"We need to talk," he'd said. Like that wasn't incredibly fucking ominous. Who says a thing like that without the obvious implication that they're going to talk about something horrible? Mike can talk about the most interesting things in public, but Grace thought to spare him the need to hide. She invited him to the place she works (and plays, and mostly lives).
The place is comprised of two buildings, both of which have solid steel doors and impressive locks that someone like Michael could break through with ease. But that door wasn't going to keep him out anyway. When he arrives, she'll be there to open it for him.
"Mike, hey. Come in quick, before a cat tries to make a break for it,"she says. Even though her 'boyfriend' is coming over for a 'talk', she hasn't bothered to try for something more appealing than her black tee-shirt and jeans uniform. It wouldn't work anyway.
Michael
For the sake of making this easier on her Michael is not wearing a suit. He's wearing a gingham flannel shirt and a pair of jeans. Doesn't own anything but Oxfords it would seem but at least he isn't dressed as if he's attempting to cut an intimidating figure. His hair is combed.
Grace gets a quick flash of a smile she first opens the door. She doesn't have to tell him twice to hurry up and come inside before the cat attempts to escape. With the instruction he puts a hand on her elbow as he passes over the threshold like he needs the guidance or she needs some sort of physical assurance that he isn't here to discuss anything but business.
Must be he isn't aware of the implication of 'we need to talk.' He would have to have had more relationships than he has had. It's true. They do need to talk. He has had a busy few days.
"Wouldn't want that," he says as he's moving out of the way for her to shut the door. It isn't until it's closed that he looks to her for further guidance as to where they're going.
Grace
His demeanor lets her soften a bit. She gives him a smile back, and looks at the hand on her elbow like that's a new (but not unwelcome) thing. Nobody else does that. Then again, she'd probably shrug the hand off her arm if it were anybody else.
It's a nice place, Mike. Grace lives here, but it's obviously not her decorating skill that went into it. It's all full of expensive rugs, old maps, bright colors. She leads him down a hall, around a corner, to a place with chairs and tables and a few scattered books. A living room of sorts.
"So. What's this thing we need to talk about?" she asks, still a little worried. "Did you get attacked again?"
Michael
"There's no easy way for me to say this, or for you to hear it, I'd imagine."
So he's just going to say it. He has his hands in the hip pockets of his jeans. Like he has to keep a set of weapons sheathed as they have this conversation. Now that they're inside and she's looking at him proper Grace can say with certainty that the sleeplessness is starting to wear on him. It is not a dramatic change in appearance from the last time she saw him but the bruises under his eyes are darker than they were.
Sleeplessness or something else. He does not look happy right now.
"It's recently come to my attention that I have been... blacking out, for lack of a better word, after The Artist has contacted me. During these blackouts, I have taken the lives of several people who did not deserve Good Deaths."
He gives her a chance to react to this before he says anything else. Whatever he feels about this revelation he is keeping as far from his face as he can.
Grace
When he says what he has to say, her eyes go wide. She doesn't immediately respond, but only rubs at her steadily-angrier eyes. There aren't words strong enough for this.
"I was worried about that. The mental link you have with that freak, I mean. Wondered how strong it was."
She looks him in the eye, and the anger falls away from her face. How must that be, for him to deal with? Having something like that in your head?
"It's not your fault. Mike, it's the Artist. I know you want to blame yourself, but this has got to be the plan, right? To tear you down..."
Michael
Of course he does not prefer the term 'link' to describe how he and the Artist are connected but that is what it is. Ze has found a way into his mind and has access to his dreams. Can manipulate them or make him see things. Though the visions she sends him are nightmares he has suffered in restless silence on the nights she has shared a bed with him.
"Ze is very old," he says. A concession of sorts. Of course he blames himself. "And this is not the first time ze and I have met. If that is the goal, it wouldn't surprise me." A beat. "I would like to investigate this further, before we come any closer to zir."
Grace
She told him, didn't she? If you let someone like that make you feel guilty for things that they have done, they'll use it to break you. Oh, fuck it all. She's having trouble controlling her breath, and starts wandering the room in the effort to expend some excess energy that's building up inside. Part of her wants to get him a cup of tea, and part of her wants to start randomly hitting things in the hopes that they might actually be a shapechanged Artist in hiding.
No. Let's not think that. That would be bad, Grace. She runs her fingers through her hair, thinking.
"Of course. Yes. If we went after them now, they'd..." Take control of you right then and there. There would be two powerful Mages to fight instead of one. "It wouldn't go well."
Michael
As of this moment Michael is not broken. He is sleep-deprived and he is running on coffee and his own determination. He is in possession of knowledge that would have broken plenty of other people. Standing in front of her is a man who can look himself in the mirror and if not forgive himself for the weakness that allowed this to happen he is at least prepared to rectify the situation. Stop himself from killing any more people.
Two of his former students have already had a conversation with him about how to handle this. Common sense says attempting to draw forth the personality or spirit or whatever it is that takes him over when he's in his blackout is not a good idea. Not with two Initiates who can kill but only with careful planning.
"No. It wouldn't." Where she is pacing the room he is still. He has already had time to process this revelation and to pull himself together. "Though I have no training in Spirit, I feel as though the source of the blackouts is a past life, and greater familiarity with this past life would be helpful in controlling the blackouts. Thoughts?"
As if asking for her input is going to help her not trash her own kitchen.
Grace
Yeah, okay, spirits. The very thing Grace can't figure out for the life of her. She wanders her way back over to him as she says: "I don't know a thing about how to deal with past lives."
Truth be told, for all that Michael says that he has been reborn time and time again, been hunted by this Nephandus time and time again, Grace has never personally believed that she could hope for reincarnation. She's never experienced memories of her past lives. Can a thing be said to exist if it can no longer be experienced?
Michael, though... He truly feels the weight of all those years. And it's just plain rude to tell someone they're wrong about what they've been through. Maybe he's right. Who knows? She slips her hand up his arm, an awkward gesture of comfort from a woman who feels like a moving sharpness.
"But I know someone who might."
Kiara. Kiara will help with this. And if not her, she will find someone, damnit.
Michael
Perhaps it is the tension of the afternoon or the weight of what this revelation means for him but something about Grace's confession strikes him as amusing. It does not serve as proof of a stereotype's strength that the Virtual Adept does not know anything about spirits. This is just the sort of month he's having. Grace doesn't know how to deal with past lives and Michael doesn't know how to respond to that besides laughing a laugh devoid of humor. The smile the laugh knocks loose doesn't reach his eyes.
Then she touches his arm. It reminds him to take a breath and stay centered in the present moment. Winged sharpness against a man who feels like a force of nature.
His eyes are on hers as she gives him some sense of hope. Warm even if they are not in the midst of the most reassuring of conversations. Warm in a way she would recognize if one day they weren't. Like how the world would notice right away if the Sun went out. He lets go a breath it sounds as if he was holding and reaches up to squeeze the hand that was caressing his arm.
"Thank you," he says.
Grace
Oh, the way he looks at her. He could be taken over by something else at any time, but right now, he isn't. Now, he's looking at her like she is his world. Is this the right time to kiss your lover? It seems like that might be the case. Is it a comforting thing to do? She doesn't know.
"I'll call her right now," she says, but she can't quite draw her eyes off of him yet.
Aww, fuck it. Whatever. She straightens up and lifts her chin, closes her eyes, and hopes they don't click their teeth together, because that was only really funny once.
Michael
Comfort takes time. Effort sometimes. They have already spent enough time in each others' presence that they don't have to carve out any more in order for the kiss to have the impact she was hoping it would.
He is prone to shouldering blame and responsibility that is not strictly his. That he has taken on so much is what allows the Artist to do what ze does. To find entertainment in tormenting him. If he were a soulless killing machine he would have nothing he loved and nothing he cherished. Nothing ze could hurt that would have an impact on him.
If this is not a past life then that means it is a mental weakness. That she has rewired his circuitry somehow. He is less prepared for that explanation than he is for a past life of his thrusting against his or her shackles every time the Artist makes zirself known in his dreams.
Not the more logical of the two conclusions but the one he is prepared to pursue until it butts them up against a dead end. In the meantime he holds her head still as she kisses him and their teeth don't spar this time. Practice helps. When they part he smooths a shock of hair back from her brow. He isn't any more skilled at this than she is.
"I'll put on a pot of coffee."
They both have calls to make.
Grace
Cliches about about love. Love conquers all, all we need is love, love will see us through. Grace doesn't fall for cliches. Sometimes, love just makes you hurt for a person that much more when they are tortured. There are no guarantees here. And no matter how much she loves this man, it might not help.
It does, however, put a fire under her ass. And a dedicated Grace can be a scary thing.
She nods at him, pulls away, and goes for the phone in her jeans pocket. (Seriously, does she ever go anywhere without that? No.)
Michael
[SATURDAY IS DEAD. LONG LIVE SATURDAY.]
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