Easter eggs.

Serafíne

The text invitation: Easter party / brunch / whatever! Bring yrself and maybe someone else.

That was a mass text. Sure, Sera changed phones and numbers after texting Alexander's phone repeatedly while he was imprisoned by the technocracy but she then proceeded to redownload all of her old contacts and reinstall them and text everyone her new number. Or well: Dan built up the contacts again, patiently, excising only: Ginger and Alexander and any other number he knew had been ditched as a number-of-possible-interest. Haven't been as many mass texts lately but there is what the housemates have taken to calling The Project and then for a certain Cultist and a certain Consor there was also: the other project.

And other reasons, besides.

--

Four or five days ago Denver had a blizzard and the blizzard brought a foot or more of snow and also the god Horus back down to earth. Thursday was bright and warm and everything just started: melting. Okay: there was so much snow that great melting monstrous mounds of it linger in parking lots and pedestrian malls where contractors piled it up with heavy equipment but: the streets and sidewalks are all clear, as is much of the grass. Hummocks of snow linger in the deep shadows of north-facing slopes, on the south side of streets, in the no-longer-recognizing slumps that used to be snowpersons.

There are several used-to-be-snowpersons in the yard at 719 Corona Street.

There are also: plastic eggs "hidden" in the bare branches of the trees, amidst the wild tangle of viny forsythia that is flowering despite the lingering snow. Open doors and people on the front porch and people in the house: open windows nevermind the chill, and a blazing fire and warm bodies against which one can jostle and be jostled. The most amazing spread of largely pot-luck dishes in the warm white kitchen, on the island and counters, and an array of beverage options, alcoholic and otherwise. From grapefruit-rosemary-vodka martinis to peach sangria to spiked lavender lemonade to a deeply wicked spicy bloody mary.

The back yard: more people, tramping through the mud. Fire in the firepit, all kinds of smoke in the air. Sera out there, too. In muddy Doc Marten's and a frothy black confection of a floral Dolce-and-Gabbana frock by way of an Easter dress.

William

Sometimes, you have to wear a suit to things and get an uber.

He got the uber namely because he knew he wasn't going to be driving home and riding a motorcycle when it was cold was kind of shitty. Jenn had moved out, so he didn't have free access to her car anymore. She's a Big Deal now. Lives in Los Angeles and sells paintings and is the personal assistant to a fairly well regarded Euthanatos. It was a good move.

But still: no car. He'd spent the money he was going to use for a car (because his parents told him to get a goddamned car) on a bed that was nothing short of a masterpiece that was very beautiful and ethereal and was very conspicuous when one decided to fuck like they going away to war the next day and this may be the only opportunity they have to make their way to the English literature majors at DU.

He's gotten a lot of compliments about that bed. It's sturdy, but not quiet. Not loud, but certainly not quiet.

He hadn't gotten a new phone number, instead ported the old one and continued to maintain two phones because he couldn't bring himself to tell his parents that he probably was never coming back to Louisiana. Set up call forwarding to one cell phone and bang, no worries there. He's been a busy one, William. His instagram account and FourSquare put him across the United States for good chunks of February and January. One occasional stint in Antarctica, but that was GPS spoofing. He took some picture with a girl wearing the kind of headphones that serious gamers wear sitting in an apartment with vertical blinds and a half-shaded view of a pretty city skyline.

William came with deviled eggs and cupcakes. And a bottle of vodka that was neither top shelf nor bottom shelf- distinctly in-the-middle shelf.

And peeps.

He's outside and off to the firepit, with his nice pants and button down vest and an eskew tie and a shirt that looks like he actually pressed it. He's still wearing about half a dozen bracelets on one wrist (some red and woven with gold, some navy, some leather with metal. They actually have purposes thank you very much) but the necklace that was tied on too tight has finally fallen off, and the little sun charm has yet to be added to the pile.

"Have I told anyone recently how fucking fantastic this place smells all the time?"

Serafíne

Sera does not instagram or four-square or facebook so she doesn't know where William has been or has pretended to be unless he has texted her and told her, and even then she might not remember. She does text though, and take loads of selfies and know many, many, people, and something about the way she collects things and sometimes people is very much like a physical tumblr but whatever. She hardly knows how to use those things. She understands texting and selfies but often has trouble remembering how to work her iPhone. That is 50% substance related and 50% she doesn't give a fuck about technology related.

She prefers: people.

And Will encounters some people he knows in the house: Dan or Dee maybe in the kitchen to accept deviled eggs and peeps and vodka and Emily Honey Bunches of Chokes and her wife (what! yes: they eloped) Jenny and, you know, others. People from up the street or down the street or around the corner or around the world. Sera opens her arms and greets Will with a great big rising-to-her-tip-toes hug. Her nose finds his ear.

"That's because you haven't been here when you needed to hold my hair up while I puked my guts out. Doesn't smell fantastic then.

"Want a marshmallow?"

William

Emily got married?! ("Whaaaat? Do you guys need a toaster? Registry or something- I wanna get you plates-" and general congratulatory excitements) And then it's out to the outdoors, where Sera stands on her toes and he beams like sunlight and feels like he always dopes- like the storm and the sailors on the ships tossed on it. Hands go around her waist and he does come down to make the height difference a little more bearable. Seven inches-ish. Maybe six on a bad day and eight on a good day.

Pulls back and laughs, "I feel like that is the next level of our friendship. I think you're usually the one doing the hair holding."

Possibly. William has puked at her house all of twice, once early on when one could hardly notice because he's so damned quiet about the whole thing. Rinses his mouth out with something high proof and goes about his night like this is normal. It was a big party, you don't want to miss it.

"I would love a marshmallow," he tells her, "I brought peeps, but those aren't regular marshmallows. Peeps are Peeps."

Serafíne

Well: well well well.

Will says that Peeps aren't marshmallows, Peeps are Peeps, but when Sera said marshmallow, Sera meant Peep. Will wasn't the only one to bring Peeps to this party. Sera and Co have a neat little set of fondue forks that Sera and Emily found for $2.99 at a thrift store because the fondue pot was cracked or broken or thrown-away or sold-separately and the handles are kinda long and they are keeping them staged on a little wrought-iron table near the firepit so anyone who wants can make a Peeps-flavored-Smores (or graham sandwich, or whatever) while getting high.

Sera picks out a bright-blue-bunny Peep and skewers it mercilessly and hands it back to Will, triumphal. Tucks her right arm through his left and rises up again to her tip-toes to kiss him all chaste on the cheek, even as she gathers her skirt up so it: doesn't catch on fire.

"Haven't seen you in forever. Glad you came. And that you're alright. Anyone fill you in on what's been going on?"

William

Poor Peep. Poor, poor Peep. He looks on with mock-mourning as she stabs the poor little blue bunny mercilessly. "Sera, you animal!" he says in his most southern, most high pitched and most assuredly damsel-tied-to-the-railroad-tracks voice.

And immediately the peep goes into the fire without a second thought. Just at the edge, like he's trying to coax some confession out of the peep and he's a Grand Inquisitor wanting to yell repent! Repeeeeent! As though the peep was very clearly consorting with the devil or an enemy of the Great Peep Church.

"Grace told me what was going on," he says, "the Denver chapter of the pointie hat society had a meeting beforehand and I went oh, okay, we need to go make friends with people... which turned out not too bad, actually, but I came back and shit hit the fan. Grace was pretty peeved that I wasn't here

"But I heard that Alexander's physically fine from her a few days after she'd told me."

Serafíne

Will screeches that Sera is. an. animal! and in that voice and of course everyone in the yard turns to look. The two strangers sitting the wrong-way in the rainbow hammock smoking a bowl and the hippie-girl barefoot in the mud making giant bubbles and the trio of professors from the neighborhood (adjuncts, the lot of them) standing as close to the house as possible because 52 degrees is pretty damn warm after a blizzard and pretty damn chilly any other time smoking some allegedly Cuban cigars.

Sera laughs; she is: plainly, uncontrovertably happy in that moment. Were she more forward-thinking she would be getting a graham cracker ready for him, but no. He will have to navigate blue molten bunny-goo very much on his own.

--

Neat little frown when he talks about the pointy hat society. She doesn't get it? Doesn't know what he's alluding to? Doesn't know to connect it to an early morning visit from Pen or anything else that came after.

But - "I don't - " another neat frown. This quick little pause as her eyes dart out over her friends, the smoke rising, rising, golden head cocked just then as if she were listening to something. "I don't try to speak for Grace, but I don't think she'd be mad at you for not being here? That sounds kinda like a misunderstanding?"

William

He's got a head on him, but doesn't think to get a marshmallow, either. Soon enough it's molten and gooey and he does what everyone does when they have a bloated delicious marshmallow cooked to perfection but in immediate danger- he turns it until he can grab a graham cracker and slop the peep onto it.

Laughs along with her. Happy to be where he is.

---

She says it was probably a misunderstanding.

"It was? I mean, I made it a point for us to get together later because we've had this weird dynamic going on for awhile, and I get why she was angry- she had some pretty big shit blow up in her face and she had a lot of pressure on her," he continues on, "when she came over and we talked she was super tense and was basically ready for me to write her off."

He purses his lips. Takes a bite of marshmallow and cracker and takes a second to chew so he can figure out what he's going to say. Decides not to say anything.

Serafíne

Sera has her golden head down as she listens. She must be freezing in that dress, which is basically a spring-themed negligee over black lingerie. She was wearing a crown earlier; had it planted high among her curls, but this is the sort of party where everyone can have everything and friends and strangers and everyone (or well: not everyone but some everyones) wanted to touch it, feel it, marvel at it, try it on and Sera, very very strangely, found that today of all days: that was something she didn't want to share.

The loose imprints of the earlier hairstyle are there now. Strange little kinks, unnaturally angled curls to match the natural mass of them. That listening aspect she sometimes wears, and feels: so very intimate, and so very animal.

"And were you?" Quiet, neatly probing. "Writing her off?"

William

"No," he tells her, says all nice and quiet, "she's been on my ass when I mess up, but she doesn't mean to come off abbrasive and I haven't figured out how to read her yet."

A second, "she's said some pretty shitty things before, but I don't think she ever means to hurt people. Grace is just very... with me or against me."

"No, I wouldn't write her off."

Serafíne

Sera is still tucked up against Will. That one neat arm. They haven't seen each other much in recent months. Just the once much earlier this winter. Before that: it was November. The week before Thanksgiving. The day she came home after a long, terrifying, ridiculously lonely walkabout. She was: so very thin then. She'd been fasting off and on all summer, and then Thailand, and then: that exile, and it's not likely she remembers with any regularity to eat even when her friends and lovers are around to sometimes see that she does.

She's gained back much of what she lost, though, and she looks just as lovely now - replete - as she looked when she was harrowed and hollowed. More perhaps. Especially in that see-through dress with its tumble of appliques and the exquisite French lingerie she has paired with it, beneath.

"Tell me the last time Grace was 'on your ass,'" slanting, banked little look, shaded by her lashes. "for messing up."

William

"Back when that stuff happened with the weird body shifting Nephandus? The first time Sam went into Quiet?" he is quiet about it, doesn't broadcast because, for all people knew, he could just be throwing things around in some foreign language. She's tucked in all nice and close and things are warm. He remembers when she was so thin, remembers when she felt and looked like she was wasting away not because of a lack of food but because of a lack of nourishment- a time away from the people who fed her soul.

"Anyway, I'd asked Jenn to do those paintings so people would know what we were looking for and when shit hit the fan with that there was a standard dressing down. Before that I got a talking to about wanting to investigate the whole weird monster in the park that tried to eat us thing and the subsequent investigation and the pretty continuous drop it, it's over when we found out later that it definitely wasn't over."

He stops. Exhales. Looks guilty for a minute before offering her some marshmallow peep goodness.

Serafíne

So, here's another thing Sera doesn't really know about. To-wit: the weird body-shifting Nephandus? No one has ever told her that story. Tied the pieces together for her. She has these fragments of it but again: no means of connecting them to the whole, outside of dreams or visions and thank god she doesn't have too many dreams or visions like that.

But she does: remember the certainty that something had been taken-care-of and other pieces of that. She also: hears something in Will's language and intonation that has her no longer looking down, but: at-the-fire.

And she is: careful. Careful.

"Remember the last time we talked?"

This - liminal - pause.

The hitch of her smile. If he glances at her from the right angle at just that moment, he can see that there is something about her today that is - oh - aching. Well beneath the surface.

"You blamed yourself for an awful lot of things that weren't really your fault. Remember?"

William

There are so many questions he would like to ask her sometime, but is certain he wouldn't get an answer. Not a verbal one, because Sera isn't words she is actions and those actions are Words in and of themselves. Doesn't need to say much because she says enough already to people who have eyes and hearts and know how to listen and really grasp what she said.

"I'm probably filtering our interactions through that," he says, ike it's a conceit, like he realizes something and doesn't quite know how to acknowledge it. She's looking at the fire, and he looks back at it for just a moment. The fruits of the tree of life are flames.

"Yeah, I remember."

Serafíne

Neat little nod of her head. Like she's agreeing with the music of the spheres, the notes of the universe, the rhythm of a joint being passed around a fire. Smiles a little, too. This banked glance she gives him, slanting neat and up to graze his profile.

He gets it. What she's trying to say to him. Which: pleases her.

"That's what I was thinking. Maybe you guys should talk again sometime? You know: without your filter. Grace, man. She's got enough filters of her own."

Said with a wholly affectionate curve of her mouth.

Listening post.

William

There had been a text, or perhaps a phone call, or perhaps a number of things that could have been a means of communication. It's William we are talking about here, he could have sent Sera a fucking letter, all careful script and intention dropped in a mailbox and sealed. It seems like the kind of thing he would do, but he isn't one for official correspondence.

He had made his intent known, though. He wanted to see her, wanted to do something even if he didn't know what that something was. Something more than getting shitfaced and spouting poetry because that was a normal night for him. Though, honestly, a normal night was more staying away from people and being sequestered trying to find answers to questions that he has no frame of reference for jumping off from.

But when William concluded he wanted to see people again, he concluded that he wanted to see Serafine first. First person he visited after becoming a right and proper Hermetic. Probably the only person that would call him William without thinking about it.

Whatever it was, the message had been clear: I miss you, let's go do something daring.

So there he was, waiting for her to show up at some place where people were mourning David Bowie playing his last great work and something stirs. Somewhere in Santa Fe. Somewhere that there are artists and creators and poseurs and Will, darling creature, considers himself one of the latter instead of anything in the former. Tips a shot back- tequila with orange and cinnamon instead of salt and lime.

Sera

She shows up maybe forty-five minutes later, wearing this sleek, spectacularly fitted Alexander McQueen corset jacket covered in black feathers. Nothing on beneath: just bare skin, the curve of her breasts a shadow beneath the black on the verge of revelation every time she moves. Alexander McQueen and an old pair of denim cut-offs she picked up at the Buffalo Exchange (aka - second hand) then made shorter and shorter still with a rigorous application of Dee's pinking shears. Thick black leather belt, all studs and grommets, encircling the rather high waist of those shorts. Black thigh-highs, with skulls up the back where the seam on nylons would be. Low-heeled combat boots her only concession to the weather.

--

The air in the room changes when she walks in. Yeah she looks like that and yeah she dresses like that but it's the charge in the air that has people turning, turning, turning to seek her, to watch her, to want her. The gut-wrenching, enthralling intensity remains the same as ever: but there is something new-and-changed about her. This sensation of wildness, of freedom and something else too, which burns-brightly. Which catches-to-flame.

And she finds Elijah at the bar and bartender comes over and Sera orders a round of French 75s and do they go with tequila? Who the fuck cards.

"Hi William." The brief communion: her nose against the back of his head. One arm around his shoulders, the other hand ruffling his hair. She just inhales. Then lets go, and takes that seat beside him, and orders her goddamned drinks.

William

Sera wears whatever she damned well pleases and owns it. Every bit of it. Elijah has worn some permutation of the same thing since he got here. Occasionally, he doesn't have a vest on. Tonight, he does, because he needs somewhere to put his pocketwatch. You know, the one that doesn't work except when he tells it that it is going to work. Functions as a watch and an unbroken circle-both equally important.

She orders a round of French 75's. Soixante Quinze.

She tells him hi. Hi William, specifically and he smiles, something tinged with internal and external pleasure, buries her face in his hair for a second and he smells like whatever shampoo Jenn left when she left. He's running out, figures he should go buy another bottle sometime soon. The apartments getting lonely, to say he doesn't mind would be a lie.

She feels different, something that makes him pause, makes him almost falter before that smile turns into a grin and-

"How did it goooooo? You've some something different with your hair. Or your soul. Probably the latter," he's joking except he's not. William isn't completely clueless.

Sera

"Letting the hair grow-in."

He's right actually, that's the weird thing. About both, but what she does is she turns and cants her head so he can see the soft, messy fringe where she had kept the side-cut shaved. It's not too long, not now, not yet. Pin-curl territory maybe, and it has the texture and the gleam of a cocker-spaniel's coat with a close summer clipping.

"And the soul." Quick and wry, that. The 'tender has brought back the round of champagne and gin drinks she ordered and she gives this pleased little shimmy, scooting closer to bring the bubbly concoction to her mouth.

"Woke up one day and there was something in the air."

Briefest pause, some cant of her head. Refocusing, see? Something still-seeking about that look.

"I haven't seen you in forever. How're you?"

William

Reaches out and touches the little bits of messy curl growing in, speaking of potential and there is delight- always delight because there are few things that can dim the fact that he generally believes the world to be beautiful, that people are the highlight of it and its death all in equal measure. Something about being incapable of separating the wonder from horror. He is not horrified now.

Imagines that there Willl be a point where she has long hair framed with ringlets. Pulls his hand back and takes the glass in hand once it comes. "I guess that's how some change works, you feel a change in the pressure and you either deal or you go find out where the window opened," shrugs. A quick rise and fall of his shoulders.

She asks how he is, though. Less of a grin but he takes a drink. Puts the glass down, and it tastes like Christmas time to him- anything with gin in it does. Something about juniper is indistinguishable from pine in his mind. He likes pine trees, so it doesn't matter.

"It's been kind of self-imposed exile. I put Sam in Quiet," again. Neither time was his fault but it doesn't seem like it to the blond, "and Jenn moved to LA so I've been kind of off."

A second.

"Sorry for not making Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. I feel bad about that, I probably should have called or something."

Sera

Maybe that is how the world works, but for Sera that comment was a place-holder, marking-time. Nothing about her new power was accidental. She wanted it and she worked for it and she knew she was ready for it and she sought it, and sought it, and sought it; and, finally: found. This clarity about her that feels somehow both stark and expansive.

He touches her hair and it has just that furred softness you'd imagine, trimmed so it frames her elfin ear (bristling with piercings, of course) just so. She tucks her head into the touch, also just as you'd imagine. She likes to be touched, Sera. Touched, petted cosseted, adored.

Doesn't everyone?

But there's her drink and it - has bubbles! and gin, and she has this engaging half-smile on her face, that smoothes out as he tells her that he has been on a self-imposed exile. That Jenn went to LA and he put Sam in quiet and he's sorry: he wasn't there for Thanksgiving, or Christmas.

Sera inhales. Through her nose, not her mouth. Turns to the young man beside her and reaches out and cups the back of his skull with her tattooed hand and brings him close, and closer. The grace of her mouth on his temple, his brow. The scent of clove cigarettes in her hair, and champagne on her breath. Chanel No. 5 on her skin.

"Tell me what happened."

William

People blossom when they are paid the care they are due. Each person requires something different, but the feeling that someone cares about you, the feeling that you are adored is one that is almost universal. Sera is almost too much to process, almost too big to be real, it stands in contrast with the fact that she is so very, very human. It is the contrast that he adores, it is the completeness of her and the pieces that are still missing, still changing.

She is not static. The embodiment of writing your own definition, in being a living and changing Truth.

William loves contact. It is something he sees less and less frequently, either by the nature of those he interacts with or the nature of his work. And there she is, with perfumed skin and champagne lips and deliciousness on her breath.

She asks what happened.

"I asked Jenn to help with the whole weird human chimera thing, which I thought was covered because everyone said it was handled, then it turned out to be a nephandus and things got shitty for her. She ended up going to LA to be that one Michael guy's assistant, plus when I talked to her she made a good point that the art scene was better. She moved when I was in Boston. Left most of her stuff, but she said she got an apartment so we're making progress sending stuff to her. She said I could sell the furniture," he isn't going to sell the furniture, though.

"I went out with Sam and figured, oh my god, we should go look for yetis, because we were drunk and it was cold and I didn't think we'd actually find anything, just going out and exploring the wilderness is fun, you know? So we're out, and there's just this thing, right? And it's black and all Slenderman-esque and it has this-" this is where he laughs, an escape of air, a release of tension "-blue tie. And it starts asking Sam these questions and I don't know why the fuck he felt like he needed to stand in front of me- but, I mean... I get it. It asked how many people like us were in Denver and he wouldn't answer and I was like jesus fuck, dude, just let me get us out of this but it was fucking terrifying and it stuck, like, needles on the back of his head and there was blood and-"

Again, the takes a point and centers and exhales.

"I took care of it. There was a problem and things got bad, but I took care of it. I called Kiara to come help, I got our GPS coordinates, I made sure nothing killed us while we were waiting. But I almost got my friend killed, and he was messed up for a long time, because I wanted to go out and do something stupid and didn't think anything better," he says, continues, "and I do that. I did that with Jenn for years, I did it with Sam, I did it with Alicia, I fucked up Kalen's life, I almost got -you- killed because you had to help me."

After he got shot. Twenty first birthday. Sera saved Elijah's life, tore the world apart and reeled from the damages because she didn't want him to die. And she knows why she did it, but he doesn't. He thinks he knows, but has so many contingencies and why nots in him that the idea baffles him.

"I had to decompress from that."

Sera

And Sera listens.

Listens with intention, listens with awareness. Listens with her golden head canted and her fine little fingers draped around the stem of the champagne flute in which her drink has been served. Eyes half-closed, not always looking directly at him, but always close, the weight of her awareness and her attention and her presence and her interest evident in every line of her body. The supple threads of tension in her neck, the bruised gleam of her gaze, here just so, or there.

There is an awful lot to unload, and she lets him: unload. Listens, her head canted low, her dark eyes on his profile, then the windows beyond, then his profile again. Something aware about the way she watches him. Considers him. Listens to him. Hears him.

And there is a helluva lot that she wants to say, but she starts with this:

"Have you decompressed from that?"

William

Sera listens with intention, because everything she does is with intent. Because William has never seen her be careless with anything (or she is careless with everything, so a part of the world and willing for it to be, yet so completely capable of imposing her will upon it.)

She has never been deaf to his experiences, though. Has never made him feel lesser because he has been human; there aren't many people he can say that about. There's not many people who he thinks actively care about him, except perhaps Sera and Dan. They are a fixture in his life, and yet he chose to be somewhere so ideologically far away from them. Or maybe he sees the reason and tries to bridge a gap, tries to find a universal truth that unites all things but that is too complex. His dreams are incomprehensible, and that is certainly a concrete dream to have.

But has he decompressed?

"Sort of, it's kind of like being a glass of water and someone poured soy sauce into it. You just get moved to a bigger container and you add more water to fill it but the previous experience will still color it, I wouldn't want to bleed it all off and be a fundamentally different substance," he takes a drink of the bubbly Christmas tree concoction, "I've decompressed enough to know that I need-" people? Friends? Her? "-I don't need to be alone."

Sera

Oh, Sera. Lovely creature, who doesn't know what the fuck William is talking about, with water and soy sauce and coloring and containers or even perhaps the idea of containment, but she's watching his face in that bar and the air - fuck, the air should be smokey, should be edging-toward-opaque, but Denver has all those pesky anti-smoking laws - still the air has a haze-to-it, some sort of lambent gleam. She doesn't know what the fuck he means, but she thinks she gets the intent behind it. All this stuff in me: is settling. I'm changed, I'm always changing, I'll always be the person-who-changed, not the person-who-was. He's telling this to a time mage. She eats seconds the way strangers in a bar at closing time devour one anothers' hearts.

Or, maybe it isn't hearts they're devouring.

Sera tosses back her drink. Is there another one? There is another one! Maybe by magick: there is another one, but there it is. This strange thread of coincidence running through the moment, something like serendipity, which, if we are counting, is the word that an earlier Sera, a different Sera, had tattooed in script up her flank. If William has ever seen that word, it was only in pieces, none of which make sense without the rest.

And she offers him her hand and tells him that they should get out of there: there's a world outside, right? a bright, cold, brisk night, frame in light, the remembered sky. Her grip is stronger than you might think, with callouses that are stranger than you could understand and she pays the tab and off they go.

Outside on the sidewalk, she is still holding his hand. Doesn't seem like she's gonna let go.

"You blame yourself for a lot of shit, you know, that's not your fault. And some shit that is maybe is. And I'm gonna start at the end and maybe work back to the beginning, okay? You didn't put Samir in Quiet. Shit happened to you and it sounds like you saved his life."

William

Sera, lovely creature, Sera who does not know what he is talking about because he rambles but she gets the jist because she knows him. Because she knows people, but in his own young adult universe it is more important to him in some instances that she gets him specifically. That she understands where he is coming from- she can understand things. He's never seen the tattoo up her side, doesn't know that it says serendipity but he can tell some things because there are a finite number of things that the shapes of almost words can say.

He's good at noticing things that aren't presented to him; it's made him good at reading people without meaning to. When he tries, he's clueless.

What she says has him nodding, paying attention to her and forgetting that he has a drink until she finishes hers, which is a cue for him to finish his. Doesn't think too hard about it, just gets it all done with.

"I think sometimes it's easier to blame yourself than admit that you didn't have complete control of a situation."

Sera

This quick, quiet little smile skims over her mouth, equal parts elegant and thoughtful, as Will speculates that maybe the problem is that it is hard to admit how little control one has and she's opening her mouth to say something but something about that: strikes her, oh, just so.

They are, after all, creatures who have awoken to a universe where so many hidden things are now within their thorough control.

And without, of course.

So there she is, turning over the mystery of his idea and walking and COLD and there may, there must be some idea of a destination, the way she's walking now. The purpose that has infected her stride.

"Sometimes it's just a little switch inside you that means: you blame yourself, logic be damned. But Samir: you guys got drunk and went out into the woods. Maybe you convinced him. Okay: if you had been attacked by bears or fallen off a cliff I might allow you a small piece of the blame, not much because Samir is a damned adult. But: those are expected goddamned dangers in the woods that you exposed yourself to by being drunk and wandering around. What you described is nothing that could've been anticipated and again: Samir, adult, disciple event.

"So. Now: Samir - quiet. That's his thing, you know? It happens to him. It's happened to him more than once, and whatever it is in him that means reality is that much harder or stronger or more present for him that breaking its rules fucks up his brain for a while is something that he has to learn to deal with.

"Have you talked to him, since? Because, if not - I think you should."

William

"We haven't talked," he replies, "it wasn't for lack of desire, but-"

He stops himself, as though he knows when and how to call out his own bullshit before it starts to run rampant. He knows the reasons that he didn't talk to Samir; he had enough problems without William coming by and reminding him of what happened when they'd last been out. He'd come as far as being able to see the damned trailer before turning around and going home; William marked himself a coward for that. Perhaps his lack of gumption was brought on by a desire to not remind someone of the pain they'd experienced.

Samir was an adult, though- he was as responsible for his own well-being and self regulation as William was. He may be a contributing factor to a situation, but William lacked the ability and desire to literally make someone feel a certain way.

"It all just felt weird. I went by in December but he's kinda dropped off radar. I'll try again."

Because that's what he can commit to- trying. Considers flagging down a waitress and re-upping his drink. Decides against it for the time being.

Sera

"Mmm," the quiet hum of her voice, this inherent musicality to the thoughtless intonation. Medieval philosophers once believed that certain intervals reproduced the clearly harmonic arrangements of the sky: the perfect movement of the sun-and-planets around a thoroughly fixed and central earth. Here is: Venus to Mercury to Mars.

Gentle, she leans over to him. Reaches out and cups his golden head with her well-inked hand and brings him close. Her mouth in his hair, as she kisses him, not quite on the crown of his head.

"The longer you let it go, the weirder it'll get. But he's your friend. I bet he'll be happy to see you. Now do I need to tell you that you didn't ruin Kalen's life, or can we agree that I'm right about every-fucking-thing and I am really, really glad you decided to stop decompressing and ask me out?"

William

He laughs, and the sound is pleased, an acknowledgement that- yes, she is right about everything and -yes, he is also glad that she came out with him. She kissed him =on the head and he had leaned in because of course he would. Hasn't ever shied away from her in any memory that he has. Perhaps once, perhaps twice, but never significant enough that it would scar his psyche into thinking that, yes, he had backed away from her.

Except for the time that he half-drunkenly remembered Sera and quinoa muffins. Though that might have been Dee. Or Jenn. Now that he thinks of it, hazing drunken memories involving quinoa muffins was probably either Dee or a dream about Dee.

"Do you like roller coasters?" he asks, "literal roller coasters."

He smiles, the non-sequitur and the pleased look on his face says it all- he is happy she came out.

Sera

Later she might tell him some other story or pull this one back into focus and it will hardly matter. The world knits itself together into these exquisite, minute little moments, and then it tears itself apart again. She is breathing a framing smile and letting go of him and there is about it this sense: untangling.

"I've never been on a goddamned roller coaster." Something about the way she holds up her sharp little chin in that moment is either bravado or challenge. " - but I love carousels. Round and round and round. I like the ones with tigers though, and fucking ant-eaters and shit. Not the boring ones with flying elephants and baby bats.

"And you changed the subject, but you didn't ruin Kalen's life, either."

William

"I'm prone to histrionics," he admits. She calls him out on changing the subject and he smiles like he'd been caught doing something that he shouldn't have been doing, or perhaps read a cue wrong. Whatever the case, he didn't ruin Kalen's life. He didn't get Samir nearly killed, either.

"And I'm willing to concede that I didn't ruin Kalen's life, and maybe I didn't completely and irrevocably mess Alicia up," but he doesn't say that he didn't have a hand in making her leave (or rather- not giving her a reason to stay. Not that she needed a reason to leave, she had a mission in mind and it didn't involve waiting for the awakened world to go help her.)

Sera

some thoughts on mercy

William

He's got a few more days in Denver before he ahs to catch another flight out of here back to Louisiana to deal with his family for, what William presumes, is going to be another awkward Thanksgiving where his relatives are nice, ask how things are, generally avoid talking about the big awkward thing in the room where they're fairly certain he shouldn't be living on his own (espeically since Jenn's gone- up and moved to Los Angeles, is actually having a pretty damned fantastic time, and avoiding the fucking blizzard that Denver is currently experiencing) .

Exhale.

He got to Sera's place through a buzz route, a train, and very careful navigation that didn't involve having to use a motorcycle. He was going to have to get a car now. Wasn't going to have to worry about covering the rent because he was the one who paid for the apartment anyway- had Jenn's back when things were a bit much for her but we digress again because it is a time for digression.

He stands on the porch, knocks because he always knocks, but actually waits to be let in this time. Takes in his surroundings and how much he can't stand the fact that it's cold and he can feel it in his lungs and how he keeps checking to be sure the sun hasn't burned out.

It hasn't, by the way.

Serafíne

The blizzard warnings were bloody well overstated thank you very much NWS with your aggressive forecasting. No need to run out day-before-yesterday on a desperate quest for milk and bread and cigarettes and beer and Tito's Handmade Vodka and cheap red wine and cloves and local honey and cloves and cinnamon and firewood and carrots just in case there was enough snow to build snowpersons each of whom would require: noses but what the hell. There's enough snow that the residents of 719 Corona Street can pretend that they are snowbound and throw a party. Or kind of a party.

Out front there are these maybe foot-and-a-half high snowpersons with raisin eyeballs and these pouty-red twizzler mouths and hot-pink shot glasses and a semi-frozen can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Have to walk past them to get to the porch.

There's alcohol enough for whoever shows up. Wine mulling with spices on the stove. A red velvet cake cooling on the rack waiting to be iced and a bit pot of chili and this lovely jalapeno-cheese cornbread to be crumbled into some waiting bowl and inhaled along with the spices. For whomever shows up.
--
Elijah shows up.

Knocks, as he does. Takes a little while because the residents here never expect their visitors to knock but bare feet on warm wooden floorboards and then Dee opens the front door.

"Elijah! God I hope you aren't frozen to death, though honestly I'm a little disappointed in our mediocre blizzard. We haven't had a proper one since I moved back, and here we locked in supplies for days. Your timing's great, though. Sera got in this morning? Probably the last flight that landed at DIA before they shut it down. I'm making a red velvet cake as a welcome home." Stepping back to let him in, closing the door after. Shivering that inside shiver: like fuck, she forgot it was winter outside. Keeps chattering as she walks back through: the foyer and down the long hallway, past the empty front parlor, toward the kitchen and living room that are, in winter anyway, the heart of the house. Is he hungry? Does he want a drink? Does he like hot wine? Warms you up but good. Rick made the chili and Dee the cornbread, there's this grist mill in Golden that does the cornmeal, stone ground, artisinal, can't be beat.

William

"What is wrong with the mountains?! Dee, why is there snow? Louisiana doesn't have snow."

Said like someone who is not from here, and he is very much not from here. He would never get used to snow, just like he would never get used to the fact that Denver is a place that doesn't have any air and he's still making peace with the fact that his lungs are going to have to readjust to the fact that this place has nothing remotely resembling air since they're a mile above sea level.

He already misses home and he hasn't made it back yet. He already wants to be back in Denver, though, even though the time to realize homesickness isn't a real thing has passed him.

But he comes in, hugs Dee if she'll let him like he's a lost toddler trying to make sense of a world that makes abso-fucking-lutely no sense to him. Laughs after a point when he steps in and he's cold but he's not cold, because very rarely has Elijah's demeanor been anything other than warm. He goes through the checklist- he would like chili, mulled wine sounds fantastic, you can't go wrong with cornbread, and he might have water and a nap after that but he'll probably take the nap somewhere else. He just wanted to come by and see human beings whose company he enjoys.

Which, in case she has not guessed, includes Dee.

Serafíne

The first non-awakened person to see her was a bus-boy in the only remaining Howard Johnson's Restaurant on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and he had been avoiding (for some reason) clearing off booth 13 where she was ensconsed, reading Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay, mouth moving with the words, picking at some stranger's leftover fried clams and slipping them underneath the table to Sid, crowded all gawky around the table legs, mostly out of the way, and truth: he didn't notice her, not right away. He saw the dog's tail sweeping out from beneath the booth and thought: maybe the shit is cousin got her two weeks ago really was LSD with some really delayed action; and then thought: fuck, a snake!; and then thought: what's a dog - ; and then realized the dog was actually there and was attached to a girl he couldn't take his eyes off, once he noticed her. Sunglasses and a weird, skinny book and a leather jacket and something about her that made his breath stop and his chest hum with something he couldn't really name. Not love or lust or anything, but something else entirely, something that made him want to: be, rise, change, wake.

Wake.

Wake.

--

"Shit I'm sorry. Let me clean that off for you."

He meant the table. She started crying. And he wanted to, but somehow he couldn't begin to ask her why.

That was less than twelve hours ago.

--

Elijah laments the presence of snow to a girl who was lamenting not 2.3 seconds ago the lack-of-it, so: perspective, you know. That's all that matters. She pats his poor tender head and suggests that he get a nice tobaggan. That's what she says: tobaggan. Dee has a friend who hand-knits them with slightly - well - racy takes on the traditional Fair Isle patterns and sells them on Etsy and maybe Elijah would like to buy one before the real snow comes? If it ever does?

He is loaded up with whatever he wants: mulled wine, chili, cornbread, a hot toddy, probably a goddamned napkin or three and hey! living room. There's a fire starting to crackle in the hearth and Sera and Dan on the couch and a dog kinda crowded-underneath the coffee table, part of her muzzle and part of her tail sticking out because PEOPLE ARE HERE AND SHE LIKES PEOPLE. Sera is curled up with Dan: hasn't left his side since she got home. He has arm flung around her body and her temple is resting on his shoulder and his head tilted towards hers, mouth close to her brow. She's too drunk to decide whether his beard is scratchy or ticklish but either way it makes her fucking happy. So happy she is still sometimes starts crying for no goddamned reason.

Dan lifts his free arm and gives Elijah a wave. Shifts and murmurs something into Our Sera's ear, enough to have her following suit. Waving: hi, hello, salut, what the fuck ever.

William

"Wait, what is a tobaggan?"

And thus there was the explanation, which made him laugh, and he was soon enough inside. Ditched the coat and the scarf and the gloves but doesn't take his vest off or anything else because Elijah was fucking prepared for the day that things were going to be cold and, truth be told, he was always dressed in too damn much clothing anyway because he liked the aesthetic. Could deal with being a little warm and now he could survive it.

So he sits down in the floor, where he can see Sera and Dan and seems... intent. Intent on looking at people and taking them in, perhaps odd because he'd want to be there in the middle. He'd wanted to pile in and be in her space and have moments of just talking and listening and conveying the world of things that he wanted to say but couldn't because-

Well, because. There were people, and she'd spent so long without them. Couldn't dare interrupt it to take that time for himself because, like Dee said, she just got home. He's eating, sneaks Sid a piece of cornbread.

"So, house is full again," he says, smiles, just takes it all in for what it is.

Serafíne

There are times when she looks harrowed. Walks herself to some invisible edge and just stays there for so goddamned long you'd think she would have no choice but to fall, and she has that look about her now, Sera. That bones-through-skin translucency. The too-sharp profile, the spare, fine-spun sense that she was created, not born, and from all the things that are disappearing from this world.

And yet: also a sort of fullness to her, that sense of repletion that opens beneath the breastbone at the first sight of a too-full moon. She's glossy and way-too-drunk and watches Elijah as he crosses the room juggling chili and cornbread and wine or whatever and sits where he sits and as he feeds Sid ('sneaks' hah) some cornbread and Sid is okay with cornbread but she would like chili much fucking better, thank you, and Elijah remarks that the house is full again and Dan's eyes stitch to him briefly then. Wry grin that touches his mouth but looks - well - weary when it gets to his eyes. "Yeah," is what he says in response, and it sounds so: solid that there's as much meaning in that one word as there is a whole damn tree, root to branch and back again.

He says something to Sera right into her ear, and whatever it is is enough to rouse her, to have her perking up like an adorable goddamned meerkat who could tear your body apart from the inside out, so incrementally you'd swear the world had started spinning backwards and then she's up, untangling from the throw she'd wrapped around her long, long legs, shaking it off one leg that is especially tangled, laughing as she stitch-hops and then, fuck it, sort of untwirling from it. She is wearing: a man's button-down shirt and black lace panties and her hair is still damp from the shower but only in the middle of the mass and Dan's trying to figure out what she's going for before she staggers into the fire but she's magick, she's not staggering into the fire.

So; lots of complications.

But she finds what she's looking for: a superbly battered fuzzy panda-bear backpack and pulls out something: a book!

Which she hands to Elijah as she bends weavingly down and kisses him on the temple.

Murmuring, "Proud of you, kid. Congrats."

William

He had once talked about wanting to know Serafine as a human being, wanted to know things like what her fond memories were and where she was from- never asked what her birth name was though it comes to him. Knows that perhaps he shouldn't ask that, especially now that names have such a significance. She is how she is, she is as she is. Not her complete definition but that bit of truth isn't his to actually touch. Wouldn't dream of knowing someone so intimately, but he certainly does have the fantasy of getting to know her. Past what she presents and, instead, the places that take her further from whatever box people use to define her.

He's earned his keep in this city, whatever weird and miraculous things he's witnessed have come in dreams or had the misfortune of crossing his doorstep. What he's capable of is often a question of debate, the general consensus being that he's still young, still inexperienced, still very much that deer on spindly legs and yet-

He just came back from an experience that said the opposite. Where his betters assessed and didn't find him wanting, where he was regarded as someone that people could see as a peer. Came back to Denver and things have changed, drastically so but not in a bad way. This is more of the same, but a welcome stability and who would have ever accused Serafine of being a source of stability in his life?

She swings by, has a book in hand which he then is holding, kisses him on the temple and he half whispers- words only for her- "It's William now," he tells her, "but you can call me whatever you want. Won't be salty."

Pulls back and looks back at her, smiles and looks at the book in his hands, "scout's honor."

Serafíne

The book in his hands is a small, slim book by a man named Ross Gay. It is the book she was reading this morning - slouched, slung low really, one the bench seat of Booth 13 of the last remaining Howard Johnson's restaurant on the Pennsylvania turnpike when: someone noticed.

--

The cover is a bright riot of color, like Claude Monet had sex with de Kooning and Frieda Kahla and made it: see? This. The name is: Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude.

--

"William. I'll call you whatever the fuck you want me to call you."

then she is: standing up. Something about the way she does it suggests that remaining upright is a goddamned pleasure and a near-insurmountable challenge but she's taking it on with goddamned gusto. Balancing with an outflung hand on the crown of his head while also wiggling her fingers at Dan all come get me please, which he loves, and also: refuses to do. On principle, at least right now.

William

She'll call him whatever he wants her to call him, and it makes... it provokes and evokes a reaction that is not one other than pleasure, of relief. Like he expected it to be harder, like he expected her not to, like he'd expected a lot of things and it's a sign to him that there's acceptance of the newer parts of his life, that he's not drowning and someone accepts that about him.

He looks at the cover, holds it and turns to the page indicated and he looks it over. Eyes trail over words and he's reading, translating- a little known fact. Sometimes, English hitches in the back of his mind. Only occasionally, but it means when it comes to poetry he is mindful of what he is reading. Takes it in slowly and then perks up.

Flashes a bright grin at Sera-

"I wanna read this," he announces.

And so he does. Starts off with "Friends, will you bear with me today,
for I have awakened
from a dream in which a robin
made with its shabby wings a kind of veil-"

There's a way that he reads, a way that he presents things and a way that he seems aware of what he's doing. He's a storyteller, this one. Can convey what is in front of him and words come by with delight. Reads aloud for others to enjoy, but eventually settles again in to observing people. Trades stories with people about how Boston was- Dan knows which hulking details he's leaving out. Listens to the little bits of people's days and is just content to take them all in. The huamnity of it, the warmth of it, the way that this house feels more like a home than any number of places he's been.

He'll fly out again in less than a week, may think of being on Corona street instead of Baton Rouge.

The Magic Flute

William

He was still in Boston, holed up in a room with a few recent-additions to the Tradition and William had gone through some effort to actually make friends and contacts that he can actually come back. He's got a legacy to uphold now, it's real. IT's really real, and he could have called any number of people and, perhaps with wishful thinking, he thought that maybe he could call Sera.

He should know better, knows that she's been unable to make calls. Knows that she's a spectre in the city, but he tries anyway, thinks that maybe he can leave her a voicemail. Leave her poetry and tidings and any number of things.

William misses Serafine. He's still having to get accustomed to which name he needs to sign when, but he calls her phone anyway.

Dan

Dinner has Dan sitting in a coffeehouse / cafe / bar called CASH ONLY with Rick and a few friends. There's a beer on the table in front of him that he's been nursing for an hour, and a half-decimated platter of "Irish Nachos" on the table between them. He sits back with enough of a view of the snow melting over the sidewalk, that strange, bright, burnt-orange blast of artificial light reflecting on snow that always feels like the first edge of a nuclear winter.

He's carrying two phones, these days, ignoring the constant little vibrations of texts sliding in in favor of sitting and having a conversation with friends he likes. The ringtone for a call is different, though. Is She Weird warbles Black Francis, which makes him shift his ass half-off the seat and pull out the phone, enough to glance at it and see who's calling. Then he stands up, waves an apology to friends and steps away, out into the chilly November night,

"Elijah." Male voice, baritone, too deep to be Sera. Affection wrapped up into the greeting, though. The suggestion of a beard brushing against the receiver. "What's up?"

William

The backdrop of Elijah's call seems pretty quiet, all things said. He hears the voice, the affection in it and while it isn't Serafine it is Dan, and Dan is a welcomed treat in and of itself. The smile is clear on his face, in his voice. There's the rustle of fabric, probably a blanket or a pillowcase or something to that effect.

"I'm in Boston! Got through all my sorting hat business and graduated from hogwarts or whatever freaking Harry Potter analogy you want to make," Dan can all but hear the young man wave something off.

"I'll be coming back pretty soon, do you want anything?"

Dan

"From Boston?" An inflected rise of the consor's voice, this quiet bemusement braided into his tone. It is only now that response to his question: what's up? has spilled into a breathless explanation that Dan can begin to decipher only because he has had years of deciphering Sera's fucked-up ramblings that he finds the tension in his spine starting to unknot.

And he tries, makes an effort, not to allow that tension to enter his voice. "Maybe snowboots. Not for me but for you. Winter's made an appearance."

A short breath out, which sounds like a smoker's exhale but Dan isn't smoking today. "So that means you're official? They give you a scarf and a coat-of-arms and everything? Anyone ask you to try out for the quidditch team?"

William

"Yeah, I've got the scarf and everything. I have been tagged, Named, and thrust upon the world. God have mercy on us all," he's excited. It's obvious he's excited because he's rambling and, frankly, unless someone was there with him it was a little difficult to catch what he was actually talking about.

"Turns out I'm shit on a broom, though," he laughs, "on a more realistic note I'm kind of sad winter has shown up, I thought it was just happening up north so I was vehemently trying to wish it away because it's fucking cold."

It dawns on him that Serafine isn't the one who answered the phone. There's a bit of silence there before-

"Hey, you holding up okay? If you're out with people I can call you back."

Dan

"I'm cool," Dan assures him, in that low-rumble, and these are things that one says. Over the phone, over wires or ether or whatever strange and agreed-upon magick allows us to be everywhere at once. He straightens up, takes in the street. Doesn't think the call will be long but he doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get back to the folks inside. Lets the music stay behind him, dulled to a low but present hum by the windowglass.

"Congratulations, though. You doing anything to celebrate? Have anyone to celebrate with?"

--

Doesn't ask the new Name.

Knows enough not to. Doesn't believe in that particular power but Elijah's belief in this matters more than Dan's.

William

"I've been trying to cram about as much partying in with my new housemates as possible- it's... We're not a giant house, but we're supposed to be diplomats, you know? So, like, actually interacting with each other and building a working relationship seems like a pretty good idea and thus far I've figured out I kinda like these people."

He asks if there's anyone he has celebrated with, and it makes William laugh a little at it, "so I did shots with a chick named Holly we've exchanged numbers and shit. I've actually been good, I'm trying to be a grown up and now... you know... promoting Hermetic good will by trying to get into my tradition mate's pants."

Even though, by the sound of it, he would really, really like to.

"It's pretty fucking hard. It's like I walked into a freaking American Apparel catalog or something."

Dan

This quiet noise, something close to gruff bemusement. The whole conversation would be better if the snow were still falling, but that storm has moved onward to ravage the east coast, to remind everyone in its path that winter means more than earlier, more spectacular sunsets. More than the Santa Claus house at the mall.

He focuses - his eyes anyway - on the closed headshop across the street. The patterned, maw-like reflections of hookahs lined up in the picture window. Gauges how much and how far he should-maybe caution a now-full-fledged member of the Order of Hermes, unAwakened friend of a low-penny mystic that he is.

Thinks about diplomacy, its meanings and its iterations. Thinks about the boundaries of nations ringing the world.

"Naw, man. You ever see the Magic Flute?"

Mozart. Dan means: the Mozart opera.

William

Has he seen the Magic Flute?

He actually has to think about this, though the reference isn't lost on him. Pulls through his memories and tries to think of the various times he's actually been to the opera and comes back with-

"Yeah," he replies, the lilt in his voice says that he's listening to Dan. That he's paying attention, that perhaps he isn't cut out to be a full fledged Hermetic because he's he hasn't ever given the indication that he thinks less of how Serafine and Dan view the world.

She'd said something about it once. He'd been shocked to say the least.

Dan

"It's like you've just walked out of the overture into the opera proper. The bells are starting to ring, everything's strange and it's up to you to figure out what all of this shit means. I mean, it's spectacular, right? But all that weird Masonic symbolism trips me out."

A short breath out, affection this crackle in his voice.

"So, celebrate. Seriously. Do. But remember that you're at the very beginning, and you have fuck-all of an idea of who's what and when and where. Caution, man. Especially now, when you're with your housemates, I think you need to have your wits about you at every step."

William

There has never been an instance where the young man has not listened to Dan. Dan knows what he's talking bout; the man has seen the world. He's seen what happens and seen more of the magical world and how people interact than Elijah has and now the young man is having to brave the world.

He pauses, nods and it's almost like Dan can hear the newly-minted Hermetic nodding.

"I've gotta make it through the whole opera, I'm feeling hoepful," purses his lips but smiles anyway.

"Thanks, man. I'll... you're pretty fuckin' smart, I kinda dig that about you."

Dan

"Cheers, kid." The low back of a laugh, still that scrawl of affection underlying it. Strain, too, sure, but only if you really listen for it.

"Be safe. Talk to you later."

Click.

--

He drops the phone from his ear, glances down at it in his hand. Rubs his thumb over the screen and watches as the icons shift and shiver. Glances at the unanswered texts, then thumbs them away. He thinks about lighting a cigarette, wouldn't mind the burn in his throat conjoined with the bright, belting cold.

But he doesn't have one, so he just breathes. In, out.

In, out. The only way to get into or out of this world.