Post by Emily on Dec 4, 2015 5:25:24 GMT -8
CAST: Jude Fein (brandofheii@aol.com), Hannah Fein (smiledsobright@aol.com)
SUMMARY: Gentleman Jude fancies up to impress sister and apple-of-his-eye Hannah with an evening at the theatre. Their sibling 'date' turns into a family reunion that leaves one less person on Hannah's shit list breathing.
TW: language, icin' bitches hard
[Jude] Date or not, the pair of them lived on nearly opposite sides of London, so it just made perfect sense for them to meet up at Sadler's Well Theater. Curtain was at half past seven, and they agreed to meet thirty minutes before that, but Jude made sure to arrive before his sister -- even it if meant he was there far too early, and probably looking a bit like a creep just lurking there in front of the theater in the temperate December air. He wore that suit he'd sent her a picture of. It might have looked black in the photo, but it was really a deep charcoal gray color. It fit him well, despite the fact that it had been bought right off the rack. He was broader in the shoulders, and so he'd only had it taken in on the sides just a fraction at the sides to accommodate the way his frame tapered. Paired with a white button down beneath the single button on the jacket, and a black tie fit loosely about his neck, and shiny black dress shoes, the man-child looked entirely out of his element. But he didn't mind. He stood near the box office, enjoying the cool air, and thankful it wasn't raining. He'd combed his hair to the side earlier, but by now he'd passed a big hand through it multiple times, that it did what it always did; sticking out this way and that in it's lengthy state. And! And! He'd shaved off that beard Hannah had insulted, leaving only a little stubble on his chin and upper lip, too little to even be classified as moustache or goatee, but the rest of his face was smooth and showing off his youth. While he waited for the only redhead that mattered in the world -- scratch that, only girl -- he was reading some news article on his phone.
[Hannah] "You look like a creep," she offered sweetly, and it's normally a tongue-in-cheek joke when I write 'sweetly,' but it's not, this time. Sarcasm exchanged between siblings was as sweet a thing as Hannah could think of, having been deprived of her family for so long. She meant every ounce of it. The arm that snuck out from somewhere behind Jude to get cozy up against the back of his jacket was bare, save new permanent illustration that glowed pink around the edges. She'd loved that stupid game, as a kid; Candy Land. Not many other games boasted redheaded heroines like the one that danced around just under her elbow, now. Don't worry, she'd foregone the Aquaphor. You don't wear Aquaphor to the ballet. It gets on things you're supposed to wear to the ballet -- jackets and evening dresses. Hers was a modest cling of black velvet, all sweetheart neckline against her sternum and swath of night until it pooled around the heels of old movie star pumps that might as well have been plastic flip-flops for as much as they could be seen. She was taller, three inches or so. That and the quiet cracks of sound that her ever-careful footsteps left against the concrete would have to be proof enough of their existence. Old gold and opal hung from her ears, sparkled on her right hand. The only jewelry she owned, really; gifts from Jasper. Her grandmother's. It was much easier to smack a kiss against Jude's cheek at her temporary height, she decided at some point after doing it and turning hazel eyes that were hardly made up at all up at him. Copper waved across her forehead and down onto shoulders that weren't immune to breezes or goosebumps. "All... lurk-y and stuff. Lurk-y creep."
[Jude] "I am a creep," he immediately responded; half turning against the arm that made it's impression against his back to send an easy grin down to his sister's pretty face. She might be taller now, but he knew the truth. He'd always be bigger, and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. But he could be nice about it, and he did; tilting in some when it was clear what she wanted to do, making it that much easier for her to reach his cheek without having to come up onto her toes. See. Nice guy. Total bullshit that they always finish last, by the by. "What, did you want me to go in there without you? All by myself? With no one else?" He somehow managed to look a bit panicked at the thought, and sent a skeptical glance to the double doors that were already admitting ticketholders. Vision in a kaleidoscope of colors were brought back to Hannah, and took her in with a half step back so he could really take a look at her. "Well. You clean up well, at least. How long did it take you?" Jude made a little face, like he was more than certain it took all day for her to become the vision that stood before him, and fingers found themselves tugging at the side sweep of her brilliantly colored hair before he even had thought to touch it. It might have been the red of it, but toying with her hair triggered something in the man. "Oh! Before I forget. I have something for you. Didn't think you'd want to walk around carrying flowers, but I didn't want to show up empty handed, because I'm a gentleman, Hannah. Remember that, forever." Prying his hand away from her hair, a little reluctant to give it up too, he dug into the inner breast pocket of his jacket, and out came a rainbow. Small one, made entirely of thread; wrapped and braided and twisted together. He held it, between his forefinger and thumb, and presented it to her. What sort of rainbow was it? Totally a friendship bracelet.
[Hannah] Bigger, older, blah blah blah. She'd only been listening to that taunt for the last nineteen years. Nineteen. It seemed like such a small number when it was used to quantify a person's age. Sometimes Hannah forgot that she was, technically, a teenager. Like Ash, and Jasper, and... well, like everyone else she sometimes felt disconnected from by lightyears. Maybe she'd grown up too fast. Maybe she'd always been an old soul. She'd pondered it often, and usually chalked not fitting in anywhere with her peer group up to some social shortcoming she'd identified in herself. Jude looked at the front doors of a theatre like the gaping maw of a hungry devil, but at least he didn't make her feel like a total freak. He was a nice guy that way, too. Hannah lifted an eyebrow at him when he tangled his mitt up in her hair and heard his boyish ramble out, never minding that he was no longer a boy. She might always be a hundred to herself and he might always be thirteen to her. Funny, how that works. Jude had done them both a favor in foregoing the flowers, firstly because if he'd shown up with cut stems for the life-giver who had once begged then-new-friend Alex to stop pulling grass up because she could feel its pain, he would have been in the dragon house with her, and secondly because if he'd shown up with a potted plant, well... he was right, she wouldn't have wanted to carry the damn thing around all night. Remember that, forever. Her expression changed briefly before he even finished his -ever; both intuition and nostrils flaring as though she'd just been slapped in the face with something very unpleasant. There had been an awful lot of 'forever' coming out of the mouths of the people in her life, recently. Nothing good ever came after 'forever.' Not ever. Mackie, Nero, now Jude with the f-word. That couldn't be coincidence. Something was coming. Something irrational bristled under her skin. She choked it down in time to put the kind of smile on her face that her brother's friendship bracelet deserved, shoving her Candy Land arm out into the air so that the honors could be done. "Don't tell me you made it yourself," she joked. Of course he had. Just look at i -- ...
[Jude] Jude never thought of the complications of tossing around words like forever. That length of time could be different for everyone, and he was a firm believer on just living until forever ended. There was too much loss in the Fein's life for him to think any other way about it. If he saw the change in her expression, no matter how brief it might be, or felt the shift in her, it didn't show, nor did he say anything. Tonight was going to be focused on just spending time together. No sadness of the past, no uncertainty of the future. Or so you think, Judas. When she thrust her arm at him, he grinned and fixed the bracelet around her thin wrist. It was going to take him a moment to get it really tied though. Big fingers. "Pfft, please. 'Course I did. Took me days, Hans. Days. It's so little, like you, and I've got these stumpy fingers." Was he pouting at her? Lil' bit. Finally, he'd get the colorful thing tied off but before she could pull her hand away, he gently smudged his thumb across some of the new detail on her arm. "You put this here to remind me of how much you used to cheat at that game, didn't you?" Squinting at her, to show her that he knew what she was up to.
[Hannah] "I did not cheat," she shot back, somehow gentle and defiant in the same instant. "... Mom and Dad just made Gideon let me win a lot." Mostly so that they didn't have to listen to the boys whine about having to play Candy Land with their baby sister all the time. One game, let her win, prize: Going on with your life, Jude. Since she wasn't allowed to do fun dangerous boy stuff (though she did it anyway whenever she thought she might not get caught), she got to be the Candy Land Princess. Nobody would ever believe him if he tried to tell them what a stubborn, adventurous little shit she'd once been. ... well, maybe one or two people might. Never mind. "And I am not little." Not for a ballerina, anyway. She might have been a little bit little in general. Just don't tell her that; the last guy who did got socked in the tit. "You're just, like... you know, humongous, or something." She jerked her braceleted wrist back with feigned impatience, but followed that up by curling her arm between the inside of his bicep and his ribcage for a light squeeze that carried heavy double meaning. The end of forever was the problem with it, you see. "I put it there because I like Candy Land, and because I think the guy who likes to draw stuff on me is cute." Her chin lifted with an unspoken 'so there!' and she turned her head to shoot him a sugar cube smile, but something distracted her from summoning up the charm for that. Jude wasn't the only lurk-y creep nearby. The tell-tale sign that something was bubbling in the cauldron of her clever little head was its slow fall toward her left shoulder. Why did that street light silhouette look familiar to her? Hannah's brow furrowed as she stared openly, met with reciprocal curiosity by eyes she couldn't see. "Jude, are we... meeting anyone here, or...?"
[Jude] " .. So what you're saying is that I'm just that bad at CandyLand. Bullshit. I'm buyin' that crap, and we're playing. We'll see who takes that fuckin' castle." He paused, and since she was tacking on the fact that she really wasn't that little, he couldn't help but add in, "Squirt," as if it were the worst insult a person could give another. Only to bark out a gruff masculine laugh. "Please. I'm barely gigantic." That came before humonguous, didn't it? But it didn't stop him from puffing up his shoulders with a flex that carried into his bicep when she squeezed it. It didn't quite matter who she was -- sister, mother, grandma, aunt, the man was going to give a Herculean preen if he wanted to preen. She brought out another laugh from him, and he turned a little to the doors to see the crowd thinning as the hour grew closer to curtain. "Cute, huh? Your boyfriend know that?" He was reaching into the inside breast pocket of his jacket again, but this time the shift in her warranted his full attention. His hand paused just inside the suitcoat, and he gave an avian turn of his profile; just enough that he could see what Hannah did. "No. Just us," he said quietly, a frown bowing his mouth and jaw tightening in it's corners. "Got a stalker?" It was so natural for one who'd developed a hero complex in the last pair of years to turn himself with subtle movement that put his body in front of her just enough that should anything go south, as these sorts of things usually did, he'd be able to spring into action. He rather liked springing into action.
[Hannah] You play a Fein male way too well. Gideon was all about that Herculean preen and that hero complex, too, once upon a time. Poor Hannah could boast neither of those things. "You don't want to do that," she warned Jude of his Milton-Bradley ballsiness. "I'm like a bottle of peppermint disc wine, baby; I've only gotten better with age." Pretty big shit you're talking, there, freckle-face. Preeetty big shit you're talking. The figure Hannah had been eyeballing assumed a defensive stance as Jude turned to give it the what for. It almost looked like flight was about to take place. "And the guy who likes to draw stuff on me is my..." The word 'boyfriend' kind of made her feel all squirmy and uncomfortable, evidence of which could be found in the roll of her feminine shoulders and the curl of her upper lip. It didn't matter. Finishing her sentence was unnecessary. There were very few people in her world that she trusted to touch her for any extended period of time, as tattoing might require, and her brother was perfectly capable of putting one and three together to make four. Aside from all that, there was someone watching them. Someone who had a very strange reaction to having garnered Jude's attention. Hannah didn't like it. Neither did she like the way Superman assumed a protective stance before her, not because she could protect herself -- she could -- but because it meant he anticipated that she would need protecting. He'd always been quicker to survival instinct than she was. Only three years separated them, but they were three enough to make a difference in what she remembered of their childhood and what he remembered. Her version of their shared reality was sheltered in part by his efforts to keep her sweet. "... just the usual." Because being stalked by a cult of Jewish mystics is in any way usual, Hannah. "You?" And while the dragon duo was focused on one shadow, another slipped into the dwindling crowd with green eyes trained on Jude. A small fist wrapped around a pen-like cylinder came flying for the side of his throat that hid his pulse.
[Jude] "I do want to do that," he countered with a lift of his chin. "I'll wipe the floor with your old ass." She was the one that brought up age, after all. He was listening, really, he was. But he had his gaze trained on the figure in the lamplight. It didn't move, but that didn't mean Jude was dismissing it. He couldn't see the face beneath the shadows that the light oddly cast in the direction the figure was standing, and that bothered the shit out of him. He squinted a little, and wished for the heaviness of his favored weapon in his hands, and realized he had none at all but those hands themselves. "Mhm. Figured," Jude commented, casting her a half grin over his shoulder a bit that only lasted a fraction of a moment. "Nope .. no stalkers. Haven't been in town long enough." But then he felt it. It was hard to get much past him. Skills he was born with, skills he honed. A shift in the air, and attention. It was trained on him, but there were too many people around for him to really feel where it was coming from. Not until the attack was already in place. He managed to jerk back, narrowly avoiding the throat stab. "Piece of crap," he muttered; while the move surely would have displaced whoever was coming, giving Jude the opportunity to get a strong arm around the neck of whoever it was. "Hannah, get inside!"
[Hannah] Catherine had never been especially deft. Jude and Hannah had known her as 'auntie,' once. She was still unremarkable except for those green eyes, now in her early fifties with garlands of grey striping a brown ponytail. The last time Hannah had seen her was... oh, that was complicated. It had been a nightmare, hadn't it? The dream sequence in which she learned the truth of Gideon's murder. But how can a person learn the truth of anything in a nightmare? Nightmares are just the brain's way of working out kinks we can't figure out during waking hours... right? Magic 8 Ball says 'Uncertain. Try again later.' "Let go," Catherine choked into the angle of his elbow. "Let go, and don't be a fucking fool; you knew what would happen." In the instant after her voice confirmed her identity to startled, disbelieving Hannah, catching her breath turned into a strangled cry of rage. She did not get inside. She dropped her clutch, completely uninterested in the way lip balm and pens scattered across the concrete with its burst open. Her wheel around her brother was as quick as the roll-in of the storms he used to like to watch out over the mountains in the Napa summer time, and there was no delicacy in the way she brought a black velvet knee up into Catherine's gut. "Why are you here?!" They never went anywhere in singles. Not even in doubles. The mystics always moved in threes. As what was left of the small crowd waiting for the show did what Hannah should have done, the figure from across the street and an unknown counterpart rushed in to restrain the redhead. "Get her hands," one grunted. "Get her hands, or she'll get you like she got Andrew." Cruel fingers dug into fresh ink. Did it even phase her? "Kill her, Jude," Hannah pleaded. "Just kill her, don't listen to anything she says!" Eyes that had only thirty minutes ago been a sparkle of anticipation welled with tears that pulled at the kohl lining them. "It was them. They killed Gideon."
[Jude] The instant he caught her voice, he knew who she was. Even if her features were the same -- it was true. They were unremarkable. Forgettable. But not her voice. One that had soothed when he was younger, one that had made him feel loved, until it was gone. He knew her. His arm started to go slack when she urged him to let go, but really? He knew that would happen? A fucking throat stabbing? Hannah was moving, but not where he wanted her, and jamming her knee into Catherine's midsection. Jude reacted to that with tightening his arm, and his hand shot up to catch her wrist where she still held her weapon. He squeezed, feeling the bones grind together. "Let go," he ground out, but his eyes were all on Hannah. Two others swarmed, grabbing at his sister, and perhaps it was only Catherine that heard the low, primal noise he made -- but it was most assuredly only her that felt the way his grip on her wrist twisted into a breaking point, and perhaps beyond that. Hannah was pleading then, and he looked confused; searching her hazel hues -- but all it took was that admission, just those words, and he moved. Catching the cylinder that Catherine had dropped before it even hit the ground, dragging the woman down with the way he bent for it, and it was imbedded into her eye -- deep enough to meet her brain through it in an instant. He didn't even linger, dropping her body right there on the red carpeted theatre entrance, and lunging for -- well, Hannah. But only to get her out of the reach of the other two.
[Hannah] It would be hard to explain how she knew. She'd tell him she was there, but she wasn't. She'd tell him she saw it, but she hadn't. Gideon had been gone for months, already, the night she could have sworn she'd relived his murder with a front row seat and a broken fourth wall. Figuring out how to explain herself, however, was not the foremost of Hannah's concerns just then. Her relief to be rid of Catherine wouldn't come until later; it was only a big, bold checkmark in her mind the second Jude dropped a corpse onto the ground. One of the figures who was attempting to hold her angry writhe back let go, rushing forward to kneel at Catherine's side with a sob. He was young. Their age, maybe, with her green eyes. Hannah didn't recognize him. He'd grown so, since the escape from the commune. Jude's grab for her won him possession... kind of. She didn't let him have it long. A stubborn struggle gave Hannah just enough time to slip quick fingers past the top hem of her dress and pluck free from alongside her ribcage a short, thin blade; one of a set of three, again, gifts. Most things she owned were gifts. She wouldn't have bothered with it if they weren't smack dab in the middle of closed-circuit monitored public. She would have just lifted her hands, curl her fists, ripped the spirits right out of their bodies and been done with it, if she'd had her way, but there were certain laws of nature and magic that separated what was going on inside the theatre from what was going on outside it. They had to be protected. Everyone on the dark side of the Veil knew that. Hannah didn't get a chance to get that sliver of death dirty -- in a bolt of bright, flash lightning, Jude yanked her free of the scene of the crime. So much for Sleeping Beauty. Strange weather we're having, too, isn't it?
SUMMARY: Gentleman Jude fancies up to impress sister and apple-of-his-eye Hannah with an evening at the theatre. Their sibling 'date' turns into a family reunion that leaves one less person on Hannah's shit list breathing.
TW: language, icin' bitches hard
[Jude] Date or not, the pair of them lived on nearly opposite sides of London, so it just made perfect sense for them to meet up at Sadler's Well Theater. Curtain was at half past seven, and they agreed to meet thirty minutes before that, but Jude made sure to arrive before his sister -- even it if meant he was there far too early, and probably looking a bit like a creep just lurking there in front of the theater in the temperate December air. He wore that suit he'd sent her a picture of. It might have looked black in the photo, but it was really a deep charcoal gray color. It fit him well, despite the fact that it had been bought right off the rack. He was broader in the shoulders, and so he'd only had it taken in on the sides just a fraction at the sides to accommodate the way his frame tapered. Paired with a white button down beneath the single button on the jacket, and a black tie fit loosely about his neck, and shiny black dress shoes, the man-child looked entirely out of his element. But he didn't mind. He stood near the box office, enjoying the cool air, and thankful it wasn't raining. He'd combed his hair to the side earlier, but by now he'd passed a big hand through it multiple times, that it did what it always did; sticking out this way and that in it's lengthy state. And! And! He'd shaved off that beard Hannah had insulted, leaving only a little stubble on his chin and upper lip, too little to even be classified as moustache or goatee, but the rest of his face was smooth and showing off his youth. While he waited for the only redhead that mattered in the world -- scratch that, only girl -- he was reading some news article on his phone.
[Hannah] "You look like a creep," she offered sweetly, and it's normally a tongue-in-cheek joke when I write 'sweetly,' but it's not, this time. Sarcasm exchanged between siblings was as sweet a thing as Hannah could think of, having been deprived of her family for so long. She meant every ounce of it. The arm that snuck out from somewhere behind Jude to get cozy up against the back of his jacket was bare, save new permanent illustration that glowed pink around the edges. She'd loved that stupid game, as a kid; Candy Land. Not many other games boasted redheaded heroines like the one that danced around just under her elbow, now. Don't worry, she'd foregone the Aquaphor. You don't wear Aquaphor to the ballet. It gets on things you're supposed to wear to the ballet -- jackets and evening dresses. Hers was a modest cling of black velvet, all sweetheart neckline against her sternum and swath of night until it pooled around the heels of old movie star pumps that might as well have been plastic flip-flops for as much as they could be seen. She was taller, three inches or so. That and the quiet cracks of sound that her ever-careful footsteps left against the concrete would have to be proof enough of their existence. Old gold and opal hung from her ears, sparkled on her right hand. The only jewelry she owned, really; gifts from Jasper. Her grandmother's. It was much easier to smack a kiss against Jude's cheek at her temporary height, she decided at some point after doing it and turning hazel eyes that were hardly made up at all up at him. Copper waved across her forehead and down onto shoulders that weren't immune to breezes or goosebumps. "All... lurk-y and stuff. Lurk-y creep."
[Jude] "I am a creep," he immediately responded; half turning against the arm that made it's impression against his back to send an easy grin down to his sister's pretty face. She might be taller now, but he knew the truth. He'd always be bigger, and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. But he could be nice about it, and he did; tilting in some when it was clear what she wanted to do, making it that much easier for her to reach his cheek without having to come up onto her toes. See. Nice guy. Total bullshit that they always finish last, by the by. "What, did you want me to go in there without you? All by myself? With no one else?" He somehow managed to look a bit panicked at the thought, and sent a skeptical glance to the double doors that were already admitting ticketholders. Vision in a kaleidoscope of colors were brought back to Hannah, and took her in with a half step back so he could really take a look at her. "Well. You clean up well, at least. How long did it take you?" Jude made a little face, like he was more than certain it took all day for her to become the vision that stood before him, and fingers found themselves tugging at the side sweep of her brilliantly colored hair before he even had thought to touch it. It might have been the red of it, but toying with her hair triggered something in the man. "Oh! Before I forget. I have something for you. Didn't think you'd want to walk around carrying flowers, but I didn't want to show up empty handed, because I'm a gentleman, Hannah. Remember that, forever." Prying his hand away from her hair, a little reluctant to give it up too, he dug into the inner breast pocket of his jacket, and out came a rainbow. Small one, made entirely of thread; wrapped and braided and twisted together. He held it, between his forefinger and thumb, and presented it to her. What sort of rainbow was it? Totally a friendship bracelet.
[Hannah] Bigger, older, blah blah blah. She'd only been listening to that taunt for the last nineteen years. Nineteen. It seemed like such a small number when it was used to quantify a person's age. Sometimes Hannah forgot that she was, technically, a teenager. Like Ash, and Jasper, and... well, like everyone else she sometimes felt disconnected from by lightyears. Maybe she'd grown up too fast. Maybe she'd always been an old soul. She'd pondered it often, and usually chalked not fitting in anywhere with her peer group up to some social shortcoming she'd identified in herself. Jude looked at the front doors of a theatre like the gaping maw of a hungry devil, but at least he didn't make her feel like a total freak. He was a nice guy that way, too. Hannah lifted an eyebrow at him when he tangled his mitt up in her hair and heard his boyish ramble out, never minding that he was no longer a boy. She might always be a hundred to herself and he might always be thirteen to her. Funny, how that works. Jude had done them both a favor in foregoing the flowers, firstly because if he'd shown up with cut stems for the life-giver who had once begged then-new-friend Alex to stop pulling grass up because she could feel its pain, he would have been in the dragon house with her, and secondly because if he'd shown up with a potted plant, well... he was right, she wouldn't have wanted to carry the damn thing around all night. Remember that, forever. Her expression changed briefly before he even finished his -ever; both intuition and nostrils flaring as though she'd just been slapped in the face with something very unpleasant. There had been an awful lot of 'forever' coming out of the mouths of the people in her life, recently. Nothing good ever came after 'forever.' Not ever. Mackie, Nero, now Jude with the f-word. That couldn't be coincidence. Something was coming. Something irrational bristled under her skin. She choked it down in time to put the kind of smile on her face that her brother's friendship bracelet deserved, shoving her Candy Land arm out into the air so that the honors could be done. "Don't tell me you made it yourself," she joked. Of course he had. Just look at i -- ...
[Jude] Jude never thought of the complications of tossing around words like forever. That length of time could be different for everyone, and he was a firm believer on just living until forever ended. There was too much loss in the Fein's life for him to think any other way about it. If he saw the change in her expression, no matter how brief it might be, or felt the shift in her, it didn't show, nor did he say anything. Tonight was going to be focused on just spending time together. No sadness of the past, no uncertainty of the future. Or so you think, Judas. When she thrust her arm at him, he grinned and fixed the bracelet around her thin wrist. It was going to take him a moment to get it really tied though. Big fingers. "Pfft, please. 'Course I did. Took me days, Hans. Days. It's so little, like you, and I've got these stumpy fingers." Was he pouting at her? Lil' bit. Finally, he'd get the colorful thing tied off but before she could pull her hand away, he gently smudged his thumb across some of the new detail on her arm. "You put this here to remind me of how much you used to cheat at that game, didn't you?" Squinting at her, to show her that he knew what she was up to.
[Hannah] "I did not cheat," she shot back, somehow gentle and defiant in the same instant. "... Mom and Dad just made Gideon let me win a lot." Mostly so that they didn't have to listen to the boys whine about having to play Candy Land with their baby sister all the time. One game, let her win, prize: Going on with your life, Jude. Since she wasn't allowed to do fun dangerous boy stuff (though she did it anyway whenever she thought she might not get caught), she got to be the Candy Land Princess. Nobody would ever believe him if he tried to tell them what a stubborn, adventurous little shit she'd once been. ... well, maybe one or two people might. Never mind. "And I am not little." Not for a ballerina, anyway. She might have been a little bit little in general. Just don't tell her that; the last guy who did got socked in the tit. "You're just, like... you know, humongous, or something." She jerked her braceleted wrist back with feigned impatience, but followed that up by curling her arm between the inside of his bicep and his ribcage for a light squeeze that carried heavy double meaning. The end of forever was the problem with it, you see. "I put it there because I like Candy Land, and because I think the guy who likes to draw stuff on me is cute." Her chin lifted with an unspoken 'so there!' and she turned her head to shoot him a sugar cube smile, but something distracted her from summoning up the charm for that. Jude wasn't the only lurk-y creep nearby. The tell-tale sign that something was bubbling in the cauldron of her clever little head was its slow fall toward her left shoulder. Why did that street light silhouette look familiar to her? Hannah's brow furrowed as she stared openly, met with reciprocal curiosity by eyes she couldn't see. "Jude, are we... meeting anyone here, or...?"
[Jude] " .. So what you're saying is that I'm just that bad at CandyLand. Bullshit. I'm buyin' that crap, and we're playing. We'll see who takes that fuckin' castle." He paused, and since she was tacking on the fact that she really wasn't that little, he couldn't help but add in, "Squirt," as if it were the worst insult a person could give another. Only to bark out a gruff masculine laugh. "Please. I'm barely gigantic." That came before humonguous, didn't it? But it didn't stop him from puffing up his shoulders with a flex that carried into his bicep when she squeezed it. It didn't quite matter who she was -- sister, mother, grandma, aunt, the man was going to give a Herculean preen if he wanted to preen. She brought out another laugh from him, and he turned a little to the doors to see the crowd thinning as the hour grew closer to curtain. "Cute, huh? Your boyfriend know that?" He was reaching into the inside breast pocket of his jacket again, but this time the shift in her warranted his full attention. His hand paused just inside the suitcoat, and he gave an avian turn of his profile; just enough that he could see what Hannah did. "No. Just us," he said quietly, a frown bowing his mouth and jaw tightening in it's corners. "Got a stalker?" It was so natural for one who'd developed a hero complex in the last pair of years to turn himself with subtle movement that put his body in front of her just enough that should anything go south, as these sorts of things usually did, he'd be able to spring into action. He rather liked springing into action.
[Hannah] You play a Fein male way too well. Gideon was all about that Herculean preen and that hero complex, too, once upon a time. Poor Hannah could boast neither of those things. "You don't want to do that," she warned Jude of his Milton-Bradley ballsiness. "I'm like a bottle of peppermint disc wine, baby; I've only gotten better with age." Pretty big shit you're talking, there, freckle-face. Preeetty big shit you're talking. The figure Hannah had been eyeballing assumed a defensive stance as Jude turned to give it the what for. It almost looked like flight was about to take place. "And the guy who likes to draw stuff on me is my..." The word 'boyfriend' kind of made her feel all squirmy and uncomfortable, evidence of which could be found in the roll of her feminine shoulders and the curl of her upper lip. It didn't matter. Finishing her sentence was unnecessary. There were very few people in her world that she trusted to touch her for any extended period of time, as tattoing might require, and her brother was perfectly capable of putting one and three together to make four. Aside from all that, there was someone watching them. Someone who had a very strange reaction to having garnered Jude's attention. Hannah didn't like it. Neither did she like the way Superman assumed a protective stance before her, not because she could protect herself -- she could -- but because it meant he anticipated that she would need protecting. He'd always been quicker to survival instinct than she was. Only three years separated them, but they were three enough to make a difference in what she remembered of their childhood and what he remembered. Her version of their shared reality was sheltered in part by his efforts to keep her sweet. "... just the usual." Because being stalked by a cult of Jewish mystics is in any way usual, Hannah. "You?" And while the dragon duo was focused on one shadow, another slipped into the dwindling crowd with green eyes trained on Jude. A small fist wrapped around a pen-like cylinder came flying for the side of his throat that hid his pulse.
[Jude] "I do want to do that," he countered with a lift of his chin. "I'll wipe the floor with your old ass." She was the one that brought up age, after all. He was listening, really, he was. But he had his gaze trained on the figure in the lamplight. It didn't move, but that didn't mean Jude was dismissing it. He couldn't see the face beneath the shadows that the light oddly cast in the direction the figure was standing, and that bothered the shit out of him. He squinted a little, and wished for the heaviness of his favored weapon in his hands, and realized he had none at all but those hands themselves. "Mhm. Figured," Jude commented, casting her a half grin over his shoulder a bit that only lasted a fraction of a moment. "Nope .. no stalkers. Haven't been in town long enough." But then he felt it. It was hard to get much past him. Skills he was born with, skills he honed. A shift in the air, and attention. It was trained on him, but there were too many people around for him to really feel where it was coming from. Not until the attack was already in place. He managed to jerk back, narrowly avoiding the throat stab. "Piece of crap," he muttered; while the move surely would have displaced whoever was coming, giving Jude the opportunity to get a strong arm around the neck of whoever it was. "Hannah, get inside!"
[Hannah] Catherine had never been especially deft. Jude and Hannah had known her as 'auntie,' once. She was still unremarkable except for those green eyes, now in her early fifties with garlands of grey striping a brown ponytail. The last time Hannah had seen her was... oh, that was complicated. It had been a nightmare, hadn't it? The dream sequence in which she learned the truth of Gideon's murder. But how can a person learn the truth of anything in a nightmare? Nightmares are just the brain's way of working out kinks we can't figure out during waking hours... right? Magic 8 Ball says 'Uncertain. Try again later.' "Let go," Catherine choked into the angle of his elbow. "Let go, and don't be a fucking fool; you knew what would happen." In the instant after her voice confirmed her identity to startled, disbelieving Hannah, catching her breath turned into a strangled cry of rage. She did not get inside. She dropped her clutch, completely uninterested in the way lip balm and pens scattered across the concrete with its burst open. Her wheel around her brother was as quick as the roll-in of the storms he used to like to watch out over the mountains in the Napa summer time, and there was no delicacy in the way she brought a black velvet knee up into Catherine's gut. "Why are you here?!" They never went anywhere in singles. Not even in doubles. The mystics always moved in threes. As what was left of the small crowd waiting for the show did what Hannah should have done, the figure from across the street and an unknown counterpart rushed in to restrain the redhead. "Get her hands," one grunted. "Get her hands, or she'll get you like she got Andrew." Cruel fingers dug into fresh ink. Did it even phase her? "Kill her, Jude," Hannah pleaded. "Just kill her, don't listen to anything she says!" Eyes that had only thirty minutes ago been a sparkle of anticipation welled with tears that pulled at the kohl lining them. "It was them. They killed Gideon."
[Jude] The instant he caught her voice, he knew who she was. Even if her features were the same -- it was true. They were unremarkable. Forgettable. But not her voice. One that had soothed when he was younger, one that had made him feel loved, until it was gone. He knew her. His arm started to go slack when she urged him to let go, but really? He knew that would happen? A fucking throat stabbing? Hannah was moving, but not where he wanted her, and jamming her knee into Catherine's midsection. Jude reacted to that with tightening his arm, and his hand shot up to catch her wrist where she still held her weapon. He squeezed, feeling the bones grind together. "Let go," he ground out, but his eyes were all on Hannah. Two others swarmed, grabbing at his sister, and perhaps it was only Catherine that heard the low, primal noise he made -- but it was most assuredly only her that felt the way his grip on her wrist twisted into a breaking point, and perhaps beyond that. Hannah was pleading then, and he looked confused; searching her hazel hues -- but all it took was that admission, just those words, and he moved. Catching the cylinder that Catherine had dropped before it even hit the ground, dragging the woman down with the way he bent for it, and it was imbedded into her eye -- deep enough to meet her brain through it in an instant. He didn't even linger, dropping her body right there on the red carpeted theatre entrance, and lunging for -- well, Hannah. But only to get her out of the reach of the other two.
[Hannah] It would be hard to explain how she knew. She'd tell him she was there, but she wasn't. She'd tell him she saw it, but she hadn't. Gideon had been gone for months, already, the night she could have sworn she'd relived his murder with a front row seat and a broken fourth wall. Figuring out how to explain herself, however, was not the foremost of Hannah's concerns just then. Her relief to be rid of Catherine wouldn't come until later; it was only a big, bold checkmark in her mind the second Jude dropped a corpse onto the ground. One of the figures who was attempting to hold her angry writhe back let go, rushing forward to kneel at Catherine's side with a sob. He was young. Their age, maybe, with her green eyes. Hannah didn't recognize him. He'd grown so, since the escape from the commune. Jude's grab for her won him possession... kind of. She didn't let him have it long. A stubborn struggle gave Hannah just enough time to slip quick fingers past the top hem of her dress and pluck free from alongside her ribcage a short, thin blade; one of a set of three, again, gifts. Most things she owned were gifts. She wouldn't have bothered with it if they weren't smack dab in the middle of closed-circuit monitored public. She would have just lifted her hands, curl her fists, ripped the spirits right out of their bodies and been done with it, if she'd had her way, but there were certain laws of nature and magic that separated what was going on inside the theatre from what was going on outside it. They had to be protected. Everyone on the dark side of the Veil knew that. Hannah didn't get a chance to get that sliver of death dirty -- in a bolt of bright, flash lightning, Jude yanked her free of the scene of the crime. So much for Sleeping Beauty. Strange weather we're having, too, isn't it?