Fawn

Elijah

[Nightmares]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (3, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Sid

Tuesday night and all is not well, but it's a damn sight better than it was the night before.  At least it was for one person.

The place is not all that different from Illegal Pete's, except there is no bar and the Mexican decorations have been replaced with black and white photos from around the city...twenty, maybe thirty years ago.  The diner is old, and has the feeling of an old and worn out shoe, the kind with the split sole and the blown out toe, but no one wants to get rid of because it's just so damn comfortable.  The walls are yellow and the wood of the seats is blond and the cushions are stained and torn.  A weary wait staff of three serves a handful of elderly couples with tired but friendly smiles, hair coming loose from buns to frame faces not much younger than their customers.

Most of their customers, anyway.  Sitting alone in a booth in the back corner there sits a woman.  She is sitting hunched forward and under better lighting is a lovely, otherworldly creature, with long red hair falling in loose and rain-damp waves over her shoulders.  The fingers of her right hand are curled loose but protective around a partially empty glass of ice water.  In her other hand is the menu, a laminated, greasy yellow to match the rest of the diner.

[percept (paranoid because yesterday was a bad day) + awareness]

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

Elijah

There was a reason Elijah did what he did.

Perhaps it was because what he needed was a disconnect from his body, to be removed from the world and to tap into what it felt like to be everyone in a room. Maybe it was that desire, that ever-present need to be part of the living and to cling to them and scream No, this is where I belong to every shadow and spectre that dared plague him, all the while aware of his own mortality and the futility of the gesture.

Because at night he would go to sleep. At night he would dream of Nothing. In the morning, the world would begin anew.

Let the boy play, let him cling to the world and grasp to life, because when he woke up after a night of partying like he just did, Elijah was well aware of the fallibility of his own body but the brightness of the sun and she smell of the air around him and there was something about a hangover that was poetic in bringing about a balance between being alive and feeling like one should be dead. He kind of liked that.

When he came in, he was wearing precisely what he had been the night before, except his shirt was missing and he was down to a tight white tee shirt and his hair was a mess and he looked like triumph and felt like unrest and he sat himself down and picked up a menu and-

"Oh shit."

Did a brief pat down to be sure he had his wallet still.

Sid

[awarepathy]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Sid

Sid senses the fracas before Elijah's hand even touches the diner's front door.  She considers slipping away, disappearing out the back door with none the wiser but the wait staff.  They'd probably think - well, it doesn't really matter what they'd think.  Sid doesn't rise.  She doesn't slide from her booth, gathering her belongings as she goes.  The reasons for this are her own, but do include the knowledge that two of the three times her path and Elijah's have crossed paths he was simply there.

So she sits, and she watches the entrance openly, and she sees the gangling, disheveled youth enter.  Does not realize he's wearing exactly what he was wearing yesterday minus a button down and a tie.  Does realize that he looks like hell, though.  A recognizable hell, too.  She looked like that for most of the spring, that haggard, hiding, recovering from swimming around the bottom of a bottle hell.

She looks a little like it now.  Sid did not run out to a bar or a club after her brief run-in with a once-almost-friend and a once-friend, did not drink herself into oblivion amidst a crush of bodies on a dance floor.  She didn't even drink herself into oblivion, but she did drink, and she did it in the safety of her own home.  But Sid had a friend closeby to pull her free of the alcohol's pull.

Elijah sits at a table not far from Sid's, and she continues to watch him for a few moments while he studies the menu so intently.  A waitress comes and asks her for her order and Sid recalls herself enough to glance at her laminated menu.  She orders a malted milkshake and eggs and sausage with a side of toast and hash browns.  When the woman walks away, Sid folds her menu and puts it back in the rack at the end of her table, folds her hands, and waits.  For Elijah to notice her, maybe, or for her food to arrive.  She studies a photograph of old downtown directly, and the Orphan apprentice in her peripheral.

Elijah

[because some mornings require the Blues]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Elijah

What was he avoiding?

He had to have been avoiding something, or perhaps warding it off. There was a sound from behind the menu. Something quiet and mournful and the sort of soulful woe that only comes from loss, and oh god damn if that loss didn't feel personal. Even if it wasn't, even if it happened to belong to some other singer, but it made him focus his breathing and remember that he needed to inhale, exhale the world, feel the bad because even that was worth feeling.

"She took all my money, and my best friend… same old story, here it comes again… I have no pride, I have no shame- make it rain. Make it rain, yeah. Since you're gone, deep inside it hurts… I'm just another sad guest, on this dark earth…" he stopped long enough to quirk his mouth up to the side, whisper something to no one in particular.  "There, are you happy?… I don't know the rest of the words."

He looked up in time from his menu to see Sid. To try and catch her eyes for a second as he raised a hand to give her a little wave hello- acknowledgment that he had seen her, that she was wanted, that his presence wasn't going to be forced upon her at this particular juncture.

Sid

[oh look Sid has some dice for that, too!  let's see how bad she sucks tonight, yeah?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Sid

Elijah starts singing, quietly to himself, but not so quietly that others around him can't hear.  There is an older man who looks a bit like Tom Waits who stares openly for a few seconds before clearing his throat and returning to his coffee and his Tuesday paper.  A few others dart glances to Elijah and away again.  A waitress - the same woman who waited on Sid - stops abruptly while on her way to his table, unsure if she should interrupt.

Elijah's melancholy rendition is the sort of thing that tugs at the heartstrings, dredging up past hurts and past pain and letting it sift around the surface of the murky water of the heart.  Sid is not immune to it, either.  When Elijah stops, and he looks at her, and he offers that little wave, she's looking at him with those ageless eyes of hers, half obscured by her dark-rimmed glasses.

Instead of returning the greeting she tips her head slightly, angling it to the side.  "I do."  Those eyes dart, taking in the room, aware that people are going to look at her.  There was a time when the thought of a single pair of eyes trained on her caused her to shrivel up, curl in on herself, try to disappear, try try try to stop being noticed.

And there was a time before that when she would've reveled in the attention.  Amelia Weston would have stood up on her booth bench, one foot propped on the table top as she belted out the tune, flat of her palm slapping her sternum for a makeshift percussion as she drew the crowd in with her voice and her magnetism.

She is neither of those people anymore, and yet they are still part of her.

Clearing her throat, Sid sits up, lifts her chin up, and offers the next verse.  "I'm just another sad guest on this dark earth...I want to believe in the mercy of the world...."  Her voice is not at all as husky rusty sounding as Tom Waits'.   Hers is a low and rough but somehow sweet sound.  There is an allure to it, even as it starts to fade down and down until, at mercy of the world her voice actually cracks.  Which is why she stops, clears her throat and, fingers twisting together on the table top, she tilts her head come on to Elijah.  Inviting him to join her.  Still wary, of course, things have always gone so badly before.  But that day on the track by the university they almost had a moment.  Maybe.

Elijah

He stands, that is invitation enough. She remembers the words, knows them well enough that it makes him remember where he needs to pick up, and while he doesn't revel in the attention he does pick up again to finish the verse-

"Make it rain, make it rain," there's heartbreak they both know, or perhaps something different that both of them can connect to in the song, but something about it seems to stick to his countenance and carefully, because he is capable of being careful, Elijah makes his way over to take a seat at Sid's table.

He doesn't say anything to her, but he does smile at her. For her, because that smile was for her and no one else.

Sid

He sits, and Sid slides her feet to rest against the base of her bench so they don't end up tangling with Elijah's.  Pressing her palms flat to the table, she manages to keep herself from fidgeting again.  She glances around the room, taking in the staff, the tables, the distance to the exit, the other eaters in a sharp, quick sweep before looking over the young man.

"You look about like I feel," she says, her voice it's now customary quiet, low so that what she says is kept just between the two of them.

Elijah

"I take it to mean you don't feel disheveled but handsome?" low, quiet, and a with a little bit of a self-effacing grin. The expression doesn't last long, though. 

"Hey, look... I've... I suck at apologies, but..." clearly he was going to try.

Sid

At some other time in her life Sid might have made some quip, something to make Elijah laugh and break some of the tension that exists between them.  She doesn't, though, not this time.  He doesn't give her much time for one, anyway.

When he starts, her brow tightens, wariness abounding on her tight and tired and wan features, but the look smooths away.  She says nothing, not wanting to interrupt him, but gives a slight nod.  Go on, that nod says, better than she probably could with words.

Elijah

"I don't know the life you've lived, and I don't know the places you've been… but I shouldn't assume that just because it's somewhere different than I've been, or because you won't share that with some near stranger that your personal preferences shouldn't be… fuck… I don't know… I crossed boundaries I shouldn't have crossed, whether it was well meaning or when I was pissed off at you it doesn't matter.

"I don't want to pretend like the last few times we've met haven't happened, but I wanted you to know that I'm sorry for being too familiar. And for trying to force a familiarity that wasn't there. I'm sorry," he replied.

Contrite was the right word. Yes, that was what he was looking for, that was the tone the young man struck, and his intent seemed sincere enough. The apprentice was quiet after that, something that did not seem to suit him terribly well.

Sid

This is the part, usually, where Sid relaxes almost completely.  It's what happened with the others.  They pushed her, too, and when they backed off, when they acknowledged that she had boundaries, walls, a fucking suit of armor wrapped around her inner self for her protection, she was inclined to drop those things.

The tension goes out of her shoulders and a bit of it eases out of her face, her brow, her mouth.  The lines that are just beginning to become permanent go a little slack, and she nods.

"Thank you."  And then, "I'm sorry, too.  It's been a bad..." she trails, and shakes her head.  It doesn't matter.  The corners of her mouth ease upward just a touch, the not-quite-smile almost ironic, and definitely tinged with sadness, grief, loss.  "Nearly everyone I cared about has left, or died, or turned their back on me."  She thinks of Jim, and Justin, and Kalen.  And Sera, who tried to greet her as though she'd never crushed what was left of Sid's heart to powder.  She thinks of these people and her chest goes so tight she lifts a hand to work her fingertips into her sternum, trying to massage away the hurt.

Then she tries to push it away.  "Who knows what fate has in store for us.  I may never be okay with the kind of familiarty you want.  We may end up mortal enemies."  This she says with that hint of a smile.  Maybe she intends this as a joke, but probably she doesn't.  Shrugging a shoulder, she leans back in her seat.  "Or maybe someday we'll find ourselves the best of friends.  Whatever happens, for now we can at least be allies.  Because if I know this city," she pauses, eyes lowering as she blinks away some hard emotion before looking Elijah in the eyes again, "there's more bad on the horizon, there always is.  Particularly for those who'd go chasing after the Techs."

Elijah

"I'm persistent," Elijah said, though his expression softens and he uses some of the lessons he's learned recently about empathy to nod and not… try and think of some time in his life where things might have been the same. Sometimes, you have no frame of reference. He could count his blessings, no matter what happened he always had Jenn. He is unaware, of course, of the storm he may well have started within the community, the good will he may have exhausted on account of his crusade.

"And allies works. Sometimes, allies are what you need… and-" he stops himself, and he speaks quickly and quietly, possibly out of frustration, "I think people are afraid. They're afraid with reason, but that fear has made them unreasonable. Too much and you're paralyzed. Not enough and you're fool hearty and I genuinely, genuinely believe that people may need to reevaluate their boundaries."

Sid

He is persistent he says, and for a moment Sid's eyes darken.  Wariness looms, and with it comes the threat of walls slamming into place all around her, snuffing out their recent truce.  It softens, dissipates, disappears completely when he relents.  Elijah has only the slightest idea of what Sid has been through, both in her life overall and within the last twelve months.  How many friends and companions she's lost along the way.  The same goes the other way, of course.

Allies works, and she nods.  It is the very least she tries to offer to all of the mages of Denver, regardless of their feelings toward her.  Despite last night's brief yet intense meeting, Sid would take a bullet for Serafíne.  And she has already offered to help Elijah in her own way.

Her fingers twitch, like maybe she would reach across the table, take his hand.  But their peace is too new and unstable.  Like a newborn fawn it's wobbly and all too easily crushed.  She remembers the last time she reached out to him.  She knows that to try again would crush that peace.  So she sticks to her side of the table, hands folded as she regards him thoughtfully.

"Why?"

Elijah

"Why am I persistent or why do I think that people's fears need to be reevaluated?"

Sid

"And," she says, because there was more than that, "why do you think they're being unreasonable."

Elijah

"People's reasoning for being afraid of the Technocracy comes from anecdotal evidence, which while helpful, is a logical fallacy. I feel that we are working on misinformation, and we are working on old information about a war that a lot of people are too far removed to remember. The response to please help has been largely negative in a small and disjointed community. There's an experiment here people put chimps in a room and stuck a bunch of bananas in a corner or some shit, and every time a chimp would go get a banana, everyone would get shocked. So, they learned not to go in that corner. One by one, they replaced the chimps with new chimps. The new ones would go try and get the banana, but all the old ones would gang up on them so they didn't go get it. Eventually, the scientists replaced all the chimps and stopped keeping the floor electric. Still, our chimpy companions didn't let any other chimp go get the bananas despite the fact that they themselves had never experienced the negative stimulus nor had anyone else in the group. Just the lessons from the other group. I kinda suspect, to a certain degree, we're those chimps."

And?

"And… I know that.. when I pushed the hardest, that's when I wanted people the worst," and sweet Jesus, did Elijah ever push. He remembers pushing. He remembers being young and wild and no matter how well he had managed to hide it from Alicia, he had done a very good job in his younger years of maintaining supposed intimacy with others without having to give anything away. Why would he want people to know he was crazy? Why would he want everyone to know he was a liar? Sid met a young man who was much more honest than he was even four months ago. "I like it when people push back, against anything, because it means they give a shit… with this? It's… it's like nobody wants to push back. It's what it looks like. Like nobody cares, even though I know that isn't true."

Sid

Sid listens quietly, appearing almost impassive.  She isn't, though.  That's just the way her face looks.  She is no longer prone to easy smiles, hasn't been for years now.  But she is thoughtful.  And she does not interrupt him.

When he finishes, she is quiet a little longer, studying his face, his eyes.  His youth.  His frustration.  When she moves it's to pull the flap of her bag out of the way.  She pulls out a small silver case, about the size of your average business card, and a pen.  Opening the case reveals (surprise!) business cards.  Simple white card stock with professional printing on one side.  Sid removes one, snaps the case closed and returns it to her bag, then flips the card over to begin writing on the back.  Her handwriting is neat, sharp, precise.  Flipping the card over she frowns at it, glances for a moment at Elijah, then writes across the top of the front.  When she's finished, she sets the business card before Elijah, using her other hand to return her pen to her bag.

The business card is for Frisk Biotech, and the name and number and email address printed on it are for one Amelia Weston, DPhil, Lead Scientist.  Across the top is Sid and her cell number, which contains a 312 area code.  And written on the back: Pan Echverria, pager: XXX-XXX-XXXX and the address for The Church of the Good Shepherd.

"I think it's about time you had my number," she explains.  "The other is for Pan, a disciple of the Celestial Chorus.  If you want more than anecdotal evidence about the Technocracy and the Ascension War and everyone's part in it, he's the one to talk to.  Maybe he can help you understand why everyone is...cautious.  My experiences with them are few.  I ran for years, and I've only heard of them being here in passing.  But I've known people to disappear because of them," she continues, grave.  Or maybe that's just how she sounds, too.  "They don't come back.  And I've known people who've gone after the ones who disappeared.  They disappear, too, and they don't come back, either.  I don't think wanting to avoid becoming a statistic makes anyone a chimp in a cage, but everyone's entitled to their own opinion."

Elijah

"I just think that maybe, maybe we as a community need to reevaluate why we are so afraid and what our fear is supposed to be teaching us. Are we riding the moment, or is it riding us?"

Okay, so maybe he stole the verbiage from Lena. Maybe he took the philosophy to heart, but what the cultists said was ringing more true to him than anything else. "I'm not even saying that being afraid of them is bad, but being irrationally afraid is… well… crippling."

He looks at the business card, finally, his eyes on it and his hands play over the edges. It's a wonder he doesn't get a paper cut. it's a wonder he will remember it, but he does. Tucks it into his wallet behind a picture of a brunette with a messy haircut and a tattoo of irises on one of her thighs. Something that stays with him- of all the people he knows, he keeps a picture of Jenn with him at all times.

Sid

[does she notice a wallet flash?  let's say diff +2 for size/distance/etc.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 5, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Sid

Perhaps it's because she was watching the way he handled the business card, but when Elijah opens up his wallet and Sid sees that picture of that girl, even from a distance she recognizes her.  Recognizes that she's seen her before, that is, but for the time being can't place where.

Shifting her gaze back up, she moves as though preparing to speak but it is at that moment that the waitress arrives bearing a tray with a number of items on it.  Eggs over-easy, three links of pork sausage, and a small plate with two slices of toast cut neatly in half along the diagonal, a third plate covered in hash browns, and a malted milkshake.  The woman tucks the now-empty tray under her arm and looks at Elijah.

"And what can I get for you, honey?"  Elijah is free to place his order or beg for more time, Sid will not interrupt, and she won't speak until the woman is walking away to check the next table in her section.

When they are alone again, Sid continues as though there had been no interruption.  "I think the questions you have to ask yourself, Elijah, when it comes to how people are responding is.  Do you think they're being irrational because you don't share their perspective?  Or is it because they're not doing what you want them to do?  Or are they genuinely being irrational?

"Do you understand what I'm saying?" she asks, quietly but concisely, they way a professor might.  Her food sits untouched as she continues to watch the apprentice before her, expectant.  Oddly - and yet not so odd - patient as she waits for his response.

Elijah

"Can I have waffles, please? And hash browns," he orders. Not a meal, he would clarify, because he doesn't want scrambled eggs and he's afraid he might ungracefully revisit them, and maybe that's how he stays thin because Elijah isn't afraid of the prospect of losing his cookies, so to speak. He isn't afraid of his body, or the aftermath of the things he does to it, as if the misery itself is also transcendental in its own right.

He pays attention, but he has a hard time getting to a point where he can sit still. Bless him, because he is paying attention, and that attention is direct and he does listen. He really, really does.

"I'm biased," he started, "and I know I'm biased. It could be that I find their fears to potentially be irrational because I have no context, and maybe Pan can clear that up."

He stopped… and he waited again.

"Do you think I'm being childish about this?"

Sid

Sid shrugs a shoulder, unwrapping a straw and dropping it into her milkshake.  "Does it matter what I think?  To you, I mean," she clarifies.  Whatever people think when they encounter the quiet Verbena, her quietude does not stem from a lack of self-esteem or a sense of the worth of her words.

Elijah

"Because you don't know me, and you have no reason to be anything other than objective about my behavior. If I'm wrong... this could be bad."

Sid

She takes a sip of her milkshake, the corners of her mouth flickering and something sparking in her dark eyes.  Something like mirth.  Perhaps Sid is conferring with her shoulder angel and devil in that moment.

Setting down her shake she rests one arm across her midsection, casual.  Almost relaxed.

"I don't think it's childish to question.  You should never blindly accept anything as truth."  Of course she would say this, she is a scientist.  "I don't think wanting to help your friend is childish, either.  But they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.  I don't know how many people you've talked to, if it's been three or thirty.  But if our time together is any indication it sounds like you're asking everyone you meet, getting the same answer every time and hoping this one, the next one, the one after that," she says, emphasizing each space by tapping the side of her hand to the tabletop, "will say something different.  And they're not.

"So.  No.  I don't think you're childish.  But I do think you'll drive yourself mad if you don't change something."

Elijah

[I'm cool! Don't mind me! Manip+sub]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

Sid

[percept+subt (hidden emotions)]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 7, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

Elijah

The thing about Elijah is that he seems so normal sometimes.

Normal, like it is something to be proud of. Normal, like he could ever pass for anything other than abnormal, because his motions and his poise and the way he handles things around him seemed to be his usual social grace, except for the flicker in his gaze, the kind of dread that did not come when he was talking about the technocracy but did come when his sanity came into question. That fear, that wonder if she knew, if everyone knew, or if he really was insane and this was only a manifestation of an obsession and this wasn't real. this was all some part of some grand illusion right down to the black sedans and mirror shades.

Right down to the focus in his eyes, the fact that Elijah seemed so incredibly focused, interspersed with moments where he phased out and glazed over. There is fear there, and he hides it so well, because he smiles and he nods like he really took her words to heart because he did. Oh God, did he ever.

he could drive himself mad. It might be a short trip.

"Things may be working themselves out. Grace said she was going to look into things for Alicia and tell her what she came up with," he sounds relieved, but there is the edge of something haunted there.

Sid

Most of them seem normal.  Most of them seem like they're okay, but really, how many of them are?  The ability to see the world for all of its wonderful and all of its terrible possibilities doesn't come without a cost.  It makes them all a little bit mad, a little bit cracked, and those cracks only deepen as they gain in understanding and in power.

Sid does not precisely understand what causes that sudden look of fear in Elijah's eyes, that dread that makes the air around him a little bit darker.  He tries to hide it behind that charming smile and that understanding nod, but Sid sees through it.  It makes her wary again, but she does not - will not press.  Not here.  Not now.  She thinks of the newborn fawn of peace between them, and the fact that this is the longest she's spent in the company of another mage in....she honestly can't remember.

Grace is looking into things, and Sid's chin raises slightly.  "But?"

Elijah

"I worry that she won't come up with anything. It's not my information to have, so I hope she comes up with something to tell Alicia because I said I could find people to help, I've already really fucked up with her before... It bugs me that she's going to be out there not knowing what happened... and it bugs me that Grace is going on a fact finding mission on her lonesome and I don't even understand how she works but... I guess I don't want to have my own anecdote."

Sid

"Anecdotes can liven up a dinner party conversation," Sid says, matter of fact, perhaps too matter of fact to come across as a joke.  Something to lighten the mood and soothe...well, her nerves at least.  His, too, maybe.

"And..." the corner of her lower lip disappears between her teeth and a shadow forms on her pale brow.  She knows there's a possibility she's about to step on a landmine, or perhaps kick out a support.  Still.  "You say it bothers you.  How does Alicia feel?"

Elijah

"She's... pretty torn up, but she's tough. She'll... she'll be okay," he nodded again. 

Sid

Sid nods, and remains quiet.  She remains quiet when the waitress returns with Elijah's food.  Only when his plate has been left on the table in front of him does she finally pick up her fork.  Uses a tine to break the skin of her eggs, lets the yolk run before dipping the corner of a piece of toast into it.

She remains quiet as she starts to eat.

Sid

[odds she invites him out for karaoke, evens they part ways without it]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

Sid

[~fin~]