Note: Technically a continuation of Jack and the Ordinary Man with a Friendly Face. The scene takes a turn, and so does the mood, so this is after a commercial break.
Jack"You could say I'm at loose ends right now," Jack says, because you could say that, if you were a mortal with an expectation of 9-5. He might mean that he is homeless. He could be one of those guys who doesn't have a regular home because luck abandoned him to the economy, and he's got a prescient of getting better any day now. "But that wouldn't be 100% accurate. I find things out for people - uh, you might blame too many detective shows for that, and some lucky investments. I've got a card if you'd like one."
Hey, look. It's conversation ball. Jack lobs the direction of the conversation back to Grey with: "So you think you're better off. Happier, or just - " brief pause, to give added emphasis to an idea that is difficult to communicate in words: " - better?"
Better as a person, maybe. Better off, not being happy? Better for the world. Better for - well, better. There's a reason the pause needed to give emphasis to what the word might mean, yo.
They toss the conversation back and forth, the way that conversations go, one talking, asking, the other answering, asking. Pressing a little. Getting to know each other in such an easy sort of fashion Grey feels a little at ease. Enough to chat about whatever, with whatever being work, jobs, that sort of thing. Jack finds things out for people, and that piques Grey's interest. He has a few people like that around the city in various areas, information gatherers, informants rather. And, because it (rarely) hurts to have a few more, he says,
He retrieves his wallet from the back pocket of his pants, flips through it to get to his own stash of business cards. The one he holds out is simple enough, and not really personal, and not for the school. It has the emblem of the small and modest firm of Flannery and Price, his name, a website, a phone number that current forwards to his cell phone, an email address. His title is only 'Associate,' he's not quite old enough to try for partner. He also lacks the drive to do that.
After they have completed the ritual of the exchanged business cards, a rite that binds them together as Business Acquaintances, Grey returns his wallet to his pants, frowning a little again as he considers that question.
"Hm, I don't see why I couldn't be both. It's quieter. Teaching is about as fulfilling as people tend to say it is. I used to work on these big, high profile cases. Lost a lot of sleep that way. I don't lose so much sleep anymore." He looks at Jack, not really shrugging his shoulders but sort of almost starting the motion. He's not sure if it answers the question or not, but then, he rarely ever is. Sure of his answers, that is.
What Daniel Flood (who was Niccolo Roma, in another life, and is now known to some - really only Grey - as Jack Spicer) would be doing making his way through the inner campus of the University of Denver is anyone's guess. Maybe the well-dressed gentleman (Devil in a three-piece suit) is looking for Grey. That might be what the kine would assume, when he stops outside the belly-button-high chain link fence ringing the parking lot and notices the sound of his voice.
The man cultivates an air of control and an infallible stature, the kind that leads by tugging at the needs and wants (dreams) of others. Join the cult. Drink the Kool-Aid. And all will be well. He plays not on the ideals and inalienable rights, but the selfish necessities and self-serving instincts that had become so integral to the American dream in these modern nights. The good life, the carnal liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-through-power.
A hand comes up to stroke his chin, and he hears the voice again, making himself all-the-more taller by rolling forward to the balls of his feet and peeking over an SUV. He spots the source of that chirp-chirp-voice and smiles, whistling as he rounds through the security gate and begins heading toward Grey and the man he is talking to.
The song is from the late 60s. Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay, slow and steady and soulful in a way one might not expect from Flood. His hands go behind his back, one grabbing the other's wrist to restrain them there, when he finally comes upon the pair. One a stranger-in-seeming, the other an acquaintance-being-cultivated.
"What a surprise!" It's not a question, despite the
what, and who this is a surprise for doesn't seem to be Flood.
Grey
It's probably becoming at least a little more apparent why Grey would want to leave behind a life of lost sleep for the quieter schedule of a professor. He is - at least he has been for this Jack - fairly laid back. He goes with the flow, and seems like he'd prefer that current to be gentle and slow. He says he doesn't know why he couldn't be both happier and better off in his life now, and that's genuine. He really doesn't, because that's how he feels about it, at least. Better and happier.
Before he can answer the next question from the philosophical possibly-homeless ugly stranger, a slow and soulful whistle pierces the night. It's not the sound of it that's strange. They're standing in the parking lot of a large university, these streets are no stranger to the eccentric proclivities of its nearby denizens. No, what strikes Grey as odd is the tune. The students here are younger, richer, into things like Kanye and Britney and Lady Gaga. That the tune that carries over the parking lot to them is older and not, say,
Bad Romance, is out of the ordinary on several levels. Particularly given who is whistling. And also who he is approaching.
What a surprise!
Grey straightens, looks over, and just barely stops himself from rolling his eyes and slouching his shoulders all
Aw, maaaaaan when he sees Jack Spicer closing the distance. And he'd gone so long without running into the man, too. But, he keeps himself from doing those things because that would be rude, and he's seen too much of a range of responses from Flood to risk it.
Jack
Here comes Flood. The First of Grey's Jacks. The bad penny Jack. Here comes Flood, all, what a surprise, and from Jack's standpoint this is a pretty accurate assessment of the situation. He looks the well-dressed gentleman (ha) over, two-bit gangster with a grip of iron and heart that stopped beating ages ago. Grey might think that the bad penny Jack probably sleeps very well. The other Jack knows he's enchanted by the shadow men and he's one of them, and the other Jack knows other things, or thinks he does, like Flood's position in his personal mythology. Here's another story, okay? Are you ready to hear it?
Maybe later. Now, Flood's appearance and Grey's reaction and Jack's immediate reaction to each will take precedence. There's a touch of bewilderment. He'll try to hide it. Keep it under wraps, keep it secret, keep it closed up. He rubs the side of his nose - and this face he's wearing has quite a snout on it, smashed, smooshed, over-large - with the pads of his index and middle finger.
Grey doesn't say anything, so Friendly Jack sitting at his ease on the back of a pinto by a pink bakery box takes up the slack: "Nice night for surprises, at least."
[Manip + Subt. I'm tooootally not over here like
YOU.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 4, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Flood[ Perception + Subterfuge. What you lookin' at, Pugsley? ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Flood
Flood takes in the snout-nosed and thick-scooped man that speaks in Grey's stead, catching something that might be taken as realization or surprise, and his own eyes narrow in return. It isn't a predatory glare, just one of focus, taking the man in and then nodding as if it's only to gauge the person behind the words. Give himself context.
And then, a smile that starts at the edges of his face, lining his cheeks with the muscles that make it possible, to pull his lips tight and long and upward. His eyes relax, little wrinkles forming at their own frames, and he holds out a long-fingered hand to shake the stranger's. "A nice night for making new friends, which is always a pleasant surprise, don't you think?"
"Jack Spicer." All the things lies are made of - puppet-string-tied, rubber-stamped, the tears of children and lovers, and bloodshed, always sealed in bloodshed - he can mix into that sweet confection of a name will not convince this other Jack of what he knows about Flood. But he tries anyway.
And then, back to Grey, "Are you teaching night classes? Or just a late day tutoring? I talked to Sandra at your office. Oh, she's a nice woman. Had only the best things to say about you."
Grey
No, Grey refrains from saying anything when Flood whisks his way up to the pair of them, heretofore talking amiably, becoming friends maybe. A little more than acquaintances definitely. Perhaps it's the futile thought of If I Say Nothing He Won't Notice Me. Because that always works.
No. No no no. Of course Jack is here, materializing from the night itself. He and the other Jack exchange pleasantries.
Nice night for surprises. No, not this one, anyway. A nice surprise would be finding a twenty dollar bill folded up in his wallet when he thought he had no cash, or Triple-A arriving within five minutes instead of forty. No, Grey would never, ever categorize anything about Flood as a
nice surprise.
"No," is his very simple answer to the question of night classes or tutoring. A noise escapes him, very low, very quiet, sort of like a whimpering groaning sound while his facial features freeze in place at the mention of his office's admin. Not that he's worried she might have said something bad about him, but because this man is dipping his fingers farther into aspects of Grey's life he would prefer he didn't.
"You have my number, why are you calling my office?" he asks, not quite able to hide accusation from his tone. Grey is not so good at hiding things, he is too nice, too friendly, too honest.
Jack
Jack doesn't hesitate to shake Flood's hand. His own grip is strong, assured, an echo of the self-assurance he has at (or around) the core. His smile is less friendly than the smile he'd given Grey, back when they first starting to converse, but he isn't trying to lull Flood into a sense of no hunters here no monsters either. Flood's part of the other-world, Flood knows, Flood shouldn't know, better not let him know, so it's different. "Also Jack; and, certainly," he says, smile wrinkling his forehead, sending his thin sparse eyebrows crawling upward. Wry, good humour: "One thing you can be sure about with a new friend is that it'll be pleasant. S'the old ones you've got to look out for. Me, I'm partial to both."
And then, back to Grey. This Jack, the ugly Jack, the Jack who might be more likely to be kind, has the air of someone who suddenly doesn't want to intrude. The look he gives the professor is curious, maybe a little sorry; he taps his thumb three times against his elbow, folding his arms.
"You two are old aquaintances?" There. Jack to the rescue, such as it were.
Oh, but it's a poor rescue, because some part of him now looks at Grey differently, looks at Grey like,
oh, so you are being courted by one of the shadow men, the under-world things, you are, this is, what, and,
is this their move, and then - subconscious - there is a knot of impatient dislike,
I don't want to pit myself against that kingdom against this one nope there are better things to do besides.
Still. Poor Grey. Poor Grey, he just got more specifically interesting to the nosferatu.
Flood
The answer comes first, as if to not answer a question would be impolite, and as if to not answer an accusation would be unthinkable. “If I wished to talk to you, Mr. Thomas, I would have rang. That is why I called your office.” But the spark has met tinder, and this is only the first curls of smoke.
The timbre Grey's voice takes feeds a fire that reveals itself in Flood's eyes for the first time. He had been politely looking back and forth between the two, even smiling and shaking his head
no to Jack's question as to whether or not they are old acquaintances, eyes not darting, but not staying on either one for long enough to make the other feel ignored or not part of the conversation.
He turns them on Grey. The fire rages there for a good moment, suddenly a barn-burner, revealing itself. Then is extinguished just as quickly, like a great iron hammer has stifled and smothered it, leaving a coolness that might cause a chill in the sweat its predecessor might (easily) coax forth.
What comes next is nothing less than throwing Grey a bone, giving him more of an answer than,
because I wanted to.
"Due diligence," is Flood's answer. He takes a moment, though it doesn't seem like it's to center himself. No, Flood is centered, his foundation quite deep and the roots strong. It is more that he is giving Grey a long moment to reconsider his tonality and inquisition.
"Would you expect anything less?" The statements - both answers to that question Grey asks - are given like Grey should already understand well what is going on. Like none of this should be a surprise, even his presence, by now. Especially not after their last encounter. That expectation of understanding is only meant, though, to knock the professor further off balance.
"You never told me you were an academic.
Sandra had to tell me. What a noble pursuit," and he looks back to Jack, coming full circle. "And your occupation, sir? Do you also work at the university?"
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 5, 5, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
Grey[u mad bro?: empathy]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Grey[can you take the heat? WP]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )
Grey
If he knew that he had suddenly become a little more interesting to this other Jack Grey might resent Flood even more than he already does. Which is a funny thing to feel about a man who is only doing as Grey once wished. His life is okay but a little stale, a little boring. He wished for something interesting to happen, but he wasn't specific, see. He didn't wish for good interesting, or adventerous interesting, and so Flood slipped into his life one night and life hasn't been much the same since. If Grey thought about things like that, about fate and destiny and wishes and fishes, maybe he'd realize he has no one to blame for this but himself.
Well, actually, he does blame himself, but not for the reasons that he probably should.
Grey asks his question, sounding perturbed, disturbed, some other -urbed, and the answer is fire. Not literal fire, wouldn't that be interesting. Fire burns and sizzles in Flood's eyes and Grey, stupid, boring, ordinary Grey. It would be in his best interest to recoil from that look, to quail and shrink and maybe begin the process of apology, but he doesn't. That looks is met with brief and mild confusion only. Why? Why would that make him angry? Grey's a fairly clever, very intelligent man. The answer comes to him almost instantly.
Because he doesn't like to be questioned. The thought sinks deep even as it's thought, and Grey swallows a sudden lump in his throat. The web the fly suspected all along has finally started to become visible, but too late. There's the chill, though not where Flood probably thought it would prickle up.
He shakes his head, as well, no, they're not old acquaintances, though his eyes don't leave Flood now.
"What," he stops to clear the scratchiness from his throat, "What else did Sandra say about me?" he asks with a slow creepy dread.
Grey[brb changing physical locations!]
JackFrom an outsider's omniscient perspective it might well be kind-of sort-of funny how socially conscious the vampires are. At first Flood's careful to be inclusive, a man with manners. And Jack replies in kind, paying out more or less equal portions of attention to the Lasombra and the Lawyer, his body language open and interested except for the folded arms, and that just seems like it helps him balance and he needed to put his hands somewhere and he was tired of bracing his palms against the car, very content to go with the flow. It might tell a story: The fact that Jack doesn't take his leave of Grey and Flood now that Grey, waiting for Triple A, is the hands of someone he (it seems) has business with. There are a couple of stories it could tell.
1. He's friendly, and in spite of the edge to Grey's responses, the obvious unhappiness, he'll stick it out because he's a friendly guy. 2. He's friendly, and because of Grey's responses, etc. etc., he won't leave the poor rooster alone with the fox. 3. He - the ugly freckle-faced pug-nosed guy that Grey has chatted with - notices something up with Jack Spicer so he'll stick it out like a good samaritan. 4. Other.
They'd been talking about choices. About why choose to do this, about beliefs and ideals. Jack likes to see what mettle of man he is talking to. He judges them by it. He likes to see what they want to be or know what they want to be like. He judges them on that, too.
Do you also work at university? "Oh no. I'm not half so noble, Mr. Spicer." A spare chuckle. Half-a-choke. Whiskey over ice, a soothing sort of hoarse. "But there's still time. The academic life might be a good life. Now, uh. Nice Sandra aside. You after Grey here for business purposes I should shut my ears to?" He sounds apologetic: polite, even; the look he's giving Grey is a little more obviously sorry for him; like he's trying not to shake his head. "What is it you do?"
Flood
"Only good things," a pause, hand coming up from behind his back to stroke his chin as if he is considering the interaction before its fingers again grasp around its brother's wrist behind Flood. "Despite yourself, Mr. Thomas, only good things," and then he turns his attention back to Jack.
"I'm an entrepreneur," and it could be left at that, if he wanted to keep the truth of it to himself, and not shed any light on some asset that could later be exploited as a weakness. And he does. Though not entirely. Instead he offers a more personal take on that answer. "My mother would've said it's an inheritance from my father. That it's in our blood. I'd say it is in spite of it. Not that I did not love my father, may God rest his soul in peace, but I would say I learned more from his mistakes than his successes," a nod, making the sign of the cross quickly and expertly over himself a moment later, before his hands again return to find shelter behind his back.
And then, back to an earlier question, now that the one of Jack's he'd found more interesting has been answered. "I trust my tongue not to give away secrets it shouldn't. Your ears are safe and free to hear what they will."
Jack[Let's have a:
Holy shit, it IS you! Manip+Subt.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Flood[ Perception + Subterfuge. ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Grey[what about me? do i notice lies?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )
Grey
Nice Jack doesn't get up to abandon Grey to his fate with this other Jack. It does appear that he's got some kind of business with this one, though the human's part in it is obviously reluctant. He's not like them. He is not a bundle of secrets and mysteries wrapped in flesh. Grey is open, honest, polite even when he doesn't want to be. How the sack of warm manflesh hasn't been torn apart before now is anyone's guess. He is just suspicious enough, probably, that he didn't tumble haplessly into Flood's waiting arms.
That he hasn't been left here, that Nice Jack makes no move to pick himself up off that car and wander off to find his friend, well it doesn't make Grey feel much better about life. But he doesn't feel much worse about it, either.
Until he notices Nice Jack looking at him with obvious pity. Grey's brows constrict but he says nothing, only looks momentarily confused. It doesn't last, though. He's just beginning to realize the depths of the trouble that has come calling for him.
Only good things, says Spicer, and Grey looks skeptical. He'll have to have a word with Sandra on his next in-office day.
If there's something more to the conversation between the Jacks, Grey misses it. That's to be expected, really, and he can feel it sort of. He thought he was a little closer to the shore, in a place where he could swim as he pleased or stand up and lift his chin above the water level. Come to find out he's way way out there, and he's being circled by sharks. They start talking and he gets a weird feeling for a man nearing thirty-one who thinks eighty to ninety is pretty good as far as lifespans go. He feels like he must be quiet now, the adults are talking.
So, as with that day in the smoking lounge, he makes a pretense of checking his phone for the time, and he falls silent.
Jack
This time it is more difficult for Jack to maintain control over his expression and his posture. More difficult to clamp down on the little tells. The internal compression of a long, long silent and cold heart. Y'know why it's silent: it's silent because it was taken when the Hag took it - it's silent because as far as dark animals go it's been frozen so that time means a lot less. It's silent because timelessness is part of the spell. Now, Jack. Jack isn't frozen in time, per se, not like a photograph, oh no. Other things happened to him, and the man he wasn't wouldn't recognize - wouldn't be able to recognize, without flinching from and cursing at (prior to, let's face it, rallying and trying to sweet-talk and con) - the creature he has become.
The thing he doesn't want to show is a sudden flare of no, wait, this is real, don't forget, a lucid moment of wonder, of sure recognition. There's no unhappiness. He hasn't thought yet of how unhappy he is with Jack Spicer, making the sign of a cross, talking about his father, a good Catholic.
To Jack's credit, he's got a liar's armor on - and even though the twist is rough he doesn't go so far as to sit straight up or fall off the back of his pinto or suddenly lose his cool or say anything telling or clap Flood on the arm or - it's that liar's armor. But to Flood's credit, he's as sharp as he looks, and he knows something in Jack just sat up and went '!' He can see him hiding it. He can see it filtering around the edges. He can see it like Jack's glass, opaque glass, but still. Or water. Water is only clear for so long, after all. Then it's dark and full of slimy nasty things, which is apt enough.
This time Jack hesitates a bare moment too long, because he thought Grey'd fill in the gap. He didn't expect the lawyer to go silent like he was letting the adults speak. Maybe he should've. In these modern nights, religion can make one of the kine as uncomfortable as a certain sort of presence, wielded with precise force.
"Interesting philosophy there, and I won't say it's not true. What mistake taught you the most?"
He sweeps a quizzical glance from Flood, to Grey, as if including him in this question. Socratic method; don't focus on the one.
Flood
"The folly of trust. The vice of excess. The fault of letting your guard down, if only for a minute, and thinking the vultures won't end up picking over your corpse for it. All wrapped up in one mistake," he enumerates and then the tributaries, his own rhetorical device of trios, of a divine triumvirate of lessons that lead to his father's downfall, is summed up with a significantly more graphic statement: "He taught me even family will shoot you down in the street if you let them," his voice had grown solemn, and then grave, his countenance more craven.
His attention is on Jack as he speaks, and then he looks over to Grey, when he's finishes. Quiet Grey. Still flying so low. "Do try to keep up. You don't want to fall behind," a glance and nod to Jack, as if the question he'd leveled to them both should be answered to them both.
"What lessons have life taught you, Grey? Are you still learning? Or do you think you're ready for graduation?" His gaze, burrowing into Grey Thomas, emerges and takes flight around the halls or learning surrounding them. As if comparing it to the academic pursuits some undertook here added a gravity to his question.
Grey[my humanity is my strength! empathy!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Grey[rollin' conscience for the first time evar!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )
Grey[DAMMIT]
Jack[Snicker.]
Grey
The adults notice that the conversation has swept onward and left the child adrift somewhere behind them. It's not all bad, though, falling quiet. It means he gets to watch the men as they speak, and see things about them, tells they might not realize they're showing. There are some aspects of being a lawyer that Grey isn't so great at. Long hours poring over depositions, days spent in court, death threats, those aren't things Grey was so good at. But watching people, that he did well. Does well. As has been noted, he's a nice guy of the genuine variety.
And right then, when Spicer is talking about the mistakes that were his father's teachings, he sees a lot more than he'd like to see. He doesn't like that Jack. He thinks he's a trickster, or something. He's starting to figure out some more about him, things he doesn't like, but then? The curtain parts a little, and he catches a glimpse of something he really wishes he hadn't seen. He sees things that make Jack Spicer seem less superior man, better than everyone, three steps ahead of your cleverest thinker, so twelve steps ahead of Grey. And he feels for the person that he sees in that quick little instant. He feels for a man that he doesn't like, that he actually fears more than a little, a man he wishes with all his might would just leave him alone and find some new prey to chew on.
Grey clears his throat and turns his head away, shaking his shoulders as if he could shake himself free of his empathy, his sympathy. "Ah," he says, because they're both looking at him now, including him.
Do try to keep up, says Spicer, and that lights a little fire inside him that helps to burn those feelings away. He's brows tick and twitch, and he looks thoughtful. What lessons have life taught him?
"Stay out of bars."
Grey[I FEEL NOTHING SHUT UP FUCK YOU: manip+subt]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Flood[ Perception + Subterfuge: You like me? You really like me? ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Jack[Aww. Are you cold-hearted, Grey? Perc + Subt.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
Jack
He'd offered Grey a smoke earlier and the professor had declined. While Jack listens to Flood's answer, he takes out the pack of cigarettes again. Taps it against his palm with the weary affect of a rote offering, and sticks his cigarette in the left-hand corner of his mouth. There's a fleeting, dubious wryness about his eyes, an internal hah, so, Universe, so is that a reminder or a trick. Jack does not ask the other vampire whether or not he smokes. He offers him a cigarette with the same weary habit and then, whether or not Flood takes one, he'll pat his pockets down, fumbling more than necessary, until he finds the pocket his matchbook is hidden in. The matchbook only has five matches left. He'd ripped out the sixth.
Now, Jack. Jack doesn't say anything in particular to Flood's rather interesting famililial lesson, as yet. He does punctuate, or do you think you're ready for graduation? with a kind: "Surely not. Academics never are, are they." But he turns his attention (no, not entirely [not really]) to Grey, and watches him hide things. He hides things really well. There's no doubt of that: this might be one of his finer hours -- his finest! There'd been will behind it. The will to stay secret: the folly of trust. See, the lesson's getting 'round now, Niccolo, see? But Jack sees anyway.
Stay out of bars. He chuckles: this gruff half-start of a laugh, resonant, the kind've chuckle that's deep-chested and terminal. He's pulling one of the matches out've the matchbook now. "What, now how'd you learn to take that lesson to heart, Grey? That's one've the saddest things I've ever heard."
Then, in a not quite idle aside: "Just about, anyway. So you, Mr. Spicer, would never let any but a fool trust you, is that right? What do you trust in, if not men."
Flood
Flood's suit-swathed form is raised back to full mast with determined effort following his moment's mourning of his father's passing, of a cadaver left in his wake, after he'd shared the findings of an autopsy and what had left the man found wanting by the trials and tribulations of this world.
For a moment that unheroic hunching and the revealed (reveled in) solemnity might make it seem that Flood is embodying his father. Channeling him from beyond the grave. Grey sees a bit deeper into the seance that passes over Flood's face, but the Lasombra is either too wrapped up in the ghosts that rise to answer it, or Grey is simply a lawyer who is good at lying. Perhaps it's a bit of both.
Grey further grounds him in the present with a (flailing) jab at the night they met. He even nods. "A saloon is a watering hole. Animals go to watering holes for two reasons: The first is to drink. The second is to be eaten by the predators that know the first reason. Both compulsions are unavoidable."
And then Mr. Spicer is addressed, and once again Flood answers the second question without hesitation. "I trust in their vices, faults and follies. I trust in them not to be trustworthy. But I also trust - to and extent - in myself. I consider none of these trusts to be inviolate. But one has to believe in something, don't you think?" The question posed to either of the two that will answer it. The first one leveled at him by Jack left unanswered.
Grey
There's a bit of irony at work here. Flood speaks of the folly of trust, of letting one's guard down even for a moment. And in that moment he unknowingly lets his guard down, and to a man who has absolutely no trust in him. Grey sees something in that moment and he works to hide it, trying in a way he might not have if he didn't have an inkling of the things at stake here. It always feels like such a mad scramble when Flood appears, like he has to fight with desperate strength to avoid an ever tightening noose.
Jack notices the things that Grey tries to hide. He sees the way the lesson Flood wishes to learn and teach is already at work within the mortal professor. But what he sees he keeps to himself, for now anyway. Instead he says Grey's lesson learned is just about the saddest thing he's ever heard. Flood understands it, it wasn't meant to be a riddle after all.
It's when Flood starts talking about watering holes and predators that Grey remembers another conversation, one that took place in a restaurant a few months back. That girl, the wild one, the one that showed up at the hotel, she's spoken similarly. It's like they think they're not part of the human race, they are Other, they are outside. Which they are, but Grey doesn't know that. Grey hears those words coupled with that tone with a sprinkle of that attitude, and he thinks the same thing he thought then, and most other times he's interacted with Jack Spicer. Fucking sociopaths, every one of them.
People are not humans with feelings and thoughts, but tools to be used or thrown away.
And as he realizes that he realizes something else. The heart of his fear of that man.
But anyway. There's a conversation going on and he's being included.
"That's the saddest thing I've heard, today at least. Looking at people like that, how do you avoid confirmation bias?"
Jack
Jack as it happens is keeping a lot to himself right now. He is a Jack of Nobody, remember? A Nobody Jack. A Jack of many faces, hearts, and sleeves. Grey's secrets, what's going on in the living man's mind. Niccolo's secrets, maybe. Niccolo's name at least, and if a dead man's name isn't a secret, what is? The curse he's under. That's a secret, still, isn't it. The kingdom that's got him. That, too.
The nosferatu averts his eyes, skimming a glance past the parking lot and Grey's car in order to light his cig, cupping pale work-worn and work-scarred and work-thickened ugly blunt hands around the flame so that it's not a disturbing reminder of the sun. There: now he's breathing, thoughtfully exhaling smoke away from Grey and Flood, while squinting at them both through it.
He reserves his thoughts - for now - on belief. He reserves his view on watering holes and animals, too, also for now, because he wants to hear Jack Spicer's answer or see his reaction to that last question as well.
Flood
[ Wits + Academics. Difficulty 8. ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (7, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Flood
Flood manages to wrap his sharp mind around the words Grey says, and he doesn't want to hide the fact it is an idea he can engage with. His eyes narrow and dissect. Flay back the vernacular of modern academia and exposes the bones beneath. When the thought is fully forms he elucidates.
"It's man's habit to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy. Thucydides, Mr. Thomas." And now, his thesis once again becomes more graphic. "The idea may seem to narrow my options, sir, but not as much as a bullet in the head might," he says, and then his hands, still folded behind his back, come forward.
One arm crosses over his chest, holding the other at the elbow, so that he can now move his hand as he speaks. As if directing a symphony of his own voice. Apparently that is Flood's favorite instrument to hear sing. Espousing ideas of his own making, or that, indeed, confirm his beliefs.
"I am always hoping to be pleasantly surprised, Mr. Thomas. A more idealized world view might be no less easily confirmed. In yourself, perhaps. A theologian might read the scripture, as C.S. Lewis says, with an open mind, but most read it intent on gleaning, from the Word of Christ and the prophets before him, support for their own views. It helps them sleep. My view helps me survive."
Grey
Flood quotes things that confirm his thoughts, his way of thinking, his very own beliefs. Grey probably can, too, and maybe he will. It's the whole nature of the thing. Seeing data, pushing aside that which contradicts, or labeling it an outside occurance. This is what Flood does now.
"Survive," he repeats, crossing his arms over his chest, one hand lifting to scratch at his cheek. "I guess that would work if that's all you want, but it's a-" he stops, eyes widening slightly, and he changes direction, "That's not how I want to live."
Down the street, flashes of yellow light begin to echo along the sides of the buildings, headed their way. It looks like Grey's tow has finally arrived.
Jack
Triple A took their sweet, sweet time, didn't they? And now Grey's going to have all three jacks in one place. The one who isn't a Jack. The jack who isn't a Jack. And the Jack who is a Jack. Shell-game. The Jack who is a Jack shifts his weight the way somebody sitting in a doctor's office or the dmv or at a busstop or some other place of in-between resting might shift his weight when it looks like there's something to wake him up, soon as those lights blink. Not, mind, that Jack has seemed particularly sleepy: oh no, the ugly, amiable man has been paying clear and close attention, and that much he hasn't hid. But still, he shifts his weight and it's like that, a needle prick or a thorn through the eye of somebody too-too valiant.
"Good man," he says, two guesses who he means. Temperate: "But let's be fair. There can be a grim satisfaction in survival and sometimes survival's the only thing to do. You can always 'live' later, as you hope, long as you're around to hope for later, huh?"
Flood
[ Perception + He-don't-have-Empathy ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Flood
"Being proven wrong can be such a happy and pleasant thrill, as I said, and being proven right allows me to search out my next thrill, Mr. Thomas, just as Mr..." Jack Nobody. The man never gave his last name, and while the conversation had stretched on, Jack had continued to glance back and him politely, with interest, two different types of predator simply because of their unfamiliarity, and more so unable to ignore him because of it. That and the tells that had come at certain times, movements of the face entirely different form the realization he'd just seen on Grey's face.
"Just as our friend here," he says instead, "has intimated. Sometimes what you," not we, Flood is very sure of his wording, and it is you, "want isn't an option available to you."
The lights come and the tow truck operator begins positioning the truck near the men before he even gets out to talk to them. Flood looks to Jack, then to Grey, giving each a nod. "This really was a good debate," and then, a long look cast toward Jack, he says the next words to him, catching his eye as he does so: "We really should do this again sometime," though his gaze drifts back to Grey by the time it's done.
"Good luck with your vehicle, Mr. Thomas."
Grey
The tow arrives and positions himself, not giving Grey the chance to tell him all he needs is a jack, something to lift his car so he can swap out the flat for the donut. There'll be time for that soon enough.
The two Jacks are talking, telling him about surviving to live another day, about things wanted not being the things available. They speak to him from another world. And Flood, at least, does not disguise this fact. They view the world in different ways because, for Grey, death is an inevitability, albeit one he doesn't dwell on often. He exists, he wants to live a little more, he doesn't have to worry about his survival. And because of that, that way of thinking is sad to him. He doesn't see the forest for the trees.
There is a nod for Jack, the real Jack, the one who is really a Jack. And a, "Thanks," to Flood, because Grey is a polite fellow. Then they're splitting off, the three of them. Flood to where he would go, Jack with his box of pastries, Grey with his jack and his car and his
oh shit. He forgot to call a girl and tell her he would be late. He does this now, and he gets her voicemail. Because of course.
Jack
[DUN DUN DUN.
la finis.]
