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"So serious Greggy! What’s got you so quiet?" Rodya slings her arm around his shoulders, pressing into his side.
Usually she does this to distract him from his brooding, but today there’s a lingering sense of hers. That she needs to comfort him because he is her responsibility to care for, and failing to do so would be another sin tacked to the end of her impressive list.
"Haaa… s'nothing. It's just... When we take off the La Manchaland identities I’m always left feeling a bit off you know? Lots of them overstay their welcome, but that one really sticks around." He mutters around his unlit cigarette, rolling his shoulders to try and dislodge her. Instead, she plucks his lighter from his vest pocket and flicks the cap open and shut in a strange rhythm.
Gregor huffs an exasperated laugh, "You can at least light this for me before using it as a toy." He jokes, despite how rarely he lights his cigarettes, opting instead to hold them unlit between his teeth.
She hums, plucking the cigarette from between his lips and lighting it; before she gives it back she takes a drag and exhales out to the side, giving him a playful smile. It's always easier to start breaking a rule if someone else does it first. Just this once, she hopes no one will tell them off for smoking on the bus.
The two of them sit there in amicable silence listening to the sounds of quiet chatter while Gregor smokes out the open window. Once the tension has mostly drained from his shoulders he snuffs out his cig on the windowsill and throws the butt out to the street below. "I don't know what to feel about The Priest. It's… hm," He taps his chitinous arm against the bus wall lightly, "He has a conviction that I kinda envy, but being him is painful in ways I didn't even know I could feel pain, I guess."
She hums thoughtfully, “I think it’s pretty fun ya know? I’m a pretty good bloodfiend, gorgeous and powerful.” A second Kindred: special, the parade princess: irreplaceable.
Tiredly, he rests his head against the wall. "I think I get what you mean; I just don't agree."
Rodya gasps, "You don't agree that I'm gorgeous and powerful?" She mock swoons, leaning her full weight on him.
"What? No. You know that's not-" he pauses, side-eyeing her, "You're messing with me, you evil woman."
Winking, she says "Ah, you're starting to get it!"
"Thanks." Smiling faintly, Gregor slumps back into his seat.
"Hm? What for?"
He sighs and closes his eyes, "Y'know, helping I guess. I'm glad the new identity doesn't mess with you the same as it does me, I dunno."
Settling against him again Rodya laughs off her unease, ignoring the burning thirst in her throat.
Unlike Gregor, whose self flagellating nature makes him noticeably restless after using his Priest identity, Outis remains practically the same as always. The Barber has a need for perfection and an eye for aesthetics, and Outis is already meticulous and detail oriented enough that Rodya may not have even noticed the difference if she hadn't gotten herself so roughed up.
They're at the tail end of a long day, the bus has been fuelled, and a few life threatening injuries have been rewound as they all sit waiting to be set loose for the night. Once Dante dismisses them she stretches languidly, back popping as she rolls her shoulders, and barely makes it five steps towards the back door. Grabbing her as she walks past, Outis pulls at her ripped jacket with a sneer, shepherding her back towards her seat as the other sinners carefully scoot past them. As he leaves Gregor casts her a sympathetic, commiserating look.
"How dare you walk around with no regard for how your appearance reflects on the rest of the company? On the executive manager?" Outis barks, divesting her of her jacket with firm hands.
Rodya hovers awkwardly as she watches Outis pull a small sewing kit out of her uniform pocket and sets to work repairing the tear in the bottom hem with quick neat stitches. She works in silence as the stitches disappear into the fabric.
After obsessively mending Rodya's jacket like they don’t have multiple, identical, company issued uniforms, Outis snaps her sewing kit shut with a loud click and roughly passes her a jacket that looks nearly brand-new if one ignores the bloodstains. When she leaves to sleep Outis remains as straight-backed and proper as ever, but it looks like the rest of her identity-induced focus has been assuaged.
Rodya is glad that it seems to have loosened its grip on Outis, even if she’s somewhat more agreeable when she’s willing to listen to her because of the remnants of familial hierarchy in her mind. With both of her kindred -her friends- freed from the iron grip the new set of identities seem to have over their little group, it leaves Rodya alone in the front of the bus.
This is where Don Quixote finds her; carefully pacing the aisle toe-heel like she’s walking the parade, shoulders back and head high, hands held demurely in front of her in an empty attempt at distracting herself from the hollowness in her chest and the itching in her teeth.
Pulling her jovially into the bus kitchen, she presses firmly on Rodya’s shoulders and chatters happily about fixers while she pours a glass of red juice and then places it expectantly in front of her on the table, seemingly ignorant of the simmering rage surging in Rodya’s chest at her quixotic act. Her innocent cheer has never rankled like this, but Rodya feels furious as Sancho dances around the kitchen like a clown. She bites down on a cookie she bought from a shop in the backstreets the other day. Its dry and flavourless in her mouth.
“Slake thine thirst, young Rodya!” Don Quixote says with gleaming yellow eyes.
Stomping down on her rage, she declines, “For me? I'm flattered, but I’m not thirsty Sancho.”
She pauses, eyes widening as she brings her hand up to her mouth.
At the name Sancho startles, smile faltering into a flat expression, eyes narrowed. “Do you take me for a fool?”
For a moment she sees the Second Kindred her companion is. “A-ah ha? m'not sure what you mean?”
Sighing, Sancho leans forward towards her, resting her hands on the table. “You're thirsty. I know what it feels like, I can see it,” She nudges the glass in her direction. "You are human though, so having something similar enough should work… actually-" quick as a whip she pulls the glass back and puts it in the microwave as Rodya sits, shocked and silent.
There is palpable awkward tension as she sits, observing and being observed in turn as the two wait for the microwave to chime. Sancho's gaze has softened in the time it took for her to turn back around, but the sharpness of her glare remains in her memory. She licks her dry lips, and wills herself to remain with her posture upright and hands folded on the table. Sancho always seemed above it all; like the thirst never actually bothered her because of Rochinante, but she knows that's not true. Without her shoes she's liable to go berserk from thirst near instantly, but she had never considered that the itching, empty feeling she's experiencing now would stay even with the shoes on.
Vergilius has mentioned that her thirst has gotten worse since La Manchaland; since killing her sire and having the thirst of her family combined thrust upon her. The more she sits and thinks about it, now that she's felt even a fraction of that pain, the more she aches for Don Quixote. If the lingering thirst of a well fed bloodfiend identity has her feeling this unsettled: how must her friend feel now? With centuries worth of starvation across an entire lineage pushed onto her at once, even with the help of her shoes? It sounds like agony; Rodya knows how it feels to starve, to feel a hunger so deep it sinks into your bones with the winter chill.
The microwave beeps loudly, jolting her out of her thoughts.
Humming lightly, Don Quixote whirls around and proudly presents her the warmed cup of red juice. "Have at thee!" she says with a wry glint in her eyes and a cheerful little smile. Carefully, Rodya takes the cup from her -it's not too hot- only slightly warm.
Body temperature.
She has no idea how Don Quixote got it to just the right temperature, but as she sips on it tentatively it soothes something in her that no food or water has been able to resolve since this morning. Unbidden, tears prick her eyes.
It should taste terrible; it isn't good warm, but instead she is overcome with a sense of contentment. "Thank you," she whispers, as she roughly rubs at her eyes.
Quixote pulls a chair up beside her, and leans against her quietly. " Don't mention it," she says in that low voice of hers. It's strange, seeing her quiet.
She always has been larger than life, but lately there have been more moments of silent contemplation, small slips in her boisterous act. Sometimes Rodya wants to grab her and shake, to ask how she doesn't get lost in her mask, if she feels like her identity now is more real than what she feels inside. If this wonderfully naive, cheerful facade feels more natural to her now or if it feels like poison on her skin, melting down her sense of self after getting back who she was before.
For now, she sits pressed into the warm side of her companion, and feels her faint, faltering heartbeat. "It will pass." Quixote reassures her, placing a hand on her arm.
"I know it will," Rodya replies, finishing the last of her drink.