PRIVATE This is Love

Evi "Dustoff" Ashford

Vox Populi
Evi "Dustoff" Ashford
Eddies
475
Character Bio
The sound of something solid hitting the wall startled her awake, and she rolled over to check the time: barely after 7 o'clock. Again. At this point she should have been used to the routine of him throwing shit around the apartment being her alarm clock, but it still managed to surprise her some mornings.

Sighing, Evi swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a moment as she tried to parse the cursing from outside the bedroom to figure out what had pissed him off this time. After a handful of moments she pushed herself to her feet and meandered her way to the bathroom, pausing as she caught sight of the fading bruise on her left cheek in the bathroom mirror. "Fucking asshole." She grumbled to herself as she turned on the shower and cranked the faucet to the hottest it would go, knowing she was lucky if the water came out lukewarm. But hey, it could be worse. At least her boyfriend wasn't home all the time.

After a mostly unsatisfying shower she dried herself off, wrapped in nothing more than a towel as she re-entered the bedroom, picking out her usual outfit: black BDU pants, a tank top, combat boots, her fingerless gloves and her dog tags. Taking another moment to brace herself, she stepped out into the common area of the apartment for the first time that day.

"Morning." Evi had learned a long time ago to mention nothing when his day started out like this. It was better for everyone to pick up from where they were and move on. If he let her, she'd give him a peck on the cheek on her way past and into what passed for a kitchen, which was nothing more than a small cutout with a microwave oven and a single burner. "Want breakfast?" She considered the meager contents of their fridge for a moment before pulling out a can that advertised itself as iced coffee. Whatever it was it woke her up, and that was all she cared about.

Turning around, she cracked it open and took a sip, watching him. "Up to anything?"

@Cyrus "Risers"
 
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Shards of glass popped like bones beneath his black boots. Smashing the vase hadn't helped. It never helped.

"You listen to me you fucking dorphhead" he heard himself say the words, but his mind was wrapped like a noose around the fantasy of strangling the man on the other end of the line, "I don't give a shit what you and your friends have to do, you bring me those fucking eddies. You understand me? I'll fucking zero you. I'll flatline everyone you fucking know, every input you've ever stuck your tiny cock in. I'll strangle the fucking nurse that pulled you from your mom's rotting cunt, do you get me?"

The other end of the agent choked on the vacuum left by his anger and he could feel the itch in his chrome fingers. "B-bossman I promise-"

"-fuck you, promise!" he heard his own voice echo, heard the drywall sink and crack and then felt the tug as he tried to move his arm - only then did he realized he was elbow deep into his apartment wall, "you don't fucking promise dick! You do what I fucking say! I tell you to fuck a meat grinder, you don't dare even ask for lube - you just fucking do it! You should have better fucking known better than to fuck with the eddies! You want to get blitzed off your circs and slammit to some throwback from the burbs, you best do it on your own fucking eds next time!"

"Boss, I swear to you, I'll get your money-

"It's not my goddamn money, you shithead - it's the movements fucking money! You stole from all of us and if you don't get those eds back to me by end of the week, you'll be fucking hanging in front of all of us!" the call cut with a thought and the wall rattled as he dislodged his arm from the hole he'd put into the neighbor's living room. He could feel their eyes leering through the hole, but they didn't say anything.

Everyone knew better than to say anything.

"Morning" Dust's voice snuck through the razors of his anger and he turned to her just in time to shrug away from her kiss. He didn't need pity right now, he needed action. He needed to hit something. So he did.

A bladed hand came down like lightning. He pulled last second - he'd learned to restrain himself since their first visit to the hospital. The love of his life's head snapped to the side and her lip turned black and purple beneath the trickle of blood that rolled down her mouth and over the contours of her neck.

She said nothing. She never said anything.

She carefully walked past him and wiped the blood from her lip with the kitchen towel and continued on, "want breakfast?"

"Not fucking hungry" he grumbled as he watched her lip swell. His chest felt tight all the sudden. She hadn't deserved that one, but she was there. Wrong place, wrong time.

"Up to anything?" she knew the answer already, she'd heard him. He'd have barked at her, but she'd taken enough for one morning.

"Gonk lacer down in Vista" he wiped powdered drywall from the plates of his arm - fuck - he'd have to get between the cracks with a brush to get all that shit out. "Fucker got himself hooked on some slant dorphs from Kabuki. Ran low on eds so he klepped some from the movement's cut of his iron sales. Called crying and apologizing when he sobered up enough to see out of two round eyes."

The hate dripped like venom from his tongue. Fucking japs were just as bad as the corps in his book. "Where the fuck you recruiting from these days, the scop lines in Pacifica?"

@Evi "Dustoff" Ashford
 
As he continued she reached up with one hand to probe her lip, sighing through her nose when her fingertips came away bloody, still. He hadn't meant it, really, she could tell - but that didn't mean she was any more understanding. It just meant she knew. The hole in the drywall said enough on its own.

Evi - or Dust, or Dustoff - watched him for just a moment without saying anything. There weren't really any right answers to his questions, she knew that too. But most times any answer was better than none, and she'd taken worse hits than that. "Wherever I can. Shows, mostly. You know how it is." But he didn't, really.

When she took another sip of the coffee her lip stung, and she set it off to the side for now. "At least he called." It was more than she figured most of them would do. It was just as likely the kid could have cut-and-run or kept his head down and hoped no one ever caught on. "I'll talk to him. He'll get the eddies." Because they both knew what would happen if he didn't, and it wasn't just the kid's laces on the line.

"You want, it's about time we had another show. Been scoping out venues since the pigs busted the last one." She didn't bother to step outside to light a cigarette, having produced one along with a lighter from her pocket. Evi took a drag before she continued, leaning back against the counter and breathing out smoke.

"If you're not busy you should come with." Then she'd need to call Kara and Northman to set it all up, and hope the lacers would pull their heads out of their asses for just a second to get everything put together. But she figured she could have it all arranged within the week, maybe a few days.

She didn't glance at the hole in the wall a second time, but she caught it from the corner of her eye. "Might be good to get out for a bit."
 
He scoffed, then felt eyes peering at him through the hole in the wall. He turned just in time to catch a glimpse of two beady black eyes sunken deep into a pancake batter face - the mouth under them hanging ajar as the husband-next-door peeked through the hole. "You fat fuck, get back to your ugly wife before I find out how much of you I can fit through that fucking hole!" the husband jumped back, the rolls beneath his tank-top bursting from the waistline like a can of biscuits exploding. Thrn he was gone, disappeared from the new window between the apartments.

Risers sighed and drove two steel fingers into his own temples and twisted until the pounding in his head was quiet enough to think again. Fuck this day.

"You holding these shows at the back of the short bus? Christ sake..." god his was angry. Always so fucking angry. He leaned back, only half-listening as Dust ignored his comment and began prattling on about the gonk from Vista. He almost burst out laughing when he caught the tail end about the eddies, "Ha! What, you gunna take responsibility for all their fuck-ups now too?" she coddled the prospects and the lacers far too much, how were they going to grow balls with mamma-bear's hand keeping them firmly tucked inside? "You want to flash him some tits and get the eds to fall from his ass, be my guest. But I'm putting those eds on your shoulders now too."

He didn't really mean it - not the part about the flashing. Kid would end up a lot deader if he laid hands on what was his.

He stood and walked over to the counter opposite of her as she mentioned another show. She was right, they hadn't put on a good show since the badges took down the last one. There'd been a nasty brawl, but not big enough. Even Viper had almost been laid out by the riot team and that made them look like a bunch of pussies.

Harper wasn't happy which meant no one was happy.

"We don't need another show, we need a message" he plucked the cigarette from between her lips and took a drag, "something to show the whole city what happens when you fuck with RCL...something to get the pigs thinking twice about fucking our shit up..."

The smoke left his lungs in thin strips and he turned the cig around in his hand before sticking it back between Dust's lips, "...needs to be boots and guts..." a real show where they could lead a stomp on something that'd send a chill up everyone's spine.

Then it hit him "...Watson. There's a badge precinct up there..." he summoned his agent into his vision with a thought and tapped into the datapool. A few blinks later and he was staring at an event schedule for Lizzies Bar.

An awful smile twisted his face.

"That's what I thought, take a look" he flicked over the deets to Dust, "That Braindance Bar is holding an exotics event in a week...think you can make a show happen by then? I'm thinking it's time I round up CDS, the boys haven't seen a show in quite a time."

@Evi "Dustoff" Ashford
 
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"I want to make sure he doesn't get killed for some stupid fuck-up. We need the numbers." The outburst directed at the neighbor was ignored, and Evi watched him as he stood and nearly brushed against her as he took up position opposite her. Watched still as he snatched the cigarette and took a drag and replaced it between her lips, her eyes flashing bright blue momentarily as she looked over the upcoming events.

Her grin was no less wicked. "Yeah, I can do that." With two fingers she shifted the cigarette to the corner of her mouth, sending the snapshot of the schedule off to Krash and Double Tap with a flick of her eyes and a simple question after that. Kara replied right away, not surprising. Odds were Northman was still passed out face-down somewhere.

"Fuck it, let's make a day of it. I'll get a couple of the kids to record and put a video together." It'd been awhile since they'd done anything like that too, and the movement always needed new blood.

Another notification flashed in the corner of her vision - Kara again, this time asking if they would see each other before then. Evi thought about replying, but swiped the message away with another glance for the moment. It'd been a few months, but shit, she was busy; it wasn't like that was about to change anytime soon.

"Well, that's a week from now." She reached back to stub the cigarette out in an ashtray forgotten on the counter, "Won't take more than a couple of days to find someplace. You got plans in the meantime, or you wanna come with?"

@Cyrus "Risers"
 
"You're too soft on these fucking kids" Harper had told him that was Dust's place in The Movement, to be the nurture to his cruel nature - but she was always trying to right their fuck-ups. "What good are numbers if they're all a bunch of sniveling brats?"

He wouldn't stop her, he rarely did, it wasn't his place to question The Leader and his choice of figurehead. But Dust was his woman, and she'd hear his opinion whether she liked it or not. He said nothing else for awhile though, instead deciding his stomach felt light and began shuffling around the kitchen cupboards. He swept aside cobwebs and groaned at the usual selection of half-packages of candied kibble and soy bars. Eventually he found the slices of SCOP bacon from last night in the fridge and took a Broseph Ale to wash it down.

"I got somewhere to be" he said between bites of cold bacon, washing it down with a sip of ale, "remember Lollipop from before you went away? Gonk went half-psycho so we pushed him onto Maelstrom. He called me a few days ago about an iron sale and the boys finally got it together"

Maelstrom couldn't be trusted on account of they all had malware for brains - but there was more than a fairshare of once-lacers in their ranks. That made them reliable enough for a few eds here and there - and they had ground to make up thanks to the fuckstick in Vista.

"Unless you want to take a ride to the looney-bin first, you are on your own."
 
His criticism about her method of dealing with the lacers was shrugged off, and Evi nursed what remained of her can of iced coffee while he rummaged around for something to eat. She snatched a Food Stick from one of the cupboards before it fell closed, unwrapping it and grimacing after she took a bite. It didn't taste like much, and what it did taste like wasn't exactly pleasant, but it was food - even if it didn't seem appetizing in the least. Another swig of iced coffee helped with the taste, and she nodded as he told her his plans for the day.

"Yeah, I remember him. Probably better off in Maelstrom anyway." He'd been teetering on the edge before she'd gotten picked up by NCPD, and apparently it'd only taken half a year for him to fall off entirely.

Evi took another bite of her meager breakfast, considering if his offer of tagging along was worth what putting up with Maelstrom would no doubt end up being. "If it's on the way to Vista, sure." She finished the Food Stick, chasing it with the rest of the iced coffee and tossing the crumpled wrapper and can in the trash. "I'll have you drop me at the kid's place on the way back. He can take me to check things out and find a place for the show."
 
That was her loss, he wasn't exactly thrilled about going to talk to the psychos himself - but a torture shared was a torture he could bitch about to someone else later. That did raise an idea for him though. If they were going to hit a bar and a precinct in one night, they'd need a hell of a lightshow to keep what was left of the pig force too preoccupied to do anything but twiddle their own dicks.

"About that, I want the rest of that dorphead's possibly-very-short fucking life to be focused on getting me those eddies back. I want you to take Faust or one of his boys with you for this scouting gig. The boys and I will need time to get settled while you and Krash are leading the stomp on Lizzie's, I'm thinking a few big booms would do nice to keep the pigs scattered."

He slurped down the rest of the cold bacon and washed the awful taste down by draining the last half of his broseph. What he really needed now was another hit of that good corpo coffee. He hadn't tasted the real thing since they'd jacked some Biotechnica cargo and found a pack of grounds in some suit's luggage. He'd be willing to put down half the lacer's in the R.C.L for another cup of that shit with real rum...
 
If she was being honest, it sounded preferable to spend the day driving around with one of the C.D.S versus some kid who cared more about his next high than the Movement. "Sure, I'll see which one of them wants to go. Be nice to not babysit for once." It was bad enough she'd decided to take it upon herself and talk to the dorpher personally.

"I can get a handful of lacers together for later, if–" Her train of thought was interrupted by a notification, and Evi sighed and rolled her eyes. This time she took the time to reply, telling Kara that she would "see her on her own fucking time" and left it at that. There were a million more important things she had to worry about without needing to factor whatever that relationship qualified as into things.

"Fucking Kara. She's just as bad as the kids half the fucking time." It wasn't that she didn't care about the other woman really, because most times there was more comfort to be found there than with the man in front of her. She just had different priorities.

"Anyway, I can get some lacers together for the deal with Maelstrom, have them get the rides together. Give us some time before we probably have to zero some psychos."
 
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