What becomes of the Broken Glasses? (closed rpg)

[Dr Quill]

Quill walked into the mass hall in a sour mood. He’d been cramped in a ship with the detestable Jekaan Oludh for the return trip from Carida, and hated the man more than ever. Now he was tired and hungry, and wanted nothing more than something to eat and some sleep. Isard had requested him to report immediately upon his return, but he figured he could avoid her and get to his quarters tonight, and report after some much-needed rest.

He found an unoccupied table, and dropped into a chair with a sigh. Damn, he’d been in labs and libraries too long for fieldwork. He’d tell that nasty woman where to get off next time she suggested he go clean up her agent’s messes!

A halt in the conversations around him brought his head up, and he looked towards the door where all heads were turned. He groaned, it was Isard, and she was looking right at him.

[Director Isard]

Isard was having a particularly bad day, and not just because of being called an old hag by some Imperial upstart of the GMA. So it was only natural she needed a drink once she got back to the HQ. Unfortunately, checking on her private store of whiskey and brandy in her office and quarters had resulted in nothing but a few empty bottles and three drops of watery whiskey-soda she had left standing from the night before.

There was something at the back of her mind, but she couldn't remember it. But it didn't matter - for right now, she needed a drink, and she needed one badly. The bar in the Mess Hall would have to suffice. She had her own small partitioned private room in it to use, anyway.

As she entered the Mess Hall, the noise inside dramatically sank, and the first thing she saw was Quill trying to hide behind a table full of young officers.

It came back to her then - he had been on a mission, and hadn't reported back. That wouldn't have been so bad, if she hadn't expressly reminded him to report to her upon his return from Carida, as there were several rather delicate matters about his expenses to discuss. She couldn't have found a better way to bleed off some of her anger - the doctor would have to account for everything now.

With an icy stare, she gestured for him to follow her, and she turned around to walk to her private lounge. On the way, one of the servant droids joined her and Quill, rolling after them with two glasses and a bottle of brandy.

Once they were alone inside - the droid having put the glasses down and opened the bottle, poured out the brandy, and left - Isard sagged down into her armchair, and activated the back-massaging function.

Quill cowered on a chair opposite her.

(OOC: this is obviously happening after the Taking of Carida thread - although not too long afterwards)

EDIT: some typos

[Dr Quill]

Quill's spirit sank when Isard motioned him to follow her into her private room off of the mass hall. He'd seen many an agent broken to the lowest rank after such a summons, and some had never been seen again. Still, he thought that he'd proven his worth to ImpIntel with some very successful discoveries and inventions lately, so he strode with a confidence, belied with some shakiness in the knees, after the formidable Director Isard into the chamber.

"Madam Director Isard," he began, hoping to take the offensive, "I've just gotten in and had hoped to get a bite before coming directly to see you."

He looked into her impassive face, and tried to decide which eye to look into, finding it hard to meet her multi-hued gaze directly. He decided on the blue iris, and started to continue.

"My datapad has complete..."

Isard's "Will you shut up!" snapped his jaw closed.

'This isn't going to be good...' he thought.

[Director Isard]

Isard had decided to play this one different. She would let him stew in his guilty conscience for a while, make him squirm and guess at what it was she wanted from him.

"Madame Director, I---" Quill began again, after a long and to him terribly frightening silence.

"I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP! Drink your whiskey - it's too good to be wasted on you, but I might as well share it with someone."

She knocked down the contents of her glass, and refilled it immediately. When she looked at the Doctor, he hastily grabbed his glass and gulped his whiskey down as well, which resulted in a coughing fit, and a somewhat loud banging of the glass down onto the table as he reflexively hammered his fist on the table surface.

Isard looked at him cooly, and refilled his glass again.

The procedure repeated itself twice more, resulting in the Doctor's face flushing slightly, and Isard slowly llosing her cool.

Finally, not able to hold back, she addressed him again.

"So, my good doctor - what have you been doing in that laboratory of yours that we so expensively outfitted? My files show a lot of equipment purchases, but no report on anything contre- ...concrete."

[Dr Quill]

Quill could feel the sweat start to bead on his forehead, and then begin a ticklish trail down his cheek.

‘Quark! How did the witch find out about his personal equipment.’ He wondered. He knew that Isard was perfectly capable of throwing him into her notorious prison at a whim, and his bowels loosened at what he had seen there, and done himself.

“I can assure you, Madam Director Isard, that everything I do is for the benefit of ImpIntel, and you.”

He tried to think of a way out of this trap, but his head was addled with the drink.

“I’ve only been following your own directions, after all. I’m not to blame for your expensive failures!”

Too late, Quill realized his alcohol-loosened tongue may have just signed his death warrant.

[Director Isard]

Isard is beginning to feel rather tipsy, and therefore completely misses the implied insult. Instead, she fills up the glasses once more - up to the brim - salutes the doctor, and then knocks down the whiskey.

She blinks hard a few times, feeling the alcohol work inside her, then straightens up on her chair, and looks at the Doctor again, her eyes gazing past him a little, to come to rest on a glowpanel behind him.

She leans further back.

"Now... what wasit we were talking about?"

Quill's hands shake with relief as he brings the glass to his mouth and takes a slow sip.

Isard watches him, swaying slightly forwards and backwards on her chair. A disgusted expression forms on her face.

"C-can't you drink your liquor like a man, Qu-Quill? Come on! KNock it down!"

She reached out with her hand for the doctor's, grabs his glass, pulled it towards her and knocked it down. His fingers lightly brushed against her chin as she was still holding his hand in an iron-grip around the glass.

The doctor blushed violently, and pulled back his hand with all his might - resulting in the empty glass slipping from her fingers as well, and falling on the table between them, breaking into small fragments.

Isard had to supress a grin trying to steal onto her face. Blinking some more to clear the vision of suddenly having two doctors sitting opposite her, she grabbed for the bottle of brandy and filled her own glass again. She raised it towards the doctor.

"Clumsy fool! You broke your glass! Have mine - I'll... I'll take the bottle!"

[Dr Quill]

Quill is actually surprised to feel warmth from Isard's cheek as his fingers brush her skin. He jerks his hand back instinctively and loses his grip on the glass. He watches it fall as if in slow motion and shatter.

"Can't you drink your liquor like a man?" she asks.

Years of abuse for being a small man and a bookworm answer in foolish pride, "Of course I can drink like a man. I can drink as much as you can."

His view of Isard becomes fuzzy as he squints across the table. He reaches into his pocket and brings out a pair of old-fashioned reading glasses, and puts them on his nose. Grabbing a full glass, he chokes down the vile contents.

"well, you know what Ice Heart, you're not such a bad broad after all," he pronounces after his next drink.

[Director Isard]

Rather taken aback by that bold statement of the doctor's, Isard has to grip the table to steady her chair which she'd been tipping back and forth on as sh watched the two doctors take out their glasses and put them onto their noses.

"WHAT?" she tries to say, but a dry croak is all that comes out. Hastily, she takes a swig from the brandy bottle.

She leans across the table, and tries to grab the doctors by the throat. Instead, her hand knocks down the glasses on Quill's nose, and it falls down and also shatters on the table. Quickly, she pulls back her hand, as if nothing had happened.

"Drat! tha's another one gone."

She swipes over the table with her arm-sleeve, totally overlooking the remaining glass standing before Quill, and knocks that off the table. It fails to break on the floor, and instead rolls several feet over the ground, and comes to rest at the foot of the wall.

Her off-kilter stare innocently looks across at the two Quills.

"Y'know - I don' like the way you lookat me. Did I ev'r tell y'that?"

She hammers her fist down onto the table, and then pulls it back, an expression of pain on her face, as she cut herself on a glass splinter.

"Scrag! Damn glass!"

[Dr Quill]

Quill recoils from her touch as if a serpent had slithered off of a branch and touched his neck. His priceless reading glasses fly off of his nose, and he stares in anger as Isard sweeps them off of the table onto the floor.

He bursts out in a drunken rage, "You foul woman! Those were a gift to me from my father."

She doesn't even appear to hear him as she mutters something about another one gone.

He can barely think with the whiskey and his emotion, then he sees her cut herself on the broken glass on the table top.

Time seems to slow down as Quill watches the thick blood pool on the side of Isard's hand. He can't help but think of the nerves carrying the pain signals to her brain from the damaged flesh. Fascinated, he reaches out and takes her hand in his. Almost without thinking he licks the blood from her skin.

[Director Isard]

Isard stares at the Doctor licking her hand. She must be far more drunk than she thought she was, to be hallucinating like that. Through the hazy mist of her eyes, she notices Quill licking his lips.

Thoroughly disgusted, she pulls her hand back. Quill is at best a whining disgusting fool, with ugly bushy eyebrows and a permanent red stain around his mouth. Now she's wondering if the stain comes from some even more unwholesome habits he might have. Which would make his presence utterly unbearable.

But it's even a greater distaste she feels now, not at him, but at herself. She can't help feeling drawn towards this repulsive little beast of a man. Maybe it's the common interest they share - the pleasure they take from giving others pain.

Making an effort to kep her eyes focused on his, she suddenly can't stop herself from giggling out aloud.

"Whasit taste like?"

[Dr Quill]

"Whasit taste like?"

Quill was surprised by the taste of Isard. He'd tasted the blood of many 'patients', and the water of life was always sweeter in the pampered and the rich, and bitter in the poor, struggling masses. Isard tasted of pain and suffering, despite her family and her elite-class life.

Quill swallowed another glass of whiskey, and surprised himself by saying, "Ysanne, I've always appreciated the way you've kept yourself in fighting shape."

Quill reached out and touched a place he knew was full of pleasure nerves. The next thing he knew, he had hit the floor hard, and Isard was staring coldly down into his eyes with a deadly black stare.

"You presume too much, little man."

[Director Isard]

Looking down at him lying there amongst the broken glass, suddenly, the picture seems utterly funny to Isard. As she recalls his touch, she can't help but laugh at the drunken fool.

"Hahhaahhhaa! Fora man who can'hold his drink, you're quite adeca-adac-adequate whenit comes to the right tush-tut-...touch."

She grabs his collar, and pulls him upwards again. Taking as firm a grasp of Quill's shaking hand as she is able to, she staggers out of her private lounge, grabbing the nearly empty bottle of brandy on the way. Taking another swig from it, she walks through the empty and dark Mess Hall, with Quill in tow. The two of them fall over a few chairs on the way, causing a great noise.

Behind the bar, the serving droid left ther to clean up, extends a telescopic eye over the bar, and watches their progess.

Quill finally manages to ask Isard where they are going.

"To my water-...ah...quarters, you fool. Let me show you my collection of torture instruments."

Quill gulps audibly, but is unable to escape her grasp.

[Dr Quill]

Quill is easily dragged along the corridors by the muscular Isard, and is literally tossed through the door to her quarers by the drunken woman.

The Intelligence commander habitually scans the room as she enters, then looks at the doctor as if seeing him for the first time. "What're you doing here?" she asks with a dangerous glint in her reddish eye.

"Uh, your collection of interrogations tools, Madam?" He says, hopefully. The doctor fearfully looks around the quarters for an escape, but apparently the only way out led through the swaying Ysanne Isard.

Ignoring a distinctive reddish stain on the floor, Quill asks, "Do you have any more whiskey?"

[Director Isard]

Looking at the Quill out of the corner of her eye, Isard wonders where she left that last bottle of brandy she kept for emergencies. 'Haso bee somwhere around!' she thinks.

Kicking her boots off as she enters her private bedchamber, she tries to bend down to look under her bed, but loses her balance and falls headlong onto the bed instead.

Quill follows her staggering into her room, somewhat timidly, but by now the need for more alcohol overrules his fear of Isard's nastiness.

Isard is lying on top of her bed, with her head hanging down at the side, groping with one hand for something under the bed. Quill watches with interest as she pulls out small boxes full of various specimen of preserved alien and humanoid limbs. A pile of strange old-fashioned metal instruments follows the boxes.

With a triumphant, if somewhat strangled shout, she finally pulls out a small and enormously dusty bottle of some greenish substance. Using her hands to balanace herself back onto the bed, she finally recovers an upright sitting position upon her bed, and motions for Quill to join her.

"Bring ths glassess ovr there."

Quill staggers over to a small cabinet, and takes out two expensive looking glasses, which he carries over to her bed. Somewhat hesitatingly, he sits down on the side of the bed, keeping a lot of distance between him and Isard.

[Dr Quill]

Holding out his glass, Quill manages to get most of what Isard pours to end up safely in his cup.

"Thanks, Izz...its...thanks Baby," he says. He examines Isards most interesting collection of nipple-clamps and electrodes, then looks over at her 'spikes and knifes' collection.

"Shay there Diret...Diress...izzy, that's some great stuff ya got here" He looked across to where Isard was filling two glasses with more whiskey. She seemed to be oblivious to what he was saying, but she kept on staring at his crotch. He staggered over next to her and leaned against her as he grabbed his glass of liquor.

"Cheers, Izzy," he said and chugged the whole glass down.

The last thing he remembered was pointing out the human pleasure center nerves to a half-comatose Isard, and grabbing the remains of his antique glasses from a flying droid.

[Director Isard]

The night over Coruscant is long and illuminated by a million streetlights.

Deep within Intel HQ, Isard's bedroom is dark and musty smelling. Apart from the occasional heavy snoring, not a sound can be heard from its occupants.

The two figures on the bed lie huddled together in a ball, in drunken stupor holding on to each other as if holding on to a last shred of sanity.

Who knows what is going on in their cruel minds - even in sleep, do they dream of pain and torture they can inflict? or are theirs the dreams of the peace and tranquility that they can't reach during their waking hours?

Who knows?

---------------

We shall let them sleep, and resume this at a later time - when morning breaks, and once again, they resume their old identities.

(OOC: if that's too poetic - enough for tonight. Isard and Quill shall take up the thread again on Monday.)

[R5 V10]

**In the quiet of the late evening, the droid entered the mess hall, and up righted a few chairs that had been overturned from the previous night’s activities. It rolled back into Isard’s private lounge, and its wheels crackled and popped as it passed over the broken glass on the floor. A small hatch on the front of the R5 unit opened and a vacuum attachment exited, beginning its sweep of the floor, clearing the debris. As it made its way around the room, it came to the wall and retrieved an intact glass, which seemed out of place in the entire scene, as it was quite the site.

The table in the room was pooled with semi-dried blood, which the droid made its way to next ,and began to clean with a small blast of foam from another of its many attachments, protruding from its structure. The droid wondered if it was common practice in this place, which he had been recently brought to, for such unkemptness and uncleanlyness. The small unit realized that this was but one of many new tasks that it would be required to perform in the service of this establishment.

Having completed the cleanup of the secluded area, which Isard kept for her own purposes, the droid exited the now clean room and went on down the hall, seeking out any other refuse and or misbegotten items left lying about, so that this facility could be ready for the next day, when it arrived.**

[Director Isard]

Morning breaks on Coruscant. The skies are jammed with thousands of vehicles, hurriedly ferrying millions of worn-out workers to their jobs.

Further down in the less busy layers of the city-world, a lone hawkbat is swooping up and down between two buildings, on the lookout for prey.

And even deeper down than that, deep down inside a building that no one outside Intel knows anything about, in a dark room, two people are stirring from their sleep.

Blinking her eyes hard, Isard is lying on her bed, feeling even worse than usual. But something's wrong - something is different. But she can't put her finger on it just yet.

'Vader's black soul! What did I do last night?' Even just thinking makes her head hurt. 'The last thing I remember was looking for that bottle of ...what was that stuff again? I was looking for that bottle, and then Quill was...--QUILL!!!'

Horrified, it is then that she realizes that the arm wrapped around her stomach is not her own, but belongs to the groaning man beside her - Dr Quill.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgh!"

[Dr Quill]

Quill was awakened by a loud cry next to his ear. He found it very difficult to think this morning, and his whole body seemed to hurt. As he raised his head the pain started. He did not recognize the chamber where he was, and he was in a strange bed. Oh, he was mightily hung over! He remembered something about….Isard!

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgh!" he answered in return. Isard was staring at him as if he were a Gamorrean lying next to her in her bed. He could feel his face mirroring her look. A nasty thought occurred to Quill, and he slowly lifted the sheets to check if he still had all his body parts.

Relieved by his apparent full inventory, Quill’s mind returned to the matter at hand.

“Madam Director, I…that is, we…I must be going!” he finally stammered, as he tried to locate all his clothes, he seemed to be missing his shirt and one shoe, but he was in such a hurry to depart her quarters that he hopped to the door bare-chested, and walking on one sock and one shoe.

He can’t seem to find his pair of antique reading glasses either, but was willing to write them off to get out of the presence of this woman he loathes. He stabbed at the door control, but it won't budge for him.

'Oh, Quark!' he thought, the black widow's got me trapped!

[Director Isard]

His shout seemed to have awakened a demon in her head - one of the sort that is kicking and screaming and generally causing a great agony in one's head. Isard raised her hands to cover her ears, trying to lock out all the noise, but the internal shouting went on.

As she turned her head around to watch the doctor frantically search for his clothes, the awful truth of having spent a night in the same bed with this ridiculous and annoying little creature dawned upon her again, and she groaned loudly at that - which Quill seemed to take as a sign to run for his life.

Running to the door with only half of his clothes on, he was stopped by the door, which only opened to Isard's own command. That necessitated getting up and walking over to the desk with the controls in it.

As she raised herself up from the bed, her head began to throb. The throbbing became worse as she finally stood more or less upright. Her stomach seemed to turn somersaults, and she immediately had so sit down again as cold sweat broke out all over her face.

All thoughts of the more repugnant character-sides of the doctor were brushed aside as she weakly called out for him. Ugly and hateful he might be, but he still remained the only one she could call upon to get rid of this sickness she was feeling.

"Qu-Quill! Come back here!"

[Dr Quill]

Quill’s panic at being unable to open the door was replaced by confusion. The last thing he would have expected to hear from Isard was vulnerability, but there was something in her voice that turned him back into the room to stare at her. She was always the Ice Heart, but now she called his name painfully, and beckoned him back into the room.

He rocked unsteadily back into the wall, and was rewarded with a stab of pain from a row of gashes down his back. He was going to have to find his shirt before he left. He’d be damned if he’d walk the hallways with those wounds showing!

‘I’m never going to drink brandy again in my life!’ he vowed silently.

“Yea…ow, uh…yes?” he finally stammered.

[Director Isard]

"Please...." Isard had to close her eyes and take a deep breath to stop the nauseating feeling from overcoming her again, before she could go on speaking."Please... could you come back here and ...help me?"

Quill seemed unsure what to do, but he slowly took a few steps into her direction.

Even feeling as bad as she did, Isard's temper rose.

"Get back here! You're a fraggin doctor - give me something to make this damn pain stop!" She sank back onto her bed.

Quill hastily looked around. Isard had to keep something in her quarters that would act like a painkiller. At the back of his mind he had a nasty thought to knock her over the head with a bottle, which would result in her feeling absolutely nothing for a longer time than any painkiller would, but then that was probably not a good idea. She'd only take it out on him afterwards.

Finally, he thought to look in her desk, and did indeed find a box of a rather strong painkiller there - if she had been taking them for long, it was no wonder she was in such a bad state so often.

But for now, he had nothing else to give to her, so he handed her two of them, and a glass of water, and quickly stepped back again.

Isard slowly sat up, and swallowed the pills. Almost instantly, they took effect - not a wonder, considering that she hadn't eaten in a while. Raising herself from her bed, she manages to stand up, but her foot gets entangled in something as she tries to step away, and she stumbles. Picking up what she fell over, she stands there looking at a shirt that clearly belonged to Quill. Overcome with disgust again, at whatever it was that had happened that night, she throws the shirt at Quill and manages to speak in as icily a tone as she is able to command.

"I will personally see to your destruction if word ever gets out about what happened here. Do you understand? I will kill you myself with my bare hands, if I must."

Regaining full command over her body, she stares at the doctor with all the hatred she can muster, before she finally releases the door lock and lets him slink away.

[Dr Quill]

Quill fled Isard’s quarters wearing one shoe and hurting in several locations on his body. He entered his quarters swiftly and leaned back against the door, wincing from the pain.

He staggered over to a mirror, and looked at himself sadly. One eyebrow seemed to have lost a bit of hair, and he had what looked suspiciously like a bite on his neck. Groaning a bit, he levered off his partially torn shirt, and was about to throw it away when he noticed a bloody handprint on the front where Isard had ripped the garment off of him. No doubt about it, that was her blood.

Humming to himself, he cut the piece of cloth carefully from the rest of the shirt. Finding a plastic bag, he placed the bit of rag inside, and labeled it.

Isard’s drunken state had gotten him off the hook last night. She had forgotten her inquiry into his expenses. Considering what he had found out about her use of drugs and alcohol, it was entirely possible she’d never find out about the state-of-the-art genetics equipment he had purchased on Intel’s budget.

He’d had a taste of her last night. Now he smiled as he contemplated a much more complete study of the essence of Madam Director Isard.

edit: see first post in thread for original eyebrow configuration