2020-01-20 - This is Fun?

Alexander doesn't really do 'graceful social interactions', especially not if he's feeling nervous or out of sorts. So the invitation which is texted to Patrick is curt to the point of rudeness, just giving a time in the evening, the name of the bar, and a single word: Beer.

Some days, Patrick probably regrets the idea that Alexander has his phone number. But hey, it could have been worse. It could have been autopsy or crime scene photos, or an invitation to go fight monsters or poke at organized crime. Patrick's getting off light, really. It still means being seen in public with Alexander, though. He's tried to make this easier, although he'll never admit it - the figure in one of the booths with a good view of the deck (without actually being OUT THERE in the freezing cold) is wearing a nice blue dress shirt that he definitely didn't pick out for himself, slacks...and stompy, scuffed workboots. He walks everywhere. Some concessions have to be made. And his oversized army jacket is in a heap beside him on the booth seat. One of his hands is bandaged, and the other is picking at the label of a bottle of beer which, while opened, doesn't appear to have been drunk out of, yet.

The answer to that succinct text was simply: Yes, but gin. Unlike SOME PEOPLE, Patrick does not follow this up with some sort of calendar invitation. He only arrives six minutes late, despite the lack of reminder from his phone, wearing the expensive version of what Alexander's sporting, minus work boots, plus whatever shoes rich dudes wear to work. And no bandages; he lifts a perfectly whole hand toward Alexander, then stops to collect the aforementioned gin.

So, somewhere between eight and eleven minutes late, he drops to a seat on the other side of the booth, commenting, "I usually bring flowers on first dates, but the florist laughed in my face when I asked what she thought was appropriate for Alexander Clayton." ('Hi' would be too mundane.)

Alexander waits for Patrick to approach with his drink before he says, "Gin tastes like drinking a Christmas tree. A drunk Christmas tree." His lips tilt upwards at the last, and he says, "I like dahlias. But I didn't get you anything. So probably better to skip them." He stops shredding the defenseless label of his bottle and takes a sip of the alcohol while watching Patrick. "Your tour guide was picked up in the Park. Haven't had a chance to question him yet. He's alive, though. Last I heard." A pause. "How are you?"

Alexander is not very good at talking to people unless it's about murder or other crimes, and oh god, it shows.

"Oh, I agree." Patrick plays with the lime in his glass, squishing it and then stuffing it into the drink with his index finger. "But beer tastes like a homeless man's piss. And I'm not quite to the point of mainlining moonshine." He brow-lifts about the dahlias, one of those things to file away, and then both-brow-lifts about the tour guide. "Picked up, as in...? Drunk and disorderly? Scraped off the pavement barely breathing?" He holds his hands far apart on the table, looking at the space in between them, then across to Alexander, waiting for clarification. He does not answer for how he is, just sort of waves the backs of his fingers at the question, like 'let's not small-talk, this is better.'

Alexander rolls his eyes. "Only the bad beer tastes like hobo piss, Patrick. I admit, there's a lot of bad beer. But good beer does exist." He's not really drinking good beer now, though - it looks like a bottle of Bud, based on what's left of the label. He drinks it anyway. "More the latter. In the hospital now. Mauling. Chair destroyed. I think they're trying to figure out some way to classify it as a moose attack," he adds, deadpan. "Bags were packed, though. So I wasn't wrong about him voluntarily leaving town, just that he didn't get very far."

With a thoughtful squint at the beer bottle, Patrick decides, "So we should just shoot whiskey." He lifts a hand toward the bar, like he intends to hail some sort of service over to their booth and make this whiskey plan a reality. Perhaps that'll manifest in the next pose. Now, he's back to the issue of poor Tyrone, a thought to which he actually gives voice. "Poor kid. That's a tough lesson to have to learn the hard way. I assume he has health insurance." #BestBossEver. "I've heard the mooses," squint; that's wrong but let's just plow ahead, "are especially brutal this time of year. He's lucky to be in one piece."

Beat.

"He is in one piece, I assume?"

Alexander stares at Patrick. "I'm not sure how you got to 'shoot whiskey' from 'good beer exists'." Which isn't a no and he doesn't make any move to stop Patrick from flagging down a round of whatever. He takes a quick swallow of beer to stifle his immediate response when Tyrone's boss hopes he has health insurance. Although really, the rest of his expression doesn't hide the exasperation, much. Or maybe that's just the taste of the beer. "I've only got the police radio and ambulance chatter," he says with a shrug, "but they think he'll live, and nothing seems to be missing. Just mangled." After a pause in which he tried, TRIED to strangle the impulse, before failing miserably, "Moose. Moose is singular and plural. Like fish. Or deer."

Patrick doesn't HOPE Tyrone has health insurance; he ASSUMES he does. Big difference. Also, the whiskey is absolutely happening, a brief sidebar taken to order two for each, please; "And let's just make them doubles. Saves time."

Once the bar-person has accomplished this, Patrick is back to the conversation with a small snicker. "Of course you do," have police and ambulance chatter. "Are you sure it's not fishes? 'Swim with the fishes?' No?" He huhs, as if enlightened, and works on getting gin into his body until there is whiskey here, and he can get that into his body. A sip later, "Well, at least he's not just one of those people that disappears without a trace. Put it in the win column, I suppose." He and cold-comfort are BFFs.

"Saves time?" Alexander makes a noise. "I suppose." He rolls his shoulders at the 'of course'. "The conversations can be very enlightening, sometimes. Most of the time, it's just gossip and ribaldry, but those can be useful, too. And no. Unless you're an East Coast gangster from the thirties, it is not 'sleep with the fishes'. And you don't have the hat to be an East Coast gangster from the thirties." He takes a swallow from his beer, and dips his head in a nod. "I don't disagree. But he was trying to leave town. Terrible luck. Or whatever." He takes another drink, then circles back around to a question that was dismissed with finger flicks before. "How are you doing?"

Like he's taking some sort of offense to not being gangster-material, Patrick points out, "I did spend the better part of a decade prosecuting Chicago's criminals." SO MUCH CRED. "But I take your point." With a lift of the newly arrived whiskey glass, too, a sip of which goes down much less nicely than the gin-and-tonic did, leaves him battling watery eyes while he nods about the terrible luck. "Or whatever," he agrees hoarsely. Ahem. "Better before that. Dear God, that's harsh." He's still going to drink it, though.

And also smile like this is a perfectly normal conversation they're having, lobbing back to Alexander, "You? Everything coming up Alexander these days?"

Alexander was lifting the whiskey to his own mouth, but seeing Patrick's reaction, he sort of hesitates. But doesn't quite put it down, either. Nope. That glass is just going to kind of hang in the air in his fingers, while he tries to figure out whether to go ahead and join Patrick in hard liquor misery, or chicken out and stick to his weak-piss beer. "That makes you more Elliot Ness than Capone, but that's not a bad thing." He eyes the glass dubiously, then finally decides to bite the bullet and sip. Or swallow, under the philosophy that a nice, healthy swallow will go ahead and kill off the feeling in his throat and make everything else easier.

Insert coughing fit here, and hastily putting down the glass before he drops it. "Yes. Harsh." He hastily reaches for one of the napkins and wipes his mouth. "I'm okay. Isabella has finished her thesis. She's going back to England to defend it. She broke her ribs. Found out a friend is definitely dead. Other than that, things are okay." It's said tonelessly, although his hands start fidgeting with the napkin, not quite tearing it to shreds but probably about to get there at any time.

"Which one is buried in Wrigley Field? I'd like to be the other one." Patrick helpfully slides the beer bottle over into the space directly in front of Alexander, only touching it by the base so don't worry, his Addington cooties won't get in the drink. "You found out that your friend is definitely dead, or she found out her friend is definitely dead?" Hrm. "Or a friend of you both?" Because that's the relevant part, Patrick, way to drown in the details, dude.

Not that he's not keen to talk about death and murder and crap but - "You're not going with her? Or not invited?" That last is asked a LITTLE delicately, just a little, with a glance at the dead-napkin-walking.

"I don't think either of them were, but I could be wrong," Alexander mutters. He makes a soft noise, not quite a thanks, when Patrick slides the beer over, and takes a swallow. "My friend. Sorry. I was unclear. Isabella didn't really get a chance to know her, I don't think. Not well." He blinks a couple of times at the last couple of questions. "I wasn't explicitly invited. I don't have a passport. She knows that." Probably. Clearly he thinks it can be just taken as read, considering he hasn't left town for the last thirteen years or so. "She...won't be gone long. Probably. Unless she forgets." A shrug, like that doesn't matter. And never you mind how that napkin is now being torn into long strips with precise movements of his fingers. Shrrrrrrrrip, shrrrrrrrip. "She'll only be gone a few weeks." He puts down the strips, reaches for the whiskey again.

Patrick helps! "Or never makes it out of town at all." He takes a drink. "You know that they're not hard to get, right? Passports?" His eyes keep going between the strips of napkin and Alexander's face, being the opposite of subtle in his efforts to alert Alexander to this tell he's enacting on the table. "Not that you don't seem to be coping with the upcoming separation beautifully, but it might be something to consider in the future. Plus, you get to have your picture taken, and that's always nice." Here, he's got a napkin under one of his drinks, Alexander can have that one, too.

"She has to make it out of town. She has to defend her thesis." Shriiiiiiip, shriiiiiiiip. "She'll be fine." Shriiiiiiiiip. Alexander glances down at the growing pile of shredded paper under his fingers, makes a noise, and starts twisting each piece into a thin little string. "And I've never tried to get a passport. Or flown on a plane. Or gone to another country," he mutters, staring at the pile. At least he doesn't claim he's never had his picture taken. When the other napkin is offered, he abandons stringifying for tearing again. Shrrriiiiiiip. "And I can recognize when you're being sarcastic, Patrick. I wouldn't be of any use in England. I'd just distract her. She'll be fine."

His eyes flick back up to stare at Patrick. "Also, you don't get to be sarcastic about coping."

Patrick tips his glass, not even really sure what he's drinking at this point - whether whiskey or gin. He's had three glasses to choose from, so it's really just 'whichever one his hand touches first.' That's the one he lifts and tilts toward Alexander, cheers to Isabella having to make it, being fine, sure! He'll (non-credibly) pretend to believe that. "You should try it," he adds on the exhale. "England's a good way to get your feet wet for international travel. Literally and figuratively. They mostly speak the same language, at least. You could go and see the Queen." As for being sarcastic... he glances down at the THREE glasses, across at the very dead napkin, and dredges up a smile that makes it all the way to his eyes and everything. "No? Then we probably better get more drinks."

He turns at the waist, lifts a hand, "Oh, bartender~."

"I wouldn't mind seeing Peel's memorial," Alexander muses, although with a furtive air to it, like someone might come along and laugh at him for expressing an interest. "Or Scotland Yard. Isabella's going to get into the Black Museum and tell me about it," he adds, with a palpable excitement and just a hiiiiint of heart eyes that she'd think of it. More worried, he adds, "She's also planning to look into...thin spots...that might be over there. I'm sure she won't go over, while there." He's not sure of that at all, but it's said as a sort of hope and prayer all rolled up into one.

He doesn't protest the drinks. Exactly. But he reach out and snag what was PROBABLY his own drink at some point, and draw it away from Patrick. Who does not, he clearly feels, need three drinks. He takes another sip of the whiskey, and at least the wheezing is more tolerable this time. "You know. Humanity is nearly unique in that we not only opportunistically poison ourselves in order to take advantage of the side effects, but we spend a great deal of time and effort developing different flavors of non-fatal poisons to administer to ourselves for pleasure."

He's not wrong. Patrick doesn't need three drinks. He needs five! So just two more, please, and he's back to paying attention in time to hear about the Black Museum and thin spots and - since his smile made it to his eyes earlier - sympathy manages to crowd in there briefly. "Thankfully, the English seem to have little tolerance for all this nonsense, so there's always the chance that she just won't find anything worth looking into." He squints across the table at the philosophy, not quite watery but he is... some number of drinks into this conversation already, and odds are high that he wasn't exactly SOBER before he got here, so it takes a moment to parse. And then, "You should call Anheuser-Busch," which I had to look up to be able to spell correctly btw, "and offer that to them as their new slogan."

Leaning back, he lifts his hands as if imagining this writ large: "Non-fatal poisons for your pleasure." Lowers his hands, small print, "Drink responsibly." He's entertaining himself, hence the chuckle.

Alexander's head tilts briefly to one side. "That'd be nice. If we could just stop having tolerance for this nonsense, and it'd say, 'what ho, I guess we're not wanted here, so we'll just go bother someone else. Maybe Detroit'." When the two new drinks arrive, Alexander claims one, sliiiiding it into a huddle with his bottle and his other drink, neither of which he's finished. He sips at the whiskey again, and successfully manages not to cough at the burn. Killing off sensory cells is a good thing.

Patrick's 'helpful' suggestion makes him laugh, a brief and surprised sort of bark of sound. "Yeah. I'm not sure either of us have much of a career in marketing, at this rate. Sorry to say. Sort of like saying, 'our cigarettes kill you more slowly than the competition'. Might be true. People still don't wanna buy it."

Patrick doesn't sputter his drink, exactly, but it does stick briefly on the way down, leaves him clearing his throat hurriedly into his glass. Good thing they keep getting napkins under all these drinks, because now he needs one to dab at his mouth, ahem ahem. Blinking back the burn, he says a little whispery-harsh, "You know that's all that I've been driving at, right? If we just stopped poking at these things, perhaps they'd stop poking us back." Not that Patrick's been desperate for someone to REALIZE HIS MESSAGE, but it did make him almost choke on his drink!

Whatever. Cigarettes kill people. He waves that off. "But people can't just not. It's absurd."

Alexander doesn't immediately say NUH-UH, although he's not a lawyer, and very much not good at hiding his feelz, so the skepticism can be seen all over his features. He doesn't immediately respond, but takes a sip, wheezes, takes another sip. "Okay," he says, his own voice a little hoarse. "So. You don't poke at these things, or try not to. Do they then leave you alone? Because I'm pretty sure the Elf wasn't my fault. Or the snow globe thing." He picks up his glass and waggles it at Patrick with his bandaged hand. "You're a lawyer. Law. Argue. Whatever. What's your evidence that stopping to try and figure any of this shit out will make any of us safe?"

"Suggesting that those things were my fault?" This is Patrick being legitimately taken aback. Not just snarky taken aback. "I'll thank you to remember that both of those things happened at Addington House." So there.

He proceeds to wag a finger at Alexander, a 'hold on' gesture while he takes the drink it's going to take to get him primed to dismantle all this nonsense. Ahhh, there. "I'm not saying that stopping to try to figure it out is the solution. I'm saying leave it alone entirely." Lots of stress on those words, only a little slur in there. "Which I have credible cause to believe is exactly how you stay safe. I haven't so much as dipped a toe into those waters for ten years, and you know what hasn't happened to me in that entire time?" He assumes Alexander can guess.

"And Addington House is weird and haunted as fuck," Alexander says, blandly. "Point. At least, I concede that - theoretically - it's not latching on to you in specific but just sort of blowing up when you happen to be in the vicinity, because you got stuck babysitting a hellhouse. Theoretically." He takes another drink while the finger is waggled at him. "But you haven't been here," he points out, with a flourish of his glass as a counter. "Insufficient data to draw a conclusion from a personal anecdote. Besides." He pauses for a drink. "Assume that is the case. I'm not conceding it, but I'm allowing the assumption. There's no way to get every poor bastard who ends up with this stuff inside their head to realize that they can't touch it or else monsters eat them. So. Someone has to be non-safe to try and keep them from getting killed or tortured for no good reason." He doesn't really slur his words. His sign of intoxication is more the other way around - his pronunciation sharpens, but the pace of his words quickens, so he's talking low and fast like someone trying to persuade a mark to play three-card monty without taking a good look at the cards.

That same finger is back, with Patrick noting, "I'm very fond of that hellhouse." So watch what you say about it, Mr. Clayton! "As much as I'd love to do a detailed study of the matter," hahahaha, he snerks even before the words make it out of his mouth. Again with the ahemming. "Nothing has happened to me since I've been back, either. And that's been," watch-check, "three months? Give or take. Not so much as a normal nightmare." Since this isn't EXACTLY true...

...it's worth checking how able he is to ignore the technicality there. Turns out, he does it well. "I admit, you'll never get everyone to just quit all at once, cold-turkey, but really, Clayton. You people are poking the bear."

"It's a nice house. I used to like to go there and look at the things. It just keeps trying to kill people periodically, which makes it a hellhouse. By definition." Alexander lifts the glass to his lips, but frowns over it as Patrick goes on rather than just drink the damned alcohol. He frowns. "Yeah, well..." a scowl, "maybe you're just lucky. Or they don't like how you taste. I don't know." His free hand flutters up in a dismissive gesture. "I still think the evidence is thin and circumstantial. And anyway. How can you not be...interested? About why any of this is happening, or why certain people do and others don't, or what a long-term solution might be. Because expecting people to just...not. Is not a solution! That's like saying 'the best way to fight crime is for people to stop trying to take other people's shit'. It might be technically true, but it's entirely unworkable in a practical sense."

Patrick's mouth opens for a rebuttal at the outset - lucky, the way he tastes, that bit - but it closes before whatever he thought he might say actually comes out. Nope, he'll just refocus his energy elsewhere. "More like, 'the best way to quit being a heroin addict is to put the needle down.' But both metaphors are wide of the mark. What are you trying to solve? People keep talking about why and how to fix things and - " He shakes his head, inhales through his nose, moves around the glasses to try to find one with something drinkable in it still. This one? No. This one? Ah, here's one. "What if the solution is just making it all stop? What if, whatever you people discover - which, by the way, is a fucking long-shot. You'll leave a trail of corpses all so you can discover what? What if it winds up that the solution is just to take it all away, no one gets to play anymore? Are you prepared for that eventuality?"

Man, Patrick. Dialogue some more next time.

Alexander blinks. "Yeah." He finishes off his drink, and reaches out for his other before it can get taken by Patrick. "I mean. Yeah. If we could lock all of the nasty things up over there to never come back or drag us there, then I'd give up my," he snorts, "vast psychic powers in a fucking heartbeat, Patrick. It's mostly just other people's rage, and fear, and despair, and hatred, and pain getting dumped in my head all of the time, anyway." He reaches back to the napkin, and starts tearing the strips into pieces. "I won't refuse to use a tool that might help make things better, because this whole thing is weighted against us and I like being alive. But if I could just shut it all down? For everyone? Forever?" He shakes his head. "Would not fucking hesitate."

An open hand tries to stall the list of things getting dumped in heads, with Patrick adding quietly, "You're preaching to the choir, Clayton." But a small laugh follows. "A choir of lapsed faith." But let's move on. He listens, truly listens, to the rest of what Alexander is saying, and seems genuinely surprised by the end result; obviously, he had Alexander pegged in the opposite camp. "Do you think you're comrades would agree with you? Lock it all back in Pandora's Box and throw away the key? Because I'd drink to that." He does, even! On the exhale, "I just think they may have other agendas."

Alexander shakes his head, and sighs. "Here's where we differ, though. You seem to think that's possible. I don't. In a practical or...metaphysical sense. And if it continues to exist, then I'm not gonna pretend it doesn't. I'd rather feel like I have some sort of control over the situation, rather than just," he drains the glass, sets it aside, "feeling like I'm just waiting for it to come out of the dark and ruin me." As for the others? He thinks about it for a while, then slowly shakes his head. "Most of 'em? No. For different reasons. A couple see it as a gift, a right, something that nobody gets to say we don't get to use. More of 'em, I think, are curious. About what it all means. I am too. I mean, until just recently, I didn't know there was a THERE there. I just thought it was...getting lost. Maybe in Hell, or something. Now I know there's that other place - which might also be Hell, because I've never been too certain on what 'Hell' actually is - but that's interesting. I'm not gonna say it's not. I want to understand it, too."

He takes a deep breath, and shrugs. "I just would rather people not get hurt and murdered, and if I could trade 'not knowing' for all of that stopping, well...I probably would."

Patrick's quiet for a spell after all of that. Sure, he took a couple breaths in there, like he had some sort of counterpoint, but at the end? He just drops his elbow onto the edge of the table (after a quick check to be sure it's clean) and then his chin on his palm, looking across the table at Alexander as if sadly. "You're killing me," while he shakes his head. "You know that old joke? A man walks into the doctor's office and says, 'Doc, it hurts every time I do this.'" He wags his chin-free arm. "And the doctor says, 'Well, quit doing that.'" The arm stops wagging, hand settling around the base of a drink that he's going to be perturbed to discover is empty in a moment. "Quit doing that."

Alexander points. "Ha!" A burst of sound that's louder than he intended. He hunches when a couple of the other patrons look towards the booth. More quietly he says, "But that doesn't fix the problem, and that's the joke, Patrick. It's a solution that on the face seems obvious and silly but that violates the assumption of what a doctor is supposed to be there to do - i.e. to fix the actual problem, not just give you a way to ignore it until the bone cancer or whatever metastasizes. It's a bad answer that seems like a good one at first glance, and that's why it's funny."

Trust Alexander to spend way too much time and mental effort breaking that down just so he can be sort of right. He glances at Patrick's woefully empty glass. "Did you drive here?"

"And here I sit, having 'quit doing that,' whole and healthy. While the rest of you practically have your own designated rooms at the hospital because you just won't put the fucking needle down. You're right, that is funny." Patrick's not exactly laughing about it, but probably it warms his heart on some level. That latter question really makes no sense in the context of the conversation, so forgive him for a moment of knitted brows and confused frowning at Alexander.

The penny drops, it just takes a couple extra seconds.

"Oh. Yes, but don't worry your pretty head. I'll call for a car." 'Uber' just doesn't seem like a Patricky solution.

"Whole and healthy." Alexander doesn't put any particular emphasis on any of the words, he just studies Patrick in silence for a long moment. Then he has to make a reluctantly amused noise at the riposte. "I don't go to the hospital unless I'm unconscious," he points out, because patching yourself up in the bathroom is definitely the more mature way to handle it. He waits for the other answer, then goes back to blank staring for a moment. Oh. Right. Call for a car. "So long as you do," he mutters, and rubs at his face with a hand before he snickers. "And talking about flowers, then calling me pretty? If you break out a ring at some point, I might swoon."

In the interests of full disclosure: "If you faint, I'm taking you to the hospital." No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Ohwait. Actually, "Well, I'll call someone to take you to the hospital." Patrick glances around the rest of the bar for a second, in case there's an EMT or something just hanging around, but no likely suspects emerge from that one quick survey. "I haven't given up heroin, for lack of a better term, just to get myself killed driving drunk. The goal is to outlive you people. History is written by the victors, and I intend to be one of them." He smiles pleasantly, like that's not a horrible thing to say to a person.

"I mean, that's fair. If you pull out a ring, I'm probably going to assume you're an evil doppleganger and stab you in the face, so." Alexander shrugs. "So we do what we gotta do." And it might be a horrible thing to say, but it makes Alexander laugh. "You're an asshole," he tells Patrick, although without any heat. "And you can't even call yourself a victor. You're more like a, a," okay, witty metaphors on short notice is not his strong suit, "Switzerland or something, standing on the sidelines and hoping that means nobody will target you. Don't you want to do something?"

Patrick feigns a pout and mumbles sadly, "I guess we know who's not getting a pity-snuggle while his girlfriend is across the pond, don't we." He even sniffs - twice! Because he got called an asshole... but he also nods about that. "Thank you, it's been a long and arduous journey to become one, so it's nice to know that it's finally paying off." While Alexander searches for a term, Patrick leans forward, all hanging on his every word, only to wind up laughing through his nose at the question. "Do what? What do you people actually think you're doing - other than keeping the hospital in the black, which we already discussed."

"I've never doubted your dedication in pursuit of your dreams, Patrick," Alexander deadpans. "So you're welcome. And I give damn fine snuggles, so it's your loss." A pause, and he frowns. "That's actually probably a lie. Lousy snuggler." He sits back when Patrick leans forward, and rolls his eyes. "I don't think we know. Learning? Mapping the limitations of our knowledge? Something like that. Is there anything you'd consider worth the risk to be accomplishing?"

Seriously, "Is that why you're not invited to England? Because of the lousy snuggles?" Patrick's expression is so deeply sympathetic that, were it not for the fact that he's not a touchy-guy and Alexander is not a touchy-guy, this would absolutely be a moment where he would give his poor... uhm... friend a pat on the hand. Thankfully, he's nowhere near drunk enough for all that. And has stopped ordering drinks (finally).

"That doesn't bother you? That you don't even know what you're trying to accomplish? That the ends may not justify the awful means?" That's actually serious. Not like the 'seriously' at the start of this pose. To answer the last question: "No. There are certain things will never be worth risking. Surely you have certain things that are sacrosanct?"

"Hey. No." Alexander squirms under that heavy look of sympathy. "That's not why! Isabella has had no complaints about my snuggles," he mutters, instantly defensive. Way more so than when Patrick goes on with an actual serious question. He considers it. "A little. But I've gone most of my life not knowing what the hell is going on or why the universe hates me so very, very much." He shrugs. "The idea that I might actually get to know a little bit about why all of this? I gotta admit that it's compelling. And there's no textbook or flowchart to guide us. We still have to get to the point of even knowing what questions are productive to ask."

"Is it worth sacrificing the rest of your life to find out why?" Patrick's not even going to share his take on that, 'cause that shit better be obvious by now. "Or the lives of the people that matter to you? Only to find out that the universe doesn't hate you. It just happens to be a lousy snuggler, too."

Unlike SOME people, Patrick doesn't just get up and walk off when his time's up. He does socially correct things, like check his watch and explain, "I have to go pay the dog-sitter. Do you need a ride somewhere?" In the car that he's going to call to collect him shortly.

On the 'bright' side, Alexander actually thinks about it. He picks up one of the empty glasses, and studies the shine of the light on the dregs of the liquid, before he admits, "You know you're talking to the guy who started breaking into crime scenes when he was like ten, right? I hate not knowing things. So...maybe. It might be. I wouldn't toss anyone in that hole, but -- Patrick, people do get to choose what's worth it to them." He bobs his head, acknowledging the need to leave, then frowns. "No. I mean. Thank you. But I can walk. Thanks, though. For coming out. It was fun." He stands up, then. "Don't die."

And then he wanders over to the bar and pays his part of the tab with cash before he leaves. Without any further conversation, because he's a jerk like that.

Sorry, Patrick is stuck on the term 'fun.' He'll eventually get up and wander over to try to pay the bill - then get aggravated because Alexander paid some of the bill. Someone's getting a Venmo later~!