[Previously, on Damn It, Doc...]
The thought occurs to him that this isn't Nick, not really, that this divorce has taken with it not only his sight but his ally, and Andrés gropes left-handed around the back of the Chakravat's neck, probing as much as Nick will let him probe, searching for wires or hinges or anything that would prove he was a Construct.
So far nothing.
Besides that, no one would blame Nick for being freaked out by the way Andrés is staring not just straight ahead but into a void Nick cannot see, with eyes whose vessels have popped in such quantity that the greens of his irises are mired in red. The cuts on his right hand and wrist are deep enough to show gaping subcutaneous tissue. They need stitches but he isn't in danger of bleeding to death because of them.
"They hid your motherboard good, didn't they," he says in a musing tone. "Fucking Russians..."
Nicholas
Nick allows Andrés to probe the back of his neck, which he will find smooth and without any sign of wires, hinges, or anything to indicate there is a flap there that might hide a compartment for such. Beneath a mat of coarse black hair he will also find nothing.
The Chakravat for his part is examining Andrés' hand from the vantage point his current position affords him, with a clinical eye and without a hint of squeamishness. Part of the reason he is so patiently allowing the Etherite's hand to wander is that detachment, that layer of removal between his inner reaches and the experience of now, something that allows him to feel without feeling. The cuts on his hand want a healer, and they remind Nick of other wounds he has seen following explosions.
Andrés, fortunately, is not missing any limbs or digits.
He reaches around for the other man's grasping hand and takes hold of it, using it as leverage to pull Andrés' arm around his shoulders instead, and then he begins to rise. "Come on, Andrés. We're going to need to have your hand looked at. We're going to have you see Kiara, all right?"
Andrés
Wiry bundle of energy that he is, the Etherite goes to his feet without fighting the ascent though deadweight is deadweight. He does frown when Nick slings his arm, the sensation curious and without obvious source, and gropes ahead of him with his free bloody hand. As if he's only aware that he's moving, not that he's being carried rather than walking of his own accord.
"Thought I saw a first aid kit underneath the register, but it's prob--" He leaps back with a shout, would have lost his balance were not for Nick. "Santo Cristo, the fuckers are everywhere."
Nicholas
Could Andrés walk on his own? Perhaps. It is likely that he walks more quickly with Nick, and as the Etherite nearly loses his balance Nick is indeed grateful that he is holding him up. Wait for him to get out on his own and they'll have the police (and likely the Union, or its representatives) down on their heads in a matter of minutes.
"Tell me about the fuckers, Andrés," he says, with only a hint of wry amusement. "I can't see them. They only hijacked you, not me."
He does not tell Andrés that his hand is beyond a first aid kit; looking at it Nick is unsure of whether he will be able to use it in the same way again. Best to let Kiara do whatever she can, assuming they can reach her.
Andrés
"This is the problem with you people."
Rational thought is getting the blind Scientist nowhere but where Nick drags him, but at least they're getting there in a hurry.
"They're crawling all over the walls, getting underfoot, I got guts on my shoes, it's like iceskating on... you know... guts." Another leap-shout. "If we can find a way to turn off the fucking sound... I think they're attracted to it."
Nicholas
"Mmm." Just this little acknowledgement, and nothing more. Meanwhile there are droplets of blood falling behind them on the marble floor, and they are headed out to the street; they will need something to conceal the damage to his hand if they're going to get anywhere. If they're going to get to his car to even get him out of here to see Kiara in the first place.
Some poor unfortunate left behind a navy blue hoodie in his haste to exit the lobby, and Nick as he spies it grabs it up in his free hand. He halts, letting Andrés' arm fall away from around his neck and reaching out one hand to steady the Etherite. "I'm going to wrap your hand up," he says, more out of the perhaps vain hope that Andrés will cooperate with him.
He folds its bulk around the other man's hand, trying to take as much care as he can and in the end just pressing Andrés' hand to his side. "We're about to head outside. You need to stick with me."
Andrés
Andrés does stand still, because he is creeped out and surrounded by gnarly fur-spiders that he is assuming are fur-spiders because they smell like dander and the outside and they crunch when he steps on them. He wears the expression of one who is both creeped out and unsteady on his feet.
When Nicholas releases him, his good hand gropes for the solidity that has fallen away from him. A sign they haven't completely lost him yet. Where'd it go? asks the flailing hand.
"Gah!" he says out of surprise more than disgust when Nick begins to wrap his hand. He gets the gist of it, though. Presses the wrist into the - whatever it is - against his chest.
That groping left hand seeks out the owner of the voice bobbing amidst the sea of sound. He grimaces, tolerating the fur-spiders crawling over him, because if he loses his balance he's going to fall into a herd of them. They can't move very fast as it is.
Might as well bitch if he can't make out what Nick is saying.
"Ay, güey, es bien sangrón..."
Nicholas
There is again this detached patience as Andrés reaches for him and grabs a handful of his hair. "Yes, it is," he says.
Then, once more, they make for the doors at the end of the lobby. It feels as though they have crossed a much larger distance than they actually have; space too is mutable just like time, can be swayed and shifted by perception alone without even the interference of a willworker. Nick wraps an arm around Andrés, and off they go.
He is reaching into his pocket to grab at his phone once more. He is old enough that texting with one thumb feels awkward to him, feels like he has to hunt and peck for letters which he does, and sends a text off to Kiara as they walk.
Nicholas
Hi Kiara. Andres is hurt. Can I bring him to you?
cricket
The response Nicholas gets is prompt: Bring him. I'm at 817 17th St. Bank and Boston Lofts, Apartment 422. I'll buzz you in.
Andrés
"Ay, güey, es bien sangrón..."
"Yes, it is."
---
"Shh!" says Andrés as they make their way to Nick's car, though Nick has hardly spoken at all. Or maybe he starts to say "Shit!" and then decides better of it.
He cups the hand not wrapped in sweatshirt underneath Nick's elbow, as if catching for something viscous, scooping more like it before trying to put back where it belongs, the 'it' in this scenario being the hallucination to which Nick is not privy. Lucky for him. If the man's hallucinations were actualizing, they would not have a Mad Scientist on their hands but a Marauder, and a Marauder you can only fix by stamping their name on a bullet.
A harder step down than he means to take, and he shouts and jumps back as if startled. Frowns. Blind eyes dart around, take his head with them.
"Walk softer," he says in a whisper, and starts to pat bare skin on his own neck, on Nick's arms. Whispers: "Is it staying on? It doesn't hurt."
Pen
And: Pen, her back against a wall, come swinging around: what. What wall? Some convenient nearby wall, not calling out to draw attention but gauging the right moment to come near. Around the corner's an alley, a deep alcove.
Pen, stark: big big shades (rose-tinted, you can see the eye through them) and a flimsy drifting dress of many layers the color of cherry blossoms, nips in at her waist, flares over her hips becomes transparent and diaphanous the layers at her calves look there are tiny flowers embroidered into the fabric and her dark (auburn, said Anne of Green Gables; a handsome auburn! Carrots said others. Less discriminating, less artistic. We'll split the difference and call the color 'Medea ardent') hair gathered in a loose bun at the nape of her neck and hanging from her left shoulder a leather book bag large the kind of old fashioned book bag that can hold (let's just say -- a lot) whatever you'd hardly be surprised.
One of her hands is -- see! How daintily it is buried in her skirt, gathering the material up (ah! Dawn) so when she does leave the wall it will drift after her as light as air and flash her ankles. There's a lot of fabric. That hand: she's holding her wand. Guage guage guage Andrés shouts guage guage guage measure consider narrow eyes. The thing is: Pen could've stayed far and away [and been just as devastating there as she might be here--perhaps, just in case--] to monitor, but she hasn't quite sluiced all rash impulse out of her bones yet.
Wait for it wait for it. Whistle.
--
Not before: Pen, come swinging around.
An alley, a service door, deep and near enough for her purposes, almost hidden, not quite hidden, we'll trust to faith (no we won't. We'll Look first. We'll peer in water in a cup, we'll brood Circe rather than Medea and we'll let ourselves be Aware of the area and then) then Pen was an Elsewhere Pen and she pronounced an invocation in a celestial tongue and accompanied it with the precise gestures needed to compass a door and unlock it and
An alley, a service door, deep and near and in that service door atop a concrete stair, suddenly a woman. The door is locked from the outside; it did not open. Her legs went to jelly: it fucking worked.
--
OOC stuff. Andrew/Kenna both witnessed. *g*
Glamourie
[Scrying. Corr 2/Prime 1/Forces 1/Entropy 1. -1 sympathetic or -1 near a node. She's either at home (Nick's hair, yo) or studying at the Chantry library, one or the other. -1 personal instrument. Diff 5 - 2 = 3. ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 4, 6) ( success x 2 )
Glamourie
[Intelligence + Awareness. Sense of place I'ma bamf to.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )
Glamourie
[Let's Intelligence + Esoterica (Enochian) this.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6) ( success x 2 ) [Doubling Tens]
Glamourie
[Corr 3. Vulgar as fuck w/ out witnesses. 1 success needed (thanks to above roll 'within immediate perception,' yay). Diff: 7. -2 (Enochian), -1 personal instrument. Diff: 4. WP for obvious teleportation reasons.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 8, 8) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens] [WP]
Glamourie
[...No doubling tens, obviously.]
witness
witnessed!
Nicholas
For reasons Andrés does not know, will never know, as he pats Nick's skin and asks whether his skin is staying on the Chakravat shudders. It's imperceptible, almost, a faint tremor that rills down his spine which carries the vibration into the rest of his bones, but certainly present. There is a haunted look in his eyes because: Gates of Horn, and Andrés is not so far from becoming a Marauder, is he now?
They say we only want to look to the future in difficult times, not pleasant ones, but this sometimes is a curse of people who dream true. They wonder, every time they glimpse a sign of loss on the horizon. This is a curse of the perceptive and people who dream true alike.
Nicholas says nothing. He continues on, doggedly, toward his car with Andrés pressed against his side, his arm clasped around the other man's waist. Passersby glance at them, out on the busy downtown streets. A young woman gives them a thumbs up. Nick speeds up his steps. And then Pen appears, around the service alley, and his relief is palpable as soon as he sees her there because while her presence changes nothing he is no longer alone.
"We need to get him to the car," he tells Pen once he draws near enough (or she draws near enough) to be heard. "I'm taking him to Kiara's."
Andrés
And Andrés has seen better days. Worse ones, too. Way worse. This is nothing, and he isn't here, anyway. Gates of horn, gates of ivory. They're on different sides right now, even if their sides are pressed together.
He could crawl faster than he could walk, bloodied and half-raving like he is, and he doesn't see the thumbs up from the passerby. Doesn't realize Nick is trying to walk faster and stumbles, nearly goes down but for he very much does not want to land on whatever he just stepped on. Doesn't notice Pen when she steps through and goes wobbly herself.
I'm taking him to Kiara's.
Nothing to say to that. Nick's voice doesn't make it through the static droning in his ears, one of which he rubs with the sweatshirt-bound hand as if it aches.
Pen
"Where are you parked?" Meaning: if very far, she'll nip over and bring the car to them.
Beat. "Hey, Andrés. Toughest bar crawl with Nick yet, hmm?" For a moment her attention is the Society man's. The rose-tinted lenses are transparent enough that they reflect only the shape of the two men, no features no Denver city-scape no street no cars no consequences to what happened to them. But she studies, taking note of: his hand, his erratic step. Conscious awareness.
Someone across the street shouts, not at any of them, but a shout of laughter: somebody has been hitting the sauce. That's what happens outside. Humanity, everywhere!
Nick
"Not far. Walk with me," Nick says, and there are dark stains on his navy blue shirt and dark stains on his hands, though the worst of it all is concealed by the sweatshirt that Andrés has wrapped around his injury. It's not much, they don't look as though they've just walked out of some abbatoir or off of a battlefield though it may feel that way to Nick (explosion and smoke and shattered glass), but still best that they get themselves into a car as soon as they can.
It is indeed not that far at all, a block or two: they can get there by cutting through the alley that Pen Strode into, though it's perhaps ill-advised in the gathering twilight. So instead they cut around a corner and there is a parking lot, and there is Nick's little black Honda. It chirps and flashes its lights when he unlocks it, and as it is a small car the sound is surprisingly cute: as though it is greeting them like an enthusiastic cat.
He says nothing to Andrés as he opens the back door and directs the Etherite to sit in the backseat, and once done he will lean down to buckle his seatbelt for him and arrange his injured hand, with its wrapping, in his lap. "Can you drive?" This, to Pen (of course.)
Andrés
Where are you parked?
Not far. Walk with me.
"Son of a bitch."
Hey, Andrés. Toughest bar crawl with Nick yet, hmm?
"Sonnnnnn of a--"
He makes as much of an attempt to yank away from Nick as is possible given their differences in height and health, one permanent and one temporary. It is not difficult for Nick to steer him because Nick is real, he is unharmed, but he is also bound by the rules of sanity, and he cannot see whatever has the Etherite's eyes gone functionally blind.
In good health he would be a sprite on his feet. Now, he tries to avoid stepping on something, nearly falls, uses his left hand to fumble in his pocket for one of his devices. Deadweight again. Nick may end up having to drag him, manhandle him a bit to get him in the backseat, upright and buckled in. He's about as much help to himself as a man falling-down drunk.
He mumbles something to the effect of "Veronica, you crazy-ass... ass... stranding me in some kind of fucked-up blastoma dimension..." like this all makes sense now.
Pen
Can Pen drive?
"Can the Roadrunner outwit Wile E. Coyote?" Rather than bravado there is a low and confessional intimacy to her tone of voice. Her observation of Andrés (it continues while she settles into the driver's seat - maybe she has her own set of keys or happened to have the spare in her bag, glances into the rear view mirror and adjusts it minutely) causes her to say, "Nick, maybe you should sit with him. Does Kiara know he's coming and needs some help?"
"Hey, Andrés, a glaucoma - " she cannot hear him properly. He is mumbling. " - dimension? Are you assailed by strange visions?"
Nick
Blastoma: it's a word familiar to him; he had a client die of one, once, not so long ago, and so his mind goes a different place than Pen's as she repeats what Andrés said.
The man is dead weight, and Nick grunts and does indeed have to manhandle him into the car. Though up to the task of wrestling his friend into the backseat, Nick is not a strong man and so it takes a while and considerable strain on his part. "I'll sit with him," he says, a little breathless as he nudges Andrés toward the middle of the back seat's bench. He tries to slide in next to him, wiggles himself in next to the Etherite. "I think he's in Quiet," he tells Pen now, now that she has asked about the visions.
He is certain Andrés is having visions or hallucinations of some sort: he was after all talking about the Russians hacking his brain, looking for evidence that Nick himself is a construct.
"Kiara does know we're coming and said it's all right. I texted her. We're going to 817 17th Street."
And so they drive.
Kiara
So: to Kiara’s apartment.
When they arrive, they are presented with an impressive structure looming out over the corner of 17th Street. There is no doorman at 817 but there is an intercom system. When someone hits 422’s, there is a low buzz that swings open the mechanism of the heavy glass door.
There were marble walls inside the entrance lobby, old columns and a domed, arching ceiling overhead. At the end of the lobby, they are presented with a staircase and a set of twin lifts with gold trim around the edges that sat in an elegant display against the walls.
The elevator plays tinny music on their ascent (assuming they don’t decide to drag Andrés up the four flights of stairs), the interior fitted with mirrors that cast back polished and slightly warped reflections of the Mages.
When the doors swoop open with a heraldic little chime, they are presented with a carpeted hallway with a small window at one end and, sitting outside a partly open door as if anticipating their imminent presence: a rather luxurious grey and black striped cat with golden eyes. The feline’s tail was curled around its body and it paused in the midst of grooming one of its ears to observe the trio.
There was a tiny flick of a tail and the animal rose, stretched and vanished into the depths of the apartment.
Had they just been announced by a cat?
Andrés
Andrés does not want to go into the car. Says as much as Nick manhandles him, says "No no no no no no, bad, bad idea," but Backlash had its way with him earlier and his wounds make him malleable.
At one point during the buckling process he slinks his uninjured fingers up around his throat, frowns and flexes them as if he's trying to keep a cord from tightening around his airway. He stares out the window as they pull away, some fixed point outside the vehicle of great interest to him, and he pokes, gentle, at Pen's right arm.
"Eugh," he says.
After that he is diligent about not making any sound.
Nick
Andrés is silent through the rest of their drive, and so is Nick: therefore likely so is Pen. It is not far to Kiara's apartment and for that duration there is only quiet, Quiet. Nick keeps his hand on Andrés' shoulder, as unlikely as it is that the Etherite is aware of it; after a while his hand moves down to the sweatshirt balled around Andrés' hand in order to apply pressure.
Ten minutes before they arrive Kiara receives another text: About 10 mins away. Warning: Andrés may have eaten a bad backlash.
They do eventually arrive at Kiara's, and the chime and the cat herald their arrival before they come up to meet her in her apartment. Nick guides Andrés upstairs with a hand on his shoulder, much as he did as they were leaving the hotel. The door is partially open: Nicholas knocks on the frame before he steps into the doorway. Even then he remains just at the threshold; this is only good sense when entering the home of another mage. "Kiara?"
Kiara
It is particularly good sense when entering a witch's den.
There is, to put it no other fine way - activity - as soon as Nicholas, Pen and Andrés reach the threshold of Kiara's door. Those among them with the sensitivity for it will feel the sudden rustling and trembling of spiritual anguish. There were things alive in this apartment, other than the Verbena and her cat. They were awakened. Alert -- and dissatisfied with the new company.
Two potted spider-ferns bracketed the doorway to the pagan's home, stood on small narrow stands they thrummed with energy (and delivered the clear sense of watchfulness) and seemed to nearly vibrate with tension as the Mages drew up.
Kiara?
The door spilled light into an airy space; the entrance hall (if it could really be called such given its short span) opened up into a joint living and kitchen area with large windows that overlooked the side of another building and gave a tantalizing glimpse of traffic floors below. There were more plants inside; in fact; they seemed positively abundant. In one corner of the living room, a small altar sat with a cloth draped over it; incense burning in a holder.
There was a small ceremonial knife lay beside it; bundles of herbs wrapped in twine and a small cushion on the floor before the altar itself.
The entire space resonated with the brunette's energy; it bloomed from the plants on windowsills and growing in tiny trays on her kitchen sill. The cat they'd glimpsed sitting in the doorway was now perched on a sofa.
"Here," came a reply, the bare rustle of fabric and clink of jewelry and the Verbena appeared, wiping down her hands on her jeans. She was barefoot, the pagan; her dark hair damp. "Bring him inside." She hastened to close the door behind them and gently swept her fingers over one of the spider ferns. "You can set him down on the sofa."
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