Room 401, Wednesday Night

[not_trivial]

Well. No question about it. That fight had definitely gone poorly

Comments

[seveninchmotto]

That raised eyebrow Isabelle had when she showed up at Alec's door? Never a good sign.

"Care to explain why I got six texts and four missed calls from Jace today, all suggesting something happened to you?"

[not_trivial]

"Because something did," Alec replied, his tone a mixture of flat and conversational. "He felt it?"

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle stalked into the room, closing the door behind herself.

"He felt what, exactly?"

That was enough of a 'yes, he felt it'. Isabelle's worry always had a hint of anger.

[not_trivial]

Alec bit his lip. This was going to be hard to explain.

"Me dying, I guess." Well, break it to her gently, why don't you. "Temporarily. There were these -- things in the convenience store. Like a more careless croucher demon wearing car parts."

[seveninchmotto]

Well, there went most of the anger.

"You died?" That would explain why Jace would freak out about it. Definitely. Her eyes were wide. "By the Angel."

[not_trivial]

"I think," he added hastily. Like that was an improvement. He glanced in the direction of his bloody jacket. "I was hurt, and then I was at this machine that told me I had respawned, or something. And then I went back to finish the fight and I guess it had only been a few minutes."

Yeah, that sounded really weird, Alec. "I'm fine now," he added insistently.

[seveninchmotto]

"Are you sure?" Isabelle asked, and yes, she was definitely coming over now, as if she could check for herself. "Because that sounds -- well. I'm not sure you want to tell Jace that."

[not_trivial]

"I don't think I will," Alec assured her carefully. He was starting to feel -- not jumpy exactly, but certainly more animated than usual, and all of that excess energy seemed to be getting channeled into his usual pastime of making sure everyone else was okay.

He stood still, letting her look him over, and added, "I'll show you the machine if you want. I've never seen it before. I guess it came with the gun machines."

It was appropriate. All in the name of recreating a video game!

[seveninchmotto]

"The big antenna things?" Isabelle checked. Yeah, she was flighty and could seem careless sometimes, but she paid attention to the changes in her environment. "I saw those earlier. That's what they do?"

What.

[not_trivial]

"Apparently so." But who knew? Maybe they could do multiple things. "I guess it's meant to be -- comforting? -- that the dig technicians brought them with them?"

Maybe? Alec didn't really need comforting, himself.

[seveninchmotto]

"Do you feel comforted by the fact that they're that confident that we'll go around dying?"

That was one way of looking at it, sure.

[not_trivial]

"I somehow get the impression that the man who's been making the radio announcements is confident that everyone would go around dying without his intervention anyway," Alec pointed out. "Don't you think?"

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle scrunched up her face at his logic, then rolled her eyes.

"Well, don't do that again."

[not_trivial]

"I wasn't planning on it," Alec assured her. And, "Same to you."