Post-Vampire Coffee [Retro]

Kalen

Kalen drives them all back, not to the house he has in the city, but to the Library. All of them are drained, one of them is hurt, and Grace is possibly still watching the little red dot that is their new vampire acquaintance crawling over her screen. Kalen is going over the things he knows about vampires, but the things he knows about vampires are mostly how to kill them.

Unless they start a conversation while he's driving, he's content to be quiet while he drives. If they're paying close attention to him, they might notice the amount of attention he pays to the mirrors. There is more than one way to track someone. Did they figure out which car was theirs? He needs to talk to Grace about creating a bug-detecting device. About automatic sweeps at the gate. Can she enchant his car? Give him a little indicator light?

For now, he lets those things go. There are probably no bugs on the car. There is probably no danger here. Not the kind that he needs to prepare for immediately, anyway.

If the others are quiet while he drives, he'll focus on the few things they need to do once they reach the Library. Show Alexander where there is a ridiculously well stocked first-aid kit (which is, perhaps, more like the first-aid and ammunition closet). Start water boiling for the coffee. Grind coffee. He won't dissuade them from following him into the kitchen, but if they want to collapse in the library where there are couches...who is he to judge? He'd rather like to collapse in there too.

Just not yet.

He may have talked about tea rituals with Alexander, but there is a certain practiced calm about this that wasn't evident in watching him prepare tea. He reaches for the knobs to cabinets without looking for them, touches buttons on the grinder after a little swipe of his fingers over it, pulls out the container of coffee he wants without needing to check the label. He'll pull out the things Grace likes, or perhaps she will, she's been in a kitchen with him often enough by now that he barely has to look at her either. He knows the things she wants and where they are. Alexander, if he comes into the kitchen, gets slightly more attention, but only because Kalen doesn't know where to expect him to be or to go.

Grace

What Grace does on the road back to the library is sleep. Being a passenger in someone else's car always has a tendency to knock her right out even on a good night, and this has not been a good night. When she walked out of the club, she looked exhausted. Her head hurt when she had to put it through its paces tonight. So Grace slumps her way into the back seat and promptly uses all that space to get comfortable enough to nap.

It's not that she thinks she's perfectly safe, having just walked out of a vampire den. No, she just trusts Kalen to be able to get away from any danger. That's how he Awakened, after all, right?

When they stop, she does mumble out, "sss mmpr?" It's something that her hazy half-dream insists is very important. But no, Grace, it is not vampires they're stopping for. It's coffee and couches and books, in a place that is not a coffee shop with its resultant other people.

Upon dragging herself into the building, she does make a beeline toward the kitchen, but it's not coffee she's after. She goes straight for the freezer, and digs around way in the back until she finds her prize: a year-old bag of frozen peas. Strangely enough, nobody has yet thought to themselves in the middle of the night that a bag of peas would make the finest snack ever. Who would have thought? The icy peas have had plenty of time to stick to each other, so it comes out as a rather firm block, until Grace hauls off and slams the bag against the corner of the freezer.

This isn't normal Grace behavior. She's not normally so violent with vegetables.

She takes a kitchen towel and wraps the bag with it, then goes off to find Alex.


Alexander

Alexander, for his part, is pretty quiet on the drive back to the library.  The only real noise inside the car, beyond the sound of the engine and the tyres on the road, is whatever radio station the radio turns onto.  Some local station, automated system playing 80's tracks through the small hours of Monday morning.  Initially Alex rests his head on the passenger door frame, looking at the wing mirror.  Not, this time, to peer through the Gauntlet.  Like Kalen, he's just keeping an eye on what's behind them.  Eventually the light night traffic dies away and he dozes off.

He rouses again when Kalen parks up and the sound of the engine dies away.  Following the others into the building, he grabs the first aid kit and heads into the bathroom.  He pulls off his tshirt and hangs it over the top of the door before prodding and cleaning the injuries he already knew about and started checking for others.  Rinsing his mouth out leaves a little watery blood in the sink, but no teeth.  He rinses his face in clean, cold water and spends a little time staring at himself in the mirror.  Then closes his eyes and rests his forehead against it.

He hears the movement of Grace approaching with cold vegetables and pushes himself from the mirror, finding a towel to dry off before replacing the tshirt.   He takes the offered bag with thanks before heading towards the library proper.  For the couches rather than the books.

He sits on an arms and topples backwards, lying flat on the cushions with his legs hanging over the arm.  He holds the bag against his jaw, with a sharp inhalation when it makes contact with the painful area.

[[Apologies if I missed any auto car - wrecks - typing on the phone is a pain!]]


Kalen

Kalen brings the coffee, still in a French press brewing, and sets it on the table.  Then vanishes to return with a box with sugar of various kinds and honey and some flavored syrups.  And then mugs.  And then cream.  Because Kalen is incapable of drinking black coffee.  Or coffee that didn't cost at least twenty dollars a pound and wasn't fresh ground.  Except that Alexander saw him drinking straight black coffee that had definitely been sitting too long on a warmer.

Now that all that is brought out, he settles onto the arm of the couch that Alexander's legs aren't draped over.  He runs a hand through his hair.  "I don't have pie.  Or cupcakes.  I was getting those when Elijah was here more.  I should...get some frozen ones or something.  Ah."  His eyes flick to Grace, and he smiles, faded by exhaustion a bit, but a real smile.  His attention returns to Alexander, and there is, very faintly, a trace of an amused purr.  "Do you like blackberries?"  The corners of his mouth twitch a little.  "And have I ever told you about how I met Grace?  I think it may have been more awkward than when you and I met."

"Or...how I Awakened?  It occurs to me that both of those things are relevant right now.  One of them more conversationally and less like business than the other."


Grace

Alex might notice that she's been paying a great deal of extra attention to her cell phone, but the why of that remains to be seen. She's concerning herself with a map of Denver, if he's really perceptive, but that's unlikely, considering. She walks into the library after him, her face buried in that phone, and without looking up, asks him, "How's the damage? Peas help?"

When Kalen arrives with coffee, Grace has planted herself in a chair and already taken off her shoes so she can curl up into an impossible shape upon it. Coffee will help at least stave off the hour of passing out, but she looks even more dead than the vampire had.

Thinking of which, a number of questions came to mind about that one. Whenever Kalen used to tell her about vampires, she honestly didn't make the connection between that and something real. It's like the difference between hearing about a rhinoceros and actually going to the zoo. The man looked like a man, spoke like a man, seemed to have a conscience. Not a mindless monster, then. Perhaps a more devious one.

She smiles back at him, similarly dimmed by what they'd put themselves through. Then, sniffs a little huff of laughter at the ceiling when he speaks of the awkwardness of their first meeting. Strange, she didn't think it was awkward at all.


Alex

Peas help?  He glances over at the chair Grace has settled into.  "It helps numb it a bit, so yeah.  And it's not so bad.  I've had worse." He'd shrug if he was in a better position to.  "That guy had a mean swing, though.  And I don't think he even noticed the hits I was getting on him."  He looks towards the door when Kalen arrives.  "Is that normal for them?"

He watches as the coffee is set down on the table.  And the syrups.  And the other coffee - related paraphernalia. "Was that a really stupid thing to do, by the way?  Taking a swing at a vampire?"  Not that he'd have done much differently right now.  Not after seeing the state of the spirits that were loitering in the club.  That Alicia had been another Mage had been purely coincidental in his reaction.

He'd have to ask Alyssa what would happen to them...

“You have drupes?”  He tilts his head back to look up at Kalen and pokes his tongue out.  "You told me about the vampire thing.  Rock beats scissors and truck beats vampire.  But no, you never told me how you guys met up.


Kalen

Kalen's attention shifts between the two of them.  He remembers when he wasn't sure they could be in the same place.  And look at them now.  There was a time he thought he and Sid would be something else too.  Strange how sharing the kinds of things Mages inevitably share shift relationships in ways that are difficult to predict.  Perhaps, with enough magic, you could try, but the variables....

"I've got pretty limited vampire experience.  I know not all of them look like monsters, but I'm not entirely sure the one we met tonight even is a monster.  He's definitely dangerous.  He isn't exactly our friend.  But for now, I think we should leave him be."  He glances at Grace.  "Watch. I don't think he was lying about what he said.  And if he really isn't off killing people...we have bigger problems.

"There is considerable variation in reports about what vampires can and can't do.  But hurting them...generally involves significant force.  Fire is good.  Beheading is good.  Enchanted weapons are good."  There is a flicker of a smile.  "Beheading with enchanted weapons that are also on fire is excellent.

"The older they are the more frightening they are, in general, but knowing how old they are at a glance...the ones that live that long either learn to disappear or learn to blend in, I think.  We may just have to assume they are all incredibly dangerous."  He pours a mug of coffee for each of them.

"The day I met Grace, in addition to establishing that she liked blackberries, I asked her to come by my totally not creepy murder warehouse to learn to shoot.  I think, judging by the whole people standing in the mouth of the alley situation, we may need to consider doing some more training.  And maybe, all things we learned tonight considered, put up some general vampire survival tips on Ginger.

"And, in not entirely unrelated news, we may want to think about finding people who can't stop something from affecting their minds someone to partner up with to learn.  I'd rather not...."  There is a faint shudder and he takes a sip of coffee.  Black.  Undoctored.  He sets the mug back down gently so that he can pour cream in.

"You remember Thakky," he says to Grace.  His eyes track back to Alexander.  "We had an evil spirit problem, before you got here.  It was...unpleasant.  But it was able to do some pretty unpleasant tricks.  It would probably be for the best if everyone learned at least the basics for avoiding those."


Grace

"Yeah. I saw what he was doing to Alicia, and Elijah and I worked together to stop it. Then, I went and shielded myself just in case he decided to make us all fall into blithering lust with him," Grace says with a shudder.

She goes for the blue mug, not exactly taking much care with it or the french press carafe. She's just too drained to give a shit. But at least she doesn't forget the cream and brown sugar rock candy stirrer. Kalen and Grace have a stock of these. They're essentially lollipops. Some people have yet to figure out what growing up is supposed to entail, and let's hope they never do.

"Thakky was... hmm," she says, leaning back in the chair with her coffee and actually looking toward Alex. "You remember the riot at the Mayan Theater? Four people died? I was there. Thakky was the evil spirit behind a monster crawling out of the screen to drive the crowd of theatergoers into a spontaneous mosh pit. And it really didn't stop there of course."

She will never stop calling Thakinyan 'Thakky'. It's a point of issue: what do you do with a spirit who thrives on fear and madness? Give it a cutesy name. It'll hate that.

"So yeah, mental shielding is a wonderful thing to have. I'm not sure how many people could learn it from me, though. Seems like there's a huge gap between myself and others sometimes." Grace pauses, considers. Her eyes wander a bit. "When it comes to, you know, ideas about how their magic works."

Grace blows on her coffee, spreading the steam, slightly decreasing the entropy of the coffee-cup system. Slightly increasing it for the room. Always increasing, however, toward the end of all events.

"When I scanned the vampire, he looked like... Like he was storing entropy. Most of the time, entropy always increases in a system, and it was increasing for the vampire too, just it wasn't affecting the vampire himself. It was just built up like stress on a fault line. No actual movement, but you could see the eventual earthquake just waiting. Kinda creepy. But now I know what to look for."


Alexander

Everyone makes ripples as they live their lives.  Those ripples interact and amplify and cancel.  The outcome isn’t anything definite.  Mages?  They seem to be more as they live.  The highs are higher, the lows are lower, and the chaotic interactions are so much more unpredictable as a result.  Not so long ago, Alexander had been ready to have – looking to have – a blazing row with Grace.  More because she was a convenient target for the anger, fear, frustration and countless other emotions that he had been struggling to deal with.  But that encounter could have left them pushed ever further apart.

Nothing is fixed by fate.

He stays lying on the couch while Kalen sorts out the coffee.  There’s a cup on the table waiting, he’ll grab it in a minute.  For now, he’s comfortable.  “Do you have any idea how many of them there might be?  Are they common?”  He takes a breath as a thought come to him, turning to swing his legs off the couch and sit upright.  “I thought the whole vampire thing was spread through biting?  Why were there so many drained spirits in the club if they turn into vampires?”

He reaches for the coffee, leaving it black and unsweetened, before sitting back on the couch and crossing his legs under him.  He nods then takes a sip from the mug.  “A little more help would have been nice.  But I think it would have been risky for to do much tonight.  They’d probably have had as much chance of hitting me as that guy.  So, yeah, lessons.  Lessons are good.”

Alexander looks between Kalen and Grace as they explain the whole Umbral Nasty thing in the cinema.  You remember?  He shakes his head.  “That was before I got here, I’ve not heard anything much about it other than bits and pieces from you guys.”  You guys – the Awakened.  “I…  would definitely be interested in learning to shield myself, though.”  He looks down into his coffee, feeling  little bad about that night with Sera, but wanting more to stop anyone getting into his head like that again.

He nods when Grace explains the concentration of Entropy, cringing inside.  He was just getting comfortable with the idea of poking into the spirit world again.  Looking into chaos and probability and possibilities tending towards decay and death and destruction?  That is very much less comfortable.


Kalen

"Drained spirits?"  Kalen asks softly.  "Just a bite is not sufficient.  Sometimes when they feed they merely kill.  Often, I should think, otherwise they'd be like unchecked rabbits.  It is hardly as though they have many predators."

"I'm less disappointed in the outcome this evening, everyone is still breathing after all, as concerned for what may have happened if circumstances had been a bit different."  He smiles.  "And you and Elijah did a good thing there.  It was hardly a disaster when considering the whole of the cosmos.  It just illuminated some ways in which we could better prepare."

"I taught Elijah the basics of Mind magic, though I'm hardly to be classified an expert.  I learned by reading, honestly.  Reading and practice.  But that is not necessarily ideal.  Sera and Alyssa would be better teachers than I am.  Still, in some ways pairing the proper students and proper teachers is more important than the sheer vastness of knowledge."

With more space on the couch he slides onto the actual couch instead of the arm, and curls into the corner with his coffee.  "For tonight though.  Coffee.  And I'll answer what questions I can.  Tomorrow, research.  Into vampires and into specifics about these vampires.  Even I can see the wisdom in fighting no more battles tonight.  Or even preparing for them."


Grace

No more battles tonight, the Flambeau says. And the incongruity of that makes her smile, just a little.

"All I know about vampires I learned from watching random bits and pieces of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so I'm probably in great need of questiony-answery time. What gets me is that he looked so normal. Like some regular guy. He probably does normal better than we do."

To add to the list of people who do human better than you, Grace? The inhuman entropy-sink. Great.

"So, I guess then the big question I have is what do I do about this?" she says, and holds up her phone, displaying the map with the little blinking red dot.

"I can try to figure out where he goes, figure out his patterns, perhaps? Or just drop it. I mean he did try to attack Alicia, but okay, you say you trust him that he didn't intend to kill her. I don't know though. I mean, going and fucking with someone's head like that is harm enough. He wanted to get her alone for some reason, and it can't have been good."


Alexander

"Yeah,"  He shifts again, turning to Kalen a little more, "they looked like they were completely drained of everything.  I'm no expert, but some of the spirits I've seen before were at least active.  These guys just looked like they were just biding their time until whatever happens to them happens."  He shrugs.  Although he may be able to see more of the spirit world than Kalen or Grace, he's by no means any kind of expert.  "Hell, I don't even know what happens to them after."

Not yet, anyway.

There may be more questions to come but, for now, Alexander is tired.  He sinks back against the back of the couch and listens to the talk of students and teachers.  Alyssa sounds like the best option, given how Sera's last attempt to use Mind magic went.

"Track him, I guess.  We can try getting more information about the club and its owners.  I'll have a dig and see if I can find anything about crime in the area."


Kalen

"I don't know that much about spirits.  A little.  If they're...kind of catatonic and there...we might have to try to help them later.  Once we clear the place.  It's not likely we can get close and call them.  Well."  He looks at Grace.  "Maybe some people could.  But I don't know if we have anyone who can get close and call them with magic.  And...physically close...I don't think is safe."

Alexander sinks back against the couch and Kalen smiles a little, and then after the note about looking into the club reaches out to squeeze his shoulder.  "That's what mornings are for."

He glances back to Grace, like, 'Is there more now?'  But he is also tired, not quite so much as they are, perhaps.  But, definitely tired.

[Wow. I totally spaced.  You people should poke me so I behave.  Ugh.  Sorry about that.]


Grace

It can wait, Kalen's tired glance seems to say.

And truth be told, it can. Even though Grace tends to long to chase down everything in her life straight to the finish line. She shrugs and puts the phone down on the table.

"Well, in the morning, you can let me know what you want to do with this guy," she says, to no one in particular, but probably to Kalen. "I've got a pretty strong tether going straight to him. It'll last for as long as I can keep it going, but the longer we sit on it, the more of a chance it stands of being broken. Or discovered. I don't know if vampires can do what plant-zombie-spirit things can, but I don't particularly want to find out."

She regards the room with closed eyes and a strange cant to her head like she's going to fall asleep right there, but she lifts the mug up to her mouth instead. It's comforting, the normalcy. After such a night, just sitting back in a safe place with coffee -- in her chair? It's less home than it is territory. Every inch is a memorized one, and every presence a known entity. So she lets that sink in, in order to find balance.


Alexander

“The morning is good,”  Alexander says as he wiggles down in the couch a little and stretches his legs out in front of him, eyes closing.  He’s certainly in no rush to go find any other supernatural nasties to get into a fist fight with tonight.  Or, probably, tomorrow.  As Kalen had said, they were all breathing.  He was probably the worst off physically, and that was all stuff that would heal given a few days.  Alicia and Elijah?  That would take a lot more time and patching up, but wasn’t anything he could do anything about or – at the moment – really knew anything about anyway.

So the bag of peas slides down and lands on the arm of the couch, the hand with the coffee cup wedging against the same arm keeping the cup upright, as he falls asleep.

Things can definitely wait until the morning.