Checking on Samir

Samir

Dynamic Resonance vs. Perc + Awareness, GO.

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (5, 9) ( success x 1 )

Samir

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Samir

[Fuck yeah he knows this shit ain't real! That drops him down to Paradox 6 and WP 1.]

Elijah

[songs!]

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

Elijah

His apartment had people in it. At first, he had been pretty okay with the fact that a friend from Louisiana was going to live with him- temporarily, of course. He usually split his time pretty evenly between his apartment and his room in the warehouse, though now the warehouse had actually become his own little fortress of solitude, or at least as much solitude as Elijah could stand.

Besides, there were books here. He had yet to develop the habit of falling asleep on one of Henry's couches after doing whatever it was that Henry had him doing in the first place. Though, admittedly, he did know where the nearest IHOP was on the route. Drank a lot of crappy coffee and then obsessively brushed his teeth because he drank that much coffee and he was pretty intent on keeping up with oral hygiene. Elijah was the kind of person that the dentist didn't chastise for not flossing enough. We digress.

But, there he was, passing from the kitchen to the space where there were offices and bedrooms and bedrooms that were used as offices and offices that were used as bedrooms. The place still felt a little like (okay, a lot like) Kalen. They hadn't had much overlap, but we digress. Clothing was comfortable- sweatpants and a tee shirt. He'd borrowed the pants from some one night stand since he couldn't actually find his pants in the morning. The tee shirt was his. He had a necklace on with a little sun charm on it, tied on too tight and he was just waiting for it to call off at this point because even Jenn couldn't get the knot undone.

"Ohhhhh won't you take me home tonight? Ohhhhhhh down besiiiiiide that something liiiiight?"

There was a pitstop to be had, though. He could make his run to the room, consider putting on decent pants, and be done with the day. He could stare at the ceiling for all anyone cared. Hell, he could actually be a good student and study for something that wasn't a harp recital (harp was coming on Wednesday. Piano was still int he works, but he didn't actually know how he was going to get a piano to fit in either of his living spaces, and he wasn't going to get a keyboard because fuck keyboards.)

He stopped, though, remembering that he wasn't alone and that their houseguest (patient?) probably didn't want to hear Elijah fumble through Fat Bottomed Girls. He scales back to humming, makes a turn, and finds himself at a door. Knocks three times, because he always knocks, even if he was going to barge in.

He doesn't barge in, though. That's self-restraint.

knock knock knock

"Hey man, do you want anything to eat?"

Samir

Whatever happened last night is nothing to which Sam could attest with any degree of certainty. For all he knows he teleported from the massage parlor to the office. For all he knows he isn't even at the office. This could be someone's dungeon for all he knows. Made up to look like a guest room.

He hasn't come out since last night. Sat at the table with Grace and ate his food with as much enthusiasm as one can muster when all one wants to do is crawl into bed and enjoy oblivion for a few hours. It was good fucking tofu though. Maybe he'd said something to that effect. Even in the depths of his madness he would like to try to give some indication that he is present in whatever capacity he can say to be present.

So Elijah startles the shit out of him and he lets out an undignified shout and something crashes into something else and something else drops to the floor behind the closed door. Shit happens sometimes.

"No!" Sam says in that overshot friendly tone that doesn't do anything but announce that he's lying. "No, I'm good! I ate..." He doesn't remember when. "I ate already! Thank you!"

He does not say Go away! but that's the implication.

Grace

Grace went on a mission this morning. First, she made sure that Samir was sleeping, and then went on a circuit of town, picking up all the things she'd need to host a vegetarian for however long. There is a vegan cake (carrot cake gone very carrot) in the kitchen, along with a pack of cookies. But more substantial than that is the samosas with tamarind sauce, eggplant curry, spinach curry, some more of that lemongrass tofu (because he liked it). There's soy and almond milk in the fridge.

Whenever Samir gets hungry, he'll have food, and choices of it. There's enough for everybody, really.

Grace comes padding down the hallway from the kitchen, wearing socks on her feet (and of course, jeans and a black tee shirt, because she cares about scaring people) carrying a 'chocolate' cookie in hand. It's really carob. But hey, vegan right?

No, I'm good! I ate...

"Yeah, you ate yesterday! You can eat today too, it's almost magical that way! I bought cookies!"

Elijah

"Wait, you bought cookies?" he turns around and looks at Grace. And her cookie, then up to Grace's face. He took a step away from the door, hearing the crash of things that he didn't quite know what fell down but given the the tone of his voice, and given that Elijah is a hormonal young man in his early twenties, there are things that he presumes (incorrectly.)

"Hey, uhhhh, I'll give you, like, ten minutes or something," he backs away from the door and whispers to Grace, "I think he's having personal time."

Samir

After three almost four days of this Sam has himself pretty well and assured that he can distinguish between the things that are not actually happening and the things that are.

So Grace doing a pretty spot-on impression of his mother back in 2002 is something he can file away under Unsettling; Very Real.

A pause while the two whisper outside the door and then Sam cracks the thing slow. He was not jerking off in there. He's still wearing the same shit he had on yesterday to include his boots. What he was doing was dismantling the bed for fuck knows what reason. Looking for insect nests or dusting the baseboards or whatever it is obsessive-compulsive young men do when Quiet is kicking their ass.

At first he just stares past them to make sure they're alone. Then he takes a deep breath and opens the door open all the way. An invitation or a demonstration. He doesn't have the glassy-eyed harried look that he did last night. Improvement maybe.

"What?" he asks Elijah like he almost caught what he was saying. Might have heard something else. Might know exactly what he was saying and be mildly offended. Never mind. Mild confusion takes the place of paranoia. He's still addressing the other young man: "Oh. Shit. Hi."

He doesn't remember Elijah's name and he doesn't remember whether he should or shouldn't remember and he isn't entirely sure he remembers what they were doing when his brain exploded either. Fuck.

Grace

Grace ambles by and hands Samir the other cookie she was holding. It's not the best cookie ever. It's what vegans use to approximate a cookie. But there is no excuse for Samir not to take it this time.

"Good morning," she says, and looks into the room, notes the disassembled bed. Huh. It doesn't really shock or surprise.

"If you want to shower, I'll bet Elijah would wash your clothes."

Wouldn't you, Elijah?

Elijah

Elijah Poirot learned several important things during his apprenticeship with Kalen about the structure of the Order of Hermes.

Specifically, there was protocol and rank and you could get your underlings to occasionally do things for you because you are that badass and you said so and this is was the way of things. Somehow, he also managed to get that certain things the Order did influenced large parts of awakened society. Which meant this: when someone told him he was going to do laundry, he didn't bitch about it anymore. Grace might not have pulled rank, but laundry had to get done and he wasn't going to whine about it being unfair or whatever because there was a dude standing there who could probably stand to have Samir just chill in crappy dirty clothes.

"I could loan you a shirt, too? And maybe pants, because I don't think you got a change of clothes there," he told Samir. "I am halfway decent at getting blood stains out-" crap don't say that "-and red wine stains. But not mustard. Fuck mustard, that shit can go die in a fire for all the damages it does."

Samir

"Ah..."

He glances down and he can't see the dried blood that's gone to flakes on the side of his neck but now that they've reminded him that he's a wandering filth beast showering does sound like an excellent idea. He's never been in the bathroom in this place. It's probably filthy.

"Yeah... where's the..." A glance back at the room and he debates picking up that mess before he goes and tackles a new one. Fuck. Sam takes a bite out of the cookie Grace gave him. Frowns. What the fuck did he just put in his mouth. He chews and swallows whatever it is. "Where's the bathroom?"

Grace

"Oh, that's nice of you, Elijah," she says, gives him a big smile, like hey -- he's doing all right at this.

"There's a shower downstairs. I'll show you," she says, and starts down the hallway, looking at the walls as she goes, amused at the pattern the textured wall makes when it's moving. Who's the crazy one?

She takes another bite of cookie, and disappears down the stairwell.

Elijah

[per+alert: What size are you, Samir?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Elijah

[I take stairs gracefully!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )

Elijah

Then comes the awkward part, the part where Elijah is standing there and it dawns on him that he's going to actually need Samirs clothes to wash them and he didn't seem like the type to walk around the office naked. Now, grant you, Samir is a handsome man. Samir has also had a break from what is traditionally considered reality so Elijah would rather not see him walking around naked because in his mind it somehow effects his agency as a person. He's not cognitively sound enough to go you know, I think I'll walk around naked. As such, it was not an experience that other people could enjoy.

Plus it might weird Grace out. Which was also not a good plan. He gives the dude a quick look over, tries to gauge what size he is and concludes that the guy- who just disassembled a bed- probably also would not like to borrow another dude's boxer briefs. He nods, then heads off to his room, leaves the door open- bed made save for the blanket that is thrown haphazardly on top of the comforter- he doesn't sleep under the sheets unless he absolutely has to- and alarm clock flashing 3:27 because he turned off the strip outlet at some point during the day. (precisely three hours and twenty seven minutes ago, actually). It's off to a chest of drawers where he retrieves athletic pants and a black tee shirt.

It's soft, at the very least, and he then half jogs to catch back up with those headed down the stairs… which he almost falls down because he takes two at a time and then accidentally three at once because he jumped and half teetered.

"Grace, do we have- wait," a pause, "dude person, do you have an allergy to fabric softener?"

Samir

So he trails behind Grace eating this carob-whatever cookie and wondering what fresh hell awaits him in the bathroom. She may very well have shown him where it is already but he'll be damned if he's able to retain his sense of direction when he's like this. Not even his sense of direction. Any sense of direction.

Reality is super fucking pissed at him. It doesn't care if he gets turned around walking through a door. 

That's what he gets.

Then Elijah comes barreling down the hall after them and Sam spins around like he's ready to confront the creature that came at them in the park. Like he has no idea it's been reduced to a pile of nothing and dumped someplace by a Hermetic and a Verbena already. That cookie wouldn't make a very good conductor but he could throw it.

He doesn't throw it. Elijah calls him dude person.

"No. I don't know. I don't think so. It's not--?" No. Shut it down. That way lies delusional rambling. They are not putting radioactive sludge in mass-produced fabric softener and it sure as shit isn't mind-controlling radioactive sludge. "Sam. My name's Sam."

Oh hey look a bathroom. Sam holds up the rest of the cookie like to say well this has been fun I'd best be off now and then ducks inside and slams the door behind him. Doesn't mean to slam the door. It just kind of happens.

Grace

"And yeah, showers..." SLAM! "Are in there. Right."

Grace turns to Elijah and shrugs. She bites her cookie, because it needs eating more than it really tastes good. Being vegan is terrible, she decides, if this is the cookies they get to look forward to.

"So, it strikes me that I haven't told you much about Samir," Grace says, walking a bit down the hallway as she does. Strikes her, because Elijah just called him "dude person" and yeah... No.

Elijah

The door slams and Elijah and Grace are left standing there. He has clothing under one arm, eyes locked on the door before he shot Grace a sideward glance. He reached forward to take part of the cookie completely unashamed to partake in cookie while Grace was eating it. Bite, chew, swallow.

Stand there.

Blink.

Slowly reach for another bite.

"I'm Elijah!" he offers through the door, which sounds quiet and a little muffled and the name is a bit hard to make out, and then it was back to Grace, "So, uh, how do you know Sam?"

Grace

"He's a Mercurial Elite. Virtual Adept. We changed our name. Anyway. He's cool," Grace says, even though nothing about Samir's behavior has even hinted toward his being 'cool' in any fashion.

She breaks off half of her cookie and just hands it to Elijah so he will stop stealing bites.

"He said he was vegetarian yesterday, so that's why all the stuff in the kitchen is veggie right now. I'm making sure he's okay with food."

And none of this explains or touches on the obvious mental distress poor Samir is facing at the moment. Grace just keeps taking it all in stride.

Elijah

She thinks this will stop him, giving him part of the cookie.

Part of the appeal, of course, is that it is Grace's cookie. He holds the cookie in one hand, shifts the laundry to be under his arm and he reaches forward, slowly, as though this were a scene from Dune. 

The slow hand steals the cookie.

"So, I'm super relieved he's not a technocrat, because… uh… yeah. Did anyone tell you what happened?"

Samir

After he finishes rifling through the cabinets in search of towels and satiation of his curiosity and paranoia Sam investigates the shower. Whether it's a curtain or a clear door he opens it and stares around for a bit. Decides that even if it is filthy it isn't any worse than he is now.

The water begins running.

Grace

The bathroom is not filthy, at least not by normal standards. The tiles are of sparkly granite, the grout scrubbed. There's two gold-colored showerheads in that spacious shower, one coming out of the ceiling to provide a nice rain effect. The toilet has a lightly-used candle sitting in a gold candelabra, deep red. There's a painting on the wall in the short hall opposite the sink that looks to be a real oil painting, not a print -- of something that looks like an expressionist's take on lions. The painting might have some dust. But hey -- it's obvious that whoever did this bathroom up cares little for expense. There's no litter of toilet paper or toothpaste spots all over the mirror here.

Grace just ignores stuff like that, most of the time. What Kalen spends his money on is often beyond understanding.

"Yeah," Grace says, rolls her eyes and hands Elijah the rest of her cookie. If he likes carob so much, he can have it, seriously...

"Maybe you could fill in some more details? I get that he was bitten in the face a lot. Another vampire in the park?"

Elijah

[Manip+sub: NBD, it was just a normal night in the park aside from death]

Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 1 )

Grace

[Perception + subt = no, no it wasn't. FFS.]

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

Elijah

The whole half of Grace's cookie goes down the hatch in a matter of two bites. Apparently, he really did like carob that much, that or he had no standards when it came to putting baked goods in his mouth. He chews, takes his time chewing because it gives him a chance to formulate his answer. You know, one of the great things about vegan cookies is that nothing about them has the consistency of cooked flesh, which Elijah was starting to develop a taste to avoid courtesy of awakened life.

"So, we met up at the park for a business thing," which is inconsequential and I am totally glossing over it, "and this thing just kinda comes out of the bushes and it has four arms and when it stood upright it had to be at least eight feet tall. It had this mouth that looked like… you know, have you ever seen something that just has rows and rows of teeth, all sharp and… fuck… I don't know think sarlac pit or something. Or a lamprey meets a fucking pelican. It could have fucking bit Sam's head off if it had gotten a better hold."

That… he's holding it together, but something indicates that he's shaken, still shaken, that things went from bad to worse pretty quickly, but they were alive. He inhales slow, takes another bite of carob and chews. Because it gives him something to do, an excuse for not talking. He thinks, because he's always thinking. There's quiet, then?

"I don't think it was like a vampire, it ate meat, I remember that much. I remember sees some tuft of fur and then it came barreling over and Sam had it on the ropes with, like, the dude called lightning out of nowhere-" says the young man who literally told the forces of creation that they were going to do what the fuck he said and strike his enemies down with holy fucking fire from the sky. "Anyway, we killed it and it was dead… and… I don't know, it was warped but sometimes it's like… you kind of got the impression that it was fucking miserable, like you're fighting against instinct and humanity. You want to eat, but you don't want to be a monster and… yeah, guess what won out."

Grace

"Crap. Okay. That was a night, then," Grace says, although it doesn't really surprise her. "I think we should stay out of the park at night, just 'cause having things shove shadows down your throat and / or bite your head off just isn't awesome."

She sighs.

"That explains a few things, like why Samir might be having some issues dealing. He's having hallucinations, I think. Or at least, dealing with the aftereffects of them."

And she's got him tracked just in case he decides to go wandering the streets again. So there's that.

She's also fully aware that Elijah isn't telling her everything about their 'business thing'. Elijah has business? Like hell he does. Whatever. The thing with four arms that about ripped her friend's head off is a little more important than that lie.

"There's samosas in the kitchen if you're hungry. And other stuff."

Elijah

"I think that, instead of avoiding the park at night we should actually look into the place. Just because we're not there, it doesn't man the problems are going to go away. And, yeah, we'd be safer if we weren't out there, but there are sleepers and stuff out there- people get attacked and die and nobody knows what happened to them except for a missing person's file that doesn't actually ever get looked into.  Like that guy that got eaten awhile back from that weird cult? Who we didn't find out about until he was a ghost wandering around looking for his dog? I'm of the belief that we have a bit of a duty to leave the place better than when we found it."

Cookie gets finished. Down the hatch and brumes wiped off his hands courtesy of the side of his pants. Elijah took a second, looked back at his clothes and knocked on the door, "Sam? I need to get your shit and trade you clothes. I need to wash things."

then, back to Grace, "I just kinda figured it had hallucinogenic spit or something."

Samir

[PERC + ALERT: WUT]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 2, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Samir

He did say I need to get your shit and not Would you stop being weird for five seconds and hand me your shit.

"Okay!"

Door is shut but he didn't lock it. No point. Hallucinations don't give a damn about locks.

Grace

"Usually, when people say 'leave the place better than you found it' they mean clean up the trash and don't take souvenier pinecones... But I get you. Thing is, I don't know the first place I would go to for looking into something like that. Maybe you should ask the Gingerites," Grace says, shrugs.

Monster with four arms and a mouth like a shark just doesn't seem to be something one could look up on Google. Mr. Monster didn't leave a business card behind, she doesn't believe. Dead ends are dead, Elijah...

"Or maybe we need to spend more time in the park such that the monsters get the idea that we're there and not to be fucked with, I don't know. Do you think that would make them stop? Honestly?"

Elijah

[dex+athletics, just backing in and getting your clothes. +2 diff (because effectively blind)]

Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Elijah

"It depends," he says, almost like perhaps he had grown up a little or had time to think about these things or had the wherewithal to somehow come up with a plan for something. He's talking and going into the bathroom, and he's backing in because he doesn't want to peek in on the dude (nope, he kinda did, which is why there was such a production to not stare at Sam.) One does not oogle their dealer; it's bad for business. It also makes your prices go up, or starts a turf war accidentally.

He leaves the pants and the shirt folded neatly and stacked on top of the toilet seat. Clothes are fetched and he makes his way back into the hallway. Then, off to the laundry. He's still talking, though. Also, completely forgot to close the door.

"If you are dealing with vampires and things that have a sense of agency and organization and aren't just fucking around doing whatever it is they're doing, it will make a difference. Mostly, like the thing with Victoria and tonight? It's isolated incidents- one with obvious conclusions when we don't step in, and one where we do step in. It all kind of goes in to the theories of begin a general deterrent versus a specific deterrent. Things that look like they're made of human body parts and really not human body parts don't just randomly appear."

"I figure we can at least go and see what we can see for the time frame at least. What's done is done, and you'd have to be some kind of badass to change the past."

Samir

Sam does go startled-still when the door opens and even while Elijah isn't looking at him he is looking at Elijah. Good job coming at him back-first so he has to stop what he's doing and reason out that that is an actual person whose name he now knows and not another monster. Ready to throw a bottle of shampoo if he has to. It is not a monster nor is it a hallucination.

The Hermetic makes off with the Elite's clothes and leaves the door open. Sam is too tired to care.

Grace

Grace notices the door being left open. Of course she does. Now she has to face that. So, she goes to close it, being just as blind as Elijah was, with her arm over her face, fumbling around for the doorknob and yanking it shut.

Then, it's to go follow Elijah's voice down the hall and pretend that she can't see Samir's underwear amidst all that.

"Yeah, we can go back I guess. See if it left anything..."

Elijah

"Awesome, it shouldn't be hard, just alter your perception to encompass living beings and possible mental states, which- ugh- I can't do yet," yet being the operative word. Elijah has been pretty insistent on things being of the yet variety. He continues on, off to where they do laundry. He's checking tags the whole time, looking for laundering instructions. 

"When do you wanna go? It'll be an adventure."

Grace

"When I can be reasonably assured Samir isn't going to flee the place in terror and go wandering the street for two days with a bleeding face again," Grace says, rather firmly. There's people to take care of, is the point she's making.

She leans up against the wall. "I can scan for living beings and mental states. And non-living beings for that matter. Only thing that would be a problem is if it's some kind of spirit, which it might be. Could be that thing escaped out of a tear in the Gauntlet, sort of like that Message dealie? In which case, I got nothin'."

Elijah

"Oh dude, umbral beings and weirdness? I got that," he said, solid and assured that, yes, he was capable and, yes, he knew what he was doing with regards to spirits. He checks the tags again to be sure, thinks of the person in the shower at this juncture, and gets on to getting the clothes in the washer. He took a moment, looking over the blood stains. 

"Yeah... these are cold, it's going to be a bitch to get out," he said as he rummaged through cabinets for some Shout or something that he could leave on the clothes to let it set for a minute or two. 

"Okay, weird but not weird question- you can see the future, right?"

Grace

"Sure, when the future becomes the present. But that's not much of a super power, is it?"

There are two things that Grace doesn't know much about. The first is spirits. The other is time. She's fairly certain time is just another of those things humans made up because experiencing everything at once is too much sensory overload. But things that don't actually exist are hard to perceive...

Grace is pretty much a creature of the here and now, of the 'real' bits of reality.

"I can see the past too, but only in memories. Sorry. I suck."

Elijah

"Okay... uh... theeeeen... I could- ugh, I think we buried it," he takes a second, thinks about it, puts it all together in his head. He takes a moment and recenters. A little more rubbing at the spot. He quirks his mouth to the side and makes a little displeased sound. "I guess we could unbury it? If you wanted to take samples? Kiara and I took care of it so that wasn't... yeah. I guess exhuming the corpse would totally not be weird."

Yeah. because he totally sounds like he is completely okay with this and the idea of digging up some nameless monster's dead body to figure out what it was is really high on his to do list. He mentions it and scrubs at the bloodstain a little harder, sounds a little disconnected and distracted (just a little dissociation, nothing terrible in comparison) 

Exhales. Hard. Focuses. 

"How about... I can go to the park during the day and do some on-site research and theeeen you and I can go dig up a body and you can look at it, like it's CSI."

Samir

Through the closed door the sound of crashing shower water stops.

Sam psychs himself up to open the shower door and find the towel he'd already excavated and dry off. Wherever they've gone is a location to which he is not privy and after he steps out of the shower he has to ask himself whether he knows from whence the pants and t-shirt came. Decides it doesn't matter. He doesn't want to wander around in a towel. He hangs the towel from whatever hook he finds and climbs into a stranger's clothes.

Down the hall the bathroom door opens and then slams shut again. Sam rests his forehead against it. He doesn't want to go out in the empty hallway but he doesn't want to stay in the bathroom all day either.

"Fuck," he says to no one.

Grace

"Oh hell. On CSI, they had two people use a keyboard at the same time because it would allow them to hack faster. I'd hope we're better than that," Grace says, trying to lighten the mood a bit, since they're talking about digging up the corpse of a thing Elijah helped kill.

Really, this is a normal Sunday. When did this become normal? No idea. Still...

Samir slams the door to the bathroom again, and Grace perks up again. Elijah has his plan, and as much as she doesn't relish digging up a corpse, it's the best plan they've got. Grace has to make sure a certain somebody knows where the food is.

"Somebody's out of the shower," she says, and starts off to find Samir.

Elijah

"Oh my god, that was a thing?" he says, holds the shirt for a minute and he seems just shocked. H muses over blood stains, wonders if this is something Henry's going to have him do at some point- probably yes. He does a lot of cleaning at Henry's place. And organizing, and listening; it makes the time go after. You get to associate an action with a word, makes it stick better. Like doodling during a lecture, but more productive. 

"Things will work out," he says, as if this was the truth because he said so. 

Samir

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]