wrfmlogsarchive | He will do one of two things... (Reply)

Who: Josiah and Chase
What: After reading Josiah's post on the comm, Chase heads over to see why her former neighbor is being so emo.
Where: The loft.
When: Late Wednesday morning.
Status: Complete

Chase was worried.

And she hated being worried.

After reading Josiah's post on the comm and scowling at its implications, she had grabbed her backpack and a traveler mug of coffee and started on the mini-trek towards his loft. The day was startling warm for March, and she was glad that finally the weather had decided to be somewhat amiable. After all that other nonsense that was going on, nice weather buoyed her feelings somewhat. A pang of homesickness shot through her - she missed springtime in the Midwest. It could be terrible and wonderful and annoying and amazing all at the same time.

She arrived at the loft, and knocked on the door. "Josiah? You're here, right?" At least she wouldn't have to worry about Lilith giving her grief. She turned the knob, and found that it was unlocked. Rolling her eyes, she entered into the loft. Geez. Some things never changed.

Josiah blinked sleepily at Chase from the couch, lifting his head slightly. He frowned at her as he sat up, removing the hood of his sweatshirt and running his hand through his hair. His eyes quickly scanned the papers and books that littered the floor around the couch - all of the papers were covered in scrawled cursive, and there didn't seem to be any order to them. "Hey."

"Don't 'hey' me," she grumbled, crossing the room and heading towards the couch. She gestured to the papers on the ground before kneeling to pick up one of them. "Going back into the business major again?"

Josiah sighed wearily, sitting back in the couch and closing his eyes. "Unless they can read and decipher Latin and Welsh, then I don't think so."

"Looks like he's been busy," Chase noted, sounding impressed despite herself. After years of working with people with notoriously awful handwriting, the sharp cursive was absolutely fascinating to look at. What a strange way for the part of her that appreciated art to render its head. "Wait...you said Welsh?"

"Yeah," he murmured half-heartedly, not opening his eyes. "Learn something more about him every day..."

Chase frowned at him and sat down on the arm of the couch, cupping her hands around the traveler mug. "What's going on, Josiah? You're not being yourself."

He snorted. "That seems to be my M.O. - better to confuse people with. Don't know who they're gonna get."

She took a sip of her coffee, considering this. "You're still you, Jojo. I mean, you've got a strange headfellow linked to you by the grimoire, but you're still you where it counts." She grinned, leaning forward with a bright smile. "As corny as it sounds, he can't take away your heart."

He opened one eye and gave his friend a skeptical look. "That.... is ridiculously stupid, Chase. Next thing you know, Celine Dion is going to come through that door and start singing "The Power of Love"." He then sighed, and sat further back into the couch. "And it doesn't matter. He can take my memories, take over my body, and everyone just wants to keep meeting him. Curiosity, meet cat. Cat, meet curiosity." He looked away then, a shadow passing over his face. "I don't think I could stop him if he tries to hurt any of you. I wouldn't be able to... if something happens to any of you because of this... because of him..." he sighed and added quietly, "because of me."

Chase's brow furrowed in concentration, and she slid off the arm of the couch to sit down on the cushions of the couch, folding her legs under her in a half-lotus style. "You think it's your fault. Now that is ridiculously stupid." She bit her bottom lip before sipping some more of the coffee. "I'm sorry, but how were you supposed to know about Lilith and Calum and this whole magic hoo-hah from just looking at the grimoire?"

Josiah shrugged. "Maybe I should really take up telepathy. Precog. Something." He rubbed his eyes - he knew he looked like he needed sleep. Except he couldn't. Anytime he slept was when Calum decided to continue his research, or even if he didn't, nightmares plagued his dreams. He couldn't get more than twenty minutes before he would wake up again in a cold sweat, cursing more creatively as the night went on. He guessed that the nightmares were results of the black magic that Calum insisted on using... magic that was empowered by a person's darkest passions, fears... hates.

He threw an arm over his eyes and let out a loud groan. "Argh! I swear, I should have just bought a tablecloth. But I bet that would have somehow been possessed by a fucking obsessive-compulsive chicken with an Oedipus complex and a nympho twin sister."

Chase couldn't help it - she laughed. But she was still worried - she had noticed the dark circles under his eyes, his listless movements. Calum was hurting him, she knew - maybe not a straight-out physical attack, but she could tell her friend was in pain. This was ridiculous, and she wanted to pound the ghost out of his head (probably along with half of the Refugees). But any way they could do that was most likely with the grimoire and...she gasped.

Leaning forward in anticipation, she asked, "Dude, we can totally find a way around this. All we have to do is look at the grimoire."

"As if the grimoire hasn't caused enough trouble," he muttered. "And even if I wanted to - I can't. I don't have it." Already sensing Chase's question, he added, "I'm guessing Lilith took it with her, wherever she went."

She...had absolutely nothing to say to that except, "oh."

Josiah shrugged. "Better with her than with Calum, I guess. She knows what she's doing. Hopefully."

"You trust her that much, huh," Chase suggested with a grin, propping her chin in her palm. She balanced the mug of coffee on her opposite knee. "Well, I guess that's a helpful side affect - her sharing half your soul and heart and all. Hopefully she didn't inherit your annoying proclivity towards the insane and improbable."

"Oh, ha ha. Thanks." Josiah would have thrown something at her if he had the energy and settled for a glare.

"You're welcome," Chase chirped before climbing to her feet. She almost reached out to ruffle his hair but decided against it. "But, seriously. Get some sleep. You get cranky and emo whenever you go for more than three days with less than eight hours of sleep. And cranky and emo Josiah is not on the list of people I care to be around." She threw a pillow at him from where it lay on top of the papers. "Now sleep."

"Yes. Obviously it's that easy," he grumbled. But he closed his eyes anyway, and within a few minutes, his breathing was even, deeper and slower. Exhaustion sometimes didn't really care about the situation - when a person was tired, they were tired - end of story.

Chase waved a hand in front of his face, and, satisfied that he really was asleep, went over to grab her backpack and pulled her laptop out of it. Glancing over at her friend one more time, she pulled out her headphones and pushed in a movie, settling in to allow him at least two hours rest.

She'd mess with his hair later.