s pointed glance of alarm was only responded to with a small, placating smile. More of a grimace than anything, as none of the digs thrown at her had dug deep quite yet. There was an obvious distaste to her, to the way she knew everyone was seeing her as a wreck, when once she had been a pristine standard. But alas, duty called, and the inevitable had arrived.

It was time to begin. Tasya stood at the head of the grand table as the last of her cigarette rose in plumes around her head, clouds struck through by harsh fluorescent beams, smoke and mirrors hanging around her head. The filter was snubbed out into her empty coffee mug. Tasya was the kind of talker that rarely raised her voice - forced poise, even tempered, husky from years of smoking. To hear her, one needed to lean in and listen. She cleared her throat, the noise echoing throughout the gutted interior of the warehouse to quell any small talk that had cropped up between colleagues. The reckoning was here.

“Thank you all for arriving on such short notice. I unfortunately do not have the luxury of time on my side, so please pardon our dust.”
She spoke, circling the table like a bird of prey as she handed out a folder to each individual.
"As you saw in my letter, I am humbly requesting your help for an extraction job. You will each be paid a handsome sum of four million dollars if the mission is successful. Please turn your attention to the screen before opening your files."


She finished her rounds before standing before the head of the table once more. From a drawer underneath, the woman retrieved a large tablet. Taps filled the quiet air before live video footage flickered to the screen, and Tasya held it up in full view for each participant to witness.

The live feed was a clear view of Timofey Kuznetsov in a concrete box. He was strapped to the very same chair as she had seen him only that morning. All blond hair and carrion lean, dark eyes that reflected everything back. It was no question that the man before them was Tasya’s kin, her own twin, sedated and asleep in an observational room of a laboratory. Her gaze did not waver.

“Ten days ago during a dreamshare operation, Timofey Kuznetsov was of sound mind and sound body, working as a point-man for a typical extraction gig. The job was unremarkable in many ways, but its outcome is of no use to us. What matters is that my brother never woke up.”
She began to explain, neck muscles tense as she spoke around the grief lodged in her throat.
“He never woke up, and suffered a grand mal seizure. We’ve all seen or heard of somnacin overdoses, he was treated accordingly. But after two days of uncharacteristic and erratic behavior, the following occurred.”


Thin fingers swiped from the live feed to a recorded video, the time stamp reading only seven days ago. It was the same laboratory, with Tasya perched in a chair and her brother in that very armchair that would eventually become his prison. To the left of the frame was their client, and to the right sat Timofey.

-

The click of her pen echoed in the concrete box. An attempt at an investigation, to dig fingers into open wounds and pry. There was a sinking feeling, the morbidity of curiosity, something in dreamsharing she had never quite seen before. It would have been fascinating, had it not worn the face of her brother. The prodding was necessary, she needed to know how deep the roots had been planted.

“What is your name?”
Tasya asked, face aloof behind a clipboard and sunglasses.

“Which one?”
The man answered her question with his own.
“Andrei Ivanov? Timur Baladin? I have several.”


Tasya straightened her glasses, stiff.
“Your birth name, then.”


The man smiled now, a palpable tension in the room. Tasya shifted in her seat, uncomfortable in the silence, unsure if she was predator or prey.

“Timofey Kuznetsov,”
he answered, moving his head in an odd staccato of a nod.
“What happened to me?”
An attempt at innocence? The way in which he tilted his head (a mirror of her own behavior, observed once) made her suddenly nauseous.

The paper rustled as cursive Russian spanned across the page.
“Could you tell me about the last job you worked? With the Markovs? We can start from there.”


“I think… you know already.”


“And why do you think that?”


“From the moment you walked in, I could tell you wouldn’t believe me. You’re a person that has to know things.”


Tasya’s lips pressed into a thin line.
“Well, what else do you know about me?”


The brother shifted in his seat, subtly pulling at restraints. A caged animal.
“I read your name, somewhere. Pulling files. You’re Ti-”
a cut in footage, audio static before the image returned,
“Tasya, the sister. My sister. What kind of fucking sister locks her brother in a box?”


“It is for your safety, I only want to make sure-”
Tasya began, ready to abort mission. This was not going the way she expected, this was- murderous tension, a bear trap ready to snap. The calm facade his doppelganger wore was beginning to crack, face coloring into a shade of red anger, brow twitching with impatience. Before Tasya could resume her line of questioning, the small medical table between them was thrown aside in a rage, and the body of Timofey lunged at his sister in a mad scramble.

-

The video was cut short before it displayed the murder attempt. Tasya laid the tablet down flat to instead reach up to the knit fabric of the black turtleneck beneath her jacket, pulling it down to show splotches of bruised yellows and greens.

“He tried to kill me. Twice, actually.”
She explained, almost too nonchalant.
“I believe due to the dreamsharing job he did, multiple shades have somehow dislodged themselves from my brother’s psyche, and one of them has seized control of his body. Whatever’s inside him right now, it is not him. Believe me, I checked. I’ve dropped into his head on multiple occasions, I’ve witnessed them firsthand. I believe he is inside somewhere, but a job of this magnitude means I need the best dreamers money can buy.”


Tasya readjusted her turtleneck as she spoke, discomfort evident underneath false appearances.

“You can imagine how delicate of a situation this must be, but I am requesting your skills and your services. A job of this size demands that we drop at least two, if not three levels into Timofey’s psyche. He’s in there, and I’m proposing we extract him in order to reverse the levels of dreams and drop the primary shade, or hopefully all of his shades, into Limbo.”


She waved a hand at their files now, and opened her own copy.
“In each of your files I have included a thorough list of information for you to study. Timofey’s criminal file, a brief timeline of his life, as well as detailed plans on how exactly we will approach this. I’m proposing we use level one as our homebase due to its stability and I’ve quadruple-checked – it’s shade free. His shades are only seen as you delve deeper into level two. The shades have become a mental security, if you will, building their own fortress in an attempt to keep Timofey inside.”


Tasya leaned against the table now with both hands splayed wide, desperation lining her silhouette.
“I’ve already drafted the layout of each level. We’ll be splitting into two primary teams, I must emphasize perhaps the greatest danger of this mission. Limbo is a very real possibility here. A simple sleep will not give us enough time to dive so deep, we will all be sedated and I am not exaggerating when I say – he may be my brother, but he is a dangerous career criminal with more bodies than real life connections. His shades are extremely violent, defensive, and are determined to keep control of his body. His psyche is fractured, and we will need to become acquainted with a basic understanding of who he is and what makes him tick in order to reach him.”


The bruises on her throat throbbed as she spoke, and Tasya stood up straight to cross her arms and drag a hand over her tired brow.

“If anybody wants to back out, now is the time to do so.”
She said with weight, before continuing.

“I have no time to spare, this operation is planned for the weekend, two days exactly depending on how quickly we are able to organize. It will be conducted in my personal laboratory, to ensure privacy, of course. For those traveling abroad, I am happy to offer accommodations in my own home and have more than enough room to house each of you individually. If you’d prefer local comforts, I will pay for your hotels.

Tomorrow at 9 A.M., we will reconvene at my house and you may all have a firsthand look at Timofey. Poke him, prod him, question him, anything you need to know beforehand, or perhaps to confirm the situation with your own eyes, whatever you want. But the sooner we can begin, the better. Are there any questions?”




♡coded by uxie♡
 



sasha.





































  • mood



    TWO upside down smiley emojis
















Sasha put most of his focus on Tasya, but he kept an eye on Oliver as the older man entered. They'd never worked together before, but by reputation alone, Oliver was the best in the business. Sasha wondered if he'd ever worked with a Tether before. They were rare, as far as Sasha could tell. He could count the others he'd met on one hand and have fingers left over. Some Extractors got weird about working with Tethers. Like his presence was an indictment against their skill instead of a safety line to make sure nobody fell off the metaphorical mountain of a dream.

But then Ziva blew in like a hurricane of insults and dramatic kisses, and there was no room to think about anyone else.
"Next time we'll text first to make sure we don't match,"
Sasha assured Ziva drily. He was glad to see her, though he was sure he was one of the few who did. She was like a cranky feral cat who came and went as she pleased, provided the feral cat could pick locks and had a taste for sour cream potato chips and caviar. He drew no attention to the ring she'd slipped on his hand, instead pocketing it as he spoke. He knew she'd stolen it. He also felt rather charmed that she'd decided to give it to him. It was like the stray cat had left a mouse on his doorstep.

So many of the arrivals were people Sasha didn't know--he assumed Tasya was pulling the best she'd ever worked with together, for this team. For whatever was so important that she was offering him four million American dollars a person. And unfortunately one of the other people he did know was the one he wanted to see least. He groaned, loudly, when Fausto arrived with all his bright bravado, slinging insults like he couldn't breath without making a quip. It reminded Sasha of a particular painting of a jester teasing several furious dogs from a high wall. And he knew better than to take the bait, but, he wanted to so badly.

Still thinking with your dick, since God didn't see fit to give you a brain? he wanted to ask. The worst part was that Fausto was good, but he was still like that. Somewhere under that used car salesman sleaze might have been an interesting person, but Sasha couldn't handle being hit on long enough to find out. He didn't handle being flirted with at the best of times well anyway, but knowing that Fausto just prided himself on fucking his way through everyone who had so much as looked at a PASIV device certainly soured any pleasant feelings Sasha might have been able to muster about the whole thing.

He still found the idea of a pragmatist rather funny. His old squad was all soldiers, after all. Any one of them was expected to be able to hold their own in a fight. But Sasha supposed you couldn't expect these things of civilians. He sipped his tea and surveyed the now quite large team as the final member entered, pale as a cadaver. She commanded attention in much the same way Ziva and Fausto had, though without the veneer of humor to soften their equally lethal intent. It was like meeting a pair of hunting dogs and then finding a tiger behind them. Sasha made sure not to tense. He was sure that, like a tiger, that pale woman could smell fear.

Sasha smirked into his tea as she stole Fredrik's hat from his head.

And then Tasya stood up. She spoke like she always did, like Clint Eastwood, knowing that she never had to raise her voice to command the floor. Sasha listened with a growing sense of dread and horror.

He felt stupid as hell, because he knew Timofey. But it was only seeing him next to Tasya on screen that Sasha recognized them as siblings. He understood now how people must have felt when they realized he and Felix were brothers. Oh, god, there's two of them.

"Timosha is my friend,"
he said into the silence following Tasya's speech. He looked up at her. No wonder she looked like she hadn't slept in a week. He'd be half insane if this was happening to his brother.
"We'll bring him home."


































Wolves



Sam Tinnesz










♡coded by uxie♡
 









scroll








THE CHEMIST.



YANAN.













mood

in the mood for an art exhibition.











outfit

blue, red, white tracksuit, boots.











location

Warehouse, splendid grimy London.











interactions

Everyone (Tasya, Fausto, Del).
















A half-eaten head sits on his body and he feels it turn, eyes just follow the motion in a robotic fashion. Yanan wears black gloves up to his wrists and justifies it with the february frost but he isn’t cold, not really, it is rather the fear of fucked limbs and witnesses of such ugly crime. Scratch that, he is not admitting to anything, he is not guilty of anything.

Fausto makes his movie star entrance (he really thinks of him as an adult film star who arrives with his spotty overall (spotty from what??) and leans against the door frame and says:

"Good afternoon, I’m the flusher."

–"And what are you doing here?"

"I’m here to do the dirty work."

–"And where are your tools?"

"I only brought my yardstick with me."

–"That confuses me a bit…"

"Don’t worry. I am the best in my field."

He sees the hairy moustache on Fausto that gives the pseudo-plumber-him a certain hard-working yet perverse sentiment.)

He laughs, hyena-like. He does it for real and the echoes in the warehouse are sound effects in the videogame: YOU DIE in red drippy font on the pixelated screen. Hollow eyes in the walls, dozens Stuart Pots, stare and Yanan snaps out of it. He is reminded that he hates crowds in bright lights and fidgets with the zipper of the tracksuit.
Before he can start to feel insecure about his clothes and the snarky comment of the adult film star voice (extra lewd), a feral woman (they are always his doom, in each stage of life…across universes?) enters that he also knows: Ziva. He receives a kiss that he doesn’t want but she excels at what she wants to achieve: turning heads. On second thought, he is lucky: Yanan has caught more lethal ammunition from her snide lips in his hands.

Yanan steps out of his aisle next to his ugly twin, walks in the line of the basking blonde maniac with deep set eyes he can avoid for now (scorching, reminding him of The Reluctant Bride, 1866 by Auguste Toulmouche). Her improv piece though, is something he appreciates not being part of for now, for nervousness is plastered on his face, translated through wrinkles on the forehead. Eventually, that much is certain, he will catch a glimpse of her terror spreading words drilling his many skulls like that poor fucker mr. clean, there, on a crusty uncomfortable elementary school chair.

(“I’m sorry?”
“Have we worked together before?”)

He can see the mushroom cloud from over here, and everyone in the warehouse must ask themselves the same question: when is it my turn?

Shudders sizzle on his ill-thin spine. The chemist uses his time of cover to flee from the mental crossfire of the triad. He passes people, all kinds, and stops at the coffee table. It is not the selection he is used to, and on a table provided by Tasya, he is missing some lines of white and credit cards, so a sigh forms a big cloud over his head titled ‘. . .’ and he pours lukewarm brown stuff in a plastic cup.

The chair that he chooses creaks and Yanan feels stale as he sits…like an old crisp. But it is known that all of their awkward and half-pretentious half-serious highschool-reunion welcomes cease to find any further importance when Tasya finally speaks.

The gathering forms a well-known painting at the table: plates and bread replaced by folders and tablets, oh it tickles his rotting knowledge of the despising arts to realise the perfect headcount and he says: "Twelve…"
Twelve apostles drape the table: The Last Supper, 2024 colorized, but if they were all here, then Jesus was the one crucified by rope and sedation of the mind. Suspiciously, he is looking for Judas among them and his eyes dart in obsessive craze on Tasya. He, too, has done horrible things to his dearest, but here's to hope that Tasya doesn’t make the same mistakes.

"...is a lot to keep organised. It would be very funny if those shades switched your brother with one of these specimens." He smiles for a second, because he doesn’t know how else to look.


♡coded by uxie♡
 



chelsea.
































There was a moment when Tasya leaned close to take one of the offered cigarettes that Chelsea thought she might be able to see past the sunglasses that donned her face, see the veins in the whites of her eyes and the smudges beneath them revealing the stress and lack of sleep (and drugs). The architect was a carefully assembled doll most days, but now, here, with the gaggle that had been assembled, there were cracks. Chelsea had never been one to bother with them— their realm of employ was one where if someone was acting as if their porcelain skin was real, she knew that they were due to explode at any given moment. The clown attached to Oliver continued to prattle on as if to make the point, making too much noise and revealing all his cards in the meantime. Chivalry is dead and subtly was slain next, she thought idly as Tasya turned away, pale paper hair sweeping her away to the head of the table where she would perch, pretending to be untouchable as she commanded them all to dance. Fragile yet untouchable, a symbol of the greatest moments in dreamsharing and the downfall that was coming for them all.

Before she could descend into her analysis of the architect any further, the lynchpin of her assessment of doom came true— in swanned yet another unfamiliar face, framed with straight-edge bangs that made her wonder if they had been done personally in a bathroom or professionally at an overpriced Persian salon somewhere. Before any sort of further opinion could be formulated on the whisp that was attempting to pass through the boisterous crowd carrying folders, the door opened again to permit in two more shapes.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, goosebumps emerging across her arms as her eyes widened at Ziva and Delphine, the distant quip that Fausto directed at the darker haired woman (
“Ziva, darling, it has been so long! And it shows, have you considered retinol?”
) lost in the static noise of panic.

Two forgers? was the new wonderment and panic— there was hardly ever only one in the jobs she worked, quick and dirty and fast. And yet there were two. Manners slipped from her fingers as she took one last deep breath on the cigarette in hand before immediately litting up a new one, drawing in a breath harsh enough to send her into a coughing fit for a moment.

“Not used to sucking?”
Fausto asked as he sauntered on by, draping himself in a seat in a similar fashion to Ziva, as if to mock her. Chelsea only sighed in response, shaking her head at him.

“Not all of us are interested in being empty whores,”
she remarked back to him flatly,
“some of us have accepted we’ll just be empty.”
She rolled her suitcase to a seat next to the pale forger, exhaling deeply before inhaling again, grimly accepting that her clothes would be reeking of smoke despite her attempts to remove the scent after her cousin had complained.

She turned to Delphine next to her and held out the box in an attempt at an apology for the fact that she was going to be a chimney for the meeting. Everyone seemed to find Delphine unnerving to some degree, meaning that Chelsea would be left alone if she was in the other woman’s proximity. She had spent a childhood being sneered and snarled at, scrambling for the little coarse pearls of praise from her mother and found the words that spilled from Delphine’s lips to be borderline nonsensical as a result. The forger was an animal, sure, but one that had been taken from the wild and shoved in the zoo, pacing endlessly at the glass wall in front of the crowds who wagged their tongues, hungry for the rose-tinted past that had been taken from them and to which they could never return.

Tasya pulled Chelsea’s attention back to the front as she spoke. At first, her eyes widened at the revelation that Tasya had a brother. However, that seemed to be the most tame revelation, and as the man who was named Timofey flickered across the screen, two more cigarettes were lit and smoked, perhaps a new record somewhere as the doom settled fully onto Chelsea’s chest. The fact that Tasya continued, as if there was more to say, as if she had not just showed them the yawning chasm of death itself and asked if they would plunge forth into it made a laugh bubble in her chest, though it caught in the lump in her throat. Whatever words were being spoken did not reach her as her thoughts raced and tripped and tangled in one another, the threat of limbo, the sight of the bruises on Tasya’s skin searing themselves into her mind. Her breath was shallow and slow as she calculated, as she thought about the figures in the room again— strangers and architects and pragmatists and tethers and forgers and a fellow chemist with a dead wife, too many bodies for one simple mission because the mission wasn’t simple, wouldn’t be easy, because it had claws and those claws were dripping with blood and that blood had been the brethren, the kin, and it had not mattered.

Others seemed to have gathered themselves or braced themselves or were simply more stupid and reckless than she was. Amongst them, Sasha spoke first, putting forth his support, like the good fucking dog he was, sitting at its master’s table and waiting for the signal to face the beasts outside. Then Yanan, offering some nonsensical aside that made no sense— why the fuck was he here? Chelsea was a wreck and a half when it came to human interaction, but at least she had had human interaction for the past few years, instead of being an Edward Rochester that looked like a Soundcloud rapper and had found a bottle of bleach to dump on his head instead of swallowing it all down with his misery.

Fausto was next, because of course he was;
“I’m half tempted to give whoever finally cracked that crazy bastard a drink. An impressive feat.”
He tilted his head, the lazy smile on his face growing sharper,
“Throw in a few more mill, and I’ll go into his head and put down some personalities.”
He sat up straighter and propped his elbows on the table now,
“Last time was fun. I’m willing to go for a round two.”


After Fausto spoke, the quiet screamed with the distant hum of the screen and the lights and the sounds of shuffling papers, the creak of the chair under her. Sweat was prickling along Chelsea’s forehead and she could feel it pooling in her underarms as well as she stared at the folder before her, the beat of her racing heart creating the walls that were closing in on her. Her

“No,”
Chelsea declared, ground out of gritted teeth. Her hands slammed and then slipped against the table with sweat, pausing in their shaking for just a moment as she shoved upwards and transfixed Sasha with a glare, another
“No,”
that was repeated at Yanan, and finally a third time to Fausto, who looked greatly amused (and she could see the shadow of her mother there, even in the smirk, could see the way the lines could be turned upside down and pushed aside to drip with venom at her lack of a spine, her inability to commit, the way she let every opportunity slip through her fingers, even the ones she could not have known). Finally, she turned back to Tasya, staring at her blankly for a moment, drawing in a shuddering breath, her shoulders rising with her chest as she stared at her own reflection in the sunglasses.

Despite how desperately she wanted to scream liar, Tasya was technically not— the omission of essentially everything in the first invite a blaring red sign more than anything else, a sign she had ignored. And now here she was, shaking like a newborn deer, as if she hadn’t reached into the minds of her coworkers and ripped from them their sanity, hadn’t dissolved their sanctity by peering into every dark crevice of their consciousness. She was willing to step foot into a shattered mind to try and piece it together, willing to pump anyone in the room full of somnicin and benzodiazepines and magnesium, willing to work with wolves and caged lions and snarling faces that wanted to tear her to shreds as much as she wanted to get out alive.

What was it that Cinnia had said, that they were here because of money? That they were all here for the money? That was not always true— Ziva pickpocketed her way through life, she was decently certain Oliver and Fausto had enough money to never need it again, and Delphine—

Well. Delphine was an empty vessel, just like Chelsea, the excuse of money available but boring, ultimately. The intrigue and adrenaline of plunging in and clawing victory out of the sides of sanity was more tantalizing than anything else. But it was this victory that needed to be tasted and when it was hidden behind the layers of a man who was probably (most likely, almost certainly, Tasya’s denial nearly palpable the more she thought,) trapped in the bowels of limbo, that would be no victory at all, only death and only the eternally scream of lost consciousness.

“No, I’m not fucking doing this shit,”
she declared, gathering her things now, swinging her backpack back over her shoulder and picking up her duffle bag with the other hand, letting her last cigarette fall to the ground, smoldering.
“You can all be suicidally stupid, but I will not be.”
She looked up at Tasya again, whisps of hair curling away from her face, jaw set stubbornly,
“I am glad to have seen you for the last time, Tasya.”


































cigarette daydreams



cage the elephant










♡coded by uxie♡
 
Last edited:







Oliver Brazzos



  • .



Hearing that Cinna's former leader was in decent health lifted Oliver's spirits just as easily as the appearance of the most polarizing pragmatist this side of the Atlantic turned his smile into a cheeky grin.

Fausto Nobrega. These two words were enough to make most any dreamsharer either shiver in revulsion, shake their head, or ask for a private meeting. He was the complete opposite of Fredrik Nordkvist, the other pragmatist who (very smartly) chose to observe the incoming crew mates. Were Oliver on a normal mission he would have sat in the back with Fredrik, but Fausto was not one to let people pass by untouched.

“Local greying otter seems to have washed up in London, eh? Shouldn’t you remain near your usual stomping grounds, you’ll strain yourself around the Europeans at your age, you know?”

"Hey, show some respect! I've been pulling jobs since you were in diapers," Oliver chided, poking Fausto in the chest, "see me later tonight and I'll show you how well I can keep up."

There seemed to be no end to the dramatic entrances, each one upstaging the next (save for a stone-faced sharer who darted to the back for coffee), until yet another familiar face sauntered over to the youngling.

Delphine Jonas, Del, the forger, the faceless, the fifth business. She towered now. Her presence enveloped the much younger one, like a shark circling its prey. This didn't feel like the forger he worked with a decade ago. There was a time when Del was new too, a nobody in the industry who climbed because she could be anybody. Now she was something else entirely. It stitched his brows as he watched her take her seat.

“So exciting. Naked soul. Lubing up to battle it out. Real as it gets, yeah?" Delphine jeered, "You’ve got something good, yeah? Okay. Go. Start.”

Surely a naked soul is better than whatever you've got goin' on eh? he wanted to say, but he was being commissioned not by Delphine, not the lamb, nor Fausto.

Of the people he mean to acknowledge, Tasya was the first on his list and somehow the only one he hadn't spoken to yet. The sleeplessness was evident on her face. On any other job he might have teased her for her lack of polish, but he didn't speak ill of the dead. She was a ghost of the architect who spun spires from her imagination;the image of the Tasmanian devil dragging him to the warehouse was replaced by a grieving woman begging for help.

It reminded him too much of his old self. After taking his seat (and his files), Oliver watched Tasya's presentation regarding the mental and physical state of her brother. The longer than a dreamsharer worked in the industry, the more likely they would be to accrue a shade so it wasn't shocking that Timofey had a rogue's gallery within his psyche. Had he been in Tasya's place he would have relieved Timofey of his point-man duties long ago, but unlike Tasya, he'd learned to give up all forms of emotional intimacy. It was sort of his thing.

Still, he'd never heard of them actually taking over their host. After Tasya finished laying out her plan, he could see doubt brew in one chemist's face while the other was full of mirth. It was a good balance, if not a bit uneven considering their crowd.

“No, I’m not fucking doing this shit. You can all be suicidally stupid, but I will not be.” An Asian woman announced. What was her name? Chelsea? Yes, the straight-laced government girl from several years ago. “I am glad to have seen you for the last time, Tasya.”

Oliver threw a look at Tasya, wondering whether she was actually prepared for rejection.

"Well well now, let's not be hasty. Now personally, I think this is a fool's errand, but it's not impossible. I've heard tales of an extractor who rescued someone from limbo ten years ago. He had a real good chemist with him too, able to make something that could put an elephant five layers under. Don't you want to chase that thrill?" He approached Chelsea with a keen eye. "You could have gotten a job anywhere, but you chose to be a dreamsharer for a reason. We all did."

"I won't stop you, but understand that you'll be leaving more than four million euros behind."

Maybe he could negotiate five if he could convince Chelsea to stay.





/* ------ credit -- do not remove ------ */

© weldherwings.
 

03
cinnia.
the nurse
warehouse, London
Feb 8th
here we (don't) go again
jacket
interactions

everyone. quite literally, everyone.
Tasya's voice was death knell and dinner bell, summoning all the hungry-eyed beasties she'd gathered to the table. The opening of the second act in this careful social dance.

Which seat to take was a calculation, questionable benefits weighed against acceptable drawbacks. She'd been long sick of working through these equations, but necessary math spared no sympathy for her personal grievances. So they considered their options.

The first likely pragmatist, the quiet one, seemed thus far rather—well, pragmatic. It would be a point in his favor, if he didn't carry himself so distinctly like Authority. Cin and authority had never quite gotten along. Chelsea and Oliver were both known factors in a foreign landscape, but she was leery of making any move that might hint at a declaration of allegiance, and leerier of the skittish, spineless voice in her head begging her, please, no more strangers for today. The dark-skinned woman lurking like a shadow at the edges of the room had been endearingly silent throughout this whole old-friends-slash-enemies-reuniting affair, and therefore an ideal seatmate, but she'd yet to make her way to the table. Which left the European who had seemed so familiar with Tasya, and...

The towering scarecrow in a blue and red tracksuit, weariness wrapped about him like a winter coat. Only a half decade older than Tasya at most, but he stretched those years out like a chasm. Distracted eyes peered through dust-coated frames, darting over everything as if looking through, not at. She knew the genius type, and he had the look of them, relentlessly burning mind in a desiccated papier-mâché husk. Keeping a cautious, apathetic distance with the world, as if the layers of gloves and despondency were necessary barriers against the distasteful humanity of these too-vibrant dreamers. More than acceptable. Wordlessly, they took the chair to his left.

Seated near the edge of the table, she was among the first to receive her folder. She took it with a quiet murmur of thanks and a flickering assessment of the figure at Tasya's side who had originally brought them. Servility was a body language she was more than passingly acquainted with, and Tasya's assistant had self-assurance written along every line of their frame. Spooked, and for good reason, but not truly shaken. Less secretary then, and more protégé. That, or they were sleeping together.

As they waited for the rest of the folders to be passed out, Tasya's civil opener going in through one ear and out through the other, they ran their eyes along the rest of the table. There's so many people wearing black in this room. And she couldn't name a designer or clothing cut if you put a gun to her head, but she was a collector of details, a lover of composition, and it was quite fascinating how differently the color wore them.

The black turned Tasya into a shade, an old film vampire, the hollow cocaine glitz and bruised moon-crater eyebags of a fading Hollywood starlet. Cin tracked her progress down the table, files passed into the hands of the latest arrivals—the last? Surely the last, please—the pair of unfamiliar women juxtaposed like night and day. Red wine and pale smoke, both of them beautiful like a heart attack. The black turned them into a question: "Are you going to look away from me?" It's a funny little trick question, because there was no right answer. Neither option was guaranteed to keep you safe. It was interesting that they still remembered how to recognize these Catch-22's, from back when they answered to a boss more trigger-happy than Glear. A decade and a lifetime ago.

And then the screens were rolling down and they were no longer thinking about vampires and pitfalls, because they were too busy staring at the feed with a growing sense of sick horror. Too busy watching a man eaten alive by his own mind, this savage cannibalism of the soul. Tasya was speaking again, tongue shaped around that five-letter word, and suddenly they couldn't quite draw in a full breath. It felt like being young and small again, feet buried in the gravel grit lakebed, Nevada sky seen through a water-film blur, the gentlest form of drowning. Two vowels, three consonants. Limbo means eternity.

The blond man's declaration of support came instantly, vehement and reckless, and they were so very glad they hadn't chosen to sit beside him ten minutes ago. The relief was devastatingly short-lived though, because her actual seatmate was speaking now, and yeah, this one's a few cards short of a full deck. She was vaguely confident that she'd find the implications of the comment intriguing to consider in an hour or two, but she was a little too numb to appreciate it at the moment. They barely registered what snarky commentary the gun-toting entertainment was giving, because Chelsea's refusal took center stage, explosive and unmistakable, a hydrogen bomb detonated in a sealed pressure chamber. Nowhere to duck away from the fallout.

Oliver, for the second time today, served as a distraction, a much-needed lifeline to some semblance of reason. "Four million American dollars," Cin corrected quietly on reflex. She slid a glance to Tasya, polite inquiry backed by steely-edged bargaining. If you promised them Euros, I'm not taking dollars.

Money was a lovely distraction, a much more manageable issue than the Chemist quitting on them, the banked panic humming at the edges of her thoughts, and the fresh hell that their Architect and mission mastermind had just shown them all onscreen. Best to figure out the exact size of the paycheck before deciding whether to sign sanity and soul away for it.

Even if she knew, with a sinking certainty, that showing up to this meeting had already been her act of taking the dive.
coded by natasha.
 
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