Topic: The Bamboo Room

Jonathan Granger

Date: 2012-12-06 19:12 EST
Jon had arranged to meet Gigi in a place called The Bamboo Room and had been instructed to take a booth in the back. He'd ordered himself a drink - a glass of good scotch - more to steel his nerves than to quench his thirst while he awaited the arrival of his cousin. They had important business to discuss, private business, and it was just as well they had arranged to meet in a place where no one would ever think to find him.

Gigi entered shortly after. She still wore the dark scarf with the strange designs she'd picked up in Reboyczek. Her trips to the Spralian planet were always business but not devoid of small pleasures amongst the disciplining and distributing. Outside the day retained plenty of its light but inside the Bamboo Room was dark enough to leave its customers to their own devices. She slid into Jon's booth.

Jon tapped a finger against the side of the glass, which was nearly drained by the time Gigi arrived. Jon didn't get up, as he might have normally upon her arrival. His jaw was set, a grim expression on his face. He had not asked for this meeting in order to discuss pleasantries. "Gigi," he offered in solemn greeting.

"Jon boy." Her monotone might have been the same had his greeting been warmer. She signaled to a waiter who needed no other instructions about what she wanted. She had picked this spot for a reason after all.

He, too, caught the waiter's attention and signaled for a refill, privately reminding himself that two was his limit, since he was driving. "I wish I'd asked you here under happier circumstances, but I need to ask you something, and I need an honest answer."

"Then you should probably get to it." Succinct with her words and finding no reason to delay him in his purpose. She did not require much when it came to good graces.

Okay, she seemed to want him to come straight to the point, so straight to the point he came sans an explanation for now of why he was asking these questions at all. "I need you to tell me what happened after I was....shot." The word "shot" came out with obvious difficulty, and he fought down the shudder that accompanied the thought, choosing to drain what remained in his glass instead. If she wanted him to be more specific, he would be, but he'd give her a chance to answer the question first.

"Everything happened, Jon boy. Be more specific." Gigi could hazard a good guess what he meant but she didn't want to make the mistake of revealing more than anyone ever needed to know about the choices she made in those days following the shooting. The waiter arrived with their drinks and wordlessly slid a few coins into his palm. The disconcerting eyes fixed on Jon. If he wanted answers he would have to pry them out.

"I'm not gonna beat around the bush, Geeg. We've known each other too long." He thanked the waiter with a wordless nod, waiting until they were once again alone before continuing and lowering his voice for her ears only. "I know what you and Eli did to that girl. What I want to know is why didn't you just kill her?"

It wasn't being confronted by her own crimes that surprised her. It was that his question prompted one of her own. But she would start with the honest answer. "Because I promised Eli he could finish up." She swallowed down her mixed tequila drink and studied his face. She'd wait and see before asking. That she didn't deflect or deny her involvement only proved she cared enough not to bulls—t him more than she thought necessary for his own good.

Gigi's candor was one of the things Jon liked most about her. He knew that whatever answers she provided would be honest ones, and in truth, he was more interested in Eli's part in this little mess than in Gigi's. "You should have finished the job, Geeg," he told her, leaning in, his voice barely more than a whisper. He took a swallow of the scotch, wincing just a little as it burned its way down.

Her face darkened. "Are you telling me that little didn't finish it?" Her voice never changed intonation but the anger boiling under the surface was palpable.

Jon shrugged, bolstered by Gigi's reaction, confident she'd be as furious about what Eli had done as he was. "He turned her into a monster, and that monster almost killed me and my wife," Jon replied, barely able to repress the rage he was feeling. It was a rare thing indeed to see Jonathan this angry. "I took care of it." With a little help from The Human Torch, but she didn't need to know that little detail. "She won't be hurting anyone again." He lowered his glass, eyeing Gigi stoically. "Please tell me you didn't know about this." About what Eli had done, to be more precise.

Gigi saw red. "I knew I shouldn't have let that have her but we had a deal." She swallowed down what was left in the glass and threw it down to break against the floorboards. The outburst did little to faze the few members of the wait staff near them. It was likely not the first display of rage Gigi had shown in the Bamboo Room. "I thought he just had some sick, sadistic in store for her." Gigi made no effort to apologize for this or to recognize that her own actions against Susie could be described with the same words. "He promised she'd end up dead. That was what we all wanted, even though most of the family wouldn't have the balls to admit it out loud."

Jon considered her answer, his anger defused by Gigi's obvious display of rage, and something he hadn't considered before occurred to him. "Do you think she escaped" I haven't seen Eli in months, not since..." He broke off, not wanting to mention his little fiasco with the vampires, but whatever Eli had done to the girl, it had happened long before he'd asked for Eli's help with the vampires. Something wasn't right here. "She said she was going to kill you and Eli, but....You don't have to worry about that." Jon seemed to relax a fraction, satisfied that Gigi had done what she had for all the right reasons, though Jon still wished she'd just finished the job, even though that would have meant more blood on her hands.

"He deserves whatever he gets from around like that. He should be so lucky that he escapes me going to see him about it." The violence that was so common in her world caused her to almost miss that whatever Jon had done to ensure his own family's safety must have taken a toll on him. "I wish you had been able to leave her for me. I would have enjoyed doing it right the second time around. It was never meant for you to deal with it."

Jonathan Granger

Date: 2012-12-06 19:13 EST
Jon frowned as Gigi hit the proverbial nail on the head, thoughtfully glancing at the amber liquid that remained in his glass before lifting his head to meet his cousin's gaze. He recognized the anger, the rage in her eyes as she seemed to come to the realization that he'd had to take matters into his own hands in order to save the lives of his wife and unborn child, not to mention his own.

Few knew the skills Jon had learned under Shen Lei's tutelage, skills he'd used to help her hunt down and destroy the vampires that had attacked his sister and tried to turn him. Few understood what he was capable of, if push came to shove, not even Gigi.

He wouldn't have had to deal with it at all, if only Gigi had taken care of it and not left it to Eli, but he'd already made that point and wasn't going to repeat himself.

There was one thing he wanted from her though, and he had a feeling she'd agree, not just because she was furious with Eli, but because he knew she'd do just about anything he asked of her. It was the kind of relationship they had and had always had. Deep down, beneath the tough exterior, Jon knew Gigi cared about him and would do just about anything to protect him. There were reasons for that, but only Gigi and Jon knew what those reasons were.

"Geeg," Jon started finally. "I need you to do something for me. I need you to find out what?s going on with Eli. I need to find out if he really is experimenting on people because if he is, that makes him no better than the things he's creating. It makes him dangerous."

Gigi frowned at his request. ", Jon, do you really want to open that can of worms?" She paused and swallowed down the last of her drink, stalling while she figured out the best way to explain.

"Let's say I find him. I find him and I manage by some god's grace not to kill him." Her words were slow, even, and calm. She gave no hint that she exaggerated in the restraint required not to express her rage. "Your stalker is dead. Eli is involved in sick as much as half of this city's population. But Eli led me to Susie because he wanted her specifically to suffer for what she did to you. He may have it up, and I may want to wring his neck for it, but even I don't believe he'd set these twisted works of his out to harm you or your family."

She signaled for the waiter to refresh their drinks once more. It would help both of them in digesting her questionable morals. "I have no problem getting my hands dirty if it means keeping you personally safe, Jon boy, but don't mistake me for an all-purpose crusader concerned about the common good."

Jon scowled as he considered Gigi's reply. While it was true Eli had helped him kill one vampire, if it wasn't for the man's sloppiness, the lives of Vicki and the baby would never have been in danger. And there was the matter of his sister.

Lena had been worried about Eli for a long time. Jon had done what he could to find his elusive cousin, who'd disappeared shortly after the encounter with the vampires, but as far as he knew, Eli was still missing. It was a bit of a mystery, and while Jon didn't want any harm to come to his cousin, he needed some answers.

Jon leaned forward, his arms folded neatly against the table, the refilled glass of scotch untouched beside him. "All I'm asking you to do is see if you can find him and find out what he's been up to. That's all," Jon explained in a hushed voice. If Eli was up to no good, then Lena had a right to know.

Gigi squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment before she finally relented and opened them. "Fine. I will at least attempt to track it down. Don't expect me to swoop in like the cavalry though. I'll tell you what I find out but I won't bulls**t you with promises that I'll shut him down or anything unless he's going to cause a problem for us."

She fixed the knotting on the scarf she wore around her head and leaned back in her seat. "Be grateful that I pay little heed to ethics. It's the reason anyone seeks my help for the nastier issues of the day."

Jon clenched his jaw at Gigi's reply, bristling at the implication that he'd only gone to her because she didn't share the same set of ethics as everyone else. That wasn't the reason at all, and he needed her to know the truth of it. It was simply a matter of trust.

"I trust you, Geeg. If I didn't trust you, I wouldn't be here. I understand what you and Eli were trying to do. I'm not asking you to shut him down, but instead of helping, he only made things worse. That....thing....wanted to..."

Jon had to pause a moment to regain control of his emotions, of the rage that was slowly brewing inside him. He lowered his voice, speaking slowly and calmly through clenched teeth before continuing. "That....thing wanted to cut my wife open and take our baby for its own. It wanted to turn me into whatever it had become, and when it was done, it was going to kill you and Eli for what you both had done to it." It wasn't an accusation; he was simply stating the facts, as far as he knew them.

"How many of those things do you want running around out there, Geeg, wanting revenge?" he continued, narrowing his eyes and curling his hands into fists on the tabletop. "How long before someone else gets hurt' Someone just as innocent as Vicki. What if next time it's Lena or Caroline" What then?"

He leaned back, drawing a deep breath to calm the seething rage, and reached for the glass of liquid courage with a shaking hand. He didn't want to make her angry, but he was angry himself. While he understood that Gigi and Eli had done what they had in retribution for what his stalker had done to him, he thought they would have been better off reporting the matter to the Watch, rather than taking matters into their own hands, but what was done was done. What worried Jon now was whether or not Eli was still up to the same thing because if he was, he put the whole family in danger, not the least of which was Jon's sister, Helena.

Jonathan Granger

Date: 2012-12-06 19:14 EST
Gigi's face was only suited for displaying anger these days. She may have felt equal morsels of sympathy and disgust over the description of what Jon's undead stalker attempted to do but neither emotion made it to the surface. For her, the next two clipped sentences held more worth than any extended apology or empathetic expression. "All right. I'll go."

Whether she meant to start searching right away or simply knew no other conversation could follow this one today (they couldn't abruptly switch to tea and idle chatter now, could they"), Gigi slid out of the booth. She lingered for only a moment to regard him again. "You're about the only one who would bring me in out of trust than necessity. Not sure if that makes you sweet or dumber than a load of bricks, Jon boy." The otherwise stoic face cracked the swiftest of grins that disappeared quickly. That was as close as Gigi could get to an endearment. It also left a more insidious question in its wake: who came to her out of necessity over trust' She disappeared from the Bamboo Room before he might think to ask.

"Probably the latter," Jon muttered to himself as Gigi got up to leave. "See you later, Geeg, and thanks," he told her as she made her exit. He wasn't quite sure who or what she was referring to, and he wasn't really sure he wanted to know. He contemplated the scotch in his glass for a long while, wondering if he had just opened a fresh can of worms with his request. Was it better to leave well enough alone" Was ignorance really bliss? Jon didn't think so, but only time would tell. He just hoped that for everyone's sake, including Eli's, his cousin wasn't really up to what it seemed he was up to. Until then, Jon could only wait to see what Gigi found out.

((The plot thickens! Many thanks to Gigi's player for the above scene. It was lots of fun! :grin: ))