don't leave without saying goodbye. [ian]

Ian

The drive back to Ian’s apartment takes about fifteen minutes. It’s dark by the time they get inside. Ian switches the lights on as he steps through the door, giving Kiara space to enter behind him. The place looks the same as she remembers it. Everything is still clean and in its place. The air has a hint of something herbal and citrusy in it.

Ian locks the door when she’s through, setting his keys on a little table inside the entrance. The band on his arm comes off next, carried into his bedroom to deposit in a drawer. The phone he leaves on his dresser.

As it happens, there is something different – and Kiara might notice it if she turns toward the kitchen. There are three potted orchids set out at the far end of the bar, each one unique in shape and color. The closest one is a brightly patterned odontoglossum with streaks of maroon and yellow. The center one is a small-flowered cymbidium – white with delicate stains of pink and lilac. The farthest one is solid white with an unusual and elegant-shaped flower spread out like the wings of a bird. Ian’s resonance hovers around them, making them feel like a focal point.

“You look like you could use a night off.” Ian sits down on the bed to pull his shoes off. His eyes follow Kiara instinctively. “What happened?”

Kiara

The drive isn't long from the park to Ian's but the brunette seated across from him seems distracted - subdued, somehow - for the duration. Kiara's eyes on the city streets flashing past her window in a blur of neon color and noise, after a point she leans her head back against the seat and a glance across at her finds her eyes closed against the artificial glow, her expression marred with the faintest frown; brows drawn and fingertips pressing at her temple.

-

His apartment hasn't changed much from the last time she'd seen it but the orchids on the bar draw the Verbena toward them instinctively. She's leaning over the furthest; her fingers carefully absent from its petals but skimming the air around it, feeling the shape and strength of Ian's resonance when he speaks, asks her what happened. She can feel the weight of his eyes on her as she turns; leans there against the bar for a moment, smoothing a hand over the surface of it.

"Elijah happened."

She surmises with this brief, nearly fond twist of her lips before she slides her hand off the bartop and moves to drop down beside him; pushing her hair over a shoulder in a fluid, absent gesture. "He called me the other night in a panic, said he was in trouble and asked if I'd come." Her eyes tick up to meet his. "He was there with his dealer who, as it turns out, is a - " Her expression turns quizzical for a moment, " - Mercurial Elite, or whatever they're going by these days. Virtual Adept. One of Grace's. His name is Samir." Kiara leans back, settles back on his bed on her elbow; her body turned to face Ian, fingers drawing patterns on his comforter.

"Elijah said something attacked them while they were meeting. It bit Samir on the face." Kiara's fingernail traces along a thread. "They used magic to defend themselves, killed it, but - Samir snapped afterwards. Flipped out and ran off before I got there." She draws in a breath, sharply and flattens her palm over the covers. "I helped Elijah bury the evidence of whatever it was. We weighted some of it down, threw it in the lake." The lake he'd seen her approach from tonight. There's a way Kiara's eyes tick to his face and then away that offer awareness of it.

That she'd returned to the place something unnatural had been disposed of. That it wasn't mere coincidence she'd been there tonight. "Then last night Grace called me while I was out. She'd found Samir, wandering around Federal, totally disoriented and paranoid. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. The bite on his face was untreated. He thought she was trying to kidnap him. Kill him, I don't know exactly, but - " She sits up, her expression constricted. Edged with remembered sympathy. "He was a mess. We managed to corner him and I cleaned him up, but - " There's a smile when she looks up, a certain exhaustion beneath her eyes.

"I'll be fine, it's just headaches." And a nose bleed that lasted nearly all night. "Grace took Samir back to her place to watch over him. He wasn't good. I think - " She looks away, frowning. " - I hope he'll recover.

Did you know Elijah had a dealer?" She searches his face, when she finally looks back and there's something in Kiara's voice, the quiet way she asks that, after everything else she's told him that betrays a sort of half formed disappointment.

Ian

There’s a pause in Ian’s movements when he sees Kiara drift toward the orchids. It’s subtle, and might just as well be explained by his focus on her, but his eyes pull to the flowers briefly before returning to her face. (He’d moved them last time – the orchids. Set them in the closet for the night. Tonight he hadn’t expected company.)

Elijah happened.

The answering expression in Ian’s eyes is one of instant comprehension. He finishes pulling his feet free, flexing his toes with relief as he drops his shoes and socks to the floor. When Kiara sits beside him, he tucks his knees to his chest and leans forward, spine curved as he watches her. The mattress sinks a little when she rolls onto her side.

He listens quietly while she tells the rest of her story. There’s a flicker of emotion when she mentions Elijah being involved in an attack – a little crease of tension that starts to form between his eyebrows before he takes a breath and lets it relax.

Did he know Elijah had a dealer?

“Not specifically, but it doesn’t surprise me.” There’s a subtle disappointment in Kiara’s eyes that, for a moment, Ian takes as oddly comforting – though there was a time in his life when he might have felt otherwise. He untucks his legs and stretches out on his side, mirroring Kiara’s pose. For a moment his eyes search hers as though he’s looking for something. “Is Elijah alright?” He rolls closer, brushing his nose beneath the corner of her jaw. “Are you alright? I don’t just mean the headaches.”

He doesn’t ask about Samir – a name he doesn’t know and has no personal connection to. There’s a passive concern, and likely one that might grow more acute if the man’s sanity degrades to the point of making him a danger. But right now what Ian cares about – what he wants to know – is that his friends are safe.

His hand trails down the side of Kiara’s face as he breathes her in, kissing the soft skin on her neck slowly. It’s as much ritual as it is intimacy, opening his senses up to her pattern – searching for damage, for signs of pain.

Ian

[Life 1 - how hurt are you? diff 4 -1 (going slow)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Kiara

[Kiara's pattern feels - bruised. As if she'd suffered some kind of subtle mystical blow or trauma to her head. Indications of pressure there, behind her eyes. A sort of congestion; a blockage that feels like a vague, discomforting ache. There's the faintest trace of blood; tiny vessels that had burst and were now healing inside her sinuses; the brunette wears the physical indicators of someone who'd suffered some degree of violence, however minor. The exhaustion seems to be part of it, though whether that stems from the aftermath of magic or is simply Kiara's energy having burned out emotionally and physically - is harder for him to deduce.

In short - she's not badly hurt, her body is already starting the process of healing - but he can feel the tender points when he seeks for them; feel the disconnection around her temples; the tension that's collected there.]

-

He rolls closer to her, brushing his nose and then his lips over her skin and Kiara's arms fold around him, a hand sliding over his shoulder, mapping vague circuits there as he touches her face; feels the heat of her skin; the vital, vibrant thrum of her pattern pressed against him as he searches beneath it for the points where her body wears the worst of the whiplash she'd suffered at the hands of reality, pushed too far before it snapped back; striking at the Verbena as if to cast back into the world the wounds she'd removed from Samir's face.

Is Elijah alright?

"Mm, define alright. I worry about him." She murmurs, letting her eyes close against his lips on her neck; he can feel the way her pulse jumps a little at the base of her throat; the dip where her clavicle meets her shoulder smelling vaguely sweet with a lingering trace of perfume. "Trouble just has a way of seeking him out. Or maybe it's the other way around." Kiara's hand slides down, tracing her fingertips idly over the line of his spine; drawing whirls over the skin.

Are you alright?

Her eyes open, she turns her face to find his eyes and rubs the edge of her nose against his; drags her hand up to touch the edge of his jaw; her mouth framing the slightest suggestion of a smile; tinged as it is with exhaustion. "I've survived worse weeks." She confirms and traces his lower lip with her thumb. "It's happening more here. Things like that in the park. First the vampires, then that strange stuff Alexander found. Somebody messing with spirits."

She searches his face: "It's like everything is being pulled in."

Ian

Ian's only response to Kiara's assertions about Elijah is a low sound of agreement. Perhaps for a moment it weighs him down - this awareness that his friends' fates are out of his control. If so, he doesn't speak of it. His skin smells of sweat from his run, but after sitting in the car and now the air conditioned space of his apartment, the surface of his back feels dry and gently warm beneath her touch. He lets his attention linger when he senses the fading after-effects of paradox damage, kissing the side of her neck with soft lips before she turns to look at him.

I've survived worse weeks.

He smiles faintly. "I know you have." (And almost certainly will again.) His lips part when she touches his mouth, and she can feel his breath ghosting over her hand.

"Those kinds of encounters tend to come and go. Not just here. I wonder sometimes if there's a reason for it, or if it's just... random." He looks at Kiara intently for a moment before sitting up. "I need a shower. But first..." He stands up and walks into the kitchen, opening a cabinet to retrieve a couple of wine glasses. Next he pulls a bottle of pinot noir off the wine rack next to the fridge and sets it down so Kiara can see the label. "I believe I promised wine." There's a pause as he fetches a bottle opener from a drawer and pops the cork free, but he doesn't pour a glass for himself just yet. He does pour and offer one to her, but he's just been running and his throat feels parched and thirsty, so he fills a different glass with water and gulps it down a bit faster than he probably needs to. A drop of it manages to escape and run down his chin, but he catches it with his thumb.

He doesn't go so far as to invite her to join him, but he doesn't lock the bathroom door either. Either way, Kiara is left to her own devices for a few minutes - to rest or enjoy her wine or to nose through his things if she so chooses.

Kiara

She watches him when he sits up, remains where she is, reclined on one elbow on his bed, her fingers idly toying with one of the bracelets adorning her wrist. There's a smile, this brief, appreciative curl of her mouth when he unearths a bottle of wine and a pair of glasses.

I believe I promised wine.

"You did," she confirms softly and slides off the bed with a stretch; uncurls her body and meanders to the kitchen in time to watch him drinking a glass of water; her eyes very dark as they watch his throat working to swallow it; the trickle of water that escapes to slide down his chin. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were planning ahead just for me."

Her mouth flexes again with that little satisfied curve and she accepts the offered glass with a deliberate little slide of her fingers over his around the stem. The flirtation in her voice lingers until he slips into the shower, leaving her to her whims for a short stretch.

-

She's never had the same sense of modesty that some do, Kiara. When Ian returns from showering he doesn't find her reclining on his bed but he does find a small pile of clothing. The brunette's shoes, socks, jeans - outer layers have been shucked and set to one side in a loosely folded bundle and he finds her sitting cross-legged on the edge of the counter beside the orchids in a sheer white camisole and matching silk underwear; a glass of the pinot noir balanced on a knee.

She's made the presumption of filling the second glass in his absence and holds it out with a little lift of a brow; notching up in deliberate temptation. "I like these." She gestures at the three flowers. "They're beautiful. How long have you been growing them?"

Ian

Ian laughs when Kiara accuses him of planning ahead. There's a wry slant to his smile, and though in this case it isn't true (he usually keeps a few bottles of wine in his apartment,) he doesn't seem to mind the suggestion. On another day, he might just as well have bought it for her. There's a hint of reluctance in the way he leaves her side, throwing a glance over his shoulder to take in the lingering flirtation in her smile.

He isn't long in the shower. Just enough to wash away the accumulation of sweat on his skin. By the time he reappears, there's a towel knotted low around his hips and his skin has a warm glow from the hot water. A section of damp hair hangs down over his forehead, and he's just reaching to sweep it back when he catches Kiara in his gaze. There's a half-second where the movement slows, a subtle smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Now I wish I had a camera."

He does have one (more than one, actually,) but - sentiments aside - he doesn't really mean it (would never steal a picture of her like that without permission.) Neither of them are especially modest, and they're familiar in ways that render clothing optional anyway. If Ian closed his eyes, he could map out the shape of Kiara's body in his mind: recreate the lines of her collar bones, the curve of her spine, the angle of her nose - even the arches of her feet. He knows her pattern in ways most people will never be capable of. Even so, the experience has yet to lose its capacity to captivate.

His feet tread across the wooden floor slowly, barely making a sound as he comes around to join her. There's a glass of wine set out for him on the bar. He takes it in one hand and drinks from it without letting his eyes leave Kiara's face.

She asks about the orchids and his expression veils a little. Becomes harder to read. "I made them, actually. Back in April."

It explains why they feel so much like him. If Kiara is especially well-versed in orchid taxonomy, she might recognize that the particular shape and color patterns of these orchids do not exactly match any of the common varieties, but the resemblance is close enough that no one but an expert would be likely to notice.

"I'll tell you about them, if you want. But... not right now." He takes another drink of wine before setting the glass down. Placing his hands on the edge of the counter, he lifts his frame up and leans into her space, balancing on his arms. The action causes the muscles in his upper body to flex and go taut, which... given the circumstances, might well be intentional. "You're kind of distracting me." There's still wine on his lips when he kisses her. The taste is heady and sensual as he rolls his tongue slowly against hers. He makes a sound low in his throat when he pulls away; moves down to her neck where he grazes her with his teeth.

Kiara

The wine helps.

At least it dulls the persistent ache behind Kiara's temples enough that when Ian re-discovers her sitting cross-legged on the counter she seems to be in better spirits.

The alcohol giving color back to her cheeks, a certain gleam to her dark eyes he knows well as she watches him approach. About as well as he's acquainted with the rest of her, the brunette's lean frame; the freckles that can only be seen across her nose and cheeks in direct sunlight, faded as they are, the scar left on her upper left thigh she's demurred from ever properly healing (you need character, I don't want to live my life without a single thing to show for it, she'd murmured to him at some point when it was first sighted, a slight unevenness where the tiny jagged line ran); the dark ink of a tattoo on her lower back, the imperfections and intimacies that close proximity to another human being offered.

His expression shifts when she mentions the orchids, she notices it. Mentions making them in April and that - makes her pause. Sets her awareness back almost instinctively (how could it not?) to that time, to Spring and Beltane and the last night she saw Sadie and there's this tick upward at the edge of the Verbena's mouth as she lets her eyes slip over that expression of his. "There's still so many things I don't know about you." A beat, her focus slips lower; over the slope of shoulders and downward, ticks back and that smile softens at the corners.

"I forget that I don't and then out of nowhere - " She turns her face to look at the orchids for a longer moment and there's something in that, her consideration of them, it's both contemplative and uncertain. He'll tell her about them, if she wants and she makes this quiet noise, affirmative, before he's leaning in, balanced on his arms and in her space and they both taste like wine. She breathes out, tips her head back and her hair is wild and thick and tumbling over his shoulders when she slides her legs out, wraps them around his body and just - anchors him there.

"I should have told you -" She manages, whispers it like a confession, her mouth tasting his jaw, throat, his shoulder. "-you could have waited to shower until after." Kiara's hand slides down, teases the edge of the towel around his hips. "I had plans of my own to distract myself tonight."

Ian

There's still so many things I don't know about you.

For an instant, there's an echo of something Alexander once said (does anyone really know you?) Perhaps that's why Ian makes her that concession - promises to tell her the story about the orchids, which is really a story about his family. He does not say that he doesn't think he can tell her while she's sitting on his kitchen counter in her underwear looking as beautiful as she is; that there is something about that juxtaposition that leans a little too close to memories that are both volatile and fragile. Instead he chases the thought away with a kiss. Because Kiara wishes for a distraction and, truthfully, so does he. But this thing between them has long been something more than a distraction. They use the word playfully, but it isn't really what they mean.

Her legs circle around his waist, and Ian makes this soft sound against her neck like he's frustrated by the fact the height isn't quite right - that the counter's edge is in the way of his hips. It becomes a low bubble of laughter when Kiara points out he could have waited to shower. "I can take more than one."

He lets his weight off his arms and sinks down a little, drawing his mouth against her skin in these loose almost-kisses that descend from her neck to her sternum. Then he wraps his arms around her and, getting a good hold, lifts her bodily off the counter. He keeps her weight balanced with her legs still wrapped around his torso, and when he shifts her slightly in his arms he looks up and grins this toothy smile.

(Got you.)

Unless Kiara fights him, she'll find herself being carried back toward the bed. If she still has her wine glass, he takes it from her and sets it down on the end-table. There's a moment where he thinks about tossing her. She can see the way his eyes travel to the bed and hover there for a second. But he knows she's still in pain (at least a little, dulled though it may be,) so he refrains from anything quite that exuberant. Instead he sets her down on the mattress and crawls up over her, sliding them both back into the center of the bed. Then he kisses her the way she so often kisses him - sudden and claiming - before he drops down to push the hem of her camisole off her stomach. One of his hands slides up beneath the fabric to trace the curve of her breast.

"I'll make you a deal," he murmurs against her skin, kissing down the lines of her ribs. "If we're still awake after this, you can ask me anything you want."

Kiara

I can take more than one.

She's smiling against his neck, fingers buried in his hair, the other gripping against his shoulder when he leans down to bodily lift her from the counter.

Her legs lock tighter around his hips when he does in response, pulling back to read the expression on his face; to match his smile with one of her own; with a flash of white teeth as he walks them back toward his bed. The maneuver wouldn't be possible (or at least, as fluid as he makes it seem) if it weren't for the strength in Ian's arms; that dancer's poise and endurance to lift and hold and maintain poses on a stage.

He deposits her on the mattress and she's already reaching to pull him down as he crawls over her; sliding her hands over his back and coiling her legs around him. There's a ferocity to the way this happens, Kiara's fingernails drawing sharp lines across his skin and the searing claim of his mouth on hers.

She answers it; matches it: the aggression, the passion.

It's always been there between them, the edge of competition. The playful banter that verged on something more than flirtation. The distraction that wasn't just distraction and just like the night they'd wound up on top of a car in the parking lot of Washington Park; shattering light-bulbs and all but devouring one another in a quest to feel closer and connected -  "Anything?" - the intensity of it; the drugging quality of his mouth on her ribs; the way it felt to be physically pressed together was enough to obliterate Kiara's capacity for much in the way of rational thought. Leaving only the baser, primal instinct - to take; to feel.

(To live).

Her back arches and he can feel the protracted way she draws in breath to speak; the contraction of her muscles beneath him. Her fingers are back in his hair; sliding through the still damp strands and she's looking down at him; her eyes hooded and dark, her mouth red with the aggression of their kisses and the wine.

"In that case I'd better go easy on you tonight."

The towel around his hips doesn't last long against Kiara's impatient, traveling hands.

Ian

In that case I'd better go easy on you tonight.

"Don't you dare."

He's already breathing hard against her skin. Her nails leave red lines down the slope of his back and with the way they're pressed together she can feel the way he reacts to that. The way it turns him on like a fucking light switch. She gets the towel off his waist without much effort. He even shifts a little to allow her easier access. Then he slides up and rolls his hips into her in this slow, fluid motion. The act is teasingly frustrating with the thin fabric of her underwear still in the way, but he manages to pull her camisole the rest of the way off, mindful as he does not to snag or pull at her hair. He slides his hands under her then, arching her back off the bed until her breast meets his mouth.

It isn't what he expected of her tonight. But the ferocity in her hands and her mouth - the way she grabs onto him with her legs - it sends him from this slow, luxuriating arousal into something much more primal. There's a place beneath the lower curve of her breast where his teeth meet skin and bite down hard enough to leave a fading mark. He bites her again on her stomach as he works his way down, slipping free of her grip so that he can get his fingers under the straps of her underwear and slide them off.

He gets the comforter and the sheet out of their way pretty quickly, pulling them aside in a manner that destroys the neatly folded lines. (He is so precise, see? And yet, given a different kind of impulse, he ceases to care what his bed looks like; if he's making a fucking mess.) There's a sudden movement when he buries his head between her legs, exhales this gust of warm breath and slide his tongue up between the soft folds of skin. His fingers claw at her hips, angling them up a little. It's probably not a surprise. What was it he said to her at the park that day? (Not: how about I fuck you in the parking lot, but how about I go down on you...)

And what did she say to him in return?

There's a rough, almost blissed-out moan from him when he slides his hands to her legs, drags his nails up the inside of her thighs.

Kiara

A (fucking) mess. That's what this always was, between them.

It was the way it worked. At least, with Kiara it had always seemed to be more often than not. The stronger her need (to forget, to push aside) the faster, harder, more aggressive she became when she had him on top of her, underneath her (in her hands). The edge of something that was almost pain (in the way she touched him, gripped his body, pushed him to hold her) coupled with the pleasure that came from it. Being so physically in each other's space.

She gets his towel off, he pulls the sheets and comforter off the bed and they're half rolling; his teeth against her skin and her lower half extended off the mattress; hips in his hands; the flimsy layers that separated her from his mouth and tongue torn away and she makes this noise as her fingers find her mouth, as his mouth finds her -

(How about no matter who wins you do?)

- his nails scratch up the inside of her thighs and she sinks her teeth hard enough into her lower lip that she does draw blood; feels the ache behind her temples intensify; the flicker-dance of color where pressure lingered behind her eyes as they close; the ebbing tide of Paradox where it had collided with her Working; her hands on Samir's body; feeding energy back into him and her revitalizing will knitting his tissue back together.

Her fingers slide down to cup the back of his neck; nails gouging into his shoulder to hold him against her; there; her legs like a vice where they close around him; riding the sensation of his mouth against her. The Verbena's spine arching off the bed as she yokes every last ounce of pleasure from it and it's his name she offers - this half formed susurrous like an invocation as she comes.

Locks her muscles and claws at his shoulder and pulls him up in the aftermath; licks into his mouth and there's something utterly primal to it; the cut on her lip; the taste of her blood and her body as she rolls to keep him close with a thigh between his, bites down on his shoulder before kissing a path down his chest.

"My turn."

Ian

He almost comes when she does.

It's an empathic response. Like he forgets sometimes where his body ends and hers begins. And he's already so turned on, so keyed in and hyper-aware of every breath, every moan, every tense and shudder of her muscles, that when he feels her convulse beneath him (hears her utter his name like it's a prayer) this coil of tension rolls down his spine in a shiver that he can't quite suppress. She's got her legs locked around him and her nails dug into the meat of his neck and shoulder as she holds him there - keeps his mouth on her until she's done. And maybe he seems sometimes like the type of person who doesn't like to be held down and controlled, but there isn't an ounce of resistance in him. Not now (not like this.) On the contrary...

It's her that pulls him up, brings his face to hers and licks into his mouth. He smells like her. Tastes like her. She tastes like blood. It gets into his mouth and mixes with everything when he runs his tongue over her lip. There's a bit of blood on his shoulder too from where her nails broke the skin, little beads of crimson marking a set of half-moon indentations.

My turn, she says. And for a moment he almost seems to object. Starts to sit up when she kisses his chest because his instincts tell him not to sit still. But then she starts to get lower and the implications catch up in his mind. His chest expands and contracts beneath her, the muscles in his abdomen tight with hyper-sensitive anticipation. He watches her make her way down the length of his torso, and when her mouth finds him there's a shuddering breath as he closes his eyes; lets his head roll back into the pillow. One of his fists balls up under his neck. His other hand inevitably finds its way into her hair - softly at first (carding through it, fingertips sliding along her scalp) and then... harder, as he winds his fingers into a tight grip.

There's a flush of color on his skin. Even with his tan, Kiara can see it. Blood rising into capillaries, spreading across his neck and chest.

"Fuck, you look so beautiful right now."

He opens his eyes again when he says it - looks down at her like she's this exquisite thing he can't fully believe he really gets to touch.

Kiara

There's something a little intoxicating about the act of it; having him spread out and (nearly) helpless beneath her.

Kiara kissing a trail down that flat expanse of chest to navel and letting her breath just - ghost over his hipbone. She relishes it as much as any other part of this - putting her mouth on him; tasting him; the heat of him underneath her hands; the way she can feel pleasure and tension cresting; the way blood rushes to flush his neck and chest.

She hums when he winds his fingers into her hair and tugs at it; feels the sting where it pulls against her scalp; the scratch of fingernails against her skin and when he says she looks beautiful those dark eyes of hers open beneath those (fucking) long eyelashes to meet his gaze and she lifts her head; gives him this slow, red-lipped smile that's as predatory as any she's ever directed his way; her mouth swollen and wet; cheeks as flushed as his chest.

"I wish you could see yourself the way I do." She murmurs in return; voice gone husky and deposits a kiss against the wrist that has fingers threaded in her hair before her mouth returns and she slides her palms over the ridges of his torso; mapping the planes of his body as far as she can reach without relinquishing the control she's taken.

There's power in this, too. In the sweat that gathers at the small of her back; the ache in her jaw; the tiny flex and spasm of the body under her hands. There's no shame in Kiara for it; giving back the pleasure he offers her; putting her mouth on him; swallowing down his sounds of pleasure and refusing to give over or relinquish until he's coming apart as readily as she had, moments before.

And even afterwards; when she crawls up the length of his body; there's a demand to it. A refusal to cede personal space - a need, threaded somewhere in the Verbena's aching body and the dull throb inside her head - for that connection. For the reminder.

(I'm alive. I'm here.)

Ian

There's a control that they both share - a mastery of their own bodies that enables them to do things others can't. If Ian wanted to, he could last longer. Let the evening unspool into this endless stretch of almost. There's a certain appeal to that. But the best parts of sex aren't about having control - they're about losing it. It's what turns him on, more often than not. Watching someone come undone beneath him.

So he doesn't try to control this. Instead he gets lost in it, and even though they've done this before, there's a newness to it each time. A sort of exquisite visceral joy that one might not normally expect from either of them. (They who are both so measured, so controlled in their daily lives.) Ian's lips are red and wet and swollen, his eyes so dark they look black in the light of the apartment. He was already impossibly hard when she started. It only takes a few minutes before he starts to arch his back, before his intermittent moans become quick, gasping breaths and sharp curses.

He warns her, right before his orgasm hits. Though he probably doesn't need to. She can feel the way the blood rushes up beneath his skin. Hears him suddenly go quiet for a half-beat before giving this long, chest-deep moan that hums its way through his entire body.

He has to let go of her hair so he doesn't hurt her. Instead he fists rough handfuls of his pillow in both hands, the muscles in his arms flexing tightly when he shouts.

Kiara doesn't stop until he's gone still, panting to catch his breath while beads of sweat roll down his stomach. She crawls up the length of his body and he reaches out to pull her down beside him. He kisses her the way she kissed him, though there's a little less urgency to it.

He starts to try and say something, but it turns into a long, happy sound instead.

Finally he manages, "Mm, I love your mouth." He sucks a little on her lower lip. "You're perfect."

Kiara

There's a looseness to them both in the aftermath.

Their bodies thrumming with the glow of pleasure, of physical exertion and as she crawls up the length of his body and is pulled down into an open-mouthed kiss every degree as appreciative (if slightly less demanding) as hers had been - Kiara hums into it and lets herself settle into the crook of his body; her dark hair spilling like a dark halo around her bare shoulders; over the pillow, tickling his chest where she curls herself inward and strokes the tips of her fingers along his ribcage; feeling the rapid rise and fall as his breathing calms; the staccato rhythm of his heart.

In another mood, with different intention, she might even have delved deeper, let her senses expand further and wrapped herself in the way his pattern felt right now; the color and shape of it; the strength. Tonight, however, her head aches with the faint reminder of what cost they offer their abilities to others. The risk that comes with the desire to re-shape and mend; to twist and better the patterns of the universe.

I love your mouth.

"Hm." Her fingers skirt over his skin, mouth curving in a slow, satisfied shift, it's sincere enough to bring out the dimples in her cheeks. They cast her in a disarmingly sweet light for a moment, especially considering their current predicament, her face tilted up to read the sincerity from his expression, her palm pressing down to sweep with grander force over his body. "Yours doesn't do too badly for itself, either." A beat, then - You're perfect - she raises herself up on an elbow and considers him with her sharp little teeth playing over the edge of a swollen lower lip.

This familiar little edging smile surfacing, no less sincere than her last but - wielded with more purpose than simple appreciation.

"Perfectly imperfect, maybe." She gently finds the point where his chest tapers down; over his sternum, to the top most rib. "I'd hate to be too perfect. How boring." Her eyes tick up, hold his and she leans in to press a chaste kiss over his ribcage. "So, here we are. Both awake, I think you said something about asking you anything."

Kiara's eyes gleam as she re-settles herself. "Tell me about the orchids?" It's deliberate, the way she invites it, rather than demands it this time. Settled there with an arm folded beneath her; their legs tangled.

Ian

I'd hate to be too perfect.

She could have been talking about him. The near-inhuman vitality in his body. The shape of it. The lines and angles. The way sometimes the light hits him in a way that makes him look like a painting - like something that came out of an artist's imagination. There are no scars on his skin (nothing to give him that kind of character that Kiara proudly claims.) He gave those up a long time ago. But of course, he's far from perfect. Sink in past the skin and he's just as flawed and fragile and human as anyone. They both are.

"That's not how I meant it," he corrects with a lazy smile. Still, there's something in the way he looks at her that feels like more than just afterglow.

She points out that they're both awake, and he offers this small noise of objection, rolling into the shape of her body so he can apply a series of slow, lingering kisses to her throat. "We're far from finished, I hope." One of his arms wraps around her shoulders and pulls her more tightly against him, sliding a hand down the length of her spine with fingers splayed. He doesn't take it further though. Relaxes back a moment later and lets himself sink into the lull. The arm around Kiara's back slides away to curl behind his head as he stretches out.

He's quiet for a while.

"You might wish you hadn't lead with that one." She'll see it in his face, the way it starts to creep in. The... heaviness of it. His eyes slide toward her, trailing down the length of her body beside him. This time the look feels a little sad and wistful, as though there was space opening up between them (as though something were pulling her away.)

"I lost my family when I was in high school." He looks away when he says it, letting a few beats pass. "My parents and my sister. They were in a car accident. It happened at the end of April. I made the orchids for them. As a... remembrance, I guess. Usually, Spring comes around and I start getting..." he frowns softly. "Destructive. I've done so many fucked up things. This year I just... wanted to make something for once. Instead of just tearing things apart."

He lets his eyes meet hers again. "I didn't really feel better afterwards. But... they're still beautiful, I think."

Kiara

It's not the first time they've talked about the heavier things.

What had she said, the last time? Half naked on the sofa with his back to her: the fucked up parts don't scare me. He'd proceeded to tell her that he'd killed a woman, then. A woman who she, in some small way, reminded him of.

(And then he'd fucked her).

Kiara had just listened with that stillness about her; that absolute focus on him.

There's that same sense to it now, the intent way she watches him when he goes quiet. She's so much closer this time though, he can feel her pressed against him, feel the familiar weight of the Verbena's eyes on his face, giving him no breathing space even when he looks away at the talk of loss. "I'm sorry," she murmurs after a long, drawn out moment and there's a tiny curl at the edge of her mouth, an offering of empathy, the tempered display of her feelings. Her hand does slide up, though. A thumb stroking across his skin in some unspoken impression of the brunette's sense of his wistfulness; the remembered pain and anguish.

He mentions the orchids and she shifts her weight, pushes herself upwards on an elbow far enough to sight them again, then to read his expression with those damnably dark, expressive eyes of hers. "Yeah," she agrees softly, "they are. And I think - " Her mouth thins, lips drawn together in momentary hesitation; her brow furrowing. She sits up; uncurling herself from his side, sliding her legs beneath her. Her hair falls over shoulders; a wild tangle of waves; her skin still pink-flushed; still glowing with the aftermath of sweat and sex and satiation.

It presents an alluring picture, but then, even unclothed: there was that same quality about Kiara Woolfe. That vaguely aloof, otherness to her. As if the wild had touched her and left its claim in the fine quality of her features; the slope of her nose; the full mouth; the easy, direct candor of her speech at times. " - It's easier to mess things up. God, if you only knew the ways I had." She frowns, looks away, down at the tangle of sheets beside the bed. "It's a nice way to remember them, Ian." She says finally, forcing her eyes back to his face, her mouth tugging into a smile.

"You know, when I first came to this city I wanted to do that." She draws her knees up, rests her chin on one, watching him. "Fuck things up. I was angry all the time, on and off. At Aisling. At Sadie. At myself. I figured we'd blow into town, cause trouble, find trouble - " Her smile grows a little as she drags her eyes over him - "And keep going. Instead, I find that I'm still here. And I think - " She makes a quiet, wondering noise. A half realized breath. "I'm not angry anymore. Not the way I was, anyway."

Her eyes tick back to his face. Searching. "I'm not sure what that means.

I'm not so great at avoiding making a mess, though." It feels like a confession, the way she offers that last thought.

Ian

It'll be ten years next spring. Strange, how quickly time can disappear when you aren't paying attention to the passing of it. And then one day you wake up and you're an adult with a career and you're living in a place where nobody knows who you used to be, but sometimes you catch yourself forgetting that. Because people never really leave their ghosts behind - they either run (and never stop running,) or they make room.

He's gotten better at some things. Talking about it without feeling like his body is going to break apart - that's always been more about disconnecting than processing. Looking at it though (really looking at it...)

That's probably something Kiara understands.

He doesn't really respond when she tells him she's sorry, but the muscles in his chest tense a little beneath her hand.

It's a nice way to remember them, Ian.

"It's sentimental," he counters quietly, as though sentiment were a character flaw (despite having given himself over to it moments earlier.) Perhaps he realizes the irony, because he gives this light exhale that almost verges into a tired laugh. "I seem to be prone to that lately." Kiara tells him she came to Denver expecting to cause trouble and he doesn't look surprised. Maybe they'd always sensed a bit of that in each other.

I'm not so great at avoiding making a mess, though.

"I'm not very good at it either." He reaches with his near hand to trace a slow, circling pattern over her hip. "Being with you feels a bit like I'm stealing something that wasn't meant for me.

"Tell me some of the things you've done." (The fucked up parts don't scare me.)

Kiara

Tell me some of the things you've done.

She's still, for a long moment after he asks her that. To tell him some of the things she's done and for a woman like Kiara Woolfe, who was so outwardly unafraid of sharing herself and offering her thoughts freely - it was captivating (and perhaps slightly unnerving) to see her look uncertain the way she does now, briefly. He traces patterns on her hip and she bends her face, just slightly and smiles into the caress.

Seems to draw some comfort from it before she pushes the heavy fall of her hair over a shoulder.

"There was this man, in New York. A Doctor. I - " Kiara's mouth curls down in tandem with the furrow that mars her brow. "Even before I met Aisling, I was sort of self destructive." She lets her eyes return to Ian's face, scans it with a brief, tugging expression of amusement at the confession, at the similarity between the two of them in many ways. "We worked at a clinic together and I - " She drops her gaze, a slim shoulder rising and falling. "I used him. We had this dysfunctional arrangement for a while. I think he cared about me, maybe even loved me in his own way but I never did.

I never could." She stops, breathes out sharply. "And then when everything happened - " When they found us. When Aisling died, she doesn't supply but he can sense the unspoken tension that thrums through her, the way it vibrates, even through to where he traces patterns on her hip. " - I just left. I never even told him goodbye. I saw him again a few months ago. I went back to New York for a funeral and I couldn't deal with it so I tracked him down."

She runs her tongue over her lower lip, shoots him this furtive, fleeting glance from under her lashes. "I had sex with him on his desk and afterwards, I couldn't wait to get out of there and he told me he was seeing somebody." Kiara's chin lifts, her eyes track over Ian's shoulder, to fix on some unseen point. There's a flicker there, when she finally brings her focus back to him, a glimpse of some contained regret.

"Not the worst of my crimes but I think the best thing I ever did for him was leaving." A beat. "I don't think he ever would have. He was too weak."

Ian

It's a story very similar to any number of his own. Ian listens to it quietly, his eyes fixed on her face. There's no hint of judgment in his expression, though it doesn't feel dismissive either. They are creatures of similar make.

After a while his hand stops moving.

When the room goes quiet again, he shifts onto his side. The look he offers her is subdued, but there are traces of softness in it. Maybe a little answering sadness too. He sits up and brings his hand over slowly, trailing the tips of his fingers up the line of her stomach until he reaches her heart. He can feel the beating of it behind her ribs. This small, simple organ - powerful and vulnerable all at once.

He'd called her perfect, a moment ago. Do perfect people do the kinds of things they do?

(Perfectly imperfect, maybe.)

"You were right, you know. About it being easier to break things. Sometimes it's... like falling. You start building momentum and you can see the ground coming but you don't know how to stop. Or maybe you don't want to." He flattens his palm over her chest and exhales. Closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them he says, "Why did you stay with me, that night?"

Kiara

Her eyes close when he trails his hand over her body to her heart. He can feel it working there, beneath skin and bone; that great muscle pumping blood to Kiara's organs. There was something so wholly overwhelming and encompassing to the idea of it: her life, her continued being held captive to that beat. It's no wonder pressing his palm to it; feeling the warmth of her radiate out from beneath his hand is enough to draw a reaction from him.

From them both, she makes a quiet noise and listens to him; folding dark hair behind the shell of an ear; tipping her face and sliding both her hands over the slope of his arm; tracing the line of it with her fingers to where his fingers were uncurled against her chest. She sets them on top of his hand, feeding the connection; that junction where their patterns met; the physicality between them for a long, stretched out moment before he asks why.

Why did she stay?

Her eyes open, shifting to his face. "I've spent a long time breaking things. I guess I wanted to try fixing something, for a change." She slides her fingers back down his arm, this tiny smile curving up at the edge of her mouth, her expression while not wholly sweet (Kiara was too worldly for that, she'd glimpsed the darkness out there too often to retain that), colored with something affectionate, gentler than most of the looks she's thrown him.

Though he'd seen something like it once before, standing on a tiny manicured lawn downtown; whispering the emphatic oath to fight armies for her. She'd cast him a look like the one is now, then. This one seems quieter, though. Steadier. Aware.

Conflicted and, beneath the smile, uncertain.

"Why did you call me that night." A beat, she searches his face. "Really."

Ian

He doesn't miss it, the way she deflects. Answers without really answering. His gaze takes on a shrewd cast when she tosses the question back at him, eyebrows slanting in a way that registers some dry amusement. There are times when he's with her that their similarities feel almost... karmic.

He makes a sound. Thoughtful. It isn't clear whether he feels any disappointment. Whether he really expected any particular response from her when he asked the question. But his hand stays on her chest, and after a moment his fingers begin to move in these slow, subtle motions, caressing the skin beneath her collar bone.

His expression smooths out a moment later.

"I ran into Sera at a bar earlier that week, and things got... I don't know. Fucked up." There's a slight hesitation before he continues. "I kissed her. And things got really intense really quickly, but then I just...stopped. Because the whole thing just didn't feel right. She got really angry at me. I probably deserved some of it."

Despite his words, there's a shadow of something that passes across his face. (Anger? Disgust? Guilt?)

"The thing is, I got hung up on the fact that she didn't smell like you." He starts to say more, but stops. Can't figure out how to articulate it, maybe. And maybe by then Kiara is already starting to pull away. Maybe she cares that he was kissing someone else that recently. Maybe she doesn't. The truth is, they've never spoken about it. Never had those kinds of conversations about wants and expectations. So Ian doesn't know what to expect. Doesn't know if what he's saying will hurt her or not.

"I was telling the truth, that night. I had a shitty week, and I wanted to see you. Not anyone else. Just you. I missed you."

There's enough honesty in that confession that it feels a little raw on his voice, for all that he may not be saying anything that most people would find especially significant.

"I feel more like myself when I'm with you."

Kiara

They've never really spoken about it before. The other people in their lives, the other lovers they've taken (still were, for all the other knew). There like an undercurrent, perhaps. The unspoken awareness seen in glimpses and looks and tiny exchanges and she's not without some degree of knowledge when it comes to the complicated connections that wove them all together.

The raggedy band on the edge of nothing. Survivors in a war that may as well have never ended (maybe it didn't).

He ran into Serafine. Things got fucked up and there's this flicker of amusement, this little momentary give at the edge of her mouth that spoke volumes about her feelings when it came to those two things: Serafine and a capacity for things to become a little fucked up. I kissed her, he continues and there's this way that Kiara's gaze turns very focused, hard and intent for a beat.

There's a definite edge of something in the way she offers: "Oh," (the surprise makes the tiny spark of jealousy harder to conceal and is she even cognizant of its existence there in those dark eyes when they turn on his face) and then, a harsher sound when he says he probably deserved whatever happened. "I doubt that." The thing is and she can't look at him directly when he says what he does, next. He can feel the way she's listening, though. Her entire body seems attuned to it.

His words, the inflection. The stops and starts and there's this tiny movement of her face; a reflective motion of her fingers where they're curled against her legs as if she meant to do something with them but aborted the gesture.

"Sera has a certain way of getting under your skin," she says eventually, her tone complicated, weighted down with conflicting feelings in the wake of his confession. "We hooked up once or twice when I came to Denver, I like her. I like Dan. I like that she's not apologetic for who she is or being a little fucked up." She doesn't pull away but it takes several moments before she can reciprocate his honesty with a hand reaching up to tangle around the one tracing patterns on her skin.

To draw it to her mouth and turn it and press her lips against his wrist; over the delicate point where his pulse beat. To lift against her cheek and trap it there; her hands sliding around his wrist to hold it captive.

"But being with you is different. You make me feel - " She presses her face a little firmer against his palm. " - alive. Connected to this shitty world. I don't care who we fuck, maybe I should but I don't, because none of them come close to this." She slides her hands down; leaves his hand to be pulled away or not, at his leisure.

"I stayed that night because for the first time, leaving was going to hurt."

It's still not everything but - there's a quiet sincerity to her words.

Ian

Oh, Kiara says, and Ian can hear the surprise in it. The sharper edges. It makes what she says next all the more unexpected. Those three words (I doubt that) catch him off guard in a way he can't entirely quantify. There's an idea of himself, this picture that he allows the world to see: crafted in part from the expectations and assumptions of others and in part from his own internalized self-image. Sometimes it fits him too easily, this idea that he isn't a good person. It becomes this kind of armor, almost.

She has every reason to reject him, in that moment. She doesn't. There are people (Sera included) who've lashed out at him for far less.

There's a piece of her that withdraws; curls her hands against her legs to keep them still, and Ian watches this with acute awareness. The admission that she makes - that she's been close with Sera before - cuts a little deeper than he expects it to. There's a subtle tick of anxiety in in his eyes (in the way they snap to her face) that almost mirrors her own. But whatever he feels, he doesn't give voice to it. His pulse is quick and a little unsteady where Kiara kisses him on the underside of his wrist. It's the same wrist he cut open once when he was seventeen. For a moment he almost feels a phantom of the old scar beneath the touch of her lips. Then she traps his hand against her cheek and she makes that confession and his breath gives this little stutter when he inhales.

There are so many fucking things he doesn't know how to tell her.

When she drops her hand away from his, he draws his fingers down over the curve of her jaw and looks at her like he can't imagine anything in the world more valuable. There's a beat, a caught breath, before he surges forward and kisses her. The act of it is bruising and vulnerable. He presses his body into hers, clutching at her face with both hands as though he means to sear himself onto her lips; leave a taste of his mouth stained on her tongue. They already taste like each other (like blood and cum and saliva.) He doesn't stop kissing her, even when he rolls them over and pushes his pelvis between her legs. His weight is heavy above her, crushing them both into the mattress before he finally relents his hold in order to prop himself up on one arm. He stays close though, kissing her a little more softly, his hair drifting down across her cheek.

When he pushes into her, he makes this sound that lingers between pleasure and pain.

"Don't leave without saying goodbye." It's whispered in a rush against her lips, and although he could claim he only means for her not to sneak off in the morning, it feels like more than that. "...Please."

small miracles. [aidan, elijah, ian]

Ian Lai
The evening is warm and mild in Washington Park. Autumn hasn't quite crept into the city yet, and Ian can smell the heady perfume of the nearby flower beds. He's lying back in the grass, running one hand over the tips of the blades as he watches the sky dim to a darker shade of blue. There's a squirrel chittering at something a few yards away in a tree. When the breeze hits, there's a rustle of leaves and the animal sound goes quiet.

He'd been running earlier, a fact made obvious by his state of dress: shirtless with running shoes, black shorts and a tight band around his left bicep where he kept his phone and his keys. His skin is still damp with sweat. There's a meditative quality to the way his chest rises and falls with each breath; to the way he listens to the sounds of the world around him (feels the earth - warm and alive beneath his back.)

Kiara[Awareness and all that]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Aidan[nightmares]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

Aidan[awareness - perc spec Intuitive]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]

AidanAidan doesn't need reasons to wander, he just does. He wanders because he likes to see new things, and because listening to the same things over and over again can be exhausting; the world is never silent. It's always talking. He dresses in clothing that is too big for him, that he likely knitted himself, and that should be too hot for him at this moment, yet he enjoys it. A loose pink 'sweater' though he knitted it from some light fabric, and a pair of jeans with sneakers.  Money, or the need for it, is still strange to him, despite living a world that requires it, so he wanders with almost nothing...and he's content.

When he sees, and feels Ian, there is a bit of excitement that surges through him and he gravitates towards it. Aidan is...energetic. Whatever it is that slides out from him is so...enthralling, as if it knew the smallest little desires of the people around it, and it played to it..promising more with a sweet smile and a cheerful attitude. And it was touched, no saturated, with the pulsing feeling of life.

KiaraIt had only been a few nights since the last time Kiara Woolfe had set foot in Washington Park. Then, it had been evening and she'd come toting flashlights and trashbags to help dispose of the remains of something inhuman that had attacked two of her friends. Then, it had been weighting down remains and pushing them into the lake; sweat-covered, dirt-smeared.

It's only been one night since Grace called her to say she'd found Samir wandering, incoherent and paranoid in Federal, struck by Paradox trying to unweave reality to battle the very thing she'd helped Elijah conceal from the Sleepers of the world. One night since she'd put her hands on another Awakened's face and healed bite marks savaged there and in return - there's still a dull ache set behind the Verbenae's temples.

She hasn't been running tonight, Kiara, but she has been sitting at the lake's edge; looking out over the water and listening to the gentle rhythm of it as it lapped against the shore. It's a warm enough evening not to require layers but the brunette has a sweater on; has her arms curled around her chest. There's a pensiveness to the set of Kiara Woolfe's jaw that suggests her focus is anywhere but near.

The distraction enough to make the sensation of others a gradual realization; she drops her eyes from the water when it comes, though; gathers her bag and slides to her feet; pushing dark strands of hair from her eyes and lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the last vestiges of sunlight cutting across the grass; dappling light into the water's surface and looks out across the stretches of grassy lawn and winding pathways.

Somewhere, she can feel the primal hum of Ian's energy, another she cannot place. She sets off across the park's grounds, the pagan, cutting a solitary figure across the park.

Ian Lai[Awareness]

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

Ian LaiThere's a new sensation on the air. Someone Ian doesn't recognize. It makes him sit up, knees bent as he rests his weight back on his hands. A few blades of grass cling to his back until he brushes them away. When his eyes land on Aidan's approaching figure, he watches the boy quietly, taking in the picture of him - his clothes, his gait, the almost fae-like effect of his resonance. Ian doesn't rise to his feet right away. Instead he cuts his gaze across the park toward the lake when he catches a hint of Kiara's rejuvenating pulse. It's then that he rolls up to a standing position, shaking the stiffness out his limbs with a roll of his neck and a light hop from one foot to the other.

Both of the others are wearing sweaters. Ian cannot possibly imagine being dressed that warmly in August, and for a moment his eyes are drawn back to the pink strands of Aidan's knitted shirt. "You look hot."

(And for once he actually means it in the literal sense.)

AidanHe curls his lips in a warm and pleasant smile. "Me? Oh. " He  lightly touched at his neck, exposed given the size of his shirt. "Oh. A little. Maybe." But he doesn't seem to be bothered by the potential revelation; Aidan likes his clothes, hot or not. Aidan moves in close because he has no understanding of space, and clasps his hands in his own lap as he does. "Are you hot? The wind hasn't been by has it? Maybe that's why?"

"I'm Aidan." His lips curl into a brighter smile, pleased to meet someone new, someone different. "You're different too."

KiaraKiara's sweater is an earthy brown; the neck loose enough that it slides over a thin shoulder; offering a glimpse of a white camisole beneath. The brunette's hair left to its own devices tonight; it falls in waves around her shoulders, bangs cut low across her brow half conceal the lilt up of her eyebrows as she crosses over a small incline and sights Ian with - a stranger.

A boy. Kiara's eyes slide over Aidan; feel the enchanting, engaging thrum that surrounds him before ticking back to Ian. "Hey," she calls as she nears; her closing presence accompanied by a wash of rejuvenating, pulsing energy. There's a bag slung over one of Kiara's shoulders; her right wrist heavy with beaded bracelets tonight.

There's a touch of something restrained to the Verbanae tonight; a subtle sense of sobriety; the smile she cuts Ian slighter, a degree less brighter than usual. She touches his shoulder when she's closer. A sweep of her fingers over his bare skin as she turns her dark eyes on the stranger.

"Making friends?"

Ian Lai"I'm all kinds of different."

There's enough of a breeze in the park to keep the air moving. A brush of it stirs at Ian's hair as he watches Aidan step into his space. For a moment he doesn't respond to the intrusion, though he is acutely aware of it. Aidan is short enough that Ian has to look down to meet his eyes, and there's a steadiness to Ian's dark gaze that feels subtly challenging. The way a larger animal might look at a smaller animal that's infringing upon its space.

"And yeah, you know. Running in the heat has a way of doing that." (Raising one's body temperature.) There is evidence of it still on his skin, a glistening sheen at the base of his neck and a slow drop of sweat that winds its way down to his stomach.

When Kiara draws near, Ian's attention cuts away. He looks at her when she touches his shoulder, and the weight of his attention feels different than it had a moment earlier. Softer, more familiar. She even gets a little smile, though it's sobered in response to her own.

"Don't know that I'd go that far. This is Aidan." His eyes meet Aidan's again, and he finally offers his name. "I'm Ian."

Ian Lai[Empathy on Kiara]

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

AidanAidan is undeterred by Ian's look, doesn't even seem to mind or recognize what the amn is trying to say. His smile brightens and Aidan let's out a laugh. "You both are!" His eyes shift and he looks off in the direction the wind seems to travel. "There it is! I wonder if it found a leaf. The leaves are going on vacation now. Sometimes the wind tries to catch them before they go."

He looks towards Kiara and beams at her. "Yes.They call me Aidan! You must be something herbal...like lavendar, but with more energy, like mint! Mint isn't like you though. You don't feel like mint. Mint is more..more..numbing I think. Like a rainstorm before winter. Hmm..What is that...what is that.." He scratches behind his neck lightly, ruffling his artificially dark hair. "Oh! Cinnamon! Like cinnamon!"

KiaraIf he didn't know better - he might imagine Kiara was feeling a little hungover and in some ways, he wouldn't be totally wrong. Except that being what she was, it seemed unlikely Kiara would tolerate feeling absolutely wretched without good reason. Without at least an attempt to heal herself. There's that manner she holds herself tonight that speaks of distraction, that speaks of something tugging at her attention. A certain flinch she gives, a tiny, fleeting pinch at the edge of her mouth when Aidan speaks in bright, joyous tones.

As if the decibel level were grating on her.

The symptoms of someone who was suffering a hangover - or the lingering sensitivity of a (Paradox induced) migraine. There's a subtle tension carried throughout Kiara's entire body right now. Something's on her mind and she's feeling it physically.

KiaraYou both are.

If Ian eyes Aidan with the steady challenge of one sort of predator; the pagan does it with the curious (if wary) regard of another sort. There's less direct challenge in Kiara's dark eyes as they take in the boy and his chatter and more, as he goes on to declare she's something herbal and cinnamon - rising confusion and a flicker of something close to agitation.

It's brief, though. That flicker, a register of something like a recurring irritation before it clears and she manages a smile; brighter than the last. A flash of teeth, deliberately so. Her mouth is painted a very bold shade of red, the Verbenae, as it so often is. Her eyes dramatized with black liner and her presence; with that wild hair and the touch of vitality; that of something dynamic and engaging. "Kiara, actually."

She glances at Ian, then. A brief, questioning look before continuing: "How long have you been in town, Aidan?" A beat, the brunette's eyes consider the boy. "Are you here on your own?"

Ian LaiThe truth is, Kiara's presence probably saves Aidan from the worst of Ian's sharpness. There are times when having the full weight of his attention is not a wholly enjoyable experience (as a few of the other mages in the city could probably attest to.) Instead, what Aidan gets is a lofted eyebrow and long, silent look. Ian doesn't back away (doesn't relinquish his ground,) but he does finally reach out and put a hand to Aidan's chest to give him a gentle push back.

"You should be careful about walking up to strangers in parks."

Whatever Ian notices in Kiara's eyes (in the cues of her body language,) he doesn't draw any obvious attention to it. Instead he sets his hand on her lower back, brushing slow, gentle circles with his fingers. The touch feels grounding (comforting - I'm here.)

AidanAidan steps back a few paces, confused by the clear gesture. He's trying to figure out what it means, even rubbing the space on his chest Ian had touched, and looking down at it. "But you're not a stranger." He says with the sudden beam of pleasantness. Aidan is happy to see them, even if they aren't happy to meet him. "Not really. The grass knows you. The trees know you. That means I know you. Maybe. A little."

And then he blinks, shifting his attention to Kiara momentarily, furrowing his brows at her question. "On my own?" Another brief look of confusion tinted with thought. "Here in time? Here in place? I have lots of friends so I'm not alone. I'm never really alone. none of us are. People just don't hear the things around them all that much. Too busy, sometimes. Sometimes they don't want to."

"Do you mean did I come here with someone? I did! And I have a friend coming sometime. Granna will be here soon I think. She's never late. Always at the right time." He nods affirmatively, agreeing with himself on the matter. "But we came in... we came in.." Aidan was terrible with time. He was either early or late (more often late). "I don't know." There's a moment of disturbance as he realizes he doesn't quite recall; it's not because he can't really remember but because it's never been important. Did it matter -when- he came to Denver? "Elijah would know. He's better at time than I am."

KiaraThere's something about the way Aidan reacts to Ian's gentle (but firm) reaffirming of space between them that refocuses the brunette's attention on him. It's not the same sort of disconnection from the present she'd seen in Samir last night but a fracturing of the here and now. Aidan speaks of time (and Time) the way Seers did, the way Kiara had heard Serafine talk of it.

Speaks of nature like an elemental of it might. The trees, the grass.

Ian can feel the stillness that creeps into Kiara at the registering of that, that and the mention of Elijah. "Nature knows us but we still need to make ourselves known to each other. It's - how we make sure. Sometimes things aren't as they seem." She chooses her words carefully, the Verbenae and then, a beat, a sort of sharp interest: "You know Elijah."

Kiara's eyes cut away, over Aidan's shoulder as if she half expects to see the Initiate wandering up to them with cheerful aplomb, apologizing for letting his friend wander off on his own. "He's not with you tonight?"

She sounds as if she hopes he might be.

Ian LaiIt isn't really the fact that Aidan approached him that gave Ian cause for concern. Plenty of other mages have done that. People come and go in Denver. Sometimes they stick around. Sometimes they don't. Just as often as not, he's the one who approaches them. Because they're something new and curious. Because he's bored or hungry or both.

It's the fact that Aidan seems both oblivious and vulnerable. (Kid might as well paste a sign onto his back that says: Reality Deviant.)

But then he mentions Elijah, and Ian looks at him with momentarily renewed focus. "You're friends with Elijah." It comes out at exactly the same moment that Kiara's statement does, which has the effect of making them seem... well. Even more in sync. Ian glances at her and gives a little exhale - amused.

He didn't sound as though he was even remotely surprised. Somehow the pieces fit together - Aidan and Elijah.

"I'm sure I'll see you again, in that case."

Elijah[per+aware: Do I notice people?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

ElijahThere's a thing with people who study time. An oddness of being where one is supposed to be at the exact time that they are supposed to be there. Elijah wasn't quite remarkable enough for his presence to be because of an advanced knowledge of where his presence (or lack thereof) would make the most difference. No, sometimes things just sort of… fall into place.

Like now.

He had come to the park with the intention of walking the same path he had the night Samir had his tiff with reality. Elijah had to think, had things to think about, too. The the football field and assailants who went too far for his senses to pick up. Grace said that if he didn't have more than what he did- a few hazy images and a picture of what happened- then she couldn't quite help. She couldn't work her magic (or Magic) without some jumping off point. She wasn't a miracle worker. So, there he was, trying to piece together a motive for people who weren't necessarily people.

Had a lot to think about. Had to have more than an inkling and a thought before he brought anything up to Henry, had to have more substantial leads and what-have-you. That was neither here nor there, he was walking a circuit, something that got progressively larger until the spiral reached out, touched a different set of senses and-

There's a thing with people who study time. An oddness of being where one is supposed to be at the exact time that they are supposed to be there. Right now, things seem to fall into place. Stacked like card's in a crooked dealer's deck, it comes up aces and he feels something. Someone. More than a couple someones and there he is. Speak of the devil and he doth appear, maybe twenty or twenty five yards out. Trots to close the distance.

Aidan"Oh. OH! Right." He bobbed his head with a smile, lightly ruffling his own hair in a sort of semi-embarrassment. "I forget sometimes." He said as if it was no different than forgetting to put on underwear in the morning; an inconvenience but hardly something for the world to burn over. "Granna says I do that. Forget. I think she uses a different word." There's a moment of contemplation, as if he's trying to think about exactly what she might have called him.

"Oh! Yes! I do!" He's excited that someone else knows Elijah, but not surprised. Of course, he's not far himself, and his resonance is closing in; it tingles at the edge of Aidan's senses. "He didn't come with me." Is his response to Kiara, because he's somewhere nearby, but Aidan had no intentions of them meeting. But the universe, and the energy within it, had a tendency to pull things together... like pieces of a clock. You needed the right ones to get it working and maybe..maybe it needed them together for... something.

KiaraThere's a way that Kiara's attention shifts back when Ian echoes her; this small edging smile that curves into being at the corner of her mouth.

She leans her weight into him, into the palm pressed to the small of her back. It's a nuanced gesture, a physical reaction to the synchronicity of their words. The similarity in their thinking. Aidan was vulnerable - in more ways than one. There was a certain naivety about the way he perceived the world and his place in it that seemed nothing more than a blinking neon sign to Technocracy.

He didn't come with me.

The brunette's eyes search the gathering dusk and after a beat, they return. "Well he does have a knack for timing, I'll give him that." She gestures beyond Aidan, toward the figure closing on them from a distance. The last time Kiara had seen the Initiate, it had been covered in Samir's blood, it had been Elijah attempting to keep his cool in front of her while they dealt with the remains of what had once been two women - or parts of them, at the very least.

There's a subtle tension thrumming in Kiara tonight that seems to pick up as Elijah approaches. A certain set to her shoulders, a little tilt of her mouth at the edges as he grows nearer.

Ian Lai"Speak of the devil." Ian grins when Elijah draws near. There's an easiness to the gesture that speaks of a mood he doesn't entirely feel, but Elijah has a way of drawing that out of people (and Ian is rarely precisely what he seems.) He tips his head to indicate Aidan. "I think you lost someone."

Perhaps another day, they will have more time to talk. About nature. About spirits. About any number of things. Perhaps - but not today.

"I have a thought," Ian lowers his voice to a more intimate tone when he leans into Kiara's side, sliding his hand around to her hip in order to draw her closer. "How about you and I go back to my place. We can drink wine and watch a Wong Kar-Wai movie."

Or they can talk. Or... not talk, as is so often the case with them. Given her physical and emotional state, wine and a movie might not be the most appealing offer, but whether or not he actually means it is fairly irrelevant. The real offer is there under his words.

Elijah(Manip+sub: TOTALLY nonchelant]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

Elijah"I have been summoned."

A grin is met with one in kind. Weariness at the edges of his expression, a slowness in movement but not in purpose. He's comfortable, or as comfortable as one could be given the fact that a good chunk of the present company spent their day dredging up ways to dispose of a body (it was human. Was being the operative word. There are things he could tell people later, recent developments and a determination to see things through to the end. He wants to do this right. He wants to prove that he can do this right.)

Gives Aidan a look, brows raise and he seemed pleased, "yeah, oh! Hey," he nudged Aidan, "Jenn said she was going to flay you if you missed dinner. My words, not hers, but she made vegetable curry. I think I'm rethinking my philosophy on meat."

He smiles, something right and charming because he could spring back. Pretend that nothing had happened and that he was just here instead of being out in the park on some personal mission to make something make sense. He knows he probably shouldn't be in the park, thoughts roll around in his head. Grace detected a virus, but he hadn't seen any indication… how did things overlap? He plays his thoughtfulness as absentminded.

"Which, on that note- Kiara, I am indebted to you, at your beck and call for precisely one favor. I would say dinner at some point, but I don't want you to think I'm trying to poison you and you don't seem the bluebox type.."

Aidan[empathy because... >.> Yeah this isn't weird at all]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

AidanHe turned a little to look at Elijah and smiled warmly. "I thought I took a right at the Pho place but I think I took a left and then... I got distracted." Aiden fluffed up his own hair again, giving a sheepish smile now to the group. "I really do get lost. One time I got lost trying to save a butterfly. Another time I chased a plastic bag two streets and I didn't know where I was. I guess....I guess I still don't know where I ended up. But I did save the butterfly!" He felt a bit like a hero in that regard at least.

"Jenn made me curry? With vegetables?" There was a small sound of pleasure that rose from his throat. Aidan, not detecting the faintest hint of any sort of oddity from...at the very least...Elijah, clapped his arms around the man to give him a hug. "You won't regret it. The pigs will be happy. And the cows too! They'll be your best friends. Really. Chickens are very loyal." He nodded a little and let go. "They're birds after all."

Aidan likes to see people happy, he really does, so he clasps his hands behind his back and stretches them out a little as he leans forward. "What's a bluebox type?"

KiaraThere's a way that the Verbenae and the Orphan interact with one another that speaks to a level of familiarity and intimacy most people observing them would have no hesitation applying a label to. The way Kiara allows herself to be drawn closer with a hand curled around her hip, her focus shifting to Ian's face and the smile that's been a rarer occurrence than usual for her re-appearing as she sets a hand over his chest in a casual, bracing gesture.

She rubs her fingers over the bare skin there and seems ready to respond when - there's a pause, the smile ebbs just so, it's a tiny flicker, like surfacing from a dream to face starker reality - "It's okay, Elijah." She sounds a little weary, the brunette. There's a certain sobriety to the way her eyes search the Initiate's face that reads it. "You don't owe me anything. I'd have done it regardless." Quieter, then. "I'm just glad you were okay."

Aidan starts to speak of pigs and cows and Kiara's eyes tick over to him, there's a flicker of something close to concern there. Or perhaps it's just a reminder of another man she's just seen, pressed against a brick wall; smeared with dirt and blood and running from people he knew because his reality had fractured inward. The fragile grip they all held on sanity.

There's a tiny give at the edge of Kiara's mouth, a certain gleam in her dark eyes, empathy and strain and something else, something volatile and unnamed. "Although I suppose okay is a relative term." They tick back and she smiles; a brief, bright thing that doesn't seem entirely honest.

"I won't say no to dinner sometime, though. Somebody has to be a bad influence in your life." Her hand skirts over Ian's chest, she slides her fingers around one hand; her attention slipping back. "You had me at wine. Let's go." She turns, half twisted in the loose capture of Ian's hold to find Aidan.

"It was nice to meet you, Aidan. Keep an eye on this one for me." A nod at Elijah, a hint of the Verbenae's typical humor.

Ian LaiIf Ian has any concern about the way he and Kiara appear to others, he doesn't indicate such. Though there is a certain amount of calculation in the way he orchestrates their escape (using those assumptions to cover for something deeper and more complicated.)

Something passes between Kiara and Elijah that feels weighted, and Ian looks between the two of them with a quiet expression. He doesn't ask, though. (Later.)

Then Kiara bids a goodbye to Aidan, and Ian looks back to offer the newcomer a nod of acknowledgment. "We'll catch you guys later." Elijah gets a lingering smile as Ian turns away, then the pair of them walk off together towards the parking lot.

[Alas, it's bed time for me. Thank you for the scene guys! Aidan is adorable. Have a good night!]

ElijahAidan hugs him, which makes Elijah let out a little sound of surprise, but he certainly doesn't push Aidan away. He takes a second to clarify, "blue box macaroni and cheese, it's instant food. And, uh, really an acquired taste that you have to acquire early in life."

He looked back to the other two, shrugs and seems content to just, well, be. For now, at least, doesn't behave like any of this is abnormal, doesn't act like things could be strange or that his present company is anything other than just people he's friends with.

"Small miracles, right?" he says to Kiara, smiles something that's almost reassuring. Calm, confident because he has to be, a depth of things that Ian knows Kiara and Elijah aren't saying, but can definitely be said later. But, for now, there was a parting of ways, a little wave and the indication that the young man in perpetual motion was going to stay here with Aidan. "I'll hit you up later, I look forward to dinner."

Aidan"Oh. Elijah doesn't need me to keep an eye on him. Everyone else is watching." No, that isn't creepy in the slightest, but it's true. To Aidan there is so much watching that it's hard not to know what's going on, if you know who to talk to, and how to. "Enjoy your bluebox! Oh.. wait.." No, no Eli had said that. "Or your.. have fun!" Because he hasn't really a clue what they're going to do, whether it's because he didn't hear, because he was too distracted, or simply didn't recall (so much happening at one time!).

"Oh...OH! With the orange dinosaur on it?" That sounds familiar to him...the macaroni and cheese in a blue box. "I've seen that before, when Granna took me grocery shopping. Why do people want to eat dinosaurs in orange sauce?" It was meant to be cheese but... but orange cheese still seemed so odd.

Aidan brought his finger to his lips, chewing on a nail there absently as the two wandered away and left them alone. "They're nice friends." He said, casting Elijah a smile. "You have nice friends."

cornered. [samir, serafine, grace]

Samir
retroactive disbelief vs. dynamic resonance rolls 1/3

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (2, 10) ( success x 1 )

SamirDice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 1 )

Samir2/3

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (5, 10) ( success x 1 )

SamirDice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

Samir3/3

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (3, 9) ( success x 1 )

SamirDice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 3, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

SamirIt's a beautiful evening. Clouds cut back on the mountain-high heat and the breeze feels nice after a period of oppressive sunlight. The sidewalks teem with pedestrian foot traffic and every block emits music and conversation. People shout across the street at each other and open restaurant doors give way to the sounds of clattering cutlery and discussions melted together into a din.

That said: Samir is having a bad day.

The worst thing that could happen to a Virtual Adept is to lose his sense of direction. Their magic works through connections and code and when it all starts to fritz out everything looks the same. He hasn't changed his clothes in two days and the less said about what he did yesterday when he escaped from wherever he was Thursday night the better. On a good day the man is aware and leery of germs and their presence in the environment and on other people. His own thoughts keep him away from other people. The amount of ritual he has to go through just to leave the apartment eats up entire hours of his day.

Grace has never seen the young man with his hair down. The tie responsible for keeping it restrained is still in place but he's had a rough few days and chunks have fallen free of its bindings and fall stringy down to his shoulders. A healing laceration mars his face.

'Laceration' is too kind a word. It looks like someone tried to eat a chunk out of his face and managed to break the skin without causing any further damage. Scabs left behind.

He may or may not have gone missing. Someone may or may not have said something. He doesn't even know where he is right now. He ought to know he's going the opposite direction of his fucking apartment because the light rail tracks are nearby and he doesn't live near the light rail.

So whatever Grace is doing on this lovely late summer afternoon she happens to look up and see a somewhat disheveled young reality hacker go slinking past.

Grace[Awareness!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

GraceGrace is having tacos. She's got a sack in one hand and a taco in the other, taking in the sights of Federal Boulevard on her way to her car when it happens. There's a hint of sharpness to the air, and it's something familiar, something that jogs her memory. She looks around her, and her eyes almost pass right over Samir. If it weren't for the general state of him, with the scabs of healing wounds and signs of distress, she might have had to look a lot harder.

People like Samir disappear. It happens. Whatever it is about him that selectively deletes him from memory works hard. It can get you in trouble. Still, she's heard it around. The event that left him like this, his disappearance? Not exactly something that she's missed.

"Samir?"

They're about to run into each other -- literally.

SamirHer voice is different than the voices of the loas that had gathered in judgment around him and started hounding him two nights past. It's real. It tugs at him in a way the voices he's ignoring do not.

In the seconds that their eyes meet as they pass each other on the sidewalk Grace can see a glazed sort of madness in his eyes. This isn't a mindscape he's in or a Marauder he's become but she can feel the influence of his resonance and more than that she can feel the paradox crackling around him electricity-wild and for a second it looks as if he's going to turn and run.

Sleepers everywhere. If he were not in control of himself this would be a potentially deadly situation. Still could be. Grace doesn't know what sort of state he's in.

Startled and jolted and Sam stuffs his hands deeper into the pockets of his banged-up biker jacket. Ducks his head and keeps walking. For all he knows she's not real. He's having trouble differentiating between what's real and what isn't. He can push away the things that are very obviously not real but it's the things that could be real and aren't that still give him trouble.

They do not run into each other literally or otherwise. He sidesteps her and passes her by.

GraceOkay. The taco she was eating gets wrapped up and stuffed in her bag quick-like.

"Samir! Hey," she says, to his back, turning around to walk with him. "It's me. It's Grace. Where are you headed?"

She tries to keep her voice calm, does not even get close to touching him. When she pops up at his side a few seconds later, it's on the other side of the sidewalk.

Samir"I--"

He about jumps out of his skin when she appears in his peripheral vision on his left side instead of his right where she'd been a moment ago. She can hear whatever he was about to say next catch in his throat.

There's as likely a chance that he's talking to himself as he is talking to another human being. He doesn't understand why it's called Quiet. Ought to just call it Batshit and get it over with. Even if she is a hallucination it's not worth leaping into traffic to stabilize his personal bubble.

A frown creases his brow. They're still walking.

"Are you actually here?"

He's too worn out to try and word that question so he doesn't sound as if he's lost his damned mind.

GraceAre you actually here? Grace remembers those words from another direction. Lying in a bed drenched with sweat and bloodstains when a quiet Verbena in a lab coat and face mask brought her water. Are you actually here?

She knows what that's like. Knows the look on people's faces when they figure out that the person they're talking to is out of their minds. She just keeps walking without letting that get to her enough to show the shock.

It doesn't really matter why Samir's like this. Just that he is, at this point, hallucinating. Pretty sure about that.

"Yes. Though I know it's fairly difficult to take me at my word when I could be a hallucination. I'm not, though. Listen, you've been gone for two days now. I can see why. You need some help, yeah?"

SamirJust because she says she's actually here doesn't mean she isn't saying what he would think she would say. The mind is a more powerful computer than the typical user and the typical user doesn't have the ability to write a few lines of code and change physical space.

Their people tend to generate Paradox more quickly than the other traditions do. It's hard to tell how far gone he is from looking at him. Maybe he wouldn't have even noticed an expression of shock if it came over her face.

But he flinches when she uses the word 'hallucination' and stops walking when she says she can see why. That he needs help.

"What?" he says. "No, I'm fine. What are you talking about?"

Grace"Hmm yes. Fine," she says, stops on the sidewalk with him. "I'm not going to argue. You are alive enough. That's good. People have been worried."

It could be a lot worse, she seems to be saying. At least he's only wandering down the road looking like a rabid dog got to him, asking his friends if they're really there...

"Where are you headed?" she asks again. He might even know.

Samir"Nowhere."

He's paranoid. Just because she isn't a hallucination doesn't mean she isn't something else. A construct or a hologram. An evil twin or something. Paranoia shoots his answer out at her and it's not an honest answer.

A glance over his shoulder reveals the direction he was headed is clear. Grace doesn't know where he lives or how he gets around.

"Just..." He clears his throat. Scratches the skin near the bite one two three times quick then shoves his hand back in his pocket. Doesn't scratch the bite itself. If he did that he'd tear off the scab. Act normal, damn it. "Just out for a walk."

Grace"Okay," she says. Damn, he's going to be hard to get to, she thinks. Just out for a walk? Fuck, man. She rolls her eyes, because even the insane will get that out of her when they're being ridiculous.

"Would you like a taco?" she says, digs into the bag to find a fresh one. He might not have eaten for those two days. It's still in its wrapping paper when she hands it over, across the sidewalk. She has to lean over to get anywhere close to him, but she does. Slowly.

Samir"No no no, I don't--!"

Overdone attempt at reassurance. Like he has a muscle spasm adjusting his Friendliness dial and cranks it all the way up to 11. That she hands something to him at all whether it's the innocuous taco it actually is or appears to be something fucked-up filtered through the lens of his perception would have been enough for Sam to try and decline as polite as possible if he were--

Well. Sam isn't exactly mentally healthy on an ordinary day either but if he's deranged on an ordinary day he's quiet about it. Quiet versus In Quiet.

His hands came out of his pockets as he sprang away from Grace. Not showing his palms yet but more to keep his balance. Like he might need to turn and start hauling ass in a second. That wound on his face looks like it hurts even if he doesn't realize it's there.

"Heh!" Act normal: fail. Reel it in. "I don't eat meat. Vegetarian." He stops talking before he can launch into a delusional rant about what the government does to the meat in this country. Starts walking backwards away from her. "Thank you. Though. I really... I'm fine."

GraceShe turns to face him as he's walking backwards. First things first? We're going to make sure he doesn't get lost again, 'cause it looks like he's about to book it away from his friends -- again. Honestly, Samir? The taco gets stashed away again.

"I'm going to call Kiara, all right? She can help with your," Grace starts, making a sweep across her face.

She pulls out her phone, and huffs a little sigh into it as she goes to operate her 'special' programs. Tracking people is almost her specialty, by now. Usually, she doesn't do it to friends, but in this case...

"I'm also going to make sure we can find you," she says, under her breath. "Last time somebody called Kiara, that didn't work out so well..."

[Corr 2, Life 1, Mind 1 = Tracking a Samir. He's not running away again if she can help it.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (5, 7, 8) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Grace[Extending, because...]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

SamirThat gesture she makes doesn't mean anything to him. Sam frowns heavy and considers her for several seconds. Call Kiara. How does she know Kiara. Maybe she is actually Grace.

In an ideal world he would accept the help she offers and sit quietly while they waited for the healer to arrive. It isn't as if Kiara is an unknown variable here. He trusted her enough to go off into the desert and let her show him the fucking Umbra. He's been alone in a warehouse with Grace several times.

His capacity to trust others and his own safety aren't the issues here about but he doesn't have an altruistic martyr streak going either. It isn't a matter of him valuing other people's lives more than his own. Worrying that the Technocracy or vampires or some other faceless malevolent force is going to swoop in and kill his friends. It's that he doesn't trust himself.

No way for him to convey that to Grace without sounding crazier than he already does so he just stands wide-eyed controlling his breath while she looks down at her phone to punch in a command.

Sam isn't a ghost. He can't vanish at will. What he can do though is keep creeping backwards away from Grace and then duck into a fucking alleyway. Introduce a bit of lag between when she last physically saw him and when his coordinates show up on her computer.

When she looks back up he's gone from the sidewalk but she knows exactly where he is.

GraceAfter the blip of red shows up on her map displaying "Samir" she flips back to the normal operating routine of phones. There's a list of contacts that she scrolls through (Jeez, Grace, when did you start having all these friends?) and finds the K's.

Somewhere else in Denver, Kiara's phone starts going off. If she picks up, it's Grace on the other end with this to say:

"Hey, it's Grace. I'm having a problem? I'm on Federal right by the... uh... Truong An Asian Gifts store? It's Samir. He's all fucked up. Need backup. You available?"

Kiara[We're doing a little detective work from the other night here. Life 1, coincidental scanning blood. Who was with Elijah? Did Kiara figure that out. Base diff 4, + 4 Sam's Arcane equal to Jesus or something to pick up traces of his resonance, -1 focus, -1 taking her time = BASICALLY DIFF 6]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Kiara[Extending, don't mind me.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3) ( botch x 1 )

Kiara[Oh screw you paradox.]

Samir[That is amazing.]

Kiara[Reality says no.]

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

Kiara[Kiara says ow.]

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

KiaraThe last time Kiara had gotten a phonecall, it had involved her driving to Washington Park to assist Elijah with a certain situation involving a drug dealer, Vulgar magic and some sort of entity that had ended up as little more than fatty, smoldering clumps on the ground where it had (quite literally) been scorched from the earth. To say the Verbena's evening had taken a turn would be putting it lightly.

Tonight, she's leaving a tip at a Vietnamese restaurant and shrugging her bag over a shoulder when her pocket vibrates. Not Elijah's half blurred identifying picture but a placeholder (the brunette was yet to manage a capture of Grace for her number) and it's with a pause and a swipe of her thumb over the screen that Grace hears the click and familiarity of Kiara's voice on the other end of the line.

"As I live and breathe, Grace Evans. What's going on, girlfriend?"

There's a certain lightheartedness to the pagan's greeting as she smiles in farewell to a waitress and pulls open a glass door that fades in response to Grace's greeting. Kiara twisting, instead, to sight her location in relation, a frown pulling her red painted lips down. "Samir?"

The pieces hadn't made any sense at the time. Blood on Elijah. Another Awakened but she hadn't been able to pick up a trace. In fact, it had seemed - "I'm on my way." She's easy to spot, too. The Verbena with her long, wild hair and red mouth. The edges of a skirt licking at her heels as she jogs toward the Truong An Asian Gifts store; a heavy silver belt laced at an angle around her hips and jewellery; stones and beads and who knew what else adorning her wrists and neck.

You could feel Kiara Woolfe coming, the deluge of rejuvenating energy and swirling, pulsing life (here came the healer).

[Be nice, dice. Awareness, just in case.]

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

GraceGrace is a presence leaning against the outside wall of the gift store when Kiara shows up. She's looking into her phone, and Samir is nowhere to be seen.

Still, she peels her eyes off of whatever is so interesting in order to look at the sensation of Kiara. "Hey. He turned and ran. But I could see it coming, so," she flips her phone around, showing Kiara the map of Denver, complete with the little red dot that is Samir upon it.

"He's hiding out in an alley behind the shop. I think he's hallucinating and extremely paranoid. Doesn't think we are who we say we are, I think? In other words, use caution."

SamirThat little red dot starts to boop its way around the back of the building and towards the parking lot.

After he'd ducked out of sight Sam had thought he would try a little self-medication. Light up a cigarette and wander the length of the alleyway or breezeway or whatever the hell this structure is called while window-gazing while he gave himself a pep talk. Acting like he's waiting for someone. Something other than hiding from someone who is trying to help him.

What he can state with certainty is that he is in fact hallucinating and he is in fact suffering from delusions and sensory overload.

What he cannot state with certainty is what actually qualifies as any of those things.

Hiding in an alleyway was not the smartest decision he's made today and especially not this particular alleyway. It takes about two cigarettes for him to state that to himself with certainty. Not smart hanging out in a place where it looks like the awful things he's been seeing or worrying about could actually happen.

Something rustles through a pile of garbage and that's about enough self-medication for right now.

So the little red dot moves. Luckily the little red dot hasn't eaten in two days and has no sense of direction right now. It starts to head towards South Federal rather than cutting north and running.

SamirOOC: STRIKE THAT FIRST SENTENCE I JUST LOOKED AT A MAP

KiaraWhatever Kiara had been doing before Grace called, there's no clear sign of it. No shopping bags hang from the woman's arms; there is just a lightweight jacket that cuts in at her waist and elbows, leaving her forearms and wrists free and allowing glimpses of the bracelets the brunette wears around each; a ring on her right hand; some smooth oval stone that catches and glints with her movements in the light.

She's slowed to a purposeful walk by the time she sights Grace leaning against the wall of the gift store, the shifting, keen sense of her guiding the Verbena as surely as anything else. The sensation the Verbena has of the other woman is frequently something clever and agile, the cunning fox that slips into the grasses before it can be scented by predators; the circling eagle; its wings spread wide and casting low shadows across the dry earth before it dives. Clever and quick, that was Grace.

Kiara's eyes tick to the phone in Grace's hands with this brief, tugging smile.

Admiring. Impressed. She nods, breathes out slowly as Grace talks and falls into step with her; Kiara's skirt shifting around her legs as she does; it's a vibrant flourish of pinks and greens and a cut down the side that reveals the edges of the strapped heels on her feet. "I think I may know why. Elijah called me the other night from Washington Park," Kiara's voice is pitched low, her focus shifting from Grace to the careful dodging of pedestrian traffic around them as they weave toward the dot known as Samir.

"He said he was there with another - " She hesitates as a couple brush near them, "- one of us. Something attacked them, but by the time I got there whoever was with him had taken off. Elijah had their blood on him. I tried to use it to figure out who it was but - " The Verbena's expression knits into something akin to lingering confusion. "The blood was strange. I couldn't get anything that even seemed human, but Elijah said the guy with him, he was freaking out."

Her eyes tick to Grace. "Sounds a little familiar."

Grace"Yeah. I put that much together. I mean, the injuries match what I've been told," she says, shrugs. "Samir's a friend. He's one of my kind, you know? Think he's having the worst couple of days ever..."

She heaves herself off the wall, looks at her phone again. "He's moving. Probably found the courage to get out of that horrible alley... Want to go get him? See if he'll respond to some semblance of reason?"

She sighs, heavy, like that's rather unlikely. At the very least, he might stand still long enough to let Kiara heal his face. But then again, Grace isn't really going to let him walk the streets now that she knows where he is. He's a walking Technocrat magnet in his current state. Fuck that. She starts walking a brisk pace in the direction of the dot. South. Let's go that way.

SamirFun fact: Samir had been meeting up with Elijah the other night after nearly three weeks in a milder episode of Quiet. No one has seen him at all this month because he has been holed up in his apartment hallucinating and attempting to puzzle out a sort of meaning from the hallucinations.

All he's come up with is he needs to stop fucking up vulgar hacks.

So for three weeks Samir had subsisted on a diet of cigarettes and bottled water and whatever he could scrounge up from the bodega downstairs without drawing too much attention to himself. He looked a bit thinner to start out. Now he looks thinner and dirtier for not having bathed in two nights. The wound on his face is the source of the blood on Elijah's shirt.

Their paths converge because he doesn't know where he's going and they do. When he sees the both of them his eyes go wide. Dart between the two women's faces several times. But he doesn't turn and bolt. He puts his back against the wall of the building and breathes fast and waits to hear what they have to say.

KiaraThe look Kiara casts Grace is one of contained sympathy. She brushes the fingers of one hand briefly against Grace's elbow, the touch so fleeting and barely there before it was gone it could have been mistaken for an accident. Touch rarely was, that being said, with the Verbena.

"We'll fix it. If we have to, we can hold him until I can at least heal his face." There's something very matter of fact about the way she says this, Kiara, that offers the idea she has absolutely no qualms with attempting to physically restrain a fully grown man to prevent him injuring himself (or others) further. It's there in a steady way the brunette says it; the intent sweep of her eyes over the crowds, the tilt of her chin.

Their paths converge and Samir looks like a startled, wide eyed doe caught in a hunter's crosshairs. Back against the wall; staring at them and Kiara's supple mouth thins to a line; her dark eyes flicking over the Virtual Adept's body and returning to focus with keener intent on his face. On those wild eyes of his.

"Hey, Samir." Kiara takes a step, subtly preempting Samir's flight on one side; her fingers slide to her sides; one resting over her bag; a worn leather thing that looks as if its held together by determination more than any physical resilience. The pagan's voice is quiet, threaded with (deliberate) pleasure at the sight of him. He looks thin, drawn and smeared in blood and dirt and there's a certain way the Verbena draws in a breath, a certain angling of her body that reads readiness.

That speaks of unvoiced sympathy for his current situation.

"Grace and I were just looking for you. I heard you had a rough night. I can help you feel better, if you like."

Grace"Yeah, don't grab him, Kiara. I know you might want to -- I'm just saying, that will make it worse. Be careful about the touching shit all together. I'm afraid of what he might do if he gets hyped up by somebody trying to hold on to him. I used to be like that. Sucks."

She just keeps staring into her phone while she talks, not really looking at Kiara's reaction to that.

Eventually, they catch up. They catch him. He's up against the wall and scared shitless. Grace's eyes skitter off of his, with his fast breathing and cornered animal expression.

"Hey. I called Kiara, just like I said. Hey, I can get you something vegetarian to eat, hey? I uh... ate all of the tacos..."

It's about all she can do at the moment. And necessary, because come on -- he looks like she did after throwing up her stomach lining for a month.

SamirOption A: Continue asserting that he's fine and nothing's going on he just partied too hard the other night hah hah go away Friends nothing to see here and then they double-team him and everything is awful and they end up on the news or in a Paradox Realm or Room 101 or or or.

Option B:

He listens as Kiara offers to help him. He listens as Grace offers to get him something besides the tacos she ate. He doesn't want food. They as in They with a capital T They are trying to kill him because he won't do what they tell him to do. He knows They aren't real. But then there's the germs he knows are there. Germs and he go round and round most nights anyway.

But he's tired and he's hungry and he doesn't want to upset them. He and Tobacco concluded that they're real and they probably aren't being remotely mind-controlled by the Technocracy. Or else he just doesn't care if they are.

"Okay," he says.

KiaraIt's at some point between Grace asserting that she shouldn't touch Samir and the way Samir looks at them as if he's resigning himself to some fate worse than death that the Verbena's fingers slide into her bag and curl around her phone. It's a subtle motion but in Samir's current state might as well be certification she's calling in more suits to come in and restrain him while they escort him away.

The brunette knows precisely two people who might be able to reach the man pressed against the alleyway wall in ways that won't snap whatever tenuous control he's clinging to and her fingers tap out a message to the first she locates in her saved numbers. Two women with devices in their hands, exchanging looks between them and the second; the taller; tucks hers away after a moment and reaches down to set her bag on the ground with a dull impact suggestive of heavy items within.

"Okay." She repeats and straightens, but doesn't approach. There's a cant of her head, her eyes search Samir's expression for signs he's about to lash out, make another run for it. "You know I'm not going to hurt you, right? You have a cut - " she gestures to her temple, the heavy jewellery on the Verbena's wrists clinking together. "I'm going to fix it. I'm going to come closer."

A beat. Kiara takes a step. "Tell me if you want me to back off."

SerafíneTaxi on the corner.  The yellow sort with the lights framing the word TAXI to tell you: on duty or off, occupied or un.  Half a dozen tree-shaped air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror and a strange, subdural sort of music muttering from the speakers.

Lights flashes against traffic.  The smear of the lingering sun this bloodied, blooded stain over the windshield, or maybe that's simply the pulse of traffic light as it changes over from yellow to red.

--

A woman climbs out of the backseat.  Creamy white, maybe ivory, cocktail dress.  Brocaded or beaded and strapless, long hair pulled back into a loose almost-chignon that only emphasizes the darker, shaved fringe on her head.  Heels on the sidewalk (black, peep-toe, these) as she saunters towards the trio, studded black clutch tucked in her right hand.

SamirSam opens his mouth to answer the question as to whether he knows she's not going to hurt him. It isn't so much that she cuts him off as he decides he doesn't want to answer that. Sure the hallucinations aren't real and he can tell himself that all he wants but the ones he sees are everywhere and the ones he hears won't shut the fuck up. He can ignore them but that doesn't make them go away.

His eyes have a febrile sheen to them but he's gone pale from lack of sleep and food. It isn't illness that has him acting like this. They can practically feel how haywire his Work has gone or hear electricity crackling in the air around him. Practically but not quite.

He wants her to back off but not for the reason Grace has warned her about.

That cut is a bite. What bit him was once human. A young blond man with an appetite for dangerous things unwrote its Pattern and left it as singed nothing on the grass in Washington Park. He isn't sure he believes her. When he puts his fingers to his face he doesn't draw away blood but that's because the wound has already scabbed over.

Wordless resignation. Kiara can put a hand on him and he won't try to escape.

GraceGrace nods at his "Okay" and starts stalking off to find him something vegetarian in this place. The Vietnamese places usually have plates and soups full of meat. The taco places usually have meat wrapped up in tortillas. Maybe she might find a taco place with some sort of bean burrito, but then that would be full of lard, so no...

A bit of wandering through Google finds the place they just passed (Saigon Bowl) with a vegetarian menu. Score. Lemongrass sauteed tofu sounds good (and more portable than a soup) so, she trundles off to go get some.

Kiara seems like she has this "no touching" thing down. She's asking permission first, at least.

It's then that she notes Sera, that unmistakeable gut-wrenchingly enthralling sensation of her. Grace turns and waves. "Gonna go get him some food," she says, as if that explains everything. It might. The guy needs to eat as much as he needs his face put back together.

SerafíneMind 2: (less aura reading/surface thoughts.  more like a life scan: wtf is wrong with you?)  Difficulty -1 (focus)

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Serafíne(And now Mind / Prime: 1 methinks.  are you under the influence of magicks?).  Dif -1: focus.

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )

KiaraIt's hard to imagine what Kiara must have texted Serafine to get her to Federal on a Saturday at dusk. After, even. The sun sinking down and stars speckling the sky; clouds rolling over and there's the three of them with Samir pressed back against a wall as if he's preparing himself for some sort of onslaught. Blood dried to his face; gore and who knew what else staining him.

He's got a bite mark on his face and the creature responsible for it wasn't anything explainable to most people. There's nothing normal about any of this but then again - their lives, their world - Kiara's taken a step closer and Grace stalks off in the quest for food and then there's the curl and hook of the Cultist and Kiara cuts a look over a shoulder; her hair wild and loose tonight; she's in white and pink and green and there's a protracted pause before she says anything.

Lets the other female closer and then: "Something attacked him with Elijah in Washington Park two nights ago." An undertone, that. Kiara's voice a deliberate aside, her hands dropping to her sides. "Whatever it was, it got Samir. I can heal it, but - " Her attention settles back on him. It's not the physical that's the problem, the unspoken as she moves closer. Her focus on the injury to his face.

[Life 1, scanning those injuries to see how bad they actually are. So much magic. -1 for focus.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 5, 7) ( success x 3 )

Kiara[Int + Med to possibly lower a roll to heal with Life, I think we need at least 3 to drop it a diff.]

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

Kiara[Vulgar af, Life 3 + Prime 2: Heal Samir's face. Base diff 7, -1 focus, -1 going slow, -1 practiced rote]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (5, 5, 5) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Kiara[Paradox, 3 + 1 for probable/possible Sleepers around cuz they always are]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )

Kiara[Ow.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )

SerafíneThe creature's dark eyes track to Grace as Grace walks by, remarks that she is going to get him some food.  Sera's mouth is painted a red so dark it seems to be the color one imagines heart's blood must be.  There is a sort of sliding acknowledgment in that glance but also: a clear focus elsewhere.  This hum, beneath her breath, beneath her skin, the sliding grace of it, music of the spheres or at least music of her spheres: less rhythm than harmony, with the glissading uncertainties of the universe.

"Paradox."

That is Sera's response to Kiara.  Both the verbal greeting and the unspoken warning or perhaps request.

Samir is hallucinating like a schizophrenic off his meds and on a psychotic break.

--

None of them really belong here but at least in her usual get-up Sera can be both classified and dismissed as a streetwalker.  That's what all the abuelitas in a certain priest's congregation always thought she must be: showing up at all hours, half-dressed, fucked the fuck-up.

Now it is dusk, a late-dusk, a summer-dusk, the hum of traffic skimming by on Federal, feral kid and Sera's mouth closes, flattens - this neat, thoughtful sort of grimace.  Keeps some distance as Kiara starts to heal Samir.  Her right hand half-closes, thumb rubbing slow and rhythmic over the bronze ring she always wears.  This small physical tic she is not really aware of.

(While Kiara is casting: Mind 1: Mind Shield.)

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

GraceUpon her arrival at the Saigon Bowl just down the street, Grace orders some lemongrass sauteed tofu (with peppers and a spicy sauce, the menu says, so hope Samir likes heat. Probably does.)

It reminds her so much of all those times Kalen would just bring her food. Like -- hey, you look like you haven't eaten. Here's some noodles. Don't starve. He's rubbed off on her. Or, perhaps she just can't think of anything else to do for him. Everyone wants to help. It's a thing you do as a Mage in Denver -- or at least it's a thing that their little group does. Theirs is a small spot of sanity in the insane world.

It's going to be a little bit before the stir fry is done. In the intervening time, she checks her phone. Samir is staying put, and that's a good sign. She doesn't want to have to chase him down so she can deliver tofu.

SamirAll of them would qualify as schizophrenic if they were to ever speak to a Sleeper professional about what they believe themselves capable of accomplishing. Breaks from reality and delusions of grandeur. Strange thoughts and stranger behaviors.

Reality is punishing Samir for breaking the rules. His is not a divorce from reality brought on by a chemical imbalance and reality is not one thing to all people.

He is more dangerous than a schizophrenic because the things he believes and thinks he can make into reality. If he chooses to believe in whatever it is he's seeing and hearing then those things can cross the gauntlet into this world.

They're all wary of him. He knows they are. He's breathing heavy because he's overwhelmed by what the world is doing to him and then there's Kiara trying to help him even though he's--

Well. Sera isn't reading his mind. She has no idea what he's thinking. Neither is Kiara. Kiara is close enough to hear the cadence of his respirations. That he's scared.

Kiara's palm finds the wound on his face smooth but for the scabbing and the two days' worth of stubble come in on his jaw and as she works her pagan magic saltwater traces the line of her thumb.

He keeps his hands jammed in his pockets and his eyes locked shut the entire time.

KiaraThere is something innately wild in the manner the Verbena heals people. Professionally, as a mundane calling, she rarely does it quite as intimately (or brazenly) as this. Which is: Samir allows Kiara to come closer and - with a beat where she garners the awareness from Serafine (Paradox) - invade his personal space. She steps close enough to him that he can see the color of her eyeshadow; the thick application of mascara on her lashes; the faint smattering of freckles on her nose.

He can smell the brunette's perfume and when her eyes rove his face; feel the intensity behind it. Her hands come up; there's no contact at first; just a vague sense of warmth that radiates from the pagan. She looks as if she's pushing at the edges of an invisible bruise; her teeth sink into her lip and she tastes blood; the tang of it on her tongue strengthens the focus.

Pulls at the fabrics of reality; unspools it; slices into it with the precision and disregard a weed might for the way and direction it grows; pushing itself into the world. Kiara Woolfe pries apart what should be and creates what shall be and Samir's eyes are shut against it when she puts a hand on his face; cups it; and slides another down into his clothing.

Over his chest; skin to skin. Pushes down and there's this subtle; tingling radiation. A surge as if his heart had suddenly galloped and there. His skin begins to knit itself together; as if time had sped up in tandem and the layers of wounded tissue repair; half hidden by matted hair and dried blood and a few days of beard growth Samir's body regenerates and he can feel it. Feel the burn of Kiara's will pushing itself against him and then -

She lets go; there's a sudden severing and the sense of warmth fades and she steps back, Kiara, the slightest of smiles twitching her mouth.

(There's always a cost, though).

Her nose starts to bleed and she takes a jerkier step back, lifts her fingers to her face; turns her eyes on Serafine and notes, in a considerably weaker voice: "It's done." (Nature cannot be altered without recompense.)

Serafíne(Mind 3: Calm.  Difficulty: 8.  -1 Focus.  - 1 Time.)

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Serafíne(Extending: +1)

Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (2, 7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Serafíne(One more time.)

Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (5, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

SerafíneSamir has plenty of time to refuse what comes next.  To get up, to get away.  To object: physically or forcefully or merely with his words.  There's magick in the air as Kiara, touches him, spills blood for him in more ways than simply one.  Unknits something-that-was and creates what-will-be.

Somehow, on some level, this is all so absurd.  The strangest of gatherings around a frightened, hallucinating drug dealer.  It's not really a part of town where passers-by look too closely at strangers, because they don't want strangers to look back, but anyone looking would probably make a half-dozen connections and end up with an assumption that is somehow closer to the truth than they know: college kid and shrooms, graduate student and a bad batch of MDMA, friends gathering to talk him down from that ledge, or at least out of the filthy alley behind Saigon Pho House or whatever, and into someone's car.

Humming: Sera is simply humming, a very quiet, very particular song beneath her breath.  The chord progressions basic enough that they sound very much like a lullabye.  This point where they hook through: skin and spine and consciousness and she closes her eyes, fixed and concentrating.  Sinking into this not-precisely-meditative state where she wraps her intentions around her will and frames them in her mouth with a stranger's words.

Opens her eyes not long after, strangely settled.

The humming opens up into this low, rough song, the words more spoken than sung.

Black sky and black sea, lighten up
When we can't breathe
All dreams escape fire, over worlds
Fly but won't tire
Slow down on us wind, hold us still
When everything spins

Near the end she offers Samir her hand.  Who knows if he'll take it.

"I have to go.  You should let Grace or Kiara take you home.  You shouldn't be alone right now."






GraceThe food arrives, and Grace picks out a coconut juice drink to go with it. Tips the people, because she always does. They may not know it, but they're helping so much.

So -- plastic sack of food hanging off of one arm, with the coconut drink in hand, she uses the other to check on her phone, to see that Samir's still there. They haven't scared him off yet. And so, she takes it easy, doesn't run after him. Probably wouldn't be a good idea to run after him anyway. Probably would be a good idea to take it slow and just arrive where he decides to hide and be very insistent about the food.

We'll get there. Eventually.

So it takes a little bit, again, for her to stroll up all nonchalant and smiling.

"Thanks, Sera," she says, because there's the hum of her Working in the air, and something happened. Did it not? Wasn't there someone singing? "I brought lemongrass tofu. They assured me it was actually vegetarian. And this is some kind of coconut drink," she says, giving him a look-over. The bites are gone from his face. That's cool.

No excuses this time, Samir.

SamirThe last time they saw each other Samir promised Serafíne that if she said or did anything to make him uncomfortable beyond the level of uncomfortable he was striving for on his quest to Leave The House More Often he would tell her.

He broke that promise. He made up an excuse about leaving a window open and got the hell out of there. That excuse was bullshit. Then he spent the next three weeks shut up in an apartment whose windows he never fucking opens let alone would have left that way barely talking to anyone.

Neuroplasticity ensures that the human brain can adjust to just about anything. The mind and the will it houses are more powerful tools than any focus any of these fledglings could conjure up. Whatever drove Sam into choosing solitude has kept him there long enough that he's fallen into Quiet twice in one month.

Whether he wants her to or not Kiara runs her hand over his cheek and face. He's wearing the same clothing he had on the night he met Elijah. Wine-red Doc Martens and black jeans and a biker jacket. Some band t-shirt on underneath. Some gray tissue-thin cotton t-shirt with a band logo so faded one would have to lay it out flat to make sense of it.

His heart hammers against the Verbena's palm. He grits his teeth and closes his eyes tighter.

Yes. Yes this looks fucking absurd.

Kiara takes away the scab and the wound beneath and he when he has his right mind back later he will thank her. His right mind remembers the attack. She takes away the wound and she makes room for Sera and then Sera shuts down the part of his brain that is always on. Nothing she can do for the Quiet if she even realizes he is in Quiet. Maybe she just thinks he is a schizophrenic or a bad trip. He doesn't know what she saw in his pattern and he doesn't ask. He doesn't know where he is right now.

Another saltwater line leaves the other eye when he opens them. Lets go a breath like he'd been holding it all this time. That release junkies seek when they push the plunger. A moment of disorientation. Sera doesn't know what effect she's had. He's still in Quiet. But it's quieter now.

He shouldn't be alone right now.

His hands are still shaking. He doesn't take hers. In his right mind he would take her hand and his mind is better but his mind wasn't the problem to begin with.  He looks her in the eye. Still bombarded by things he can recognize and ignore but not escape. And then here comes Grace to offer gratitude his throat won't give up.

Sam sags against the building rather. His knees do not give out. He remains standing.

"Fuck," he says. Ragged. Like someone who'd about lost their voice screaming the night before. "I'm so tired..."

Alright. Coconut drink. He won't argue with her. Whatever Sera did helped.

SerafíneSam doesn't take her hand, so Sera drops it back to her side.  Has a little clutch slung across her body on a chain reaches for that little clutch, snaps it open, pulls out 1) lipstick; 2) an iPhone.  Gives Grace a quiet little look as she reapplies her lipstick and calls another cab.  Offers to share it with Kiara if Kiara needs a ride but otherwise: soon, gone.

Serafíne(Thanks guys!  Gotta sleep!)

Kiara(Thanks for coming to help!!)

KiaraKiara will need a ride. That is to say - the universe has reached across and taken back from the Verbenae what she pressed into it. Her nose keeps bleeding and the brunette has to reach into her bag and find a crumpled tissue to press against it to stem the flow. It soaks the thin paper and she looks across at Serafine as she says she has to go; extends the offer to the pagan.

"Yeah." It's a subdued answer, a tick of Kiara's eyes to Grace as she arrives with the food. One look at Kiara dabbing at blood around her nose and Grace might just think Samir had clocked her in the nose for daring to touch him. But - the tendrils of Working linger in the air around them and Kiara sniffs as she reaches for her bag and hoists it over a shoulder.

"I think - I'll head off with Sera." A beat, Kiara's eyes flick over Samir; the way he's sagged into the wall. Back to Grace. "Are you okay to get him home? I can stay, but - " She offers a slighter smile; a half-hearted curl at one edge.

"He might feel safer at your place."

GraceGrace hands over the coconut drink, and then the sack of food, listens to Kiara talk about how she has to get a ride. Her nose is bleeding.

"Yeah. Probably. Thanks, Kiara. I'll make sure he's safe."

Then, back to Samir, who is no longer pretending to be 'fine'. Nobody's fine when they say they are. It's protesting too much, right?

"My car's just down the street. I can take you somewhere with good locks on the doors, and protection. Nobody will bother you," she says, and there's a lift to her brows like -- is that okay?

SamirIt doesn't register that Kiara is bleeding because of her magick. He hadn't realized that he was bleeding either. Hadn't noticed the blood when it got on his hands and smeared everywhere else and he doesn't notice it staining the Verbena's upper lip. Make of that what you will.

He takes the coconut drink and he takes the sack of food as if he isn't sure if they're real. Different than not wanting to touch something because it might contaminate him. Small difference the others might not even notice. Hesitation like to make sure he's centering his grip right and he ought to thank her but gratitude is hard to conjure up like this.

That Sera leaves and takes Kiara with her doesn't register either. This is how he leaves all the time. Fades out of memory as if he wasn't there at all. Standing upright is difficult and orientating himself is impossible and nobody likes to need other people. Maybe they can talk about this after he's had rest.

Samir looks as if he needs to sleep for about a week. 'Fine.' Like hell he is.

"Okay," he says. Pushes himself away from the wall prepared to follow her. Another exposed-nerve confession: "Grace, I can't--" His voice cracks a bit but he doesn't start crying. "I can't take much more of this."

Her car's just down the street. The little red dot can make it down the street.