bigapplesauce | Just a Few of Us [Open to Multiple]

Current Music: August 28th - September 3rd, 2013

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Just a Few of Us [Open to Multiple]

If it was just the one baby, Greta suspects it would be easier than it had been at home. She doesn't have to balance childcare with running a bakery, and her apartment is too newly-settled (and little-trafficked) to require anywhere near as much cleaning as a shop. And if ROMAC hasn't provided her with much in the way of human aid - there is a nursery she can bring them to when necessary, but it's busy and noisy and a few of the children there have alarming Rift enchantments to contend with, so she treats that as a last resort - at least they've given her all the material things she could need.

(It both helps and distantly rankles that she's used to doing the bulk of the work herself, anyway.)

Two, though. Two are a literal and metaphorical handful. She often finds herself thinking it's just as well the Witch only promised them one, for both their sakes, and then just for his, and then she has to stop thinking about it. So perhaps it's just as well that she has two to distract her, now.

The poor, motherless things. If they're really motherless. She should stop thinking about that, as well, if only because she hasn't the first idea how to track down their parents if they are here, and it's not safe for her to reach out to those who might be able to help her. Maybe they are orphans. Either way, the best use of her time and energy is giving them the best possible care, so... that's just what she's going to do.

Alone, if she has to.

[ooc: so, Greta's gonna be watching these two tiny babies for about a week and presumably is not going to have much time for anything else, poor woman. But she'll almost certainly welcome visitors ~~unless you're an emotion-nomming creep~~! If your character can finagle their way into the ROMAC base, feel free to have them drop by her apartment. If you can't realistically get into ROMAC but still want in on the baby-related redonkulousness, drop me a line and we can finagle a way to get her out into the Park or something.

Also, since this could take place at any time over the course of a week, just pick your date and put it in the header of your top-level for reference.]

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There's little chance of Greta questioning Johnny's motives; it's enough that he's willing to help. "Thank you," she breathes, picking up Rashad's ankles as if he's an ungainly, squirming wheelbarrow and tucking them under her arms.

"I promised you no such thing," she snaps at him as she backs him toward the door. "But you promised to leave, so that's just what you're doing." Not that he's making it easy for them, and it's a struggle to keep ahold of him as he flops around like a landed trout. But they are making progress - at least his legs are out into the hall.

"Dude, what is your problem?" says Johnny with exasperation, even though Greta's harried explanation of what he's done pretty well answers that. Why the fuck did he think it was a good idea to absorb the emotions of a fucking baby, or two of them apparently. God, this is so fucking sick.

"What the hell is a sadi?" he snaps just as the syllables connects in his head. "Wait, are you - is he talking about Iman?" He looks at Greta in confusion even as he continues to bodily shove Rashad through the door. He sure stepped into the middle of some kind of shit.

"Everything's uncomfortable!" blubbers Rashad. It's meant as an actual reply to Johnny's question this time, though it may get kind of lost in the unending, constantly modulating whine he continues to emit even when he's not speaking.

Greta is being terribly unjust, and he lets her know about it by stretching his arms out wide to wedge himself fast in the doorway as Johnny tries to shove him through it. Freudian crisis or no, he's still plenty strong enough to latch on to the door frame and halt their forward progress. "YOU PROMISED!"

"I said I'd try," Greta hisses at him. Now that Johnny's here, she's less inclined to kick up as much of a neighbor-alerting fuss. "I never said I'd do it. Now let go of that door, you--" she pauses a moment, searching for something appropriately scathing for someone who has emotionally regressed to infancy, then concludes, "you're being very naughty."

"Christ on a bike," says Johnny, drops Rashad's shoulders and delivers an unforgiving kick to one of his hands, trying to dislodge it from the door frame. "When does this wear off?" he asks Greta, since she seems to know more about this than he does.

Rashad howls and yanks his hand away, curling it tight against his chest to protect his fingers against further attack...but not letting go with the other one. "I'm a good boy!" he protests, legitimately weeping now. "I'm -- I'm goo--oood--!"

"I have no idea," Greta says, wincing a little as Johnny kicks at Rashad's hand. It's Rashad's response that surprises her most, though - honestly, she hadn't expected her desperate scolding to garner such a response. He's actually crying.

Perhaps there's another way to go about this.

She drops his legs, to the collective relief of her arms and back, and deliberately swallows her fury and revulsion as he slumps back down to the floor. Raising a hand towards Johnny in a silent request to wait, she crouches down next to Rashad's prone, writhing form. "That's right," she lies in the most soothing tone she can muster. "You're a good boy, Rashad. So why don't you get up like a good boy, and come with us, and we will... take you to Iman."

Her actual plan involves shoving him into the nearest elevator, hitting the ground floor button, and letting him become someone else's problem, but it will go much faster if he comes willingly.

Greta's sudden new tactic is definitively the most alarming thing that has happened so far. Johnny straight up drops Rashad when she crouches down beside him, straightening up and staring at her, fully aghast.

"What are you doing?" he says thinly. The logic of it is distantly available to him but he's having trouble getting over how weird it is.

"I am a good boy," snivels Rashad, incapable of being truly mollified by Greta's agreement. He's getting what he wanted, but it's not enough, it's never going to be enough and she doesn't really love him but he's a good boy and she needs to know that. "I want to go to Iman," he agrees, turning his face to look up at her with red-rimmed eyes as he wipes his nose on his sleeve. If his gaze flickers to Johnny it's only for a moment; it's Greta he needs to get him the things he wants and make this all better.

"I am doing," Greta says slowly, struggling to keep her tone low and even, "what needs to be done." Hopefully Johnny will comprehend the 'so don't ruin it' that she can't add aloud, not without risking Rashad's suspicion. The children's emotions seem to have made him a bit of an idiot, but she can't assume he's completely dense.

She shifts her focus back to Rashad, taking his arm with relative gentleness. "Isn't that right?" she prompts, giving him a little tug to urge him back onto his feet. "You want to find Iman, and you want me to help you. Up you get, come on."

Yeah, fine, all right, but that doesn't make it not weird. Johnny just stands there, visibly unnerved as Greta openly lies (at least he assumes she's lying, she wouldn't really be about to just send him to Iman for whatever bullshit reason he has) in a disturbingly maternal tone.

There's something a little too on point about it, really.

He swallows thickly and steps back forward. "Yeah," he says, reaching out to gingerly pat Rashad on the shoulder. So helpful.

The Balladeer nods, taking Greta at her word regardless of how confident she actually is. It isn't as though he knows anything about how children work. Then again, he doesn't look as though he's in the mood to too carefully question anything at the moment; he leans against the counter as Greta brews the tea, and drops his head back against the cabinets with a faint sigh.

"Not today. Weather's not great." In truth, the weather is cloudy but pretty much fine. He doubts it'll really rain, and normally he'd probably be out there anyway. That's what the tunnels are for, right?

It's a weak lie to begin with, but honesty compels him to add, "I've been feeling a little run down anyway."

The weather is an odd excuse, and she casts a brief, dubious glance out at the overcast but nonthreatening sky. Fortunately, he doesn't need any prompting to finally admit the real issue. Greta relaxes a little, relieved that he's willing to address it.

"You look a little run down," she says, not unkindly. She's seen him in rough shape before, when he was shot in that dream, but that was different. More to the point, it wasn't real. Maybe it was only a matter of time before the realities of life in Manhattan started to weigh on him a little - before the relief of not having to deal with those awful people he'd been stuck with stopped outshining everything else. He'd seemed to adjust so easily compared to her, but... maybe they both got complacent.

"Sit," she urges, shepherding him over to the table and setting a cup of tea and some honey in front of him. She settles herself in the chair opposite a few moments later. After a cautious sip of her tea, she ventures, "Did something happen?" Something must have changed recently; even when they were dealing with their respective curses, he still looked all right.

The Balladeer snorts, allowing himself to be ushered over to a seat. He hadn't thought he looked as bad as all that, but he certainly isn't going to argue.

"Not really." Does he actually have any idea how he likes tea? He picks up the honey and looks at it for a second, before squeezing a random amount in. There; he takes his tea with honey now. The spoon clinks against the sides of the cup as he stirs it in, watching the liquid spiral around for a few moments before confessing: "I've been trying to figure out what's going on with Johnny."

Greta doesn't think that's his business, he knows. The Balladeer would argue that point. If someone's going to prove a danger to others, he thinks it's the business of anyone around with some kind of ability to head it off. Mind, he isn't certain that Johnny's going to threaten anybody, but...well, that's why he's been looking into it more. He just has no idea what's going on there, besides the fact that it's unnerving as hell.

Besides, he's got a very good memory for music. It's far too late not to involve himself at all.

Rashad stumbles to his feet, uncoordinated but able to find his footing and stay upright with a bit of effort. He's still sniffling to himself, shoulders hunched in, and he hardly seems to notice Johnny's apt reassurances. "I want -- I want to help," he blubbers. "I have to find Iman because I have to help, you have to help me find Asadi!"

Greta carefully sets down her cup, brow furrowing. Johnny had spoken of his past as if it was a sickness, and she hadn't quite believed him because it had seemed impossible. How could one person's history take root in someone else? Or was it just that Johnny was so unused to sympathy that that struck him as poisonous? As if concern for him was something he infected people with?

But here's the Balladeer looking distinctly worn - enough so that she thought he might be ill in earnest. Whatever he thinks of Johnny, she's certain he's not suffering from too much pity for the lad.

"I wish you wouldn't," she says quietly. "It doesn't look as if it's been very good for you."

The Balladeer wraps both hands around his cup, enjoying the warmth. "I don't think it has been," he agrees. "It just - "

He sighs and presses the heel of a palm to his eye in exhaustion. The curse hadn't helped matters, but it wasn't the only reason the explanation he gave her didn't make sense. Nothing about this made much sense to him either. "It's not right," he insists, knowing that it isn't helpful. "It's more like noise than music, I can't even decide how many melodies are going on at once, and the echo doesn't help anything. It's not supposed to do that either."

No one else has sounded even remotely like that. He knows there's people here from all different worlds, some who aren't even human, and it's not reasonable to expect everybody to match up exactly to his expectations. Still...everyone except Johnny basically has. He hasn't listened too closely to a lot of other rifties (Bee was right, it's probably rude) but he'd have noticed if anyone else was doing that. It isn't the kind of thing you don't hear.

He lowers his hand again and takes a sip of tea before continuing. "Everything I've heard before - oh, this is good - when people have songs that are...not the best." He just punctuates that with a shrug; Greta knows what he means, and this isn't about his own past. "It's down to them. The mark they leave behind, what they made of themselves. And he - "

The Balladeer shifts his grip on the mug, a little anxiously. "It's creepy." That's likely the closest he'll get to admitting that it scares him. The worst thing he could do would be to give it more power, even that much.

Greta listens to the Balladeer's fractured explanation in silence, trying not to let her mounting distress show. She doesn't like the implication that Johnny's mess of a song is something he deserves or brought upon himself, something he's earned - that would be awful. But if Johnny's warning was correct, does that mean his history is--is infecting her friend?

She looks down at her cup for a few moments, as if seeking inspiration in the few swirling bits of looseleaf that made it through the strainer. But she's not a Witch; she doesn't know how to read the signs in these things (and she doesn't want to know; knowing seems to bring no end of problems). "Johnny... doesn't like talking about what's happened to him," she says slowly, as if navigating a treacherous bog, testing each word for stability before proceeding. "But I never got the sense that it was because he was ashamed, as if he'd done something terribly wrong. It was more like he thought his problems were catching, like an illness." Or a Curse, if you get too close.

Lifting her gaze back to the Balladeer, she continues, "And now you're getting close to it, and it's taking a toll on you." The words come faster, now, in a troubled little torrent. Whatever the exact nature of the problem, the solution seems clear enough to her. He needs to stop this before it's too late, regardless of what form 'too late' chooses to take. "You're not going to help anyone by making yourself sick over this."

The Balladeer listens in thoughtful silence, sipping his tea. It's pleasantly warm, leaving heat in his throat and chest, but it does little to sap away the lingering unease from the past few nights. If nothing else, Greta's right about that much; he needs to take breaks in between working on it.

If he's going to at all.

"People aren't always ashamed." In his experience, those who do the worst things are the least ashamed of them. But Bee also suggested that: that Johnny's song was less him and more something that had happened to him. It's never worked that way before. Bad things happen to everybody, but it doesn't have to warp their entire lives. People always have a choice. Put it like an illness, though...that changes his perspective a little. Can that happen? Could something have gotten at the song itself to do that?

He doesn't know. The Balladeer carefully sets his cup down and passes a hand over his eyes again; this caffeine isn't working fast enough for his liking.

"It's what I do," he says finally, somewhat plaintively. "And I can actually get out ahead of these things now. If he really is dangerous, I don't know." It sure seems that way to him, but he's been losing steam on that argument. Whatever the sound is, it has been wearing him down. "Who else is gonna do it?"

It's working. It's terrible, but it's working, and far better than their first attempt to just haul him out. Greta pats Rashad's arm with a trembling hand as she guides him towards the elevator bay. "Of course," she says with strained sympathy. 'Help,' indeed.

Then his words catch up to her, and she glances up at him in surprise. Did ROMAC send him here? Or has he just heard that they're after Iman, and now he's trying to ingratiate himself by fetching her for them? Based on what he did to the children, and how poorly his whole interrogation has gone, she makes a not-so-wild guess and ventures, "And I'd bet they didn't even ask for your help. But you're helping them anyway, because you're such a--a good person."

"He doesn't want to hurt anyone," Greta insists. Johnny has been vague about the danger he poses - deliberately so - but if he truly wished to harm anyone, why mention it at all? The lad's not exactly imposing, and he'd be able to cause a lot more trouble by pretending to be harmless than he would by insisting that others avoid him. "And this," she adds with a Balladeer-encompassing gesture, "is the exact sort of--of damage that he's worried about causing."

She halts herself with a deliberate sip of tea, trying to prevent herself from getting too worked up and accidentally waking the children. Does he really think it's his job to monitor people just in case they should prove dangerous? That sounds a little too close to what ROMAC's been doing - though at least she believes in the purity of the Balladeer's intentions.

Sighing, she sets down her cup. "Is it what you do?" she asks, her tone gentler than it was before. "Listen in on all of our songs in case one of us starts feeling murderous? Have you been doing it to me, too?" She raises her eyebrows, a little challenging, but also genuinely curious. If this is just about Johnny, that's one thing; it's quite another if he's on some sort of one-man crusade to root out potential assassins.

"What?" The Balladeer sits back a little, frowning. Is that what she really thinks? He's not some kind of freakish musical CIA. "No! Well..."

That's not completely true. He trails off, looking a little guilty, and sets down his cup. Curse aside, his explanations haven't really been the best; he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and thinks for a moment before he speaks. "Okay. It's like this. Say there's a radio playing quietly in that room." He waves a hand towards the nearest shut door. By now, he's assuming Greta's encountered a radio. "You can hear it, and maybe get a general idea of the tune, but you'd have to actually stop and focus to hear how it really goes. But you know...you're doing things, we're having a conversation. So you tune it out."

"I can tell you have a song, and it sounds - " Here he hesitates, giving a little half-shrug. Ordinary is both exactly what he means, and not right at all. " - well, no two are the same, but it's not anything I'd worry about. And I haven't listened to it."

His tone is earnest. That's the important part, to him. On some basic level, he's always listening, but he hasn't been going about prying into his friend's pasts.

"Now, Johnny." The Balladeer shifts, shoulders hunching a little, and picks up the tea again. Not to drink, just to hold. "That was like if the radio was just playing an air raid siren - or screaming," he hastens to add, as he realizes Greta probably hasn't heard those. Neither is a particularly accurate representation, but he thinks the point is clear. "He just walked past me, but I'd have to be deaf not to have noticed that."

She meant no insult. Honestly, she doesn't think he'd pry on purpose. It's just that she didn't know how much he could help but tune in.

And, well... she can't help but wonder about her song in particular. What does it sound like to him? How does it compare to the others he's heard? Is it... is it pleasant to listen to, even if only half-so, like a forgotten radio in another room? But she can't bring herself to ask, because that would be as good as giving him permission to listen closely, and she's... not sure she'd like that. In fact, she's fairly certain she wouldn't like that at all. What if it's boring?

But he hasn't listened to it - she believes him, and her expression softens into a faint, placating smile. At least she can say her song isn't worrisome. That will just have to be enough.

Her expression darkens when he shifts back to Johnny's song, though. "That does sound... unpleasant," she allows. But he hasn't been tuning it out - quite the opposite. No wonder he looks so run down. "Can you tune it out?" she asks, suddenly fearful that he can't. There's little point in asking him to leave it alone if it's already too much to ignore, but she hates the thought of him just being stuck with an unfamiliar din in his head because Johnny had the bad luck to walk by.

The Balladeer, somewhat unnervingly for him, has to consider the question for a second. "I could," he says finally with a slow nod. "I did, for a while after I first met him." He'd never once forgotten about it, but it's only over the past few days that it got stuck in his head like this. He can still hear it now, though it's faint under the sound of Greta's voice, her usual harmonies, and even the faint disparate notes he's picking up from the babies asleep in their crib.

Thinking about it makes it louder, and his grip tightens a bit around his mug. It's fine. He's fine. He can get rid of it anytime he wants.

"It's a lot easier when he isn't actually around," he continues more firmly, careful not to actually raise his voice. "I can handle it when he is, I think, but..." Well, he doubts they're going to be in close contact from now on if either of them has a choice. Those bridges are well and truly burned. The Balladeer is content enough to let it stay that way; even if Johnny is somehow a victim in this, he's never gone out of his way to befriend people who punch him. They're stuck in the same city still, but New York is a big place. They can easily lose each other.

"But I - "

He stops. But what, exactly? Greta doesn't want him listening to it, Johnny certainly doesn't, and he's not exactly enjoying the experience himself. There seems to be a general consensus on that, but something about the situation still bothers him. The Balladeer starts again, speaking as if feeling out the words. "I've never been able to actually change anything before. It didn't bother me - I mean, history is what it is." He'd have driven himself mad, worrying about things no one could ever erase. And, of course, he'd never known anything else. "Here, though...I don't think I could forgive myself if anything happened, and I could have done something to stop it."

He knows he's being vague, but he can't help it. Through all this, all those nights spent trying to translate noise into notes, he's never been able to form a clear idea of what it is he even thinks Johnny might do. It's all too loud and jumbled together, and perhaps he's worn down too from throwing himself at it over and over again. It just seemed like something that horrible and lingering had to be either a relic of unspeakable deeds, or worse, some kind of terrible omen.

If it's something contagious, maybe it still is.

"But if you're sure he's not dangerous..." Whatever the case, his hearing is failing him, and he doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing. Maybe he should try just trusting someone else's normal human judgement.

That is an unnerving pause as he considers the question, and Greta releases a breath when, at last, he nods. It's not a lost cause, then. He'll be fine - or he can be, if he makes more sensible choices than he has these past few days.

Well, 'senseless' isn't fair criticism. It's not his fault that Johnny's song is so alarming, and after however many years of repeating the same events over and over, how difficult must it be to cope with an uncertain future? She can't blame him for wanting to protect people - or wanting to at least try.

It's just that trying to unravel this particular snarl might do him more harm than anyone else good.

"I am sure that he doesn't want to hurt anyone," she says slowly. If she was talking to anyone else, 'not dangerous' would be an easier conclusion... but Johnny does seem to pose an indirect threat to the Balladeer. Not an intentional threat, but... well. Greta winces, then admits, "But I'm worried about what listening to his song might do to you." Look at what it already has done. He's losing sleep over it. "If you left it alone, I think everything would be all right."

She doesn't want to think about what could happen if he didn't - or couldn't - just tune it out.

Edited 2015-04-15 19:33 (UTC)

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Just a Few of Us [Open to Multiple]

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