2020-03-07 - Comrades in Coffee and Commiseration

(TXT to Alexander) Lilith : Hey you. Doing alright?

(TXT to Lilith) Alexander : Hi, Lilith. I feel I should ask you that question. Everything okay?

(TXT to Alexander) Lilith : Considering everything, I'm y'know. Well enough.

(TXT to Alexander) Lilith : Since you're missing a woman, wanna have coffee and pastries with me this morning?

(TXT to Lilith) Alexander : She's not technically missing. I know where she is. Roughly. Within a broad geographical context. But yes. That sounds fun.

(TXT to Alexander) Lilith : Cool beans. ('cause coffee, hurrr) I'm getting dressed and stuff now and will be around the coffee shop downtown within the hour. See you soon.

It's late morning, creeping toward afternoon and the cold, dreary weather persists as it has been so much of this gray winter in Gray Harbor. It's warm inside the coffee shop, though, and the woman is dressed to both accommodate the cold and combat the drab. Her sweater is a deep marigold yellow with a high cowl neck, her pretty gifted Piaget rose pendant worn out in drape over it as accent that glints. Most likely a Byron piece, she tends to borrow and favor a lot of interesting antique pieces a lot of other times, but that small chain pendant has been a fixture since Christmas. She's paired with charcoal denim skinny jeans and tall laced dark brown leather boots, a wool wrap coat hung on her chair.

Getting herself a cappuccino and a selection of pastries for the table, she settles down to put her hair up in casual twist out of the way and checks her email while waiting for things to arrive. Half the tray is selections of chocolate-- mini-drizzled croissants, cake donuts, and a large brownie cookie. The rest is fruit and cheese danishes and a pile of glazed donut balls. What a planner. Normally she has Isabella's coffee waiting too for these things, but isn't sure what Alexander leans toward.

She makes a mental guess just for the sake of seeing if she's right when he orders. She also looks well enough, light with cosmetics and vital enough on her own. But before Alexander makes it to the table she's picked out of the way for the sake of talking, there's a bit of a sober, pensive cast to her idle distraction on her phone.

Alexander is generally prompt, despite his habit of walking everywhere in every weather. After over a decade doing it, he's got a good idea of the short-cuts, and how long it takes to get anywhere in anything but the worst weather. Side-trips to hell dimensions exempted, of course. He enters in his usual slouch, hair hidden under a bright green wool cap, which clashes badly with the heavy olive green jacket, and even worse with the purple sweater underneath. At least the jeans are serviceable and don't add to the fashion cacophony.

He stops inside the shop to scan the interior with narrow-eyed paranoia; it lightens when he sees Lilith already there, and he lifts a hand in her direction before walking to the counter. His order is dead simple: coffee, black, and no fancy varieties or beans. Just the cheapest and plainest variety. As such, they've got it ready for him before he's finished counting his change, and he takes the cup over to the table and slides in across from her. "Hello. Thank you. For the invitation." A brief smile, but it reaches his eyes. "You look well. I'm glad."

"Hah, I guessed right, but didn't want to get cocky and order it ahead. Felt like jinxing my guess." Lilith says to Alexander through a quiet half-laugh of triumph after she's looked up from her phone to catch the wave and approach. Sliding the device aside and turning it face down on the table to pay attention to company instead of her phone, she flashes a quick little slant of smile that's genuine while he settles.

Then she lifts her hand to gesture at the tray of pastries before using both hands to nurse and sip from her wide cappuccino cup, "I drink black espresso and coffee at home, sometimes here too with just a splash of cream like Izzy. I think that's how I knew, innate coffee bond." After a dry, tiny amused huff she carries on, "Noticed at the hospital that Isabella was trying to feed you the chocolate ones, so I made the selection favorable, I think. I'm one of those people that weird random details stick to. It's kind of like having a girlfriend around again, I guess."

After drawing in a large breath and taking another sip, she lowers her cup finally and asks, "How are you getting on with this distance between you and Isabella so soon after what happened on Valentine's? Are you talking much?"

"Coffee bonds." The hint of a smile on Alexander's features widens, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepening. "I like it." He raises the cup to salute her. "Although I'm more coffee agnostic than anything, if I'm honest. I don't have strong preferences on most flavors," he admits. "So I usually just get whatever's simplest." A glance towards the tray. "But...chocolate is always nice. Thank you. And there's nothing wrong with being perceptive. Quite the contrary - having a good grasp of details usually means that you're on top of things. You've always seemed to be."

He reaches out and takes one of the little chocolate treats. But, instead of eating it immediately, he sets it on the small plate in front of him, and studies her with a thoughtful expression. "It's fine. I'm used to being alone. She said she'd call, when she had finished defending and knew what the outcome is. I'll wait." He doesn't really address Valentine's Day as a thing. Just continues to watch her for a while before saying, "How are you? I...enjoy the idea of spending time with you, but the invitation, the treats. It feels like you want something?"

"Thanks." Lilith says as she plucks up a donut ball from the tray and takes the perceptive compliment from Alexander with a quick flash chewing smile. Then she thinks about his answer on Isabella quite visibly, as well as his question and commentary while washing the doughy sweet down with another drink of cappuccino. When she's done with the long sip and some honest consideration he can see, her head shakes a little as the cup goes down again, "No. I don't really want anything. I guess I have things to say and ask that might make me sound angsty as hell and just not full of fun subjects. I could have done that on the phone, though. Mostly..."

Her head tilts a bit when she pauses, thinking how to explain, "I wanted the company too, and I wanted you to have company while Isabella is gone. Not to say you don't have friends, but... you know. I can say I'm okay, but sometimes I'm unsure how okay I actually am. Trauma and damages don't just go away, it takes time, and being separated by distance from Isabella right now is icky timing. I wouldn't like it, even if I thought I needed space. That's a whole ocean of space, literally. I mean..."

Lilith squints a little bit at Alexander with thought and weighing, then wonders suddenly, "... do you know what happened between me and Byron when we were teenagers?"

Alexander watches her, although his instinctive wariness fades a little as she goes on, replaced by a faint smile. Once his coffee cools, he sips on it. "I'm okay with angst," he assures her, quietly. He looks away, briefly, when she talks about company and how difficult it must be to be separated from Isabella. "It is," he admits, quietly. "But." A pause. "A part of me hopes that...she hasn't called because she's forgotten about Gray Harbor. And she's never coming back. Not because I don't want to see her again, or because I don't love her. But she deserves better than the fate this place will eventually deliver."

Then he takes a breath, lets it out even as he rolls his shoulders. "But that's not important." A shake of his head, and his smile turns dry. "Lilith, before last year, the last time I spoke to Byron? He was six. I'm not sure you two had even met. I don't really know much about the time between then and now. I try not to make it a habit to lurk around children I'm not related to, for obvious reasons."

"Yeah. I know. Rationally, it'd be better for anyone, so it's an understood sentiment, wanting your loved one away from here. Byron told me that with the best intentions, once, and I knew why he was saying it. But it still felt like a slap in the face, so... don't say that aloud to her when she gets back. Because she's coming back. Sentiment aside, it's just our lot, and she isn't going to forget you."

Lilith addresses and stresses the part about Isabella first with quiet directness and surety before settling back in her chair and crossing her legs with hands resting atop a denim-clad thigh together. And though she's joking, the fingers twitch with fidget for a moment because her gaze stays serious to carry on and explain why she asked what she did, "I can see where loitering around kids would be weird, yes. Keep on keepin' on with that plan." Pause, "I just didn't know if Byron ever mentioned it. I don't know how much you guys actually talk. Anyway, it's important because it's relevant now in a parallel kind of way. So..."

After drawing in a breath, she gives the low-down, "I met Byron in first grade. Our home lives... well. We immediately clicked and decided to be a team. We took care of each other. I was severely neglected from a very young age and left alone with no food a lot, sometimes my father disappeared for days. Byron... was so small and so determined to make things better for me, right from the start. He fed me, he cleaned my skinned knees, we were best friends, we were pretend married, we filled the holes for each other when life sucked and it was fundamental. When we got older, we were head over heels for each other in a different way. He wasn't even a man yet, but he was still the man in my life."

She pauses to drink, again, "When I was fourteen, I ripped all that security and friendship and love apart, deliberately, because I thought I was protecting him. My powers had started, I was scared and confused and I couldn't sleep without dreaming of ripping him apart. It was like an omen when I had mirrors and windows breaking and plants dying all around me. I didn't know it at the time, but I not only hurt him, I ripped my own life apart before it even started. It hurt me too and formed who I became as an adult."

Then she pauses again after all that. There's clearly a tie here somewhere to what she's trying to say between the lines of why all this matters to say to Alexander, certainly prelude for some point or explanation she's going to make. But she doesn't make it yet, she watches him to see if he's connecting dots and letting him process while she rips apart a danish during storytime to eat in pieces.

Alexander just makes a noise at the excellent advice regarding Isabella, one hand coming up to rub at his neck, before he sips his coffee. "I only want her to be happy," he says, so low it might not be meant for Lilith, but she doesn't really have to strain to hear it.

After a moment, Alexander shakes his head. "Byron doesn't really confide in people in general, and particularly not me in specific. It would be...difficult to imagine the circumstances where he would open a conversation about his first love. And I wouldn't really have any worthwhile perspective to offer on such things." He falls silent, then, listening to the rest. Without previous Alexander experience, it might look impassive or cold, but familiarity brings understanding: he's focusing on it as if he might be tested later, and just doesn't spare much energy for things like human expressions while he's doing it.

He looks down at his coffee, eventually. "It's hard. When your abilities activate, and there's no one to explain them, or help you through them. I'm sorry. You shouldn't have had to go through that alone, and...isolating yourself is an understandable response. One I emphasize with." His eyes flicker, and he looks up at her with a sharp little smile. "Which is the point, isn't it? You're going to tell me not to push Isabella away because I'm afraid that I might hurt her, because it'll hurt her and me in the end."

"Correct. I am more of a cautionary tale than you realize, but I'll spare you the details of my adult life away from here. Much like you, I never thrived, there was no safety, no assurances for happiness once I ran away, the people were often awful, and the ones that weren't... I was afraid of getting close to. Not to mention, Isabella will never be happy with someone choosing how she's going to be happy. She gets to choose you, she'll fight to protect the sanctity of it, the haven of it, and that's what makes her happy. Our lives..."

It's implied. People like us...

Lilith pulls up a sad little smile, but she doesn't look sad as a whole. Her baseline is more quiet determination, and it may be for herself as much as him. After all, she knows both ends to a degree now-- what it's like to kill a love (because it always felt real no matter how unreal) and what it's like to die at their hands.

"I still have trouble knowing what's real with Byron. Sometimes I'm accidentally afraid of him, which never happened until lately. So I have to remind myself every day that I swore to live again when I came back and that means... you wade through the shit and stay standing. And I'm learning to do that. It's just..." The brunette woman makes a noise like 'tch' of frustration through her teeth and rubs briefly at one side of her face before the hand drops to rest on the table.

"Life's just a different kind of fight here. We'll be tested like that again, in some way, love is always going to be a vulnerability. And yes, it's awful, and yes, we're weapons sometimes as much as we're people, and weapons can be misdirected and misfire. We have to let ourselves keep what's real and good or it will break us over time. There's no telling what we become then. It's already hard to feel human sometimes. What kind of monster could we be with all shadows and no light?"

Alexander reaches for a napkin on the table. He doesn't use it to wipe his hands or his face, but rather starts to shred it into thin, neat little pieces, his eyes fixed on the paper he's destroying. "That's what scares me the most," he says, after a moment. "If...in that dream, Byron killed you. That would be something to be afraid about. You should be - even if you talk yourself out of it, even if you recognize that he wouldn't ever do that in his true life. Fear is survival instinct. It's healthy. Some things, there should be fear."

He frowns. "Do you know the first thing she did when she woke up, with the bruises from my hands still around her neck? She tried to hug me. Reassure me. That's...Lilith, that's not good. That's not the way it should have been. She can't just accept things like that from me. Violence. I've been on the other end of that, and I recognize that you think, you think that loving them is enough. But it isn't. I can't be encouraged to do things like that, and she can't be okay with that. Not for any reason."

He grimaces. "And I don't know what to do about it. I could just break it off. But I'm not that strong. I love her too much. And her fierceness and determination not to bow to fear is one of the things I love about her...but it means sometimes she doesn't listen to it when she should."

"Let's consider the source's reflexes out of context a moment." Lilith says with a tiny shake of her head at Alexander, tapping her finger against her cup edge before draining it and leaving most of the danish torn up like his napkin. But eventually, she begins to eat it in pieces again, uncrossing her legs to sit forward in lean against the table edge, "Isabella charges into traffic on a good day, she probably didn't give a rat's ass if you were dangerous on a very bad day. Fear is not her MO and sometimes it's stupid, but she wasn't rewarding you or encouraging your violence. You're not a dog."

After flicking down a piece of pastry, Lilith sighs some and eyes Alexander, "She felt herself die one moment, and the next moment... she was alive and knew what was real. Isabella reacted like Isabella in relief, which may not have been what you needed at that moment, which happens because we were blindsided and we're human and there's no set WAY to react to these things." She pauses, "I wouldn't talk. I was crawling down the hall away from Byron, and when I let him pick me up? My body immediately sought comfort from him even though I thought I was still dead and it was more trickery and horror waiting to happen."

"We've been through bad things, but it took me six days to process and get reality back. The way I did that wasn't healthy, maybe. But I can say that... all the while I wanted him touching me, even when I was afraid of him. It's a weird duality, it's not rational, it's fucked, everything was splintered, that's how badly They managed this time around. If you feel you need to lay out ground rules or code phrases or distance in small spells to cope, do it, that's how you fight together after it's done. The trial doesn't end when we step out of these things, instead it's a race to fix the cracks before they spread, you know? It's always like that. This one was just... we got hit where it all rattles."

Lilith lowers her voice to look at the tabletop instead of company now, the first time she's really dropped her lashes to look vulnerable. But she sounds pissed, so that's good balance, maybe.

"... and fuck the whole damned universe for that."

Several emotions flicker across Alexander's face. First, irritation and exasperation. "That's not what I--" he sighs, stops, shakes his head, his weary features fading into a sort of resignation. "I understand what you're trying to say, Lilith. And I thank you for it." There's a sort of finality to the way he says it, that suggests he considers the matter a closed subject.

He studies his coffee again, and takes a long swallow. 'Fuck the universe' is at least a sentiment that he can get on board with, because that flickering smile returns. "Yeah. They like the gutpunches. Having more friends really just means that you have more things they can hurt you with. But it's not...I usually don't regret it. Being happy that people like you and Byron, and Isabella, speak to me." His eyes come back to her face, searching it. "How are other things with you? I know we don't talk much, and I'm sorry for that."

Lilith gets off her soap box, so to speak, and twists her lips briefly off to one side before reaching across her body to rub at one of her shoulders, "Didn't mean to lean that hard into it. I guess I haven't got to talk about it much. But thanks for hearing it. Things still feel... I don't know. Heavy, I guess." Her head shakes and her arm drops to pick up a napkin, starting to sweep crumbs from the table surface into a palm as something to do idly with her hands while looking down at the busywork, "Byron has been amazing through all of it, of course, and finding new ways to spoil me. It makes me happy again when I fall into the trap of beating myself up or worrying. It helps me remember how things actually are."

If she's worried Byron is maybe taking it too well for the sake of keeping her whole and happy and might blow a gasket later, she's not letting on. Mostly she sounds like she's taken with fond exasperation for him being a strong heap of Mister Perfect while she's still messy on the sly here and there over things. But then she looks up with a little shrug, "I think it would help if I had some other screwed up things to focus on that aren't my own screwed up memories and feelings. Which uh. Probably says something about the way this place has conditioned me."

Then suddenly, she pats her hand on the table after wadding the crumb catcher napkin, "Oh! Speaking of, I need to take my box to Itzhak, he wants to see how my FCN item is made or something. I don't know what he means, but I'm interested to know what he sees. That and I want to see what happened to his shop if it's still an issue. Anyway, I say that because I keep the creepy weird things in there, and I need to take what's inside out before I do that. One of those things is that spike. From the ice skating. Did you... look at it?"

"I don't mind listening," Alexander says, gently. "I'm happy to listen. I just..." he sighs, "a lot of people have been telling me what poor choices I have made, but none of them understand why I made them. I'm bad at explaining." He grimaces. "Even Easton...he put me with those two women at the bar because I hurt Isabella. I don't...I don't fault him, for that. But I could have hurt them. Or started something that would have ruined the event. Or they would have started mocking me." That last is added with a duck of his head and a sidelong look at some of the other patrons - a couple of them side-eye him back, because it's a small town, and there's always a couple of assholes around.

He looks away, clears his throat. "But yeah. Something else to focus on helps. Sometimes. Sometimes it's...overwhelming. There's too much." He reaches for another chocolate treat, eats it mechanically over the shredded napkin pile. "Your box? And yes. I read it. It wasn't pleasant. Um, someone was nailed to a tree for being a witch. She thought she deserved it, but she did it for the love of another person, a woman named," a hesitation as he tries to recall, "Nina."

"I get it enough. I don't think you've been making poor choices so much as you've been reacting your way, which... mm, I had experience with epic shutdown reactions for well-meaning reasons. My angst wisdom was more of a warning about nuclear fallout potential, not a judgment call. You guys will figure it out, it's not supposed to be easy or quick." Lilith sounds pretty well-founded and sure about that last bit, one side of her shoulders easing up some with roll while explaining. Then she points out, "Easton was also wearing shorts that showed the skin of his balls and a mullet, it's possible he hasn't grown out of douchery as much as he claims, which pffft. There's only two people that really know about what goes on in a relationship-- the two people in the damn relationship."

Also she confesses with a dart of her eyes a bit chagrinned off to one side, "... and you're definitely not the one that stabbed someone with throwing darts. That was me. Total vodka accident. I got taken home after I almost started a fight. Sometimes the Winslow kicks in with too much to drink. It's not a good thing."

After listening to Alexander's assessment on the spike reading, though, she hums quietly with vague bother to herself, "I couldn't be a damn mindbanger, I feel enough on my very own, that can't be pleasant. But yes, I have a little box that can't be destroyed or opened without the key and the person that locked it, I think. I got it from... Santa. At the Christmas Parade, when Isabella got that coin. It's marked on the bottom by FCN."

"The mullet was a mistake," Alexander says, without any hesitation. "But the legs are a nice view, even despite the inevitable reaction caused by the cold." A hint of teasing there warms his eyes.

Alexander laughs, briefly, before adding, "Don't encourage him to cover them up. And he apologized. It's fine." His eyebrows go up at the confession. "Stabbed them by throwing, or actually," he makes a stabbing motion with his hand. "Either option is entertaining, but the first is sort of like a tragic accident, and the second is more like assault." Alexander makes a thoughtful humming sound at the mention of the box. "That's intriguing. Yule Duchannes, the Medical Examiner, has been doing some research into those things. He suspects that it's about putting aspects of our abilities into objects. Doesn't really know how to do it without things...exploding, but he's working on it. I'm of two minds on the whole thing," he admits. "It seems useful. But dangerous."

Lilith sputters out a little laugh at Alexander, then clarifies with a roll of her eyes at herself, "I was throwing darts VERY badly, it seems, Byron was mortified. I'm a train wreck, I swear, figures it happens to me. Who accidentally darts someone twice?" Her tongue clicks a few times, then she makes a low hum at the name before nodding a couple of times, "Right, right. I guess it could be useful, but I've never really thought about the possibilities, on either front. I do know I don't want him to explode my box, indestructible as it may seem, so we'll see what Itzhak says."

Her phone goes off a few times back to back and Lilith makes a noise in her throat on rising to get into her coat, "Mmm, I have to take off, though, someone wants a loan over the limit of what's available to counter help right now and I don't give them safe codes. Thanks for the talk and coffee. I feel almost completely human and less messy as a result, we'll see how that sticks. You need anything, let me know, yes?"

Alexander stands up when Lilith says she has to go. "Are you sure it was accidental the second time?" he asks, warm with amusement. "And...thanks. This was nice. It really was. Um. If you'd ever like to do it again, just let me know? And good luck with the shop - I'll let you know as long as you promise to do the same for me." He doesn't look like he'll linger once she's gone, but he does take a moment to assess the room.