It's mid-afternoonish, or at least the sun hasn't set. That means no vampires, which has got to be a plus, right? Definitely a bonus point when one wants to walk about and get lost in her phone to the point of running into things. Or at least, she would, were she not at least a little aware of distances and the existence/non-existence of such.
Living downtown has its perks, like being able to just walk to places of interest when you don't want to physically make the coffee yourself.
It's late in the day for coffee. Grace so doesn't care. A night of hacking away at her keyboard is in store anyway, not sleep. Sleep is for people who... have day jobs or something.
Jeans, t-shirt (with a sloth on front of it, for irony's sake) and sneakers fill out the most of her outfit, but this fact gets ignored by just about everyone on the street. Just another person, nobody special. Certainly not sticking out, at least.
Andrés
[perc + aware: not sticking out, you say?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Andrés
Just about everyone, save for a man standing outside a bar that, from the outside, manages to look upscale and dive-y at the same time. As for the man smoking outside, well. He's wearing a suit and his beard and hair are trimmed and his glasses are clean, so he looks dapper until he opens his mouth.
He's minding his own business until a certain scrawny hacker and her resonance catch his attention. A moment to finish blowing his lungful of carcinogens out into the air, and then he sticks the pads of his thumb and middle finger into the corners of his mouth.
That's the sort of whistle one typically emits before hollering for one's spawn to get their asses back to the house. At least he doesn't holler. Not unless she doesn't look up from her phone.
Grace
[Perc + Awareness!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )
Grace
Grace looks up from her phone in the kind of puzzled expression of one who isn't used to being whistled at. Surely whoever it is doesn't mean her, right?
Except no. No, that feeling of... Well, creepiness. The chill of something crawling up the back of her neck. Dr. Sepúlveda. That has her even more confused, why would he whistle at her? But there he is.
She cocks her head at him, but walks over, because he might have had some reason to get her attention, eh?
"Hey. What's up?"
Andrés
In an alternate universe, Dr. Sepúlveda figured if Grace didn't want to look up from her phone and engage in the world around her then who the hell was he to drag her out of it. She would have kept on walking and he would have finished his cigarette and gone back inside and neither one of them would have had to deal with the fact that they don't know how to talk to each other.
This is not that universe. This is the universe where Dr. Sepúlveda got her attention and answers her question with a flick of his eyebrows and a, "Nothing. Where're you going?" It doesn't matter. He doesn't wait for her to answer. He flicks the ash off his cigarette and gestures to the bar door. "Come inside, have a drink, you look thirsty."
That's the end of the discussion. He takes one last drag off his filter, drops it into the butt can, and disappears down the three concrete steps that lead to the bar's entryway.
Grace
"Well, yeah. That's because I am," she says, as though stating the obvious. "I was on the way to Mmm, Coffee, because I liked the name."
She looks toward the street, back toward the Mage, as if deciding what to do exactly.
"I can have a drink. Not, like, a lot of them. I try not to code drunk, or I leave myself 'hilarious' comments and code that usually isn't. So, you know..."
Not useful. Also, figuring out last night's Perl is hard enough when you weren't drunk while writing it.
There is an alternate universe where Grace did not decide to stop, who went on to Mmm, Coffee and left Andrés where he was. This is not that universe... In this one, they both decide to be sociable, to whatever end.
Andrés
To his credit he does pause at the threshold, door held open and weight balanced on the ball of one foot because he was about to keep right on trucking until Grace began explaining why she isn't going to have a lot of drinks. She tries not to code drunk.
His eyebrows can lift up pretty damned high. Having apprentices, plural, will teach a person to express their judgmental bemusement with nonverbal cues because nonverbal cues cause less emotional distress. His mouth is slightly ajar as if he wants very much to interject but can't find an appropriate place to do so. As she goes on, Sepúlveda's lofted brows slam down into a frown.
The ... what? in response is silent. He shakes it off with another flick of his eyebrows and a shake of his head.
"Okay. No drinking and dorking." He snaps his fingers and points at her. "You got it."
He holds the door open for her to go in ahead of him, unless she refuses to let a man in a suit who isn't her boyfriend hold open a door for her, in which case it's no skin off his ass if she grabs the door behind him.
In either case they end up in the bar, which is much much shittier on the inside than it is on the outside and occupied by the career alcoholics and the youngbloods just off work, most of whom are at tables instead of at the trough. The bartender is wearing a crop top and a look of bored disdain that only lifts when Sepúlveda returns to his space at one end of the bar and gives her a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
He orders two tequilas, a Modelo, and a whatever Grace is having.
Grace
"Ahh, a... Modelo," she says to the bartender, shrugs. Hadn't really planned on this, so she just goes with what Andrés got, minus the tequila shots.
"Drinking and..." Dorking. A dork, she has learned, is a whale penis. So, that kind of sounds like a porno only a cetacean could love. But... yeah. "Well, you know. Overdoses of caffeine are better for that sort of activity? Clarity. Needs clarity."
She looks around at the place, not in a judgmental manner, but rather examining the boundaries, eyes gliding along where the walls meet ceilings.
"I try not to code while high either, because I end up having these amazing thoughts that just end up interspersed into non-compiling code, and I find out later that the color green was suuuuper important to the encryption I was trying to fix. It is. But, you know, not exactly like that."
Andrés
Glasses are coming off. He rakes them off his face with his left hand, bereft of the wedding band he had worn prior to Alexander's rescue in a way that is now obviously permanent, and leaves them lain upside down on the bar top so he can distribute shots. No lime or salt. One of them belongs to Grace, if its proximity to her Modelo is any indication.
"Salud," he says before he tucks his away like it's water.
If she doesn't take hers, he wrinkles his nose in a way that seems contemplative, then shrugs and tosses it back without ceremony. Follows it up with a belch he stifles with a fist.
In either case, once his breath has gone to fire, he asks, "So coding is a, eh..." He makes a rocking motion with his right hand. "... norepinephrine-only sort of activity? Interesting."
Grace
She does take hers, if only because it's allocated to her, and that seems like the thing Andrés wants her to do. Tequila shots reminds her of William, back in the day. Especially when she had to hide it from him when he was on painkillers, because she knew he'd want some...
She spins the shotglass, because this is going to sting going down, isn't it? Tosses it back and makes this face like she just downed cough medicine. Cough medicine on fire.
She nods to his assessment of coding, and makes a small noise that doesn't quite sound like speech.
"Augh, man," she says. That's what counts as her 'Salud.'
Andrés
"What's that?" He holds two fingers behind the ear nearest to Grace. He's older than she is but not old enough for his hearing to be going. Without the glasses on, the mischievousness inherent in his green eyes is brighter. "Oh, ANOTHER? Sure!"
He knows the bartender's name. Laura. Laura isn't doing anything too important at the moment, just leaning against the back counter and alternating between watching the television and talking shit with the girl nursing a pint on the other side of the bar, so when she looks their way and locks eyes with Andrés, all he has to do is say her name and hold up two fingers and say "Por favor" and she's on it.
"Anything worth doing at all is worth doing drunk," he says.
Grace
She gives him a glare without any real malice behind it. "I have to prep for a big... thing tonight, man. I got a lead on that case you clued me in on."
So, you know, let's perhaps not down all the tequila in the place? She sighs, looks at the incoming shots. At least the second won't hurt as much? If she even decides to go for it.
"If I keep doing shots, I'm just going to go home and sleep... Maaaybe send people texts I'll really regret."
Andrés
Bafflement again.
"Why send them, then?" And here are their shots. "No regrets!"
Down his goes. The breath he lets go afterwards sounds refreshed and not horrified, but then again, he carries a flask everywhere he goes and seems to always have two drinks in him, minimum. Attempting to keep up with a Mad Scientist at anything is never a good idea, but attempting to keep up with a Mad Scientist who drinks tequila for breakfast tends to end in vomiting.
He does not order a third round. Not yet, at least.
After she's absorbed the second shot:
"What's the lead?"
Grace
"Because, at the time, when I am drunk, I'll think it's a great idea and super fun?" she says, eyes the shot, shrugs. Downs it. That will be the last. She really doesn't want to start sending that Isolde person random thoughts before she's met the woman. Bad first impressions, no?
She makes another face, not quite as severe a reaction this time. But it still feels like burning cough medicine.
"Ahh. I'm going to turn over whatever I can about these... Flateral Order of the Falcon people. I think they might be connected. Big money, love guns, maybe not so thoroughly moral."
Yes. Flateral. Flatulent? No. She means Fraternal, but that's apparently too much of a tongue twister.
Andrés
Considering who she's talking to, Grace can rest somewhat assured that the man who cannot pronounce the word 'Grace' properly isn't going to ding her for transposing her Ls and her Rs. His wife was Japanese, for Christ's sake. She doesn't know that though.
"So these falcon people are the ones nabbing apprentices and doing fuck knows what with them?"
No one tells him nothing, apparently.
Grace
"I don't really know that yet," she says. "Don't know if the guy I found has any connection either. The evidence wasn't actually messed with -- whoever they are, they're just that good at covering their tracks."
There doesn't seem to be a third round forthcoming, which is good. She won't have to refuse him...
"That means I have to look harder, that's all. Even if I do find something on the 'enlightened bird men' it could be that not every member was involved either. To find out what's really what, that's... Well. Knowing is half the battle."
She shoots him finger-guns and a smirk. Battling. Did Andrés ever watch G.I. Joe? Is he too old for that shit? Whatever.
Andrés
As a matter of fucking fact, Andrés did watch G.I. Joe when he was a kid. He was, like, six when it came out. He watched the shit out of it.
He also drinks way too much and can't remember half of what he did yesterday, so whether or not the reference sticks, Grace can't really tell by the blank stare she receives in response to the finger guns. Well... not blank blank, not like the lights are on but nobody's in there. More like whoever is in there is thinking about something else.
After a few seconds of silence he sits up, straight and abrupt, and takes a pull off his beer.
"Who's the guy you found?"
Grace
"The guy who belongs to the hair," she says. "The one who led me to the falcons."
Her eyes track the boundaries of the room again. Nobody's really paying much attention except occasionally the bartender, and that only because they're paying customers, probably. Still, it's good to check from time to time, no?
"He was at least presenting to be this rich dude. Carried no ID, no credit cards in his name. Just one with the word 'Peregrine' on it. Later that night, he showed it to his girlfriend, who asked if one of the murder victims had 'gotten in'. Nope. I asked Angela about it, and she said it might be the falcons. Like, maybe that's his code-name or whatever."
A murder hobbiest group would have code names, right? It makes sense... In a morbid way.
Andrés
"'Peregrine.'"
Interesting.
Andrés drums his fingers on the bar top, considering this information. Or maybe considering how many fucks he wants to try to dig up. It sounds as if Grace and the girls on the force have it under control. Nothing else has come his way from Colorado Springs.
"I wonder if they were going for the Roman term, or Falco peregrinus..."
Grace
Truth be told, the reason why she has yet to flag down Dr. Sepúlveda and tell him all this is the distinct impression she got of him the last time. That he truly gave only enough fucks to pass on the information. Why bother somebody with stuff they don't even want to hear?
But now it serves as a kind of conversation topic. Like the weather. Or unicorns.
"I wonder why they would give a newbie the cool name. I mean, there's Black. Brown. Red-necked. Wonder who got the name Redneck?"
Andrés
No. No weather or unicorns. The last time they talked about unicorns he had to hitch a ride back to the city with the filthy pagan. Look where that got him.
This is a man who gives so few fucks about anything that he set aside his busy schedule of screwing around in his lab doing important science stuff to rescue some stupid Orphan who got himself captured by the Technocracy. Motherfucker didn't even send him a thank you card or anything. Kids these days. Grace is probably right not to bother him.
"I have no idea," he says. Takes another slug of his beer. He considers the dwindling contents but doesn't flag down the bartender yet.
Grace
"Neither will I, until I start looking into their shit," Grace says, and un-leans off the bar.
It seems, perhaps, that this topic of conversation has gone dry, and the man isn't really in the mood for light-heartedness. At least, that's what Grace picks up upon. She could just... leave, right? The door's over there.
"So, um. What... What have you been up to?"
Andrés
[perc + empathy: do you want to leave, or...]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 8) ( success x 1 )
Andrés
His eyebrows lift, slightly, when she decides to stick around and make small talk even though she's going through the motions of withdrawing.
Green eyes linger on her face for a moment, gears whirring behind them, and then he laughs. It's short-lived, but the smile lingers sardonic on his face. It's unfortunate, perhaps. Figures he's handsome and highly intelligent but has no fucking social skills whatsoever.
"You don't have to stay if you don't want to," he says. "The coding, eh?"
Grace
[Grace doesn't often strike other people as the type to let things get in the way of what she wants to do. Nobody's tied her to the bar? Okay, then she's probably here of her own volition. It's possible she has conflicting 'wants'...]
Grace
She shrugs. "Yeah. I get on a track of thought and sometimes it's hard to derail." Her hand goes up to her face, she scratches an eyebrow. "But, you know. I should talk to people more. I don't do that enough."
Why did he just laugh at her question? He just really doesn't want to talk about himself? Okay. Talking to people can be tough business. The difficulty involved in talking with this guy? Well, she's not normally clear-headed enough to make sense of it.
"Sometimes, I'm not good with people," she says, her eyes darting. "I sure as hell am not good at talking with you. Practice, maybe? I'll figure it out?"
Andrés
"Figure what out?"
He sits up a little straighter, turns on his barstool to face her a little head-onner. He's still leaning his left elbow on the bar but the turning opens up his posture a bit.
"What were we just doing?" A jerk of his thumb behind him, like to indicate a few minutes ago. A frown tinged with an air of not taking this seriously. "Was that not talking? What was that?"
Grace
"That was me relaying information, and that's not the same as me being friendly, or..." she shrugs again.
It's weird. She's seen him, having a raucous time with other people, trading in banter and good-natured insults. And... she looks confused. Was that one of them?
"I mean, I could sit here and talk at you all night. I'm sure you'd appreciate that. Probably get up and leave at some point, and I wouldn't stop. That's still technically talking, right? Not good talking, but talking..."
AndrésSomething about the shift in tone has Andrés drawing a deep breath, holding onto it, and letting it back out again. He kills his beer, and when Laura comes over to check on them he acquiesces to another round of beer and tequila, plus whatever Grace wants.
As she trails off he holds up a hand in a mild-mannered yet universal gesture pleading for cessation.
"Just..." Another breath out before he returns his glasses to his face. "Look. No, I would not appreciate you talking at me all night. You wanna practice having a, ah...? A, what, a friendly conversation?" He knocks back his third shot like it's punctuation. "Let's do it."
GraceGrace wants nothing. Passes on the round, because -- as she points out -- she still has a beer. It's a good prop. Doing its job. Being an excuse.
"Okay," she says, looks around. Seconds pass as she thinks of what to talk about.
With some people, that's easy. Kalen, well, their topics of conversation revolve around the silliness inherent in being. Like topiaries in the shape of dinosaurs, or what names to give computers so that they will know what to call each other when they're sentient.
That's probably not Dr. Sepúlveda's thing. That route has been trod, and he tossed it aside claiming that it wasn't 'correct'.
With Mike, well -- the two of them could lay around and talk non-stop about the conceptualizations of entropy for days. They have.
But, what the hell would this guy have in common to talk about?
"What... Well, I know what your job is, eh? What got you into medicine in the first place?"
Andrés"Well..."
He scratches his beard as he considers a question he hasn't had to answer in a while. Answering that question fully clothed while at a bar with a woman who thinks she doesn't know how to talk to him is different than answering it in bed with a woman who likes being around him.
"I went to DU on a scholarship. Originally I was studying biochemistry out of, you know, normal curiosity, but then my daughter was born, and I had to start thinking about, eh, a career, supporting her, her mother was Verbena and--" Heh. "--I mean, my parents, they're Mexican. They both worked two jobs, sent most of their money back home to my grandparents, but I wanted more for her than..." A slug off his beer like to reel himself back in to the original point. "Anyway, I had a, eh, a passion for medicine, pathology in particular, I was good at it, I was good at explaining it to other people, so I went into it in the hopes that my work would, ah, provide for my family and allow me to contribute to the field, and it did, so."
GraceGrace's face brightens a bit as he talks. He wanted a better life for his family. And pathology, well. That suits the guy. One of the few medical specializations that doesn't require at least some level of people-skills.
That's very pot calling the kettle black, but there's a reason why Grace herself has not had a customer service job. At least, not for long.
"I went to DU too. For a while. Until I kept getting abducted and infected, and oh -- the Virtual Adepts took away my ability to use computers, which made a computer science degree extremely difficult all the sudden.
"I wanted that degree so I could get away from my family. Didn't want to have to depend on them anymore."
That would require, you know, actually talking to some of them.
AndrésSomething in the way she concedes this tells him there's more to the story than typical young woman yearning for independence. If he asks, that's going to create a reciprocal disclosure sort of environment and then they're going to start becoming friends which is how friendly conversation occurs and she can see the burden this places on him.
He does it anyway.
"Did you, ah... get away from them?""
Grace"For the most part," she says. "I mean, now, it'd be really hard to sit down at Christmas, you know? 'What happened to you lately, dear?' 'Oh, I helped find a victim of a plant zombie spirit. Totally normal womanly things, I promise...'"
Man, that would just start up their desire to get her into psychiatric treatment again. Only this time, they might actually have a point.
"They used to find me every now and then, call up and be like 'Grace, you're crazy and we're going to fix you' and I'd be like 'Who gave you my number, did you cry at Doctor Williamson or something?'" she laughs, the kind of way one does when talking about painful things. It's okay, you can tell because I'm laughing, right?
Andrés"Okay, let's..." He rubs at the side of his nose with the pad of a finger. "... let's back up a second."
This is what his apprentices have to look forward to whenever they drop their emotional trauma on him. He has never been good with emotions, especially not when they come out of nowhere.
One time his daughter came home upset because the boys at school were snapping her bra strap. Her mother would have been the better person to have fielded that particular problem, but Hinata wasn't in Miami at the time. Andrés, though, had sat her down and discussed the disparity between female and male maturation rates and the proliferation of toxic masculinity in western culture and next time a boy does that here's where to elbow him so you knock the wind out of him.
"Did they accuse you of craziness before your Awakening, or did the Awakening cause the accusations of craziness?"
Grace"My mom accuses me of craziness because she... it's a common thing with narcissists. When you turn on them," Grace says, shrugs. "I can only imagine how it would have been if I'd Awakened in that house."
For a moment, Grace looks truly bothered by the thought. She's reminded of someone else now going through it even worse. Grant, the teenage Apprentice, son of a sadistic murdering asshole.
Not good. It would not have been good.
"I have heard of that happening to people though. Getting sent to a hospital because you Awakened and don't have anyone around to tell you it's okay."
AndrésGiven the way he's nodding, it seems Andrés has also heard of that happening.
"Most people can't choose their Awakenings," he says, "and I don't know anybody who chooses their family. You're not depending on them anymore, are you?"
GraceShe looks at him and raises a brow. "I have a shit-ton of money, a roof over my head, and people who actually give a shit about me. I'm good."
It's not exactly the same as having a family, but she has picked a few people out to be a patchwork replacement. You can choose a family after the fact, even if they're not blood related. It still hurts. If she's honest with herself, when her mom and dad finally die, she'll bawl her eyes out. There won't be a chance anymore, past that point, no hope that they'll ever apologize.
Not that there is much hope.
"You ah... You said you made some contributions to the field, huh? What contributions?"
Way to change the subject, yes?
AndrésGiven what they were just talking about, he looks amused by what just happened. His elbow is still leaning on the bar, but he rests his chin on his thumb and his first two fingers against his chin as she shuts down that line of questioning and changes the subject.
"So that--" He gestures between them with the hand not resting against his face. "Was that friendly conversation, or was that relaying information?"
Grace"I don't know. I think we already covered the fact that I'm terrible at this," Grace says. "Both?"
She turns her attention to the tiny beads of condensation fogging up the side of her bottle, untouched because it is more a totem than anything. Draws a finger through it.
"But, I mean. It's not information that you needed, to like, keep yourself or somebody safe or anything. I'd tell somebody I personally loathed where not to be if they didn't want to get hurt, you know? That kind of information exchange isn't necessarily friendly."
Andrés"Let me tell you what I think."
The way he says it is authoritarian, as if she does not have a choice, but that's just the way he is. He's used to being the smartest person in the room, and if not the smartest then at least an expert in the field that happens to be the current topic of discussion. What life experience he has accumulated helps him fill in gaps where he might not have doctorate levels of knowledge in a subject, and besides that, he is - or, rather, was - a father and a mentor in both the mundane and Awakened senses.
Other people have a better rapport with him because other people, in general, have better social skills than he does. It's easy to serve as a foil for his manic energy when whatever he says bounces off the other person.
Hell, Margot disregards somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty percent of what comes out of his mouth, and Margot's a nineteen-year-old girl.
Anyway. He sits up, takes a killing swallow off his beer, and when Laura comes back over he says nah he's going to close out his tab thank you though. Back to what he thinks:
"I think if you tell yourself you're bad at something long enough, you're going to believe it, and you are going to be bad at it. If you want to live in a world where you're terrible at talking to other people, that's--" He gives the receipt a cursory inspection before taking out his wallet and shucking free the bills necessary to cover the total plus tip Laura and returns the book to the bar. "--that's your choice, but I also don't think that's true. I think you overthink social interaction."
Off the barstool he hops.
"Next time," he says, "we'll plan ahead, huh? Go out on a night you don't have to code or whatever." Claps her on the shoulder. "Get you fucked up." He takes his hand off her shoulder before she attacks him. "That'll help you relax. Later, Gracia."
GraceWell. He is right, she thinks, silently because like he's going to let her get a word in somewhere. She does overthink social interaction. Most of that comes from years of not overthinking it and getting it all wrong.
Then comes the hand. She can see it coming, which is a plus, but it's still unexpected, and does cause the muscles in her shoulder to reflexively tighten.
She's not going to attack him. It just serves to reinforce his point that she needs to relax.
"Oh. Okay?" is about all she manages to get out before he's gone.
As she trails off he holds up a hand in a mild-mannered yet universal gesture pleading for cessation.
"Just..." Another breath out before he returns his glasses to his face. "Look. No, I would not appreciate you talking at me all night. You wanna practice having a, ah...? A, what, a friendly conversation?" He knocks back his third shot like it's punctuation. "Let's do it."
GraceGrace wants nothing. Passes on the round, because -- as she points out -- she still has a beer. It's a good prop. Doing its job. Being an excuse.
"Okay," she says, looks around. Seconds pass as she thinks of what to talk about.
With some people, that's easy. Kalen, well, their topics of conversation revolve around the silliness inherent in being. Like topiaries in the shape of dinosaurs, or what names to give computers so that they will know what to call each other when they're sentient.
That's probably not Dr. Sepúlveda's thing. That route has been trod, and he tossed it aside claiming that it wasn't 'correct'.
With Mike, well -- the two of them could lay around and talk non-stop about the conceptualizations of entropy for days. They have.
But, what the hell would this guy have in common to talk about?
"What... Well, I know what your job is, eh? What got you into medicine in the first place?"
Andrés"Well..."
He scratches his beard as he considers a question he hasn't had to answer in a while. Answering that question fully clothed while at a bar with a woman who thinks she doesn't know how to talk to him is different than answering it in bed with a woman who likes being around him.
"I went to DU on a scholarship. Originally I was studying biochemistry out of, you know, normal curiosity, but then my daughter was born, and I had to start thinking about, eh, a career, supporting her, her mother was Verbena and--" Heh. "--I mean, my parents, they're Mexican. They both worked two jobs, sent most of their money back home to my grandparents, but I wanted more for her than..." A slug off his beer like to reel himself back in to the original point. "Anyway, I had a, eh, a passion for medicine, pathology in particular, I was good at it, I was good at explaining it to other people, so I went into it in the hopes that my work would, ah, provide for my family and allow me to contribute to the field, and it did, so."
GraceGrace's face brightens a bit as he talks. He wanted a better life for his family. And pathology, well. That suits the guy. One of the few medical specializations that doesn't require at least some level of people-skills.
That's very pot calling the kettle black, but there's a reason why Grace herself has not had a customer service job. At least, not for long.
"I went to DU too. For a while. Until I kept getting abducted and infected, and oh -- the Virtual Adepts took away my ability to use computers, which made a computer science degree extremely difficult all the sudden.
"I wanted that degree so I could get away from my family. Didn't want to have to depend on them anymore."
That would require, you know, actually talking to some of them.
AndrésSomething in the way she concedes this tells him there's more to the story than typical young woman yearning for independence. If he asks, that's going to create a reciprocal disclosure sort of environment and then they're going to start becoming friends which is how friendly conversation occurs and she can see the burden this places on him.
He does it anyway.
"Did you, ah... get away from them?""
Grace"For the most part," she says. "I mean, now, it'd be really hard to sit down at Christmas, you know? 'What happened to you lately, dear?' 'Oh, I helped find a victim of a plant zombie spirit. Totally normal womanly things, I promise...'"
Man, that would just start up their desire to get her into psychiatric treatment again. Only this time, they might actually have a point.
"They used to find me every now and then, call up and be like 'Grace, you're crazy and we're going to fix you' and I'd be like 'Who gave you my number, did you cry at Doctor Williamson or something?'" she laughs, the kind of way one does when talking about painful things. It's okay, you can tell because I'm laughing, right?
Andrés"Okay, let's..." He rubs at the side of his nose with the pad of a finger. "... let's back up a second."
This is what his apprentices have to look forward to whenever they drop their emotional trauma on him. He has never been good with emotions, especially not when they come out of nowhere.
One time his daughter came home upset because the boys at school were snapping her bra strap. Her mother would have been the better person to have fielded that particular problem, but Hinata wasn't in Miami at the time. Andrés, though, had sat her down and discussed the disparity between female and male maturation rates and the proliferation of toxic masculinity in western culture and next time a boy does that here's where to elbow him so you knock the wind out of him.
"Did they accuse you of craziness before your Awakening, or did the Awakening cause the accusations of craziness?"
Grace"My mom accuses me of craziness because she... it's a common thing with narcissists. When you turn on them," Grace says, shrugs. "I can only imagine how it would have been if I'd Awakened in that house."
For a moment, Grace looks truly bothered by the thought. She's reminded of someone else now going through it even worse. Grant, the teenage Apprentice, son of a sadistic murdering asshole.
Not good. It would not have been good.
"I have heard of that happening to people though. Getting sent to a hospital because you Awakened and don't have anyone around to tell you it's okay."
AndrésGiven the way he's nodding, it seems Andrés has also heard of that happening.
"Most people can't choose their Awakenings," he says, "and I don't know anybody who chooses their family. You're not depending on them anymore, are you?"
GraceShe looks at him and raises a brow. "I have a shit-ton of money, a roof over my head, and people who actually give a shit about me. I'm good."
It's not exactly the same as having a family, but she has picked a few people out to be a patchwork replacement. You can choose a family after the fact, even if they're not blood related. It still hurts. If she's honest with herself, when her mom and dad finally die, she'll bawl her eyes out. There won't be a chance anymore, past that point, no hope that they'll ever apologize.
Not that there is much hope.
"You ah... You said you made some contributions to the field, huh? What contributions?"
Way to change the subject, yes?
AndrésGiven what they were just talking about, he looks amused by what just happened. His elbow is still leaning on the bar, but he rests his chin on his thumb and his first two fingers against his chin as she shuts down that line of questioning and changes the subject.
"So that--" He gestures between them with the hand not resting against his face. "Was that friendly conversation, or was that relaying information?"
Grace"I don't know. I think we already covered the fact that I'm terrible at this," Grace says. "Both?"
She turns her attention to the tiny beads of condensation fogging up the side of her bottle, untouched because it is more a totem than anything. Draws a finger through it.
"But, I mean. It's not information that you needed, to like, keep yourself or somebody safe or anything. I'd tell somebody I personally loathed where not to be if they didn't want to get hurt, you know? That kind of information exchange isn't necessarily friendly."
Andrés"Let me tell you what I think."
The way he says it is authoritarian, as if she does not have a choice, but that's just the way he is. He's used to being the smartest person in the room, and if not the smartest then at least an expert in the field that happens to be the current topic of discussion. What life experience he has accumulated helps him fill in gaps where he might not have doctorate levels of knowledge in a subject, and besides that, he is - or, rather, was - a father and a mentor in both the mundane and Awakened senses.
Other people have a better rapport with him because other people, in general, have better social skills than he does. It's easy to serve as a foil for his manic energy when whatever he says bounces off the other person.
Hell, Margot disregards somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty percent of what comes out of his mouth, and Margot's a nineteen-year-old girl.
Anyway. He sits up, takes a killing swallow off his beer, and when Laura comes back over he says nah he's going to close out his tab thank you though. Back to what he thinks:
"I think if you tell yourself you're bad at something long enough, you're going to believe it, and you are going to be bad at it. If you want to live in a world where you're terrible at talking to other people, that's--" He gives the receipt a cursory inspection before taking out his wallet and shucking free the bills necessary to cover the total plus tip Laura and returns the book to the bar. "--that's your choice, but I also don't think that's true. I think you overthink social interaction."
Off the barstool he hops.
"Next time," he says, "we'll plan ahead, huh? Go out on a night you don't have to code or whatever." Claps her on the shoulder. "Get you fucked up." He takes his hand off her shoulder before she attacks him. "That'll help you relax. Later, Gracia."
GraceWell. He is right, she thinks, silently because like he's going to let her get a word in somewhere. She does overthink social interaction. Most of that comes from years of not overthinking it and getting it all wrong.
Then comes the hand. She can see it coming, which is a plus, but it's still unexpected, and does cause the muscles in her shoulder to reflexively tighten.
She's not going to attack him. It just serves to reinforce his point that she needs to relax.
"Oh. Okay?" is about all she manages to get out before he's gone.
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