[Awareness!?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
GraceIt's around noon when she shows up at the motel, runs into Doctor Madhouse, in his invisible van outside. Invisible, because he's totally naked and can't help it (so he says).
Whatever.
She's got her red coat on -- the one with LED strips sewn into the seams, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. It's a grim look on her face, when she knocks on the door, but the sight of Sepúlveda had her blushing, and the redness has yet to retreat out of her face, making her look an angry, blotchy mess. Somebody spilled red paint, or butchered the application of makeup? She never wears makeup.
"Hey, Alex? It's me. It's Grace," she says. It's hard to feel the presence of him. All she can sense is the lingering Work of Sera, and some other -- a river-feeling thing. None of it Alex.
Alexander[Stuff inside. Diff 3, I think. ]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (2, 4) ( success x 1 )
Alexander[Bah, and again]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (4, 5) ( success x 2 )
AlexanderThe motel is nothing special, surrounded by a great deal of nothing special. It’s somewhere to stay on the way to somewhere else, rather than being an actual desination. The place doesn’t even seem to have a name: the sign outside just reads MOTEL. A closed-down pool sits in the parking lot, waiting for better weather. A few soulless burger chains sit nearby, attracting some of the truck traffic that passes through.
The room feels mostly like Sera, although with a little something stoic and psychedelic mixed in. There’s something of the elements starting to creep in, too, but no arctic chill. There’s a knock at the door and a name called, a familiar voice. Or what would be a familiar voice, had it been heard. There’s no answer. Maybe he’s out? Asleep? Either way, there’s a window open letting the chill air of spring into the room. Music from some random, local rock radio station leaks out.
Grace"Alex? You there?" she asks, knocks again -- louder.
Well, shit. What is she supposed to do now, with the... clothes and all?
That, and all these wrung out feelings.
She tries the door, hoping maybe it's unlocked. Maybe he doesn't feel like being behind a locked door after so long?
AlexanderAgain, there’s no answer to the knock or to the call. The door, though, is unlocked and pushes open with a bit of a squeak. The gurney and body bag still sit abandoned in one corner of the room. One of the beds had obviously been slept in, blanket half-thrown off the side of it; a broken lamp sits on the little table next to it. The small kitchen has a couple of empty coffee cups sat in the sink and a well-brewed jug of coffee sat in the drip machine. Above the sound of the radio comes the sound of running water, filtering through a closed door. That feeling of some river comes flowing through the door, something without start or end. There’s no sound apart from the water and the radio, and whatever traffic noise drifts in from some nearby highway or trunk road.
GraceShe creeps into the room. This place is something, humming like it is. The noise of water from beyond a door makes her think, okay, maybe he's in the shower? But still, no sense of Alex. The door, she closes, lest some wandering passerby see a gurney and a bodybag inside the room and begin to wonder what the hell is going on in there.
Then, she lays the duffel bag on the bed, and looks around. Places like this sometimes have little notepads, don't they? She could always leave a note. Sorry to have missed you. Here's your clothes.
AlexanderThe sound of running water comes to an end, and there’s a new sound coming from what it obviously the bathroom: the sound of humming. It’s not a familiar tune; certainly nothing from any kind of music chart from recent memory. There’s the sound of movement, now – the sound of a shower curtain drawing back, feet padding around on a tiled floor, a towel rail squeaking as something is pulled off it.
The door swings open, revealing an Alexander. He’s changed: there’s less of him than there had been two months ago. His hair is longer and grown out, although the scruff on his jaw has been shaved back to nothing recently. Other than some scabbed-over knuckles, he looks uninjured. And, other than a towel, he’s not wearing anything. The beige scrubs had been thrown under the slept-in bed.
“Whoa, fuck!” The surprise of someone else’s presence here hits him; the sense of recent working in the bathroom might give a hint as to where his attention had been. Alex startles, looking quickly for something to use as a weapon, when...
“...Grace?”
Grace"Oh! Shit! Sorry, I..." she points at the duffel bag. "Clothes! For you!"
If she was still getting over the sight of Dr. Sepúlveda, this doesn't help. The pink already in her face turns to red.
"I'll uh..." a cough. She points to the door. "Yeah."
The weirdest, most uncomfortable smile ever crosses her face. "Hi."
And bye, also, because well... Obviously Alex needs to get dressed now. Can't have a conversation with him while he's holding up a towel... She trots off to the door, quickly quickly.
AlexanderAlex looks from a rapidly-reddening Grace to the duffel on the bed as she draws attention to it. “Ah, hell, I thought Kiara was coming along this evening with some clothes. I wasn’t expecting...” There’s a deeply indrawn breath, followed by a long sigh. Grace has turned towards the door, heading rapidly outwards, but he calls out before she gets a hand on the door handle. “Wait.”
The duffle is grabbed and taken back into the bathroom, the thin wooden door closing with a shove from his free hand. His voice comes through the door, “I’ve had too much damned time on my own.” There’s the sound of the bag being opened as he looks through what’s been brought for him to wear.
GraceToo much damned time on his own, he says. That makes her pause, though she doesn't really turn back around until he's safely back in the bathroom.
"I... can understand that," she says, and goes for a chair by one of the beds.
The duffel bag has new clothes in it, everything from feet to head. Socks, shoes of three sizes (because she didn't know his), jeans (of a high-end, boutique kind, in a couple different colors) and a black sweater. All this topped by a knitted maroon beanie. Underneath everything else, there's a couple of t-shirts that seem Grace-inspired. On one, a bored-looking black cat is pawing a mug of coffee off a table, with the text "I do what I want" underneath. On another, the text "Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman, then always be Batman" dominates. Someone must have gotten sent the wrong size a time or two?
AlexanderThere isn’t any more conversation while Alex is in the bathroom, although Grace might be able to hear the clothes being pulled out of the bag and looked through. A few minutes later, there’s some seconds of silence. Seconds with Alexander stood just on the other side of the bathroom door, forehead resting on it, before he heads out into the main part of the motel room. He isn’t sure how this conversation will go, any more than any of the others that are to come. Kalen, Sera, the others in the city. Would they treat him with suspicion about what he might be? Welcome him back? Only one way to find out... And, hell, it might help answer some of his own questions too.
The door opens and Alex walks back out of the bathroom, leaving the spare clothes folded and stacked on top of the duffle bag. He doesn’t move to sit, though. He starts the water in the sink, grabbing the two used – and probably only – cups to rinse them out. “You want a coffee? Or Sera has a ridiculous amount of booze stashed here.”
Stalling? Yep.
GraceSera's contribution makes the corners of Grace's mouth rise slightly. Why not? "Coffee with some booze in it?" she asks. Doesn't ask him how he is, because hey -- you just get broken out of prison, you're going to have feelings.
"Sera wants you to relax, I think." A pause. "Do you like the clothes? I didn't know what you'd go for, but the people at the store were helpful."
Again, not really discussing anything important.
AlexanderAlex sets the still-wet cups on the counter and pulls the jug out, giving it a sniff. The contents get thrown down the sink and the various cupboards are checked through until he finds a new filter. “I don’t know how much of this was for me, and how much is just for somewhere for Sera to run to. Or someone else to come to.“ He gestures vaguely at the walls, at the unknown resonance still lingering there.
Alex settles back to lean on the counter while coffee happens, with all of the gurgling and spitting that entails. He picked out a pair of blue jeans that are a little loose on him, along with the “I do what I want” tshirt. His feet are still bare, padding quietly on the floor of the room.
He absent-mindedly rubs his hands together, feeling the coarseness of his knuckles. “How are you, Grace?” The question is asked at the floor, or maybe his hands, but Alex does look over to her at the end.
GraceThe jeans are loose. She remembers a more solid Alex than this one, so when she tried to explain to the shopkeeper what size he was in gesture and comparison form, it came out wrong.
How is she? Well.
"Having fights with everybody," she says, smirks. "I don't know. Something about me and having opinions."
And, she's had to abandon the Office. And Ginger. And she can't be with the guy she loves. She's lacking in that usual playfulness today, despite the t-shirts. As happy as she is to see him back, she didn't really know how this meeting would go either. At least he wants to talk.
AlexanderKiara had said something about people being mostly ok, and Grace had been one of those he’d wondered about. Grace, Kalen and Sera were the ones that he was (or, maybe, had been) closest to. But, then, the last time he and Grace had spoken hadn’t ended well, and there was the awkwardness of the party at the Chantry... “Who is everybody? I thought everybody pretty much got on ok?” An unspoken before, tagged on the end.
The filter gets towards the end of its cycle, but Alex doesn’t push off to fill the cups just yet. It needs a little more time to finish dripping first. “How bad is it really out there?”
Grace"There's a bunch of new people in town," she says. "From New England, or somewhere up there. Where the Hermetics have declared war on the Technocracy again."
She lets that just rest for a bit, hanging in the air like a bad idea.
"Elijah found some amazing timing for telling me I treat him like shit, and getting pissed off at me because he didn't have a say in what plans were made for your retrieval -- because he wasn't at the meeting. He's called William now.
"To his credit, though, he wanted to send in an army after you. Better than some ideas people have had."
Like, for instance, just leaving him there to rot, because they were afraid.
"Right now, in Denver, there's no Mage armies patrolling the streets. Or Technocratic monsters either. It seems like they don't want a fight either."
AlexanderNow Alexander turns to the filter machine, although whether it’s because the coffee is ready, because it’s something to do, or some small way to break eye contact with Grace Is unclear. Maybe it’s all of the above. “Why did they come here? To get away from the war, or to bring it here? What did…” There’s the sound of coffee being poured, as that sentence fades to nothing. “How is Kalen?” Three small words, but a question with so many potential answers.
There’s a thunk and a hiss as the jug slides back onto its hotplate. “Well bad timing comes together just as often as we randomly bump into each other. But that doesn’t sound much like Elijah. I didn’t know him all that well, but he never seemed like the type to lead an army into battle. What happened to him?”
There’s more to say, but there’s something holding him back from giving voice to the words. “Whiskey?” Alex holds up a bottle, checking what he should pour into Grace’s coffee.
Grace"I wish I knew what they were up to here, to be honest. Probably thinking that since Denver is a strategic target, somebody should be here to report back to the hivemind what goes on? Maybe they're here to take over the Chantry and turn this place into a pompous elitist Hermetic's idea of a paradise?"
She shifts in her chair, scratches her nose, because even she knows the look of utter disgust on her face isn't pretty. She really doesn't want to tell Alex what at least one of their ilk has said about his.
"One thing though, the ones who are here don't seem to be the type to run away from a war."
"Kalen is..." Not sleeping. Manic and beside himself. Kind of an exaggerated normal, if you know Kalen. "Well. He could be in a better mental state, but all of us could. He was very worried about you. I'm sure you knew that already," she says, huffs out a humorless laugh.
Alex asks about Elijah, and Grace responds tersely. What happened? "He joined the Order of Hermes." And apparently, that's all she needs to explain herself. "I'm being... too hard on him, I guess. He'd just found out about you, and freaked out. I lack any patience these days, though. Whiskey is a go. Very much some of that."
Alexander[Per+Emp?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Grace[Grace isn't usually one to speak of the Order of Hermes in such a directly insulting manner, seeing as how she practically lives with a Hermetic who is decidedly not a pompous elitist. This might lead one to come to the conclusion that she has found at least one new person in Denver clinging to the worst stereotypes of Hermetic arrogance, and yes -- is quite disgusted by what she found.]
Alexander“Hopefully they’re not of the same frame of mind as the guys who thought firing up a war between the vampires and the Union without telling us was a good idea.” There’s a weary sigh as Alex turns back to the mugs. He had only been intending to add the whiskey to Grace’s coffee, but now he adds a slug to both mugs. This was starting to look like one of those conversations. “Please say that there’s nobody else looking to poke sharp sticks either of those particular ant nests.”
That look of Grace’s is noticed and studied, but it’s obvious that the bad taste doesn’t originate from him. (Although give it a few minutes and it might originate from the coffee.) “That’s a look. What aren’t you telling me?”
The two cups are held with one hand, a finger looped through both handles, and the bottle of whiskey picked up and carried over to the bed with the other. The bottle is dropped onto the bed, freeing up a hand to pass one cup to Grace before Alex sits on the edge of the mattress.
“Yeah, I can’t imagine Kalen took it at all well. He knows that I’m out?” It’s almost a rhetorical question, but there are reasons behind it. “Kiara told me that Ginger is dead, I wasn’t sure how well the news had been passed around. If you see him before I do, tell him I’m fine.” Fine: the universal term for not good, but nothing I want to deal with right this second.
His eyebrows rise in surprise when he finds out about Elijah’s joining of the Order, the rest of his expression hidden behind the cup that he’s in the middle of taking a drink from. “I really should spend more time with the guy. Well, with everyone, really. I guess I’ve been a bit distant. I guess it’s understandable that he’d freak out if he hadn’t heard anything, though. Just… wow. William. That’ll take some getting used to.”
“I doubt the universe will care enough to provide, but hopefully things will stay quiet for long enough for you to find your patience again.”
Grace"Like I said. I really wish I knew what all these new people in Denver were here to do," Grace says, reaches a hand out for the coffee.
He asks what that look was about, and she sighs. Grins a sardonic smile. "Like I said, I've been having fights with people. One of the new people in town is a Hermetic who's got a tree trunk shoved up her ass, and is very very proud of herself for being so proud. It doesn't bode well."
She smells the coffee. Smells the whiskey in it, leans her head back against the chair. Alex is 'fine'. He certainly seems to be doing well enough to get coffee and have a conversation, which is about eighty percent of normal human interaction. Fine is an okay place to be right now.
"Enough about me and my personal communication problems, Alex. Do you have any idea of what you'd like to do next? It's okay if you don't. I wouldn't blame you."
Alexander“You’re not exactly selling the new neighbours. Although that does sound like the Order that Alyssa warned me about.” Alex shrugs, taking another sip of his coffee. It doesn’t bode well, but he’ll wait and make his own judgement if and when he encounters anyone who looks like they’re sitting on something uncomfortable.
He shifts up the bed, enough so that he can swing his legs up and rest back against the headrest. His fingers interlace around the cup, holding it safely on his lap. “I’m not sure.” Alex rests his head back against the wall, the ceiling with its vague nicotine stains suddenly seems to be an interesting place to look. “I think I want my life back. Assuming…” Assuming a lot, but nothing that gets immediately voiced. “Assuming that I can. I know some things need to change, though.”
SerafíneThat's when the front door of the motel room opens. Oh hey. Here's Sera.
She has a key and well, Dan has the key. They aren't sneaking up but the key and the lock and the conversation and her very, very distinctive resonance that is as soaked into the walls of this room as it is into her skin. The wards are her own, after all. So the place - at least inside - feels like her even in her absence. More: between than anything else. Liminal, that is it: some refusal of definition, as if one could choose simply to let go of labels and exist in a state of possible/flux.
"What do you think needs to change?" A flash of her dark eyes over Alex. She is: remarkably sober for a Sera.
GraceSera walks in. It's an event that has Grace glancing at the door, giving a salute to those entering with her coffee cup. Someone else being here is a good thing.
"He's changed," she says, smiles a bit of a genuine smile at Alex, even as he peruses the ceiling, looking for omens in the splotches of brown. "You've melted, man. Flowed downhill, too from the feel of it. I'm sure you're up to the task of changing things. That part's easy."
The booze has made her coffee a bit cooler, invites her to drink it, which she does. Chemical happiness. A poor substitute for the real thing. Alex, though, with his wanting his life back, that's something to be honestly happy about, isn't it?
AlexanderThe door wasn’t even locked, unless Grace had flicked it off the latch while he had been changing. Alex turns to look at the door as it opens, just starting to free his hands from each other to push up from the bed and… And settles back again, when he sees that it’s Sera (and Dan?) coming in. The urge to get up fades as soon as it had arrived, although the thump of his heart in his chest from the surprise arrival will take a little longer to settle. There’s something of his own, changed, resonance hanging over the room in addition to Sera’s, and maybe something of Jim’s. Some remnant of recent Work lingering.
What do you think needs to change?
“Mostly, me.” Grace says that he’s changed, and he nods, shrugs, meeting her eyes as he does. “I guess I figured some stuff out. Like how pushing everyone away isn’t good for me.” He nudges the bottle of whiskey with a foot, pushing it towards the side of the bed closest to the door.
SerafíneHere is Sera, and Dan of course, sliding in behind her, a solid, tattooed hand on the creature's narrow should. That impression one has of her: the sudden, dirty glamour of her presence. Golden curls and a battered leather jacket. Sunglasses even (especially) in the cheap no-tell motel room where she once spent three days hiding out from: everyone. Everywhere, ashes in the back of her throat.
This glance for Grace, as she speaks. The dark glasses, the dark eyes. The sense of: attention, of awareness, of consideration. Neat little kink of a smile responsive to Grace's own. Then Alex.
"Not an easy thing to learn," Sera, quiet. The supple, blooming grace of her smile beneath the gleam of the dark glasses. "I'm glad we have you back so you can figure it out, though."
--
Does she notice: his jumpiness? His awareness. She must. She sees so much. Feels so much. Has been through: so much that she must recognize that moment of startement, movement, surge. Perhaps feels some resonance answer to it, somewhere in her body. Somewhere beneath her ribs, in her viscera. Somewhere.
"We brought you some clothes and shit. Some cash. A new phone." Dan hefts a reuseable shopping bag and sets it down on the bed nearest Alexander. He inserts: "Have a few other errands to run but we can come back later, if you want company. Or not, if you don't."
They'll hang around for another few minutes, but soon enough Dan reminds Sera that it is time to go.
GraceGrace nods at Alexander, agreeing with him rather wholeheartedly. It's something she'd wanted to chew him out for the last time they'd met. He'd tried to isolate himself in order to protect everyone else, when that doesn't even stand a chance of working. But he'd kicked her out before she could get to that point.
He'll want company. She'll want to call Kalen and tell him to get his ass here, because Alex is just done with solitary anything, and as far as she can tell, doesn't blame anyone for what happened. Except, maybe...
"You didn't do anything to cause this to happen, you know? That's all on the idiot who thought it would be a great idea to kidnap you. Having pushed people away doesn't make you responsible for what happened," she says, gulps some coffee.
"Kalen blames himself, I think. Keeps kicking himself for going on vacation. That is about as ridiculous an idea as you blaming yourself, you know?"
AlexanderSera’s is a flying visit, but he does manage to give her – and Dan - a small smile and some thanks for bringing along some more bits and pieces for him. Money, which at least gives him some additional freedom to get out and around the city if – when – he chooses.
After they leave, though, he does ask Grace, “Is she ok? She seems…different.” Simply a case of two months away, making her seem that way? The pressure of his situation? Something else? Either way…
“I know. This was…” Again, there’s a pause where there should be words. Something held back. He shakes his head, a frustrated little movement. “I know. And it wasn’t your fault, either. I know we didn’t exactly part on the best of terms, but I get that it was a mistake. One that that woman didn’t do anything to clear up. Did you know she came to my place to…I’d say apologise, but she wasn’t in the least bit apologetic. To be honest, I don’t actually know why she even bothered. But, anyway, I believe the term is ‘shit happens’. Which is most definitely has, and will undoubtedly do again.”
There’s a snort and another shaking of the head, although this one comes with a shadow of a fond little smile. “Throw something at him for me, will you?”
GraceGrace nods into her coffee, when he says that their last altercation had been due to a mistake. "I thought maybe... I didn't know how you'd react to my coming by, at first."
She drinks some more, lets it warm her. "I'm glad you aren't still pissed off about that."
"But um, what's different about Sera? "
Alexander“We all screw up sometimes. I was pissed at the time, but I got over it. And, honestly, I do think it was more aimed at Ihsan than you. She was enjoying her little game way too much to care.” Alex shifts again, bending a knee and tucking one leg under the other. “Besides, I have other things to be pissed about.” Another drink of the coffee, a thought of whether it should be refilled with more coffee or more whiskey.
“She just seemed strangely sober. She isn’t on her purification thing at the moment, is she?”
Grace"Well. You know Sera. If she were on something all the time, that would be too predictable," Grace says, drinks more coffee with a smile.
"I'm glad that you want to rebuild your life. Among choices, it is a good one. And you know I'll do everything in my power to help you with that."
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