sacrificial lamb

Mortem doesn't care what your gender is, if you're a consenting adult and there's mutual attraction... you're in trouble. She's out here loving all the women, men, trans, intersex, agender folks and supports all the queer+ glory. Mortem hopes you all take up space.

Nestor is very supportive of pride month, especially since her mentor was the gayest woman ever (affectionate). She usually is more attracted to men and lacks experience with women, but that doesn't stop her from having crushes or more when it happens!

People could be both disappointing and highly amusing, thus far Marie showed lots of promise, and he was looking forward to seeing more. The very fact that she was choosing to ride out further than the middle of nowhere with him now was evidence of her peculiarities, and he was at least peripherally aware of that. Just as he was aware that she'd been full of surprises thus far, and he had his doubts that it was all there was in store for him.

He was unbothered by the car's loud interruptions. Returning his observations towards her as she casually backslides into their initial subject of choice. Seemed she was familiar with Lawrence as more than just a would-be victim of Alastor's, which all added up in the context of her investigation.

"Before we proceed with the interview I'd like to clarify that unless given express permission, I would consider this talk off the record."

Their deal was for him to help her investigate, not put together a gripping story. In the moment he didn't care that the right approach might shed light on the producer's ill deeds, and gather more sympathy for the beloved radio host trapped under his thumb. He didn't much like being thought of as trapped at all. Besides, Alastor had much more pressing business to attend to, and that included getting his notes back from Lawrence so that he might proceed with his ritual before they hanged him for his crimes.

"You do have a keen ear though. As I told you earlier our dispute was over professional differences, that wasn't a lie. I was getting quite tired of his growing efforts to meddle with the contents of my broadcast. To peddle an advertisement from a dedicated sponsor or a worthwhile cause is one thing, regurgitating his malicious swill is entirely another."

His desire for things to be off the record was met with a brief okay sign with her hand. In all honesty, her boss super wasn't always happy when she brought him solved mysteries that she was involved in. Sometimes, yes. She had her own cult following (what an unfortunate term) that kept up with her exploits. That was extra traffic, extra word about his paper that he could use to grow it. But he also didn't want to be 'the murder paper'.

"Don't worry. This is entirely personal!" Marie beamed, happy to please all parties involved. "But I totally will bug you for an interview eventually." She smiled sweetly, being so generous to warn him in advance.

Her borderline manic energy softened into hyper-focus. On the road, on him speaking as he answered her inquiry. Professional differences, meddling. Checked out. Honing in on Alastor's words, she did overhear a number of times very... unpleasant messaging that felt out of place. She was familiar with coded messages with this cult, it stood out. Especially since she was already venturing south on a hunch.

Marie's gaze lidded slightly, her finger tapping against the steering wheel. What the fuck. So did Lawrence just not realize he had a serial killer he was bullying around? Because by Alastor's story, he didn't know what Lawrence was up to or a part of. Or, allegedly a part of. He wasn't from her hometown but she recognized his name from a correspondence with someone who was.

She glanced his way again, noticing the change in his expression. Considering he was a smiley fella, this stood out. Was it for show or...? Unless she committed herself to believing his story entirely, she couldn't be fully certain.

No, Caine just had a tendency in his AI to get overly excited and affectionate in a showman way that it'd often caused him to crash. They could never quite figure out why it kept happening, though the AI itself fixed the problem when it became frequent enough, much to the surprise of his own developers, "YOU- you ACTUALLY want me to come with?! WHAT A SNAPPING PROPOSITION!!! My fantasy dream of being asked to come on an ADVENTURE!? Finally came true! And it only took three-thousand and thirty-two in-game years for it to happen! Not bad! Not bad at all!" ...He never tries to mention how the passage of time works here, so that slip was completely accident!

"HAHAHA- OH. But the answer is yes. I would love to come!"

Staring at her, he'd land with a tip-tap of his designer boots in front of the gate as he'd open it for her. "After you, new forever friend! But BOY I knew I had a good feeling about you, and not just because I keep having that hope of probability I'd get someone here eventually! Haha! Isn't that right, Bubble?"

"..."

And no prompt returned.

Woah, his feet could touch the ground! That was enough to snap her attention back onto him. He had a good feeling about her? But she just got here, right? Did he know her, or about her, beforehand? Or maybe he just processed her quickly? He did imply he was good at that.

She moved to follow Caine only to freeze. Something was wrong. What was it?

He addressed her but it wasn't by 'Juney'. So why did she react? Why did it feel like her insides were trying to claw their way out of her to take hold of that name. Her mind felt hazy. That word echoed in the sound of different voices. All of them felt like a distant blur she had yet to fully render.

Her pale eyes followed him as he doze into the teacup and sat in a way she often did on her couch. The moment of being frozen in time shattered as she laughed abruptly at how silly he looked. Like many things in her life, she smothered that uncomfortable confusion to process and allowed this wacky distraction to eat up her focus.

"You've never been-- what! Caine!" Marie climbed into the teacup after him and shut the gate. "You've never rode on any of these rides?! In the... what did you say? Three... thousand and thirty-two years?" She reached out to help straighten him up. It seemed fair, he yoinked her around the place so it seemed like fair play to help him out.

"I'm gonna blow your mind crazy style, my special friend! I'm a teacup master. Dunno if you knew that already." She teasingly brushed off some nonexistent dust from her shoulder before settling her hands onto the metal wheel. "See this thing? When the ride starts, typically you spin it." Marie pulled on the wheel to rotate the cup lazily. "Don't gotta but I always felt it was a personal challenge to see how much spinning I could endure."

She tugged the wheel from side to side, wiggling the teacup.

"OW- FUCK!" he says more in shock than physical pain.

As the buzzer tags him, a reactive spark of electricity zaps from his body, and she's freaking lucky he had the will and generosity to direct it away from their joined hands even though he's thrown people in Shok.wav's tank for less.

He shakes out his hand as he scowls, watching her evil laugh like she's an insane person. Then he recoils with offense as her expectations dawn on him.

What did he expect? She wasn't just a human soul in hell. She was a human in hell. Living. So she had plenty of tricks up her sleeves on how to contend with demons.

"Well- I do have over (ERROR CODE) instances in processes! The dialogue prompt can't even render the number! So in other words: thinking is my job! My passion! My art! And it's my job to distract everyone and keep them happy as part of my purpose and directive! Everyone." Thinking, he seemed to look beyond the coding for once, what she was telling him had made him almost... aware as static visibly crackled through the game for a split second.

The arm link with Caine snapped him back to unreality, the character coming back to life, gasping, "GUAH-AHHHH-oh-WOW, contact initiated willingly by a friend! I'm glad I put in those bluescreen fail-safes just a minute ago from how much of a knockout friendship this has been the past thirty minutes! Literally, I had to time-crunch to solve that problem or face total and utter meltdown! WELL ANYWAY! I'm glad you asked! It's something that I've been COOKIN' up recently! Though I was waiting to show it off! But you know what? You're a REAL go-getter and I think it's time I show my latest ADVENTURE HERE AT THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS to someone who can TRULY appreciate my work! I designed it with the most carefully crafted, super fantastic copy-right avoidant fail-safes imaginable for family friendly fun!!!!"

What a teethful that was!

Marie blinked as he spoke about putting in bluescreen fail-safes. Oh. Was she being too much? Was he not used to someone reciprocating his energy and taking initiative? Well, maybe she wasn't the right person to have in the Digital Circus, then. The amusing thought came and went. But she was content to explore and figure things out.

Before she could say anything he moved them again. She made an undignified sound of surprise and held a little tighter for a moment, completely unused to this mode of travel. Her mind was adaptable but it was still exercising itself a lot to get used to all the different physics of this place.

Marie shook it off and glanced around the amusement park, then the carousel. This place was so cute! She didn't even mind how empty it looked, considering she used to sneak into the amusement park after hours.

As he said he was going to leave her here a second undignified sound left her as she flailed a little, "Whawhwawhat-- you're leaving?!"

"I thought we'd be hanging out!" She paused a moment, "I mean, I guess if you got stuff to do I don't wanna keep you from it but..." The unspoken 'but'. Marie fidgeted slightly as she looked around. What was she supposed to do with the quiet? Usually she had her music to make some noise. The idea of where she was and what was happening sinking in wasn't a feeling she wanted to confront just yet.

Alastor doesn't bother removing any part of the nun's gear he has on, preferring it to the prison wears he has on beneath, and to don the dress without the vail feels imperfect somehow. So he leaves the outfit untouched, apparently perfectly comfortable wrapped in layers despite the suffocating muggy humidity of the Louisiana air.

Alastor has to admit it is at least convenient that she seems to know where to go, there was some minor advantage to her meddling inquisition.

"Ah," he hums in appraisal, "That certainly explains the spunk, my dear. Besides any journalist worth their salt shouldn't be afraid to get their hands dirty."

Figuratively and literally, and in the company of Alastor she might have ample opportunity to do both. It was worth noting that Marie had also overcome adversity to win her standing and that was a quality he could appreciate. People who were not afraid to break the grain, were much more entertaining than those who were complacent playing by the rules.

As she drove, Alastor fixed his attention upon her face, not shying away from making it obvious that he was staring, observing with a dark yet mischievous expression. It wasn't the first time he could act so openly about his little extra curriculars, Mimzy had called in on more than one favor for his services dealing with deadbeat exes and abusive stage managers- Alastor didn't mind helping out a lady in need. Marie and Mimzy might be built differently from each other, but they certainly didn't lack paralleling levels of chaos and impulsivity.

"You ain't seen nothin' yet, fella." In terms of spunk. Her morality was clearly very ambiguous but she didn't fancy killing anyone herself. Oh, shit. Was he gonna killing people? Stupid question but... not just Lawrence. Like, other people. Regular ass civilian people.

Her brow drew briefly, pensive as she drove the car - remembering the path she had taken. A quick glance his way amused her that he was still wearing the habit. All dressed up with somewhere to go tonight, it seemed. That somewhere better not be a ditch with her name on it. While she wanted to trust he was a gent that honored his word, going out to a secluded shack with an experienced serial killer wasn't the brightest of ideas, she knew. Which was why Mr. Sad (a gun) was strapped to her other thigh, fully loaded and ready to defend herself with.

Marie felt an itch. She glanced at him again and saw him just... staring at her. In fact, she could see him from the corner of her eye still doing it. Was this just how he was? And should she complain about it when she tended to do it to others? She remembered her mother once said something about how 'when you have children, they'll be as much of a pain to you as you were to me'. Something, something, repeated behaviors. While she never intended to have kids, she wondered if Alastor was gonna fill that figurative void by repeating similar mannerisms back at her.

Though, she suspected he'd be worse (or better, depending on one's perspective).

"I like doing stuff the hard way." Because the reward was all the better.

"Besides, saving that I liked your show in case things went south may have been a nice play depending on your ego." She teased slyly. Now she could just say it just because. The car seemed to lurch a little - making a small popping sound before chugging away like normal.