Cleaning Shit Up

Who: Hannah & Lucius
When: 5ish
Where: Phone.

Lucius finished up the process of moving Ivan's kitchen door to the hole where the front door used to be. Plopping down on the couch he yanked his cell phone off of the broken coffee table and dialing Hannah's number. He owed her a phone call at a decent hour. He propped the phone against his shoulder and listened as it rang, his eyes drifting around the room at the remnants of the struggle that had taken place there.

Sprawled out across the passenger seat in her Bronco with her phone in her hands-- she'd been downloading new ringtones, because she really was getting sick of her Rage Against the Macine one-- Hannah actually dropped it in surprise when it rang again, to the tune of a My Chemical Romance ditty she'd downloaded for shits and giggles. But where's your heart? whiny Gerard Way sung on her tiny cell phone speakers, from the floor, before she made a face and picked it up to shut Mister Way up and answer the phone. "Yeah?"

"Hey Han. Still pissed at me for wakin you up this morning?" he questioned a smirk forming across his face and leaking into his words. "What's up?" He propped his feet up on the broken coffee table and managed to hold back the sigh that was building in his throat.

Ah, Lucius was back in town. "No, dude, but you do it again and I will be. Not much going on, really. Just recooping and shit." And visiting with Seph, but yeah right was she telling Lucius about that. "Was fiddling with my phone and you startled me. Dropped it and shit. Got attacked again, which pissed me off. You're not a Star Wars fan, are you?" The last was tacked on in an obvious and self-mocking "attempt" at distraction from the "got attacked again" comment. Though she was curious if he had an ulterior motive for calling her "Han".

Her babbling did distract him for a moment from the 'attacked again' statement. "No. Never watched them." he told her. "Just got tired of using more than one syllable especially with you shortening my na- Wait a minute... attacked again?" he questioned, his mind finally circling back to the statement. "Shadows? How, when?" He'd had no problems since the last issue in the hospital bathroom. He moved his feet back to the floor and sat up taking the phone in his hand again awaiting her explanation.

Hey, it had almost worked... that was unexpected, honestly, and Hannah actually laughed a little at him, despite how irritated the whole issue made her. Besides, she was over the first rush of fury by now, and really only left with a simmering restlessness to do something about it. "They won't be bothering you or your girl," she promised. "So no freaking out on me. The place I had trouble with them in is the place where they... come from, I guess. It's not a place you can go."

He sighed despite the fact that she hadn't actually said Marlowe's name. "Well firstly, she's not 'my' girl anymore." he told her. "And where could I possibly not go?" he added on. That part seeming to be just a little more confusing. There wasn't any place he could think of that he wouldn't have been able to go.

"Nowhere you need to fuckin' worry about," Hannah said quellingly. "You just can't get there, okay? It's where those bitches come from, and you wouldn't want to go there, even if you could." It was hers, dammit. After ninety years of being the only being she had ever heard of, much less seen, in the In Between, she had come to think of it as her territory. Not even the glimpses of the shadow-people had dislodged that notion, and being attacked by them wasn't going to dislodge it now. "So what's up with you and Marlowe, then? I thought you two were joined at the fucking hip, or something."

He was a bit surprised at her annoyance about wherever this 'place he couldn't go' was. He decided, however, not to press the issue any farther. He wasn't in the mood to talk about Marlowe either, but if it got them off the subject of Hannah's secret place, he was willing to deal with it. "She's mad at me, or upset, or whatever you wanna call it. She's hurt because I walked away from her after she told me about the whole fire thing. I don't know what else she expected me to do. I didn't know how to handle it so I took a walk. It's not like I was leaving 'her', I just needed to think. Fuck... I'm an idiot."

"Or she's being fuckin' unreasonable," Hannah suggested, bouncing one leg off the armrest idly. "I don't know. I'd probably be pissed if someone took that 'I need a walk' thing as something to get all bent outa shape over. Sometimes you just need a few minutes or whatever to think. That's normal, and if she's holding it against you, well, fuck. Maybe she needs to cool down and start thinking rationally and shit."

He sighed. "I don't know. I walked away at the beginning of the shadow thing because they were after me not her, so I thought she'd be safer if I wasn't around her but that just hurt her more because she didn't want me to walk away so when I went back I promised I wouldn't. And I mean I didn't really walk away from her just the situation ya know. I mean she dropped this bomb on me and I just didn't know what to say or do and walking was the only thing I could really think of ya know?" Again he sighed and stood from the couch, wearing a path in the floor as he paced. "I don't know... I just... I wish I'd never walked away."

"Well, you did," she reminded him. This was another reason she didn't date. God, there was so much fucking drama. "So now you gotta deal with it. You apologized and shit, right? I mean, she knows you feel bad and you're done freaking out, right?"

He sighed. "I'm done freaking out, and I told her I was sorry... then I acted like a jerk again because I couldn't understand why she was freaking out in the first place. Then there was silence the whole ride home. Then she told me she wanted me to stay at my room and she'd drive herself home. She hasn't answered my phone calls since. Hell I don't even know if we're actually broken up or she's just pissed off or upset or hurt. Fuck. I need to call her again... maybe leave a message or something." He looked around the still messed up room and let out another sigh. "But first I really need to clean up the mess that used to be Ivan's living room. It just feels so different in here since all that crap with the shadows went down." He wasn't in the mood to talk about Marlowe anymore, cleaning would get his mind off of the redhead, or at least he hoped it would.

"One more message ain't gonna do you much more good than the others," Hannah said dubiously, but she left it at that, for his sake. Instead, she started digging around in her backpack for her Bluetooth, so she could put the phone away and have her hands free again, and asked, "Different how? What's changed? Besides apparently being dirty."

"I haven't left any messages... just called... repeatedly." he countered. He continued looking around the room, ambling through the rubble as he spoke. "I dunno, it just has this weird vibe ya know. Like 'behold the battle, that's all you'll ever remember in this room' kinda." He shrugged. "Fuck I don't know, it just feels weird."

"Oh, well, shit. I know about that. This is the kid who got all beat up, right? Stuck there for half a day before anyone got to him?" Fuck, the negative energy in that place must have been through the roof. "Where is it?" she asked, popping the Bluetooth in her ear and turning it on, switching the conversation over there, so she could climb over to the driver's side and start the engine. "I can be there in a few, fix the place up."

He raised an eyebrow but gave her directions regardless. "What exactly do you mean 'fix the place up'?" he questioned. He wasn't sure what she could possibly do to fix the feeling, after all it was just that, a feeling. Not like she'd be able to solve it... would she?

Turning the music down so she could still hear him talk, Hannah started the Bronco off thataway. "Well, see, there's this thing I can do. And this shit I can do it with. Negative energy builds up in a place where there's been a lot of bad shit happened, a lot of bad emotions or a lot of pain and death. I can kind of-- take that negative energy away. Clean a place up. So I'm betting that's the problem with your buddy's house, and all I gotta do is clean it up."

His eyebrow stayed cocked as she spoke. "So you what? Suck it up like a vacuum cleaner?" he questioned. It was the only way he could think to compare her 'thing' to. He plopped back down on Ivan's couch as he pondered that thought. "You can just come in and suck it up and poof everything's normal again?"

"Yeah, dude," Hannah said sarcastically, "just like a fucking vacuum cleaner. It'll take me a little while, depending on how much of this shit is there, and you won't see anything, but it'll feel better when I'm done. I mean, I can't take away the broken shit or the memory that something bad happened there, but it'll be neutral ambiance again."

He nodded though the gesture went unseen. "I can take care of the broken shit and clean up the place then while you're doing that." he told her. "Guess I'll see you in a few, just come in when you get here, doors open."

"Will do," Hannah answered simply, and hung up the phone, tugging out the Bluetooth. She was almost there, anyway. Marquette might not be the smallest town ever, but it was still pretty small, and it didn't take very long to get anywhere. She pulled the Bronco out in front of the little house, killed the engine, and hopped out, crossing the lawn without regard for walking on the grass. Since he'd said to, she opened the door without knocking--

--and was just hit with the negative energy. "Fucking a," she said, blinking.

Lucius looked up from the broken coffee table he'd pushed into the corner. "See what I mean?" he questioned, straightening himself and walking towards Hannah again. He continued moving about, doing his best to rid the living room of splintered wood and various other forms of debris from the struggle that had ensued there. After a moment he stopped to look up at her. "Sorry... hey." he greeted, not that it would mean much after the fact. His mind was still all over the place.

"This... this is more than just him being hurt for half a day," Hannah managed, already pulling some in. This was like a fucking banquet, the pain, fear, misery, depression, loathing.... She could eat this shit for days. There was no way she could consume it all, but she thought maybe she could at least cart it all out, even if she couldn't eat it all right then. She could release the rest someplace else and come back for it. "Who the hell is your friend, and why the fuck has he been this negative for however the fuck long?"

"Ivan..." he mumbled looking up at the girl. "He hasn't exactly been having the best time lately. There's a lot... of stuff there." He wasn't sure how much he should really get into with Hannah, or how much the girl would really want to know. He decided to give her a basic run down so she'd understand slightly. "His friend died a while back... he was there when it happened and he got hurt. So there's that, then there's the tiny fact that he kinda sorta... hadacrushonme." The last crushed word was muttered so softly that he was pretty sure she may just ignore it completely if he kept rambling. "He's just all around a ball of angst. Even more so than you." he teased.

"Next to this mess, I'm a fucking bundle of joy," Hannah snorted, drifting in through the quagmire and drawing it in as quickly as she could. Which wasn't all that quickly. No such luck on ignoring the crush thing, though. She was, after all, terribly nosy, fairly observant, and a teenage girl. Sort of. "So not only do you get the girls, you get the guys. How fair is that?" She was teasing, of course, though it came out sounding more distracted than anything else. This was a lot of energy to deal with.

He gave her a half-stare, half shut-your-face look and continued through the mess. "Happen to know anything that gets blood out of upholstery and carpeting?" he questioned as he looked at the couch and then at the floor. The dried blood stains from Ivan clearly apparent in both.

"Cold water, towel dry, then hydrogen peroxide," Hannah said absently, knowing that answer without having to think about it. She didn't even notice his stare, trailing her fingers along the wall and coming away with more negative energy just dripping from them. Fuck, if only Seph could see this place. Maybe she'd let him have the extra... too bad she didn't know where his house was. Maybe she could take it out of town and bring him there, later. That was an idea. "Though it might bleach the carpet a bit. Depending on what color it is." Because, you know, she hadn't really looked, and probably couldn't make it out, anyway.

He wasn't even about to question how she knew that. Instead he just nodded even though the girl was busy making her rounds through the house. He took the wood shards and the garbage he'd collected outside and returned a few moments later. "Dude. It already feels like way different in here." And it did. Surprisingly whatever it was Hannah was doing was really changing the way it felt. Sure he still remembered what had happened in the room but he couldn't feel it nearly as bad as before she'd arrived. "Think you can use that 'get rid of negativity' thing on Marlowe?" he joked.

"Ha," Hannah answered, from her seat where she'd finally settled in the hall, central to the rest of the house. She'd gotten the living room mostly clean-- mostly-- of the terror and pain energies, but the depression and loathing, mostly self-loathing, was much deeper-rooted and was all-pervasive. Her eyes were closed, but she answered, anyway. "Doesn't work that way. People make negative energy, they don't just collect it like places do. I could keep taking and taking and taking, and if she wanted to stay mad? She'd just keep making more."

"Damn." he said with fake upsetness as he found her in the hall and plopped down beside her. "Guess I'll just have to grovel like a normal jerk boyfriend." he muttered. He watched her with her eyes closed for a long moment before questioning her. "What exactly do you do with the energy you suck up? Like where does it go? What does it do?"

"Into me," Hannah shrugged, opening one eye to look at him. It looked quite a bit less murky in here, now. "I eat it." She gave him a wicked grin, then shut that eye again.

"You eat it?!" he questioned, the surprise in his voice raising his normally low tone and making it slightly more high pitched. "Like a cracker or something? You eat it?" He couldn't fathom what she was talking about. Sure he'd seen a lot of things, learned alot of things, especially since coming into town. But sucking up negative energy and... feeding off of it was a whole new plane of different.

"Like a fucking ice cream sundae," Hannah agreed, still smiling, though not as wickedly. "I'm made of the stuff, kinda. I don't eat as much real food as normal people, and the more of this I eat, the healthier I am. The less tired I get. So yeah, I eat it." She opened on eye again to fix him with a serious look. "You got some kinda fucking problem with that, Lu?"

He shook his head. "No, no problem." he told her. "Maybe you should follow Ivan around, you'd never go hungry again." His lips curled into a smirk.

"Ha," she said again, and the eye drifted shut. "Self-loathing is fucking bitter, and depression gives me gas." Well, okay, no, it didn't... she was making a stupid joke, and her own smirk proved it. "Besides, that's so personal. I'd rather just haunt hospitals and graveyards. Places I can fucking do shit about, people it's just an endless cycle and it's frustrating."

He shrugged. "God, guy tries to help out and gets shot down. That hurts Hannah, it hurts." he joked tapping his chest above his heart. "Haven't I had enough heart ache for one weekend?"

"Shut up, I will be stuffed on this shit for days, so you putting me on to this house is more help than I ever expected." She opened both eyes, then, and swatted at his knee lightly. "So no complaining about heart ache when it comes to me, bitch."

"Oh, come on, that didn't hurt," Hannah scoffed. "Unless you just a big fuckin' baby, in which case, you gotta toughen up, dude." She felt full to the brim with all the negative, but there was still more to take. Not much, but some, mostly in the room with all the paintings and art supplies. She could get a little more in, she was sure of it....

He rolled his eyes. "Oh please, I've gotten worse from the fuckin' shadows, perhaps you're the one that has to toughen up a bit there missy." he teased. "Actin' all big and bad and you hit like a girl." Again, teasing, his joking tone clearly evident on each word he used.

"I can hit harder, if you want," Hannah said with a sweet smile, dredging up the last drop of negative energy she could possibly hold. There was still a little, clinging to the paintings and easels in the painting room, but the place was a lot cleaner-- and she felt like she was all but vibrating with it.

He smirked. "Please don't, I'm fragile." he laughed, the sound echoing in the nearly bare space of the hallway. On a more serious note he let a smile pass his lips. "Thanks Hannah, for helpin' out. With everything. Girl problems and this mess...." he muttered as he looked around the space he was occupying.

"At least you got a place to stay that isn't some dingy motel," Hannah grinned, and pushed herself up. "And you're welcome. Least I could do. I gotta go, though... I'd love to stay and chat, but I am just-- brimming with this shit, and I gotta go get rid of some of it somewhere. This's way more than I can eat in one sitting."

He nodded and moved himself into a standing position. "Well I would give you a friendly thank you hug, but if I do, are you gonna like... vomit negative energy on me?" he questioned, his eyebrow raising slightly and a smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

"Even if I did, you wouldn't notice it," Hannah smirked, though she looked a little uncomfortable. "I'm not really so good with hugs, but if you want to...."

"Well if it makes you uncomfortable..." he began, but changed his mind as the sentence trailed off. He moved towards her, wrapping his arms around her tiny frame easily. "Thanks Hannah, really." he said before kissing the top of her head and moving away from the girl again. "Guess I'll be seein' ya?"

She stood awkwardly while hugged, putting her arms around his waist only tentatively and patting his back with definite discomfort-- but hey, she was trying! Really! "Yep, you will. I'll probably call in sometime tomorrow, see what your buddy Ivan thinks of the place all cleaned up." She shot him a little grin, then, freed, headed for the door. "Talk to ya then."

He nodded as she walked towards the door, flashing his half-smile smirk back at her and giving her a little wave. "Bye Hannah." he said as she disappeared out the door. He stood there in the living room and sighed. It definitely felt a lot better now. All that was left was to finish cleaning up and doing something about the blood stains. "Cold water and peroxide." he said to himself with a shake of his head as he ventured off towards the bathroom to see if there was any peroxide to be found."