The Binary Math of Contentment

Lena Reilly
Wednesday evening is sort of an off-time for deejays.  You only get the hardcore clubbers who come out in the middle of the week; the people who don't have day jobs, or who just live for the nightlife because there's nothing left for them to look forward to.  But Lena has been working pretty much non-stop since that fateful week in October and she takes mid-week jobs as readily as anything else.
Tonight she is at one of her favorite and least favorite places in Tracks, a nightclub that caters to the LGBTQ crowd.  She loves it because this is her community.  These are her people and she feels a sense of belonging here.  She hates it because she also feels, within her own community, as if she doesn't belong.  This is the predicament of the Awakened individual; they don't even belong to the places they should belong to.  And its doubly-so in Lena's case, as guarded as she is.
Grace hasn't seen what Lena used to be like at work, so she has no frame of reference.  Still, the woman seems to be more at ease here than perhaps she's been as of late.  But she's seen the way that Lena talks about music; she may have seen the woman dancing her way down the street, oblivious to the wierd looks she might be getting, because she was in a groove with something her iPod.  The Lena who is up in the booth isn't living her music; she's working with it.  Many might not be able to tell the difference, but it is there.
She's good at her job though.  She still has a feel for the crowd and her remixes follow almost predictively with the crowd's mood.  Through it all she is largely oblivious to what goes on on the dance floor, her attention limited entirely to what's going on in the booth.  She's been up there for four hours without a cigarette break, coming down for a drink or to use the bathroom, and when her shift is done she's packed up her stuff in a backpack and given a small, polite smile to the house DJ as she steps out, making her way toward the front door in a leather jacket and jeans, the helmet for her motorcycle held in one hand.

Grace
[Nightmares!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 2, 5, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )

Grace
It's been a few days since Sera invited Grace to drink and talk and try to figure out how to help Lena. Sera had been mixing LSD and alcohol, so maybe it hadn't been the most soberly-considered idea to send Grace out after her Tradition-mate in a desperate attempt at reconnecting Lena to people again. But then, sobriety and Sera go together about as well as anchovies and creme puffs.
It's been a few days, because Grace had to work up the nerve for this. She thought about calling, or sending a text, inviting Lena somewhere, except no matter what she typed in it just didn't feel right. Meet for coffee? Yeah, right, that went so well the last time.
So, she looked up the deejay's schedule, and showed up. Grace doesn't dance, but this fact is barely noticeable to the crowd (as she herself is barely noticeable) and she pretends to be there for the music and the one drink that she slowly works her way through.
Until it's over. Until Lena tries to make her quick and silent exit.
Grace hops off the perch she's been warming at the bar and moves to intercept, not with an unexpected hand on the shoulder, but a "Hey, hey, you were great tonight," and a cautious smile.
Considering the venue, and considering Grace's nervousness, it probably looks like the Virtual Adept-ish one is attempting to pick up a date. However, this goes completely over her head.

Lena Reilly
In truth, she's kind of been anticipating something coming out of her sharing drinks with Sera earlier in the month.  That had gone terribly wrong, and she had figured that at some point she would have Sera addressing her outburst, or perhaps a call from Pan asking why she made Sera cry.  There were a lot of possibilities that could have come out of that.  She hasn't made the connection that Grace may show up though.
She's not being quick and silent necessarily; she isn't trying to sneak away.  But when it's a deejay's time to go, they go.  Some like to play it up and make themselves into rock stars of a sort.  They're inspired by thoughts of becoming the next Deadmau5 or DJ Tiësto...perhaps the latest Armin van Buuren, or a producer like David Guetta.  Lena's never had those aspirations.  She couldn't give a shit less about stardom.  Call it a cliche, but for her its all about the music.
She's crossing along the edge of the floor in the vicinity of the bar when Grace comes up.  The words draw Lena's attention, her head snapping around to orient her vision at Grace when she recognizes the voice.  She purses her lips for half an instant and then gives a faint smile, polite and even warm but restrained.
"Hey.  Thanks...not my best night, to be honest, but I've had worse."  If she's concerned about anyone thinking Grace is trying to pick her up, she doesn't show it.  She knows it's not the case and that's all that matters.  "Didn't expect you here."

Grace
"Sorry," she says, and looks down, like it's an admission of guilt. "I should have called or texted or something. I just didn't know what to say."
But, then she looks up again, meeting Lena's eyes like she's looking for something in those irises. "You want to stay a while? Talk? Go... uh... somewhere else?" and then Grace's gaze breaks, flitting around the room. "With or without me, I don't..." 'I don't care' isn't right. No, she cares. "I don't mind."

Lena Reilly
Grace's look of guilt draws a furrowing of the Cultist's brows in confusion.  She doesn't seem to understand for the moment why she's sorry or wouldn't know what to say, and it draws a bit of concern for Grace out of Lena.  She may be guarded and put up defenses to protect herself emotionally, but she's been known to trample them down when she senses someone else needs her support.
"C'mon, there's a bar down the street.  It's quieter than here at least."  Not that she's in a hurry to leave, necessarily.  She just doesn't see a need to stay around for the moment, and she is wondering if perhaps Grace's discomfort has to do with the setting.  She knows the computer expert isn't necessarily great with large numbers of people.

Grace
She brightens at the mention of a bar down the street, where it is quieter, and they can go together. But then, a shadow crosses her face and she just nods, "Sure, sounds good."
Because, see, Grace is pretty sure at this point that the invitation to a bar together isn't out of Lena's genuinely wanting her around. It feels like caution. Like cracks threatening to break. Like she must choose every word with care. And it looks like Grace is thinking, mind churning along with the sliding of her eyes from one thing to another, as she wraps a red scarf around her neck, and a heavy wool coat around the rest of her -- to brave the outdoors of Denver at night in the now deadly cold.
Outside, the air hurts her face, this Arizonian desert creature who has yet to really acclimatize to the cold. At least there, she can disguise the discomfort with physical discomfort.
"Fuck, it got colder," she says at the steps outside. "Winter needs to be over like yesterday. Snow is pretty and all, but it can go be pretty somewhere else."
Ahh, weather, the quintessential neutral topic. Nobody gets upset with you when you discuss the weather. Except perhaps a meteorologist.

Lena Reilly
She smiles a little bit when Grace mentions the weather and shrugs the complaints off.  "Oh, you're talking to a New York girl.  We're not as high up over there, but we're further north and it gets damned cold around this time.  I'm not saying I love it or anything--I do appreciate my summer time sun.  But after a couple decades you get used to not feeling your feet or you move to Florida."
It's true, weather is a great neutral topic.  Of course, it's also the topic that is so quintessential, bringing it up usually means that you're trying to keep things neutral.  If Lena is suspicious yet, she's not overtly showing it.  She doesn't volunteer anything that puts herself in a vulnerable state but she's not looking at Grace with suspicion yet.  Curiosity, but no suspicion.
The bar is just at the end of the block, a little place that has managed to survive on this block because of those people who don't want uns-uns-uns-uns pounding in their ears while they drink.  Sometimes the people who work or spin at the club show up, and over the years they've developed a bit of synergy that way.  Lena doesn't know anyone by name in the place, but she gives a couple little nods as she leads Grace in and finds a table to sit.
"So how are you doing?" she asks as she settles down, putting the motorcycle helmet on the seat next to her.

Grace
There's a range of emotions littered on Grace's face when she's asked how she's doing. It's like that's such a complicated question to ask.
"Ah, well, I'm back in school. That's a bit of a triumph there, to be honest," she says, and starts investigating the wood-grain of the table. "I was thinking about dropping out -- just wasn't dealing with things very well, you know? And there's some other projects in the works too. I'm keeping busy," she says, and then looks back up at Lena. "How are you doing?" A breath, perhaps long enough to let Lena start to say something, before she comes back with, "I had a talk with Sera."
So, you know, she knows better than to just blindly accept an 'everything's okay'.

Lena Reilly
I had a talk with Sera.
It's funny, really, how quickly someone's reaction can harden, how quickly emotional walls can go up.  In one instant she's listening to Grace talk about what she's been up to, the waitress having come by and taken their orders (rum and Monster for Lena, for the record) and then about to say how she is herself.  And the next her spine stiffens, wariness and maybe even a little resentment shining in her face.
"You did."  She leans back in the seat, the warmth she gives off in her expressions having been drawn back into her own body to be protected behind her walls.  There's no pretending that Lena doesn't know (or suspect, anyway) what that means.  "What did she have to say?"

Grace
They're not unnoticed, the walls. And really, Grace has been expecting them. Dreading them. Dreading this. As much as she trusts Sera, she doesn't trust herself not to fuck this up but good. People are harder to understand than computers. Harder to understand characters in a story that you control. People belong to themselves.
"She said we've fucked up something serious when it comes to you. So much that you think nobody cares. But I care, Lena," she says, her voice going low and cracked. "I just, I don't know, I feel like I've been so selfish. Like, the only person who mattered in my life for a while was me, because I couldn't face anything otherwise. But I do care. And maybe that comes across as pity, but I don't think you pitiful. I don't think you... less-than, or damaged goods or something."
A pause, then, and it's obvious Grace isn't paying attention, not to waitresses (whom she dismissed with an 'I'm fine') or the surroundings, for once it's all focused on one thing.
"Because... because if you are, then I am too."

Lena Reilly
She listens to Grace, her lower jaw set hard as she sits opposite the woman with tension coiling tight within her body.  She isn't lashing out (yet); she's watching and listening to the hacker's words, perhaps hoping for something that would make her calm down.  And maybe Grace managed to do it, as she doesn't just get up and leave the way that she did (or tried to do) with Sera.
"Sera doesn't know me, Grace.  Apparently I didn't make that clear enough to her, even though I said it flat-out.  Twice actually, I think."  She sits back in the seat, bitterness running through her veins as she drums her fingers on the table out of habit.  "Let me tell you how that conversation went.  She called me out for drinks and instead of ever once asking how I was or why I was acting the way I was, proceeded to interrogate me just enough to make a snap judgment about me without needing to actually get to know me in any way, shape or form.  I said there were people out there who gave me looks of pity and that I didn't want to get into it and she wouldn't.  Give.  Up."
She's getting angry now, just thinking back to it.  It's not directed at Grace; it's just that she's the only one in the conversation aside from Lena.  "And as soon as I said you gave me looks that made it look like you were about to cry on my behalf.  Maybe it's not pity on your end, but that's how I see it.  I've seen it from people for years.  And I even said it wasn't your issue but mine.  Her response--"
She hits a peak there and then, as if realizing it, calms herself a bit and drops her volume.  "Her response, was that she's never seen you give me that look--which makes sense, because she's been in both of our presence maybe twice ever--and that I must be pitying myself.  She doesn't know who the fuck I am.  But she sure as hell likes to think that she does and she seemed to have no problem telling me all about myself.  And when I tried to have some actual conversation with her, she made it clear that wasn't an option.  It was a lecture at me and nothing more."
She shakes her head.  "And that being said, I think that generally people up at that house--and those associated--are less concerned with me as they are with wanting to feel better about worrying about me.  That's why Sera didn't bother to ask how I was doing or what I'd been up to, how I've been dealing with things.  She just assumed I'm shitty and projecting my own self-pity on other people.  That's why people seem very sad and concerned when they see me, but they never bother to find anything out about me.  I'm working through shit in my own way.  I don't get to lose myself in drugs and drink the way most of my and Sera's people do, because if I make poor decisions I condemn someone.  And I don't trust people, so I'm not going to go seeking the solace of sort-of friends to deal with my issues."
She fixes Grace with a stare.  "You're not broken or pitiful.  Neither am I.  I'm fucked up in the head, but I'm not pitiable.  And I will get through my shit.  But I swear to the gods, this shit isn't helping."

Grace
"I can see why you wouldn't want to seek solace in sort-of friends who you don't trust. But honestly, Lena, how much does someone have to go through to gain your trust, or your friendship then?" she says, and then sighs, a little surprised at herself for that one. But yeah, there's a little fire of anger there. Grace would have killed for Lena that day. Was prepared to die. You do that for a sort-of friend? At least to Grace, the shared suffering, the shared valor, the fact that there are others out there who will just understand what that was like -- it all makes for a bond stronger than most friendships.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You don't owe me trust if you don't want to give it I guess. Shit, I suck at this," she says, and raises her head, looks at the ceiling in that way that tends to catch tears before they threaten to run. "What would help? I just don't want you thinking you have to get through this alone. And I don't know what to do."

Lena Reilly
Cultists are renowned for how freely their lack of inhibition.  Many view that Traditional trait within the context of their freeness in sex, or drugs, or indulging in thrill-inducing danger.  But the truth of the matter is that the inhibition comes in many forms.  It is their way to push their boundaries and break free from the monotony of Sleeper existence, in order to reach moments of epiphany.  And for nearly everyone within the Tradition, that comes down to the Nine Sacred Passions.  Cultists try to feel their emotions in the most pure forms whenever possible...and this is why Lena, at first glance, seems like an odd choice for an Ecstatic.  She's so restrained.  She holds back, doesn't let go.
This is a time--that diatribe, and what is about to come--when she feels her emotions fully.  Sera's poor reaction to her outburst during their meeting (itself a very Ecstatic thing to do) was the kind of thing that reinforced to Lena that she didn't seem to belong among the Cult.  But as the Code of Ananda states, Even trees rent by lightning may grow new fruit.  And allowing herself to be emotionally honest--emotionally raw--is an example of that.
She sighs when Grace gets angry, but she smiles slightly.  Because she understands.  It's frustrating being around her sometimes.  Maddeningly so.  And she gets why, even if others don't.  Because she knows herself, and what it must be like for others.
"It's not that.  You are a friend.  Sid's a friend.  As to trust...I don't trust easily.  Even for people I consider friends.  I wish I could, but I can't.  The closer I get to people...the more twitchy I get.  And that's my problem, not yours."
A little shrug follows.  "You can't really help, Grace.  I'm sorry, but you can't.  Nor can Sera, or Sid.  Because you guys are dealing with your own things.  I have to work through this on my own.  And I can't go back there until I do, at least to the point that I'm not snapping at people at every chance."  She pauses, then hesitantly reaches out to settle a hand on Grace's forearm.  It's gone almost as soon as it's there, but it's something.
"Thanks for asking though.  That's the important part."

Grace
Grace looks down at her forearm when it's touched, little pinpricks of errant nerve signals variously firing or not firing turning that sensation that should be nice into something odd. But she doesn't flinch or pull back, she just watches. And when Lena's hand retreats, she reaches out with hesitation of her own.

It should be said that this is something that Grace just doesn't do, doesn't often see the point of. It has been known to happen, once or twice, but for Grace to literally reach out and touch someone, she usually has a purpose in mind. Don't step out in front of that car. Oh, you have a mosquito on your back, I'll get it. Concrete purposes, in other words.

"Lena, I'll leave you alone if that's what you want," she says, trying to cover Lena's hand with her own. "But I don't think that's really what you want. I mean, you want people to care about you. But if I do, if I show you that, you take it as pity and hate it. It's like a giant Catch 22. Circular, you know? Self-reinforcing?

"Listen," she says, leaning in, drawing her voice down. "If you want, I'll give you full permissions to rummage around and make sure I'm not lying or trying to hurt you. Trust for trust, right?"

Rummage around in her head, she means. She doesn't know exactly what Lena's capable of, but Sera is, and it would make sense. Even still, the offer itself, even if turned down, is intended to inspire just that tiny bit of trust.

Lena Reilly

Grace is not one to touch people as a rule. For Lena, it is more so. She has only intentionally made physical contact with two people in Denver when it wasn't a situation where she had to save someone's life: Sid and Kalen. And Kalen was a situation where she was at the end of her rope anyway and felt like she had nothing to lose. She doesn't allow people to get close to her, even physically, unless it is on her terms. And when Grace reaches out to cover Lena's hand with her own, the deejay nearly pulls away her appendage instinctively, but through sheer force of will keeps it there. Not long; the two aren't touching for more than a second, and when they part she gives an apologetic expression. But for just a moment there, it was something.

She sits back and listens as Grace says she doesn't think that Lena really wants to be alone. The deejay's brow furrows, her spine straightens as Grace gives an assessment of her. She shakes her head a little bit, frustration rising...and much more when Grace suggests the idea of reading her mind. The Cultist's forehead draws tight; her jaw sets and she stands up.

"Yeah, this was a bad idea." She drops a ten on the table to pay for her drink and tip the waitress. "So, I'm gonna go. And I'm dead serious, Grace. Don't come hunt me down for my own good again. I'm really tired of people telling me that they know what I'm about and that I don't mean what I'm saying. If you think I'm going to go poking around inside your head, then you don't know me nearly well enough to make a judgment like that. But really...say hi to Sera for me, and the rest."

And with that, she's already turning to walk out of the club.

(Willpower roll is to see how she handled Grace's physical reaching out.)

Samael @ 1:02PM
[[Willpower]]
Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7) ( success x 2 ) VALID

niko @ 1:03PM
Witnessed!

Grace

"I know you mean what you're saying. I just took what you've said about yourself and said it back to you..."

Oh yes, this was a bad idea, as Grace's voice falters, weakens to nigh inaudible levels (like she's still speaking, but giving up, going silent) as Lena turns to walk away, and her thoughts fall back to computing terms -- mutually exclusive conditions in the binary math of contentment. It dawns on her that perhaps Lena truly is committed to her own unhappiness, angrily defending it to the last. Computers are so much easier to understand than people.

Say hi from me to Sera and the rest, Lena said, and it sounded like a curse. Like she was now turning on Grace, lumping her in with the detestable Sera and the rest. When she speaks again, it will be when Lena's gone, out of earshot, and Grace will stare at the money on the table, face a blank and stomach full of knots, and tell herself thus: "I will leave you alone. It's not going to work, but I'll leave you alone."