⚚ closed; in progress

[schisming.livejournal.com]

When; Saturday night
Rating; PG-13, for ...safety. And probably language.
Characters; schisming and fatespoken, with a special appearance by gilthart
Summary; UHH. MAGICAL EMBOLISMS?
Log;

Occasionally on certain evenings where Sage is at work, Elliot is obliged to find some other way of occupying himself. Given the rate at which their humble abode is...filling up with dogs, this doesn't really present a problem - they are, he has reflected, going to have to move - but sometimes Elliot craves the novelty of a different atmosphere, and when he feels up to all that 'leaving the apartment when not absolutely necessary' encompasses, he's inclined to take advantage of it.

Bars are tricky animals for a person who doesn't seek socialization by rote, however; they are places ostensibly meant for talking (in various degrees of lucidity), and they are sometimes especially places for talking to tall, brooding strangers. Elliot has tucked a fat volume of Flannery O'Connor's short stories into his coat pocket, as he has found that the presence of giant books tends to ward off attempted conversation, except when it doesn't. But then if he wanted to feel really entitled to bitch about people talking to him, he would in fact have just stayed home. And if home currently had beer, he might well have! Be that as it may, he has currently claimed a bar stool in one of the City's fine drankin' establishments, concentration half on the trials and tribulations of traveling bible salesmen and their one-legged conquests, half on steadily emptying a bottle of some imported nonsense.

Although considering his locale, pretty much everything is imported. Unless the City has its own beer! That would be something.

Comments

[fatespoken]

Coincidences do happen, and secret, hole-in-the-wall bars can become the habitat for invasive organisms called casual acquaintances. Amory Felix has come here, alone, to tempt his demons, slotting himself at the end of the bar. He takes slow, long sips of the coke that serves as his drink. Cheap filler, like water in bathtub gin, acting only as a stopgap to counteract that constant nagging need for liquor. He wants just a drop of rum, an ounce, only enough to lick the bottom. His mind begs, pleas with annoying repetition, sticking sharp fingers into the folds of his brain. He'll take anything at this point, but the only fix he's got is to stare at the rows of alcohol on the back shelf of the bar. Whiskey, rum, cognac, vodka... he counts them off, thumbs pressing harder and harder into the glass.

"Hey, you. Gawker. You want anythin' else," the bartender asks, flinging a towel over his shoulder, as he drags an eye across Amory. Doesn't look drunk, possibly drugged.

"No, thank you."

He responds like a robot, an old habit of airs inflecting his tone. Believe it or not, Amory has trained himself to come off as caustic as he usually is. Adopting speech patterns of his college associates in an effort, as they say, to 'fit in.' (Says the man who claims he cares little for external opinions.)

But that's neither here nor there; the true matter of interest right now is that Amory Felix's sacred corner has been invaded. Elliot Argento has taken a seat next to him, either oblivious or indifferent to the fact that a network acquaintance, one of those hostile organisms, is situated beside him. When Amory reaches across the bar to grab a little square napkin drink, his elbow accidentally collides with the hermetic mage's arm.

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Elliot by contrast didn't get much of a choice about the speech patterns he adopted; if you grow up around people who speak Creole, well ...you speak Creole. If your parents and their friends and the parents of your friends stick 'inasmuch' into their sentences like normal people do commas, then that's the way of things, so he's really just lucky he flourishes in academia. But this is neither here nor there; what is here, and then there with a bump of the elbow, is Amory, whose general countenance Elliot is not in fact oblivious to, by virtue of that synaptic quirk that means no visual detail ever escapes the steel trap like confines of his miiiiind.

Whether he particularly wants to notice them or not. For instance: he could do without being suddenly hammered by the staggering shock of--whatever that is; get proficient enough in Life and a person can tell a flu from an addiction from an aneurysm waiting to happen, but at this stage the crackling crystalline cold he parses just aches with some nameless hollow pain, like space folding in on itself in a self-devouring vacuum. He doesn't sense these things by rote, it's the ankh on its chain tucked under his shirt that does it, but there it is, and when Elliot lifts his head out of his jarred book and casts an owlish, speculative glance at Amory with his large eyes, the only sign given of any of that is a faint, barely-there wince, the kind that could easily pass as the grimace of 'excuse your elbow.'

"You don't get enough of all the ambiance a bar has to offer while working in one?" he inquires, having apparently done his research (yes). Greetings are for other people.

[fatespoken]

Amory can relate, Elliot. Well, to an extent - likely Elliot's metaphorical sensory organs of magical perception (tucked under the intestines) - are more keen than Amory's which pick up signatures like sand on wet skin. For instance, sitting next to Elliot is akin to sticking a hand into a thunder cloud, or rolling several miles on a carpet. It's distinctly Elliot. Not that he wants to feel Elliot, but Amory Felix never gets a choice. Wounds, sicknesses, all that nasty miasma, are also grains of sand. To heal one must know what to heal, and Amory can read them like ink blots on a page. Indistinct shapes, heavy thumps against his brain that make dealing with sick customers a varying degree of discomfort. Call him a hypocrite, if you will.

His stay at the hospital? He had barely remained sane. (Hyperbole.)

"I have a policy," he responds, gradually, holding back on his words as if still deciding whether or not he wants to communicate with Elliot. He could always imagine his nonexistence. Yes, that could work.Imagine an empty stool. "I don't drink at work."

A sip of his coke follows that declaration, as his eyes dart quickly from Elliot to a more focused study of a crack in the bar's glass wall paneling.

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Elliot, who has a vast and colorful knowledge of Chicago's bar scene - and therefore a wealth of experience regarding the tendency of bartenders to, say, knock back shots whilst on the job - raises an eyebrow. It's not, although it might easily be construed as such by a person with a modicum sensitivity, actually judgmental, or even inquisitive, it's just that Elliot is usually communicating something, talking or not. Ergo: the eyebrow of observation, specifically that Amory is also not drinking now, per se, at least not in the sense that Elliot is with his beer.

Then again he also has six inches and probably thirty pounds on his quasi-reluctant conversational partner, he doesn't really feel one of anything. "A sound stratagem," he notes dryly, in lieu of vocalizing anything about Amory's glass and how the coke is not adulterated (or augmented, depending on perspective) by any of the usual suspects; mixed drinks rarely are, the alcohol tends to settle out. A person invested in shielding as much should probably also invest in a ceramic mug. "Although vocational inebriation seems to work for the proprietors of Coyote Ugly."

....why can Elliot make that reference. Because his brain never forgets anything, which is sometimes useful and sometimes just, well: clutter. Like so. He should, perhaps, also be questioning what is wrong with Amory, in that something clearly is, and yet despite his own internal proclivities toward speculation regarding just about everything, asking at this juncture seems roughly on par with pulling all of his own teeth. He doesn't want anyone poking into his own mysterious affliction (the kind that makes a person board himself up in his bathroom as if it's Fort Knox), and when pressed usually just ...lies, so no one else is obligated to do anything different. "But then that presupposes a willingness to disregard certain parts of OSHA."

You know, like the parts that specify 'don't grind against the bar, that's unhygienic and strange.'

[fatespoken]

He's ceased the habit of irreverently knocking back shots ever since that wonderful instance when he blew out his manager's memories. But even prior to that, Amory hardly drank on the job. He maintains an ironclad sort of professionalism while working, a principle of division where personal feelings are mutually exclusive from a singular self-directive: do your job and do it fucking well. Present yourself like a fool in your workspace and it's an abasement.

The last bit of coke is cleaned off in a single sip. Amory's come here for peace, for that comfortable median between solitude and solidarity, where warm bodies exist only as presence. Elliot's conversation is unwelcome, and not because he's irritating or offensive. He's more bearable than not, actually. An interesting figure midst the crowd of gray, passing faces, bolstered by his obvious intelligence. But Amory does not have the patience for conversation, whether it be with Ghandi, Einstein or Elliot Argento. And so, he drops a few polychromatic coins on the counter and stands up to leave, making a quick grab for a lemon from the bartender's metal plate.

"I'd ask what those parts are," he pauses, briefly, to close a few buttons on his coat, "But I have to go."

Elliot shouldn't take this brush-off too seriously. The main reason for his departure, which must be crashing likes waves against his magical perception, is the beginning of a cold steeling pain, magic with claws and teeth. His limited patience has been distilled to vapors, and the words home, bed, pills are supplanting all other candidates within the judgment center of his brain.

"Later."

[schisming.livejournal.com]

Elliot can't pick up on those ...deeply concerning sentiments without effort; the fuss and frills which have so lightly piqued Amory in the past regarding magic as Elliot knows it require some kind of object or idea for focus. He's past that point with certain areas now, but Mind isn't one of them, as it's a sphere he tends to only use defensively unless absolutely otherwise necessary. That's a distinction he has yet to make, in this case, but he doesn't need to be able to read Amory's thoughts to absorb the rest of that, which is easily enough on its own, that icy sluicing grip on some metaphysical plane that reads more around the body than in it, like a sickened tree with roots snaking down to dump poison into the surrounding earth.

So no, he doesn't exactly feel slighted, even if it's for reasons a little more self-centered than most empathic people would offer. He downs a respectable swallow of whatever beer he managed to scrounge up (perhaps at a time that is totally not this one, he should ask a bartender about that--like Amory! ...wait, that is a terrible idea, moving on:) and tips the mostly empty glass at Amory, cordial if not in what could be called an excess of friendliness, and at least vaguely interested if not solicitous. It's not that he per se intends to look at other people like they are specimens under a microscope, but a hazard of feeling so far away from most of them on a constant basis, he is only half kidding when he identifies himself as a solipsist. "Hardly worth mentioning."

And really, they aren't, it would just be lewd, if entertaining. "You'll incur no difficulty in making your way?"

Which is a trick of speaking the way Elliot does, using more words than necessary or not, there he could mean any number of things: the hour, the City itself, the possibility of getting a cab, etc etc and unto urban infinity. He doesn't have to be inquiring after Amory's clearly plummeting health, because it bears repeating he would shrug off anyone who asked him, excepting a certain knifey flowerchild.