Escape

Serafíne

Chaos.  One and then the other shooter stop shooting and take their guns and throw them into the small crowd listening to the Cherrybomb cover band.   The tall old man and the skinny little kid both turn and run, this scramble for the door (skinny kid's gun goes off again and the blow-back is enough to free him from Dan's tackle) That big, dangerous guy has disappeared into the backroom and it has only been seconds, see.  The drummer still hasn't figured out what's going on so there's still rhythm in the background when Sera sinks atop Dan and presses her hands to the wound pumping blood from his right chest and bends over and kisses him.

Abruptly, the ugly wet crackle of his breathing changes and he sits up, dazed, sitting her upright too and struggling to his feet.  She's already scrambling away, flinging up the service hatch behind the bar.  Magick again, wringing, spent.  By the time Elijah comes back to consciousness (the astonishing ricochet of it - that blowback of pain like having the center of his spine seized and torn out of his skin, the slow-motion stagger, nanoseconds writ large inside the dome of his skull, the abrupt, seering recovery), the drummer has finally stopped. The bartender Elijah jumped in front of is slumped over the speedwell, bleeding and in shock but still alive. 

Some patrons are screaming, others are scrambling for the doors.  Others are caught between the two impulses.  Dan is upright again, at the bar, reaching out a hand for Sera, mouth taut.  Soon as he sees Elijah upright -

"C'mon, man.  We have to go.  Car's out back."

Elijah

Seconds.

This all takes seconds.

It was a good shot, and what he remembers is clearing the bar, hitting the peak over the air and something vital being struck. Body going limp, whatever pride he has that tells him don't make a sound is overcome by the fact that he wouldn't have been able to make a sound even if he wanted to scream. And he did. He wanted to, but his lungs wouldn't work and the world was echoing and dark and pinpoint quiet. Isn't this familiar? It's black. And his nerve endings and his brain and reason are insisting that he's dying, he's dying and was it worth it? He's dying and it's finally happened. He was going to die in some hole-in-the-wall bar, but not the way everyone expected him to.

But, then he's not. Then, the world is bright and sensations are loud and there's blood everywhere and the bits of the situation he remembered came with Sera screaming and now his shirt has actual bloodstains on it instead of syrup and beet puree. He's back on his feet, because he has to be on his feet. Looks at the bartender- breathing, vital. Looks at Sera and Dan-

"Oh, god," is all he can get out. Makes an exit with them, but doesn't leave their side. Doesn't hurry forward, doesn't leave them behind. "Is-" words escape him.

"Fuck."

Serafíne

(One more Rote b/c I realized that she has 1 more WP anyway: Mind 3 / Time 2 / Entropy 1 "Them?  Uh, I think they left with the band." to soften up the memory of who was where.  Targeting: the bartender primary, but add'l successes will open the circle to the closest other patrons.)

Difficulty: I think would be coincidental, if they hadn't been so much in the middle.  But they were in the middle so.  Hmmm.  Still - too much blood for it to be coincidental.  Dif: 8.  -1 focus,  -1 quint).

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Serafíne

And, extending, still spending quint, +1 dif.

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

Serafíne

Last quint, one more extension?

Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (1, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )

Serafíne

Paradox

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

Serafíne

Soak it!

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

Serafíne

They are far from the only people getting the fuck out of there and as they weave through the (tiny) (some people want to be heroes, some are paralyzed with inaction, some are running not toward the back entrance, but the Back Room, others are simply running - they have warrants or they're holding or they're scared or they hate cops) and they won't be the only people running away and as they go Dan has a solid arm around Sera who is doing something necessary enough that she stops him before they leave disappear into the long narrow hallway lined with old flyers leading past the filthy restrooms to the alley entrance. 

Nothing wrong with her yet except exhaustion but Sera and Elijah and even Dan can sense the deep, buzzing throb of consensual reality stretched around Sera like a rubber band ready to snap back at any moment. 

--

Outside, out back - Dan keeps it together, gives Elijah a solidly sympathetic clap on the back and uses that solid hand to turn the younger man the right direction.  Other folks out here too, rumors passing, one girl yelling FUCK FUCK FUCK. 

Dan takes them both down a cut-through parking lot backed up against the alley toward an old jeep parked near the next street over.  Unlocks the doors physically with a key.

"You okay, man?"  He's asking Elijah before Elijah gets into the backseat.  It's not simply a check-in, it's a visual inspection, a meaningful question: is anything still bleeding, do we need to worry about more than your mental health right now embedded in those three words.  Dan hasn't let go of Sera yet but he's about to put her in the back seat with Elijah. 

(Note: that last soak doesn't apply, really. she's gonna get the paradox all-at-once so she gets only the one soak.  I'll add that 1 success on instead of re-rolling.)

Elijah

The hand on his back makes him jump. tense, makes him aware of the fact that he's holding his breath.

He doesn't touch anything. Doesn't leave a bloody hand print on things, doesn't press outward, seek out additional sensory input because his mind is reeling and it's close to panic and the cops are going to show up and they need to do anything and everything in their power to try and cover the fact that there are three bloodied bodies leaving this place that aren't going to make sense once someone tries to piece together a crime scene.

He exhales hard, tells himself he has to keep his head together because this was probably just a fact of life. Things were going to happen hat people couldn't explain, and part of covering your tracks is keeping yourself out of situations where people might question your alibi. You okay, man? Dan asks. Dan keeps it together.

He can pretend to be Dan for a second.

"I'm cool," he said, hands raised does a quick twist to indicate that there isn't any damage left. Just… blood. Stuff that's left over, most of it is his own, some of it's the bartender's. "You good?" looking for confirmation, affirmation. Dan looked after Sera. Dan could take care of Sera, but… he couldn't figure it out. For a second, he couldn't figure out how Dan could be as collected as he was. It was into the back seat with him, slides all the way over. Still doesn't touch anything unless he has to.

"Where are we going?"

Serafíne

Where are we going?

Elijah asks.  He's in the backseat now and Dan has helped Sera in behind Elijah, reminding her quietly 'seat belt' with a murmur, his bearded mouth against her hair.  She gives him a reassuring little smile and he shuts the door then climbs in the front.  The keys.  That's it, Elijah.  The keys: Dan's hands are shaking too, just a bit.

He takes a deep breath. 

"Fuck if I know."

Head back, engine running one minute two minutes three minutes to tattoo a beat against the steering wheel with the heels of his hands. 

They can't go home.  Too many people, too many ordinary people.  Too many ways to see and be seen.  Can't go to the chantry - not yet, not now, just-in-case. 

"Hogwarts."

Sera says quietly.  Dan's mouth tightens and his eyes flick to the rear-view mirror.

"I know the codes, keys are in the glovebox."

Sirens in the distant. 

A beat.  Then two, before he relents.  Puts the Jeep in gear.  Pulls cautiously onto the street, using his turn signal and looking every which way. 

"You can get cleaned up there," Sera is telling Elijah, "and we'll get you home," when the paradox hits her.  She makes this whimpering little noise and her nose starts to bleed. It won't stop, for nearly the whole drive there.

--

Cautious on the city streets, every traffic code obeyed.  He takes them away from thoroughfares, turns a corner, turns another, navigates neatly around the low-rise mess that is East Colfax until he finds an on-ramp to the highway, doesn't really matter which one.  Something to get them away, and away from there. 

The city opens beneath, changes, sharpens.  Here are the mountains with the sun setting behind them, here the sparkling corona of the rings of neighborhoods surrounding the high-rises downtown.  Away from the city, a smooth, solid ride over a handful of circuitous four-leaf-clover interchanges, these deliberate misdirections like the flight of a common housefly.  Dan has no idea if they will ever matter but - he has to make their route as confused and confusing as possible.  Eventually: Cherry Creek.  Swank retail outlets where even the fast food restaurants look high-end, then tree-lined streets and fences and gates and mansions beyond the gates.  If Elijah has been here before, it was a long, long time ago, but soon enough Dan drives up to the gate of one of the mansions, leans out and enters a code it something, who the hell knows, and pulls inside. 

The place is a dark bulk against the skyline now, all shadowed.  The sun has sunk further down.  Dan closes the gate behind him, climbs back into the jeep and parks in the driveway right in front of the front entrance.  Not a single light on inside.  There's a garage, sure, but he doesn't have the remote. 

The engine ticks quietly as he cuts it off.  Reaches into the glovebox to root around for any keys he can find and hands the ring to Elijah. 

"I'm gonna get Sera.  See if you can figure out how to unlock the door."

Elijah

Her nose won't stop bleeding and Dan's hands are shaking and it's fucking terrifying but they're alive.

Elijah doesn't know who Sera reacts when she's hurt. Doesn't know if she needs comfort or wants space but he leans a little against her, ditches his shirt and some point because it dawns on him that using it to clean up blood is better than sitting there and letting it hold in a mess. He doesn't say much on the ride back, doesn't really place where they are or where they're going; if getting lost was the point, the point was made.

"Things will work out, it'll be okay," he says, says it like he means it. Like his wanting that to be true would make it Truth. He's holding it together with duct tape and delusions- it works for now, but who knew how long it would hold.

--

So, they drive, and it was the only thing he said. It'll be okay. It'll be okay because it has to be okay, because things weren't okay right now it didn't mean that things couldn't normalize out. That Sera would be fine and that Dan would be okay and that whatever heat was going to get thrown from the fact that there should be three dead bodies in that bar would fade out because- what? Because maybe cops have too heavy of a caseload to justify looking into it too heavily.

Delusions, you know. Things that taste like hope but don't keep us going. Things he could think about later but he's headed up to the door with keys in hand and he goes through the motions, pretends like he's supposed to be here and this isn't strange and this place is fucking opulent. Doesn't know the context, doesn't know why Dan was so tense before he acquiesced, didn't know why Sera sounded small- but maybe it was blood loss and what Elijah probably presumed was a reality-induced traumatic brain injury. But, unlocking doors wasn't something he generally had a problem with.

Unlocking doors to a fucking mansion, however, was something completely different.

He'd seen his share of nice places, sure, but that came when your father worked in construction and you occasionally got to hide in closets and occupy yourself in places you probably had no business while you got to listen to the owner whine about things like wanting granite counter tops- rip out the ones you have now and start over, I don't like this it's supposed to be perfect- when in all actuality granite was an inferior surface when compared to- hey, look, they have a balcony!

He unlocked the door with relative ease. Had to fumble with keys for a second to get the right one and in they go, presumably with the alarm silently whining away to alert the authorities that someone had the audacity to use the door instead of magically appearing in the fireplace like a right and proper fucking wizard.

"Where's the security panel?"

Serafíne

This place is opulent and a whole damn room is devoted to entering the goddamned house, and then after that is a whole damn room devoted to climbing up the ridiculously gorgeous stairs, and after that a whole damn room is devoted to ballroom dancing but they haven't gotten that far yet.  Dan's unbuckled Sera from the back seat of the Jeep (she's half-asleep by now, semi-coherent.  Elijah's assessment of reality-induced traumatic brain injury is spot-fucking-on) and when her shuffling up the front steps is too slow for Dan he simply picks her up.  He's not especially athletic and she's kind of unwieldly but she weighs next-to-nothing so that's how they come in, Dan behind Elijah,

"Fuck if I know - " he mutters, jostling Sera awake to repeat the question to her, getting back enough to tell Elijah, "I don't think there is one."

There isn't.  A wizard lived here.  If some asshole bothered him he could zap them with lightning. 

So, he didn't much worry about security.

--

"Find the light switch or something - "

Somehow one of them does.  Enough to cast a corona of light from the entrance hall into the reception hall.  Enough to give a sense of the scale and magnificence of the place, and its emptiness.  

Oh, the furnishings remain. 

Not the inhabitants. 

"Let's go upstairs.  We'll find a place for you to get cleaned up.  Fifty million bedrooms in this place so we're bound to come up with something you can wear, too."

A brief stitch of a frown.  "Sorry about the shitty start to your 21st birthday, man."

Elijah

This feels wrong.

Being here, that is. Being in a place that is very clearly furnished but no one lives here. There isn't bustle, there isn't life, there isn't something to indicate that there are people who care about the house beyond it being a shell. It's no one's home. It's… he doesn't even have context and the place feels lonely. he looks round, takes it all in and he would be taken back by the fact that this place is gorgeous but… He can't shake the feeling he had. Elijah exhaled slowly, managed to finally find a switch, and it was up the stairs with them. "Do you need help getting her up the stairs?" Elijah isn't particularly athletic, either, but Sera seemed a little like a semi coherent noodle at this juncture.

There's a frown, some silence, and Elijah smiled. The word, you see, is sardonic.

"I'm not surprised?" he said, "last year I had… y'know… a break with reality in the stairwell at the university and… yeah, anyway." He exhaled hard, focus. Back to reality, "Birthdays kinda just suck but I made it to twenty-one so I feel kinda like I won."

Like there was a score- Elijah: 2, Expectations of his ability to not overdose and die: 1.

Serafíne

"I got her."

Which is true.  He does. 

More or less.  Carrying her up the stairs isn't effortless and he uses an assist or two from the sweeping bannisters (and by the gods, the bannisters sweep, old English manor style, from the cavernous reception hall to a remarkable open loggia overlooking an equally remarkable ballroom, downstairs.  This view of the back gardens (formal, then informal) through elegant oversized windows - leaded glass, the lot of them - two stories tall.  Low voltage lighting dotting the landscaping (still meticulously maintained) comes on at dusk, so there are these small points of light in the distance. 

Dan is a little bit out of breath by the time he reaches the second floor.  Has to stop to catch it while Elijah again acts as the light-scout, finding some switch somewhere to guide the way.  "Right," he directs Elijah away from the master suite when he gathers himself again, but stops, pauses, listens as Elijah talks about what happened on his 20th birthday.

Dan's eyes are - damp right now, more bruised than you might imagine given how damned efficient he is being.  He's still moving because someone has to.  That's what happens.  He's also listening, gives Elijah a brief, sympathetic grimace.  "You're magick kid," Dan tells Elijah, as the young Hermetic details last year's psychotic break from reality, and he says it because, "Reality can go fuck itself.  Right?  That's what you have to remember."

Elijah

He starts to head one way, but does have the good sense to take direction that whatever is going on over there is not something he particularly wants to deal with. He half expects to walk in, see the walls splattered with gore. Or, more accurately, he expects that whatever is in that end of the house might be punctuated with the sterile feeling of a place cleaned too heavily to scrub out whatever was there before. There was something inherently offsetting about a place that was very clearly free of residents. When it's large and beautiful, it feels less like an escape and more like a memory.

"Sometimes, I think about it, and it's less of a departure and more of an interlude with something bigger," he says, "it's not all bad."

Stops for a second at a door. Third door on the right on the right, he knocks like he's expecting to be given entry before he actually going in. Lights are hit and he looks back at dan. At his damp eyes and the bruises and Elijah gets this feeling for a moment that he can put himself away for a second.

"You really hold it together," he said, "like…" A break, a beat, "you don't have to be okay all the time."

Serafíne

"I'm not," Dan tells him, this little short-circuit interruption.  "Okay all the time.  But I'm okay now." 

This smile edging its way through his blond beard. 

"Thanks, though. Go get cleaned up."

So: Elijah disappears into the third bedroom on the right.  No one answers the knock and the door to the room he opens is clean, luxurious, quiet.  Fine, really.  Fine - real antiques and actual tasteful shit on the walls that matches both the tone and tenor of the furnishings and the space proper.  Ensuite bathroom though first he'll blunder into a closet empty except of linens and then into the bathroom.  Not the master but there's probably a tub deep enough that Elijah could go swimming or at least soak for days.

Serafíne

Dan: Int + Medicine.

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Elijah

Eventually, he does come out of the room he's in, once he's done having his Countess Bathory moment and is thoroughly convinced that and remnants of the bar or the night or he's done stewing over the fact that there's enough blood in the front of his pocket watch to make the inlay russet and gold. He doesn't know how to clean it off, though he may try later. The stubborn bits will remain, though, they always do. He knows something about blood stains. Spends more time than strictly necessary making sure that the tub was clean and there weren't spots or discolorations or drops or traces of the violence they'd seen earlier in the evening, not because he cared about the house, but rather, the prospect of having it linger. The places his imagination and memory wandered weren't particularly welcome.

Twenty hadn't been particularly fantastic. (Elijah ran the water again-)
Nineteen had been a disaster. (- hotter than the fucking sun-)
Eighteen's festivities ended with an orderly with a broken nose. (he rubs at a spot he was pretty certain he could still see, Lady Macbeth would be proud.)

Water turns off, he exhales hard.

---

He comes down stairs and is wearing clothes. Clothes that would probably be filled out by someone who is in decidedly better shape than Elijah, and that's saying something because Elijah isn't actually in bad shape. Things that are tailored for someone who is, well, most assuredly not the person wearing them. He's got V neck on, and jeans that were just the appropriate level of distressed that it took some designer care and attention to make nice work of them.

"We should probably eat something," he announces.

Serafíne

Dan doesn't take as long to get cleaned up.  Showers, rather than soaking once twice three times in a tub the size of Texas.  Wads up his short-sleeved plaid button-down as a lost cause and throws it in the trash can in the corner of one of the larger bedrooms.  Eschews the remnants of Hawksley's closet in favor of scrubbing at the stains on his black skinny jeans.  Leaves the jeans on - less of a lost-cause and the black covers up the blood.

--

He does take the time to stabilize Sera.  Clean her up a bit.  Check her airway and gently wipe away the blood crusted around her nostrils.  To satisfy himself that she's settling into sleep that is healing rather than restless.  To get her clothes off her and tuck her into the cool, crisp sheets.

--

Downstairs, though. 

Easy to get lost in a house this size.  Who the fuck needs something like it?  And why do people gravitate to the kitchen in times of need and crisis?  Because both of them head there, Elijah and Dan.  Dan's shirt-less and barefoot and drinking a glass of water, leaning against the counter. 

"Read my mind.  Not much in the fridge but there are some steaks in the freezer.  I'm pretty sure I spotted a tin of beluga caviar in the cabinets.  No toast-points but we can make due with Triscuits, I bet."

Elijah

"I could do steaks," he told Dan, "I'll even cook, too."

Because there is mention of steak and he's already started on with scouting out something that he could actually cook on. He's not bad in the kitchen. Sure, he's not a chef and the quality of beef that in the freezer is probably weeping at the prospect of what is about to happen to it, but we digress.

"Not that you're not, like, a fucking fantastic chef, but seriously this is probably the only time I'm gonna get to cook steak this year and so long as we're recovering from whatever the fuck just happened I may as well," pans found! A second passed.

"What… did happen?" he asks cautiously.

Serafíne

That's a sub-zero range.  Soon enough Elijah figures out that the griddle in the center can be removed and becomes an indoor grill.  Probably there's some fancy system for hickory smoke or what the fuck ever to be infused into the fibers of the meet, but. 

So: Dan stands back.  Gets Elijah an some ice from the freezer and water from the filter and sets it on the counter by the range.  Leans back.  Gets up again to find the caviar tin and the stray box of Triscuits that lives in every uninhabited kitchen and settles for a snack.  Doesn't give a fuck how much that caviar cost or that it isn't his.

"At the bar?  You want our story, or the real one?"

Elijah

The middle comes out and it's a legit indoor grill.

"Oh holy shit," he said, brows raised and the tiniest bit of delight in his voice. Tired delight, but delight none-the-less, "cool." This gets settled into the things he is never telling his parents about, though he does wonder what the wholesaler's price is on a unit like this. He gets on to work with food prep. washes his hands like a surgeon before looking back.

"The real story," he said, "I figure the alibi's something we can figure out later."

Serafíne

"Big guy was headed toward the back, fuck if I know what for," Dan starts.  This vaccuum-seal noise as he opens the caviar jar, which he totally got from the fridge not the cabinets like I wrote before, because why would you eat room temperature caviar, Dan.  "Two other guys came in behind him I figure they weren't supposed to start a gunfight in the open like that, maybe they were supposed to intimidate or guard the door - but the one was trigger happy or thought the bartender was going for a gun and shot the bartender.  Then you jumped in front of the bartender - " here a pause, a Tricuit dipped in caviar like a toast-point.  No sour cream or dill or hard-boiled eggs for it, but what can one do. 

" - which, by the way, I totally get the desire to save someone's life, but fuck.  You put yourself in danger there.  I wish you hadn't done that.  Or that you instinct wasn't quite so run into the light of an oncoming train, you know? The other guy shot you.  I charged him and I'm pretty sure he shot me too.  The rest is sort of fuzzy - Sera was casting something, I don't know what.  She must've healed me.  I mean, quick enough that I hardly had time to register that I'd been shot.  Then she scrambled over to you and got you on your feet.

"For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure the bartender is going to make it."

Elijah

There a moment when one realizes they aren't bulletproof. There is a moment, then, after that when Elijah concludes that the fact that he is not impermeable to bullets is bordering on unacceptable. Mouth sets in a fine line, but he nods. Nods because he is listening, nods because… well…

"I'm finding that there's kind of a fine line between trying to help someone and doing something irrevocably dumb," he says. "I'm glad he's gonna be okay but… like… fuck, Dan, that got bad. That got bad really fucking fast."

Stunned is the word.

Serafíne

"It did,"

Dan affirms.  That's all.  Doesn't reprimand, doesn't scold, he lets that observation live and steps back from it, listening, aware, non-judgmental, nothing more. 

Elijah cooks.  Dan eats the caviar, offers Elijah a taste if he wants.   It'll take the steaks a while because FROZEN but magick and a big fancy kitchen have something to say about that.  Somewhere in the middle of all this, Dan ducks back upstairs to check on Sera.  Must go someplace else too because he returns with an expensive bottle of red wine (Chateauneuf-du-Papes) that opens to let breathe while Elijah finishes the steaks. 

They eat, drink too.  Maybe chat, maybe they don't.  Dan offers Elijah a ride wherever he wants to go, whenever he's ready.  That got bad, it got bad really fucking fast, but there is this too: they're okay.

Every sngle one of them.  All okay.