Premonitions

Andrés Sepúlveda
[awareness for shits]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 4, 5) ( fail )

Andrés Sepúlveda
Almost three months in Denver and this is the first time Sepúlveda has texted Hyde while completely shit-faced. May be the first time Hyde is even aware of the fact that Sepúlveda gets shit-faced. He drinks, sure, but then he's a Disciple in Life. He can sober up faster than he can get drunk.

Two-almost-three days after Crow informs the lot of them that Alexander is as safe as he's going to get, the Chakravant gets a text message from the Etherite. It's obvious he's drunk. Autocorrect tries to pick up the slack for him but Autocorrect can only do so much. The gist of it is: lol fuck the Union we got him back what are you doing.

At four in the morning. On a school night.

Nick responds. Andy is blowing off work. They agree to meet up.

When Nick walks into the gastropub where Andy is blowing off work, he finds the Etherite sitting at a two-top table with a pint of tequila-and-orange-juice at his right hand. Scribbling in a thick grid-ruled notebook with his left. He isn't wearing his wedding band. He is wearing his glasses. He has two-almost-three days' worth of stubble on his face.

Nick is almost on top of him before Andrés realizes he's there.

Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas has been making good use of his sick days recently.  He works full time, and the past several weeks have had him calling on spirits on the river downtown after midnight, and meeting other magi for ritual work, and now blowing off work with Andrés because the Etherite is shitfaced so soon after breaking into a Technocratic stronghold.  Nicholas works full time, and has been more diligent recently about his magickal studies as well.  Is this beginning to wear on him?

Well, no one will know.  But there is a reason many of them do not keep jobs once they have advanced to a certain point in Enlightenment.

He arrives at the gastropub, notices Andrés almost immediately and takes him in.  Two-three days' growth of stubble on his face, clearly drunk and not wearing his wedding band.

Nicholas Hyde sucks in a breath.  And then he wanders over to the Etherite where he's seated, and slides onto the stool next to him.  Nick's footsteps are soundless; he may indeed have already sat down before Andrés has noticed his presence at all.  "Andrés.  Breakfast of champions, I see," he says, with a meaningful glance toward the tequila and orange juice.  "Have you had anything to eat yet?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
This is one half of the team that went in to rescue a captured Orphan, ladies and gentlemen.

He does not startle. Does not appear to even have a startle reflex. Accepts the fact that someone has sat down right across from him without his noticing with complacence but there's a brief glimmer in his green eyes that suggests if it were anyone his temporal and occipital lobes could not agree he recognized, he would be a bit more hostile.

For someone who has been drinking since lord knows when, his gaze is both lucid and sharp. He is not drunk. Takes a moment to decelerate from scribbling in his notebook - Nick's grasp of the Time Sphere and calculus will determine how much of it he is able to decipher at a glance - to talking to another carbon-based life form.

"What?" No time to answer. His brain catches him up soon enough. "Eat? No. Are you hungry? Get something."

Nicholas Hyde
There is a lot that a thirty second once-over can tell an observant person.  See here: Nick has about the level of understanding of calculus that someone might expect from a man with a master's degree in counseling, but he does have an understanding of Time magick.  Enough to work out what is happening there on the notebook.  Enough to tell that Andrés, even as weathered as he looks today and reeking of alcohol though he is, is not drunk.

Nick turns his face away and glances toward the bartender, and then he orders a glass of orange juice and whatever scrambled type of skillet he can find on the menu.  He does not order a drink; it's 7:30 in the morning.

"It seems like you've been up a while.  Celebrating your triumphant return?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
[perc + empathy: bc i'm an asshole.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 4) ( botch x 1 )

Andrés Sepúlveda
"Celebrating?"

Andrés is bilingual. Grew up speaking both English and Spanish. No one will accuse him of fluency and he cannot translate between the two as someone who actually studied both languages could, but English is not his second tongue. He knows exactly what Nick is asking. His head is just taking its sweet time adjusting from seclusion to socialization.

He claps his notebook closed. Either Andrés is not picking up on the subtle hints of disapproval Nick brought to the table with him or he's completely misinterpreting them. Thanks a lot, busted-ass limbic system.

"What's the matter, Nicholas?"

Nicholas Hyde
[???]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

Nicholas Hyde
There is a glass of orange juice in front of him now, which he takes a swallow from as Andrés questions his choice of words.  He is not looking at Andrés right at this moment; instead, back toward the wall, his gaze perhaps skimming over the bottles that line the back shelf.  Disapproval?  Perhaps.  Nicholas is a difficult man to read, and how much do any of them really know about him, those who aren't his wife?

The other man's question takes him aback (and here, there are many reasons), but any surprise he has he covers with rue, this furrowing of his brow.  "With me?"  And here some of the surprise perhaps leaks into his tone; it is unusual for anyone to ask him this.

"Nothing.  I'm just tired, I guess.  You caught me early and I think leading a double life is catching up to me a little bit this week."  Here, a smile, easy and friendly enough.  "I know you were successful, but how did things go in the lab?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
"They went."

The fact that Nicholas is exhibiting a normal human reaction to having to function this early in the fucking morning doesn't seem to be registering with Sepúlveda. Sepúlveda, who is working out a theory on time constriction and dilation in regards to technological capabilities while probably on day three of being awake. And coming very close to a breakthrough, if Nick's understanding of the madman's southpaw chickenscratch is accurate.

"What... what are you talking about? Double life? Are you..." He pushes the notebook away and folds his forearms across the table. Knits his fingers together. This is probably what his apprentices have to deal with on a regular basis. His off-target attempts to give a shit. "Oh, right. Look, man, you don't have kids, right? If you don't, don't have kids." A beat. His eyes aim at the wall. "You and Penelope are too smart for that." He looks back. "Look, the double life is overrated, and you're not getting graded on how good of a reality deviant you are. Pick your poison and stick with it, man, 'tired' shouldn't be in your vocabulary."

Oh right. This is the guy who allegedly told his traumatized 19-year-old apprentice to just turn off the part of her brain that governs emotion.

Nicholas Hyde
[wtf are you even talking about, Andrés]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Nicholas Hyde
Even for someone who is skilled at picking up on the subtle tells from other people and piecing them together, this is a confusing conversation.  When meeting with a familiar face, some of the context will always be taken from what has come before: and Andrés has never particularly expressed an interest in Nick's feelings or in giving him advice.  He is not drunk, either, which makes it more offputting.

Nick takes a moment to respond to the other man.  His hazel eyes have swept the Etherite's face, the way in which he has pushed the notebook away and the way in which his eyes are also directed back toward the wall.  "We don't have kids.  I prefer to keep working, though, for as long as I can.  I don't think there's much to be gained by withdrawing from the Sleeper world to pursue enlightenment."

This is the best response he can frame to all of this; he came into the conversation with an agenda, perhaps, and it would be easy for it to derail here.  Or maybe he didn't.  Nick is a difficult man to read: this has been said.  "Do you have kids?  I didn't realize."  A beat.  "It sounds like you miss them."

Andrés Sepúlveda
"There's no point missing them. One of them is dead, and the other one expressed her desire to never see or speak to me again before moving to Tokyo."

Blunt, but by now Nick may well expect that from the man. Ask an honest question, get an honest answer. He doesn't waver or look away as he gives Nick this information.

"That's all I'm trying to say, Nicholas. You can't half-ass two things. I've seen more people go into Quiet trying to half-ass like four things than I've seen whole-ass one thing. You want to keep counseling people at the end of their lives, it's a necessary profession. You're good at it."

Hearsay. Folks talk. Nick has like as not heard plenty of less-complimentary talk about the forensic pathologist.

He blows a breath out through his nose and retrieves his notebook. This is where Nick loses eye contact.

"The fuck do I know, right?"

Nicholas Hyde
One of them is dead and - 

Nick doesn't bat an eyelash.  This is something he is used to.  He has been at parties where, when he mentioned being a counselor, he was cornered by someone who needed to ask his advice on a personal situation.  It's happened more than once.

"I've been in Quiet twice, Andrés.  Both times having more than one thing to focus on in my life was helpful to me in coming out of it."  He takes another swallow from his glass.  This assertion that he's good at his job: it receives a small noise of acknowledgement, something that says he's heard it while also not really offering his thoughts on that particular topic.

"There are a lot of people who are good counselors, Andrés.  There are not many people who are Awakened.  I am, so it's my responsibility."  His fingertips come to rest on the rim of his glass, and he spins it thoughtfully.  "I think it would be natural to miss them, if you did."

Andrés Sepúlveda
He would think it would be natural.

Sepúlveda yawns for the same reason all mammals yawn: no apparent one. It gives him something to do besides answer right away, though the yawn is young and dies that way. Smothered by his palm and its dragging down his face.

"Grief," he says, and this is the closest to concession Nick will get out of him, "is the brain suffering dopamine withdrawal. It's all chemicals, Nicholas, and before you say 'Oh but Andrés that doesn't mean it isn't real,' my counterpoint is this: it doesn't matter. Missing someone, not missing someone, it doesn't change the fact they're gone.

He takes a good-sized belt off his alcohol-thinned juice. Leaves Nick room for a rebuttal.

Nicholas Hyde
There is something about what Andrés says that furrows the other man's brow, that causes him to not offer a rebuttal right away but rather to glance somewhere down and off to the side.  The wood grain in the table perhaps, the warp and weft left by age and abuse and too many swipes of a rag.

"We all grieve differently," he says, and perhaps this is an admission or perhaps it is a concession or perhaps it is a simple statement of fact.  He's often opaque, Nicholas.

The quiet that ensues, however brief, is not uncomfortable for Nick but it may be for the Etherite; frequently other people do not handle such things very well.  He allows it to pass nonetheless, and perhaps he is considering whether he ought to linger here or redirect the conversation.

Nick is also terrible at smalltalk; let us not forget that.

Andrés Sepúlveda
"Eh, I tried it once."

This, spoken straight ahead, like he would be talking to himself about something else if he were not talking to Nick about this. The original invitation for the intersection of their two points at the same place in time sublimated into something else.

Admittedly he had been drunk when he texted Nick. He will be drunk again soon enough. Right now his blood alcohol is high enough that he should not operate machinery but see: he is an alcoholic.

"You already heard that story though, eh?" A laugh, then, like he's just told a joke. "Ah, hell. It's a good one, but you don't need to hear it again. The fuck was I..." Frown. A glance over. If Nick will meet his gaze, it's there. "Nicholas, what the fuck were we talking about--" Before the word has finished: "Oh! Right. So, the cop, what's his name, Brandt, he's gonna be pretty fucked up. Yeah? I do dead people, not..." A vague swirling motion with his now-bare left hand. "Not all that. You ever met him before?"

Nicholas Hyde
It doesn't take a man as insightful as Nick to be able to notice all of these little things: the other man's straight-ahead stare, the missing wedding ring, this laugh he has here, losing his train of thought and the fact that Andrés is drinking heavily every single time Nick runs into him.  It doesn't take a man as insightful as Nick to put all of those things together, so needless to say he has, and did, some time ago.

"Decompensating" is the clinical term.  He cannot help it when it springs into his head now.

"I haven't.  Pen has," he says, and perhaps this addition is simply to explain how he knows-of-Brandt, who since Nicholas at least arrived in the city has been missing.  "I suspected he would be fucked up.  If they've used magick to condition him, though, I don't have the skill to unWork that."  He uses magick here despite the reaction it's elicited from Andrés in the past; he may have less patience today for adapting his speech.

Nick met his gaze, earlier.  He has looked away since, toward his glass of juice.  Maybe he too is thinking.

Andrés Sepúlveda
"Eh, from looking him over, I couldn't see as they made it that far."

Okay. You win this one, Hyde. He's either too tired or too distracted by whatever conundrum he's debating in his own head to argue the difference between Magick and Science with a Chakravat.

"His resonance changed, while they had him locked up. Not just from a Seeking, I'm talking total alteration of the original signature. That's... I can't figure out if it was self-initiated or not, but the implication could be staggering."

It might be too much to ask for him to not look at other people like test subjects for longer than five minutes.

At any rate:

"Maybe it's better, not having known him before."

Nicholas Hyde
Total alteration of the original signature.  Nick's expression does not shift while he absorbs this tidbit of information, but his eyes unfocus as his thoughts turn inward.  Staggering implications, indeed: though a Chakravat may have a different understanding of the implications involved than Andrés could or will.

After all, "When we die and are reborn we carry nothing of the resonance of our past lives.  Or, at least, I haven't heard of such a thing happening.  I see no reason why it would be impossible for a person who still lives to transcend some barrier, or..."

Nick takes a swallow of his juice.  "It will be difficult for people who knew him before, maybe even more than it will be for him.  Did you know him before he was taken?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
"Nah, I never met the guy before."

Worth mentioning that he doesn't argue with Nick over the implication he saw somewhere on the horizon, or attempt to elucidate what it is he meant. He is not an effective communicator.

When he chooses to accept an invitation to speak in public, which is not often, but when he does, his public is a group of people who subscribe to his methodology if not his specialty. He doesn't have to be well-spoken or charming to talk to a bunch of nerds, and it's hard to say the wrong thing when he's using jargon.

"The probability of me meeting him again, it's not so high. I just thought it important, you know, if you feel some calling to assist him in a professional capacity, that I tell you his resonance, while he was in captivity, changed. Whatever you do with that information is up to you."

Farewell, beverage. You were delicious.

He checks his bare right wrist like he doesn't know what time it is, like there's a watch there to begin with. Internal debate. Stay here or keep on trucking.

Nicholas Hyde
There are a few things Nick could say here or respond to, clarifications to be made and thoughts or beliefs he could voice.  It's rare for him to do these things, even around people he knows well; Pen is frequently the exception.

"Why is the probability of you meeting him again not high?  It's a small city, at least as far as people like us are concerned."

There is this sidelong glance toward the Etherite, then, as he drains the juice in his glass.  Perhaps it settles whatever internal debate Andrés has, one way or another.

Andrés Sepúlveda
[entropy/mind 1, time 2: computer, what are the odds, aka lol you asked. modifiers go here.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Andrés Sepúlveda
Before Nick wanders too far from the original question word, the Etherite sighs and shifts around a bit to remove from a pocket a blocky PDA-looking device that might have been a BlackBerry once before Sepúlveda disemboweled it and replaced its innards with a purple-and-black radar-looking screen.

"Hang on." He starts tapping parameters into the thing. "Taking into account our professions, our hours, my personality, and local traffic patterns, I'm going to go ahead and say--"

Bleep, bloop.

"Oh, hey, look at that." He shows him the calculation that has unfurled on the screen. "One in twelve-hundred, we'll run into each other in the next year. I thought I was just talking out of my ass."

Nicholas Hyde
It's really the first opportunity that Nick has had to see a more technologically inclined Mage at work.  They tend to keep to themselves at times, technomagi, or else they tend to stay apart from the more mystical Traditionalists.

There is this interested glance spared for the blocky object that Andrés tugs free from a pocket and brings up between the two of them.  And maybe Nick thinks that it doesn't look like much, or that Andrés is basically tapping nonsense into a machine and reading nonsense from it; maybe he also understands how his own magick would look to the Etherite if Andrés ever had a chance to witness it.

He nods at the data on the screen as though the output makes any sense to him whatsoever.  It does not.

"Well, thanks for passing the information along, at least," he says.  And then there is a pause, some internal debate, before, "Andrés, I'm worried about you.  Have you stopped drinking since you and Kiara went to get Alex?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
Back into his pocket goes the device. During that pause the bartender comes over and asks if he wants another one and that moment didn't present itself as an ideal place to take off, so he acquiesces, which brings us to Nick's next point.

Ask an honest question, get an honest answer.

"Nope," he says.

Nicholas Hyde
Nick's expression does not suggest any surprise, which is to say that he doesn't blink, doesn't give any indication that he didn't already know the answer before he asked.  "Did something happen?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
Oh, for Christ's sake, says the Etherite's sigh.

Asking if something happened implies that he wasn't always like this, and the phrasing of it, or the fact that he respects the Chakravat's professional opinion even if he uses the m-word in the course of their conversations, has Sepúlveda honestly considering the question even as he's rubbing his temples with his thumb and middle finger, occluding his eyes for a moment.

"Let me tell you a story," he says with some weariness once his hand has dropped and a fresh drink has appeared before him. He dances the straw around in its bath just to stir everything up. "If you want to know the something so bad."

Drink.

"Stop me if you've heard this one before: After our son died, Hinata, my wife, she was grieving and I am not the best at, eh... well, I suppose I was too, I was in a lot of pain, and her coven was the best place for her, at the time. We discussed this before she left, that she would take the girl with her. So they went, and... I suppose I had thought, since I spent so much time alone as it was..."

Fuck it.

"In hindsight," a shift in his tone, drifting back to facetious, "I should have relished it, the quiet, because now I can't even take a piss without one of my apprentices asking me a stupid question."

Nicholas Hyde
Nick has not heard this story, and he turns his head to regard the other man more fully as he begins with If you want to know the something so bad.  It's the beginning of a story that someone wants to tell and doesn't want to tell, at the same time, because human beings are contradictory creatures and anyone who believes two opposing desires cannot coexist is a fool.

The bartender sets Nick's food down in front of him, and a glass of water, and he turns his attention from Andrés to the plate set in front of him.  It gives the Etherite space to talk without feeling as though he is under scrutiny.  Nick reaches a few feet for a bottle of hot sauce, which unfortunately is only Tapatio and unsatisfactory for anyone who is more desirous of a merging of flesh and fire, so he adds a copious amount to the eggs and peppers while he listens.

"Apprentices are good for that," he says, his tone neutral, as he takes a bite of the eggs.  After he has chewed and swallowed, "What was it you thought, after Hinata and your daughter went?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
Apprentices are good for that.

"Mm hmm."

As for what it was he thought:

"Oh, who the hell knows. I thought a lot of things. But the drinking, Nicholas, is an effective means of coping with stupid people, who are everywhere, so until such a time as I come up with an aerosolized intelligence booster that I can set off in confined spaces--"

He lifts his glass. The story isn't finished yet. He might as well, since they've come this far.

"Anyway, while they were in Tokyo, I visited a couple times, but they weren't ready to come back to... see, this is what I was saying about the job, Nicholas, and the half-assing. Every time I went back to Miami, to work, they stayed." Drink. "Time, you know, does what time tends to do, and Naomi started having nightmares. She isn't Awakened, but she's... well, obviously, she's aware, her mother was a Witch." What the fuck was he saying. "Point is, Hinata thought the nightmares were premonitions, yeah? I told her no, no no no, she's a teenage girl with an active imagination, just go on with what you're doing, they'll go away. Hinata came back to the States anyway. Just to make sure."

He has about half his beverage left. He dances the straw around but doesn't drink it.

"And, ah, turns out they were."

Nicholas Hyde
Premonitions.  Time.  Nightmares.

If there is a fluttering of Nick's eyelashes here, some reaction to whatever those words elicit, it would be difficult to tell.  He is eating, shoveling another forkful of eggs into his mouth.  It can be exceedingly useful to have something to do with his hands while he listens to other people; it's a shame that his job so frequently does not allow him the opportunity.

Friends, though, or acquaintances, whichever - he's not sure which Andrés really falls into, just yet - well, it's a get out of jail free card here.

He sets his fork down beside the plate then so he can look over at Andrés, and if the Etherite turns his head their eyes will meet.  "I'm sorry, Andrés," is what he says first, and quietly.  He lets those words sit for a moment.  "If you had also believed them to be premonitions, do you think anything would have been different?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
So he meets the counselor's gaze. It's the least he can do after dropping that story on the bar between them, but what he had said earlier was not a line.

His grief broke him. He lost his fucking mind, and rather than walking into Death's embrace after all of that, he decided well, he would just have to keep on going without it.

So he drinks. There is nothing Nick can do about that. This isn't that kind of meeting.

An eventual nod to indicate he's heard Nick, that he accepts his sympathy, and Sepúlveda fields the next question.

"The premonitions were of what I did, Nicholas, or... what I was going to do. She... I suppose they both did, interpreted them to mean, some harm was to come to me, if someone did not intervene."

Now his drink is empty. He removes his wallet from his back pocket and tosses down three twenty-dollar bills.

"So... we didn't know what we didn't know, and I did what I did, and that is why I don't bother with missing anyone. Eh? Onward and upward, my friend."

Nicholas Hyde
This isn't that kind of meeting, and listen: Nick accepts this.  Mental health professionals, see, there are very strict ethical guidelines in place against practicing their craft with friends, or coworkers, or lovers, and for a reason; when it comes to power, the scales will always be tipped toward the person who is providing help.  There is no ethical way to act as a counselor to a friend.

So he's here as a friend alone.  He thinks.  Perhaps.  Or perhaps he is only a man who sees others a little too clearly for his own good.

That is why I don't bother with missing anyone -

There is a significant glance toward the empty tumbler on the counter top.  Andrés could miss it though; it's been established this very day that he is not always well equipped to read others.  "Onward and upward, to where?"

Andrés Sepúlveda
"I," he says, picking up the notebook in which he had been scribbling before Nick arrived, "am going to go fuck with Time."

As if some part of him sensed that Nick was worried about something inconsequential when what he really ought to be worried about is the fact that the guy was a genius with questionable ethics and a propensity for finding new and exciting ways to scare his students.

He claps a frigid hand on Nick's shoulder, clap clap, good talk buddy, then starts off on his way, his ability to walk a straight line belying how much booze he just knocked back.

"Later!"

Nicholas Hyde
It would be difficult to say precisely what it is Nick is worried about.  He doesn't really say, does he?

"Don't get too far ahead of yourself, Andrés," is all he says, and then there is this little incline of his head toward the other man as he gets up to leave with his notebook under his arm.  And he lifts a hand in this lazy thing that could be a wave or a salute or whatever else.

He watches the Etherite go, notes the steadiness of his step.  And then he resumes eating, and his thoughts too are for Time: more, or less, or perhaps only for a prayer to skillfully play the threads of Fate.