Come Calling - 9.15.2013 [Flood]

Molly Toombs

Two weeks and a day.

That's how long it's been since Flood had heard or seen anything of Molly Toombs.  The thirtieth of August, when he dropped the pale and trembling woman off in front of her apartment, leaving her to go upstairs to her nightmares and whatever coping mechanisms she employed to get past trauma.  He'd told her to call, said that he still very much wanted to have a more formal meeting with her-- to sit, to talk, to discuss and banter and become more acquainted with one another.  She told him that she would, that she was 'in too deep' not to.

And yet, a week, followed by a second tick by and at no point does he hear from the night-shift nurse.  He's been busy with his own affairs, too busy perhaps to come calling.  Or maybe he respected the fact that she would need to take some time to come to terms with what she'd seen and all that she'd learned before she could reach out again.

Saturday night, September 14th, is when she finally calls.

The number that Molly was provided, be it to a landline or cellphone or business office, was contacted, and whatever phone it led to would begin to ring around one 'o clock in the morning.  When answered:

"Hello?  It's Molly.  If you're still interested, I'd like us to meet and talk again.  Would tomorrow night suit you?"

Flood

The phone rings twice before there is a brief pause and another two rings. It might seem like the phone is being forwarded to a voicemail service for a moment, but then there is the sound of hard plastic on plastic when the receiver is picked up. It isn't the electronic opening of the line, the echo of a connection, but something more tangible. A land line going live and his voice coming through to answer in a clear, "Hello," simple as that. She fills in her own greeting and more. Her name. Her intentions. And he answers again.

"Tomorrow night would be wonderful. Is there someplace in particular that you had considered? If not, I thought maybe the Brown Palace Hotel would be a nice and comfortably public place for us to discuss things," he concludes, growing silent as if awaiting a verdict from the lady caller.

Molly Toombs

Whatever Molly's suggestion might have been, it certainly wasn't as good a one as his.  She considered the option for a moment before agreeing.

"So long as you're not booking any rooms, then it's fine by me."  Whatever it was she was about to say next struck her as funny all at once, apparently, because she gave a small surprised chuckle before asking:  "When does the sun set these days?"

---------------------------

At it turns out, dusk starts to shift into night around seven-thirty or eight o' clock, and it was two hours after that time that they had agreed to meet.

Molly had arrived ahead of Flood, for she had all the time in the world to get where she was going and he had to rise, to (presumably) dust some sort of earth from his shoulders, and get downtown from wherever it was that he laid his head at dawn.  When he arrives, she has been there for five minutes, but not due to him lacking timeliness.  She would be found sitting at one of the small two-person tables that hugged the edge of the seating area in the Brown Palace Hotel lobby.

She's dressed quite nicely, no doubt anticipating that Flood would come in another of his three-piece suits or similar.  She wore a dress of cobalt blue, a sleek number that managed to hug her considerable curve without being immodest.  The sleeves were capped at the shoulder, and the straight skirt stopped just above her knees.  She had her dark hair pinned into an up-do, pearls at her ears, and no necklace to match for the neckline of the dress was near her collarbone.  Her legs were crossed, left over right at the knee, and a pair of white heels rested one on the floor and the other in the air beneath the table.

She had a cream-white clutch in her lap, and her hands together on top of the table.  They were holding her cellphone, as though she was doing something with the touch-screen device, but the screen was black and she was looking forward into the middle-distance instead.

Flood

Molly's laugh bleeds into the end of Flood's, one that comes directly after that comment on his booking of a room. When she next asks her question he gives an answer and it is a brief exchange before they have set a time to meet.

And that is of course when Flood arrives, entering that lobby in a navy blue suit (but of course in three pieces) with a dark brown tie and similarly earth colored wingtip shoes, looking sharp as a stiletto even though he seems to have forsaken his usual blacks and grays for the evening. They leave him looking less authoritative and severe, more approachable and stately to the casual eye.

What they do to Molly's own view of the Lasombra, though, most likely pales in comparison to what she knows of more intrinsic characteristics of his being. Whatever their effect on her view of the tall man now approaching her, he is doing so and with a pleased smile on his face. His clover green eyes focus on her and take her in. He does not look her up and down in that same infuriating way he has before. It is more polite and he seems to be on a bender of good behavior - for however long that might last.

"You look wonderful," holding a corpse-cold hand out to help her from her seat.

"I've had a booth booked at the Churchill and a table at the Palace Arms in case you objected to the smell of cigars," referring to the dining establishments off the lobby, the first the kind of cigar bar and restaurant that cultivates the air and appearance of a private supper club, whilst its prices and a dress code keeps its clientele at least ostensibly close to the same, and the second a more upscale dining establishment.

He pulls off his hat - a brown fedora of a different but complimentary color to both his shoes and tie - as he speaks. In fact it's off by the time that hand is out to assist her rise to her feet before him.

Molly Toombs

It was a good thing that he approached from the front, otherwise there was a chance she may have taken longer to realize he was coming her way.  He'd startled her before, it mustn't be too difficult to do so again.  But no, this was a public establishment, and he clearly had some kind of appearance to keep up, so such shenanigans would be left for shadows and empty streets.  Now, instead, he keeps his behavior polite.

Her eyes switched and focused when the tall figure failed to veer one direction or the other, and recognition was clear by how her expression relaxed.  He reached where she was sitting and swept his hat from his head with one hand while holding the other out to assist her from her seat.  Lips painted not the obvious red, but a more muted mauve tone, pulled into a small, almost dismissive smile.  "Well, thank you.  And you're dashing as usual."

The hand was accepted, and she rose to her feet to stand comfortably on two-inch heels.

He spoke of the tables he'd reserved, and Molly didn't hesitate, but wasn't rushed to answer.  "The Churchill sounds fitting, and classic.  Is that why you suggested Brown Palace Hotel?"

Eyebrows rose, and she took her hand back from his so she could tuck her phone away into her clutch and snap it closed again.  He did come across as less... imposing, she supposed, was a word that suited the purpose here.  Venturing outside of the monochromatic scale helped him appear less severe, less like a character-- or, to be more precise, someone playing a character by putting on the clothes of a man and coming to walk along with them.

He could tell, she still stepped lightly around him, and was rightfully cautious.  But she wasn't so combative as she had been the first two times they'd met.  She was coming to him of her own volition now-- after all, she had made the phone call to initiate this evening.  Perhaps this was what patience has earned.

Flood

"Classic? Hardly. I think the classics are buried in old world ruins and struggling to still rot, still give up some kind of stench and be noticed by younger minds as the last torch carriers die. No, I think places like this are where Horace, Seneca and Virgil's patrons would have come to parcel off land, draw up battle plans and pay off officials and senators. For intrigue. But nothing as fine or creative as the classics," Flood begins.

His change of heart is already on the horizon, though, as his face screws a degree or two up, considering her words again. Once again reading so much more into them than what they seem to offer at face value.

"But maybe I'm wrong," her escort continues. "Maybe this is where the classicists would have gone to drown themselves or dilute their great minds amongst the moneyed masses," he comments as they approach the Churchill, having turned to walk beside her and steer them toward the place. "Maybe it's where they would have found their inspiration, witnessing the human condition, eating and drinking and indulging in vice."

"Without the city-state, you cannot have the provinces, and vice versa. Maybe these spirits of ire, greed, lust and liquor would make great muses," he finishes. "Maybe you're right," nodding as he finishes analyzing her most simple of statements.

"I find many modern writers to have their talents," beginning a new topic before offering a name for the reservation to the hostess. 

"Jack Spicer," a wink to show he knows this is a different one than what she knows him by. 

"Who are you reading these days?" It looks like he is asking with genuine curiosity as he waits for her response.

Molly Toombs

Flood gave his interpretation of what 'classic' really meant, and Molly appeared to wear the role of demure date as well as she wore the dress she'd chosen that evening.  There was a white sash stitched to the waist of the dress, effectively blocking the garment and creating a visual point to draw the eye's focus from 'problem' areas, and she adjusted the bow at the front of the garment a little as she walked beside him.  She listened to what he had to say about where 'classic' lived these days, then glanced up curiously when he changed his mind and decided that no, perhaps The Churchill was where classics would have come to mingle with money and smoke, to soak up vices and drink their nights away.

They entered the establishment, and Molly tucked her clutch under her arm and glanced about the place, looking at the decorations and overall style.  The air was thick and sweet with cigar smoke, but the smell didn't bother her.  It was less caustic than cigarettes, more full-bodied and flavored.  It smelled older, more sophisticated, and didn't carry the same associations that cigarettes did.  You don't think of jittery homeless people at bus stops or the man crowding you too closely on the bus when you smell cigars-- instead, you think of men dressed in suits with waistbands strapped about their big bellies, or men wearing fedoras and vests chewing on the end of their cigar while contemplating a hand of cards.

She decided she appreciated the atmosphere, and was glad that she'd opted for this bar rather than the Palace Arms.  She wasn't confident that vampires could actually eat food, anyways, and didn't much care for the thought of eating a paid-for dinner alone.  It felt almost like being fattened up for the kill just to think about it.

Whenever it is that they're directed to their booth, they will go there.  Molly's answer to Flood's question about who she's reading these days is met with a bit of an ironic smirk and a small, huffing chuckle.  "Kafka.  It seems most appropriate, given the way my days have been going."

Then, with the same air of pleasantry, in the same tone of casual conversation as they walked, she lifted her eyebrows and looked up at the man who still towered over her despite the height that her heels added.

"So, I learned the apartment above mine is haunted last week.  And then I learned that I wasn't surprised to find out that hauntings are possible too.  I have you and your extended family to thank for this new callous to the strange and unusual, I'd say."

Flood

Flood's hat is perched on the edge of the table before he begins angling himself to the right position, hips turned and his form blocking off the waiter or bus boy what comes up to pull out Molly's chair. He takes its wings firmly in two hands and slides it under her when she bend to sit, taking his own seat only afterward.

"Kafka. I dislike bugs; irritating and burdensome vermin," shaking his head. "Though some of his other works are provocative, and his influence on Sartre is something I can't ignore. I consider the Frenchman's refinement necessary, thought, to make such themes more approachable - at least to my own literary palette," finding a comfortable position in his chair, one hand hanging off the end of its upholstered arm and the other across the table in front of him as he leans forward to continue.

"I've been staying away from philosophy, though. Current events have been my focus these nights," leaning back as he continues, his voice growing more casual.

"Do you keep up with the news rags? I've been finding The Denver Post a good source of information. Such thorough reporters. They seem to doggedly run down their leads," a certain subtext to his words he seems eager for her to comment on, but then, as if he's suddenly registered what she had said, Flood moves on before she can respond.

"A haunting? Now that is a rare thing even to me and mine," looking like it is her turn to speak; he adds the bookend and yields the table.

Molly Toombs

The man who showed them to their table, dressed in his work uniform to look as classy as the establishment was meant to, had moved to pull Molly's chair out for her, but Flood's tall broad figure cut into the man's path and he took over the task instead.  Molly smiled politely to the host and hesitated a bit awkwardly when Flood pushed the chair under her, like she wasn't sure when she was supposed to settle her weight into the seat.  She figures it out, though, and sets her clutch on the opposite corner of the table from where his hat had come to rest.

"I don't know," she continued the thought on Kafka with a small shrug of her shoulders.  "I like how unapproachable it is.  Kafka himself was a conflicted man.  Full of self-loathing and conflict-- he was an anti-Semite despite being an Eastern European Jewish man himself.

As for if she reads news rags, she had been about to reply but was cut off by his continuing his stream of consciousness, and now curious to know more about the haunting she had mentioned.

"Is it?"  She looked a little surprised to learn that hauntings were rare for vampires to encounter.  She'd expected that to be the other way around precisely.  For a moment she was preoccupied with her attire, pulling the bottom of the skirt downward.  It had risen higher on her lap than she liked, and even though her legs were under the table she made sure that she was in sorts.  No need to send improper signals, after all.

"Huh.  Well, yeah, there were two guys that lived upstairs until the other weekend when they moved out.  But after the apartment was empty I'd start hearing these scraping noises, like something was dragging around on the floor.  And this would be at about eleven o' clock at night the first time I heard.  I initially assumed it was the old tenants picking up their belongings, but the sounds continued and would go until the early hours of the morning-- I was hearing them when I got home from work still.

"So I went upstairs to check it out.  Everything seemed normal at first, but then I heard rustling noises in different rooms.  I was about to check the bedroom, but then the living room light snapped out and the front door slammed shut."  Bear in mind, of course, that her tone was kept moderate.  Telling ghost stories wasn't uncommon, a lot of people have had 'encounters' and believed in the afterlife.  Thankfully, this was one thing she could talk about in all seriousness without getting cock-eyed stares from passers by.

"The whole place dropped about twenty degrees all at once, and I could hear what I'm pretty sure was a hangman's noose in action behind the bedroom door-- the stretching creaking sound of rope carrying too much weight and swinging around.  So, naturally, I ran out of there.  Thankfully the front door didn't lock or anything when it had slammed.  This was last Sunday, and I haven't heard anything since.  I doubt that whatever's up there has gone away, but maybe it's just gone dormant for now."

Hopefully, anyways.

Flood

"Naturally," Flood responds before he begins considering her story and her theory that the spirit  "If the restless dead could sleep they wouldn't be restless," he finally says, intimating that dormancy probably won't last long - at least by his estimation. "But there are worse worries than the noisy spirit of a departed neighbor. There's that. Though I'm sure ever minute of sleep is important to someone in your profession. I've seen firsthand the hours you keep," as if the problem is not all that bad. At least it's an apartment removed. Far more removed than the dead man sitting across from her.

Flood circles around. Past Kafka and back toward current events and their cataloging in broadsheets of the public record.

"Speaking of annoyances," like that's all the ghost she'd told him is. "What are your thoughts on The Denver Post?" He feigns an apologetic tone over having brushed over her response. The one she'd been about to give before he moved on to things like Kafka and his approachability.

The dinner menus have come, along with one for cigars and another for liquors and wines, and Flood leaves the first closed, though he does page through the index of smokes as he waits for her answer. His fingers find the leather-bound edges of pages and turn through them, eyes downcast, though as soon as she begins responding again they rise to find hers.

Molly Toombs

Flood's thoughts on the haunting were shared, and Molly nodded along but their subject was switched, flipped around back to the Denver Post.

That this was the topic he chose to circle back around and focus on earned him an expression of suspicion.  Her eyebrows raised at him from across the table, but it was at this moment that the menus arrived.  There were four in total-- two dinner menus offering a selection of full entrees, plus one beverage menu and one separate menu for cigars.  Flood reached for the last of the four and thumbed his way through the pages, browsing to make his selection while keeping an ear tuned on her, awaiting a response.

Molly's lips pursed momentarily, and she took the pair of dinner menus and stacked them on top of one another, then slid them to the edge of the table.  She was confident he wouldn't be using his, and she apparently had the same intentions.

"I don't read the newspapers much," she finally concedes, and takes the drink menu to glance through instead.  "The televisions in the waiting room are mostly tuned to news channels so I get most of my current events at work.

"I do know one of the journalists, though."  She glanced up toward Flood's face, perhaps hunting for his reaction to that bit of information.  Eyes would drop back down to the drink menu quickly enough, though, turning the page as she did.  "I've never read any of his articles, but he seems like a sharp guy.  I'd assume that carries over to his work, otherwise he probably wouldn't be writing for them still."

Flood

When Molly looks up from the pages of the menu Flood's eyes are already narrowed with interest on the rest of her answer. Not the part about the viewing habits of emergency room staff, no, but what finally comes. As if - had she not said it - he might use that sharpened jade and those finely edged words to cut it out himself.

They are narrowed, those eyes, on her and in a way they have never been. Not any of the times they have encountered one another before this. But it comes. The same as Flood's smile comes, but it has no humor in it.

"Nathan Marszalek? What a coincidence," like Molly had already given the name.

"I know him as well, at least in passing, and I understand no only has he been asking about me, but you've been answering those questions. I am a lead I do not want him following. I am a name I do not want to hear in the papers or on anyone's tongue I did not expressly put there myself."

"You tell him here be dragons and his pen is not, in fact, mightier," Flood's words delivered with the gravity of a pallbearer for an as-yet-unpopulated funeral procession.

Once the warning, a message to be passed along, is issued Flood's mood seems to lighten a bit. Either because the waiter is returning or because he is passed that unpleasant topic, who knows? But he looks up. "I'll have one of the Padron 85 Year Reserve," he begins before turning his attention toward Molly. "And for the lady, a Flor de las Antillas Toro," closing the cigar menu and passing it to the server to help clear the table.

"Would you care to order yourself a drink?" His attention doesn't move from Molly once it lands back upon her.

Molly Toombs

The woman's entire demeanor seems to tighten when Flood speaks Nate's name in full, though she hadn't given it directly.  She can't say she's especially surprised, she knew that Flood had encountered him before (well, not knew, but she had a strong suspicion on the matter), but there's still a spike of tension that drives its way through when his tone grows heavy and his expression grows cold as his touch is.  She held his gaze while he spoke for much of what he had to say, but her eyes dropped back down to the drink menu so she could play nonchalant and turn the page-- this, around the time that he explains that he doesn't want his name in the papers.

She may have been about to speak on the matter, but the waiter arrived and Flood was ordering himself and the woman he escorted their cigars.  The invitation was open to order a drink, and Molly's face lit politely up while she smiled at the waiter and handed him the drink menu.  "A red wine, please.  I'll trust your recommendation."

Once the extra set of ears had gone, Molly settled back into her seat and folded her hands together on the table in front of her.  Flood's attention was heavy on her, but she shouldered the weight well.  The tension that had been there initially had been coaxed back beneath the surface, and her shoulders had been consciously relaxed so as not to betray her stress.

"I haven't been giving him much.  Nothing beyond our interactions, nothing that would go into a newspaper.  But--," and the word flows from the end of the previous sentence seamlessly, a punctuation in and of itself, ensuring that he wouldn't confuse her as being finished speaking.  "I get where you're coming from.  Although, I wouldn't worry much if I were you.  'Flood' isn't exactly a traceable name, now, is it?"

Molly balanced precariously atop a treasure trove of information and secrets, and she took a moment now to pick through it in her own mind, to sort the pile between 'Things To Share' and 'Things To Keep'.  She may seem just a tiny bit distracted for a moment while doing this, and plays it off by glancing down at her hands and examining the pale pink polish on her nails.

Flood

"That reporter is connected to someone I respect - to a point. Someone who is neither friend nor foe, but straddles that line and could tip one way or another, and that is the reason he has been allowed to ask the questions he has been. Since it seems my fondness for you hasn't inspired an averseness to betrayal, allow me to appeal to your sense of self-preservation," he begins. And of course this must sound like a threat.

"You told him that you believed I would not hurt you because you remind me of someone from my past - my mother - and that is true," a pause. Maybe not as much a threat? He doesn't seem as cutting. His mood remains lifted despite the waiter withdrawing himself from the table. 

"At this moment in time, that is true," he repeats with clarification.

"But my mother never revealed things about me to others, no matter how simple and seemingly untraceable. That is a betrayal that causes the resemblance to wear thin," he says with a casualness that belies his budding frustration. He seems to be reacting negatively to her guesses at what is or is not safe to share with third parties such as Nathan.

"Yet, even in this, I seek to protect you as much as myself. Should he pass along information to interested parties that characterizes you as someone I care for... Someone I have a weakness for? You couldbe used to, by our association, hurt me," his words having come slowly and clearly, at a steady tempo, so that when that waiter is circling back with the cigars, lighter and cutter on a tray for serving, set on the table on a simple platter and left for them.

"This is why I worry," he finished, picking up each cigar, one after the other, and clipping their ends, holding one out for her as he exchanged the cutter for the lighter and ignites the slip of brown tobacco leaf for the purpose of lighting them.

Molly Toombs

Allow me to appeal to your sense of self-preservation.

This is a sentence to catch one's attention.

Whatever it was that Molly was sorting through in her own mind was abandoned, and her eyes were clear, focused, and attentive when they found Flood's once again.

She listens to all that he has to say and doesn't interrupt to defend herself, although there is a flicker of reactions and emotions behind the cool neutral mask that she worked to keep on her face.  Her poker face wasn't failing, necessarily, but Flood was keen and noticed the little things-- like how the corners of her eyes scrunch up for half of a second and smooth out again when he insists further upon her betrayal, and how there's a flash in her eyes not dissimilar to someone being caught by a flashlight in the middle of a crime when he says, quite specifically, what she'd told Nate some time ago about her theory as to why Flood had taken a shine to her.

But then the tone switches.  Oh, he wants to protect her.  He tied the threat upon his name, his solitude and sense of secrecy, back to her.  He concluded that this was why he worried as the cigars arrived, left with appropriate tools and accessories on a platter that occupied their table.  Once the waiter had gone away, and after a solid sixty or so seconds had passed since Flood had fallen to silence and instead set himself to preparing the cigars, Molly spoke.

When she did, her voice was low and even, but threaded with a stretched sort of anxiety.  She worked ever-so-hard to maintain an even exterior, but it's certainly understandable that it fades here or there to reveal the thin, reedy sense of tension within the woman.

"You don't seem the type to want time wasted on excuses, so I won't even try."  Her hands moved, fingers interlaced with one another so that they would keep still and even before her.  "I'll leave that... topic of discussion at home from now on."

Another moment passes, and when the time was appropriate for her to be handed her cigar she would accept it.  If he gestured that he would be lighting it for her, she'd lean over the table so that they could meet in the middle where the lighter would reach.  However it plays out, Molly is back in her seat with the cigar he'd selected for her between her fingers and the taste of smoke at her mouth.

"Flood.  Not to stare a gift horse in the mouth, but surely I'm not that valuable to your ends.  Are you sincere?  About my safety being as important as yours?"

Flood

Flood does hold out that burning strip of paper, leaning forward though his reach does not necessitate it, his eyes on hers even if she is focused on lighting her cigar. Watching her as he does so.

"As important as mine?" The ambiguity of his emotional reaction to this question is not as shallow as its repetition in return would imply. He seems to actually be considering it. Weighing answers for truthfulness and applicability to their unique situations. Coming at her final, and considerably vulnerable, question from a logical perspective he seems to think she will appreciate.

"There are things worth fighting for and things worth dying - in my case a second and final time - for," he finally answers. This seems to imply that she is one of the two.

"You inhabit a very delicate position," his tone more open than before. It has a finer lilt, one less threatening and concerned than before. It is almost matter of fact. "You have my interest, attention, and to the extent that I am able, my affection. I find that last feat to be an impressive one on your part," his face splitting into a stiletto-cut smile, as deep as his sharp chin.

"As I said, things worth fighting and dying for. I am secure in my position and power - there are few things in this world I have to fear. I am in the enviable position to not have to consider if you are worth dying for," no less matter of fact. There is a deeply rooted confidence - far deeper than even the six feet of earth that seem up able to keep him in the ground where his moving corpse if a body ought to be. He is sure of himself, yes, but there is nothing prideful or arrogant about it.

"And you are not valuable enough, from an outsider's perspective, to be worth fighting or dying to get rid of," he continues. And for a moment he seems to be in the midsts of a recollection.

"When I heard," he says, and now his tone seems a little more unsure. Unsettled. Trying to understand his words even as he says then... "When I heard," he repeats, not pausing this time, "that you were speaking with Nathan, and considered the implications, even though I felt betrayed, it was more a protective instinct. Call it my territorial and assertive nature, but I did not like the idea of another having influence over you," nodding as he says it, and then turning over his hand in offering. 

"Take that as you will," eyes raised for a moment before he puts his own cigar to his mouth and lights it, turning as he puffs the smoke in greater and greater clouds until it burns in a glowing corona of reds and oranges.

Molly Toombs

If there is anything that Molly can appreciate about Flood, it's the fact that he doesn't beat around the bush.

The way that he speaks on what she supposes ought to be his emotions is flat, simple, matter of fact.  It's informative, and she can only assume that it's completely honest, but she's left contemplating how it must be to live a half-life such as his.  She wonders if all sense of emotion fades entirely-- if happiness is complacency at best, where utter rage is nothing but moderate aggravation.

That he said he felt affection for her and smiled sharply, and though the smile seemed predatory and cutting she couldn't do anything to keep her own lips from turning to a small smile as well.  The expression seemed flattered more than pleased, though.

She puffed on her cigar and adjusted her posture, crossing her right leg over the left at the knee.  Her left arm rested over her stomach, the right dedicated to the cigar.  As Flood concluded that he was territorial and that may be why he was bothered by her speaking of what odd, strung-along relationship she and the Undead Man were developing, the waiter arrived again, but this time to present a glass of wine to the woman.  He told her what the wine was, where it came from, and though she didn't seem to be concerned with the details she still listened politely, thanked the man, and waited for him to go on his way.  The cigar was switched about so it was held between two fingers, and using the fingers that remained she plucked the glass up by its stem.

"That's oddly sweet of you," she finally expressed.  "I can't say that I'm not flattered."  She sips the wine, using that opportunity to think on her next words-- whether or not she wants to say what's on her mind.  Lips are swiped clean of the drink when she sets the glass back down, and the moderate furrow to her brow is a prelude into the blunt honesty that she presents next.

"I'm conflicted by you, you know.  Intrigued, certainly.  You're charming, handsome, clearly dangerous-- what is there for a woman not to fawn over?  But at the same time..."  The cigar ash that has accumulated is deposited in a tray that's stationary on the table for them.  "I don't know if I trust you entirely.  I don't know if I can.  I trust that you won't bring me to harm, but your motivations are... obscured.  It's difficult to pin you down."

She figured it was only fair, if he was being honest about his take on her, that she return the favor.

The topic switches quickly enough, though, because there was something that had been prickling in her mind since they stopped their banter and started speaking on more relevant matters instead.

"...What harm should I be worried about?  You say that someone may try and use me against you, and apparently they wouldn't be incorrect in figuring that it might turn a result with you.  What should I be prepared against?"

Flood

"You shouldn't trust me. I won't ever ask you to trust me," shaking his head as he finally takes a long and relaxed draw from the end of that fattened cylinder of wrapped tobacco shreds and leaves. The smoke lingers on his palette, rising from his lips to his nose, it's scents, taste, and even its texture taken in even as his unblinking and waterless eyes remain on her.

"But thank you for the compliments. I'm sure it's some intersection of your caregiving profession, Emerald Isle features, and equally pleasing-as-it-is-challenging disposition," returning compliments in kind, though they seem no less genuine for it because he continues, "that have drawn me to you. But I try not to be too self-aware.  It takes ones eye off the ball headed ones way," seeming happy to leave it at that and this - their shared presence. Her company.

"Ah, preparations, yes," he seems to finally recall her last question as to what she must worry about. "There are things that could be done to make you more able to defend yourself, but I'm not sure how you would like the - as those in your field would put it - side-effects. But I think this is where some of the questions you had for me would intersect with where I've steered the conversation. But now, of course, we have the presented complication of such information getting back to Mr. Marszalek," shrugging like this is a bed she has made for herself and must slip into.

"I can say that allowing your life to change too much with what you know now can lead down a slippery slope to obsession and anxiety," he doesn't seem too concerned with her going down this path, but presents a warning nonetheless.

"As I said, I think in your case, an association with myself might make mutually assured destruction a deterrent. Though seeing as you would be one of the destroyed parties I'm sure that's little consolation. I don't think there are any direct threats on the horizon, though. I did not mean to come to this table to indulge in fear mongering."

Molly Toombs

Compliments are batted back and forth, almost like formalities in how structured and turn-for-turn they are.  She says he's handsome and charming, he says she's pleasant and challenging and that he likes how her heritage has rounded her face, lifted her cheekbones and splashed the whole thing with freckles.

But nothing is set from this.  There's no follow-up, no requests for continued dates, for monogamy or declarations of intention.  Rather, the topic of what they think about one another is left like the figurative cards they'd laid on the table, and they move on as Flood answered her question about how to be best prepared for the potential dangers that her continued interactions with him could bring.  As he explained what could be done to defend herself, particularly at first, a spark of something flashes on her face and in her eyes -- interest?  Perhaps.  His mention of things that could be done that would result in side effects caught her attention, that's for certain.  It was just difficult to say how, as she was attentive to keeping as much of a poker face about her as he seemed to keep about... well, everyone, as far as she could tell.

He dismisses the matter at the end, saying that he couldn't see anything on the horizon and didn't mean to make her fear.  Smoke crawled listlessly toward the ceiling from the tip of the cigar she held, and she brought it toward her, but paused and instead used it to gesture lightly, casually, as she replied.

"I'm not asking you what to be prepared for because I'm positive that something's coming my way.  I would just much, much rather know what I've fallen into here and be prepared ahead of time.  For instance:  I don't believe that the power and heat are going to cut out and plunge the city into a blackout for a week.  But I have the supplies at home to make it through the ordeal just in case itdoes happen."

The cigar is brought to her lips, and she puffed the smoke into her mouth and held it there for a few moments, but then her lips parted and the smoke drifted out in a slow sheet at first, but was rushed the rest of the way out by the air that carried her words.

"I figure you're probably right, whatever it is you're talking about with side-effects.  I'd be more interested to know what to be ready for.  Suggestions on how to handle it can follow.  Being handed a tool does me nothing if I don't know what I'm using it for."

Her eyebrows lifted, and blue eyes held his with a bit of significance to the expression.

"But maybe that's something you wouldn't want to talk about here?"

Flood

"You work in an emergency room," a wink as he ashes his cigar into the tray that stands on its own little pedestal off to either of their sides. The tip of his finger simply tap, tap, taps on the middle of the cigar to do so and the ash falls off like the drying and dead leaves of a tree.

"You know the more boring of those things you can expect. Death, maiming, dismemberment. No different than what one can expect through the course of a life lived instead of coddled," though the way he said it, the more boring, there must be more.

"Pawns can be pushed in many ways. Don't allow yourself to become one. Be strong and firm when you should be, bend and even break when you must, whatever it takes to keep the root alive to grow again," pointing at her heart, finger over the cigar, as he does so.

"If I wanted to hurt someone by proxy?" He begins, but stops a moment later, either because he does not want her to think any less of him or because he has finally realized the context and content of that last thing she had said.

"Are you saying you want to get out of here," and go someplace private?  That is what his devilish tone aerated with raking charm seems to say. One of his own eyebrows lifted up - only one - at the end of its puppeteer's strings. It bobs only once and returns to a flatter note, though its curve is mirrored in the upturn of a smile on the lower half of his face.

Molly Toombs

The casual way he explains that she should be prepared for the threat of death and dismemberment sets a somewhat dour expression on Miss Molly's face.  She seems to feel that Flood is making satire out of the situation to some degree, and she's unimpressed with it.  Eyes followed after his cigar when he tapped the ashes loose, a brief flit of distraction, but found his again when he gave her solid advice about not being a pawn and keeping the 'root' alive, so to speak.

He was about to say what he would do if he wanted someone hurt, but paused as was his way in the middle of his thought.  He seemed to have a habit of rethinking her words partway through his response and choosing to switch focus at the expense of his own reply.  She didn't expect that he was avoiding telling her what he would do if he wanted someone to be hurt through a comrade-- he wasn't the sort to spare her the gruesome details, based on what she'd gathered from interacting with him at least.  She instead was left with the assumption that he switched topics because there was an opportunity to wag eyebrows and be suggestive toward her.

The raised eyebrow and curved smile was answered with a brief half-roll of the eyes, and Molly tapped ashes off her cigar again as well.

"Oh, please," she dismissed.  "Don't get any ideas.  I only meant that I wasn't sure how much you were at liberty to say here, where eaves can be dropped, so to say."  Another drag, and another plume of smoke into the air to mingle with the atmosphere that the establishment proudly advertised.

"I know that I can't backpedal my way out of this anymore-- there's no sense in complaining or dragging my feet on the matter.  So, instead, I want to be ready.  If there's one thing I hate, it's stumbling through a scenario blind to what's going on."  She's quite serious, and how her mouth was a flat line with grim corners and how her eyes were hard and determined on his, that much is easy to see.  "I don't want to be spared details.  Ignorance might have once been my best defense, but these days I think it would be my worst enemy."

Flood

Flood's nearly playful - only nearly in the way he words it and easily far from innocuous because of his true nature - advances are brushed off and he seems to have expected this. Molly reveals that her offer had come because she wasn't sure of the place's security and even that is more for his own sake.

Or to at least help loosen her vampire inteviewee's tongue.

Flood nods and takes another puff and then two from his cigar.

"Of course. A little learning is a dangerous thing. But a lot of it..." He trails off as he considers this. "Well, all I will say is that you should be careful about airing what you know. There are parties that, if they found out you know even the little you do - or God forbid the more you might by the end of our rendezvous - you would end up -" and he gives a blast of breath into that cloud of smoke causing it to disappears to nothingness.

"It would not end well," as if it needed saying.

"You have specific questions?" He seems to have expected something more general that, What should I expect?

"Or would you rather I begin rambling?" He seems to prefer the former route.

Molly Toombs

This seems to be their dance:  Flood will advance, poke and prod, make his advances and try to get a rise out of the human woman.  Molly, in turn, will parry with wit and push him back on track.

So this is the case, and they're back on the topic that Molly wished to speak of.  She was surprised, to some level, at how easy it was to pull information from him.  She barely had to try, all she needed to do was ask a question and he would give her information like they were speaking about a news report that they'd both seen the night prior.  Of course, she couldn't verify the authenticity of the information he was feeding her.  He could very well be stringing her along for the sake of getting a chuckle in on his long and dragging life.

But she doubted that he was making things up or lying to her outright.  This is because what he'd told her so far matched up fairly well with what she's learned from others that were familiar, if not directly involved, with this underbelly of the world.

This could be cause to worry.  It made her feel like he might be preparing her for something, but twice now she was unable to subtly guide him to a point in conversation where she could coax his end goals for her out of him.  This, maybe more than anything else, was what gave her reason to tread lightly around the tall man in the three piece suits.

"I know how to keep things close to my chest, though I'm sure you'll be happy to throw Nathan's name out as an example to the contrary."  She dismissed his concerns that she would reveal that she knows too much to the wrong people, and moved right along to the meat of the conversation-- the reason (or so you would think) that she'd called him in the first place.

"I don't have a set list of questions, but I do have my... curiosities, I suppose.  I feel that now that I've waded deep enough into your reality, I should have a better understanding of the structure of this world that is revealing itself around me."  Another drag of smoke, and this curls slowly from her mouth again, carried by words rather than a pushed exhale.  "I'm aware that there are two... factions, we'll say.  Not only the two, of course, but two main ones to be concerned about;  concerned primarily because I hear the words 'war' or 'rivalry' or 'tension' being thrown around between them.

"I know that you're on one side, and I know that I've already met others that are on the other side.  To what extent does this war go?  How... severe is it, I guess?  Because at this point I don't know we're talking about battles and strategic combats, or if we're talking more about a political rivalry-- like the Democrats and GOP."

Flood

"Consider Denver to be what you kine, " not your kind, but you kine, "would call a Gettysburg these days. Oh, it's not as bad as it gets in the developing world, but it's a dangerous place. We've had our fair share of conflict and outright battle these past nights."

"Since the siege started this past winter it had ground to a stalemate with flare ups here and there. A war of attrition. Our characterizations of one another bridge on far more evil powers, though slavery is often a metaphor for how we think of our enemies and how they are driven to fight us as willing puppets of their elders."

"A Civil War is," as he considers it, "the best way to characterize it. A war of ideology, infrastructure, a union against rebels who struggle for freedom from ancient powers you best not consider to deeply - even to myself, to an extent, that are unfathomable. Like a number the mind can't quite grasp; then give that alien idea sentience," as easily talking about these things as he might the near-indescribable reason he still smokes cigars and how his vitae-awakened senses enjoy them in an altogether different way.

"I would know a little about you in return. Your life. In exchange for such privileged information on my own existence," seeming genuinely curious. He even leans forward, as if though he would speak his aloud, he considers her mortal existence a much more private thing.

Molly Toombs

"And to hear you tell it, yours is the side of the Rebels, and... what's her name...  Kali's-- hers is the side of the .... what?  Institute?  Church?  Royalists?"  Molly's blue eyes had been fixed on Flood's face the whole time he spoke.  She'd temporarily forgotten the wine glass in front of her, the cigar in her fingers.  The information that he had spared was precisely what she was hoping to get in return for her question.  It was broken down in a way that she could relate to and make sense of, but still providing enough detail for her to get a good skeletal structure of what was going on.

Again, that is to assume that he's providing her with the truth.
(And she assumed, tentatively, that he did.)

He switched the subject, turned the focus around onto her.  There was a tax for the information that he provided to her, and that was a further, deeper glimpse into her own life.  A few weeks ago she would have felt battered by the very idea.  She'd dug her heels in and refused to let him know where she lived.  She'd lost sleep thinking that he would be in a dark corner of her room or lurking against the wall in front of her front door.  He, or more specifically, knowledge of what he was, had terrified her thoroughly for a couple of days.

It was only fair, though.  So she blinked once, recalled the cigar in her hand, and tapped the ash once more before pulling another drag.

"Oh, it's nothing interesting.  Not nearly so much as my present."  But she shares anyways.

"I grew up in a coastal town in Oregon.  I'm the oldest of three-- I have two teenage brothers at home with the Mom and Dad still."  A sip of wine creates a pause in her drab story about herself.  "I played volleyball in high school and got a scholarship out here at UC of Denver.  I studied nursing, graduated, got a job at St. Lukes.  I spent my first year there in the maternity ward, then moved down to the E.R. and that's where I've stayed.

"No, where it gets interesting is when I met Tommy, and then when I met you.  And pretty much everything else that followed."

Flood

"We're the church and they're the state. Rebels might be considered a bit... Altruistic. At least when used to characterize our cause. Though there are anarchs as well," she continues. "Those who would shed both sects though they are by and far claimed by the state as fringe groups that will eventually be reclaimed into the fold," he corrects, and maybe it's before or maybe it's after they get to her story about her life up to the point it was upended.

"Kali could certainly be considered an enemy," is all he has to say on the former matter and then they do get to her story.

The one he'd been so interested in and even leaned in to hear. And to be fair he doesn't seem all that impressed when it's done, but that doesn't mean to say he doesn't pay attention to it all.

"See, that's what you should avoid. Telling people about your family, where they are, all of that," as if asking and her telling was just as dangerous as all he'd just told her now laying in her mind like bait for the inquisition he said might come to purge it and her from this world.

It wasn't really a test. He doesn't realize until he hears how forthcoming she is being and even though he'd asked for it he seems to tell her to never do it again.

But of course that only comes after he gets his answers. That might be why he's again curling the edges of his lips with a smile and leaning back.

"A family. I miss having a family. They're all dead. All the closest relatives. All the ones I'd ever met when I breathed. I do wonder if I have any distant cousins still kicking around," he says with a reminiscing air before his attention returns toward her.

And a question comes out of no where.

"You didn't wear the dress I got for you." He seems curious about this.

Molly Toombs

Molly's face twisted into a scowl of clear displeasure when he immediately chastises her for telling him about her family and the state they live in.  She didn't argue with him on the matter, though.  She didn't bother to remind him that he asked for her history, or defend herself by saying she didn't even tell him which town her family lived in-- just the state and its region.  She didn't express to him that she trusted he wasn't going to actually do her any harm, so she was fairly sure that he wouldn't be bothered to reach fingers out toward her family.  She assumed he was smart enough to know doing so would blow whatever work he was doing here, trying to build an alliance, relationship, connection of some sort.

She saw his face shift, saw him smile and lean back and change the subject, and so she let it rest.  The cigar she'd been puffing at was snubbed out in the ash tray and set down wherever was proper.  Her attention shifted now toward finishing her glass of wine, and she was already about halfway there.

"Oh, I'm sure there's got to be somebody-- some twice removed niece or something.  Maybe not around here anymore, though."  She smiled, the expression only a drop bitter.  "If she's smart and has momentum, she'll have been gone from here by the time she turned twenty, though."

And then, with his heavy eyebrows a punctuation of curiosity over his eyes, he pointed out that she wasn't wearing the dress he'd obtained for her.

The smile on her face died like a candle flame in a brisk breeze, and she glanced down at the dress she was wearing.  Tugged at the edges of the white bow and sash, adjusted the blue hem of the skirt where it rode on her thighs.

"I didn't.  It would've been too cliché."  A pause, and then another flicker of honesty exposed to this predator in a three piece suit.  "It's still too close to what we saw there.  I try not to remember much."

Flood

"Hiding from it helps? Tucking it away in your closet like a skeleton to haunt you? Try wearing it," he begins, venturing the recommendation out into the air between them with more strength than she might've expected him to.

"You wanted to know more. Don't hide from it," voice lowering into a whisper that sounds even more harsh. More weighted. It isn't a criticism. It's meant to be a motivation. "Don't hide from what you've seen. You're not doing it now; don't loaf about it in another way."

"Or burn it like you burn away weakness," and she has given him an opportunity to finally give her a weapon. Though he doesn't say it directly. Like it might be some kind of betrayal to simply pass it along any other way. But the way he twists his words shows there's more to it than just some metaphor. "Trust me. Fire works. Let it burn inside you. It'll keep you alive. That's what you have that we don't. Warmth. And the courage to wield it."

"What I told you was meant to protect you. You've told me about your past. It wasn't a mistake. But next time it might be; and you won't know it until it's too late," it's not paranoia. It's caution.

Joey @ 6:44PM
Private Message to Kenna
[ Manipulation + Leadership. Specialty: Cult of Personality. ]
Roll: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) VALID

Joey @ 6:44PM
Private Message to Kenna
[ 7 successes. ]

Molly Toombs

There's no shame on her face when he asks her if hiding from the knowledge would help.  She does continue to frown, though, and at one point her eyes dropped to what remained in her wine glass, and she twirled it with gentle momentum.

But then there's a fire in his voice-- a cold one, somehow, but it's there none the less.  He's got a force to what he's saying, he's trying to press meaning into her.  She's in too deep, he reminds her.  She looked back up to him, the rim of the wine glass at her lips, but paused before tipping the glass to bring the wine itself forward.  He's caught her attention.  Something he's said has lighted a spark within her breast, and she's suddenly paying rapt attention.

He wants her to keep that fire burning.  He says she already knows too much, and she should dive into what she's seen thus far, own her knowledge and do what she desires to seek more.  While he tells her this she sits differently, adjusting her posture gradually until she's leaned forward over the table, at the edge of her seat with both feet on the floor and her hands curled into eager fists on top of her lap.  Her eyes are bright, shining with meaning, inspiration.  What he's said has rung true-- more than that, it's inspired her.  Motivated her to seek to know more, to dig deeper, to forge alliances and take herself further and further forward into this world.  She had been tired of the gray day-to-day of life before, wasn't she?  Hadn't she been looking at travel costs the very first time she'd met Nate and Kragen?

Prior to her toes dipping wet into the pool of the Supernatural, Molly had been considering leaving Denver and the United States behind altogether.  She was bored with life here, intensely and thoroughly.  She didn't get along with anyone at work, she wasn't able to take any romantic ventures past a few dates and one night at someone else's apartment.  She was looking to spend a month in another country-- perhaps southern European, and see if things looked brighter on the other side.

But now there was something deeper, alight with new concepts and sights and adventures.  It was dangerous and terrifying, yes, but this was a part of the gauntlet through which she had to pass to break free from the norm.  And with what Flood had told her tonight, she felt straight-backed and ready.

It takes her a while to remember herself, to realize she'd set her wine glass aside and forgotten it.  She retrieves the beverage again and takes a drink, then says quietly but with a somewhat stunned kind of daze that one would imagine would come from a man of science who had discovered some new law of physics.

"You're absolutely right," she tells him.  "It's better than anything else I've seen, so why not pursue it?  I've already found the door and then walked inside.  Why turn around if I've already come that far?"

---------------------

The night will end on a note of vibrance.

Molly was motivated, deeply, by Flood's speech.  Her eyes were still bright even when Flood asked for the check, paid for the cigars and wine, and whatever else it was that he might decide to bring with him last minute.  They would rise together, and Molly would let Flood escort her to the door.  Hell, she might even hold his arm if it's offered.

When they part, it doesn't need to be spoken that they will be in touch.  Of course they will be.  They don't determine where or when or who will call who, because it's unnecessary.

Whenever time does find them, when Flood is finished with his duties to his People perhaps, they will meet again.