There's a quaint little mom and pop coffee shop just on the outskirts of Aurora. It's not the sort of place you pass by and consider for longer than a few seconds. Hipsters drift through on a regular basis looking for that constructed sense of nostalgia. That's why there are a couple of students tucked away in a booth, sipping on their third refill of coffee each, bragging, boasting and displaying their overpriced tuition all over one another. Kant, Hemmingway and Lynch have all made appearances in the conversation.
The rest of the cafe is populated by the elderly. Three of them, in separate corners, attempting to fend off the encroaching depression that comes with old age and isolation. In twenty minutes, one of them is going to get the fearless sense of 'wtf, right?' to walk over to another one and ask about the 70's and where they were during that magical time. The third will get invited over with a wave and a brief moment of hope will erupt and fend back the ugliness of reality.
Then, of course, there's Ned.
The Cabal lived on the outer outskirts of this quiet little town. They populated a house that no one talked about and didn't make any noise or waves for the residents. There was just a humming sense of 'new and gentrifying' wherever they went, mostly because two of them were young and their father was a scientist. ("Father? Really?" "Shut up, it's as good a cover as any").
He is wearing a simple gray t-shirt and a pair of black jeans. His converse are new. Black over red in-line. His hair is a mop of top cut, sides shaved relevance and his face decorated by the threat of a beard. He has youth and a sense of careless regard for his surroundings. The sort that might incite fights in the wrong locations or suggest interest for the lingering they do on seemingly random things.
He is waiting for someone, though. His cup of coffee in too small a mug is sipped on. The BLT he ordered sits untouched on the table, alongside the twenty dollar bill that will no doubt be left behind by way of a significant tip, with a small note on the bill that reads 'Sorry about the kids at Table 4'.
He is waiting for someone. That's all he's here for.
William
William and a friend once broke into the library in Aurora. Disabled the alarm systems and messed with the cameras so they could run around and have an entire library to themselves without the rules and regulations that came with being in the library. They still stayed quiet, and likely continued to read books and file things in the appropriate places because those two wound up becoming Hermetics and you develop a very solid appreciation for libraries when you happen to join that particular Tradition.
He was a recent graduate, but still a hipster. Still had that over-priced education and a degree in French and a minor in anthropology to show for it. His parents have yet to ask the dreaded question of what he was going to do next; he'd hit the point where he could probably spin straw into gold if he wanted but it wasn't necessarily taxable income and therein lie the rub. The respect that brings calamity of such long life. You know, that kind of jazz.
The man walked through the front door (no idea where he parked or if he rode the motorcycle or took an Uber or however he gets places). Pants, button up shirt, and a vest. If he wasn't in something comfortable, there was a vest involved because he needed a place to put his pocketwatch. It had a purpose. The half dozen bracelets around his left wrist had a purpose. Colors and textures and shapes and the myriad of other things he carried along with him in the event there was trouble.
He started a lot of trouble by virtue of breathing. That was neither here nor there.
William noticed who he was supposed to be sitting with, and headed his way over to Ned, "you need a refill on anything?"
Ned
"Nope."
Ned sips his coffee again, nodding slightly toward the opposite side of the table as William arrives. The pair are somewhat opposite in demeanour. William's energy is...well, not palpable but substantial. It delivers with a geared up 'Let's go!!' and carries him like a feather from moment to moment. Place to place. Ned is subdued, recalcitrant. Effort is placed in remaining collected, betrayed every so often by a fidgeting pair of fingers around the handle of his mug or the recognition he's been staring a hole into the other man across the table that sends his eyes bouncing back down to his coffee mug.
"So we have this Cabal. We're a bunch of fuck ups. A lot of the time we fuck up a lot but most of the time, it only really gets ourselves hurt or worse. Sometimes we get better because of it. Kinda stupid, really..." Ned frowns. Then quirks a lopsided grin that fails to unfurrow his brow. He's looking into his half-empty coffee. The waitress, a forty something housewife staring daggers at the kids on the other side of the cafe, who were pouring out sugar onto the table between them, in an attempt to 'define infinity' or 'refine senility' or 'decline insanity', is given a glance and Ned's hand rises to try and wave her down. All the while, he's talking.
"Point us, we're fuck-ups. We fuck-up as one an separately and we fix each other's fuck ups as best we can. Mostly that involves keeping a low profile out here with static spikes of 'Oh noez, I broke reality'. Sort of self-policing, prophecy- I'm getting off track."
Ned shakes his head. Murmuring something under his breath. He sucks a deep one into his lungs, even as the Waitress begins making her way over with the coffee pot. Ned is eyeballing her the entire time. Still talking.
"I think you're a fuck-up. Been wandering around being a fuck-up for way too long and that's gotta end. So I'd like to invite you to join the Cabal."
He nudges his coffee cup away from the waitress when she arrives, motioning toward William with a brief cant of his head. She turns to look at the 'Hipster Hermetic' with a perked brow and no small amount of stored up sass.
William
There is a person typing on their laptop and backspacing to oblivion in the corner. They've written the same paragraph the last three times and there is palpable frustration. There's a group of people discussing authors they know precisely nothing about, and they're pouring sugar on the goddamned table and he can tell the waitress is glaring at them and one of them is smacking their damned gum.
The dishes clink somewhere in the back. Someone puts up a new order. He picks up on all the things except for the person he's focusing on, which is Ned. He can't read Ned's expression, but Ned is subdued; William has been described as a sunflower by someone who was at once derisive and attempting to get into his pants. (It worked, but by god that relationship was short lived and unhealthy. We digress.)
He is, however, focusing on what Ned is saying. Nods along and sits comfortably in his seat. It takes everything he has not to bounce a leg or wiggle in his seat, he is a sense of constant movement. Can't stay somewhere for too long.
"So... you're inviting me to come meet my people and join forces with the Justice League of Fuck Ups?" he quirked a brow, then looked back at the waitress once she came by. He smiled and seemed grateful, "I'd love a coffee. Just regular, no sugar no cream no whatevers."
Once some time had passed, "is that an offer born out of a desire for self-preservation or just- what inspired this decision?"
"I'm not saying no, I'm just curious."
Ned
"You've nearly gotten both my cabal mates killed. Sometimes out of curiosity. Others, out of I don't even know."
He shrug-blinks. Head tilts. Face screwing up into something like concentration, constipation and introspection. His hand slides across the table and the butterknife is suddenly bouncing under fidgeting fingertips.
"...I haven't been able to do much about that. Which is concerning. So yeah. I want to know that if you're gonna kill one of them or...us, really, that at least you're going to be responsible enough to recognize it's one of your own."
A pause. The knife slips into his hand. Like magnetism. Fluid and synchronized. It bounces once over his fingers before dipping into his coffee. Stirring with the blade.
"You join the fuck-ups or I look into trying my best to kill you. Potentially fail at that and then Doc and Margot look into killing you too, because I did something stupid and they're bound to want to set that right." The metal of the knife creeps and creaks against the porcelain of the mug. Ned's staring into the coffee again.
William
"..."
He just kind of stared at Ned at that moment. Not even kind of, he seemed to forget that he was sitting there and instead had to internalize that Ned had very calmly informed him that he was willing to kill him should decide that he didn't want to run with them.
"So, basically... I'm a danger to everyone you love and care about... and you're wanting to take care of that in one way or another."
A beat.
"You're a good guy, Ned,"and he didn't even sound sarcastic, "I appreciate that you're willing to go that far to keep people safe."
Ned
"...Yeah. That's nice."
His smile is slight. Simple. Dismissive.
"You're a threat like I'm a threat like the Doc's a threat. Threats need watching. People need...people." Ned's frowning. Empathy was not his greatest measurement. He shakes it off with a wince, eyes dipping into his coffee again.
"We're a collective threat. We make sure people don't get hurt by us and we make sure people get hurt if they fuck with us. All in all, there's a nice ouroborean feel to it all. Neat little circle, about face."
The knife emerges from the coffee. Ned runs it between his lips, removing the caffeine before setting the utensil back on the table. He picks the mug up and begins sipping again.
"Besides...how many bridges you expect to burn before you can't walk away from the fire?" A pause. Ned blinks over the rim of his cup. "Oh that was a good one. I gotta remember that for the doc sometime." Sip.
William
[Per+empathy: are you trying to be nice and failing?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )
Ned
Ned's sense of nice is probably logical, practical and born out of former traumas. Avoiding one's scars and wounds is easy and can lead to discovering wholly inappropriate options for dealing with future problems. He knows there's no other method or way around this not just because of what he's been through but because of what they are. There were no police. No military. Nothing short of a technocratic lobotomy or something worse in the far cthonic beyond. For an Orphan like Ned, this was the answer.
...Or he and William were going to shake hands with pistols at dawn. Simple.
William
"I really fucking miss people," he told Ned. It wasn't a big admission, he'd said something similar to Margot once when they'd talked about cabals and being alone. He'd admitted that he didn't like it, that he didn't like the fact that it was, at the end of the day, just him. That the people who cared either left or learned to not care really fast once shit hit the fan.
"Sure SepĂșlveda isn't going to castrate me on principle?"
Ned
"Nope. He probably will. Me too for offering because neither he nor Margot know yet."
Ned is nonchalant about that and really, neither he nor William know one another well enough to warrant whether he's winging this and hoping for the best, or whether he's willing to go toe to toe with the Doc about insisting on this matter. Either way, he's sipping his coffee which has got to be down to the dregs by now.
The kids in the corner are being given a stern talking to by the waitress.
"Doesn't change facts though. Doesn't change anything. A fuck up is a fuck up is a cabalmate." Ned drains off the last of the coffee. He makes a face "Bleh, too much sugar" before setting the mug down on top of he twenty dollar bill he's left on the table.
"You drive here? I walked. It was far. "
William
"Where were you when I was new? When I was one of those innocent young maidens you always come to?"
He gets himself a little more comfortable at the table. It didn't change the facts and it didn't change anything- it wasn't a shameful thing and he wasn't being shamed. When Ned talked about fuck up,s he used we as the term of choice.
"Yeah, I drove. I needed a rental for the week," who the fuck doesn't have a real car? Someone who hates driving, that's who. "So, yeah. I will kiss my chances of reproducing goodbye in order to be part of your cabal. That is probably for the best anyway."
Ned
"Well that's step one."
Ned is sliding out of the booth, brow furrowed. He's thinking about step two even as he says it:
"Step two: Convince the other two fuck ups you're not too much of a fuck up to ensure our powers combined don't make a captain end-the-planet." Pause. Face. "That was a bad one. Edit that out of your memory when you get the chance."
Ned waves it off haphazardly, before moving toward the door.
"You're driving." Obviously.
William
"You wanna hear something messed up?"
He was sliding out of the booth, grabbed his things and got ready to make sure he had everything. Keys were there, bag was there, waitress was done with her shit so he was laying a couple bucks on the table too because seriously those kids in the corner were obnoxious.
"This?" he gestured to himself as he made his way to the door, "is an improvement over how I used to be."
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