.. (staticimage) wrote in casefile, @ 2018-06-30 09:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | character: eliza weiss, character: lochan madan, narration: log/thread, player: patty, player: xiii |
WHO: Lochan Madan and Eliza Weiss
WHEN: June 4th
WHERE: Lochan's Apartment
SUMMARY: Eliza feels the need to checking up on Lochan.
WARNINGS: none.
He wasn’t home. At least she hadn’t heard any motion, there was no light. The door was locked and she had looked at it, the lock itself probably wouldn’t be that easy to pop. With a murderer on the loose though it might be a little more difficult to convince people out of calling the cops of her for just happening upon an unlocked door. Instead she was on her phone, sitting outside the door to Lochan’s apartment playing match 3. “You’re hiding.” she added when she saw him walk up out of the corner of her eye, the statement observational. Groceries in hand, Lochan started up the stairs at the side of the bookstore toward his apartment. Stopping immediately at the sound of Eliza’s voice. “Are you stalking me? Don't you have film work to do?” His tone stayed unamused by the sudden reappearance of the girl in his life when he had been trying his hardest not to speak to anyone not in his close circle. The small town might have been made up of a lot of skeptics but the tourists were not. She got up, not looking up from her phone as she followed him up the stairs. There were only a few more matches till she was finished this around after all. “It’s on hiatus.” she answered, ignoring the first part of the question. Lochan rolled his eyes. When they got to the top of the stairs, he turned toward her, placed the two paper bags of groceries into her arms before unlocking his door and gesturing for her to enter. “I don’t blame them. I’m sure some of the crew is mourning.” Like he suspected Rhett would be. A buzz of warm anxiousness spread through his arms at the thought. The familiar feeling had also taken place when he had to separate himself from his friends after Alice’s death. The want to help but inability to bring any sort of peace. Lochan did not deal in the murdered. Those spirits were unwelcome in his life as they could affect the living around them. Luckily for Lochan Eliza had just won her streak, balancing her phone in her hands as the presumptuous groceries were placed upon her. Briefly she debated letting them roll out of her hands and onto the ground. Next time. For now she walked in, head on a swivel as she took in the details to find a flat surface to put down his bags. “Sure.” she added to his concern on mourning. Their paychecks and a normal gig, more than likely. Had the bags dropped down the stairs, so would have the girl, because the hand off would be the only way she would be allowed into his apartment with whatever she came to irritate him with. Lochan’s apartment was sparsely decorated. Dark wood furniture had an expensive look that through off the entire minimalist look, but Lochan had always supported Ian’s work. The only real personalized area would be the bookshelves with hundreds of books; a large section devoted to the occult and history of the occult. “So what do you want?” He crossed his arms as he waited for her to put down the bags on the closest table. “Pickles.” Eliza remarked off hand as she set down his groceries to go wander over to his bookshelf. “Pickles?” He repeated. “Are you pregnant?” The comment was made off-handedly as it was a strange answer to his question and media told the world that pickles were top stereotypical choice of such conditions. Still, Lochan started to put away his groceries, keeping some of his attention on her in case she stole something. Her fingers trailed over the spines of the books. His questions went ignored because there was no reason to answer them. Nothing was owed here. “You aren't great at hiding.” “Most people don’t know where i live and if they do they know better, so I’m doing as good of a job as I think is necessary.” He retorted, sliding a small glass jar of pickles from the refrigerator toward her direction on the table. “Why are you here? I doubt you want a card reading.” He doubted she’d pay for a damn thing anyway. The pickles distracted her from the bookshelf. Turning to the table, she popped the jar open and pulled one out. “Maybe I'm here to give you a card reading.” She offered before taking a bite. “I don’t want a reading and you have no cards.” Lochan crossed his arms. While the little interaction between them and the cards had been amusing in some ways, Lochan did not care much for her insistence of playing that game. There were more important things he could be doing than having some girl think she knew how to do his job better than he did. “Sure I do.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a deck of playing cards. It was tucked back and she continued eating her pickle. “Modified. But it fits better in my pocket.” Lochan rolled his eyes “The game was fun, kid, but I’m not in the mood to have you pull playing cards and guess their association with a Tarot deck.” He hated tarot to begin with because the level of standardization left out the importance of the reader and their own associations and how they sense the world. Oracle decks could be personalized with greater accuracy to represent those giving the reading. “You seem very fixated on the idea that I must be faking.” Eliza mused, another cracking bite out of her pickle. She chewed for a moment, watching him continue to unpack. “It’s not about faking, kid, it’s my doubt that you believe any of it.” Dark and goth did not automatically make someone a believer. There were enough macabre things in life that belief in predictions and communication with the dead was unnecessary. Lochan had walls built up with the amount of skeptics in town. Finishing putting away his food, he sat down across from Eliza and leaned back into his chair. “So, I’ll ask again. Why are you here?” “Ergo, you think I’m faking.” Eliza repeated, amused in her own way. Maybe it was the need to feel special, maybe it was something else. It was interesting at the very least. “You weren’t at your shop. So I came here instead.” One could not believe in the mysticism around oracle cards and somehow have a talent. The concept went with the idea that everyone had access to know merely many chose not to perceive. To fake meant they willfully deceived others. Lochan did not bother to specify. He did not hold the belief that he owed explanations to anyone. “Ever think I wasn’t at my shop for a reason?” “Yeah, I imagine because of the murder.” She shrugged as she finished off the pickle. Briefly she wondered what it would taste like with hot sauce. Maybe she would have to try. “Communes with outside forces, people are probably super interested in that. Especially with Moira having been. And you don't want to. But I don't need you for that.” She pondered over an additional pickle. Moira had been far too interested in it and Lochan was sure that had been what led to her death. He would not speak on the subject though, not that he was apt to gossip or interactions. “What do you need me for?” He had been asking that question since she arrived, she had been the one taking the scenic route in conversation, he thought to himself. So far, it looked like she had come to terrorize him purely for pickles. “Needs, wants, so focused.” Eliza wandered back towards the bookcases. “Maybe I had a whim.” Narrowing his eyes, Lochan shook his head. “You literally just used the wording ‘but I don’t need you for that.’” Lochan mocked her voice. “Which means you needed me for something else. So what is it kid? Or you can leave and get pickles from the store.” “I don’t need you for communing with forces.” Eliza paused to look over her shoulder at him, curiously as her voice remained level. He was uncomfortable perhaps? Discomfort made him angry maybe, which wasn’t uncommon for men. “You weren’t at your shop. I wanted to check in. I don’t have your phone number.” she explained. The was a large difference between angry and annoyed when it came to Lochan’s reactions. Eliza’s game of guess my intention annoyed him, but did not anger him. Anger had been Blaze pushing about the seance Moira had been a part of when Lochan sent him home for the day. Anger had been the destruction he had laid out on his house after the announcement of Moira’s death- which had since been cleaned and any signs covered up. Annoyance was Eliza attempting the mysterious schtick on him when she stood in his own living room. Brows furrowing, he watched her for a moment in silence. Lochan considered himself relatively anti-social and felt both suspicion and surprise when people that were not Amita wanted to check in on him; strangers especially. “My regulars know where to find me.” That was what mattered. Eliza motioned around them before turning to face him, an amused tilt to her head. “And I found you.” “You’re not a regular, you are a stalker.” He said over his shoulder as he pulled a drink from his refrigerator before sitting down at the dining room table. There had not been a lot of things to put away, being a single guy. Lochan likely had more food over at the Psychic house than at his apartment, since Blaze started working there. Eliza rolled her eyes at this point and made the choice to head to the door. What was the point. Interest was evaporating under boring old hostility. What was the point? There was none. There was nothing here. “If you turn to your left there’s a table with a drawer.” He offered. “Grab one of the boxes out of there.” She paused for a moment and looked at him for a long thought. There was curiosity but there was also dismissal. The question was which would be of more interest to her. “No.” Was the answer that impulse led her too. Looking in on someone she thought might have some strange kinship had been the impulse that drove her here in the first place. For now it seemed like she was wrong. He could stay, lonely like he seemed to want to. Eliza found the door instead. “It’s a gift. So you don’t have to use Playing Cards.” Lochan could be moody when it came to him hiding from the public when it came to deaths in town. He knew and understood this. Words came out of his mouth before he realized what they might mean to others, but he was not emotionless. “Come on, I’ll let you use them on me.” He gestured to the seat she had been sitting in. “I have my own.” she answered, hand on door handle. She paused, but only for now. “They don’t fit in my pocket. The playing cards are easier to carry.” Lochan smirked, a slight shake of his head. His hands had folded once more after his gesture for her to sit, but they opened in an internal thought. “Then I apologize. Bring them with you next week. I’ll reopen the shop then.” Apologizing was essential to keep one’s karma in check. She was free to go if she wished or she could sit back down the offer for her to give him a reading still available with the pushed out chair across from him. “You’ve never introduced yourself, stalker girl. What’s your name?” “Do not call me that.” Eliza kept her voice careful, level, with each word measured perhaps more than it should be. “It is not funny.” “Then you should give me your name, Water Thief.” He renamed her to reflect the cards they had pulled when they met. “Eliza.” She answered, turning just enough to look back at him but her fingers not leaving the handle. “Nice to meet you, Eliza.” He nodded his head toward the chair. “There’s an entire jar of pickles that will go to waste.” A moment. Then two. And a third. Then she finally let go of the door to take the seat across from him. “You’re an asshole.” she stated, without judgement, simply observing. “Yeah, I’ve been told that,” he replied with acceptance of the statement. Lochan may have been a psychic, but there were times where he lived too inward to see what might hurt others in the things he said. With the murder reflecting Cora’s saturating his thoughts, inward could be the only place he could explore. “So what are your cards at home?” Lochan sipped his drink. “They’re mine.” She gave as a not answer to that particular question. Instead she just took the jar of pickles, pulling another out. Lochan rolled his eyes. “Okay.” Lochan twisted the drink in his hand, in silence for a moment. “I don’t usually let people do readings on me. The California conventions are usually more about drinking and occult studies.” “So why let me.” she asked, taking a bite. Lochan shrugged. “It’s an apology. Take it or not.” “You could just apologize.” She pointed out. “I did. When you walked to the door. There is apologizing with words and there is clearing up one’s karma with action.” Lochan tapped his finger on the table to gesture she should bring out her cards before he changed his mind. Eliza watched him carefully, not going for her cards. Instead she leaned forward, templing her arms on the table and pillowing her chin atop steepled fingers. “Why push me away?” she asked instead. Lochan sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Why let you in?” He would have pointed out that it was not like she was very forthcoming about anything. She made no move that informed him of anything about her other than what the cards had said. “Do you honestly let strangers into your life by one interaction?” Or any interaction at all. Sure, he saw a lot of himself in the girl across the table. Not everyone was an extravert or overly friendly- Hell, that’s what he had Tony for- but asking that question of him when she likely would have done the same seemed pointless. “It depends on the stranger.” Eliza answered honestly. It was a strange thing to describe, an instinctive click in her mind. It didn't happen often, but when it did Eliza had found it rarely let her down. “I guess that’s the difference in lifestyles.” Lochan sighed, standing up from the table. “Do you want something to drink? Other than Pickle juice?” “Pickles are fine.” she shrugged, taking another bite. “Mostly just wanted to make sure you weren’t festering in a corner somewhere.” A scoff could be heard as he pulled open the refrigerator and pulled out a tupperware container and some dip. “No. Not yet, at least.” Stress could not easily be read on Lochan’s face when he always had a kind of resting-bitch-face but a tiredness could be heard in his voice. “There are two types of people in town. Those that think I’m full of shit and those that want me to solve their mysteries or problems or whatever. Currently, the latter is overflowing from the fans.” Lochan shook his head, taking his seat and opening the item to reveal stuffed triangles to snack on. “They don’t understand the nuances of -” he gestured around them. “Americans go all in. If I don’t want to speak to or about a recently deceased person, I don’t have to and that’s my choice.” “Sounds fun.” Eliza droned in dry sarcasm as she leaned back in the chair. Lochan's head lulled back, “why do you care if I was festering in a corner or not?” There was obviously still issues with his feelings about the out of town population. He spoke too much. “Because the police always suspect the one who finds the body so I thought might as well be me.” She shrugged. “You'd be the last suspect. You're the fourth person to visit.” “Darn.” Eliza popped the last piece of her pickle in her mouth. “Guess my work here is done.” Raising a brow, Lochan tilted his head to the side. If she did not want to take his offer, Lochan would not object. Her not leaving while insulted stood as the only matter he cared about. “Take the pickles with you. I’m not going to eat them.” The jar had been in his refrigerator for a while. Shrugging, she took the jar and headed towards the door. “Thanks for the pickles.” she gave as her parting words. |