Evelyn's Binding: The Aftermath

13 May 2021. Characters in this scene: Justin, Zachary, Xander. Also Glory. Aftermath of Protecting Evelyn.

Zachary and Xander spend the evening sparring. Friendly matches, nothing like what Zachary has done with Shandak. Xander can dull his sword down so that it won't be able to cut anything, but Zachary has no way to do anything similar with his weapons. Instead, he picks up a branch from the ground, then a trash can lid as an impromptu shield, and finally after Xander accidentally breaks the branch, a pool noodle. Xander insists on taking a pool noodle himself to make it fair, and that's how they end up circling each other on the hotel pool deck in completely serious martial forms, waving around floppy green noodles at each other.

At the end of it, Justin sends a request for them to get some pizza. Zachary volunteers to get it, allowing Xander to get some actually useful practice in.

It isn't hard finding a pizza place around here. Zachary doesn't know this area, some podunk town in Western Canada, but some quick Woobling is enough to tell him that there's a 241 Pizza half a mile away. He sets off at a run.

Once Zachary is there, he realizes that Canadian pizza toppings are vasty different from American ones, and he has no idea what to order. He makes a call to Justin.

"Hi, this is Zachary. I'm looking at the menu now, but the options are kind of weird. Can you get Evelyn and Xander? I want to know what you all want for dinner."

Justin's in the shower, water too hot to be comfortable pouring down his back as he leans against the shower wall, cell phone in hand. Somewhere far away, Condor's phone is ringing.

Voicemail again.

He ends the call. If he doesn't even know what to say in person, how could he know what to say in a recording? All he wants is for them to pick up. That, or to have the guts to call Christine instead.

A call comes in. He answers it immediately even though he isn't sure what he'll end up saying. "Condor, I-"

*"'m sorry for calling you I don't know how many times - are you busy?"*

*"think I just established a pattern of binding people 'for their own good'-"*

"want to come home."

"Um. Give me a moment, I'm-" He turns off the water and reaches for the towel with his free hand. "I'm not sure where Xander is."

"Okay, sorry if you're busy, but try to hurry up if you can? There's only six people ahead of me in line now," Zachary says, looking around him.

"Where is he?" Justin asks into the phone, having gotten his voice fully (okay, mostly) under control. There's still time to open a window and say that I came out of the bathroom to her gone and the window open, he thought. But then Xander would ride out to go looking- they might tell Echo she left and be gainsaid-

There's a very, very uncomfortable pit in his stomach. He doesn't want to tell anyone until he's told Condor, but they aren't picking up.

"I'm not really in the mood for pizza anymore," he says. Or any food. "But, um, you should just grab something that sounds good to you unless I can find Xander in the next couple of minutes."

Zachary eyes the menu sitting above him. "Is Evelyn here, at least? Can you pass the phone to her so I can get her order? Because, seriously, there's things on here like Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza and Cauliflower Crust and a whole bunch of fake meat stuff. I don't want to order and have you all tell me when I get back that actually you all hate pineapple on pizza, that sort of thing."

He swallowed. "Um, no, she, uh, she isn't here either."

"Huh, they're all out? Guess I'll call her instead," Zachary says. He motions to end the call, and then reconsiders. He's not sure if he's right, and it might be rude to point this out, but... "Uh, hey, did something happen? Are you okay?"

There's a long pause. "No," he says, voice choked. "I, um."

Then it poured out. Not a lie. Not the truth. But his voice was, if nothing else, legitimately distressed. "The two of us were watching a movie and Evelyn was talking to someone online and got really stressed, and the owl spirit came out, and she looked like she was ready for a fight, and said she wanted to fly, and said... something about the frost tearing me apart, and I..." he swallowed. "I, um. I bound her."

"Jesus fucking Christ. That's bad. Um, okay --"

At that point, the other people in line turned to give Zachary the stinkeye. He raised his hands to head level as best as he could while still holding the phone, and made his voice quieter.

"Do you have everything handled? Do you need help?"

There's something wrong with his breathing, Justin realizes, like every breath is fighting to get through the lump in his throat. "Get the -" he stumbles, "the pizza." Like last time this happened, he dips his fingers into the glamour again, rubs it on his face and throat and mixes it with the tears already there.

"We'll probably want it later," he says. "Just get - whatever, I guess. Something normal." His voice is strained but clear.

"So... kinda have to ask. Are you going to, uh, let her out soon? Will it be safe to do that? Basically, should I get food for her too?" Zachary asks.

He looks back up at the menu, already picking things out in his head. Half a pizza of plain cheese for sure. Probably another half of pepperoni. The real question is if he should get another pizza or a bunch of sides. Maybe an attempt at healthiness by getting a salad. It really all depends on Evelyn.

His voice is quiet. Fearful in a way that Zachary has never heard before. "It's not safe. I can't. I won't. If I let her out... without Echo being there... I'm afraid she'll try to hurt us. I think she'll hate me. And I know she'll leave unless I bind her again."

"Look, I mean -- I think that truck driver tried to," Zachary swallowed the word back. "You know what I mean, right? So she might have just been reminded of that. I don't think she'd hate you forever if you just bound her to get her to stop attacking you over it."

"Zachary," he says, his voice barely audible, "she killed him. I can't. I won't. I..." There's a long pause. "I talked to Echo. As long as she's bound, he can negotiate and try to get her out. If I let her go, she'll run and I think she'll die."

He turns the shower back on, turns the heat back up. Zachary can hear the water running, nearly drowning out his words. "I'm sorry. I hate this. What I said... the fear, the thought... it applies to you, too. I didn't want to have to."

"Look, of course she tried to kill him! What, you think that she should have just let it happen and then gone on with her day?! Whatever she was reacting to, I'm pretty sure that it's not you and if we can get her to calm down we can explain it --"

Someone taps on Zachary's shoulder. He whirls around, only to see a very unimpressed looking man pointing to the cashier in front. Zachary has reached the front of the line now.

"I have to order now. I'll be back in a bit."

Zachary puts the phone on mute and goes to order at the front. He's fuming now, tapping his foot against the floor agitatedly. How could Justin be this much of an insensitive idiot?

Justin looks down, saying nothing. Then he hangs up, drops the towel on the floor and goes back into the shower. Steam has more than filled the small hotel bathroom, and the water stings a little.

He dials Condor again. Voicemail.

He taps Christine's contact. His thumb hovers over the 'start call' button. Taking a deep breath, he hesitates again, and hits the power button. The phone goes to sleep. He rinses the glamour off his face and neck under the scalding water and begins to sob.

The order feels like it takes forever to cook. Zachary paces back and forth across the waiting area, fighting the urge to take out his knife. If only to spin it, or something. But he shouldn't, not while there are other people here to be alarmed by it.

Eventually he is called to the front, and he picks up the food: two boxes of pizza, one a boring half-pepperoni and half-cheese, another a more adventurous Bacon Cheeseburger and Homage to the Hog. There is also a pitifully small Caesar salad to split among all of them. Zachary refuses to believe that Evelyn won't want something after he convinces Justin to let her go; she eats way more than it feels like someone of her size should be capable of.

He balances it all awkwardly in front of him. Now that he is facing the task of bringing all of this back, he's regretting the choice to walk instead of bringing the car. Zachary rearranges his grip on the boxes, and sets off at a run.

He channels all of his energy into returning to the hotel as quickly as he can. He doesn't jump skate -- who knows how many people might be around to see him, and besides, he can't do the required forward lunge when both of his arms are occupied like this. Instead, he puts it all into a sprint. The movement helps clear his mind.

Zachary gets into the hotel, punches the floor number into the elevator, and then gets out into the hallway. He reaches the room that he and Evelyn share, and shifts the weight of the food all to one arm, fumbling with the other to unlock it.

Of course, the room is empty. So Zachary opens the adjoining door to get to Justin and Xander's room, and sets the pizza and salad on the table.

The bathroom door opens, slowly, and Justin emerges. He's wearing pajama pants and an undershirt, skin a little pinker than usual, hair wet, arms crossed. Justin's body language is smaller than Zachary has ever seen.

As Justin looks up, Zachary can see that his eyes are bloodshot and red as he gives a quick smile and wave meant to disarm any tension. It only half succeeds. "Hey. Um. Xander is still out. Guess he's still training." He looks down at the pizza and salad, and his stomach rumbles, but he barely has any appetite.

"Thanks for getting this. I was... really hungry, earlier." The hotel room is missing one of its two chairs, and he hesitates. "I can just go get -" he says, halfway out the door to take one from the adjoining room.

Every time that Zachary has seen Justin, he's always looked so well-put together. Even in times when he was on the back foot -- and Zachary has certainly caused that before -- he's always seemed confident in his ability to turn the situation his way. Now, he just seems shattered.

Maybe Evelyn's freakout was worse than Zachary had thought. Maybe Justin had left information out, to try to save face.

Zachary does his best attempt at a gentle voice. "Hey, man. I know you said some of it earlier, but... what happened?"

Justin hears the question from the other room, carries back a chair for himself, sets it opposite Zachary's. He sits in it, dispassionately looks at the pizza. The slices smell delicious and his stomach rumbles, but there's nothing in it for him. He isn't hungry.

"She... she got upset," he starts. His voice is quiet, scratchy. "Might have been an argument on OMO. I'm not sure. But... she got angry, and I tried to calm her down. I tried. The two of us... we're the furthest in life experience and age, I think." He slumped over the table. "Her owl spirit came out, sharp beak and claws, threatened me with ice tearing me apart. I..."

He took a deep breath, still unable to meet Zachary's eyes. He kept glancing at his phone, but it wasn't ringing.

"Zachary... I'm so sorry. I didn't want to - to steal the opportunity to spend more time with her."

"But I did."

Zachary helps himself to a slice as Justin talks, raising an eyebrow towards the end. "What do you mean? 'Steal the opportunity to spend more time with her' -- for God's sake that sounds like it's right out of a romcom. You just stopped her from attacking you, yeah? What's so bad about that?"

Justin snorts a little. "I guess, but what I meant was - I'm keeping her bound. We can't risk her getting loose and running away, or attacking us. And I know you might not like it, so... I'm sorry. I'm sorry you weren't able to get to know her better, to watch more streams with her."

He hangs his head. "I really wanted your friendship to be untainted by any of... this. But it didn't happen. So I'm sorry."

"Wait, wait, what?" Zachary says, stopping mid-bite. He forces himself to chew and swallow, so he doesn't choke while talking. "First, I don't think we were actually friends? She talks to me more than the rest of you all, but you and Xander sit in the front seats for 6 hours a day, of course she doesn't talk to you all as much. And second, why does she need to be bound this whole trip? We've already been slowing her down plenty, right?"

**The Glorious**

DM to KnightlyRoutine

Hey, it's Glory. We haven't chatted much before, but I'm also headed to Alaska to help with the Wings situation. You there?

**KnightlyRoutine**

What's up?

**The Glorious**

Finally! First, I was wondering where you and your gang are with Wings right now, so we don't have to end up searching the entirety of Alaska to find you guys.

**KnightlyRoutine**

Sorry, I was doing sword drills. We're just a short distance from the border to Alaska. Try to make it to Anchorage? I think that's where we're going.

**The Glorious**

Anchorage, yeah I figured that part out before. Should we meet with the rest of you there? We're going to Saskatoon first to pick a couple of goblins if need be, so might be a while till we reach you.

**KnightlyRoutine**

Yeah, just meet us there, that's fine.

**The Glorious**

There's one more thing. Riding with us is a chronomancer from OMO, Timestamper. You remember him?

**KnightlyRoutine**

I don't think I've ever really talked to him. He was giving away that Chupacabra, right?

**The Glorious**

Yeah, to Business\_Casualty, who's goblins we're picking. Anyway, earlier before he was talking with Inkstainer earlier, who's apparently also with Wings as well?

**KnightlyRoutine**

Okay? I'm heading inside right now, I think Zach Swaygze went to pick up pizza. Anything you want me to pass on?

**The Glorious**

Not really, but I read up on their conversation, and what I read... has me worried about Wings. Apparently, he and Inkstainer were talking about doing a ritual on Wings without her consent or knowledge.

**KnightlyRoutine**

What? Why would he do that?

I don't understand.

**The Glorious**

I don't know the specifics of it. Apparently, it's some mind time memory bullshit that they pulled while she was asleep. Whatever happened, it left Timestamper over where we are to forget everything that he isn't directly looking. He doesn't even remember us unless we're in his field of view, and he gave Inker over there some way to do the same or something

I don't know what's going, but I don't think I like it

**KnightlyRoutine**

Thanks for telling me.

Might not make it to Anchorage. Will let you know how things go over here.

**The Glorious**

Alright. Keep Wings well, got it? We'll try to come as soon as we can. Good luck to you.

Zachary helps himself to a slice as Justin talks, raising an eyebrow towards the end. "What do you mean? 'Steal the opportunity to spend more time with her' -- for God's sake that sounds like it's right out of a romcom. You just stopped her from attacking you, yeah? What's so bad about that?"

Justin snorts a little. "I guess, but what I meant was - I'm keeping her bound. We can't risk her getting loose and running away, or attacking us. And I know you might not like it, so... I'm sorry. I'm sorry you weren't able to get to know her better, to watch more streams with her."

He hangs his head. "I really wanted your friendship to be untainted by any of... this. But it didn't happen. So I'm sorry."

"Wait, wait, what?" Zachary says, stopping mid-bite. He forces himself to chew and swallow, so he doesn't choke while talking. "First, I don't think we were actually friends? She talks to me more than the rest of you all, but you and Xander sit in the front seats for 6 hours a day, of course she doesn't talk to you all as much. And second, why does she need to be bound this whole trip? We've already been slowing her down plenty, right?"

The door to the hotel room flew open with enough force to rebound off the wall, hit the frame, and then rebound again. Xander strode into the room, ripping the pin off of his jacket and transforming it into a sword in a single motion.

"What the Fuck did you do?!"

Justin, slumped over the table with a pizza that only Zachary was eating, flinched; he stood up, stepped back, the chair between him and Xander. His arms reached out in front of him, empty. "I'm sorry. She threatened that the ice would tear me apart," he said, desperately, close to tears again.  "I didn't want to."

"Oh, did she?" Xander leveled the sword, his hand unwavering, towards Justin. "Was that before or after you tried to perform a ritual on her against her will?"

Zachary surreptitiously sets the slice down, clearing up his right hand in case he needs to do anything. He stands up between them. "Woah, woah, hey. Evelyn got freaked out over something, and then Justin had to stop her from attacking him. Let's just calm down for now and then we can release her tonight when everyone's feelings are settled and nobody's going to try to kill each other, yeah?"

Justin looks panicked. Arms still outstretched, his eyes dart between Xander and Zachary. "Please don't hurt me. She - her spirit looked angry. It threatened to kill me. If I didn't do it then I - I don't know what would have happened."

"Answer me, Justin," Xander growled. "Was that before or after you tried to perform a ritual on her against her will without her knowing?" He didn't have Wings' aura of cold. What he did have was access to transformation. Metal was creeping from the sword to his hand, up his arm.

Justin's face pales, and he pulls further back from Xander. "The ritual wasn't to hurt her. I just wanted to confuse her spirits, maybe keep her from being as easy to consume. Okay? I've talked to her teacher! I know how this ends, if we don't keep her safe!" His hands are empty, outstretched before him.

His voice is fast, desperate to get the words in before Xander moves. "I didn't hurt her! I made sure she felt comfortable and safe first! Her spirit threatened to tear me apart! Xander, please, I didn't hurt her. She's asleep. I swear it on myself and my name."

Zachary steps more fully in front of Justin. Xander will have to get past Zachary or through two hotel beds in order to get to Justin.

"Look, Xander, we discussed some ways to slow down Evelyn without her noticing, because she clearly doesn't want to follow her oath to get to Anchorage as fast as she can. You know how Justin's been keeping under the speed limit, all that sort of stuff? Pretty sure that this was just another part of it, and then something else set Evelyn off," Zachary says.

Xander reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He swipes it unlocked and glances at the screen to make sure it's still on the conversation with Glory before handing it over. "Read it. Justin was doing something with chronomancy."

"Lady Lim is a chronomancer! It doesn't mean something evil. The Chronomancer on OMO and I tried to save someone being eaten by a Nex before. This time he helped me take away her memories of how to get back to Winter. Which, I will reiterate, probably wants to eat her! You and Zachary are melee combatants, not binders! I did what I can and what I could to keep her safe, the same as you!"

The whites of his eyes are showing. "If you kill me, I don't know how to pull her back out. If you think I'm bad, you probably haven't met my mother. I'm sorry. Don't."

"I'm--" Xander snarls in frustration, and the metal creeps further up his arm, covering up to his elbow now. "I'm not going to kill you, Justin. But you couldn't have fucking talked to us first? We could have found a better way!"

Zachary stays where he is. "Can you read out the worst parts of whatever was sent to you? Is it really as bad as it sounds? I mean, ugh, Justin and I implicitly agreed that I'd break Evelyn's legs if we really had to. Hoped that I'd never have to do it, but if it was that or her going to near certain death... " He half winces, half shrugs. "She doesn't want to go into Anchorage, can't you see that?"

"This is better, she's calm, she's asleep, she's in stasis," Justin says quickly, arms still outstretched. "She's safe."

Xander glares at the two. "You have fucking eyes, Zach. 'Apparently, it's some mind time memory bullshit that they pulled while she was asleep.' He didn't just bind her, man, he wiped her goddamn memory."

He takes a step forward, though not near enough to put his sword against Zachary. "I know she doesn't want to go to Anchorage, but it's what she has to do. She swore oaths. Those don't just go away because we can bind her for a bit."

Zachary glances back at Justin, looking more worried than before. "Was it really that bad? Justin?"

"It - it wasn't that bad. I don't know what the chronomancer did, but we've worked together before to try to save someone from being eaten! I like him, he's a good guy, and her oaths - Evelyn's oaths - as far as I know, aren't reliant on us - she was asleep! She was calm and relaxed and will be when I let go!" He would back up more, but he's standing against a wall. "This is what I was trained for, what I was Awakened for. If I can't help her, what am I even worth?"

From as far as he is, Xander may or may not be able to see that Justin's eyes are wide and red and bloodshot, or notice logically that this is the first time he's seen him in casual clothes.

Zachary turns around. Several things that didn't make sense earlier are coming together now. "Wait. Did you bind her when she was asleep? What the fuck, you implied that she attacked you!"

Flames flicker around his right hand now, eagerly eating up the grease of the pizza. The shape of a long, thin blade comes in and out of existence, extending from his arm. He'd almost bought it. That's the worst part about it.

"Wait. Please. Let's sit down and eat. She's safe where she is, and will remain safe as long as needed. Her teacher is negotiating now." His eyes dart between Xander and Zachary, but there's nowhere to retreat to. "I'm here to keep her safe. I am currently keeping her as safe as I can."

"Don't kill me. If you do, it's in my family's hands if she's freed. If you think I'm bad, now, they're much worse. Don't." His voice is strained, his arms are outstretched in front of him as he tries to retreat from both. "I said I'd try to get her to Anchorage, and I plan to honor it."

Xander's hand trembles. He lowers the sword and it turns back into a pin with a flash of light. His arm is still encased in armor, almost up to his shoulder now. "I'm not hungry. Fuck you, I'm--" He turns. "I'm going to go hit something."

"What exactly did you do, Justin? Tell me, and tell me that you're not leaving anything out at the end," Zachary says tightly.

"I -" Justin swallows. "I did it to keep her safe. I did it in connection with her teacher, who wants to keep her safe. I did it because she is a good kid, and I saw an opportunity and took it. Because it was our best chance."

"I'll tell you if you swear not to hurt me." His eyes burn even as his back is against the wall. "Because if you hurt or kill me, you or her teacher will have to deal with my mother. And trust me when I say that I am running from her. That dealing with myself and the Lady Lim is far preferable to her."

A wave of vertigo hits Zachary and he has to sit down. He's not sure if it's from realizing what Justin did, or that he just lied on Justin's behalf, or for even a moment thinking that Evelyn would have been set off by something to do with the trucker to make her lash out at Justin. And even if she had been, even for a moment, maybe she had been right in that after all.

Zachary plonks his hand into a cup of water, and the fire sword goes out. Trails of steam rise from the cup.

"I'm not going to fucking kill you, okay? I swear that I will not kill you, Justin, for what you are about to say, as long as you did not mean to harm Evelyn in doing it more than you would help her," Zachary says.

Justin nods and looks at Xander. He doesn't look well, but he looks resigned,

"I understand if you're mad, but please. Trust me on this - at least listen to me. If you want to kill me, we can discuss doing that later."

"I'm listening." Xander thumps a fist against the wall. "Just tell us and get it over with."

"She was agitated. I tried to bring her water and calm her down, but the owl spirit threatened me. Look, I may be fit, but that isn't for combat. I know she could probably tear me apart like she said, if she wanted. So I acquiesced. At first. And when I got the chance, I bound her. And binding one results in binding all, with what I do. So... she's sleeping. She's safe. As long as I'm protected, she will be."

There's a wall to his back, so he doesn't move further away; just leaves his arms outstretched.

"Look. I know you don't like binding. I don't like it either. But I worked with a chronomancer to make it safe and help her, and it worked. She didn't fight. I waited until she was asleep and relaxed. And when I let her go, I want it to be where her teacher and her family is waiting to welcome her." He looks earnest but desperate.

Zachary leans forward in his chair. "Tell us that you haven't left anything important out."

Justin leans forward, matching Zachary. He doesn't look happy. "And if I have? The facts still stand."

"Don't leave things out. We're supposed to be working together and you pull this shit?" Xander glares back at Justin. "Don't mess around right now."

The fire sword flares out again for a moment, burning a clean hole through cup, table, and floor. It goes out again just as quickly, but the damage is done. Water begins leaking from the cup. Zachary brings his hand to his lap, where the fire can be more easily seen.

"For the third and last time, tell us everything and tell us that you haven't left anything out, or we're going to have to resort to other measures. You're making yourself look really bad here, and I know you've already left major things out once. Not sure I should trust your words here at all."

"I'm not messing around. This isn't a game of knights and ladies, Xander. This is what real life looks like. And sometimes you don't know the whole picture. Sometimes you have to deal with that. I grew up in a Practitioner family. I know as well as you should that there are questions you don't ask." His eyes dart between the two of them. His hands are still outstretched.

"I'm a Practitioner, Zachary. If you don't trust my word then you're calling me forsworn." He pauses. His voice is pretending to be level, but it's clearly tense. "Are you? Because I'm not leveling anything like that at you."

"She was upset. Agitated. I tried to calm her down and it worked. But I knew that it would happen again, and worse. The chronomancer gave me an opportunity I didn't expect. I bound her."

"If you want to kill me to get her back, don't. You'll have to deal with my mother or sister, and they're worse.”

"You keep saying that, Justin." Xander growls. "I know this isn't a fucking game. I know that. This is someone's life. It's her oaths that are in danger from you doing this. If we fuck up somehow, she's the one who suffers for that."

He kicks the door closed. "What did you do to upset her?"

Justin, if nothing else, looks thankful that the door is closed. "I didn't do anything to upset her. I worked hard to make her comfortable and take care of her while you were gone. Her oaths aren't in danger anymore. The only way I see her suffering is if you force me to release her, or if she's released early."

He sets his jaw, tilts his chin up. "I understand where you are coming from. And you know as well as I that at this age I do not carry guns with me. All I do is my ritual and wards and a few seals. I've kept us safe from wandering spirits, Winter's scouts searching for her, every night we've spent together. I've driven us according to your directions. So tell me, Xander. I've come here to keep you safe and keep you alive. Tell me what I've done wrong.

"Did you -- " Zachary really doesn't want to say it, but if he relies on euphemisms, it'll give Justin more wiggle room here. "Did you ever attempt to assault or rape Evelyn, Justin?"

Justin looks shocked. Disgusted. Not in himself - in the idea. "What the fuck is wrong with you? She's a child."

"Answer the question."

"No," he spits, looking at Xander and Zachary. "I never assaulted her. If you think I tried to rape her, fuck you - no. Go fuck yourself. What do you take me for?" He doesn't just look offended - he looks hurt and furious. He pulls out his phone and dials Condor again.

Xander heaves out a sigh. "Fuck. You want to know what you did wrong, Justin? You didn't communicate with us. You just-- You just did this. Why was she upset?"

Zachary snatches the phone out of Justin's hand. "You've been evasive enough about everything else around this that I can't rule anything out! If you just tell us, then we don't have to guess things like that!"

"You're stealing from me if you keep that," he says, looking at Zachary. His voice is very, very netural. "Condor might pick up, and if they do, I want to talk to them. They aren't your partner. They're mine." He glances back at Xander. "I don't know why she was upset. I think he asked her hard questions that she didn't like. You should know how volatile she can be."

"I'm not being evasive, I'm being practical. I'm in communication with Echo, you aren't. I've agreed to not share certain information. Understand that there is a bigger plan in motion than the one you are playing at. I am not only here to be your driver."

"Return my phone."

Zachary puts the phone on speaker instead. "Whatever you want to say to them, you can say it with us listening now, or not at all. You've been so incredibly sketch Justin, and I don't want to believe the worst of you, but you're making that really hard here!"

(once again, the phone emits a static hiss for a few seconds - it could be either mundane white noise or heavy rain - and goes to voicemail, Condor's faint tinny voice sounding from the speaker, saying the words Justin has heard many times in the past few hours: "Hey! Looks like I'm not picking up the phone for some reason. Feel free to leave a message and I'll probably get around to calling back!" )

As soon as the beep comes after the voicemail message, his phone in Zachary's hand, Justin yells, "Zachary stole my phone. I love you. I'm sorry." He fully expects the call to be hung up before he's done talking.

He then looks at Zachary and Xander with a hard gaze.

"I'm not being sketch. I'm being practical. As it looks, being ten years older than you" - he points at Xander with an outstretched hand, "and an irrelevant amount older than you -" he points at Zachary - "means a lot."

"My goal was always, and you should know this, to keep you safe. So don't look at me and tell me there's something wrong with me for doing my job. I never hurt Evelyn. I kept her safe, am currently keeping her safe, and did what I could to keep her and you two from dying unnecessarily. I know what a monster looks like. Why are you blaming me from keeping her from one?"

"Tell me I was wrong to help keep you alive. And go ahead and dial Lady Lim while you're at it. Make those arguments with her on the line."

The fire sword flares up, very close to the phone. Zachary gently tosses the phone onto a bed behind him, and then sets his hands behind him. "If that's all that it was, then why not tell us that?"

He sits back down in his chair, his hands behind him. Which is when the fire sword shears through the bottom of his chair, and the hotel's fire alarm goes off.

Justin looks up. "Are you - are you fucking kidding me -" he yells to be heard, looking at Xander and Zachary. "I have three suits in that suitcase and if you keep me here at weaponpoint, I swear to god..."

Zachary backs up, holding his hands up. Since one of them is currently a flaming mass, it might not look as conciliatory as he wants. "No, I'm not going to keep you here! Get your stuff and get out."

He pauses. "We are leaving here, right? Fire alarm?"

Xander rolls his eyes and grabs his duffel from under the bed. "Yes, we're leaving!"

"Yes! I am still driving that damn car. Get your fucking luggage and pray that I can still drive after you holding swords at me." He yells this while grabbing his things.

"Fuck you, we wouldn't have had to hold swords at you if you hadn't tried to mislead us from the start! You've been way too sketch in this!" Zachary yells. The rest of his words are drowned out by the screech of the fire alarm.

At that moment, the sprinkler turns on, dousing the entire room with water.

Justin is, for once, thankful to be wearing throwaway clothes as he puts on his lions, grabs his suitcase, shoves past Zachary to grab his phone, and gets out of the room where he and Wings had once watched a throwaway movie.  He has a brief dream of getting into the car first, locking the doors, and driving away without these two.

Message to Echo:

Update. I would deeply appreciate said potential protection.

Xander scowls and holds his duffel tightly as he makes his way out of the hotel. He's too pissed for words, and is considering ways to get Justin to release Wings so he can get her the hell away. The High Horse is magical, surely it can outrun a car.

Zachary wraps his hand in a wet towel -- hopefully that will keep it from burning things, and keep the parts of the fire sword pushing into reality from being seen by any Innocents. After that, he heads to his and Evelyn's room to get his things, only to stop and realize that they'll probably be allowed in again after it's determined to be a "false alarm." Just to make sure, he goes back to Justin's and Xander's room to kick a wall plug and send a jolt of electrical current running through it. It's much weaker than what he normally can manage.

This is becoming far too much of a pattern with this sword now. He might have to see if he can ever get that fixed. Zachary lags out behind the other two, not bothering to collect any of his things.

Justin unlocks the car doors, throws his suitcase in the back, and gets in the driver's seat. His finger itches to lock the doors, to drive to somewhere they can't follow, and finally call Condor and leave the message he meant to leave. To call Christine and give her the awful, painful details he wouldn't tell Condor.

But to leave his companions in this podunk town would be worse than cruel. And, after all, they're kids. Xander is a decade younger than him. He clicks the 'unlock' button again, pulls open his phone to give the call.

That's when he notices that he's still on the call with Condor's voicemail. Zachary never closed it out.

Xander, for the first time in days, climbs into the back seat of the car instead of grabbing shotgun. He sets his duffel at his feet and slams the door before leaning his head against the window.

Zachary looks at the two of them getting into the car with bafflement. "Uh... you know that we don't have to drive out of here, right? Nothing is actually on fire in that room now, was just the smoke. We just need to stand around here for a bit before the Innocents find that nothing's wrong and we're let back in, probably."

Justin sits back in the driver's seat. "Well, if you want to go back to the hotel or sit in the parking lot, go ahead. But I want to sit here in the calm quiet night without having swords pointed and self-righteous people telling me that the sacrifices I made and took on myself to keep them safe were worthless."

"Piss off," Xander says flatly. "If you're going to do things without discussing it or thinking through consequences, then you get to deal with the fallout. Zach, get in, we may as well drive instead of sitting here waiting to get back into a crappy hotel room for a few hours of sleep."

"Do we even have to go to Alaska now?" Zachary asks from outside of the car. He's shivering slightly in the cool night with his half-drenched clothes. The wet towel seems to have done its job, because the fire sword isn't burning anymore.

"We're supposed to go there because of Wing's oath. She can't do anything about that right now. Can't we just, I dunno, stay here until it's safe, take her to Anchorage at some point in the future, and then be done with all of this?"

"I still have to go to Alaska. Made a promise, gotta keep it."

Justin sighs at Xander's statement. "Isn't that all we do? Deal with our own fallout? Don't tell me you aren't dealing with your own. So don't look at mine either and tell me I'm wrong for having it."

He pauses, looking over his shoulder at Zachary. "Come inside, I'll turn on the heater." He does so. Warm air fills the interior of the car.

"And yeah, that's part of the plan until Echo gets back to me. But I did tell him we still need to take her there - oaths and all that." He leans his seat back quite a bit, then looks at the still-recording voicemail. "Condor, I'm sorry. I'll try to leave you another with more context if these two don't try to kill me first. Love you." He hangs up.

Zachary sighs. "That message to Condor was really manipulative and you know it. But fine, let me get my stuff."

Justin doesn't turn the keys to the second position, content with the car being on enough for the heater. He lies back, looking at his phone; as he scrolls, if anyone is looking at his face, he looks shocked. Upset. Drops his phone into his lap and looks up at the ceiling instead.

"Did you expect me to drive somewhere? I'm tired. I want to go to sleep. Go back to the hotel room where there's beds."

"Okay, fine. And -- I'm sorry about the alarm. The fire sword. I wasn't meaning to attack you with it, it just got... out of control."

Zachary returned back to his and Evelyn's hotel room. His room, now. It was completely dry, since the sprinkler had only turned on in the other room. That was the only good thing in all of this.

Zachary thought about Justin doing a ritual on Evelyn and binding her in her sleep -- would he ever do that on anyone else? By instinct, he tugged his shirt collar looser. Then he set to locking all the doors he could, and pushing furniture in front of them just for good measure.

The room was warmer, without Evelyn's presence and the near omnipresent chill that was always around her. Paradoxically, that didn't seem to help at all. Zachary spent a long while staring at the ceiling before night fitfully passed into day.