Nothing Special

Ian Lai

Spring had finally seemed to settle in Denver (for the time being,) and the air outside was a thoroughly pleasant 67 degrees, which meant that Ian wasn't the only resident of the city who was out for a run in City Park. There were, in fact, a fair handful of people making the most of the warm weather in exactly the same manner that he was, jogging alone or in pairs through the winding trails that laced the manicured landscape.

Ian was alone tonight (he usually was when he ran.) The music from his earbuds played a steady rhythm of lush electronic beats that kept time with his footsteps and the pulse of his heart (elevated but steady.) He'd been running for a while by now, long enough that the heat from his active body was enough to keep his temperature elevated despite his relative lack of clothes.

Maybe Alex saw him first, or maybe he saw Alex. It didn't really matter. These things happened. Awakened wills passing each other in the night. Strangers who had one very important thing in common.

Ian kept a brisk pace. He was wearing a pair of black track pants with white stripes down the sides, and silver running shoes. That, and the earbuds.

Ian Lai

[Per+Aware -1 from Alex's Arcane]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 5) ( fail )

Ian Lai

[Nope, Ian does not notice Alex first]

Alexander Brandt

[Is Alex's magedar any better?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 6) ( success x 1 )

Alexander Brandt

After crashing into bed after the sun had crept above the horizon and started burning off the low cloud hanging over the city, he work early afternoon. After a few attempts at rolling over and getting back to sleep, it just wasn’t going to happen. Breakfast eaten and coffee downed, he packed for work and threw some running gear into the bag along with the other bits and pieces that he’d need for the coming night shift. He’s working near City Park at the moment, and hadn’t really seen it yet. So what better way than to see it than go running through it?

So here is Alexander. White trainers with day-glow green stripes pound away at the asphalt, with long black shorts and a blue, long-sleeved running top the only other clothes he has on. An armband holds his phone, and there is a thin white cable running from it to a pair of headphones. Those paying attention might be able to pick out the regular beat of some kind of ambient dance music. As with Ian, Alexander’s efforts have been doing a pretty good job of keeping him warm. But, then, the cold doesn’t really bother him all that much.

There’s that strange feeling, of someone a little more nearby. It’s not a familiar sensation – and thankfully not that sense of decay reasserting itself – so he slows to a walk, trying to place it. It appears to be coming from a man coming from the opposite direction, crossing paths with Alexander’s. Maybe the face looks familiar from somewhere? He looks for any flash of mutual recognition – not for Alexander’s face, but for what he’s become.

Alexander Brandt

[[Spellfecker strikes again. "...he woke early afternoon."]]

Ian Lai

[Per+Alertness - does he notice Alex watching him? -1 die from arcane, -2 diff from acute senses]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (1, 3, 4, 9) ( success x 2 )

Ian Lai

[Re-rolling awareness now that he knows Alex is there. +1 diff (hah, try not to botch Ian)]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 6, 7) ( success x 1 )

Ian Lai

At first glance, there was no recognition in Ian's eyes. He was focused on the path ahead, his gaze fixed on some point over Alexander's shoulder in the distance. As they drew nearer, though, Ian's gaze shifted, attracted by the awareness of Alexander's attention in his peripheral vision. He looked, but still didn't recognize anything of particular interest, until...

Ah. There it was. Like a breath of winter air playing along his heated skin. (Ian, see... he didn't mind the cold so much either.)

Likely Alex was looking at him for the same reason - because he'd sensed the soft curl of elegant and cunning energy that followed Ian in his wake (a beautiful lie, gracefully rendered in primal motion.) That wasn't the only thing he'd sense, but possibly Alexander was too new to Awakened life to understand why, when he looked at Ian move, all he could think of was some feline predator loping through the grass.

Ian slowed his pace and came to a stop a few paces away, pulling the buds out of his ears and draping them over his neck. They were bluetooth earbuds, not connected to the phone in his arm-band as Alexander's were.

"You must be new," he greeted with a sly grin.

Alexander Brandt

The resonance, the way that each Awakened has a difference feel about them, is familiar to Alexander. Only a handful of the actual sensations themselves are familiar, even if the hows-whys-and-wherefores behind it all isn’t. So the impression of a stalking predator just gets tucked away in the same mental box as either some weird twist on it all.

But the other man is stopped too, and Alexander realises that he’s been a bit too obvious about staring at the other man as he approached. Although the face is still familiar somehow... Maybe the other man gets it a lot.

“Sorry, what?” Alex stops, keeping the distance between them, and pulls his headphones out to better hear the man. He’s looking a little sheepish at being called out for the attention, even though the resonance made the other man hard to miss. Alexander’s is cold, already frozen. Unchanging. Like a moment of time trapped in ice.

“New? Yeah, I guess. I’ve been here a few weeks.” Alexander looks around to see where the others in the park are. Working out how much it’s safe to say.

Ian Lai

Ian was indeed used to getting stared at. He had to be, looking the way he did. Beautiful in a way that made him a little unreal. He was in good shape too - lean but athletic. He obviously worked out a lot.

But that wasn't why Alex was staring, and Ian knew that. (Didn't mean he couldn't play with it a little.)

"Very new, then," he replied, stepping a few paces closer as his eyes traveled down the length of Alexander's body and back again, not so much flirtatious as curious and measuring. Alex stood a couple inches taller than him, so he had to tip his head back just slightly to make eye contact. Maybe Alex didn't understand the question, or maybe he did and was answering in the subtle way their kind often did when speaking in public. The exact time-frame of his Awakening wasn't that important.

Ian raised a hand and brushed a damp section of hair away from his forehead. His breathing slowed a little, causing the steady rise and fall of his bare shoulders to soften.

"Any particular reason you were watching me, or is it just because my reputation preceded me?"

Alexander Brandt

The headphones get wrapped around Alexander’s neck, the faint sounds of some lyric-less ambient music drifting faintly out of them, as he looks around. He notices Ian’s gaze and returns the favour, looking the rest of him over. Slim, lean. Probably sees the inside of a gym on a regular basis. Alexander? Fairly solid, although not overly so. No gymnast, but no football player either. Certainly no stranger to physical activity at any rate.

Breathing normally already, Alexander takes a small step backwards. Not out of any obvious discomfort. Just to save the other man having to look up too much. Some tall people develop stoops and hunches to bring them down into other peoples’ eye line. Not so with Alexander. It’s easier to move.

But comfortable that nobody is passing close enough to overhear even their slightly cryptic conversation, he elaborates a little more. “Well, yes. New to a lot of things since I got here. A change of scenery can really open your eyes.” There’s a little shrug. “A little of the reputation. A little that I can’t help thinking that I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

Ian Lai

Alexander didn't really look like the type to attend fashion shows or page through glamour magazines (though one never really knew what a person liked based on their appearance,) so when he mentioned that vague feeling of familiarity, Ian raised an eyebrow and smirked.

"Well, who knows. Maybe you have."

Of course, he didn't make any attempt to fill in the blanks, so Alex would have to go on wondering.

"Anyone snatch you up yet, or are you still flying solo?"

There was a public drinking fountain nearby. Ian eyed it for a moment before giving a gesture with his hand to indicate that Alex follow him. Whether Alex chose to do so or not, Ian made his way toward it. When he got there, he dipped down to take a long drink.

Alexander Brandt

Alexander gives another shrug – maybe he has seen him around somewhere, and the face stuck. Or maybe he looks enough like someone to seem familiar. Either way, not overly important. “Yeah, maybe. I imagine it won’t be the last time we bump into each other, though. Not with the way we seem to attract each other sometimes.”

Alexander does follow along with Ian to the fountain, leaning back against a fence while the other man drinks. He looks around the park as he talks, watching a group of women pushing strollers towards one of the lakes in the park. “I’ve had a fair bit of help from different people, but I don’t have anyone’s secret handshake and decoder wheel yet. Not sure if I will, if I’m honest. I don’t know that much about all the cool kids yet, but nothing much is standing out. But then I’m still figuring some of the basics out.”

“You?” he asks when Ian straightens from the drink. “Been at this long?”

Ian Lai

When Ian pulled back from the fountain, his lips were wet, and he brushed a thumb over his mouth to keep the water from dripping down his chin. He had this amused expression, like a part of him was deliberately reading the wrong (and yet to anyone listening - seemingly the most obvious) interpretation of their conversation.

(Not with the way we seem to attract each other.)

"We'll have to see about that."

But then Alex started talking about secret handshakes and decoder wheels and Ian's expression grew... thoughtful.

"Longer than you."

He wasn't being very open, but then one's paradigm was a rather personal subject. Ian glanced at the people nearby. At the women with their strollers. They seemed to exist in an entirely different world.

No one was close enough to overhear them. It didn't mean they shouldn't be careful. Nonetheless, Ian said, "So what can you do?"

Alexander Brandt

We’ll have to see about that. Alexander’s eyebrows rise, but the rest of his expression stays... neutral. He’s not a complete stranger to certain games, certain chases. Maybe not as familiar as Ian appears to be, but then Alexander doesn’t look like he should be spread across a magazine centrefold. He’s no prude either; there’s no frantic blushing at an embarrassing misunderstanding. There is simply no reaction in kind. There is a rather non-committal, “Maybe,” in response though.

Being at this for longer isn’t particularly difficult. Maybe Ian is just a private person, or maybe has something to hide. But, then, doesn’t everyone? That maybe the whole issue of paradigm should be so personal as to want to avoid talking about it doesn’t come to mind, though. Everyone else so far has been quite open about talking about theirs. So why the big secret here? Things just don’t seem quite... right.

“Nothing special,” comes the reply to Ian’s question. Two can play at vaguaries.

Ian Lai

Ian smiled at that, a slow spreading of lips that revealed a set of teeth which were very straight and very white and almost (just a little bit) predatory. It was a smile that offered some grudging respect, while still leaving a lingering sense of danger. (Sometimes cats liked it more when their prey fought back.)

As of the moment though, Ian hadn't made any deliberate move to appear threatening. Perhaps this was just his nature - like the way that Kalen always felt like a storm was about to break loose. Maybe he was dangerous, or maybe he just didn't like giving straight answers.

"Nothing special, hmm? Tell you what, I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

Alexander Brandt

For some things, Alexander has boundless patience. Minute after hour after day can be spent on those things. For others? Less so. Trying to pull him into a game when he’s already shown that he doesn’t want to play? That would be one of them. Especially when it almost seems that there’s a sense of superiority on display. Just like a cat playing with its prey.

And Alexander doesn’t like feeling like the toy in some game he doesn’t understand, where straight answers are the exception to the rule. Games like that can hurt. Pushing himself up from the fence, still with the neutral (Frozen now? How is that chill in the air?) expression, he replies. “Another time, maybe.” He turns back in the way he was originally heading and starts to jog away.

Ian Lai

Another time, maybe.

Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, Alex made the choice not to play, and Ian let him go, watching the man's retreating form as he ran down the path and, eventually, out of view.

Then Ian twisted his earbuds back into place, and the world was once again flooded with music, and the motion of his body as he resumed his own rapid, agile pace.

Like two creatures passing in the night.

(But they would probably meet again.)