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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A subtle but definite shift in Greta's emotional gestalt precedes her offer to contact Asadi, but Rashad can't quite pin it down. Hope, perhaps. Determination? An expectation of something. Perhaps she expects that once she has contacted Asadi the other woman will be able to defuse the situation on her behalf. That suits his purposes quite well.

"I promise to leave once you have established contact," he agrees with a slight inclination of his head, still insisting upon that condition.

Greta shifts her grip on Bea, edges over to the table, and picks up her phone before retreating again, keeping herself and Bea well out of Rashad's reach. "Right," she says, prodding at the phone with her thumb. There's no question of her actually texting Iman, not yet - Rashad can't want to find Iman for any good reasons, and the last thing she wants to do is deliver her friend to him. Instead, she texts the rest of her (admittedly meager) collection of people she thinks might help: The Balladeer and, on second though, Johnny: I need help, quickly. ROMAC tower, my apartment. Can you get here?

"There," she says, glancing up at Rashad before looking back down at her phone. "We just have to, er, wait for a response."

Bea decides, unhelpfully, that now would be a good time to commence yowling. Greta attempts to comfort her to little effect - perhaps because Bea's just feeling fractious, or perhaps because Greta's not in any kind of frame of mind to soothe anyone. And then there's an answering grumble of complaint from Abbie in the crib - wonderful. Dropping her phone into her pocket, Greta sidles towards the crib, rubbing Bea's back with her freed hand.

"You're upsetting the children," she accuses, as much just because she can as because it's arguably, indirectly true.

Edited 2015-04-11 22:15 (UTC)

Waiting sounds perfectly reasonable to Rashad, though again there's something not quite as expected in her feelings about it. Her frustration is more to be expected, though, especially when the baby in her arms all but erupts with intense dissatisfaction. The other one threatens to join in, and their collective longing for -- things -- has him all but tasting the air.

The one in her arms is very loud, isn't it? How will she concentrate on the task of intercepting Asadi's communication with all that noise to contend with?

And when was the last time he ate, anyway? He will hardly take anything from them at all, and they are so tiny that their collective emotions will likely only give him a short burst of energy he can keep contained enough while they wait.

"I will quiet them," he says decisively, and then he does so. Bea promptly goes limp in Greta's arms, her sister also quieting. Rashad's eyes grow wet and his lower lip trembles, but he is silent as he fights to hold in the unexpectedly strong surge.

Greta furrows her brow in mingled confusion and suspicion when Rashad speaks, not liking how chilling 'quiet' sounds when coming from him. And then both children fall completely silent, Bea goes limp in her arms, what did he, what did he--?!

She pulls Bea away from her shoulder and looks down at her, letting out a little gasp of horror at how still she is, oh no, is she... are they even still...? A palm held over Bea's chest confirms that her little heart is still beating, and then Greta's gaze snaps back up to Rashad.

"What did you do?!" she snaps, motherly fury overwhelming her fear of him. She barely even registers that he looks upset.

Rashad gives a full-body tremble and shies away from her, crossing his arms defensively over his belly as he ducks his head and makes himself generally just a little bit smaller. "Dooooon't," he protests, upset by the yelling, upset by the fresh wave of horror filling the air (which he does not eat, thank you), upset by the way his clothes are slightly uncomfortable and the room is a little too warm and he's tired and he wants things and he's not sure what things he wants --

He doesn't even realize he's wilting to the floor until he's already there, laying on the floor and moaning to himself.

It's like the party all over again, when he'd shied away from her in horror - but different this time. Different because it isn't Rush laid out on the floor, it's the children. He's gone after them, after a pair of innocent babies! What sort of monster would attack little children like this?!

"You ate the children!" she squawks, her furious indignation growing in inverse proportion to his slow slump to the floor. How dare he?! She carefully sets Bea down in the crib, her arms shaking - she will need both of them to get Rashad out of here, and she will, she will--she will drag him out by his hair if she has to.

Rounding on Rashad, she stands over him with her fingers curled like claws. There he lies, a grotesque parody of infancy, his face scrunched into a helpless pout. Would lashing out at him be too much like hurting a real child? Greta hesitates, and hates herself for hesitating. "What is wrong with you?" she snaps, grimacing in disgust and giving Rashad an experimental nudge with her foot.

"I didn't eat all of them!" whines Rashad, incensed at the injustice of her accusation. "Just -- just paaaaart!" The last word elongates into a howl broken by sobs, because how can she not see that he's trying, he's trying really hard right now and it's hard!

The experimental nudge prompts him to curl in tighter on himself and snivel louder. "I just want!" he explains miserably. There was some kind of thought at the start about what he wants -- Iman Asadi, here, explaining herself and turning herself over to him to bring back to ROMAC -- but it dissolved in the face of the realization that he wants quite a lot of things right now, many of them unidentifiable.

"You shouldn't have eaten any of them!" she protests, while part of her marvels that this is even a sentence she needs to utter. She glances back at the crib, at the children she's failed to protect. They were supposed to be safest here, with her, that's the least that she thought she could provide for them. And now look what's happened.

Gritting her teeth, Greta takes Rashad by the ear and pulls none-too-gently. "On your feet," she orders. She doesn't care how childish his emotions are; they aren't really his, and she's getting him out of here.

"Hurts!!" bleats Rashad, but for a moment it looks like he's going to cooperate, going so far as to rise up on one elbow. Getting up seems even more uncomfortable than staying on the floor, though (quite a feat considering he is already the most uncomfortable he has ever been), and the arm not supporting his weight comes up to grab at Greta's arm and hang his weight on her until either she lets go or she falls down on top of him, because either way it'll stop her pulling on his ear.

Good, she thinks; it's supposed to hurt. But it's not enough to actually get him onto his feet. What, has he lost all motor skills as well? Apparently so, because a moment later he's hanging what feels like his full weight off of her arm. She comes perilously close to falling on top of him, and is saved only by releasing his ear and planting her knee into his gut for leverage (an act that she commits with a bit more vicious enthusiasm than might be strictly necessary).

"Oh, for--" she huffs, disentangling herself from him and staggering back a pace or two. Door first, she decides. She'll prop it open, and then she'll just drag him out. And if the neighbors hear... well, maybe one of them will come and help her. She has a hard time imagining that ROMAC authorized him to harm the children they placed under her care.

The door is easy enough to handle. Rashad is a bit more difficult, and she spends a moment eyeing him as if he's a particularly nasty mess someone's tracked in before reaching down and grabbing him by the ankle. "You need," she grunts as she hauls on his leg, "to leave. Now."

Greta's in luck - Johnny happens to be in her neck of the woods when her text comes in, on a truly ill-advised attempt to acquire culture at the MoMA. Things are back to more or less normal with Gabe but he still feels the frequent itch to get out, wander, be alone. The museum was a nice idea but a definitive mistake. Everything feels too open, too haunted, and Johnny Truant is realizing that for an alleged artist, he really does not understand art.

He is inappropriately relieved to have an excuse to leave, relief that shortly turns to mild distress as the unusually urgent tone of the text hits him. Something is wrong. Why the fuck did she contact him?

Oh well.

It's a quick jog to the ROMAC Base, where he's been only the once, when he rescued Charley and the Doctor, and it feels odd to just walk in the front door, though it's just an office building, isn't it? It's fine. If they were looking for him they'd surely have found him by now.

He paces in a tight circle as the elevator rises to Greta's floor, the knot in his gut starting to tighten. What if something is really wrong here? What if he can't help her?

Then he'll pray.

He pushes his way out the doors and rushes down the hall - he can hear some kind of commotion, oh god, oh god, there's her voice, she sounds angry, and another voice he doesn't recognize, making a horrible fucking racket. What the shit is even going on.

Her door is open, which is even more alarming, so when he lunges in he's already yelling, "Greta, I'm here, what's wro-", stopping abruptly for the sheer effort of trying to process what is happening in front of his face.

Greta is hunched over the prone form of Rashad, there's a guy he hasn't seen in a while (and hasn't entirely missed), who is throwing a fucking tantrum.

There is obviously a distinct lack of context here, he finds it almost offensive in scope. How is this a situation he's been called into. Why. What possible reason. (It is still better than the MoMA.)

He stands there for a long moment, but fails to find an appropriate reaction. Instead he looks at Greta with an expression of open incredulity and says, "What is HAPPENING?"

Edited 2015-04-12 06:42 (UTC)

Rashad whines and curls up around where she jabbed her knee into him. That she has stopped trying to haul him off the floor is of ~~little~~ no comfort; he is free to stay where he wishes but that only frees him to writhe and groan and occasionally yowl, kicking vaguely as she takes him by the ankle and starts slowly dragging him toward the door.

"She won't stop pulling on me!" he blubbers to Johnny.

It's a surprise when Johnny comes charging in, but she doesn't have the wherewithal to be startled or touched; she's too busy being furious with Rashad. "We need to get him out of here," she says, looking over her shoulder at Johnny. "He--he ate the children. That's why he's acting like this."

And if they don't get him out, he might do it again. Considering how thoroughly he flattened Rush, she hates to think of what kind of state the babies might be in. Not that she can check until Rashad is gone. "Can you take his other leg?" she asks, nodding toward it.

"What?!" Johnny sputters at Rashad, how is that a problem for you, you are a giant man and maybe just stop flipping a shit, but that line of thought is disrupted in short order by Greta's follow-up, and his attention snaps back up to her. "What?!"

He turns and shuts the door sharply. This seems like something they need to keep the fuck contained. He spins back around and says, "Before I do ANYTHING I need more fucking information, he ate what children, what do mean ATE? What is going ON?"

He is very unhappy right now.

"UUUUUUUGGHHH," comments Rashad, sprawling wide on the floor and going limp. How many times is he going to need to explain? She's not listening to him! She never listens to him or gives him the things he wants! "I only ate part!"

Greta would much rather get Rashad out first and explain the situation second, but it seems she won't be so lucky. She lets go of his ankle and gestures towards the crib. "Those children. They were upset, and he--he took it, because that's what he does, he takes others' emotions and then mimics them."

Rashad gets a look of deepest disgust, and then she fixes Johnny with a more desperate stare. "But it, it hurts people when he does it, and I don't know badly he's hurt them, and I can't look to them until he's gone. Will you help me? Please?" The lad's smaller than she is, but at least they outnumber him, and Rashad doesn't seem capable of much at the moment.

"Wh..." Johnny looks at the crib, suddenly noticing it, suddenly realizing there are babies in the room, what the fuck, where did those come from, why does Greta suddenly have babies. Obviously they have not been eaten, which is good. The rest of what she's telling him catches up slow, and for a moment he can only stare, numb and bewildered, at the childish, unreasonable pile of man on the floor. Takes others' emotions and mimics-

Holy shit. Holy shit.

Things are starting to come back now, little things, weird moments from their past encounters, and it's starting to make sense now, how often he would get tired around this guy, how weird he always was, holy fucking shit.

His jaw sets. He opens the door again and steps over quickly, taking a moment to assess the situation, how dangerous is Rashad really, can he do them any harm like this, etc, and decides that he doesn't care. He crouches down and grasps the man awkwardly under his arms, trying to lift him up and only making it halfway, this fuck is heavy.

"You pull and I'll... heave," he says curtly. His sudden change in attitude toward this situation might seem odd, but then, maybe Greta can just chalk it up to righteous anger about this asshole taking baby emotions. Sure. It's that.

"Nooo -ooo -ooooooooo!" Rashad thrashes, trying very earnestly to be dropped. And that would be just like them to drop him, wouldn't it? "I'm waiting for Asadi! You promised Asadi! You promised!"

Dimly some part of him is aware that things are not going according to plan. It's not his fault, though, they're being so mean to him and everything is just so awful. "Hold me!" he demands even as he writhes to break Johnny's hold on him.

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.

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