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WHO: ERIDAN AMPORA and ZATANNA ZATARA and THEIR VERY UNFORTUNATE GUESTS.
WHERE: a creepy ~~rose red~~ house on the edge of the city.
WHEN: 11/5.
WARNINGS: fakemurder. gore. trauma. misery. mystery!!!
SUMMARY: since eridan spent the entirety of halloween wweepin and eating stale sugar cookies in his basement leah, he and zee throw a belated halloween party!! BAD THINGS HAPPEN.
FORMAT: ANYTHING GOES.

[the house - it's more of a miniature mansion, really, and incredibly creepy - is just far enough from the city's limits to be quiet. sprawling, dark, and eerie; it's kind of like a cross between rose red and dracula's summer home, which is at least half of the reason why it was chosen. maybe two-thirds.

inside the decorations are done up in lush reds and the occasional streaks of violet; the kitchen is full of food and refreshments, the main hall is decked out, the music is pumping, and the hosts will no doubt be more than happy to tell everyone all about how they heard a rumor from a friend of a cousin of the realtor that like a quintuple murder totally happened in the attic or something (or one of them will, at least). rooms beyond the immediate party area (a host of ground level rooms and anything upstairs, basically) haven't exactly been blocked off, but they're also visibly not as touched up and may or may not be haunted.

well, there's a definite risk. the place is creepy as hell.

doors open at eight-thirty (just to spite vriska). get in there!!

(DIRECT QUESTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS RIGHT HURR.) ]

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You can call me Jenny.

[ another little pause as she continues watching him, puffing idly away on her cigarette. at length, a bit unreadably, with a mild tone of voice: ]

Actually, you're just the fucking guy I've been wanting to talk to.

[ nobody ever wants to talk to bradbury, so that's not a good sign, and under his ridiculous floppy jedi hair his brows raise a little, questioning. a little warily: ]

Yeah? What about?

[ she tilts her head up, puffing a few smoke rings towards the ceiling, taking her time before she responds, simply: ]

What you did to Terry.

[ he pauses. the way the question's asked makes him think it's not meant in a good way. but lying's not really his style, so he ends up shrugging and going for the simplest version of the truth possible. ]

He seemed pretty worried he was gonna go nuclear or somethin'. Figured I'd try to help out.

[ there's nothing particularly threatening about her. she's not especially tall for her age, and she doesn't move towards him or raise her voice. she just keeps standing there, leaning against the wall, occasionally exhaling smoke. her answers come leisurely. ]

That's real fucking nice of you, Security Guy. Trying to help a kid out, right?

[ another ring of smoke, which she lifts a hand to wave away. ]

But, hey, let me tell you something. I don't really fucking like the idea of you practically neutering one of my boys. He's fucking dangerous, and that's fine. That's what he is. And giving him a few days of being a normal fucking boy isn't gonna change that shit. It just makes him want to be something he's not.

But maybe you don't give a fuck about that, because you're not gonna have to be fucking be there when his powers come back.

[ even if she's not actually threatening him, bradbury's hackles raise, hair prickly gently. not in fear, exactly, but wariness. the kind of sense that tells you that you better watch the ground you're walking on, because you might just step on a bomb. he takes his time answering, because he's getting out his own pack of cigarettes, tapping one out into his palm as he speaks. his stuff's still in his new outfit, thankfully. ]

'Scuse me for sayin' so, but the way I see it is, it doesn't matter if you like it or not.

[ a shrug, cupping a hand around the cigarette's tip so he can light it. ] Whatever Ward wants to be, or wants to do, that's up to him. Not you, and not me. I think he's smart enough to make up his own damn mind.

[ he exhales, smoke curling out of his mouth. ] And if what he wants is an hour, or a day, to act like he's normal? I can give it to him, so sure, why not? Sometimes you wanna take a walk on the other side, just to see what it's like. Doesn't mean you plan on givin' up what you've got.

But hey, what do I know? I'm just the security guy.

[ she eyes him a long moment, wordlessly smoking at him with something intense in her stare. like maybe she thinks she can see straight through him if she looks at him long enough. she's just a girl, but there's something about her-- a touch of sociopathy, an ambiguous conscience, the potential of the age, or maybe the wisdom of lifetimes past-- something that makes even just her simple steady gaze seem like more.

at length, she looks away, the corners of her mouth quirking up. ]

You're really starting to sound your fucking age, Security Guy. [ she pauses to stick her lighter-- unnecessary with her powers, and mostly for show-- back in her pocket. ] You have kids? You seem like you'd make a good dad.

[ he snorts. it's hard not to feel like he's just hurdled some kind of litmus test; the kid's downright unsettling. with the conversation moving on to a relatively safer topic, though, he lets himself breathe. ]

Yeah, I got two girls. [ that's said with all the quiet pride and love you'd expect from a dad who's totally dopey over his kids. there's a wedding band on his hand that's hard to miss when he brings his hand up to hold his cigarette away from his mouth, and his smile fades a little.

can't be that great a dad if he's not allowed to see his own kids more than one weekend every other week, right? ]

[ she hears that quiet pride in his voice and it makes something subtly soften in her expression-- or maybe it's just the way she turns her head in the dim light. ]

Figured you probably did. You fucking talk like somebody's dad. [ Smoke curls from her mouth as she talks. ] Bet you miss your kids like hell, right?

[ he isn't looking at her anyway, so he misses it, whatever the expression on her face might be. he laughs at her question, though. ]

'course I do. But it's not like I get to see them a lot since my ex got custody, so I'm used to it.

[ of course, that's not exactly true. you can't stop feeling like shit that you're missing the best years of your kid's life, no more than you can stop breathing. ]

[ oh, so that's how it is.

bluntly, simply: ]

That's fucking lame.

Yeah, it sucks.

[ he exhales. really, there's nothing more to say. ]

[ If she was opening up at all before, or entertained, she definitely isn't now. ]

If you're not with your wife anymore, why do you still fucking wear your ring?

[ no one's actually asked him that in a long time, and Bradbury holds his hand out his hand to look at the ring, like he's forgotten it was there. ]

Used to be to remind myself that I fucked up. Now? I dunno. [ he shrugs. ] Never felt like the right time to ditch it.

[ it's inexplicably resentful when she responds, pointedly: ]

Maybe you should keep reminding yourself. 'Cause you know what fucking sucks?

Growing up without your dad.

[ there's too much anger in her voice for it to not be personal, wherever she's drawing it from. bradbury looks at her, really looks at her, then turns his head away. ]

I know. [ simply. ] Mine skipped town after my mom died. Bradbury was her maiden name.

[ if there's hurt that goes with those words, it's well-concealed. he makes it sound pretty matter-of-fact, like it's an old litany already well-worn in his head. ]

Fucking fathers.

[ she says it lowly, in the kind of voice that's hiding a deep, profound love under lingering resentment. ]

If you fucking know, why didn't you try harder?

[ his cigarette's burning to ash, but he hasn't tapped it off yet, staring somewhere inward.

he wonders if this is the kind of girl his daughters might grow up to be. he hopes not, but he remembers how he felt after the hurt of being abandoned faded, his teenage years a mess of anger and acting out he really doesn't like looking back on. ]

You think I didn't? [ quiet, but his shoulders hunch a little, like those words remind him of something else. he didn't want the divorce, and until now, he's not sure if he could have changed anything. if there was anything he could have done differently. ] But you can't force someone else to want you, when they don't.

[ jenny just shakes her head, huffing out gray smoke before she plucks her dwindling cigarette from her mouth, holding it between her index and thumb finger. there's a flash of electric blue light, and the cigarette's gone. who knows if she unmade it entirely or just evaporated it to dust.

she's already reaching for a new cigarette when she speaks: ]

Whatever. It's going to be a century full of bitter fucking daughters anyway.

I think it's too early in the whole deal to say that just yet. [ not that he knows how this century crap works. he tries for a grin, almost managing it, and works on his own cigarette. ]

People thought the world was gonna end this year, right? But it's still standin'.

[ she snaps her fingers to make another blue spark, lighting her fresh cigarette that way. ]

That's 'cause I'm one tough bitch. Daddy issues at its finest.

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