Brenna pulled into the not-very-populated parking lot. She was almost perfect, a touch too close to the white line on her right. Oh well. She switched off the radio, then the car, and ventured her first look at Andrei since they got in.

"Here..."

Obviously.

She got out and locked the doors. She notices there's loose gravel on her skirt but does nothing about it. Instead, she turns and walks to the door, entering before him. Another brief journey to the bar where she promptly sits and orders a smirnoff. She will let Andrei get his own drink.

Her shoulders are hunched, her eyes lowered, her arms and legs both crossed. She does not know what to say.

Andrei takes a seat beside her, ordering a beer and watching the bartender walk away to get the drinks.

He pauses.

Hesitates.

Speaks. "Does it... look really creepy? The... healing, I mean." It's been preying on his mind. He knows it has to, he's just never seen in from the outside...

It definitely feels creepy.

((Note: please don't join this rp without asking.))

Brenna is surprised. Her eyebrows raise to show this. She ventures a look over, drumming a set of fingernails on the bar top.

"Yeah.. it kinda does.. it's like.. watching one of those car crash videos backwards.. except with the sound effects. I guess one of the worse things is just how.. automatic.. it is. I dunno... I've never seen anything like it."

She shrugs weakly and accepts the glass, sipping the vodka inside slowly. She had to rather enjoy the burning in her throat and taste in her mouth, unpleasant as it was from first try.

he shivers, just slightly, accepting the beer bottle and just staring at it.

"Automatic... yeah. It'd be better if I could control it."

Looking rather despondant, he takes a sip of the beer and sets it back down on the counter, watching it.

"Your turn." The old question game.

"I dunno."

She repeats, apparently in defense of something.

"My turn? Uh.... what did you think of the movie?"

She takes another drink, quicker this time. Cop out. Easy question. Haha.

He winces, slightly.

"Good movie. I guess it'd be a sorta nostalgia movie if you had a dad."

The sticking point here doesn't seem to be that the movie reminded him of growing up without a father... but rather that she'd chosen to talk about something else again and avoid the real issue. Well, I say 'real'...

Another sip of beer.

"Mmm..."

Brenna has a dad. She does not think her dad would apprecaite the movie. Did Brenna? That's not important. She swirls the vodka and sighs a little.

They should not be doing this. Someone has to drive. Brenna might be considered more ideal. After all, she knows her car and it's unnaturally tempermental disposition. Did Brenna care? No, not at all.

More drink disappeared before she mumbled in a softer, lower voice while blinking heavily at the bar.

".. S'your turn."

She looks at him. Was he ever pale... she wondered if it had yet been so apparent to her. Probably not.

"Kay." He sips the drink again and frowns at it.

"Did you know that when you're drinking alcohol you're really slowly poisoning yourself?" And poison is a form of injury. He shrugs and switches topics-- back to the one he's really interested in.

"Why do you keep avoiding the subject of, well... me?"

"Yeah... but.. hell, I'm not dead yet."

As if to prove her point, Brenna knocks back almonst an entire glass. She chokes a little though and is blinking hard. Everything has numbed, which is just fine. Andrei is blurry and she blinks more.

"Avoidin'.. you..? I'm not avoiding you. We're sitting right here."

She rubs her eyes and finishes that glass.

"Enough.. maybe... one more.. yeeeeah.."

She pours another from the bottle courteously if not stupidly placed down within her reach.

"No, avoiding talking about me."

He finishes the beer, but his speech is barely slurred. Poison is a form of injury...

He waves the bartender down, asks for another beer, and stares intently at Brenna.

"Why would we talk about you? Yer not a girl..."

Didn't all girls talk about other girls in tiny whispered huddles and then giggled? Didn't they? She turned for her bottle again. Gone. Denied. This was bad.

She became to search for it rather frantically. Oh wait, that annoying bartender had taken it. Bastard. He'd taken her money too.

Brenna took a heavy sip and mumbled.

"I think we don' talk about ya 'cause we don' wanna hurt yer feelings."

Surprisingly accurate if not grammatically incorrect. There was really only one Brenna, although she might disagree at the moment.

The second beer arrives, and he opens it and stares at it as he had before, not drinking.

He's managed to get just enough buzz that his instinctive response of 'fuck feelings' has been dulled.

"Yeah, well, s'hurting them more by not talking 'bout it," he says. and takes a sip. "If I even cared, which I don't." Ah, there's the instinctive response... a bit late.

"Is it? Tha's the opposite of what I think, ya know?"

Apparently Brenna's body-neighbors have vacated due to excessive partying. or something. Maybe her spleen was too loud.

"'Cause man, if someone kept wantin' to talk about all that shit, man, I'd be pretty.. man I'd want them to shut the hell up."

Did she just say that? Yeeeah.

"Why don't you? .. Care. I would."

She would do a lot of things too. Like really want to get in the back seat of her car with him. Now. She turns whimpering eyes on Andrei.

Do me... pleeease?

He takes another swig of the beer.

"Fuck, fine, I care. I just," he pauses. Shudders. "Would rather talk about it than let my imagination make words for you..." surprisingly articulate, for him. He turns to her, trying to read her response.

Sees the expression. His brows draw down, not sure he understands.

Brenna paused and thought. This was tough.

"You.. should care.. if it's about you. Yeah.."

This went over her head. Over her intoxicated head.

".... It's nice to talk about you."

She pauses. Less talking, more scrweing. She reached for his arm, leaning in to kiss him on the mouth. Mm.. beer.

"We're not really talking," he says, before the kiss is upon him. Giving a slightly slurred mental shrug, he leans into it, moving his arm around her.

He's gotten more used to her kisses-- knows what to do with them, now.

Brenna toys with the hair on his neck briefly, them pulls back from their embrace.

"Let's go back to my car."

She mumbles, and to keep him from protesting, she takes his lips once more and follows it with a hand on his sleeve.

"Nnn," he murmurs. This seems to be an affirmative. He stands without pulling away from brenna, bending down to continue the kiss. One hand fumbles in his pocket for some cash and he drops it on the counter in payment for the drinks. he's ready to go.

Brenna pulls back again to breathe. She tucked her face as close to his neck as she can, walking out with her hand still grasping his shirt. She ignores the blast of cold air from the unpleasant scenery. She needed something more welcome.

The car. Yes.

She unlocks it. Inside now. She doesn't turn it on. Then she does and opens a window slightly. Much better this way. She slides onto the patchy leather seat and watches Andrei, holding out her hand for him.

Andrei takes her hand and slides into the car after her, finding his way over the lumpy seats.

((Curtain...?))

((*nods* *draws and then fast forwards* *hums* ....))

Brenna turned her head slightly. She felt drunk, a little dizzy, but rather passive for the most part. Tired, too.

She thoughtfully dragged a hand down Andrei's back, then back up and into his hair.

Brenna thought about moving. About driving. Somewhere. She closed her eyes and decided to wait and get Andrei's input, not checking to see if he was even still awake.

"Hmmmmn," he murmurs groggily as she draws her slightly-cold fingers over his skin.

He's still awake, but not by much. He seems content to stay here, not moving for now.

You have to enjoy the times the shadows don't come.

Brenna kisses the top of his head.

"Andrei... we need to move."

It sounded so... unpleasant, this moving. But it would be getting late and although she had no real curfew, her parents would get suspicious more than anything. She continued trailing tiny kisses through his hair, her hand sliding to his lower back.

"Hnn." He makes a noise low in his throat, shifting positions only slightly

"Don't wanna move."

"Neither do I."

She agrees with a tiny sigh. More kissing. She rubs his back as well.

"But we really do."

She counters herself.

"Before someone comes out to see why th' car's been parked here for so long as noticed us..."

She mused over this thought for a little while, fingers walking up and down his spine.

He shivers and pulls away from Brenna, half-heartedly.

"They'd get a nice show," he murmurs, blinking lazily. His lips curl into a half-smile.

She smirks, sitting up a little and groping for her shirt.

"Don't.. need to get arrested.. for improper attire.."

She grunts, not caring to imagine that scene. Then she does and a soft giggle escapes.

"Mmmf," he syas, not moving.

(Muah hah hah hah hah! Now the ball's in your court!))

((Hehe..))

Brenna finds her shirt. Hey, skirt too. That's a plus, right there. She pulls these on as best she can without kicking Andrei or smashing her head into the roof of the car. Then come the boots, she forgets her socks, too tired, too lazy. Boots on. She's mildly straightened up now. Mildly.

She looks at Andrei, saying only.

"'m keepin' th' smokes up front with me."

Or, get up and sit with me.

She opens the car door, stepping back and turning, closing it with her ankle carelessly.

((*bats ball back* Yours.))

((*Is hit in the head* Ahh!))

CRUNCH.

What a horrible noise. And Andrei is awake now.

"Aaaaaarcghfuck!" This is in rather a higher range than would normall be heard, but his fingers were just crushed. Not bleeding, of course... but crushed. Very crushed.

Cars have it in for him tonight...

"Holy shit!"

Brenna, who as already awake, is now also alert. She spins, gulping and her unintentional handiwork and yanking the door open.

"Andrei! Shit, Andrei... fuck.. I am so sorry..."

Not that "sorrys" fix broken bones and capillaries, but she really did mean it. She scrambled up onto the seat beside him, trying to survey the damage and assess which type of medical care was needed. A few well-placed kisses or a stop by the pharmacy for a brace...

The fingers... are hanging by the fibrousness of the skin. One is, anyways, and the others don't really look so good.

No... no, wait...

They're already healing.

Andrei grimaces and pulls his hand away from his girlfriend.

"FUCKthathurts," he says in a rush.

And even as he speaks the fingers are pulling back into alighnment, the split skin closing.

Brenna blinks, eyebrows up, mouth open. Suddenly the prospect of kissing anything on him isn't very appealing. She was about to grab his shoulder, her hand stuck hovering a few inches from him. She's trying not to be sick, but her stomach is rapidly giving way to nausea.

It just wasn't natural... She's never get used to it... never..

That sound was disgusting.

She couldn't look, but then he'd be hurt. That she didn't want to watch him heal? Okay, it wasn't exactly the most delightful thing to watch. Even those T.V. dramas and documentaries on plastic surgery got to her. Queasy like you wouldn't believe.. this was in her face...

She couldn't look away.. she needed to or she's be sick all over him.. couldn't.. really going to be sick...

She screwed her eyes closed, wishing his fingers healed quicker, which sounded laughable in her mind... wanting fingers healing faster.. damn fingers..

The hand, still healing, is shoved into his other armpit-- the traditional place one puts a sore hand, for some inexplicable reason.

"God, Brenna, if you don't wanna look, just don't."

Apparently he's quite good at interpreting expressions-- either that, or his paranoia actually coincided with reality for once.

"It's-"

Not that, darling, I just can't stand seeing you in pain... No..

Not that, dearest, I just can't face the shame of what I have done... No..

Not that, love, I just can't understand why the great gods are so cruel... No..

No, no, no... every single excuse that came into her mind not only blew but blew the big one. Whatever that one was, it was big, and blown away by the pitiful lies she was trying to come up with for why she was struggling with dancing food in her stomach.

"It's so fucking twisted-"

Shit. That was not. the right thing. to say. at all.

She bit her lip and forced herself to take his shoulder. Not the hand-in-arm pit-shoulder but the other one. She pressed in on the bone with her thumb.

"I'm just not used to it, okay...?

Fingers massaged in a circle. She couldn't let him out fo the car or he might get run over by a tractor trailer for all she knew...

Andrei leans back against the seat, not pulling out of her grasp-- which is a good sign.

He winces as a bone cracks back into place painfully, and nods.

"No, it's really fucking twisted," he says, agreeing with her first statement. His voice is low and the slight Russian accent he always carries seems to get thicker.

"But it's better than... better than having been left as a smear on the road," he says bitterly, gesturing inarticulately with his non-healing hand.

"I guess."

He recalls that she doesn't want to talk about the earlier car accident-- that she's thrown up, that she'd practically run away screaming.

Brenna winces in time to the cracking. It just sounded painful. She made a "mmh" noise to indicate she agreed with his agreement with her previous analysis. Brenna closes her eyes, purple and black shadow still quite obvious, and tries not to picture what's going on under his skin. She doesn't move her hand from his shoulder just yet.

A "yugh" sound follows his comment about smearing and the like.

"Shit... yeah.. god.. Andrei, man, I feel like a bitch about.. that whole thing."

She dug the heel of her boot into the back of the driver's seat.

"I... I still don't get how you're... alive.. I mean, I'm glad, don't mistake.. but.. fuck.. I just.. bones just shouldn't bend in those angles.."

She squeezed his shoulder again, feeling the old nausea building back up. The alcohol lazily processing itself through her liver wasn't helping.

He shakes his head, almost pulling away-- but not quite completing the motion.

"They don't bend, they break. Then heal." He obviously agrees that they shouldn't be at those angles.

He pulls his hand out from under his arm and shakes the kinks out, inspecting the knuckles and fingers.

It seems as good as new.

"Yeah... 'course..."

She agreed, nodding somewhat. That what she meant. Bones don't bend, silly, not made of rubber... Hehe.

She watched his hand adn then carefuly extended her own fingers, running them across the skin and feeling for any... she didn't know what. Anything to, she guessed, prove it had once been in eight pieces.

"Does it... I dunno... can you die?"

That one just popped right out. Why the hell was she so curious all of a sudden...?

The hand is absolutely normal.

"I don't know." He doesn't know.

"I don't think so." Nothing has ever given him cause to think he can die. If he could, he'd be dead, wouldn't he? But the car crash hadn't killed him. And being run over hadn't killed him. Being stabbed, shot, and set on fire (not all at the same time) hadn't killed him.

He doesn't know.

And the thoughts chase themselves over hise narrow face.