[prp] We are what? (Clyde/Ana) end

[phantompanther13]

Clyde had just gone out to hit the showers. He was on his return trip, still in a towel and letting his hair down to dry. His stuff was gathered up in on hand as he walked, the other shifting the towel back up to where it belonged. This left him... problematically no handed as he came back to his room. He tried to shuffle his things around without setting anything down and get the door open. He probably should have just gotten changed in the shower room but the way it leaked all over the floor got his cloths the last time he tried. He really should make some modifications. He wondered how much trouble he would be in for adding a shelf to put things on at a comfortable level to the wall there.

He shuffled his thing and then caught the towel as it tried to slip. Ok... today was add shelf to that wall day. No doubt about it.

nio love

 

[Nio Love]

The door beside his clicked, and then swung open with purpose. Ana took two steps out before she surveyed the hallway, much as one would when crossing the street. She looked left, looked right, looked left again-

When she finally stopped to stare at Clyde, it was with no real reaction save for simple surprise in her face. There was a man standing near her doorway, dressed in nothing but a towel. He was fumbling with his clothing, and trying not to become fully naked by way of a slipping towel. This did not need to make sense, for Ana to recognize that there was logic involved in this situation. This was no anime. She did not suddenly think he was insulting her with his nudity on purpose.

She did, however, think he was following her.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Her crisp, clean voice called out. "Other than that towel, at least."

phantompanther13

 

[phantompanther13]

"Oh hey..." Clyde did not realize she though he was stalking her. He was merely trying to get his door open without flashing the whole building.

"Actually, if you could just open my door that would be great." he flashed her a small smile before he even looked at her. He was busy pinning said towel to his waist. But when he did look up he realized it was that girl from Twitter, wearing that mask that looked incredible similar to his own. The one he had awkwardly tried to talk too.

His cheeks deepened with a blush, not from being mostly nude, he didn't mind that. He wasn't showing anything anyway, and even if he was, it wasn't that big of a deal to him. He let out a small cough and looked away still feeling incredibly awkward. Like he had been caught with his pants down. But he wasn't wearing any pants.

nio lani

 

[Nio Love]

"Your door?" Ana breathed out, her suspicions deepening with each second that passed. "You chose to live next to me, as well?"

First, he'd mentioned the Black Rabbit. Now, she found he'd moved in beside her, and for all she knew he'd been watching her movements for days. This was your typical surveillance situation, and Ana did not look pleased to be surveyed.

She walked over, opened the door to his room, and waited for him to walk in. Whether he invited her in or not wouldn't matter, however, because as soon as he was inside, she followed. She closed the door behind her back, brought her hands up in front of her, and cracked her knuckles.

"Who are you, and why are you following me? Who do you work for?"

phantompanther13

 

[phantompanther13]

"Yes this is my room." he replied awkwardly.

"Ahh thanks." Clyde walked in and dropped his stuff on the bed. She seemed angry with him. He did not invite her in. he had every plan on getting dressed, but when he turned around to close the door he found it already being shut.

And he was being interrogated. His hands quickly readjusted the towel so it wouldn't actually fall off anymore. "I'm not following you. And I work for Deus."

A soft hum hummed at the back of his head and Van whispered to him,

His fingers twitched longing for the cold feel of steal. A fight could be just around the corner.

ready.> she spoke softly. And it was a comfort to know she had his back if necessary. She sensed the aggression like he did.

"Look I'm sorry for bothering you on twitter earlier." he held a hand up in a non aggressive poster, the other one he kept pinned on the towel, just in case.

Nio Love

 

[Nio Love]

It was difficult to tell if his excuses were making an impact, as her facial expression moved about as much as a piece of wood might.

"You did not bother me. You do not have enough power to bother me. What you did was tip your hand. Why did you mention the Black Rabbit if you aren't working for someone from the outside world? You expect me to believe this innocent routine, but that's not going to be easy. I'm not easy."

She moved carefully, her eyes never leaving his, until she reached the standard issue chair that each of their dark, dilapidated rooms had come with. She sat on it, still facing him, and folded her legs properly in front of her. Her arms followed suit, folding tightly against her body.

"So talk."

phantompanther13

 

[phantompanther13]

"Uhhh because you have a black bunny mask on? It's pretty obvious you belong to descent. I've been down that rabbit hole..." he shrugged a bit. She was clearly among the hard core group. He had forgotten how into it some of Descent's web members got very very into it.

He also might have completely forgotten about the password. Completely. he honestly couldn't even remember the last half of it. He wasn't hard core like his friend was, he just used it as a blog. and to read interesting stories about places he had never been and wanted to visit.

He had truly forgotten and she had invited herself in. But she wasn't being that aggressive. Just pushy. And wearing her mask here, did she indent to stay in character all the time. That sounded exhausting.

"Ok, I'm getting dressed. You can look or not, I don't care but this is your one warning before I let go of the towel." he walked over to the dresser and pulled out his cloths for the day first, before letting go of the towel. He wasn't shy.

Nio Love

 

[Nio Love]

Ana's expression transformed. What was once flat professionalism melted away as her eyes widened, and she launched herself up towards him. She moved quickly, turning him back to face her and pinning him against the dresser he decided to start pulling clothes out of. Her arm was against his neck, pushing upward to keep him still. And then she glared up at him, as if somehow she could cut through his eyes and read his mind with just a look.

"How do you know that name." She whispered, suspicion dripping from her voice. He'd only uttered half of the pass phrase, which was usually reserved for when someone was trying to figure out if they were in the presence of another member. He, however, was blatantly calling her out on it. There was no need to prove herself when he was already so sure.

phantompanther13

 

[phantompanther13]

Now he had done it. She was mad. And her arm too close to his throat. This was not good.

Vanessa summoned herself, or had he summoned her. He didn't know, all he knew was one moment she was on the bed, the next she was a weapon in his hand and at the ready. He had let go of the towel and twisted to look at her one gun pointed into her stomach.

"Because the club of hearts invited me in. Now get off." his eyes narrowed. He wasn't wearing the mask but it didn't matter, the switch had flipped and she invaded his space. He was cool calm and collected all the way up till she started getting physical. Well he would get physical right back. One shot wouldn't kill her but it should hurt enough to knock some sense into her.

Nio Love

 

[Nio Love]

She felt the butt of his weapon digging into her stomach and her brows lifted for a moment. Pulling his weapon out only furthered her suspicion that he'd been sent to kill her, but his words were conflicting with that scenario, and she couldn't quite resolve the fact that he hadn't fired yet.

"The Club of Hearts." She hummed out, her eyes flickering with thought. She'd never met the man, but she'd never met any of Descent in real life. And they'd never met her.

Until now, she supposed.

"I'm.. sorry." The hesitance in her apology exposed just how little she actually meant it. "If you understood out important it was that no one know - uhh." As soon as she'd released him and backed away, it became all too clear that his towel was gone, and she turned on her heel. Giving the enemy her back was the last thing she wanted to do - if she was shot for it, at least she'd know she was right.

But she wasn't going to just stare at him in the buff. She remained ramrod straight, focused on a point of the opposite wall, and tried to forget anything she'd seen. "Get dressed. And we'll talk." She ordered, her voice cracking with embarrassment.

phantompanther13

 

[phantompanther13]

Clyde didn't intend to fire unless he had too. He got very close to it though. Very close. but she finally backed off enough to give him room to breath. his gun stayed on line with her as she backed off. But his finger rested outside the trigger now. No intent to shoot.

"Like I said, I'm sorry I DMed you." and then she suddenly turned around and with such force that he felt a breeze.... oh. It seemed that during the jostle that fell.

Was she shy? She seemed suddenly a little shy. She couldn't see his grin, or him desummoning Van.

"Thank you." she heard the drawers pull open again. And he quickly grabbed cloths slipping them on. The Tape measure dropped quickly into a pocket after everything was on. And then he grabbed his jacket.

"I'm ready." he paused letting her turn around or not. "Shall we start over? I'm Clyde, Moon division. Thank you for helping me with the door." he relaxed, pretending that whole little incident never happened.

nio love

 

[Nio Love]

She remained where she was, unsure as to whether it really was safe to turn around or not. Her head turned just slightly, but she refused to look at him. "Ana. Sun Division. And you needn't apologize for that DM. What should apologize for is not explaining yourself further when I inquired you about it. Had you simply told me you were from Descent, I wouldn't have suspected you were following, and I wouldn't have confronted you here."

But she also wouldn't have helped him with the door. She conveniently left that fact out.

One quick, careful glance over her shoulder finally confirmed that he was dressed, so she turned and stood at attention, arms held back behind her. "Who were you? You tell me you're friends with the Club of Hearts, but he was just an admin. I don't recall him ever telling us that he had friends within the system." Her lip quirked, threatening to smile - but she resisted. "Not that we were a talkative bunch."

phantompanther13

 

[phantompanther13]

"Very well, I apologize for not properly using the pass code with you. And for not explaining, I didn't know at the time if you were really a decent member or not." he didn't didn't for sure, but he was 90% certain and that was close enough. Because they were hardcore.

"Not really are we? But you know, We are here." he meant him and her. "Some of us actually practice what we preach right?" there as a mischievous smile, one that said there was more to him than the calmer, chill exterior.

"I met club of hearts in person. They invited me online shortly after after we talked. We weren't close, just associates who did things together." he left it vague for Club's privacy's sake. Not that they were allowed to go talk to Club any time soon, but one never knew. "But I am, was, Wandering Traveler. I didn't pop on that often but like I said I had a blog."

One that included pictures of many places. He already missed that blog. those photos were what he had used to record his journeys.

"May I ask who you are, or shall I remain in the dark?" he was fine with either, it's not like he had anything to hide. He was not one of the more obsessively secret ones, one of the more hard core ones. Though... Club had said he was one of the more hard core, simply because he didn't just talk about it. He actually did things. But Clyde thought that was neither here nor there.

Nio Love

 

[Nio Love]

It felt jarring to know that one of them had known the other in person. Was it really so hard for her to believe that people had made friends? Perhaps it had to do with the fact that she'd always been so against the idea. She'd fought hard for anonymity, and as Clyde began to remind her of who he was, she realized he was one of those outliers that she'd been so annoyed about.

"I remember you." She finally murmured, sounding none too impressed. "All those pictures of where you were. I kept waiting to hear that you'd been murdered. I guess I was right. Sort of." Both of them were dead now. If she had still been on the board, she would have used him as an example of what not to do to stay safe.

But it was a little hypocritical to think of that, now. And if the woman who'd rallied for ultimate anonymity had disappeared along with him, no one would be believing in her ideals anymore.

She was glad she was cut off from that world, now. She didn't want to see everything she'd built up come crumbling down again in the face of fear.

"I was the admin named White Priestess. We're not being very secretive now, are we?" She realized they'd both used modified versions of their names on their Twitter accounts, and suddenly that felt like it had been a bad, bad choice. But it was the Intranet, not the searchable internet. It should be safe.. right?

She settled her head in her hands, and let out a frustrated sigh. "I was two captures away from passing Charcoal on the leaderboard for second place. Now I'm probably a dozen people behind, and dropping. Death will do that to you, I suppose."

phantompanther13

 

[phantompanther13]

"Yep I guess I'm murdered now." Clyde let out a relaxed laugh. "But it wasn't because of my pictures. I traveled a lot. It's really hard to track someone down by where they were weeks before. Especially me." he paused and gave her a shrug.

"White priestess, I remember you. You were one of the more hard core members if I recall. Honestly if you were looking for anonymousness on an island, you probably shouldn't be wearing the mask at all around the other hunters. But then again doesn't matter now, we are both legally dead. Our lives are here, doing the work that we set out to do. After all we are trying to fix the world and make it better. I figure we just made the ultimate jump for justice." That sounded good right? He could live with this.

Even if it meant certain restrictions. And never seeing his family again.

"I wouldn't worry about the board. Numbers don't mean a thing in the real world. We have more important things to worry about." Clyde lived minimalistically. Numbers and things didn't matter to him much. The pictures did a bit more but he would live. He would take new pictures.

Nio Love