Jim has been spending very little time inside since their arrival at the cabin; while he doesn't seem at all familiar with his surroundings out in the wilderness, it manages to blossom a new curiosity in him. He's been walking the paths and along the nearby river. In one hand he always seems to have one of the naturalist books left by the landlords for renters, though he assumes the collection have seen little use thanks to their lack of wear and tear.
It's night and he's building a small fire in the backyard, in the middle of a clearing, the right distance from other trees and away from where their branches reach out. Just like the book says. He rolls a few logs in newspaper. Just like the book says. He lights the twigs first, positioning them inside a little teepee of wood, so that the small fire will have the air it needs to grow. Just like the book says.
And finally, he falls back on his ass near the fire, feet close enough to feel its warmth, a enamel cup from the cabin's cupboard full of coffee in one of his hands. There's a big brown grocery bag sitting next to him.
He's wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, because it seemed like the right thing to wear out here, dressing up like he imagines he should and enjoying playing the part. Shoeless and wild, though, he's more Huckleberry Finn than Tom Sawyer. There's still that addled look in his eyes, and the way they reflect the fire in little explosions like a kaleidoscope turns the world to broken glass, might make one wonder what Molotov cocktail of thoughts brew within.
And as one gets closer, they might be able to smell the liquor on his breath and mixed in with that steaming cup of coffee, its essence caught in the smokey air.
PanOut of the distance comes the rumbling of a V8 engine whose tires roll across the gravel and the dirt led up to the cabin as easy as waves across sand. The lights cut brief swatches through the darkness and then stop when the driver stops the truck a ways away from the cabin. Sharp silence where before was that sound and for a time Jim has nothing.
Footsteps. Even and slow but not certain.
When the visitor comes upon the backyard and the fire in the backyard it reveals himself to be the priest. No black clothing tonight. The one time he decides not to wear black he gets blood all over himself. It's dried now but there was a lot of it and the front of his plaid shirt has gone rust and dead with it. Great splotches on the thighs of his stonewash jeans. Until he comes to the fire they can make no pattern of it.
He walks a straight line and looks no worse for the ghost of epistaxis on his clothing but something in his eyes has gone dark. Blame it on the light or the absence of it. He does not lift a hand in greeting to them.
"Where's the girl?" he asks.
Sera"I'd just douse it with gasoline." That's how Sera announced her presence as she approaches the fire. 'Course, Jim could hear the Jeep crunching down the graveled drive, the engine coughing a half-dozen times before it finally shut itself off, and then her boots on the gravel and the grass and clomping through the cabin, front-door-to-back-door. She's brought supplies and her supplies include more than coffee and milk and potatoes and take-out Indian food: they include a replenished stash of decent liquor and hashish tonight, perhaps a few other things. Books even that he wanted from the library, for which she 'borrowed' her housemate's library card, not bothering to sign up for one of her own.
Maybe he could even smell her cigarettes on the wind; the particular aroma of sweet cloves and Chanel No. 5 that she sometimes wears, and the city on her skin. All honey I'm home.
She is wearing a tiny pink gingham tee covered in ironic bumble bees, torn, cut-off denim shorts, fishnets and combat boots covered in buckles. Sera does not bother to dress the part of wilderness explorer. She does not seem to adapt to her environment, though the truth is she likes it out here fine. If there's a place close by to go bouldering she even suggests it to Jim as something they should try.
Pan walked straight for the fire; skipped the cabin and it's the cabin from whence Sera emerges.
"She's asleep." The response is to Pan's shadow; cast back from the fire. "Sid's here," she tells them both in the next breath. Then her glance at Pan resolves itself into something sharper and more intent as she takes in the blood spattered across his shirt and jeans. Her alarm is immediate and she starts half-jogging toward him, reaching out like she expects him to collapse at any moment. As if she could begin to support his weight.
"Are you okay? What happened to you?"
If he lets her get close enough, she circles an arm around his waist as easily as she linked elbows with him the night he came to see her at the bar. Maybe gives Jim one of those 'come help' glances, even though it's pretty clear that the priest is still operating under his own power. Doesn't matter. Sera even tries to take Pan's arm and drape it over her own shoulders. Intent with concern.
Jim
Pan walks into the undulating circle of growing firelight and the blood is visible. Somehow both redder and blacker in the flicker of the flames.
Jim gets to his feet in a hurry and makes his way to where Sera is already trying to act as crutch for the padre (whether he needs it or not), nimbly jumping the fire small fire to do so. That cup of Irish coffee is left where he'd been sitting, Sera's own panic and caring nature as infectious as ever.
Especially to someone who cares about the state of others as much as Jim.
"In one piece?" Curious. It could be an overused term describe Jim, but it's an apt one as his eyes squint and he kneels to see where the blood might have been coming from. He's appraising Pan's form for injuries and holes that shouldn't be there as both of them await an answer.
[ Perception + Medicine. ]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 4, 5) ( fail )
Sid[everybody shhh, Sid is trying to be quiet (which is not the same as being sneaky): dex+stealth, diff +1]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (6, 6, 8) ( success x 1 )
PanWhat happened to you?
"I'm fine."
In the dark Jim can glean nothing. Sera rushes to him and he does not insert distance between them but he does not welcome or wilt into contact either. An arm around his waist reveals no fresh blood and no objects where they ought not to be and the arm she tries to put over her own shoulder hangs heavy and useless as the wooden crosses in his congregation's sanctuary back in Denver.
If her hand travels far enough around his hip she'll find a rosary draped half out the pocket. It tells her nothing even as it screams with recent Working. Normally it hums or sings but not tonight. Tonight it is loud and persistent and futile. She cannot see the blood on the wooden beads in the dark.
In one piece?
"I'm fine," he says again. No force in his repetition. His patience has not ebbed. He pulls away from Sera to turn back and look at the cabin lit up and looming behind them. No sign of the porch or the girl. "Has he been here?"
Sera"You're not fine." Intent and insistent and far more sober than he might imagine; nevermind that Jim at least can also smell the sweet, herbal scent of hashish or pot she's smoked tonight clinging to her hair and skin. That's how she conned Sid into joining her. She needed a designated driver. Pan slips out of her circling arm but she shoots Jim a worried glance and steps in front of the priest instead, pulls out the tails of his shirt from where they're tucked into the jeans, and starts unbutton the plaquet all stiff with blood and awkward. "You're covered in blood. Will you please sit down?"
There are some logs out here, a handful of chairs maybe scattered around the fire pit. If not, she'll go get him one.
"Before you fall down?" Quiet and persistent and insistent, all of this, as she unbuttons his shirt and starts looking for the source of blood.
Though some of that activity ceases, stills when Pan asks if he has been here. The sketch of immediate awareness, of a stark sort of alarm is bright and physical and breathless all around her. Her glance at Jim: a question.
The look she shoots the dark cabin: a tattoo of fear in her eyes. As much for Leah as of him. And the gods know that she is pretty fucking alarmed by the very idea of him, so that look is stark in its intensity.
Still, she pulls it back. Doesn't feel him in the air around here and hasn't, not since they've been. "I don't think so - " the upward lilt of her voice at the end, leaving Jim to finish the answer, " - why?"
SeraPerception + Medicine
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
SidYes, Sid is there. She'd lagged behind Sera on the way into the house because she'd stopped on the drive to look up at the cabin, then out and all around. Taking in the surroundings, but not the way a tourist might, or someone out to enjoy some nature. Her gaze is quick, furtive, paranoid as she makes sure there's no one hiding behing that tree or lurking around that thorn bush.
Sera was already gone inside when Sid was satisfied with her survey. And she was nowhere to be found when Sid finally stepped through that front door. There was a minor detour, a quick trip to the kitchen to wash her hands, when she heard the back door close.
So it takes a little time for the quiet woman to make her way toward the low light of the little fire. And when she sees them there, the trio clustering together, she stops in her tracks, and she frowns.
Weeks. It's been weeks and the most Awakened she's been around at one time had been the other day in front of the church. Even then, even with three she'd been nervous. And now here they are, all congregating together.
Well. She can't leave. For one thing, they came in Sera's Jeep. For another, she's already gotten this close, might as well close the gap. Hugging her upper body, the sleeves of her sweatshirt pulled tightly over her fists, she makes her way down the slope. Slowly. Placing one foot before the other, not in an attempt to sneak up on them or go unnoticed - that would be pointless - but she's cautious.
She gets a little closer and she gets the very distinct impression that she's intruding somewhere she ought not to be. Stopping again a few feet out, Sid hangs back.
Jim
[ Perception + Alertness ]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
JimThey could guess who Pan was talking about.
And Serafine had just said Sid and Leah were both in the house. That's enough for Jim. He gives the holy man a look, but doesn't wait for confirmation. He turns and runs barefoot toward the steps, the thud of calloused flesh on wood carrying him hurriedly up the steps, onto the porch, flinging the door open and into the cabin to find out if there is anyone inside that shouldn't be.
Jim manages to miss Sid on the way out as he's on the way in the other door.
He checks Leah's room first, peaking in only by a sliver of light that comes through the crack he opens in the door, confirming her presence in her bed, sleeping as she should be.
He doesn't yell, his tone even and conversational, inquisitive as he walks through the cabin trying to find Sid. "Sid?" One room. "Sid?" Another. Until she answers and he hones in on it, or until he finds her, whichever comes first.
She never answers.
It's not long until every light in the house is on, except for Leah's room. Maybe Jim does think the light can ward away the darkness. He's back on the porch, his entire round trip having taken a good minute or two. He's catching his breath. Ascending the stairs, back looking down toward the fire, and finally he spots her. Hanging back. Skirting the shadows. That familiar red hair, even in the darkness, is recognizable as he comes down the same slope. "There you are." Grateful for it.
PanHe takes the short woman's hands off his shirt one time, twice, before resigning himself to the inadequacy of repeating himself and letting her pluck at the small plastic discs. Holds his arms out then as if submitting to a pat-down. Aims his eyes up at the white-dotted sky.
Pleading and coaxing has him drawing a breath and letting it go in an audible thing butted up against a sigh. She doesn't answer his question quickly enough so he repeats himself.
"Has he been here?"
She doesn't think so. She doesn't find any injuries on him because he is not injured. He wears no scars, hides no bandages or braces beneath the shirt. Gives her a moment to satisfy her own curiosity and then looks down as if assessing the state of his wardrobe hours after the fact. If she insists upon tugging him towards the fire and the logs and the chairs there he doesn't fight her.
I don't think so - why?
Jim runs off into the cabin. Pan watches him go, yanks the stiffened halves of his shirt back around his exposed midsection.
"I saw him," he says. "Near here. Hours ago. That's why--"
He doesn't finish the sentence, amputates his own reasoning. Sits down near the fire and scrubs his face with a hand.
Sera"Stop it."
Serafíne's voice is firm and low and focused the second time he pulls her hands away, before he finally gives up and submits to her survey. Her shoulders twist sharply because each time he pulls her hands away from his shirt, she pulls her hands away from his grasp and goes calmly back to her work. Her hands are cool on his chest - she was, after all, just restocking the fridge - and she has just enough knowledge of anatomy to be dangerous, checking his ribs and flank, frowning all the while. Aware of Jim's charge for the cabin and listening and taut with awareness of the nightlands all around them; stiffer than she had been.
When she's satisfied that Pan is uninjured, Serafíne lets him go. She's still standing close, the fire behind her, her gaze glittering with its reflected light and cut back to the cabin.
Her breathing is sharp and rapid; she works to control it, to pull it back into a steady rhythm, to remind herself of the rhythms of her body. The beating certainty of her heart in her chest.
The way it squeezes sharply when Pan says he saw Him. Near here. and Hours ago.
She breathes out, through the nose and mouth and takes a step back from him, back toward the fire.
"You were scrying him." She supplies, quietly. "He did this to you."
She's biting her lip, sharply enough to draw her own blood. The twinge of pain cuts through the low hum of her quiet high, helps her settle herself back into her body and then push her awareness outward on a tangle of sensation.
"What'd you see?"
Jim will feel it most acutely. He's Worked with her often enough to know the gleam of her resonance in the air. Pan is closest to her though, and she's looking up at him, in the variegated shadows cast by Jim's small fire, with her vaguely bloodshot gaze. She reaches out and takes the priest's hand, twining his fingers thoughtlessly with her own.
Fucking Cultists.
Sera[So, yeah. Life/Mind/Prime scan. :) I realize that Ariel isn't around but I wanna do MAGICS. Dif 4 -1 for specialty focus.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
SeraExtending Dif +1
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (4, 6) ( success x 2 )
Sid[what is happening: percept+awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )
SidIn his rush, Jim passes by Sid without noticing her. Hard to believe with her resonance practically howling in the air around her, desperate and ecstatic all tangled up together as she makes her careful way closer to the fire.
And as she does, she keeps her mind and her eyes open. It's habit, instinct, the result of her intense paranoia.
What she sees, what she feels, what she hears in the tones of the other's voices, it doesn't make her think this is just a trip to a cabin in the woods or whatever it was Sera said this was going to be. Sid feels the tension and it feeds her own, tightening up her spine and stiffening her shoulders. Her jaw clenches. She doesn't even know what or who they're talking about. While she was aimlessly wandering the city, they were dealing with other things. While she was hiding (from that nameless enemy, from them, from everything) they were out, engaged, involved.
If they were in the city she would leave as soon as she felt Sera's Working. She would turn around and walk away when she was acknowledged, There you are. She could go, anyway, but she doesn't. Maybe it's curiosity. Maybe it's something else.
She turns her head when she hears Jim return. The shadows thrown from the fire intensify that look of worry she always seems to wear.
"Who..." she starts to ask him, but stops. Turning toward the others, she tries again. "Who's 'he?'"
JimJim stands at Sid's side, only as close as she will approach it. It's equal parts prodding and following, because he only walks as fast (or as much, if at all) as she will, and his arm doesn't come out to usher her closer.
"We met the man that was after Leah. Met him and saw him with his own little gang of droogs a la Clockwork Orange. Let her come with us," and then, he's noticing Pan again. He holds up a t-shirt and pair of shorts he'd been gasping in his hand at his side, something he'd grabbed while checking every corner of the house.
"In case you want to get changed. How is he?" First to Sera. And then, to Pan. "What happened?" And emphasis on the what, like he wants an exact answer. "Was it straight to the point? Or did he have something to say? Are they trying to go to war?"
PanAnd Pan doesn't pull his hand away the way he pulled her hands off of his shirt. It hangs now for their nearness to the fire. He does not return the buttons to their rightful alignment and his hand is warm and strong in hers. Its callouses do not match hers. He does not have a musician's hands.
So she works a minor miracle to see beyond the edges of their vision and the woods around them. The burbling of the river and the crackling of the fire and the animal enchantment of her working keep him looking straight ahead into the dirt and the burning twigs instead of up at the sky, away from whatever he's trying to avoid seeing when he looks up at the sky.
She asks him and he does not hesitate so much as he collects. Annie didn't ask him but Annie was behind the wheel when it happened. Jim comes back. Wants to know what happened. It's a reasonable request and the flickering of the clean clothes draws him back to his feet, draws his fingers back from Sera's grasp.
"I prayed for sight," he says. "I was proud, and impatient, and we saw each other. It's like I told you. He's stronger than I am. He grabbed me, like right in the middle..." His hand finds the top of his head and worries his hair but can't find the words to elucidate his meaning. Can't find the words to tell them what he saw, either, so he doesn't even try. "... and then I blacked out."
Sera"He's okay," Sera breathes out the words, still holding the priest's hand in her own. Now as much for the animal comfort of human contact as for the faint stimulation of her Work. The assurance is shunted back to Jim when he asks how the priest is, and strange how steady she is when they've seen her so very, very undone. "Healed himself or someone healed him.
"Annie, maybe."
That's a fucking helluva lot of blood on his clothes.
Then he pulls his hand back and she turns, watching his shadow as he responds to Jim. Her breath comes out all in a rush when Pan is finished with his story, and her left hand slips to the small of his back as the big priest struggles for words. Her eyes are on Jim now, though, and glittering in the firelight.
"He's not around, though. We're the only ones close. There's no recent Work either, nothing that he might've left lingering. I'd sense it if there was. He wasn't here when you saw him, Pan.
"Maybe close?" The question is for the priest.
"We could go look," the suggestion is for Jim, but it is tentative. Her gaze cuts toward the cabin, alert. Wordlessly conveying that she does not want to leave Leah alone. " - see if we could find where he was and what we can learn."
PanWe could go look.
That's as far as she gets with that idea. The suggestion is for Jim but Pan is the one who says "No," his tone sparking sharp-bright like stone slammed against stone.
SidSid doesn't come any closer to the duo, the priest and the partier. She hangs back, always, arms wrapped around herself, clinging to the shadows. Like distance will somehow keep her safe from the terrible things they say. She's not that distant, though. Jim's there, close but not too close.
She frowns deeply at mention of droogs, her upper body shifting oh so slightly in a direction away from the one who said it though her feet stay planted like she's thrown down roots. That man, the one who took Leah and let them take her away from him, Pan says he's stronger than he is. Sid doesn't know how strong that is, but she remembers the warehouse. Closing her eyes, she sucks in a shaky breath, willing just one muscle to relax. Just one. Then maybe she won't seize up and die here.
We could go look, says Sera. Even as Pan is definitively telling them No, Sid's head comes up sharply. She startles at that tone, but she looks at Jim anyway, a wordless panic on her face.
SeraPerception + Awareness-as-empathy
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 4, 4, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Jim"We're not going to go looking for trouble," first to Sid, his answer to that look. As much of a reassurance as he could muster.
Where Pan gives his answer, his decision, this isn't Jim's way. He continues, being very specific about that we:
"I won't. It's not my way. We win or we lose with who's in there. Not who's out there," first his own gesture, the shrug of his shoulder, his hand raising still gripping the t-shirt and shorts like a pom-pom and indicating the cabin, where Leah is inside, and then with that second part, out there, looking into the shadows that surround them. Trees and rocks and dirt and things living and dying like the were long before this cabin, new water, though not really new, because it all came from someplace old.
"Maybe they'll come. Maybe we'll have to protect her. From them. From herself. But I won't go looking to stir up death. That's what they're there for," continuing. And then, his thoughts jump again.
"Where's Jake?" Like they'd forgotten about him, or at least like he has. Leah, an Awakened, had come into the three of their lives, and Jake had gone home to whatever life remained, but that doesn't mean Jim's forgotten him. "Maybe we should bring him out here. He might still be... Mourning. It would be good for him too."
Yes, thought to thought, disjointed to some, but still... Others might see the connection. "It might be good for him to meet Leah. For Leah to meet him."
And then, back to Pan, like that rattled sidebar was only a pit stop.
"We need more than a No out of you. We all do," and it isn't judgmental. Hadn't he just agreed with Pan moments earlier? But it isn't even aggressive or angry. It just is. Much like Jim.
PanExposure makes most people uncomfortable and this particular person never unbuttons his collar or leaves the house with his shirt untucked. His mind is not in an irreparable state but he is standing in front of a fire in the middle of nowhere with the night air lapping at his chest and midsection and his hair is mussed where his hand found it. He hasn't blinked much since he came walking out of the darkness so he sure as shit isn't looking too close to his right mind right now.
These people are not of his flock.They need more than a No out of him.
He starts to button his shirt and nods his head. Contrition has no place here and he is not contrite for he has no reason to be and Jim does not ask that of him. Still, he is solemn and silent as he rejoins the edges of his shirt. His hands don't shake.
"Leave it for tonight," he says. "Let the girl sleep, call Jake in the morning. Don't go looking for him. I went looking for him and he about bashed my brains in. We weren't even in the same town. Would've been pushing up daisies if Annie wasn't with me, you dig?"
At the binding of the last button he pinches the bridge of his nose. Puts both his hands on his hips. Considers the three of them and then considers the cabin.
"I think I'd better go lie down for a minute."
SeraThere's no way Sera can miss that wordless panic on Sid's face. This sharp spike of awareness and not-quite-guilt lances through her and she says, " - you can take the Jeep. If you need to split. If you feel like you need to get out of town for a few days," this is quiet and low and direct to the redhead. Sera gives a quick little shrug. "Dan and I just got a royalty check. I don't fucking need it. Dee doesn't charge us rent. I can spot you enough to lay low for a bit if that's what you feel like doing, too.
"But you should be okay in town."
Sera does not promise Sid that she will be okay here.
--
Then, the priest. Sera stands back while he buttons up his shirt, watches him as he pinches the bridge of his nose and tells them to Leave it for tonight. She has never seen him anything less than composed. She has never seem him anywhere but his right mind, and the look on his face worries her, wordlessly, physically. If there's any of Brogan's resonance still lingering around Pan from the confrontation, Sera can feel it and it is shivering-dark.
He tells them that he's going to go lie down for a minute. Sera does not really think about it, just wraps her left arm around him in a side-hug that turns into a real one if he allows it to. Tells him, steady and sure as she can, "You're okay. It's gonna be okay. We won't go looking tonight. I promise."
Then she lets him go. All at once and just as thoroughly as she embraced him.
"There's water in the fridge. Some Indian food, too. And apples," the quick cut of her half-smile is behind him. Only Jim and made Sid can see its razor ghost in the firelight.
She'll shadow his less-than-steady steps back toward the cabin until she's close to Jim. Gives him a sidelong look. This flashing smile, that is more haunted than joyful, but has both things twinned in it. It is lovely out here. The firelight and the smoke and the sky above them, spangled with stars that are bright points of awareness scattered all above them.
Sera does not want to go looking for Death either. But if it comes for them, she wants to be fucking ready.
"Called Jake the other day," she tells Jim quietly, when they're abreast. In this, they're on the same wavelength, because of course they are. "He's out of town, staying with family. I asked him to stay away for a while, I didn't want him caught up in all this. But if you think he might be good for her, maybe he can come back sooner."
Sera keeps shadowing Pan toward the cabin, then. She'll make sure he finds a bed and a bottle of water. A fucking apple or some goddamned thing. It's the least she can do.
JimJim nods. As soon as he'd said it, even if it was an admonishment, he'd looked a bit contemplative of himself. Of why he'd decided to ask more of a man, even as Pan says he could have been dead instead of just bloodied.
He doesn't apologize, instead when Pan says he better go lie down he nods more than once. Moves forward to see if he needs help mounting the stairs. And if he doesn't? Holds out the shorts and t-shirt for him to take if he needs it. The latter might be a bit tight on the man, but it's the biggest Jim has and he want to give it.
"There's hot water for tea," and remembers his coffee, with whiskey in it.
Sera helps Pan to bed and Jim's attention returns back to Sid, as they are left alone at the edge of the light. In the darkness between the house and the fire. He looks toward the little blaze he'd started only minutes earlier. "It's nice by the fire." Then back on her. Well, not on her. Never really on her, not her face at least. But closer to her than he has before.
Because it's her or darkness and he does not want to look at the darkness.
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