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]

[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.

[espigeonage]

Good, because it's too late to kick me out.

[clink! yeah not bothering with a fork here.]

You should know a couple people have asked me about you. I have no idea where you are, and I'm looking, and I'm convinced everything is slander. Or... libel? I forget the difference.

[elfstoned]

[He shakes his head, still cheered.]

Slander is spoken, libel is written. Not that it matters; I'm being subjected to both.

[Aaron sounds less worn out, for now.]

[espigeonage]

Sure are. [It's good to see Aaron feeling better, even if how he looks now really is kind of weird. So that really is what Aragorn looks like, if washed and in rumpled slept-in clothes that aren't quite long enough in the leg.]

[There are things Julien wants to ask, but he doesn't want to weigh him down more. It'll wait.]

You're taller, aren't you?

[elfstoned]

[Mostly, what it's going to take is time.]

I am, though I'm not sure exactly how much. About six inches, I'm guessing.

[espigeonage]

Probably. It was nice being definitely taller than you while it lasted.

[He was while harpy-shaped. Since changing the rest of the way his height depends on posture. Julien uses his neck to nudge Aaron while stealing another bite.]

...I am allowed to be that petty. Anyway. Clothes. Original owner's about five eight, the godson's six three, I still have some pants around that might work.

[elfstoned]

That's a start. I'll go out and get my own in a day or two, when all this has calmed down.

[The money doesn't seem to worry him.]

[espigeonage]

They button up the legs, most of them, but you won't have your ankles showing. Actually you might need to roll them up.

You think things'll have settled some more by then?

[elfstoned]

I think that once the initial manhunt turns up nothing, I look different enough from all official records of me that I'll be able to evade them for a few hours.

[He lifts the fingers on one hand.]

I can't be fingerprinted, either.

[They're different.]