saveourearth | Answers. Answers are usually nice [Closed Log]

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Answers. Answers are usually nice [Closed Log]

Date: August 25 onwards
Characters: Ray Jones, Walter, also Lucas

At the very least, there were perks to living directly on the high street. Ray was used to the sound of busyness happening around her at all times, and even though Mossgate was normally pretty quiet (and university had been its own kind of busy) it was still nice hearing traffic and local hoons outside as a kind of background noise.

It also means she can scope out and decide on where she wants to meet Walter ahead of time; the median strips are tempting, but in the end she goes with a cafe just nearby, and sends Walter a selfie with shark emojis.

how do you like your coffee

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Decaf.

[Don't worry, he sends a winking emote right after; he's teasing.]

I've got my own standard order, it's fine.

[Albeit one that resembles more 'hot chocolate' than proper coffee.]

you're an abomination

But she's happy to sit and wait with her coffee in a corner booth with her book, watching for someone Walter-shaped to come in and spot her staring.

Edited 2019-09-03 03:42 (UTC)

Oh, I've heard worse.

[Utterly unrelated to his caffeine practices, however.

And Walter's appearance in the shop is both utterly sudden and utterly silent; one could think they simply hadn't noticed him, with how he's not waiting by the other free corner one blink and is the next.

The work of months of practice.

He meets her stare, and then texts, without any hint of holding a device:]

Happy to see me? Give me five minutes to pick up my order.

[Because, alas, baristas are not as fast as Walter can get.]

Giving Lucas a key to her apartment had, perhaps, not been the best decision of Ray's life. Because now he naturally felt inclined to essentially invite himself over whenever he wished, and never with any kind of heads-up or prior warning. He simply appeared, let himself in, and started idly fiddling with all of her possessions.

Things being in slightly different positions than they were before was often a very good sign that Lucas had come to visit.

As was what he was doing now, which was opening up the doors to her pantry and looking at the contents critically.

"Really Ray-Ray. This is just depressing. No one needs one pack of two-minue noodles, let alone six." He picks up one of the offending packets, and looks down at it in distain. "We both know you can afford much better."

She gave him the key for emergencies, thank you. Which she had thought was fair, in case something happened to one of them and they needed the spare set. That he uses it just to break in, critique her food choices and move her furniture two inches to the left was an unpleasant side effect she just had to live with.

She hears shuffling before she can pull her own keys out, and just sighs as she stops digging and just opens the door. Perks of a studio apartment: walking straight into the kitchen.

"What if I like two-minute noodles, Lu? They're easier than ordering take-out, I still haven't found somewhere that does decent Asian."

"Don't be ridiculous, no one likes two minute noodles," Lucas scoffs, returning the offending food item to the pantry and closing the doors. "Although I'll grant you that the restaurants around here are indeed quite lacking. But I suppose that's what we get for taking up residence in a minuscule little village like this one."

Because of course, to Lucas - who had lived a good number of years in London - Mossgate might as well be microscopic.

It's only because she's staring so intently at the area that she notices Walter suddenly there when that corner had been very much empty a moment ago.

"What the fuck..." she can't help mumbling under her breath.

And then her heartbeat thumps in her ears, and suddenly she's gripping her phone so tightly that her knuckles turn white.

That's not that impressive. She can do that too.

The knowledge sits firmly in her mind, and it's followed immediately by a wave of dizziness. She puts her phone down slowly - her hands are shaking a little - and picks up her cup to chug her still-hot coffee.

"I took up residence here. You followed me along like a weird lanky dog." She dumps her tiny satchel (more of a purse really) on the kitchen counter before she hops up and sits on it herself. "Not that I'm complaining very hard. At least you don't eat my junk hoards."

"That's because I have standards, sister," Lucas says, with a roll of his eyes. "And no, I did not follow you along like a 'weird lanky dog'. I'm merely here only little vacay. A temporary little visit to the seaside."

Or at least, that was what Lucas insisted. He was just here for the current job, nothing more, and the fact that Ray happened to live here was clearly just pure coincidence.

"Mm hmm." She doesn't sound convinced. Especially not when she's finally tall enough to look him in the eye without craning her neck, and she folds one leg over the other almost pointedly. "Still. I'm glad temporary has turned into... what, four months now?"

"I have a project, Ray Ray. And despite what squealing fans might think, a season of television can't simply be churned out within just a few weeks."

See. A totally valid excuse. Yup. No holes in that argument at all.

Totally valid. And totally the reason she's smiling a little bit wider. "Of course it can't. I get front row seats to your test screenings, right?"

"Of course," Lucas says, offended that she even asks, as he moves to open another one of Ray's cupboards. He then starts re-arranging her mugs. To be sorted by colour, of course. "When have I not given you front-row seats?"

Last time it had been by size, so she's not sure if this is going to be an improvement.

"I dunno." She shrugs. "People say a lot of weird stuff keeps happening around here lately. I'm allowed to be a little... wigged out, I guess."

Amusement slips off his face as he comes over to sit in the booth across from Ray.

"Are you okay?" he asks, carefully, calmly, clearly.

"Sorry for startling you."

She puts her coffee down and swallows the large mouthful she has, making her eyes water. "'m fine. Just..." She's still a bit pale, and nudges her glasses up so she can brush tears out of one eye. "Uh. Had a dizzy spell."

She wipes her other eye, looking at Walter critically. "I... I thought," she emphasises, with clear doubt in her voice, "That. I saw you..." She waves a hand vaguely. "Teleport in, or something. First you weren't there, then you were."

"... Heard a heartbeat in your ears that wasn't yours?" Walter asks next, softly.

As to the other part of the conversation, he nods.

"Not teleportation; more super-speed. Picked it up the night of the aurora."

His coffee - if it can still be called that - won't be ready for another couple minutes; he can afford to explain even this much now.

"Took me a lot longer than a night to master it."

At his question, she merely nods. She immediately dislikes being a Numbered, if it meant more of those.

"How long until you stopped face-planting into doors?" she asks instead, taking her coffee again with a more controlled sip.

"Weeks," Walter admits, exhaling in a huff.

"More than that, though, I first gained the ability to think faster - which isn't the same as thinking smarter," he's quick to add.

"But in terms of the dissociation effect, it was arguably worse."

"Weird like what?" Lucas scoffs, having found this place to be - in his experience so far - not particularly interesting at all. Downright dull, even.

But then, Lucas may also have someone impossible standards for what counted as 'exciting'.

"I mean, I told you about how weird it was for the sharks to be so close to the festival, the other day," she says, bouncing her free leg. "And while we were there I met a girl, like a first year uni student? She said a guy came into the animal shelter, and next day all the cats disappeared. And how there were bluebirds everywhere for like a week - those aren't even British."

She pulls her phone out, to toy with it in her hands. Lucas probably recognises the nervous habit. "And other things too."

"That sounds about right." She definitely looks less pale now, but no less troubled. She puts her coffee back down again, very carefully takes her glasses off - then puts her forearms on the table and donks her face into them.

And groans.

"What the fuuuuuuck..." She turns her head so she can squint one eye at him. "When I saw you appear I think I remembered I can do that too? But I don't know how."

Walter sighs in sympathy - though empathy would be more accurate.

"Echoes are weird like that. You may have been given the ability to do so, or just the knowledge that the person you're receiving Echoes from could do that. Or something completely different."

His order is announced right then; as he gets up, he says, "This wouldn't be the best place to practice, though."

"The cats disappeared. What an shame," Lucas says with flat sarcasm. His dislike for the horrid creatures is certainly no secret to Ray. "And those bluebirds were clearly someone's private collection. Someone who apparently isn't very good at keeping them contained. Really Ray, surely you might have a higher bar for 'weird' than that."

Ray just shrugs awkwardly. "I dunno, it just seems like a lot of small things building up."

Then she scoffs lightly. "Sadie even told me about this really dumb one - she said a bunch of people were remembering these, like- weird memories from other people's lives? That were triggered by random shit, like- like going near those sharks." That one she remembered a little belatedly. "And everyone remembered this weird unique number that they can't forget."

"Yeah, no shit," she mumbles as he gets up. "You might set off more people."

She waits until he gets back before she continues. "Anyway, I said I don't know how. So I can't exactly go practising it, because-- what. What am I supposed to even do?"

Edited 2019-09-12 15:02 (UTC)

This time Walter cannot suppress a wince.

"I hope you mean fear, and not just Echoes, though it's not a pleasant image either way."

When he is back, he takes a sip of his drink before replying.

"At the risk of sounding like a mentor-cliché - put yourself in a situation where you think you'd really need it, and it will come to you? Preferably not one that would actually kill you, though."

She looks a bit skeptical. "I dunno, man, I've seen enough superhero shows that - stuff like that? It pretty much only starts working right before you get killed."

Walter pinches his nose.

"There was a time here when people got Echoes from eating what was probably a drug-laced cake. The spectrum of 'dangerous' that seems to be at work here is quite large."

He drinks a great deal of his coffee after saying that.

"Let me guess, they've all remembered that they're the reincarnation of Cleopatra?" Lucas remarks with a drawl, clearly finding the whole thing utterly ridiculous and amusing. Remembering other lives. The things his little sister believed.

But then she mentions unique numbers, and something in Lucas goes still. On the outside there's barely a reaction, just a flicker of something in his eye, some kind of recognition. But something Ray would know him well enough to pick up on.

"A number?" He says, all casual and apparently uncaring.

She didn't necessarily say she believed that. Even if she does, actually.

But she definitely notices Lucas's reaction, and her own fidgeting stills. "...yeah. She said that if you write your own number down - like, on paper or on your phone or whatever - you can use whatever you write it on to communicate with other people who have numbers."

Oh geeze. Please don't say that Lucas was one too. "And people without numbers can't actually see what you're writing."

Now Lucas snorts, not even bothering to hide it. "Magic numbers that let a chosen few secretly communicate?" he waggles his fingers in the air, as if to suggest strange and nebulous magics. "Well if that isn't the most far-fetched, nonsensical piece of wish fulfilment, I don't know what is. What new-age loon told you that?"

She grimaces again. "Well that's just delightful. How do you guys trust anything anymore?"

She just rolls her eyes super hard. "Whatever, Lu. If you get sucked into weird shit because you didn't even entertain the notion of it all, I get to say a big fat 'I told you so'." She untangles her legs and jumps down off the counter. "Not that I even said I do, I'm just saying that people said it."

"'Weird shit' is for television, Ray-Ray. Not for real life," Lucas says, dismissing the very idea. So what if there was a number that kept rattling around in his head, coming back to the forefront of his mind at strange and unexpected moments? That didn't mean that they were some sort of magical pass-phrase.

"Though there's something to the idea, I'll grant you that," he says, ruminating as he taps his fingers on her kitchen bench-top. "Not a complete story on it's own, but perhaps something that could add an interesting little twist. I should keep it in mine for one of my future scripts."

"That's probably one of our driving questions," Walter snarks.

"But through all of this, we've been able to push through by acting as support for one another. Not facing these changes alone seems to make the biggest difference."

Which, again, cliché - but useful cliché.

"Life's weird, Lu. Especially for us celebrity kids." She moves closer, reaching over his arm so she can take a cup. "You could probably just make an autobio movie and make millions."

Lucas grimaces. "I can't think of anything I'd rather do less," he grumbles. "Yes, I'm quite sure that such a project would indeed make millions. But no one would be watching it for me. They'd be watching it for Dear Old Dad. And then they'd insist that I was simply making it all up. Doing it for the attention. As if I hadn't had enough of that already."

He knew the drill. Everyone was always on his father's side, never on his. He'd be dismissed once again as the ungrateful son, the bad seed.

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Answers. Answers are usually nice [Closed Log]

... If it turns out they live just a few buildings apart I will die laughing.

That'd be fuckin funny

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