SENTINEL

"If I ever do meet th' prince of Hell himself, m'gonna call him a boomer to his face! An' then when he inevitably goes 'I demand respect, bluh, bluh, bluh,' I'm gonna call you an' put ya on speakerphone."

And he meant it!

But okay, no hacking. This wasn't a Sky Kids movie. He figured that Lune was talking about manipulating actual mechanics inside of the computer, anyway. Electricity and magnets. That was some X-men level shit, but he tried to think of jobs an actual 12 year old might feasibly have.

What did kids do in his old school at that age?

"Hmmm, lesse. Ya could do other kids homework! Uhhh, sell vapes? Sell cigarettes. Offer to take care of Tamagotchis like a digital babysitter..."

A lot of stuff! But more importantly...

She held up a hand with an index finger--

Lune took her phone out and swiped to call a boomer;

She got an answer first ring.

"Child." More statement than question.

"Hey! You're a boomer. What did latch key kids do to earn money?"

There's a sigh in the pause. "There are people older than boomers, you know. Vox is roughly one war off. Sell lemonade."

"See I were gonna suggest ya start yer own Grandma Facebook Finder class, where ya teach a bunch of old peanut boomers 'bout how to get their email off their computer an' onto their phone. But now I'm thinkin'... hacker! Maybe ya can be a hacker an' break into th' FBI 'er somethin'."

Okay, you've been here before.

Lark shied back, hands clasping together, catching and clinging to the end of that sentence, or trying to, because he was fucking it up again and he didn't know how to stop fucking it up. He wasn't sure at what stage this became Definitely Fully Bad, or if he was fucking it up from the very start.

He knows people need space sometimes. He doesn't fucking know WHEN they need space!

But that wasn't Devang's fault. He got the impression she didn't have the capacity to tell him before it was too late.

Didn't make him any better at predicting it.

"Sorry."

He was hyper-aware of the way he walked out the room, his limbs felt stiff and stupid, he didn't want to go too fast or too slow, he didn't want her to think he was retreating like a kicked puppy. He's not a puppy, and she didn't kick him.

Stupid.

He shifted back, shaking his hands out, and faced just slightly to the left of her, because he's not made of the sternest stuff. "Devang-"

Christ, Fucking CHRIST he can't find the- the words, the direction- he didn't even know if she WANTED a conversation!

"...Not like that."

Don't leave on that note. That note fucking sucked. A thrown duffle bag? Lark darting off like a scared animal? The idea disgusted him.

"I- I'm an asshole, did you mean that? It wasn't a joke? I-" He threw his hands up, trying to keep everything allll even and not shaky and nervous, but it kept being that way, and that's just how that is, he guessed. "Did I do something, or do you just- need something else right now? Can- can I ask? Is it bad that I'm asking?"

Frustration leaked into his voice, and maybe a bit of desperation. This keeps happening, and he can't figure out what's going wrong where.

Haha love how he kept hoping she'd tell him when to leave but now he won't leave because she fucking did it wrong. Amazing!

"God damn it, Lark!" She stood up in a flurry of movement and face contorted in anger. Teeth and crags. Her temper wasn't as quick as it used to be, but it didn't get less intense. She felt hot all over and he was asking a lot of questions and she didn't want to answer or hear or deal with any of it!

She rather smash in her own face!

"Get out of my room before I say some shit that makes you leave the house!" Slapped the words down between them as loudly as she could.

This was an awfully similar scenario and if he'd learned anything from the last time it should be sometimes Devang (Roka) needed space.

He got that she was having a rough time of it, but he didn't know if it was an ask what's wrong sort of thing, or if it was actually HIM causing problems (Which he was doing an okay job at not fixating on too hard, look at him go!), or what. He didn't know! He was trying to help and not just leave when things got difficult or confusing.

Devang could TELL him if she wanted him to leave, right? Would she do that? He didn't know, because she apparently expected him to read her mind, or at least be more socially competent than he is.

"I- I don't know how to-" He stopped, crossing his arms, trying to find the words. Trying NOT to make this about himself. Trying not to go on some unhelpful tirade about his inability to communicate, which was probably a load of horseshit and excuses...

Then instead of speaking further, he shapeshifted into a cat. Never mind. Sorry. He's probably talking too much, that's probably it. He's not allowed to ask, so there's his guess!

"Then get out." If that was his answer.

He had children. He was capable of sympathy in her mind. He was choosing not to try. Not to have the hard conversaiton.

Staying here was only embittering her into a dark state of mind.

Anticlimatic.

She skirted around him and sat down on the edge of the bed. Then put her face in her hands, back bowed to put her elbows on her knees.

How so? What'd he do?? Not a question he felt deeply upset about, more confused than feeling genuinely called out. Okay! Guess he's an asshole!

She's not standing anymore, so technically he isn't meant to follow through on a hug. But maybe it wouldn't go amiss to sit down beside her, and gentle bump his shoulder into hers. She can tell him if he needs to fuck off.

"It's gotta cool for a few. Meantime, you can take out the food processor and some jars." She wasn't pickling any of it, so none of it would get properly 'canned'. Besides, she's use it so fast at the pizza place that it wouldn't run the risk of going bad. But the jars were for, ya know, containment in the mean time.

They were all repurposed Mezzetta jars in the cabinents.

Lark's confidence waned, though, as Devang stood in silence. He'd been ready to step back and let her go, but- he reached out again, giving her another gentle pat on her shoulders, then soft-holding her upper-arms. "...Too much hug, or not enough hug? I could hug you again."

Like his hugs were the keys to the universe, or at least Devang's 404 error.

He pointed at her. "St...stand there too long and I'm gonna hug you again! I'll do it!"

You better run if you don't want more hugs! He was hoping to help her either with the levity, or genuinely, he'd hug her again if she needed it. He'd never known Devang to NEED a hug, but he really wasn't sure how much he knew what she needed. She definitely needed something. He didn't want her to leave if she was still missing something.

Not that he had control over that.

Anticlimatic.

She skirted around him and sat down on the edge of the bed. Then put her face in her hands, back bowed to put her elbows on her knees.

"Perhaps not as frequently as you might," Alastor replied with at least some honest context granted. "But there is a reason I do not exactly surround myself with individuals that I would regret to consume under the right circumstances." Otherwise, said morals might come into play a bit more often. Either that or something more akin to greed for the person rather than the meat that the person could potentially provide.

All said: Alastor would likely not hesitate much to even eat bits of Vox if he thought them to be edible. And if he were hungry enough.

"Avoiding an ever-encroaching starvation, however, can be a fairly strong motivator."

He was not about to get into playing the Pain Olympics with her, however, and found himself somewhat distracted by a small trinket or two that he carried with him. It was a habit to simply take what he wanted without having to worry about something as pedestrian as money. In Hell, no one ever gave him any guff for doing as he pleased, his reputation enough to keep anyone from protesting.

So into a pocket those little trinkets went. Don't mind him.

"Ah. So it's like having a physical belly and a spiritual one. Or... hmm. Maybe not spiritual. Metaphysical. Whatever word makes better sense there." That, at least, he did not have to deal with.

Reaching one particular shelf, he paused to glance at a few books, picking them up one by one and eyeing the covers and the first few pages. But he was not much paying attention to their contents as he was their conversation.

"But you are not dead, like me," As though he were plucking through conclusions to be made.

He hadn't much struck her as one of those at a glance. She did admit he likely engineered that given his circumstances.

"So...what? What's your MO?" She did have to ask now that he'd made it a point of curiosity. She also knew most of his ilk to be braggers. They liked to be studied.

When not looking at him, she was generally visually roving their surroundings. Always...watching something in a middle distance.

"Imagine being responsible for two stomachs." She groused with a touch of that emotion in her voice.

A slow blink happened to his other statements. Lips even pursed after a beat. "Well, I'm not...alive."

Another gesture with a hand, this time at her whole body. "I haunt this."

"Mm, yes, that's about the size of noncommittal hemming and hawing that such a proposition normally gets." And he waved a hand dismissively.

"Just give it some thought, is all. It is much less dangerous now than it was before, at any rate. Angels in and out at all hours these days." Scoffing at the notion, moderately annoyed by the consistent stream of both visitor and resident. It could be a bit overwhelming, certainly, and that was the only real reason he was not pressing the matter; providing options.

"It would make very poor toilet paper. It's rather old. Might crumble in your hands before it was of any use whatsoever."

Alastor, on occasion, could take a joke and run with it.

"Terrible example of BDSM, that book. Not a single instance of safe, sane, or consensual." To her knowledge. "Though I haven't read." She admitted so it wasn't taken as Facts when it came to her biased opinion. She'd just been around some Discussions about it here or there. No personal experience in the game.