Am I Really Your First Friend?

Participants:

alec_icon.gif elisabeth_icon.gif

Scene Title Am I Really Your First Friend?
Synopsis Alec comes by with peace offerings and wanting in on the big battle. But really… if she's his first friend, that's pretty sad.
Date July 22, 2009

Liz's Apartment


Alec stares at Liz when she opens the door, "You are so lucky I promised never to just walk in anymore." Alec says, "Lemme in, we should talk about stuff, plus I brought wine." he holds up a bottle of something she actually likes. "And breakfast!" a to-go box of steak and eggs good enough she can smell it like a punch in the face. Peace offerings rock.

When she opens the door, Elisabeth is wearing a T-shirt and a pair of yoga pants, looks tousled, and is extremely wary. In point of fact, she was actually just about to go get in the shower, and she glances over her shoulder briefly. "Yes. You are," she tells him blandly. There's a long moment where she studies him, and then finally she steps back into her apartment to allow him entry. She's done all the repainting since his remodel for her — the place looks good. "What brings you by?"

Alec kicks her door closed behind her, "Breakfast, wine, your stunning morning look, and to talk to you about how best I can help you drag someone we all loath into a deep dark hole." he makes a motion for her to silence the room and a pouty pleading look. Then he offers her her breakfast.

Elisabeth gestures to the breakfast bar, shoving her hair back off her face. She takes the wine to go put it on the counter, letting him set the breakfast on the bar while she moves to pour coffee instead of wine. "I'm listening," she says quietly. "What have you got in mind?"

Alec does as pointed and waits for that silence to settle around them before speaking more openly, "You need someone to be a distraction," she knows he's at least partially in on the loop at this point, "and I've been studying the security at our target for the better part of a month. I'm sneakier then damned near anyone you can get on your team, better equipped for this sort of work, and I know explosives better then a trained soldier could ever hope to. You want I should spell this out more or are you starting to catch my drift?" Alec is an engineer, he can blow a building up /and/ aim the falling dust in such a manner the only people that sneeze are those he wants to. Something to be said for a workaholic.

As she listens, Elisabeth drinks her coffee and starts to get more alert-looking. "There's already a team going in to be a distraction. There's no way you could wire the place between now and when we go in," she says flatly. "Even with a hundred copies of you, can you honestly tell me you can GET IN THERE and place them just right so as not to kill the lot of us when it comes down?"

Alec shakes his head, "No I cannot promise that. But I can don't have to set them to bring the place down either. You want a distraction, which means chaos, not nessicarily distruction. It's very easy to make lots of fire, noise, and force without doing more then basic damage. And with a bunch of me, I can tell you where /not/ to walk, set up booby traps, lure'd plans, never underestimate the power of a simple trip wire in an enclosed space filled with smoke and sprinkler systems." he eyes her, "And more importantly I can coordinate. I'm faster and more secure then a radio network and I work better as a team then anyone you can dredge up. Period. Think about it Liz, you know I'm /very/ good at what I do. You tell me how I can use that to help and I'm offering to do just that."

Her blue eyes on him are thoughtful as Elisabeth assesses his capabilities and skills. "I can't deny that booby traps and such would be useful, but …. those kinds of distractions require time to set up, right?" she asks. "How do you think you're going to get in to set those up? Right now, we've got a distraction team going in with several people who have skills similar to your cloning ability." She doesn't mention that she's the de facto leader of this team. Better for now that he doesn't know.

Alec snorts, "Yeah, that's like saying putting people in camo makes them soldiers." he points out. "Super powers only get you so far, skill takes you the rest of the way. Would you be as effective if you weren't a good shot or understood tactical encounters?" he asks, taking slight offense to not being unique. Not her fault just… still a VERY new thought to him. "Besides, from what I've learned 'similar' powers to mine means different things. You mean the ability to replicate, absorb energy, act as a silent telepathic network, duplicate items, or look this sexy?" hrmph! Ego woman! easy on the ego!

It's too early in the morning for Liz to feel the need to pander to Alec's ego, frankly. And considering this is ALEC who's talking to her — and he brought breakfast, which she does in fact pull out forks to actually sit down and eat while they talk — she's not feeling as charitable as she might if it were someone else. But she's kind. "It does mean different things," she says as she slides into one of the breakfast bar stools. "The telepathic network thing could be damn useful, as well as the duplicating items thing. Let me consider how you'll fit into the squad — you could potentially be of use on mine or Helena's teams, but I need to work through the logistics." She opens the breakfast and pokes at it. "Right now, we're already planning on going in with an explosion of glass…" She smiles faintly. "Some of the things I can do are just downright fucking fun."

Alec tilts his head to the side, "Alexander the Great used ground glass sprinkled on the road to blind and slay any army attempting to follow his retreats." he eyes her, "Wicked. Unfair. Underhanded. Evil. I approve." he nods and seems somewhat appeased by her words. As for the breakfast, well the steak is tender, well seasoned and the eggs are to her preference. Something to be said for a guy who knows the things you like, at least a few of them. He sighs a bit and plops down across from her, chin in the palm of his hand. "I am so boooored." he pouts again slightly as if this were a massive tradgety.

As she fiddles with her fork, Elisabeth smirks faintly. She pops a bite of scrambled egg into her mouth. "You do realize that this run …." She pauses, her blue eyes remaining on her food. "It's not going to be a cake walk, Alec. It's not even going to be simple. I'm told that it's highly probable that if this goes south, the Narrows is going to look like …" She smiles slightly. How'd he put it? "A Disney movie." Then she looks up at him, the soft, affectionate curl of her mouth gone. "So why are you throwing your hand into this? You said you didn't want to be involved in this kind of shit."

Alec steals a piece of her steak and ponders that question for a long moment, "Do you know what it's like to be alone?" he asks, which seems off topic, "And I mean really truely alone. No friends, no family, no one that's ever cared for you in your entire life except you?" the question doesn't seem to require an answer, he knows her well enough to just keep going, "I have more friends then you'll ever have, because I can make them. I have family that can literally never turn on me, because I know their every thought. And yet…" he waves a hand expressively. "Alone. Utterly alone. I am wealthy, feared by a few, respected by more, successful in everything I lay my hand at, current company excepted." he sighs and turns to look at her abandoning his stare off into nothing, "This seems… I dunno. Important. It's not a place I belong, not yet. But it could be. I've never had one of those. I'm trying to see if that's the sort of thing worth fighting for or not." he chuckles, "No pressure on you to save my soul or anything, but so far I'm sorta hanging my hopes on you to help me figure it out. Good luck with that by the way."

Although she can't relate to the background he's got and wouldn't presume to, Elisabeth does know loneliness… better than most. If it ever occurred to him to wonder why all her friends are at arm's length and why she approaches dating more like a guy than a girl looking for forever, he might have noticed it. But she doesn't bother to comment. "It's important," Elisabeth replies quietly. "Might be the most important thing you ever do with your life. It's not up to me to save your soul… but I'd say you're making a pretty decent start," she finally says grudgingly. "Now if you could figure out how to stop stabbing the people who might have cared about you in the back, you might actually get somewhere." Because there's no way in hell she's going to trust anything he says to her.

Alec snorts, "Let's avoid throwing the 'you lied to me' punch around shall we?" he smiles with a little genuine warmth, "Tell you what. I'll try not to mention the whole bit about terrorists, midnight flights to invade Staten Island, and who spied on who first if you'll try to get over the whole part where I lied to you all about who I really was. We can try this whole thing where we start off from something close to the beginning and give it a better go. No sex even, which I think may be a new thing for both of us."

Elisabeth glances at him and says quietly, "No." She sets her fork down and picks up her coffee cup again, her appetite gone. "Not because you lied to me about who you were, not even because you spied on me. All of that, I pretty much got past. I was ready to forgive and forget. Frankly, it may have started about the sex, but it very quickly turned into a friendship, Alec. A real one, based on mutual interests and the like. At least… on my end. And mad as I was, I'd have forgiven the lie and even the spying. It was the second set of lies followed by 'confession' that did you in. Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice? I can't trust you." She doesn't drop her eyes from his face this time.

Alec ah's a bit. "See? This is what I mean. Never had a friend before, wouldn't have known what it was if it had bitten me in the ass. Totally new ground for me." he waves his only once used fork through the air and then slides off his spot and places it in the sink, "Well you'll get over it eventually… or not. Either way you know how to reach one of me, I'm always at work." which is true, just cause he's trying to help save the world doesn't mean he misses so much as a morning Starbucks run for the office. "See you around."

Elisabeth looks at him and asks bluntly, "Are you just a complete sociopath?" Not rudely, not even meanly. With true perplexity. "You can't have gone your ENTIRE life without a friend, Alec."

Alec eyes Liz and tilts his head to the side, "Why not?" he asks evenly. He punches her wall and there stands another one of him, "I never lack for intelligent conversation." the 'new' him just rolls it's eyes and then walks back into Alec as if walking into a door, disappearing, "We share similar tastes in music, film, culture, books, and occasionally we disagree on things when one of them has been out and about long enough. I've had seventeen mothers, nineteen fathers, fourteen brothers, seven sisters, four dogs, eleven cats, two fish, thirty-one schools, many mentors, teachers, and even a couple students. But no, no friends. Friends are a weakness, they all eventually turn on you, exploit you, use you, just like families do." he shakes his head, "I'm not a sociopath, but I am apathetic to most of the world. The way I see it, I owe the world exactly what it's managed to give me. Nothing. Honestly? I'm helping you guys out for two reasons, one is so that no other kid gets shunted off to the side like I was even before I was born, and two because there might be more to living then money and power and if that's true, big if by the way, then I think I'll find the first parts of it around you guys." he hrms. "I'm not usually this verbose. How is it you always get me to say more then I mean to?"

She listens to his litany, and at the end, there's a bit of a thawing to her expression, a faint smile quirks one side of her mouth. "Maybe because for the first time in your life, what someone else thinks actually matters to you," she hazards quietly. "If that's the case, …. maybe there's hope for you yet. Although maybe that's just plain ego on my part."

Alec's face screws up unpleasently, "God I hope not. Can you imagine? Me with like, actually feelings??" he shudders at the thought, "I'd actually have to buy Hallmark cards and stuff with real meaning. Gah. How much would that suck?" he then nods sagely, "Obviously just your ego. Can't be the other thing." he does that deadpan delivery of his that could be joke or not (though Liz should be able to tell he's teasing) and heads back for the door, "Anyway, this has been fun but I think I'll gonna bail on a slightly higher note this time then I have on our previous encounters. I didn't suck this conversation up entirely yet, best leave while that's still the case. Plus you know, I gotta do a thing with a guy about a job."

Elisabeth tilts her head and watches him head for the door, her expression thoughtful now. Heaven forbid Alec should have feelings…. but if he doesn't, why the hell does he bother to keep attempting — ineptly, it's true — to repair their relationship? "Thanks for breakfast," she finally offers quietly. "I'll get back with you about whether you can help when we go in. Additional distractions certainly can't hurt."

Perhaps his lack in skill at this particular endeavor is proof of it's sincerety, after all, if he wanted to charm her or woe her back there's easier ways for him to go about it. He doesn't lack for the smooth factor when he really wants to pour it on. Most of the time anyway. This bumbling juvenile attempts are just not like him. Alec waves over his shoulder before closing her door behind him. He pauses there and mutters to himself, "Stupid I know. I sound like a fucking high school freshmen. I have /got/ to get a handle on this." as he heads for his own place he continues to talk to himself, nothing new there…


Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License