My Brother's Bar

Serafíne

The invitation was without warning or presentiment, and really quite simple.

Drinks tonight?

- from Sera's number. Her old number, which is her new number. The same number: a brand new phone.

Lena Reilly

Like Serafine, Lena has a new phone with the old phone number. The deejay has still not been around mages enough since the Hydra incident to get Ginger installed on the new one, but she still has her contacts, thanks to the Cloud. (And they say technology is evil.)

It takes her a short while to respond. Around twenty minutes pass by before the response comes, emblazoning its notification across Sera's screen:

I'm free 4 that. Name the time & place & I'll B there.

Serafíne

8:45

2376 15th St

----

My Brother's Bar is busy for a Wednesday night in January, but the dinner rush is dying down by the time Lena arrives. There's no sign on the door naming the place, but everyone close by knows what it is: the oldest continuously operating bar in Denver. The place where the beat poets hung out. A great place to crowd in for a Pabst Blue Ribbon of a Friday night and gorge on good old fashioned bar-food. Giant burgers slathered with mayo and local cheddar, surrounded by piles of onion rings, golden as a crown. And if you ever have a craving for Samoas or Thin Mints, well, they sell Girl Scout Cookies year round.

There's always classical music playing in the background. Tonight, as Lena walks in, the swelling strains of Ralph Vaughn Williams' Variations on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.

The pleasant hum of people drinking and chatting and eating and drinking more creates a bright and rather golden sort of halo about the place, though there are a fair number of empty tables, and even as Lena walks in, another couple or two are peeling themselves away from the bar. Wednesday isn't exactly prime party time, and most people have to work to pay for their burgers and beer.

Not Sera, who has been awake for what - three hours, perhaps four, five at the outside now - and who is seated in a rather isolated booth at the back of the rather small establishment. For all her need to take up as much space as possible, Serafíne is actually rather small, curled up in a booth, without heels to augment her height, she would be easy to miss if she were not so hard to overlook. The hair and the vibe and the Vibe and the look, and the consor Dan - who is tall, long legs sprawled into the aisle, forearms covered in tattooes visible beneath the rolled up sleeves of his button-down flannel shirt.

They are sitting together, talking. Drinks in front of them, and Dan has an arm slung loosely over Sera's shoulders, but if and when Sera senses Lena's presence in their immediate vicinity, she nudges Dan, who raises an arm to signal her over. He's already getting to his feet, rising to his full height, reaching for his drink as Lena arrives. "Can I get you a drink?" Dan's asking her, even as he's clearly moving to give the pair of them privacy.

Sera's dark eyes are on Lena the whole time, watchful, perhaps even thoughtful, but not edged.

She looks well, Sera. Healthy. Skinny yeah - but she has always been skinny. Harrow and bone and whip and cording - but remarkably well. The long coils of dyed-blond hair that spill over her shoulders, the dark shadow of her side cut, the dark smear of eyemakup emphasizing her rather intense, arresting gaze, all of it. She gives Lena a quirked, somewhat lopsided grin by way of greeting but is otherwise quiet while Dan takes Lena's order - for drink and food, if she wants any - before wandering off to the bar to enter them both.

Lena Reilly

She has the time and place, and she shows up right on schedule. Lena is as fre a spirit as anyone else in their tradition, but she's always been mindful of the fact that freedom means being personally responsible and that includes not keeping people waiting. She's there a couple of minutes beforehead, pulling up on her green Kawasaki Ninja outside of the place and parking it. The helmet is locked into place on the bike and runs a hand through her hair to tame it as she walks to the door.

Sera and Lena haven't seen each other since that brief conversation at Luke's office. Sera had her struggles to deal with, and Lena hers. Perhaps they've both found some equilibrium in that time, because there has been recovery all around. Lena has managed to regain a little of the weight she lost during that harrowing experience and the days and weeks after, though it may not be as easy to tell underneath her jacket. The jacket isn't a leather biking jacket, but rather a windbreaker. The kind of thing that doesn't weigh you down, but still offers some protection from the elements. She's wearing a burgundy turtleneck underneath and a pair of jeans, the soles of her boots tapping on the floor as she walks inside the place and looks around.

It's a nice atmosphere, this bar, and it's warm without being overly cutesy. Lena has been here once or twice, mostly when she's come along with people from one of the clubs she deejays. So while she isn't a regular or anything like that, she doesn't have the stop-and-ogle habit that first-timers might get in such a place. Instead her attention is directed around the place, scanning for Sera. When she zeroes in on the mage and her consor, Lena gives a faint smile and raises her hand toward them, approaching.

Lena has recovered somewhat, but she's certainly not the same. She's always been somewhat reserved, particularly for their tradition. She was just starting to open up before Hydra, and now she has regressed, perhaps notably. She's fighting her way back and she isn't skittish now, but there's a ceiling to the level of warmth as she comes up.

"Hey, guys." Dan asks what she wants, and she looks his way. "Oh, uh...Monsters Ball. Thanks." The smile she gives him is sincere in its gratitude, and she moves to sit down with her attention turned to Sera.

"Hey. It's good to see you."

Serafíne

"Got it - " Dan replies to Lena's order. He's holding his tall pilsner glass by the lip at just that moment, but shifts his grip to the shaft as he glances at Sera, assesses the level of her drink - something honeycolored and aromatic in an oversized snifter glass, which catches the light and and shines through, all dark amber - and decides to get her another without needed to ask. Briefly, Sera's gaze flickers from Lena to Dan, just when she feels the weight of his regard on her glass. The quick curve of her mouth is full of quiet, unspoken irony and the faintest sort of rally challenge felt in the upward lilt of her usually flat brows, which all settles back into something simpler, kinder, when her gaze returns to Lena's countenance.

Lena says that it is good to see them. Sera lifts that snifter in something like a toast, her fingertips delicate on the bellied out body of the glass, her arm slung all casually on the edge of the scarred wooden table.

"You too." Tips the glass in Lena's direction, then sets it down again without taking a drink. "Haven't really seen you around lately. Or heard tell of you at the country place. Thought I'd check in."

Enough smearing light in Sera's gaze to suggest that this is not her first drink of the evening, but too much loose, elegant, physical control over her movement to suggest that this is the seventeenth. So she's somewhere between sober and golden, which is a very fine place to be.

Lena Reilly

In truth, Lena isn't much of a drinker. She isn't a teetotaler by any stretch of the imagination and she is no stranger to the use of recreational substances--both for recreation and otherwise--but she's always been about moderation. That moderation has slipped slightly in the last couple of months though. Just enough so that she wouldn't be accused of being a lightweight. And whether it had slipped or not, she's not the kind of person who looks askance at someone else's habits. Let each Seer account his own deeds, as they say...and while that particular part of the Code is more about shunning those who are dangerous, any rule also proves its inverse true. Sera makes her own choices, and Lena trusts her to be able to do so.

She looks after Dan a moment, then looks back when the other Ecstatic tilts her glass in pseudo-salute. Sera says she hasn't seen nor heard of Lena, and that makes the deejay dip her head briefly in a nod. "Yeah." She gives a light shrug, leaning back in her seat. She isn't quite meeting Sera's gaze, but she's not actively avoiding it either. "I needed some time, you know? Need some time still, maybe." A brief intake and exhale of breath in a not-quite-but-almost sigh. It's not quite melancholy, more...uncertain. Fidgety, perhaps.

"So you've been back there? Or..." She pauses then, switches her avenue of conversation. "How are you doing?"

Serafíne

For the first time, Sera's eyes drop from Lena to the drink she has in hand. She watches the light spike through the alcohol. The strange architecture of refraction evident therein. The sheen of superficial volatile oils on the surface, the subtle imprints the pads of her fingers have left on the glass. There are so many things one might expect her to say in response to that; there are rhythms to these interactions - survivors coming together after a spectacular crash, some shared horror. Lifeaffirming mouthfuls which, whatever the hell they mean, have ritual, have substance, have the imprint of exchange on them.

"What are you doing with all that time you're taking," says Sera, who took, has taken, is taking more than enough of her own time, after all, " - that you need fucking more of it?"

It is a question, nothing more. Softened by the quiet shape of her rather crawling mouth, and the almost bruising intimacy of her singular attention.

Lena Reilly

The question is softened, but it still causes Lena's attention to snap sharply to the other Ecstatic. The instinct kicks in and there is a momentary hardness in her eyes, purely instinctual. Passion threatening to rise up to her defense. A half a moment of rationality lets her push it aside and not go on the assault. She didn't mean it as an aspersion, she says to herself. Not a reproach, or an attack. She's just worried. Maybe.

"Besides rebuilding my professional reputation after missing one of the bigger work weeks of the year and figuring out a new place to live?" She shrugs again, reaching up to swipe an errant slip of hair from tickling the side of her nose. "Trying to refind myself. Trying to go back through a process I went through several years ago and gain a sense of internal balance. I can handle the fact that this has raised a ton of old trust issues for me, Sera. Deep ones, but I'll get through them."

A frown follows. "What I can't handle is pity. I've seen that look a lot before, and I hate it. And there are...some of us out there, who every time I've see them since, give me this look that just makes me want to rip it off their face. So rather than do that, its healthier for me to try and work through it away from people who might give me said looks."

Serafíne

Sera's leaning forward, then. This snaking movement of her spine, her elbow on the table, chin resting in the curve of her palm. Her shoulders - framed in the familiar uniform, really, of a dark leather jacket slung over some skimpy top that would show off more skin that it conceals, if she just took off the jacket - a bit elevated but otherwise her body language is liquid and casual and settled - present, entirely, in her skin. She lives no where else.

She listens with this breathing equanimity that nevertheless seems painfully open. Naked, exposed. Dark eyes skew away from Lena only briefly, to track Dan's return across the bar. He sets down Lena's drink - the Monster's Ball - in front of her, careful not to spill a drop, then gifts Sera with another Redstone, leaning in briefly to kiss her on the crown of her head. "I ordered your burger, too," he murmurs into her hair, already pulling back from her and heading back toward the bar, where his half-consumed pilsner was left behind. The crowd noise seems to accompany him, advances with his approach, recedes as he beats his retreat.

--

Sera's gaze slides back to Lena then. She makes a quiet noise in the back of her throat, like a considering, thoughtful click. Breathes in through her nostrils, as if she were tasting the history of the place in the air. Breathes out again, too, long and deep and quiet.

"Who's giving you those looks?"

Lena Reilly

The moment of intensity that rose up in Lena when she answered Serafine...it's broken when Dan comes up. The metaphorical spell wafts away and she looks back to the consor to give him a small, appreciative smile. "Thanks," she offers, leaning back then to watch the brief exchange between the two. There's a little tilt of her head, a quiet reflection in the closeness and understanding between Dan and Sera. It could be interpreted as envy, but it's not. It's remniscent and even a bit melancholy, but you could only detect the latter the way you might see the ocean through a dirty, smudged window at a beach house you rented during a rainy and windy September. In all, it's more just observant than anything else.

Sera asks who has been looking at Lena like that, and the other Ecstatic shakes her head. "It doesn't matter. I'm not trying to talk shit about anyone, and I'm not angry with them right now. I get it. I don't like it, but I understand. I've been dealing with people giving me those looks as long as I've been Awake...it's why I didn't say anything about my condition until I literally had no choice. It's just...a raw nerve right now. I think you can get that."

She pauses then, picks up her drink. Rum, Monster energy drink and Dr. Pepper all in one cocktail. She's a caffeine junkie through and through. "I notice you didn't answer how you're doing, by the way."

Serafíne

Sera breathes out, brief and hard. This soundless huff of laughter that is not precisely an expression of humor but something else, strange and nameless and oddly effervescent. Call it: rising.

And she lifts her chin from its cradle in the palm of her hand, carelessly, casually shaking her golden head in clear negation of something in the interior of Lena's response to her. Picks up her own drink, and sips, and then drinks, and then drinks the sliding summer sweetness of her Redstone, licks the sugar from her lips, and turns her head slightly to the side. A long glance down, half-shaded by her darkly made-up lashes, chin hovering over the collar of her leather coat as if she were asking the key of light reflected in the polished wood of the bench seat what her next line is.

"I wasn't asking to try to get you to talk shit about anybody," her eyes back on Lena's, steady and solid and sure and almost sober except that Sera is never Sera, not entirely, when she is sober. So this: a different sort of sobriety. "I was asking because I've never seen anyone look at you like that.

"So I was wondering: whom?

"And I wonder if that pity you're seeing is really lingering there, lurking beneath the surface, or just your own reflection looking back at you. So ready to see what you think you're going to see that it's just there.

"So," a little shrug, another sip of mead, as Sera winds herself back down. Presses her mouth quietly together. " - why don't you tell me, whom?"

For the moment, Lena's direct question to Sera goes unanswered.

Lena Reilly

Now it's Lena's time for an eyebrow to increase its slope, changing from a gentle rolling hill to a sharper, more jagged mountain. She takes a swallow off of her drink and sets it down, watching the other woman closely now. There are a lot of ways that she could answer the question--angry, defensive, deflecting, apologetic. She could lash out at Sera and deliver an emotional low blow or she could up and leave. And it's distinctly possible that all of these thoughts occur to her.

But instead, she goes a different route. She aims for frank. "Sera...I don't mean to sound like a bitch here, and I'm not saying to imply you've done anything wrong. But you've only seen people look at me at all a handful of time at best. Would you really know if someone was?"

She stops herself then, purses her lips and looks at the other woman. "I don't pity myself. I haven't in a long time. Am I depressed? Yes, deeply. I don't think that's a big shocker. Do I have a lot of issues with trust? More than I can quantify. Am I wallowing in what happened to us? Maybe a bit, at times. But I'm not projecting that onto how anyone else sees me. When I look at Grace, for example, and she can't look my way without looking like she's about to burst into tears on my behalf, that's not in my head. That's real."

She's talking herself into a higher pitch, increased volume. She doesn't work herself into a frenzy or a rage; she isn't even vaguely frantic. It's just an increase of intensity, a rise of emotion. She catches herself and lets it go.

"So yeah. There's one. And it's not her issue. I get why she does it. She went through a lot, and I went through a lot. We all did. I don't dislike her. So it would be best if I didn't snap at her or try to hit her with something in a sudden burst of Stop Looking At Me Like That."

She leans forward a little. "Now, your turn."

Serafíne

Lena aims for frank. Serafíne does not aim for anything. She does not know that there may be a target, with rings and a center through which one is meant to spear an arrow. She would not recognize it if it were painted precisely in front of her, the points value listed inside each ring.

This stillness settled like a mantle over her, and the surety of her attention lingers precisely and wholly on Lena as the other woman perhaps cycles through all the many possibles iterations of responses, and finds one in the center of her tongue. Sera's eyes, dark, reflect the lights of the bar. Vaughn Williams' seascapes glissande lush and glorious in the background while the warm murmur of strangers' conversations burnishes the air.

A flicker in Sera's eyes then, as Lena speaks, which is neither responsive anger nor reluctant guilt. Sera glances away then. There is no concession in this, just a strange, breathing distance that seems to be defined by the downward slant of her eyes, the angle of her golden head. The way she almost half-smiles, the expression creasing the lines around her eyes without ever reaching her mouth seems both ineffable, immanent and remarkably sad.

No longer watching Lena, Sera just listens now, the sharp definition of her profile softened by the curve of her cheek. Her tongue at the roof of her mouth, as if she were sampling the words she chooses before she shares them.

Except she isn't.

She's just tasting them. She's just figuring out how they feel.

--

Lena leans forward and declares it Sera's turn.

"I don't take turns." A little shrug, easy and thoughtless and sure. Maybe a little insouciant, but not needling. She's nearly smiling around the words, and glances up then, finds Lena's gaze - if Lena will give it - with an unerring directness.

"Grace doesn't pity you."

"Maybe she has tears in her eyes because she doesn't sleep through the night. Because she wakes up with screaming nightmares about what happened. Maybe the pollen was high. Maybe she has a right to be sad. But she doesn't pity you, and I don't think she ever has.

"I know Grace pretty well, and I know that.

"If you can't handle her - or anyone else, for that fucking matter - right now, I think that's cool. Sometimes you have to redraw your circles, write new boundaries into your skin. Sometimes it's time to give them up. But Grace doesn't pity you. And if you see that in her, you're wrong. You're judging her, and you're judging her wrongly. And if you see that in her, you see it because you expect to see it. You're writing your own expectation - your own fucking fears - into someone else's eyes.

"Which, you know. Is okay too. But might be, in the long run, a shitty thing to do to yourself."

Lena Reilly

"You don't know anything about any of this." That's the simple words, put out through clenched teeth. The restraint has faded away, the frankness turned into hardness. "Sera, you don't know me. You have not been in my presence when Grace has been around me, and you don't know what she's done or said. Or anyone else, because this isn't about Grace."

She stands up then, fishing into her jacket for some money for the drink with a faint, bitter smirk. "I actually thought for half a minute that you wanted to come out just to hang out and maybe be a friend. I hoped that you weren't going to sit me down and give me a lecture, quote-unquote, for my own good. But I suppose that was too much to hope for."

The money is dropped on the table and she looks at Sera. "One more time, so we're not misunderstanding...you don't know me. And don't ever try to tell me what I'm thinking. You don't know, because you've never cared enough to ask. Just about nobody in this fucking city has. And maybe that's a little my fault because I act guarded, but mostly its because nobody really gives a shit. So thanks for reminding me why its a bad idea to go back to the chantry. Saves me getting a whole bunch more lectures about what I'm doing wrong and what I should be doing differently."

And with that, she makes move to leave.

Serafíne

There is a quiet vulnerability that underlines Sera's expression. It is almost always there, a certain knot between her straight blonde brows, a certain openness to the curve of her mouth. Something about the way she refuses easy feints and the comfort of clichés. Though it may be difficult to see when one is not looking for her.

She is giving this narrow little shrug when Lena tells her that she doesn't know anything about any of this, the sort that looks like surrender and feels a little bit like but I know a secret, but the shadow of that expression is already starting to crumble into something wholly different, even before Lena stands up, fishing for money to pay for the drink already purchased, half-finished, smirking, bitter.

Mouth half-open, eyes widening with a raw, lancing startlement, she draws in a brief, sharp breath. The whole moment feels sheared open, torn and twisted and strange and terrible and surreal. Why does it make her think of broken guardrails on the side of a mountain road - and she's breathing in and the breath does not come, not fully, because there is a strange seizure behind her breast and something painful and sharp in the back of her throat.

The money falls from hand-to-table. The movement pulls Sera's eyes from Lena's down to the table, the moisture from their glasses on the warm, polished, well-scarred wood. The pale reflection of Lena's face a smear in the varnish, her windbreaker a swallowing shadow all around. Sera doesn't look back up. She just stares at the money as Lena goes on, and on, and on.

And then: turns to go.

--

Sera says nothing. It's all she can do to bear all that pain and bitterness and breathe. Her eyes are damp, reflective in the supple light of the half-full bar, all that wood and polished brass. All those bottles. The low circles of ambient light. Lena is not likely to notice the first, quiet shudder of Sera's shoulders, muted by the weight of her leather jacket.

And by the time Sera starts to cry, Lena has already turned to leave. Sera seams her mouth and turns her head sharply aslant, her shoulders stiff with resolve - which hardly matters. The tears fall, whether she will or no.

Lena Reilly

[[Per+Awarepathy: Do I notice this? Spec: Uncanny Instincts]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1

Serafíne

Jess wants me to witness this whatever this is!

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Lena Reilly

She meant to walk out. She needs to walk out. Let me be clear: there is a physical need for Lena to leave this place right now. Pins are pricking at the backs of her arms, the base of her skull. The woman who actively avoids physical contact and who keeps herself guarded from the very people she'd throw herself in front of a bus for has had too much striking at her in this moment, and there is (possibly imagined, possibly not) a dull pounding beginning in the back of her head and directly in front of her ears.

She's already turned to go. And yet, she forces herself to stop. Because she saw that expression on the other woman's face, she knows what it means. Well, she thinks she does. She's smart enough to know that she has hurt Serafine. And there's a moment where she closes her eyes, sets her jaw. God dammit, she thinks. But Sera's in pain, and so she can endure the discomfort for a little longer.

"I'm sorry." She's saying it as she turns around, already walking to the edge of the table perpendicular to Sera. She doesn't move in close, put her hand on Sera's arm or anything like that. Lena has an awkwardness around her that comes with wanting to grab someone until all the pain goes away, and being afraid to touch them. The push-pull-push of her own issues. So instead of coming in close, she drops into a crouch next to the table. "I'm sorry, hon. That wasn't fair of me. That wasn't about you, I promise. You shouldn't have gotten that thrown at you."

The words ring sincere, even if they might not have come before she had departed otherwise.

Serafíne

Sera's in pain. Sera opens herself up to pain few people open themselves up to anything. She just allows it to happen to her, without thought or consequence. So she's crying; and openly by the time Lena grits her teeth and returns to the table, her throat tight and her shoulders braces against the hiccoughing contractions of her diaphragm. The tears stain her cheeks, but they do not really smudge her dark make-up. Her nose is red, though, and starting to run. Sera sniffs, sharply to clear her sinuses and holds herself so that she is looking distinctively away from the crowd and Lena's exit route and/or her return path. So that she's looking at the wall, the wood paneling, the shin of incandescent lighting in the varnish.

Crouched perpindicular to the bench seat, Lena can see the way Sera has curled her legs up beneath her body, the heels she kicked off at some point in the evening tumbled between the legs of the table.

Sera reaches up to scrub some of her tears off her cheeks with the heel of her hands, and shrugs her rather narrow shoulders in a curling, dismissive gesture.

"I know," a flickering glance toward Lena and another distinctive sniff. "It's cool. though I'm fine." This sad, scintillating, sympathetic little smile. "It's cool. You should go."

Lena Reilly

She sighs, rubs at her temple. And she looks back to Sera with a little nod, still apologetic. "We should try this again sometime, okay? Maybe fix that not knowing each other thing."

She reaches out, but doesn't quite make the distance to touch the woman. "Tell Dan thanks. I'll see you later."

And then she's turning to leave. Walking out a little quicker than she might intend.