Participants:
| Scene Title | What Everyone Else Feels |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | … is something Graeme needs practise at. In the elevator, he runs into just the person to ask for some help. |
| Date | April 26, 2011 |
Dun dun dun don dun don dun dun dun….Muzak in the elevator has never gotten any better no matter how long you have been out of town. Karl Agathon stands in the elevator on his way up from the lowest level of the Dorchester Towers parking garage. The elevator comes to a stop on the upper level to pick up someone else, and the red headed ex terrorist in hiding backs up from the door way and keeps his head down.
The parking garage, aside from being somewhere that there are cars parked, is one of the places in Dorchester that Graeme uses to run laps. And in the wake of having talked to his erstwhile now back in the United States roommate, running laps is what Graeme has been doing for the past hour and a bit. Not that one could tell by looking, as he's caught his breath when the elevator doors open.
The elevator being spacious, it's only as Graeme actually enters the elevator, his gaze snaps directly to the other man in there. The accompanying wince, while not nearly as bad as when his arm was newly injured, should be familiar; as should the slight stream of expletives that follows, perhaps shorter than the first time the two met. "Shitdamnowthehell." A breath, deep and slightly ragged, as Graeme holds up a hand. Not that he thinks he can get out of Trask's range in the elevator, but nor does he particularly want to. "Owfuckingnegators." Another breath. "I'm okay. I think."
Trask winces as he watches Graeme's reaction, "sorry" he whispers, the Latino accent still prevalent and possibly recognizable. He leans forward to reach for the controls trying to find a button to hit to make this as short of a ride on Graeme as possible.
Graeme steps in the way, pressing the button for the elevator to go to the lobby and ground level, and then pressing the button to keep the doors shut as it travels upward. Then Trask is met with a slightly fixed stare. Graeme's head is tilted to one side, lower lip bitten to keep back the wince. Surprisingly, in the negation field, his shoulder still hurts, a lot. As do his legs, some, from the running he's been doing.
"Like I said, I'm alright. Or will be." There's a half a smile, and he turns to look at the elevator door a moment, still leaning on the button to keep the door shut. "So how many negators," he begins, soft drawl to his words clipped and almost harsh, "can there be? How many with a South American accent?"
Trask says, "I know at least two, but the other one is a big scary bald black man." Trask leans back against the wall again, tilting his sunglasses down a little to look over the rims at the other man, with a small smile on his face.
There's a half a chuckle. "Which would mean that my second question wouldn't be applicable," Graeme says, "now would it?" The elevator has reached the first floor, but he's not letting go of the button keeping the door closed. "Nice to see you. I'd been meaning to ask Ygraine or Elisabeth to get a hold of you." There's a pause. "Before everything happened. Had a," and there's a pause, as Graeme takes another sharp breath, "favour I wanted to talk to you about." He grins. "Come up to the apartment with me, for a few minutes. I'd," another pause, "rather not talk in the lobby… or the elevator."
Trask nods slowly, "Sure…we can talk…lead the way, I got a few minutes open in my day." He shakes his head, "You sure you can stand being around me that long though?"
Graeme pushes the button for the fifth floor, releasing the button for the lobby. The doors open, and then shut, and then the elevator starts to rise again. "Not particularly," he says. "But like I said. The apartment, there's more space there." Implied, that he can manage to be around the negator for the three to four more minutes it takes for them to get to the fifth floor, in relative silence, the minute for him to fumble the keys, and then after that, Graeme can't get through the door to the spacious, modern apartment fast enough.
It's a few steps, and Graeme gestures for Trask to go in one direction while Graeme takes a few steps in the other. "There." He leans on the dining room table, taking the moment to catch his breath.
Trask smiles and keeps his distance as he finds a spot on the wall near the door. He leans back and watches Graeme as he catches his breath. "So what is up?"
There's another minute or so in silence, as Graeme's ability pushes out of mind everything but the minor emotional roller-coaster that negation is. "See," Graeme starts, "there's something I've been meaning to learn to try and deal with," he says. "Except, well." A pause. "You're a negator. Obviously, as you can kinda tell, being negated isn't my strong point. But I'd … like to make it less of my weak point. And as far as I could figure, there's only one way to do that, and that's practise." He'll leave out the four and a half days of negation pills, because at that point, he wasn't really dealing. He was a mess.
Trask nods slowly, "so you want me to drop by so you can work out a little on the whole dealing with the pain everyone else feels everyday thing?" He smiles softly, "I think I can likely help out with that."
"Yeah. So that I can be able to do it slowly, with being able to rest between and all." Graeme nods. For working on practising dealing with negation, he can make time out of his day to be at the Dorchester Towers apartment each day.
"My shoulder's really most of the way better, overall, but even beyond that. It kind of …" Graeme looks away from Trask, up at the ceiling, pausing to think, "messes with my head and with everything else, too. It's a lot to deal with, and the one thing I have to learn to." But there's determination in his voice, rather than anything else at admitting the particular weakness. He's gotten past the admitting weakness part, to some degree; now it's just that Graeme is going to do this. Even if he's still a bit flustered after just having dealt with it for a little over five minutes.
Trask nods, "Okay, I can drop by every day or two. Spend some time working on something and just hanging around if you really want me to. It shouldn't be that much of a problem."
There's a small, grateful smile offered to the other man. Grateful that the mention of weakness isn't further mentioned. Grateful for the acceptance and lack of question, and Graeme straightens up, grabbing a piece of paper and a pencil. A phone number is scribbled onto it, along with his name, and then Graeme backs further into the apartment, so that Trask can retrieve it without another encounter for today with the negation field. "Thanks. That number reaches me. And if you lose it…" Graeme pauses. "If you lose it, Liz knows how to reach me."
Trask nods, "I doubt I will lose it, but I can always get a hold of Liz if I need to." He collects the number and then nods, "I will be in touch…"