Carissa

Elijah

[Nightmares! I forgot!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Elijah

It wasn't so much the sound of his voice as the feeling that he brought that was noticeable. Familiar. Something about Elijah was familiar, even if he was a total stranger, because he was a sensation that was hard to ignore. His being was turbulent, he was the storm itself- the unrest in men's hearts before glorious revolution. Yes, that was the feeling that he brought with him, the chaos that came along ever-so-slight and ever-so-budding, building, burning, it was there. He was something. He was Something.

He finishes off his song, tries to pull for another one but seems to be lacking in luck with this regard. The young man's thoughts wandered, as he himself wandered, and there were a number of things that could have happened. Elijah was prone to being lost in his thoughts, getting stuck in his own head while his body did whatever it damned well pleased. There was a disconnect, something he desperately wanted to reconnect from time to time. If he could turn it off and have that unity of self he could be all sorts of things, but he lived on conflict. Thrived on contradiction.

A he approached, Elijah could smell the scent of weed. The presence of another person and his attention was drawn to her and her muted colors. His attire was comfortable, for him at least, though he had been told he wears too many clothes. the young man had his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his shirt untucked and fitted and his vest fit nicely enough. He needed a place for his pocket watch, because…well… pocket watch. Whatever spoke to him kept talking, but now it was easier to ignore.

Now, he had a puzzle. No song, no words, just…

"Whoa…"

Elijah

[Per+aware, resonance?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

Carissa

The familiarity settles her on a knifes edge of suspicion, and all for good reason that Elijah of course knows nothing of. She's an image from some cinematic masterpiece: muted shades of white and denim with brilliant red lipstick and Dwight's red Converse. Long fingers push choppy shifts of black and burgundy hair away from her eyes while her eyes level on his face. His shirt and vest are soaked in and she shifts her hips in one flowing movement then stands her ground.

He had puzzle and he begins his beginning deduction with ...Whoa.

For her response she digs into the pocket of her jean shorts and with a shake of her wrist shakes a cigarette loose and puts it between her lips. Once it's lit and after she takes a deep pull, she picks at imaginary left-over tobacco on her lips.

"Nice vest." She says to him, voice husky.

(To Elijiah she is a thread from the same cloth that built him. Two peas in a pod when it comes to that part of themselves that leaves invisible footprints and fingerprints wherever they are. She is tumultuous and intriguing and all together something else entirely...hollow perhaps? Half empty, rather than half full. )

Elijah

Her voice is husky and something is missing. Some part of her is somewhere gone, gone and he can't stop looking at her and he can't get the grin off of his face because there she is. The same as he is, the same creature with the same resonance, the same fingerprint, but… missing something. Missing part of herself and he wondered… my he wonders a lot now, doesn't he? That darling child, that strange creature before her with hi vest and to much clothing.

Nice vest, she says to him.

"You need pockets to wear a pocket watch," he replies, "so I figured I needed to acquire pockets."

His voice is familiar, the tone nothing but familiarity with this casual stranger and the smoke is curling in the air and while she might not feel whole, he does. He is a creature who is new and fresh and young but… not small by any means. No, his soul was that of great presence, great precedent, and such precedent can be offsetting for the young man.

He offers his hand with a grin, "I'm Elijah."

Carissa

The parts of her that are missing resonate behind her eyes, leaving no spark or shimmer to illuminate the dark color of them. But Elijah is something different, maybe something closer to what she was a year or two ago. Carissa makes slow work of the cigarette while her eyes make quick work of looking the stranger over. He's smiling and while she may wonder if he's smiling because he can feel the churning of something alike between them she doesn't ask.

"Why don't you just wear a wrist watch?" She asks him, hips shifting once again. With each pull from her cigarette it comes away with a blood red stain on the filter. She steps closer in one movement, head faintly dipped to one side....studying.

"Carissa." She says, taking a leap of faith with a guy who feels like home should feel but who she doesn't know at all. Her hand takes his, it's cool with a mood ring on her middle finger and a thick leather watch band wrapped around her wrist.

Elijah

She takes a pull from her cigarette, asks why he doesn't just wear a wrist watch, and it makes him scoff, "because pocket watches are awesome."

Like that was the only reason he needed to wear a pocket watch, like he didn't have to explain but something about her made him desperate to explain. He takes her hand- warm to her cool- and gives it a confident sort of shake. Not poised, because one couldn't be Elijah's age and be poised. they weren't that different, she wasn't too much older than he was, maybe a year at best and he was a deceptive sort when it came to his body.

"I kill wrist watches," he said, and the south crept into his voice as he spoke, "always have. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Carissa."

Carissa

She nods and before releasing the shake turns their joined hands over right and then left. The cigarette is pressed between red lips and her eyes roam over his knuckles and then her own, his fingers and hers. Her nails could use a manicure. In the same movement that she finally releases his hand she's taking the cigarette out of her mouth and dropping it to the ground to be crushed beneath the rubber sole of her Converse.

"Pleasure's mine." She says to him and she just might be telling the truth. "What were you singing?" Now, without anything to occupy her hands with she shoves them in the pocket of her jean shorts, the momentum pushing them down further onto her hips letting the tops of a tattoo on her lower abdomen to peek out.

Elijah

[how did he do? was he on-key? retroactive cha+performance]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

Elijah

"New World," he said, "it's from Dancers in the Dark. Bjork… sounds different when she's not blaring over the speakers in the car. my room mate's a fan."

He'd been singing, but it was the singing of someone who was trying to drown something out, someone who wasn't singing for performance sake, but rather his own. The need for sound. they didn't feel that different, and he caught those undertones of chaos in her and he couldn't leave well enough alone. He was sucked in, intrigued, couldn't turn away just now.

"My room mate's a fan," he said, and his eyes dipped for a second and- "nice ink. Did you get it around here?"

Elijah

(remove: second Room mate's a fan. Proof reading is our friend)

Carissa

"No..." She says quietly with the faintest of shake to her head right and then left. There's a still moment of regard when a thought skitters across her memory like a rat fleeing from one dark shadow to another. A pinch returns to her dark brow while her eyes flutter across his features and her ears file away the sound of his voice and that sweet hint of Southern atmosphere within it.

"Sunset Strip." That's where she got it, on the Strip where starlets dreams end up settled side by side with trash and filth in the gutters of Hollywood. There's a moment of prying on her part and it can't be helped. Beneath the aloof exterior there's something about Elijah that makes her want to know more when typically she wouldn't care at all. "You got any? Tattoos, I mean...."

(Perception / awareness - resonance )

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )

Elijah

"I do, actually. I'd show you, but I don't know how you feel about random topless strangers," he said with a laugh, "it's a recent addition, but I have the aberlemno serpent stone up one side."

There wasn't so much an admission as a statement. There was something about him that was interesting, and beneath her exterior there was the literal metaphysical pull that one had to know her. The intrigue was there, the interest was there. From a magical stand point he was…

Elijah was a unique young man. There wa the feeling of unrest that came with him, the stillness did not suit him and there was an air of distraction about him. his focus was direct, like a man who was tuning out the entirety of the universe just to pay attention to the person in front of him, or perhaps he was tuning out the whole world. But there he was, tall and lean and the smoke spoke to him easily, spoke of whispers of spirits and that pocket watch he was so proud of held the power of belief in it. His response had almost been defensive, protective, as though he did not want to imagine being without his watch.

It was special to him. Beyond that, it might have been Special. But he himself, the will worker before Carissa was young in his work. There was something impulsive to the feeling about him, and there was something inexperienced that was more than obvious to those looking for it. This was no arch magus in disguise.

Carissa

She is left with a single eyebrow drawn up high on her face while she takes him in - again. Careful and cautious, she doesn't seem content to rest on the feelings in her gut or the tug and pull of their similarities as spectacular as they may be. Red lipstick is smudged from the cigarette, fading just a little lighter than the red Converse they had matched only moments before. As the feeling of Elijah fills her up the stillness that hadn't suited him overcomes her and she doesn't even breathe for a full sixty seconds.

Finally she sighs out a breath and takes a moment to push the longer sections of her bangs back behind ears that are pierced 4 or 5 times. "Did it hurt?" The colors of her mood ring swirl between green and orange and yellow before finally the thing becomes as dark as her eyes that are now looking at his sides thoughtfully.

Hawksley

Whatever else Hawksley is, he is true to his word, particularly when speaking to a lady. When he says Alicia can stay as long as she likes, he does mean that. When she is told that she should choose a room she'd like to stay in or else he'll have Collins just pick one at random, she's given rein to pick a room. If she tells Collins she wants to sleep in the library, she finds a cot there after dinner, set up with pallet and pillow, because Hawksley wasn't kidding.

And he's not the sort to tell her to get out and see the world, go outside while she's young, blah blah blah. He does not do that, her esrtwhile host. But on Sunday night when he decides he wants to go out, he decides he also wants her to go out with him.

So they go.

--

They end up in Washington Park. In the Porsche. Hawksley has no plan. No grand scheme for clubs, drinking, what-have-you. He just drives to the park and gets out, breathing in the night air. A press of a button; the Porsche says goodnight and goes still, quiet, after locking itself down.

He looks over the roof of the car at Alicia, giving a stretch. "They've got paddle boats here," he informs her.

Elijah

Did it hurt? she asks.

"I'm a wuss about needles," he replies, a strangely honest creature despite his particular talent for lying, "so I don't know if I'm a good judge for it? But once you get right on a particularly bony area I'd say it wasn't pleasant by any means. A friend did it for me, so the cost-to-painfulness ratio was appropriate."

He muses, for a second, wanting to know anything, everything, whatever he could find and he noticed the little things, like how she was almost holding her breath for a moment and the full minute ticked on past, "are you from California? Or do you just travel?"

Hawksley

[I am sometimes aware that other people exist beyond myself.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

Hawksley

[but clearly not THAT aware.]

Alicia

[lol i'm so not aware]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 3) ( fail )

Alicia

[the angel got its wings after all]

Alicia

She isn't wearing the same outfit she had on Friday evening when she first ran into the Hermetics and the Cultist at some outdoor festival whose name she can't even remember now. For two days she had worn the same yellow sundress but then Sera took a stab at her dress size and the fact that she wasn't planning on leaving the library anytime soon.

They'd spoken of safety and other intangible things both nights. If she felt safe at Hawksley's that wasn't why she was staying there. Had less to do with safety and more to do with freedom but those are just semantics.

It was the Porsche that took her out there but the promise of the library that got her in the Porsche. She steps out of the Porsche now and takes a deep breath and she looks less ruinous and skittish stepping out of it than she had getting into it. Shakes out her hair to feel the breeze against her neck and claps the door shut behind her.

"Are you serious?" she asks. "Paddle boats like, the things you row with your feet? I thought Hollywood made those up."

Off they go. It doesn't take them long to come upon a pair of conversationalists and she recognizes one of them by height and profile alone. Her senses are open but they are not honed. Sometimes senses aren't quite so open. They're like people that way.

Her hands are shaking as she opens up her handbag to find her cigarettes.

"Have you met Elijah yet?" she asks Hawksley.

Carissa

"Boon Lay Singapore." She says before she has time to consider her answer, before she has time to formulate a lie. But that might be a lie in and of itself because she told them so often, lived make believe lives, that they leave her lips without effort. "Then, California." Fingers are moving back through her hair and her nails scratch at her scalp while her eyes close at the feel. "I travel." Her features represent some kind of Asian heritage though the coarse texture of her hair and the architecture of her nose screams of another ethnicity.

"I don't mind pain. Or needles. They wake you up when you get too numb." The ink below her belly button probably hurt and there is more that he can't see on each shoulder and across her ribs, each heavy with their own meaning to Carissa.

"What about you, are you from here?" The conversation between them was far more personal than it should have been. They were strangers after all and yet her she was, boldly poking and prodding into the areas of his life that were typically off limits in moments like this.

Hawksley

Hawksley, for all that he is an accomodating host -- and by now Alicia knows that accomodating means if you make a crack about sleeping in the library, you will find a cot set up in a tucked-away alcove with a pillow and a down blanket and a flashlight, all care of Collins -- did notice that Alicia hadn't changed clothes but didn't make much of it. He's been known to stay in the same clothes when he's on a particularly satisfying library jag, so he just figured: she'll say something when she wants to change. Hawksley does not know what it is like to be a person who might not, at the slightest touch of discomfort, shout for what they want and expect it to be handed to them.

That is not how Hawksley's life has been. That is not what it has taught him.

So Sera brought her clothes, and she's not in a yellow sundress now, and when Hawksley saw her not-in-yellow he noticed that, too, and canted his head a bit, but said nothing. He was, after all, busy cracking an egg into a bowl made of cast iron and dribbling a bit of blood onto the yolk. Focus, Hawksley.

--

He kept saying the library would be there when she got back. He kept saying it until she got into the goddamn Porsche because he didn't feel like going out alone. He drives well. He drives like the car is an extension of himself, and he drives quickly but not recklessly, which is how he drove home the other night anyway.

Hawksley stares at her, for what she says. Says, either scoffing or bewildered: "My god, where did you even grow up?" But it's a rhetorical question. She didn't grow up in the Hamptons with a private pond, Hawksley. You shithead.

They stroll, perhaps in the direction of the (unfortunately closed, at the moment) paddle-boats, but they do come upon Elijah and someone-else. Hawksley is wearing shorts which are as tailored and fine as suit-slacks but unbelted, hanging off his hip-bones. He is also wearing a charcoal t-shirt, thin and soft and draping in a lovely fashion over his shoulders. He walks with his hands laced on top of his head, and

he notices Alicia's hands shaking, flicking his eyes over them. She asks him a question and he looks over at the pair he'd otherwise been ignoring. Blinks. "Shit, is that his name?" he says, then laughs at himself. His hands lower from his head. "We went clubbing last week. I don't think he ever realized I didn't know his name. Good guy. Friend of yours?"

And he is reaching down, holding his hand out to her, palm up. "Gimme that," he says, and he does not mean lighter, or cigarettes. He means her hand. And for all the brusque nature of the words themselves, the tone is not. The tone is an invitation. Actually, maybe:

a request.

Elijah

"New Orleans, then Baton Rouge, and finally Denver," he answers, unafraid and unconcerned with giving too much away because, well, when someone feels like this you might as well tell them things because they were part of you. To be fair, everyone was part of everyone else, the concept of the self was some unnecessary boundary and-

Oh, shit, down the way he turned and noticed familiar faces. True to form, he had not even noticed Hawksley didn't know his name and had played it off magnificently in such a fashion that he had Elijah convinced for an entire evening that all was well with the world. there was Alicia, who was a good foot shorter than her male companion, and he grinned wide.

And promptly offered a tiny, overly enthusiastic spazwave. Just a little one, but followed up by, "what up you guys?"

Southern boys should not be able to say what up.

Alicia

"D.C.," she says and there's a duh note to her tone like what was he expecting she was going to say that her parents kept her locked up in the basement or something but there's self-depreciating jest in the tone too.

They had paddle boats in D.C. She had friends in D.C. Elijah knows what happened her freshman year of high school and Sera too though Sera comes unstuck from time occasionally but the rest of the world doesn't know.

Friend of yours?

"Y... yeah."

Cigarettes are among the deadliest things on the planet. She smokes because the rhythmic breathing calms her nerves. Hasn't sorted out if it's her nerves or the act of smoking that lets her sense life patterns. She isn't experimenting right now. Tinkering. Whatever it is apprentices do when they do not have a mentor.

Gimme that.

After a few heartbeats' deliberation the Orphan blows out a breath and puts her hand in Hawksley's. She hasn't lit the cigarette yet. The pack and the lighter are in her other hand. Her smile when she sees Elijah is tight. She's breathing through her nose. This isn't the first time she's felt like this before. This is the first time she hasn't mirrored Elijah's wave.

She grips Hawksley's hand before she says, "What up?"

Hawksley

STOP

Alicia

[Good job breaking it, Poirot.]

Elijah

(*Takes a bow!*)

Hawksley

[something is wrong with you Hawksley stop it]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Elijah

[Uho, I did something... per+aware]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

Carissa

"New Orleans." And she hums at the thought of a city she'd only briefly passed through.

There's no real shade or color to Carissa's eyes. They are almost as dark as her pupils are and the white surrounding those inky pools are run through with red veins. She focuses on Elijah even as he waves and gives a greeting that doesn't sound like it belonged with his voice. She'd been over there in the cool grass before Elijah came along and there are still remnants of that stuck to her jean shorts and in her multicolored hair. The intense and strange look she'd been leveling on the stranger in front of her drifts away slowly at the sound of approaching feet and voices.

She doesn't greet them but her body angles toward them so they aren't at her back.

Alicia

[One of y'all has a certain resonance trait that mixed with that botched Awareness roll and made a certain phobia of hers go AHAHAHA I LIVE but I don't think either of y'all know about her phobia?

She's just having a panic attack. Don't draw attention to it and it'll go away. /science]

Hawksley

"Well that's not even a real place, anyway," Hawksley says archly, regarding D.C., and he is half kidding and he is half Entirely Serious. Doesn't ask, as he hasn't asked, what brings her from D.C. to Denver or when she woke up or how or if she's a student or where she lives or what she's doing. He has told her more than he has asked: told her things like just tell Collins what you want to eat and yes that book can leave the library no that book cannot leave the library and so on. It's not that he doesn't care. It's not that it doesn't matter to him.

It's partly that he doesn't care. It's partly that it doesn't matter to him.

But it's something else, too.

He is a bit surprised that Alicia gives him her hand, or takes his when it is offered. That surprise does flicker on his face, but doesn't glow. He just folds their hands together, and if his feels like laying out under the sun on endless white sands then it's hard to tell if that's a trick of the mind or if he's just warm the way that fit young men are warm in summertime. Or both. If she can do it one handed, he doesn't do anything else to address this deadly habit of hers. He feels her grip on his hand. He glances over and down at him, as he has to, since she is one foot and one half-inch smaller than he is, and his eyes fix on her for a few protracted seconds.

"You look like you're about to pass out," he says to her, albeit a touch quieter than his voice needs to be. "What's wrong?"

Elijah

[this is me being cool, nothing to see here.]

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

Elijah

(that was manip sup)

Elijah

"It's real loud, but I kind of miss it," he admits, though the context of the statement doesn't quite make sense. He watches on, eyebrows pull together and something knots up in his stomach and she doesn't wave back. her smile is tight; Elijah cocks his head to the side and looks at Alicia.

He tries to offer a reassuring smile from a distance, but seems is a little lost. He isn't sure what is going on, what her reaction might be caused by but he knows that he can't exactly leave at that juncture. he doesn't want to leave, though he does take a few cautious steps forward, as if testing the waters.

He turns back, "hey, I think my friend might've eaten some bad cheese fries or something."

He heads over a little closer. Cautious, testing the waters.

Carissa

There wasn't anything keeping her there. She shouldn't have stayed as long as she did with someone remarkably like herself so she's somewhat thankful when concern or confusion or something else all together takes over his features and he moves forward out of concern for his friend and their possible case of food poisoning. Briefly she looks at Alicia and then Hawksley, saying nothing because she's more content to just listen even if she can only hear breathing or hearts beating or crickets.

"Yeah..." Is her only real response with words, her body however turns to leave the trio to conversations about bad cheese fries. Or something.

Alicia

"I don't... I don't know."

It isn't as if they're standing on the edge of a building roof or climbing a tree. They're on flat ground. They're not high above the earth with the sun at their backs. But her hand is in his and her fingers are cold and her palm is dampening and she may not know but that doesn't mean nothing's wrong.

One day she will be able to sense and recognize that she is able to sense other people's magical fingerprints when things like this happen. Today is not that day.

She hears Elijah's lame attempt at an excuse. If she were feeling better she would laugh and tell him there are no such thing as bad cheese fries. She can light her cigarettes with one hands on a good day. She's just holding onto them right now.

"It's fine, I'm fine--" Her voice cracks and Elijah knows she's getting better at not crying when she wants to cry but it sounds like she's panicking. Hence the name. "--I need help, could you light this for me?"

Cigarettes and lighter held up. She hasn't managed to take one out yet and she doesn't care who gets to it first.

"Who's your friend?" she asks Elijah. Let's talk about something else. Yes. Good.

Carissa

(Thank you all for writing with me, good night!)

Hawksley

[eep. sorry we didn't get to interact! goodnight!]

Hawksley

Here's the truth: Hawksley sensed magical folk, albeit barely. But they felt the same. So he figured: that's just that one guy. That one guy, in fact, who now has a name: Elijah. Elijah, good guy, fun to club with, has nice thighs. It's good that Hawksley isn't too harshly judgemental about other men's bodies. Not everyone has legs like the cedars of Lebanon or pillars of warm gold or whatever hyperbole you might use to describe someone like Hawksley.

Alicia doesn't know. Hawksley is frowning now, and he's holding her hand firmly in his own warm one, but hers has lost its powers of circulation. As far as he knows she's not high, he didn't notice her taking anything before they headed out. Elijah is headed over, which is for the best, since He Is A Friend.

And he knows the way women sound when they're trying not to cry. Of course, someone like Hawksley would know that. He is frowning. He reaches down with one of those long arms and deftly plucks a cigarette from the pack she's holding. He holds it for her or hands it to her to set between her lips, and then he acts like the smooth mother-fucker he is and snaps his fingers.

The end of the cigarette starts burning as surely as a ghost-martini appeared in Hawksley's hand the other day.

"Let's sit," he says, and begins doing so, right on the grass, tugging Alicia down with him. He catches Elijah's eyes as he's moving. There is a bit of hey, man in that glance, and also a bit of dude, wtf as well.

Elijah

"Her name's Carissa," he told Alicia, "we just met, and this is crazy-" but here's my number, so call me- "-but we feel the same. She feels like we feel and it's fuckin' trip I would have asked her about it, but isn't that kind of weird to do when you're not rolling?"

He had to force himself to stay calm, but he could be calm. He could be calm and he could be resolute because Alicia was his friend and he needed to be calm and collected and to be in one piece and not some damned ping pong ball like he was so prone to being. Elijah settled into the grass, took a seat near Alicia, and he inhaled. Inhaled deep like he wanted to smell the grass and exhaled slow like he wanted to feel the air leaving his lungs.

Elijah often felt other magical people, though up until recently had no idea what he was feeling beyond what he had assumed were mild hallucinations. Knowing that magic had a feeling was enough assurance to his own sanity that he embraced it.

"It's cool," he says, "she seems alright."

Hawksley

"No," Hawksley says to Elijah. Fairly, because Elijah asks a question: isn't it weird to ask someone about their resonance when you're not 'rolling'. So he answers: no. no it isn't. "You're a mage," as though this explains everything. Every weird thing you can do. Talk about. See. Feel.

He is still holding Alicia's hand.

Alicia

She's not so far gone that she can't react to novel stimuli. It helps that Hawksley doesn't keep asking what's wrong. That he takes a cigarette out of the pack and rather than tugging the lighter out of her death-grip uses what looks from the distance like a sleight of hand to light her cigarette.

It startles her. Alicia laughs and laughing disrupts her cycle of hyperventilating. She takes a drag off of the thing and it burns going down and that helps too. When she blows it back out the breath reeks of tobacco and she will reek of tobacco the rest of the day. She doesn't cough. Her lungs are used to this.

Let's sit.

Down they go. She crashes rather than sitting but gripping onto Hawksley's hand breaks her fall. Doesn't know if it's weird to ask another person about feeling like she feels when she's not rolling. It's only happened once. Hawksley says it isn't. She'd said something similar to Kalen yesterday. They're all weird. That makes it not weird.

Sitting and breathing is bringing her back down out of the clouds. Maybe her eyes are closed as she does this. Maybe she has a mantra someone else gave to her that she repeats to herself because he isn't here to repeat it anymore.

She seems alright.

Alicia offers the rest of the cigarette to Elijah. Her hand is still in Hawksley's.

"Cool," she says.

Elijah

"Cool, so that's not like some breach of etiquette? Sweet action," he takes the cigarette from Alicia, isn't phased that Hawksley's hand is in hers and in fact something about it makes him smile. he takes a long drag and exhales again. The breathing is rhythmic, "I dunno, I hope I run into her again. Probably will, Denver's small."

For someone who managed to avoid people as well as he had for the first couple of years, it seems theyw ere coming from the woodwork now.

Hawksley

Hawksley does not keep asking what is wrong because Alicia is obviously lying with the I'm Fine nonsense; really no point in pressing, if she's going to be like that. Hawksley lights her cigarette with a snap of his fingers because he can, and because -- this is the truth -- he thought it might distract her from whatever weirdness is happening inside of her skull. Hawksley is self-involved to a fault, but Hawksley is also calculating, well-educated, studied. He is a student of Cause and Effect as much as Trial and Error.

If you jangle your keys in front of a dog's face, you get their attention.

So she laughs, and starts smoking, and they sit. Hawksley has an elegance comingled with his strength, which is considerable; she is not going to plummet. His free hand on her elbow, perhaps, or her waist, slowing the fall, easing the crash. Neither of them know him well enough to find any of this out of character, but it's possible that someone might. It's equally possible that once upon a time, he took a girl on magical psychoactive drugs to his hotel and bought a second room for her to stay in so she'd be safe. It is also possible that once upon a time, a woman he respected looked with dismay at his disheveled clothing and three months later he had his entire class devoted to a rekindling of chivalry and gentlemanly decorum.

It is also possible that when he went clubbing with Elijah, a girl he had been making out with started to annoy him and so he left her in the club rather than inviting her on to the next one. And he didn't consider any other avenue of behavior, either.

Anyway: no bruised tailbone for Alicia tonight, for whatever reason. Human decency, human compassion, maybe. He still has that. And he is sitting beside and slightly behind Alicia, as though to prop her up if she were to fall backward. Again: he doesn't know if she took anything. He hangs out with Sera a lot. It's a habit by now, thinking of such things.

"Plenty of magi develop their foci around self-deprivation, physical and psychological purification, or asceticism. We don't really share a single code of conduct. You just have to figure out for yourself if it's rude to ask someone about their resonance. Person by person, moment by moment."

He looks at Alicia. "Getting any better?"

Alicia

That cigarette has been entrusted to Elijah. She doesn't forget about it so soon as it's been passed off but she doesn't reach for it the way she does when she and Elijah share cigarettes. It's rare that they split one. Whenever he wants to smoke Alicia gives him his own.

Their voices are like a tether to a woman who fears she's drifting out into space. She could have found her own way back but Working as she Works it's just as likely she would have embraced it. That's the thing about fear of heights. Sometimes it's the fear of falling off and sometimes it's admitting that stood too close to the edge the compulsion to jump is near as overpowering as the fear itself.

"I'm okay," she says and she's breathless at first but as she settles the breath comes back to her. "I just felt really weird, all of a sudden."

Elijah

{is it okay to touch you? Because I totally want to]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Hawksley

"It happens," he says, and he's believable: people get weird all the time. Then again, Hawksley hangs out with Sera a lot. Hawksley himself was, just yesterday, dripping drops of his own blood onto an egg inside of a bowl on top of an altar. No matter how normal he seems, how much of an affluent gymrat dudebro he may appear to be, he is still something else entirely: something inhuman. Something supernatural. People feeling very weird, all of a sudden, is the least strange of many strange things that are a regular part of his life.

Despite that, he felt the tinge of fear, not 'weirdness', in the grip of Alicia's hand and the cold sweat of her palm. And he does not know its source, and she isn't in a sharing mood. All the same: he brushes it off. It happens.

"Paddle-boats are closed anyway," he says, with a touch of disgruntled disappointment. "Maybe we should just head back." A beat. "That is, unless you want me to drop you somewhere else." He looks at Elijah. "You could come over too, if you want. I've got space."

This is how he talks about his house. 'My place'. 'I've got space'. As though he doesn't live in fucking Hogwarts.

Elijah

He normally pushes. He knows he shouldn't push, but normally Elijah pushes when something is wrong, though the last time he had pushed Alicia she didn't speak to him for well over a week. It started a near literal crusade, made him jump down a rabbit hole he wasn't sure he knew how to climb out of. Elijah took his time, looked at her hand, looked at the cigarette, and realized what it was that he had actually done with her cigarette.

Fuck, he thinks, it is written clearly across his face. he pushes it aside and holds onto her cigarette, tries to remember that this isn't for sharing at the moment.

And there are things he wants to do, like he wants to reach for her but isn't sure if he's the cause of her feeling, her panic attack, and something made her panic and he wanted to be sure it wasn't him. We digress, because she is doing better, feeling slightly better and there was no judgment there. Hawksley invites him along to coming over, too. he's got space.

"That'd be cool… I just have to figure out where the Hell my motorcycle is parked," he said.

Hawksley

[Soft wrap! We can close it there or pick it up again if Jamie wants at another time!]