Home Again

[Tony Soloyov]

21? He had forgotten if he had known she was that young. Like everything about the woman, it hard to say. Looking at her smirking face he could see the youthful mischief of a young girl.

And then she would pull a strange question from the air acting for all the world a woman twice her age.

"'Special', eh? I can't remember."
It was sadly the truth. His body was not the only thing affected by whatever had screwed him up. Some things he recalled with perfect clarity, others were simply gone, or cut short like a knife had cut through a section of his memory.

"Is this your clairvoyance shit talking?"
It wasn't an insult, he just had no idea what on earth it was. He'd not heard of that kind of power. Or perhaps he had, and just forgot. "There are a lot of things I care about, but I can't remember ever falling in love."


Reminded of her youth just moments before, Tony smiled softly. "What about you? A young love, perfect and timeless, who rode in on a white horse like a prince and swept your heart away!"
His eyes twinkled. For some reason, he doubted Claire was the type, but he had seen stranger things.

[Claire]

Claire added a few more slivers of ginger to her noodles and stirred it in with the chopsticks. Her clairvoyance was always part of every question, but it just so happened that this one was unrelated. She'd not had any visions since that day in Brooklyn and nothing around Tony's house seemed to radiate any special auras.

Even if he was twenty-one when his world went up in smoke, surely he'd been in love? "Come on? No borrowing someone's car so you can sneak off with her in the middle of the night? No staring deeply into each others eyes? Aren't you guys famous for Russian sonnets and great, passionate love?"


She slurped a noodle that stuck to her chin. "I met the love of my life .. or a new love of my life .. every 6 months or so. They always ended up assholes though. Everyone is, right?"

[Tony Soloyov]

"Ah, now that I do remember,"
Tony said with a smile as sharp as a knife. It wasn't a memory he enjoyed. "I was often infatuated. The things women said when they knew who I was,"
he shook his head. "The things I said, because of my family status."


Tony busied himself with a mouthful of noodles to spare himself the bitter after-taste of his youth. "Ass-holes is right. They days of romance in Russia are over. All I can see is pain and disaster ahead."


Tony clamped his mouth shut on another mouthful. What the hell was he doing? It was fortunate this wasn't a date. His mother would be turning in her grave if she saw him now.

[Claire]

At least Tony remembered that there was stuff he forgot. The hell? Did he have Alzheimer's or something? He wasn't that old.

His pessimism was growing old, though. Claire knew reality was the shit, but there was no point giving up just because they were all going down in flames. "Romance never dies, Tony."
Claire's lips split into a snake of a smile. "Only men."
And women, she thought. But it was a man's job to do the romancing.

She sighed. "Whatever happened to the days of chivalry?"
She didn't expect an answer. Perhaps the women worth chasing were dead too. Herself included.

She looked into his eyes, taking in the pain veiled behind them. "You're dying, aren't you? How long do you have? And why the hell can't you be fixed?"

[Tony Soloyov]

What was this? 'Romance never dies?' From Claire?

Well, it seemed she was softer than she made herself out to be. Or she was bullshitting him. He couldn't quite choose.

Despite his morose mood, the idea of chivalry amused him. "Chivalry is best left in the past when women were sold like cattle and men bludgeoned each other with large sticks. The price of equality, I suppose, but I for one will not miss having to duel to the death for the sake of honour."


A piece of information he had learned from Michael; although he was not sure if he had gotten it correct. He had been down a bottle of vodka at the time and complaining about the lack of decency in the world.

But it was only a mild distraction from the heart of the issue. With a sigh, he decided it wasn't worth avoiding any longer. "Yeah, I am dying. I don't know how long I have, but it is getting worse. This...condition..."
-what the fuck else was it? He had no idea. - "I am in this sorry state because of a mistake. A friend - he's dead now - fucked up experimenting with our power. It left a hole in my mind and body. I don't know if it can be fixed, but I sure as hell can't go to a doctor. Besides, that's not the worst of it,"
he laughed. "I met a man. I bet you'd like him, he's into prophecy and fortune-telling. He told me the world is about to end."
The laughter died on his tongue. "From what I've seen, I believe him."

[Claire]

Claire puffed the sound of disbelief. "Like you'd duel to the death for honor."
But when the topic turned morbid, she was strangely unaffected. Death just didn't hold power over her like it probably should. She feared the process of dying a tortured, painful death, but pondering the moment she ceased her hold on life was not disturbing. She was not particularly religious but her spirit longed for an explanation for things. She'd spent most of her youth bouncing from one religion to another. June's spells and chants was the only one that stuck.

"Eventually the world ends and eventually we all die. There's nothing we can do about either except manage the circumstances of both. I'd prefer to not die a painful death and I'd prefer to hang onto a few normals in the world before it burns up. Maybe nobody can do anything for you, but I can probably track down something we can both enjoy that'll make sure you don't care so much. Interested?"
The legality of such substances still awed her. There were vending machines on every other corner in Moscow.

[Tony Soloyov]

Tony was not exactly surprised at Claire's reaction and subsequent offer, she showed no real interest in helping his projects. Nor did he blame her for it. He had done much the same and worse. His body occasionally still ached for the type of sweet oblivion she offered, but one simple truth kept him from going back.

Tony shook his head with a smile. "I don't need that type of comfort. I have days like today, but I am not afraid of dying."
He laughed. "I may be insane though. You know what made me sober up?"
He paused in sufficiently dramatic fashion. "I got bored. I realized that I will never be content to sit and watch, even if the world is ending. If something is going to happen, I'm going to be in the middle of the damn thing."

[Claire]

Claire's chuckle was morbid - like the sound of crunched leaves underfoot. "If you have to be in the middle of the action, then I am content to sit and watch it burn."
She set the now-empty bowl aside. "But I want the best view in the house."
Her smile twisted into a yawn that made her stretch her arms high overhead.

"I should go shower. Let me know if there's anything I can do."
She shoved out of the seat and rounded the sofa. There was no promise that she'd help in her offer, but she did like to know where she was needed most.


Edited by Claire, Mar 8 2015, 10:05 AM.

[Tony Soloyov]

Tony ate the last of his noodles in amused silence. Claire's nihilism gave a refreshing twist to the whole end-of-the-world thing. An image of the young woman sporting a hangover cursing the bright flames of a city alight crossed his mind.

It might be that he should have been disgusted at her attitude. Her indifference to cataclysm wasn't exactly saint material, and he certainly would have liked it if she wanted to help. Still, who was he to judge? The poor girl had her friends murdered in cold blood by the same people who still sought her life. They did not owe the world anything. Tony had chosen the danger himself, but he did not expect Claire to throw her life away so easily.

"I'll be sure to tell you when we go treasure hunting again. You might find something to go with your accessories. Last time I found a nice diamond that matched my eyes perfectly.
"