Difference between revisions of "Log:CB's Enormous Mouth Pt II"

10 July, 2017

Changeling secrets are /so/ hot right now. Loaded with Brand New Information and a whole lot of bourbon, Franklyn takes C.B. to talk shit and share a sad story; only someone can't keep their Promises straight when they think something is so fetch, and things all get a bit complicated. Follow up to CB's Enormous Mouth Pt I.

Merriweather Manor, Ft. Brunsett

Once inside Merriweather Manor - the oversized and only vaguely ostentatious Garreau Family Estate - Franklyn directs C.B. to follow her through the servant's wing - yes, /wing/ - making a pit stop in a larder to pick up a bottle of bourbon and some tumbers - then they're off; going up a series of rather confusing passages, stairwells, corridors and even a hidden short-cut through an 'invisible' door worked into the wall, before they reach what is presumably the top floor of the very-very tall house, and enter a room. It's...

Filled with crap.

Although it's been arranged: not quite set up like a bedroom, more like a guest's room that doubles as storage that triples as the place younger Garreau's and introverts go to avoid, er, anyone who doesn't like a trek. That is, presuming the path Franklyn took C.B. up -was- the most direct route, and she didn't just purposefully bring him on a goose chase to confuse him vis-a-vis the Manor's layout.

Ugh. Franklyn. So difficult - maybe.

"Wait here." Franky chimes, pointing C.B. in the direction of an oversized daybed-or-fainting couch that could easily fit Freud's largest patient and their best mate. It's chintzy, and like the rest of the room it smells of mint and cedar and dust and just a touch of weed. She gestures towards... What? The record player? The boxes and boxes and boxes of books? The mirror and dress up box and small lifetime or three of accumulate family heirlooms? Who knows.

Because Franklyn is turning to walk back out of the room, letting C.B. just... Be.

While it's not the absolute fanciest or most modern place on the block, it's still much bigger and more...bourgeois a place than C.B. usually likes to hang out in. He makes at least one Miss Havisham joke. But he follows along just fine, shoulders hunched, hands slung in pockets as usual. The only thing /less/ usual is the silver in his hair and eyes, the slightly protruding bones, the electricity that sometimes crackles around him...it's probably hard to forget all that.

In the top room, he does a full 360, eyeing the books and the record player and all the knick-knacks until it's just too late, because Franklyn is leaving. "Franky! Where're you going? Hey!" He takes an idle step to the door, but doesn't follow. Grumbling, he wanders over to the books and immediately starts thumbing through them. When you're a book addict like him, it's the only logical conclusion. He also finds a fresh cigarette in his bag and lights up, because, y'know. He's as bad as Franky that way, maybe worse.

"Mind yer business!" That's Frank's helpful reply, then she's gone, leaving her purse behind her. Abandoner! C.B. is left with medical textbooks and poetry annuals and quite a lot of Anaïs Nin that's been left around the day bed -- and he'll have plenty of time to investigate, because Franklyn is gone for... A while. Three minutes stretch into five, which inch towards seven and tick-tock past eight and end up at eleven and...

Nearly a quarter of an hour later, in glides Franklyn, having done a costume change: her hair is let down, and she's wearing some preposterously gauzy cream dress-sack-thing over yoga shorts and crop top. She smells like coconuts, and from the way she's scrunching at her vaguely damp hair with one hand, it's safe to assume she's showered.

But she's also picked something up: a record box. Silent steps have her tiptoeing barefoot towards the record player, making nary a sound until she speaks: "JesusfuckingChrist," C.B. is -gawked- at, and Frank just shakes her head. "I cannot fucking =believe= this shit. Totally expected something different when I came back. Fuck. How do you do your /hair/? How do you =deal=?"

Records are thunked down, and Frank starts opening up the box to scan through them. "Bourbon, pleeeease!"

You'll find the young-old Author perched on the edge of the bed, silver wire-rimmed glasses on as he flips through one of those poetry annuals. He's already on his second cigarette, and he's been dropping ashes all over the floor because he's rude like that (unless there's an ashtray in here -- then he might use it. Might.). His eyes flick up from over the tops of his glasses, and...they probably /shouldn't/ get that vaguely hazy look about them, when he eyes her over. That thing is...gauzy, and he can smell her from here, and she has her hair down...best to just look away, C.B. Look away now. So he does, eyes flicking back to the book.

"Don't worry," he mutters, taking a drag. "It'll wear off for you, and then I'll be back to my usual, beauteous self. You know, the one with the dreamy blue eyes. Or," and he makes himself look at her, if just barely, "if it really bothers you, there are ways in which I can stop you from seeing me as I am. Would that make things easier?" He sounds disdainful, but you know C.B.: he'll do it.

He hasn't yet touched the bourbon she brought up, out of politeness one guesses, but now he leans over and pours her a half tumbler full, and then another one for himself. They'll probably both need it.

Oh, there is an ashtray to hand near the day bed -- Franky uses this place, from the looks of the lipstick crushed cigarette butts littering a little handmade clay dish that sort-of but not-quite looks like a turtle. Meanwhile, she flips through records - giving C.B. a quick glance and a small snort of amusement at his reply. "Is that self deprecating? Dreamy -- you look dreamy now. Ah!" A record is grabbed, and Franky looks -HAPPY-. It's quickly put on the player, needle adjusted, and speakers set to a volume that still allows for conversation.

Job done, she turns and stands with her hands on her hips: looking at C.B. like she was gathering evidence for a critique. She probably is. "...Easier?" Nose wrinkles, and she shakes her head - like 'easy' was /absurd/ or something. "Can everyone seen you like this, or just me? Can you turn it on and off all the time? Is it magic? Is it the only magic? Why does it happen?"

Franklyn marches over towards the bourbon after it's poured, hand outreached to accept the glass. "What does it feel like? Why are you so sad about it? Doesn't seem half bad, looking like an electrical storm is about to break out over a trainspotting convention. Can you--" Her eyes suddenly narrow; skipping from his hands to his shoulders to his hair and then eyes - she stares right in 'em. "...deal with electricity?"

She's a party girl, but... Franky is not dumb. She's a suspicious socialite.

"Self-deprecating, yes, though a girl once told me that." C.B. mutters around his cigarette. "That I had dreamy blue eyes." He blinks up instantly at the song playing over the record. "Shit, Norma Tanega? I haven't heard this record in /years/. Where did you find this?"

Distracted as he is, he still manages to answer her questions, albeit with a sigh. "No, not everyone. Just those who are...turned into it, shall we say. I /can/ turn in on and off, after a fashion, though it isn't easy. Is it magic?" He makes an overly dramatic shrug, the kind that sends his hands flapping down to his sides with an audible noise. "Damned if I fucking know."

C.B. takes a hefty swig of bourbon before he goes on, glancing at Franky out of the corner of his eye. He probably should have known that she would give him the third degree about all this, but the reality...the reality is a handful. "Sad about it? Dunno if I'm /sad/, per se, it's just that the way I /got/ like this was no fucking picnic. I -- " C.B. blinks at that final question. Uh oh. His lips purse. "Maaaaaaaaaybe. Why?"

"Uh, the /record store/?" Franklyn tuts, then ohs and glances to the side. "Or Dicsgogs - or... Or I maybe lifted it from my ex dealer or, shit; eBay? Who cares! It's great, right?" She does a little shimmy in time to the song; eyes closed as Norma sings: 'Don't sing if you want to live long / they have no use for your song / you're dead, you're dead, you're dead / you're dead and outta this world'... Oddly uplifted look on Frank's face, for such grim lyrics.

Then C.B. is explaining stuff, and Franklyn's eyes ping open - she's invested. Bourbon is sipped and she pads over to the day bed, slow and silent, all cattish. There's something too in her eyes - a touch feral, like she was waiting to pounce on brand new information. Paused at the edge, she doesn't sit down: just puts one knee up on the edge and stays there, looming near by. Definite handful. She is not backing down.

"So you're /conflicted/, then, if not uniquely sad -- so it wasn't worth it?" Then Franklyn is lifting her chin a bit, smiling widely -- but not exactly nicely at his final answer. She stays silent, sipping bourbon as she watches him: the way his lips purse, the way he stretches out his response. Finally, a brow arches and she chimes up again, "You don't seem like the type of dude who apologies for doing what you think you believe in, right?" Smile, it remains. "But like, you seem uncomfortable about being the way you are -- do you feel guilty?"

C.B. likes the song, too, even if he doesn't do much more than vaguely tap his construction booted foot a little. Finally, something pop cultural in common? Even if it is fifty-one years old. He eyes her as he looms. For all of his bluster, intellectual or otherwise, C.B. is an anxious guy. It's the sort of anxiety that can turn into violence. Bomber-style. Of course, it's nowhere near that level right now. Is it?

He lets out a laugh, the kind of laugh that includes a lot of smoke because he was mid-drag. "It wasn't worth it. No. I don't think so. I don't know. I didn't have a /choice/ Franky." C.B. is smiling, but it's a thin and strained smile as he leans forward, gesturing with the cigarette. "I was fucking abducted. That's what happens to most people who go to Arcadia. That's why you /volunteering/ to go to Arcadia is a bit like volunteering to go into an active war zone, y'know? Of course, you could do that with some revolutionary aims, I guess..." And he gets a slight light in his eye, like he hadn't considered that before. He forces himself not to follow that thread. Not yet. Besides, there's other business at hand...

"Do I feel guilty? What're you trying to say, Frank." Not a question. His brow furrows, getting that little wen between his eyes that happens when he's got a serious furrow going on. "Be straight with me. Are you accusing me of something?"

As the cigarette is gestured in her direction, Franklyn reaches out and tries to grab at it swiftly. "I'm not 'volunteering' to do shit." She quips back - but she doesn't interrupt otherwise, just listens: expression a tad curious and wary, replacing that oh-so-wry smile that had remained fixed until C.B. gets to the bit about abduction. She leans forward, across C.B. so she can place her glass of bourbon on the table that holds the ashtray. Talk of warzones and revolutions? That gets a reaction: a sigh is made. It is definitely huffy.

Moving back to kneel on the bed and sit on her feet, Franklyn turns and peers at C.B. with the utmost curiosity - looking all... Casual. So casual. Cool and calm and casual. A shoulder is shrugged slowly. "Well on one level, like, do you feel guilty that your choices got you put in a slammer that in turn allowed you to get like, knocked out an abducted -- but on the other hand..." She huhs and tilts her head to the side; never not looking at C.B. and his swirling eyes. "...You seemed like, /super/ eager to help me with my phone problem - which, like, was totally unexpected, so it's got me thinking, why..." She stares at him. Unblinking. Stare, stare, stare. Then she smiles, super bright.

"...Were you in love with the girl who called your eyes dreamy?" Head tilts in the other direction, endless curiosity. "Is she dead now? Fuck. That must be the hardest part, being a man who fell out of time: everyone's either dead, or dying, right?" Blink, blink: she frowns. "Shit."

She can pluck that cigarette from him; of course she can. And C.B. often brings things back around to warzones and revolutions. But now, all his focus is on her. He feels like he should turn this around and start grilling /her/, but it's impossible right now. He opened this door. This can of worms is his fault. And now he's in the hot seat to pay for it.

There's too many questions here. C.B., to his credit, is the kind of guy who tries to answer them all. Some people like to gloss things over, but not this one. "Do I feel guilty about all that? I don't know. On some level, I think I'd do it all again. Am I sorry that some of my friends got killed because of shit we did? Yes, I'm sorry about that. Do I think I'd do it over again if there was a strong enough movement to support it?" A beat, wherein he looks off. Maybe towards some distant point in the past. "Yes. I think I would."

When she stares at him...he sighs and rolls his eyes. "Okay, look, Franky. I broke your phone. I was angry at you, and I broke it." C.B. is leaning forward now, bony elbows on skinny thighs, gesturing with his inkstained fingers. "I'm sorry about that. I really am. I...it was petty of me. I shouldn't be using my abilities for shit like that. So, y'know. It won't happen again." He shrugs.

Then he takes a long sip of bourbon and sighs again. "I'm pretty sure I was in love with her, but she's not dead. Last I heard she's married and lives in Southern California...grandkids." He eyes her over his glasses again. "A lot of them are dead. A lot of them are still alive, too. I'm not /that/ old, I mean." C.B. half-smirks. "I'll be seventy this November. Seventy is the new twenty or some shit, right?" He has to roll his eyes at that. He also tries to pluck his cigarette back from Franky.

Franklyn happily puffs away at her pilfered cigarette; winkling her nose only a touch as she notices it's a rollie. But of /course/ C.B. wouldn't smoke straights, and of /course/ she's openly critique something that wasn't even her's in the first place. But C.B. is answering her barrage of endless questions, and Franky listens: head tilted, as if to keep smoke from getting in her eyes.

She nods along, soaking it all in: she did promise to listen, and at least she's keeping up her end of the bargain. While the mention of his fallen comrades gets a look of sympathy, there is something that suggests it just doesn't seem -real- to her. It's like watching a play. "...You're an ideologist." Slight hesitation, eyes narrowed with thought. "Ideology... Is a trash can the idealist eats from. You? An an idealist."

Huh? Makes sense to her, apparently. She shrugs and puffs away, then her eyes go WIDE as he mentions the phone, mouth dropping open -- yet... Is that a bit of a smile? Only a bit! She's also kind of pissed off looking: aghast with indignation, but not so much that she doesn't hear out his apology and... And that apology is a good one. It garners only a whispered reply; "You petty piece of shit." Said with fondness, somehow.

"You're /sixty nine/ years old?!" Franklyn laughs, then guhs and shakes her head -- moving to stand after C.B. takes his cigarette back. "Yeah, sixty nine is totally the new dirty thirty, suuure." She rolls her eyes and tuts with amusement, moving over to the record player and her purse. "What're you plans, then? For your septuagennial? You gonna blow up a Starbucks, Mr. Durden?"

C.B. completely neglects to mention that Green sort of bullied him into an apology and also into replacing Franky's phone. Oh well! Some things will have to remain a mystery. For now. He doesn't even touch the ideology thing. No time for that right now. But he does nod when she calls him a petty piece of shit, and even smiles a little. "Yep. Guilty as charged. Also, you spend too much time on your goddamn phone." Goddamn kids. But the bit about the phone is also said with something like fondness.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Sixty-nine, hardy har har." But he's still smiling a bit, and even leaning back on the bed. Like he's trying to, you know. Relax. "Hey, I was blowing shit up when Palahniuk was still riding on training wheels, okay? Though maybe it is time to blow something up again. One Starbucks probably wouldn't be enough. Maybe a lot of Starbucks, though..." Still smiling. It's a joke. Probably. He sighs, though, taking a drag, now that he has the smoke back. "I don't know. I wasn't going to do anything. 'Specially since I'm not /supposed/ to be a geezer. I don't look like one, right?" He doesn't, even with the silver hair. Doesn't /look/ old, even if maybe something about him /feels/ old.

"Do I?" The irony is Franklyn is reaching for her phone - rolling her eyes and checking it, before an aux cable connected to the record player's hifi is plugged in. Tap, swipe, app and type: Franklyn is fidgeting around on that phone, setting something up before she goes to carefully remove the record and slip it back in it's sleeve. There. It can rest with the other dusty old stamps of plastic. Only... it's funny, because the sound on the speakers /sounds/ like a record. But it's just a recording. Copy of a copy, even. Old blues song.

Looking over her shoulder, she aches an eyebrow and smiles sweetly at the electrified author's 69 quip. "...Why's that funny?" Like she doesn't know. She pads back over to the day bed, leaping so she can bounce - bounce! - knees first, trampoline style, then crawl to a stop next to C.B. and sit back, legs akimbo. Franky is relaxed. Super relaxed. Possibly too relaxed: personal space is not a problem, she grabs for his cigarette again.

"Ohmygod, alright granddad - jeez, don't you know how insensitive it is, exploring avenues of physical violence against materialism, like, as a /choice/ you're privileged to make, when like, soo many people don't have access to solid credit or like, the /option/ to live their lives without violence? Compassionate post-capitalism is a thing -- and pacifism is like, such a better option." Ugh, she sounds like a hippie. Or... Like she's trying to wind C.B. up.

Fucking actresses. She laughs and rolls her eyes. "No, you don't look like a geezer: you look like... The Man Who Fell To Earth, kind of? You've got that Bowie diet look; all cocaine and red peppers. Just? Static. Like... You know what you fucking look like. Jesus. Do you do this on the regular? Trick girls into getting a peek?"

C.B. watches the process with the record player with some amazement. He will never quite understand the way that sort of shit works, even if people make use of aux cables at the Collective. But his face softens at the music. He knows this particular copy of a copy, as he does probably any mid-60s folk she might choose to play.

He oofs as he's bounced, and eyes Franky with rightful, perhaps, suspicion, but he neither backs away from her nor protests when she steals his cigarette again. Although he does ask, "Do you just want your own? I have more."

His blue-silver eyes seem to grow increasingly more electrified the more she talks. It is /not/ hard to wind C.B. up. Not at all. "Are you fucking kidding me? I still believe that the white middle class is compliant with a corrupt system. There is /no such goddamn thing/ as 'compassionate post-capitalism.' Pacifism, now that's a thing, but is it a thing that changes societies? I'm still not sure, even all these years later." A lot of people who had C.B.'s line of thinking got old and changed their tune down the road, but they also weren't people abducted by alien beings and tortured for nearly forty years, so.

C.B. actually snickers at her description of him. "Do you write at all, Franky? Sometimes you have a way with words. And no." He tries to grab the cig back for a drag. "I do not do this on the regular. Only when the Truth is needed or necessary."

Franklyn makes a good show of Thoughtful Consideration at the question of 'does she want a cigarette'; stretching out in a languid pose, like she's been reading stage notes from an adaptation of Bright Young Things or something. The idle posturing of the idle rich: confident and effete.

Then C.B. starts going off on one, and the gentlest whispers of a wry smile start to spread across her features -- green eyes sparking, but not in the literal sense that the Wizened's do. She's totally winding him up, just to see him jerk into action and sputter through his ideology: and now she's not even hiding it, just grinning at him as she listens. Then? She gets Real: "The violence is inherent in the system; but you can't dismantle the master's house using his own tools. I'll send you the paper by Sapolsky about Forest Troop study, you may find it enlightening."

Plume of stolen cigarette smoke is exhaled towards the garret's skylights, and she shrugs gently and laughs. "Words? You think so? In what way?" Not an answer. She side eyes him carefully and weaves the cigarette away as he reaches, like she was playing capture-the-flag or something -- then she laughs and hands it over, "Ugh, you just need my spit -- that's the /necessary/ truth. Oh. Hmm." She blinks once, head tilted.

Franklyn looks... Oddly sad. "I have written. Thank you, for saying. I don't publish anymore." She glances away, for the first time - up towards the skylight. "I... Appreciate your, candidness with me. So often people are... They want to keep their fucking heads in the sand, and everyone else's too. I hate them for it. They =lie= to you; feed you shit and tell you it's ambrosia, and when you step up? They try and cut you right down. /FUCK/ them. Truth can be hard to swallow, but... Whatever. I'm not going to just lie back and accept bullshit, just because the emperor's stark fucking naked and people are too stupid and cowardly to fucking /deal/ with it. Assholes."

Now who's ranting.

Trying to catch up on so many missing years of knowledge and culture means that C.B. hasn't, in this case, read the Forest Troop study. "You don't understand. We were setting an example, because no one else would," but he actually stops himself with a sigh. What's the point, right? He's not going to win any converts over today, he's sure of that.

He smirks at her as he takes the cig back, and then offers her a fresh rollie. Take it or leave it. But when she gets serious on him...his manner changes. It's back to being earnest, with its furrowed brow and deeply intense studying of her eyes. I mean, now she's speaking his language. This diatribe could be coming out of his own mouth. "Shit, I'll drink to that." And he does. "And if editors or critics gave you a hard time, fuck 'em. I bet your writing's great. I'd like to see it sometime. Don't let 'em stop you. Gotta keep going. It's the only way you get better. Don't accept bullshit, just like you said! Rise above their crap." C.B. is actually grinning a little. He means all this; this sort of thing tends to make him feel better, not worse. Nothing like a little righteous indignation to get him going.

Imagine that; Franklyn senses that obvious gap in C.B.'s expertise, and she tries to -help- by offering facts to consider, rather than tearing into him with snark and mockery. Shit. That's like, mature of her? /Nice/ even? Well, it comes in ebbs and flows, that. C.B. may be a defeatist, sighing about his lack of converts, but Franky seems oddly confident that A) she is right, B) fuck everyone else. Comes across that way, at least.

The rollie is accepted, and Franklyn leans forward to accept a light as well: because she is Fort Brunsett's answer to Daisy Buchanan, or something. "Oh darling - they /never/ gave me a hard time, so I didn't have to." In this moment, she is sad and quite possibly trying to act like she isn't. Her eyes give her away, expressive as they are; all big and green and sorrowful. Like a girl in mourning. A vague nod is given to 'gotta keep going', but C.B's words don't lift her spirits much.

There is some hesitation, then Franklyn starts fidgeting: free hand absent mindedly picking at her own manicure, threatening to chip it away. "...I had a writing partner. We..." shifty eyes. "...Something changed. I... I did not over react, but... I..."

Holy crap: she's blushing - looking shifty and embarrassed and some other complicated way, all at the same time, while she does something truly rare: clams up, and stops talking.

C.B. is often confident he is right, too, but he's not today, for whatever reason. Then again, there's only one thing he's confident about in life, and that's his writing. And even that...

He lights up her cig with one of his cute little matches. And then he's staring at her. "Okay," he says slowly. "What happened?" It's a coaxing, sympathetic tone. Here she was, so intent to get all the juicy details out of his life, and now he's listening to her. This is a not-uncommon turn in the life of Mr. Alexander, and not one he minds. He may love to rant and argue about literature and politics, but he doesn't relish unleashing the finer points of his failures. And there have been many.

Franklyn hides her hesitation under the pretence of smoking, eyes drifting off to the side as the internal debate rages. Bullshit, or tell the truth? When she looks back at C.B., smoke is huffily exhaled towards the ceiling and she jabs the cigarette towards him to accentuate her point. "If you -fucking- tell /anyone/ about this, I swear on the air I breathe: I will put three jerry cans of gasoline in the back of my car, drive /through/ the front window of that crunchy granola bar you've just opened up, and /literally/ burn the entire place to the ground."

... That does not sound like she's kidding.

But she is continuing, taking a rapid and rather desperate drag of the cigarette before she continues. Eye contact is... Hard. Her voice? Rushed and quiet as she leans towards C.B., like she was afraid of the spider overhead stealing her secrets. "Okay. So. My bestie, my comrade, my partner in crime, my writer buddy for like... Ten /fucking/ years, just wakes up one day and decides not to meet me to go buy some fireworks-- /fuck/, this was like, /literally/ the two year anniversary last Monday, /shit/." SO furious. So sad. So desperate. She goes on, eyes wet.

"So I'm like, what the fuck? I go and see them and... Something is just /off/, okay? I can =fucking feel it=, in the /depths of my self/, I just know. I just know! Okay? I just fucking know. But like... Eeeeeveryone else, they're like 'Franky, ohmygod, shut up; people change, you're being -soooo- clingy', right? Like I'm some kind of fucking poseur asshole who doesn't know they =hate= spearmint yet they're eating mint fucking chocolate chip? That's =BESIDES= the point."

She is literally ranting now, rapid and quiet and bordering on over emotional. "So... Okay I /did not/ kill them, okay? And yes I was drunk, but I fucking =KNOW= something happened. And so, yeah, so fine, so that's why I had to fucking leave the Village, and my career, and my best =fucking= friend, because /they/ just flipped a fucking /switch/ and turned into a =psychopath=, and /I'm/ the one who gets thrown in that fucking, that- that, that -fucking- modern answer to Owinska, and get fucking prodded and poked and /fuck/ knows what for like, over a fucking -year- and..."

Franklyn shuts up, and looks away: face burning. She's... Pretty cut up about this entire situation. The cigarette is smoked, like she was sprinting towards a grave.

The guy who used to make homemade bombs on the regular looks faintly amused by her threat of cafe demolition. But the story Franky is about to tell? That's the important part. He's all eyes and all ears. Her intense emotion is both familiar and uncomfortable, but he soaks it all in.

"Okay." C.B. is frowning. It's not the face of someone who thinks that she's crazy. It's the face of someone used to being told /he's/ crazy, and not trusting the authorities who told her /she/ was. "So...what. One day, your friend just...shut you out? Completely? I mean, what else was different about them?" He notices the lack of gender pronoun there, and goes with it.

"Also, uh," he takes a drag, glancing away. "I get it. I've been there. I mean, locked up, in hospitals. I feel your pain, or something." No ramble from him, not right now. He's focused on her.

Friend. Differences. Hospitals. As C.B. questions her, Franklyn swallows hard and smokes rapidly -- she's following along and listening, but she's definitely struggling to keep her composure at the same time. She darts a careful look in his direction, twice - not wanting to make eye contact, lest she be Judged - but when she notices the distinct tone of 'acceptance', she sniffs in and turns to face him. Body language gets softer as she opens up, leans towards him. Spider's mustn't know her secrets.

A shaky hand reaches out to grab the Wizened's - forgetting or uncaring about the potential for a zap. "They didn't just shut me out, that's the /thing/: they just... Didn't... Know as much? I thought they had a fucking brain tumour or something, but apparently not. I was like, ohmygod, why are you being so rude to me? But then they were like, 'oh Franky baby, you know I love you' which is /true/, but like... In my gut? It wasn't? I =knew= it wasn't them. I got called paranoid and they're saying I was delusional, but I am not, I just don't have any =EVIDENCE=."

Oh. Maybe that's why she likes to deal with facts.

Franklyn takes in a huge breath, chest heaving as she looks to the side - other shaking hand raising to hold the cigarette protectively close, as she absent mindedly tries to clutch on to C.B.'s with the other. "It was this =feeling=, like creeping dread? I thought it was a migraine coming on, but I've had those and this is /different/. I'd had it a few times before, but it was going of =all the time=. Totally unique. I think they're fucking possessed. I =know= I'm right about something being wrong; /fuck/ everyone for telling me different. It's okay. I still dream about them constantly, and it's okay. I'm totally chilled out," She does -not- sound chilled out.

She sounds pretty fucking insane: fever in her eyes as she looks back at C.B. "I'm on the proper path now. I've got a plan. I've thrown away the cup, woken up to the collar around my neck, and I'm fucking walking /in front/ of the veil of awareness. I'm going to get them back, back to how it was, before it went wrong. I don't care =what= it takes. I'm fucking figuring this shit out."

There is, fortunately, no zap. But C.B.'s hand is there for her. It's a bony thing, but warm. Strangely enough, a shudder goes through him, the more she tells of her strange tale. Like he's desperately trying to understand. Desperation, that most delicious and delightful of emotions. He feeds it to himself as much as he gleans it from others -- though she has plenty coming off of her in spades, right now.

His eyes narrow. Seeking, searching. "I feel like...I feel like I get what you're talking about. But why?" How can he know that she is, most likely, speaking of fetches? She's too vague for him to put two and two together, yet -- but he's working on it. "So, they were your friend, but...not your friend?" He's almost there. Almost. "They looked like your friend, but -- they weren't?"

And now, he watches her. The proper path. Watches her eyes. He has to nod. "You got a plan? What is it? I want to know." He loves plans. Especially insane ones.

Desperation rolls off of Franklyn like fog off mountains at dawn: this is some deep seeded feeling, right there. A motivating force for the Garreau girl. The problem for their conversation is Franklyn doesn't really know what she's talking about. She's just a simple Mortal girl, in a very complicated world. When she tugs at C.B's hand, her nails dig in just a bit - but she doesn't seem to notice what she's doing, she's so wrapped up.

"Oh, oh - to anyone else? Sure, they look like my friend, but? They so totally fucking are /not/ my friend. It's like somebody took over my friend's body; possessed them, learned their behaviours, half assedly I might add -- like, brain parasites? I don't fucking know. But I =know= it, feel it in my /fucking/ bones, that one night I popped a kiss on my best friend's forehead and waved good bye at the station and they winked at me -- and then next time I saw them? Those eyes were possessed by something else."

Franklyn shudders and shakes her head, looking down as the rollie goes unacknowledged and threatens to burn her fingers. "...I'm working on one. Don't worry about it. It's... Gaining momentum. I've had to, ah, recover a lot..."

-> >> CB to Franklyn << <-============================================

   Rolled 4 Successes 
   < 1 1 2 5 5 5 8 9 10 10 >

======================-> >> Intelligence + Occult + 1 [No Flags] << <-

"Holy FUCK!" C.B. almost bounces straight off the bed. It's Franky's hand in his that stops him from actually getting up, but when he gets worked up, he gets worked up -- he throws the poetry annual across the room, gesturing frantically with his same hand. "I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FRIEND, FRANKY!" He lets out a totally lunatic little laugh, showing off teeth yellowed with nicotine, crooked from a lack of orthodontia, and, apparently, missing a few near the back. "HA! This completely justifies me showing you the Truth, if nothing else." He leans forward, suddenly exciting, taking both of her hands in his. Still grinning. "I bet you anything your friend was a fetch." Okay, you KNOW he hasn't seen Mean Girls. So what the fuck is he talking about? Why is he letting that sink in?

When C.B. starts to - ahem - yell, Franklyn looks a bit freaked out: her impassioned and melancholic desperation suddenly replaced with shock and confusion. The book is being thrown, C.B. is yankin' on her hand, words are echoing around the eves of the top floor garret, and Franklyn is cringing back with wide eyed befuddlement -- what, she afraid of the staff overhearing a Mr. Alexander hollerin' in the Manor?

But there's that feeling, see? Of the Wyrd's connection 'twixt them stretching back and going: PING.

Somebody's broken a promise. She said no yelling at her, right? Right.

Both hands held in C.B.'s, Franklyn looks up at his grinning face with a total lack of understanding: it's not just the work Fetch, it's that everything is just... How it was before. Was it ever actually any different? Her fingers curl tight around his. "...C.B..." Oh shit, no nickname. She's worried. "...What... What just... What just happened-- you're, you're /you/ and-- is this supposed to happen? What's going-- did you-- are you..."

Franky may be tongue tied and twisted, but that's nothin' compared to how poor Mr. Alexander's gonna get on for the next 24-hours. Unlucky break.

"SONOVA..." C.B. winces, takes one of his hands out Frank's, and then pounds the wall with his other fist. Not too hard. He's not making any holes there. Just hard enough to get out some frustration. He looks back at her and sighs, dramatically. Dreamy blue eyes and all. Sandy brown hair, pale-sallow complexion, boyish features, but no knobbiness, no silver, and most of all, no electricity.

"I broke the damn Pledge. Like an idiot. Because I yelled at you." He lifts and drops his hand in impotent irritation. "Should've been more specific, like -- only yelling at you in anger or something. See, this is why being Lost /fucking sucks/, and is another great example as to why you should never go to Arcadia," but he's trying not to lecture her again. "I broke the Pledge that allowed you to see me as I was. That's why you can't anymore. But listen to me. Listen," and he grabs both of her hands again, faded denim blue eyes all wide. It's easy enough to -picture- the lightning there, at any rate. "I think I know what happened to your friend. Are you ready to hear more wild and wacky tales?"

Hey - that's Garreau property! Franklyn holds a hand to protest as C.B. pounds on the wall -- fluttery movement, but she's too wrapped up in all the What The Fuck to saddle up her High Horse quite yet. Instead she just -stares- at him, head tilted to the side as she gawks and listens. Pledges. Lost. Fetches. They join the lexicon of words from earlier: Glamour. Hedge. Arcadia. This is like a gonzo masterclass in Wyrd 101. It leaves her...

...Well it leaves Franklyn looking like she might cry. What is even going /on/? While C.B. takes one of her hands again, the other shakily reaches out and over to that bourbon from the side table. One sip, two sip, three-- oh, there goes the whole lot. She's gonna be, uh, pretty toasted in a minute.

"Am I, am I ready to... Am I ready, ready-- I'm," The glass is tossed back onto the side table, then Franklyn reaches up to swoosh her hair out of her eyes, gawking still. "...You have twenty minutes. Then I need to, like, meditate and-- wait, are you going to be okay? What's?... What just hap-- /why/?" Soo overwhelmed. Stay Weird, Mr. Alexander.

Hey, he was a freak before he got Taken. Why stop now, right? C.B. watches her drink -- that seems like a good idea. He downs his bourbon as well, then tries to take her hands again. "Okay, first of all, I'll explain again: in order for you to see me how I really am, I had to make an agreement...with Fate, I guess you could say. That's the best way to describe what it is. And part of that agreement was that I wouldn't yell at you. But I /did/ yell at you, so Fate was like -- bye, toodleloo, I'm gone!" He makes a wiggly motion with his fingers. "And the agreement with it was broken, rendering your ability to see my Changeling self null and void. You dig? Now."

C.B. clears his throat and frantically lights another cigarette. He's too excited to stop talking, and he gestures with it as he talks. "When someone like me is Taken by the so-called Gentry -- I'll get to them later, but they're the alien beings I was talking about -- sometimes, when one of us is Taken, actually quite often...something is left in their place." He leans in, eyes wide, but still smiling. "They call it a fetch. You could think of it like a doll. A mannequin. A mannequin that looks like the person who was Taken. The so-called Gentry do this for a lot of reasons, I guess. One of them being, no one suspects you're gone? So your friend, I'm guessing...your friend was probably Taken, and a fetch left in their place. And for whatever weird reason...you were able to tell."

Wait a minute...hold up. That IS weird. C.B. squints in at her. "It's highly unusual that anyone would be able to tell that someone is a Fetch, much less someone like you. Have you ever felt that kind of feeling with anyone else?"

Franklyn's hands are taken, and they stay caught up by C.B's as she tries to keep up with the man and his endless barrage of sound: mouth dropping open a little, eyes only somewhat glazed with the earlier threat of tears mingling with information overload. Fate. Toodleloo. Changeling. Taken. Gentry. Fetch. What's important? Franky doesn't seem to know where or what to latch on to, so she just tries to keep a hold of C.B's hand.

This is a heavy trip, man.

As he leans in, all smiles and wide eyes, Franky looks a bit off put, like the man is crazy. Didn't she just confess to being in a mental institution for nearly killing her best friend? Whatever, that was past Franky! Future Franky is sitting here dumbstruck - brow knit with alarm as C.B's interpretation of Fetch-craft is laid out for her little Mortal sensibilities to consider.

Those mental gears are getting greased.

She looks stumped by his questions, though; blinking slowly, reaching for his cigarette because goodness knows where she stubbed out the last one. "...Someone like me?" Oh good, something her pride can latch on to. Franky sits up a little taller, suspicious and not entirely trusting. "Is that relevant? It happened with--"

Then a shoe drops. The blood drains from her face, and she goes stock still: staring up at C.B. in silent horror.

And didn't C.B. also admit he's been at hospitals before? Hey, maybe he is /genuinely/ crazy. Then again, can Franklyn disbelieve her earlier eyes? He was what he was, and he is not denying it now. So they must both be crazy.

He leans into her a little more. "With who, Franky?" His blue irises move back and forth, back and forth over her face, unblinking. He smokes and smokes. "Go on, you can say it. With who? I'm trying to /help/ you here! You hafta trust me." She can't see the arcs of white-blue lightning crackling all around him, now, but they sure are. They go nuts when he gets excited, especially mentally excited.

Franklyn starts to twitch a bit as C.B. gets closer -- a little tic of fidgeting fingers threatening to take over as she shakes her shoulders. Staring back at C.B., it wouldn't be -too- difficult to assume that she's sliding up that scale of Freak Out Potential, creeping past 6.5 and entering 7 territory. He's making her feel Uncomfortable.

Deep breath, few seconds of silence - but that internal mental countdown is interrupted, around about the words 'you hafta trust me'.

"Do you know..." Voice so quiet -- it immediately jumps up as she suddenly barks: "How =FUCKING= /SELFISH/ you are!?" How close is C.B.? He may get a little closer, as she reaches up to grab the collar of his shirt and shake if she gets ahold: shake, shake, shake. Desperately furious. "You're TELLING me that there's a fucking /ALIEN WORLD/, and my fri- my-- my-my, my =BEST FRIEND= was potentially /TAKEN/ there, to be =TORTURED= and fucked with and made to look like a fucking bullshit /ANIME VILLAIN/, and now you're fucking =GRILLING ME= for information?!"

"STOP, MAN, JESUS CHRIST! I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU!" Oh, she gets ahold alright, at least at first, and C.B. is caught so off-guard that he doesn't do anything about it. Eventually, he tries to pry her fingers off his shirt, doing his best not to freak her out more.

"The more I can understand, the more YOU understand, the more of a chance we have of SAVING YOUR BEST FRIEND, don't you get it?!?" But how many times in his life has C.B. been called selfish by women? Probably more times than he can count. Probably more times than he can count even since he got to Fort Brunsett...

Yeah, and he can't even get through the day without raising his voice - then again, neither can Franklyn. At the prying, she shoves C.B. away and lets go, and attempts to listen to whatever he has to say. Apparently it doesn't go down well: Franky just bursts into tears. Frustrated, desperate tears - she is totally overwhelmed, the charms on her bracelets jingling as she clutches at the side of her head and his starts to bawl.

She took too much Truth, man. She took too much.

"You are unfuckingbelievable." Franklyn splutters through tears, voice warbling as she rants; "'Don't go there! Everything is awful! What is reality! I don't think I'm real! But I'm not the Aliens that took me! Look what they did to my face! There's no dentists in a Hedge! Mannequins! What do you know, what do you know, what do you know!?'"

From the way she starts to hug at herself and shake, one would think she's being tortured or something. "You, are, so, fucking, selfish -- what you are doing now has nothing to do with me, or my friend, or 'the people', or the mission, or WHATEVER bullshit you feed yourself to keep yourself from turning that fucking hip-side pea shooter on yourself. This is about /you/, and /your/ stupid. fucking. desires, and fixing your stupid. fucking. mistakes. Fuck YOU C.B!"

That might hit home. C.B. has a few Achilles' heels. Heck, sometimes he's nothing but one big Achilles heel. It's not hard to attack him; there are a lot of weak spots, despite the heavy armor he wears. There's a moment, probably not one she can see, where he looks like she just slapped him across the face, and hard. He's stunned, and red-cheeked, and about to blow. He leaps back from the bed, and there's a moment of stillness wherein actual violence is a possibility.

But he checks himself before he wrecks himself. C.B. forces his eyes closed, makes himself take several deep, choked breaths, before he opens his eyes and mouth again. He speaks in a strained, clipped manner, but he isn't yelling.

"Believe that if you want. You presented me with information, when you were busy feeling sorry for yourself, and I tried to give you something back to prove that you're not fucking crazy. You wanna believe I'm selfish? Go ahead." He raises and drops his hands, something he does a lot. "Won't be the first time someone's said that, I'm sure it won't be the last. I'll get the hell out of your hair, if that's what you want. But I'd /rather/ stay here with you and help you calm down and THINK about what can be done. Beat your little fists against me if you want, I don't care. I've had worse." Upset flickers on his face again, fluttering away quickly.

Franklyn could single handedly feed a Court full of hungry Winters and Summers, and still have enough emotions left over for the Betweeners of Solstice to get a healthy desert. Mm. Tastes like deep seeded psychological trauma. Further disappointment for Franklyn; she's not even composed enough to find even the sliver of of satisfaction from seeing C.B's reaction to her flurry of ripostes.

All she sees is stunned red cheeks and silence as she looks up; her teeth grit and expression nothing but hurt, furious tears flowing. She listens though, defiant and relentless, eyes narrowing as she holds her tongue. Let the Author speak. It's not until his arm flop, his words stop, and then upset flickers on his face that she goes back in for another round.

"...Sorry for myself? I am not sorry for /myself/, I am sorry for any fuckface who tries to tell me how I /fucking feel/, okay? Don't gaslight me grandpa -- I know your /fucking number/."

Franklyn pauses for effect, giving the Wizened man a particularly dirty and significant look. She knows what's on the other side of that Mask, even if so many details are beyond her. Oh this sweet summer child.

"What I want? Is for you to act like an empathetic fucking human being, and give me some time to -think this through- -- not act like some kind of fucking /psychopathic monster/, and try and manipulate me around like a fucking puppet. I don't know what the fuck happened to you, /wherever/ the fuck you said you were: or if =you were even there=. You could be trying to feed me bullshit. But if you're not? You wanna try and be /decent/? Just... Just... Just..."

She falters as tears well up, and she wavers where she sits. Franklyn drank -a lot- of bourbon. "I need to lay down. I feel horrible. I think my fucking head is going to explode. I don't want to fight you. I want a hug and to feel safe. I wanna have my best friend again. Love is supposed to be forever..." And here's the tears. Yeah. She's shitfaced, furious, and on the fast train to sleepsville.

C.B. is the kind of guy, unfortunately, who tends to try and interrupt women when he's angry, so about halfway through her diatribe he blurts out, "I could /show/ it to you, the Hedge. I could show you the magical fucking in between world, halfway to Arcadia, you could see it with your own goddamn eyes, if you want to see that it's beyond me, and no, I don't do acid, I've tripped exactly once because the only time I did it put me in the fucking hospital, so there'd be no dope involved..."

He peters out eventually, though, listening to the rest of what she says. The not-so-young-young man sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Then he bounds over to her and, without asking, throws his arms around her. She said she wanted a hug, right? Well, probably not from him, but there it is. He's dated enough girls like her to know that this usually -- /usually/ works. And for what it's worth, he's a decent hugger. He's bony and musky, but there's a lot of intensity wound up in those skinny limbs, and he's trying to transfer it to her as a way to make her feel safe.

The interruption, OH the interruption: as C.B. mansplains the Hedge and talks about potential field trips to the nightmare land of a billion hazards, Franklyn rolls her eyes and continues speaking over him - a wavering, drunken hand raised to make the particularly unladylike motion of 'wanker' as he gets to the part about having a bad trip and going to hospital.

Franklyn does not make things easy, ever, for anyone. Not even herself. Especially herself, if her next words are anything to go by:

"You're a horrible piece of shit." Franklyn squeaks as C.B. bounds over. For a second, it's like she's going to punch him, but that's just her arm raised to receive a hug: a hug she so rightfully deserves, for being Franklyn. Boney shoulders aside, she hugs back and goes about the process of transferring tears onto his shoulder. Funny though; she's not scrawny, but somehow there's jabs and pokes and unintended headbutts - not that Franky seems to get hurt, or even notice.

Some dudes are just cursed.

"Tell me a story that has absolutely nothing horrible. Tell me about when you felt good, or a dog you saw that had a funny walk, or like... Like the first memorable sandwich, or the best day of school -- I don't want to go to sleep crying in my dreams. Just, make it light..." Franklyn is bossy, but at least she's not screaming in C.B's face anymore.

It's already been established that C.B. has been cursed today -- who's to say he's not just cursed, period? He holds her, even pats her back like she's a wee baby. There, there. It's all going to be okay. Grandpa Alexander is here to soothe your hurts, after he caused them. Or something.

"Ah...geez, okay," he answers tiredly. It's not easy for him to drag up good memories. A lot of his life has been shit-awful. So there is a rather long pause before he starts in on something.

"One day, when I was in high school, I ran away from home. It wasn't planned and I didn't have anything with me but my coat. I just had to get out of the house. So I ran and ran and ran, all the way to Nehumkeag Pond." He chuckles at himself, under his breath. "That pond wasn't at all close to my house, okay? But I just had to keep running. It was almost daylight when I arrived. I remember watching the sun rise in the east, remember watching the way it touched the early spring buds of the trees. I stood there, with my hands in my jacket pockets, breathing in the scent of the grass and the water, watching the way the yellow light painted everything, and it was just..." He smiles a dreamy smile. "Perfect. I sat down and wrote a poem about it, right then and there." A beat. "Perfect."

Isn't that the job description of every Grandpa Alexander? Franklyn would probably have something to say about that, if she wasn't knee high in emo-shit at the moment. She snuffles in and gets comfortable - which on a fellow as boney as C.B., is difficult. The poor chap is pushed down on the day bed, so Franklyn can use him as a humanoid body pillow. Jeez, Frank, at least ask the guy first...

"Nehumkeag Pond. Heh. I bet it smelled like algae bloom and that... What is is... Petrichor!" Franklyn is one of those people who gives running commentary -- but she /is/ listening, that's obvious. She nods slowly in agreement to the grass and water, making a note of understanding at the mention of light. C.B's dreamy smile is caught, and she looks so serious and so sleepy and so totally drunk and emotionally drained.

But still: better than before. "Perfect. Yellow... Yellow is the true colour of happiness." Firm nod. Her eyes are closing, just a bit. C.B. may be trapped. "...Did you wander lonely, as a cloud? I wanna hear tha... You need to remember that pourm-- porn, nuh-- /poooem/. I wanna..."

Drool on C.B's shirt a bit? Franklyn's conking out. "Yous did it, I cray- cried at yer brilliance. Ten points to Ravenclaw... Perfect."

And then nothing. She's asleep.

C.B. frowns a little as he's turned into a pillow, but he doesn't protest. He leans back and keeps on smoking, because he's been chain smoking the whole time, whenever Franky isn't stealing cigarettes from him.

He doesn't interrupt her, this time. Once she's asleep, the murmured words of the remembered poem burble up from him, from some memory deep in his past. He used to read his poems aloud all the time, so maybe it's no surprise that he can still remember:

      Silent light out
      before the dawn. No sun, no orb
      only yellow feelers, seeking
      Out a frog's pace into the pond. Slipping in on
      green-grass legs. I wait. Slow going.
      I'll never go home.