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Circuit Jerk Vice Captain
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 Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2018 7:57 pm
After sending off a text to the nameless number in his phone - they'd get a name to their digits if and when they signed the lease agreement - Bruno Strider didn't have to do much: he generally kept his part of the beach tidy and the empty houses were goddamn pristine so when the next morning rolled around and the potential tenant was due to show, Bruno was hanging out by the dock on his best behavior: no smoking, clean and nice-looking clothes, piercings out, hair not gelled to hell, ridiculous ironic shades absent. The look sort of stifled, but the weather was nice and the breeze coming off the sea was pleasant and distinctively didn't smell like low tide, so it all evened out. If everything went smoothly, he'd be able to stand this tenant. If everything went spectacularly, they'd want to rent without being buddy-buddy. These were the sorts of thoughts that occupied Bruno as he listened for an incoming engine, land or sea, heralding the arrival of the person he had to wow so he could charge them to live in this overpriced fancy dump. It stood to reason that he had no goddamn clue what was coming or who he was about to meet again after these past couple years. Ready or not, though, here came a whole ******** lot of trouble.
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Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2018 8:53 pm
On the horizon, a storm brewed.
No, not something that might interrupt the weather of a glorious day for a tenant-landlord relationship to gain footing, but a barely-over-five-foot tempest who found herself confounded by the simple things.
Rohais had braced herself for the potentially unpleasant heat of a summer sun bearing down on light, sandy beaches. She dressed for the occasion in breathable clothing that was lighter than her average ensemble; short sleeves, the whole nine yards. She came expecting a bit of sweat - something she'd counter while she adjusted to the climate with adequate insulation, constant beach-worthy attire, and considerable hydrating.
She had clearly overestimated the climate disparity between the cities only a couple hours south and the Isle de Gambino. It was by no means a short distance, but they weren't so impossibly separated that thinking looser, lighter clothing was that much more an imperative.
No, she was greeted with an actually reasonable sun and fair weather.
The real issue came from weaseling, invasive particles of sand that had somehow been so abundant even on the ferry that she could feel them making themselves at home between her toes. Surely, in time, she could habituate even to this discomfort. But how long would she suffer consciously?
Maybe not terribly long, as the craft carrying her slowed at the dock - likely the one designated for the Gambino 21689 neighborhood. With any luck, letting her feet be inundated with that much more sand would make the pesky strays a little less...
Agitating.
When the water taxi slowed to a stop, Rohais finally brought herself again to her feet. With the tab paid in advance, she brought her purse over her shoulder and exited the craft, ensuring she maintained her footing while crossing onto the dock the only thing on her mind (sand, sand, sand, god, it was annoying).
As the motor picked up and the water taxi pulled away behind her, she took in the sole person within view: someone who, really, looked like they were waiting for something, someone, probably her.
But she also felt the impossible sensation that this was sheer coincidence. This guy being right there, where he was, in front of her.
And now she was stuck on an island with him, the departing motor loud enough that she couldn't just turn on her heels and summon them back - which, if she was entirely honest, was her first instinct.
An instinct she barely subdued as she stared at him, trying, failing, to place a name to his face.
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Turnways Occultist Captain
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Circuit Jerk Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 7:05 pm
At the sound of the water taxi, Bruno perked up and stood from his leaning position against the signpost by the pier, watching the boat approach and pull into a docking position. He exchanged a nod with the captain, a decent guy who wasn't much for talking either, before focusing his attention on his potential tenant.
Immediately, something pinged at the back of his brain. It scrabbled for traction, demanding his attention, and he stayed silent as the girl he definitely knew exited the water taxi and crossed the dock.
She was dressed for the weather, so she was definitely supposed to be here. He wasn't, but his clothes were ridiculously thin and he didn't want to scare off potential tenants by showing off his scars.
As she lifted her eyes to meet his, her name hit him: Rohais. Rohais, who had said he was never getting her number. Rohais, who had vanished after that night in the club. Rohais, who--
Bruno cleared his throat. "'Sup. Was it you who was here for the showing? It's been a long goddamn time, years even. How've you been?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 8:04 pm
That familiar stranger didn't give Rose long enough to finish bracing herself for her realization, much less his realization before he started speaking without missing a beat. She settled for simply imagining recognition contorting his features, the air of detachment ebbing in favor of subtle earnest when their eyes met over the single moment it took for him to reset.
The quickly dying second to think ended with her deciding she didn't have a name to apply, wouldn't find one no matter how long she searched, and her thoughts may as well end there as she stepped down from wooden dock to sandy beach.
But, naturally, he had other plans for her, and one question led her back to pondering, a little more idly, just how long it had been. How old they were, what status she was updating for him in all her absence, how much he had to have changed in spite of the persevering tendencies of people centuries past their formative years... Before her thoughts passively transferred to the fact she had just been delivered to his door.
Unless, of course, he didn't actually live on-site. Which would likely prove a massive relief - even if he still knew where she lived, could drop by at the odd hours of the night just because she wasn't answering her phone, not living right next door limited that possibility.
Maybe Rohais had been out of his way so long because of the change in lifestyle. Maybe because she knew enough about the other facets of his life to instinctively duck outings that could lead to a run-in.
Maybe some other reason that faltered and capriciously threw her in the deep end when the opportunity presented itself in light of her house hunting.
Maybe, just maybe, she needed to have a serious talk with the Fates and deliver a punch to each one's gnarled, wizened nose.
"Consistently as you might expect I've been. I didn't take you for one to work in realty. Is that a new development?" She phrased it innocuously - a mere update in his life in exchange for the (ignored) request for information about hers - but as she spoke over the raging, rapidly changing thoughts that absorbed all of her energy in the moment, she had no capacity or interest in covering the bored, collected agitation in her voice; whether it was because she was far from happy to see him, or was simply having a bad day was anyone's guess.
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Turnways Occultist Captain
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Circuit Jerk Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2018 5:34 pm
Rohais didn't seem surprised. It was...something. Something Bruno didn't know how to handle, so he immediately jumped on the evasive question she'd offered.
"Irons in the fire, kid. Irons in the fire." It was a non-answer and he knew it, but he needed a moment, so he stalled.
Turning on a heel, he gestured to the beach, the quiet, sleepy cottages, the trees, the hidden but singing birds, the fat and lazy clouds in the bright blue sky, all of it ********. "What, you think I'd pass this s**t up? It was only a matter of time before I got my finger into this particular pie. Island s**t suits me, whoever said that no man was one was lying through their ******** teeth."
What he didn't say was it suited her too, but he had a goddamn feeling she knew that real well. Island living was a spectacular way to avoid people. But...
Was she really going to just straight up not react? There was no real change in her facial expression, nothing. It was almost hurtful, like he hadn't registered as good or bad enough to break through the facade. At least she remembered him, but it was cold comfort.
He realized he'd been standing there just a moment too long and shrugged. "Do you actually want the tour or are you gonna bail here?" Blunt, not what he meant to say, and maybe a little too personal in the hint of gruffness in his tone. ********.
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Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2018 6:06 pm
While likely not what he'd meant, his words made her feel as though she should have been able to predict him living here, owning not one, but several beachside properties and leasing them to the highest bidder, predict where each flyer was stationed and who else might answer the ad, predict herself, here, on the same island shore as him, deliberating the odds, and whether or not she'd follow through with their plans to view the property or hurl herself into the sea to swim back to the inner Isle. A few miles never hurt anyone, did it? How about the marine life that inhabited that space? It would probably leave her alone.
More importantly, she could have prevented it through predicting it. But she didn't know enough about him to know he would want to have his fingers probing into the pie of a luxurious life on palmy beaches.
She realized she was lost in the thought for a moment too long as his voice sliced through her thoughts, all too knowingly. "Do you actually want the tour or are you gonna bail here?"
Rohais' gaze returned to the line of water coming in and dragging out, the soft shifting tones of small waves coming in and subsiding as quickly as they'd formed before fading into their graves.
... Damn.
She couldn't make this bright, sunny, scenic day any more macabre than a cartoony skull, and she yielded to her frustrations to hold her head in one hand and exhale a sharp, exasperated lungful, before looking back toward him. She'd cleared her whole day for this, planned everything that could have been done otherwise for tomorrow, and wouldn't have the energy to tackle responsibility after two rides between the port and the outer isles. Of course she would take the ******** tour.
"I'm not such a magnificent swimmer I could bail without awkwardly lingering on your dock for a few minutes until another taxi came by," she answered, as though she hadn't at all been thinking about it, in the slightest, for any amount of time. "Not like I came prepared to swim like I owned the place already, anyway. Which one am I looking at?"
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Turnways Occultist Captain
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