(no subject)
Generally, the cemetery is not a hot spot for teenager activity. Aside from those creepy kids who wear a bunch of black and listen to the scary devil music. Autumn Clarke is not among their number. Instead, she is walking along one of the serene paths, dressed in a pink hoody and with both hands tucked down into it's front pocket. Her blonde hair pokes out from beneath the hood, which she has pulled up to keep her ears warm. It is dark and cold. She walks along fairly briskly, but not at an uncomfortable pace. Just passing through!
Jason is also walking the serene paths, in an opposing and approaching direction to Autumn. He is not wearing a hoody. He is wearing a loose sweater, long pants, and his massive fro. Gooseflesh is duly stood up on his arms.
The teen girl takes notice of Jason coming from the other direction, spotting someone else here at night is pretty rare! Autumn keeps on walking, putting on her usual friendly little smile as she comes closer to him.
Jason looks friendly. After all, he's not /so/, so much older than Autumn, his fro is even friendly. And the cast-eyed look he gives her is a purely clinical look over.
Autumn does the friendly thing. She smiles at Jason and gives a little nod of her head and a quiet, "Hi." It isn't so much the 'let's be pals!' kind of hi, but it is a greeting! It's only polite.
"Hi." Jason unfolds his hand in such a long and freckley wave. "Unusual place to be so late at night."
"It's a good shortcut!" Autumn says, her voice chirpy-cheerful.
"To where?" asks Jason with grandly mild curiosity.
"Well, I live on one side, a couple of blocks away," Autumn explains, carefree and smiling. "And I got to church back the way I came!" She shrugs her shoulders, upturning one hand.
"Gee. So close to church." Jason uses the freckly wave hand to massage his chin. "You are truly a fortunate young woman."
If that is sarcasm, Autumn misses it completely. "I am!" She does this little thing where she pops up onto the balls of her feet, evidently a sign of her being pleased. "How come you're out here? Were you um," she pauses as she tries to think of a way to phrase it. "Visiting someone?"
"Yes. All the dead," Jason uses that same gesture to indicate the graves, "are my dead."
Brown eyes blink a couple of times, an external blankness to match Autumn's poor mind slipping a cog in trying to follow that. "Oh, um. Okay!" She is at least cheerful in being baffled.
"I am, after all, Anubis, god of the dead," Jason helpfully informs Autumn as he returns his hand under his chin.
There is a definite pause. Autumn decides, at that moment, that it is time to move on. "Well, it was nice meeting you Mr. Anubis!" And with that, she starts toward continuing along her path.
"It was nice meeting you!" Jason is out to wave again. So very broadly. "If I expect it was less nice to meet me."
Autumn walks. She looks back over her shoulder a couple of times, though. That was an odd guy!
Jason walks off in the opposite direction. He is /fascinating/.
Jason makes a friend.
=NYC= Lobby - Shaw Research Center - Emerson University
Doubled sets of doors open into an atrium filled with light. The delicate webbing of brushed chrome that supports the glass seems a fragile support, yet it holds. The interior is sleekly modern, with metal, glass, dark woods and stone. Plants are lush, bordering so-carefully on untamed. The seating is comfortable, scattered into various conversational arrangements, and there is a Starbucks pressed flush into one wall that isn't open yet. The reception desk is typically manned by undergraduates, and security is tight, but discrete.
Monday morning is not the happiest of times for Natalie - a fact that bodes well for those who will have to see her for the rest of the day. She's tired and plane-worn, and the large duffel that sits in one corner is testimony to the fact that she's come straight from the airport to put time in at the lab. It remains otherwise empty for the moment, although the building itself has begun to stir into life. There's a girl sitting at reception by this hour, running security for anyone who wants past the large double doors that lead to the hall proper from the atrium, and more than a few undergrads have snuck in to hit up the Starbucks on their way to early-morning classes.
Jason is here not for Starbucks (why, never) but rather here for the lab itself. He makes his identity run by the girl at the counter, or, well, attempts to, and it is the grand graduate due that he is looking for.
The process takes a phone call and a bit of cross conversation from girl to Jason to girl to Natalie and round in circles. Eventually Jason is waved back, and Natalie's stepped forward from her laptop to hover near the door in greeting.
Jason is prepared for such greeting. He has his freckled hand out in a friendly, readied fashion and with that out like a short spear arm, he approaches. "Morning!"
"Hi," Natalie answers, brushing a hand back to sweep long bangs back to one side. She pushes forward and steps toward him to take his hand in hers for a brief shake. "I'm Natalie. Um. Bahir isn't in yet, actually. Did you want to wait or something?"
"Oh, it hardly matters," Jason says with a brisk return shake and a withdrawal of the hand. "I'm Jason Wyngarde. I was just wondering how-- quick the effects of this pill are supposed to set in."
"Jason, right, yeah, of course." Natalie shakes her head, ponytail waving with the movement. The smile she gives Jason is small and apologetic and more than a little tired. "No idea, sorry. I mean, we share a lab and do some stuff together but the pills-- those are totally his."
"That's comforting!" Jason says with a long stretch of a grin. "Bahir and I are old friends and I suspect him of wanting to poison me."
Natalie's brows shoot up, and for a moment she studies Jason with uncertainty as she tries to make out whether he's serious. "Um," she finally says. Articulate.
"But if my suspicions were in earnest," Jason continues, the embodiment of reassuring, "I wouldn't have signed up. What research do you have in common, may I ask?"
"He helped me with some brain patterning, I helped him with some-- um. Brain patterning -- you said you're old friends?" Natalie recognizes suddenly.
"Oh. Yes." Jason adjusts the fall of his sweater. "A couple of years or so back. Brain patterning. /Fascinating/."
"A couple of years back? Really?" Natalie squints at Jason, clearly confused, and scrubs a hand across her mouth. "Where do you guys know each other from?"
"Dinner group," Jason says easily. "Good fun-- is he /that/ much of a hermit, our Bahir?"
"Dinner what?" Natalie baffles.
"Dinner group! We had friends of friends who moved on elsewhere," Jason makes a moving on elsewhere gesture with his hand, "and those friends had dinner groups. Dinner parties. Whatever. That is how we met."
"Bahir went to dinner parties with groups of friends?"
"He /used/ to be so social. Then his cat died."
"But--" Natalie breaks off, completely mystified. She blinks at Jason in confusion.
Jason shakes his head and grins that stretched out grin again. "We had a mutual friend. That's all."
"Sorry," Natalie apologizes instantly, smile turning tiredly dry. "It's been kind of a long weekend for me and I've just gotten in. I'm not as quick as usual-- anyway. So how long have you guys known each other?"
"And I am completely being a brat. I'm sorry," Jason says with a somewhat less stretched of a grin. More friendly. "A year or two. A while, at least."
"It's nice of you to sign up for the trials," Natalie returns, falling into the semi-pleasant small-talk she's practiced all weekend. "I'm sure he appreciates it."
"Me too. I think I appreciate what you're doing, you see," Jason says as he leans back more casual, almost unjointed. "The more we know and all that."
"Really? Well." Natalie's smile is practiced and friendly. "Thank you. We think it's important."
Aah, there is something about the practiced, friendly smile that makes Jason want to stretch out tendrils of a power he does not actually have. "What do you figure you'll do with it?" he asks, the more simply.
"With Bahir's?" Natalie wonders, lifting her hand to tuck it along her opposite elbow, fingers tapping.
"Sure. With all of it?" Jason expands.
"Well, it's not really all the same," Natalie explains patiently. She smiles again. "You'd hvae to ask him about his."
"What about yours, then?" Jason asks, eyebrows light lifted.
"Patterning? Oh, well. All sorts of implications, really." Natalie's smile turns polite. "I don't want to talk your ear off, though."
"No, I see that you really don't." Jason smiles right back, now close-lipped. "Which is a pity. I will have to read about it some day."
Natalie's brow pulls down, furrowing slightly as she watches Jason with a moment's baffled hesitation.
"I am very interested in those implications," Jason continues, very mildly. "But I perhaps do not have the background to understand them."
"Oh. Well." Natalie studies Jason for a moment longer before she adds, "Mostly it's the research potential. Bahir, for example - he couldn't do any of his research if someone hadn't identified the psi center.
Patterning lets us do that for a long more than telepathy."
"You can pattern out where other mutations are located as well?" Jason asks, the piqued curiosity further piqued. "Even be they, say, being able to grow extra fingers at will."
"Dunno," Natalie answers, a touch more casual with the smile that touches on her face now. "I mean, it all depends on how the brain works, doesn't it? But we'll at least be able to say whether we can or not. And it's already apparent that some -- um. Some groups, I guess. Work that way."
"I'd expect most mutations are tied to the brain, save the off constant superficial physical ones. Call up a wind? That takes your brain." Jason tilts his chin up. "What kind of groups?"
"That," Natalie answers with a smile that is, momentarily, mischevious, "you /will/ have to read about."
"Ah!" Jason now lowers his chin, and his eyelids. "You punish my impatience. I remain curious-- but I /will/ read."
"Sorry," Natalie apologizes instantly. "I mean. Nothing against you or anything. It's just, I know /Bahir/ knows you, but..."
"Actually, if he were here, he'd probably be over there, waving his arms and going 'dooon't tell him anything.' So." Jason lightly clears his throat. "You're wise."
Natalie breaks into brief laughter, clearly disbelieving. "Oh, come on now. Why's that?"
"Because he loves me, but he does not trust me." Jason sighs it out.
"What?"
"Actually, he doesn't love me or trust me."
"Er," Natalie answers, and for a moment discomfort spreads clear across her face. After that moment she offers, politely, "I'm sorry."
"Or we just have that kind of combative relationship, sorry, sorry!" Jason puts his hands palm out. "I keep going off."
"Combative?" Natalie sounds faintly alarmed now, head lifting as she studies Jason. "You mean. Like-- um. Competitive?" she tries.
"I am not sure if I would call it competitive. After all, he is a scientist, and I am an interior designer." Jason sounds faintly downplaying of both.
"Oh," Natalie answers, head bobbing as if this makes complete sense. "Of course."
"We don't even like the same women."
"The same women?"
"Indeed. He doesn't even like women."
"That seems a bit much..." Natalie answers with a faint frown.
"Much?" Jason prompts. "Indeed. We're old friends. It'd be funnier if he were here."
"I'll take your word for it," Natalie answers faintly.
"Well." Jason pulls his sweater straight again. "Natalie. I should get out of your hair. But so nice to meet you, as opposed to knowing you by reputation."
"Oh, sure, definitely," Natalie answers, instantly more comfortable and once more smiling. "I'll let him know you stopped by, for sure."
"Thank you. He'll be thrilled. Or, at least, resigned and commiserative." One more tug of that sweater, and Jason lifts his hand in a wave before turning toward the exit.
"Sure," Natalie answers, and blinks after Jason for a moment or two longer before she steps forward to see him to the door.
"/Really/, thank you," Jason must repeat, as he finishes his exit with Natalie's assistance. "It's been a pleasure." And, finally, there he goes.
"Yeah, you too," Natalie returns, and the door closes behind him. Turning away, Natalie pauses to frown.
Forward dated to Monday morning. Jason's drugs are slow.