[It's busy for 3am on a Sunday - must be the weekend for it - but the people still spilling out of The Coliseum give a wide berth to the figure huddled on the edge of the sidewalk
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[Desire is standing nearby, watching, impassively. It's smoking a cigarette and wearing a very very fine suit, but it's impossible not to notice the Endless]
[It may say something for Chase's state that he has managed it until now. Finally, eventually, when his head feels so heavy that he has to lift it or risk pitching forward into the dregs at the roadside, he tips his chin up enough to watch the woman (woman: there's no internal debate).
And he thinks he could ask for a cigarette, that he might like one. He doesn't smoke. He's not sure why.]
[Desire moves in a way that suggests it's always been where it at any given moment. It's a game of perception. The smell of peaches is subtle and soft, and two shadows play in it's wake]
You're months late.
[For Thanksgiving, maybe. Now she's standing just next to him.]
[Gin should overpower peaches but he catches a little of it on his breath, tangling the bitter with the sweet.]
Lost track.
[And it's supposed to be an explanation, and it's supposed to be funny, but works as nothing better than a summation of his own last few months, all of them that he can remeber - that he's trying to forget.]
video ) 1/2adamantinedOctober 2 2011, 19:01:16 UTC
[Busy or not, it's still 3AM, and Claire is still on her way home from work just as she would be any other early Sunday morning. She scrolls through the Network just as she would on any early Sunday morning, dodges more shoulders and elbows and stumbling legs than might otherwise be normal. Unlike any other early Sunday morning, she might be looking more closely at faces and lines of text, and that still doesn't manage prepare her.
So she fumbles with the device half in excitement and half in shock and some other fractional amount of whatever is left. The device ends up disconnecting as a result, the side of her hand sliding against the switch that shuts the thing down, and anyone in the immediate vicinity is probably provided with free entertainment as she presses harder than necessary to get the connection back on.]
[No video this time, and as she's had a moment to take a breath and compose herself, Claire's tone is less frantic than it might have been otherwise. Her feet move fast to compensate, trying to catch up with her brain moving too fast to keep track of. Something stinging hot squeezes tight behind her breastbone. She can't decide if she hopes that's audible.]
[With a drunks optimism, only enough time passes for him to retrieve a battered phone from between his feet - though slowed with alcoholic dizziness - before he replies.]
You must be running on a different clock to me.
[He stops and regroups, with no idea of his own accuracy. Back to the purpose.]
[There are cabs - not a lot of them, like buses, but they exist - and her eyes are so peeled for the yellow flash of one that they may as well be potatoes. She should have driven, whether the streets were swelled with people or not. Then she could have... Claire doesn't know.]
I hope not.
[No telling yet if this is a one day visit or a total return. She still isn't sure which would be better. Maybe Wilson has an idea now. She's never seen a visitor's pass access the Network, though. Claire swallows.]
Okay, I'll get you a cab. Do you know where you are? Describe it to me.
[The Coliseum, obviously. She just doesn't want him to stop talking to her.]
[She's talking to his jacket pocket, though he doesn't know yet that he's been issued with a PDA to replace the one that's taken a beating over the course of the night. That one's almost certainly not talking anymore, so he takes the voice as acknowledgement from someone too considerate for their own good, making a poor attempt at joking their way into expressing concern for him. The laugh he offers as a response, if he has to make any, is weak, humourless, coupled with the hunching of his shoulders as if all he could ask is that they go away. Give up. God knows, he's trying to do the same.]
[It's just an echo. Something quiet and thoughtful while his mind confirms that what's said is wrong. They'd had an eventful one, Halloween, so far as patients making it back from the dead went. Even this drunk he hasn't forgotten it.]
[Should she? The honest answer is almost certainly that she shouldn't, that it would be easier not to say anything to him since certainly he'll be gone before Monday morning, but there are certain areas in which Cameron's legendary resolve tends to break down.]
Thanksgiving.
Can you tell me what year it is?
[The inflection suggests it's a comment on his intoxication, but really, she's trying to situate him.]
[And for a moment it's so obviously her that he laughs before the impossible hits.]
A-Allison? [He must have hit an automatic dial button when he dropped the phone - that quick access list he hasn't taken her off the top of, can't imagine--
It is funny. So stupid it's funny. It fits the image, then, of him crouched over the curb, talking down to a broken handset.] You can't be mad at me, you, you don't get to be mad at me about this when you're not here.
[It's so earnest. It's funny. He'd buy and sell his soul for this reprimand to be valid and not late night frustration at his drunken misdial. And so he takes it back. Maybe he can pretend.]
[A long, long pause; she's going through it in her mind, all the impossible visits and glimpses of curses. This drunk means-- nothing good, though it doesn't take any special knowledge to figure it out.]
[Hands and knees, his elbows scrape the tarmac, forehead dipped almost to it as he replies.]
I know how phones work.
[She's not here. She's in Chicago, or wherever else she's gone to escape the toxicity of his choices, but he points it out with only faint, half-amused acknowledgement that he might sound drunk enough to have forgotten. That he's been trying to see how possible that might be as a deliberate project.]
Did I wake you? I didn't mean to call. [There's a suddent rush of how that might sound.] Not that- just-
Street outside the bar. [And suddenly he laughs, or at least that's the most likely explanation for those quick, raspy breaths.] They probably want me to get out of it.
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And he thinks he could ask for a cigarette, that he might like one. He doesn't smoke. He's not sure why.]
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You're months late.
[For Thanksgiving, maybe. Now she's standing just next to him.]
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Lost track.
[And it's supposed to be an explanation, and it's supposed to be funny, but works as nothing better than a summation of his own last few months, all of them that he can remeber - that he's trying to forget.]
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So she fumbles with the device half in excitement and half in shock and some other fractional amount of whatever is left. The device ends up disconnecting as a result, the side of her hand sliding against the switch that shuts the thing down, and anyone in the immediate vicinity is probably provided with free entertainment as she presses harder than necessary to get the connection back on.]
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Ro - It's not Thanksgiving yet.
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You must be running on a different clock to me.
[He stops and regroups, with no idea of his own accuracy. Back to the purpose.]
I need- need you to get me a cab.
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I hope not.
[No telling yet if this is a one day visit or a total return. She still isn't sure which would be better. Maybe Wilson has an idea now. She's never seen a visitor's pass access the Network, though. Claire swallows.]
Okay, I'll get you a cab. Do you know where you are? Describe it to me.
[The Coliseum, obviously. She just doesn't want him to stop talking to her.]
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[It's just an echo. Something quiet and thoughtful while his mind confirms that what's said is wrong. They'd had an eventful one, Halloween, so far as patients making it back from the dead went. Even this drunk he hasn't forgotten it.]
Tonight's Thanksgiving.
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Thanksgiving.
Can you tell me what year it is?
[The inflection suggests it's a comment on his intoxication, but really, she's trying to situate him.]
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A-Allison? [He must have hit an automatic dial button when he dropped the phone - that quick access list he hasn't taken her off the top of, can't imagine--
It is funny. So stupid it's funny. It fits the image, then, of him crouched over the curb, talking down to a broken handset.] You can't be mad at me, you, you don't get to be mad at me about this when you're not here.
[It's so earnest. It's funny. He'd buy and sell his soul for this reprimand to be valid and not late night frustration at his drunken misdial. And so he takes it back. Maybe he can pretend.]
I'm sorry.
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[A long, long pause; she's going through it in her mind, all the impossible visits and glimpses of curses. This drunk means-- nothing good, though it doesn't take any special knowledge to figure it out.]
Do you know where you are?
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I know how phones work.
[She's not here. She's in Chicago, or wherever else she's gone to escape the toxicity of his choices, but he points it out with only faint, half-amused acknowledgement that he might sound drunk enough to have forgotten. That he's been trying to see how possible that might be as a deliberate project.]
Did I wake you? I didn't mean to call. [There's a suddent rush of how that might sound.] Not that- just-
If you were asleep.
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I'll be in in the morning.
[That's obviously the worry.]
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