cold_dry_pieces | |[that boy needs therapy || v o i c e m a i l ]|

[A text might have been more efficient, but Carla disliked the medium. So instead,]

Hello, Mr. Cooper, are you busy?

Not at all.

It wouldn't trouble you if I came by then?

Not at all.

It's 313, Building 11.

All right. I'll find it.

[She's a clever lady like that. With her directions received, she heads out into the sandy streets.

It's been a losing battle over her apartment, things filling up slowly on the north-east side. Unfortunately, her bedroom and all their amenities were skewed to that left most side, leaving her with a closet full of sand and no running water. Inconvenient, but she refuses to present herself as harried by it.

313. Building 11. She knocks and waits patiently.]

[This marks more company in a week than he's had... potentially ever, really, though it's not as if he spends that much time here. Or as though he's the sort to entertain.

But it pays, from time to time, to be friendly and helpful, and Carla-- unlike most of the City-- is interesting to him. Which is certainly worth a drink of water.

She isn't waiting long; he opens the door and steps back to let her in.]

Come on in.

[She inclines her head graciously and slips inside. The first points of interest are usually the same to her, lured towards windows. A habit retained from her days as a dead woman, though she has never paused to analyze its origin. Her hands trails thoughtfully over the things that come into her reach.]

Not bad, hardly any sand at all.

[There isn't all that much to see here. As a matter of course he keeps his space neat, out of habit innocuous; the surfaces hold a few small trinkets, mostly relics from a roommate long ago; a few sculptures, smooth pieces in loose limb shapes, but nothing of significance. No photographs, of course.]

Hopefully it stays that way; I've gotten used to the place. Would you like a drink?

[He means water, of course, since she's made it clear she doesn't care for anything stronger.]

[Her own apartment is sparse, so she doesn't judge the relative emptiness, merely takes note of it. It says something certainly, just not something she finds significant.]

I would. You live here alone?

I had a roommate, he left... more than a year ago, I guess.

[He's already headed towards the kitchen, calling over his shoulder.]

I haven't met anyone who wouldn't drive me crazy to live with.

No?

[She had felt much the same way before she met Blonde, so she isn't arguing that. Her only curiosity is,]

Saya mentioned you specifically as a friend. Cohabitation would be too far?

I don't think she's interested in leaving the Warehouse.

[Coming back, he offers her the glass. Clean water, no sand.]

I spend the night from time to time.

[No sand. That has been a rare treat this past week, and it's only getting worse. Carla hesitates for a moment before taking that glass, glancing around for somewhere to set it. She doesn't trust herself to have it in her hands, they were too prone to fits of shaking; nerve damage left after the bullet that took her life. When she does reach out, it's with both hands, cupping it protectively.]

And you've gotten used to this place. [She fills that in from his own narrative.]

She has my roommate cleaning engines overtime.

[He nods. There's more to it than that-- though with Saya, like with his last roommate, there wouldn't be much concern of being found out-- but essentially he likes his space. Maybe Carla would relate to the need to control his space.]

She's meticulous about her machines, I can't say I'm surprised.

[Carla would understand that, yes. She considered the entirety of the shared apartment to be hers, went wherever she wanted inside of it, kept it orderly to her specifications. Her bedroom, however, was closed off to the other resident unless she was there to invite him.]

I never really took an interest, in mechanical works. [She looks down quietly, considering the cool glass held tightly in her hands. She moves quietly to set it down on a counter top.] I think I'm jealous now.

[They may have wandered into Saya's cars, but she means his prosthetics as well.]

I've always thought of myself as more of an artist than a mechanic, but I'm not sure there's necessarily a difference.

[He leans against the wall, noting how carefully she holds the glass.]

I like the predictable ways things fit together and work. My last roommate was a clockmaker.

[It's probably, he'd reason, some trace of obsessive-compulsion common to people who don't quite work as people. The same thing that makes him a neat freak. Survival habits, maybe.]

[It makes her feel a little sick to consider the artistry of it, makes the bandaged damage on her throat pique and burn, but she can't precisely deny the sentiment, nor her appreciation of it. Carla puts her hands down, palms flat on either side of the glass.]

I used to live with an artist.

[No. She hadn't been living.]

[It doesn't come as a surprise to him, and if he had to risk a guess he'd say the artist she lived with was probably of his stripe, based on everything she's said about the company of liars and artists. Whether that's good or bad is debatable; it's potentially useful.]

What sort?

[Her hands curl, normally it would be a painful gesture, letting her nails bite at her palms, but her nails had been shorn from her.]

He was interested in... bodies. [She lifts one of her hand to give a vague little gesture.] The 'perfect machine' and all its imperfections.

[There's a wry denigration on her lips when she murmurs,]

He would say I was too perfect to be beautiful.

[So he had ruined her.]

[His gaze moves from her face to her hands and back, a slight twitch at his lip. Too perfect to be beautiful is a sentiment that makes very little sense to him, though the urge to create through destruction is certainly one he knows all too well. Imperfections, though... As interesting as he may find them, from case to case, artistically it's a turnoff.

He steps closer.]

Foolish.

[She wears an unhappy smile turning to look at him, tense and unfortunate. Barbet was a fool, a selfish fool unable to see past his own nose.]

You wouldn't have liked him, no.

[Snappish and arrogant, small-minded and cruel. She had always loved those things about him, the lack of apology. Perhaps, in some ways, she understood perfectly well what he meant by the ugliness of perfection. Her face may have been pretty, but she and Barbet would always be gloriously ugly together.]

But you did.

[It's not quite a question. Why people stay in that sort of situation, he doesn't understand, but it's nothing new. He's always interested in the work of others, not always their methods, certainly not their personal lives.]

Was his work that good?

[There's a heavy note of sarcasm, even if the question's for show.]

[His sarcasm is heavy and her response is idle, throwaway, avoiding eye contact while she composes herself.]

The best.

[He'd cleaned up that bullet wound in her forehead quite remarkably. It's not all that subtle when she pushes the topic away from herself, but she wouldn't try to claim otherwise. It was her own fault, anyway. Barbet was never far from her mind, he didn't need her breath as well.]

Have you missed the clockmaker?

[He shrugs.]

We didn't know each other all that well.

[It's not true, exactly; Gabriel had known him better than he liked; Brian knew the two of them had been much closer during his previous stay, but all those memories were lost.]

Though it was nice getting to split the rent.

[She misses when it was that easy. When she was able to let go of things without a sense of panic and despair. She's already concerned about what the sand is doing to her apartment, she can barely imagine how hard it would be if Blonde weren't there.]

I'm sure you don't have trouble with the rent.

[She runs her fingertip along the rim of her glass before she goes to lift it up again. She is... not entirely surprised when it escapes her and breaks, but that doesn't stop her from wincing.

She misses when things were easy.]

I'll get it...

[She's positive she can find a towel somewhere in that kitchen.]

Not really,

[he manages, before the glass drops. It doesn't make him flinch-- not that he expected it but he's tough to startle, though the set of his lips is faintly disapproving. After all, he abhors a mess.]

By the stove.

[Though he bends to pick up the larger pieces barehanded.]

[Carla returns to crouch down across from her, daubing up water and brushing smaller particles of glass onto the cloth. She's quiet, irritated with herself, though that is nothing new. She holds out her hands with the towel stretched between them to take the pieces he has, hands still unsteady, but she is well aware she's already done plenty to make that apparent.]

[He sets them on the towel, careful not to cut himself and to place them so they won't roll.]

I can vacuum the rest later.

[With a reassuring, slight smile, he takes the towel from her up-stretched hands, folding it into a bundle to carry to the trash, shaking out the shards and leaving the towel hanging on the edge of the bin.]

Nerve damage?

[Rude to ask, maybe, but under the circumstances he's confident he can get away with that.]

[He can, there's only so much running and hiding she will do about it, but it does not stop her grimacing somewhat.]

Yes. It's an old injury.

[She pushes back to her feet slowly, wringing her hands as she straightens up. She stops when she notices she's doing it.]

I'd better go. I think I've dropped my pretense.

[A brittle joke, and she doesn't quite smile.]

[Less embarrassment than he might have expected, but of course if it's bad enough she can't do much to hide it. Repeated honesty tends to dull the edge.]

If you'd rather. I've probably got a bottle, if you still need water?

[She's been humiliated by it every day, for years. It is most certainly dulled and is, perhaps, the least of her frailties.]

My roommate wouldn't complain.

[Pushing the topic back off of herself again.]

I wouldn't be much of a host if I let you leave without what you came for.

[So he's rummaging for a plastic bottle to fill, watching her only out of the corner of his eye.]

[One of her hands finds its way to the crook of her neck, fingers curled loosely. A generically insecure gesture, and she ignores the deeper compulsion beneath it.]

Somehow I doubt your merits as a host worry you much either.

I pride myself on my hospitality.

[With a joking tone, though it's rather a private joke. After a minute more he brings her a soda bottle, label torn off and filled with water.]

[Carla gives him a thoughtful look for that. There is something about him that makes her anxious. It may be what she perceives to be overlaps with Barbet, traits which in turn make her hopelessly curious.]

I won't give you a bad review, don't worry.

[She accepts the bottle carefully, determined to at least leave with most of her fragile dignity.]

Glad to hear that.

[If he was really polite he'd have given her a bag, but well.]

Any time.

☎	v o i c e m a i l
☏	t e x t m e s s a g e
✍	m a i l b o x
♟	a c t i o n

|[that boy needs therapy || v o i c e m a i l ]|

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