Nicholas Hyde
[Init! +6.]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )
Andrés Sepúlveda
[jfc nick +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas has heard much more recently about Andrés than he has seen him. The last time he saw the Etherite, it was in a fit of madness: he and Pen had left the man at Kiara's, still raving about spiders and gods know what else, blind to the rest of the world. For Nick, that had been terrifying, less because he could imagine such a madness for himself than because he could imagine it for Pen.
Well, guilt had him put off checking in just a little longer. Sometimes it works that way.
By the time he'd texted Andrés it was months after the fact, but it was there: just to check in on him and see how he was doing. An hour later, here they are in an area off of Colfax, the part that didn't gentrify (or has yet to.) The bar Andrés had suggested is a ramshackle old building that brings to mind this area's history of colonization and cowboys, though it would be hard to point to what exactly gives it that impression.
A neon sign in the window has a Bud Lite neon sign and another, printed up and over the door, that says simply: BAR. ("AR," more accurately, since the B is partially burnt out.)
Nick is already there when Andrés arrives, though by the look of his beer he hasn't been there all that long. The inside is dim and full of the sort of people who are given to day drinking at dive bars on Sundays, along with the smell of old wood and stale beer. Nick is seated in a booth, texting someone on his phone, his beer barely touched beside him.
Andrés Sepúlveda
It takes Andrés a bit longer to get from one place to the other now that he lives out in the damned suburbs. His phone number hasn't changed even if the physical location of his belongings has. No small amount of time has passed since Nick and Pen dropped the addled Scientist off at Kiara's place, and for not reaching out as Nick has, neither has he. Texting goes both ways.
Having two students of discordant traditions and a government job strikes most people as being excuse enough to lose track of social obligations. Andrés is not a man who believes in excuses, but then again, Andrés claims not to believe in plenty of other things the average person accepts as reality without too much pain.
He comes in from a clear, brisk day dressed in his typical weekend attire, loafers and jeans and a bomber jacket thrown over the cardigan he had already thrown on over a button-down shirt. His hair and beard are in need of a trim, and he's wearing sunglasses and a knit cap. Were not for the silver run rampant through his black hair and the self-assuredness of his walk, one might mistake his height as being indicative of his age.
His resonance precedes him, so when he approaches Nick and claps him on the shoulder in greeting it isn't exactly a surprise.
"Nicholas!" he says. "You're alive!"
Nicholas Hyde
It was around a month ago now that Nick chose to climb a mountain in his bare feet with no food or water for three days. Nick has never suffered a major injury and so it surprised him, how slow his feet were to heal and how slow his body was to recover from the ordeal. He was exhausted for weeks afterward; the scabs have finally all peeled off his feet for good, leaving the skin raw and pink and scaly.
The Chakravat's resonance precedes him too: and it feels different. More complex.
Nick is good at looking as though he could fit in just about anywhere. He is young but not too young, racially ambiguous, and today he is dressed in a pair of grey chinos and a heavy perl knit sweater over a T-shirt: it would be difficult to determine whether he is the sort of man who has been coming to bars like this all his life or not.
A hand claps over his shoulder and Nick looks around, a curl flipping about in Andrés' direction first and preceding Nick's gaze. There is a little smile that pulls on the corner of his mouth at the sight of the Etherite there. "Hello," he says. "I could say the same for you. How are you holding up?"
Andrés Sepúlveda
Forward momentum has Andrés dropping into the booth across from Nick about the time that Nick has started to sight the source of the physical contact. He swipes the cap from his head, then the sunglasses, building a small pile of belongings on the side of the table closer to the wall.
How is he holding up.
"I'm very much alive," he says, "which is more than I can say for some of our neighbors in Colorado Springs."
With that the absence of alcohol becomes a more pressing concern than current events. He drums his hands on the table one two three four five times then slides out of the booth again.
"Hold that thought."
Nick has about three minutes before his compadre returns with tequila that he intends to share.
Nicholas Hyde
Drinking with Andrés is dangerous, of which Nick is well aware: the Etherite is a little smaller than Nick is, but somehow (alcohol tolerance, let's not speak of it as though it is a mystery) can drink nearly double what Nick can. With fewer effects.
Nick's dark eyebrows arch as Andrés mentions their neighbors in Colorado Springs (he hasn't heard) and he reaches for his glass of beer. He eyes the Etherite over the rim of the glass as he takes a swallow or two from it, pulling at his upper lip with his lower one to rid it of foam once he has lowered the beer again.
"I - " he starts, just as the other man instructs him to hold his thought, and disappears.
Nick's formerly untouched glass is nearly half drained by the time Andrés returns, and with tequila.
Andrés Sepúlveda
And so he does. One hand is responsible for the shot glasses and the other for the can of shitty Mexican beer he procured to tide him over in between rounds. A shot comes to rest in front of Nick and the Etherite returns to his spot across the table, setting down the beer and lifting the shot in solemn observance of custom.
"Salud," he says, clinking glasses with the Chakravat before knocking his back.
If there were a handbook for dealing with a Mad Scientist, one of the first chapters would warn against attempting to keep up with them in a drinking contest. Their blood is of questionable composition as it is and they have ways of dealing with adverse reactions that the average person does not.
At any rate, once the first round is put away and they're settled in, Andrés is back to the original topic as if they had never left it.
"Does the name 'Order of the Falcon' mean anything to you?"
Nicholas Hyde
"Salud," Nick returns, though his tongue is far clumsier with the word. The glasses clink, a delicate sound, and they both slug down the drink within a second later.
Nick's eyes have not yet begun to grow hazy, though they will in short order, a combination of the tequila and the heat in the place, the lingering smell of smoke harkening back to the days when it was legal to smoke in bars. Nick may be good at looking like the kind of man who has grown up in bars like this, and maybe he did, but he doesn't spend much time in them now. "Crunchy" is the word for people like Nick, when they aren't being called hippies.
"No," he says, chasing his tequila shot with a swallow of his beer. "Should it mean something to me?"
Andrés Sepúlveda
"If we're talking 'should' in the sense that you're under some sort of obligation to know what it is... no. They're a secret society for rich white boys, meaning it's impossible to get in if you're not--" He starts ticking off the conditions on the hand not currently manipulating the beer bottle. "--rich, white, and young."
Back to the table goes his hand.
"If we're talking 'should' in the sense that that's a desirable state and it's probably in everyone's best interests if--" Some inner thought cuts him off, and here comes the canned laugh he saves for moments like this. "Oh, right. I forgot where I was for a minute. Let me back up. You are aware there was a changing of the guards out in Colorado Springs in the very recent past, and the individual currently considered to be--" Air quotes. "--'in charge' is a Verbena woman who may or may not have killed several newly Awakened Willworkers over the spring and summer, supposedly sacrificed one of her students to a spirit called the Keeper of Secrets, and may or may not have something to do with said secret society for rich white boys? Any of that..." Quick sip of beer. "Any of that drift your way, at all?"
Nicholas Hyde
Nick's eyebrows were already raised; they remain in this state as Andrés speaks and continues on to tell him about a Verbena who is sacrificing to a spirit. "No. I haven't heard about any of that," he says. "How did we...how did anyone not hear about that?"
One of his hands drifts upward and begins to wind around and tug on a curl. Its full length when straightened reaches nearly to his shoulders, though once it is released again it springs back up to where it was hanging about his ear. "I haven't heard anything from any of the spirits I've spoken to either, though they might have been reluctant to tell me about a spirit like that, if they knew anything about it at all."
Andrés Sepúlveda
"Yeah, I don't know shit about spirits."
Raise your hand if this is news.
"And I wouldn't have known anything about it at all if the girl in HR didn't invite me to a poker game back in June or... whenever it was. I think it was June." Anyway. "A couple of Colorado Springs's cops were there, and Awakened, and were worried someone was targeting apprentices specifically. Angela Avella, she's one of yours. She can probably tell you more than I can about what tipped them off, but when I went digging through their county's ME records, it looked like someone had tried to cover their paper trail. All I was able to find was, like, one strand of hair and half a fingerprint, so I passed that shit on to Grace to see if she could make anything of it. Next time I see her in person, I'm at the park with the kids, she and I start discussing it, they do what they do and blow it way out of proportion and start running around like a goddamn air raid siren is going off, I asked if she knew anyone who wanted to buy a couple of apprentices, she said she didn't, next thing I know those two knuckleheads are banging on my door at eleven o'clock at night because they summoned some dead girl's spirit and she spilled everything about the Verbena woman to them and I'm getting a headache just talking about this."
Deep breath.
"On the one hand, I didn't see Colorado Springs rushing in to help us when Alexander was missing. On the other hand, the fact that Avella knows about this and isn't worried makes me think the kids are maybe... eh... fifteen percent right to be concerned. Not 'freak right out and interrupt Doctor Sepúlveda and Kiara and then bitch and moan when neither of them puts pants on for the family meeting' concerned, but--"
He holds up his fingers thisfar apart and stops talking for long enough for Nick to start digesting some of what he just said.
Nicholas Hyde
"I've been meaning to meet with Angela," Nick says, and his voice is thoughtful, his eyes directed down at the pitted table and at his half-empty glass. He listens to the rest, and his mouth curls again, this faint amusement that indicates he might be taking Ned and Margot's curiosity in stride moreso than Andrés is.
"Can you blame them? They're probably worried, if somebody is murdering a bunch of kids who are recently Awakened."
He continues to listen: fifteen percent right, interrupting Andrés and Kiara. "Are you sure that Angela knows about the Verbena woman? That she's the one who is behind all of that?" A beat; a little divet appears on Nick's cheek as he bites the inside of it. "It's too soon to know what - to know what might be happening for sure, but use of Mind can...well, it's not outside the realm of possibility that she's doing this and has the whole chantry over there blind to the fact."
Andrés Sepúlveda
Andrés pulls a face that seems to say no he's not sure but he has no reason to believe she doesn't know. It's a nuanced expression that dissipates as Nick chews on the soft tissue inside his mouth.
"I--" He says, snapping his fingers and pointing at Nick. "--did not think of that. You're so smart. Let's celebrate."
More tequila, apparently. He gets up and goes to procure it, taking the empties with him. He's not gone as long as he was the first time, and there's no verbal ceremony either. Just a lift and a clink before he tucks away his second shot and starts to play with the zipper on his bomber jacket without any indication that he's going to remove it.
"I called Angela to ask her about the Order of the Falcon, and when I asked her about this Keeper of Secrets, which Kiara tells me is bad news but that she and someone named Will--" He pronounces the poor kid's name Wee-ill, like it's got two syllables. He really could not give two shits about ever getting rid of his accent. "--already have a relationship with, we got on the subject of the dead apprentice's spirit and her pointing the finger at the Verbena woman, Evelyn, and Angela didn't seem too fazed by it. So Iiii don't know if it sank in or not." A quick pull off his beer. "I did send Ned in to see what the deal with the Order of the Falcon is. Since he's got such a fire under his ass about running off into dangerous situations and dragging Margot with him."
Nicholas Hyde
Smart, Andrés says, and the smile that he gets in return is a little wan. Weary, even, though even if Andrés were to notice (he likely won't), Nick does not appear inclined to offer comment. When the Etherite returns, Nick is studying his watch, a beautiful bit of steel chased with bronze: a gift perhaps from his metal-working wife.
He is slower to take the second shot, though he does take it, and this one is not accompanied by the little cough that had followed the first.
"I don't know if it sank in or not either," he says. "But I was planning to talk to Angela soon anyway. I can bring it up and see if...well, if there's any evidence of control or some sort of..." And here Nick shrugs. What he does know is that if those things exist it surpasses his knowledge; he does not yet have the vocabulary though he knows it can be done.
His brows lift again as Andrés mentions Ned, and there is this short little laugh that follows. "So what did Ned have to say, when you sent him off to join the rich white boys? Is he back yet?"
Andrés Sepúlveda
[perception: just for shits. DO I NOTICE.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4) ( fail )
Andrés Sepúlveda
"Other than spending all of last weekend complaining because I asked him to do something, he didn't have much of anything to say about it. He did ask for a bunch of James Bond gadgets before he went in, like... invisible ink and wireless vital sign monitoring and a... a... an EMP device that would fit in the sole of his shoe. One of these days I'm going to tell them we're going for ice cream, and really we're going to go to the animal shelter, and I'm going to drop them off at the curb and peel out. I don't care if it's considered abandonment. They're driving me crazy." Beat. "Er."
Okay but Andrés what about the thing you asked Ned to do.
"Anyway, he survived. Got some names, but I forgot to pay attention when he was telling us his boring Naked and Afraid story, so..." He makes what is, coincidentally, the ASL sign for FORGET, with a whoosh sound effect for good measure. That information is gone. "And he got invited to go boar hunting, which... I don't know if 'boar hunting' means something different in English than it does in Spanish, but--" Canned laugh. "--he is so not ready, in either language."
Nicholas Hyde
Invisible ink, wireless vital - at some point while Andrés is telling Nick about these devices his brow furrows just a touch. It appears to be bemusement rather than judgment of any kind. "What did Ned expect to do with all that stuff?" A swallow of beer. "I guess he could have just wanted to feel like a spy."
Boar hunting, Andrés says, and Nick laughs and begins shaking his head and takes another drink. HIs beer is going to be empty within the first twenty minutes of them sitting down together. Andrés has this kind of effect.
"I can't imagine Ned doing either kind. I didn't even realize there were boar around here. The kind with tusks, that is."
Grace
Grace thought that she was bad. Well, she is. I mean, when she wants to seriously annoy people into responding, their phones come back to life upon shutdown and won't stop mooing. But the Doc is close.
hey
Hey
nick and i are going to the bar get over here
hey come to the bar
grace
grace
grace
grace where are you
grace i just turned a food processor into a lifespan GPS thingamaboobie it says you're still in your chair
come to the bar
Fucking hell.
Chances are, if she turns her phone off, he'll just turn it on again, too. He'd have that ability, wouldn't he? It's not like the things are alien mysteries, eh? There's always throwing the thing in the toilet, but then...
Why not?
She is trying to be more sociable, isn't she?
Okay, okay, dude, chill. I'll be there.
That doesn't sound... sociable, does it?
:P
Better.
Thus it is that Grace finally meets up with the two of them, having been badgered out of her meditation on the nature of Doritos and Mountain Dew Code Red. The thing that walks into the bar is disheveled, with rumpled jeans and black t-shirt that look like they've just been retrieved from a clean laundry pile. They have.
Andrés Sepúlveda
I guess he could have just wanted to feel like a spy.
"Or an idiot," he says.
For the first time since they sat down, Andrés removes his cellphone from his pocket and starts touching the screen. For someone who can't sit still for longer than five seconds, he's been doing an admirable job of not tearing the label off his beer bottle or shredding coasters or whatever other destructive activities he could be doing with his hands.
As for boars:
"There aren't," he says. "Maybe they go to Arizona or Texas for that. Or maybe I just drink too much. Speaking of."
Having sent Grace what is most likely the fortieth obnoxious SMS in the last hour, Andrés drops the phone on the table and gets up. His beer is empty, and he doesn't grab the empty shot glasses. Either he's not going to bring back tequila, or he forgot about them. It's hard to tell until he comes back.
When he comes back he has a bottle and a glass of beer in one hand and two shots in the other. If Nick protests the tequila, Andrés just shrugs and lines it up in front of himself.
"When you talk to Angela--" Shot. Whoo. "--it's important to know, I think, that the Verbena's name is Evelyn Murray, she has two kids Garret and... some other Yankee na--GENNIFER. With a G. Garrett is missing, Gennifer--oh there she is. GRACIA."
Like she could miss a booth where two disciples are sitting.
"--Gennifer isn't."
Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas does not protest the tequila. Something about the idea of human sacrifice seems to have made him want to drink. He takes the proffered shot and knocks it back, and he accepts the glass of beer as well.
"Garrett?" Nick asks, and he glances up from his watch and meets the Etherite's eyes as the other man offers up the names. There is something wary there beneath the furrow of his brows, behind the sharp look in his eyes that glints birdlike in the dim light of the bar. "Are you sure it wasn't Grant, maybe?"
A long shot, but: perhaps.
"What about Gennifer?"
And here he spies Grace a moment after Andrés calls her name, and he lifts a hand and waggles his fingers toward her.
Grace
It might be easy to miss Nick. He's a bit quiet and unassuming. Andrés, on the other hand...
"Are you done blowing up my phone, man?"
She slides an eye towards Nick's waggled fingers, and... while she thinks hard about what expression to use, the one that's on her face is intense concentration. Maybe anger. But then, oh, there is a confused smile.
"I think Garrett and Grant are two different people," Grace says. "I think. We talking about that shit in Colorado Springs?"
Andrés Sepúlveda
Is he sure it wasn't Grant, maybe?
This would be a good time to break out his What Did I Do Last Night-ometer, but he left it at home. So he rummages through his pockets until he finds an old prescription pad from when he was, you know, a pathology resident. Which means it's not only expired, but it's only good in the state of Maryland. Whatever. He's just scribbling on it to jog his memory, not to hook Nick up with a month's supply of hydrocodone.
[mind 1: real quick roll to make sure he doesn't botch this and end up with all of september's paradox punching him in the face i'm going to finish the post in a minute.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 5, 9) ( success x 3 )
Andrés Sepúlveda
"Who the fuck is Grant?"
That answers that question.
What about Gennifer?
"What about Gennifer?"
Are you done blowing up my phone, man?
He does not scoot over to make room for the Virtual Adept, which means she either gets to sit next to Nick or she has to shove Andrés, who has turned his attention from the prescription pad, now back in his pocket, to his phone, now being battered by his thumbs.
Bloop.
"What?"
Nicholas Hyde
Intense concentration, maybe anger: that's what he sees on Grace as she makes her way over to the two of them. Nick doesn't miss it, even three tequilas and a beer in. He is still the one to make room for Grace when she finally reaches their table, and scoots over to hem himself in against the wall. It's a decision he may regret later, when he looks back and wonders why he didn't leave when he started to feel drunker than he wanted.
"Yeah, the Colorado Springs stuff," he tells Grace as she sits.
"Grant is a kid who...well, I'll tell you about it later, I guess. I'd rather focus on this right now." Deviate too greatly from the topic and they might never return.
"Gennifer...you said that she wasn't missing. It sounded as though you were planning to say something else, or had more to say about her."
Andrés Sepúlveda
"Oh." A beat. "Dammit, Tequila, we talked about this..."
He takes a slug of beer.
Grace
Nick lets her in. The doc is being himself. All this should make sense, and in a way it does -- extra processing power in her mind being diverted to questions, answered for the time being. No hard feelings anywhere. They're all cool, for now. For whatever counts as 'cool' as far as Dr. Sepúlveda is concerned. She takes the offered seat.
She'd say something snarky about her phone having at least thirty messages by now, mostly 'hey', but Nick wants to stay on target, and that's a sentiment she can get behind.
"Sounded to me like Evelyn might be protecting her son. Like maybe he's a... You know. Up to no good. Mom gets all mother-bear, starts covering shit up, including her son..." Grace shrugs. "Family dynamics playing out with people who have veritable nukes up their sleeves isn't all its cracked up to be?"
Andrés Sepúlveda
"When my kid got caught spray painting the underpass, I didn't turn around and push my apprentice into a rift in the spacetime continuum."
Standards, man.
Nicholas Hyde
"She's sacrificing apprentices to a spirit just to protect her son? That doesn't add up," Nick says, and his curls sway as there is a little shake of his head. He is well on his way to tipsy, so a "little shake" is more like a full on jerk of his chin, though he stills rather quickly.
His fingertips are still on the side of his beer glass, and he has yet to sip from it. "I wonder if...I wonder what Margot and Ned heard from that ghost they contacted. I wonder if any of the other spirits in the area know about what's going on."
Grace
"Dude, there's some mothers out there," Grace says, and by the tone, she's using the word 'mother' as an expletive. "I'd hate to know what my mom would do if she were Awake. She'd kill people just to keep up the appearance of being normal."
Grace huffs a breath out through her nose. Yeah, that worked out well for her, giving birth to the weirdest kid ever, right?
"Is there any tequila in here for me?"
Andrés Sepúlveda
Oh would you look at that someone has to stack up the previous two rounds' worth of shot glasses and exit the booth gee that's too bad. Andrés moves almost comically slow, like Grace is a motion-sensing turret gun masquerading as a person, then bolts from the table.
It means he ends up having to dance around another bar patron to avoid a collision, but he's quicker on his feet than he looks. Being attractive and having an accent lets him get away with more social cock-ups than is probably fair, but given that he's a bit of a madman on a good day...
Well. There's some mild laughter from the stranger and the two part ways without slamming into each other and then he's at the bar and Nick and Grace are alone for a couple of minutes.
Nicholas Hyde
"Well, sure," he says, "but that doesn't...if she were just out to protect her son, I could see killing someone who she perceived as a threat, but I don't...I don't understand why she would perceive the threat from some apprentices, and I also don't see the need for the extra step. I feel like there's some missing information."
There is still a little furrow to his brow as he bows his head and looks down into his beer glass. He finally drinks from it as Andrés gets up and leaves the table and somehow avoids scattering both himself and the shot glasses across the bar.
"I guess I'll just have to talk to Angela soon. I was meaning to anyway."
Grace
"Apprentices may not have much in the way of raw destructive power, no. But they still have access to the most powerful thing of all -- information. Look what Ned and Margot went and did, eh? The word gets out that Apprentices are dying, and all the sudden they all get really interested in what's going on. And thus targets on their backs.
"The fact that a secret-keeping spirit is involved just means there's a piece of information out there that somebody wants kept in the dark. Evelyn's involved, but her son is missing. I don't think she'dkill her son, but then why is he missing?"
Andrés about wipes out the bar on his way to... grabbing more shots? It's a mystery to Grace. But then, that brings up another question -- will he remember any of this conversation tomorrow anyway?
"Be careful. Angela believes the line about this all being a Techy getting trigger happy. She might tell her boss anything we have to say."
Nicholas Hyde
"I'm more interested in hearing what she has to say than in telling her anything," Nick says, and there is a shrug of one of his shoulders that follows his statement. One of his, though: perhaps he'll feel differently when he meets his Traditionmate face to face.
Perhaps she'll feel differently. It's difficult to say.
He takes a swallow of his beer at the rest of what Grace has to say, and shrugs again. "A lot of questions. Like I said, I think we're missing some information."
Andrés Sepúlveda
He comes back bearing three shots of tequila and no signs of the three already in his system having any sort of effect. He's acting the way he always acts, which if Grace hasn't figured out already means he's used to functioning with his blood alcohol at the level that causes most people to vomit or pass out just means Grace doesn't know him very well.
Again with the lack of pressure on Nick to take his shot. Grace's, however, lands in front of her with a thunk that would have sloshed the fluid over the side if the bartender weren't putting the shots into double glasses.
"Is it later yet?" he asks as he drops himself onto his side of the bar again. Shot. "Because I still don't know who--" He puts up his fist to stifle a belch and then proceeds on as if nothing happened. "--Grant is."
Grace
"I like Angela, don't get me wrong. I think if she were to derail our investigations, it wouldn't be out of malice. I do think she's being duped though, just like a lot of the Mages over there..."
Thunk.
Tequila.
Ahh, good. She lifts the glass and throws it back, because fuck having to think about family. Let's think about how much her throat is on fucking fire.
"Auugh..."
"Grant is... Well, it really depends on whether you mean Grant Junior, or Grant the Third. The Third goes by Nomz, and he is in the care of Sera right at the moment. Grant Junior is a little shit who ran a streaming snuff porn site I deleted, because fuck that."
Nicholas Hyde
A shot is set down in front of him, though Nick doesn't yet reach for it. He eyes it, though, considering the wisdom of what he is about to do: but he was already lost the moment he entered this bar. He knew that. We knew that. Pen is going to be coming to drive him home.
So he takes up the shot and knocks it back.
"Grant is - well, Grant the Third, I guess, is Grant Junior's son. He was raised in isolation and helped his father with the coding of the website. Mostly out of the feeling he needed to pay his father back for raising him, and the fear that his father would kill him if he didn't comply." Nick blows a hard breath out through his nostrils and takes a swallow from his glass of beer.
"I've been going up to visit him once or twice a week. Angela was the one who found him. It's why I was planning to talk to her."
Andrés Sepúlveda
Andrés leans as far back into the bench as he can, which is only about another half-inch or so but he does manage to press himself into the cushy foam to blatantly tip his phone into landscape orientation and fit the other two into the crosshairs of his phone.
"Act like you're having a good time," he says, "I'm documenting how much you suck at holding your liquor and sending it to your wife."
Focus, Dr. Sepúlveda.
"Wait," he puts the phone away again, "how old is this kid?"
Grace
Yup, right when she starts talking about streaming snuff porn sites, that's when Andrés decides to take a picture. Grace, once she realizes what's going on, does not look like she's having a good time. Horrified, is more like it.
So, a tipsy Nick and a weirded-out Grace in that shot, if he took it.
"Dude, no," she says, puts a hand up to protect her face from getting captured like that. He puts his phone away, and yet she's still eyeing him like he might just try again...
"Like, seventeen, eighteen something. He got press-ganged into the family business pretty young though. Like I said, there are some crappy fucking parents out there, man."
Andrés Sepúlveda
"And where is he right now?"
Nicholas Hyde
The expression on Nick's face, in the photo that is sent to his wife, is probably what Pen has begun to expect from outings with Andrés at this point: his eyes are just slightly unfocused, and he is staring off into the ether. Somewhere off to the side and past Andrés. There is a glass of beer in his hand.
A moment later his gaze settles on the Etherite again. "I've had a beer and four shots of tequila! I can hold my liquor fine."
He takes another swallow from his glass. "He's...yeah. Seventeen or eighteen. He's up in a cabin that Sera has in the mountains. He's safe, for now. He's legally dead, though. We've been talking about ways he can get his life started over again once we can figure out how to keep him safe from his dad."
Grace
"Somewhere. I'm going to have to ask Sera where this cabin of hers is exactly? But I haven't really... uh... had the time."
There's really just... too much going on.
"I tracked Grant Junior all the way to Colorado Springs, speaking of hellholes. He was headed to Texas, it looked like, from some of his purchases. But he started paying for things with cash and went off-grid. I lost him. I'll find him again," she says, pretty sure of herself.
Andrés Sepúlveda
[manip + subterfuge: i'm totally not annoyed that this is the first i'm hearing about this and you people are making me ask questions and give a shit.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 2) ( botch x 1 )
Andrés Sepúlveda
[rolling damage for smacking his head on the bench back]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Andrés Sepúlveda
[soak]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Andrés Sepúlveda
Andrés is fucking annoyed that this is the first he's hearing about this.
He sigh he lets out to accompany his eyes' ascent to the ceiling is probably the same expression his students see on an hourly basis. That his skull thunks on the back of the booth helps as an auditory cue that he's annoyed, but it also fucking hurts.
"Son of a bitch," he says, rubbing the back of his neck and frowning like the bench did something wrong and not him. "Voy a fumar, regreso en seguida."
And out the back door to the smoking patio he goes.
Nicholas Hyde
Nick can tell, unfortunately, that Andrés is annoyed. Nick can generally tell when there's a shift in mood, when someone is upset, when someone isn't feeling all that well. When someone wants to avoid a topic. Sometimes it's difficult to be insightful.
His brows are already beginning an apologetic furrow when Andrés smacks his head on the back of the bench, swears, and begins to make his way out to the smoking patio. He makes a low noise in the back of his throat and glances after the other man's back as he makes his retreat. "Think we should go after him?"
A beat. "Let me know if you find Junior."
Grace
Voy... go. Fumar? Smoke. Something something something. And then he goes out back. Right.
"I... think we pissed him off somehow."
And that has Grace's hackles up. Whenever people react emotionally in ways that don't make any bloody sense, the fear creeps in.
"He probably wants to go be... by himself? That's the reason why I always leave. When I do. Like that, I mean," she says, sighs. "I'll let you know."
Nicholas Hyde
"I don't think he's pissed, exactly. Andrés is always kind of ornery," Nick says, and there is a wave of his hand. Whatever he noticed, he doesn't seem especially worked up about it. "He'll come back in and he'll have forgotten about it already."
Nick takes another swallow from his glass. "How are you doing, Grace?"
Grace
"Aside from," she says, wiggles her fingers in the direction of the smoking patio. "I wish I could get these murdering assholes out of my state and get back to.... You know. Stuff."
She looks over at some detail of the ceiling reflected in the mirror behind the bar.
"How's things... with Pen and all? She still pissed off?"
Nicholas Hyde
"We haven't really talked about it, since then," Nick says. "It's her Tradition business. If I met someone who had left the Chakravanti, I'm not really sure how I'd feel. So if she's still upset I can't really fault her."
He drains the remainder of his glass. "Once we get this cleared up there'll be another thing. It's that way everywhere."
Grace
If she's still upset, Nick can't fault her. But Grace?
She inhales, still looking at the ceiling behind the mirror. There's so much that's wrong with that whole sentiment. There are people out there who really do give a whole lot of fucks what others are comfortable with when it comes to their own beliefs and practices. That's what started the Technocracy after all, isn't it?
The Traditions are supposed to be better than that. Supposed to be.
But her held breath gets let out as a sigh, not a tirade.
"I guess so," she says, flat and distracted. "When the doc gets back, tell him I'm sorry for whatever."
She slides out of her seat, gets to her feet. "I'm going to go 'voy a fumar' before I say something I don't mean."
Nicholas Hyde
"If you really wouldn't mean it if you said it," Nick says, and a glance slants in Grace's direction as she stands up to get out of the booth, "then that's probably for the best."
He gives his glass a nudge to spin it away from the ring of condensation it is sitting in. "I'll tell Andrés you had to leave, sure."
Andrés Sepúlveda
So Grace couldn't sit and talk to Nick for five minutes without having to leave. He's not going to hold that against her. Quietly judge her, sure, but he's not a man who holds grudges. He would have to have a far better memory than he actually does, or else not drink to deal with the fact that he is in deep emotional pain and time is taking its sweet damned time healing that particular wound.
He does come back inside, doing so holding the door for a pair of bleach blondes who were out there with him. Both women look like they could bench press him, and they go back to the billiards table they had abandoned while he goes back to the booth.
"Leave?" he asks. "Why'd you have to leave?" Plop. "Sit down, asshole, Penelope's going to be here in like two minutes and it's your turn to buy." A beat. He looks straight at Nick. "I leave you two alone for five minutes..."
Grace
She shouldn't even have asked the question. That was her whole point, wasn't it? That there's too many other, more important things to worry about than meaningless squabbles over who is in what Tradition.
But it does matter to her. Elliot matters to her. Unity among their people in Denver, that matters to her possibly more than anything.
And then, Andrés is back. With bad news. She stops in her tracks on her way out, but only to give him the look of severe discomfort. "Pen's why I'm leaving. I don't want a fight. It's for the best, honestly."
It's your turn to buy, he says, so she digs around in her pocket, pulls out a wallet, slaps a few twenties down in front of him.
Andrés Sepúlveda
And he looks from Nick back to Grace.
"So don't fight with her! Is that... Is that really that hard?"
He missed something, apparently. Pushes the money back at her.
"I don't want your blood money."
Nicholas Hyde
There is a look from Andrés to Grace and then back again. Nick glances toward his empty beer glass. Longingly.
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Nicholas Hyde
[Oops. Ignore that roll.]
Andrés Sepúlveda
[he was totally trying to stealthily sober up, wasn't he. LANDO.]
Grace
Her cash gets shoved back at her, so she picks it back up. Promptly turns away from them as the twist in her gut gets worse. Yes. That's pretty much the point of leaving. It would be that hard, if Pen's in a mood to go there. Two minutes? Not much time. She walks over to the bartender and gives lays down the money, to order them some more shots on her dime.
Whatever. Blood money? He doesn't know the half of it.
Bartenders though? They don't really care where the money comes from.
Andrés Sepúlveda
[lol rolling "empathy," maybe we can botch two rolls today.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Kiara Woolfe
You'll never again in your life meet a woman who could so capably stroll into a dive bar (or, in all honestly, any bar in any town) and somehow manage to bring with her the sensation that regardless of time or season; the bloom of Spring and vitality had just erupted right then and there. There's also a particular sort of charisma that flows along with the pagan, it can't be denied.
Those boots take steps inside and there's eyes on the figure with wild, tousled hair and a red mouth. One that curls at the edge when it takes in the vantage before it. The brunette begins to thread her way toward the bar and a hip settles against it.
A thin scarf that seemed more decorative than substantial was unwound from her neck. A familiar figure manifests as Kiara sets a boot on a stool and sets money on the counter. Dark, expressive eyes find her; linger on Grace for a moment and the Verbena pivots just so: "Grace Evans, as I live and breathe." The healer's fingernail slides over a menu, taps something and there's a nonverbal response from the bartender.
Our scene unfolds, the lady enters and orders a drink.
Kiara's attention, momentarily, cast over the other female's shoulder. "Are you engaging in bad habits without me?"
Grace
[Obviously, something has happened between Grace and Pen. What that something might be, Andrés can continue to wonder about. But aside from that, Grace is pretty damned uncomfortable. Never quite at home in social situations, that one, even when everyone involved is perfectly happy and friendly and getting along. Now that people most assuredly are not, she just wants to gtfo.]
Andrés Sepúlveda
He watches her go, his expression neutral save for the fact that he has his tongue pressed into the back of an incisor to keep him from harrying her on her way out the door, and a minute stitch has pulled tauter between his brows. He doesn't know what just happened, but if Nick wants him to know, he'll say something.
In the meantime Andrés sighs, this time without almost cracking his skull open on the sturdy booth wall, and removes his cellphone from his pocket again. This time it's to use as a prop. A stand-in for a tape recorder, perhaps.
"Idea for an experiment," he says.
He still has beer. Poor Nick does not.
One of Kiara's bad habits looks over his shoulder towards the bar, makes eye contact without changing his expression, and waves his sleeping phone before ducking back into the bar.
".......... stop having ideas."
Grace
"Kiara," she says, and the look on her face telegraphs that she is tired, that things are woefully not right. The bartender lines up three shots next to her at the bar. "Save me, and take these with you to the boys?"
"I have to get out of here."
Pen will be here any minute...
"Like, now."
Nicholas Hyde
A sigh puffs out of Nick; blown upward, it rustles through the curls that corkscrew out over his forehead. He rests his fingertips on his beer as he casts a glance over to the bar. "Sorry about that," he says to the Etherite. "She ran into me and Pen when we were at a play last month and had Kalen - Elliot? - along with her. I guess he's leaving the Order and Pen was angry about it. Grace is angry that Pen was angry. That's really it."
Nick follows Andrés' wave to its natural conclusion, the Verbena, and there is a flicker of a pleased smile before he lifts a hand to wave toward her. She is another face he has not seen for months yet.
"Your ideas do seem to get you into trouble more often than not."
Andrés Sepúlveda
"Okay. Okay okay. Indulge me in one more for the road. The proverbial... the road I'm not actually getting on and using, because I'm not leaving. Just... the concept of ideas, it's leaving. In whatever ideas travel in. One more, ready?"
He might be starting to feel the alcohol a little bit.
"I quit this Science shit, change my name, maybe start, eh... I wear a mustache, you know, so I can twirl my finger around it--" Pantomime. "--when I'm thinking, NOT OF IDEAS, just... whatever normal people think of, what brand of cat food to buy the cat, there's a cat component to this idea, and instead of teaching wide-eyed little baby idiots how to break the laws of reality, I teach... anatomy. Human anatomy. At a community college. In Vermont. Yeah. That's... that's what I should do. There's no possible way that can get me into trouble."
Kiara Woolfe
Some of that easy flirtation ebbs with the look on Grace's face. Kiara's eyes ticking over it and beyond to Andrés and Nicholas for a beat. There's a brief cant of her head, a ghosting smile before her focus returns to the other woman. She ignores her own drink as it's set down in front of her (wine, of course, it had to be red wine for the Verbena) for a moment and her hand finds Grace's shoulder.
Brief, bracing. A sweep of Kiara's perfume. "Of course." She squeezes, just the once. Easy to forget, sometimes, that beneath the glamorous lacquer was another layer. "Go, let me deal with these two. Grace," this, Kiara's parting commentary as she collects together glasses to juggle.
"It was good to see you. Take care of yourself," Another brief survey of her face. "We'll talk, soon."
Nicholas Hyde
Nick's eyebrows arch, waggle as though to indicate that he is ready to hear whatever idea Andrés is about to throw out. The skeptical slant of his mouth suggests that he is not at all sure about this idea even before he hears it.
"So instead of teaching wide-eyed baby idiots how to break the laws of reality, you'll trade it for teaching wide-eyed baby idiots about bone structure and basic life skills?" A flicker of a smile, here. "Are you getting that tired of Science, Andrés?"
Grace
She nods. "Thanks so much. Yeah. We should totally get together," she says. Just not right now... "You, me, a bottle of wine, and a hot spring to dip our feet into? Sound good?"
Right. That sounds really good.
"I think so, at least." A weary smile.
And then, she is officially, finally, out the door.
