savetheearth | [Private: Brooke

[oh, that's new. what a fancy feature, this private messaging thing. Brooke's at work again when she notices the message on her computer.]

It usually just goes down the drain. This is a little private for just professional curiosity, so... what's up?

[should he tell her or not...?]

[fuck it, might as well be honest.]

It seems my roommate is slowly turning into a vampire.

I need to find a supply of blood on very short notice.

[a week ago she would have laughed in his text-face. since then she's met a ghost, run away from a giant purple scorpion, and applied makeup to somebody she's pretty sure was turning into a zombie. still, her response takes a minute.]

If my boss catches me, I won't be able to lie my way out of it. I guess I'll just have to be really careful. How short notice are we talking? I don't have any on hand, but I can start collecting it tonight.

[it's okay, he hardly believes it himself. if not for the fact that he just knocked his roommate out with a frying pan to defend himself, he would probably still not buy it.]

I am sorry to ask it of you.

He tried to bite me about twenty minutes ago, so as soon as possible.

Oh, wow. I'll get you something as soon as I can. I know I have to prepare a new decedent. I'll try to get to them before anyone else does. Were you going to come here? Or is it safer to stay there and keep an eye on your roommate?

[...... the cats ................]

[he'll...lock them in his room for a bit, it'll be fine.]

[it'll be fine.]

I will come there. That seems best.

Okay. Here's the address. I'll be in in a couple of hours, and if I get to the body first, it won't take too long to finish draining. Maybe go see a movie or something and by the time it's done, I should have the blood for you.

[she gives Ravi the address.]

This is easily one of the weirdest things I've ever done.

I can't thank you enough.

[HE FEELS REALLY BAD ABOUT ASKING HER TO DO THIS. He is so so sorry, Brooke.]

If it doesn't go according to plan, let me know.

Don't worry about it. It's not totally what I expected with this job, but it's helping people. That's the important part. If something goes wrong, I'll keep you in the loop.

[there is a lot of fretting while he waits for those few hours to pass. he skips out on the movie idea, it's too passive and he'll just end up feeling restless through the whole thing. he tidies up the apartment instead, cleans out the fridge, has a cigarette (can't even relax for that because he's wary about that swarm of grues), plays with the cats, checks on Alex a few times, checks the clock every five minutes, digs out that one book he was working on and tries to get some reading in...]

[By the time two hours have finally passed, he's pretty eager to leave.]

[his car's in the shop for some minor body repair after that collision with Fred, so he's got a rental for the moment. it's just not the saaaame, but it is capable of getting him from point A to point B, so he makes it to the designated address with no issue]

[and then realizes he's not sure whether she wanted him to just go in or meet him around back or...what... so he sends a follow-up text to her using her network number instead of a phone number: "Where should I meet you?"]

[in the intervening time, Brooke's cleaned herself up a little and gotten into work, and she only spent a little bit of that time wondering how exactly she was going to smuggle blood out of the embalming room. is... is a ziploc bag classy enough? does she even need to worry about being classy? wow, this is intense. she'd decided on a ziploc bag, sure enough, and as soon as she got to work, headed down to the embalming room to work on the new decedent.]

[fortunately, people tended to leave her alone down there—though it had been a little difficult to smuggle in a plastic bag, and even harder to keep it concealed under her scrubs once she'd finished treating the body. knowing time was of the essence, she'd called in a newer employee to finish up the cosmetic treatments and retreated to her "office", where she'd logged on to the network to try to get the attention of her... client? friend. person.]

[her response comes pretty quickly after that. "There's a door down the alley that opens into the crematorium. Shave and a haircut." and with that, she heads to aforementioned door, bag of blood nonhermetically, unhygenically sealed. it feels shady. wrong, kind of. that she's doing the business in an alleyway doesn't help. she'll... probably get used to it.]

[oh, an alley. good, this was almost starting to feel like legitimate business.]

[WHAT HAS HIS LIFE BECOME.]

[he decides to park somewhere reasonably close to the mortuary but not the mortuary itself, and walks back to find the alley in question. he hesitates in front of the door, not sure what to expect. is this even the right door? what if it's not? what if it is the wrong door entirely and whoever's behind it gets pissed that he's not whoever they were expecting and oh god no he needs to stop thinking about this right now.]

[deep breath, he moves to knock and then remembers she gave him a code, stops to mentally re-adjust, and then (somewhat haltingly) knocks in the designated pattern.]

[obligingly (and obligatorily), Brooke finishes the rhythm before she opens the door. she's out of the scrubs and mask she'd been wearing during the embalming and has a modest button-down white shirt/black tie/grey skirt combo going on instead. she's carrying the blood semi-openly, like she doesn't know what to do with it. even through her smile she probably comes off as... uncomfortable. it's definitely how she feels, and not just because she's surprised to find herself looking slightly downwards towards her guest.]

Surya! Does this feel about as sketchy to you as it does to me?

[For his part, Ravi is dressed simply in jeans and a t-shirt. It's not even a visually interesting t-shirt, it's just plain black.]

[he is not surprised that she's taller than him. he has been short all his life; he's learned to expect that.]

[he tries to give her a polite smile but it's pretty uncomfortable too. he won't even make eye contact with her. (this is normal.) he fidgets, rubbing his arm, trying not to look at the bag of blood and failing miserably.]

It feels very sketchy, yes. [he tries to put a touch of humour in there, but is not sure he succeeded.]

Off the network, you can call me Ravindra.

[hey, it gets a laugh out of her. a small one, like a mutual acknowledgement that this is shady as hell, but a laugh all the same. that's probably the reason he's acting so strange, too. she definitely can't blame him.]

Ravindra it is. I should've come up with a pseudonym, but... well, whatever. Barn door, horse, all that stuff. [she offers the bag of blood to him—not exactly happily, but it'd be a far cry to call it a businesslike gesture.]

I just hope this works for you. The decedent didn't have any blood-borne diseases, but I don't think anyone's tried something like this since the USSR in the 30s. Not a whole lot of current research on it. [she pauses.] Not a lot of current research on your roommate's condition, either, so I guess it works out.

[he starts to reach out for it, hesitates, then takes it. he looks at least mildly squeamish about it. this is very different from handling corpses or blood packs in the hospital. this is blood, drained from a dead person, without permission from the family or deceased, to be fed to his best friend.]

[this is so many different kinds of not okay.]

[he lowers the bag of blood and looks up at her. still no eye contact, though.] Thank you.

If it doesn't work, then...we'll see, I guess. [that is a very awkward and uncomfortable thought, and is followed by a very awkward and uncomfortable pause.]

If I need this favour again, I will try not to make it so short notice.

[it might be slightly illegal, what they're doing—no, no need to implicate anyone else in this, it's all Brooke—but it's technically for the greater good. it's keeping people safe and making people more comfortable with the circumstances of their lives. it's basically her job, just framed differently.]

[that's what she's telling herself, anyway.]

I've done jobs on way shorter notice than this. [she smiles, deliberately sidestepping the point.] It's nothing. As long as it helps, I'm happy to do it. Keep me in the loop, okay?

[she's ignoring that it could mean an advance or two in the medical community, if they can get past the "vampires are real" part.]

[nope he'll take a share of the blame here. because if he hadn't been able to get it from Brooke, he would've ended up stealing some blood packs from the hospital.]

[hell, he may still have to do that sometime in the future. HE REALLY HOPES NOT.]

I will. Thank you, you are very kind. [if that sounds a little bit rote, that's because he's practised it as a default reply to certain situations where he would otherwise not know what to say.]

Do you mind if I tell him? My roommate. So he can ask himself when he needs it again.

I don't mind at all. It would probably be easier, in the long run. [she lets the "for both of us" part remain unsaid and smiles again, smaller and more graciously this time.]

I'd do this for anyone, provided they're not going to use it to take over the world. It's more or less my job. Don't worry about it.

[that gets a raised eyebrow.]

More or less? [yeah he doesn't quite buy that, it sounds like something she's telling herself to convince herself she is totally okay with this when she's not actually.]

[he knows because he does the same shit.]

...In that right now it's more less of my job. [ooh, he's clever. or she's obvious. either way, Brooke looks and sounds sheepish to admit it.]

I didn't expect this is how I'd be helping people when I started studying mortuary science, but... [she dithers on how she should be reacting to this. whatever "this" is. this entire situation, probably.] I'm helping people. I'm helping you not get killed, and I'm helping your roommate not die.

[she lets out a tiny sigh. she's in way over her head and she knows it. she's even avoiding looking at Ravi now.]

At the end of the day, if somebody feels better about the things that happened that they can't control, I say that I've done my job.

[he considers that for a moment. the first bit is probably the most interesting, studying mortuary science to help people. most people don't look at it from that angle, but he can see it. unlike nurses, the people morticians are helping are not the people they work on--it's their loved ones.]

[he does his work because he wants to help people, too. he'll even do shit he's technically not supposed to if he knows it'll help.]

[so he understands where she's coming from. he offers her a smile, soft and speaking to a sort of shared understanding.]

I don't think this is in your scope of practice. [that is definitely a joke]

[Brooke laughs readily, closer to a sigh of relief than anything else. a smile soon appears on her face again.]

It's definitely not. But I'm a fast learner. Well. [she finally works up the nerve to look at Ravi again.] I'm a learner, anyway. Thanks for understanding where I'm coming from. I really hope this works out for both of you.

[deep breath. he is not excited about 'this', the thing that they are hoping works out.] I hope so too.

[he takes a step back, a sign of disengaging and preparing to leave] Thank you again. The next time we meet I hope is under better circumstances.

[Brooke's own posture relaxes; she doesn't step back from the door, but she looks ready to.]

You seem like a pretty cool guy. I'm looking forward to those better circumstances. I'll see you on the network, then?

[that's rhetorical. of course she will. her expression turns genuine, happy to have helped—or at least, to have gotten one step closer to helping.]

[Private: Brooke | text]

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