Elijah
[how did last night go?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 4, 4) ( fail )
Elijah
What does Elijah Poirot dream of?
What
keeps him awake, struggling and burning bright well in to the hours
when he has no business to be trying so desperately to stay awake.
What
is it that he dreams of? What is it that puts him on rooftops with his
eyes careening over the edge and wondering, briefly, how high up they
really were. The bass beneath him thumped and some pop up DJ event kept
thrumming beneath him. This was a one night event. This was a warehouse,
just a standard warehouse with standard warehouse amenities and the
industrial feel was part of its charm. The street below was cast in
glowing swirling rainbow lights and the world was thumping and humming.
It
didn't matter how much he took, or what pills came from where, Elijah
was looking to escape something that he couldn't get away from. That he
couldn't avoid and the shadows felt too thick and too real and something
hungered. he could feel it in the pit of his stomach and playing on his
mind. He savored that sound, that loud thumping wonderful sound of
people and bass and hearts beating in time to the music because he knew
that something would happen.
That the world would fade out and it would all begin again.
His eyes stayed over the edge, and he was miles and miles away.
What
does Elijah Poirot dream about? What has him cradling that wrist close
to his abdomen like he may not be certain how to reset it?
What has him losing that struggle on various nights when he can't be sure if he's awake or asleep?
Ian
[Awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Kalen Holliday
[How awake are we?
Also
- my internet does die for like twenty minutes at a time. If that
happens I will try to text one of you. But...yes. *sigh*]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 1 )
Kalen Holliday
[How distracted by Resonance are we?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Ian
Ian
showed up at the warehouse with three people, all of whom had the same
lithe and athletic physique that he did. The older of the two women (she
might have been forty, but if so she looked young for it,) had a
section of her blond hair plaited into a braid that wound back over the
side of her head. She had on a pair of jeans, a black silk halter top
and calf-length boots, and her arm draped loosely around the shoulders
of a younger blond man next to her. Ahead of them, an Indian woman in a
deep red dress and high heels stood beside Ian. She laughed at something
he said, then turned around to tap the blond man in the arm playfully
as the four of them made their way past the doorman into the warehouse.
They'd
come here for the same reasons everyone else had come here. To dance.
To get drunk, or high, or otherwise act a bit less like responsible
adults for the evening. But once onside, Ian didn't stay with them for
long. He could feel Elijah's resonance filtering down from atop the
roof, so he said something to the older woman that made her grin and
roll her eyes, then he slid through the packed, tumultuous crowd until
he found the stairs.
The air on the roof was noticeably less
thick and humid than it had been inside, and when Ian opened the door
and felt the cool night breeze on his skin, he breathed it in
gratefully. The city skyline was lit up with warm, bright colors, and
Ian glanced at it a moment as he made his way across the roof to where
Elijah stood.
There was a pause. A brief moment of
consideration as Ian eyed the set of Elijah's shoulders - the way he
stood gazing out over the edge like he was lost. Then Ian fell in at his
side.
"Everything okay?" he asked quietly.
Because truthfully, Elijah did not precisely look okay at that particular moment.
Elijah
[do I have the presence of mind to lie? manip+sub]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
Ian
[Empathy?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Kalen Holliday
It
is not traditional for the esteemed Magi of the Order of Hermes to
attend events of this manner unless they are hunting. And if Kalen
Michael Holliday had come here hunting in the fashion of his
training...well...this would be a different kind of exciting. But Kalen
Michael Holliday is not hunting here.
It is not that kind of night. He is not, tonight, that kind of knight.
He
has had so many Names. He has been so many things. Because he had to
be. Because he was expected to be. Because he was trained to be. All
of those things are true. Have been true. Will be true. But there are
nights, even now, when he lets all of that go. Falls and let the
drifting currents of fate that catch leaves and glitter and clouds catch
him and move him and he does not question where he finds himself or
what he finds himself doing anymore on these nights of surrender than he
questions the currents of fate as they move anything else.
Fate
has its own Will. Its own patterns. And while one day he might
understand them, for now Kalen is content to leave them like as some
people are content to leave oceans. Mysterious, ancient, mythic things -
unknowable and vast. Beautiful, deadly, mercurial things.
Tonight
he ends up, of all places, on a roof. There is music underneath them,
pulsing, reaching up like the waters of some underground spring. An
underground spring with a pulse? Perhaps it pulses to the beat of a
sylph? A freshwater mermaid? Its own secret and Slumbering heart?
None of these things seems impossible tonight. Nothing seems
impossible tonight.
And so he drifts toward his apprentice and
his
whatever-the-hell-you-call-someone-who-can-barely-stand-you-but-might-be-about-to-teach-you-magic.
There are lights and there are stars hidden by clouds of lights and
there might be clouds and there are-
He forces his attention to the people he is joining on the roof.
"Hey," he says, quietly.
Elijah
He
didn't reach for him. He didn't turn around to look at Ian; he didn't
turn around and look at Kalen. He just waited and pinned some point with
unfocused eyes off in the distance
(And this is how it
starts. At first the lights seem to go out for him, only for him, one by
one. That one reminder that the world was slowly, slowly becoming less
and less and devoured whole by something with an all-encompassing
hunger. Something that would take, because it was in tis nature to take
and give nothing in return. That was the nature of the Void. Something
deep and black and the majesty of the city was quietly swallowed whole
and oh god, oh god come back-)
Everything okay? Ian asked.
Hey, Kalen said. Both quietly, both enough that his mind strained harder than his ears over the heartbeat beneath them.
"Bad
trip," he said. It's all he said, so effortless and easy that it must
have been the truth, so easily that it came from a solid six months of
continual, habitual lying. Something that could have been bought, were
it not for the fact that Elijah wouldn't look at either of them and he
could feel his mind drifting and there was no point in breathing because
the lights were leaving one by one and he was holding his breath.
Ian
Hey,
Kalen said, and Ian glanced back and regarded him quietly. It had been
almost two weeks since the last time they'd seen each other, and nothing
in Ian's body language suggested that Kalen's presence here was an
unwelcome thing. Ian didn't smile or try to touch Kalen, but he did tip
his head and give a light nod.
"Hey." He didn't realize yet that Kalen and Elijah knew each other.
Elijah
gave an easy lie, and Ian, sharp as he was, could not quite see his way
past it. He put a hand out to touch Elijah's shoulder, a grounding kind
of gesture, letting the weight of it tether him more securely to the
rooftop.
"Maybe you should sit down."
[Life 1 - bad trip?]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (4, 8) ( success x 2 )
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
barely seems to respond to any of that, particularly in regard to the
kinds of responses that either of them is used to seeing. He takes the
'bad trip' and the nod by way of greeting in, the same way he is
drinking everything in. These are the things that are here. That are
real.
Fate is real too. It is wrapping around them it has wrapped around them it will-
He
kneels and touches the weather-roughened roof of the warehouse. It is
humming with the music and the dancing below them. For a few seconds
his eyes close. He doesn't need to see them. He can sense them both,
can feel them, can breathe in their presence that way he can breathe
oxygen and light and smoke.
Ian is already touching Elijah.
And Kalen...well...isn't exactly even Kalen right now. There are
gritty grains in the little gap of the roof that remind him of sand.
That remind him, distantly and faintly, of sand mixed with bits of
shattered stone and glass. But the air on his tongue isn't like the air
there. Not the night everything burned and not the night he went back.
"It isn't the worst idea, Fae," he says. "And I find his advice is generally worth listening to."
Elijah
Maybe he should sit down.
Maybe
he should sit down, he says it again in his head and there is a hand on
his shoulder and tension rides through him and at first it doesn't
register as being human , as though Elijah Poirot had encountered
anything in this lifetime that was beyond humanity in its most basic
form- nothing outside of his dreams, perhaps, but that was the truth of
the matter. That was the heart of it, and he took a step back. He'd been
too close to the edge, too distant and too detached, but his eyes
wouldn't stay focused and he held himself smaller, protective of
whatever he might have needed to protect himself from.
Elijah was tense, though the hand on his shoulder brought a shuddering breath, an exhalation from his lungs.
"It
will all come back, it always does," he says, more to itself than
anything and he takes a second step away from the edge. Elijah took a
seat a few steps away from a region on the rooftop that would seem
dangerous, that would seem like he might just jump.
If he was
sitting, he wouldn't jump. Wouldn't lose himself and run from something
that wasn't there… not that he would have far to run. the world was
feeling small and closing in and Elijah closed his eyes tightly, brought
his right hand to his eyes but kept the left one precisely where it had
been- close and protective. he wasn't injured, it wasn't dislocated
again or broken or anything of the sort, just… a memory.
"Am I awake?" he asks.
Lie to me if you have to, he says without saying.
Ian
Maybe
there was a moment there, when Ian glanced between Kalen and Elijah,
where a part of him considered walking back down to rejoin his
co-workers. Ian looked as though he'd come here to dance. He had on
expensive jeans and a black tank top and a bands of braided leather
looped around his neck and wrists. His hair was perfect. He smelled nice
(really nice, actually - hints of citrus and sandalwood.) He could have
been doing any number of other things at a pop-up rave besides standing
on the roof with a couple of other mages who seemed more than a little
lost in their own heads.
A moment, yes. And he considered it. But he didn't go.
Kalen called Elijah Fae.
Elijah, whose heart was beating very quickly. Whose nerves were alight
with anxiety. Whose pheromones were steeped in this animal scent: locked
in fight or flight. Tripping, maybe. But this wasn't just a chemical
reaction. Elijah reacted to Ian's touch with a coil of tension, and Ian
lifted his hand just enough so that it hovered out of contact. Close
enough still that he could catch Elijah if Elijah started to fall or
step off the roof or otherwise need... something.
But Elijah
did not step off the roof. Instead he pulled back and sat down, and Ian
lowered himself into a crouch, balancing his weight on the balls of his
feet.
"You're awake." (Barely.)
Ian glanced back at
Kalen again. Watching the way Kalen ran his fingers over the roof's
masonry. It was only for a moment, then his focus was back on Elijah.
"Hey." He pitched his voice into a calming register. "You're okay. Look at me."
Kalen Holliday
Is Elijah awake?
There
are so many answers to that question. They swim through his eyes, all
infinite and wondrous possibility. He tries to find, in all of that
possibility an answer that seems most right right now.
"Stars
only live in constellations because people Named them," he says softly.
"They're always just stars. Consciousness is just perception."
Elijah's
demons call him back, or call back the version of him they know better,
more than the feeling of the roof or the grit under his fingertips.
Remind him that he isn't just there to drink in the whole of the cosmos
until the day or the night that it swallows him instead. Vows. Oaths.
Improvised swords on fire escapes. Blood that swelled, just as the
music does now, to a pulse. Impact. Flesh on flesh. Bullets tearing
into his skin. The feeling of a knife sinking into something long dead.
Not like cutting into the living. The sharp, overwhelming sensation
of a brand on his skin. Kharisma screaming. Ice cutting his skin as he
falls through it.
"That isn't what matters. What matters
is that what you're afraid of isn't here. And I wouldn't let it have
you if it was." He looks away from them, out over the city. He lets
all the weight of that memory stay long enough to say that for Elijah,
and then he lets it fall away again. Like rain. Like waves. Like
falling leaves. Cherry blossoms.
Ian's voice too, he lets fall away. Whatever Ian is on this roof for, it isn't him. He lets that go too.
Elijah
[this is willpower, I totally have it]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
Elijah
The
lights went out and the sky was black and the world was getting
smaller, so much smaller and it was getting quieter, so much quieter and
the only thing he could hold onto was sensation, and he held it so
tightly. So fervently. He closed his eyes, kept them closed and he
remembered look at me and he had to. He had to look. Not because of anything except the fact that he wanted to find comfort there.
When
he opened his eyes, the city was gone to him, the lights dimmed and
matte across the sky. If gave him other things to focus on, other people
to hold onto, like the sound of Kalen's voice nearby and the sound of
Ian telling him that he was okay.
When Elijah looked back, his
eyes weren't clear, but they were still that brilliant green-and-amber
brightness. There was more disaster in his countenance. He was not the
calm in the storm, but the disaster itself, and that was as beautiful as
it was terrible. Elijah looked from Ian to Kalen and back. He inhaled
sharply, blinking hard away whatever terrified moisture may have come to
his gaze.
You're okay.
What matters is that what you're afraid of isn't here. And I wouldn't let it have you if it was.
Ian
"Elijah,
I need you to do something for me, okay?" Ian kept his eyes focused on
Elijah's. He rested an arm on his knee and turned it so his hand
stretched out palm-up, but did not move to touch Elijah again. The hand
was there, close enough for Elijah to take if he wanted it.
"Try to count in your head when you breath. Inhale for four, hold it for four, then exhale for four. Can you do that?"
Whatever
Ian had come up to the roof for, it didn't really matter anymore.
Elijah wasn't in a state where it was safe for him to be left alone, and
Ian seemed to care enough at least to be here with him and to try to
help in whatever ways he knew how. He wasn't as good as Kalen at weaving
words of hope or comfort. But he understood things about stress and
human physiology.
"Like this..." Ian pulled in a slow breath,
counting out four beats. Another four, and he held the air in his lungs.
Calm. Quiet. Around him, there was the sensation of a hurricane.
Kalen's storm and Elijah's tumultuous anxiety. But right now, Ian let it
slide off his skin (much the same way that Kalen had done with the
sound of his voice.)
He exhaled. Four beats. His eyes were focused and present. Maybe it would help. Maybe it wouldn't. He tried anyway.
Kalen Holliday
Kalen
can say things that sound pretty. And he can make promises, though
those don't come as easily to him as one might think. Tonight though,
he doesn't really have words. He came here to get lost in sensations.
Not conversation. He wanted something very different from this place
in this moment.
But here they are. In a moment.
He
is exhausted and he is not really ready for this and so he tries to help
Ian the only way he can think of. He closes the distance between
himself and Elijah, leans into Elijah enough that Elijah can feel him
breathing, and follows Ian's instructions. Well, about the breathing.
He does not look at Ian, does not watch his fingers move. Instead he
closes his eyes and listens. Not just to Ian, but to everything. Cars
and music and voices and laughter and distant planes.
But Ian too. Very definitely Ian too.
Elijah
Breathe.
Breathing
was hard to remember. He remembered this, laying with his head in
Kalen's lap and inhaling deep and exhaling and letting those moments of
panic wash over him before letting them fade away. Elijah reached
tentatively for Ian's hand, craving some moment of physical contact,
leans into Kalen because that touch was enough for him at that juncture.
He
inhaled, nodded because he followed and he understood and the young man
breathed. And breathed. And breathed into the world went right again.
Breathed until the stars came back- twinkling pushpins of light against
the sky and cityscape. He breathed as force of will and strength of
purpose alone managed to stave off what could have been a complete
disaster.
There was dread in his countenance, yes, but Elijah
was no longer at risk of doing something incredibly, incredibly stupid
on accident. ''
After a good, long while, he finally asks no one in particular, "wanna dance?"
Ian
The
three of them breathed together, and there was something almost
ritualistic about it. The way their patterns gradually took on the same
rhythm. Elijah took Ian's hand, and Ian let his fingers wrap around
Elijah's to seal the contact between them. Ian only rarely held people's
hands this way, but Elijah didn't need to know that. It was likely a
thing he would discover on another day - when he was present enough not
to need the stability.
Elijah asked if someone wanted to dance.
"Tempting," Ian replied with a slow smile. "How about once, and then I take you home?"
He
looked at Kalen as though to include him in the offer, but there was
more of a question in his gaze. Kalen wasn't presently in danger of
hurting himself - at least not that Ian could immediately tell. But
there was something off-kilter about him tonight.
"You okay?"
Perhaps,
were it not for the need to focus on Elijah, Ian would have asked Kalen
this earlier. He rose up and helped Elijah to his feet, leaving their
hands entwined for the moment.
Kalen Holliday
"I'm
okay. I'm just not ignoring staggering portions of the universe." He
rises on his own and smiles, and it is a real smile for all it isn't
overly bright. "Or, at least, trying. But time is fluid and almost
everything is fluid and even Names in mundane languages...it's imperfect
and gorgeous and messy.
"I'm going to go back to the people
I'll probably not really see again in any meaningful way. I'm not in a
place for this tonight. Some other time, maybe." He frowns a little.
There are things he wants to tell Ian, but not with Elijah there. And
he isn't exactly in a place for a discussion, at least not about any of
those things. He could totally talk about reality with Serafine. Until
sunrise. Or until he passed the fuck out.
It...is almost an
answer to Elijah's question. In an attempt to not be the worst mentor
ever he gives Elijah a little smile. "Call if you need me." And then
he's wandering back toward the stairs downward. There are people
arranging and rearranging themselves into constellations that will not
be mapped out or named. Interplays of colored light and shadow that
will change everything and nothing about everything that comes after
them in the cosmos. Because perception. Because interdependence.
Because fate.
And it will be imperfect and transcendent and beautiful because there has never been anything else it could be.
