#lucifer neflix

[write-nerdy-to-me]

i have my lucifer meta i’ve been working on for ages (see: connecting dots like charlie day and feeling FERAL), but now all i can think about are roman gods and two faces aND THE STAFF.

[pennydreadfulbook]

Penny Dreadful - Prologue

Content Rating: M Relationships: F/F + F/M  Content warnings: No Warnings

______________________________________________________________

Before language and time existed before Heaven and Earth, darkness was all that It knew. Just a formless void of nothingness with no curves, edges or lines, it felt nothing about the void, nothing ill or joyful, but It felt a longing.

It felt a desire—a Loneliness. And so It split in two, a divine blinding light became, and equal half of all there was, is, and ever could be, and neither knew who came first, the rooster or the egg. They did not care because they had each other. Before they created together, they were together, equals to one another. Eventually, they made language, their children used it, and words like He and She came to be. They had their favourites, their relational ups and downs, but Neither were alone; they could satiate each other.

Until they couldn't.

Until He grew distant and wanted to create alone.

But that- that is another story. And yet, that story is like a stone skipping across the surface of the water, mirroring the story you are about to hear—and mirroring one of the oldest stories, the tale of love.

Time heals all wounds, in the end. But this is not the end for us. His end was our beginning.

Some stories are so compelling that they ripple through time, touching people throughout eons, changing slightly. But never enough.

This is their story.

.

JANUARY 7TH

.

Shave and a haircut, two bits, reverberates throughout a Greenwich Village loft. Exhaling her cigarette (an action closely resembling a sigh), a tall olive-skinned woman whom most would assume is in her early twenties stands and stretches. She saunters over to the door. She looks through the peephole to see a curly-haired brunette standing on the other side.

"Penny S.?" The short woman in large-framed cat-eyeglasses asks, holding up her phone. "I'm here about the roommate ad?"

The door opens an inch, dark eyes peering at her from behind it before they seem to speak. "Let me guess, spring semester N.Y.U.?"

The stranger in front of Penny blinks twice and flushes. "The New School."

Penny groans before closing the door and taking the chain off the latch before opening it fully. "Strike one."

Cat-eyed Frames ducks her head in greeting and half-waves before walking into the loft apartment before she slips her shoes and her backpack off by the door. Penny watches her quietly; her arms crossed over her tank top.

"Holy shit." Escapes Frames mouth as she stands up, taking in her surroundings. The loft is easily over 2200 square feet. There is a bathroom to her left as Frames enters, a modest kitchen to her right, and an island to separate it from the rest of the open space. They move around a dark wooden dining room table stacked full of tomes and books that look like they belong in a university library.

"Sorry— just it's even more amazing than what I was expecting."

Penny rolls her eyes, but Frames is blissfully unaware as she walks around the loft, her hand tracing a pattern on the kitchen island. Penny wanders over and perches herself back in the armchair she had been sitting on before the interruption. The lithe woman reaches for her cigarette and inhales before placing it back in the ashtray beside a small expresso cup. She exhales and picks up an exotic curved blade and her apple before she begins to slice wedges. Behind the chair is three floor-to-ceiling windows narrowly separated by red brick. Beyond the kitchen is a shared wall completely obscured by bookcases overflowing.

Frames regards Penny calmly, taking in the two messy buns that look like they belong on a child, not a twenty-something-year-old woman. Booty shorts and a tank top seem to be all that she's wearing outside a black stoned ring on her left hand.

"How can you afford this?"

"I can't." Penny points out with her knife towards Frame's phone, still in her hand, "Hence the ad."

Frames intrigues Penny. She's used to girls wearing Uggs and yoga pants answering her roommate ad, only to last a few months at best. This one is different.

"I didn't catch your name." Penny offers, lifting an apple slice to her mouth before resting her head on her knees.

"Nevaeh."

A giggle washes over Penny long and full of mirth, but again Frames blushes.

"Oh, you're not kidding. Well that's… unfortunate."

Nevaeh shifts uncomfortably on the couch. "I could change it— if it's another one of your strikes."

Penny shrugs lazily at her. "Hey man it's not for me to judge you based on your name. TRUST me. If you want to change it, change it for yourself. But just to be clear, your parents sound like the worst."

Nevaeh laughs. "That's a little too easy to deduce isn't it? After all, don't most of us flock here to New York to get away from them?"

Penny's heart skips a beat. If you only knew.

"What about you? Do you go to school?" Nevaeh asks, her eyes roving the apartment's layout. To her left, a staircase leads up to a second-story loft where she assumes the rooms are. Her eyes meet Penny, whose back is to the floor to ceiling windows, most of the space filled with bookshelves full of books and interesting looking weapons that couldn't possibly be real decorate the walls.

"I am a private investigator." Penny murmurs, picking up an expresso cup beside her ashtray and takes a sip.

"How many tenants?"

"Just me."

Nevaeh laughs, beginning to unzip her jacket and remove it.

"What?" Penny inquires.

"A woman in her twenties lives alone in a Greenwich Village loft inside a building that values rent at over five thousand a month. And you are asking for less than a tenth of that for my portion?"

Rolling her shoulders, Trixie reaches over for her drink to take another sip of it.

"That is correct if we both choose to move forward with this arrangement."

"Do you always keep it this warm?"

"Is that a problem?"

"Not if I don't have to pay for it."

"No the price listed is all inclusive."

"That sounds, like a dream. This whole thing sounds like a dream." Nevaeh stares around the apartment wistfully.

Penny snorts a small laugh and shakes her head. "Look I think I may like you, against my better judgement, so I'm going to be honest with you. For the last few girls it has been more of a nightmare than a dream. I'm pithy, and sometimes vile. I swear like a sailor and I smoke in the loft. I come and go at all hours, I forget personal boundaries, if you leave chocolate, cake, or chocolate cake in the fridge I will eat it."

Nevaeh nods and narrows her eyes at the woman in front of her. "You say against your better judgement. We've spent maybe two minutes together. What have you gotten from me so far?"

"Well you yelled my name outside our apartment, which tells me you're naïve and not from the area, since you're obviously not a cop. You took you're shoes off at the door which rules out more of the states, giving me the impression you're possibly Canadian. You're clothing is simple but timeless, made with quality fabrics which tells me while you don't have much to your name, you're aware of the difference between quality and not quantity. Your name screams that your parents were millennials, but ones who must have valued the arts given your choice of school."

Nevaeh reaches over to the coffee table and takes an apple from the bowl before leaning back and crossing her legs underneath her on the couch.

"Want to know what I've gleaned in the last two minutes?" She asks before biting into the fruit.

"What's that?"

Nevaeh just smiles, "you said 'our' apartment."

.

FEBRUARY

.

"Damn it, Penny close the door!" Nevaeh's heart skips a beat as she walks in on Penny going to the washroom. She turns around and raises her eyes to the sky, towels and bathrobe in hand.

"I'm just peeing Vaeh, you're fine."

"I don't think you're grasping my point!" Vae squeaks. When she hears the toilet flush, she turns around to see Penny doing up her jeans.

"You said boundaries." Vaeh pleads; Penny shrugs and simpers as she glides past her before Vae adds, "believe me, if you keep pressing, I will release the floodgates and you won't know what hit you."

Vaeh goes to close the door behind her now that she's alone to enjoy her bath. She hears Penny start the espresso machine for the fifth time that day; the percolation's sound causes a small epiphany.

"And wash your hands!"

"I just PEED!"

"Don't be gross or I'll start calling you PigPen!" Vae finishes barking down to Penny on the floor below. Before she closes the door, she listens and is rewarded by hearing the kitchen tap spring to life.

"That's what I thought," she mutters more to herself than anyone as she closes the door to draw herself a bath.

The next morning as she starts the coffee maker for their first pot of coffee, Vae sees Penny's ring sitting on the sink beside the tap. She picks it up and examines it, realizing it's neither new looking nor old, modern nor antique. The smooth black appears to be onyx, the band most likely platinum. Biting her lip, Vae looks around for a safe place to put it instead of right beside a very industrial drain. Walking upstairs, she finds one of Penny's hair elastics, loops the ring through and then walks into the hallway where there are hooks for hats and scarves. She places on a hook closest to Penny's door before heading off to school.

~***~

You have 31 unread text messages .

Vae's heart sinks and begins to scroll through a lengthy one-sided conversation Penny seemed to have been having with herself while Vae was in class.

She reads the last one first, as one tends to do upon opening the chat.

PigPen | 3:32p.m.

I'm not trying to accuse you of anything, but please, PLEASE, just call me when you get this message.

PigPen | 3:30p.m.

/your room.

PigPen | 3:28p.m.

I mean, I understand if that's what happened, but I just thought I should check in before I destroy this garburator by ripping it/the rest of the house apart trying to find it.

Vae autodials Penny before scrolling through the rest of the messages, and Penny answers in one ring.

"Pleasetellmeyouhaveseenmyring."

"It's on the hat hook closest to your room, on a hair elastic. You left it by the sink."

Vae listens to Penny scramble with the phone, up the stairs and an audible exhalation of relief before she returns to the call.

"I blame you for this." And Vae can sense there is some truth to her mocking yet biting tone.

"You're welcome." She returns in a sing-song voice, only to annoy Penny further. "Next-time, where would you like me to put it?"

"There shouldn't be a next time."

"Uh-huh."

.

MARCH

.

"Happy birthday!" Vae squeals, handing Penny a luxurious looking piece of chocolate cake with a single candle in it.

"You made this for me?" Penny inquires suspiciously.

"Of course!"

"How did you find out?"

"Through FaceFilm, that app keeps all your personal data. For someone so private I'm surprised you're even on it."

"It's for work... it helps with the investigating."

"Right." Vae murmurs, watching as Penny continues to eye the cake. "One more year then your legal! Not that that's ever stopped you, did you know I thought you were like... twenty-two or something when I first met you? Aren't you going to make a wish?"

Penny closes her eyes and her lips tremble as though she's silently speaking the words so fiercely, they may erupt from her throat.

Then she opens them and quickly blows out the candle.

"What did you wish for?" Vae asks her, placing her own piece of cake down in front of her.

"More time." Penny murmurs before digging into the cake.

~***~

"Is that a sex swing?" Vaeh asks as she assesses Penny's room.

"Can't it just be a swing Vae?" Penny doesn't seem to be too flustered by the question as she leans against the doorframe, her signature double buns replaced with a long raven ponytail, resting high on her head.

"Por qué no los dos?" Vae shrugs, jumping onto the bed as she flops into a sitting position. Their rooms are opposite one another, the bathroom they share between them, but after Vae passed the two-month mark, permission had been granted. It hasn't been easy, Penny was willing to compromise, and Vae laid tape down in areas of the living room where knives might fly past towards its target dummy at any given moment. Vaeh also has learned that Penny won't feed herself, but she gets hangry, making it easier to cook for her. Still, Penny is not without her virtues.

"It's a gift from my stepmother. Besides, I'd have to be having sex for it to be both." She laments before flopping down beside her companion on the bed.

Vaeh looks Penny up and down with an incredulous look, choosing whether to comment on the fact her stepmother gifted her a sex swing or, "You… have a hard time finding-" Vae wiggles her eyebrows suggestively, "Someone?"

Penny smiles wistfully, "It's not like we're playing hide and seek Vae, but I don't make friends easily. It would require me to socialize with... people. And my upbringing while badass, was… complicated."

Vae has assumed that Penny came from money. The books, the clothes, the apartment. They eat and drink like broke students, but Nevaeh is acutely aware her roommate is taken care of in ways that she is not.

"So, what your saying is that ordinary people bore you?" Vae enquires.

"Yes? That sounds so petty." Penny whinges.

"Yeah, well, at least you're honest. Vae tells her, staring up at the ceiling. "Always."

"My sweet little bigot." It occurs to Vae that even though it is a 20-foot ceiling above them (the highest in the whole building, as they reside on the top floor), tiny greenish-yellow stickers are scattered in what she thinks might be constellation patterns. A sex swing was adequately bolted to the roof. Even with access to the right ladder, the project would have taken hours upon hours without some sort of divine intervention.

"My upbringing wasn't that badass," Vae murmurs.

"No, from the sound of things it wasn't."

"I'm no basic bitch though."

"Oh, I believe it." Penny laughs, "Otherwise, why would you live here with me?"

 .

MAY

.

"Penny pleeeeease?" Vae begs; she is getting tired of dehydrated noodle cups and macaroni and cheese for supper.

"I said no Nevaeh." Penny sternly tells her, and Vaeh begins to pout. She crosses her arms over her chest and finds herself folding her legs underneath herself as she watches Penny continue to pick an outfit in the mirror.

"Come on, I seriously need your help. The Dior," and Penny holds up a black silk collared blouse, "Or this one, I think I got at H&M," and she shows her a heather grey cable knit that is similar in colour to the wool skirt she's got on.

"Why should I help you get dressed for a fancy dinner that you get to go to, for free, when you won't even take me?"

"I take you for dinner on work ONE TIME."

"It was not one time."

"I can't take you on every case."

"You're going to a fancier place?"

"No."

"Possibility you're coming home will blood all over you again?"

"... Hopefully not?"

"The black silk. It's from B.C.H."

And that's how Penny and Vaeh begin to categorize much of their life. There is now, and B.C.H. (Before CoHabitation), and as two people who don't have much or many, B.C.H. stuff doesn't work its way into everyday conversation frequently. Vaeh doesn't know what Penny used to do before they met, but now she spends her free nights walking Vaeh back from the corner market down the street from their loft.

Vae's shift is over, she and Penny both with their free coffee in hand. They tend to talk about Vae's day more than Penny's, as Vae learned early into their friendship that Penny does not usually discuss much about her work as a private investigator.

.

JULY

.

Tears are running down their faces as credits roll. They are lying in Penny's bed, where one of the two household televisions is located.

"Okay, breathe."

"Prometheus School of Running, oh my God," Vae chokes out, and Penny immediately shudders and rolls her eyes, the hair on the back of her neck standing up.

"You okay?" Vae giggles, rubbing her eyes.

"Yeah, it's just, I have a weird reaction to hearing people take the lord's name in vain."

"Are you serious right now? You swear like a drunken sailor, on shore leave..."

"I don't think it's that bad." Penny counters.

"... In a brothel."

"Now you're just exaggerating."

"We are banned from that Macdonald's on 11th."

"Okay, but that eleven-year-old was a bully."

"You once used the word 'fuck' for every word in a sentence."

"Well that's my point exactly. Monty Python was not that far off in their assessment in the versatility of the word fuck."

"So is it that you believe in God?"

And Penny begins to laugh hysterically, bitterly almost. "You could, you could say that."

"Alright." Vaeh sighs her head, resting in her hand, taking in her weird, eccentric friend who has now established another parameter to their relationship.

"Alright?" Penny questions.

"Alright."

.

AUGUST

.

Vaeh climbs the stairs to their fourth-floor loft, meeting with a delivery person leaving a note.

Penny's shouting can be heard on the other side of the door.

"She not answering?" She asks.

"I knocked miss, and it's only her voice in there. I think she's on the phone."

Vae offers an apologetic smile. As she turns the keys and enters, she catches Penny's eyes, her shoulder pressed into her phone, giving her the ability to play with a knife, bright and silver (a personal favourite) in erratic short bursts.

"I don't give a flying fuck Linda, which, is rather apropos in this case, don't you think? He knows where I live; it's not like his name isn't on the deed."

Vae creates a peace sign towards Penny before turning the aforementioned fingers towards her eyes, then motioning across the room at Penny to force her attention.

"What?" And there is petulance in Penny's tone as she uses her free hand to hold her phone and give Vae her attention.

"You have registered mail." Vae whispers as if to try and give the caller and Penny privacy that has already been broken.

"Just sign for me." Penny huffs, and then she's back on the phone. "What are you even talking about? "

Vae wants to tell her that this isn't how these things work. That the delivery person isn't going to allow Vae to sign for mail just that easily, but Penny is deeply invested in an argument once more, and the stranger at the door interrupts with a "Miss, can you can just sign x and type her name in."

"What?! " Penny clips out so pithy it sounds odd and catches Vae off guard.

"How? WHY?" And Vaeh is now REALLY intrigued as she signs the package. Not many things can get Penny to use that many investigative words that closely in order, that she's now playing 'wh' word bingo in her mind.

"How long?"

DOUBLE HOW!

"I've been gone two years— "

Booo, you broke the chain after a double how? Boooooo...  Vae giggles internally as she closes the loft door, dumps the package on Penny's desk and slips her headphones on at her workstation.

Sometime later, after Vae has slipped her focus into the design she's creating, her head and shoulders bouncing as she plays with colour palettes, Penny crosses her field of vision.

Vae slips the headphones off, "Hey roomie," she greets in a sing-song voice, "Who was that?"

She watches as Penny absent-mindedly fiddles with her ring. "My thera—  Linda."

"You have a thera-Linda too? Where do you keep yours?" Vae pantomimes looking around the apartment leerily before leaning in and whispering, "I keep mine in a drawer by my bed."

"What?" Penny asks, caught off-guard.

"Exactly." Vae says and goes back to her monitor. Her shoulder-dance slowly begins once more even though she respects Penny enough to keep her headset off until she's done.

"Linda was a family therapist and friend. She's like an aunt to me."

"Ah, family problems." She murmurs as she watches Penny slip into the chair at her desk.

"It's my stepdad. He's gone missing."

Vae's attention is peaked now as she looks over at Penny, who is staring off into the middle distance. "Wow, are you okay?"

"Yes," Penny's eyes go wide in realization. "Sorry, I should have explained. He does this from time to time. When my mom and he—   this one time." She looks at Vae with jaded eyes, seemingly confused as to what is holding her back.

"When I was little, he was known to bail when things got rough. When he and mom finally figured their literal prophetic shit out, he got better. He had his moments, but he genuinely tried. Now that my mom is gone. Well," Penny says, her eyes drifting down to the package that Vae had signed for.

"I didn't know your mom was gone." Vae murmurs reaching over the desks and placing her hand on Penny's.

"She is and she isn't. That's the worst part. She is and she isn't." Vae looks down at their hands and sees her thumb rubbing Penny's wrist.

"So Lu— Dad, Linda says he's not handling it well. Which, newsflash, no one is taking it well. But that's no reason to treat my stepmom and dad the way he has been, regardless of their previous problems. SPEAKING OF WHICH," Penny pivots, pulling her hand out and opening the package.

"Let's see what the big-bad-momma-bear sent me this time." She takes one of the knives she uses as a letter opener, the sparkly handle painted bright.

No joy or recognition lights up Penny's face as she places the package down on her desk.

"What?" Vaeh asks, more interested than she ever has been with Penny's details about her life before their cohabitation.

Vae stands to look in the box and sees white, radiant feathers reflecting the light from the room back at them. There aren't many, only three, and they are covered in bright red dots of blood.

"Say what you want about my parents," Vaeh finally speaks, her voice concerned, "but yours sound like the worst. "

 .

NOVEMBER

.

Vae hears a clinking sound in the sink before she sees it, and her heart stops briefly as it casually rolls towards the garburator drain. Quickly, she snatches it out of the slow-motion moment she foresees it falling down towards a black abyss.

Frustrated, she takes the ring and seeks vengeance on the woman who almost gave her a heart attack.

She finds Penny in her room, a file named DROMOS, in her hand, GAUDIUM, MISC. LILLIM, CONSTANTINE on the bed. She's smoking and drinking, listening to piano-heavy dance music so loud that she couldn't hear Vae knocking on the door.

"Penelope, I swear if I find this thing one more time—"

" I knew where it was." She tells her as she turns down the volume.

"It's no use to you down the drain!"

"It's no use to me period." Penny murmurs, and Vae feels a shriek almost bubbling within her, "just, take it, will you?!"

"I promise, no more hand washing."

~***~

"Are you not visiting anyone for Thanksgiving?" Vae enquires from the kitchen, the date looming closer and closer.

"No. Are you?" Penny asks, looking up from a case file she has sprawled out on her desk. Vaeh had answered the door at 7:30 a.m. this morning to receive it for her, forcing her signature since Penny was still fast asleep. As she has noticed before, it comes from Los Angeles. She had tossed it on her best friend's desk before hitting the button to the coffee machine and passing out on the couch while it brews, only to be woke by Penny a few hours after that.

"Canadian Thanksgiving is in October," Vaeh reminds her.

"Right. So you didn't, sorry." Penny murmurs, Vae dressed in pajama pants and a hoodie, shuffles over to her drafting table/computer desk hybrid that they set up on the opposite side of Penny's dark mahogany antique. She hands Penny a cup of coffee before flopping down into her chair.

"Kind of hard when they all live back west," Vae adds, reaching for her drawing tablet.

"Mmmm... mine too, at least those left." Penny adds as she opens her laptop.

Vae nods softly, files this extra information in the THINGS THAT EXPLAIN PENNY compartment of her mind.

.

DECEMBER

.

The snow falls around them in puffy white clouds, a wind sending them sideways, enough of a nip to the air to have them be hustling back to their loft after dinner with some of Vae's classmates. Penny is still going on about the impending holidays.

"If neither of us see no point— "

"Can't afford." Vae interjects.

"Oh so you're saying that if I paid for you, you would head back for the holidays then?"

"With your family, sure." Vae replies illusively.

"No... that wasn't part of the question."

"Then what is our actual plan," Penny begins again, "because I cannot have dinner with your friends Rose and David twice in one month."

"They have been the worst since they started listening to that new podcast. Sometimes they play it so loud when we are in the studios at school, I can't hear the instructor. I'm not," and Vae makes an awkward motion with her arms, "built to receive that much stimuli."

"Do you even hear yourself sometimes?" Penny turns to Vae, her breath coming out in steam as they try to fight the cold.

"Please, coming from the one with a sex swing in her room."

"It's not used for sex!" Penny huffs, shoving her hands deeper into her pockets.

"Are you telling me you actually swing in it... just because?"

"Are you telling me you wouldn't?"

"Pffft... I dunno." Vae begins, looking over at a heavily bundled up Penny, dark eyes peering out, "Christmas movie Marathon? But I mean, entertaining Christmas movies. Die Hard, Krampus, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Nightmare Before Christmas— "

"Gremlins?" Penny asks, hopefully.

"Do you even have to ask?" Vae retorts. "Do you want to watch Zuzu's Petals?"

"Is that the remake of It's a Wonderful Life?" Penny hesitantly asks.

"I don't know, I've never seen It's a Wonderful Life." They continue their trek towards their loft, the snow gently falling above them before Penny clears her throat.

"Look, I've been meaning to talk to you about something important— "

"Oh Pen, I thought I told you friends don't ask friends to come to their improve shows. "

"No! That's not what this is about, although it really hurts you won't even try. "

"What is this about then?"

"A couple of months ago when we had our Alien marathon— "

"— and I said oh my God and you got hella weird?"

"I did not get hella weird."

"You got sooooo weird. It was visceral! I watched you shudder."

"Do you believe in God?" Penny plows ahead; they're almost to their building.

"What?" Vae is surprised by the line of questioning, "Why?"

"I don't know, it just struck me. I never thought about your feelings or thought to ask. I just did kind of what I watched mostly everyone around me my entire life do and focus on my own feelings before realizing I should consider yours." She holds open the door for Vae, and they begin the climb up the stairs.

"No. Sort of? As an artist I've dabbled with the lore of Judeo-Christian theology but like, it's all stories to me. I think I'm agnostic."

"I think it's reasonable to want proof." Penny mutters.

"Well if I was one for needing proof, I would have given up believing you were a P.I. months ago."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing! Nothing..." and Vae rolls her eyes towards the heavens before smirking a carefree grin at her. "I mean all those files you could just be a very thorough stalker."

"Stalking is essential to the job yes." Penny agrees before unlocking their front door and letting Vae through before walking through herself.

"And I imagine so are the arts, but that doesn't seem to inspire you to invite me along."

"The Arts?"

"Yeah like, sketching a suspect, or taking photographs. You know I covet your camera, and when I asked you about ISO and aperture, I could have sworn I saw you drool."

"Maybe I could use help with the camera."

"Maybe I could help you with the camera."

Hours later, when they are both in sleep clothes and are sitting on the couch, finishing their tasks for the night before heading to bed, Penny signals to Vae she wants to talk to her. Vae puts her pencil down and pulls her headphones off.

"I was wondering if you wanted to come with me on a job."

"Saywhat?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to come with me on a j—"

"Okay, so you said what I thought I heard you say. When? Why?"

"Or forget it, you can stay here."

Vaeh throws a pillow at Penny's head, which Penny spears with her knife reflexively. She pulls the knife out and puts the pillow behind her back as though it were entirely natural behaviour.

"Just a few questions, how good are you at drawing someone from memory?"

~***~

The P.I. and the Artist are at a frat party, scoping the crowd. Vae has her arm looped through Penny's, sipping from a solo cup that Penny had procured for her when they entered. They tend to stay tethered together in situations like this, but Vae is barely focusing on Penny's conversation, and some frat dudes are having. If she must draw any of these faces later, she knows she needs to study their features, read their eyes, soak up the details.

"I'm a private investigator," Penny yells above the music's obnoxious noise to the guy in front of her, her leather jacket groaning with her movements.

Vae's is in the backpack that she brought, containing her pencils and sketchbook; their winter-wear is also stored there. Vae imagines she must look like a hunchback currently, and two men have offered to take it for her, but she'd like to be able to leave at a moments notice and get home without freezing to death, so instead, she continues to look like a clinging humped sidekick to her attractive best friend.

"Oh yeah, so like… do you catch people cheating and shit?" the guys all laugh nervously. Two dude’s high-five as Vae rolls her eyes and continues to nurse her drink. One of the frat bro's winks at her. The party has a strict rule on no phones and even had checked the two of them at the door. Vae's been to parties with no phones before done to encourage people to mingle, but this must be one of her the most boring places she's ever endured it.

"Cheating and shit is below my paygrade." Penny informs him. Vaeh hyper focuses on this part of the conversation while pretending to be caught in the song. She doesn't know much about many of Penny's cases, but she can agree that seems to be out of Penny's wheelhouse.

"So, what then?"

"Bounty reconnaissance, sometimes enforcement." Penny adds an eerie smile on her face, her eyes flash darkly, and she looks the most intimidating she has since Vae first met her.

Vaeh is confused at her sudden mood shift until—

"So, if you don't remove your hand," Penny's voice drips cold, "you'll see what kind of enforcement I'm capable of."

~***~

"How much longer?"

Penny narrows her eyes as she continues to look for her target. The bros and the dudes are all high fiving each other loudly while a bunch of partnered sorority girls giggle in a corner.

"Trust me, this is not how I want us to spend our Friday night." Penny smiles at her briefly.

"As long as we don't get assaulted—"

"— again."

"— assaulted again. Or roofied. Or both in that unfortunate order." Vae murmurs.

"I figured we would do some reconnaissance for an hour top. If the bounty appears you get a good look, treat you to free drinks, then we can do whatever you want. If you want to go home and get drunk off box wine and binge watch horror films, you just say the word and I'll spend a whole twenty on the booze."

"Penny Espinoza we don't need four boxes of cheap wine."

"Two each?"

"You do you, but I'll stick to one. My final assignments are due in a week."

They both fall silent for a few minutes, each getting lost in their thoughts.

"You said you enforce bounties." Vaeh starts, "Is that what all the knives are for?"

"Not always," Penny answers illusively.  

Penny's eyes fall on the stairs as a frat-bro begins a drunken stagger down the stairwell, and she notices his pallor colour and blood flowing from his left ear.  

"Wait here."  

Vaeh scrunches her face at her roommate, and "What, wait? Why would I wait, I have to see his face if I'm going to draw him."  

Penny continues to follow the possible dead frat-dude as he makes his way to the frat house door and slips out into the night. As she slips between the partygoers, Penny's one hand reaches for the door handle as the other slides behind her back for her blade.  

There are still too many people around in the front yard, but the drunken dead dude (triple D?) is down the sidewalk and heading into the park.  

"Go home, Vaeh." Penny calls out, "The scope of this assignment has changed entirely."  

"You can't just ask me to come with you on a job then tell me to go home, essentially leaving me stranded forty blocks away from it in this Den of Rohypnol." Vaeh catches her and grabs her arm.  

"I doubt that you're at risk." Penny scoffs.  

Vaeh winces, her feelings hurt as she takes a step backwards from her friend. "Wow. Nice Penelope. Real nice."  Vaeh had already removed the winter attire from her backpack and throws Penny her gloves watching as Penny catches them gracefully. She drops the bag as she slips on her peacoat.  

"I don't have time for this!" Penny finds herself begging.  

"Then let's go." Vae holds out her hand in a gesture that indicates that Penny should lead the way.    

Penny growls in frustration and stomps off ahead of Nevaeh, shoving her hands deep into her leather jacket. Vaeh exhales shakily and picks up the bag, placing it on her back before doing the same with her own hands.  

The shorter of the two watches her friend speed walk ahead, trying to make up the difference, but the triple D hasn't managed to get very far away from them.  

She shakes her head and looks down at her feet, leaving imprints in the snow.  

Vae hears it before seeing it; it sounds like a strong wind whooshing around her head, her curls getting caught behind her glasses. When she manages to pull them out of her face and looks up, she stops in her tracks.