18405/A Lost Cause
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A Lost Cause | |
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Date of Scene: | 23 June 2024 |
Location: | Alleyways - Hell's Kitchen |
Synopsis: | Aria is 'rescued' by Jackie Estacado, but the Darkness doesn't trust a fallen angel. |
Cast of Characters: | Aria Seraphine, Jackie Estacado
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- Aria Seraphine has posed:
The Lost Cause.
It's Aria's favorite dive bar in Hell's Kitchen, just so perfectly ironic, and she's spent more than her fair share of money from dancing and turning tricks on keeping the place in business over the last few years.
But now she's stumbling out the front door, her long, golden brown hair falling in disarray over her shoulders, framing her face in a halo of disheveled beauty.
She turns the corner and barely notices the three men approaching until they are almost upon her. Their voices, laced with menace and crude intentions, cut through the haze. Her piercing blue eyes, usually sharp as storm-tossed seas, are now clouded and unfocused, struggling to keep up with the reality around her.
Numb. Finally, blissfully numb. Numb to the literal pain of the scars on her back. Numb to the emotional pain of knowing that she has to live this pointless Hell on Earth day in and day out for eternity.
"Hey, beautiful, where you off to in such a hurry?" one of them sneers, his hand reaching out to grip her arm. She tries to pull away, but her movements are sluggish, her body betraying her. The men close in, their intentions clear, their laughter cruel.
"Come on, sweetheart, don't be like that," another one taunts, his fingers brushing against her skin, making her shudder. The fair skin of her exposed shoulders contrasts sharply with the dingy brick walls as she's shoved further into the alley, making her stand out like a diamond in the rough -- a beacon for predators.
Her voice, too soft, too pretty, too alluring -- a sound that should be a song, though it no longer carries the divine power it once did -- is slurred and distance. "Leave me alone," she tries to say, but the words barely escape her lips, lost in the night. Her slender body, wrapped in the form-fitting black corset and sleek mini skirt, usually moves with a grace that's both inviting and achingly elusive, but tonight, that grace is marred by her intoxication.
The third man grabs her wrist, pulling her closer. "You're not going anywhere," he growls, his breath hot and rancid against her face. She feels her knees weaken, unable to muster the strength to fight them off. Her heeled ankle boots scrape against the pavement as she struggles, but it's no use.
Her blue eyes, dulled by life's brutal lessons and tonight's poison, flicker with a hint of the wild intensity they once held. She turns her head away from the men surrounding her even as they press in closer, her lush lips, hinting at a past filled with both pleasure and pain, part in a silent plea for mercy.
In this moment, the alley becomes her world -- a narrow, suffocating space where her past, her present, and her possible future collide in a blur of fear and helplessness. And as the men close in, their laughter echoing off the walls, Aria can only hope that the night will end soon... one way or another.
- Jackie Estacado has posed:
Being who and what Jackie is, he's 'cause' to be just about anywhere aside from a very few places - and the Lost Cause is certainly not one of those. Well, at least moving _by_ the bar, as it's not a place he'd really choose to be save for in the course of working.
Which he's just finished doing this evening at a run down storage space/seedy set of very run down row houses turned office and industrial spaces with doors that face the alley down which Aria's been redirected.
Kicking the back door off its hinges on his way out, the metal security/fire door flies the twenty feet or so to the far side of the alley and slams against the brick wall where it pauses for a moment before falling with a loud clatter and a noticable boot shaped indentation in the center of the metal door.
Stepping into the darkened alley, The Darkness in full armored glory, half mask in place, eyes hidden behind gold lenses, his long black hair tugged at by the slight breeze of his motion, Jackie turns towards the mouth of the alley where the three goons and.. well, shit, one _hell_ of an eye catching young woman, are .. hmm, no, the goons are dragging her down into the alley.
A moment later 1, 2..5 small little critters follow Jackie out, wingless imps, Darklings more specifically, and they start to climb the alley wall towards the roof line, one of them with a canvas sack slung over his back and dressed like the worlds seediest Santa Clause, bulging belly and all.
"Just _what_ in the fuck is going on here?"
Jackie's voice is low, dark, and _entirely_ devoid of any concern about the apparent imbalance of numbers.
- Aria Seraphine has posed:
*BANG*
"WHAT THE FUCK?!"
The three men jump back from Aria like they'd all been shot, pushing her away from them so that she hits the wall with a dull thud and slumps down to the ground to sit in... whatever that puddle is.
Just because Aria can't actually _catch_ anything, much less die, doesn't mean she wouldn't find that _incredibly gross_ if she'd been anywhere near her right mind... but she isn't. She just sort of.. sags, there. Her head lulls back against the wall. Her eyes close. Her arms lie uselessly at her sides.
That entrance alone was enough to make all of them take that initial step back, but when the armored figure emerges -- quite obviously one of the super-powered types, though villain or vigilante was up in the air -- they all take another step back. It didn't matter whose side the guy was on. When those imps crawl out and along the walls, they scatter.
"Fuck it, man. Leave her. She's not worth it!"
Each one is tugging on another, and the trio are soon leaving the alley in a herd of shoving shoulders and jogging steps to get away, frankly, from whatever Jackie actually is.
The girl on the ground just lets out a muffled little groan.
Maybe it was supposed to be a thanks.
Or maybe she has no idea what's going on. It's not exactly clear in that moment.
She opens her eyes a little and tilts her chin up enough to see the Darklings scurrying down the walls, her narrow eyebrows drawing together at the bridge of her nose.
"Dark...ness..."
It's just a whisper of a word before her eyes close again.
And then consciousness abandons her entirely.
- Jackie Estacado has posed:
There's a moment there where Jackie considers just leaving the girl, eye catching as she is, he's done his 'good deed' for the night all entirely inadvertently, but ... Bob's got what they came for and will get it back home, so the job's done and .. hell, if he leaves her here she'll just get picked up and rolled, or worse, by someone else.
He walks over towards her, standing above the girl and looking down at her for a long moment as he gives her a much _longer_ look this time around than he's had a chance to previously, noting just how good she really does look and frowns a bit under the mask - she's far too good for the 'Cause.
Squatting down he brings his eyes to level with hers, reaching out to touch her under the chin and bring her face up to where he can get a better look at her, cupping her jaw in his gauntleted hand.
Then the shadows in the alley reach out and envelope them both.
Later - a penthouse in one of the many hotels on Long Island, not Jackie's usual place, but .. that's not a place to take a random find quite literally off the street. Aria's in bed, laying atop the covers with a separate light blanket laid over her, hiding the fact that she's been left with just whatever she might've been wearing underneath the skirt - presuming it too didn't get mucked up in whatever filth she ended up in on the ground in that alley.
Jackie is out in the main room of the penthouse, sitting in an overstuffed arm chair that's been placed so he's got a view of the city out through the floor to ceiling glass windows where the sun will rise in the not too distant future. There's a glass of something caramel colored in one hand and a stack of cash on a side table next to him that could be in the tens of thousands of dollars, a discarded burlap sack on the floor next to that table.
- Aria Seraphine has posed:
There's a soft sound from the bed. A groan. A stirring.
Aria rolls, her hand coming up to the side of her face and pressing against the throbbing of her head. This was always the consequence of her momentary escape from the reality she found herself trapped in -- yet another in a long line of ongoing punishments for her choices.
She'd once been Seraphine the Lifegiver, the Songstress, the Siren of Solace, the Salvebearer. The Eternal Light. She had existed since the Creation itself, created by the hand of the Presence -- Him Who Is -- itself and been a guardian of mortals during some of the worst times in human existence.
Yet somehow these last five years had seemed longer than the eons before. She had always been the guardian, the divine power, the healer and protector. Now, she is nothing. Less than nothing. Not human, not angel, not demon. Cursed by her own divine power of healing to remain the same, undying... forever.
Undying.
It happened again. She OD'd, the mixture of heroin and alcohol too much for her system to handle.
She'd died.
And now she was awake... again.
Aria squints her eyes against her hand, rubbing the heel of her palm against her forehead before shifting atop a plush mattress that's too soft.. that smells too sweet.
Groggily, she blinks into the darkness, taking a moment to look around and try to get her bearings in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar bed, surrounded by unfamiliar smells and sounds.
Or.. the lack of sounds. It's still dark outside the window, but the New York City skyline is still there, twinkling in all its glory. It's just... below her, for the most part. She's in a high-rise.
And... she's naked. Or, she would be, if it weren't for the blanket draped over her. A blanket that she pulls modestly around herself as she starts to sit up. No corset. No skirt. No fishnets. No boots. Where had they gone? Who had taken them? She hadn't hidden her scars before she lost consciousness, so whoever it was had definitely seen the jagged, unsightly evidence of her former wings on her back, like someone had taken a chainsaw to her and then just let the wounds heal on their own.
Her head is still pounding.
Feet slip over the edge of the bed as she tugs that blanket further around her, holding it at her chest to keep it from falling away as she rises unsteadily to her bare feet. Her free hand pushes her hair back from her face, and then she's moving slowly towards the door with eyes searching -- eyes that are too blue, too big, too perfectly innocent on a face that's too perfect.
In the alley, the true beauty of her her features had been hidden beneath heavy eye shadow and dark liner, too much blush, too much lipstick. It had given her a 'goth' look, but had also been deliberately done to make her 'look the part.' Whoever took her clothes also apparently cleaned her face, because without it, it's obvious that she needs absolute no makeup... and any at all would only detract, only serve to make her look 'more human' and less celestial than she does in this moment, especially with the blanket draped around her like a long white gown.
Back lit as she is by the faint light in the bedroom, it would be hard for her to look more angelic without the actual white wings to back it up.
"Where am I?"
It's a soft question, but not one that sounds very full of surprise. Maybe she was used to waking up in strange places with strange men. There's no accusation or fear in her melodic voice. Just acceptance and curiosity.
- Jackie Estacado has posed:
"A place I use from time to time while I .. decide on what I'm going to do next." Jackie says from his seat, not startled by her movement or her question, not turning to look at her as she clearly starts to get up and move around. There's _very_ little that Jackie fears in the dark of night, or any place there's shadows around that he can take advantage of, and while he and the Host of angels might well have cause to do battle - at least from their perspective - the fallen one that's just gotten out of the bed poses him no threat. Well, no direct threat, anyway. Who knows what games the Vatican might be playing this time around.
Just that thought alone causes him to clench one fist in a mostly involuntary way, tendrils of organic looking dark metal flowing over his hand, even as more seep out of the shadows at the base of his chair to begin to crawl across the floor in silent menace towards the girl in the other room.
"Imagine my surprise when I found out that the drunk and clearly high as a kite 'whore' I ran into was actually a fallen angel." Jackie says, the quotes around the word 'whore' there quite audibly, his whole tone dark.. foreboding.. but not, for the moment, overtly threatening or showing any hints of anger.
In fact, there's a noted hint of curiosity there, he doesn't know what's going on - and that's not good, not given his track record with angels and other ... minions of the Vatican.
- Aria Seraphine has posed:
Jackie may have had nothing to fear from her, but Aria had plenty to fear from The Darkness. She had relatively few worries about the average mortal seeing her scars and thinking anything of them except for some tragic accident. Still, they were unsightly, so she made an effort to keep them hidden when she knew her bare back would be exposed.
She had no warning, this time. No chance to 'heal' them, even if temporarily, to hide them.
And Jackie was no average mortal.
A flicker of a darkling on a wall flashes in her memory, and as that organic 'creature'-like metal crawls across the floor towards her feet, she takes an involuntary step backwards.
"Darkness," she whispers, much more alertly than she had before.
She'd had no direct interactions with it in the past, in any of its incarnations, but there was nary an angel in existence who didn't know of it -- who didn't know what the Darklings were or what a threat it posed to humanity.
But humanity wasn't hers to protect, anymore.
And even though her one remaining gift kept her from dying, there were many fates worse than death for an immortal being.
"Please..."
She takes another step back, stepping on the blanket and stumbling, her free hand coming out to catch the wall just before she actually fell down. And for the first time in several years, there's a flicker of actual fear across her expression.
"... I had no idea you were there."
There's no protest to the name he's chosen for her. Whore. It's accepted as readily as being called a 'fallen angel.'
Once Songstress, Salvebearer, Eternal Light.
Now Drunk, Whore, Fallen.
They broke her, when they tossed her out, and now it's not even survival that keeps her going. Survival is a given. It's the perpetual quest to numb that pain, to do anything it takes to make herself forget.
"I'll go... you'll never see me again. I promise."
- Jackie Estacado has posed:
The tendrils of dark flesh and metal hybrid that's the alien like expression of his power pick up speed as she backs away, spreading out across the floor, bundling together into thicker, heavier, masses until ropes as thick around as her arm weave across the floor towards her and are at her feet in but a breath or two, by the time she's reached the wall.
They surround her there, not yet moving to touch her, but surround her they do - with three of them standing 'upright', lifting up off the floor to then reach towards each other , rather quickly becoming a fence that traps her into a small space against the wall with no where to move that won't put her into contact with the expressions of the Darkness's power.
"If you _did_ have any idea I was there you likely wouldn't tell me anyway - far too much room in that statement for half-truths, and fallen..there's not a thing that prevents you from lying. " Jackie says, his tone even. "Is it time then? Has the Vatican cooked up some new way to try and kill me? To attempt to destroy me, to trap the Darkness? I'm _already_ fuckin' tired of this and I'm just getting started."
Only then does he get to his feet in a smooth, powerfully confident, motion that seems to disobey normal human requirements/needs for balance and leverage - he's just that strong and dexterous. Dark hair frames his face, falls past his shoulders, shines with all the envious luster and silkiness of a shampoo commercial model, and he crosses the floor towards her. There's the soft sound of the fabric of his expensive suit pants, the rustle of the linen of his plain white button down shirt, as he moves and eventually comes to a stop in front of her, his eyes meeting hers.
"You aren't going anywhere until I decide how best to send the message I need to back to your masters at the Vatican."
- Aria Seraphine has posed:
Aria knew what the Darkness was. She'd heard the stories, was aware of the battle waging against it even if she'd never actively participated, herself.
She wasn't aware of its capabilities, however. She'd never had a need to be coached on what to expect, how to fight it, or how to counter its abilities. Light was the obvious choice. As an angel, she could have generated her own light.
As an angel, armed with her sword, her light, her song, those tendrils would have been lucky to get anywhere near her -- and they would have regretted it, if they had. As one of the Fallen, stripped of her power, she was every bit as at the mercy of this primordial power as the next young woman with her back pressed to the wall.
"Don't," she pleads softly. "Please."
Don't want? Don't let them touch her? Don't hurt her? Don't trap her there? Don't... kill her?
Could he kill her? Was he powerful enough to overwhelm whatever divinity she had left and end her miserable existence for good?
Did the fact that she was scared of that mean that, somewhere deep down, she actually wanted to live? She'd never been faced with that question.. hadn't had to make the _choice_ to survive since the first few times she tried to take her own life and learned she couldn't.
Tears well and fall down her cheeks.
Her head was still throbbing.
She was starting to tremble. From fear. From adrenaline. From the effects of the drugs and the alcohol leaving her system, purged by her body healing itself and leaving behind the tremors of delirium from her body's sudden withdrawal.
She watches him rise. Watches him stride towards her. And she refuses to move, to risk touching the Darkness and what it might do to her.
"I have no allies left at the Vatican." Her voice trembles, a soft, sultry vibrato. "I have no allies left anywhere."
For a second, then, she's quiet, the tears falling without sobs, her lips tugged into a frown that quivers faintly. Her voice is a pleading whisper, her eyes locked on him. "My name is..." She pauses. "... _was_ Seraphine. The Lifegiver. I was never your enemy." Not directly, anyway. "I gave comfort to the sick, the dying. I..."
She blows out a breath.
"I was betrayed. Please. I swear on His name, I have no quarrel with you."
- Jackie Estacado has posed:
Do her tears affect him? Not from all appearances, this is Jackie and the Darkness acting in concert - the hard bitten, a-moral, killer that started with what he needed to be as a hitman for the mob from an early age to .. what he's become with his inheritance of the Darkness and its awakening.
"Why should I believe you? Trust in your oath against a god that condones , or for fucks sake demands, that his minions here on this mudball try and kill me? That will try anything to trap me, including deceit and honey-pot traps?"
As he speaks the cage of .. tentacles around her presses inward, moving towards her a few inches at a time, as he in turn takes a step, then another, and finally a third closer to her.
By that time the cage around her has come into contact with her, feet, lower legs, two wrist thick ropes of the dark-metal flesh lashing out to seize her wrists, she can feel them wrapping around her legs - the blanket she's preserving her modesty with is being slowly shredded by those same tentacles as they seek to touch the flesh beneath.
"Seraphine, hmm? Was? Are you going by something different now that you're here? From what I saw last night you're sure .. taking full advantage of the loss of control offered by booze and whatever it is you're getting high on. Fucking your way through life now too, at least for as long as you're on this job, or whatever the fuck it is you're doing."
A pause, his hard cold eyes watch her, "I should find a construction site and entomb you in it. Doubt its worth my time to try and figure out if, or how, to kill you... but a few hundred years or more in concrete at the base of a building foundation might be really fuckin' educational."
- Aria Seraphine has posed:
"Stop!"
She chokes on a sob that finally rips from her throat as her wrists are seized, panic suddenly making her struggle... but it was too late for that. There's no super-strength. No super-speed. No blinding, divine light.
"I work at the Hellfire Club! That's it! That's ALL!"
Her shoulders twist. Her hands ball into fists as she glares through her tears at him. She lets out a scream of rage as she tries to lunge past him and finds herself dragged back against the wall, pinned in place by arms and legs that are bound in those slithering bindings.
"I'm NOTHING."
She's screaming at him, now, her eyes as feral as a wild animal trapped in a cage.
"I'm LESS than NOTHING. NO ONE CARES. NO ONE GIVES A _SHIT_ ABOUT ME. Do you want to do them a fucking FAVOR? Then DO IT. Torture me. Do your fucking worst. BE JUST FUCKING LIKE THEM."
The tears flow like rivers. Her whole body quakes. And she's LOST in this, maybe the first time since she was cast out of heaven that she's actually let it all out.
"MAYBE SERAPHIEL WILL SEND YOU A FUCKING THANK YOU CARD because he can't do it HIMSELF."
Her head sags a little. Her eyes close. And the tension in her body... relaxes.
"I don't care, anymore." Her voice is so quiet, now. So resigned. "I tried so hard. Do it."
Even her fingers go limp, and if those tendrils retract even an inch, they'll find her collapsing in their wake. She's given up. Gone boneless, like a marionette.
And her voice is nothing more than a whisper.
"It doesn't matter."
- Jackie Estacado has posed:
She's not allowed to collapse, her body being supported by a few dark tendrils that have wound their way up around her hips, torso, and ultimately around her throat , and they easily take her weight even as it goes slack and pull her up and against the wall behind her. Each one of those dark flesh-metallic ropes around her body has found bare skin, yet the blanket she'd wrapped around herself to preserve a modesty her current profession doesn't require manages to remain enough in place for the moment to continue to do that job - if barely.
The outburst from Aria does finally seem to have at least _some_ impact on Jackie, perhaps he's not yet jaded enough to continue to entirely distrust anything and everything angelic, past or present. Perhaps it's his libido talking - probably that, given his track record. But he shakes his head just slightly before his hand reaches out and cups her jaw with a firm, calloused grip, bringing her eyes up to meet his. "Nope. You don't get to give up that easily. Hells, you probably _can't_ even if you really wanted to, not if you're here to be punished as you've said, they wouldn't let you off that easily."
A pause, the hand at her jaw moving her head side to side as he looks her over, the tentacles around her shifting her body's position to give off just that more an enticing view - without any of her consent or control.
"I am _not_ like them, however. Not by a long shot. I have ... far far more tools at my disposal, if nothing else. So.. first thing's first - I need to figure out if you're really just a fallen angle turned whore and addict, or a plant. After that.. we'll see."