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.”
SerafíneThat'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.
GraceSera 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?
AlexanderThe 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.
SerafíneHere 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.
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