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Here is what you need to know about Ava:

+ She's a brunette.

+ She kills people for fun and profit.

+ She has taken two showers today to diminish the potential lingering eau de hell, although she figures she's got to smell primarily of dusty files at the end of a long day at the office.

+ She's sitting on a couch in her sweats and purple sweater, clown nose necklace in evidence, and leafing with interest through a dusty and sinister-looking tome on demonology (next to a Feb/Mar 2008 issue of Cosmo).

[ooc: paper-writing and therefore slow-- spring break is just around the corner though!]

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Even:

"Do you feel safe around me?"

Ava looks her over.

The easy lie is a chipper sure, why not! but she gets the feeling that if she says that, she won't get anywhere with Elle.

Honesty is something you can use, she knows that ... she's just not a hundred percent on the how.

Both her voice and her expression are a little flatter than usual when she says,

"I know I can take what you've got."

Elle's expression doesn't change. There's no hesitancy in her movements - she leans forward over the back of the couch, and moves to put her right hand on Ava's shoulder.

When she speaks, it doesn't really sound like a threat, or even a question. Her inflection might betray something like distant amusement, but more than anything, it sounds like a dare.

"Are you sure?"

Ava really, really hates being touched.

But she doesn't do much more than go a little still under Elle's hand. (Her jaw, however, sets stiffly.)

"Pretty sure."

There's only the ghost of bravado this time, and not much by way of cheer: Ava's voice remains flat and even.

She's not sure if her benefit package includes insurance against damage incurred via provoking a frenemy, but she'll take the risk.

If Elle notices Ava's reaction, she doesn't acknowledge it.

But she does move still closer, and murmurs -

"Maybe you should try again some time."

Ava laughs, a soft breathy chuckle, and prevents herself from flinching by dint of some effort.

"You wanna go, Kentucky Fried, just say the word."

I should probably kill you anyway, she doesn't add, because why give people a chance to prep? Then again, Elle seems pretty prepared for that possibility.

For some reason, the thought of taking her out doesn't exactly fill Ava with glee. Maybe she's scared she'll lose.

Elle moves back again. Her hand leaves Ava's shoulder, but she draws it back over the other woman's hair, making a brunette strands jump up and cling briefly to her fingers.

"It's not a game."

She drops the thin field of static, and her hand is back at her side.

"No one says, 'Go.'"

Ava's headband allows her passive protection from external harm-- but when you're working in a hell dimension, static definitely doesn't make the cut.

Meanwhile, Ava snorts.

"Oh God, Sparky," she says.

"It's all a fucking game."

Her expression stays smooth. (It's something she might've learned from X.)

She moves around the couch, though her eyes don't leave Ava.

"I don't care about you." It's not an insult. In fact, it almost sounds like Elle means it to be reassuring. "What you do - I think you'll try again, but -"

Elle shrugs. It's not something in her control, and she's going to think it, anyway. Sociopath with paranoid delusions. That's how it works.

"But all that stuff you're saying - I don't know."

She slips onto the sofa next to Ava, not making any further motion toward her. And whatever show she's put on so far, no matter how confident Elle may be in her abilities or maybe now even herself, one thing has stayed the same.

Elle is still kind of an idiot.

"What do you think I'm going to do?"

Edited 2010-03-14 05:47 (UTC)

Ava has been very, very still, watching Elle with just her eyes. There is no clawed or shadowed presence in the room-- but the temperature has begun to drop.

Not now.

The restraining thought is almost absent.

At this point, the pain is so familiar she doesn't need to fake a headache.

"I don't know," she replies distantly, after a moment.

She wants to grab Elle and scream it's a game, it's a game, it's a game--

She shakes her head.

(Her back has straightened at the change in temperature - she can remember that - but there's no other reaction.

"I think you do. But I don't know."

Elle won't say what's just beneath it, that this may all be so obvious to Ava, that she must think Ava's bad and could tell anyone, or if she hasn't, it must be for a reason. Elle might even understand it - if she knew any of that. Was aware enough to presume any of it. But she's being honest.

And there's a finality to her tone that suggests, Maybe you should keep it that way.

Ava frowns.

"Never mind," she says.

And gets to her feet, eyes on Elle all the time.

"Sparky, I can't ever fucking figure out if you're way smarter than you look, or just from Mars."

"The Mars thing's probably closer."

She's relaxed a little again now, and even draws herself up into the couch once Ava has stood.

But that answer is distant, not self-assured like before.

She snorts.

"Yeah, well. If I find out you secretly have green skin under there, I will so not be surprised."

Ava hesitates, a beat.

Elle's a liability.

She knows what that means.

"... I'll see you around," she decides, quietly.

And turns to go-- she'd say she was going to be a badass and give Elle her back, but she's out of the habit of vulnerability and so she doesn't.

Not entirely.

Elle waits, leaning back into the couch as Ava leaves. It's a while before she gets up.

And if she pours a half-circle of salt around the door to her room tonight - well, that's her business.

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