Uneasy Truces that Mostly Hold

Grace
[Nightmares!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Kalen Holliday
[Nightmares!  Because I forgot until I saw yours!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Kalen Holliday
Despite having set up an awesome office in the office building, Kalen spends most of his non-focused time in the little den in the warehouse because...the office is for work and the den is for lounging and pinatas and being like twenty steps from your own private gun range?  He's installed the biometric locks on the warehouse, and those locks are keyed, just as the office locks, to allow Grace entry.  Separately.  On purpose.  Not because Kalen set them up together and couldn't figure out how to not just let Grace into everything.  (Which wouldn't be that surprising, really.  What does Kalen know about biometric locks?)
Right now he's in the den with a book, but it appears to be a book not on security systems or guns and warfare or physics, but on neuroscience?  That's a new book topic in Grace's experience of finding books lying about, but Kalen seems to read about everything.  He has a coffee carafe and the handful of coffee fixings he likes (not the full ridiculous assortment he presents to Grace - just raw sugar cubes, cream, and vanilla), He's curled up for Kalen, so curled up except that one leg extends out over the couch half-bent.

Grace
So, school has started again, and Grace has decided to take Pan's advice. Try to hold on to your life and your other life. It's harder this semester, with the fear that something nasty lies behind every corner, but it's not as though Grace lets that fear rule over her. No rulers allowed. At least, that's the plan isn't it?
But, unlike any usual semester, Grace now has a place to go to hang out and do homework that isn't her apartment and isn't the Chantry (blazing bright with cold light) and that place is Kalen's biometrically sealed warehouse, which certainly feels a lot safer than hanging out at the apartment.
The school year has yet to really ramp up, but already there's a pile of stuff to do -- mind you with her classes, doing homework looks much like staring at a computer screen until her eyes start to dry out.
Anyway, it's break time because sometimes, Grace remembers to eat. And sleep. And all that other crud, even when school is going, and life is crazy, and your nightmares fuck with you.
Kalen's in the den, that place Grace will always associate with pink flamingos. So, she grabs some food out of her little mini-kitchen (a carton of leftover curry -- always better the day after) and heads over, to be sociable, or try to. With Kalen, that sociability isn't quite as hard to achieve.
After all, he did buy her a secret computer lab.
She fiddles with the scanner that will open the door for her, and steps in -- curry in hand. "It's just me," she yells, in case... what? In case Kalen doesn't already feel her shifting?

Kalen Holliday
"I do prefer it when you don't come with a flock of ninja assassins on school nights," Kalen says, without looking up from his book.  "But it is, in fact Friday.  You could have brought them this time."
He does set the book down shortly after he finishes speaking.  "There is plenty of coffee, but you'll have to grab a mug.  How are you?"

Grace
She shrugs, a bodily statement of 'eh'. "I wish I could stop dreaming. I know you grok that."
She winds her way around to one of the cushy chairs and plops down in it. "But honestly, I can't complain. Ding dong, Thakky's dead. Or you know, as dead as it can get," she gives him a weary smile.
"Feels nice, not having that hanging over our heads."

Kalen Holliday
He nods, but doesn't directly address the sleeping thing.  "It is.  It will come back, but there is time to address that.  Like, you will graduate before we need to even concern ourselves with the planning time.
"How is school going?"

Grace
"It's just started. Don't know really how it's going yet. I've had some of my professors before though, and they're not shitty. I know that much," she says. Sometimes, profs can be real turds. Most of them the ones outside the CS department though. Call it familiarity, or just the fact that some of her professors prefer to be addressed by their first names instead of that whole 'Doctor' business.
She digs into the curry, some Thai thing, or maybe it's Indian, hard to tell. Smells like heaven though. Heaven and hard-to-place spice. Which is approximately the same thing.
"You're... reading about neuroscience?" she asks with an almost-full mouth, noticing the book. "Interesting."

Kalen Holliday
"It seems appropriate to learn new things.  I suppose I could as Garrett, but...."  Kalen frowns a little, much as he has since the day he brought Grace to breakfast that went terribly wrong when Garrett comes up.  "I thought I would learn some background first."
"Also, it's for class.  Knowing how our lives go, I thought I might read ahead.  As it turns out, all the reading you do in the Order serves pretty well when you have to take tests for course credits, and I didn't even have to forge anything.  Else.  I did not have to forge anything else.
"If I learn enough math, I may be able to take a course or two with with Trent.  Which would be interesting.  I've only ever studied with the one Fate mage before."

Grace
"You've actually signed up for classes? Oh, that's neat! I can help you with the math bits. Computer Science is all mathy," Grace says, "But you know, Chaos Theory is pretty ahh... up there. How much math do you know?"
She doesn't want to burst his bubble, but maybe... audit a Trent class? Because the college won't let you take his without 3 years of study first?
Hell, maybe he can just buy something nice for the Math department and take whatever class he very well pleases. Colleges. Bah.

Kalen Holliday
"It would be awhile before I could do Trent's class.  It is, however, possible I could have time.  Some few of us live to see thirty and optimism never hurt anyone.
"No.  That is a lie.  But it probably won't hurt me."  He pauses to smile.  "Much."

Grace
"Optimism is sometimes the only way to keep from being hurt, though. I'm glad you have plenty," she gives him a smile in return, and then noms on some more curry.
"They have it all wrong you know. Neuroscientists. Half that stuff you're reading? Total BS. I mean, don't completely discount everything, but take it all with a grain of salt or two."
Chew chew chew.
"Math, on the other hand. Hard to go wrong there."

Kalen Holliday
"I'm not sure math gets everything either.  I hear there are things that change now and again.  Things get added."  He smiles.  "I'm just looking for background information before I start trying to learn more about the Ars Mentis.
"Where did you get that curry?  It smells amazing."

Grace
"Like, one plus one sometimes equals three? Maybe, but only for very large values of one," Grace shoots back, a little laugh at her own joke.
"Ars Mentis? Art of the Mind? Yeah. Gadfly taught me a bit about that. Before he left," she says, and she wants to say it like that, because 'disappeared' or 'died' just... well... it's like she's just not letting herself believe anything in that regard until she knows for sure.
"Curry's from Us Thai. It's lip-burning delicious. Want some?"

Kalen Holliday
"It seems like it may be useful to have.  And yes, the art of the Mind."
She offers him curry and his expression shifts, flying through emotions too quickly for them to even register long enough to properly read.  Some people have been convinced that Kalen feels nothing.  Or, at least little.  But if that were true, why bother learning to mask at all?
No.  He feels everything.
Life is too short not to. Particularly when you expect to die young in a blaze of glory.
"No," is all he really says.  "Perhaps later."  But his expression says he's thinking about saying more.

Grace
She raises a brow, "Hey, what's on your mind, if I might ask? I maybe know a little bit about 'Ars Mentis' but I can't exactly peek in there."
Nor would she, if she could. There's a thing, right? Privacy is a right. Even for her, the woman who breaks into film company emails -- that had a protective purpose. She could read Kalen's email now if she wanted, or peer into the lives of any one of her friends, really. Won't. Wouldn't.
There are lines, rules even for the ones who refuse to be ruled.

Kalen Holliday
"Something Trent and I were discussing.  He wants to get a little more organized, among those of the Order here.  Nothing ridiculously formal.  Just, a more serious commitment to lending our resources to Denver in a coordinated fashion.  And nothing that we'd expect the rest of you to answer to."
He smiles a little.  "I told him that I would be happy to help as long as I got to keep my decidedly not of the Order pseudo-apprentice."

Grace
"Oh? Pseudo-apprentice now, am I?" she asks, giving that brow a workout. "And what did he say?"
She imagines Kalen going to his superior, and asking something like 'Can I keep her? She just followed me home...' as if it were Trent's business who Grace hangs out with.
"Mind you, I don't care what the Order gets up to, so long as I'm left out of it, and nobody gets hurt. I don't do politics."

Kalen Holliday
"Trent?"  Kalen laughs.  "I don't know what happened when you met, but I'm not sure it was as terrible as you thought.  He wouldn't have asked me to abandon you.  He wants to be more inclusive, not less.  I was worried for a minute, but what he wants is actually good.  I kind of like it."

Grace
"I don't think Trent's terrible. Just, we didn't exactly hit it off with spectacular fireworks, no. You know how I am, make one little joke about stuffed shirts, and all the sudden it's 'oh I'm going to read your mind and you are wrong and I am slightly offended but too damn polite to tell you off directly'. Must be a Hermetic thing. "But you know. I have a tendency to offend too. Takes two to have a social failure."
She stuffs her face with comforting spice.
"More inclusive? You're saying a lot of vague stuff. What is it that he wants?"

Kalen Holliday
"I very much doubt Trent was reading your mind...."  Kalen frowns.  "To help.  I know you see most of us as not to be trusted at all, but it what almost all of us want.  Some of us may be misguided in our methods, but power for its own sake...it takes a long time to have power or standing.  It may actually be easier to consolidate it in other Traditions.  Certainly, you have seen other ways.
"People are imperfect.  Groups of people, by the nature of being comprised of people, are also imperfect.  But they are stronger.  It took more than one of us to stop Thakinyan, and I doubt that any of our alliances could be termed perfect, for all I value them.
"And...whatever part the Order and its secrecy may have played in Lucia Montanari's madness, I'm not the only one of us who laid that information out in the open for you.  Hiding the film as they did...Thakinyan was bound within it.  Had I not seen how it turned out once, I may have thought to do the same."

Grace
She rolls her eyes. "I was just being a bit hyperbolic. I know what being touched by someone else's magic feels like. I know he didn't actually read my mind. But sometimes people can be just naturally way more perceptive? I get that feeling about Trent. And Garrett. They pick up on how I don't like formality all that much, and they don't particularly like that I don't like it."
She waves her empty fork in the air back and forth. On the other side of the fork...
"But you know, I might react the same about somebody, if I picked up on the fact that they were fundamentally upset by the way I do things. Like, if they hated the fact that I use computers or whatever. We can't all just get along with perfection."

Kalen Holliday
"I hate formality.  That doesn't bother Trent.  I mean, he is still all formal and polite while drinking whiskey, and I'm pretty sure the only time he's used my first name is when I called him at like four am asking for Sid's number after that dream, but once you get used to that he's actually pretty laid back."

Grace
Grace makes a face. "Mrs. Evans is my mom. I think I'd slap somebody if they called me that," she visibly shudders, and it's an obvious joke in the way she moves, exaggerating everything a little too much.
"Not that Grace is much better, I'll grant. I like Kit. I feel more like a Kit most days. I never feel like Grace."
She sighs, stabs the curry with her fork. "Anyway. I'm sure he's a great guy. I'm also sure he doesn't hate me. I'm also quite positive that he's laid back as you say. But. I don't like walking on eggshells for people, and I'm so fucking dense when it comes to avoiding social conflict, you know? I'd rather just not. As horrible as that sounds. I don't want to offend anybody."

Kalen Holliday
"So, the first time I was in Trent's office Sid and I started screaming at each other and I was in a shitty mood and tried to pick a fight with him, and then we started drinking.  Eggshells and Trent...?  I'm more careful with Garrett."  He huffs.  "Admittedly, that could not exactly be termed avoiding social conflict.  But I do think you think too much about what other people are thinking sometimes."

Grace
"Yeah. I do," she nods in agreement. "But you know, I have my reasons. I don't want people to hate me, and I sure as hell don't want people who can potentially go for a joyride on my neurons to hate me."
She picks up a curried carrot on her fork and stares at it while talking, twisting the orange thing in the air like it is amazingly interesting.
"It's like... okay. Take Eleanor. She's a professor of law. You don't go and get a doctorate in law without basically dedicating your life to that, and okay, that's great. I'm a person who leans more toward the anarchy side of things. So yeah, if I went up to Eleanor and was perfectly truthful with her about me, my beliefs, my philosophy? Would you like to be the Apprentice saying those things to the Disciple with a penchant for shooting people? Bad people, yes. What if she decided I was bad people?"

Kalen Holliday
"I doubt that she'll see a need to shoot you.  I see your point.  But...mostly we do not bring our powers to bear on each other in such fashions.  It happens, but for all it's an uneasy truce it tends to mostly hold."

Grace
Kalen gets a brief glance from the carrot-wielding Grace. "Those aren't exactly reassuring words, Kalen. It happens. Uneasy truce. It mostly holds."
She bites that carrot. "Are you trying to say I should talk to Trent again? Cause I can do that. I'm not afraid he's going to go berzerk on me or anything. Just, it's... uncomfortable. When I know I can't be truthful with someone? Anyway. I'm glad I know I can be myself with you, and you don't mind."

Kalen Holliday
"I'm saying you're probably okay here.  I'm not going to try to convince you to be more social.  Among other things, my doing that would be ridiculous.
"Your odds of having one of the Magi here invade your mind are probably worse than being struck by lightning.  I don't like to see you worry without cause, is all."

Grace
"I do worry a lot these days," she says, but then the corner of her mouth raises. Like she doesn't have reason to worry.
"I'm trying to worry less. I promise."
Easy to say that here, in a locked warehouse, protected with fingerprint scanners and whatever else Kalen's managed to put together for security. She gives him an easy smile to go with her words.
And then, devours some more curry.