Summary:Annoyed with Robbie's arcane communications, Illyana comes to ask him 'WTF'? Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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So, Robbie had just finished putting Gabe to sleep after a long night of helping him out with homework. Sure, Gabe was smart, but Robbie was always better at math, even if he didn't learn some of the material that Gabe was trying to figure out. So…what to do about it, huh? Robbie helped, thats what.
So, He's now in his living room, rubbing his forehead and pinching the bridge of his nose. He's tempted to start going through the bills again, but instead he seems to be in relative thought.
All by himself. He does find himself thinking about a certain Hell Lord though. She's been on his mind a lot lately.
While Illyana looks in her mid twenties, she's spent less than half of that on Earth. And she can only remember less than half of *that*. While her demonic ties are often the reason that a lot of people feel uncomfortable around her (even if they don't know why), a lot of times it's that they realize on some level that she's… odd. Part of that stems from not having a lot of the social knowledge that others have.
Since Illyana gave Robbie her number, he's texted her. Quite a bit. She's replied… a lot less. Usually badly garbled with typos and 'help' from autocorrect and responses are hours, even days late. If he gets them at all. Illyana is an awful Millennial. Though technically she's Gen Z, since her birth certificate says she's 12.
A stepping disk appears in Robbie's living room, Illyana standing there in her usual attire, peering at her phone. "What does 'BCNU, SWAK, WEG and WYWH even *mean*?" Looking up from her phone, the look she's giving Robbie is mildly annoyed. "Do you not know English??" Well. He wanted to put her off-kilter a bit, right?
Robbie is suddenly surprised when he sees a stepping disc appear out of the corner of his eyes, he does seem to smile though as he stands up and puts his hands in his pockets when Illyana actually starts sounding like a girl her age. "Wow, you actually sound human there." He smiles as he pulls up his knowledge.
"Uh..be seeing you, sealed with a kiss, wicked evil grin, and wish you were here….I -think-." Robbie ponders this for a moment as he looks at her. "Why, does my text speak bother you?"
Robbie gets right up in her face, a smile there, but a chuckle soon follows. "I'm beginning to think you don't like texting that you're on your way."
Illyana Rasputina rolls her eyes a bit at the 'sound human', clicking off her phone and putting it away. "Use your words, Robbie." She tells him with more than a bit of sarcasm. Apparently yes. Texting annoys her. "Those keyboards aren't meant for typing." Even though millions of people do it all the time.
When Robbie gets in her face, her eyes narrow but she doesn't back up. Her chin lifts a bit and her eyes flash pure, glowing white for a moment. "Careful, pet." She over enunciates her words there, the 't' at the end sharp. "If you push me, I'll push back."
"I am using my words. I just told you what they all meant." Robbie says, apparently still enjoying the amusement with Illyana. But now she seems to be getting rather annoyed with him about the phone sand the texting. Then she calls him 'pet' again.
"I'll remind you that I'm not a pet, I'm a partner." he perhaps playfully challenges her selfishness. "Though I might as well take this time to make my claim on you." He whispers to her then. "Unless you refuse me in my entirety." Robbie says with a grin as he already starts leaning in, though he's not forceful about it. He simply knows what he wants.
And even for him, a Demon Queen is….well, a demon queen.
"I meant in your texts. Just… use words." Illyana wrinkles her nose a bit, hands idly brushing at her jacket and shirt. There's nothing really to brush off.
When Robbie 'corrects' her the blonde gives a small snort. "Oh, don't you wish." She puts a finger against his chest and pushes a bit, try to get him to back up and give her back her space. The line of her shoulders and set of her jaw a bit tight at having him quite that close.
And then Robbie says he's making a claim on her and her eyes narrow, any dregs of her mocking manner slipping away. "I'm not yours, Robbie." Her tone has gone cool, reminiscent of her Siberian homeland.
Robbie isn't forceful, so really, all it takes is a finger to push him away to get some space back in her favor. "Then neither am I your 'pet'. You seemed to have no problem making a claim to me as part of your weapons cache, using me against other demons as a sign of your strength." Robbie then looks at her, her finger still on his chest. He seems to like her Siberian accent.
"Ah…there's the proof of your home. I wondered for a time if you could display it." Robbie keeps his attention on her eyes. Perhaps the coollness of her own matched only by the coolness of his.
Illyana Rasputina's gaze rests on Robbie for a long moment as he calls her out for using him. "I was *implying* a claim. It's a bit different." So long as the Ghost Rider seemed to do what she wanted, demons would be quick to assume. But yes, she had been using him, just a bit. She'd expected him to put a price tag on doing so last time he was here, but he hadn't.
"Demons work in hierarchies, Robbie. There are no partners. You couldn't claim me and be my pet at the same time anyway." Illyana relaxes a bit as Robbie gives ground to her, though. It's subtle, in the way her shoulders relax just a touch and her words aren't quite so clipped.
His comment on her home just gets slightly arched brows. Unlike her brother she doesn't really have anything of an accent, and if you ask her where her home is, she certainly wouldn't answer Russia.
Robbie looks at her when she seems to accept that she was indeed using him as a tool for her own purposes. "Implying a claim and actually claiming seem to have the exact same meaning no matter how craftily you try and make the claim, don't you agree?" Robbie was smart and he wasn't knowledgeable about demon hierarchy aside from the most basic principles, but he wasn't dumb about it either.
"Then maybe I don't understand. Its like you want me close but don't want me close. You use me like a tool or weapon, like I have no mind of my own. What exactly do you want?"
"I've hardly treated you like you don't have a mind of your own." Illyana says, disagreeing. "You have a need for violence and death and I have an outlet for you. Yes, I gain from it, but what do you loose, really? You hardly care about demonic hierarchies. You don't even know anything about them, do you?" The blonde arches a brow, almost daring him to say otherwise. This Illyana is very different from the Illyana he usually speaks to. Serious, instead of mocking or teasing and it makes her feel a bit less human.
"Implying a claim gets me the benefits of others seeing you as under my control." She admits, nodding. "But it also allows you to walk away. You think once something is *mine* I give it up?" Illyana makes a soft, scoffing sound. "So no, they don't have the same meaning. Not even close."
Robbie still has his arms crossed. He looks her in the eyes. Its almost…pity. "I don't have the need. I don't want it. Its Eli's Need. It's Vengeance's need. No, I don't. And quite frankly, I would rather watch the entire hierarchy burn. Including myself with it."
Oh.
Is Robbie…? But he shakes his head. Though Robbie seems to be of a mind that he is of -his- own choice, not Illyana's. Which might upset her, considering she seems to be a bit of a control freak.
"Must be lonely." He eventually tells her.
Shadows flicker behind those pale blue eyes, dipping them towards sapphire for a moment, and Illyana gives a small half-shrug. "It could be. If those better than I didn't sacrifice for me." Those that are closest to her have some understanding of what Illyana is, and accept it. From the outside, it looks like just humoring the pushy blonde but it lets Illyana have a semblance of 'normal' while still holding her place as top demon.
The sorceress finally shakes her head. "If you don't want to play the game, I'll leave you be. But I'm not going to change who I am because you think my 'culture' for lack of a better term should 'DIAF'." She looked that one up. "What do I want?" That finally gets a shake of her head. "That's never a good question."
Robbie looks at Illyana as she seems to be used to people sacrificing themselves for her or for their purpose or cause where she is centered. "and I should change who I am for your benefit?" Robbie asks her then. They were on two sides of the board. Both asked the other to change in some way. "You're no more human than the next person. From what I can tell, what makes you a demon queen came later." Robbie tells her as he sits down.
"I need to get Gabe's stuff ready for school tomorrow. If there's nothing else…" he takes a breath. "I'll see you later then." Clearly, they both could use some thinking as Robbie starts putting together what looks like the start of a lunch for a lunch box, something that Gabe can't currently do for himself.
"I didn't think I asked you to change. At most, I asked you to kill things for me. Which isn't that far from what you already do." Illyana says. Of course, they could be looking at entirely different topics in this conversation. That happens, when there isn't a shared frame of reference.
"No more human?" The demon queen laughs. "Definitely not. Far, far less than." She agrees. "I've only ruled Limbo for a relatively short period of time, but my humanity was stolen almost before I can remember." When Belasco bound her soul to Limbo's Heart.
When Robbie clearly dismisses her, Illyana lifts her chin a bit, her manner defiant. But she doesn't linger in his home. Her hands raise to either side, palms down as she summons a stepping disk to take her out of his home as easily as she arrived. Leaving Robbie once again alone with his thoughts.