This business requires a certain amount of finesse

[soundofwings]

the film noir meme


-Pick out your character and fandom, as well as preferences.
-Go here and generate a random number between 1-10 for the setting
-Post all that.
-If you want, you or the person tagging you can roll a number between 1-8 for relationship as well!
- You know what to do next, honey.

Possible settings:

1. Crime Scene: Dead body? Burglary? Whatever the crime, it's been sectioned off for the officers to investigate this nefarious deed, and you're getting a good look at it.

2. Hole-in-the-wall: Prohibition's such a joke to society, and this is where the fashionable ones come to hang out and gossip. Perhaps a police officer or two will show up to investigate, but no one ever takes that seriously.

3. Docks at Night: The breeze caressing your face, the sound of the water, the boats passing by...maybe you were called here, or maybe you just like the peace it brings.

4. Alleyway: There's only one way in and out of this little corridor, and what happens in it is up to you and the other character. Just watch for the shadows, if you can see through the fog.

5. Detective's Office: Not too clean, not too messy. Just perfect for the person that's needed to get this mystery cleared up.

6. Rooftop: The wind dramatically blowing about, it's the perfect place to get that person to come and meet you so you can tell them what you want. Or if you're evil, why not kill them up here? It'll be hard to escape you.

7. Dressing Room: For some reason, you're backstage after a performance, and you've gotten into one of these. The mirrors, the costumes, the flowers from fans and the various personal affects...all are present and will be your silent witnesses to whatever occurs.

8. Hideout: You've gotten to the antagonist's spot of choice. Is this a glitzy nightclub with a private room, or is this an abandoned warehouse where they-or you-carry out their plot? The choice is yours.

9. Nightclub: Someone's showcasing their talent tonight, and you may or may not care about it. But it's classic, dimly lit, and it's easy to hide in here.

10. Free choice

Possible relationships:

1. Friends: Maybe you're an unstoppable team, or perhaps your relationship is getting strained. But whatever the situation, you know this person, and you'd be there for them.

2. Coworkers/teammates/classmates: You might not be friends, but you know this person well enough to remember their name. And right now you're being thrown together for a reason.

3. Lovers: This is the one you wanted to stay with for now. Married, dating, or maybe an affair, but you two care about each other enough.

4. Enemies: Utter hatred flows through your veins when you hear this person's name. This is the one you want to take down, and you just might stop at nothing to achieve your goal.

5. Family: Perhaps it's a sibling you're meeting. Or your parent, or some form of relative. Remember that phrase "blood is thicker than water"? It just might apply here.

6. Mysterious Stranger: Someone's been eyeing you from across the room, or you've been eyeing them. Will you two speak, or shall they float out of your life? Do they hold information you seek, or do they want something from you?

7. Femme Fatale: You are or have encountered a mysterious and seductive woman, whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. Watch out, you might just get yourself into a real mess of trouble, hot stuff.

8. Free Choice

Posted with minor modifications, original meme by easycompany
Last posted September 25th, 2012

Comments

[queensbane]

So he did recognize her. Perhaps there was still something of the child in her face, though Alice was quite sure the child had burned with the rest of them. Her tongue flicked over the stem of the pipe as she drew in the comforting fumes.

"I'm looking for a man, and would prefer to find him before he finds me. Hence the need for privacy." And it seemed fitting. A cold, dark, quiet place to discuss retribution for acts committed in heat and smoke and screams. "And I had wanted to make sure you were still friendly towards my family."

[max_payne]

Max knew that look, the second pair of eyes behind her cold green stare - Eyes he'd come to recognize in his own reflection. If you let them they'd control you, drive you mad...

He nodded, slowly, as if acknowledging unspoken questions hidden in the twisting tendrils of smoke wafting from her lips. "What's his name?" His own question now a cloud, intertwining with the smoke about them. He was smart enough not to ask who he was- what he'd done. The details would come later, He knew all to well... another crusade for vengeance... another trip down the rabbit hole.

you are impressively noir

[queensbane]

It surprised Alice that he hadn't, and made her suspicious as well. She would have asked. She never did anything for the sake of trust or loyalty. But he does not.

"Once, it was Dr. Angus Bumby. What it is now, I don't know, and that is where my problems sit now." She took a small envelope out of her coat pocket. "The description is here, and what I know about his nature and credentials. He will have had to seek employment, most likely at an asylum or somewhere else with a vulnerable population." She knew his type. He would seek out that which he had possessed before, a group to rule and maim as he pleased.

Thanks... big fan of the style and both series. Not bad yourself.

[max_payne]

The papers within were almost immaculate- perfectly folded, scrawling handwriting, all pretty curls. The only sharpness was in the information she spoke of. Tall, thin, mid 40s, bespectacled... there was a very rough sketch, probably done from memory... A thin, bearded face, with beady eyes that, if you were naive enough, could be mistaken for trustworthy and sympathetic... Max smirked, this guy could blend in with any crowd of sewer rats and still walk about acting like a gentleman.

"What makes you think he'd come here?" New York was a choice place to hide, but it wasn't the only roach motel infested city in the states. Granted, Manhattan was a mad man magnet, just roam about time square for a minute... but the few asylums weren't exactly walk-in-employer types.

[queensbane]

Alice bit into the stem of the pipe. It was already covered with teeth marks, one might think it had been a dog's chew toy. "I've followed him all the way from Chicago. I imagine he came here to disappear." Alice hoped he hadn't had a moment's sleep since he fled, that he'd been looking over his shoulder every moment of every day in the fear that she would be there. More fool him if he hadn't, and all the easier for Alice.

"All I ask is that you find him, nothing further. After that I can handle the matter myself."

[max_payne]

Max's smirk grew slightly, "Right..." His tone remained flat, an undertone of understanding that only a kindred spirit would recognize. He'd stood in her place once, at once begging and demanding help, but only to a point.

He sealed the envelope, tucking it away in his coat pocket, the first wrinkles appearing on it's delicate form. His brow was now, flecked with a melting snowflake or two, was now furrowed in determination... resolve. "... And where will you be staying Ms. Liddell?" The phrase hung in the air for a few breif moments, the possibility for misinterpretation widening like a dog's mouth over it's own tail, embarrassment for all parties involved. "I'll need to stay in contact..." A weak recovery, but he silently prayed it wasn't a complete waste.

[queensbane]

Alice's only response to the cover-up was a slight smirk. She understood his meaning but the attempt to backpedal was amusing. "Nearby." She gave the name and address of a local flophouse in a less than savory part of town. When one had no occupation or living family one had to travel on a very tight budget. For Bumby's head she'd have slept in an alleyway.

A gust of wind between the piled crates made her shudder and pull the coat tighter around her. Cold as the Arctic, harsh as the dire winds blowing through Queensland. Her mind gave the twisted reflection of reality, and then reality came to mirror the hallucination.

It left one very confused. "Come find me when you have the information. All I require are his whereabouts."

[max_payne]

The change in her demeanor was like watching the a shadow pass by in a dark room. Max didn't press the issue, but nodded once more. "I'll do what I can..." He said slowly, trying to gauge whether or not she'd landed back on planet earth, but hey, who was he to judge.

There was a long pause, their breathing barely audible over the rush of wind. Then Max offered her his hand, both to seal the deal as well as to help pull her back into the same plane of reality he was in. Though... which one he'd prefer he wasn't sure.

[queensbane]

There would be time later for that, she did not need Wonderland now. She would need it later.

Alice regarded the hand as if he'd presented her a suspicious package. She extended her arm reluctantly and her thin fingers squeezed Max's with surprising strength. For a moment there was warmth against her sickly-pale skin, a bright flutter of light and hope.

"Find him." The ice closed in again. Alice pulled away again to back into the shadows. "For my father's sake, if nothing else." She trusted no one to have morality in this world, perhaps not even herself. But a call to revenge would give him some motivation...it was the only motivation she had left.

[max_payne]

3 weeks later...

The search had been long, arduous, and harder to pick up and move than a concrete slab with a pair of chopsticks. Even so after a few vigorous conversations at a bar or two, and the scouring of a few promising scum bucket motels the the concrete slab was looking just a little bit smaller.

That is until Thursday evening...

From the outside Room 106 bore no marked difference from it's brothers, all peeling paint and splinters. It was a sort of thing Max had learned to look past, glean what little one could from the outside, peer past the nails and worn wood lining to the monsters within. Every now and again he'd have to stare past the monsters, but that rarely happened and rarer still did he like what he saw.

The situation demanded urgency. Disregarding the late night hour he knocked twice, the sound reverberating down the barren hall.

[queensbane]

Be careful up there, the owner had said when she'd directed Max to 106. She's a creepy one. Out of her head, if you ask me.

The door, cheap when new and now so flimsy it was nearly falling apart, swung open on the second knock. Inside the room was a shambles--clothes tossed everywhere, tin plates and mugs scattered across the floor like forgotten children's toys. One could say the same of Alice, the way she was sprawled out against the side of a bed with rag-doll limbs and a blank expression.

At first glance one might think she was sleeping or injured, until one noticed her eyes were open. At closer inspection one will notice the way they dart from side to side, watching what cannot be seen. Her hand twitches, like a dog twitching on a rug as it chases rabbits through a forested dreamscape. On occasion her lips move but no sound emerges. So far she hasn't responded to Max's entrance.

Alice had thrown off the Dollmaker's influence, but the damage remained. One had to periodically clean out the wound to avoid infection, and the wound had yet to close completely. Alice doubted it ever would. But she had picked up the bloodstained crown and a queen had to carefully guard her territory.

[max_payne]

Outside the wind decided it was perfect time to practice her scales, wailing like a banshee a chorus that'd give a tone deaf conductor chills. Max glanced down the hall in vain, not a soul about. His pulse quickened, the rhythm starting to remind him of the Ragna Rock night club so many years ago...

With a deliberately slow and soft step he stepped inside and eased the door shut behind him. He reached a hand inside his jacket, loosening the neck tie of his partner with a tiny snap. He made no other motion towards the poor girl, a pile of nightmares and ghosts and other womanly problems. Her hands, her eyes, Max kept an eye trained on them all. Past experience dictated that whoever was most sane in the room, was most at risk and he was regretting not having that shot or two before coming over.

A minute went by and then another, yet he stood, hands at his sides, brow furrowed, observing her every twitch. She neither spoke nor acknowledged his presence, only continued her lackluster debates with her unseen legions. Once again, against better judgement Max made the first move. "... Ms. Liddell?"

[queensbane]

The name nudged something inside her twisted mind. The voice...the White Knight on his spindly horse with his dark lance. He had been making appearances of late, though as of yet he'd been as useless as the Cat. Perhaps he would be put into play later.

Alice blinked. She was deadpan at all but the worst of times, but one could see the way she rose from the murky waters and broke the surface to see the man before her. The cold light returned to her eyes. Alice quickly stumbled to her feet, furious at herself for the display of weakness. She's no lunatic now, just mad enough to get by, and to a point she's been able to keep her delusions out of the public eye. This is not optimal.

"Mr. Payne. I do hope you've found what I need, or you have no excuse to be in my room." She glared up at him, arms folded.

[max_payne]

Max understood that glare, knew that feeling of having someone find you at a weak point, the embarrassment and shame that comes with it regardless of "well" you might be doing or coping... Denial becomes welcome company, yet you shove it a closet and hope no one else notices, at least at first glance. Max had a choice... any action he made could make or break what little trust she may have had in him. Choice words... but he had something better.

A Name.

"Dr. Gerald Dunmore..." He let it hang in the air, waited for it's meaning to sink in, maybe help her come back a little further onto the plain of reality.

[queensbane]

She did not dare smile. Not until she had him in her sights, she did not trust he wouldn't slip away again. But there was cold moonlight against the ice, a rising sense of hope.

"And the address?" she pressed, one hand pressed back against the bed. "If you know where he is I'll be off immediately." Too long, she'd waited too damn long for this.

[max_payne]

Max's expression remained emotionless, a solid poker face. The hard part came now. "Can't say... Not until I get a few answers." His voice was even, unrelenting, speaking volumes while remaining as steady as his gaze.

"Alice..." The name echoed in the hollow room reverberating until a particularly vicious gust struck and the wooden structure creaked as a whole, a foreboding groan accompanied by a bending and swaying of the walls. For a moment, Max thought he was hallucinating, but he continued. "... What do you intend to accomplish by finding him? Do you think it will all just end there?"

There was no accusation in his voice, nor was there any pity for the creature they had hunted for over a fortnight.

[queensbane]

Alice's gaze hardens. She pulls the bag closer to her.

The first time she'd gone after Bumby she'd been unarmed. He had laughed and sent her away. She'd left, all right, left all the way to the kitchen and come back with the biggest knife she could get her hands on. A paltry substitute for the Vorpal Blade but it was a tool she had some kinship with. After that the hunt had begun...she'd chased him by train and on foot, sparing money only on food and shelter, never getting her fingers on more than smoke.

"The good doctor has much to answer for," she says, and each word is sharpened steel. "He has done everything in his power to destroy me and it falls to me to do likewise to him. Give me the address, Mr. Payne, so that I may go and kill him."

[max_payne]

"And then what?!" It may as well have been dynamite that flew from his lips, rattled the floor boards and the teacups. He found himself hunched over, arms flung wide like an exasperated father trying to explain a paradox to a child. The buzzing in his head began again, reality shifted a half-step sideways. For a half-second he was staring down a ghostly reflection and then it was gone...

Max straightened, took a calming breath and muttered, "What do you even plan to do afterwards? Waltz on your merry way and pretend it never happened?"

[queensbane]

"What do you know of the matter?" Alice shouted back, her delicate fingers curling into fists. "You know nothing of what he has done, of what he must pay for. If the police will not handle him I will take his rotting, corrupt, worm-infested head myself!"

She had wanted to tell, but no one would believe a madwoman. It seemed a shock that Max would even go along with her plan, knowing nothing of her history and intentions--but of no matter. If he got out of the way then that would be enough.

Sorry... Long work day...

[max_payne]

... and with a sigh of resignation he did just that. The door was suddenly open and he stood beside it, eyes cast to the floor. "There's no rose garden on the other side..." He replied, his tone still hard, sharp and yet ringing with something else: empathy in perhaps it's truest sense. "Killing him doesn't fix things. If anything you become more like him, a monster... You sure you're ready for that?"

Years ago, he'd had to answer similar questions as the trail of shell casings grew longer+, the mountain of bodies piled up behind him, and every last one laid to waste by his crusade cursed his name. "The biggest mobster body count ever" Vlad had said... Those voices and faces were only drowned out by the screams and cries of the first two... The innocent... the child and her mother... the ones he couldn't save... no matter what he did... no matter how many nightmares he woke up from.

No prob!

[queensbane]

If he only knew what her rose gardens looked like these days. Alice wished she could show him...just open up a door in her head and pull him inside and show him what a warped mess she'd become. He could walk up to the raving tentacled Queen and tell her how much better things would be if she just let things be and then she would teach him a few painful lessons about monsters.

"I would rather be a monster than a helpless child." Alice reached into the satchel and drew the blade out. It was as long as her skinny forearm and still wrapped in its coverings. No threat, just a demonstration. "And I have no other recourse left to me," she said, voice returning to its cold flat tone. She toyed with the blade's dark brown bindings. "The police would never believe my word over mine, as well he knows. He is a respected citizen...and I, the madwoman put unwittingly into his care."

The thought made her shudder. Of what he'd done, of what he would do, and what horrors she'd so willingly let him wreak inside her twisted mind. If not for that awful, awesome land that he had thought to use as a tool against her, she would have fallen completely.

Forgive me while I chuckle in slight embarrassment at our little angst off...

[max_payne]

A corner of his mouth curled upward ever so slightly despite himself, a sad sort of smile passed between one troubled train wreck to another. The girl had balls, guts, he had to give her that. He'd had suspicions from the beginning, but she was every bit as crazy as he was, hell probably crazier. It was nice... in a twisted, sick fashion.

Another long pause passed between them. Then nodding he turned and started out the door. "I'll drive..."

Dueling dark pasts!

[queensbane]

Way crazier, though at least she was aware of it. Alice felt she did herself no favors by denying her insanity. It was her strength, after all, the one thing Bumby's prying fingers had been unable to destroy, and as such it had been her salvation.

But she could do without the occasional flashbacks disrupting her life.

Alice put the blade into her knapsack and slung it over her shoulder. She didn't know if she'd be coming back to this drafty rathole, and it was of no consequence if she did. The bag held what she needed--the blade, her stuffed rabbit, and Bumby's pocket watch with her sister's key bound to the chain as perverse trophy.

She followed him downstairs, sparing no look to the disapproving owner.

Run faster... I can hear Cellos and Xylophones...

[max_payne]

The weather outside was frightful... so the lyric ran. The winds hadn't gotten any sweeter, buffeting the white sedan and tossing snow about like it was going out of style. Still they drove, crawling through the storm at a steady pace. No need to rush. Dunmore, or Bumby, or whatever he called himself wasn't likely to be going anywhere in this mess.

Inside the car was a different story altogether. It wasn't quite uncomfortable, but the silence between them was odd. Every now and again Max would toss a glance her way, mostly to check that she wasn't doing her china doll impression again. Alice's display of the knife earlier left an impression too and it's presence, tucked away though it was, was not forgotten. He could have sworn her eyes had glistened with a tenderness as she held it. Max pushed those thoughts aside. Assumptions weren't exactly the best foundations for a working partnership... not that he really followed that advice.

During a particularly bland expanse of white, Max decided it was time to take a break from quite time. "You've put a lot of thought into this huh?"

[queensbane]

Alice shivered as they walked out into the snow, but showed no other reaction. She was cold enough on the inside that it seemed not to matter--it was preferable to the raging heat she felt in her dreams, the smell of flesh roasting like cracklings.

As they drove she kept the knife cradled in her lap, as a more normalized woman her age might hold her first baby. The visions came and went in brief splashes of imagery--the White Knight in the chaos of battle, with his wild mustache and snorting iron horse, striking back against the corrupting influences. Was he to be trusted or was he a black knight beneath the whitewash?

The question momentarily broke Alice from her wanderings. "I have had a lot of time to think about it," she said quietly, staring out the window. "And he deserves far worse than I can possibly give him for what he has done to his victims."