If he was ever asked to describe the neighborhood in which he lived, he would liken it to New York. Narrow streets, uneven cobbled roads. The sidewalks held some sort of uniform likeness to them, with trees planted every four concrete slabs. And row houses.

Dark bricks, thin widths and tall reaches. His apartment was in none of them, but reached through a staircase set deeply into the sidewalk, leading to a dark wood door. The steps and corners were free of leaves and any other such detritus. Closed off from the breeze but not the sunlight. It was a hidden entrance, overlooked if one weren't actively searching for it, and that was how he liked it.

It was good that mazes were one of Rick's great strengths, both in the construction and solution of them. Without this talent, he would never have made his way through the mad, mad city, which spin on it's edge at the center of the known multiverse. Crispin's directions were good enough that he managed to only become side tracked twice, taking lefts when he should have gone straight, or rights when he should have gone left. The detective only hoped that his guest would be as keenly minded about the patterns of the streets as he'd become. With a quiet creep born as much by a desire to remain silent as it was because of the heavy sack weight against his spine, Rick slipped up to Crispin's door, checked the streets both ways to spot anyone out of sorts, and then knocked, loudly, three times.

He'd dressed for company, and that meant dressed as usual, sans the collection of weaponry and boots. Half a minute of silence followed Rick's knocks until the pop-slide of undone locks echoed from within. He drew back and gestured to a room that had a rug. And a ceiling fan. The other man had been expected. "Excuse the---nothingness."

Rick dressed as he often did; silk vest, white button up shirt, slim tie, slacks, and leather shoes. If Rick hadn't hauled 60 lbs of magic across miles of asphalt for his friend, he would have looked dashing. Now, he looked like he could use a glass of water, or better, bourbon. A smile and a nod of his messy topped head and he took the invite with a few steps past the threshold. Attention darted this way and that as the sack was downed in the first room with a loud crash. "Uh. Nice place, Crispin." Not even a painting? Poster? Rick was really going to have to work on this one.

Not even. "It will be, given time. I've been told that I'm to go shopping for a table soon." By the sudden growth of his smile, he didn't seem to have a problem with that. Door eased closed after Rick had stepped inside. He threw the bolt, the chain made certain the Mark he'd carved into the wood lined up properly with itself before stepping back. "Have you brought dishes?" Chances are, he didn't have them either.

"No. Do you need dishes?" These men lived in opposite worlds. Crispin was bare and sparse, while Rick was packed and busied. Crispin's apartment was Spartan. Rick's Athenian. And he could spare things, bits and pieces of his life, to help fill a friend's place. Rick glanced over his shoulder at Crispin as he moved further into the apartment, eyeing the Mark with a pointed squint. "I brought a rock." Since that had been the real question.

Likely, the closer the inspection, the more Rick would locate. The same Mark, it seemed, that flanked his left bicep. Others that spoke of shields, protection, silence. Etched small at every ceiling touching window, in the door frame's corners. "A rock," repeating. "This rock must be special." He gestured for the other man to join him in the short journey across the "living room" into the "kitchen." Three other doors led away, two were closed. The bedroom, with its tangled sheets and cardboard boxes, easily seen through the only open one.

"From Minos." How well read was Crispin? As always, Rick was playing a game. Here, Cris, is a bread crumb. Can you follow the trail? The shorter man fell in behind Crispin, noting details as they moved. Not just the wards, which he found a little -- lacking -- but also the general state of the place, how everything seemed to fit into imaginary quotation marks as if they were really just pictures of a thing, and not an actual thing. A copy of a living room, a simulacrum of a kitchen. Crossing the line of a bedroom, Rick asked the important question. "Just you here?" It mattered.

Unfortunately, he would say, not as well read as he could be. But that name inspired a blink, a glance back, half curiosity and half confusion. "You're not seeking to build me a fortress 'round this place, are you? I need nothing that extreme." The kitchen was a bit more put together. He had a fridge. And a coffee maker. Tar black, the remains of his last guest's beverage filled the pot only halfway. There was a bottle of whiskey beside a mug on the counter. The glass cupboards were empty. "Often, yes," for the Wizard's query.

A vast empty space between kitchen doorway and sink spoke of where a table was going to go. Someday.

For whatever reason, Melanie was more wary than annoyed, more cautious than angry. During the brief lull, she'd quickly made a rather strange, shocking decision.Professional.One of the men inside the house was quickly becoming a trusted friend. The other was an enigma, but she's ever the curious kitten. Lying to them, she felt, would not end well. Nor was it likely possible.Professional. It still made her skin crawl, the secrets behind her profession. One, or two of them, might have heard what could be taken as a small foot kept in a black ballet flat kick the front of the door, a most petulant greeting. Almost opaque, the black sun dress that left her shoulders bare exposed a few inches of tanned, smooth skin above her knee, but nothing too much. Nothing pretentious. In both hands, she carried a wide cardboard box, white. A cake box.

"Do you expect me to bring you a fortress, stone by stone?" Then doubt, but now laughter. Rick's laugh was both old and young at once, a meshing of his two extremes. A grandfather in a grandson. More details were soaked up by his spongelike attention. Coffee, bourbon, one mug. Crispin hadn't emptied the coffee maker yet. Everything important, everything in it's own place in his wizard's head. "I like you, Crispin, but not enough for that. I'd just show you the rock quarry if you wanted to build a castle wall. It's from the Labyrinth of Minos, the greatest maze ever made. We're going to use it. Make this place impossible to find, unless you know the way." That's what he wanted, right? Rick stopped in the kitchen and -- waited, with a smirk.

Evidence of another's presence like dust. The mug in the sink, the thread of white gold hair on the counter. Perhaps the most stark clue that he didn't spent as much time alone here as he let on was the line of dark bruises climbing the stretch of lean muscle at the side of his neck. Hiding in Marks, but harsh against the white of his shirt. Rick's impossible to find remark had not been let to settle when his gaze rose to the kitchen doorway. Laughter old, jest forgotten, what had started as amiable banter between near-friends sharpened with a narrowing of his gaze and his fingertips went to a sling on his leg that was empty. "You were followed?" somehow not complete in its accusation.

"Company. I asked someone to help." He supplied. Then he specified: "Melanie." Him, followed? Cut him some slack.

Tension in his jaw, but he couldn't exactly explain why he thought that a supremely bad idea. "Fine." If she was there to help, he wasn't going to delay the inevitable. Halfway to the front door, he peeled his hand from his leg and its empty sling. Bare feet silent, the stretch of a black Mark reached across the back of his right foot. Locks thrown, he paused a moment to compose himself, then opened the door. "Melanie."

While they handled things at the front door, Rick cleaned the coffee pot and the counter. Hair, mug, and so forth. Then he went looking for the ingredients of a new, fresh pot.

"Hey, I made you a cake." Incredibly awkward, painfully so. The expression she wore was a real one, an honest and rare one. Wary and guarded, her own defenses had risen to shocking, startling levels. There was, however, a single metaphorical window through which the hidden princess stared out at a world she'd never understood, never let in. "Rick seems to think I'll be a help." So speaking, she thrust the cake box into his chest and, without wasting a second, folded both arms across the wide, white bow that fronted her dress. The only splash of color on a dead image. "It's his fault, not mine."

A cake. And there it was, by the Angel, thrust into his gut and on its way to the floor if he didn't catch it. He looked after her, a turn of his head that put tight pressure all along his throat, but he didn't seem to mind. "In other words, you'd like for me to be upset with him and not you. Yes?"

Cupboards were opened, one by one, until he found everything he needed. The work was quiet enough that he could hear them from the hallway, only losing a tiny bit when he turned on the water to fill the pot.

"So, me being here is making you upset? I can't ruffle the bird's feathers!" Spoken with extreme sarcasm, she threw her hands up and attempted to walk past the poor man even as she murmured words to the contrary. "I can leave if you want, Cris. Also, don't look so smug." This was for Rick when she caught sight of him.

"Who is smug?" Him? He was making coffee, and his face was a flat line that only curled upwards at the very, very corners. Rick was pressing buttons and making the damned contraption work, hopefully before Crispin came in to remove from his hide what he'd earned.

"At first, yes. Before I was told it was you." Angling himself out of her way, he closed the door with a solid scrape of wood on wood. That was the last time he was going to open the damn thing, by the Angel.

"You, probably." With little regard for the concerns of most other people, Melanie padded her way, the nature of her shoes was a prophetically accurate indication of what she'd once been. "I decorated it for you to, the cake. I tried to think of what your marks look like, and I made them with chocolate swirls on the icing." Rather than stand, she glanced about, curious, as she perched on the counter quite close to the coffee maker. Whiskey was on hand, a bottle she quickly pressed to her lips as she glanced between both men and across what she could so of a place she never honestly thought she'd be inside. "So, what're we here for again?"

He followed, easing the lid of the box open with her description of the cake as a backdrop. The angle of his grin was jaunty, youthful and amused. Contained laughter somewhere in the light behind his gaze when he looked up, stepping into the kitchen. "Thank you, Melanie. This was very kind of you."

The ploy, she felt, was an instant victory, a smashing one at that. As Cris offered such a grin, her own expression washed along the rocky, angled features of a finally formed face. Demonstrative to a fault, the sunlit smile banished shadows for a few seconds longer than most did. He'd taken the bait and performed wonderfully, her inner voices said. Attention, it's all she wanted. "You're welcome, Crispin."

"Crispin needs help making his apartment safe. From people, monsters, that sort of thing." Again, the wizard dealt out information like other people dealt out cards. Melanie was on the receiving end of a hip bump to her knee, a very tiny amount of affection for a woman who might see it for something beyond that. Rick watched the coffee with all the focus of a starving man in need of food, though he did turn from it to look at the cake box and it's holder. Curious. He talked more, "I can do magic, I can do locks. I don't think like you. We could use your opinion."

The hip bump was a curious thing, something that drew instant ire. Art on a wall, a statue on a pedestal, she did not enjoy touches that she did not demand. Swallowed by the residual glow of such a smile, she tapped a slender finger on her chin and glanced about, this way and that. "I mean..." This was the strange part, the confession, the honesty. The reality. She knew too much of these things. "What about the windows? Bulletproof? Structural integrity of the walls, are they enforced, especially near the top? What's underneath the place? I'd dig out that area, if I could, and seal the bottom of the flooring from underneath, you know?" Random ideas from the mind of a psychopath. "If you're asking me how I'd break in, however, that's an entirely different story. In regards to making something unfindable, I can render it invisible to the Force?" Not that many Sith seemed to be here, but one never knew.

Pardon him, he'd destroyed an Angelic rune with a scrape of his fingertips through the icing. Biting chocolate off the callus, he looked up to Rick. The scar on that finger had been the remnant of a deep cut meant to separate the digit free of its knuckle. He put the cake on the counter next to its baker. "I like the idea of it being incredibly un-findable. I need not be taken by surprise. Some sort of alert system would be beneficial as well. My friend Salome had set one up involving crystals."

Something in the very intriguing way she explained herself hooked his attention. "How would you break in?"

"Truth be told, that depends on how much I wanted to see you. Blow through the front wall, maybe." She was giving this honest thought before she bit down on her lower lip, hard. Replaced by the bottle, she pulled her teeth back and sucked in another drink. "There's a lot of things, Crispin, that I can do. None of them often, but suffice to say, I'm not a human. If I needed to get in, I'd contemplate ri[pping my mind away from reality and then simply projecting myself through a tear in the Force. We call it Force stepping, not that, as I said, I can do it often, but it's essentially limited teleportation. Once a week, maybe twice if I want to gamble."

That was the million dollar question, wasn't it? She drank liquor, but Rick was rinsing the mug for coffee. Mostly quiet while they talked, listening with a cant of head. Crispin's enjoyment of the cake brought back memories of lost cupcakes. "You gamble with it before?" Suspicious. Coffee went into the mug and the sound of falling liquid soothed him.

Frosting really. It sweetened the flavor of skin. But he'd since licked his fingertip clean. Now, he bit at the callus because it was there, a wrinkle between his brows as he listened to Melanie. Breakage of suction like the end of a kiss, he licked his lips. "Well, then, I'll only have to hope you'll not wish to see me that badly in the future."

Her eyes slung a slide long glance towards Rick at his personal, prying question. Once again, she had to remind herself that this wasn't a place filled with threats she needed to answer at every turn. "There's been times where the risk of potential failure was worth the inevitable conclusion at hand, so yes. I have." Crispin's remark had her tipping him another grin, shy and devious. "It's an extension of what you saw in the kitchen once. I project emotions into reality, my own. They can become explosions, again not often. So, the second option?" She idly pointed at the front wall. "Right there, blow the wall down. Aside from that, I do understand how to break in to places without using those methods, so yeah, we'll take a look around and make sure you don't get scared of the dark." Caustic humor, acidic as it was easy.

Rick chortled. Crispin afraid of the dark? Now that was a thought. He couldn't help himself, "Maybe we should get him a night light."

"One of those pillows that are stuffed animals, yeah? The ones that make the ceiling have stars when you sleep." Humor was infectious, her laughter was as quick as a falcon's dive through a cloudless sky.Crispin: "I favor underground apartments simply for that reason," gesture to Mel for her remark about the wall. "The same for windows. The ones that I do have are very small and require a great deal of effort to see through. But I wouldn't mind an additional veil over them to make that a bit difficult. As far as I understand, any adversaries I might have are not as strong as you, Melanie, nor as creative. I expect to be shot more than anything else, and I'd rather not have that happen again."

"I am not afraid of the dark, by the Angel---" There went his contentment over cake.

"Have you considered curtains?" In regards to veils that make it hard to see through. A side long glance at Melanie came loaded with a conspiratory slant of eyes.

"Again, I can only do this from time to time. It's really not that big of a deal." She wasn't explaining the vague tone in her voice, self deprecating to a fault. The risk was never worth the reward. Back on solid ground, she slanted a brow at Cris. "Besides, what I do requires tremendous sacrifice. I don't know if you're worth that." The words were a sordid tease, slow and amused. He'd seen what she saw, he'd seen her hands. Ruined, broken. "Gunfighting, though. I can do that. Bulletproof the window. Let me tell you how to set up your furniture, yeah? That's important, you want to keep a possible intruder in fatal funnels for as long as possible, restrict freedom of motion. That sort of thing."

"I'm not," worth it, that was. Quirk of one corner of his mouth. Gaze slide aside to Rick. "There are times when I enjoy the sight of the outside world from behind four walls, you know."

Then a nod for the furniture suggestion. He'd take her up on that when he actually got some furniture.

"Can you use a gun?" This was the question that'd been on her mind for quite some time. "I shot the Inn's rafters last night." Mused idly while they spoke of weapons and proper use.

As was the rhythm of their little song, Rick followed Melanie again with more comments. "About furniture and all that. I can help. The older, the better. The more used. Those sorts of items help build thresh holds to keep minor spirits out. I don't think we're going to keep something big away, as this place is about as unlived in as I have ever seen." Eyes rolled around the kitchen in demonstration. "No family, no friends, no furniture, you just moved in. You couldn't keep a ghost out."

Rick squint at Melanie. Note: Do not give her a gun.

Melanie had, at all times, a matching pair of firearms on her person. She'd feel quite naked if they weren't in hand's reach. It wouldn't take a genius to realize the nature of how the cloth shifted during random leans and stretches that, in fact, both were on her person this very second. "Used furniture is for poor people." Disdain.


"Unless they're antiques." Rick must be staring at other things.

"If I've the need to, I'll not kill myself with one. I leave the specifics of gunfighting to Leena." Rick knew who she was. "I am better with a blade. Or plural." None of which he had on him. Slight shift of his hand to the Wizard. "Ghosts. I'd rather not have them, either."

"How is Leena?" Curious again. Rick's eyes peered at Crispin from behind his coffee cup, which he sipped with a small twist of lips. Poor brand.

"I prefer two as well." Blades, that was. Far from her favored method of violence, she'd been well school in many martial arts from an incredibly young age. The talk of ghosts brought about a strangely self conscious turn of her features shown by the way that she turned her head down and lifted the bottle once more. Nor was speaking of Leena going to help the shift in her mood, no.

Don't blame him, he didn't drink the damnable stuff. Slow was the fold of his arms, his pause a bit too long, but he'd been looking at the cake box. He could have been considering another, actual bite. "She's fine, thank you." It bothered him to speak so little, to treat Rick and by extension, Melanie, like he could not trust them completely. But if it was a choice between them and Leena---"I think if I let her know you're helping me with this project, she'll forgive our partnership," half smile.

"Mmm~." Melanie's vague hum of noise was neither an answer or a statement at all. Rather, it was a simple way of proving that she'd heard. Words, so many ran through her head. None were spoken, nor was her gaze lifted.

The grunt had an amused tail on it's end, and as it rumbled around in his chest, the tail tickled a snicker and a nod. "Yeah, maybe. If we're that lucky." Another sip confirmed he disliked the coffee a great, great deal, enough so that he was setting it on the counter in an attempt to forget it. "So, first thing's first. I have some magic to work, then we need to find a section of wall we can put the stone in. Where it can be lost, to do it's work." Rick turned to Melanie, as though he could see through her, which he couldn't, and tell what she was thinking, which was unlikely. "You want to look at all the windows and get that sorted while Crispin orders us dinner?" He was ordering the food, right? Rick glanced at him to confirm. It was the last time a delivery driver would ever find this place.

"Do you know, prior to my involvement with you, only one individual knew where I lived." He rolled his eyes. "You will all eat Chinese then."

"That's what you people don't get and that's what makes this so easy for me, yeah? My job. You people assume that sh*t can be lost, you see the world in a unilateral sense. It's not." Her head shook as she threw a deadpanned, vacant glance in Rick's direction. "What's lost here can and will be found in another version of the same reality. There are things that can not be, Rick, lied to. No trail is gone, most people simply don't know where to look." Her rant was, for the moment, over as soon as she bounced from the perch she'd taken on the counter and began, with an annoyed straightening of her spine, look about for windows. "I do not eat meat, nor do I eat more than twice a week. I do not need to eat and I will not be eating in front of either of you, ever. I don't mind if you do, just don't expect me to." And yes, the bottle of whiskey was still firmly clutched in her fingers.

Probably shouldn't mention that he told Quinn the address, too. At least Bob didn't know, right? Oh, Chinese! Rick bounced, animated. "Fried dumplings." He did eat meat, and he ate many, many times a day. His compact body burned through energy at an unbelievable clip, and it was now on display as he almost danced past Melanie with a deeply approving look, despite his disappointment she wouldn't share food with them, and would not know the nature of a good, simple, delivered, fried dumpling.

With his hand in a pocket of his gear, mid-step away from the counter, he slung a glance back to Melanie. Perhaps it was a bit selfish to assume that she was worried about him. That would be sweet too. "I've already explained, I need no fortress. I'm not defenseless, even when I am. I would like a warning, that is all." Wave of his hand to the Mandalorian, a silent Yes, yes.

Walking backwards and missing everything he couldn't see with an easy, almost lyrical grace, Rick did follow up one thing. "What is your job, Melanie?"

"Enforce the glass, Crispin. A round will go through that. Don't ever be near it, actually. You see, the problem with what we think is defensive is that someone's always found a way around it. The three of us can plan, but ten thousand people can think up counter ideas, yeah?" Logical, tactical. A soldier born, a weapon perfected. Rick was given a swipe of her vision, angry eyed. Angry at the world, that she had to be asked that question, that she was even here. "There are good people here,

Nodding to Rick. He'd get two orders of those. Stepping away, "Wei? Sh?. Sh? de, zh? ji?sh? wǒ. Z?ic?. Wǒ xūy?o..." and into the next room.

"Rick. There are monsters. Those good people don't need to ever deal with those monsters. I have walked through Hell all of my life and I will carry on walking through this nightmare, willingly, so that maybe, just maybe, one less person will have to see what I've seen. I protect the flock, Rick, in my own way. I keep people safe by being a bigger b*tch than those who want to hurt the sheep."

"Ask him." On a roll, Melanie ticked her chin towards Crispin. "There's a single living human being that's seen the world I live in, that other version of reality I spoke of."

A laugh, so sudden like a bark. Read, bark. Not, baaa.

"Good." He meant it. The rambling backwards travel had stopped, so he could stand there, short and slim, and smile at her. Wide enough that white teeth caught the light. "You're a good person, if no one's ever told you that, Melanie." Despite the fact she was a raging psychotic lunatic he would be weary to introduce to Quinn or Mary, despite the knowledge that she was one of the few that he honestly felt could kill him, if she really, really wanted, despite the rants, the violence, the drinking, and the loss of his cupcakes -- Rick found himself liking her. He nodded, and on his list, he scratched of soldier, and replaced it with 'shepherd'. "Why? You could show me some time." A swivel on his heel so fast his tie flapped over his shoulder brought him to the bag, which he lifted with a little effort.

Another note: Crispin barked in the bedroom.

Minutes later, he reappeared in the doorway to the kitchen with the phone pressed to his ear via an awkward angle of his shoulder. Scarred hands busy with the folds of an abused wallet."Nǐ hu? gōngxǐ tā du? wǒ l?i shuō. Sh? zh?y?ng ma? Sh?. Sh?---" Click. "Thirty-five minutes."

"A good person?" Almost alone, Melanie dropped any real need to hide the simmering rage, the blatant hate. There was no front to it, no start and no end. No target, no foothold. The only thing that attached her mind to her body, it consumed and devoured all reason, all logical thought. "The best, Rick, I always have been. I walk this road because it's required of me, knowing I will be hated and despised for it. I willingly traded my entire life, my sanity, my mind, my hopes and my dreams to take the burdens of a world onto my shoulders, I gave up everything for each and every single one of you before I even ever knew you. And you people wonder why I f*cking hate all of you." It seemed the rant from before was not over, far from it. Crispin was seen, he was eyed with a wary look that reminded one of a tiger caught by her tail, held down and seen in the light of day. "Absolutely not." In regards to what Rick had said. "No." Her head was shaking once more, a spray of dark hair flowing around her.

"I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours." It wasn't a taunt, but only because of the way he said it. There was too much softness at the edges of the words, where they bled into the room around them. A little self pity to blur them, a bit of honest pain to stretch them. But if Rick had really said it, he wasn't acknowledging, as hands were quickly opening his pack to procure items of wizard make. Chalk and sacks of dust, vials of liquids, containers of ink, each one set aside.

He had the distinct feeling that he'd thrust a blade into a soft, rotting piece of fruit. Something he wasn't supposed to do and something he couldn't take back. Shift of his gaze between the two, his frown was quick to resurface. "I liked the idea of something being placed in the floor as well as the walls. Perhaps we could use that rug, attach the ward to that so that even if it were to be moved around, it would still be there." He didn't do this much. His was a different facet of the realm of protection.

"Does the front door open out or in, Cris?" Her words were spat, much as a particular brand of cobra seemed to spit poison so readily. "Also, no. No and no, no one ever tells me that." Melanie's turn on Rick was, for whatever reason she did not explain, tragically destroyed, wide eyed and desolate. Alone. "It's a bit late for that, but thanks for the effort."

"Inward. But I'd have little trouble correcting that." A bland look for the venom in each of her words. Whatever it was that had upset her was not is fault. This time.

It wasn't, no. That also mattered little. No target, no origin. Her scorn simply was. "Why the f*ck would it open in? So, I guess, you just want to make it easier for someone." In fine form, Melanie drew one of the pistols, though she did not shoot anything. Mimicking the steps an intruder might take, she started from the door. This was clearly an easy thing, practiced and a part of her. Killing, close combat. A master in the flesh. "Have it open out so that they are presented with an obstacle form the start. If it opens inwards, my path is already set by the fact that I have two free steps where you can't see me, rather than being able to see everything. Also, outward makes it harder to throw something in." With the pistol lowered, she slipped it back into the holster attached to her upper thigh. "Tricks of the trade, man." A professional. Rick hadn't been wrong.

Rick wasn't often wrong, but when he was, step back. Explosions of epic scale, enough to shatter cities. Certainly apartments. This one seemed to be going fine enough by his estimate, though. Melanie's mood seemed to have no affect on him, brushing off him like water. In fact, at most, he seemed amused. She was right, of course. It was just the way she put it. Reminded him of being a kid, somewhere he shouldn't have been, doing something no one should have to do, all in the name of God and country. He was selecting specific items and working his way around the rooms, writing sigils into window frames and willing them into focus.

"A door that opens inwards..." She was laughing to distract herself, forcing her mind to be amused, not bent on slaughtering a world that didn't deserve her, didn't understand her. Again, she placed both hands on her hips and glanced about. "I still want to seal the bottom of the floor from the other side. People might tunnel in or some sh*t."

Blinking. "Because it is a basic design of any domicile to have doors open in such a way to provide little resistance to the one entering?" And perhaps that was her point. "I rather like the notion that keeping it the way it is presents a false sense of security to whomever is trying to break into my home. An easy mistake denotes an easy target?" He needed an Angel forsaken knife when she pulled weapons like that. Not for his own protection, but his own peace of mind. It occurred to him that he was attempting to defend his own ability to protect himself when up until this point he'd been adamant about not fighting at all.

"I agree, but I don't know if he can do that." First, a rune to render each window uninteresting. Then another to will them shut. Words would need to be taught to Crispin, later, to help their function, but he hadn't even gotten to the blood letting yet. Crispin was going to love that part.

"You fight with knives, yeah?" She glanced down at the places he normally kept them. "Basic design or not, if I come through that door as quickly as I want, with a gun, you're going to die. You might throw the knife at me, but that's not often fatal and a bullet to the face is. All it does is give you more time to react."

"If I can do what?" A look to the floor. But then he looked up. "We're not protecting me from you, though, are we?"

"What about beaded curtains in the hallway?" The question was serious. Rick was still working his way around the first room as he asked, but before he could specify -- to block line of sight -- he started laughing. He said simply, "Crispin."

"If we needed to protect you from her."

"We would be screwed."

Back to rune work!

Rolling his eyes, "Yes, I know, I was being sarcastic."

Sarcasm, however, sounded like serious. Sounded like jesting, sounded like bored, sounded like---he really only had one tone.

Rick called it the 'Crispin' voice.

"No, but we're protecting you from someone who might have a gun. Protection is a logical thing, Crispin. You might not like it, but if you need it, you can't afford not to have it." With both hands on her hips, she set in for an argument. "All I'm saying is that if you and your f*cking girlfriend are sitting and eating Chinese and someone busts through that door as it is, with no obstacle, you are going to get shot. End of story."

That. Made him laugh.

"Are you laughing at me?" Her brows rose, openly curious as to the words he'd offer next.

"If she is here, the Angel help them for every transgression they've committed for choosing my home as their grave."

Rick took a quick moment to check his phone and make a text, returning to adding his own breed of talent to Crispin's house only after exchanging a few messages with a mysterious someone.

"No, Melanie. At the scenario, only. As you would, I presume, if someone told you they would best you in a duel."

Truth be told, she never laughed when that happened. She ripped them apart with her words, and then her actions, and then her words again. But he hoped that his point would at least be understood.

That wasn't going to go well for Crispin, so Rick took this chance to slink away and start working on the kitchen.

"So you think the scenario is laughable?" It was not, the point was not clear at all. "So, if the point is absurd, the point of this scenario, which is just what we're spending our time trying to keep you safe from, is absurd, why the f*ck am I here?"

He was beginning to envision a time, in the future, where Melanie would bust in through the door only to prove the point that it needed to open outward. And perhaps it did. Regardless of how little care he seemed to put into that specific suggestion, he would be sure to put that requirement into the new door he was going to add. "Because you wanted to bring me a cake," going with the reality of it. "And I wouldn't actually like you to stop offering your opinions. Please."

The shift in Melanie's nature was an automatic, instant thing. As dizzying as a fall from some lofty mountain, the mention of the cake soothed her, it did so quickly. Like a peacock with ruffled feathers, she felt an unseen hand smooth them across her tired back. "Did you like it?" Her voice was, at the moment, too soft, too smooth. Too real, it was a veiled, though poorly so, plea for some pointless approval.

Hell, he didn't know which it she was talking about. The cake or the suggestion. "Yes. I did. I should like for there to be more later." That was general enough, hopefully.

"More cake?" Melanie was curious, wary and hardened once more. A demand, another request. "Maybe. I like to decorate things, and paint. Cake and cupcakes can be pretty." An offhanded suggestion as she turned around once more, eyes searching for a weakness. "Like I said, I can throw my shadow across the entire place. You won't feel it, I don't think, but it'll make it a blank spot, effectively harder to like wire tap, you know?"

Relief that he understood, it made his half smile all the more real. "I like cupcakes. I will take whatever assistance you're willing to give me, barring that it becomes difficult for you. Yes?"

"See, you lied, Crispin." Her back was still turned towards the man, though she wrapped her arms around her own body. Defensive. "I think you're worth it. I'd trade a few more headaches for that, yeah?"

"I did not," an accent, seemingly English in origin, did things to exaggeration. "I offered my thoughts based on my own knowledge. You offered yours. One of us is wrong, but we are not liars."

"I think you're worth that." The transition, once more, was shockingly easy. A doctor's worst nightmare, Melanie's mind. For short seconds, an oppressive weight blanketed the space near her, a hint of the burden she carried so willingly. As before, the garish ink on her arms and back faded into black, all of it, even as it seemed to crawl across her flesh. A wind that smelled like smoke, acrid and bitter, tugged at her hair before, within seconds, the scene died, the joining was complete. "My people are evasive because we can't handle a fair fight. Wire taps should fail, cameras on the outside will fail. Cell phone reception might be a little bit worse."

Something in his expression softened, but the distance between them buffered it. After the display, the kick of wind from nowhere and her explanation, he put a hand against his pocket. A reflex. Where his phone rested. "I need mine to work, Melanie."

From the kitchen, "The hell was that? Did anyone feel that?" It was as if the voices of many electronic devices cried out at once, and then were silenced.

"Allergies." See, that was a lie.

"A little bit worse, not broken. Like, two bars, not four, I guess." The shroud was not perfect, not by any means. It simply dampened incoming and outgoing signals, though it'd stall a Force user in his tracks. "It'll work." Melanie turned back towards the kitchen, still slightly annoyed. "That was me. I do tricks from time to time if people watch."

Melanie supplied her own answer. He chuckled. With her turn away, the distance stretched, and he was going to keep it up. It had nearly been enough time.

Rick's head popped out in the hallway with a frown that somehow wasn't worried or upset, just surprised. Chalk dust was starting to collect on hands. He eyed Melanie with a squint, as if he were reading something from a great distance, and then grunted and returned to his work in other rooms. "Crispin. I need to get into your other rooms here."

"Keep staring, my best trick is taking my clothes off." The words were sarcastic, the expression was filled with bittersweet irony. Suddenly inspired, she reached down and tugged at at the top of her dress, though she didn't remove anything, she simply hinted. Reactions were amusing things, control was in the subtle nature of them.

In the interim, a knock at the door. This time, he'd been expecting it. "Feel free, Rick. I've very little to hide, and even less space to hide it in." Locks thrown and undone, he popped the door, inward, on the picture of a young Chinese man with a navy blue ball cap and slightly uneven teeth. The jagged music of Mandarin passed between the two.

Really, the delivery man might have the most obvious interest in Melanie's display. If Rick had it, he kept it carefully in check. Not the least of which because he lived beneath the promise of a hellfire greater than either Melanie or Crispin could summon; Quinn, to whom his heart belonged, could do more with a look than anyone else could with a thousand words. That's what you get for being in love. As for Crispin -- that was his deal, but Rick didn't stick around to catch the man's reaction. No one would ever deny that Melanie was gorgeous as sin and twice as alluring. The detective wouldn't have held it against his friend if eyes wandered. It was just.. there was a bedroom to look into. All sorts of things could be learned. Sheets were like entrails for the scrying of facts.

"I hate you both by the way." A tiny foot, something kept hidden by black cloth and a black bow at her toes, was stamped softly on the pitiless ground. Entirely unable to smell, the notice of food, a culinary promise, meant so very little to one who'd thrown away even that simple pleasure.

'You do not," he called again. Followed by a, "And we both like you a great deal." Minor assumption made there.

He did, actually, the deliveryman, sneak a look over Cris's shoulder and provide the Nephilim with an upnod. Whatever he said in response had the Chinese man wiggle his thick eyebrows. Cris took the food and shut the door.

"I do, yes. At the best, if I don't hate you, that just means I'm not actively plotting your demise, which is fickle." Huffy and haughty, she lifted the bottle back to her lips and took quite a long, quite a sinful drink before passing a glance at Cris. "Do you have bread, cheese and a pan?"

There was a reason the bedroom door had been closeted. Cardboard boxes like castles, stacked and toppled over each other. Some with diagrams on their outside surfaces, one that matched the simple black bedframe an even simpler mattress rested on. Sheets wrinkled, pillows folded in half and in the middle of the bed. The blanket was thrown across the floor like it had been trying to escape whatever had torn up the room. Speckled against the sheets, maroon dots of dried blood too uniform to be unintentional. On the tower of boxes closest to the bed sat an uneven rock the color of the moon. Beside it, a fat manila envelope, wrinkled and torn, spitting a pile of photos. Of a young, troubled looking man, and two dark haired women. One with fangs, the other with claws. The room smelled like sunshine and metal and sin.

It took everything in Rick's will power, which was deep enough to drown out lesser wizards, to not turn his friend's bedroom into a crime scene, and take him apart piece by piece to stretch out the innards along the floor like a disassembled puzzle. The only way to get through it and not induce the blood to talk, to not identify the women in the picture, to not steal the stone and squeeze from it drops of truth. Crispin was a friend, and though he was not the greatest man, and much of what he did tonight was in the name of divining details, there was a line. This was the line. Rick went through the room as quickly as he could.

"You know, Cris, that if you spread plastic over the sheets, blood won't get everywhere." Passing advice from someone who had left a flayed man hanging from his own tendons in front of his building. Advice from a woman who'd murdered children simply to make a point. Needless to say, she'd followed Rick in, content to lean on the door jam.

He did yell at Melanie again, of course. "You made us cupcakes and cake. And they were amazing. I think you have a crush on one of us. You should just admit you like us." Really. It was easier.

Okay. Maybe yelling was unnecessary. She was right there.

"I like to remember." Offhand. There was very little in the room that he would be bothered by either of them touching. "Leave the photos where they are." Besides them.

"You're a d*ck, Rick. I had to force you to eat one of them, and you didn't even bother to eat another one. I kind of wasn't pleased with that, as*hole." Of course she wasn't, no. She also was not going to speak about her attentions, no. Rather, she stared down at her feet, a gesture that took her away from the moment. Cris' words sparked her once more. She couldn't help it. "Oh, hey!" She'd brought a bag, a small clutch. "I brought you something else, Crispin."

"I thought you'd bring them here." Quieter, as he sensed a shift in Melanie's focus. He poured himself into the work, either way, to get this room done fast.

"Why? You clearly didn't like them that much, so what's the point?" This was spat at the man, a quick counter to an imagined insult.

He'd offered the suggestion, but he hadn't seemed content with simply letting whatever it was transpire without the weight of a watchful eye. He looked over Melanie's dark head, beyond the eruption that had been his bed, to the wealth of photos spilling from the envelope. He'd meant to put them away, but he'd been, incredibly, but not surprisingly, distracted.

Blinking, he turned his gaze back down to Melanie. "What is it?"

"Remember when you said you wanted one of the videos, yeah?" Melanie's hand descended into the bag as she came up with a DVD in an unmarked case. Held a lot, the smile she wore was as blisteringly beautiful as it was sinfully luxurious. Bait for a dangerous trap. "So, Rick, I've done a few adult videos, yeah? And I mentioned that to Cris and he asked if I had copies, so I brought one."

"I remember. I was there." Now who was going to be insulted? The detective must have been a very small blip on her radar to have been forgotten. Spat on and forgotten -- he continued to just work, almost oblivious to the daggers she might cast at him.

Melanie forgot a lot of things, yes. Sensing something, she's quite an empathetic person when it suits her, she stepped a bit closer and gave the man's shoulder a slight nudge with an open palm. "Wow me and I won't forget you." Just as quickly, she left and planted herself in front of Cris, far too amused by all of this.

What in the Angel's name could he say that would not get him killed? The salt-sweet steam from the Chinese food in his hands distracted him well enough. It was burning one of his fingers. He used it as an excuse. "I think you'd better hold onto it for me until I've the proper technology to view it." He stepped back with a wince, shuffling the bags in his grip to bite the worried red burn on his palm. "Excuse me," muffled.

Crispin would see Rick's eyes lurking over Melanie's shoulders, watching. Curious.

"Oh no, no. Absolutely not." Without skipping a beat, she leaned across the counter and pressed the case into the hard surface. "See, you can eat cake, but you've yet to see me eat." With no shame, she pointed a finger down at the thin case and then back up at her. "There, you sure as hell can, yeah?"

Okay. Eyes, and a crack of a grin. Vastly amused, he was. He only returned to finishing the room with an amble over boxes because he still wanted out of there quickly.

The unspoken word pie was thick in the air. He set the bags down, shook his hand out with a movement exaggerated by the squint of his eyes. That he gave the case, then Melanie.

"You're the one who wanted this one." Melanie's fingers tapped on the thick curve of an exotically shaped mouth. "As I recall, you mentioned something about imagination, so all I'm doing is making it so you don't need to use that, you know?"

Fine. He'll save them. "Speaking of eating. How about it, Crispin? Before it gets cold." Rick was nudging Melanie as he wanted past her, drawing her attention to him.

"I hadn't thought that you didn't want me to think of you." Apparently, he'd been wrong. The reality of his situation told him he wasn't. Glance aside to the passing Wizard, appreciative only within his own mind.

Not entirely willing to release her fangs from the poor man, Melanie shifted easily against Rick as he brushed past her. This time, however, she did not bark at the touch. "Oh, I do want you to think, Crispin. I just want to give you something else to think about, you know?" Again, she glanced down at the counter, a shark's smile on her face. "Also, you didn't answer me. Do you have bread, cheese, butter and a pan?"

"How very kind of you." Short work to find the pint of eggdrop soup he'd ordered, he cracked the lid to let it breathe as he answered the Mandalorian. "Yes, no, no and no."

Take the out, Crispin. Take it! Rick had to slip by him, too, though eyes strayed over the case and the cover, as he was a lot less worried about gleaming details from that then he was Crispin's room. Should the man be too slow in getting out of his way, Rick would wave the chalk at him, waggling it around like a weapon. He also really wanted to swipe the bottle of alcohol from Melanie, and drown some of the awkwardness out with liquor, but -- he decided not to try that. Yet.

"...." Melanie seemed confused by this, mightily so. "I wanted to make a grilled cheese sandwich." Not that she'd have eaten it in front of them. She'd have gone outside. "How the f*ck are you even alive?"

"I eat out. Often." Sip.

And a profound lurch backward from the brandished chalk with an expression would give a gigantic, unknown insect.

"You don't cook for her?" This was an easy question, though spoken softly. The demeanor, once more, had changed ever so quickly.

When in the Angel's name had this become a serious conversation? Whatever advantage he'd gained, he promptly lost in the gaping stare he gave Melanie for her query. A blink to the food. "I can't."

Do not get between Rick and panfried dumplings. Another grenade was tossed into the room, and Rick was avoiding this one with a look cast at Crispin that said 'stop talking' and 'you idiot' at the same time. It was a caring look, really. Like a father watching his son crash and burn in front of a girl. Thin fingers dug his items out from the bag, along with soy sauce and chop sticks.

"That's not---something I'm terribly skilled at."

"Clari-..." Melanie's words halted, her head shook. "People typically cook for me. I like it. It's like they are giving you the most pure gift, you know? Opening themselves to criticism." With little else to do, she pressed worn glass against her lips once more, a harsh surface on pouted pillows. As she drank, she glanced around and, in an act of rare concern, lowered the bottle and gestured it across, over and around. If anyone else wanted.

Rick was on it first, and it revealed his reflexes more than his short time in the rings had. His hand was a blur and the bottle was to his lips within a fraction of a second. All while he held food, chop sticks, soy, and chalk in one hand.

It wasn't that he hadn't thought about learning something simple. He could slice and roll mean spring rolls, brown some delicious toast. But as for the finer points, he had always been more skilled at eating than he had at creating the food. But he meant to get a waffle iron at some point.

He nodded, scowl tight above another sip from hot soup.

"I can cook, I just don't do it often." She'd been forged into a killing machine that had few equals even as she'd been turned into every man's dream. Or that'd been the intention, at least. Somewhere along the line, she'd broken. "I'm going to make you guys dinner. Not Sunday. Maybe Monday. You'll come over, yeah? I live with Terry and Peaches, but I've got another building that I stay at from time to time." Hopeful, the look was.

"Absolutely." Said with wet lips and a throat more limber than it was a second ago. Rick slapped the bottle into Crispin's chest -- for courage, young man. For courage.

"Sure." Easy. It fell in line with the eating out often claim he'd made earlier. He nearly lost the mouthful he'd taken when Rick set the bottle against him. He took it, and placed it firmly on the counter without a drink.

Since Crispin wasn't going to drink, Melanie chased the bottle quickly. Every mannerism, every action was something coated in a living, sensual turn of her body. Drinking was no different, the delicate angles formed by such a motion. "What do you like to eat?" Asked of both of them, the flashing glance was given in turn.

Upper lip had disappeared between his teeth. He pointed at the bag of take-out as his answer.

"You're not talking much anymore, yeah?" This was for Cris, a marked question. "Are you uncomfortable?" Sincere, almost honest.

"Blood supply problem, maybe. Why don't you make something you like, Melanie? We'll eat it." It was the most intimate request he could make. Rick wanted the bottle back if Crispin wasn't going to drink, so he was reaching for it slowly and with a careful hand. His face said please, his mouth said give me, and his eyes watched Crispin.

"Because I can't taste anymore, not unless I'm willing to divert my mind into that, and truth be told, I don't often. It's another reminder I don't need, you know?" Having already stolen the bottle before, she pressed it back into Rick's hand.

"I'm fine, Melanie." There were dumplings in his eggdrop. A fortuitous discovery, like peanut butter in chocolate. Free hand dipped into the take-out bag. He pulled the sleeve from a pair of chopsticks with his teeth, a shrug of shoulders to Rick. Melanie had taken the liquor.

He hadn't been asking Crispin for the bottle. He took it from Melanie with a grateful nod and went back to putting a hurt on it. There was almost a solid four count before he gave it back to her with a whip of wrist. "Okay, fair enough. I like Italian."

For a second, Melanie glanced about, this way and that. Rick seemed the most likely to succumb to this petty demand. "I want a bite." Though she'd targeted him with the words, they were almost general. Almost. "So, is there anything else you want us to do?" This for Crispin, even as Melanie took the bottle once more and drank again, intent on drinking her mind into oblivion that wouldn't come. "So, Italian and Chinese? I'll make the thing I recall eating most at home, yeah? Like a portable meal for when we're on the march, you know?" Which was, truth be told, almost the entire time they existed.

She was right, he wasn't going to share. Splitting the chopsticks, he pinched a dumpling deep in the soup cup and bit it in half. "That sounds brilliant, Melanie," for all his politeness, talking with his mouth full didn't seem to be on his 'Do not do' list.

Was it succumbing when it was a friend? There was no battle of wills. Rick simply popped the lid open with a thumb, sending it off into the counter, broke the chopsticks, and selected a particularly good dumpling. Even if she couldn't taste it, the thought counted. It wasn't petty. It wasn't expected, but it wasn't petty. All of it was handed to her gingerly, chop sticks first, and while she was left to try it he opened the soy sauce and waited to offer her that, too. "Trick is to bite it, then pour a little sauce in, and finish it." One of the reasons he liked them so much -- they required a little effort each time.

At the core of the matter, Melanie simply wanted to be a part of a group. Any group. Hidden deep within the walls of such an impenetrable fortress, a small part of her demanded acceptance, validation. Approval. Though she'd never say the words, they existed. Her manners were flawless, quite as perfect as the rest of her image. After a moment, she shrugged and shook her head, dainty bites leading to delicate chewing motions. Four people, now, had ever seen such a thing. "I like texture." She could understand that, at least.

He was, for the time being, content to fade into the background. With his food.

"Fried dumplings are one of my favorite. If we ever go home, Crispin or I will have to take you to a real Chinese food place." Boston vs New York. As much as Rick loved Boston, he suspected New York would win. Not that he would admit that in front of anyone. When Melanie was finished, Rick took the chopsticks back and went to eating with them. Between bites, he was smiling. Hell, during bites, he was smiling. "Thank you, Melanie."

"I don't want to to Earth." Like they'd been fanned by some thermal, the loose, wavy layers that shrouded her face in such darkness flipped out as she shook her head. "She used to take me there, yeah? I don't..." She, again, faltered before taking a drink and a moment to collect her fragile composure. "want to think about that." Confused by his words, she tipped a glance in his direction. "Why?"

"Eating in front of us." As he had done before, he did again -- she had a moment, and he noticed it, absorbed it, took it in, and moved forward as if it hadn't happened. He could guess who she meant, and he felt things coming into focus. Rick took a break to roll up his sleeves, unbuttoning the sleeves and winding them up his arm to reveal the geometric, crossing tattoo work. "Meant a lot to me."

Curious as to the nature of the man's living artwork, Melanie glanced down, intent on studying what was on display. "My tattoos have been the same for months." Strange, a strange fact. A tribal people, the mythical tattoos were a guiding light for the lost. As she stared, she shrugged. "I cant show you all of them." Some were in places that were not to be seen by people who did not desire to see all of her. "I'm not the same person when I'm not in public." Night and day, the shift. "I sell an image that's not who I am." She was, for the time being, almost calm. Almost under her own control.

"I like both of you, and I'm glad to know this one." Now a touch, though it was done with a hip again. His bumped hers with the friendly, claiming affection of a cat. Had he not been eating, he might have used his hands, but they were feeding him at the moment. Fingers were every so delicate with the sticks, digits made for piano or stagecraft making short work of dumplings. "These are -- complicated. But I use them as foci. There's something like a one point seven five three to the thousandth power possible shapes on each arm. I memorize spells to unique shapes. It helps." Shrugging. If she was sharing, he was sharing. But not everything.

"..." For a time, Melanie simply stared. She didn't understand numbers, she'd never bothered with them. Reading was a stretch, a sign of defeat that she'd been forced to learn. "Alright?" Her expression was clear, even as she tried to understand. She didn't. Not at all. "I can show you more of mine, but a lot are on my legs. The most important one is." The rest, shoulders and her entire back, were at least half on display.