Preferable To Inebriety? [Feliciadele]

[Ryan D'Alteau]

She burns like the sun and I can't look away.
And she'll burn our horizons, make no mistake.
______________________________Muse - "Sunburn"

The groan which left Ryan's mouth as he stirred himself awake, while involuntary, was enough to give him some semblance of idea of what he'd sound like if he ever became one of the hungering legions of the undead. Thanks to Adele, the Maignys had been sending them discreet shipments of Zosime's 'creative gardening' on a regular basis. Even now, many months after the arrangement had begun, Ryan had no idea just how they were getting the marijuana past international customs on both sides of the Atlantic. It was a mystery which, to him, was better left unsolved. Investigating it would have drawn unwanted attention their way; attention which they didn't need.

The latest shipment, according to the letter they'd enclosed, was one of Zosime's first attempts at creating a hybrid strain of the recreational drug. What he'd neglected to mention was that the resultant product was incredibly potent, weighing in with a THC content of nearly 40%. He had been high before, but nothing had been able to adequately prepare Ryan for the sensations which befell him the previous night. His memory of the few hours he'd managed to stay awake was sketchy at best, but he at least knew that Adele had fared just as badly. Unfortunately, her ability meant that she was able to simply cancel out the effects of the drugs at will - an ideal way to dodge mandatory drug testing - while he was often forced to ride out his high.

"Adele..?" He was still groggy when he called out his fiancée's name. He was unsure where in the condo Adele had hidden herself and, as he hauled his still-clothed body out of the couch, he was struggling to recall what day it was. Without a radio broadcast or a television to give him answers, the view of the Gulf of Mexico in the mid-morning told him little. When faced with such confusion, the best way he'd found to get answers was to either find Adele or the evidence of her departure; either a note on the kitchen table or the void in the parking area where her car should have been.

Having slept on the couch in his clothes, Ryan decided that his first port of call should be the bathroom. The shower would help to wake him up, while his clothes could be tossed into the laundry on his way to the bedroom. The upstairs hallway was, just like the downstairs area, devoid of Adele while the lack of noise coming from inside the bathroom told him that his destination was, thankfully, vacant. He had no objections with sharing a shower with his fiancée but, when he'd only just got up, he was usually far from in a mood to be social and loving. As each part of his clothing was stripped from his body, he tossed it into the corner of the room, firing up the shower in a piecemeal fashion whenever his arms were able to stretch forward.

By the time he was completely naked, the shower had already got the water up to temperature, making the process of clambering in and allowing the torrent to jolt him awake a simple one. Once again, he realised, his life had somewhat ground to a halt. Things between him and Maurelle had grown quiet and, while he'd kept in contact with the likes of Leah and her friends, he had no idea at all where in the world Sophie was. Today, he told himself, he'd head out and see if there were any part-time jobs on the island. He doubted that a former government employee with combat and firearms training who had gone rogue in more ways than one would get any job offers, but it would have been better than not trying at all.

One of the many benefits of living with nothing but his loving fiancée for company was that Ryan had no hesitations about roaming the house naked. The only windows which would have allowed observers any real view of the interior of the house looked out over the beach which flanked their property - or, more precisely, the air approximately sixty feet above the beach - which meant that privacy was easy for them to come by. Collecting his discarded clothes in his arms, he made his way back out into the corridor, dumping his clothes into the laundry basket hidden inside a nearby closet before ducking into the bedroom to find something else to wear.

Being so far from the front of the house, Ryan didn't hear the sound of a car engine outside as a vehicle slowed to a stop outside. By the time the doorbell sounded beneath him, Ryan had only managed to rummage through his collection of clothes and outfits - for both his personas - to pick out some underwear, a pair of dark blue cargo pants and some socks. Even as scarred as his chest might have been, going around shirtless wasn't so bad. From a distance, the scars which spelled out Adele's name - which had been made over half a decade ago - were just an array of haphazard curves and only showed their true meaning under really close scrutiny.

Leaving the doors to the bedroom and his wardrobe open, he hurried his way down the stairs. Surmising that it would have likely been some form of courier service with a package that needed a signature, Ryan knew that many employees were sufficiently lazy to spend the bare minimum amount of time at the door before moving on and claiming they'd performed the work for which they were paid. He wasn't going to give them such an opportunity. They could slack off with someone else. That and Adele would likely have been pissed off if she didn't get whatever it was she'd ordered. "I got it!", he yelled. He'd still not seen Adele so far, but was operating under the assumption that she was still somewhere in the building.

Opening the door from the inside, unlike the biometric lock on the other side, was easy and, after a few seconds of toying with the locks, he was able to pull the door open and greet whoever was on the other side. And quickly regret doing so when he realised just who was stood there, decked out in the convincing - yet obviously fake - uniform of the courier service. "...the hell?"

[Adele D'Alteau]

Happiness (Happiness)
Is this a test? (Is this a test?)
Do you think I'm blessed? (Do you think I'm blessed?)
I'm such a mess (I'm such a mess)
Do you exist?
My happiness
Is this a test? (Is this a test?)
Please let me rest (Please let me rest)

RyDele's condo
South Padre Island, Texas

Felicia had no recollection of how she'd been talked into going to going to Texas at all, let alone to go to Texas and visit with Adele and her paramour. Perhaps they wanted a threesome or something; she honestly had no fucking clue. They'd been discussing what to wear for Hallowe'en, and somehow the topic had come up about what they should all wear, and she and Adele had gone on some bent about how Ryan should be one of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender characters.

After looking up several photos of the characters, she figured he'd make a good Ty Lee. He may not have had the physique for it, but whatever. She'd make it work.

While she'd been piecing together a bespoke Ty Lee cosplay for him, she'd also ordered herself a real-enough looking Fed Ex outfit, and had flown out to Texas on her mother's dime to deliver the package in person. There was a car waiting for her at the airstrip which she drove over the causeway to the couple's condominium which overlooked one of South Padre Island's many beaches.

She walked up the steps to the apartment and paused when she got to the door. “Well, damn.” And here she thought Alessandro's door had been high-tech. This door made his look like a Colossus. It had a number of biometric bells and whistles to the point where she wondered if she'd accidentally taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque and had ended up at the front door of Fort Knox. She wasn't sure what to do. Knock? Was there a bell? She searched around the door frame until she found a button and pushed it, engaging a pleasant sounding doorbell.

A few moments later, the sound of several hydraulic pistons and valves firing signified that the door was being opened. She took a step backwards as it slowly opened outward and grinned as Ryan's tall, lanky frame was gradually revealed.

"...the hell?"

“Candygram for Mongo!” Felicia stepped past him into the foyer of the condo which had a remarkably open floorplan. She was actually . . . kind of jealous. She missed living near the sea. Living on the banks of Cazenovia Lake would do for now, but she really missed the seaside. “Damn, who'd you kill to get this property?” Felicia passed him the unmarked box and explored the first floor of their condo. The foyer gave way to an airy entertainment area with a small, circular, four seater table next to a large floor to ceiling window which provided a beautiful view of the bay across the street. From the stairway across from the table she heard footsteps and looked up to see the petite doctor padding her way down the stairs, barefoot and wearing an oversized gray sweatshirt that must have belonged to Ryan.

“I see that you arrived safely.” Adele nodded at Felicia and stopped a few steps shy of the first floor. The last time the two of them had met in the flesh, it hadn't ended well, and she'd been very reluctant to allow the other woman into her home. She hadn't expected Felicia to show up so soon, let alone at all. Adele remained on the stairs, effectively maintaining the high ground as Felicia continued to stare at her as if she expected her to do something. Usually the impeccable hostess, Adele made no move to welcome Felicia into their home and instead took the last few steps down the stairs with a blank expression on her face and ran a hand through her tousled hair.

Adele walked past her into the kitchen and set up a pot of coffee to brew, not feeling the least bit hospitable.

“Is she always this anti-social?” Felicia glanced at Ryan and followed the doctor into the kitchen where she found her sitting at the table and lighting up a joint. “Mind if I join you?”

“Il ne semble pas comme je l'ai beaucoup de choix.” She put the joint between her lips and inhaled deeply, then breathed out a thick cloud of smoke from her nostrils. “Why are you here?”

Felicia raised an eyebrow. “Because you invited me? You might not remember since you were pretty fucked up.”

No, she didn't remember inviting Felicia over. Why on Sekhmet's black earth would she have done that? “Ryan, perhaps you can humour her or give me a good reason to continue to entertain her presence.”

Довести до белого каления.

ф ф Word count: 880
ф ф Mood: I have to pee.
ф ф Outfit: Mentioned in post.
ф ф Lyrics / Quote: Happiness, Garbage
ф ф Illustrations: None.
ф ф Comment / Informational links: None.

[Ryan D'Alteau]

Trying hard, I thought I'd done my best.
All my life, I can't get no rest.
Some who'd closed the door before...
...say I "can't carry on no more".
______________________________Madness - "Tomorrow's Just Another Day"

"Candygram for Mongo!"

By the time Ryan realised that the woman partially shrouded by the FedEx uniform was in fact Felicia Rahal, she had thrust a moderately-sized packaged into his arms before sauntering around him and into the condo. The last time the two of them had been face-to-face had been the previous year's Hallowe'en festivities, when some guy had requistioned their humble abode for the purpose. Just like the specific reasons for Felicia's visit, many of the details of the party currently eluded him but, with the occasion netting them close to twenty grand, neither he nor Adele had any real retroactive misgivings about it. Whether they'd do it all again, however, was another matter.

Using the side of his foot to shove the door closed behind her, Ryan slowly whirled around, keeping his gaze vaguely in Felicia's direction as she surveyed his living space. "Damn... who'd you kill to get this property?" For a moment, he was tempted to comment on her apparent surprise-borne jealousy, given that he knew she'd been to the condo before. It was only when he realised that she'd only seen a couple of rooms filled up by over a dozen people that Ryan caught himself, electing to change his response. "Nobody, yet," he sighed with a smirk on his face. He gently turned the box over in his hands, looking for any form of clue as to the contents.

"What's with the outfit?" As little as he knew about Felicia, Ryan was sure that she'd dredged up a somewhat convincing-at-a-distance FedEx uniform for a particular reason. Which meant that the seven-hundred-and-odd year old immortal was up to something. In the back of his mind, Felicia's presence was somehow linked to a conversation he'd had while he was high on the hybrid super-weed Zosime had sent from Saint-Tropez. The brief period of serene sobriety he remembered having was, if anything, a false omen. Not long after he'd logged out of the chatroom to go and check on Adele, the powerful chemistry of what he'd smoked staged a resurgence and, after making it up the stairs and into the bedroom, it had knocked him flat in minutes, rendering his memories of the evening hazy at best.

With Adele being fourteen years older and fourteen inches shorter than he was, the drugs had kicked her like a steroid-powered mule. Between her wavering lucidity and compulsive quotations of obscure movies from the nineties, he'd got nothing out of her except a few hugs and the sight of her sprawled in an armchair when she fell asleep. "I see that you arrived safely." Her voice this morning, however, was largely devoid of just about everything bar mild annoyance. From the looks of her, she'd only just got up and, having heard the noise of conversation downstairs, she'd grabbed the first thing sufficiently large enough to cover her up from the shoulders to her knees. This time, it was one of her fiancé's plain grey sweatshirts.

Normally the gracious hostess, Adele simply gave Felicia a brief look before heading downstairs, bypassing the both of them and making her way into the kitchen without another word or polite gesture. A few seconds passed before Felicia followed along, replicating Adele's steps in order to find her way into the kitchen. Although for different reasons, Ryan brought up the rear and, while Adele busied herself with, somewhat surprisingly, constructing another joint, Ryan rummaged around in one of the kitchen drawers for a knife with which he could cut his way into the package. "Is she always this anti-social?"

Given the time of day, Adele either had a day off or a late shift at work. Regardless, the response was the same. "She's usually up and gone at the ass-end of dawn." With knife in hand, he started to carefully slice his way through the packing tape which adorned most of the package's edges. "If there's no work in the morning, she's... less of a picture of propriety. Then again, if she's got no need to be, why bother, right?" As if to prove his point, Adele expelled a cloud of smoke and languidly turned her head to regard Felicia, still not commenting on her attire. "Why are you here?"

"Because you invited me?" Compared to Adele - and Ryan to a lesser extent - Felicia was bright and wide awake; perfectly alert as though she'd been up for hours. Ryan, on the other hand, was too preoccupied by the package she'd brought with her to pay the conversation much notice and, with one of the cardboard flaps open, he was able to finally start getting inside. "You might not remember since you were pretty fucked up."

The first portion of the contents which greeted him as he whisked the packing paper out with his right hand was a clear plastic bag, loosely taped shut at both ends. Inside, he could clearly see what appeared to be a wig of brown hair. Despite being flattened down for transport, Ryan immediately noticed that, at one side, a long braided ponytail snaked its way outward, coiling around a few times before ending in a tapered point, held in place by a series of crimson hair bands. Adele apparently wanted him to humour their guest, but as he took the wig out and set it down on the counter, he began to see a mass of fabric, all in various shades of red.

While the pair of flat pumps - which were surprisingly in his size - weren't enough to tip him off, the midriff-showing top, baggy pants and a pleated fabric belt/skirt combo were cause enough for him to glance up at the two women. The Ty Lee cosplay outfit, which had somehow been tailor-made to fit him, was clearly visible on the counter; everything he'd need to transform himself into the Fire Nation circus acrobat bar the makeup and a pair of breasts. "Felicia..?"

Both of which he already had upstairs. "Just what the hell did you an' Adele talk about?"

[Adele D'Alteau]

If the stars embed
Like nails into the ground
From the unheard prayers
That have torn up the skies
Would you will it all away
As you sail on your way?

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

RyDele's condo
South Padre Island, Texas

"What's with the outfit?"

“Because you'll need something to wear to my mother's Hallowe'en party.” If they thought the party here last year had been intense—this one was going to be epic. Her mother had a tendency to go a little overboard on Hallowe'en. It was probably going to end up being a week long orgyfest.

Adele focused on rolling and lighting her joint. The sun was up. That meant it was too early for her to be awake. “I'm a 'picture of propriety' all the time. I just don't like unexpected visitors.” She glanced at Felicia who was now seated across the table from her, wearing what she recognised now was a completely fake Fed Ex uniform. She had no recollection of what had happen the prior evening. Even with her ability, the THC had pretty much destroyed all of her short term memory from the previous evening.

The two women watched as he unloaded the package piece by fabric piece. Adele already knew what it was based on the red ribbon tied braid and nodded her approval. He could definitely pull off the Ty Lee look even if he wasn't a contortionist. Adele pulled the joint from between her lips and turned it around, passing the unburnt end over to Felicia. Just because she didn't particularly like the Rahal woman didn't mean she couldn't share joint with her.

"Felicia..?"

“Yes?” She took the joint from Adele's fingers and tapped it, knocking a small clump of ashes into the ashtray at the centre of the table. The ash-end of the joint glowed red and then orange as she inhaled.

"Just what the hell did you an' Adele talk about?"

“Something about how you'd make a good Ty Lee.” She chuckled. Somehow or another, she'd managed to find pictures of Ryan as Calla,but since she didn't have a biokinetic around, cross-dressing would have to suffice. “I'm already going as Asami, which means that Helena is probably going to be Korra.” Actually, that was something she hadn't really gone over with Helena just yet. Eh, they had time. Felicia exhaled and coughed, then handed the joint back to Adele. “Jesus, one drag of that is enough to knock me on my ass for a week.” She was pretty sure Adele had mentioned something about her grandfather having a rather unique power that could enhance the potency and growth potential of certain plants.

“You should've had some of what we were smoking last night. One small joint about killed Ryan. Think he fell asleep half on and half off the bed. I didn't even hear him come in, I was so completely knocked out.” Adele pulled a few pieces of the costume nearer to her so that she could get a better look at them. It was actually very well-done—nothing like a cheap store bought costume that would fall apart after one use. She must have either had it made personally or bought it from an actual cosplayer who knew their way around a sewing machine. “Very nicely done. I think this should fit him well.” Adele gestured at Ryan with her hand. “Go ahead and try it on.”

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

† Word count: 643
۵ Mood: Tired as fuck.
† Outfit: See previous posts.
۵ Lyrics / Quote: In Other Worlds, Azam Ali
† Illustrations: None.
۵ Comment / Informational links: Sorry for the short ass post. I am so fucking tired right now. Zzzz.

[Ryan D'Alteau]

We are! We are the shaken!
We are the monsters underneath your bed!
Yeah, believe what you read!
We are! We are mistaken!
We are the voices inside your head!
Yeah, believe what you see!

______________________________Matchbook Romance - "Monsters"

"Something about how you'd make a good Ty Lee."

The brief flurry of laughter which accompanied Felicia's response to his inquiry was definitely filling him with something. To his dismay, however, it was nothing good. It was the same smothering sense of mild dread he'd experienced back at the charity fundraiser, back when Felicia had first seen through the combination of make-up, false hair and a rubber Star Trek bridge officer's uniform and noticed - startlingly quickly, he hastened to add to his own train of thought - that the relatively slender and almost freakishly tall woman calling herself Candi wasn't one at all. Candi hadn't been a woman and the fact that Felicia had known precisely who was before her had stunned him into awkward silence.

Ryan knew who Ty Lee was and, as he recalled her defining traits, the slight dread only seemed to compound itself further. As well as the obvious, Ty Lee was shorter than he was, thinner than he was, likely better looking than he was and, due to her training as both a martial artist and a circus performer, a damn sight more flexible than he was. And, somehow, in the midst of a conversation between a promiscuous immortal and a diminutive doctor who, at the time, was about as high as the International Space Station, they'd agreed that Ryan, after his various rituals through which he usually became his feminine alter-ego, would be able to pull off the general aesthetic of a cartoon character.

Earlier, in a moment of slight misunderstanding, Felicia had let slip part of the reason why she'd brought the costume over. Once again, someone had made mention of Khalidah Rahal's upcoming Hallowe'en party; one to which many were invited and attendance was seemingly mandatory. "I'm already going as Asami, which means that Helena is probably going to be Korra." Ryan knew that the three characters were part of the same universe - albeit different shows - and found himself quietly curious as to why she'd included him in what was effectively going to be a cosplay group.

He wasn't part of her family and, at one point, they'd lived under the notion that they would engage in a fight to the death. The fundraiser, once again, had been the cessation to that as well. By the time they met face-to-face that night, Felicia had lost her inclination to kill him. Ryan could tell, if only from how she'd reacted, that she was still probably pissed off at him for killing Marcus Grant's family. Who the fuck wouldn't? Thankfully, with Felicia no longer breathing down his neck, he was as safe as a man like him could be. Since leaving the Company on less-than-ideal terms, he hadn't seen hide nor hair of any of their agents. Apparently, Helena was part of the Company but, with her inclusion into the fold seemingly occurring after his departure, Ryan had excluded her from the proverbial list; keeping a vague mental track of the people who wanted him either dead or worse.

"Jesus... one drag of that is enough to knock me on my ass for a week!" Adele had already taken an interest in the expensive tailored costume the immortal had delivered and, giving into natural curiosity about something which wasn't hers, even Felicia couldn't help stealing the odd glance at the crimson outfit. Ryan, somewhat passive as ever, made no attempt to stop them. If they wanted to look at it, then why should he deny them the pleasure?

Following Felicia's conversational lead, Adele beat Ryan to the punch with the next volley of spoken words, using her free hand to grasp gently at a few of the pieces of the costume so she could get a closer look. "You should've had some of what we were smoking last night. One small joint about killed Ryan." Despite instinctively rolling his eyes, Ryan couldn't help but think that his fiancée wasn't exaggerating nearly as much as it seemed. As well as pretty much blanking out his memory of the night which had ensued, he had awoken with half his body moments shy from falling out of bed. Also, rather inexplicably, he had been holding a neon green ball gag in one hand. Had he been trying to gag himself? He didn't know.

"Don't forget, Adele. You're smaller than me." She was over a foot shorter than him and weighed as much as one could expect. "You prob'ly got off way worse than me." It was mostly speculative logic that had led him to the conclusion, but it seemed sound enough to go with. Sliding the pieces of the costume she'd chosen to examine back over to where Ryan was standing, Adele had her retort already lined up and, with a brief glance in Felicia's direction, she let him have it. "Very nicely done. I think this should fit him well. Go ahead and try it on."

"Fine..." There was no hesitation. No real misgivings about what he was agreeing to do. With Adele and Felicia both knowing about this particular side of him already, he saw no reason to hide or defensively balk at the request. He simply gathered up the pieces of the costume into a neat pile in his arms and strode out of the room. With the rest of what Ryan felt he needed to complete the transformation residing in the bedroom, that was precisely where he headed. A part of him couldn't stop wondering what - if anything - else Felicia had planned for her visit. If this was his Hallowe'en costume and it had been tailor-made to fit him, why had she brought it a little over three weeks early? There didn't seem to be any point. Why not just tell him what he was going to be and hand him the completed cosplay outfit when he arrived at the venue?

Then again, how the hell could he satisfactorally theorise the machinations of a woman twenty-eight times older than he was? Only Felicia could really know why she did what she did anymore. After setting the costume down on the foot of his bed and arranging each component in such a way as to render them easily accessible as he got dressed, Ryan began to strip out of what little clothing he'd managed to throw on before Felicia had arrived and open up his wardrobe. With the cosplay including a wig of its own, Ryan skipped over the uppermost shelf and moved straight onto his prosthetics. Made out of silicone, they offered a remarkably realistic alternative to the services of a biokinetic like Sophie and, once he'd tucked the business end of his real crotch away, he began the laborious task of setting the prosthetics in place; gluing the breast forms onto his body before fiddling around between his legs in order to have the lower half of his body-transforming silicone slide ergonomically into place.

The medical-grade adhesive he used had been ordered udner advisement from Adele. As well as his fiancée, she was also his physician and, as both, she'd offered her counsel on what would be best to achieve the things he needed while limiting adverse reactions to having it on his skin for prolonged periods of time. The prosthetics cost over four hundred dollars altogether and, while Ryan had only paid for the breasts, they were sufficiently expensive to be treated with great care. Once they were secure and snugly shifting along with his real body, Ryan moved onto the make-up. With his phone sitting on the bedside table, he hopped onto the internet and brought up a picture of Ty Lee; the woman he was apparently going to be emulating for Felicia's visit. As he'd expected, she didn't wear very much in the way of make-up outside her time with the perpetually facepainted Kyoshi Warriors. All he needed to do, therefore, was subtly contour his face in order to hide his masculine features. Once again, Adele's advice and online tutorials were serving him well.

After setting the make-up and ensuring it wouldn't smudge off, the rest of his transformation was easy. The clothes were simply donned in a logical order and, after shoving his dirty-blonde hair under a nude-coloured wig cap, he shrouded the whole thing from view with Ty Lee's braided brown hair. With practice, he'd been able to deliberately hide the usual harshness from his gaze and, whether as Calla or Ty Lee, Ryan could appear brighter and happier than he normally appeared to be. And it was with that veil of altered personality that he bounded down the stairs. He sure as hell wasn't a gymnast, but he could be lighter on his feet if he needed to be.

"Well..?" He was almost getting too good at shifting the pitch and intonation of his voice around. It was as if Ty Lee had tied Ryan up to a chair and left him upstairs. "I shouldn't look out of place at Khalidah's party like this, right?"