The Importance of Answering Your Phone

Elijah

[nightmares]

Elijah

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Elijah

There was no prelude. After much not answering of the phone, after phonecall after phonecall after phone call until finally each call went straight to voice mail, there is a call. There is finally a call from a familiar number from a familiar blond young teenager. Finally.

Elijah was hung over, but no worse for the wear all things considered. His phone finally had a full charge.

Ring ring.

Alicia

At first she considers not answering the phone because what if Jenn hadn't heard from him because the men in black suits had caught up with him the same as they'd caught up with her father. That was a legitimate concern. Most of the reason why she texted him more than once and then started calling and when the calls went to voicemail she left a voicemail and when the voicemail went unanswered she redialed and redialed and redialed until the automated woman told her there was no more room left on Elijah Poirot's mailbox.

She was furious for a time. Maybe she reached out to the other Awakened. Like as not she didn't. Alicia has already reached out to them once about her father and look where that's gotten her. Sid and Kalen were in a coma and Lena went in after them and she's sitting wherever it is she's sitting that she can let the phone ring three times before collecting herself enough to answer it.

"Where were you?" she asks.

Elijah

Elijah did what people do when they have an abundance of voicemail messages left by the same person; he didn't listen to them. The frequency of the phone calls, the text messages, the voice mails- his mind went to something less-than-good happening. He wondered if Jenn's car broke down. Well, no, that wouldn't be the case. Jenn would call a cab if her car broke down. Elijah poi rot can be an empathetic person, but the phone was his kryptonite it would seem.

There is a confused silence, and a search for words before, "on my couch? My stairs were uncooperative last night."

A second passed, "Are you okay?"

Alicia

"I'm fine, I was just worried."

Her voice is torn between crying because she's relieved and crying because now she's angry at him. Like how can the fucking Time Mage not know how many hours have passed between Jenn losing track of him and the conversation they're having now. What the fuck Poirot.

"Jenn texted me to ask me if I'd seen you and I was like 'No I didn't know y'all were going out' and then I went out but I couldn't... do you even know what day it is?"

Elijah

[How bad IS this?]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )

Elijah

Does he even know what day it is?

Silence. Then?

"Saturday."He says with finality. Yes, he knows what day this is. There isn't a guaranty, however, that he had not used some kind of magic to determine what day it was. Then again, saying that it was Saturday and knowing that the inciting incident of this conversation happened on a Thursday was an entirely different matter.

What time was it, anyway?

Something seems to hit him and there was a softening in his voice, "we were at this house party and I saw Sid and were gonna go get food. I passed out in her truck. I mean, I try not to pass out in cars often but I guess I was pretty tired."

Alicia

And she's trying not to make any kind of sound that would indicate she's upset but the problem with conversing with the aid of a microphone is it picks up everything. He can hear when she snuffles around the hitching of a sob and has to breathe with tears in her sinuses until she pulls herself together.

"Okay?" she says. Like okay that explains where you were but that was Thursday Elijah. Before he can answer she blows out a breath and goes on: "Okay. Sorry, I was just... I thought something happened."

Elijah

"Can I come see you?" he asks. She's trying not to cry, and there is a rustle of fabric against fabric, an adjustment of personage before the sound of him flopping back down on the couch yet again.

Clearly, it was not time to stand up. He sighs, a long exhaling of breath.

"Why are you apologizing? I was a dick and didn't-like-yeah."

Alicia

She doesn't answer the first question because it makes her start crying again. The crying turns to nothing as she tilts the mouthpiece away from her jaw. Keeps the receiver against her ear. Maybe she used to be better at keeping her shit together when everything around her wasn't together. Or maybe she just got too used to other people knowing how to handle a teenage girl crying because she was scared or angry.

Or maybe her upbringing was a little fucked up and now that she's on her own it's left her a little fucked up too. Crying isn't something worth apologizing over.

"You weren't a dick," she says when she can speak again though her words still wrack with tears, "you were passed out."

Christ. She takes a steeling breath. Cracks open a beer. Its metal siren song reaches the microphone.

Elijah

She starts crying, but the mouth piece gets turned away and he isn't sure if she put the phone down or she turned the phone away but there is a sharply inhaled breath before there is a reply. His voice stays soft, and some part of him thinks what the Hell are you doing? but he knows what he's doing, the same thing he would do for Jenn (he thinks, but perhaps he's not so sure anymore.) "Alicia, please don't cry-I-I mean you can… it's… it's just… Whatever you thought, nothing happened, it's fine-I'm fine-we're both fine so-but I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry."

you were passed out

"Christ, I kind of wish you'd yell at me," because he could deal with that. He was accustomed to getting yelled at. His parents weren't a crying sort. When they were worried, his father yelled and his mother? Well, Madeline didn't exactly yell about anything, or get upset about much of anything. Most emotions would ruin her rather flawless makeup, but we digress.

Alicia

"I DON'T WANT TO YELL AT YOU!"

Well that settles that. She's not crying anymore or if she is it's reduced to a trickle she can swallow down easy so the tears aren't audible over the connection. She has beer to chase them with.

"Did you get hurt? Did you hurt somebody else? Did you get kidnapped and tortured and... and... released back into the wild with a tracking device in your brain or something? What the fuck am I supposed to yell at you for? Passing out and letting your fucking phone die? It's not like you were with some roofie-happy serial killer, you were with Sid. Which I didn't know before I spent the last two days being worried about you. Excuse the fuck out of me for crying when I find out you're not dead in a ditch somewhere."

Elijah

I DON'T WANT TO YELL AT YOU!

"Well, good! I'm glad!" he can't help himself, it just comes out, and his eyes widen and there is the slap of a man putting his hand over his face because he can't believe he just fucking said that.

But she keeps going, and that makes him go quiet. She goes on about whether or not he got hurt, if someone took him away and tortured him and it hits him for a moment of terrifying that must be.

"Is that what you thought happened?"

There is the rustling of fabric again, "Alicia, I really, really need to see you, can I please come see you?"

Alicia

"Why?" she asks. Bitter of a sudden. She can't drink this beer fast enough. Maybe it isn't her first. The breath she takes after this sip suggests it wasn't. "Worrying about you was stupid. If something was wrong they would've gotten you back. They got Kalen and Sid and that other guy back. I don't get to have my dad back. I thought I might really really need to see him but I don't get to and I'm not wasting away or anything."

Elijah

"Bullshit."

Alicia

Pointed silence. She hasn't hung up on him. The phone would have flashed if she had hung up on him.

Elijah

"Whatever happened to your dad? Hurt you," he starts, "and it did that in ways I can't even fucking imagine… and you're not okay. If you need to see him, then we need to come up with a plan and make this happen. Maybe not today, but we have to."

Alicia

"We can't. This isn't like calling all the hospitals and being like 'Yo is So-and-So a patient there?' or... or breaking into the Aurora library. Don't be an idiot. I'm fine."

Elijah

"If you were fine, you wouldn't have brought it up, we're going to have to work at this, but we can do this- so what if it's a risk?"

Alicia

"It's not a risk, Elijah, it's..." She growls with frustration. "You don't even know how to charge your phone, how are you gonna help me get my dad back?"

Elijah

"Ride the ass of every person I know until it happens. There's a lot of people in Denver- look, I don't have a plan yet, but i'm going to need help."

Elijah

"Ride the ass of every person I know until it happens. There's a lot of people in Denver- look, I don't have a plan yet, but i'm going to need help."

Alicia

Wryness around the killing blow to her can of beer.

"Yeah, you need help, alright."

Elijah

"What do you want me to do, Alicia? Huh?"

Alicia

"I didn't--!"

Oh. Right. She brought it up.

"Just... you want to do something? Leave me alone."

That time she hangs up.

Elijah

"Alicia?" no answer.

He looks at his phone, noticing that she hung up. Elijah groaned and called the young woman back, but to no avail. He waited, pacing the little stretch right before the couch before noticing the very pointed lack of answer. Elijah half-heartedly threw his phone at one end of the couch.

"... oh god damnit."

Alicia

[AND WE WRAPPED THE SCENE IN ONE SITTING FUCK YEAH]