Phone Call #2

Viol
Look. Somebody's calling István. Who knows what name shows up? Not the person calling, and yet that doesn't seem to stop the call from going callcallcallcallcallcallcallcall.
István
Never any idea what one is interrupting when one calls another. Calls are easily ignored things and yet this call does not go ignored. No sounds of chaos or panic in the background. No heavy breathing or crying. Just silence behind him. Perhaps he's in his lab.
"Hallo?" he says. He likes the way that sounds better than the flat nasal American English hello. "This is Stephen."
Stephen. István. Same person.
Viol
[Be cool, Lux.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (4, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Viol
Ambient noise. Let's go with that first. Ambient noise is outdoors, but cut-off; echo-y, like a tunnel. "Hi there, István," Lux says, voice steady if (seething [furious]) something more stiletto-sheathed-in-silk than usual, which is to say: whoa, stiletto. "How are you, darling thing? Is the night treating you well?"
If you're going to ask for a favor, do it properly.
István
"Ah, Lux!"
Doesn't he sound like a thousand-watt bulb there. So happy to hear from her. Happy and surprised and if he's suspicious that isn't something that he picks up over the phone. A sharpness in her tone that catches his attention.
"My gem, I think I have discovered a way to remove the carbon atoms from the surface of a diamond using silica and water, eh? With the vibrations to knock about the water atoms, the oxygen should make a reaction with the carbon to become gas. It will make the exploiting of nitrogen vacancy centres in the diamond..."
Okay, Dr. Virág. Reel it in.
"I do apologize, I did have this revelation last night. Very new, eh? Very exciting." Stilted attempt at American English: "What is up?"
Viol
There is a pause between What is up? and Lux's response. István; he can't see her for to read reactions. Doesn't know what she's doing; doesn't know that she's pinching the bridge of her nose or she has a hand in her hair and she's gripping it, like she's just frozen in a moment of -
well but he doesn't know. So there is a pause between what is up and Lux's response. "Is there a revelation in the world that's not exciting, Isty?" But she doesn't want to talk about revelations or science right now, so instead of just exploring that particular line of nonsense it's: "May I borrow René? Is he working tonight?"
István
Don't ask him rhetorical questions right now Lux you know better.
As for the actual question that needs answering that she may carry on with her favor her initial answer is a thoughtful Hmm. A rustling and then a flipping of pages. He has to orientate himself in time and space.
"What is today now, Thursday?"
Viol
What is tonight? What a good question. Lux's response is silence; distracted silence. Or just silence.
Or maybe a snatch of the old rhyme, "Thursday's child has far to go? I think it just might be, ol' sport."
She could look at her phone to confirm but then she'd have to look at her phone and every time she looks at her phone she just wants to look at that picture of Nathan again.
István
Flip flip.
"Ah, he does work until midnight."
Wait a minute István: she's not asking to borrow a sweater or a book. A sweater he might not care about if she didn't return and a book. Only soulless deviants don't return books they've borrowed from other people but they are creatures with questionable scruples. She's asking to borrow his ghoul.
"Why do you want to borrow René?"
Viol
What a good question.
Lux quietly thinks about how to answer it. And thinks about how to answer it. And thinks about how to answer it. And thinks about how to answer it. And --
István
She interrupted writing-a-white-paper-to-secure-more-funding happy fun time over here at Chez Science. Once he's asked his question nothing comes and nothing comes and nothing comes. She cannot see his eyebrows slowly rise.
"You did hear me, yeah?"
Viol
"A mortal of mine is missing," Lux says. "Got into a spot of trouble, this fella, and I need to find him right now, but he's not answering his fucking phone - he's ignoring it or he's - or I don't fucking know, but he's not answering his phone and he's not at his fucking house and he's not at that shitty fucking bar he frequents and he's not - and I can't call him to me across the city and I can't find him."
Lux sounds: furious. Upset. Furious. Furious!! Upset. Furious. And like perhaps she is going to kill this mortal who isn't answering his phone. Wasn't she supposed to be answering why borrow René, who is a doctor and not a private investigator?
István
Science Hour is abandoned for now. She did not call the most empathetic or caring person in her contact list and yet they have this going for them: he does not just think of her as a person with whom he has long interesting conversations or who makes him think more deeply on matters he didn't know he considered because he never thought about them. After that night they spent in the motel he has begun to feel for her. Not constantly but here and there he will think of her and think of the euphoria he felt.
His logical brain knows that these things are intertwined. That he is not actually in love with her because love is just a concept human beings invented. But he is fond of her. He hears that she is upset and it troubles him.
"Yes, you can find him. Mortals do not vanish with the not answering of their phones. You are wanting that I ask René to give you aid, or you are wanting to talk to René for your own self?"
Viol
Lux knows István is a Tremere. She hasn't told him she's figured it out. Maybe she was always supposed to know, after all. What Lux doesn't know is how the Tremere take to vitae; if she did know, she'd feel just awful: but she'd also be a lot less nervous about asking him for a favor. Nervous: that's not the right word. Lux is too furious, too worried, to be nervous.
She doesn't like asking for important favors. Ony frivolous ones. She hates it. Hates. Hates. Hates fucking hates hates. So there might be an undercurrent of hatred to her furious upset, too. Something more malicious.
"I'd like to -- " a pause. René will just tell István everything anyway, won't he? Hmm. "It's just, you see, darling man, this particular mortal has been known to be hospitalized after trouble before, so I thought ... Perhaps you could have René keep an eye out. And this mortal has a friend who works there as well, so if she suddenly ditches work, if she's working, maybe he could drop a line. See?"
István
It would be too great a leap of logic to conclude that the same woman who is a friend of Lux's mortal is the same young woman who has found out René is a ghoul and had been behaving quite stridently toward him in the week or so leading up to Vex's appearance as a stationary object in the warehouse attic. Only a glimpse of her presented itself in the dark that night and yet István can remember red hair and the two of them running away hand-in-hand.
"Yes, of course, I do see."
He doesn't know how to be a comfort to anyone. Ask René: you have to love him truly to understand that he is not a warm person. That he can behave as a human behaves but only around humans. Only around those he wants to trick. Those he does not wish to trick already know what he is.
Lux has seen him out of costume. Has heard the sounds he makes when he is enraptured. She knows he is not incapable of feeling anything at all.
"When I do speak to himself later, I will ask, yeah? Give to me the mortal's name and what he does look like, yeah? In case he turns up without a name." That's comforting, István. Very good.
Then:
"If I do tell René this mortal has a friend, he will know who is the friend?"
Viol
"Molly's her name," Lux says. "And my mortal," a pause. Lux: "I do not wish to make him drink; I do not wish him to be a servant. I do not fucking wish it; why the fuck - " no. Pause; seethe less. "Now see it's my turn to apologize; I'm a touch overwrought."
István
That tongue-click noise he makes. Not mocking now or distant. It isn't exactly soothing either but it's a noise he knows how to make. He can't say she does sound overwrought. He isn't versed enough in human emotion to sense what she's feeling even over the phone when he has nothing else to go on but her voice.
"No apologies. I think you are allowed to be overwrought so." Dead bodies do not breathe. Bodies dead so long as his has been do not sigh or have to pause very long to gather their thoughts. This one thinks quickly. "Why you do call him your mortal if he is not yours in this way? Hmm?"
Viol
"Because he is mine," Lux says, flatly. "Because I have decided that he is mine and would kill him before I saw him under another's thrall. Because I want to see what he could become; call it my project."
Her fingers leave her hair; maybe Auspex-lofted as István's senses are, he can hear it whispering. The clink of metal as something metal hits metal: chainlink fence, scrape against.
"Is that sufficient, monsieur scientifique?"
István
"No," he says.
Because it's not sufficient. Because he doesn't understand. Without blood a stranger cannot become one's own and István has no family. Did not stick around to see his parents grow old and die and his siblings and his fiancée whom he never did wed. Never had children. Never started nearly two centuries ago.
"But I will not ask you to be explaining it to me tonight. I will call René but my starlight, how is René to know if he does see him if he does not have a name or words to describe him, hmm?"
Viol
"Goody," she says. A discussion topic for later; blood and possession in Kindred society circa 2014. Lux - there's another whisper of a pause. And then she gives István a bare-bones description of Nathan and his name, and then she says, "I owe you again; think about what you want, huh?"
István
"This is nothing for which you will owe me, little one, but I am sure I can come up with something if you do insist on it."
Oh István. You're so smooth.
"When next we meet, eh? Another lesson."
Viol
He cannot see her reaction, so who is to know what it is? There is a tick of a pause, and then, "You're not that tall, István. Go call René, huh? And let me know if - just let me know."
And then: click.