[how am I today?]
ElijahDice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
AliciaA week after the lost night in the club Alicia was sat cross-legged on her bed at the motel a slight stumbling walk from downtown. She flipped open her handbag and held it upside down so the contents spilled onto the duvet. What she was really looking for was her room key. She found her way inside but now that she was on her way out she couldn't find the thing.
In the mess that fell out of the bag she found a travel package of wet wipes and a fold-up toothbrush and her sunglasses. A ticket stub and hair ties and pens and more than one Bic lighter. Bottles of pills and rolling papers. Her switchblade toppled out. So did her phone. So did the small bag of grass she bought the night before.
Where the fuck is -
Oh. Right. Inside pocket. There with the ID that wore another woman's name and the debit card that wore her real name which was not the name she had given to anyone in this city and the folded up napkin that had a young man's number on it.
She picked up her phone and dialed the number.
---
Elijah. It's Alicia. I wanna go to the park. Come with me.
---
They have hot dogs. They have all day ahead of them. They have low humming power between them and they feel like they don't have their shit together. Maybe they don't have their shit together. It's not a strong enough mayhem to draw the eye but together they do. He's a foot taller than she is.
She's wearing sandals and short shorts and a halter top that ties in the back. It's pink and brown and white the colors all melding together but not melted. Her hair is loose to catch the sporadic rays of sun and she holds onto his elbow as they walk.
It's been nearly four weeks since the men in suits took her father and she still doesn't know where they took him or what they've done to him but she didn't tell Elijah about that did she.
She's holding onto their food with her free hand. Her job is to protect the food while he finds them a spot away from everybody else. Their drinks are in her handbag. They aren't drinking soda. Soda is expensive. They picked up forties from the corner store. It's too nice outside to stay sober.
"So when's school start?" she asks because didn't he say he was a French major and he was here in town new with Jenn and maybe she's assuming but she asks anyway.
ElijahHe was standing in the ample empty space. It was a nice enough place to live, if you counted the fact that it had walls and a floor to be the determining factors for whether or not a place is actually nice. We digress, but it was hard not to be glad to not be living in a Marriott, and it was all thanks to Jenn. Jenn and her tattoo-ing prowess, the practice of which still half ached on his side and was nice enough to show off but not anything other than ouch for ELijah. He couldn't complain, though, he got a free tattoo out of the deal, and it was testament to trusting Jenn.
If she sucked, this could have ended poorly.
Besides, the guy coughed up seven hundred bucks for the tattoo Jenn had practiced once before. It covered their deposit to get into the apartment. Besides besides, he'd thought about getting one anyway, though he wasn't sure about the subject matter. He never imagined himself a Celtic (Pictish, Jenn had corrected) kind of guy. The only thing coursing its way through Elijah Poirot's veins at that moment was Tylenol.
He got a phone call.
Elijah. It's Alicia. I wanna go to the park. Come with me."Cool, I'm down," he replied.
and he was.---They have hot dogs.
Hot dogs are fucking fantastic.
He wasn't ashamed of loving these damned things, so he was quick to find somewhere that was near a tree, away from people, and away from any large body of water- which was just fine with Elijah because he was not particularly partial to anything deeper than a very insistent puddle. There is a restless between the two of them, a tension and a disaster that was just waiting to happen. Together, they feel like trouble.
It's nice to be around someone who feels like you do. Wide eyed, mildly overwhelmed. It's nice to be around someone who feels like you do- like a hot mess. Like unrest. And they walk arm in arm and he's got that damned grin on his face like this is precisely what he wants to be doing today.
They've got the whole day ahead of them. The brunette in her sandals and shorts and halter top. The blond in his jeans and tee shirt and vest. He's got a small army of bracelets on his left wrist. Twine, leather, two paper bands showing he's old enough to drink (ha) in two different establishments. And a little chain in his vest pocket for a pocket watch.
"September eighth, I think. I figure I'll have to print a bunch of shit so I'll know pretty soon when classes start. Are you going out here, too?"
AliciaThe perfect spot in a park is one near the trees. Sunbathers and hippies tend to stay out in the sun and there is a cluster of the latter down in the center of this quadrant. Banging bongos and fixing each others' dreadlocks and being even more of a hot mess than the two young people strolling away from it all. This far away they can barely feel the notes as they bounce inconsistent but constant off the bongo's head.
Shade is nice. The sun on the outside is nice. The grass is cool beneath them when they sit and Alicia unwinds her hand from his elbow so that she can sit on a gnarled band of root come up out of the packed-down dirt. Her own wrists are bare. The highlighter from last weekend has long since washed off.
She wears a neon green plastic watch on her left wrist but it doesn't tell time anymore. It needs a new battery. On her right thumb is a thin silver band. Other than the sunglasses she wears no other jewelry.
Alicia got a chorizo sausage instead of a hot dog because holy shit they sell chorizo at that cart. There are more toppings on her dog than there is meat. They gave it to her in a cardboard tray and covered it in foil and she has a fork to eat everything that will inevitably fall off of it. She hands Elijah his dog once they're both sitting down.
"What," she asks, "to school?"
The fact that she has to ask at all is answer enough. He's free to clarify if he wants. She's going to pose a non sequitur anyway. Once their food is distributed she opens up her handbag and takes the first paper-bagged forty out. Unscrews the cap and takes the first swig before passing it to him.
"What was it like, when you... had your enlightenment, or whatever you wanna call it?"
Elijah[play it cool! Manip+sub]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 4, 6, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 1 )
Alicia[perc + NOTHING: you're probably cool bro]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 3) ( fail )
ElijahHe responded well to non-sequirits, having his answer enough given that she didn't know when classes started. he just figured that she had decided to work or something, which was inconsequential because now she was asking about what t was like when he had his… enlightenment.
Enlightenment. That was a really… really good word for it. Or he supposed it could be.
"It fucking sucked," he said with a laugh, "this… uh… this all started off almost two and a half years ago. I went up north with Jenn to go visit her family- Mom and Dad didn't mind, because we had a long Christmas break and they just kind of wanted me out of their hair so we went up north?
"Jenn's been my best friend for years, so bear that in mind. Most of my stupid shit stories involve Jenn and this… this was me being stupid."
He downplays it, the fact that awakening was terrifying and the event itself was scarring and he doesn't know how to articulate how terrifying it had been. He thinks he's holding it together, and for his part he does a mediocre job of faking things that make it sound like he's fine. He keeps his tone even, too even, until he remembers that if he doesn't vary his done the lack of inflection will give away how off settled he was. He took a bite of hotdog- because talking and eating about dying could make it seem okay.
Chili, cheese, jalepeños.
Fucking fantastic.
He covers his mouth and keeps form flashing her the disgusting concoction, "anyway, we were going to a party, took a short cut to cross a river- we're from the south, you gotta understand, I have no idea what good walk-on-this-shit ice looks like. So, my dumb sixteen year old ass hears the ice crack, I shove Jenn- which makes me feel like an utter asshole because I apparently keep the company of tiny brunettes who are aerodynamic- and the next thing I know I'm somewhere else entirely. I have this weird, out-of-body experience shit going on, and the next thing I know I'm coughing up water and Jenn's freaking out and there's firemen. After that, I start hearing this Voice that tells me a bunch of angry shit."
AliciaSome people ask about How All This Started because they're waiting for the moment to share their own moment of realization. They want to turn it into a moment where they can help guide the young wizard out of his confusion and into understanding.
Alicia is beginning to get the impression that if she had asked any of the older folks in this city what it was like for them she would have gotten a sterilized version. No mention of blood or fear or not knowing what was going on.
Drowning and astral projection and hearing things. That sounds like tumult if ever she has heard such a story.
Though she eats her chorizo and drinks the beer while Elijah tells his story she is not a stone-faced observer. She smiles when he clarifies that Jenn has been present for a bunch of stupid shit and laughs when he says he doesn't know what decent ice looks like. This may not have been what he had in mind when he said he needed to find more reasons for her to smile but even in the midst of packing away a hot dog Alicia has a nice smile.
It doesn't vanish when he gets to what must be his guardian but she's intent now.
She also thinks he's doing a damned fine job of holding his shit together. If anything he sounds like he's just telling a story of shit getting out of hand at a party. This girl cannot read other people for shit.
"Do you still?" she asks. It's been two years. "Hear the voice, I mean."
Elijah"Oh god yes. It spent the last two years screaming at me. Literally, I felt like the walls were shaking and at first it was fine but jesus I don't know if yours is angry, but mine is piiiissed ooooooff most of the time. But.. I mean… I'm starting to get that it's not… it's not pissed for the sake of being pissed," he laughed again, rubbing the back of his head.
"I really, really thought I was crazy because I was hearing that, I heard dead people- my life has basically been what happens to that kid in the Sixth Sense when he figures shit out, except I haven't gained weight and lost my career yet."
Have to have one to lose one.
AliciaThat kid in The Sixth Sense. He can see her frown behind her sunglasses and whatever her mouth is doing disappears behind the next sip of beer.
Oh right. Pop culture reference. Make a noncommittal yet amused noise and move on with the day, kid.
She sets the cardboard tray down on her knee so the ants won't get it and recaps the big glass bottle before she sets it down between them. Brown paper rustling as it settles in the dirt.
"You heard dead people before--" Okay. "Wow. I'm... sorry. That sounds cool and shitty at the same time."
ElijahYou heard dead people before--Wow. I'm... sorry. That sounds cool and shitty at the same time."It's like having a really needy girlfriend who throws plates and makes the walls bleed sometimes."
A beat, and he went to take a drink of beer, "what about you? How did you wake up to all of this?"
AliciaAt least he can joke about it. He can't see the appreciation in her eyes through the plastic of her lenses but maybe he can feel it. The way he has her full attention.
Of course he turns it back on her. She gives a quick shake of her head though like to tell him not yet. She isn't done with him.
"I'm still not..." She lets that sentence die. Starts another one: "What happened after the firemen got you? Did you just keep going on like you did before, or did weird men start leaving you 'it's easier if you're not alone' notes in libraries?"
ElijahHe is a perceptive creature, he has to be in order to have avoided all the things he's avoided over the last two and a half years, if only because he has managed to dodge other mages ad successfully unbelieved in his own truth so vehemently that he seemed to skirt under the radar. That said, Elijah Poirot could feel when people were feeling because empathy is an amazing thing.
Gets you laid like a mofo, too.
The point was, though, that he did feel her appreciation, and it did make it a little easier to smile. "Yeah, I…" because he needed to play it cool because this was awkward, "I stayed out of trouble by getting into it. Some guy up north asked me to call him- firefighter, big guy, but I got shipped back home pretty damn quick and I lost his number. I ran away from home a couple times, I… uh… basically, if there was anything I could do to make it go away, I tried it.
"I told my folks and they thought I was crazy, so… uh… I did that for awhile," that was uncomfortable to say, and he tried to pass on, "but yeah. I partied pretty hard, drank, smoked, fucked- whatever I could think of to do to make it quiet down. Jenn said some people aced about me once but she played it cool because they were creepy.
"Someone told me once how lucky I was nothing happened. Nobody talked to me until I got here."
If you call that being lucky- being so alone for so many, many years.
Alicia"It's like, if you meet one person here, there's three more lurking around somewhere."
She must be referring to their people's propensity for congregating in the same place without prior planning. It's happened to her more than once already. Has to have happened to him already.
"At least you've got Jenn. And she's still with you even with all that weird shit. I think you are kind of lucky."
Elijah"I don't know what the fuck I did," he said with a laugh, though it was under his breath, and not so much mirth as surprise. He had no idea what he had done to earn this woman's loyalty, what he had done to get his friend to move across the country with him, to stand by him when he thought he was losing his mind, to believe him (or at least pretend to) when he said he heard dead people. She showed up with hi, and for a man who said so many things and could observe so many things he was completely oblivious to things directly in front of him.
"And no kidding, it's like they've got magnets attached to them or something, or they've got some weird uncanny way of knowing when someone is where. I guess when you run in a small community you end up going to the same places all the damn time, even if it doesn't make sense."
AliciaIt's a reasonable assumption that quiet people are quiet because they're holding tight to their secrets. Some people stay quiet because they're shy or they haven't got anything to say or they have plenty to say but it's not nice so they're just not saying anything. This quiet that Alicia holds to is a sad sort of quiet but she's not sad right now. Not exactly. She's enjoying the day and the food and the company. She's enjoying listening to Elijah talk about himself.
Sadness and worry are neighbors. They run in the same small community. Go places together often.
Alicia takes a big bite of her chorizo and the toppings end up falling into her tin foil plate.
When she's done chewing:
"I guess so." Swig of beer. "And I thought I was fucked up. They've all got problems. It's kind of like... encouraging. You know? Not being the most fucked-up person at the table."
ElijahShe seems to like the listening, and he likes talking. He doesn't mind being the one who talks, just like he doesn't mind being the one who listens but at that juncture? Elijah felt like talking. She wanted to know, and he had experiences to share, and that was part of the joy of an experience, wasn't it? Finding someone who can share whatever happened. He'd been so quiet for so long, no one believed him for so long that it felt right finally saying something.
Plus, when he talked, he got to watch her reactions. He got to see her lips turn up. He got to see her brows knit together, he got to observe his newfound friend.
The toppings fell off onto the plate and Elijah raised a suggestive eyebrow, because really that bite was impressive. Besides, it gave him an opportunity to steal some of her toppings."I think that is just something that comes with the territory. Like… from what I gathered? A lot of people come into their understanding by some really fucked up stuff happening, and you would think they would deal with it but since things are weird I guess they just pile more crap on top of old crap and-" he snorts "-my therapist would have a field day."
A beat.
"And rest assured, neither of us are the most fucked up person in town, which is a pretty big honor. And for what it's worth you seem completely and utterly normal and rational."
AliciaAs much as she loves onions and peppers Alicia did not put any on her chorizo. Maybe she's planning ahead. Sighting time before it swings around to greet them again. It isn't much fun kissing someone who's had onions for lunch. She's looking out for Elijah in a way. Still piled on green chile salsa and tomatoes and cilantro and bacon bits and this sriracha lime mayo that was on the menu. She's young. What does she give a shit if this stuff is hell on her stomach.
She smiles when he starts stealing her toppings. Angles the thing so it's easier for him to grab. Offers him the fork too.
"Maybe you are crazy," she says. "There's no such thing as normal."
ElijahHe had not thought that far ahead, but he had been distracted enough by talking that the prospect of kissing a man who just ate a crap ton of jalepeños was not nearly as imminent as one would have thought. Clearly, one of them needed to plan ahead and that person was not Elijah Poirot.
He took the fork and with careful precision got on along to taking bites of food that wasn't actually his. Something about eating things from someone else's plate made food infinitely better. His attention was on mixing things together, scraping back a place on his own hot dog to pilfer-
sriracha lime mayo?
Don't mind if I do, thank you!
"Well, you sure don't seem typical, and it would be creepy if I called you extraordinary. So I think I'll stick with pretty freaking awesome."
AliciaOf course he has to be cute and charming and self-aware. The fact that he makes her laugh also makes her wary. Like surely he's secretly working for Them and he's just trying to get her to drop her guard so she'll trust him and then they'll nab her the way they nabbed her father.
Problem is she can't go her whole life not trusting anyone. And if they were going to nab her they would have done it already.
So maybe he's not trying to trick her. He's already told her about his psychic ability and his therapist and how he was a wild child after his Awakening.
She likes to think that affecting an air of worldly cynicism makes her seem older than she actually is. It gets tiring after a while. She is neither worldly nor a cynic. She doesn't like to do what people expect her to do and labels are as good as chains to someone like her. But Elijah is harmless.
Her laugh is throaty and uncertain. Like she doesn't quite agree with him.
"Yeah, well," she says as she decides to let Elijah finish this forty while she cracks open the second. It's about half dead. "We're all pretty extraordinary. You're, like, extra-extraordinary, Mister I Hear Dead People Even Without Being Able To See Through Walls and Shit."
ElijahHe's been afraid for a long time, and being with others helps him be less afraid of himself, because Elijah Poirot was constantly afraid of something. his very soul was furious with him, angered that he had dared to ignore its pleadings and angered that he'd been so timid with himself.
It's not like you only live once.
He was harmless- it was charming and comforting in its own way. The only thing Elijah could really do any sort of damage to was the forty in his hand that he finished off with the sort of poise and confidence of an experienced drinker. He had lived a pretty wild life before he got to Denver. If Elijah had his way, he would continue to live dangerously.
"Do extras cancel out in English? Like a double negative," he said with a grin. That expression was his constant companion, incapable of being anything other than playful. He wasn't a cynic. He wasn't a predator.
"I should have brought a flask, we could have played I've never."
AliciaDo extras cancel out in English?
"I think they stack."
As for the flask:
"Playing I've Never with liquor is begging for alcohol poisoning."
Alicia holds up the unchristened bottle of beer with a small flourish. A lifting of eyebrows and a theatrical open-mouthed grin. Like Heyyy look what I got!
"We can use this." Theatrics over: "You go first."
Serafíne(Who's out there?)
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 6 )
ElijahHe looked ready to applaud the abundance of booze that was zoning, a second forty was certainly just as good as the first one and he had to be one hundred percent certain that this was going to be delicious so he had to be sure.
"I'm starting… okay… I've never… been ice skating," true story, too, the young man fell through and possibly died (probably died), but ice skating? Not something he seemed too keen on.
AliciaIt takes her a few seconds to think of the rules. If you've never done it you get to not drink. That's simple.
But then she has to stop and think if she has ever gone ice skating. Of course she has. D.C. in the wintertime. Ice skating rinks all over the place and the cold cold weather come off the Potomac and the Atlantic Ocean both and sometimes her mother would drive her up to Manhattan just to get away from one city to see another and she had to have been very young then if she remembers her mother holding her hand while she wobbled on her skates.
Alicia takes a bracing swallow of beer and stifles a belch.
"I've never been on an airplane."
Elijah"This was a bad idea," Elijah informed the young woman with a grin on his face. His constant companion, he reveled, oh how he reveled in those moments that were bad ideas. He puts out his hand like a toddler and opens and closes it like he wants the beverage.
If he put his hands above his head and opened and closed them in the same fashion, it would mean that the six foot tall young man wanted someone to pick him up. He hadn't been picked up in years, not that he really minded, but sometimes, there were memories of being young and small and held. Sometimes, there were memories of feeling protected and cherished in such a fashion as those who were young.
Down the hatch with it. One to one, it would seem.
"Iiiii… haaaave… never eaten Korean food."
SerafíneEight degrees out and the sort of near-baking sun at midafternoon that says: summersummersummer and the skin of the park and the brilliance of the sky and the strangers, the strangers, the strangers out and about, picnicking or boating or playing ultimate or maybe adult kickball or sunbathing or running, stripped down to next to nothing, t-shirts knotted around the waist and nothing on top or maybe a sports bra and an armband for the iPhone and dogs on leashes and dogs in bandanas and kids on leashes and kids in bandanas and homeless guys sharing oversized bottles of cheap mouthwash and kids playing I've never with a goddamned forty ounce of beer because neither of them were carrying a flask.
Amateurs.
---
Here are two strangers strolling down the jogging path except they aren't strangers and they sure as hell don't look like they belong on a jogging path. One of them is wearing pastel madras shorts, belted, beneath a vintage Pixies t-shirt and colorful leather flipflops. The other is wearing a teeeny tiny leopard print bikini top (the fabric basically a suggestion that does not so much cover her breasts as give them something with which to play an engaging game of peek-a-boo) and a short sarong wrapped around her waist. She has paired this with wrist full of leather and spiked leather bracelets and large, clunky combat boots and a strange strap slung 'round her neck joined by a silver carabiner and she looks and feels divine.
Is divine, probably.
The guy in the madras shorts has an arm slung around her shoulders. Isn't he always holding her up?
What would she do without him?
--
Ooooh, look, she tells him, without saying a word. People.
Let's go thatway.
Alicia"How have you never eaten Korean food?"
That's not how the game works. She glowers at him through her sunglasses but she can't even be really mad at him. That's just sad. As she accepts her fate Alicia cuts him a sly forgiving grin and pantomimes snatching the bottle from him.
Swig.
"I've never actually returned a book to the library."
Elijah[Do I feel someone?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
Alicia[i hate both of you]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (9, 10) ( success x 2 )
ElijahThere is a sort of innocence in their debauchery, and it was something that Elijah could enjoy because he wasn't going to black out or wake up with a second tattoo (because the first one had not exactly been the easiest thing to go about doing and it wasn't exactly planned) and he wasn't going to wake up missing a kidney. Both have been valid concerns in the past.
How could he have never had Korean food?
Elijah snickered, "what? Is it that astounding that I've never eaten Korean food?" he is handing the bottle back and no sooner is she finishing a swig off that he's reaching for the bottle back and the young man's attentions are off in the distance and-
"Auugh, come on, I even worked at a library, you have to bring the books back! It's a library-" swig, chug, swallow don'tburpdon'tburp "-not a book store. And I've never done time in jail or juvenile hall."
AliciaWhen she laughs it comes out sounding like Heh heh heh! Pleased and a bit wicked. Like he walked right into that one.
And when he lays does his next card Alicia smothers a victorious little smirk and cants her eyebrows at him.
"Neither have I," she says. A beat. "I've never kissed a girl, either."
SerafíneEighty degrees not eight degrees and the path shifts and paths always shift. How many times in your life do you ever end up where you mean to be. Where you were meant to be. Their shadows are lengthening and they leave the path and now there's grass beneath her feet and his, and they are talking about something that feels private even though it is not, just because of how close they remain each to each.
He is more than a half-foot taller than her, so she can lean her golden head against his chest when she gets tired.
--
So. They're here. Hello boy and girl. Hello audience.
"You've never kissed a girl?"
Elijah"Ahhhh, you should tryyyy iiiiit, if it appeals to you in the slightest because I can tell you, from personal experience, that it is very, very fun. Girls have a tendency to be softer and smell nicer than guys," which is also true, but he knows he won't have to answer the I've never kissed a man question with a drink because Alicia wasn't going to ask a question that she very clearly had done.
It would break the rules. And they've kissed so, clearly, she's kissed a dude.
His gaze goes distant for a second, and he sits up like he is a meercat, a little straighter, a little sudden, and his attention goes from distant to sharp and his mind goes intent and he feels something. There is a strangeness in that because he turns in Sera's direction before she even come into earshot. He feels everything. He feels everything that came through everything that was going to come through, and for a second his gaze was sharp and then switched to something wide eyed and almost overwhelmed and then?
Then, he smiled awestruck at a feeling.
"Hey Sera," he said, raising a hand, but it was an effort. "Alicia, this is Sera, knows some of the best parties."
A beat.
"And I've never had anything professionally waxed."
AliciaYou've never kissed a girl?
Alicia's hair is spilling down her back between her shoulders and some of it slides over her arm as she turns her head to sight the owner of the voice. Mild lingering gratitude stains what of her face the consor and the Cultist can see. She remembers them. They gave her a ride when she fell asleep on the train. Elijah doesn't know that. He introduces them anyway.
"We're playing I've Never," she says to the newcomers. "Elijah is losing. Or... winning, I guess, since he's..." She looks back at him and laughs a light ringing laugh that shows teeth. A laugh she didn't look capable of laughing a week ago when she was sitting outside an organic store in the suburbs smoking and trying not to cry. "Are you drunk? I hope you're not. I can't carry you." She looks back at them. "Hi, Dan. Thanks again for the ride."
SerafíneThere's Elijah, feeling everywhere, everywhen, everything. The music of the spheres and the faint, receding curl of a something three-days old, each little divot in reality, all the many ways they bend the world out of its well-rutted tracks, all the ways they curve space-time around them. Sera strangest of all, most deviant of all, all tear-your-guts-out and mesmeric and caught-on-the-cusp of something about to happen, shift or change. The brief and shadow of a kind of wildness beneath her dark blue eyes that seems both older and harder than her twenty-something frame.
And Sera is sort of straightening and flashing Elijah this threading, supple half-smile and Dan is uncoiling his arm from around Sera's shoulders to help her stand upright and she's making her shoulders recurve backward because she does not wanna stand upright, damnit, that is not fair, and Sera says,
"You can't really get drunk on a forty," with a quiet little grin. " - not one you're sharing," a mildly arch look to Elijah. "Can you?"
--
"No problem," Dan to Alicia, a grin bisecting his beard. Then, the tattooed guy extends a hand to Elijah, who may or may not remember him if he ended up back at Sera's the other night, but anyway - "Dan." The briefest smirk at Sera as Alicia reports that they are playing I've never. "We'll just spectate, I think. I'm not sure it's possible to beat Sera at that game. I'm not sure there's anything in the world she's never done."
ElijahCould he get drunk off a forty he was sharing?
"You know I'm a light weight-" comparatively speaking "-we're probably going to end up vaguely buzzed. I'm trying to avoid getting arrested for public intoxication. We're one forty in on this."
He vaguely remembered Dan. he vaguely remembered Dan's beard, which was a weird thing to remember but he did remember being absolutely fascinated by the texture and laughing entirely too hard at soothing the man said. He didn't know why, but he concluded that he liked Dan. He didn't remember what his name was, or where he was ever going to see the man again, but he knew that he liked Dan, even if he didn't feel things the way Elijah and Sera felt them.
Whatever the case, though, Dan? That guy was fuckin' cool.
"Elijah," he offers again, because he finally placed the guy's name, and he's still wide eyed and buzzing on something entirely different and one can't be entirely certain if it's some kind of substance but the feeling? The notice, the heart pounding, jaw dropping feeling of everyone and anything that passed through was nothing short of wondrous. His awe-tinged gaze flickers to Alicia, to Sera, to the sky.
"C'mon, there's gotta be something you haven't done," he says.
Alicia"Nah, see, that's the beauty of it."
This to Dan who thinks they can just spectate.
"If I'm like, 'Yo, I've never been camping,' or something, but she was in Girl Scouts or something and is like 'Aw, fuck, I earned the hell out of that fire-starting badge, she'd have to drink. Everybody's got plenty of things they haven't done."
She wants to pet Elijah's lightweight head because his hair is soft and they're outside and it doesn't really mean anything anyway. So she pets Elijah's lightweight head.
"This is the last time I'm gonna be able to say 'I've never smoked weed in a park,' because I'm gonna roll a joint in a minute. So we're wasting prime drinking time, here."
SerafíneDan is not a light weight, only because he knows his own limits and follows them in ways the rest of them probably cannot quite imagine. Designated driver, designated hair-holder, designated nightmare soother, designated tea-maker, designated egg-scrambler, designated everything, and he doesn't fucking mind.
Older than the rest of them, too.
God, not long from now (in the relative scheme of things) and he'll be fucking thirty.
"You only have one forty," he grins, quick. "That'll disappear real fast if you play your game with Sera."
Sera, meanwhile, has risen to her tip-toes and pressed her mouth to Dan's bearded jaw. Nose against his cheekbone, mouth smiling. She inhales him pleasantly and pats him casually on the ass and there's something tinged about the interaction. Lingering, thoughtful that Elijah might sense and Alicia might overlook.
"I'll play," Sera says taking a cross-legged and thoroughly unladylike seat whereever. On whatever. "I've never graduated from high school."
The briefest pause, the smallest smirk. "Or even been in the first place."
Elijah"Basically, I've Never is the game where everyone wins because either you didn't have the most points when the game was over or you got really shithoused while you were playing and goddammit it's like you follow me on Twitter or something," he took the bottle back and took a drink.
And he's content to play and Sera said she would play. There's a big, bright grin on his face, content to keep going with his companions but soon enough there was the second question and Elijah looked up at the sky, "this is going to go away pretty quickly, I can already tell we should have cleaned out the seven eleven."
He took another drink and then looked Alicia's way. He offered the bottle to see if she wanted it. He didn't even bother to see if Sera hadn't spoked a joint in the park before.
AliciaAlicia doesn't have to drink because she's the one who said she'd never been camping. She'd never smoked a joint in the park.
And she doesn't take the bottle when Sera says she's never graduated high school.
"Are you allowed to chain them like that?" she asks with a teasing edge like she knows damned well the rules are made up and the points don't matter. As she takes the forty from Elijah she says, "Dad yanked me out of school when I was fourteen. He said I wasn't learning anything anyway because my teachers were unenlightened toads and the gum stuck to the bottoms of the desks soaked up more of their hogwash than the kids sitting in them did."
Glug. Think. Laugh.
"I've never gone to church."
ElijahElijah took another drink.
SerafíneOh, Sera drinks.
There's not much left in the forty and anyway the truth is Sera actually has pretty good taste and does not fucking like the kind of beer that comes from the 7-11 in fourty ounce aluminum cans except of course when it is eighty degrees and sunny and park and drinking game. Whereever they are sitting she leans back, gives Alicia enough of her attention and bites her lower lip and the point of the game is to get drunk, right? Right?
Sera has figured that much out, spectacular creature that she is.
"I've never made out in a church."
--
Which is not true, so Sera drinks, and offers what remains to anyone else who cannot say that, and somehow Dan has come to settle behind her and she leans back against him all loving and gives him a look and he gives her a flask.
Now they can play the fucking game.
And Sera will play it her goddamned way.
AliciaNever gone to church. Never been in a church. Never made out in a church.
Alicia is leaning with the hand that had been petting Elijah's hand planted on the ground behind him. It's a masculine way to lean but for the fact that her chest presses against his arm when she has to lean over to grab the bottle. Which she doesn't have to do this round. Her hair tickles his elbow when the breeze sees fit to drift it nearer to him.
She likes the way Dan and Sera are so easy with each other. They must have known each other a long time.
"I think it's your turn, Twitter," she says to Elijah.
ElijahHe stops, triumphant, and the grin he wears on his face is one tinged with the satisfaction of knowing that he doesn't have to drink this time.
"Ha! I have not made-"
He is suddenly reminded of getting to first base for the first time at church camp and Elijah's triumph is short-lived. He sighed, not so much dejected as resigned that there was a good chance that he was going to end up drinking a fair bit. He was content to be petted, and at some point Elijah scooted a little closer to Alicia so that his thigh was touching hers. Her hair brushes his arm in the breeze and he takes the opportunity to relocate it to her opposite shoulder side.
And, y'know, to let his hand linger casually across the bare places on her back and reside closer to her.
"I've never been in a spelling bee."
SerafíneSpelling bee? Spelling bee?
Sera, alas, does not drink get to drink because she has never been in a fucking spelling bee. Spelling bee. Hmmph.
Lingering bemusement in the edge of her gaze as Elijah exclaims all triumphant and is then forced to - well -
"I've never gotten stoned and had sex in a floating house in Rio."
--
And she drinks, from the flask now.
Of course she does.
AliciaA spelling bee. Embarrassing silent confession time. She reaches over to take the forty from Elijah. His reward for that awful round is her breast pressing against his arm as she takes a good swallow.
Well shit if that's how Sera wants to play I've Never:
"I've never dropped acid and then gone to the movies."
Glug.
Elijah"Man, I wanna have sex while stoned in a floating house in Rio," he says, "and I wanna drop acid and go to the movies… both of these things sound fan-fucking-tastic."
The game has changed, the game has most assuredly changed and he grinned while he tried to come up with something that he "hadn't done" and the young man bit his lower lip while he thought. He isn't embarrassed in the slightest.
"I've never had a three way in a county courthouse," he says.
And gulp.
SerafíneHere are some secrets:
Sera drinks (from her flask) for Alicia's I've Never and gives the younger girl this curling edge of a quiet little smirk. Elijah, though.
"A county courthouse? Fuck. I wanna do that," she swings her head closer to Dan, slewing him a half-lashed glance. And asks him, quietly, beneath her breath, " - have I ever done that?"
He laughs. Kisses the crown of her head.
Nuzzles her a bit, and gets some of her blond curls a bit caught in his beard. "I don't think you've ever been near a county courthouse, Sera."
She looks -
- disappointed.
"I've never slowed time to a looping crawl while stoned at the movies so that I could watch the Victorian dancing girls in the opening shorts that much longer much to the dismay of a certain bookseller who apparently doesn't like dancing girls."
Drink.
AliciaAt Elijah's confession a bafflement comes across Alicia's face. Like not only has he been inside a county courthouse but he's had a threeway in one. She hasn't done any of those things.
"Okay," she says as she reaches for the near-dead bottle now that Elijah's nearly done with it, "I'm defaulting to old-school rules, y'all are insane."
The specific nature of that thing Sera has never done makes Alicia laugh. Time to roll a joint. She hauls her handbag closer.
"Wait, who are you talking about? Adam?"
Serafíne(bbiab!)
Elijah"I told you I'd done some crazy, crazy stuff after shit hit the fan- I mean, not-" this is when it finally hits him what it was that Sera said she had done and he just stared. His brain was gone. Blown, and he could just barely imagine how that happened and-
"Wait, who is Adam?"
Serafíne"Mmm." Sera hums her confirmation, it lives beneath her skin and she's smiling at Alicia, she remembers how her mouth works. The sun slips in the sky as it always does. She feels both hollowed out and expansive and lovely, and takes a deep breath and takes another sip from her flask (whiskey, burn) and watches with this sense of molasses-slowness as Alicia rolls the joint. "I do mean Adam."
The punk-ass book jockey himself.
"He's another one of us," Sera says, to Elijah, murmurs, her mouth a wry little curl of an expression, "owns a bookstore. Has a ferret named Ruse. Not like me, though. Hermetic.
"And yeah. With enough time, I guess you can do anything, with your mind and your will. See? You just have to believe in yourself and listen to yourself rather than all those other fucking assholes telling you whatever it is is not fucking possible.
"I could do it now. If you want."
AliciaHearing that Sera can manipulate time catches the small girl's attention she who has not drank near so much or so fast as Elijah has who wears sunglasses even though they're in the shade and lets her hair fall down over one shoulder so it will not tickle her new friend as they sit close to each other. Alicia looks up from her intermediate-level rolling to look at the woman.
"You can stop time?" she asks. Awe in her voice. Not at the prospects of time being stoppable but at Sera knowing how. She walks it off by looking back down at the joint. Licking it so she can secure it. "Can you move through it, too?"
Strange how the presence or absence of emphasis can give a sentence more meaning. The pronoun and the inclusive. That's what catches her attention. Like she thought time travel was all bullshit before. Like she wants to hear more.
Youths still have the ability to want without regret. They can't look forward and see what themselves looking back would have done different. Sitting here day-drunk and easy in the presence of people she knows little about and yet knows enough she thinks she might be able to trust them. She doesn't know if she will or won't regret it one day. Freedom in that. Her father wasn't free.
Alicia puts the entire joint into her mouth and draws it through her pursed lips to make sure it will stay closed and holds it out as an offering to whomever dares take it first. She's got a lighter in her bag somewhere. Yes she does.
Elijah"And what are you?"
He doesn't realize that question is potentially rude. You can't just ask people what they are, that just seems… well… mean. And a little rude and just a tad on the awkward side. You ask people who they are, how they are, where they are, and when they are going to be somewhere but you rarely ask someone what they are. Even worse, asking someone why they are. No, not why they are doing something. Why are you? But the question is posed so innocently that Elijah has no idea that some things are just painfully obvious.
Sera could do it now, if they wanted, and he wonders for a second. He muses, he tries to figure out if this is something he would like to see (of course it is, but who could blame him? It seems cool!) Alicia's voice and her gaze is tinged with awe, excitement, at being delighted at the prospect of knowing someone who could slow down time to a crawl and potentially move through it.
"I think I'd wanna see that," he says, but he has a plan.
Of course he has a plan, because Alicia is taking the joint from her lips and offering it to whomever may take it first, which Elijah does without any hesitation. She has the presence of mind to look for her lighter and Elijah, darling boy, has a plan and it does not involve her looking for her lighter. No, because some part of him says that if he plays it out just right, if he presses his lips to Alicia's while the world slows down, it may be different, it may feel like an eternity, and it is at once desire and delight and anticipation that makes him go for it.
Besides, the joint was rolled already. Anyone with a lighter could light it, but he had more pressing matters to attend to.
Like kissing the young woman next to him. In front of Sera and Dan.
SerafíneDo di do. Calling it without witnesses. Lowering difficulty by taking her damned time, uh, resonance appropriate, and practiced.
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (3, 3, 3) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
SerafíneBooo. Extending.
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
SerafíneBoooooo. Extending.
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )
SerafíneGODDAMNIT SERA DO SOMETHING RIGHT.
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (5, 5, 8) ( success x 3 )
Alicia[Shhh Sera don't listen to Liz you do lots of things right we love you]
Serafíne"I'm a Seer."
Somehow in her mouth it sounds as much like she's saying see-er as seer, and that is what she tells Elijah, when she asks him what she is, and that is all she tells him, and it is more than she tells anyone, ever, even though every fucking person with any experience with the Traditions and their second cousin twice removed can guess, exactly, what Sera is, and how, and why.
And how Time moves for her,
which is - often - slowly.
Elijah kisses Alicia. There's a rolled joint somewhere and anyone with a lighter can light it and someone with a lighter does light it and it is neither Elijah nor Alicia because one is kissing the other and both can feel some slow-shift in the air around them. It feels like molasses, or perhaps that is the taste of it in the back of their throat, this stitch of hesitation between the seconds that they are slowly unpacking and restacking, this stitch that grows into a knot, a knot that contracts until there is a bottleneck and each second feels like - god.
Another.
And another.
He can hear his heartbeat. He can hear the spaces between his heartbeat. So can she.
There's no now but now.
Everything simply: is.
AliciaNo answer from Sera but Sera is a Seer and that says plenty. Says as much as she can focus on when the joint leaves her hand and everything starts to slow and turn to body and sensation and as she turns her head to see why Elijah is moving his lips are on her mouth and oh.
Maybe she would like one day to see things like this coming but the surprise of it is part of the fun. Elijah can feel her laugh against his mouth and she ought to possess some modesty but what is youth for if not for immodesty.
She does not know Sera. Maybe Sera would not make out with Dan or Elijah or with her in front of anyone else. But Alicia is not Sera and neither of them none of them have to answer to anyone but themselves.
And then there is no answer. Only this.
Moving her hand to the back of his neck puts his pulse in her palm and it takes so long to turn the impulse into action but she does and it does and the breeze moves so slow through her hair against the bareness of her skin. In the slowness she can taste the strength it takes to do this and maybe she covets. Maybe later she will cover.
But now can last a very long time and she is in no rush.
ElijahHe knows how many times his heart beats in a minute and he knows how loud and insistent it is, he knows how his heart is prone to racing and he feels everything slowing down and down and downward still and he knew there would be magic before it happened, and that was in the most literal of senses. He pressed his lips to Alicia's and he did as so man other men feel when they kiss a beautiful woman- he feels time slow to a crawl.
It's funny, feeling time slow, feeling the spaces between his heartbeat grow larder, even though he knows there is no reason for his heart to slow. No, Elijah knows that this is punctuation. This lets him know something true- the things that come before, the things that come after? Sometimes, those things can fade until there is nothing more than a moment. Until things simply are and the moment is. Neither good nor bad, simply wonderful Remarkable. Breathtaking.
His pulse should be pounding, and heavens he knows better than to do these types of things but he is too busy savoring the cool feeling of the slow, slow breeze and the gesture of her hair and the way that it feels when his lips part and Elijah Poirot tests to see if she would let him explore because it feels like an eternity in those few breaths and he knows better than to think of anything other than right now. He's reminded he is alive.
Live, live because you die tomorrow.
He remembers the rest of what the Voice told him, something small that he forgets in moments of terror because he is so far removed from those moments right now that he can remember. Live because I can not. Live or die. Live. This is living, this moment is a reminder of being alive, something that wasn't grim and woeful but reverent and joyful, At some point, he will pull back, and that time may be soon, but he was lost in the now.
That was the point, wasn't it?
