REI

Nick

The REI in Denver is particularly crowded today, it being the middle of the day on a Saturday at the cusp of real spring. Parking was difficult to find, and the store's landscape is dotted with people browsing through climbing gear and hiking gear and a particularly ambitious couple who are here today examining kayaks.

Nick, for his part, is here mostly because of Thane. When Thane Owens came to Denver, Nick made an effort to show his friend what there was to see outside the city: not the city itself, note. It left him nostalgic in a way that maybe he should have anticipated ahead of time, but regardless, here he is now looking through harnesses and grapples and other climbing gear.

He looks out of place in a place like this, and he perhaps feels out of place too. In a room that is humming with conversation and plans made and casual transaction, he is a hushed calm, standing there with his head slightly tilted as he runs his fingertips over different items.

That's where she'll find him, turning a harness over in his hands, a beam of sunlight filtering through one of the large store windows catching in the matte black of his hair and the bright green of his jacket.

Serafíne

Are there shopping carts in REI Denver?

There must be. There are shopping carts everywhere. There are shopping carts in fucking Macy's, and there would be shopping carts in Nordstrom if the sort of people who like shopping carts would be able to fill them in Nordstrom. But: no. They have to head to Nordstrom Rack to pilot their carts around clearance racks full of mid-level designer brands that richer folks have picked over and discarded.

Ahem.

Here is a shopping cart with one squeaky wheel piloted by a rather striking creature who bends the curve of the universe with her mere existance.

That squeaky wheel heralds her arrival a half-second before she turns the corner. The first impression: the enormous sunglasses, the golden curls. She takes in Nick. She takes in the climbing harness he's fingering. And she says:

"Adventure bound?"

Nick

The squeaky wheel catches Nick's attention before Sera herself does. Miraculously, since Sera herself is quite a presence, the way she feels like the long nights of exhilaration and burning need that were part of Nick's life as a teenager. The Cultist is cutting a path through the crowd, which parts for her if only because maybe they're wondering where and why she got a shopping cart to bring in here.

Still, the important thing is that they part, and Nick has half-turned his head in her direction even before he senses her coming, and once the familiar tang of resonance hits him he does indeed face her in full.

He glances down at the harness in his hands. "Not an adventure in particular. I'm just planning to try to go climbing more often."

His hands lower, and the harness along with it. "I have no idea what I'm looking for, to be honest. When I used to go climbing before, I always went with my friend and borrowed his gear. What adventures are you planning?"

Because Sera is planning some, of this he has no doubt.

Serafíne

There's nothing in the shopping cart and what the hell, once she has made the turn she has also decided to abandon it so abandon it she does. Straightens from her somewhat languid slouch and steps around it and what is Sera wearing at REI? A remarkably (perhaps not-so-remarkably) short red cocktail dress beneath a slashed up leather jacket and fishnets that hug the flesh of her thighs, frame her long legs with diamond-shaped-shadows, and heels that add an extra five-or-so inches to her 5'5" frame. Ambles down the aisle head canted, sunglasses on the gear on display like she's considering it, piece by piece by piece.

"I don't plan my fucking adventures. Takes all the goddamned fun out of it."

Her mouth curves, her chin rises. Equal parts sharp and wry.

"You planning on summitting mountains or just... getting your hands on some rock?"

Nick

"Well, some level of preparation helps keep you from wiping your ass with a handful of leaves or stuck in the hospital with severe dehydration," Nick says, and a look cuts toward her then, his smile also a wry thing.

He returns that particular harness to its hook, and if there is any amusement at Sera's red cocktail dress and slashed leather jacket, he keeps it to himself for now. The Cultist is drawing a look or two, but she's probably used to that.

"I don't think I'm ready to summit mountains or anything like that. I'd mostly just like to get out and do it more. I figure, I'm in Denver and this is the place for it."

Serafíne

Sera gives a neat little shrug, expressive and dismissive all at once: of the perils of poor-planning. I mean hell, she doesn't go that far out, and anyway: magick, right? She can always find her way back home.

And she doesn't look like she belongs here. Those heels and that dress, that jacket. The bristle of hardware in her elfin ears: a half-dozen small hoops and at least two larger spikes. The impression of her tattoos: which are black and white, the lot of them. The suggestion of script when she reaches for the harness he's putting away. Turns over the package, no real hint on what he can see of her sharp features beneath the dark glasses as to what or how much she knows about that shit.. Or why she's here. Or anything.

"We could go bouldering. Don't need any of that gear. Maybe some decent gloves and rock climbing shoes. Best way to learn."

Nick

There is no real hint as to how much Sera knows about that shit, as she turns over the harness in her hands. Maybe that makes Nick a little wary of what she says next, though there's also this: he trusts in Adepts to be Adepts, to be good at a lot of things and to always keep people guessing. These are the sorts of powerful magi he has always encountered, up until now, even the most human of them.

"I'd like that," he says, when she suggests bouldering. And he has straightened, and he is looking down at her, and he is a creature far from his mythic landscape just at this moment with his dark curls and somber features.

"Want to help me find a pair of good shoes and gloves, then?" Because: well, it'll give him a better idea of just how much exactly she knows before he goes climbing boulders with her. Given the exactly zero number of times he's seen her sober, perhaps he's wise to consider this.

Then again, this is indeed the best way to learn, and he uses magick as much as she does, though not with her skill. Can't they always find their way back home?

sysadmin

Serafíne

The bright washing sun competes with scudding clouds for dominance in the April sky and you'd never guess from the raucous game of ultimate frisbee on one of the big grassy swaths of greening lawn that there's a winter storm watch currently looming over Denver and its environs, that spring ski enthusiasts will have another foot or so of fresh snowfall if they go high enough into the mountains.

Right now: shorts and t-shirts and a frisbee that looks like a pink-frosted donut with a bite taken out. Fringe and beads and bare feet and painted toes and gladiator sandals and the musky scent of marijuana in the air and it's too early (she just woke up an hour or so ago and she's still nursing a particularly intense acid hangover) for a certain Cultist to join her friends chasing around the donut-frisbee, but hey, she can watch. Or pretend to watch? Who fucking knows, her glasses are both ridiculously dark and remarkably large and she could very well be napping behind them.

There's a big bottle of orange juice parked in the cool grass beside her. It is early evening. The sun is only just starting to fall.

Grace

Ahh, Denver. It'll be warm today, sure. Then, the weekend brings a high temp in the 30s and more snow. This is Spring, for you. It can never make up its mind.

Grace has dressed herself in jeans, sneakers, a t-shirt, and her bite-proof grey jacket today, although the jacket is unzipped to let the air in -- so one can see the giraffe wearing ten neckties on her tee, with the text "Trust me, I'm super professional".

There is, perhaps, more of a spring to her step than there has been, of late. Winter's melting, for now. Water's flowing in rivers. Things are breaking free, and soon Summer will make that a little more permanent. It's a good day. One that has Grace walking the trails here where monsters tread, with her attentions place firmly into the trees and sky, and not, apparently at her surroundings. Monsters should be afraid of her, not the other way around.

[Awareness?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Nicholas

It's become a habit, walking in the park after work while he tries to process and decompress from the day. Nick finds his home to be a pleasant place, somewhere he looks forward to going to at the end of the day, but settling into his office or having dinner isn't a substitute for taking a few moments of silence where he doesn't have to listen to anybody else or try to project this air of detached competence or quiet empathy.

There aren't any winter storm clouds looming on the horizon, just the soft wash of sunlight that speaks to approaching summer. That, and the smell of marijuana that usually lingers around places like this, in Denver. He still isn't fully accustomed to walking out in public and seeking people smoke; and it doesn't bother him - it just is, and does.

The sailing frisbee catches his eye as he makes his way down the path. No shorts and T-shirts for him, just light gray pants and a pale pink shirt, the color of a first blush or of a drop of blood in a puddle, slight intimations of color. His hair was cut recently, which is to say that it's no longer as wild and overgrown as it had threatened to become last month. As is the style at present, the back and sides are shorn more tightly than the top, which spills out in front of him.

He watches people throw the frisbee back and forth as he walks, and he would have nearly passed them by had a familiar face not caught his attention next. Sera is behind a pair of sunglasses, but he makes note of her nonetheless and his trajectory changes. He lifts a hand as he approaches.

Serafíne

Well: see? Her eyes must be open behind the dark glasses, because the creature lounging on the plaid picnic blanket lifts a hand to return Nicholas' wave. There is a hint of a smirk in the curve of her mouth, or maybe that is simply a grimace. Some little protest against the movement required.

She is as she always is: or at least as she always seems. Long and lean and lovely. Or: the intimation if not the fact of length; the suggestion of hunger, of desire, of want in both the concave curve of her bare stomach; and - well. Not lovely. Arresting perhaps, in that way that Grace, and even some of the sleepers around them, must certainly feel. What else can Grace sense? That sun-drenched, soaring resonance that that eminates from old bronze ring that Sera always wears on her right index finger. Nicholas, of course. And no suggestion of monsters.

Other than that wave, Sera doesn't much move or acknowledge Nicholas' approach until he is within actual hailing distance. Then she turns her head - gingerly, gingerly. This is the day-after. Every part of her aches. Every part of her welcomes the ache. The spread of her neat little mouth beneath her glasses: a wide flat smirk and Nicholas mirrored in the convex surface of her dark glasses.

"You look like you're about to sell someone some goddamned insurance."

So says the creature resplendent in British-flag bikini top beneath a faded black hoodie over denim cut-offs and torn fishnets. She has, at some point, taken off her battered combat boots and her almost-bare feet rest in the grass.

Grace

Mmm. Sera. That gut-wrenching feeling has her attention now, drawing her sight, making her change course. The trees, no longer the source of her fascination, don't honestly care.

Sera might.

"Sera!" she says, strolling up, sitting down next to her on the grass. There is also a wave to Nick somewhere in there.

"Do insurance salesmen wear pink shirts?" she says, honestly curious.

"I've been meaning to talk to you," she adds, quieter.

Nicholas

Nicholas has a talent for mirroring other peoples' expressions, for picking up on their moods and reflecting them back and sometimes twisting them just so. He makes use of it in his job: it's how children learn to identify what they're feeling, having an adult frown when they are saying something sad or smile back when they are happy. It's equally important for adults.

So: he sees Sera, and there is this quick cut of his mouth, this way in which the corner snicks upward as though hooked. "That's because I am. Have you heard about our new life insurance policy?" A thought, a beat. "...I might actually consider that if I were terrible. I'd make a fortune."

He has stopped in front of her, though always always with an eye on the frisbee as it cuts the air. Nick got a black eye from a frisbee once, years ago.

Grace catches his attention next when she comes up on the two of them, and almost without thinking he shifts his stance to allow her space into the conversation and also to face her, or at least pull her into his line of sight. His brow furrows at what she says. "To me?"

Serafíne

Oh, here's Grace. Asking a very honest question about a very wry quip tossed off by a very hungover Cultist and again that sensation of arrest, of cessation as she shifts the direction of her dark, reflective glasses from Nicholas to Grace. A: very slow lift of one of her flat blond brows, expressive enough that it rises above the curving frame of the glasses. And lingers, because she's not really quite sure how to take Grace's question about insurance salesmen. For example: is it the sort of question that requires an answer?

Something in her decides that it is not the sort of question that requires an answer. Or: that she is too something-something-something after last-night and this-morning and hell, the last few weeks, the last few months, the last few years to have to answer if it does.

Her attention cuts back to Nicholas. Something about the cant of her head suggests that she catches the hint of that smirk carved back to her. And he cannot see her eyes but he can still somehow almost feel that flick of her attention: minute and precise and animal: to his mouth, then back to his eyes. The gleam of the dying sun in her glasses, his shadow long over the blanket, the grass. Might make another quip in that moment, but no. Sera mirrors Nicholas' question, though she does so wordlessly. Inquiry stitched into the lift of her chin.

Grace

"Well, not... I mean, sure I could talk to you, but I don't have anything specific in mind," she says, to Nick, as though that question caught her off guard. It can be rather hard to tell who Grace is talking to, considering she so rarely makes eye contact.

"Sera. I had a run-in with a sysadmin. I got traced, but I'm not sure how bad. I'm no good at looking back in time to figure out what happened, you know? But you..."

Are totally unaware of what a sysadmin is, or why one would trace her... Right. Grace frowns, tries to figure out a better way to say this. "I felt something. Subtle. A hint of resonance."

Nicholas

Nick shifts his weight to his other foot as he glances between the two women. He, too, is rather unaware in any specific sense of what a sysadmin is, other than what conclusions he can draw from the words themselves, and so: he listens.

Serafíne

And here is Sera who can very well unhinge time. Pull it apart. Reel it backwards. Create within it currents as slow as molasses or as rippling-fast as some ever-accelerating black and white montage of a movie-bender and who does not know what a sysadmin is and who, on some deep and really rather important level, does not even believe in them.

When her iPhone works, it works by magick.

Sometimes, some nights, it does not seem to want to work at all.

Her attention hangs on Grace. She has been leaning back on her elbows, but now - a ripple of her flexible frame - sits closer-to-upright. Ow. Her head hurts.

"Like - " here a furrowed V of thought appears between the enormous discs of her glasses. " - yesterday? Someone was spying on you?"

Grace

"No. It was a while ago. Month or so. When I was trying to figure out what happened to Alex," she explains, hopefully that's enough. Not going to go into specifics here in the park, is she.

She seems strangely okay with this -- accepting of the fact. What's done is done, and all. But what was done?

"But yeah. Possibly spying on me. I fought it off, but..." she trails off, waves an arm in the air.

Nicholas

Nick looks between the two of them again, his eyebrows cutting a delicate arch as he listens to the talk of spying and figuring out what happened to Alex. It occurs to him that he has not yet met the man.

"Should I give the two of you some time?"

Grace

"Why?" she asks Nick. "I don't mind you knowing. You're as welcome here as cupcakes, man. Stay. If you want."

Kiara

Washington Park was a sort of nexus for the athletically inclined in Denver, as it happened. There were no small number of them tonight as the sun began to dwindle and sink into the horizon, cutting pathways around the lake and appearing only to weave a steady track over inclines and down again; vanishing into the distance.

Joggers. There was something so mundane and expected to them.

Amidst a world of chaos and uncertainty, lying on the grass surrounded by Frisbees and dogs being walked and the occasional carrying cry of laughter or the smack of a ball hitting the backside of a distant basketball court - there was an easy comfort in the banality.

Breaking away from behind a young couple pushing a stroller down by the glinting lakeside is a familiar figure; tall and lean with long dark hair sailing out behind her. Another runner by any other name but also - a Witch. The pagan known to some here as anything but a nameless addition to the Sleepers. She's slowing to a clipped walk, the Verbena; breathing hard and holding her hands against her side; her pace directing her toward a bench to warm down her muscles.

She's a surge of the Springtime Kiara, as she sets her leg up and stretches it out; a sweatshirt laced around a narrow waist; navy workout gear encasing her form. If she notes the presence of the others up on a shallow rise of grass, she's yet to make it clear.

Though the presence of earbuds and a small MP3 taped to her arm would suggest she's unaware - yet. Here then, was one half of their rescue team that had extricated Alexander from the Union. Nicholas alone perhaps knew the current condition of the other half - for her part, physically at least, the brunette seemed to be coping with the aftermath reasonably well.

Serafíne

There is rhythm behind them. The slap of plastic against strangers' palms. Bare feet against that solid spring grass, the cold soil beneath, warming yeah but still somehow in the grip of winter. The whir of the discs through the air: the twin miracles of propulsion and flight. Aerodynamics or what the fuck ever.

By now Sera is sitting forward, legs crossed beneath her, the picnic blanket rucked up beneathtthem from the movement. Golden curls a messy tangle in the failing light. She takes off her sunglasses here and gives Nicholas a brief, apologetic flash of a glance. Neat little compression of her mouth. Her eyes are a little bit bloodshot and her pupils are still rather-too-large. This hint of bruising beneath them: dark circles, something. That ache more evident without the shield of the glasses, but what the fuck does one expect? She's hung-over.

Breathes out here, Sera. Tried to order her thoughts for Grace and then: a flicker of something else. "You asked to talk to me," Sera reminds Grace, though there is something gentle in her tone. The bravado of her greeting to Nick earlier is long-since drained away. " - remember? Not him. So, you haven't made him feel quite as welcome as cupcakes, Grace. You know? Nick may not want to be a spectator to our conversation. He might even need to get home to start dinner."

Brief curve of her mouth here: the lilt of her chin, this neat, apologetic little gesture toward Nicholas before her attention cuts back to and rests wholly on Grace.

"Have you felt the resonance since then?"

Kiara

[Oh yeah, we should do this for our next post. Mage-dar.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Grace

"Oh," Grace says. It honestly hadn't occurred to her that she might be edging someone out. "I'm sorry. I'll just..."

She takes a breath. Sera asks her something. "No."

But, she's distracted, giving that no to Nick's face, as she radiates confusion with hers. This is one of those times, right? When the rules of social interaction seem to have been missed. It makes her uncomfortable. Makes her want to...

"I should go. You think about it, okay, Sera?" she stands up, gets the attention toward the trees again. Trees are easier to understand.

Nicholas

It doesn't take an especially perceptive person to note the confusion, as boldly as it has been sketched across Grace's features. Nick reaches out toward her as she stands up, motions for her elbow and ends up not grabbing hold just letting his fingertips rest there on the back of her arm. It's meant to catch her attention; little more. "Don't leave, Grace. I just stopped to say hello to Sera. You two should talk."

Kiara

It's a slow progression up the hill when she does notice the others gathered.

The earphones curled around her neck; her face flushed with recent exertion. Kiara Woolfe approaches feeling like the whirl of energy she is, at her core. Thriving, pulsing with life and the promise of vitality and renewal. She smells like sunshine and sweat, the Verbena and somehow; the sheen of it; the essence of that - absolutely feels at home on her.

She makes a slight outward arc to avoid collision with the game at play nearby and approaches from behind a tree; her fingers chasing over the bark.

"Hey."

A breathless greeting that seems to encapsulate them all from the dark eyed female; her mouth bent into a small match for it. The corner curled upward. She settles back against the tree and resumes stretching.

Serafíne

Sera's quiet, as Nick stops Grace. Doesn't pull her dark eyes with the too-large pupils from Grace except briefly, to greet Kiara with a wordless touch of her gaze as the Verbena approaches. A flicker back, and the Cultist slides her dark glasses back over her eyes and rises.

"C'mon Grace, we'll go talk." Except for the fishnets, her feet are bare. Damp grass clings to her skin. Tomorrow, they say, it will snow. Tonight, the Cultist starts to walk, barefoot in the cool spring grass, ambling pass the ultimate frisbee game in the warm spring park. She leaves behind: everything. The orange juice and the plaid blanket and her favorite Doc Martens and her pack of unopened kreteks and her favorite lighter lost somewhere on the blanket, everything.

Maybe she plans to return.

Maybe she assumes: effortlessly, naturally, that someone will always be trailing behind her to clean that shit up.

Serafíne

(I am really sorry but as usual it is my bed time and I have to go to bed. Sera will go off with Grace and talk. Noel: IM me sometime and we can continue the scene. Andrew and Jacqui: I want a real scene sometime soon!)

Mostly, me. [Retro]

Alexander

Now Alexander turns to the filter machine, although whether it’s because the coffee is ready, because it’s something to do, or some small way to break eye contact with Grace Is unclear. Maybe it’s all of the above. “Why did they come here? To get away from the war, or to bring it here? What did…” There’s the sound of coffee being poured, as that sentence fades to nothing. “How is Kalen?” Three small words, but a question with so many potential answers.

There’s a thunk and a hiss as the jug slides back onto its hotplate. “Well bad timing comes together just as often as we randomly bump into each other. But that doesn’t sound much like Elijah. I didn’t know him all that well, but he never seemed like the type to lead an army into battle. What happened to him?”

There’s more to say, but there’s something holding him back from giving voice to the words. “Whiskey?” Alex holds up a bottle, checking what he should pour into Grace’s coffee.

Grace

"I wish I knew what they were up to here, to be honest. Probably thinking that since Denver is a strategic target, somebody should be here to report back to the hivemind what goes on? Maybe they're here to take over the Chantry and turn this place into a pompous elitist Hermetic's idea of a paradise?"

She shifts in her chair, scratches her nose, because even she knows the look of utter disgust on her face isn't pretty. She really doesn't want to tell Alex what at least one of their ilk has said about his.

"One thing though, the ones who are here don't seem to be the type to run away from a war."

"Kalen is..." Not sleeping. Manic and beside himself. Kind of an exaggerated normal, if you know Kalen. "Well. He could be in a better mental state, but all of us could. He was very worried about you. I'm sure you knew that already," she says, huffs out a humorless laugh.

Alex asks about Elijah, and Grace responds tersely. What happened? "He joined the Order of Hermes." And apparently, that's all she needs to explain herself. "I'm being... too hard on him, I guess. He'd just found out about you, and freaked out. I lack any patience these days, though. Whiskey is a go. Very much some of that."

Alexander

[Per+Emp?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace

[Grace isn't usually one to speak of the Order of Hermes in such a directly insulting manner, seeing as how she practically lives with a Hermetic who is decidedly not a pompous elitist. This might lead one to come to the conclusion that she has found at least one new person in Denver clinging to the worst stereotypes of Hermetic arrogance, and yes -- is quite disgusted by what she found.]

Alexander

“Hopefully they’re not of the same frame of mind as the guys who thought firing up a war between the vampires and the Union without telling us was a good idea.” There’s a weary sigh as Alex turns back to the mugs. He had only been intending to add the whiskey to Grace’s coffee, but now he adds a slug to both mugs. This was starting to look like one of those conversations. “Please say that there’s nobody else looking to poke sharp sticks either of those particular ant nests.”

That look of Grace’s is noticed and studied, but it’s obvious that the bad taste doesn’t originate from him. (Although give it a few minutes and it might originate from the coffee.) “That’s a look. What aren’t you telling me?”

The two cups are held with one hand, a finger looped through both handles, and the bottle of whiskey picked up and carried over to the bed with the other. The bottle is dropped onto the bed, freeing up a hand to pass one cup to Grace before Alex sits on the edge of the mattress.

“Yeah, I can’t imagine Kalen took it at all well. He knows that I’m out?” It’s almost a rhetorical question, but there are reasons behind it. “Kiara told me that Ginger is dead, I wasn’t sure how well the news had been passed around. If you see him before I do, tell him I’m fine.” Fine: the universal term for not good, but nothing I want to deal with right this second.

His eyebrows rise in surprise when he finds out about Elijah’s joining of the Order, the rest of his expression hidden behind the cup that he’s in the middle of taking a drink from. “I really should spend more time with the guy. Well, with everyone, really. I guess I’ve been a bit distant. I guess it’s understandable that he’d freak out if he hadn’t heard anything, though. Just… wow. William. That’ll take some getting used to.”

“I doubt the universe will care enough to provide, but hopefully things will stay quiet for long enough for you to find your patience again.”

Grace

"Like I said. I really wish I knew what all these new people in Denver were here to do," Grace says, reaches a hand out for the coffee.

He asks what that look was about, and she sighs. Grins a sardonic smile. "Like I said, I've been having fights with people. One of the new people in town is a Hermetic who's got a tree trunk shoved up her ass, and is very very proud of herself for being so proud. It doesn't bode well."

She smells the coffee. Smells the whiskey in it, leans her head back against the chair. Alex is 'fine'. He certainly seems to be doing well enough to get coffee and have a conversation, which is about eighty percent of normal human interaction. Fine is an okay place to be right now.

"Enough about me and my personal communication problems, Alex. Do you have any idea of what you'd like to do next? It's okay if you don't. I wouldn't blame you."

Alexander

“You’re not exactly selling the new neighbours. Although that does sound like the Order that Alyssa warned me about.” Alex shrugs, taking another sip of his coffee. It doesn’t bode well, but he’ll wait and make his own judgement if and when he encounters anyone who looks like they’re sitting on something uncomfortable.

He shifts up the bed, enough so that he can swing his legs up and rest back against the headrest. His fingers interlace around the cup, holding it safely on his lap. “I’m not sure.” Alex rests his head back against the wall, the ceiling with its vague nicotine stains suddenly seems to be an interesting place to look. “I think I want my life back. Assuming…” Assuming a lot, but nothing that gets immediately voiced. “Assuming that I can. I know some things need to change, though.”

Serafíne

That's when the front door of the motel room opens. Oh hey. Here's Sera.

She has a key and well, Dan has the key. They aren't sneaking up but the key and the lock and the conversation and her very, very distinctive resonance that is as soaked into the walls of this room as it is into her skin. The wards are her own, after all. So the place - at least inside - feels like her even in her absence. More: between than anything else. Liminal, that is it: some refusal of definition, as if one could choose simply to let go of labels and exist in a state of possible/flux.

"What do you think needs to change?" A flash of her dark eyes over Alex. She is: remarkably sober for a Sera.

Grace

Sera walks in. It's an event that has Grace glancing at the door, giving a salute to those entering with her coffee cup. Someone else being here is a good thing.

"He's changed," she says, smiles a bit of a genuine smile at Alex, even as he peruses the ceiling, looking for omens in the splotches of brown. "You've melted, man. Flowed downhill, too from the feel of it. I'm sure you're up to the task of changing things. That part's easy."

The booze has made her coffee a bit cooler, invites her to drink it, which she does. Chemical happiness. A poor substitute for the real thing. Alex, though, with his wanting his life back, that's something to be honestly happy about, isn't it?

Alexander

The door wasn’t even locked, unless Grace had flicked it off the latch while he had been changing. Alex turns to look at the door as it opens, just starting to free his hands from each other to push up from the bed and… And settles back again, when he sees that it’s Sera (and Dan?) coming in. The urge to get up fades as soon as it had arrived, although the thump of his heart in his chest from the surprise arrival will take a little longer to settle. There’s something of his own, changed, resonance hanging over the room in addition to Sera’s, and maybe something of Jim’s. Some remnant of recent Work lingering.

What do you think needs to change?

“Mostly, me.” Grace says that he’s changed, and he nods, shrugs, meeting her eyes as he does. “I guess I figured some stuff out. Like how pushing everyone away isn’t good for me.” He nudges the bottle of whiskey with a foot, pushing it towards the side of the bed closest to the door.

Serafíne

Here is Sera, and Dan of course, sliding in behind her, a solid, tattooed hand on the creature's narrow should. That impression one has of her: the sudden, dirty glamour of her presence. Golden curls and a battered leather jacket. Sunglasses even (especially) in the cheap no-tell motel room where she once spent three days hiding out from: everyone. Everywhere, ashes in the back of her throat.

This glance for Grace, as she speaks. The dark glasses, the dark eyes. The sense of: attention, of awareness, of consideration. Neat little kink of a smile responsive to Grace's own. Then Alex.

"Not an easy thing to learn," Sera, quiet. The supple, blooming grace of her smile beneath the gleam of the dark glasses. "I'm glad we have you back so you can figure it out, though."

--

Does she notice: his jumpiness? His awareness. She must. She sees so much. Feels so much. Has been through: so much that she must recognize that moment of startlement, movement, surge. Perhaps feels some resonant answer to it, somewhere in her body. Somewhere beneath her ribs, in her viscera. Somewhere.

"We brought you some clothes and shit. Some cash. A new phone." Dan hefts a reuseable shopping bag and sets it down on the bed nearest Alexander. He inserts: "Have a few other errands to run but we can come back later, if you want company. Or not, if you don't."

They'll hang around for another few minutes, but soon enough Dan reminds Sera that it is time to go.