FAME IS NOW INJECTABLE // breezy

[ZANE RORY TEAK]

Practicing was always a very private thing for Zane. He didn't like it when people expected to get a free preview of his newest additions to the show. He didn't like practicing in the arena with the loud bustle of the other performers. He was even annoyed when Franco practiced near him or watched him working. It threw him off at times, or in a worst case scenario, made him lose track of reality. Working on his illusions was always the most dangerous. Mass hypnotism could also be tricky -- a poorly timed interruption could result in hours of self actualization, and that was just a waste of time.

So here he was in the big top, early in the morning, alone for a good few hours. On a stand in the center of the room, precisely here he'd be standing later that night when it came to show time, were a few different types of lights. These were built for individual use -- he wasn't quite up to mass hypnotism this early in the morning, and there was no one but himself here. What he was trying at the moment was just a tad more risky than that, even. A split between one mind into two, temporarily creating a second subject to work off of inside his mind. He'd heard of it and tried it before, to no success... all he got a year and half ago was a massive headache. But now, with the power of Cri de Coeur circulating through his veins, he thought he would try it again. The training process was a challenge enough -- it had taken a year and half to complete. And here he was.

He stood, the ground beneath him soft enough to prevent a concussion should he collapse. The small display of flashing lights reflected in his electric blue eyes as he fell into the required state of melancholy relaxation and self reflection. Within seconds, Zane was aware of nothing but the task at hand; his characteristics that could be sorted into two different entities, not to be confused with one another. He was aware of nothing but himself in its rawest form. And his vulnerability.

[BREEZY ROSE SILLS]

The day before, was such a relaxing day for Breezy. She had spent that day, practicing in the morning and then spent the rest of the day relaxing and what she had concluded was that, she loved practicing in the morning! It was just such a nice way to start the day off, plus many of the performers spent their mornings sleeping after a big show. Not Breezy though, she was a little firecracker when it came to what her role was in the circus. Plus, she had her eye on a fellow daredevil and wondered if they were practicing as well, but to her dismay, the practice arena was already somewhat taken over by the tight rope walkers , which she hated being around.

When passing by the big top though, she only noticed one other person and that person she didn't much like. It wasn't like she hated them or anything, but she knew it wouldn't be long until that point. With her arms wrapped around several different sizes of swords, she walked into the arena. Zane was a little fucker that she really loved annoying and what better time then to do it while he was concentrating? An evil grin pulled at the girls lips as she made her way silently through the arena. She didn't get close to him, but she was close enough.

With a chuckle, she just openly held the several swords in front of her and dropped them to the ground, creating a loud crashing noise. That wasn't the main course though, no she wasn't done. She pulled her bag off and set it on the ground, reaching into it slowly. Oh how she loved messing with this kid. It wasn't like she had seen him almost every day though, she knew his name from the several people she would hang out with and from the few meetings. Those few, gosh she wanted to just rip his head off, but no. She wasn't going to go that far unless needed.

In her bag, she pulled out a rather long mat, something that could let her sit on it without her but getting dirty from the soft ground. She fixed that, then she pulled out a battery operated dock and her ipod, turning it on and picked her favorite screamo/metal/rock song. With a smirk to her lips, she sat down on the mat and began her stretching. Anyone else who looked at her would know this was the normal routine for the girl. She always took her time to stretch, since it both woke her up and helped her get more comfortable. She relaxed into the splits, with her head against the ground, her legs to the side, and her eyes closed. " Hey Zane!" she called over the music, totally amused with the situation. ( she's sitting like this)

[ZANE RORY TEAK]

He was twitching, but he didn't realize it. The clang of the swords made him flinch automatically, a reflex as easy as breathing, bu this mind was still able to focus on its task. He had gotten so far as to separate a second entity, a subject for his hypnosis. His head returned to being completely still, his fingertips pressing against the edge of the table. His eyes stared into the flashing lights, becoming a glazed over abyss of secrets with each layer added to the complexity of his consciousness. The heavy metal music started and his neck twisted, as if trying to shake something off of his head. Again, he was not aware of it -- his eyes stayed rooted on the same spot -- until she shouted his name.

His eyes swiveled in their sockets before settling into an insanely furious expression and he marched towards her murderously. "YOU STUPID BITCH," he yelled, kicking the ipod into silence a few yards away. He snatched up her hair, screaming into her face still. "HOW THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY --" he stopped mid-shout and let her go again, taking a few steps back. His face had returned from it's contorted rage back to a tense, oh-fuck-what-am-I-doing sort of expression. He glanced at the destroyed ipod player and at her expression towards him with a look of horror. "Shit, I'm really sorry, I'll pay for that, are you okay?" he stepped towards her again, looking as if to help her up, before his face changed again. He shut his eyes tight, instead taking steps backward until he was against one of the poles holding the tent up.

He hit his forehead with his palm a few times, sinking down to the ground as he did so. And here comes the headache, he noted as his own rational thought returned to him. Sharp pains dug into his temples, making him see spots as he opened his eyes. It was another few moments before he trusted himself to speak at the blurry figure a few yards away. "I rather hope that was a lesson that you will learn from, although unintentional on my part," he stated groggily, two fingers at each side of his face trying to calm the lighting digging into his brain. He imagined his traits as cards, separated before into two piles, coming back together now as one deck and one person and one mind. "What a rush," he said to himself quietly, a small smirk creeping onto his face despite the throbbing pain.

[BREEZY ROSE SILLS]

She really didn't think that interrupting him would have lead to what had just happened, but when he came storming over to her, a smirk lined those rosy lips of hers. Stupid bitch eh? Well, that wasn't the worst she has been called before, but as soon as his foot hit her ipod, anger rushed over her. Why the hell would he do that!?! Music was an escape for her and now it was fucking gone within seconds. She really didn't know what to think, that was until his hand grabbed her hair, pulling her up a bit. Tears sprung into her eyes, just a natural reaction her body was used to. Breezy could handle lots of pain, but her hair being pulled…that really didn't feel good. To make matters worse, when he pulled at her hair, it jerked her body into an awkward position, causing a ripping pain in her leg. "ahhhh!!" she yelled, her hands flying up the hand that held her hair. As quickly as it started, he let her go, which surprised her. Pain and a rather scared expression filled her face, immediately pulling out of the splits. She hugged her right leg to her chest, trying to ease the pain that suddenly rippled through her leg.

"What the hell?!" she yelled in a whimper, not knowing how serious the injury could be, even if it was an injury. Being injured was not something that someone who preformed should have encounter. When performing, the body was your best friend and now with what had just happened, her ipod was the least of her worries. Slowly, she looked up at him, gulping. An apology wasn't going to get him out of this. She pushed herself up to her feet, unable to put any pressure on on that right leg, due to the fresh tug on her muscles. " Shut the fuck up you asshole. Paying for my ipod and ipod player is gunna be the least of your worries" she growled, leaning down and grabbing one of the swords. Anger and frustration rippled through her, quickening her breath. Blind rage was never good, just because when in that state of mind, people did crazy shit.

When he said that he hoped it was a lesson learn, she frowned. " Im not going to be the one learning a lesson you cunt." She yelled, limping over to him. Never before has anyone done that to her, yes..she pissed people off, but really? Why the hell would you destroy someones muse…music was so important to Breezy that it wasn't funny. He should have had an ipod and an ipod player already with him, just to ease the anger because she was pissed. Standing in front of him, she pushed the edge of the sword against his chest, her nose flaring. The fact that she was experiencing some pain in her leg from him pulling at her hair was not good. Not good at all.

Of course though, as soon as she saw the smirk and placed her foot on the ground, pain shot up her leg. She dropped the sword and flinched, placing her hands on the back of the thigh, as if putting pressure on it would make it any better. "That really hurt." she whispered, taking a step back. She wasn't going to feed his ass like attitude, she was hurt and it really wasn't funny to her.

[ZANE RORY TEAK]

Her threats drifted through his mind meaninglessly, himself still a tad preoccupied with his own pain. He made himself pay attention to her when she had a sword at his chest. He hardly noticed the steel tip pressing through his thin t-shirt, but tried to focus on her... she was walking with a limp. Wonderful, he thought to himself bitterly. She dropped the sword and he rolled his eyes. She just had to go an interrupt him, resulting in his temporary split of personality; it was his humble opinion that she rather deserved the consequences, but he wouldn't have put it past her to press charges against him. So he stood up.

"You really are quite dull," he noted, walking a bit more quickly than was comfortable towards his little set-up in the center of the ring. He dragged a chair and the big black leather bag he carried with him and headed back towards the blond. He was slightly more than annoyed, but that was far from the pure rage that he had introduced himself with. "Sit," he commanded, not particularly caring if she wanted to defy him. It was her leg in pain, if she was going to be stubborn, he didn't really care. He started rummaging through his bag as he continued. "One should never interrupt a hypnotist when he is practicing on himself. It's not a preference thing, it's not a comfort thing, it's the fact that the mind is a fragile machine, which you almost fucking broke just now, if that wasn't clear enough," he said quickly. "You never know just how lost the hypnotist is, and, as you saw, you never know what will respond. I could have killed you for fucks' sake. Consider that a lesson learned." Or, he pondered, he could have gone for weeks acting like everyone's best friend, but that side of the split mind seemed less intimidating somehow, so he didn't mention it.

He finally reached the bottom of the unorganized bag and tossed her a heat pack to put on her leg. He took out a wound up ream of cloth made to help with injuries like hers and an unmarked white bottle of pills. He sat down again against the pole, his head leaning back in agony. He'd forgotten how bad these headaches could be. He opened the bottle but paused and looked at Breezy suspiciously. "I think it would just be best if we pretend these are aspirin," he said with a quick wink before swallowing two pills himself. He closed the bottle and tossed her that along with the cloth for her leg, should she need it. "I've got a crutch somewhere in my closet, too," he offered blankly, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. "I'll get it when I can see properly."

Of course, being this helpful (despite technically having caused the problem) wasn't a normal thing for Zane. In fact, it was very uncharacteristic of him. But then again, so was sitting on the ground half asleep, his head ringing, under the potential threat of police entering his life. Or worse -- the ring leader. He suspected she would be fine by the time they had a complete show again, in a few days. In the weekdays not all of the performers were involved in the shorter show. She would be fine. Right? Well, she wasn't going to let him get close enough to check, he didn't think.

[BREEZY ROSE SILLS]

With her hand pressing against the back of her thigh, she looked up at him with a blank stare. When he said she was dull, she just rolled her eyes. That didn't really matter to her. Though, she was up for sitting. She limped over to the chair and sat down, watching him with big blue eyes. She wasn't going to be stubborn in any way really. If sitting in that chair helped ease the pain, she didn't care who brought it to her. As soon as he began talking, she just blocked him out. " yeah yeah yeah, whatever. You bore me with your talking. " She sighed, leaning back into the chair.. Breezy didn't care if she interrupted him, she enjoyed every moment of annoying the guy even though she got hurt. It was definitely worth it.

It was nice of him to give her the heating pack, but honestly, she wasn't going to show that. No matter who the hell it was, if they did just something small to help her, she immediately forgave them. Of course though, if she made that obvious, Zane would just get more like an ass. So she simply just placed the heating back underneath her thigh and relaxed. The heat felt nice on her thigh, really nice. Never before in her career had she gotten injured, so in the back of her mind, she was freaking out a bit. What if she couldn't perform or anything? What would she tell people? Breezy could take it to the ring master if she wanted to, but it honestly wasn't that big of a deal. Everyone had a temper, she knew that if she lashed out at someone in a blind rage and hurt someone, she wouldn't want the ring master to know. Just because, then she could get booted. Breezy at least hoped that by not going to tell anyone, Zane would at least back off a bit with the physical fighting.

Watching him take the pills, she pulled her eyebrows together, wondering as to what they really were. She wasn't going take some random pills from a guy like him. There was no way in hell, just because what if they knocked her out or something. She caught both the cloth and the pills, staring at the bottle first. " What are they?" she asked him with a raised eyebrow. Setting the pills down next to the chair, she lifted her leg up a bit with a flinch. God damn did the back of her thigh hurt. She then placed the heating pack against it, wrapping the cloth over the pack and then around her leg. She tied it securely before leaning back into her seat. Now the cloth would both apply pressure to the injury and keep the heat pack there.

" Nah, it's okay. Save your energy for something more important." She simply said, looking down at her lap. With a heavy sigh, she turned around in the chair, looking back at to were her crushed ipod and ipod player was. A frown was brought to her lips as she slowly stood up, leaning all of her weight into her left foot. She needed to see how bad it was so then she could start saving up to get a new one. With a bit of a struggle, she finally made it over to her ipod and slowly picked it up. " awesome." she whispered, brushing some of the dirt off of it. Like that would help. The ipod itself had a cracked screen and was just snapped in half. That's something that definitely couldn't be fixed. She then looked over at her ipod player, seeing that the same fate had reached that thing as well.

Tossing it back onto the ground, she went over to her stuff and rolled her mat up, shoving it into her bag. Honestly, Breezy didn't know what she was doing. A bunch of different emotions raged through the blond. Sadness and anger were the big two. Part of her nicer side, just wanted to leave the guy alone to calm down and the other half wanted to stay and argue with him some more. She was at such a conflict, she just didn't know what to do.

[ZANE RORY TEAK]

He didn't open his eyes at her question, just smirked lightly and took a water bottle from the top of the bag. He knew she probably wasn't going to take one; it didn't matter to him. "They'll take you down the rabbit hole, and you'll come back as good as new," he laughed, taking a gulp of water. He could already feel the pain subsiding, like it was dripping out of his ears. The sensation was a minor side effect, as was his sudden relaxation and slight lack of judgement. "I've just taken two, Sills, you can't honestly think any attempt of mine to drug you would be that self destructive," he noted thoughtlessly.

His eyes peeked open when he heard her move across the room, but soon went back to letting his mind drain itself of color. "You forgive easy. So you won't be telling tales then, he asks hopefully?" He wondered if she was going to tell him to pay for her iPod. He probably would, if only to shut her up; money wasn't an issue for him. He had spent three years in Vegas collecting his almost-fortune before he'd joined the circus. He would have offered; but he was more interested in seeing if she would demand it. People were fascinating. When Zane wasn’t busy mocking the mental capacity of those who annoyed him (and somehow Breezy was one of the best at doing so) he was busy quietly analyzing their every move. He understood how unnecessarily unnerving that might be, but he really was quite apathetic as to what certain people thought about him. Breezy was one of those people. While they had only met a handful of times, she knew exactly how to press his every button, even though she was far from being able to actually understand him.

[BREEZY ROSE SILLS]

Losing her balance, she fell onto her bum and sighed. She sat there with her eyes staring out into the distance. Looking at nothing in particular, just the open air in front of her. In a way she looked slightly dead, she was just so upset with everything she really didn't know what to do. Chuckling at what he said, that was the only thing that really fazed her. She would have taken the pills, if she knew what they were. She had some allergies to some and just didn't want to risk anymore.

" I've been told that before. It's a bad habit of mine, but i can't help it. " She was referring to forgiving easily. Breezy always did that. No matter how pissed off she originally was with the person, she forgave them instantly. With another heavy sigh leaving her lips, she looked over at him. " I don't want to tell anyone. I know that if i lashed out at someone, i wouldn't want that person telling the ring master. This circus is all that i got. Im a nobody inside and i would be a nobody on the outside. The difference is, on the outside, i would be a nobody without a home." With that, she turned her attention back to the open space before her.

Paying for her ipod would have been highly appreciated, but honestly, Breezy couldn't make him do that. She would just need to find a radio or something to listen to in the mean time. She didn't get paid enough to use the money on an ipod right away. Breezy was just screwed at the moment and that really just made her feel down. If she wasn't feeling so down, she would have demanded it, but the energy for that at the moment wasn't there.

With the feeling of boredom creeping over her, she stood and gathered her things, going to the other side of the arena. She wasn't going to bother him anymore, she wasn't up for it. Laying her mat back onto the ground, she picked up a sword and rubbed the dirt off before rolling her head back and closed her eyes. Boredom was never something she liked, so she was going to practice as if nothing happened. Though, it was very hard when she didn't have her music. The silence creeped her out.

Picking up to more swords, she took a deep breath and placed the first swords tip into her mouth, slowly pushing it down her throat. As strange as it was, doing this calmed her down a bit.

[ZANE RORY TEAK]

"Well that's quite pitiful," he said crudely, bored of the pity party already. He didn't feel like being quite done with her yet. She stood there practicing now, just as vulnerable as he had been. He wasn't stupid enough to actually harm her, but he wondered if the lesson would sink in through a method stronger than words. Having noticed her forlorn gaze at the destroyed iPod, he did give her one mercy.

After another few moments of rummaging through the black leather bag and he pulled out his own iPod and speakers. He left it on the first song it pulled up, "Para-Noir" by Marylin Manson. He shook his head briskly, shaking off the feeling of the drug, and stepped across the room towards her.

The sword was halfway down her throat when he reached her. "Let's take a moment to appreciate the level of vulnerability you are in for the next ten seconds, until you pull the blade from your throat. The physical equivalent of, oh, I don't know, intense self hypnosis," he smirked, taking his time knowing she couldn't interrupt at the moment. It was nice, not being interrupted by her ringing voice for once. "Now what would happen if I pushed you? Just to get your attention, to annoy you," he circled slowly around her. He didn't make any sudden moves or touch her at all -- if she actually did flinch, well... he didn't need that on his resume`.

He grinned at her cheekily, knowing perfectly well that he was the one being annoying now. "Lesson learned yet?" he asked with a quick quirk of the eyebrows.

[BREEZY ROSE SILLS]

Breezy had been practicing enough that, just one sword down her throat didn't need intense concentrating, but it needed her attention. If she wasn't paying attention to where the blade was going, then she might cut something important inside of her body. When the music played, she relaxed a bit more. Even though she was rather pissed about the ipod thing, that was behind her now. She could eventually pay for her own.

As soon as she heard his voice though, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. He was trying to annoy her like she did with him. Well, she knew how to play this game. She had played this game several times before. With the sword still down her throat, she dropped the other two and placed her fingers on the blade. She pulled it out and looked over at him, a rather blank look on her face. " There is no lesson to learn Zane. You are honestly waisting your time." She told him, a smirk on her own lips. She would go on unfazed by his actions because she new that could be very frustrating to him.

Putting the swords back to were they other ones were, she sat down on her mat and yawned. Of course though, she was not going to take the risk of sword swallowing around him because she knew he would push her. That would be very bad because she could die from that. With a yawn leaving her lips, she crossed her legs and leaned back into her hands, watching him.

" You honestly don't annoy me." she told him. " i lived with russian dancers for several years. That's annoying." She added, sighing. This was still boring. He wasn't very good at annoying, at least not yet. Yeah, back in Russia, sharing a room with two anorexic dancers was just a living hell. Breezy herself was never anorexic and in fact probably ate more then all of those girls combined! In that case, Breezy wasn't treated well and that was jut annoying.

Pushing her hand through her blond hair. she never took her eyes off of Zane, rolling her eyes. " You got anything else up your sleeve?" With that, a teasing look laced over her face.

[ZANE RORY TEAK]

He slipped his hands into his pockets, relaxed for once due to the pills. He smirked down at her as she looked up at him, and he contemplated why he didn't really want to kill her, despite the extreme levels of annoyance and physical pain she caused him at any and every chance she could get. He smirked despite his level of frustration and vexation at how stupid he believed she actually was -- whether it was to bother him or not, her nonchalant response to him trying to prove his point led him to quietly assess her IQ level as their eyes locked in a game of sorts.

A game which she seemed to be winning, which was even more upsetting. Why should he care what lessons she learned in life? Well, hopefully she would never interrupt him in deep hypnosis again, that was something. But if she did, it was the consequences that frustrated him. He could have seriously harmed her - fatally - if he hadn't regained control after a few moments, and there was nothing to say that couldn't happen again. It wasn't that he cared for her physical well-being. No, that wasn't it, although if you could get past the ringing voice and intelligence level, he wouldn't say no to a romp. But if he did hurt her, then the police would be involved, and probably the ring master, and no one would ever take deep hypnosis as a proper alibi, not after his record, and that was just a whole lot of mess that could be easily avoided, he concluded. After pinning that down as the source of his annoyance with her - that power that a woman held over a man with a record in any court of law - he decided that there was no harm in using his own power, his skills, and her stubborn but useful eye contact in their game.

His eyes darted around the arena quickly, hardly noticeable, taking count of his resources before he sprung into action. He stared her down again, his smirk morphing into a cocky sideways grin as he locked it there in a preliminary stage. In the same second, the entire arena went dark -- at least, in her mind. A mirage of noises and music and wind and sensations surrounded them. Loud classical music trumpeted directly next to her ear, the illusion of a clapping audience surrounding her. He bid the wind to swirl around, stirring up the loose dirt on the arena's ground, lifting her hair in the dark. In the next second he moved behind her, patting her back with a disguised thick Russian accented voice. "I know zat you can do better, Breecy," came the voice from his mouth, although it was far from his own, and had actually been plucked from her subconscious. He stepped away from her, needing proper concentration for the next illusion. Although simulating an actual sensory motion was near impossible, silhouetted figures and voices were his specialty. It had been part of his first act, at the age of seventeen -- whole plays of illusion put on by one person -- and he utilized his skill now. He had the music he knew was floating through her mind die down and the clapping roar up, as he created a hallway with metal lights and stage doors flying by her, simulating her own motion. He drew an image up to her, an open room and two dark, skinny silhouetted women and - plucking two more voices from her own mind - had them speaking in thick and rapid Russian. His own eyes shut, creating and watching the simple illusion as she was, he waited a few seconds before having them turn, as if to notice the viewer, in this case, Breezy, and burst into cruel laughter. The tinkling sound of women skinnier than her mocking her faded as the mirage melted into blackness and then popped back into the orange light of the arena in which they both were, in actuality.

Zane's eyes flashed open with ease, having created the illusions, and waited to see hers blinking open tiredly before he turned away with a smirk. He wasn't going to wait to see if it bothered her. It didn't matter. He grabbed his bag and looked over his shoulder at her shortly, winking as he did so. "Lesson number two, doll-face: Never ask a magician what he's got up his sleeve," he called back to her, walking out of the arena, satisfied. Satisfied that he must have effected her at least a little, satisfied that he had pinned down his unwillingness to see her hurt, and satisfied that they would definitely be seeing each other again.