bring me the hollows

o3﹕a text sent out of worry ./ Frankie

sash: where have you been it's been ages sash: frankieeeee i need to vent about idiot humans sash: frankie save me sash: save me, frankie sash: frankie save me - sash: WHERE ARE YOU. ARE YOU DEAD? sash: simply can't with these idiot professors in this idiot college acting as if they know more than me sash: stupidity should be painful, is what i'm saying. like sun in the sky, i was there, you fake. - sash: FRANKIE ARE YOU EVEN ALIVE? SHALL IS CALL A SEARCH PARTY FRANÇOISE?

/@frnoialles

frankie: WHY ARE YOU SO LOUD ON MY PHOne frankie: YOU DONT HAVE TO YELL AT ME frankie: everYONE IS YELLING AT ME frankie: i was, like, busy babes?? frankie: i'm so???? hangover frankie: sun is loud

#c: sash

"Come now, Frankie you know there's no replacement in my life for you." Surely she isn't upset about... Çaska can't help but narrow her eyes in confusion.

She studies her fellow vampire - among some of the oldest in this city, by her measure - and can't help but shake her head in a bit of confusion; Frankie feels like her mind is boomeranging all over the room - first upset, then ready to weep, and now... a date?

A night out at least. Sash watches her pace the room before tilting her head to present a sidelong stare. "Are we?" Frankie gives no quarter for argument though. "It's... fast fashion."

"I have nice things," she says, feeling the silent and judging eye of Françoise Noialles reigning down on her from on high. She feels, however, like she's about to become a fashion experiment - not the worst outcome if it helps Frankie feel better - though she has other tactics for that.

"If I've made you feel outcast, it's not my intention." She lets Noialles tug her along, worried at what she's missing here.

There's no replacement in my life for you. If that was true, then why did it not make her dead heart flutter? Where were the butterflies flapping their tiny wings in her belly? Frankie's heard those words before, from the mouth of a dirty pirate she did not want to speak the name of ever again, and they've been nothing but lies, lies, lies.

Still riding the ugly waves of rage and despair, Frankie stormed toward her closet — a spacious room, gleaming white from floor to ceiling, lined with glass doors protecting decades upon decades of fashion obsessions.

"You have a banging body that makes things look good on you, babe" she said, already rifling through hangers, "but that doesn’t make your clothes nice."

Above them, lights lined up the ceiling like constellations, shining down on the sheer fabric of a baby pink dress, strapless and soft to the touch. Frankie liked dressing her up, as though she was a porcelain doll in her collection.

She crossed back over, hands settling possessively onto Sash’s shoulders, turning her around and slipping fingers down to the zipper at her back. "It’s not you, Sash," Frankie muttered, peeling the fabric down inch by inch. "It’s literally everyone else trying to ruin my life. Mean mommy, Garrick—" She made a face immediately after saying his name, disgust evident across her features. What a stupid name.

Her fingertips ghosted over bare shoulders, tracing spots. "I just wanna be with someone who makes me feel good."

#c: frankie

"Talk to a witch." There's no way in hell she's letting that knife out of Birdie's hands - no other vampire or human needs to deal with the shit hand she's been dealt. "My girl killed the guy who did this to me, and I don't know what she did with it." It's locked away somewhere, she knows that much, at least.

The him in question makes her narrow her eyes, back still frozen and locked in place while the muscles in her cheeks twitch around the aching, itching pain of her scars. Garrick knows about Birdie, and knows she'd long since moved on. Had they not talked? Her gaze flickers from Frankie's face down to her fingers, where they twirl, before she starts to disappear.

"You should ask him." She starts, following after her - despite the desperate need to turn tail and run. "We've talked, have you?" But she clicks her tongue against her teeth and answers the question anyways - "I'm not in love with him, no." She cares for him, deeply, and always will - which is why her anger at him ate her alive for so long. That care has made it so she can talk to him without wanting to remove his head from his shoulders, why they can hunt together, and why she doesn't feel the need to explain herself to Frankie.

What is going on between them that she feels the need to blame it on Lara?

"But he knows that. We're friends, Frankie. I know he loves me, and he knows I'm with Birdie."

My girl? Frankie frowned, shifted through her mind for faces, names— "Oh!" A sudden, little gasp, "That bird person."

The girl Garrick had been texting. Or… was it Lara texting Garrick, mentioning her? Frankie couldn’t quite be bothered to sort the details out. It didn’t matter.

If Frankie Noialles didn’t remember you, chances were you didn’t matter at all.

Lara's annoying, little stilletos clicked and clacked behind her. "Ha! I'm not asking that little traitor anything. In fact, if you really want to know," A toss of her hair over her shoulder, "I am not speaking to him right now." Frankie said, proudly.

Her chin raised high, as she kept walking, dismissing Lara as nothing more than her ex–best friend’s ex–dead girlfriend.

Who needed to talk to any one of them losers? It was a waste of breath and a waste of time she could be spending on something far more enjoyable, like eating gelato or laying on some pretty girl's breasts.

Heels pivoted sharp against the floor as she turned back around, inventing a reason to end this sad excuse of a catching up. "I've got somewhere to be, babes. I don’t have all night to listen to you spiral about your endless love for your bird and his endless love for you." Chocolate brow eyes dipped to capture Lara's scars one last time, "Anyways, I do hope you get that fixed.” A small, almost pitying smile. "You looked better before."

oksana-raevskii

Brotherhood. She'd like one to play with - long game. But not this one. Ugly and marred. Ruined, even. She watches Frankie make him bleed and decides she's satisfied with this outcome. Oksana can find plenty chewtoys elsewhere on her own when her friend is not going through a catastrophe. The kill doesn't seem to delight her, and that, of course, is worrying.

No kill, no feed, no fun with her and Caska. Sad times on the outset, and it makes Oksana briefly lose care for her own lust for violence. Her mind shifts and locks into place for the moment - no silly other Russians to think about, no toys to find, no blood to drink. Just the silence of the forest they're on the edge of, the snow blanketing all sound around them.

The man gurgles beneath them, ruining the moment. Oksana smashes his head with the heel of her boot and then - ah, silence once more.

"Feelings are troublesome." She finally says, cleaning the gore on her boot off on a nearby tree. There is the hope that someone will find it later and come to her. Maybe a sweet little golden child to warp. No. No, Frankie time. She locks her mind once more, turning to her friend in death.

"Frankie, сладкая птичка, who has taken the light from you?"

Frankie gave her that look, the one that said she’d known all along that feelings were nothing but trouble. She didn’t need to hear it again. If she’d wanted that sort of talk, she could’ve gone to mean mommy, who would’ve laughed in her face and made her feel as small as a pebblestone in her shoe.

They’d all tried, one way or another, to bring her down. To stomp all over her sparkle until there was no sparkle left, just a sad little glimmer, like a dead star. From far away it might've still looked bright, but really, it had already been dead for ages and ages, and ages.

"My best friend, who stopped talking to me fifty years ago and left me all on my own, Oksana." She laughed, because saying it out loud made it sound so absurd that she couldn’t help it. "Can you imagine? Leave? Me?" Hard to believe fifty years ago, and even harder to believe now. Frankie laughed louder then, throwing her voice up toward the sky so it could hear how very not sad she was.

“I’m a ray of light on a cloudy day. I’m the fun every party desperately needs.” Her foot came down on the dead man’s motionless body, sharp stilettos punching into him again and again, turning him into swiss cheese as her irritation swelled bigger and bigger, like an overinflated balloon. "I’m like—what? A fruity cocktail on a beautiful evening at some rooftop bar. Or, you know, when you buy a really pretty pink purse and suddenly you never want to put it down. I’m not someone you just leave and never come back for." Finally, she stopped. Then looked up to meet Oksana's eyes, and uttered softly: “Right?”

#c: oksana

Frankie offers and at first, Çaska stares at the little blood-doll resting lazily beyond Frankie and smiles, soft. "I find myself chasing flame more than gold these days."

As a Lomidze, she's all the gold she'll ever need.

But Frankie pre-empts further answer, and Çaska draws her instead into a side-long hug, rubbing at her friend's shoulder. "What's the bug?" She asks. "Tell me, I'll keep it secret, you know." A kiss on her friend's cheek, for courage, before she moves to the ailing girl, stroking cold knuckles gently across still-warm cheeks, trying to decide if she's hungry. "What's eating up at you?"

"Excuse moi, chéri? Am I not the only burning flame in your heart?” Everyone was out to break her heart, apparently. Ungrateful, stupid little vampires, thinking she was someone they could toss aside once they’d had their fun. Frankie turned dramatically, the only way she knew how to respond to even the smallest inconvenience. A tantrum thrown, like when her mother refusing to let her wear her dresses, and shove her feet in into diamond shoes gifted by some royal man in a funny wig.

Her part time lover kissed her, and Frankie wiped it away immediately, both because it was ruining her makeup and because Caska was dripping snow all over her designer shoes like a wet dog. "Sash," she whined, "I’m not redoing my makeup, and you are not making me cry in non waterproof mascara."

Frankie puffed out her cheeks, arms folding tight across her chest. She was tired of feeling like some sad, poor person. Was this what life felt like for people with no money? Depressing, and embarassing. "No—actually, you know what? Get your things. We’re going out." What else was she going to do, cry on her lovers shoulder? "But we need to fix… whatever that is you’re wearing." She gestured vaguely at the outfit, scandalized. "What even is that?"

#c: caska

Frankie's finger lifts and Lara involuntarily snatches back away whether she'd been about to touch or not. Clearing her throat, she carefully steps one pace back. It still hurts to this day, and she doesn't want a chance to invoke anymore pain - but it's not the pain she worries, but instead the scrutiny of how she looks now that she's marred. Her lips twist down from the smile into something more controlled and neutral.

She speaks clearly and without waver, despite the need to hide herself. "An asshole with a cursed knife."

She turns her head from Frankie, fighting the urge to give into dark, clouding thoughts. The gap she'd made is closed again, and her spine locks, but she meets her gaze. Something here is wrong, and she doesn't quite understand the issue. Her mind immediately goes to Garrick - had he said something?

"A waste?" False bravado is how she's made it through the rest of her life, there's no time to stop now. She scoffs, and straightens herself up, "What is it you're doing here, Frankie? Why do you care what I'm up to, or if I'm a waste of a pretty face?"

A cursed knife. Frankie hadn’t heard of such a thing, certainly not in this small, miserable closet full of old, moth ridden clothes called Port Leiry. Now that caught her interest. To her, the broken doll Lara had become was more than just a cracked porcelain face now. "Well, now" Brows lifted with playful curiosity, "I need to know about this cursed knife, babes. How and where does one get their hands on something like that?"

Because if it could do that to an immortal beauty’s face, imagine the other kinds of wounds it might leave behind. Would she use it on her prodigal brother? Mmm, maybe. If anyone asked, she’d probably say yes. He deserved it, Frankie thought. Deserved every bad thing waiting patiently in the dark with his name on it.

Lara’s question earned a small shrug from delicate shoulders and an answer too brutal to come this easy. "Just a little bored, told myself I’d come make fun of you.” Her hands drifted up to her hair, fixing a few loose curls with idle care “But that’s getting boring too."

There were plenty of other distractions waiting for her, but before she disappeared back into the pulse of the crowd, Frankie glanced over her shoulder at the younger vampire. "Tell me, Lara—" her voice a soft tickle, "you don’t love him anymore, do you?”

Wouldn’t that be the real tragedy? After all, he couldn’t die twice, could he? Frankie could only torture him so much. But heartbreak had a way of lingering.

garrickc

He don't know how else to tell her that he did it to save her the trouble. 'Cause that's what he's best at; bringing roscoes, and hunters to their door. He's learned subtlety in recent decades, but he ain't always been so famous for it. Garrick had been a raider, pillager, and a slick devil long before he ever knew the art of discretion. He'd known hunger, even before he'd died, and he'd known revolution from his birth. Centuries tax the mind, same way Frankie does, when she's screamin' murder at him.

What she hasn't taken stock of, was that every letter he got in ink more expensive than a skyscraper, told him she was alive. Maybe he'd have sought her out, if they ever stopped coming in hot. If she'd known how to get cursive to him, then she'd known some of his stops. She could'a gone after him, if it got the better of her; being without him. Nothing after New York stayed the same, broken pieces plucked out of the wreckage. Philadelphia left the scars.

"You's figured it out, didn't you?" He should have done better, by her. But she's pressing his buttons, jus' as she always can. "We's got you out, and splittin' was always gonna favour you." She had somewhere to run, a place decked in marble and silks. Swell. Garrick had the clothes on his back, and an attitude to boot. He'd give up his last pair of shoes to the guy without socks, 'cause he's got the will to endure that not all get the luxury of havin'. He'd thought, once upon a time, maybe Frankie did too.

She ain't. He loves her, an' he'll always love her. But she's addicted to the company of champagne and diamonds, usually adorning her most recent lover. Garrick kills fuckers like Frankie, an' he wonders if she sees herself like that. If she ever noted the irony; she was a greaser once, but a lady before that. She's a lady again, now.

Just so she'll understand, he scrapes his teeth along his tongue and reminds her one final time what it all's had come down to: "Je suis partie pour te protéger."

Even if it had backfired. She ain't dead, an' she's doing pretty good for herself.

"I's didn't even know you were here, Frankie." Fuck sake. Now's he's tryin' to tape pieces of her together but he don't have no directions. Where does he start? "And I ain't know she was either." Then, to try and play down his wit, "I's should of figured this town's notoriety would'a brought ghosts out of the woodwork, ay? Tha's what yer sayin'?"

Garrick's growing tired of Frankie using Lara as a weapon against him. It ain't just screwin' around commination. She's got a green streak, and it's mean.

He shakes his head, dropping a half-truth because he wants to fix this with her, without shattering them entirely. "You probably ain't gonna like it, peach. I loves you, sister." But she needed to remember he don't like threats. "And if we were powerful enough to change history, we's have done that long ago."

"Me protéger de quoi?!" It was the kind of scene she’d always imagined winning her first Oscar for. If only the rain had been pouring down, her hair plastered across her face, while her screams rose louder than the storm. But there was none of that, and the street was empty, save for the two of them standing beneath the streetlights. Two vampires with eternity ahead of them to bicker in the middle of deserted roads, baring wounds like there was still a soul inside them left to shatter and hurt.

It hurt her, didn't it? It wasn't for the Oscar. This wasn't a performance.

"De quoi?!" Louder, louder, louder —

"Tu m’as abandonnée!" Frankie became the storm the sky refused to give her. She was the rain, and the thunder and lightning striking some poor tree clean down the middle.

He was lying. He was lying straight to her face, and her fists balled at her sides like an angry kid whose parents had walked out the door and never come back. I'm not going to forgive you, she thought. I'm not going to forgive you. "No—how would you know?" words slapped to his own, "You don’t care enough to know where I am."

She wanted him gone, back In his car, driving until the road swallowed him and she never had to look at him again. "Why would you leave me like that?” An ugly crack in her voice, “You’re standing here saying you love me, but you don’t. Why would you leave someone you love? You don’t love me.” Frankie couldn't wait for an answer, whatever fell from his mouth next would only be a pretty lie. So she left him there, in the light coming from his headlights, to hurt like she did. She didn't know much about love, but she’d always done what her heart told her to do. She’d always loved Garrick, because he took care of her. Because he was there when she needed him. Until he wasn’t.

#c: garrick

oksana-raevskii

closed starter for: @frnoialles

The snow squeezes and crunches beneath her boots. There are drips of red trailing beneath her - quite beautiful in the landscape here. It reminds her of the harshness over the seas, in the times that she met both of her compatriots during her times away from Alexei. Oksana trails a finger over the icy trees and turns back to Frankie with a smile.

The body at her feet struggles and gurgles, but she pays it no mind. This is as romantic and beautiful as it can get. Once she reaches her destination: the shores of the Port Leiry river that runs through the city, she watches the running water break up the icy edges. The man, bleeding, tries to call for help.

"This.. gentleman.. seems to have wanted nothing more than to bring me to dust." She throws him down to Frankie's feet, "Hunters are so boring, are they not? Which group do you think it is? Shall we play games?"

She knew the mark. It was the same one that had stained the hands of the men who tried to kill her. Fifty years ago now, in a memory that should’ve rotted away by this time. She’d always assumed it would, like everything else did eventually. Things slipped through the cracks of her inhibitions and drowned somewhere in that bottomless well she called a mind. Memories that stayed for a while. fluttering like frantic birds in a cage, before she let them go. Sometimes they died there, wings beating themselves bloody against the bars and sometimes she opened the door and let them fly off into the world, where they could be free of her.

Memories, memories, memories. When you’ve lived as long as she had, you're left with so many of them. Yet Oksana had her own little perch in Frankie’s head, the same way Garrick did. But she’d let him go. Frankie had to make space, after all, for new faces, new memories, new birds.

Red polished nails dragged along the man’s throat, the sharp heels of her shoes digging into muddy grounds, as she twisted his head sharply to the side, to show her friend the tattoo hiding beneath the smear of blood.

Ah, there it was—

"This one’s Brotherhood." she said. It was a miracle she even remembered the silly name of that boyband of amateurs. "I’ve killed a couple of those before." The truth hovered there, just behind her teeth — missing a few crucial details; how they’d caught her first, how they’d tied her down, how she’d spent those hours unable to do anything but endure it. It was brief, yes, and still— some things she simply couldn't say out loud. What was she supposed to tell Oksana? I was alone? They found me? They caught me before I could rip their throats out? Please.

Frankie would burst into flames before admitting something like that.

Instead she tilted the hunter’s head back farther, nails pressing just enough to make him squirm. “They’re terribly easy to kill, chéri,” she chimed, “Spread them out a little. Lure one away for a moment…” Her nail pressed into the pulse in his throat and punctured the flesh, letting him bleed out slowly "…and he’s yours.”

When she stood up, she opened the little black purse hanging from her wrist and pulled out a pink satin napkin, delicately wiping the blood from her perfect nails. Not even this poor idiot’s death could brighten her mood. It was painfully obvious to anyone who truly knew her and honestly, even to those who didn’t. Frankie was usually a beam of light, bouncing from one place to the next, restless and glittering. Now—

"I do need a little entertainment," she sighed, snapping the purse shut. "I’ve been feeling a little—" Depressed? Sad? Hurt? Ew.

"I can’t even say it, Oksana. It’s disgusting."

#c: oksana

following from HERE @frnoialles

The sight of the dead or nearly so is something that rarely pulls affectations from the face of the Youngest Lomidze hierarch. Her reputation as the softest and kindest and gentlest of deaths among those three sisters is still the reputtion of death once stripped of its superlatives.

In this she is unaffected by the singular beauty lying in sweet repose on Françoise's couch. As Sash shakes droplets of fading snow from her hat and coat, she focuses, trying to ascertain the state of the poor daughter; if there is a heartbeat, it's there, if slow. Putting away coat and accoutrements, she passes the room and picks up the wrist, dribbling it's red rubies slowly but surely, and takes a gentle sip via lathe of her tongue. Fresh, warm, but cooling. "Will you kill this one, or will she go free?"

She turns, face mounted in curious planes, to regard her vicious friend. "I have come to check in, with all the re-orienting I've had to do with my sister to cover our elders' flight to the old-world, I feel I've not time for myself." Eyes, blue as beryl, rest on the proffered bouquet; "...the flowers made me think of you; the florist was a kind soul, and offered it freely, lest it die in the window."

There were simply too many options. She could kill her and then turn her, let her join the rest of Frankie's little squad of undead minions. Or kill her and let her join Death in his underworld palace. Or, in a rare burst of generosity, she could let her go, send her back to her silly little mortal life.

Until they met again.

The girl wasn’t special. Just a blonde Frankie had found behind a bar, shaking up the most delicious bloody marys she’d ever tasted. "Do you wanna keep her?” Frankie asked, "Because we totally can, if you’re into it." A wink shot over her shoulder. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d suggested a threesome.

But it'd be the first she wouldn't be in the mood for it. Mid-step, she paused, with fowers were still cold in her hands. "Actually…" A small grimace tugged at her mouth. "I’m not feeling a three-way right now. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but I’ve been in a shitty mood ever since—” A pause.

Stupid, stupid Garrick.

He didn’t deserve the breath she was wasting on him. He certainly didn’t deserve to be spoken about in front of Sash. Frankie decided he was dead, to her.

#c: caska

Lara is unaware of what lies in Frankie's heart - she'd never really gotten to know her back then, and never really expected to run into her after the initial turning. As much as she hunted and looked for any hint of them, she'd always turned up hands empty. Her only method here is to play it like nothing happened - unless Frankie wants to bring the mood down, and then she'll happily play along.

"It's been treating me as fine as any." She tilts her head, though, in a way that pulls at the graying scars on her face, making them stretch and twist in that fun, grotesque way they seem to.

"A few hiccups here and there, but I do guess that's what happens when you don't have a sire to lead you by the hand." It's a joke, but she wants to see what emotions it evokes.

With a shrug and a smile, she continues. "It's been, what, almost 80 years?"

Before the conversation had a chance to turn dull and tragically civil, Frankie lifted a slender finger and gestured lazily toward Lara’s scars. "Oh, babe....What happened to your pretty face?" That concern blooming in her voice could’ve earned her a standing ovation. An award for best actress in a leading role. There was a tiny, delicate scrunch of her nose like she’d caught the faintest scent of something spoiled.

Lara was a pretty girl, everyone knew that. A pretty girl with some very ugly scars.

A broken doll. Even immortality hadn’t managed to keep the porcelain from cracking.

Frankie tilted her head, then leaned closer to study the cracks in the interior. "I thought the forever-young subscription came with better skin care." Her tongue clicked softly against her teeth; tsk, tsk, tsk.

Petite beaute must've really pissed someone off. A witch, or two. It certainly took talent to make something permanent on a face that was supposed to heal everything. Chocolate brown gaze dragged up to meet Lara's. Then she stepped closer, close enough that only Lara would hear: "Such a waste."

Frankie wasn’t here to be her friend. She wasn’t here to reminisce about the past. She was here to remind her to stay in her place. Far away from her and Garrick.

She'd lost track of Birdie about an hour ago now, and the crowd and music were too loud to try and listen for the sound of her voice. For now, she wanders, grimacing at anyone who looks a little too close at the scars on her face - but thankful that it's the time of year when anyone looking too close might be wondering how she managed to do the prosthetic make up for it.

Either way, Lara is about to turn tail and head somewhere quiet for a quick smoke and drink when she hears someone vie for her attention.

When she turns, she recognizes the woman - but only barely. She isn't sure if they talked way back when, but the shape of her features calls back nights on the road, when she'd be carted from her nice apartment down to the streets and alleys of Brooklyn. "I'm not usually." But she takes the drink, smelling the blood mixed in when she brings it to her nose for a sniff. With a sip, she hums her approval at the taste.

"Thinking about little ol' me? Whatever for, hon?"

"Oh, you know, just wondering how immortality’s been treating you, sugar.” A sweet sound from a mouth that liked to bite.

Her heart was bitter, rotten to the core with jealousy. How dare she be the reason he’d come all the way to that silly little town. One hand settled on her hip, the other twirling a loose curl. “Last time I saw you, babe, you still had a heartbeat." It looked good on her — being a mean girl, as if they were performing a scene, between the lockers, pockets full of lunch money and lipgloss. A competition, for the same boy's heart.

Only now, Lara was in someone else’s hands.

In immortality, that was supposed to mean nothing. They had centuries ahead of them, plenty of time to wage wars over old scars. Frankie wasn’t about to let a pretty little ghost from the past ruin her night. She kept her smile plastered on, like it had been stapled there. A wide, glittery bandage slapped over a wound that had no right to sting this much.

[ FLOWER ]: Çaska offers a flower to Frankie.

closed — @caskalomidze

Flowers didn’t bloom in snowy winters, but these did.

A beautiful bouquet of tulips; yellow, pink, and purple. Not her favorite, Frankie had love and respect only for roses, obviously. But she remembered someone once told her that tulips had royal blood in their stems, especially the purple ones.

A gift fit for a queen.

Caska stood outside her door, head covered in snow, lashes clotted with white fluff. She looked like one of Santa’s elves who'd escaped their job and ran to their lover instead. Frankie chuckled as she reached for the bouquet. "How did you get here, chéri? On a magical sleigh?"

The door swung wide, and wine and gingerbread rushed through the apartment, invading every sense. Candle flames danced in small glass votives scattered across the kitchen. Frankie gestured vaguely toward the couch, where her most recent snack lay sprawled out, "That’s Cassie, totally ignore her."

Like anyone, even a vampire as old as Sash, could ignore that sight.

"She works at the café around the corner, makes the best lattes. Anyway, she's taking a nap." Said like it was meant to reassure that the girl wasn't as dead as she looked.

#c: caska

garrickc

Garrick doesn't let go, even in her thrashing. Strong arms that batter against his own; he could trap her — hold her there all night, if he wanted to. Let her tire and they'll talk about all this when she's done with her fightin'. Her nail cuts under his shirt and then he sees the tears an' all that she's been holding in, erupt.

He has to let go.

And she's quickly out of his arms, like a scrambling squirrel. He's the reason she's got all this pain. He ain't been much good at the rest of it, over the years. But he's the captain of dishing out agony, even when that ain't his plan. Garrick's seen her cry less times than he can count on his fingers — it ain't usually this type either; some other drama that's got her all in knots. A broken fingernail or that she'd accidentally overindulged on her favourite dancing girl — trivial, entitled affairs that he ain't always so understanding about. He understands this.

If there's one thing that's gonna tear him in two, it's Frankie using Lara against him. 'Cause there ain't ever been a choice, or one or the other. He'd had both, an' he'd lost both.

Frankie — of all damn people knows why he had to leave. "I got you in a bind, peach. That's why." After Brooklyn, Frankie ain't got out the same way he had, by the time they got to Philadelphia. Garrick had made a mess of Brotherhood; spilt enough of it to piss off more than a couple hunters. At the end of it all, he'd realised that she ain't been so suited to grease and oil, like she had been with diamonds and bubbles. He was gonna get in another mess of the criminal kind, and he refused to bring her down with him — after all that shite she'd endured under Brotherhood capture. Only way to save her had been to leave her.

Maybe he'd been wrong for that.

"You did alright." Fell back into aristocracy, like a cushion, didn't she? Always there, waiting to catch her in duck feathers an' satin. He ain't talking about Lara with her — he won't do this part; he don't want to be in that position.

He don't know what to say, standin', watching her unravel in front of him. He remembers when he had the right thing to say, or the right bloodied suggestion in the streets that'd get her goosin' back in the saddle of who she often is. But he's always known, behind his found sister's smile, there's a desperation for approval; to be wanted; to be somebody's. And she's been his, but it ain't the way she wants it when the nights get lonely, and the air gets thick.

They can lay down an' stare at the stars, or the sea, and speak all kinds of rum heavy smack. But he ain't Frankie's forever in the way she craves; he forgets how young she is, sometimes. Until moments like these; when the emotions ride higher than the hunger — sometimes, they're partners in it.

He palms the fist over her heart she gestures to, like the symbolism ain't so careless: "Well how's do I make this better, Frankie?" Can he? "You's know I missed you — ain't never been a doubt about that." Every day. Ignoring her letters had been for her sake; if she'd known where he was drifting, she'd chase him, and so would the hunters.

He's only here, now, 'cause he's hearing about the daylight.

Garrick ain't sure that's gonna help his case. But he ain't fuckin' whining, like she thinks he is. That's her mind churning it up, as it always does. "I's here now, aren't I? I'm here. With you. I ain't able to fix all the before, but you's tell me how we move past it. An' I'll do it." They've bickered endlessly, before.

But he hates the tears, and he can't help but reach up and begin to brush them away like it'll do a fuckin' dime. Garrick didn't want to break anyone's heart, least of all Frankie's — 'cause he knows what that's like, an' it ain't no walk in the damn park. But he also don't fall for every pretty thing that walks by, like she does, either.

He don't need this, when he's still got to tell her about fuckin' familiar faces — and new ones, crawling out of the woodwork. "You's always gonna be my sister, peach. There ain't nothin' — no Lara, changin' that."

She knew exactly what he was talking about. That sad little clutch of hunters who thought they could kill her, as if she was some kind of a beast that needed to be put down. She’d handled them the only way she knew how. Frankie wasn’t something you locked up. She wasn’t a bird meant to live in a cage.

She’d survived without him for decades. Not waiting around for him to write, or call, or show up like a ghost from the past. But he didn’t know that, did he? He hadn’t bothered to look back. "You did," she snapped, "and you didn’t even send me a card, not even a stupid note, not a little ‘hey, peach, hope you’re not being murdered, sorry I vanished and that I've got a tiny dick, we can't all be devastatingly hot like you." Throwing her hands up, she looked manic.

Tears clung to her lashes like diamonds; an accessory she didn’t need, but wore beautifully anyway. Unlike the rest of the jewels heavy at her throat and wrists, these couldn’t be bought or stolen. Not many people could say Frankie Noialles had spent her precious gems of tears on them, and Garrick knew that if he ever told a soul about this, she’d cut out his tongue and feed it to a poodle.

And still, he’d only ever been a brother to her, and brothers were supposed to look out for their little sisters, weren't they?

She knew sisterhood better, because her older sister had been there for her when her world was falling apart, when Frankie had nowhere else to call home. For a moment, looking at him, she wanted to run home and cry into her sister’s lap, let her cold fingers comb through her hair the way they used to, back when everything hurt less.

“You’re here now because there’s something here for you,” And that something wasn't her. Those eyes turned sharp, because diamonds weren’t just pretty, they could cut. “So why did you come? If it wasn't for me, and if it wasn't for your runaway bride.” A thin line of a smile, "Come on, babes, spill. You know I'll find out, like very soon, if I want to." Suddenly, she had a better idea. "Or I can just ask little Lara. I’m sure she knows everything.”

#c: garrick

[ LIGHT ]: AJ lights Frankie's cigarette/candle/etc.

closed — @ajastor

The lights were out. At first, Frankie assumed the witch was being cute. "Very funny, JayJay." she called from the bathroom of her labyrinthine apartment, but no answer came. A grimace threatened to crease her perfect skin when the lamps flickered back on. Frankie couldn’t know that snow had been piling up, from where she was sitting on a throne in her house in the skies, where nothing could touch her.

There was already a champagne bottle popped in her hand, the pink silk of her nightgown sprinkled in gold and her hair undone and spilling freely down her back. Who wanted to be alone in that kind of weather? Frankie needed company. Always.

Another flicker caught her attention, and then poof — "AJ, if you’re fucking with the lights, I’ll snap those tiny bony hands and use them as cocktail straws." A playful threat, with only a pinch of irritation beneath it.

What is going on? Her stilettos clicked sharply against the tiles (she wore them at home too) as she reached the kitchen. AJ was there in the dark, lighting candles like he was about to have a chat with someone totally dead.

Frankie stopped at the door, candlelight catching the wicked curl of her smile. "Babes," she said, unimpressed and amused all at once. "You’re really not my type, but I’d still fuck you if you asked. You don’t have to summon the apocalypse for attention."

#c: aj #the blizzard

@frnoialles, @oksana-raevskii The Port Eerie Rave

She doesn't know what a Scooby-Doo is, or what exactly a Hex Girl is, but she does realize, and quickly, just how much it draws the eyes of men and women alike, when three women of unearthly beauty and esoteric nature dress up as them for a night of festivity.

Newly emancipated, or at least feeling as such, from the weighted thumb of her older sister, she has grown a taste for festivity.

A quiet, feminine snarl drawls from her mouth, blood catching air at the back of her throat. As a vampire, her body burns through mortal means as fast as can be, however, when mixed with blood, it all evens out, all that to say, she feels the rush of whatever it is this poor thing's had tonight washing over her, all euphoria and buzzing bees in her head as she shares a body with two friends, dressed to match as they take turns passing the girl between them, taking sips of blood from her in a corner of the warehouse as music thrums through her undead bones.

Now this is a party.