Blessed Crusade (CC/DtbB RP)

[Meryck]

The next morning...

Normally, aside from Ms.Valentine, Ran was the first one up. However, it was just so ungodly cold that morning that his mind basically went like hell I'm waking up, and the boy had completely disappeared into a ball under his covers.

Corey, however, was fully dressed in extremely warm clothes. He made his way to his sister's room, grinning like an idiot, briefly going to the bathroom for cold water before splashing it on Reg's face.

Reg's immediate reaction after waking up was grabbing her pillow and whacking Corey with it, grouchily. "The hell's you're problem?!"

"Snow." Reggie blinked, taking the pillow away from her brother's face slowly to reveal his grin.

"...What?"

"Snow. It snowed."

"....You're kidding me."

"Nope." Reg dropped the pillow and scrambled over to the window. And indeed, snow had fallen- and plenty of it too. Everything suffered from Mass Whiteout color wise, and yet....it looked incredibly cheery. Reggae's lack-of-breakfast evil fell away to awe and shock, to her own idiotic grin.

"Be down in ten."

And she hadn't lied; ten minutes later found the Alastor siblings dressed warmly in the middle of a snowball fight, squawking and laughing it up. Reg hadn't bothered to comb or braid her hair, but who cared? IT HAD FREAKING SNOWED.

Crysta watched from the window, still in her pajamas and robe, hot chocolate in her hand, chuckling joyously. There needed to be more days that started out like this.

[Elf]

As the Valentine household had discovered, normally it was difficult to wake Chrono in the mornings. Difficult as in nothing, not even being dropped out a second-story window, could shake him from unconciousness except 1.) a the promise of food or 2.) a "please."

However, Chrono woke up without the help of Chi Detectives that morning, dragged from the depths of his slumber by a chill running through his body. He shivered, huddling under his blankets, but finding them insufficient to ward off the cold. The chilly feeling was extremely distracting, and over the course of a couple of minutes, stole sleep from him completely.

The demon arose from his coccoon wearing a bleary, sleepy-eyed look. His headband, which he'd forgotten to remove before passing out last night, hung pushed over both eyes. He yanked it off with a grunt, shaking out his waist-length, sleep-frizzed purple hair.

After rubbing the Sandman's calling card from his good eye, he blinked over at his bunkmate, finding Ran to be experiencing a similar phenomenon to what Chrono had been feeling, as evidenced by the fact that no part of the Dragon demon was visible above the covers.

The elder demon gave a sympathetic smile. Being cold-blooded on mornings like this had to be rough. Chrono plucked the top blanket off of his bed and draped it over his shoulders. The other two blankets he whisked off the bed, dragged over to Ran's side of the room, and pulled them over the boy. He lay a hand on what he assumed to be Ran's shoulder, hoping some of his warmth would bleed through to the reptilian young man.

"I smell hot chocolate," he whispered, hoping that would coax the younger demon out of his hibernation. When that elicited no response, Chrono sighed, pulled his own blanket closer about his shoulders, and exited the room. Ran would wake up in his own time.

Chrono, meanwhile, was highly interested in the source of that scent. He wandered into the front room, finding his answer between Crysta Valentine's hands, steaming away as she watched her two adopted children out the window. He blinked. Oh. Guess that answers that. Oh well.

But as tantalizing as making a cup of his own hot chocolate sounded, something else was far more distracting--the unmistakeable sheen of white emanating from the front window. Chrono stepped up next to Crysta, and his eye widened--snow. Everywhere. The pure, fluffy whiteness blanketed the whole world, washing it with light, purifying it and remaking it anew. And the two Alastor siblings already knee-deep in it, laughing as they pelted each other with snowballs.

A smile melted his face at the sight. He glanced over at the detective, seeing the look on her face and agreeing with it completely. There were few things better than this to wake up to.

A shiver passed through the demon, and he realized that standing by the window dressed as he was--or not dressed--probably wasn't the best idea. He drew the blanket closer over his chest, relying on it to keep in his body heat. He'd fallen asleep in his one-and-only set of clothes last night. And even though he'd gotten a chance to wash them daily, a sleeveless shirt did not agree with January weather, even with a fleecy blanket over it.

"Hughh--ggm!" Chrono made a distinct choking noise, his eyes squinting shut as he gagged back a sneeze, trying to be polite. The sneeze, disliking the way it was being treated, reasserted itself with double the force.

"HA--CHEW!" This time, he couldn't choke it back. Chrono sniffed, pulling in the debris. "Guuuuh. Cold."

[Meryck]

Ms. Valentine laughed lightly. "You're gonna have to get some winter clothes eventually, Chrono." She patted him on the back lightly, then nudged him towards the kitchen with her free hand, holding her hot chocolate in the other. "C'mon, lets get something warm in you."

Reg briefly looked up at the window and blinked at the already-identifiable purple hair. Chrono was already up? Well, that answered the question of whether or not both of the boys were cold-blooded. Still, it probably sucked to be him right now, considering he didn't have any warm clothes. She wondered; were there any spare trench-coats his size? It'd be better than nothing, surely...

WHAM! "ARGH!" Holy CRAP that was cold! Corey grinned evilly as his snowball his it's mark; Reg's head. "Why you little--!" Uh oh.

The snowball fight was dropped in favor of Reg chasing Corey around the yard, shaking her fist at him, both of them grinning like idiots.

[Elf]

Chrono sniffed again, trying really hard not to be too obvious about it--but when cold air hit the sinuses, there was little that could be done. For his nose, it was Leaky Faucet time. "Sounds good," he agreed with a sheepish smile. He let himself be led out of the living room and into the kitchen. Once there, he plopped into a chair at the table and slouched down inside his blanket, thoroughly preoccupied with being cold and miserable.

It isn't my fault my apartment decided to explode, he groused mentally as half his face sunk into the coccoon of artificial fleece. His eye drifted to half-mast as his body decided that the combination of conserving bodily energy and having just woken up should equate as going back to sleep. Only the promise of food--of HOT food--kept that from happening.

[Meryck]

Crysta chuckled lightly again, glad she had anticipated needing lots of hot chocolate today. She poured him a mug and placed it in front of him to hold him over until breakfast- eggs, bacon, and warm biscuits- was done. She ruffled his hair lightly and walked over to the oven, opening the door a crack to make sure the biscuits hadn't toasted before closing it and dealing with the eggs.

Outside, a squeak of alarm sounded- Reg had caught up to her brother and shoved snow down his jacket.

[Elf]

Chrono barely had time to let out a warm but muffled "Thank you" for his hot chocolate before Crysta was ruffling his hair again. He scowled from within his blanket, letting out a grumpy, grousing noise. Why had the lady of the household already decided that his head was up for petting anytime? Just because he had a lot of hair? Now that wasn't fair.

Still, petting or no petting, there was hot chocolate to be had. Chrono emerged from out of his cocoon to grasp the mug, shivering as the blanket fell halfway off one shoulder. But when he picked up the steaming sweet drink and took in a sip of it, the warm, pleasant feeling sent him sinking right back down into his chair again. "That's lovely," he mumbled, taking another sip. He felt better already.

[Meryck]

Crysta laughed some more, amused, as she got the bacon onto it's plate. She checked on the biscuits again and, upon finding them done, put on her oven mitt and pulled them out, resting them on the counter. After that, she placed the eggs on their plate, too, before going to the fridge and grabbing the butter in it's tray for the biscuits. Quickly putting the biscuits on their own plate, she put the metal tray they had been cooked on int the sink to clean later.

She placed a clean plate in front of Chrono, then began bringing to food plate over and placing it in the center of the table so they'd be easy to grab. The butter and the butter-knife were placed last, before Ms. Valentine went back over to the counter and got her own hot chocolate mug, taking a satisfied sip.

[Elf]

Despite the fact that it was right in front of him, the moment Crysta opened that oven, the hot chocolate was all but forgotten. The aroma of biscuits was absolute Nirvana. And she set that whole plate of biscuits right in front of him...along with a whole serving plate full of eggs, and another laden with bacon.

Ho boy.

Chrono had to remind himself, firmly, that four other members of this household hadn't eaten yet. It was like torture, taking only two biscuits, only four slices of bacon, and only two eggs. Torture.

Hot chocolate made it all better, though. And washed down breakfast like a charm.

The demon leaned back in his seat with a contented sigh. He felt his ears flatten down towards his collarbone and nearly laughed; his pixie-like ears hadn't moved with his expressions since he'd used his smaller, more astral-conserving form. Was he loosening up? Was the food really that good? Did he really care either way, being in the throes of a partial food-coma?

"That. Was so good."

The breakfast had so thoroughly warmed him that the blanket lay halfway down each shoulder, and Chrono didn't notice until several moments had passed.

Oh yeah. That was right; warmth. Winter clothes.

"Hrm." The demon straightened, pulling his legs up from where the gangly limbs had turned into a puddle under the table, and righted himself in his chair. "Ms. Valentine, do you happen to have a laptop or a computer with internet around? If I'm to get some winter clothes, I'll need to check my bank balance."

[Meryck]

She smiled. "Yeah, sure. You just sit here and suck up the warmth- I'll be right back." She exited the room to get her laptop for him.

More squawks of shock, amusement, and false-rage were heard outside as the siblings continued to pelt snowballs and/or shove snow down each other's back. Life was good, according to them.

Ms. Valentine returned, slim, plain-white I-Mac in arm. She placed it on the table next to Chrono, then went back to her hot chocolate.

[Elf]

Now with both his conversation partner and his breakfast no longer present to preoccupy his attention, Chrono's focus turned to the sounds outside. He straightened, ears lifting again as he listened. It took all of five seconds of listening before Chrono burst into chuckles. The sound of sibling mayhem was in the air; yep, those two were doing just fine.

"Ah!" The demon brightened instantly at the sight of the I-Mac. "Thank you very much!" He opened the laptop, wiggled his fingers, and began typing away...at a snail's pace. He could have pulled off a fair WPM with only five fingers, except that Chrono was a Hunt-And-Peck kind of guy. It wouldn't have made much difference if he had one hand or two.

"Of all Man's inventions," he mused aloud as he pulled up the internet, "three stand alone as his greatest achievements:" He typed in the URL for his banking institution. "Towels, Coffee, and Wi-Fi. And the greatest of these..." He typed in his log-in information. "...is Wi-Fi."

His Online Banking page loaded. He scanned it. Blinked. His smile fell. He blinked again. He squinted, making sure he was seeing it right. Scrolled down; scrolled up. Blinked again.

Chrono's eyes bulged.

"No way..."

But there it was. The numbers were right in front of him.

Panic suddenly flashed over his face. He clicked the drop-down menu to go back to his accounts, checking his Savings as well. His stomach turned over.

"No. WAY..."

It was another solid ten minutes before the demon could get out any more syllables than that.

The chair clattered to the kitchen floor as Chrono leaped to his feet.

"You have GOT TO BE JOKING!" His voice reverberated around the kitchen, into the living room, and hit the window, caught somewhere between disbelief, panic, befrazzlement, and rage. "I'm sorry, Ms. Valentine, but I need to use the phone." The demon swept into the living room, the blanket flapping off of his shoulders and fluttering to the ground.

The bank's 1-800 number was easy enough to remember; acronyms were great like that. In lieu of a second hands' worth of claws to tap impatiently, Chrono tapped his foot while he was on hold. When that didn't work to alleviate his jitters, he began to pace, long strides eating up each lap of the living room in no time flat.

A blase female voice picked up the line. Chrono's heart sank. "Hello, how may I help you?"

"Yes, I have several unauthorized charges on my checking account, and I want to dispute them. NOW."

"Let me connect you to your local branch; please hold." He wasn't exactly given an option, as the hold music came up an instant later. Chrono fought back a growl.

"Thank you for calling," a chipper male voice answered the phone, "how can I help you?"

"Yes, like I was telling the other girl, I need to dispute SEVERAL unauthorized charges on my account."

Chrono then had to flit back to the kitchen, as the man on the phone asked him his account number, which, like any sane and normal person in today's economy, Chrono had not memorized. After all, his account number had changed twice in the past year alone, with his bank getting taken over and sold by the FDIC, twice. What was the use of memorizing a number in flux?

"Alright then," the branch representative said cheerily, "what were the charges?"

"These--things--I've never heard of before!" Chrono spluttered. "Four hundred dollars to--is that even a word?--H. I. T. C.--there's TWO of those--and four to a 76 gas station in Dallas, two for 99 dollars, two for 100. First of all, what kind of car needs FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS IN GAS on ONE DAY? Secondly, I haven't been to Dallas in--" Forty years, but he doesn't need to know that-- "well it sure as hell hasn't been recently! And for another thing--I DON'T EVEN OWN A CAR!"

"C-calm down please sir," the rep on the other end placated, clearly offset by his customer's fervent, and rather terrifying, rage. "H-How were these transactions run?"

"Well there's MORE, if you'd let me finish," Chrono growled, plunking once more into his spot at the kitchen table to look at his Online Banking. "They total something in the ballpark of TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. And YOU people, geniuses that you are, PAID ALL OF THEM by transferring ALL of my money from my Savings account! AND you charged me THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS in overdraft fees! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!"

Silence on the other end.

"S-s-sorry sir," the formerly chipper little man stammered, "I'm g-going to transfer you to my supervisor, onemomentplease--" Hold music.

A low, rumbling growl echoed from deep within the demon's chest cavity.

When the hold music dropped, another male voice picked up the line, but this one was much smoother, much more genuine, collected, and in-control. It was definitely the voice of a manager. "Hello Mr...I'm sorry, Chris Christopher, was it?"

"Yes," Chrono growled, rolling his eyes. It was the first alias he'd thought of at the time; no one would have believed him if he'd tried to open a checking account under his actual name.

"Yes...I understand you have some unauthorized transactions on your account?"

"Do I ever," Chrono snarled.

"Well, my representative gave me your account number," the manager countered smoothly before Chrono could go off again, "and I'm looking at your account history right now. I see that the gas transactions were all done via Visa card. Have you given anyone your PIN number?"

"No!" It took every ounce of self control he had not to squeeze the phone; if he did that, he'd crush the thing. "Of course not! I'm not an idiot!"

"Just asking, sir," the manager replied, utterly unruffled. "Alright. I'm filing a dispute for the Visa charges now. You should get a credit back for the funds in 10 days."

"Thank you," Chrono breathed, but the man continued before he could fully make his relief audible.

"However," he continued in that same smooth, imperturbable voice, "only the four gas transactions were completed via your ATM card. The others were all processed as ACH items."

Silence, and a blank pause from Chrono. "Which means...?"

"ACH, sir. It stands for 'Automatic Clearing House.' It means at some point, you gave out your account number and routing number to a merchant, thereby authorizing payments to be taken out of your account."

The chair clattered once more to the kitchen floor as Chrono leaped to his feet again. "I DID NO SUCH THING!"

"Unfortunately," the manager plowed right over him, "there isn't any way to prove that. The fact that these were run as ACH means that at some point, you DID authorize a merchant to take payments out of your account. We cannot dispute these items, sir. I'm very sorry."

"LIKE HELL YOU ARE!" The snarl was quite evident in Chrono's voice now, a particular kind of animalistic growl that a human being shouldn't be able to emulate.

Not even this seemed to phase the manager. "There isn't anything more we can do, sir."

"HOW ABOUT REFUNDING THOSE SERVICE CHARGES?!" Chrono roared, "THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS' WORTH?!"

"No can do," the manger countered evenly, "being that the transactions that incurred the fees aren't considered fraudulent. I'm sorry sir, but that's all I can do for you today. Have a good day." Click.

Chrono lowered the phone from his ear, and stared at it. And stared. He stared as if waiting for the dial tone to stop.

Slowly, very slowly, he walked back into the living room and replaced the phone in its cradle. Just as slowly, he walked down the hall, into the bathroom, and lightly shut the door. Not a peep came from inside for several minutes. Finally, two words like a low, disparaging moan could be heard through the door:

"I'm screwed."

[Meryck]

The siblings both shut up at the first, echoing roar from Chrono. They looked at each other and paled.

"Sis...what the HELL did you do?"

"Okay, see, now you're acting like I'm an idiot-- pushy and nasty I may be, but I would NEVER piss off a Wrath demon THAT BAD." Especially not Chrono.

It had even been enough to cause Ran to jerk from his sleep and stick his head out of the covers, surprised and alarmed.

Crysta had seen nastier reactions than that from a demon, though. This wasn't to say she wasn't surprised- because she had, indeed rapid-fired blinded when he had barreled out of the room.

And then she glanced at the screen. She winced, sympathetically. "Damn." What else was there to say? Damn identity theifs. She sighed, clicking out of everything and closing the laptop. That was hardly fair to the Wrath demon. "Poor Chrono", she mumbled pityingly.

Just not fair at all.

[Elf]

It was nearly ten minutes, ten long, long minutes, before the bathroom door opened again, releasing one very gloomy-looking Wrath demon, who looked like he wanted more than anything to shrink back into the bathroom, hide behind his long curtain of hair, and just disappear. But he walked with the trudging steps of a doomed man, knowing that wasn't an option.

Control my rage...

The anger had subsided, not without employing a whole truckload of willpower and a trick or two he'd picked up over the years. When Chrono re-entered the kitchen, his thumb was tucked into the top of his pocket and his head was bowed, but his back was straight and his face resigned.

He looked up at Crysta. Opened his mouth to speak. Closed his eyes and sighed. Opened them again with an even more steeled expression.

"Firstly," he began in a very quiet voice, "I apologize deeply for that outburst. I...should not have...in your house." He couldn't think of any other way to word that, awkward as it had come out. Another sigh rang through him.

"Secondly...as you could probably glean from my end of the conversation..." A tinge of humiliation flashed across his face, his cheeks pulling up into a slight grimace. "I've just lost what amounts to my life savings, sans four hundred dollars." Another sigh. "Being that...last week, I also lost my apartment of seven months, and with it all of my possessions, assets, and paperwork, to a 'freak accident' fire..." The words Freak and Accident were accentuated with air quotations; clearly this was a man in too cynical a mood to believe in coincidence. "...I am...in need of income."

"I know that...especially after a display like that...and also considering my reasons for coming here...it's extremely audacious of me to ask this, but...Ms. Valentine, I truly need your help."

"I'd like to know what is the process for applying for employment with the Chi Detective Agency." When his crimson eye locked onto her gaze, only humility softened the stone of his resolve.

[Meryck]

She had always been a sap for this sort of hurt. And, well...he had managed to help Ran and Reg yesterday, both of them had seemed to take a liking and trust to him, and he had actually caught himself before going on a full Wrath demon rampage. Really, the worst damage he had done was possibly break some banker's eardrums, and consider all bankers were assholes....

(Well, all the one's she'd dealt with were.)

Perhaps it was audacious of him, and perhaps he hadn't won over her trust fully yet, but dammit, how heartless would you have to be to say no to someone in that situation?

"...Well...", the head-detective, responded, thoughtfully,"...usually, I'd have to say everything I'd need to see probably went up in smoke with your apartment....but...." She walked over and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, with a soft smile to match. "I'll just have to make an exception this time."

[Elf]

I took Chrono a moment before he could react at all. Then slowly, his eye widened, just slightly. His face melted into a smile, outpouring of utter gratitude held back for the sake of professionalism. This was his new boss, after all; it wouldn't do to go gushing on her.

So he nodded, once, slowly. "Thank you," he said. Out of all the times he'd thanked her in the past 48-hours, this one was the quietest, and bore the most weight.

By the time all of the tension bled out into his shoulders, the look in his eye had changed. Every ounce of relief and gratitude was tinged with something else, something tangible that overlay all else. Chrono suddenly looked...weary. Old, even. One could almost imagine age lines appearing around his eyes, though his face remained forever youthful.

"I won't disappoint."

[Meryck]

She smiled, and lightly moved her hand from his shoulder to his hair, ruffling it slightly. "I know you won't. And don't be so formal; I gave up on being treated as a boss a long time ago, not gonna make people start doing it again. Besides..." Crysta took her hand off and walked back over to the counter. "You're living in this house, too, and there is NO WAY dealing with someone who you have to act humble to ALL THE TIME is good for your mental health." She poured herself some more hot chocolate. "You want some more hot chocolate, too?"