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Squick breezes into the chocolate factory, humming in approval; she removes one earbud, turning in a slow circle. "Oh, fuck yeah," he drawls, nodding. "This is my kinda place." He saunters further and finds an overstuffed chaise to sprawl across.
The earbud's removal gives them the ability to hear the aproaching thunder of loud stomps before the door to this room is violently swung open by a tall skinny punk in a shirt spelling out F-U-C-K Y-O-U in ASL. "Yo," she says, giving a lazy wave. Of interest to Squick might be the barbed wire tattoo coiled around her bicep.
Squick cranes his neck to take in the new arrival; he brightens and points at the shirt, cackling. "That's rad," he snickers. "Yo, I'm Squick." Squick's flaw is grossly apparent; his features are all symmetrical angles carved in colorless skin. His hair tonight is bright teal-purple, and there's a number of facial piercings. The piercings and his haircut are both asymmetrical, a lazy attempt to draw away from the uncanny proportions of his unnerving features. He's wearing a black tube top and a pair of black overalls; the ink that's scrawled over his arms, neck, chest, and fingers is on full and vivid display.
You know ASL? She signs before saying, "You're rad. I mean jesus, you look fuckin' sweet. Where'd you get all that done?" She pauses and looks up at him a little sheepishly. "Prolly shoulda told you my name first. I'm Rena. She/her. What pronouns for you?"
"Oh, any of them," Squick says, grinning. "I like keeping my options open. Oh!" Squick scrambles around to sit upright, patting the chaise beside her. "Come, my new friend," he intones in his deep, rich voice, "Lounge with meeee. I'll tell you all about all my ink. I'm not sure what you signed to me; I don't really know ASL beyond finger-spelling but fuck, I wish I knew it."
"I pretty much had to learn. I talk too sloppy for people to lip read me most times. And I signed askin' if you knew it. Normally here's where I'd teach you somethin' embarrassing and tell you it's a common phrase, but you're too fucking sick for that." Rena nods at the pronouns and scampers over the back of the chaise to perch next to him.
"Oh, nice! You can just teach me the cuss words then." He turns toward Rena, clapping his hands once. "SO. I designed most of these myself, or went to artists I knew; but I did this arm," they point out, tracing a finger up their right arm, "And I did some on the front of my thighs. Basically, if I could reach it comfortably, I wanted to do it."
"Yo, that's your work? That rocks! You gotta do one on me," Rena says leaning in to look. She gets really close to them, probably closer than she ought to. "All I have is this one on my arm. I got it done at [some local cheap shop] when I started being on my own. And it's nothin' like the quality shit you got."
Squick does not apparently have much in the way of boundaries. He cranes his neck to take a peek at her ink. "Let's see what you're working with now," he encourages. "I mean, I charge, but not much for our kind."
Rena flops back into a sprawled out sitting position with one foot folded under the other leg and rolls up the short sleeves over her over large shirt to reveal a ring of slightly faded barbed wire circling her deceptively scrawny arms. "It's nothin' special. Just somethin' I needed, you know?"
Squick nods, and his demeanor and expression is clear: he completely understands. He lifts a spindly finger to trace the ink, but stops himself short. "Oop, force of habit. This is good, though. Could use a touch-up, but it's fine as it is. It's always better when it means something."
"Nah, it's good if you wanna touch," Rena shrugs. "You'd have to touch me anyway if you're gonna ink me. I gotta ask you somethin'. As a tat artist, can you figure out what my tat means just by looking at it?"
Squick grins, something that splits his face from ear to ear in an unsettling array. "Break those chains, girl. What'd you break free from?"
"My family. My old life. All that shit. I'm me now. And that's all that matters. All I need," Rena shrugs. "You aren't Ordo are you? I don't think I've seen you around the academy."
Squick lounges back on the chaise, limbs sprawled akimbo. "Naw. While I dig Dracula in most regards, I'm a Carthian. Raising my skinny fists to heaven is more my speed."
A small blonde woman enters the lounge at the chocolate factory, dressed in a tie-dyed shirt and yoga pants. There's a few leaves and twigs in her hair, and she's wearing sandals. It is a look. She approaches the sound of conversation quietly, staying off to one side, rather than interrupting.
"Fuck yeah, that's way more my speed. If I didn't need the Ordo for shit, I'd join you in the Carthians. Love tearin' down the system," Rena nods, sticking out her fist for a bump. She hasn't noticed Phaedra yet, still focused on the cool guy in front of her.
Squick bumps his first against Rena's, nodding in approval. "Yeah, exactly. You can be Carthian-adjacent, I dig. I'm too rebellious to be anything else, I think," she snerks. "Or maybe I just like to argue? Who knows. It was just the right fit."
Phaedra inches closer, maintaining a near silence until she's right up in their conversation circle. "Some of the rest of us non-Carthian sorts argue too. Ask Rena, she's seen me fly off the handle before."
"AH!" Rena shrieks, startled. "Fuck, warn a gal, Phaedra!" She sits up straighter (though still a homosexual). "But yeah, she can argue"
"Oh yeah, no. Being argumentative isn't a Carthian trait." Squick pivots to give Phaedra a long appraisal; he is kind enough to resist smiling at her. "Oh hey, hi! Another new face; I'm Squick. You can use any pronouns, I'm fluuuu-id." He waves his long fingers in 'mystical' patterns that are not mystical at all, his speech having a resonant sing-song vibe.
"Boo." She gives Rena a grin before offering her hand to Squick. "I'm Phaedra. She/her. Rodriguez family, Mekhet, Circle of the Crone. Nice to meet you? Probably nice to meet you. Maybe."
"Oh shit, I should mention all that shit too. Rena, Ashtifar, Mekhet, Ordo. All that shit. I even have an Ordo title so double plus secret I can't even tell you two. And lemme tell you there's tons of Ordo arguments, but they're all about," Rena switches to a voice like a fancy aristocrat, "'the kindred condition and what it means to exist in the world.' Fucking boring."
"It's nice to meet me and to meet you," Squick affirms with a smile; if it wasn't like a hatchet across her face, it could be perceived as genuine and warm. "I'm Squick, Nosferatu, Saagochque family, Carthian. I think I got everything. Oh, Galloi, too. Knew I forgot something." He takes Phaedra's hand in both of his, providing an avid handshake. "Oh, and I'm a night doc, but like...keep that on the d-l, otherwise I never get any time to myself."
"Penumbrae, if bloodlines are worth bringing up." Her grip might be stronger than one'd expect from such a smol Mekhet; she might have a wee bit of Vigor up her sleeve. "And I like debating about the Kindred condition, but most people don't like hearing my take on it, really. I, uh. Very Circle of the Crone. You know?"
"Khaibit, but don't spread that one around neither. I don't wanna get drawn into talking about spirits and shit. I don't know anything about anything magic," Rena says shrugging. Then her phone buzzes and she pulls it out. "Ah, shit, I gotta get goin'. 'S great to meet you, Squick!"
Squick's grip is puny. "I wanna hear it," Squick argues, draping himself back along the chaise again; he seems to have decided Rena is a-ok, bumping up against her side as if they're old friends. "I love that shit, fire it up. Different minds, all meeting together? Seriously hot."
"...I do know about anything magic." This is said quietly as Rena runs off, and then Phaedra perches herself up on a table, kicking off her sandals to rest her bare feet on a chair. "What I think is that...to be a vampire is a divine state, a holy gift. And this gift is from the Beast. That at the very bottom of everything, all vampires' Beasts are shards of the Mother of Monsters, the Bitch-Beast Queen. We're endowed with a sliver of that profane holiness, when we're Embraced. Which doesn't make us better than humans, but it does make us fundamentally different, removed from them."
"Holy shit, that's complex," Squick murmurs, eyes wide; while Phaedra was speaking, the Haunt held perfectly still, yellow eyes owl-wide in rapt attention. "What made the Mother of Monsters break into shards? Or who is she? Is it like...a figure in history? Mythology? That is a serious responsibility, carrying around a piece of a God."
"Well, there's a lot of figures in history who are dark mothers, in literal or metaphorical senses. It's an archetype, a symbol, a thread that connects the dots between a lot of different stories. To choose one name is just to choose a side to look at Her from. Yes? Like, uh...like a hologram? Does that make any sense?"
Squick snaps his fingers, giving Phaedra a finger-gun. "Yep, got it. Like a crystal, right? You turn it one way, you get a different facet. That's kind of the Wiccan approach too, right? All the goddesses are one goddess, et cetera? Oh, well - and calling her a 'Crone', right?" Squick sits up on the chaise to fold his long legs up criss-cross-applesauce, elbows on knees, chin cradled between both ivory hands.
"Mm. Yeah, something like that." She favors him with a bright smile. "Though I don't think...like. Zeus is not the Dark Mother in any form. This is more, uh. Angrboda, Echidna, goddesses of that nature. Those who bring forth monsters, beasts. If you take 'birth' less literally, Pandora also falls into this category, releasing all the misfortunes. All the pieces of the darkness."
"Oh okay, I got you. I mean, that makes more sense to me anyway? All different kinds of apples are still an apple, you don't just drop an orange in there. Which shard do you think you got? Like, which Dark Mother?"
"I don't really tend to think about that question, but like? Probably Pandora, if I'm honest." She lets out a small laugh. "You're really not freaked out by any of these ideas? A lot of us get weird about the idea."
"Fuck no! I mean, I've thought about looking into things like that, to be honest," Squick laughs, stretching in a truly feline manner. "I knew this great Carthian back in NYC, a satanist. Some of the stuff we talked about was pretty profound, shit like I never heard before. I mean, before my embrace, I was soooo sheltered. Like, I thought a magic 8-ball was a conduit to Satan kind of sheltered. It was so gross." She makes gagging noises.
"I was pretty sheltered too. Grew up in, um. A cult. Never really went to school or learned anything my uncle would disapprove of. My sire rescued me."
"Whoa, no shit?" Squick's brow furrows, and he leans forward with a surge of blatant empathy. "Ugh. Parents can be so evil. My sire was..well, fucking shitty, but I'm still thankful to be what I am, instead of what my mother did. She fucked me up pretty hard. I'm glad you got out too. We weren't in a cult, I was just a beauty queen." Squick flips his hair, grinning.
Blink. Blink-blink. "Wait. Really? I mean, not that you're not beautiful, you are totally beautiful. Or handsome. Or all of the above. But. Huh."
Squick cackles, dropping back on his rump. "You tickle me, but it's...not really beauty or whatever; I know it's like, unnatural. But I like being weird, it's me and it's mine. But yeah. My mom was a former Miss America contestant, and then she spawned. We're talking like, you know the little girl that was murdered, she was a beauty queen? That was totally me. I mean, not her exactly. But my mom started putting me in pageants when I was like, three."
"That's...that's awful. But you're good now, and free? No one makes you feel like you belong to them, unless it's your choice?" Her big bright blue eyes meet Squick's quietly.
"Oh fuck yeah dolly, don't even worry about me. I'm living my best life - I can tattoo and pierce people all I want, I can do the same for supernatural people, I can have my own opinions. It's the tits. Oh!" Squick moves both hands as they speak, a live-wire of enthusiasm. "And my sire's dead now too, so I'm really free! That's why I came here, my sibling was here. Is here. My broodmate."
Her head tilts slightly to one side--she's heard the word 'broodmate' mentioned recently in a similar context. "Galloi. Are you Finley's sibling? Zhe mentioned."
"Yeah!" Squick beams, delighted at the connection being made. "That's me. Do you know Finley? I mean, you must, if zhe said something. Tell me everything!"
"I know Finley. Zhe's one of my very best friends." There's an eager nod. "Zhe's teaching me about science and video games and helping me study for my GED and I like zhem a lot."
"Really!?" Squick makes a squealing sort of noise, wrapping his arms around himself. "That's fucking rad. I only came here to meet zher, and zhe was like - as you know - the fucking tits and smarter than like, anyone I've ever met. I have to restrain myself from being like 'Oh hey lilsib, I want to hang out with you constantly and pinch your cheekies and love you five-ever.' I gotta play it cool." Squick wrinkles his nose in an impish expression.
"Zhe is amazingly smart, but never-ever mean about it. And that's what's best. I never feel stupid with zhem." She gives her a chuckle. "And be careful pinching zher cheekies."
"Oh no, I won't actually do it. I just like, you know, give zher space. I don't wanna be a smother. But that doesn't surprise me at all - but you seem pretty smart yourself, so you two probably have super-smart talks about stuff."
"We're smart with different things. I know a lot about magic and spirits and ghosts and things like that, but nothing about science at all. So we teach each other. It's balancing. And sometimes, we do things that aren't talking, and that's nice too."
"Yeah? Like what kinda st-oooooh," Squick drawls, lips forming an O. "Wait. In the 'oooooh' kind of way, or just the like. 'We do macrame together!' kind of way?"
"I don't fuck, if that's what you're asking." But that leaves a lot of ground uncovered.
"Uhh, nope! Wasn't...asking that, so much, just - you know, it's cool," Squick snickers. "I don't gotta know. Either way, good. I'm glad zhe has good friends."
"Zhe makes it easy to be friends with zhem." A nod, and then her expression turns thoughtful. "Tattoos? Why those?"
Squick glances at one bare arm, then back to Phaedra. "I'm not sure what you mean. Why not tattoos?"
"No reason not tattoos. I've never gotten one, personally. What made you get into that line of work?"
"Oh! well, at first it was like, this big act of liberation. I got my first tattoo before I died, just to stick it to my mother. I have mommy issues, it's a whole thing." Squick flips one hand, eyes rolling. "Anyway! Then I just kinda kept adding more. It felt like I was reshaping myself however I wanted; each time I got one, it put that little queen further behind me. I mean, from like, age five or six, maybe earlier, I was already telling that bitch that I wasn't a girl. So now, I look how I want to look. I know I'm a creepy fuck, but I just figure...why not embrace it? Sure, it's lonely, but nobody's telling me how to dress, how to look, how to act. And it's not that lonely. I still love being around people, talking to people - so I just make it work. It's just like...I get to be a giant middle-finger to everything I ever hated, and I love it."
Phaedra nods along as he speaks, her words clearly hitting home. "Yeah, I know what you mean by that. I...my uncle wanted me to be the prophet for his cult. Now, I choose who I look into anything for--it's my power to use or to not use. It's my life to live."
"Whoa, no shit?" Squick tucks up criss-cross again, unblinking gaze squared on Phaedra. "A prophet, that's some heavy shit. Did you have visions and stuff?"
She nodded. "I was psychic, even before my Embrace. Clairvoyant, sensitive to 'signs from God', mostly."
"Wow. So of course Uncle Fuckface just snapped that shit up, I bet. So now you can do what you want with it, that's clutch. I heartily approve."
She giggles. "Thank you for your approval. I think we're going to be friends, at least until the first time I get mad and kinda bite your face off."
"Uh oh, you got a big temper then?" Squick's grin should be crooked. "What's the safe word to avoid getting my face bitten off? I mean, it's a new experience, but a real bitch to regrow."
"I don't mean literally, I just...yell at people. A lot sometimes. Finley's seen me do it before. I don't hold back anymore for the sake of holding back anymore."
"Oh, well, no. You shouldn't hold back - unless you want to. But I imagine it probably feels pretty good."
"Yeah. Though, uh. It can sure burn some bridges. Banan--he's the big guy for the Lance locally--he kinda hates me after I said some things he didn't want to hear." She sheepishly reaches up to tuck some hair out of her face, and discovers a twig in there, gently untangling it and setting it down on the table.
Squick winces in sympathy. "I mean. I don't think they really ever want to hear any of us, especially from the Circle. Sometimes the truth hurts, but don't let it get you dead or anything."
"If I'm going to get myself dead, it'll probably be for the truth, but I'm really hoping it won't be anytime soon." She doesn't sound any sort of upset about that thought, it's just a fact as far as she's concerned.
"Oh yeah, me too. If you're gonna go, make it good. But I hope it's not for a long time, too."
She nods eagerly. "I almost did it over the Nereids, already. It was a bad idea. Their sea-god is as powerful as the Beast, but very, very different."
"Sea-god...?" Squick's eyes widen again. "What's a Near...Ner...that first one, run that by me again?" Squick laughs, covering their mouth with both hands in sheepish amusement.
"...So the old keeper of the Bala Cwnwyd Elysium got bitten by a fish vamp and turned into a fish vamp and they're really dangerous and they want the Rihat guy and the Rihat guy is probably the one chewing on the neonates, and there's paintings that prove the blobby wet fish thing he was doing an autopsy on was connected to Nineveh, but the fish-vamps...they're called Nereids...are big and dangerous and if they bite or scratch you, in a week you'll turn into one of them and hear the song of the sea and that's bad because their sea god calls them down to the sea and they don't think like us anymore."
"Holy shit," Squick repeats. "That's some creepy shit. That's like...the Little Mermaid but...in Innsmouth, kinda shit." Squick whistles. "Well don't get killed by weird mermaids, please."
"...what's Innsmouth?" Blink. Blink-blink.
Squick's jaw drops, and he spreads both hands like he's putting on the brakes. "Hold on. Full stop. You've never heard of Innsmouth? It's okay, daddy's here. Check this. So, Innsmouth is in a story by this guy Lovecraft; Lovecraft was kind of uh...well, a shitstain, but I looooved his books when I was a teenager. It was all this creepy grade-a scary shit. Oh, anyway, Innsmouth. It was this fake town in Massachusetts and everyone that lived there were like...fish people. Oh! Oh!" Squick flails briefly, bouncing on his seat. "So then, the narrator? It's this kid, right? And he's exploring Innsmouth but he keeps seeing weird shit - you know, because it's full of nasty fish people - and eventually he finds out his ancestors are from there and he decides - well, I won't tell you how it ends. But it's creepy. All of his stuff was all about Old Gods and primal terror shit."
"Oh! Yeah that sounds just about right. The thing about the Nereids is, I almost became one of them when I scryed on them using Cruac, because their sea-god Noticed me and sort of..." A pause, as she gathers her words. "Brushed up against reality in the place I was like a cat brushing against someone's legs, and just that was enough power to put the song of the sea in my head and make it so I loved the waters more than I love anything that roots me to myself."
"Oh shit yeah," Squick nods, eyes wide and sober. "That's an Old God for sure. I mean, I don't like Lovecraft much anymore because I found out he was a super racist. So fuck him. But that sounds like Pacific Rim, too. The little scientist guy brushed his brain against the Kaiju brain. BIG mistake." Squick lifts both hands to her head, making an exploding motion. "So how did you get out of it?! Or are you still i nlove with the sea? Because you should kick that habit, girl. The ocean is a murder soup."
"...what's a kaiju?" This question sounds even more sheepish. "I'm better now. Finley helped. That's when I knew we were going to be forever-friends, not just good-time friends."
Squick puffs with pride. "Aw, shoulda guessed Lilsib handled it. Oh, it's a big monster. Like Godzilla, you know Godzilla?" They spread their arms wide. "Apocalyptic megafauna, for real."
This time she doesn't even bother to ask. She just nods like she gets it even though it's clear she doesn't get it.
"I got you, boo." Squick holds up one finger and leans to the side, withdrawing his phone; he then hops over to Phaedra's chair, perching on the armrest. Fiddling with the screen, he draws up a picture of Godzilla first. "That's Godzilla, love those movies," he explains, then finds pictures of Kaiju from the movie for her. "These are from the movie. Basically it's a movie about giant robots that fight giant monsters and it's the best."
"Oh. That sounds awesome. I'll have to add it to the list of things I oughta see and read and listen to and watch. It's a bit of a long list, but. This one goes up nearer to the top."
"You can totally borrow it. I have waaaay too many monster movies," Squick giggles, scrambling back to his chair.
"I don't have anything to watch it on, unless I can download it on my phone. That's how I've been catching up, some. And then my other friends Calamity and Rena who was here earlier got me into comics."
"Oh okay, I mean, they're on my computer. I can probably send them to you or give you my login or something. Either way, they're around! What comics are you reading?"
"Well, I've been doing some X-men, but also Runaways, and Sandman. I really, really like Sandman." She grins. "And Runaways, it feels like me and Fin and the rest of our friends, a little bit."
"Sandman is a personal favorite," Squick agrees. "I like Runaways, but mostly the Vaughn issues." His mouth quirks to one side, a carefully contained sort of smile; it seems like he attempts to adjust for the uncanny nature of his features by using asymmetrical expressions. "You got your own little runaway group? That's awesome."
"Well, Finley, and our friend Calamity, and Rena maybe eventually, and this fella Andy, who's also really awesome? We're all young-ish. Young looking at least, I think I'm twenty-six or twenty-seven in number-years, but that's not the point. We sorta...we're 'the kids'. Which isn't to say we're children, but we're not as experienced as everyone else?"
"That's cool," he sighs, stretching his arms over his head. "How young is young? I can never tell anymore. I don't think I look young either way."
"I don't know. If you feel like you fit in with us, you're young enough? Something. I haven't figured it out if there's a line we're drawing, yet."
"Right on. What do you do? Or like to do, the group of you?"
"...hang out? Andy and I went stargazing a few nights ago. They were out in the woods by my haven. Finley and I play video games and zhe and me and Calamity visited a graveyard a while back."
Squick nods; a wistful flicker stretches across his blank features. "Hang out, that sounds pretty great. Especially when so many of us are brooding loners that just want to look tortured."
"They're not cool. We are." She slides off the table and puts her shoes back on. "I'm gonna go find dinner. You be okay out there, though?"
"Oh, yep," Squick nods, stretching out. "See you around."
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