Heartthrob

Esper James finished her sinewdles in what she, at least, would have called 'record time' — broth and all.

Then...? Well, where to then? Back home, wasn't it?

EJ and company paid, the cash-only compensation drawing an odd look from their waiter, and then put themselves together and headed out. The sidewalk's cold, unrelenting surface made for a comforting landing zone for each determined footfall, and as they made their silent procession, the events of the evening weighed little on any of the women's hearts.

Some rise to go before a fall, Esper James thought to herself with a jaded sense of amusement. The world was only building them up again after the deep dip of their venture to Jacobson's; how, next, would it hurt them? When would the next crash come — and when it came, how devastating would it be?

The ghoul could not deny that, in truth, she had begun to feel her heart cooling towards anything outside her immediate purview. Even that moment of pride in Vitus's culinary offerings, back at the Chop Shop, had only come as a result of her passive suppression of distaste. Pride in Vitus, after truly seeing behind its facade and gazing upon the horror just below the skin, should have been unthinkable back in November. But... here, now? She had begun to acclimate to the new suffering, she acknowledged, and so false pearls appeared amidst the murk.

And so, when the next drop came, would she even feel it? What would it take to make her feel it?

The death of someone close to her. Est or Purity, or Zofi or Lulu, or... well, they were really it. At this point, if anything were to happen to her, she doubted she'd even bat an eye. The ghoul, then, cast a glance to Esthrielle — only to meet the cyborg's eyes with her own. Est's placid face turned from muted impassivity to a streak of steel and a warm flame of joy. She winked.

"Oh, aha, hey~ You looked, uh... pretty thoughtful, and I... Well, I know you can get kinda distracted when you're thinkin' hard, so I wanted to make sure you didn't run into anything, or trip. Y'know, just... keepin' an eye on ya. Cutie." Esthrielle blew her second-living lover a kiss, capping her half of the exchange off with a snickering twinkle of mirth. EJ found herself blushing in a moment's time, the edges of her lips raised on affectionate hooks despite her own bashfulness about the 'run into anything, or trip' comment.

"Uh, ha... haha! Pfft, fuck off, Est, h-hahaha...! I'm fine, I'm fine — I swear. Things are normal, things are cool... things are good. Just thinkin' about Purity, and about the club, and about... eugh. You know." There were a great many things Est could have 'known' that would fill in the verbal blank — however, there were some specifics EJ had tried to direct her towards. The Italian nodded sympathetically.

"Ahh, yeah... the training. Getting itchy under the collar, hot under the skin, to go out and strut your stuff. Right? Anxious to get to it? Pshhh, yeah, I know what that's like... Used to pace around my bedroom for hours and hours, waiting for Luca to get home so we could train. They gave me a TV, you know?" Esthrielle's gaze dropped to the sidewalk, and then went forward, back to their path. She sighed, mind off in some distant reminisce, even as her legs followed the path effortlessly.

"I don't think I watched it even once in my years there. I was always doing... fucking crunches, or drills, or... math. Fucking math, man. And then, you know, once you get some gear in you... you don't even need to know that shit anymore." Est's attention was shifted to her arms, which she raised for a moment before dropping in resignation. "My arms'll automatically rangefind for me, in conjunction with ocular input. They're stronger than unaltered, organic muscle could ever hope to be. My legs can jump twice my height, kick with perfect precision, and — with my arms — heft a quarter-ton, thanks to my frame reinforcements."

A laugh escapes her, but for only a moment. Lulu and Zofi were paying attention at this point, occasionally looking over to her — but not so much so that it would be immediately apparent to an observer that their legs were moving of their own accord. Est continued once she heard no interjection, taking it as an entreaty to proceed.

"My body does practically everything for me, if I just tell it to. And, some people back home don't even need that much input. So, all that training and anxiety went right out the window, as soon as... well, as soon as it could. As soon as my... aha, my rich dad, and older brother, set up the appointments." There was something akin to regret in her voice — and bitterness, nestled even further within. Resentment, perhaps, with a taste like an acrid black walnut.

Esper James was not immediately sure how to interpret this, in truth — and neither, it seemed, were either of the other Waywards. Esthrielle lingered in her own silence for a few moments, face now raised skyward, before she seemed to realize that there was a silence in the metaphorical room. Then, turning back to look at the others, she let a nervous laugh escape.

"Woah, ahah, s-sorry...! Sorry about that, y'all, haha, just. Ah. Look, I've got thoughts too, you know? I-I, ah, I guess... I guess what I'm trying to say, EJ, babe... Don't let the anxiety get you down. There'll be time enough for you to train — but, in the meantime, make sure to have fun. Okay? Take... Take care of yourself. Your mental, y'know?" She smiled, then, but it seemed less than completely genuine — more of an attempt to play off any remaining awkwardness, with a fabricated display of aloofness.

EJ feigned a smile of her own, knowing damn well how to prop up a fake smile from all her years under Judas. "Yeah, babe... thanks. I will, okay? It's just hard, you know? City's going to shit, more and more by the day. I mean, ignoring the elephant in the room about me specifically, it's still not really great." It was the ex-blonde's turn for her gaze to drop, but it didn't hit the sidewalk —- instead, it went as far as Est's midsection.

The carnivore was reminded, then, that her steel-fanged lover was still part organic. After all that talk of her various augmentations, and how they did the work for her, it was good to remember (or so EJ figured) that Esthrielle was still human. She was still organic, still first-living, at her core. Her organs were mostly still standard issue, her heart and brain in particular were the same ones she'd been born with. No matter how much they'd taken away and replaced, or how much her augmentations did on her behalf — it was still her making the decisions, and calling the shots.

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Lulu spoke up, then, in the newfound silence. "Yo, Eeeee... uh, Ellen. Ellen Jane."

Then, a whispered "how the fuck didn't we decide an alias?", before Lulu continued. "Ellen, Est. Shit sucks. Shit is going to continue to suck, for the foreseeable future. But it'll suck forever if we let the suck consume us. Y'know, I've got an idea — when we get home, let's drink, yeah? I've seen the bar that place has, on cam feeds. S'fuckin' enormous."

From someplace unknown, Lucretia drew out a cigarette and lighter. EJ looked on, bewildered both by the production of the cigarette and the starkly pragmatic sentiment, as Lulu lit her cig and put it to her lips. After a puff, the goth kept going.

"It's enormous, and it's like Est said: keeping your mental rock-solid is important. Hell, it's damn essential. Can't make any shift, or real change, in your life if you spend all your time wracked with grief and misery." Puff. This one was long, and she'd managed to shape it into a ring. "It sounds harsh, I know, but it's the truth. Even baby steps forward will keep you moving, even something small."

Something small. EJ was... honestly, unsure what sort of 'baby steps' she could be making that would keep her from sinking into a mire of malaise and complacent dread. Thankfully, it didn't take long for that doubt to be shattered; Lucretia fell back to keep pace side-by-side with the once-a-blonde, and clapped a hand on the shorter woman's shoulder.

"And, when we get back? I've got something I've been thinking about, to help you work off some of that training anticipation. A little 'training-before-training', yeah?" Lulu winked, her luminous eyes flickering to... smiley faces, for only a moment. EJ flinched at the switch, not expecting something so jarring - she'd been around the three Easterners for so long, at this point, that she'd forgotten that their eyes were just LEDs, for the most part. Est's were just iris lenses, similar to Purity's, but still.

After the initial shock, however, Esper James managed a smile with more genuine excitement in it than the previous falsehood she had presented Est with. She nodded, putting on the bravest face she could manage in that moment.

"Sure. Sure, sure. Look... a little training, then a little drinking, then... well, I still wanna talk to the boss, you know? See if there's no way for us to... expedite things. It can wait till after Christmas, sure, but... I'd like to get at it before January, you know?" Before January seemed like a reasonable schedule to keep, she figured — after all, it's not as though there'd be any harm in her starting sooner, right?

Lulu nodded. "Yeah. I dunno what she's like — that's probably a Purity ask — but I'd be shocked if she won't be thrilled at you being so... well, haha, eager to go do her dirty work, you know?" Lulu smirked, her gaze flicking to Est. Est, for her part, nodded along — dropping back to flank EJ, now, and more directly join the conversation.

"Yeah, exactly. What kind of, uhhh..." Here, Esthrielle looked around to see if there were any nearby pedestrians who might listen in. Not seeing any, she still leaned down a bit, her voice becoming hushed.

"...mob boss..." And then she was upright once more, to finish her thought. "...wouldn't want such an eager, and loyal, soldier? Eh? She'd be dumb not to fast-track you into your new position. Haha, and honestly?" Esthrielle's smile became a smug grin, her brows descending to emphasize the cocksure aspect she displayed. "I'm really eager to see you put her current guys to shame, heheh~"

There, a mingled shard of pride and bashfulness came to Esper James's sternum, lodged there like a wooden stake. Put them to shame? People who'd been doing this sort of thing for... who knew how long? Needless to say, Esper James was more than a little doubtful about the prospect... but, she'd happily give it her best.

After that, the conversation fell away. There was something close to solace, and comfort, to be found in a casual walk side-by-side with one's peers — and the four women lingered in it happily, without rush to be done with it. Finally, in the distance, the shimmering obelisk that was La Scission's obsidian-paned exterior came into view, the neon light of its sign glowing out into the deepening night.

Home sweet home. The four women still took their time heading back inside, of course — they had to swing around the back, knock and wait as instructed, provide the passphrase Purity had told them, and only then were they in the backrooms of the hedonist's hellish heaven. Straight up to their room they went, though not without Lucretia slipping a nearby serving girl the rest of her wad of cash in exchange for booze to be delivered.

When the four made it into the room, EJ ran over and kicked off the floor, flopping onto the bed with something akin to flair — if not for how completely she threw herself atop the cushy, cozy, not-really-intended-for-sleep memory foam mattress. Est followed suit after taking a moment to cackle to herself and roll her eyes; next up would have been Lucretia, from the way she readied herself to run, but Zofi held her back. Seeing that her own sort-of-maybe-girlfriend was readying to join the bed flopping, Zofi rushed ahead before her, determined to not be the last one to join in this time. Once she had landed face-first against the plush and silken thing, and rolled over, she began to laugh.

Laughter came slowly at first, at odd intervals and with odd fits and starts. However, it took only a few moments more for the rest of the women to join in, especially once Lucretia 'accidentally' threw herself halfway across Zofia. The resulting peace lingered, in silence and shared skinship, for minute after minute — a night out such as theirs deserved some time to rest, relax, and recover from.

Then, after twenty or so minutes, there was a knock on the door.

"Room service," the would-be entrant called. Lulu hopped up off the bed to retrieve their ordered alcohol, leaving the other three women behind — and, as she opened the door, her eyes went wide with surprise and delight. Stepping aside, she swung the door out wider, so that the three on the bed might see who it was.

Purity, holding a tray of drinks, stood in the doorframe beside a smaller girl - the waitress that Lulu had met in the hallway. Both were grinning like Cheshire cats, and once Purity had given the other woman a nod, she departed, leaving the pinkette to deliver drinks all on her own.

Lulu was quick to shut the door behind Purity as she entered. Then, once inside, Purity set the platter — which was stocked with enough bottles to drown a horse — atop the lone table in the room, pushing aside some other personal accoutrements to make room. Finally, once the drinks were down, she revealed a drink shaker from within the nest of glass and liquor; it was then put to apt use, filled with a dizzying array of liquids that Purity seemed to know by heart.

Everyone was silent, though the women on the bed couldn't hide their delight at seeing the final member of their party return just in time for drinks. Frankly, Esper James had begun to wonder what Purity was up to, during their wait for the room service to arrive... and now, seeing her here, ready to dole out libations? Handling everything, in that typical Purity fashion?

EJ felt warm. Happy. Comfy. Her mental was improved, from these small joys... but, one thing bothered her. Her eyes were, of course, locked on Purity as the tallest woman made up their cocktails — and in her observation, Esper James made note of something that did serve to shake away some of that dreamy comfort and excitement she had been feeling.

Purity had been crying. Her eyes were still a bit puffy, and her makeup had been marred, with only a rough attempt to hide the mascara trails. The ghoul's smile faded into a soft and gentle frown, her face becoming solemn, and downcast.

Why had Purity been crying? She was so strong... EJ resolved to find out. Or, at least, to prevent her crying any further.