[rhymes with demon]

[porcupineliz]

Liz is standing at the bar, reading a brief note over and over.

Anyone wanting to talk to her may have to put in a little extra effort to get her attention.

Comments

[porcupineliz]

She thinks she can guess why.

(She may be wrong.)

"I don't think you'll be a liability," she says, very quietly. "And if you want to be here, then you should be here."

[dr_j]

He nods. "Then you'll tell me if there's anything I can do?" Beat. "There's going to be a plan, right?"

[porcupineliz]

"There's going to be a plan."

Beat.

A little less firmly: "We just have to figure out what it's going to be."

[dr_j]

Jordie smiles -- involuntarily.

"It's nice to have projects." There's a faint thread of disbelieving laughter underlying his words. "And in the meantime... I've got this." The bracelet.

[porcupineliz]

"And me." Steadily. "I'm not going to let it near you."

[dr_j]

For a moment he doesn't know what to do with that.

"So I'm staying," he says, not smiling any more. "Okay. That's... that's resolved."

[porcupineliz]

"Yeah." Quieter.

She takes a breath. "Let's go find the others and see what they've got so far in the way of a plan?"

[dr_j]

"Not a lot of time to spare," he agrees, soft, and starts to inch his way out of the booth.

[porcupineliz]

Liz edges after him, standing up after he does.

And then reaches out to wrap both arms around him again, putting her face down against his shirt.

[dr_j]

He bows his head over hers. "Hey." Soft. "It's okay."

He is a liar and he knows it.

[porcupineliz]

Muffled: "Yeah."

It's a few moments before she lets go.

[dr_j]

When she does, he leans down, slips two fingers under her chin, and kisses her.








"Just in case." With a very small smile.

[porcupineliz]

The kiss takes her slightly by surprise -- but it isn't an unpleasant surprise, at all.

"Just in case," she agrees, and reaches up to tug his head down for one more.

[tantric-slacker.livejournal.com]

Off to the side, someone drops a mug.




( Matt whispers to Nita.)

[dr_j]

Immediately he breaks away, turning to look for the source (do demons not like ceramic??) --







Jordie spots Matt. Sourly.

"There's a word for that," he says to Liz. "Can we consider this paused? Until later?"

[porcupineliz]

"Paused," she says, "yes. Definitely to pick back up later."

And squeezes his arm as she reluctantly disengages.

Matt gets only the smallest of sour looks from Liz as they head over toward the little group by the couch.

[tantric-slacker.livejournal.com]

Yes yes yes, Matt is awful; he will cheerfully own up to that once the demon's dead.

Now that he's met Ambriel, he feels they're dizzyingly close to making that dream a reality.

"I'm glad you're okay," he tells Liz, which is only about one-fifth a question since he can see she's got on silver jewelry. "Um, Nita and I think we have a summoning spell that'll work for our purposes, but we didn't want to do it without you."

Unless we had to goes unspoken.

[nita_callahan]

Nita, who has been facepalming ever since that mug dropped, looks up.

"It's going to be pretty complex. We're trying to mesh a couple of different systems of to cover all our bases, and we're going to be balancing a fair amount of power. But it seems doable. It'll be a lot more stable if we've got you with us, Liz."

Three, as Matt has pointed out, is a magic number.

[porcupineliz]

"I'm in," she says without hesitation. "Let me see what you've got so far."



The ensuing discussion may take some time.