CHAPTER 14 - Dana and Susan to the Rescue
(A/N - Well, Yami no Hikari Hime, I like Bananas too - so par your request, I'll try to fit in a segment with a piano. Probably Seth and Dana (they need some action) Thanks for the reviews guys - I got my flow back - don't you all hate writers block? - so I'll be adding more chapters every day or so like I usually do ^_^. XO ~ LoKi)
"Will you stop hogging all the hot water - I still have to get this conditioner out of my hair!"
"Hello - this is leave in treatment! I need the hot water more than you do!"
"You need a smack, that's what you need." Dana sulked plopping down on the edge of the bathtub, a towel wrapped around her damp hair. Susan was sitting on the other edge. She had her panties and camisole on and was placing rollers in her hair.
"Get over it, Dana, you can use the sink. We all know your history with bathtubs."
"Yeah, you're also going to find out about my history with kitchen knives in a second-" She stopped mid thought and cocked her head to one side. "Is that thunder?" Susan stopped rolling her hair and listened. A faint rumbling was coming from outside the small window. It steadily got louder, and then fell, then entered another crescendo.
"That doesn't sound like thunder. It kind of sounds like a car." The two girls exchanged worried glances.
"PRINCE?!!"
~*~
God it felt good to drive again. Royce savored the feel of his car around him, the way she hummed and purred gently as he accelerated and made his way from the garage. He almost forgot about how his pride and joy so easily turned against him all those years ago, his mind was elsewhere anyway.
He exited the garage and into the parking lot. The sky was nothing less than a velvet carpet, the stars like diamonds scattered carelessly about its ebony stillness. He accelerated again, the engine making the sound of thunder outside of Broadway's window He wanted to make it perfectly clear that he meant what he had said, and this was the only way he knew he could. He cast a determined look in the direction of her room and revved the engine once more before speeding off towards the exit.
~*~
"Dana - I can't go out like this!!" Susan yelled after her friend. She was trying to pull her shoes on and do up the straps of her dress and keep up with Dana who was running and phasing through the resort.
"We have to go after him!" Dana called over her shoulder. They arrived in the parking lot in time to see the taillights of a 1953 Ford Hot Rod disappear down the driveway. Both women exchanged horrified looks and screamed. Susan flicked her hands around in front of her wildly.
"What do we do?? Dana what do we do!??"
"Go after him! Hurry up - maybe you can use your ESP to stop him!" Dana took off full speed down the narrow road with Susan at her heels. They flickered back at the entrance of the resort; Royce was still ahead of them by quite a distance, but Susan was already transforming. Her dress tore and bound her hands behind he back. A tie slinked its way up her neck as it twisted and bent at an odd angle until snapping audibly. She gave a short cry before concentrating on the speeding vehicle in the distance.
~*~
Royce was almost free from the resort when his car suddenly jerked forward as if it had been hit from behind. His hands clutched the steering wheel tightly and he had to calm himself as to not lapse into a flashback. Checking the review mirror, he could make out two figures in the distance but he couldn't see who it was. He pushed the accelerator harder and willed his car to go faster, but it was strained and felt as if it was being pulled backwards. He shifted gears and tried again, but to no avail. The car lurched forward again, almost violently and Royce cried out softly, cursing under his breath. His eyes flew to the review mirror again and he could make out the figures of two women - one in a towel and the other in a ratty prom dress. Royce slammed on the breaks, sending smoke billowing up from under the tires, but still the car dragged on. He finally gave up and waited. Dana leaned her arms on the open windowsill and grinned.
"Kinda late for a drive, don't you think Prince?"
"Yeah Royce, where are you off to in such a big hurry." Susan chimed in, fixing her tiara.
"What do I have to do to get rid of people?!" Royce said exasperated. Dana cleaned her nails on the front of her towel.
"You can't Prince, that's the thing. We're all in this until the end, and we're not letting you get away that easily." Royce clenched his jaw and looked straight ahead. "Come on, Prince - the three of us have been together for years. You two are the closest things to friends, real friends that I've ever had. We're supposed to stick together until the very end - we made that pact when we were first captured!"
"I can't go back there. I have to stay away for a while - it's not a good idea for me to stay back there." Royce replied. Susan leaned against the window once again.
"Girl problems, Royce?"
"Cut the gas."
"Looks like I hit a soft spot." Royce phased out of the drivers seat and materialized in front of Susan - his bat clutched tightly in his hand and brought it up to Susan's head, stopping inches before her skull.
"I thought I told you to cut the gas."
"Knock it off!" Dana stepped in between them and put her hands on Royce's shoulders. "Look Prince, lets just go back there and talk about it in the morning. Something's going on, and I know what it is, but you can't run away from it."
"But.."
"No buts. Lets go back. It's nice to have something of a home."
~*~
Dana sighed and slumped down into the bottom of the bright porcelain bathtub, rubbing her temples furiously. As soon as her Susan and Royce had arrived back at the lodge, Royce disappeared back into the garage and Susan sulked off, leaving a frustrated Angry Princess alone with her thoughts. The silence of the lodge was broken suddenly, and the haunting, melodic sounds of a piano floated about the residence. She tilted her head to one side and listened intently. It seemed to be coming from the private room and Dana, not particularly having anything better to do with her time, phased out of the bathroom and into the lounge, lingering in the doorway.
Someone was bent over the keys of the grand piano, their back to her. He had black hair spiked up in almost every direction and was wearing a short sleeved black top and black jeans. Dana knew who it was and tried to remember his name.
"Seth!" She remembered the way he looked at her the first time he saw her body. He didn't leer like all the others, it was as if he knew what she was feeling or thinking at the time. He looked at her with pity and understanding, when all the others always looked at her with disgust or a sick desire. Now, pity wasn't the best thing someone could have felt for her, but it certainly was better than twisted lust.
She listened to the melody he was playing for a few more minutes before taking a step into the room. He didn't even notice that she was there and continued to concentrate on the notes and music. Dana let a gentle smile play along her face and phased across the room, sitting down on the piano seat next to him. Seth stiffened slightly and missed a beat of his song. He cast a few awkward glances around him before he placed his fingers back on the keys.
"I like your song." Seth jumped off of his seat in one fluent motion and cried out in surprise. He removed a pair of translucent glasses from his back pocket and flung them onto his face, his eyes falling onto Dana.
"What are you doing?" He exclaimed. She looked apologetic for a moment and stood up from the bench.
"I'm sorry. I just heard you playing and wanted to listen to more."
"Well, you could have given me a bit more warning." Seth replied shortly. He softened slightly when her expression began to show tinges of hurt. "I'm a little jumpy at night."
"I know how it is." Dana said. "What was that you were playing?" She continued.
"Oh that?" Seth gestured to his sheet music. "That's just a little something I wrote off the top of my head. I've been playing for a while now - it helps to get my mind off of shit." Dana fixed him with a quizzical look.
"You mean your past?"
"Exactly."
"Ah." There was a moment of silence between the two before Dana spoke again. "Will you play a bit more for me? I've kind of had a bad day." Seth raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not that good, you know."
"I thought you were doing alright. I can't do anything like that - I don't have any sort of talents." She paused. "Rather, I DIDN'T have any special talents. That's more like it."
"Oh come on, there must have been SOMETHING you were good at. Everyone has a talent." Seth retorted. The ghost shook her head.
"There's nothing I can remember being good at."
Seth said nothing but took his seat by the piano. He placed his fingers lightly on the keys and took a few deep breaths before letting the music sink into his eyes and out through his fingers. The song was soft and haunting, but as beautiful as mist over a lake at dawn. The melody rose and fell as the mood of the song changed from grace to angst and back into complacence. When it ended, Dana clapped softly and gave another delicate smile.
"Thank you, Seth. That made me feel a lot better."
"What's going on anyway?" Dana sighed deeply and sat down next to him on the bench again. Seth felt the softness of her towel against his skin as she settled down next to him.
"Oh, just this crisis thing going on with the Black Zodiac. I thought it was over last year - I could have sworn it was over last year! I can't believe that we've gotten so many people involved..you do realize that you could all end up like us, right?"
"Yeah, I do. I just wish that my sister would realize the risks." Seth replied with a snort. Dana opened her mouth to speak but decided against it. Seth looked at her closely. "What? Do you know anything about what's going on with my sister?"
"..No. I don't - I have enough problems with Susan and Royce to deal with, I can't really be bothered. No offence."
"None taken." He paused. "You three seem close."
"Those two? Yeah, I guess they're both like my best friends. I never had any in life and so in death, I guess I was trying to change that."
"Did you know each other while you were alive?"
"Fuck no, how could we - we're all from different points in time from this century!" Dana replied with a laugh. "Susan died in the early 80's and Royce - we'll you can probably guess."
"What happened anyway? How did you-" Dana pressed her finger to Seth's lips and shook her head.
"Don't ever ask a ghost how they died. It'll send them into flashbacks and there's no telling what might happen then."
"..Oh..sorry"
"No problem. It's not something most people know about ghosts." Seth let a chuckle escape his throat.
"There's not a whole hell of a lot of anything people know about ghosts except what we see in movies or on TV."
"That's very true." Dana replied lightly. "Even when one becomes a ghost it's like being born all over again. You're like an infant and you have to try things out before you can see if they are good or bad. I had to ask myself questions about my own death before I could come to terms with it. That's called the denial period. It's kind of what we were all waiting for Cyrus to come out of before we could leave the grounds. The dead have to come to terms with their death before they can cross over into the afterlife, or become ghosts. Only a few lucky people cross over, the majority of the dead are ghosts, and only a small percentage of ghost are as violent as we are."
"You're not being very violent right now, though are you?" Seth pointed out. The Angry Princess frowned.
"Because I don't want to go to Hell. There was a time, longer now than it seems, when I would kill anyone who dared to come close to me. I took out 15 of Cyrus men when he came to retrieve me. And before that, well there were a lot." Dana frowned again and let out a dead sigh. "Though I suppose I brought this all upon myself. If I had known then what I know now, things would be so much different. At least, that's what I like to think."
There was another awkward moment of silence between the two.
"If there's one thing I've learned, Dana, it's not to dwell on the past. It's always going to be the way it was and you can't change it so don't bother trying. The best, and sometimes only thing you can do is learn from your experiences and don't make the same mistake twice."
"Easier said than done." Dana paused. "But I suppose I have one thing going for me"
"What's that?"
"You can only kill yourself once, so I can't make the same mistake twice!"
"Ha ha." Seth said sarcastically. "Not very funny."
"Oh, I never laugh anymore so if it means poking fun at my own bad choices and stupidity, then so be it." A stray hair fell in front of her face and Seth brushed I back over her shoulders.
"You're too harsh on yourself, you know that. What did I just tell you about dwelling on the past?"
"Seth..?"
"Hmm?"
"Why are you so nice to me?" She sounded faintly upset, though Seth didn't understand why.
"Well, if you think it's because I want to take advantage of you, you're wrong."
"That's not what I meant."
"Just checking." Seth sighed and put his hands on the keys again. "Because you're a good person, Dana. You had a rough life and you paid the ultimate price for it, even if it was by your own hand. The point is - something happened to you that drove you to that decision, and from what I can see and hear, you didn't deserve ANY of it. Don't keep punishing yourself in death for something you didn't deserve - you're not a martyr."
"I guess not." Dana smoothed the front of her towel. "Will you do something for me, Seth?"
"Sure. Of course."
"Will you play another song for me?" He smiled and wordlessly picked up where he left off before. Dana closed her eyes and let the music float all around her. Without really realizing it, she had lay her head on Seth's shoulder. Seth only smiled softly and continued playing as if nothing peculiar had happened at all.
(A/N - Well, Yami no Hikari Hime, I like Bananas too - so par your request, I'll try to fit in a segment with a piano. Probably Seth and Dana (they need some action) Thanks for the reviews guys - I got my flow back - don't you all hate writers block? - so I'll be adding more chapters every day or so like I usually do ^_^. XO ~ LoKi)
"Will you stop hogging all the hot water - I still have to get this conditioner out of my hair!"
"Hello - this is leave in treatment! I need the hot water more than you do!"
"You need a smack, that's what you need." Dana sulked plopping down on the edge of the bathtub, a towel wrapped around her damp hair. Susan was sitting on the other edge. She had her panties and camisole on and was placing rollers in her hair.
"Get over it, Dana, you can use the sink. We all know your history with bathtubs."
"Yeah, you're also going to find out about my history with kitchen knives in a second-" She stopped mid thought and cocked her head to one side. "Is that thunder?" Susan stopped rolling her hair and listened. A faint rumbling was coming from outside the small window. It steadily got louder, and then fell, then entered another crescendo.
"That doesn't sound like thunder. It kind of sounds like a car." The two girls exchanged worried glances.
"PRINCE?!!"
~*~
God it felt good to drive again. Royce savored the feel of his car around him, the way she hummed and purred gently as he accelerated and made his way from the garage. He almost forgot about how his pride and joy so easily turned against him all those years ago, his mind was elsewhere anyway.
He exited the garage and into the parking lot. The sky was nothing less than a velvet carpet, the stars like diamonds scattered carelessly about its ebony stillness. He accelerated again, the engine making the sound of thunder outside of Broadway's window He wanted to make it perfectly clear that he meant what he had said, and this was the only way he knew he could. He cast a determined look in the direction of her room and revved the engine once more before speeding off towards the exit.
~*~
"Dana - I can't go out like this!!" Susan yelled after her friend. She was trying to pull her shoes on and do up the straps of her dress and keep up with Dana who was running and phasing through the resort.
"We have to go after him!" Dana called over her shoulder. They arrived in the parking lot in time to see the taillights of a 1953 Ford Hot Rod disappear down the driveway. Both women exchanged horrified looks and screamed. Susan flicked her hands around in front of her wildly.
"What do we do?? Dana what do we do!??"
"Go after him! Hurry up - maybe you can use your ESP to stop him!" Dana took off full speed down the narrow road with Susan at her heels. They flickered back at the entrance of the resort; Royce was still ahead of them by quite a distance, but Susan was already transforming. Her dress tore and bound her hands behind he back. A tie slinked its way up her neck as it twisted and bent at an odd angle until snapping audibly. She gave a short cry before concentrating on the speeding vehicle in the distance.
~*~
Royce was almost free from the resort when his car suddenly jerked forward as if it had been hit from behind. His hands clutched the steering wheel tightly and he had to calm himself as to not lapse into a flashback. Checking the review mirror, he could make out two figures in the distance but he couldn't see who it was. He pushed the accelerator harder and willed his car to go faster, but it was strained and felt as if it was being pulled backwards. He shifted gears and tried again, but to no avail. The car lurched forward again, almost violently and Royce cried out softly, cursing under his breath. His eyes flew to the review mirror again and he could make out the figures of two women - one in a towel and the other in a ratty prom dress. Royce slammed on the breaks, sending smoke billowing up from under the tires, but still the car dragged on. He finally gave up and waited. Dana leaned her arms on the open windowsill and grinned.
"Kinda late for a drive, don't you think Prince?"
"Yeah Royce, where are you off to in such a big hurry." Susan chimed in, fixing her tiara.
"What do I have to do to get rid of people?!" Royce said exasperated. Dana cleaned her nails on the front of her towel.
"You can't Prince, that's the thing. We're all in this until the end, and we're not letting you get away that easily." Royce clenched his jaw and looked straight ahead. "Come on, Prince - the three of us have been together for years. You two are the closest things to friends, real friends that I've ever had. We're supposed to stick together until the very end - we made that pact when we were first captured!"
"I can't go back there. I have to stay away for a while - it's not a good idea for me to stay back there." Royce replied. Susan leaned against the window once again.
"Girl problems, Royce?"
"Cut the gas."
"Looks like I hit a soft spot." Royce phased out of the drivers seat and materialized in front of Susan - his bat clutched tightly in his hand and brought it up to Susan's head, stopping inches before her skull.
"I thought I told you to cut the gas."
"Knock it off!" Dana stepped in between them and put her hands on Royce's shoulders. "Look Prince, lets just go back there and talk about it in the morning. Something's going on, and I know what it is, but you can't run away from it."
"But.."
"No buts. Lets go back. It's nice to have something of a home."
~*~
Dana sighed and slumped down into the bottom of the bright porcelain bathtub, rubbing her temples furiously. As soon as her Susan and Royce had arrived back at the lodge, Royce disappeared back into the garage and Susan sulked off, leaving a frustrated Angry Princess alone with her thoughts. The silence of the lodge was broken suddenly, and the haunting, melodic sounds of a piano floated about the residence. She tilted her head to one side and listened intently. It seemed to be coming from the private room and Dana, not particularly having anything better to do with her time, phased out of the bathroom and into the lounge, lingering in the doorway.
Someone was bent over the keys of the grand piano, their back to her. He had black hair spiked up in almost every direction and was wearing a short sleeved black top and black jeans. Dana knew who it was and tried to remember his name.
"Seth!" She remembered the way he looked at her the first time he saw her body. He didn't leer like all the others, it was as if he knew what she was feeling or thinking at the time. He looked at her with pity and understanding, when all the others always looked at her with disgust or a sick desire. Now, pity wasn't the best thing someone could have felt for her, but it certainly was better than twisted lust.
She listened to the melody he was playing for a few more minutes before taking a step into the room. He didn't even notice that she was there and continued to concentrate on the notes and music. Dana let a gentle smile play along her face and phased across the room, sitting down on the piano seat next to him. Seth stiffened slightly and missed a beat of his song. He cast a few awkward glances around him before he placed his fingers back on the keys.
"I like your song." Seth jumped off of his seat in one fluent motion and cried out in surprise. He removed a pair of translucent glasses from his back pocket and flung them onto his face, his eyes falling onto Dana.
"What are you doing?" He exclaimed. She looked apologetic for a moment and stood up from the bench.
"I'm sorry. I just heard you playing and wanted to listen to more."
"Well, you could have given me a bit more warning." Seth replied shortly. He softened slightly when her expression began to show tinges of hurt. "I'm a little jumpy at night."
"I know how it is." Dana said. "What was that you were playing?" She continued.
"Oh that?" Seth gestured to his sheet music. "That's just a little something I wrote off the top of my head. I've been playing for a while now - it helps to get my mind off of shit." Dana fixed him with a quizzical look.
"You mean your past?"
"Exactly."
"Ah." There was a moment of silence between the two before Dana spoke again. "Will you play a bit more for me? I've kind of had a bad day." Seth raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not that good, you know."
"I thought you were doing alright. I can't do anything like that - I don't have any sort of talents." She paused. "Rather, I DIDN'T have any special talents. That's more like it."
"Oh come on, there must have been SOMETHING you were good at. Everyone has a talent." Seth retorted. The ghost shook her head.
"There's nothing I can remember being good at."
Seth said nothing but took his seat by the piano. He placed his fingers lightly on the keys and took a few deep breaths before letting the music sink into his eyes and out through his fingers. The song was soft and haunting, but as beautiful as mist over a lake at dawn. The melody rose and fell as the mood of the song changed from grace to angst and back into complacence. When it ended, Dana clapped softly and gave another delicate smile.
"Thank you, Seth. That made me feel a lot better."
"What's going on anyway?" Dana sighed deeply and sat down next to him on the bench again. Seth felt the softness of her towel against his skin as she settled down next to him.
"Oh, just this crisis thing going on with the Black Zodiac. I thought it was over last year - I could have sworn it was over last year! I can't believe that we've gotten so many people involved..you do realize that you could all end up like us, right?"
"Yeah, I do. I just wish that my sister would realize the risks." Seth replied with a snort. Dana opened her mouth to speak but decided against it. Seth looked at her closely. "What? Do you know anything about what's going on with my sister?"
"..No. I don't - I have enough problems with Susan and Royce to deal with, I can't really be bothered. No offence."
"None taken." He paused. "You three seem close."
"Those two? Yeah, I guess they're both like my best friends. I never had any in life and so in death, I guess I was trying to change that."
"Did you know each other while you were alive?"
"Fuck no, how could we - we're all from different points in time from this century!" Dana replied with a laugh. "Susan died in the early 80's and Royce - we'll you can probably guess."
"What happened anyway? How did you-" Dana pressed her finger to Seth's lips and shook her head.
"Don't ever ask a ghost how they died. It'll send them into flashbacks and there's no telling what might happen then."
"..Oh..sorry"
"No problem. It's not something most people know about ghosts." Seth let a chuckle escape his throat.
"There's not a whole hell of a lot of anything people know about ghosts except what we see in movies or on TV."
"That's very true." Dana replied lightly. "Even when one becomes a ghost it's like being born all over again. You're like an infant and you have to try things out before you can see if they are good or bad. I had to ask myself questions about my own death before I could come to terms with it. That's called the denial period. It's kind of what we were all waiting for Cyrus to come out of before we could leave the grounds. The dead have to come to terms with their death before they can cross over into the afterlife, or become ghosts. Only a few lucky people cross over, the majority of the dead are ghosts, and only a small percentage of ghost are as violent as we are."
"You're not being very violent right now, though are you?" Seth pointed out. The Angry Princess frowned.
"Because I don't want to go to Hell. There was a time, longer now than it seems, when I would kill anyone who dared to come close to me. I took out 15 of Cyrus men when he came to retrieve me. And before that, well there were a lot." Dana frowned again and let out a dead sigh. "Though I suppose I brought this all upon myself. If I had known then what I know now, things would be so much different. At least, that's what I like to think."
There was another awkward moment of silence between the two.
"If there's one thing I've learned, Dana, it's not to dwell on the past. It's always going to be the way it was and you can't change it so don't bother trying. The best, and sometimes only thing you can do is learn from your experiences and don't make the same mistake twice."
"Easier said than done." Dana paused. "But I suppose I have one thing going for me"
"What's that?"
"You can only kill yourself once, so I can't make the same mistake twice!"
"Ha ha." Seth said sarcastically. "Not very funny."
"Oh, I never laugh anymore so if it means poking fun at my own bad choices and stupidity, then so be it." A stray hair fell in front of her face and Seth brushed I back over her shoulders.
"You're too harsh on yourself, you know that. What did I just tell you about dwelling on the past?"
"Seth..?"
"Hmm?"
"Why are you so nice to me?" She sounded faintly upset, though Seth didn't understand why.
"Well, if you think it's because I want to take advantage of you, you're wrong."
"That's not what I meant."
"Just checking." Seth sighed and put his hands on the keys again. "Because you're a good person, Dana. You had a rough life and you paid the ultimate price for it, even if it was by your own hand. The point is - something happened to you that drove you to that decision, and from what I can see and hear, you didn't deserve ANY of it. Don't keep punishing yourself in death for something you didn't deserve - you're not a martyr."
"I guess not." Dana smoothed the front of her towel. "Will you do something for me, Seth?"
"Sure. Of course."
"Will you play another song for me?" He smiled and wordlessly picked up where he left off before. Dana closed her eyes and let the music float all around her. Without really realizing it, she had lay her head on Seth's shoulder. Seth only smiled softly and continued playing as if nothing peculiar had happened at all.