bakerstreet | Denny's

[[OOC: down for crossovers, original characters, anything really. Let me know if you want to assume a character relationship and I'll play along.]]

Vanessa is just your typical overworked social worker, called up out of bed to deal with the fallout from a trafficking ring bust. Hours have passed since then, hours dedicated to figuring out safe places for the kids to stay while others in the department do their best to track down more stable relatives to take custody.

She's got her head resting on one hand as she nurses a cup of coffee and waits for her order to be deposited at her table. It's been a very long night and she's hungry, and tired, and... possibly waiting for you to join her?

Asura is absolutely overdressed for Denny's, his black and red suit a stand-out even where it would be appropriate. It's not even nearly the most eye-catching part of him- a huge third eye on his forehead and his two in the usual spot sporting a second, smaller pair inside of them. Black and white hair in eye patterns push the theme even further. And sure, he's a looming weirdo but he looks just as run-down as Vanessa. All his eyes are lidded, in that barely awake way. Holding a cup between two hands.

"One of those days?" His voice, at least, is soft, quiet and sweet.

The suit stands out, of course, and there's a smartass comment about getting lost on the way to the latest charity gala to be had -- but it dies on Vanessa's tongue when she glances up toward his face.

'Ah,' she thinks, 'a metahuman.' (For all that people in her world have superpowers and often unusual looks, you don't often see them in mundane settings like this, but... even so, it must happen sometimes. And this is one of those times, Vanessa concludes.)

"Unfortunately, yes," she replies to that quiet question. She gestures to the seat across from her. "You look about ready to fall over yourself. Take a load off."

Asura nods at Vanessa's offer, and sidles into the seat. The third eye is always focused on her, while the others make the micro-adjustments expected. He's well aware it's off-putting, but he doesn't care- people being creeped out is their problem. Or, depending on his mood, not a bug but a feature.

Despite the obvious weariness, he has a certain grace to his movements, one arm up on the backrest and the other running a finger around the edge of his cup.

"Mmm... It's a funny phrase, isn't it? 'One of those days'," he philosophies with a stranger without hesitation. Introductions don't occur to him. It's not that he's opposed, he simply doesn't consider them important. What's in a name, anyway? "The saying seems to accept that the events are inevitable, that you will be like this sometimes no matter what you do."

Vanessa has been threatened by enough monsters that look perfectly normal, so that someone's unusual looks don't put her on edge. Her younger self might have been afraid, but she hasn't been that girl in a long time.

As long as the man sharing her table stays polite, it's all good. Vanessa doesn't have the energy to be afraid at the moment.

"You have to take the bad with the good, I suppose," she replies. "And problems rarely queue up nice and orderly to be dealt with."

"What a miserable thought..." Asura sighs heavily, lifting his cup and blowing at its steam. As it travels, it morphs unnaturally into wispy skulls and bones and eyes before dispersing. "You have to take the bad with the good? You can't say no, and do something about it?"

There's a small, sadly amused smile on his lips before he drinks. Just more philosophizing. Asking questions for the sake of asking. His dual eyes look down into his drink, while the third stares on. His listless mood doesn't stop his curiosity, or his endlessly interrogating mind. It would make life easier if he could just stop thinking sometimes, but alas.

"I suppose you could refuse," Vanessa replies. The strange shapes in the steam draw her glance, but she has no idea what could cause it. "I don't know many who do."

She fiddles with the utensils on her side of the table, still wrapped up in the paper napkin.

"Ignoring the bad around you generally makes it worse, in my experience." Vanessa closes her eyes, and quite deliberately shoves down the memories that threaten to intrude on her thoughts. She breathes in, and out, and opens her eyes again.

When she opens her eyes it’s to him making eye contact at last. Four eyes in two, red and white.

“I’m not good at ignoring things,” he says, before making a weird display. Red and white pair splitting and merging as they dart in different directions as an illustration of his diligent observation. “I’d rather defy the bad.”

Vanessa drops her gaze after a moment, the strange display in his eyes making her stomach churn uncomfortably. "I'm not strong enough for open defiance. But someone has to clean up the mess that gets left behind."

“Lack of strength… really is the root of all misery, huh?” He’s asking himself, it seems. Leaning back again, he turns his head upwards, giving Vanessa a break from the relentless staring. Her visible discomfort with his eye trick doesn’t amuse him, not in the mood he’s in. “What sort of messes do you clean?”

"Humans being cruel to other humans," Vanessa replies. "There are many types of trafficking that happen in a big city like this, and... tonight, there were children involved. Which is why I was called in."

“Ah, I see….” He says contemplatively, still looking at the ceiling a while longer. When he tips his head back down to look at her, he runs a finger over his neck. “By clean up, you mean…”

His mind has instantly gone to the idea of murdering the perpetrators, and he seems fine with that.

Vanessa doesn't look bothered by the idea either. "No, I'm not the one who kills the monsters. I find safe places for the victims and help them recover."

"Hmm... It's pretty rude to use 'monster' as a term for an evil human right in front of a monster, you know." His tone has a darkly amused tone to it, the kind you get when you're encountering something you're so used to just have to make it a joke. Emphasising his inhuman nature, all his eyes glow red.

He has always preferred monsters to humans.

Still, her explanation of what she does has him look Vanessa over again, as he contemplates a proper response to her reply.

Her own stare back is unamused, and her tone is flatter when she says, "I didn't realize I was in the company of a self-identified monster."

In response, Asura forces a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. It's awkward and weird, and his teeth are pointed- they weren't a second ago. His black fingernails drum on the table.

"I thought you'd have guessed by looking," he answers, the grim amusement still there. He might have said more, but it was then the food arrived and Asura jolted a little at a third person showing up, even if it was entirely expected.

Once they were gone, Asura's overly stacked plate in front of him, he sheepishly speaks again- "No one can sneak up on me but waiting staff. Gets me every time."

Vanessa goes on the alert when he startles, but relaxes when she realizes that it was the waitstaff that caused it. She gives the server a little smile and thanks them as she accepts her own plate.

"Maybe it's part of getting a food handler's certification. Extra stealthy sneaking."

She drizzles a line of ketchup over her hashbrowns and scoops up a bite. After she finishes eating it, though, she glances over at him again and says, "I've never found that looks alone make someone bad."

“There you go again,” he says with that same sadly amused smile. “Conflating bad and monster like that... You’re saying if I'm good, I cannot call myself a monster?”

He splits his eyes up again, this time somehow more- until his sockets are filled with fifty pupils each, his sad smile full of triangular, interlinked fangs. There's no hostility- just an illustration of his monsterdom.

“What's so wrong with being monstrous?”

Vanessa goes very still, swallowing hard.

"If you want a debate about this, I suggest looking somewhere else, sir. I was dragged out of bed after four hours of sleep and forced to deal with the fallout of evil being done to children. I'm hungry and exhausted and I'm not at my best."

She sounds tired, in a way that's not just physical but emotional. While she certainly doesn't seem frightened by his display, something about it has pushed the pleasant social mask off of her.

With just a blink, Asura is back to how he was before. Clearly inhuman, but not nearly so grotesque. Honestly, it does annoy him, the conflation of monsters with evil. They're different things- it's just human convenience to try separating humans from their own worst examples.

Still, he has been a bit rude.

"Ah... we've both been rude," he admits, which is really quite close to an apology if you ask him. Actual apologies are rare things from him. "It's just difficult, being... different. What you are being an insult."

Aware he's drifting into the same thing, he changes the subject in a totally natural way- "Do you want me to kill them for you?"

It's an earnest, casual question asked as easily as if she wants him to pass the ketchup.

"No, thank you. If the justice system can't handle the problem, there are... others I work with who can do so." Her tone and bearing are a little stiff, a little formal.

Vanessa could go into detail about her first experience with what the world termed a monster -- how she got swept up, when just a child herself, into a war between gods and mortals. How a powerful, terrible creature known as Decay attacked her for no reason but to draw out 'the pride of the Amazons' for a fight that destroyed part of the city -- and how that was only the first of many run-ins with monsters and with evil. She could talk about how her own body was twisted into something beautifully monstrous while her mind was broken by something ugly and cruel to become ugly and cruel.

But these are not things that Vanessa likes to speak of at all. She does not want to speak of them especially when she is upset. There could still be consequences, given what she was molded into, once.

"I think... we are possibly having trouble communicating because of different experiences in our respective pasts. I'll do my best not to slip up and use the terms in the way you object to."

Edited (rephrase for clarity) 2023-06-12 03:52 (UTC)

Denny's

Nessie Kapatelis | DC Comics (Wonder Woman) | OTA

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