2019-06-21 - Back Office Beers
Alexander drops by the Pawn and Lilith invites him for beers and divulging company 'round back while keeping shop for the night.
IC Date: 2019-06-21
OOC Date: 2019-04-29
Location: Elm/Harbor Mist - Back Office
Related Scenes: None
Plot: None
Scene Number: 435
It's dark, but Lilith is in a pawn shop working and those tend to keep all hours. It's not the hours for the emergency loan window and lock up, though, so the front door with the bell is unlocked and she's behind the counter with the computer open to a site that looks to be a pawn broker swap and sell arrangement between online sites. She's got boxes and packing supplies back there with her, as well as some random collection of items to pack and send out, but mostly, she's sitting on a stool staring at a plant for some reason.
Honestly, it's just a potted geranium with purple-white schemed flowers on it that seems to be in a state between dead and alive. Some of it is wilting, some of it is full bloom in places, but it isn't a big plant and it doesn't seem to have any sentiment attached to the way she's looking at it. She's not daydreaming, she's concentrating on something, work forgotten for the time being. And currently she's wearing a lace-edged blue tank top with a pair of fitted jeans and lace-up silver sandals, makeup light with hair pulled back into a loose knot out of the way. A grayish sweater cardigan is tossed on the counter with other things, like she took it off at some point and just tossed it up there, not expecting too much in the way of customers and she has music on low to occupy the noise space of the shop.
No one expects the Alexander Inquisition! So that's exactly what Lilith gets. At least, the first part. Alexander enters the shop, shoulders and head bowed, dry for once as Gray Harbor reaches summer and thus isn't /constantly/ pouring the tears of the sky down on them. He looks tired, and from the sweat patches under his faded t-shirt, has clearly been walking for a long while. He pauses just inside the door, taking in the interior with wary, weary suspicion. "Are you still open, Miss Winslow?" he asks, softly. Even though the fact that the door opened probably should have told him that.
"Sure am. Give me your number before I forget, I was going to text and ask if you got out okay, but couldn't. Then I heard you did." Lilith tells Alexander with a few quick blinks as she pulls out of whatever concentration bit she was on with that plant on the counter glass. She scoots it over by the computer with reach while rising up and getting her phone from pocket to prepare punching in the number given to her as requested, apparently not expecting him to argue or have issue with it.
Eyeing him a few heartbeats once she's up standing with her phone and ready, she wonders too, "... you okay? Look like you've been trying to run from something or literally sweat out your problems with exercise pace." A pause, "You were kind of a badass during the storm. I think. It's hard to see what everyone else is doing once that focus of the moment and what needs done closes in."
Alexander stares at her blankly. "You want my phone number?" He frowns, turns around to take another look out into the night, like maybe he's afraid that he might have slipped away into another place. To be fair, in Gray Harbor, that's only HALF paranoia. But when he turns back around, he gives the number to her, a quick staccato of numbers flung out there as if to give her an excuse not to remember or note them. He slouches his way up to the counter, and stares at the plant. "Someone pawned a plant?" Then his eyes slide back towards her. "It hasn't been a good day, Miss Winslow. What about you? Are you well? You accounted well for yourself, but it can be distressing."
"Well, yeah. How else am I supposed to yell at you for going the wrong way in a sewer when I can't really chase you down? Or you know, thank you for the other night when I was drunk-ish." A pause before Lilith confesses, tapping the number into her phone before sending off a text to him that notates her own number on his screen to save. It just says 'Lil' in the text. "Okay, fully drunk. So I know about -days- and how they sometimes just aren't any damn good."
She looks at the plant for a moment, sliding her phone back into pants pocket when she's finished tinkering with trading numbers, head shaking a little bit in answering on the pawn question. Explanation on the item comes from the brunette a bit slowly during her other answer, "I'm... you know. I'm fine enough. But those things keep happening and people get hurt and I'm much better at -things- than living people. Plants tend to die around me when I'm upset, so I never keep them around. But this one is my..." Her tongue works against the line of her teeth as she thinks how to dub the thing with a moment to side-eye the greenery and blossoms in varied states of life and wilt, "I named it Patient Zero. Test and study subject."
After pulling in a short, audible breath through her nose, she bats lashes twice and focuses on Alexander again, "... do you think whoever was running down the tunnel and away... that they did that? Snared us into that? Or that they were just... part of the strange and not... from here like us?"
"There's no need to thank me, Miss Winslow. If I hadn't been there, you'd have called a cab. And found someone else interesting, but probably less...me." Alexander's smile is crooked and self mocking. "And I don't think you get cell reception when you're lost. I never have." A thoughtful pause. "Well. Sometimes things text or call me, but I'm fairly sure they're not using the cellular network."
He leans on the counter near her sweater, and considers the plant. Then her. "You heal people." A glance back at the plant. "And kill plants when you're angry. I'm sorry. It's hard when you can't control it. You should give it a better name than Patient Zero, though. Mortimer Angus Wilson, perhaps."
He echoes her breath, so closely that it's hard to believe it's not on purpose. No eyelash batting, though. "Someone called them. They were following orders. Or something. But when I told them that he wanted them to go away, they did." It's only half an answer, but he watches her expression carefully.
"Someone less you might have been a problem. You were pretty perfect about it all. So take the thanks and compliment before I thump you. Drinking too much and stranding yourself drunk as a woman is more of an issue sometimes than people realize. Sometimes it makes you a dumb sitting duck for a man of the moment." Lilith tells Alexander with a gust of sigh and a poke of loose hair strand behind an ear. She looks at him a little strangely about getting texts or calls from 'things' instead of people, but she doesn't inquire on it.
Instead, she looks back at the plant and corrects, "I'm -able- to heal people, but I generally just do -not-. Because I'm not a doctor and it's... scary. In fact, I can count the times I've done it on one hand and each time it was because... it was a non-option that tabled my fear of breaking them like a -thing- instead. I figure a plant is right inbetween. But if I give it a real name and I'm killing it on purpose to work on healing it, that seems mean. Somehow. In fact, I have no clue why I even thought to name it. But now... Mortimer Angus Wilson it is. Maybe a real name will make me better at it. It's strange, the mental ticks I make to process and power through. But we... you know."
Then she thinks about Alexander's answer on what she asked quite visibly, eyes narrowing a touch with pensive nature. She pops a lean on the counter opposite him, though, and puts a cheek in hand to wonder, "What happened to you today?"
"Please don't thump me," Alexander deadpans. "But you're welcome. And you're not wrong." He offers a faint smile. "But so is wandering off without a group in a dangerous situation, so I can't chide." He quiets to listen to her, the flat, dark stare back as he studies her expression more than her words. "You think about how you can hurt people. Good." He offers her a faint, warm smile. Then it shuts off like a light switch flicked off. "Wait. I don't mean that how it sounded. I meant. You recognize. That you can hurt people. And you worry about it. THAT is good."
He reaches out and gives the plant, now dubbed Mortimer, a gentle stroke. He looks back to Lilith. "You're practicing. What has you practicing?" Her question isn't answered. He's clearly trying to ignore that she even asked it.
Lilith twitches a smile up some with lopsided cant of ghosting expression after Alexander makes plea for a no-thump zone and confesses his own moment of stupid negligence that totally trumps her drunk one. She doesn't seem bothered by his assessment, though, or the fact that he calls it good. In fact... she seems a little subtly charmed that he -gets- that even without her detailing how much that worry and fear has impacted her very life and where she stands now.
"Mmhm. It scared me away for years. Dreams about ripping into the only ones that... were ever there for me. I thought I'd do it on accident. So I hurt them and myself and walled away to... avoid hurting them in other ways during the last years. I still have the dreams. I still don't have a lot of control. But this time around... mm. Different. And I'm not a kid anymore hiding from what I am. But I'm still worried and scared, sure. It's just not going to control me or what I can do. I'm too dangerous for fear to take over."
After her quiet, reflective outpour that ends with a moment of solidity, she pulls her cheek from hand with leaning and eyes Alexander for a moment, clearly catching onto the brushoff of question. But after straightening, she doesn't pry, she pulls the plant over with scoot in front of herself again and pokes a finger down into the soil where the roots are, "I'm practicing because it's going to keep happening. The strange and the terrible that's real and unreal. I need to familiarize myself enough to help the fear. Because... people always come out bloody. And some of those people are... people I can't stand to see bleeding. Or worse."
Her head tips toward the back of the shop and she wonders, "Do you want a beer or anything or to sit? I can watch the shop on monitor back there and hear the bell. Cooler in my office. Or did you actually come in here looking for something other than the excitement that is me?"
"It's an understandable impulse. When you know that you're going to hurt people if you stay close. Even if moving away also hurts them, it's the difference between a paper cut and a gut shot. The failure mode is that people die, or are twisted in terrible ways. I can't say you were wrong for isolating yourself." Alexander frowns down at the counter. "I can't say you're wrong for rejoining people, either. But it's hard not to be afraid. Not when you recognize what you are."
Then his eyes flick back up and he watches her take the plant in hand. "Yes. Things are changing. I feel like...something is building. I don't know what. Or why. Or if it's just the paranoia talking. Sometimes it does." He takes a deep breath. "But I think it is going to keep happening. Getting lost with other people is...new."
Her question at the end startles him - he visibly flinches as he realizes that he did, in fact, forget the reason he came into the store. He looks around with bewilderment, before saying, "...clothes. I was looking for cheap clothes. You don't seem to have any." A thoughtful pause. "I would take a beer. If you wanted company."
<FS3> Lilith rolls Spirit: Good Success (8 8 6 6 5 5 5 4 2 2)
Lilith keeps her fingers at the soil and rooting of the plant for a moment and slowly, one of the wilted sections of the plant starts to spring into controlled unfurl out of wither, gradually turning a more vibrant shade of dark leafy green. She seems to be fine tuning it instead of popping it into life, though, as if deliberately keeping control on what exactly she's doing from the inside for the outside to respond. And the brunette also seems a little spurred, in a sense, when Alexander says things are going to keep happening, like she's trying to remind herself that she -needs- that control.
Pulling her hand back to eye the plant, then, Lilith tilts her head a bit, then she looks back at Alexander decisively, explaining with turn to go around and out from behind the counter. Crossing through displays and an aisle of junk, she makes way to the back office with beckon to him, "Yeah, I just have clothes that have a reason for people to -want- them for keeps or collections. Signed band shirts, things like that. Which... honestly I have some without certificate that are just decor or fun-fodder if you're really wanting a shirt, but this probably isn't the best selection. C'mon, let's have at a beer."
Once back there, she gestures to the chair on the other side of the desk and puts the laptop there out of sleep mode so she can see the camera view of the shop. Then she leans down to the minifridge to get out a couple of beers, force indenting the pressured caps to make them unscrew easily before his is passed over. Human bottle opener is convenient, "I have a question. If you were waking up some mornings with junk on the floor of your apartment where it fell while you were sleeping... what would you think? Sleepwalking, ghost, or otherwise?"
Harbor Mist - Back Office
When beyond the locked office door labeled for employees, there's a turn toward a staircase just to the immediate right, which leads up to the loft apartment above. Stepping further beyond that little span of junction space leads into an actual business office with a big desk, computer, a nicely beat-in leather couch, and a giant safe against the wall behind the desk in a corner, almost obscured but not quite given the size. It's set with a fake potted plant on top, though, like it's a table surface and tossed with a lace throw of black and silver fabric to help it be less of a room focal point, but it still is what it is for anyone paying attention. There's a thick green-painted metal door with a peephole that leads to the back of the building and to personal parking, dumpster storage, and an alley behind, a small private space between businesses that's hidden from street view and an alternate entry or escape to the building itself.
There's no denying the fascination on Alexander's face as he watches that green life grow and bypass the passage of time. He doesn't interrupt her, just watches it. Until she's moving again, and he takes a reflexive step back until she beckons. Then he follows with all the wariness of a stray dog, peering around at things. "Considering what's been happening to my shirts of late, I would feel bad about wearing anything that could be burned, torn, or have toxic shit sprayed on it," he says, voice dry.
He sits where he's directed, elbows and knees in as if all too aware that this is someone else's territory. His gaze is everywhere, though, flicking from here to there, drinking in all the details. It doesn't even stop when he accepts the beer, although the cap is given a frowning scrutiny, before he opens it. "If it were me, I'd assume I had nightmares and broke things, and just didn't remember. But I suppose it depends on what sort of junk, how often, and if you've ever perceived a spirit at any other time." His attention fixes on her. "Is that a problem you are having, Miss Winslow?"
"I know. I burned the clothes that went into the sewer with me once they were dry enough to burn. On principle. Last time I wore a nice dress, it got a hole in it too." Lilith tells Alexander with a vaguely dry smile of her own at the commentary, then a tiny sigh at the tail end. She settles back to leaning in the office chair with tiny occasional rock back and forth in place, one leg sweeping with cross over the other as she drinks long, then followup nurses her beer.
"Yes, it's a thing lately. But broken stuff, I understand. I've fixed a whole room of shattered things a time or two in the past after waking. But the moved things that don't break? That's starting to get confusing. I don't always have bad dreams lately, though, which is a bit of a reprieve. I mean, they aren't pleasant because of things that tend to happen during the day, but they aren't often the kinds that... wake me." Lilith explains honestly to Alexander with a little knit of her brows, hand with the Stella Artois bottle gesturing in brief toward the shop, "Luckily, it's contained to where I sleep and there's not messes down here. Though I admit, the idea that maybe I have a cursed or haunted or really screwy item or two in here... very possible. I just can't tell if it's me or something else."
"Anything that went down there was largely unfixable," Alexander says, with a grimace. "Miss Addington gave me a ride back, and helped to patch me up, after. I believe I ruined the interior of her car." This is said with the slightest edge of sorrow - it was a really nice interior.
The rest? The rest he listens to, the stiffness of his shoulders gradually easing as he has a mystery to solve. He barely drinks the beer, just the slightest of sips here and there, with plenty of space between each one. "Do you move things? Some people move things. And what we are...I think it can evolve. Break through, some times. I can do things now that I couldn't do when I was a kid. It's harder. I have to use a different focus. But," he shrugs, "maybe you broke through but only know it in your dreams."
"... I never did when I lived here before. I guess I've never tried. But I was talking to Tobin in texts yesterday and tried to explain how things always felt like a riot inside me trying to get out. Now it's less like that, but still feels uncontrolled outside of the places where I do what I do for work. And... it almost feels like it's evolving now that I'm steeped in things all over again and accepting. I know that I can do things I can't describe all around. It's like when you have something on the tip of your tongue you can't spit out for lack of words." Lilith takes another long pull from the greenish beer bottle and eyes the label for a moment before starting to absently peel at one of the corners with her fingertips while talking, not really looking at Alexander. She's still being pretty casually open in a 'fuck it' kind of way that indicates they're in the same boat of fuckery and she's just accepting that.
But even with her mood and conversational demeanor fine, sometimes it apparently gets trying to keep eye contact with the explanations and confessions given the nature of them, "Carver told me once when I explained one of these things I did on accident... that I worked a jinx of some kind. But I didn't imagine moving things was... huh. I just immediately assumed ghost, I guess, having a shop full of random things with who-knows memories downstairs." Her head tilts minutely as eyes draw back up to Alexander with a sudden fixation of curiosity, "Can you move things? Do you know all you can do? How... do -you- practice or hone things?"
"A riot inside you." Alexander's head tilts to one side. "Interesting." The rest he listens to in silence. He doesn't even fidget - it's even odds whether he even BREATHES. Except that he doesn't pass out, so breathing must happen at some point. There's no skepticism in him, at all, for the things she describes. And he stares at her steadily whether she meets his gaze or not, and doesn't seem to mind either way.
"Alistair Carver," is the next time he speaks, and it's said slow, with a frown. "I need to meet him. I am told he shines darkly. You may wish to be careful." He breaks the stare, then, to look down towards the shop. "I don't know that it's not a ghost. I've never seen one. Don't know much about them. And I know more about what I can do than I want to, sometimes." A pause. "But yes, I practice. Control. Focus. How to fight with it. It's the only weapon I can really count on, when I get lost."
Lilith wets her lips and raises her brows some at Alexander before her head shakes a little bit with brisk try for clarification, "Carver... he put me on edge the first time. The second time, he helped me work through a thing or two. Or I guess... he helped me both times, actually, I just wasn't aware. He's strange. And yes, his shine is different... but it's not that it's shadowy, it's..." She pauses and drinks and visibly lapses into thought, her eyes going a bit distant as if she's shifting a place in her very brain to recall, "Hollow. Walled. Which he... has explained, but, mm. I'll leave that for when you two eventually meet. Which honestly? I kind of want to be a fly on the wall for that conversation."
Then she nods some at his confirmation on honing abilities, breaking out of thought to kind of smile his way, a dry and self-deprecating thing, "It's hard to practice destroying or healing sentient things. And it's hard to do things I can feel but can't reach because I'm clueless on how they're supposed to feel. But I guess I'm trying to fix and do something about that." She drinks again and lifts her bottle in salute toward him when finished, "... but hey, it's like I told Byron-- screwy things keep happening and we keep fumbling to live through them, eventually, we'll fumble our ways into pros. Right?" What a delightfully morbid bright side. It's laced with subtle humor despite the possibilities or probabilities involved there.
Alexander's lips press together - suspicious, wary, skeptical. But he doesn't argue with her - after all, he's not met the guy, and Alexander doesn't have a lot of leg to stand on when it comes to prejudging people because of nasty rumors about them. He just says, "I'll hope that we run into each other soon, then. I would like to ask him some questions."
Her smile brings the ghost of one to him. Although there's something pained with it, too. "You can practice with others. Who can tell you. When it's going right or wrong. It's better, I think, if they're like you. But they don't have to be. If someone volunteers for you to hurt them, they can walk you through the feeling of healing them. Or share it with you, if they have the capability. I'm told it helps. Since you can't use it on yourself." The last couple of sentences sound like they've been dragged out of him with extreme reluctance, enough that her attempt at humor seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
<FS3> Lilith rolls Spirit: Great Success (8 8 6 6 6 5 4 4 3 2)
"I can't do that to someone. Even if they wanted to volunteer." The beer gets drained in short order and abruptly Lilith is going for another one with uncross of legs and her jaw suddenly set-twitching. She's been plenty open and honest, but that thing gets shut down immediately with stress and emphasis and no real explanation that seems to indicate it goes beyond the obvious problem of finding someone to sit through that and offer.
This time when she pops the beer bottle cap with tiny bobble of manipulative force she's not focused on what she's doing-- she accidentally pows it with dent, it goes angle flying and the bottle chips, which gives her hand pause to make sure the whole thing isn't cracked and going to leak. After an eyeball over the glass, she drinks again and acts like that didn't just happen to suddenly realize aloud, "But it explains why Geoff's so good and comfortable about doing it owning a tattoo shop. I'm glad to know I can't use it on myself, though, before I went getting adventurous. Honestly, I hate paper cuts, so the idea of it wasn't very appealing. But I might have gotten desperate and stubborn and dug in about it given time."
"How do you practice? With a person? In a place? Are you always doing little things instead to work on the control and focus over time instead of big witting practice sessions? Do you just think of Skittles rainbows and block everything else out? Or is it just... one of those things you can't explain?"
<FS3> Alexander rolls Composure: Success (6 4 2)
Alexander twitches, tenses, when the bottle cap goes off - but that's all it is, and he gets it back under control in the next moment, with a hitched breath and clear effort. And a larger swallow of his beer bottle. "You're not a sociopath. That's a good start," he mutters, as if he's checking off a mental list somewhere. But he continues to watch her, thoughtfully. Focusing on that set jaw with slightly narrowed eyes. He doesn't pry, but it's hard not to figure that there's a mental folder somewhere with Lilith's name on it, being filled up with observational data.
He looks down at the bottle. "There was someone I practiced with, once." The tone does not invite further questions. "But these days...it's different, with me. The things in my head are always there. I have to push the feelings out. If it's a riot /inside/ you, for me it's a riot /outside/. Banging on my skull to get in. The other?" He shrugs. "I have a garden. In my house. And a bird. I keep them healthy. It helps. And when I'm past what I can do, there's a vet."
"Definitely not a sociopath. I used to kind of wonder how amazing living would or wouldn't be if I was-- not having feelings about any of this sounds kind of operating efficient. I might have actually -done- something with my life beyond flailing and trying to find ways to fill the gouges it leaves." Lilith admits to Alexander with a sudden huff of noise from her throat and out over her lips, a finger tapping three pensive times on the bottle surface as she palms it, then drinks abrupt. Then she can't help but smile when tacking on, a brief and prettily genuine thing, "Rather be a whole person, though. Control isn't quite worth all that."
Then it's her turn to watch Alexander look down at his own bottle while making explanation to her curious inquiry. The brunette visibly considers his words and recrosses her legs with pensive slowness before one foot starts to work with twitch back and forth, kind of like a cat's tail when it's sitting real still. It's pretty indicative of a lot going on up top while nothing is really coming out when she concludes, "Mortimer sounds like a good start, then."
She's a little inquisitor when she wants to be, because the next question pops right out, "Can you willingly enter... the other side?"
"The mind of a sociopath is like a shining beacon, steady and bright, filled with conviction. It's beautiful," Alexander says, softly. "A sociopath does things, yes. With power. I think you would be sick at the things they accomplish, though, Miss Winslow. I hope you would."
And then he moves on, with a brief shake of his head to clear whatever he was thinking. "Mortimer is a good start." His eyes come up to her, startled, wide. "Why in the name of fuck would I want to do that?"
Alexander's response shouldn't make Lilith laugh, but it does. It doesn't really take away from the seriousness of the subject or moment, but she has to cough a little to one side because she's mid-drink when she does it, hand briefly coming to pat a few times against her chest above the lacy tank top edging. Then she clears her throat and tells him, "I think that's a very good and strong answer to the question." A speculative pause, "But I don't know. To chase someone. To save someone. To change a moment, maybe. I don't know. I just wanted to know if it could be done. Or if others could do it to us, force pull us along on purpose instead of accident."
Her head shakes some and her shoulders hitch helplessly, "I like to take things apart and know how things work." There's probably other motivations behind that particular question, but her own little brief explanation also isn't a lie.
Alexander is bewildered, plainly, by the laughter. He tries to smile along with it, but it comes out strange and more like the baring of teeth, as if he's not sure if he's being laughed AT or not. The rest, he frowns at. "You could take up something less dangerous. Like fire rescue. Or hostage negotiation."
He rubs at his face with his non beer hand. "I haven't thought about trying to deliberately go over there. But I've thought about...trying to change things once one IS there. To try and get out. Or make it less horrible. It's always horrible, and less horrible would be good."
"Yeah. Probably. Considering there's a whole lot of me being over-curious about the way things tick as a habit, I think I need responses like that from you when it's warranted. Hearing it... shifted a gear inside with an echo of 'slow down crazy bitch' and I just... found it funny. It's easier to laugh at myself than be exasperated with my ideas-- if I didn't know how at this point in life, I'd be in a mood about things all the time." Lilith seems pretty good-natured about beating herself up as a general coping mechanism, hand knocking up to re-adjust that rogue strand that keeps slipping stray from bound hair.
Then her eyes narrow a little with sudden thought and she makes a sudden noise at Alexander, spurred by his own wondering and observation about the way things are when they happen, "... you mean like change the scenario entirely instead of trying to fight and survive it?"
"Oh." Alexander considers this for a long moment, then jerks his head downward in a nod, accepting it. "Understandable. It's easy to get carried away." A longer pause. "I don't think you should call yourself a crazy bitch, though, Miss Winslow. You seem within one standard deviation of the psychological mean to me." His smile appears, brief as summer lightning. "But I'm maybe not the best judge. It still seems mean."
To the other, he nods. "Yes. In the theatre, the actors set up an ambush scenario. Castle walls, not-real archers. They shaped a dream to be what they wanted it to be. I don't want to inflict these things on anyone, but if I am lost, it would be useful to be able to make my own path. My own fortress. Yes?"
"I understand, actually. Maybe in my own strange way, but... yes. The concept of tearing their crafted reality from the inside out to mold the surroundings into what I would want in front of me... isn't so very foreign. Even though it's strange to say and I have no idea how it would work. But the concept of that? I get it. And it's... a little fascinating." Lilith stares at Alexander for a pensive moment that extends and stretches before speaking again, putting her mostly emptied beer bottle aside. Once her hands are free she starts to tug down her hair from knot to work fingers through with fidget, like she's itching to take something apart just talking about it all of a sudden.
Then suddenly her fingers slow to more natural pace in their rake through brunette strands and Lilith slants a sudden lopsided smile of semblance guilt and helplessness right at Alexander. She at least refrains from calling herself names this time with confessing, "Maybe not fascinating in the best way because now I want to try it. But that's, you know, without the fear and danger on me. I think I'd still want to live, first and foremost. Probably."
"It is fascinating," Alexander allows, offering her a smile. "If it wasn't fascinating, I wouldn't think about it. But I don't know of any way to safely practice it. Most times I get lost, something terrorizes me or just flat out tries to kill me. It's not something I want to," he grimaces, "encourage. But if you end up getting lost, I don't think there's any harm in using any tool at your disposal to survive."
"It's an interesting option when everything else might feel like a non-option, yes. Or at least... in theory. Until proven otherwise." Lilith says with a couple of quick nods, hands falling out of her hair into her lap to rest, back to calm and thoughtful and conversationally amiable in that occasionally wry or dry kind of way. Then she wonders of Alexander, a subject less thick... at least in theory, "Did you ever leave here or have you always lived here having these things happening?"
Her dark head tilts a bit curiously in asking and she makes small gesture with her beer bottle before draining it to toss in a can under the desk, silently asking if Alexander wants another.
Alexander hasn't even finished the first. The man drinks like it is the last beer in the world and he has to make it last until he dies. He shakes his head, takes another tiny sip. "I left. Three times. Once to join a cult. Then to join a rock band. Then for college. And another cult. Stayed away for several years, but things," he pauses, "things got bad. There was another cult. Came home." A lift of his shoulders. "Stayed since then." He studies her. "Did you like being gone?"
"No. I did not. But did you just say you joined three cults and a rock band? That almost sounds like an album title. How do you even FIND three cults? I've met a lot of different people in life but I don't think I've met a cultist... well, until now. Kind of. Huh. What kinds of cults? Are we talking say... Area 54 type stuff? Or are we talking full Jonestown levels?" Lilith is kind of shameless about what pops out of her in response after her blunt dismissive response of her own life outside Gray Harbor, which might dull in comparison no matter what it may have been. But it's not that she's judging Alexander for being in these things so much as she's just kind of baffled by the sudden extent of it. Then she's just plain curious.
"Cults usually find you," Alexander points out. "If you let them. You've probably walked past a dozen of them in your life. Flyers on coffee house boards, the right sort of street preacher, college clubs. As to the rest?" He tilts his head to one side. "Variable. The first was...quick implosion, standard 'enlightenment and peace through meditation, isolation, and allowing the glorious leaders to control your every action'. Second was mostly a college club where we studied ceremonial occult when we weren't getting high or having lots of sex." He doesn't mention the third.
"Oh. Well then. I guess that was quite the experience time and time again to have you back around here." Lilith says after sitting for a moment, as if trying to figure out the appropriate response to such things when Alexander is finished speaking. And she's no doubt noted his omission of the third same as he's noted her own little omission. But then she just gives up the thinking and goes for another beer while speaking, careful and deliberate with the cap this time around. Then she grins some, changing the subject, kind of, "What was the name of the band? And what'd you play? Any good or thrash for the sake of thrashing?"
"It was an experience," Alexander agrees, tonelessly. He's finally starting to reach the end of his beer, and finishes it off before continuing. "We were 'Limbo'. We liked Nirvana. In my defense, I was seventeen at the time. I sang backup vocals." He clears his throat. "Very, very far back." Despite his acerbic commentary on his own talent - or resounding lack thereof - there's a fond wistfulness in his voice. "It was fun. Concerts were fun. Everyone feeling together."
"I was terrible at seventeen. Broody. Lonely 'cause I made myself that way. I wanted to go to MIT and be an engineer, but..." Lilith shrugs a little bit after she nods a couple of quick times at the age disclaimer on being rock-band from Alexander with understanding. She's still vaguely humored until it takes a turn for reflective and the way she drains half her beer suddenly is kind of impressive from a college level, but she's at least refrained from going full chug and keeps it a little graceful casual.
"Turns out, I don't need MIT to gear things, do I? All this splendor of incoming broken shit." She upnods the open office doorway indicatively to the shop before breathing out a little sigh that's practically one big unbottled 'shit-happens' resignation noise. Then she slants a bit of a smile at Alexander before she informs him bluntly, "You're right, you know. I shouldn't call myself names. But neither should you. You're better at this talking and company stuff than you know."
"You would make a good engineer." Alexander follows her upnod. "You could sell the shop. Go somewhere less fucked up. Stay there. Have significantly less chance of being murdered by a shit-monster or psychopath." He starts to nod agreement with her when she says he's right, but then she has to go being SUPPORTIVE and PLEASANT, and he frowns. And stands up. "I should go. It's late. Thank you for the beer, Miss Winslow. And the company."
Lilith rises up and nods to Alexander with only the barest pause after the frown and rising. Then she's following him out to the door to go ahead and lock up for the night. It's not like she's seeing much in the way of customers anyway and now she's into having beers, which looks to be a continuing thing given she's carrying it along to set at the computer where she was packing and playing at her plant earlier, "Thanks for hanging out. I'm glad you're not lost in the sewers, so maybe... don't do that again. Ugh, that was so gross. I have no idea how I wasn't gagging."
Leaning on the door a moment before pulling it to lock, she tells Alexander with brief flash of genuine smile despite the semi-morbid parting words, "Don't fall into anything on your way home."
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