IC Contact Post [for savetheearth]

[elfstoned]

Please specify whether it's text, voice or video and the date your message is left!


PERSONAL CELL PHONE: XXX-272-4076

"Aaron Strider. Leave a message."



CLINIC PHONE: XXX-353-7727

"LSR Clinic. Hours are 8AM-10PM weekdays, 10AM-10PM Saturday and Sunday. If this is an emergency, hang up and call 911, or XXX-272-4076. Otherwise, leave your number and a message and your call will be returned tomorrow."

AS OF 2-28-2015, the only way to contact Aaron is through the Network.


NETWORK NUMBER: 43254644263

Comments

[elfstoned]

Once, so far.

[He shakes his head.]

I've never actually been wanted by the police before. I knew it was a possibility, but...deep down, I think, I thought it would never happen. Even with everything I did, I thought I would be clever enough, careful enough, to avoid trouble.

[espigeonage]

It worked for a while. Years.

[Julien buries his beak in a glass of milk and drinks a third of it in a few swallows. He raises his head carefully, so it drips back down into the glass and not onto his chest or the floor.]

'The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry, and leave us naught but grief and pain for promised joy.' Yeah... It's hard, I know! Is there anyone you want to contact who'll keep quiet? Your mom?

[He knows a couple years ago she had some kind of trouble, and Aaron went to her.]

[elfstoned]

[(fuck, this waffle is delicious. it is a little thing, compared to everything else, but it is really nice.)

There's a split second where he thinks about not telling Gillian. It's local news. Maybe it won't reach her on the west coast. Maybe she didn't need to know. Maybe it would frighten her --

Then, he has to let out a short, sharp laugh -- at himself. He shakes his head -- what a stupid thing to think.]

I should let her know. Better that she hears it from me, and not the rest of her family.

[He blows out a breath. They'll have a few things to say when they find out.]

I wouldn't put it past them to tell her.

[espigeonage]

[Julien worked at a breakfast place once. He's good with waffles. Speaking of here's the next one, and he dithers considering if he wants to cut it up or just tear chunks off. Using a knife is much harder than spearing things with an oversized fork. Let's see, there's a bagel slicer...

Aaron's family is one of those topics Julien knows nothing about, beyond a trace about his mother, and some of the situation with Elliot. He doesn't like to probe into topics others are reluctant to discuss.]

You left your phone behind, right? Would it be better to get like a burner, or would it be safe to use like the... they don't have an actual landline here, but there's a computer thing that works the same way.

[elfstoned]

[Of course he did. He's helped people disappear before. Julien would know that -- people in trouble, people in trouble with gangs, people in trouble with romantic partners. It didn't happen often, but over the years, Aaron Strider has made maybe a dozen people legally dead.]

I wouldn't risk the computer. I know a public phone I can call her from.

[That would involve leaving the house, though. Aaron looks thoughtful, drumming his fingers on the desk.]

[espigeonage]

Your coffee. [He knew what to put in it. Also, the waffle. Why go to the effort himself if Aaron's in a state to do it for him?] And cut this into bits for me without stealing too much, won't you?

Well, we could go convoluted. Stay here and let me go out with a cell phone and tape 'em together. Or, again, burner. You'll need a phone anyway.

[elfstoned]

[He'll do it willingly enough, almost absently, thoughtfully. The coffee's black.]

Burner's fine. Draws less attention.

[espigeonage]

All right. I could order something remotely and have a friend pick it up and bring it to me - nothing new, obviously. Older model, or used, or both...

[A considering pause, during which he turns his head to the side and nabs a chunk of waffle from the plate. Clink!]

Or, well, I could steal something.

[elfstoned]

[A weary sigh.]

Don't steal something.

[espigeonage]

Hm? Okay, I won't. I can bring you something by afternoon, just give me a minute.

[Drawing away, Julien brings out a very tiny phone and texts with deft feathers, moving rapidly.]

I'm paying for it though. Please don't argue, I'm comfortable right now and something made a few years back isn't going to take a big scoop out of that.

[elfstoned]

....I won't argue.

[He also won't ask about the tinyphone.

....he might, however, volunteer some information. Aaron finds he wants to talk. He feels like...there's not much point in holding back, anymore.]

....did you speak with Eliot much, when he was here?

[espigeonage]

[Julien got it a while ago from a pulse, but since he didn't know the password it was useless and he never carried it around.]

Eliot... yeah, a little. You know we didn't have much to do with each other, before pulses, when he'd come by. I think I was too silly for him.

[Aaron's stepfather was a very dignified man. Julien knows what he himself had looked like.]

I showed him what my pulses did, it was hard to get him to realize he couldn't send my blood off anywhere, or give me things to get the fever down. I don't think it'd really sunk in yet.

[elfstoned]

[A shake of his head.]

He's a good physician, but set in his ways.

Did he tell you why I was brought up in his house?

[espigeonage]

Heh...

No. I never asked. [Julien for all his curiosity is good at not asking questions. His family isn't happy; why assume others are? If he knows they are happy, now, bets are off, but his default setting is not to touch the subject.

Idle-looking he pulls a short stool from out of concealment and perches on it, toes curled over the seat.]

[elfstoned]

He knew my father through the army. They were close. So, when he died, circumstances were such that Eliot was the only one my mother could go to for help.

[His voice is still sober, still quiet. He's choosing his words carefully, but they're not coming out unwillingly.]

[espigeonage]

[Julien nods. Being disinclined to ask about family also means he's not sure what to say when it comes up like this. Sore subjects...]

Are they why you went to the military? I know it was to pay for med school, but...

[elfstoned]

The HPSP scholarship was the reason I went. Maybe I was more kindly disposed toward it going in than I would have been if it weren't for Eliot, but if the program hadn't existed, I don't think that's a choice I would have made.

[Julien doesn't need to say anything. Just listening is fine.]

My father joined up to get out of a bad situation. His family was --

[He shakes his head.]

-- less than respectable, to put it mildly. The military was his way out.

[espigeonage]

[Julien shifts on the stool and settles, nodding. He's still got his pupils large and open.]

All right.

[elfstoned]

Which is the reason that my mother had nowhere to turn but Eliot. She was the only one in her family who approved of the marriage, and all contact was cut after she went through with it.

So you can see why she should hear this from me, and not another relative.

[espigeonage]

[Julien winces, visible as his inner eyelids drawing part of the way across his eyes.]

No kidding. Is phone the only way you can contact her? Will she ask Elliot?

[elfstoned]

She may. But I'd rather use a phone. This is something I'd rather not tell her about through a more impersonal medium.

[espigeonage]

Are you telling him too?

[He studies Aaron opaquely.]

Your voice is different, a little bit. It's still recognizable.

[elfstoned]

I am.

[His head ducks, just slightly, and he lets out a breathy half-laugh that has no humor in it at all.]

He'll be disappointed. He always said I should be doing something more respectable, running a more stable practice.

[espigeonage]

Well - [hmm, no, shouldn't say 'fuck him then'] he can be disappointed, then. You've done a lot of good. Respectable Doctor Strider might have been more reluctant to take risks, with the Numbered, and I guess me, too.

[Julien comes back over with his head and neck feathers lifting. And steals a bite of waffle. Clink!]

It can't balance everything, but of all the shady practices to walk into, I'm glad I picked yours.

[elfstoned]

[That brings a genuine smile to his face -- the broadest yet. It really was a shady practice, and it's good to hear Julien be so unapologetic about it. It's also good to hear that Julien doesn't regret any of it.]

Shady Doctor Strider is glad you did, too.