Chapter 5.2: Revenge is a dish best served cold

[Sonovaditch]

Thursday, October 28th, 1999 - 11:27pm - Fia Cade's Backyard - Jax Habit - Brujah
HEALTH (6/7) BP=11/12 WP(6/6) HUM(5/5) SC(3/3)

Jax grinned at Angel. "I might," he said, a little coy, "I might even got something in a 40 inch I could do a number on tonight, if you want. A real battle jack-"

He stopped short, because just then a flash of orange caught his eye. One moment, Waylon was standing there, a Raphaelian figure cast in flesh framed by spun fire. Then the next, that perfect stream of silk was shorn and cast like some magnificent tribute back to the forge from whence it came.

Jax's jaw was slack. He almost dropped his drink before his boney fingers remembered the importance of their cargo.

Then Jax erupted in a victorious crow - something perhaps only Angel might recognize as music. His body arched with the sound, the showman in him summoned by the radical act of self-destruction. Sure, it was just hair, but it was Waylon's hair! Perfect Waylon's perfect hair!! It was about as radical an act as Jax had ever seen a Toreador venture.

"Fuckin' fuck yeah!! ¡Viva nosotros! We're gonna live forever!!" He shouted, raising his glass high before tossing the rest back and slamming it into the fire, the plastic destined to mix noxously with the scent of human hair.

[LadyJallyn]

Thursday, October 28th, 1999 - 11:29pm - Fia Cade's Backyard- Donkey Punch Mike

Mikey watched as the fire burned and people added emptied cups and hair to it. He sat enjoying the cup of chilled blood. It tasted better than anything he had sampled before. It was so strong and the flavors it made him heady and a bit deliriously happy.

Despite the shit show that was now his life and his ruin of a face he couldn't help but smile as he watched the vampires around the fire. They were sort of a strange kooky adoptive family of his realized "So tomorrow we should all go full Billy Corgan ? You want the eyebrows to go too? Kinda go all the Man who fell to earth?"

Donna shrugged  "I leave it up to you guys if you want to but it will for most of you make it hard for them to ID ya with less hair. You shave it all off its like what he or she look like I dunno a bald ghouly bitch in a thrift store costume...  Yeah good luck tracking that down." She cackled.

[Grimoire]

Thursday, October 28th, 1999 - 11:27pm- Fia's Backyard - Dana Gorgeous - Brujah
HEALTH(5/7) BP(13/13) WP(5/5) HUM(5/5) SC(2/2)

Dana's eyes glowed bright, the grin that split her face was feral - mad with glee. There was so much build up to that glorious moment a tension cut with those strands of autumn fire. It left an uneven bob on Waylon's head but it was the principle of the thing, the meaning of it. They were untethered from their training, from their yesterdays. All there was for them was tonight and then battle.

Dana too downed the rest of her blood slush to free up hands and pounced on Waylon, grabbing him around the middle and spinning him around in the firelight. A true Dana rough house, she held no punches but also no ill intent.

 "That's what I'm fucking talking about!" she laughed putting him back on his feet, she looked over his handy work up close. It was a beautiful travesty, a buzzer would do a much more thorough job. She patted his cheek with affection. "If you can cut that hair you can cut a throat - fuckin A pretty boy."

[LadyJallyn]

Friday, October 29th, 1999 - 12am- Fia's Backyard
Come Midnight Donna called it a night as the blood was drank and they talked about the next day.  The kindred assembled began to leave to spend their 2nd to last night in Hamilton having some free time to themselves.

Donna bid the others good bye with the caveat that she would see them all at some    point tommorrow up at Fia's as she waited for the Gangrel to return and to collect their last minute weapons caches and supplies, and that dinner would be on her.

Sometimes being a vampire had its perks....





Mods note: Players have now entered free time in game to do whatever they wish to do. Please feel free to write whatever you desire.

[Grimoire]

Friday, October 29th, 1999 - 1:12 AM - Tisdale Apartments - Jax, Dana & Mike

Whatever made all hotels the exact same, apartments got all wrong. Alright in Jax's book. He liked the little things that made Tisdale different from a hundred buildings like it. There were similarities of course. The smell, for one. The neutral colour scheme, for another. Too many layers of paint everywhere, and stains, stains galore. Maybe that was what made it unique, too, though. Humans were all the same - only scars made them any different.

Jax scuffed the musty hallway carpet with his Frankensteined black bunny slippers as he waited outside Dana's door, pushing his leather-clad toes experimentally against a wide dark stain. Stiff. Long-dried. His eyes fixed on the spot. But his mind was somewhere else.

Tomorrow was the day. He shifted the canvas backpack he was carrying, adjusted his PJs beneath it - an old punk show shirt and some tattered plaid drawstring pants. He sighed, let his forehead rest against the door. Then, without straightening up, he knocked. And waited.

Dana was finishing brushing her teeth. The sink that had replaced the one Mike had smashed a lifetime ago liked to spit its water back at her, but it was whole and managed both hot and cold if not warm. She spit the last mouthful of foam down the drain. That, like many other oral fixations kept her humanity in bits and pieces - which was remarkable considering it was the place she kept her fangs.

She took her floss to go and as she left the bathroom she caught the wrapping knock and headed for the door. Her bat was rested on the chair nearby which was the only reason she opened it when she saw no one but a shadow in the peephole.

It wasn't a shadow though, just Jax, seeming to lean on the air as he had been the door.

"This is not about the great forces of the earth suckin' you down is it? Cause that would really harsh my buzz."

Jax let his surprising upper body strength keep him suspended there a second, his hair obscuring his face. But beneath it he was already ruining the illusion, too chuffed by his own hijinks.

He looked up suddenly with a toothy grin, not knowing why he was trying to be startling or strange at this already peculiar hour, just that he was. It was like he was a conduit for the goofball antics his brain was running through on autopilot while he thought of something good to say - a way to phrase what he wanted that didn't sound, well, weird.

His brain caught up with him before things got really awkward. "Nah, nah, nothing like that," He said, standing up at his full height, a hand rubbing the hair at the back of his head, "Listen - uh! You wanna have a sleepover? I got a weird favour." Yeah. That sounded good.

Dana laughed, amused by his behaviour and by him. After the bonfire the night before she seemed to be thrumming with the comradery of the upcoming battle. They were all brothers in arms, bonded together by the fight in front of them. She was proud of them all, and now that the mole had been felt out she felt like there was no one left to mistrust.

Jax and Mike were probably the two she was most friendly with and she felt nothing but affection for either of their antics.

"How weird?" she asked stepping out of the way, waving him inside. The sparsely furnished space was also ready for battle. The jackets they'd studded, the stakes Mike had carved down covered the tables and leaned against walls. The couch she'd claimed for sleeping was tangled with sheets but otherwise unoccupied however. "If it involves painting your toenails you're shit out of luck - that aint in my wheelhouse."

Jax stepped in, content to be back in Mike and Dana's place. He'd spent a lot of time here recently, helping out with jackets and other instruments of their private war. It had become a communal space in his mind, a part of the greater web of cozy little spaces that was slowly making Hamilton a home.

A little two note chuckle played off his shrapnel-coated chords. "Aw, rats! You mean you ain't runnin' a salon in here?" He tossed on his best impression of a Southern career woman, "Well what in the heck am I supposed to do with these unruly-" He fished for a word, "Crustacean beds? God, what the fuck is this bit called?" He said in his own voice as he squinted at his cuticles, already mangled by years of low quality nail polish, paint, paint thinner, and permanent marker.

He stood in the living room, not settling in til the question was answered, which he put on Dana rather suddenly: "You wanna shave my head?"

"Yeah I'm sure that's it," Dana laughed. She might not have known a cuticle from follicle but she was pretty sure shell fish had nothing to do with it. She closed the door behind him and turned back towards her lanky clanmate, hands in the pockets of the sweatpants that sat low on her hips. The elastic was on its last legs.

"Yeah, alright," she agreed without fanfare. She'd only been campaigning every kindred she could get within earshot to shave their heads before this thing. It was one less thing an opponent could grab, one less thing to identify you to the authorities, one less thing to get caught on a fence when you were making an escape. If anything she was underplaying how pleased she was by the request.

"You wanna bend over the tub or the kitchen sink?"

The absolute nonchallance of her reply hit home how foolish he'd been to sweat it, because in a minute he went from carrying a weight to weilding it - hadn't she been the one asking people to do this shit anyway? Ah, well! Nerves were nerves, they didn't deal in reason.

"Wow, Dana," Jax said out of the side of his mouth, pulling the collar of his shirt like a walking, talking cartoon character, "A little forward, like, buy a guy a drink first! Is Mike home? Sheesh!"
"Probably," Dana mused. "Hey Mikey! You mind if I bend Jax over!" she shouted towards the bedroom where Mike probably was by process of elimination considering the space was not exactly palatial.

When she didn't get an immediate reply she instead reached out to get a handful of dark curls, appraising what would have to be done with it. "You ever buzz this before?"

He let her manhandle his head, unbothered. His hair mattered to him, sure, but he wasn't precious about it. "Once. Maybe six times, technically," He admitted, "Since it became permanent, anyway. Used to all the time. Baby hit a little wall with his tolerance for eternity, had to change something. Couldn't," He shrugged, "Sure everybody goes through it at some point. Baby bat right of passage." It wasn't a pleasant memory, but time and work had trivialized it. "You?" He both meant if she'd buzzed her own hair and if she'd buzzed anyone else's, but he didn't specify, content to let her decide what he meant and what she wanted to tell.

"Oh yeah," Dana admitted. The silence in the bedroom made her reconsider where Mike was, he was probably at Donna's.

"Yeah, once before when I was like....Eight. Lice," she laughed at the memory. Tears and chestnut hair on the bathroom floor. "And then about as often as I knew I was getting into a fight after once I learned I could. Really I shoulda just made it part of the evening routine on those grounds - but it wasn't that many really." she released his hair, heading for the kitchen to get a pair of scissors to thin it out before they buzzed it.

"Permanence is a son of a bitch," she agreed on a sigh.

Mike looked at the pair. It was nice to have the company and companionship. "Anything I can do to help?" He asked after being so silent.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Dana yelped dropping the scissors she'd collected on the kitchen floor with a clatter. "I thought you were at Donna's! You were so quiet!"

"Nah, I was just in the bedroom packing for Toronto." Mikey explained.

Jax laughed breathlessly - he hadn't leapt visibly, but he sure as hell felt the eternal soul he supposedly didn't have take a big jump to the left. "Well we'll put a good word in on your stealth score. Fuckin' phantom ops over here. Uh- Help, though, yeah, shit, the more the merrier, man!"

"You can hack his hair back a little while I get the clippers set up," Dana offered, picking up the regular kitchen scissors she'd retrieved form a drawer, holding them out to Mike.

"I'm just stoked Donna picked me. I'm the only Kindred that they allowed to do Scourge stuff." Mikey said as he paused to pick at a scab on his withered forearm. "Either she thinks I got the right stuff. Or she's hoping I get taken out so I'm not a masquerade violation. I'm not sure which one to be honest."

Mikey got to work taking the pair of scissors and looked at Jax "Just start hacking? You know its gonna be back there tomorrow right?"

"Well, shit, I mean, can't say I know Donna deeply and intimately but if I valued money as far as I could throw it, I'd put it on Box Number One," He said, watching with a funny fondness as Mikey worried at a scab. "Yeah, yeah, its just- Like the principle, I guess?" Jax said, looking for a good position - and maybe a chair - to get in so as to be over the sink and out of Mikey and Dana's way. "I dunno, don't you ever get. The itch? Like you gotta do something, anything, right now?"

"Yeah like fuck things up. I itch all the time to lash out. I'm always so angry..."He said as he grabbed a chair from the living room and motioned for Jax to sit. "Like this payback this is whats kept me going. The chance to get a bit of revenge. I hope  I can find the fucker that did this to me. He ruined me. So I get to either live forever as a rotting walking corpse that no one can even look at, or I suntan. Tried the sun tan thing don't recommend it. It was terrible."

Dana had wandered away to fish the hard bodied case that held her clippers from the bottom of her bag. They had been Jameson's before hers. She didn't know how old they were, just that they worked, and she took good care of them though the engine whined.

She put it down on the counter and nodded.

"Ruined your face maybe, there's plenty of you still to like. Like that blood thirsty desire for vengeance," Dana pointed out genuinely. She found it relatable, his steadily seething rage.

"Yeah you get it I guess. I'm kind of lucky they let me hang with your Clan. I don't think I would have fared so well if I was with the Kooks. Melissa was saying it is mental. She hates it but like what choice does she have. Chaz is with Angel but she got the raw deal on that living arrangement, so thanks for putting up with my melancholy bullshit." He said as he began cutting into Jax's thich mop of hair.

Jax set his bag down before taking the seat Mikey'd gotten for him. He'd brought his own clippers just in case - as well as a few other things that rattled together in the bag as they shifted to rest against the kitchen floor - but he smiled with the realization that, of course Dana would have her own.

It wasn't long after he'd sat down that Mikey got right to it. "Now don't be afraid to get right in there - really let me have it! Go wild!" He said quietly enough not to interrupt but not inaudible, smiling at the little bit of shitty laminate countertop between the sink and nothing as he obediently kept his head sink-adjacent. Approximately. Oh man, was that hair on the floor already?

"Kooks don't seem so bad, like uh, in general, but I dunno, I haven't heard much local. Anyway, we like your melancholy bullshit here. Yer one of the boyyyz!" He said with extra emphasis, still feeling silly with the hour or the position of the moon or whatever made men mad.

"You think we are all gonna make it back?" Mikey asked softly as the scissors rhythmically began trimming away the hair making it shorter so the clippers wouldn't struggle so hard.

Dana chewed on that a moment, she didn't usually think that part over. It was harder to pull off reckless violence when you stopped to think about where it would end up, which of your bones would crack, which of your friends wouldn't get up.

She cracked her knuckles. "I like to think so. And if I'm wrong and it's me I won't be here to know any better."

It ached her suddenly, violently to think it of any of them. But most of all of the two men in her kitchen right then. "I intend to rip off any heads that try it on ya so we'll hope that plan works and go from there."

"Yeah but we gotta prioritize shit." Mike Interjected. "We are dead in the water if they take our eyes. So no heroics if its them or me. Protect the shit out of them and I will buy you time if it comes to it. I wont go down without a fight. I will not go quietly into the night...:

"Can't imagine any of us will," Jax said, shifting his weight against the counter as he watched his hair fall in tight black and white coils, untethered from his head where they'd return tomorrow night. Still. Losing them felt freeing. His head was getting lighter. "If any of us can be put down at all. I'm kinda of the Dana school of thought - or, well, I agree with both of you. Like yeah, we gotta be smart 'bout how to be the best little fightin' force Canadia e'er saw, sure, but like. Don't get fuckin' killed, either. Prioritize your ass so there isn't any heroics necessary."

"yeah and Donna was pretty firm on the try not to firearms stuff. Wonder how Sam the Suit is gonna hold up. Hes been great with teaching us how to use guns, but I mean... if we can't use em unless its a hail mary... I don't know if they start shooting I'm gonna return in kind unless Donna lays me out. I'd like to keep my distance if I can."

Mike said as he tossed another clump of Jax's hair to the floor

"I mean they aint gonna play by the rules why should we?"

A Sonovaditch, Grimoire & LadyJallyn Co-Post Production - PART 1/2

[Grimoire]

Friday, October 29th, 1999 - 2:00 AM - Tisdale Apartments - Jax, Dana & Mike


"Amen. No heroes, all glory." Dana grinned. "No one go quietly into any night."

She opened up the case, uncoiling the cord from the clippers. They'd been cleaned and oiled when they were put away so there was no need to do it again. Dana sought out the top socket which might have gotten friendly with a toaster or a coffee maker if anyone in the house ate food.

"Honestly I'm not one for rules but I could hit em as well if I threw the gun at em rather than shoot it," Dana flicked the switch letting the clippers buzz a little and then shutting it off again. The socket worked.

"It just seems like this is going to be intense. Like how many of these guys we gotta kill before they leave us alone? Thats what I want to know. Number wise what we looking at. The that whole shit with Xiao. A spy. Like how much has she told them. How fucked are we going to be? Sorry been in my head all night." Mikey said as he finished snipping the last of the long locks and pointed to Dana. "Your boys all yours bud."

"He's your boy too," Dana tossed back automatically, coming closer to see what she was working with. Best to start at the back and work from there.

"More than a baker's dozen I'd wager. Sure is three shades of fucked up. You want me to shave your head too? Catharsis?" she offered buzzing the clippers at Mike.

"I'm everybody's boy," Jax said encouragingly. "Actually, wait. No. That sounds... Ah, you know what I mean. Anyway, yeah, probably a small army. Maybe a big army. So y'know, almost a fair fight for them."

He smiled to himself, but inside anxiety sparked like flint against his heart. Not everyone would come out alive. "See, this is why I come to this salon. Two for one? The savings!"

Mikey snorted as he softly laughed. "Least you got most of yours. Mines starting to fall out. I tell ya before all this I could walk into a club and come home with any guy I wanted in my 20's I mean Im 30 now and before this I still did alright. But yeah. It is hard. No one would go with me anywhere willingly. Plus this not having a working dick... So this is what it feels like to be impotent... I miss jacking off and fucking. But man on the plus side. Whatever Donna gave us tonight was amazing...That was some good shit."

"Alas the curse of the dead... Unless - Can you nut if someone bites you? Or is that a mortals only ride?" Dana mused to the room at large.

"Do you know this?" she asked tipping Jax's head back like he might potentially know the secrets of this. "Cause I mean - I've had a few cream their jeans when I've fed but honestly I haven't ever put two and two together to get four."

"Nah apparently if you're a dude and you get the bite... All male vamp dicks just kinda die. No circulation due to no beating heart. If you ever figure out how to fix that. Let me know cause I tell ya A good wank would be ace!" Mikey said as he plunked down on the couch still holding the scissors as he began to play mumbly peg with his hand on the coffee table.

Jax knew better than to show the deep creeping embarrassment he felt over the personal turn in the conversation. Sex he could deal with. His own sex life, he could not. Trying to connect with Mikey's experience in particular felt damning. But he didn't show it as Dana puppeted his head back. Instead, he fluttered his eyes demurely. "Who, me?"

"Two plus two feels pretty advanced, I can't even get one plus one. Mostly, I've been multiplying by zero with pretty consistent results."

Jax laughed amicably at Mike's closing comment, trying to watch his game without moving too much lest Dana began buzzing his head unexpectedly. The last thing he needed was to lose an ear.

"I guess I stopped thinking about all this shit an age ago," Dana confessed. She thought about Jameson, and then she didn't because there were things that could steel you for battle and things that could rust you out. "I will keep an eye out for vampiric viagara, though in the mean time - we buzz heads."

She straightened Jax's head out again and started up the buzzer. The loud whining of the motor a familiar song as she started from the base of his neck and moved upwards. It reaped away the short jagged hair that was left behind and left the velvet concept of a hairline behind.

"Yeah, I promise if we find the ancient Egyptian secrets of dickromancy, you'll be the first to know." He said with a smile. Jax was thankful for the diversion. He didn't want to think about the sex he had or hadn't had since turning. He didn't want to think about the man he would've done it with, the man he spent years on the road with no less intimate for the lack of it. It weighed him down terribly.

The first line of partially shorn hair off his head was a sigh of relief, the hot buzz a little line of electricity in his dead bloodstream. Soon, he'd be alive...

"If it was long enough you could make some good money cutting that shit off and selling it every night. I bet ya Red or Waylon would make a mint." Mikey said as he picked up the pace with the scissors.

He stabbed a finger but kept going. "Fuck man. It is weird how it doesnt hurt the same way it would. Being dead I guess has some advantages..."

"Don't cut anything off that might not grow back tomorrow," Dana warned over the din of the clippers. She worked her way up towards the crown. She'd leave the ears for last as they took a second of precision. Everything else was just going over in broad strokes until it was even, dumping midnight coloured hair into the kitchen sink when she remembered, letting it fall onto the floor when she didn't.

"That's," Jax thought about it, "actually kinda brilliant? Just shore me like a sheep and sell my wares. We could fundraise for our anti-Sabbat campaigns and give hair to the hairless. Oh man, Mikey, you ever want a Jax Habit original, you let me know. One of them toreadors gotta know how to weave a weave."

Jax flinched as the scissor pressed into Mikey's flesh, but he smiled wider as it did, idly pushing his thumb against his bottom lip, the nail sinking into the space between his teeth. Mike was actually good at this. The activity brought him back to days of couchsurfing, of spending weeks at friends and acquaintances and fans' places getting wasted and wasting time. His body was museum of ancient hieroglyphs etched in decades old scars and knicks and burns, perfectly preserved for all time.

"Oh, I have all my fingers," Jax singsonged fondly to start, encouraging Mikey.

"Yeah as a teenager before I came out of the closet I did all sorts of stupid macho bullshit to prove how much of a man's man I was. Kinda gave it up when I hit 22 and realized I was as queer as a three dollar bill. Heh. Yeah I don't know it passes time. All I've had since I died was time. Though its nice when Dougie takes me out some nights or the rest of you  lot. Disadvantages to falling out of the vampiric ugly tree and hitting every branch on the way down only to fall in a bonfire and then having to beat the fire out using a brick." Mikey said wistfully.

"Mm I'm a vision of fucking temperance so I don't know what that's like," Dana mused sarcastically out of the corner of her mouth folding down one of Jax's ears. Even though it was said sort of quietly it still had to be half shouted over the rattling buzzer, but she was nearly through. After all that precutting it wouldn't take long to finish it off.

"Maybe you'll get to keep the motorcycle helmet and we can take you out more."

"You know it could be a smart idea. The boss lady came up with a good costume I will give her that. I actually like daft punk." He said as he kept the game up not clipping any fingers.

"Fuck, I just do stupid shit cause its fun," Jax said with a grin, but he was glad the haircutting gave him an excuse to stare deeply into middle distance. Closet who? Macho bullshit when?

His curled ear and the rattling of the motor made it difficult to hear. "Wait, wait, like punk beer? What the fuck is draft punk? We have a draft now?"

Dana had no idea but she also only had one more ear to do. Folding it over she cleaned up the space around it and dusted his neck free of some of the hairs that collected there. She flicked off the buzzer and blew into the blade to begin to clear that as well.

"Well if you're being drafted you certainly look the part, regular maggot you are."

"Mmm army boy chique get you some fatigues and yum... You will have the boys and ghouls at your beck and call you will have to beat them off with a stick. Shit Dana you are pretty fast with a set of shears. Wonder how long it would take you to shear a sheep?" Mikey said giving an appreciative nod as he stopped stabbing away with his scissors.

Mikey sighed. "Daft punk my good boy-o is a new dance music group. The were helmets and dress in suits. I was shocked Donna even knew who they were. Bitch had her fingers on the pulse of pop culture and all things new it would seem."

Jax grinned at being called maggot, smoothed his hand against the pilling swathe of velvet his head had become. Shorn, uneven hairs clung to his hand, his face, tumbling away from where he sprung them loose. He felt kind of giddy.

Then Mikey hit a raw spot in him like a foot through a gong. The reverberation of the blow echoed in the dust-ladden ventricles of his once-beating heart. At first, Jax tried to swallow it. He commented on the neutral topic. "Damn, that's kinda slick. I'll have t'check 'em out."

Then the reverberation hit his throat, swelled it, and he couldn't hold back at least a question. "Hey, Mikey. What makes you say 'boys and ghouls' exactly?" The words felt as awful as the initial blow and he wished he could swallow them back down. It wasn't that they were bad - he was actually being very civil. It was the fact that they were dishonest. Speaking felt anaphylactic. "Like its a good pun, credit where its due and all that. I'm just like... curious if there's like a reason for it. Like is it a gay thing or?"

Mike nodded as he twirled the scissors in his hand not looking at Jax. "Yeah I guess you can say its gay." he said carefully. "I wont go all homo on you dont worry but like isn't punk all about you being true to who you are and not giving a fuck? So before being embraced yeah I was a fag, a homo, gay, queer whatever you want to call it now I guess im a Nomo... As in too ugly and no more sex for this dude since the pecker is broken.  You like what you like though you know what I mean? Ladies just have so many bumps and round bits things that are kinda more reminiscent of like the shape of a nice car or a musical instrument. Too soft, too round, and too small and fragile looking. Not my thing if that makes sense. But like look don't be all well I'll catch the gay or anything. Just cause you're a dude doesnt mean a gay guys gonna wanna take a round out of you. Its like Ice Cream flavors you aren't gonna be for everyone plus I mean you just say no thanks I don't like dudes and as long as the guys not a asshole they go cool thanks and leave you be."

Relief was a wet towel on an acid bath - not enough, but... something. Guilt ate through any true comfort it might've brought him. Mikey was right. Punk was about being true to oneself. Too bad this was the one thing about himself he could never accept.

"Oh, yeah, no, that's," Every word that wasn't a confession burned like bile. He breathed a laugh instead, "Like you said, you like what you like. Sorry, man, I was just. Uh. Wrapping my head around it, I guess. But like, you're cool, I'm not worried. I just. Yeah." As he spoke, he ran his hand back and forth over the rough-and-smooth surface of his head, the prickle-soft sensation of it against his hand soothing him a little. Something to keep him grounded. He hadn't looked at Mikey either since he finished speaking. It didn't feel right to lie to his face.

As if it wasn't killing him to lie at all...

"It is okay buddy." Mikey said not making eye contact one too many time he had opened up only to have someone lash out and suddenly aware he wasn't 'normal' "I mean if you are curious have question or just like want to know what we kinda do and stuff I don't mind educating. The worlds a hateful place sometimes and its not safe. I've had friends bashed. Clothes torn from them, bottles thrown, drinks tossed at them, shot with paintball guns. I mean if it was a choice why the hell would you want that? In highschool man I tired I tossed myself into the pussy pit. Fucked chicks but always in my head it felt wrong but yeah. It wasn't until I moved out and kinda was like okay you got to face the facts man you are what you are. It was horrible to live the lie. My parents haven't talked to much since I came out. Lost a lot of friends but found some nice people in the scene here in Hamilton. But even that's been taken away since  well..." He tapped his face with the scissors. "This... all of this...." He softly growled feeling the anger gnawing at his guts.

Shame filled the holes opened by his lies and the ravenous, malignant guilt that came with them. He knew what happened to queers where he was from. Even New York hadn't been so different, though there'd been a veritable haven for that community there in the heart of it. Still, drag queens were arrested and beaten with impunity, ignored by cops or flat out killed and raped by them. Girls who hadn't started that way, who would hold back nothing in the pursuit of making themselves "whole", disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again.  Fags got bashed, dykes got "fixed", and every other nail that stuck out got hammered down one way or another. Even after New York. A plague... preventable, wholly treatable, but allowed to run rampant by a body sworn to protect its people because those suffering lacked "moral character"...

Jax didn't tolerate it on principle, but he'd never spoken up as loud as he could, never screeched a battle-cry to the heavens specifically for them - for the people like him who lived out loud and died for it. He pretended to be a weak ally to a cause that would have otherwise been close to his heart. What he really felt he was was a coward... Jax Habit, sworn to a personal code of authenticity, to living audaciously in the face of society and its crap values, and at the end of the day, he couldn't even be true to himself. Somehow, it felt worse to lie to Mikey. His was the face of a people rejected. The ultimate rebel... In a way, Mikey was everything Jax wished he could be.

He knew better to say that, knowing how he felt about his battle scars. But he couldn't help thinking it.

Jax dared a look vaguely in Mike's direction. "We'll get 'em for that," He promised, somber for once. "Listen, I don't got any questions, but. Even if I do, you don't owe me any answers. I don't, uh. I haven't been through that for that, but. Yeah, I dunno. Before blowing up... like, musically... I dunno, being homeless like... When you're a kid and you choose it, its okay, I guess, but. Even though its different... You see some shit. People don't treat you right, and all you got is your friends. The ones that don't try to fuck you over. And living in New York in the day... the punk scene, the part of it I rolled with, I guess there was some overlap with like, you know, all that. I dunno. I guess I... can only imagine." He swallowed. It felt cheap, too little, tacked on, but he had to say it: "... Sorry."

"You ain't done me wrong Jax its cool. Like its just what it is ya know? I mean most people I still tell em I am bi because its just more acceptable I guess but yeah enough of that shit. Your head looks good mate. Dana did a bang up job. Shame it won't stay like that but maybe before you drive out to see Donna tomorrow to drop off our war packs later tonight when the sun sets again we can figure out how we can shave your melon all quick and easy, Maybe you can do each other or something." Mike said offering the punker a toothy smile choosing to look at him finally. The danger had passed no explosive temper or firsts came flying at him. The Brujah clan was his new family now even if he wasn't one of them they were hard and rough around the edges but real.

Dana had been attending the clippers and listening to the edges of the conversation. She rarely cared about whether or not some topic was her place to chime in on but Mike was the voice in the room that needed to be heard in that moment.

Dana had come from a very small town, a small town that barely tolerated the fact she worked and lived alone, that she took more of an interest in fights and push ups than sewing and husband catching. Some of them would laugh and call her a modern woman, a lot of them would accuse her of worse things behind her back. Or what seemed to be worse things.

When Jameson came into her life and then helped her create her un-life with him he taught her how to ride a motorcycle. In doing that he gave her the key to a world of misfits, to all the people, kindred and not, Dana never knew she was apart of because she'd never met them. The criminals in their colours and the oddballs who believed in aliens and the gay motorcycle clubs - the world was so much bigger than her small town. Maybe that's why she'd always been angry. Maybe the fact that the people on the edges of that big wide world were her far flung tribe and the way they were treated would keep her angry.

Dana took apart the clippers to clean them, getting the jagged pieces of hair free from the places they would hide. They were a relic from that time, a relic of Jameson. She wouldn't always have time to clean them out perfectly, so she took advantage of the time they did have. The time they had in the tiny Tisdale Apartment together.

She could remember too well what it was like to run out of time far quicker than forever had promised.

"Yeah I'd go for that," Dana smiled as she closed the case. "If you're sleeping over I'll do you quick 'n dirty at sundown. I was gonna do me but I'd let you fuck me up anytime, maggot."

"And he's got one thing right Mikey," she added. "We'll burn that whole city down for what they did to you if we have to. You'll get yours."

A Sonovaditch, Grimoire & LadyJallyn Co-Post Production - Part 2/2

[LadyJallyn]

This has been a Lady J and GingerNinja Copost production


Friday, October 29th, 1999 - 3:50-4:40-am AM - Fia cades house

"Well Miss Cade you are free to go. Thank you for your full cooperation." Antigen replied solemnly. "It would appear you are very much like a white rabbit."

"Thank you, sir," Fia held her head low, "I can't tell if I follow trouble, or it follows me." It had been a long night.  "Am I... still going to Toronto?"

"Perhaps, that will be Donna's decision, but in the mean time do your best not to get that fur dirty. It would seem shit loves to stick to you." The Prince replied his face impassive. "Regrettably your 'Clan sister' will be staying with us for some time. Pray she hasn't sold you all down the river, or this excursion to Toronto is doomed."

Fia wanted to say something snarky, but she didn't have the energy. She didn't think the Prince would appreciate her particular brand of humour, either.

She set her resolve, instead. "We're gonna fuck 'em up good, sir."

"I will call you a cab to return you to your Haven Miss Cade.  If you can think of any other information pertaining to Xiao, do let us know. This whole fiasco has definitely painted your Clan in a rather negative light. Sadly you are all that is left of it. This has been a very bad year for Gangrel's do your best to stay safe." The long blonde haired Prince replied as he extended his hand to Fia for a hand shake.

She nodded as she took his hand, cooler than the rest of the room. "Goodnight, sir."
Fia dismissed herself to wait for the cab. She made a note to herself about needing more Gangrels, and the few ways there were to 'obtain' them. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind.

The Cab ride back to her place was quiet and uneventful. The Blueline cab eased up the drive way and deposited her at her Haven and left without asking for payment. When she looked at her watch she could see that it read 4:15am. No one was on the property that she could see. The fire pit had been extinguished and the drive way had no blood on it from when Donna had laid out her clan mate.

However Donna's jeep was still in the drive and there was a single light on in her home.

Fia thoughtfully made as much noise as she could while she  thumped up the steps, so Donna didn't think she was being ambushed.
"Honey, I'm home," she said to no one in particular.

"Back in before expected. How was the visit?" Donna asked as she made her way to the kitchen and grabbed a glass pouring the Gangrel a blood margarita.

Donna passed her the glass and settled down onto the Gangrel's couch. "Was starting to think I wouldn't be seeing you until tomorrow night. Prince must of been satisfied with your answers so that is good. Still it sucks. Fuck, tonights just been a mixed bag. Good that we found the mole, but shit because, well... It shows how well the Sabatt were able to get into our circle."

Fia held up her finger to signal a moment needed, as she poured a third of the glass directly down her throat. "Ahhh! Oh yeah, that's smooth. It was rough, but I'm clean. As clean as a shit-covered rabbit can be." She took another sip, this time savouring the flavour. "Lewich didn't tell me much, other than the fact that they're hanging onto her. I suppose we'll find out what she told them soon."

"If they are hanging on to her it means she isn't dead. Shit I hope I didn't knock her straight into Torpor or it might be weeks before we comes back to the land of the living. Something tells me Antigen will be calling me up if that's the case. So you still game to come with us tomorrow night? You got your shit packed?" The Brujah leader asked as she regarded the gangrel.

Fia glanced down at her torn pants. "Yeah, I'm down. Like, really down. Like, I'm mad mad now." She looked around, hoping to find the mask she lost in the fray.

"You got every right to be pissed. Betrayed by your clan mate and seeing this city torched is going to leave you angry, Tap into that rage but don't let it consume you to the point of making stupid decisions. Do that and maybe you and the rest of us will make it back to the Hammer after this raid. I have to trust the Prince knows what hes doing working with outside forces. I hope it was worth us losing a set of eyes." She said quietly. Only having two seerers is going to put more strain on them, and they will need more blood, mierda..."

"Wha-what? When did we lose a seer?" Fia asked incredulously.

"Red ain't coming. Lewich made a trade with the Canadian government. Turns out they know about us and in return for one of our own they are sending in a squad to help clean up Toronto." Donna said simply with a shrug.

"Well, shit," Fia sighed into her glass, "That sounds like a bad idea, all-around."

"The Prince wouldn't have made such a calculated move if he didn't think it was worth it. So lets hope it helps sway the tide rather than fucking us. I'd have asked Helen for another Artiste but, you know that Harpy. She's passed on her 'dregs' she might have sent me the ballet dancer, but honestly she aint seasoned and can't fight her way out of a paper bag if I recall properly. No thanks." The Spanish woman said looking displeased.

"You'd think she could spare a few more, seeing as how there's so gotdamn many Toreadors around here," she chuckled.

"The two brothers, red, Waylon, and the dancer... I wouldn't say that is a ton. Anyone else they had packed up and moved when we had the explosion. Don't blame em to a certain extent. Most the time they're lovers not fighters, though the two red heads have spirit. I will give them that. They have surprised me." Donna said as she watched Fia take another sip of the the blood slushie. "We just have to suck it up and deal with the hand we were dealt."

"I am so fucking ready." Fia necked the last of her drink, feeling tired but tingly. Damn, that was good. Thanks for holding down the fort."

"Shit packs a bite. There will be more of that tomorrow night. We got everyone coming up where to drop shit off, a trucks being rented to haul us into the city for our base set up. We leave for midnight so get your packing done tonight girl. Play times over its time to put on your war face, You care if I crash out here? Saves me the drive up. Also you good if some of my boys drop off a few goodies during the day in your garage?" Donna asked.

"I don't mind. Mi casa es tu casa"

Donna laughed. "Nice, I appreciate that. You Good with me just crawling downstairs into your basement and crashing out in your fruit cellar?"

"Go for it. It's all lightfast down there. There's an old hobby darkroom down there. Red bulbs and everything."

"Yeah I took a little tour while you were out. Just checking out how defensible the place was and deciding where I would squat for the day if you we not back. " She held up a hand "No worries Blue, I didn't poke around anywhere just scoped out downstairs is all."

"I think I've proven already tonight that I have nothing to hide," Fia shrugged, "I'm gonna take a shower. You need anything, just holler."

"Nah I am good. Just gotta step out and make a few last minute calls. I am still waiting on something special tomorrow night. Fucking Iggy might have moved but, I asked him to do me a solid for not kicking his ass after he chose to move to Niagara Falls." Donna said as she rose and picked up Fia's empty glass returning it to the sink and rinsing it. "We good on your end. Or you got anything last minute you want to ask without the rest of the class present?"

"I feel like if there was something you wanted me to know, you'd just tell me."

"Where would the fun in that be? The older you will get the more you will realize sometimes it is good to keep things up your sleeve. Go get that shower. Then pack your war kit and I guess we can all it a wrap for the night after that. " Donna said with a wink as she pulled out her cellphone and stepped out onto Fias front porch.

[Darkflame]

Friday, October 29th, 1999 - 2:30am - Victoria- Home

BP 13/13 HP 7/7 WP 4/4 SC 3 HUM 6

Victoria took inventory of her bag, wanting to make sure she had all the the ingredients she was going to need for the rituals she would be required to perform.  She thought momentarily of calling one of the others to spend some time with, talk and plan, but as she glanced at her phone, she sighed silently. She had tried her best to get to know the others only about as much as was needed.  After all, any of them might die. It was just practical to not get attached too much.  Still, she found herself thinking fondly of thier ringleader, a smile slipping across her lips at the thought of the rough hispanic kindred.  She shook her head and started her list of ingredients over.  Keep on task. You are the solo Tremere.  There's a lot riding on your back, so don't fuck it up, She told herself sternly.  If she was religious or superstitious she might say a prayer for thier success.  Instead she zipped her bag and plopped into her chair to consider the stain on the ceiling.

[LadyJallyn]

Friday, October 29th, 1999 - 11pm -Fias house.

The night was overcast and a light drizzle of rain came with it as the Kindred from Donna's selected warriors assembled for war.

There was no Xiao with that that evening but Fia was present as Donna loaded several duffles into a Uhaul moving van. With the members all assembled donna had been kind enough to supplement everyone with another round of blood slushies as she did a head count and rechecked the items they were bringing. 
I hope you boys and girls are ready. We roll out in an hour to our destination. Hopefully you have said your goodbyes finalized your shit and have made peace with whatever gods and forces you hold near and dear. Everyone got their Halloween costumes and gears toss em into the back of the Uhaul."

[Sonovaditch]

Saturday, October 30th, 1999 - 11:00pm - Fia Cade's House - Jax Habit - Brujah
HEALTH (7/7) BP=12/12 WP(6/6) HUM(5/5) SC(3/3)

"And don't forget y'all's jackets," Jax announced, gesturing to the overstuffed garbage bags they'd been brought in, "Me, Dana, et all worked our fuzzy tails off on these things - and we may have thrown a little extra personality onto them for fun. Hope you guys like your party favours!"

Before he got to tossing his own stuff in the back of the U-Haul, Jax grabbed a jacket from one of the bags. He was already wearing his - an ugly, worn-in patchwork of dark fabrics covered in bottle caps, studs, and pins, vaguely adhering to a sense of order to better display the bones painted over the whole thing - a second skeleton over an already skeletal figure.

No, this other jacket was not for him. He tried to catch Angel in a brief aside. "Hey, so, you said you were interested in something a little extra battle-ready? I may have gone wild."

He showed him the jacket, back first. A skeletal figure in a flower-adorned shroud. In her insubstantial hands, she cradled a scythe, and she was surrounded in a beautiful halo of gold, silver, copper, blue, purple, red, and green. Two wings, too large to be the saintly figure's own, erupted from the storm of colour and cascaded in white and gold feathers down each arm of the navy leather jacket. Metal thorns lashed out at the shoulder, the breast, the lapel, the cuff - but in far flatter, smaller studs beneath the portrait of the pale woman was written: "MISERICORDIA".

"Listen, I don't, like... fuck around with the occult, this is really just symbolic, and I really know if you buy into this shit but... Either way, I was thinking la Señora de las Sombras oughta have your back out there. If you're gonna go all 'el Àngel de la misericordia', you know, looking out for the dead and all..." He rubbed a hand over her freshly shaved head, "You might need the dead looking out for you. T'keep that good head on your shoulders where it belongs."

The heavy leather and metal thing looked like it ought to have jangled loudly as Jax presented it to Angel, but it didn't. Every jagged piece of metal or bottle cap or pin afficed to it was solid, well-secured to the already extra-thick leather hide. He grinned. The jacket was clearly a point of pride.

_{[Everyone please feel free to customize your leather jackets in description as you see fit unless Dana or anyone else who helped work on the jackets has something in mind for someone else as a gift. Or if you would like one of those people to come up with something for your character, inquire in the ooc thread.]}

[Maxx]

Friday, October 29th, 1999 - 11:00 pm - Fia Cade's Backyard- Angel

BP: 11/11  HP: 7/7 WP:4/4 SC:3 HUM 6

Angel tossed the garbage bag containing his clown costume into the back of the U-Haul, along with a small bag containing several changes of clothes,  a baseball bat with the word 'estrattore' carefully etched into, a K-Bar combat knife and a 'rock and cock' paint ball gun, along with a dozen pieces of sharpened doweling sized to muzzle load into the barrel and two air tanks.  The range wasn't great, the accuracy was terrible but it would be a lot quieter than the M96 broomhandle Mauser he was bringing.  Donna wanted firearms left as a last resort.  It was Canada, after all.

He had a couple of lockblade knives in his pockets, along with Dana's knuckledusters.  It was a risk if they were stopped by the police but the chances of being stopped were low.  He just wasn't willing to put all of his eggs in one basket.

He took a sip of he blood slushy before turning to see what Jax was talking about.  His eyes widened when he saw the jacket.  "Jesus, Jax, are you sure you aren't a Toreador?  This is a work of art."  He slid off the beat up leather jacket he was wearing and put on the one the Brujah had crafted.  For some reason, he felt the faintest flicker of hope that they would be coming back.

"With  la Señora de las Sombras and you protecting my back, anybody in front of me will be in for a world of hurt.  Nobbody fucks with El Àngel de la misericordia, champion of Santa Muerte.  The Sabbat is going to get fucked up!"

Angel chuckled and gave the Brujah a rough embrace.  "So what do you say we go fuck some shit up?  I've got space in the Camaro."  He also had an axe, two pipe wrenches, a sledge hammer, a tire iron, a field hockey stick and a set of golf clubs in the trunk.     

[Grimoire]

Friday, October 29th, 1999 - 11:00 pm - Fia Cade's Backyard- Dana Gorgeous
HEALTH(7/7) BP(13/13) WP(5/5) HUM(5/5) SC(2/2)

Dana had let Jax shave her head just after sundown. She looked different without the long brown tresses that she usually wore. It put more attention on her features, the hard line of her brow and the set of her jaw. She’d smudge black around her eyes with no real rhyme or reason. The smudgy raccoon circles that were a classic part of Halloween costumes had only been finessed into functionality by the efforts of Mike and Jax. Dana wouldn’t know the proper use of an eyeliner pencil if it poked her in the eye.  The jacket she wore was spiked heavily at the shoulder and riddled with the little flat headed studs, it had been a labour of time and effort and had been the experimental piece of her own skill for the ones she’d worked on with Jax later for the rest of the group.

Dana, Mike and Jax had rode in together, once more into the breach in that old beat-up pick-up truck. Jax in the middle and Mike huddled in the passenger wheel well. That would be an image burned into her mind forever if she lived that long. Those two men in her truck while she made her way out to Fia’s, swearing about the other drivers and opening up the windows to let the night rush in to greet them.

 Their bags had been packed the night before, the weapons, their things. Dana now tossed hers into the back of the U-Haul, its contents a change of clothes, the old clippers in their hard bodied case, her bats sticking out, both the aluminum and the wood with its heavy iron spikes split through it, spattered in a red paint that bordered on neon so that its lethality looked like a costume prop, the hockey mask spattered in that same aggressive shade, her knuckle dusters, a pair of old leather gloves, a giant roll of duct tape and a heavy duty knife to compliment the smaller one already stuck in her boot. She’d stolen the idea from Jax but had made sure both of them had a better set up than the duct-tape-only solution Jax had originally come up with. She tossed in the bag of rebar experiments Waylon and her had worked on in the shop, they clanked loudly.

“We tried to keep y’all in mind,” she pointed out incase anyone was dubious of the extreme aesthetic. Dana took a mouthful of blood slush not sure how they could have done anything but. This was their final crew, their comrades, going into the thick of it she would do nothing to hurt them and everything to protect them.

[Darkflame]

Friday, October 29th, 1999 - 11:00 pm - Fia Cade's Backyard- Victoria
BP 13/13 HP 7/7 WP 4/4 SC 3 HUM 6

Victoria leaned against the side of the uhaul, a broom tapping against her leg.  I was a hand made number, fashioned after the ones they sold in the stores as props to go with witch costumes.  It was a last minute addition to her luggage- it went with her halloween costume.  The difference between it and the usual store bought crap was the weight, well, and the bit of sharpened wood in the center of the bristles.  Nothing like a prop that had actual use.  Her hair was a mass of fuzz around her face, colored by cheap black hair dye that she'd have to shave her head to get rid of no doubt, another last minute decision from the night previous.  She had a small bag on her hip.  The other luggage was already in the back of the truck, packed in a structured bag that would ensure no damage would come to the contents.  Some of that stuff wouldn't be so easy to replace if she needed to do it quickly.

She looked over the growing group, at tossed back a large mouthfull of blood slushie.  Things were going to get real.

[Maxx]

Friday, October 29th, 1999 -11:07 pm - Fia Cade's Backyard - Waylon

BP:13/13  HP: 7/7 WP:4/4 SC:3 HUM 6

Waylon slid on the jacket he'd been given.  Unlike many of the other jackets, the spikes on his were symmetrical.  They'd done an artful job on the jacket.  It made him look exactly like he was; a wannabe. It was a perfect disguise.  It would lead people to believe he was a loser trying to look tough.



Then they would find out the hard way how wrong they were 

BEWARE THE GINGER NINJA