not_every_mage | Room 322, Sunday Night

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Room 322, Sunday Night

It had been barely more than 48 hours since Anders was last in this room, this safe space that was bright with Rapunzel's paints and littered with his own clothes and books. It felt like it might as well have been years. When he'd left, he could be flip about killing because he hadn't needed to do much of it, not enough to make it real. Now he'd done more than he had expected outside a war. (He didn't feel all that bad about it. Deep down, he wondered if that were a problem.)

In Rapture, he'd been fueled by potions and adrenaline -- too tightly wound by the situation to sleep, to rest, to eat more than a mouthful or so when they'd had the chance. It had gotten him through the horror of it all, and Nathan's pizza had helped dull the gnawing in his stomach. But now ... now he felt, all at once, as if he'd die on his feet if he didn't lie down immediately.

He took off his boots and sprawled on his bed. Drifting with his eyes closed, he imagined what would happen if he took the same crew back to Thedas.

The templars would never see them coming.

[OOC:Closed door, open post!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kathy ducked her head. "Once people realized I couldn't speak English, they, ahh, had comments to make about my availability that way," she admitted. "And it's not something I would have done after dark. But in broad daylight, it wasn't so bad, so long as I kept out in the open where lots of people were. And anytime someone tried to talk to me, I'd smile and jabber on in Korean and point to my watch and the sea, and they eventually gave up."

Leaning back, she sighed. "Guys are kinda horrible when they think you don't know what they're saying about you, I'll give you that."

"You could have stopped at guys are kind of horrible and I wouldn't have argued," Anders sighed. "But all right. You seemed harmless, and confused, and like they might get into more trouble bothering you than you were worth."

He raised his head to look at her. "Smart. And brave."

It was difficult to say which was taking up more of her face, her smile or her blush. Being considered smart and brave were probably the two best compliments she could have asked for.

"Thanks," she said, obviously fighting against her habit of ducking her head whenever she was praised. "So, umm, I saw the hand-off to the cop, figured if that wasn't where the drugs were going to come in, there was surely something going on there, and came back later to check it out. So I did and there they were, ripping open pillows and pulling out bricks of...some kind of drug. I never did figure out what it was."

She was smart and brave, and deserved to be told that more often.

"I wouldn't know," he shrugged. "Drugs are different here, from what I can tell. Anyhow, if they're selling it at the dock at night, you can bet it's not powdered milk for infants."

"That's pretty much what I figured," Kathy said. "I mean, whether it's coke or heroine or meth, it's still bad."

She peeked at Anders from under her lashes and said brightly, "So, yeah, that's pretty much the end of it. I found them and I called the police from my burner phone and, you know, they ended up getting arrested."

And she totally wasn't eliding over anything! Like jumping down from the ceiling and fighting them, which someone could consider being really, really stupid.

Of course she wasn't eliding! They were being completely honest with each other about all the ways they hadn't almost gotten killed over the weekend.

"So we both did some real good over the last few days," he decided. "I think we deserve some good sleep, all the cake we can eat, and solemn promises to each other not to put ourselves in mortal danger for at least a week or two."

Completely honest and aboveboard, as two friends who totally didn't dance with ridiculous amounts of danger should be/

"I'm liking this idea of yours," Kathy admitted. "Especially the cake bit." She was hungry again, which was nothing new at this point. "Can we amend that to say deliberately not put ourselves in mortal danger for a week or so? I mean, if we kinda end up that way by accident, I don't think we should get in trouble for it."

"Good point. If we stumble into something, it doesn't count," Anders agreed. "Or if someone needs help and it absolutely can't wait. I couldn't let a friend get hurt just because I felt like I needed a break."

So, really, he was going to be almost as reckless as ever.

This was the worst pact to stay out of trouble ever.

"That's only fair," Kathy agreed. "I mean, am I just supposed to let someone get hurt in an alleyway because I thought it might be dangerous? What kind of hero would I be?"

And this was why Fandom teachers drank.

"Not a very good one," Anders agreed. (And somewhere a Fandom teacher reached for a third beer and didn't know why.) "So, all right. We can fight but we can't go out of our way to look for fights. Is that fair?"

"The kind of fights that could lead to mortal danger," Kathy amended, convincing the teacher to just give up and go straight to shots. "I mean, my whole shtick kind of depends on me going out and looking for fights."

"You could put the schtick to the side for a week," Anders argued. Probably unsuccessfully. "Go and ... I don't know. Feed kittens, or help old people across the street."

[OOC: NIGHT.]

Completely unsuccessfully.

"Would you put magic aside for a week?" Kathy asked, her eyebrow shooting straight for her bangs. "in favor of doing...I have no idea what the equivalent of that is. Handing out bandaids and splints?"

[Night!]

"That's not the same thing!" Anders argued. "It's more like saying I'll only use magic if someone is bleeding out in front of me. I don't go to your hospitals and roam around looking for people I could heal."

Kathy frowned, but conceded that he was right. "Okay, okay, fair point. And it's probably better that you don't, by the way. That could end up working not very well for you."

She wasn't saying that Anders would end up locked in some secret underground bunker getting tested on by government scientists, but she wouldn't bet money (or her friend's safety!) on that not being the case.

"But if you did, and you loved it, would you stop?"

"I would love it but I don't do it because it would be stupid and dangerous," Anders abused italics to say. "Either I'd exhaust myself or the guards would haul me off, and I wouldn't be healing anyone for a while either way."

He didn't know Kathy's scenario about the basement lab, but the concept that being too public with magic posed a risk was hardly new to him.

"Just like you won't be able to help anyone if you get hurt going to the docks alone all the time. "

"It's not all the time, just when I get an important tip!" Kathy grumbled. "But fine. I'll stay away from the docks for a bit, just to be safe. Fair?"

"Fair," Anders agreed, and reached for a handshake. "And I'm going to bother you again about going with you sometime."

"I'm looking forward to it," Kathy said. "But we're gonna have to run across some rooftops on the island first, okay?"

She really liked Anders and didn't want him to go splat the first night they went out.

Giving him a hesitant grin, she added, "I don't suppose you'd mind if I put you on speed dial in case I get hurt, would you? I mean, I don't want to assume or impose on you, but..."

Hospitals and things would probably ask all sorts of uncomfortable questions.

Anders appreciated the anti-splat concern. Truly.

"All right," he conceded. "And yes, of course, call anytime. I'm probably faster than the hospital would be, and I won't ask a thousand questions."

Unless it amused him. But that went without saying.

"Even if you did, you wouldn't follow them up by calling the cops. Or worse, my parents." Yeah, there was no way she'd wanted to explain to any of those people why she was in the hospital after getting caught up in a gang fight or something.

"You can ask all the questions you want and make fun of me besides, for that."

"You're so good to me," Anders teased, with a lazy smile. "I won't make fun of you. Too much. I didn't make fun of Eleanor, and she broke Joker's hand."

"Broke Joker's hand?!" Kathy knew her little brother was fragile, but couldn't imagine how Eleanor could have broken him--literally. "What happened? Did she, like, step on him by accident?"

What could Eleanor have done to break Joker's hand that would be funny?

"It was in bed but I didn't ask for the details," Anders told her. "Maybe she did step on him. Who knows what people get up to?"

To him, any sex-related injury was funny.

And now Kathy was bright red. "Anders!" she scolded. "You shouldn't tell me that! That's personal! And private! And--and--how did she even do that? No! Don't tell me! It's none of my business!"

She clapped her hands over her ears, as if Anders was about to start waxing poetic about how one could routinely break someone else's hand during foreplay. Or sex. Or whatever.

"Oh my gosh, if that ever happens to me, I'm swearing off sex entirely and joining a convent."

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