Vigilantes
 Smiley Specialist
he's big enough
Posts: 164
Preferred Name: Nama
Character Profile: ♦♦♦
Character Name: Levenin Refure
Main Account: Levenin
Status: On Hiatus
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Post by Levenin on Mar 4, 2016 4:34:34 GMT -5
Lev tried to wink back at her, only for him to remember he couldn’t close one at a time and instead looked like his entire face was twitching uncontrollably. Instead, after a double thumbs up, he put up his dukes for more. For a minute or two, it went well. His fears on the punches being too much faded with each block and they didn’t even hurt aside from when they hit the occasional tender spot underneath the bandages. Levenin thought about punching back, until a surprise hook came for him that put an end to that idea.
He saw it coming— the way Ellie had smirked and the slight shift in her stance as the split second decision was made. Unfortunately, a second too soon for him to react. Levenin didn’t even have the time to scream for her to wait. From his non-dominant side came her fist square into his face.
The man stood there motionless for a moment, silent as a mouse. The throbbing pain settled in once he became aware that his nose was bleeding.
”Ehhhhhhhhh!!”
Immediately, Lev pulled up his shirt to staunch the flow. ”You said you weren’t gonna punch too hard! Why’d it have to be my face?!”
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Will Punch Your Butthole
Posts: 114
Preferred Name: Donut
Pronouns: Her/She
Character Name: Ellie 'Evrika' Waters
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Post by Ellie on Mar 10, 2016 11:27:44 GMT -5
"It wasn't even that hard!" she defended on instinct. It really wasn't; if she'd really hit him his nose would be shattered not just bleeding. "I called it out! You were supposed to block, you stupid--" okay so he was kind of bleeding a lot. That shirt was ruined--goodbye chance of ever calling the girl that had left it back. She grabbed the bottom of the shirt and lifted it up so he could press it to his nose to staunch the bleeding.
She ran to her bathroom to grab a towel that already had old bloodstains on it--a girl with her number of scars didn't get by without some designated 'bleed on this' stuff. "Come over here and bleed into the sink. Don't tilt your head back, it'll just go down your throat and make you sick." Lev probably knew that, he was a doctor after all, but still she found herself fretting over him. It wasn't that she felt bad, of course not, but she wagered she'd had more bloodied noses in her life than him. "God, what am I gonna do with you?"
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Vigilantes
Smiley Specialist
he's big enough
Posts: 164
Preferred Name: Nama
Character Profile: ♦♦♦
Character Name: Levenin Refure
Main Account: Levenin
Status: On Hiatus
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Post by Levenin on Mar 10, 2016 20:33:24 GMT -5
”No no, don’t touch it. I-I got it.”
Levenin appreciated her willingness to help, truly he did. But right now, he couldn’t bear to be touched. All he could focus on was the increasing throbbing in his nostrils and estimating how much cartilage had been blown apart by her knuckles. He followed Ellie to the bathroom, too impatient to wait for something else to plug up his nose with. He leaned over the sink before being prompted to, grimacing as the flow of blood dripped down his lips before hitting the dull porcelain.
”I don’t wanna do this anymore,” he said, trying to hang his head lower to keep it off of his face before groping around for something to wipe with. ”I told you I wasn’t any good at this. Just let it go.”
This wasn’t even his shirt or his house, and yet his blood was everywhere. It was a hazard, disgusting, all over his hands and now her bathroom. Lev couldn’t even handle a simple punch. Whatever Ellie was expecting out of him was far beyond his capabilities.
”I’m sorry. I wasted your time and… I’ll find some other way to be useful, I promise. I just can’t do… this.”
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Will Punch Your Butthole
Posts: 114
Preferred Name: Donut
Pronouns: Her/She
Character Name: Ellie 'Evrika' Waters
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Post by Ellie on Mar 17, 2016 10:00:24 GMT -5
"This isn't--" her voice caught in her throat and she had to swallow around the lump it left in its wake. "You're already useful." she insisted even as the admission had her neck heating up. To give her an excuse not to look at him, she focused instead on turning on her sink tap and pushing the towel into his hand. He was useful, even though he was a hapless moron that'd get himself killed if someone said please; he treated her injuries, listened for information at his clinic, and it was a relief to have a look out and be a helping hand when doing jobs. That's not why she was teaching him how to fight; any idea that he'd be a real asset while fighting had been a fleeting fantasy.
"I'm not--I can't always be around to protect you. And if something happens to me..." her hand absently moved to touch the scar that cut across the base of her throat, just one of the many times she had almost died in their line of work. It ached somewhere deep in her chest to think of Lev in that position; lying cold and bleeding out on the floor. The feeling was sharper after last night. He was a bigger part of her heart than she'd thought; maybe she'd forced all of the love she couldn't let herself feel for that little blonde girl to him. Maybe she'd always felt this way and last night had just left her raw enough to actually feel it consciously. "You need to be able to protect yourself, if something happens. That's what this is about."
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Vigilantes
Smiley Specialist
he's big enough
Posts: 164
Preferred Name: Nama
Character Profile: ♦♦♦
Character Name: Levenin Refure
Main Account: Levenin
Status: On Hiatus
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Post by Levenin on Mar 21, 2016 2:40:21 GMT -5
”I’m fine, I'm fine, I’m fine…”
He kept saying it to her, maybe more to himself. Levenin wanted to believe it, though the more he said those words, the more he knew his mind would stubbornly fight them. It was like he was allergic to any kind of positivity. “Useful”— Ellie didn’t take that as truth either. It was something comforting to tell him, because it was the easiest way to get him to do something. Yelling could only go so far.
Levenin pushed away her attempts to help him, instead rubbing his nose all over the back of his hand and wincing at the tenderness. He dug through the medicine cabinet just above her sink, only to see it barren save for a few painkillers and adhesive bandages for small cuts. Of course. This was why he was the medic— because Ellie didn’t even have real food so why would she have anything for injuries? Lev paced back and forth from the sink to the threshold to the bathroom. He was trying to think, wondering how to help himself without his usual arsenal of supplies. He felt so helpless.
”I’ve done plenty of dangerous stuff before on my own. I’ll be fine,” he said again, finally swiping the towel from her hands and stopping the flow. ”If anything happens to me, it’d probably be my fault anyway.”
Lev came to a halt, willing himself not to cry again in front of her. Ellie was already a bodyguard, a babysitter. She was already wasting so much time on him with some false hope he was worth something besides stitching cuts and applying Novigel.
”I’m sorry. I’m just gonna… go home. Call me if you find another job and I’ll make time for it.”
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Will Punch Your Butthole
Posts: 114
Preferred Name: Donut
Pronouns: Her/She
Character Name: Ellie 'Evrika' Waters
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Post by Ellie on Mar 21, 2016 12:19:02 GMT -5
Her fingers twitched as he continued to refuse her help. Instinct told her to be angry but instead she felt a stab of fearful paranoia. He didn't think she could help, if the distainful way he was looking at her largely empty medicine cabinet was any indiction. Her only use was violence after all. Like a rabid dog on a chain. And she liked violence, liked being a force to be feared, but as always her parents left her wishing she was more than she was. She couldn't even help with a bloody nose for fuck's sake.
"I don't want anything to happen to you." she tried, scratching nervously at the scar on her cheek. "I want you to be safe and-and not just because you stitch me up sometimes. What we do--what I do-- it's going to kill me one day. And I've accepted that, I have, but if I can keep it from killing you then...then that's better." Because the world needed him more than her. Needed doctors that actually gave a damn more than rabid dogs.
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Vigilantes
Smiley Specialist
he's big enough
Posts: 164
Preferred Name: Nama
Character Profile: ♦♦♦
Character Name: Levenin Refure
Main Account: Levenin
Status: On Hiatus
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Post by Levenin on Mar 22, 2016 1:44:55 GMT -5
”Stop talking like that!”
Levenin was suddenly angry, though he didn’t know why. It was as if a switch was flipped and now he was on the complete opposite side of the spectrum from what’d he’d been feeling a few seconds ago. The towel was thrown just past Ellie’s feet in a show of frustration, and it was all he could do to keep his temper from escalating further than that. Not that she had much else to throw around in here besides the blood-stained cloth.
”Don’t talk like that. You always do it. Why does the future always have to be so…?”
Hopeless? Depressing? The proper word escaped him. Levenin couldn’t remember last night’s drunken conversation in clear detail, but it was always the same whenever they had a serious discussion. Outside of the reprimands and playful sarcastic remarks, Ellie never had a positive outlook on what was to come. Maybe what she hoped for in the end was “better for everyone” but at the cost of herself— her very mind, soul, and body. He realized then, looking at her with arms and hands shaking, that their goals didn’t match up. They never had.
And he really didn’t care for her dream. Lev hated it.
“Nothing’s going to happen to us,” he choked out. ”We’re gonna be fine. We don’t have to do anything. We’ll just quit, right now. You don’t have to get hurt and I won’t have to go home anymore. No more bandages or fighting. Because you’re worth more than some stupid ambition for tearing down the city. Stop worrying about me and… Let’s just forget any of this happened. If you die, then I don’t have anywhere else to go… So you can’t leave. Don’t even talk about that, okay?”
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Will Punch Your Butthole
Posts: 114
Preferred Name: Donut
Pronouns: Her/She
Character Name: Ellie 'Evrika' Waters
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Post by Ellie on Mar 26, 2016 21:11:39 GMT -5
She took a step back in surprise at his anger, shoulders squaring in preparation of a confrontation. He didn't do more than throw the towel but it still put her on edge. He was upset and not for the first time was she made aware that he didn't share her ambitions. This was just the first time he'd gotten angry about it. A hot wave washed over her as the full implications settled in.
"We're not fucking children, Lev." Her tone was hard and clipped, much different from how she'd been speaking with him before. "We can't just close our eyes and pretend everything is fine. I can't, and I won't. I know what I am, Lev. Despite every way they tried to bend me, to break me, I'm me." She slapped a hand hard against the center of her own chest, "I'm a murderer. A thief. A Vigilante. And I won't quit until it kills me."
Making an aggravated noise, she pushed past him to make for the living room. She was shaking with barely suppressed anger. "Quit if you want, I don't care. But this--this is mine. It's who I am." Her work was the driving force behind her life; she'd have died without it years ago. "You're my friend, Lev. Maybe the only one I've ever had. But I swear, if you try to..." she could finish the threat, her throat tightening, "You can quit, you can stay here. Do whatever you want. Just don't try to make me something that I'm not."
She'd never let anyone do that to her again. Not even Lev.
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Vigilantes
Smiley Specialist
he's big enough
Posts: 164
Preferred Name: Nama
Character Profile: ♦♦♦
Character Name: Levenin Refure
Main Account: Levenin
Status: On Hiatus
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Post by Levenin on Mar 27, 2016 2:02:08 GMT -5
In all of the time they’d known one another, Levenin was no stranger to being on the receiving end of her wrath. Sometimes it almost seemed as if breathing was enough for Ellie to grab him by the shoulders and give him a good shaking. And for the majority of those cases, Lev would’ve agreed he deserved them. Even now he did, having snapped at her like he did. But at least this time around, he wouldn’t back off or cower in fear. The man didn’t know why but something inside of him demanded he push this argument. Ellie wouldn’t listen. He knew her. He’d only make her angry. But Lev had to try to reason with her.
”Why not pretend everything is fine?! It’s better than thinking everything is horrible and corrupt! I'd rather live in a world where I can at least think I have it good instead of one where I'm always on the bottom! Besides, you didn’t have to do any of those things! Neither of us did! Nobody made you do or be anything!”
Levenin braced himself as she brushed past, continuing on once the threat of a physical confrontation left with her. Every last muscle in his body wanted to throw him into the bathroom and slam the door tight, to hide away where he usually did in these situations.
”I don’t understand this… I don’t wanna kill anyone. I’m sick of getting hurt and sick of hurting other people. Do the means really justify the end for you? Is this who you really are? I know you don’t wanna do any of this. And I don’t either. There’s… There’s just nothing wrong with the way things are. And if there is, maybe it’s everyone else’s fault. Some people just deserve it, you know? Do you really think I deserve any better than this when you can't even think the same for yourself?! I don't wanna live in the world you want! I'd never have a chance!”
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Will Punch Your Butthole
Posts: 114
Preferred Name: Donut
Pronouns: Her/She
Character Name: Ellie 'Evrika' Waters
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Post by Ellie on Mar 27, 2016 20:54:12 GMT -5
"Because it's not fine!" she yelled back. "People, good people, suffer every day because some bullshit test says they're worth less than someone else! Children starve and disappear and no one cares unless they have parents that 'matter'! The high class is built on the broken backs of the ones below and I can't--I can't just pretend to make my life easy!" she was getting worked up, pacing the living room and clenching and unclenching her fists.
"I was almost one of them! I could have been--I'm not what they wanted but I could've been. They didn't deserve that and I didn't want it. People like them, like my parents and their fucking legacies--it's not right!" she looked at him, good eye full of fire. "I want what I am--what they did to me to have meaning. You have no idea what they did, what their kind is capable of."This fight, her dreams and ambitions, all of it was bigger than either of them. Bigger than just one or even a hundred people. And she believed in it, put her whole heart into it. "I want to go out knowing that I was more than what I am. Maybe because of me some kid won't starve or--maybe they'll be better off." She went quiet for a moment, nails biting into her palms. "This isn't about what I deserve. Or even you. I think you could survive it if you really wanted to. I want you to, because you're a good person. You don't want to hurt people. And I don't want to do what I don't but I don't feel bad about it either. I never really have."She looked down at her hands and the small scars across the knuckles. "Even anger against injustice makes the voice grow harsh. Alas, we who wished to lay the foundations of kindness could not ourselves be kind. But you, when at last it comes to pass that man can help his fellow man, do not judge us too harshly." She recited from the recesses of her memory as she remembered how exactly her hands looked when soaked in blood.
Ellie is quoting "To Prosperity" by Bertolt Brecht
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