Phone home.

Serafíne

It hardly feels like December anymore, even in the high plains of Colorado. The sun came out and the temperature hit a balmy sixty-something degrees. Colder out here, on the eastern slopes of the rockies, outside of the warmth of the city, where long shadows of the rising mountains to the west tuck into the contours of the land but still: warm,

warm,

warm.

That warmth is fading now, faster than it ever would in summer, because the ground is cold, has been frozen through, has endured the onslaught of night after night below freezing, even when the low drowse of the midday sun was enough to tip the temperature upward, and the solar radiation melted whatever lowland snows accumulated during the November storms.

Outside on the driveway: the sound of an engine. Which sounds like any other engine from a distance. Sera is not the driver. When she comes out to the chantry, someone else brings her. She is sober more often than not lately but nevertheless, the old ingrained habit will not die.

She does not intend to remain sober forever.

Or even: for long.

The kitchen door swings open a few minutes later and Sera and Dan come sweeping in. Sera is carrying a covered platter and Dan has more supplies, is hefting them with the thoughtless ease of a young man carrying a case of beer and a couple of fifths and other assorted party supplies.

Just in case.

Wouldn't want to run out.

Beneath her breath, our Sera is humming a half-remembered song.

Pan

[herp a derp]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1

Grace

[Nightmares!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 3, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace

[Percept+Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Pan

On the one hand he promised Sera he would pray inside because the weather is so mutable and the ground so cold and he's nowhere near to retirement age but on the other hand the priest prays a lot. Coming in from outside doesn't get him spending any less time on his knees.

He has the decency not to pray where the apprentices can stumble upon him. His resonance dredges up disquiet in more than a few of them. So he stays in the room he's chosen to occupy while he stays out here.

Sera can feel him Working when she and Dan walk into the kitchen. It isn't just the glaring bright of the wards and ban he's placed all around the place. The shield against mental intrusion that he keeps up that the demon won't hijack their dreams if they choose to sleep here. This is active and now and he's at it when the door opens and she starts to humming.

But he knows she's there. He'll stir soon enough.

Serafíne

Perception + Alertness

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 4 )

Grace

Grace can't stay at home anymore. And no, it's not because of bad memories, or lack of funds, or anything like that. It has more to do with the fact that the Chantry now shines like a cold lamp, fortified with Pan's own personal brand of protection.

And she needs the protection.

She's moved a few things here, just the basics like shampoo and a couple changes of clothes, like she's having some extended sleepover until the whole 'demon' thing is settled. It makes it easier now that the semester is over, she no longer has to go into town every day.

Mostly it's quiet, save for... you know... people being sent to the hospital. Let's say, it's more of a punctuated silence. Every now and then, things go 'bang' really loudly.

Like, say, Sera swooping in with Dan, slipping some of that primal charm in with Pan's overwhelming brightness. She looks up from the couch in the living room, where she was busy with a hot laptop set up over her crossed legs. "Sera?"

Serafíne

Sera almost always knows where they are. The others: any others. She feels them behind her eyes and at the back of her throat, beneath her skin and at the root of her tongue. She just feels them, they have a like a frequency she hears better than all others. She just tunes them in. Pan up there praying, the active brilliance of it, bright behind her eyes. Sera sets one of the platters down on the kitchen counter and pulls a plate out of the cabinets and it is an absurd plate in the shape of a reindeer and Sera piles some cookies from the platter onto it and grabs one of those fifths as Dan turns around to head back outside and bring in the remaining supplies because the holidays require alcohol, one way or the other.

He pauses to give her a kiss on the crown of her head, grabs her upper arms with his hands as he does so, pulls her back against him and holds here there for a long moment. Sera closes her eyes and turns her head back into his body and it all lasts no more than a moment. Grace says Sera? and Sera calls out really rather brightly all things considered, "Yep!" and follows it up a moment later by heading into the living room, her plate of cookies in one hand, her fifth of Stranahan's in the other.

"Grace." You really can't escape her, Grace. Sera's path takes her behind the couch and she bends down and presses her mouth to the crown of Grace's head. Then, she offers Grace a cookie.

They are gingerbread people.

Ninja gingerbread people.

Ninjabread, if you will.

Grace

Since this is Sera we're talking about here, Grace expects a bit of close contact. It's not even much of a 'thing' anymore. Like, if the sun is shining, one will get a tan. If Sera is in the room, one will get kissed, or hugged, or hair ruffled. There's no point in denying it. She's just like, this touchy-feely force of nature. So, the kiss to her head isn't a surprise or even an annoyance. It just is.

"Kung-fu cookies!" Grace exclaims, smiling with some measure of actual glee. "We should have gingerbattles."

She takes the cookie, which is shaped like an angry punching dude complete with icing face and fists, and makes a little 'hiyah!' noise.

Serafíne

"Dee made them," Sera returns, giving Grace the edge of a faint but rather sparkling, rather sparking little grin at the noise Grace makes. Which is girlish and gleeful and lovely. "Or, I don't know. Her bakery makes them. They're a hit with the fucking hipsters."

As Sera is something of a hipster queen, she should know, right.

"I don't remember, have you met Dee?" Circling around the couch, Sera sets the platter of ninjabread cookies down on the coffee table. The whiskey bottle swings from her left hand as she moves, thoughtlessly a part of her.

It looks like Sera is ready to fling herself into a corner of the couch. Close to Grace, naturally, except her dark eyes track upward to linger on the doorway, the stairwell. Pan's resonance behind her eyes, beneath her skin, she breathes him in.

"My housemate. Our bassist?" Not that they really have a band anymore. When the fuck was the last time they played out? "She can kick Hawksley's ass at Scrabble, too.

" - sometimes. I am glad you like them, though."

Grace

"Yeah, I met her once. I got gingerbread in exchange for Ginger, remember?" Not exactly 'in exchange for', more like it was just there and everybody's the sharing sort.

Grace smiles at the mention of Hawksley and Scrabble. Yeah, bet he is a mean sucker to beat at that game. "Hey, I should challenge him sometime. See if he can beat the master," she smirks. Of course, he probably could.

"It's good to see you, Sera."

Serafíne

"Careful what you wish for, love." It is Sera's own name that brings her attention back to Grace, directly and entirely. The way Grace says it, perhaps. There is something both intense and intent about the graze of her dark eyes over Grace's profile, which is a counterpoint to the lazy langour of her really still rather sad half-smile. So many layers of immediacy.

"Bastard takes that Scrabble shit seriously. Won't even be distracted by cupcakes, so plan your approach carefully, yeah?"

Then a pause, a noise in the back of Sera's through. The quieter sweep of her mouth and a certain gleam of - well - something in Sera's eyes.

"Good to see you, too, Grace."

She could ask how things are, Sera.

She doesn't though. There are still things that Sera just doesn't want to know.

Pan

The women have a few moments to themselves where they share each others' presence and the ninjabread cookies without the priest looming nearby and then a door opens down the corridor and the presence Sera could feel from the driveway steps across the threshold.

He looks as if he's just risen from a nap. That disjointed grogginess born of returning to reality after having spent so much time nestled away from it. He is not wearing his boots inside as he has the last several times Grace has come in from outside. When he comes out he is in his socked feet. Wears black slacks into which he has belted whatever he's wearing under a blue sweater.

Yes. Blue. Try not to faint. It's cold outside.

"Grace," he says. "Sera. ¿Qué tal?"

Grace

"Oh I take that Scrabble shit seriously too. It's strategy with words, how could I not?" She slowly shuts the laptop, and puts it on the table in front of the couch, just because shitty news stories about murders aren't the thing to be looking at right now.

Sera looks good. Sounds good. And while they're talking about Scrabble, there's the subtext of something else. Like, if they're talking about Scrabble, things can't be too terrible. It's a conversation carried without words.

And then, there is a Pan in the room. "Hey, Pan. I have a kung-fu cookie," she says, as if that explains exactly how she's doing. With that, she bites its foot off. Lovely.

Serafíne

"You, dormilón." An edge of irony to the curl of Serafíne's mouth, and edge of intimacy in the affection inherent in the diminutive. Her gaze cuts up from Grace to find Pan without hesitation, the minute the bomb-bright blast of his presence sweeps through the room.

And she knows he isn't sleepy, knows he wasn't sleeping. Knows better than most, doesn't she, how far away magic can take you when you're Working. Knows better than most what it means to disappear into something wider and deeper and greater than yourself.

So, her eyes are on his eyes, then his mouth, then his body. The priest has filled out since she last saw him. Not much, not enough, but he looks more like himself than he did the last time Sera saw him.

And in the month since he returned, not once has his sleep been disturbed by a particular drunk and disorderly Cultist who comes to find him when her trip goes wrong or a particular sort of whim takes her at four fifty three a.m.

And Sera looks more like herself, too. Not wholly. How could she? She never will, not even with that bottle in hand, not until she's draining it dry and spinning herself off into some stranger's arms.

"Dee made them." Sera explains, of the cookies. "You should have one..

"Or five."

He should come over and give her a hug, too. But Sera does not tell him that.

There are some things he should just know.

Pan

Grace has a kung-fu cookie.

Pan squints out an approximation of a smile and then huffs out a laugh as he crosses the room to join them at the coffee table. He still hasn't gotten around to shaving the beard from his face but it's trimmed at least. He's trimmed his hair so it will not brush his collar either.

And Sera still has a bottle of whiskey in her hand but Sera has had a bottle of whiskey in her hand practically nearly every time he's met her. If she could have gotten away with it she would have brought it into a confessional booth that fateful night back in May.

"Maybe I will have five," he says and he loops an arm around her shoulders to give her a hug. Indicates Grace's cookie over the top of her head. "You go for the feet first, eh?"

Grace

"It's a really delicious foot," she says. "Seriously, Dee is awesome."

Perhaps Dee will always be associated with gingerbread to Grace, now that she's had it twice. Gingerbread, and Sera. Who is more like Sera today than Grace has seen in a while, and that is wonderful.

And also wonderful is Pan's hug, which Grace watches like she's enjoying some kind of documentary on human personal interaction rituals. See, this is what normal people do.

Excepting, of course, that Pan and Sera are not normal in any sense of the word.

Serafíne

Pan loops an arm around her shoulders to give Sera a hug and Sera, in turn, wraps her arms around his torso. The bottle is full, is actually as yet unopened, and the weight is solid against the small of his back as her arms wrap around him. Sera rests her cheek against the priest's chest and closes her eyes, soaking in his brilliance, inhaling him all-at-once, then shifts in his embrace, turning to stay close to him while including Grace in the immediate sweep of her gaze.

"She's been feeding me like whoa," says Sera, and she has gained weight since her ordeal, put a layer of healthy fat beneath her skin, enough, at least, to cushion the spare frame of her bones. "Pain chocolat pretty much every day.

"I'll have Dan bring the left overs up here for you, instead of tearing them up for the birds in the back yard." Then, a tip of her head against Pan's shoulder. The slightest nudge of her nose. Affectionate, even intimate. And still rather sober, for all that.

"You gonna get together with Rafa over the holidays?"

Pan

For the duration of the embrace Pan lets his chin rest atop the crown of Sera's head. Like he's greeting a daughter. Like loss is something that was real in their dyad and every time he sees her is some sort of a blessing for him. Then she folds herself against his side and Pan gives her upper arm a quieting rub and keeps his arm around her shoulders. If she wants to stay rested against him he can stand as long as she can.

"Eh," he says to whether he'll be getting together with this Rafa character. "No, I don't think so. Last I heard he was out of the country. He sent Rosa a postcard from Peru a couple weeks ago."

Grace

"That would be nice. Pain chocolat is... what? Chocolate bread?"

Grace doesn't know who Rafa or Rosa is, and considers asking, before... no. It might be personal.

Instead, she munches her gingerbread man, feet first. Not the merciful kind, to start with the head, Grace. The cookie just scowls back regardless, now angrily punching the air without legs.

Serafíne

"Chocolate croissants," Sera informs Grace, giving the would-be VA a lazy, solid sort of grin. "The real kind, made they way they do in French. No icing, not too much sweetness. The chocolate filling dark and maybe a bit bittersweet, all complex and interesting.

"That's what pain chocolat is. Ridiculously healthy."

Then, turning to Pan, lifting her chin to look him full-on in the eye. "Get his number from Rosa - I know she has one - and give him a call at least. You may not remember but he came when you were in the hospital. Had both him and Shoshannah staying at my place, then.

"Just call him, okay?"

Pan

He doesn't remember. Sera can tell that he doesn't remember because she's looking right at him and he isn't making any attempt to conceal the fact that he's thinking about it. Eyes canted slight towards the inside of his skull like he can find the memory in there somewhere. Even Grace who finds it difficult to read people can read this.

This is the son he told her about. Occam's razor. Who the hell else would Sera be on him about contacting during the holidays with everything that's going on.

Pan reels in and releases a breath and gives her a smile. She'd asked this of him once when he'd come back to a central gathering place splashed in his own blood talking like he was simultaneously propelled towards and holding the others back from where they all needed to be. Evil made flesh less than three miles away.

One of them is in the hospital now. A few of them will be going up into the mountains to deal with this demon in not too much time. It's not a coincidence. He needs to call his son.

So he leans down and holds the back of her head still with one hand and plants a dry kiss on her hairline and then steps back like he's going to escort her out.

"I gotta ask you a favor, actually. You staying or going?"

Grace

Ugh. The talk of calling people, especially people who must be family to Pan? Yeah. That brings up memories of the time Sera asked Grace to call her mom, a thing which has not happened yet.

Must the Cultist always be so damn right all the time? Because it's not easy things she asks, yes? Maybe Grace can see that in Pan's eyes, in that roaming thinking gaze. Like yeah, she does that to everybody it seems.

She'll need like... 5 chocolate croissants to get get through that particular quest. For now, her cookie is finished off. Comfort, thy name is sugar.

Serafíne

Sera closes her eyes when Pan leans in to plant that kiss at the edge of her hairline Lifts her face to his, naturally, the way some flowers follow the movement of the sun across the skin.

He asks if she's staying or going, and there's a moment where something quiet and awful and skittish sheans across her expression, visible but only just, like the rainbow hue of oil over water.

"Going," Sera tells Pan, rather quietly, admits really and it is an admission. Grace and Pan are the only people she might run into here whom she really wants to see. So: going, naturally. But the expression subsides as soon as it rises and Sera moves onward. "Just bringing supplies. You know I'll do anything for you. Just give me a minute to check on Dan."

And, so saying, Sera slips out of Pan's embrace and heads back toward the kitchen, disappearing for the nonce to check on the booze she brought.

The important stuff.