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Post by Sally Bowles on Mar 30, 2009 16:41:57 GMT -5
Sally tugged her coat around herself more tightly once they'd stepped into the foyer of her less-than-wonderful but still-okay apartment building. Well, it wasn't Oz, but it wasn't Kansas, either. She'd more or less clung to Phoenix most of the way there, both because she had been made sort of stiff and silly by anxiety and because she had been trying to hold her and be something of a comfort, and so she adjusted her coat in the stairwell during the brief pause.
"Elevator, darling?" she asked, although she said the endearment differently than usual, and furtively waved away the concierge when the woman moved to head towards her. No gossip tonight, please. She didn't think Sally needed anyone else to see her like this. And she wondered whether or not Sally was hungry. Probably not, but Sally was, and Phoenix needed energy. She didn't really take her eyes off of Phoenix, although she herself looked somewhat jumpy and distracted.
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Post by Phoenix on Mar 30, 2009 17:20:25 GMT -5
((I think you meant Phoenix a few times when you said Sally.))
Phoenix was in no state to notice Sally's state at all, though she had made it there with little physical difficulty. She hurt, but she was not impaired much more than she was the morning after a strenuous practice.
She looked up at Sally's question, noticing their surroundings for the first time. "Hmm?" he asked, though she only had to replay the last moment in her mind to recall what she'd been asked. "Oh, yes. If you don't mind."
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Post by Phantom of the Paradise on Mar 30, 2009 19:53:33 GMT -5
He had left the opera house some time ago, and had taken to wandering the streets of Paris without thinking for his own personal safety. He had kept to the shadows, and listened to the world around him, slowly collecting information about when and where he was, with no idea of how he'd ever arrived. Maybe it was Swan's doing - he wasn't sure he'd ever know.
But then he had heard people speak of Phoenix. After stalking the area of the Kit Kat Klub for so long, shadowing the patrons and listening in, he could only conclude that it was his Phoenix who worked inside, but why? Had not Swan chosen her for...?
Winslow came to the conclusion that his whole purpose for being in France was to find Phoenix, and that tonight was the night to confront her. Seeing her leave with another girl presented a problem - Winslow needed her alone, but he decided he would follow them, and he did, right up to Sally's apartment building. He still kept his distance, skulking around the back of the building to keep him from being accosted at the door. He'd become rather adept at sneaking about - if he didn't want someone to find him, they didn't.
He made sure he kept a good five strides behind the two women, not needing either of them to hear him and bring the police running to their aid. He would kill for Phoenix, but only for her security.
In the light given by the buildings, Winslow could tell there was something wrong with Phoenix; not precisely what, but he could... tell. When he was "alive," Winslow had felt such great potential and confidence in Phoenix, even when they had only known each other briefly. That sort of "spark" that connected them - at least that was how Winslow had seen it. Now... it felt diminished, like part of Phoenix was missing.
He intended to find out who'd taken that spark out of his songbird and kill them to get it back.
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Post by Sally Bowles on Mar 30, 2009 21:00:35 GMT -5
((Um. Yes, actually. Sorry. ^_^ ) Sally put an arm around Phoenix more gently, tucking it under Phoenix's own arm as though helping a sweet grandmotherly sort who'd only once been a diva like Sally or Phoenix so proudly were - or rather more proudly, for now they were drooping and tired and looked as though they'd lived fifty years longer than they had, or seventy, perhaps, in Phoenix's case - and half-walked, half guided her down to the end of the hallway, where she pushed a button nervously and then bit her fingernail. When the elevator rattled at once point, coming along down, she nearly jumped out of her skin, then gave laughed nervously, loudly, and rather shrilly in a very short burst before getting to be better. Even Sally, whose empathy was not entirely that wonderful, knew that whatever she felt, Phoenix felt a hundred times worse. She showed that she at least knew this and wanted to help as she led Phoenix into the elevator. It was not quite that she did not suppose Phoenix could make it, although consciously it was nothing at all; but if Sally was leading her, then Phoenix did not have to think for herself as to where to put her feet, what was in front of her, where they were going. It was the most comfort Sally could think to give, oblivion of some sort. She wondered if she had anything Phoenix could take up in her room that would help. She hoped she did; she never quite knew, and most of any drugs Sally kept, she kept in her dressing room. She chewed on her lower lip. Well, if she had anything - even just a bit of laudanum - that might help Phoenix to relax or to sleep, she'd offer it in a jiff.
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Post by Phoenix on Mar 31, 2009 11:00:15 GMT -5
Phoenix was indeed moving like an old woman, one who needed guidance not because she was frail (though she was a tiny thing) but because she no longer recalled how one did mundane, everyday things. But she wasn't thinking about it. She was rather more like an animal, frightened and confused, as if the corridors and elevators and lights no longer made sense to her. But that may have been a function of her lack of affect. She wasn't thinking about anything.
Or rather, she wasn't trying to. But she felt like she was being watched, absurdly, like he'd followed her here. But Sally hadn't noticed anything, and she wanted rather desperately to stop disturbing this girl who'd been so friendly. She shouldn't have come back with her; she was ruining Sally's evening. It was evidence of her own lack of perception that she was thinking no further than that.
In this state, Phoenix would likely take anything offered. She was not altogether shy about such things when she wasn't.
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Post by Sally Bowles on Mar 31, 2009 11:11:11 GMT -5
The elevator jostled a bit while they were in it, as jerky elevators did, but nothing nerve-damaging, or, at least, nothing that could damage a girl's nerves more than anyone inside's had already been damaged that evening, and Sally helped Sally out of it and into the hallway again with as tender a manner as she had been about everything else, if a mildly tighter grip than would be preferable.
"Just at the end of this hallway here," she said, indeed, as she might say to an aged aunt she'd once cared for and who did not remember where things were, taking care of her out of habit and therefore not seeming to notice anything new. It was following a pattern, which in itself was lulling. "Come on, then..."
She only had to let Phoenix go when she fumbled for her key, and still spoke as though describing things, voice very soft and monotonous and unobtrusive. "Oh, must have put it... Here, in this pocket... There we go..."
The door unlocked easily, and she again took the time to put her arm around Phoenix and help her in, rather than grab her and yank her in, as she might have gaily done at any other time. "Here, sit here," she said, helping her into the bed, which was, despite the apartment's being otherwise quite poor, not a lumpy and uncomfortable thing, although it sort of went in the other direction and did not seem to have much of a box supporting it. "I'll make some... eggs, I'll make some eggs and some toast..."
There wasn't much of a kitchen, and it was separated only by a single counter from the rest of the room, and Sally was hardly very domestic, but it was nonetheless easy to busy herself with that. Phoenix might not be hungry, might even feel nauseous, but she imagined she'd feel better after eating. Just a little bit. After all, she had to be strong.
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Post by Phoenix on Mar 31, 2009 11:43:03 GMT -5
Sally's voice was, oddly, soothing enough. It wasn't the impression Phoenix had gotten of her before, but it didn't matter now; she was taking care of her, was being kind. That was all that mattered. She followed her and did as instructed, sitting on the bed and feeling a sudden, overwhelming weight taking the place of her numbness. Absently, she wondered if she ought to be angry. Wasn't that the correct response? What was wrong with her, that she couldn't feel anything? But the despair that reared its head now--wasn't that worse?
"You're very kind," she said, raising her head to follow Sally's movements and making a poor attempt to sound casual. She wasn't sure she was hungry, but she'd eat, if it was placed before her. "I'm sorry to be so much trouble."
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Post by Sally Bowles on Mar 31, 2009 13:10:21 GMT -5
Sally wished she were a little more domestic than she actually was. She did not feel she at all had a housewifey sort of bustle about herself as she engaged in the relatively plain act of trying to fry up eggs. There was no toaster and so she had started the toast already on another frying pan, but was terribly concerned that she'd burn the bread. And the eggs. Both of them would be really unforgivable.
Phoenix's speaking distracted her. She glanced over her shoulder as though agonized to be looking away for even a moment, too uncertain of her own knowledge of cooking. "What? Oh, no, honey bunch," she said, shaking her head, and turning quickly back to the food she was attempting to prepare. "No trouble. Besides, I... I can't imagine going home and not knowing for myself if you were going to be all right. Couldn't have left you alone like that."
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Post by Phoenix on Mar 31, 2009 14:53:05 GMT -5
Like that.
What was she like, now? Broken, battered, turned off. Would she be like this forever? How was she capable of asking herself that, she wondered, if she was broken? Or did that mean she was broken? Is that how she knew?
This wasn't how things were supposed to be. She was supposed to be free; to be able to have what she wanted, without anything being taken she hadn't given. She was willing to bargain. But the whole point of her adult existence--and "adulthood" had begun fairly early--was that women could play the game, too. She could be feminine and ambitious and have the men she liked and refused the ones she didn't.
She hadn't counted on the ones she liked demanding without asking.
Phoenix rose, feeling sick and hungry at the same time and tired of sitting. She approached Sally in the tiny kitchen, glancing over her shoulder. "I... can I do something?" Maybe keeping busy would be better.
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Post by Sally Bowles on Mar 31, 2009 16:18:03 GMT -5
((Knowing I've seen the actress before makes this scene so much easier to visualize and hear in my head. Granted, I shouldn't say stuff like that since I play plenty of totally invented characters without PBs, but it's fun when you can see it.))
If Sally had been capable of focusing on the task at hand - that is, making Phoenix feel comfortable and relaxed - she would probably have said no, and insisted that she sit down. (Although that would have shown that she really couldn't make anything at all better, because doing something busily with Sally in the tiny kitchen would make most people feel more relaxed if anything would. They both needed to put their minds onto something easy, something else.) But she was fretting more about the food and said, instead, "Oh! Yes! Could you do the toast? I just can't keep an eye on both to save my life," shifting to the side and focusing on making the eggs right, enormously glad to have only one thing to focus on. "Don't know why I can sing and dance and then do a split at the same time but can't cook two things on two frying pans at once," she went on with some laughter at herself, a little more nervous than intended, but not consciously so. It did let off steam.
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Post by Phoenix on Mar 31, 2009 16:42:42 GMT -5
((Doesn't it? I need to send you PotParadise. You might not like it, but you should see it.))
Phoenix smiled despite herself--a weak little smile, almost as if her mouth were afraid she might find it out and put a stop to all that nonsense. The idea that Sally couldn't make toast (or couldn't make it at the same time as the eggs) was suddenly desperately endearing, even if Phoenix herself was a lousy cook. "Okay," she said, and set to the simple task with an unneeded diligence, as if the rapidly browning bread would do something inappropriate if she took her eyes off of it. The kitchen was crowded with two of them in it, but she didn't mind. Not like she'd flinched before, when Sally had first found her. This was different, comforting.
She turned the toast, biting her lip as she fought to concentrate on anything outside herself.
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Post by Sally Bowles on Mar 31, 2009 16:49:39 GMT -5
Time passed more easily then, two pairs of eyes fixated on two frying pans as though waiting for the outcome of a ridiculously important race. When Sally deemed the eggs that were currently on the pan as ready, and scooped them off and onto one of the two plates, it was as though she needed to do it in a certain short amount of time or she would have failed something.
"Here, darling," she said, setting the plate down on the countertop, and getting out two more eggs and starting them swiftly, "these'll be mine, and you can start the next batch of toast whenever." Although she didn't explain why those would be hurt, she thought it was obvious - because they'd have cooled more by the time the second batch was done, and Phoenix ought to have the hotter food.
((I've actually wanted to see it for a while. I used to think my library had it, but it turns out I was wrong! I was so shocked, not because I would normally think it was there, but because I was convinced I'd seen it. But you shouldn't spoil me!))
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Post by Phoenix on Mar 31, 2009 17:08:43 GMT -5
The toast looked done, to her, so she pulled it out of the pan and put it on her own plate--normally she'd have argued, but it seemed to make sense, now, and if Sally wanted to take care of her, just for a little bit... She dropped two more slices in, figuring she could eat and watch at the same time. But now, staring down at her plate, the eggs looked greasy and unappealing. Not because Sally had made them badly, but just... because. Still. She'd made them for her. Phoenix ought to eat them. She did so somewhat mechanically, forgetting to ask for anything to put on the toast and absently sopping up egg with the corners. "Thanks," the mumbled at one point, quickly, as if she felt she had to get it out before she forgot. ((Do you have something against being spoiled? We're having a viewing party on Saturday--you should come! ))
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Post by Sally Bowles on Mar 31, 2009 20:22:06 GMT -5
Sally had figured from the start that Phoenix wouldn't feel like eating, but would have nonetheless felt irrationally hurt if Phoenix had said something to that degree to her. Besides, Phoenix should eat. Not because of Sally, she would have said, although she'd have been thinking in her little wounded heart that at least she could do it for Sally (although Sally would have hated herself for thinking anything so selfish), but because Phoenix would otherwise feel weak, and nauseous about her own hunger, and wake up the next morning not feeling well.
Sally put her own eggs down on her own plate with the toast, and ate it herself. Watching Phoenix eat, listlessly, diminished her own appetite greatly, but since she was the ony plying Phoenix with food, she felt the need to set a good example and tried to at least appear cheery, even though more than anything she appeared very tired, like a mechanical bird on a very old clock that doesn't work as well as it used to.
She found herself wondering if gin would taste any good after this, if Phoenix would want any, if she drank a little too much gin herself, if any of that mattered at a time like this.
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Post by Phoenix on Mar 31, 2009 20:42:17 GMT -5
To her surprise, but only mildly because it wasn't that interesting, she felt a little better after she ate, though she stared at the empty plate for a moment as if unable to comprehend that she'd finished everything on it. The smile she turned on Sally was brave, but marred both by the dull expression in her eyes and the bruising around her neck and one eye.
"Thanks," she said, trying to mean it. The other girl was so... lively, she thought. She wondered if anything like this could happen to a girl like her, but she was forgetting who she was, usually. A bright, flitty thing, perhaps not as flashy as Sally but lively and bold in her own small way. All that presence was gone, and she was just a tiny woman.
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