Owner	Pose
Susan Sullivan	Demona hadn't been to work. She didn't really help Mairin with classes, and in her defense, she'd done a LOT of work when Mairin was out like a light that one night. Still, the knock that came onto Mairin's door was Demona's knock. Despite her long-standing invitation, she was apparently outside and waiting for Mairin to answer the door.
Mairin Moran	Oddly, Mairin has been on vacation for almost that same amount of time. Which might be worrisome in and of itself, but when she opens the door... The appartment is still in spotless condition. Mairin herself seems in good spirits, or is at least conveying it with the smile on her face.     "Demona! Come in... Of course, you know you don't need to wait on the step like a stranger." She lets her friend in, closes the door behind her, then walks back to where she is putting a few things into a bag. Some books, some parts, and some... clothes?
Susan Sullivan	"Yeah," Demona says, stepping inside. She closes the door behind herself. She, by contrast to Mairin, doesn't look happy at all. Her feet drag on the floor, and she looks heavy and a bit weary. "Hey, can we talk? I'm kind of in a bad place, right now."
Mairin Moran	Mairin, quite literally, drops what she's doing. The book falling onto her bed as she turns around, her expression falling from a somewhat forced cheerful to serious concern.     "Of course... Here.." She picks a few stray things off of the beat up reading chair and motions Demona to it. She steps once, toward the kitchen, her instinct to make tea kicking in, then sidetracks to her office chair which she pulls around to sit in.      "What's wrong?"
Susan Sullivan	Demona takes off her backpack. She slumps into the chair as she hugs it. "Mairin," she starts, draing her legs up into the chair with her. "The van is gone."
Mairin Moran	Mairin just blinks in shock for a few seconds. "What... What do you mean gone? What happened to it? Are you ok?" Her mind flies to any number of mundane causes... but the first one is obviously theft. "I mean... of course you're not ok. I'm sorry..."     She moves as if to reach out a hand to comfort her, but stops, unsure if Demona wants that right now.
Susan Sullivan	Demona takes several deep breaths through the gasmask. "I don't have my rice bed," Demona says. "I can't purge, I can barely feel anything but the hunger, and at the same time, I...hurt? I feel terrible, Mairin. I can't do this, anymore. I feel like I'm going to die, and I don't have anywhere safe, and I lost the reactor and my life's savings and everything. I didn't even get my wish for it."
Mairin Moran	"Your wish?" Mairin bites her lip, her brow furrowing in confusion and helplessness. "I... I don't understand at all, Demona. What happened to your van? Did someone steal it? I'm sure I could find a way to track the reactor... We'll get it back. I promise." She leans forward a bit, but then back, unsure how best to help. It's obvious she wants to hold her friend, but just as obvious she's aware how that might effect her if she's so deep in the hunger.     "Of course, you can stay here as long as you need to. In fact, I insist. We can make sure you have rice and everything."
Susan Sullivan	"No," Demona says, shaking her head. "No, we won't. We won't get it back. It dissolved. I watched the keys go, and there was no trace of it when I got back." She takes a deep breath. "Could I impose on you to go shopping for me? I need an empty beanbag chair and enough dry rice to fill a bean bag chair. I'm already starting to have trouble seeing. If that doesn't work, I...may use your shower...I don't know if that will even work."
Mairin Moran	"Wah..." Mairin is just completely lost. "What are you talking about? What do you mean disolved?" She reaches out her hands to take one of Demona's. "I don't understand!"
Susan Sullivan	Demona tenses up as Mairin touches her. Her hand snaps around to grab Mairin's wrist. Her eyes lose their kindness for a second. Shakily, she lets go and the chair she's sitting in scrapes backward away from Mairin. "Rice," she says, in the same tone of voice she had when talking to Mairin about self-care. "Bean bag chair," she insists. "Please," she insists, dominantly, clutching her backpack against herself.
Mairin Moran	Mairin's eyes go wide as she slowly pulls her hand back, rubbing at her wrist a little. "Right. Of course," she says softly, but firmly. "I'll be back as fast as I can." she jumps up, grabs her satchel, and heads for the door. She pauses there, her hand on the handle as if about to ask something, then just nods once and hurries out.
Susan Sullivan	Demona watches the other woman go. "Thank you," she makes herself say. --- --- ---     Mairin would return to a Beauty and the Beast backpack sitting lonely on the chair Demona had been in and the sound of the shower going and Vader-esque breathing coming from the bathroom.
Mairin Moran	Mairin hurries back as fast as she can, but carrying a beanbag chair and enough rice to fill it is not an easy task. In fact, she's had to resort to using a dozen mini-bots to help her, drawing more than a few stares even in NYC.     She finally heaves everything into her appartment, then immediatly start to set it up. Not an easy task either, but she sets to it with grim focus and determination.     When it's finally done, a sweat soaked and exhausted Mairin knocks softly on the bathroom door. "Demona? I have it," she calls out just loud enough to be heard.
Susan Sullivan	As she knocks, the door creaks open revealing a panting, heaving Demona gasping for breath, fully clothed, in the shower. She raises her head to look toward Mairin, her eyes glassy and old. She looks all around Mairin without actually making eye contact. "Help me," she croaks out weakly.
Mairin Moran	Mairin rushes in, her face a mix of pain, surprise, and fear as she reaches out to put her arms around Demona and pull her from the shower. If she realizes the risk she's putting herself in, she obviously doesn't care.     Heedless of the water or what Demona herself might do to her, she pulls the woman from the shower to the beanbag she's made.
Susan Sullivan	Demona is actually shivering slightly as Mairin pulls her from the cold water. She is heavier than usual as Mairin drags her along the floor. When Mairin plops her onto the rice-filled bean-bag chair, Demona goes from passive to thrashing, letting out the most unholy screams of pain and anguish through her gas mask. Between the cries of anguish, the filters of the gas mask strain as she pulls in air like Kirby.
Mairin Moran	Tears are streaking down Mairin's face, leaving little trails in the grim that's collected there from the sweat. But she doesn't know what else to do. So she just backs away until she hits a bookcase, slides down it, and clutches her knees to her chest as she watches her friend's pain. And weeps.
Susan Sullivan	Soon, there is nothing left to draw out, and Demona's twisted body twitches as the gasps and screams cease. After some time, she simply looks dead as she lies on the rice-filled bag.
Mairin Moran	Mairin waits for a few minutes after the last screams, then scoots forward on the floor over to Demona's motionless body. She gets right up to the bag, reaches up to first touch, then gently hold Demona's hand, and rests her cheeck against it. She's muttering something... but it's soundless. Just lips moving as her scrunched up eyes leak a tear now and then onto her friend's cold skin.
Susan Sullivan	As Mairin's tears fall, Demona's body lays silent for quite some time. It then lifts, as though someone were picking up a ragdoll by the torso. She rolls in the air onto her back as she almost seems to glow. No, she IS glowing! Her whole body shines! It glows brighter and brighter as she is lifted up like a goth angel. Steam pours from her clothing as she is dried, but the mist swirls around her. Her clothes look like someone's shining a flashlight at every point of the inside, and her exposed skin is difficult to look at. Her eyes and mouth open suddenly, her gas mask falling to the bean bag chair beneath her before rolling off and sliding a couple feet away along the floor, and she gasps in breath as a blinding light pours forth from both eyes and her mouth. She is lowered slowly down as the glow begins to subside. Her head is still bald and pale, but her ears are round, and she no longer has fangs protruding from her mouth. Her eyes are brown, not blue.     She stands still for a moment before clutching her chest. "Oh," she says. "Oh," she repeats less than a second later and rhythmically a few more times. "Oh, what is that?" she asks. "Mairin, what happened? What did you do?"
Mairin Moran	What do you do when your dying vampire friend suddenly starts to levitate and glow? Well apparently if you're Mairin you try to pull her back down, then realise the hand you're holding is glowing like a lightbulb and you let go to scramble back a few paces. She's still there, staring and blinking in open-mouthed wonder when Demona finally talks.     "I didn't do anything! Nothing! Just what you asked..." She actually glances over to where the empty bags that once held the rice lie by the trash. As if, yes Mairin, you managed to find some magical rice at the local grocery store.     "What did *you* do?" she asks, suddenly, a few pieces starting to click. "Did you talk to Saeko!?"
Susan Sullivan	"I don't know!" Demona says. "What does Saeko look like?" She looks at her hands and her brows furrow. She steps off of the bean bag chair and wobbles a bit. Moving to the bathroom, she looks into the mirror. Horror, confusion, perplexion, then joy shift her features one after the other. She puts her fingers to her neck, looking for a pulse. She beams a bit. "Mairin!" she calls. She rushes to her friend and grabs Mairin's hand. She pulls it up and pushes Mairin's fingertips against her neck. In her digits, the other woman would feel the subtle and rhythmic shifting that indicated a pulse. A pulse! A real, live pulse! Not only that, but Demona's skin was warm to the touch, something it hadn't been, especially after a cold shower like she'd taken.
Mairin Moran	"What do you mean you don't know?" Mairin assk in confusion, but then Demona is heading to the bathroom again and Mairin is left to walk behind, her mind franticly going over eeverything that Demona said when she first came in.     And then Demona's actual warm hands are pressing her finger to her actual warm pulsing neck, and Mairin's eyes light up like stars. "You're alive!" she screams. "You're alive! Oh god!" And she wraps her friend in the tightest hug she can manage. "Holy... I prayed so hard, Demona," she murmurs and squeezes even tighter.
Susan Sullivan	"Ah!" Demona ahs. She laughs and hugs Mairin back. "Apparently, it worked," she says. "Okay, let me breathe! I haven't done it in a while! I need practice!" As soon as Mairin releases her, she takes some slow, deep, deliberate breaths. She giggles. "Oh, just a little light-headed. Gotta be careful." Her face goes from joyful to serious. She slumps down onto the bean bag chair and pulls out her phone. Her hands trembling, she swallows hard. She unlocks the phone. She seems surprised she only has to try once. The touchscreen works so well for her, now. She takes several deep breaths before she touches on the video call app. "Mairin?" she says, softly. "Could you give me a few minutes?"
Mairin Moran	Of course Mairin lets go, and backs away, giving Demona some space to breath, but her face never stops beaming. Demona has never seen her so happy. Not even when she was explaining Gossamer.     She laughs with her friend, then just watches her as she explores her life. Her returned life? Regained life? It doesn't matter. All that matters is she's human again. Alive again.     And when she asks for a few minutes, Mairin just gives her a huge grin and nods before slipping out of the appartment and into the hall. It's either that or the bathroom and this gives more privacy.
Susan Sullivan	Demona puts her finger against the screen. The screen goes black with a little, bouncing icon as a cheerful music plays. Demona could never remember ever having felt such complex and powerful emotions. The call connects to a shot of a white man from underneath and up-side down. His five o'clock shadow was a mixture of ginger and white. The angle shows plenty of nostril. "I don't want to to talk to a scammer using that account. It's in very poor taste." Demona runs her fingers along the screen of her phone. Tears pour from her eyes as she finds herself unable to speak.     "You make them stop," came a woman's voice off camera. "I don' want to get calls from dead daughter!"     "Daddy?" Demona manages. The man looks down at the phone.     "Susan?" The man frantically grabs at the phone and flips it over.     "What you mean, Susan?" the woman's voice says. A chinese woman in her late fifties ducks around to next to the man. She puts her hands over her mouth.     "Hi, Mom," Susan says. Tears pour from her eyes. "Can I come home?"