fetch the bolt cutters.

Those wandering thoughts are reeled back in by the reminders of what she does have, and she's about to protest - if only because she feels put in her place by it, but the question that follows distracts her. "-er, sure, whatever," She doesn't smoke - not cigarettes anyways, but fuck it, it's not like anyone else is in here. A little bit of fresh air (does smoking outside count as fresh air?) would be fine.

Through the back and outside, she props the door open with crate so she can hear if the entry-bell rings, and it's obvious that being outside isn't necessarily her favorite thing, the way her eyes drift to every corner and entry into the tiny back-street, as if she expects people to be there, waiting. Satisfied (not really), she sits against the painted steel rail running down the building's back stoop. "So like... is this a talking thing or a sit and be quiet thing or.... or what? You don't exactly radiate heart-to-heart energy."

Her sponsor might've known what to say. Somehow she always did. Monika was a small, frank Polish woman who'd had an affinity for pulling wisdom and encouragement out of the unruliest of tangles. No life was too messy to right itself again, in her view, no matter how ugly it'd gotten. Some people are just built like that, Eleanor thinks—to endure. Others wilt. Decay. She knows what camp she's in; she can't be sure about Autumn just yet. All the same, she's no Monika. All she's got are Virginia Slims and time to kill.

She tracks Autumn's anxious looks around the back alley, shakes her head. "You'll need something stronger than weed. To go away inside. You don't need to be a vampire to find ways to shut it off."

Even if the focus would be on her ass and tits. She hums and finishes a drink for another patron, loosely listening to the blonde woman compel a man to go chew glass outside of their establishment. She quickly grabs one of the security guys and motions for him to go take care of the problem - let her have her fun, but erase the memory of it and don't let him die. The girls can have a treat later, if they want.

"A Tom Collins is fine," Eleanor answers, looking away at last. Strip clubs aren't her idea of a good time, but she can stay for a drink. It's not often she's around vampires of a different clan, probably by design. Time to see how the other half lives. "It's a nice place. Can't say the same for your clientele, though." She pulls a grimace. "You must have a strong stomach."

"Mm, for something a little more new --" She wanders down and plucks a few books, mostly general fiction and mystery released within the last ten years, off the shelf for Eleanor to look through and choose from. They're set on the counter, just in time for her to watch Daniel get nipped at by Thoreau.

"She doesn't like men that much." By way of explanation. "I think he'd go nuts trying to wrangle me and Autumn."

Still, the moment and the topic makes him dwell on a few other literary concepts of it's own; captivity, humanity, liberty.

"I kind of like Heinlein," He says, almost absently. "Probably not your thing though. Space and aliens and stuff. I don't know. Got me threw a fair few plane trips and train rides, though."

"I haven't been to New York in a while." He says to Aria while still looking at Eleanor. When he turns from her to the younger vampire though he offers a shrug. "You like dancing?" Pointed. "There's an old place called Crookie's, been there since forever. Gotta go in through a barber-shop's back wall. I'll text you the address."

No sooner does he say that then his own phone buzzes quietly in his pocket, and he pulls it free to check it.

Eleanor sorts through Aria's selection, recognizing very little, skimming through blurbs. Not bad. Most of it sounds right up her alley. Might be she'll actually enjoy some of them. Wouldn't that be something? She offers Aria a curt nod and tries for some appreciation. "... Thanks. They seem like solid picks."

She smiles wryly around another sip of liquor as Daniel speaks—he's right, Stranger in a Strange Land was a pain to get through—and finishes her drink just as he turns off to the side to check his phone. Her eyes flit back up to Aria again, study her. Young, beautiful, ferocious things like her will always make the best weapons for Kali. It's only a matter of time before the girlfriend and the bookstore are stripped from her; isolation's the best way to foster loyalty.

There's music playing still; she'd lost track of it. It's energetic, catchy. "This your playlist? Sounds too young for the Crypt Keeper over there."

Daniel replies through a smirk, like he's really got something with that comeback. He thinks he does, at least. His eyes track over the way red floods into the vial, tries not to think about how similar it looks, how similar it feels, and then, like she can read his goddamned mind, Eleanor pipes up with a little casual questioning.

"Cleaner." He says, though that's only partially true. The lab underneath that Castle had been perfectly pristine and sterile; it was the cells that were full of dinge and rust and rats. "Better lighting." No manacles or iron crosses either. "Decor's a bit nicer as well. I really like what you've done with the place."

Soldiers are a strange breed, she thinks. Feels to her like they can shut it off better than most vampires. But the lab with its harsh fluorescents, scant furnishings, and the dangerously alluring scent of blood permeating every square inch of the place leaves very little to hide behind.

Idly, her eyes track the path of his veins up his arm. Then, in a flat voice: "Towards the end of his tour in Afghanistan, my husband saw one of his friends get blown up by an IED. Right in front of him. The IED was hidden in an animal carcass. Figure I don't need to tell you all the ways it stayed with him. It was rare to hear him talk about it, but when he did he always had to make the same stupid joke, like he couldn't get any of it out otherwise. He'd force himself to smile and he'd say— 'Wile E. Coyote spent too much time strapping dynamite to rockets. Someone should've told him all he needed was one dead donkey on the side of the road.'"

He wasn’t going to beg her to come with him. It wasn’t pride stopping him, that was long gone, but there wasn’t time for it, not when the look in her eyes was a clear enough answer. 

She wasn’t coming with him. She couldn’t. He had to leave. He had to get the fuck out of dodge, and he had to do it fast. 

“I’m sorry.” Dozens of languages, thousands of false apologies, it still felt stiff and awful in his mouth to say it when he really meant it. 

Sorry for what? Leaving, when he could tell she tensed up every time he spoke about it like an eventuality? This whole situation? Being important enough that it was dangerous for him to stay? 

He couldn’t even tell, just that he was, and he probably wasn’t going to stop for a long time. 

Getting attached was stupid. It was foolish, there was a good reason he never did it, and this was it. It made leaving hard, worse than it should be, worse than he was comfortable with. It meant precious seconds would be wasted setting the wooden bird on the table, making sure it was upright, before letting that familiar instinct to run, run, run, get the fuck away from here and never look back take over as he bolted out the door.

She could see a Latin textbook splayed across his coffee table, the one with the ridiculous Quintus illustration she'd lorded over him for weeks during their lessons. Past the bar attached to his kitchen there was a wine rack lined with fancy bottles he'd shown her just the once, some random night ages ago when she'd strong-armed her way into his apartment with cheap grocery store wine he'd balked at in horror. Near her feet there were still wood shavings from all his whittling; he'd let her try her hand at it the night of the gala and her best attempt had produced nothing but an ugly, misshapen block of wood that was supposed to have been a dog. Somewhere in his closet there was a tie covered in possums.

All of it would sit there, collecting dust, till the place was turned out by a landlord. She didn't know how to feel about that. Or why any of it needed to be felt in the first place.

Eleanor sank into the couch, arms still folded tight, like the cold needed to be held inside before it unfurled into something else. It reeked of cigarette smoke, like he did whenever he brushed up next to her in the lab or on his way to open his car door for her. The vial sitting inside her coat felt heavy. She had maybe a day or two at the most before she'd have to say something to Kali. It was all the head start she could afford him.

She looked upon the bird sullenly and Gael's voice came to her then, a whisper in the back of her mind. A promise.

Dangerously close to three strikes, Eleanor. You don't recover from the next one.

Well, here it was. Her third strike. All she could do was hope Kali would see this through in his stead, now that she'd outlived her usefulness to the clan. Closure would be satisfaction enough. She'd spent enough time looking back. There was no one left to look back at anymore.

She flipped the coffee table over with a kick of her heel. The bird landed on the ground with a crack; its head split off from the rest of its body.

Respect…

It was a word that carried a lot of wait to her. Respect was something that was continually earned, there were very few still living that Ha-Jeong felt she truly respected. Kali being one of them. But in this moment Ha-Jeong knew she respected Eleanor’s opinion. She might be drunk but she was capable and whatever and wherever Daniel and Quin had found themselves up to, Eleanor was certainly capable of staying out of trouble if she chose.

“Don’t make too much of a mess  풋내기.” She nodded, and then in the next secound was in motion running off to her reassigned mission.

It's a fast retort, and one that maybe comes across as a little more defensive than he intends it to.

He looks at the second vial, and the others laid out. He wonders, does it end at five?

There's a defensive edge to Daniel's tone when she touches on Aria that only further cements their bond in her mind. Eleanor gives an it-doesn't-make-a-difference-to-me type of shrug, green eyes tracing the flow of his blood as it pools in the vial. It's no more her business than anything else in Reardon is, but she finds she pays attention still. More than she's used to.

The faces at the fringes of her enclosure haven't changed in the last year and some change, though they've slowly receded into the shadows, one by one. Kali stepped away long ago, dumping her onto Gael's lap like a doll she'd grown bored with. Then Gael had left, taking all his lessons with him. Quin's the last constant and even that seems to be at an end now—he hasn't spoken to her in weeks.

Then there's Daniel and Aria, two newcomers she can't seem to get away from, whose small kindnesses collect in her mind unwittingly, insistently, despite her general apathy towards them, like there's a hole they see in her that they're bent on filling.

He's right: she trades books with Aria, trades barbs with him, and she's not quite sure what to make of any of it other than to remind herself that it's not worth getting worked up over. They'll leave too, in time. Daniel's already counting down the days. In the meantime, if they want to keep striking up conversation with a surly lion through the bars of its cage, let them. When he lumps her in with Aria as tolerable, she silently agrees; they're tolerable to her, too.

"Therapy's a scam," she says, words half-muttered. "Otherwise they wouldn't need to drown you in ads." She types another code in on the register. "Half of it's bullshit and the other half is fancy ways of telling you to do it yourself." Kind of out of pocket, saying all that to a customer, but honestly, fuck it. "I'll just let myself look a bit shit still til the moon's up and I get to not care about... anything for a few hours."

"Sorry." She hits a button on the register and zeroes the total. "No charge," she says. "As thanks for.... whatever. babysitting me, I guess. You've got better shit to do, I'm sure."

It's a kind gesture, she supposes, giving her the books for free. Like those trinkets Aria had brought back for her from New York. It's always strange, being confronted with reminders of common decency, like someone's trying to pull her into a club she's got no interest in dancing at. "Don't be so sure, my life's pretty boring," she says, taking the books out of Autumn's hands and bundling them in her arms. "And I don't have a pretty girlfriend or a quirky bookstore to float me through it."

A beat. "Want to take a smoke break?"

“Symptoms, uhm…” he folds his sleeve up as he considers just how much he should say. “I need to rest — not sleep, but I can only be up on my feet for so long before it catches up to me. I’ve still got, like, the vampire stuff, just… not quite as good. I, uh… it gets a lot worse when if I skip out on feeding regularly. That’s when I get more of the severe stuff, the, uh…” he picks at the rolled up sleeve. “Mouth bleeding, losing teeth, throwing up. That kind of thing. It’s a bitch to get back into it if I strike out too many times, especially if I can’t get it bagged. I mean, it all heals and grows back, but it sucks.”

She ties the tourniquet on Reubin's arm as he speaks, listening to his symptoms with a thoughtful expression. It doesn't make any sense, she thinks, a frown pulling at the corners of her mouth when she finishes the knot and moves to disinfect. It has to be some freakish, magical anomaly, the radioactivity of it all. That there can be some unforeseen limitation to their healing capabilities enraptures her most; that's a biological weapon in the making. Even if it can't kill, it can disable, weaken, and isn't that what she's trying to do to witches?

A comforting thought: she spikes Kali's tea with Reubin's blood. That cruel, beautiful face breaks out in painful blisters while the inside of her mouth rots, putrid sores swelling the lining of her cheeks, her teeth splintering like toothpicks as they spill out of her mouth between swallows of her own blood. The sounds of her chokes follow her desperate attempts at escape as she crawls the rich, carpeted floors of her lofty office on her hands and knees, unable to stand, unable to speak in that silken voice of hers. The shadow of Eleanor's stake hovers above her like a taunt before it strikes down in a blur of red.

"... It might be able to help, yeah." A thin smile. "We'll see." She follows his gaze around the room. "What do they tell you, out of curiosity? About what the clan does down here?"

He didn’t protest when she grabbed his arm and took his blood, only holding out the little caged thing to her as she stared, waiting for some result. “I already gave you my blood sample, Eleanor. You don’t need more.” 

A handwave shushed him, and he huffed, turning to pick up the things strewn across his couch. Some of it had been left accidentally, but others were things he’d put there on purpose, in anticipation of whatever hangups in his schedule would get him stuck in the lab again. He was about to protest, but then she spoke. 

She didn’t need to say more, even as she grabbed his shirt to force him to look at her instead of the point on the wall he’d picked to stare at a few inches over her head. 

He was fucked. Everything he’d worried about in making a home here, every little connection he’d made against his better judgement, it had all been step after step into a trap.

What do you think Kali’s going to do with you? Nothing good. His ability to move around, to leave town and drop into other branches of Reardon, that was all going to go away. His usefulness was in what he could do, where he could go, his willingness to use the few strengths a vampire of his age had over any other vampire for the benefit of the clan, without any of the ambition one would expect from someone. 

If his usefulness shifted to be his blood, something he didn’t need to give willingly, something that could be taken from him again and again, only made easier for them if he was kept in captivity...?

He had to leave. Had to run, before Kali heard about this, before she had a chance to do something about it and try to exercise more of that control she had over his life. 

“Come with me.” It slipped out before he could even think, staring into that face he’d been avoiding since the fuck-up at the gala. The caged bird was still in his hand, wood beneath his fingers as he summoned up more words, trying to form some argument. He couldn't tell if he was trying to convince her, or trying to reassure himself that it was fine to even suggested it.

“I can’t stay. You hate it here. Come with me.”

The offer to come with him—that she hadn't expected. Her face grew very still. Something that felt dangerously like hope flared through her and for a sliver of a moment she caught a peek of a life outside of No Man's Land, beyond Port Leiry, away from Kali's clutches... and Eleanor was surprised to find that it felt vaguely familiar. The outlines of it, some of the details too. Like she'd thought about it enough times before that it'd left tracings in her memory. Even the parts that had him in it.

She extinguished it all with a scoff, that crude, empty vision of a future that didn't exist. Her temple was pulsing but her eyes were clear again: this was Quin. He didn't have a plan. He didn't have a fucking clue. His words were wind. "I'm not your pet bird," she said stiffly. "You can't just throw a blanket over my cage and take me with you on the road. She bound me here. I can't leave the city. You know that."

Eleanor made no move for the gift, even though it'd become a parting one, and folded her arms across her chest instead, all ice, a heel clicking impatiently on his floor. She felt cold. Tired. He'd made such a clusterfuck of everything since the gala and she didn't have even a fraction of the bandwidth—or the desire, frankly—to sit with him one last time and parse out his thoughts or his feelings, or whatever else he wanted to pin on her. She wasn't his wife, or his mother, his therapist, or his girlfriend. They were just two strangers with nothing but shared misery between them and it was time to put that to bed.

He'd always talked about leaving. Here was his chance. She didn't care. She just didn't want to think anymore. "Whenever and wherever you go, just don't tell me anything. She'd get it out of me one way or another."