Dispensaries.
They leave particular tastes in the mouth when you walk through them. Maybe it's the security measures, the multi-lock doors, tight confines of the interior shy amount of shelving space (all behind the counter) and very obvious cameras tucked into not so obvious corners high overhead. Or maybe it's the legalization boundary that is being drawn, re-drawn and tested in these modern days as people argue and fight for the right to reduce their interaction with the hatreds and harms of the world.
Sometimes you need a little toke, to get you through the day, yes?
Perhaps Margot knows that better than most.
White, dusty tile, walls stacked with multiple species and 'types' for purchase, the ubiquitous workers with their stand offish faces and calm offerings of assistance. Colorado's legalized pot options, have created a conflicted society, with conservative bodies hard lining their denial and liberal types, celebrating where they can. It makes the dynamic in places such as these, a bit electric and heavy at times. Other times...it almost feels like a party.
How many teenagers come swaggering in on a regular basis looking to score a gram, laughing how they're suddenly allowed to stick it to the man and giving the workers here a reason to facepalm and through grit teeth, try to explain the subtleties and laws to these would-be-anarchists?
How many single moms come in, nervous and terrified they're going to be found out as a "Pot-head", when they go back to there two and three children homes, carrying a pocket of 'relief' for the screaming, shrieking, crying maelstrom that is their lives?
How many young men in hospital scrubs, fresh with stains too dark to food, a few rips here or there from over eager patients looking to deny the pain ("Orderly! Get over here and help me hold him down!"), come through the door, with a perscription on a pad, half crumpled from a firm grip and eye-balling the for sale options on the walls?
That last one, probably not often but then, probably not rare either. Paramedics, Cops and Doctors must have been among the silent minority eager to get a handle on their stress levels.
His hair is short, trimmed to tamable. He's slight, barely 5.9, if that. His shoes are converse, black laces over grey and his skin is the pale sort of suggstion that says sunlight is optional. His lips are pursed, questioning, eyes narrowed on the walls offerings, seemingly ignorant to the cameras tucked into the corners. He is humming a question, without it having words, a slow walk made on softly squeaking heels, a hand full of crumpled paper that said this was legit.
Margot
It wasn't exactly Margot's master plan in life to sell pot to pay rent while she went to college. She imagined what may take place on campus-- the classes, the sports games, the social functions both school-sponsored and within frat houses. She didn't account for where to live or how to pay for what her scholarship wouldn't cover. Always kind of figured she'd stay in a dorm and live at home on the weekends.
That wasn't exactly an option any longer, though.
Neither was sharing space in a dorm room. She was too easily jostled after what happened. Didn't like the comings and goings, didn't like the idea of roommates she didn't choose bringing in strangers to fuck and then falling asleep so that said strangers could have run of the room in the night. No, she needed her own place. A studio apartment wouldn't be too costly.
But she'd need a job.
And that's how Margot found herself standing behind a glass display counter, being approached by a pale man in medical work scrubs that suggested he was near the end of his shift. He was slight, but she was considerably moreso-- barely breaching five feet even in height. The display counter came up to her ribs while it was level with the waists or hips of her coworkers. She dressed in a pair of dark jeans and wore a comfortable and properly-fitting black T-shirt that had the dispensary logo on the left chest. Her hair was plain brown and about shoulder-length, wavy and side-parted with pins keeping it from her face. Her eyes were large and hazel-colored, her brow heavy and distinct.
She looked at the fellow while sticking her hand out to accept the paper, smiled politely like she was trained to do for customers and greeted him. "Good evening. How are you tonight?"
[Precursory Perception 3 + Awareness 1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )
Ned
"....Mmmm, three cardiac arrests and a homeless bit of violent dementia, says it was a light night." He smiled. Tried too.
(Perceptions: Nervous, or something similar to it. Nothing of the fear that might suggest this is his first time, but a nebulous sort of agitation to the way he looked around. As if the choices available might be a bit too staggering. As if the opinions about his entering here, might hang on him a bit too much...)
"...You wouldn't know it though to look at the laundry." He plucks at his scrubs briefly and gently, avoiding her gaze with all but the briefest of eye-snagged glances. His gaze happens on a kush or two, glances through the cabinet spaces at the pieces of mandatory paraphenalia (grinders, papers and pipes). The piece of paper remains in his hand throughout this, despite her offer to take it. He hums again, a slight thing without rhythm or cadence. An errant noise of distraction.
(Perceptions: Calculating. Like he could get something wrong here. As if there was one answer amid a sea of wrong ones. Nerves and agitation and...a hint of excitement? Or eagerness)
"I just need a few grams....pink Kush if you have it." He finally sets the crumpled paper on the table. A red and yellowed stain touches the corner. A bit of blood, easily avoided. The name on the paper is a simple one. DR. MARESKI. with a prescription for just what he's asked for. His fingers remain on the counter, drumming slightly in dull thumps to accompany his humming.
"...Not pink at all, mind you." He murmurs, half under his breath, eyes narrowing on a silver grinder tucked into the cabinet's left most side.
Ned
(Resonance: Suffocating. Like a gasp for breath that is never full, constantly playing catch-up with the rest of the world. A lung short, not quite the full range of limb movement, a sense of being penned in. It buffets and budgeons, closes with formidable urgency. Demands, commands and stifles.)
Margot
There was a sense of something... different from the moment that he'd walked in. Margot was perhaps more raw to the hums and vibrations of other Awakened after her recent incident up on campus, where she met Makayla. Maybe that's why she picked up on this straight away. It wasn't until he was up to the counter and there was the brief moment of greeting where she was looking into his face that it hit her.
For a second she felt like the wind had been... not knocked out of her, but sucked from her lungs. Like having a strong gust of wind suddenly hit you in the face and steal your very breath away. Those dark eyebrows hopped up in surprise on her face, and he'd find that she was staring at him while he spoke of the patients of the night. That could just be her waiting impatiently for the prescription, though.
When the paper was set down onto the counter Margot blinked and plucked it up, avoiding the bloodstain, and uttered a quiet little "one minute," before turning away hastily and bustling to fill the order. Even turned away, when the initial sense of suffocation had passed, she still felt a little bit breathless. Like maybe there was fluid in her lungs, or someone was squeezing them just so.
She seemed on edge all at once, like she was waiting for something loud like a balloon to pop or an alarm to trigger. Was stiff at the shoulders and distracted-- had to weigh out a few times to make sure she had it right. Once the product was packaged up and ready she reappeared where she'd left him at the counter, but didn't exactly hold the order out for him to take. Just looked at him like she was on the edge of saying something but couldn't quite get the words-- or was too unsure of what would happen if she did say something to begin.
Ned
"You're staring."
It isn't rude or abrupt or sarcastic, but suggestive. Like they were caught up in some little meet-cute, and time was stretching well past the demarcation point of 'cute' and on into 'awkward'. So he said something to keep that from happening. Quirked a slight smile that was part 'Hi there' and part 'Can I have my weed now please?'.
His hand rested on the counter, palm up, fingers dull and spread for acceptance. The circles under his eyes were not the heaviest but they said a few things, mostly about his job. Maybe about his lifestyle. He kept glance-snagging her eyes, lifting off after a brief catch to scan the store and examine the landscape of it's furnishings and other customers before coming back to bounce off her again. Not exactly impatient but the nervous quality of before was definitely beginning to grow.
(Suffocating a pinch in the air, cutting off the intake, until you were sucking on a straw that was partially clogged. Quenching a thirst at half-satisfaction).
Margot
When called out on staring, Margot's cheeks turned a bright shade of pink and she dropped her eyes purposefully. Cleared her throat as though that would make the sensation of breathing feel less muffled and strained.
"Sorry, I just...."
What? Wanted to know if he was a witch too? Come on, Margot, pull yourself together you're going to lose your job if you start bothering the customers like that.
"Here." She didn't hand the order over to him directly just yet, but instead set it on the counter nearer to her while she entered information from the piece of paper into her computer system. Accounting for inventory, billing the doctor's office, what have you. Again the silence stretched. Stretched into awkward even if Ned did try to keep it from doing so, until abruptly Margot pulled in a deep breath and set both hands on the counter and lifted her head, eyes closed, a look of some kind of resolve on her face.
"Hey, can I... uh... talk to you?"
The execution wasn't nearly what she had pictured in her head, but it was better than gaping silently until he was gone.
Ned
The execution might well also have to do with some...glaring oddities in the computering of his prescrption:
The patient name on the prescription was a Jennifer Asdale. It also showed an expiry date from three weeks ago.
Ned leaned over counter though as she was typing up the information to snag the piece, clutching it in his hand with something like firmness, mixed with that same agitation. He continued to glance off in random directions, though the Suffocating sensation ebbed a touch when he took a half-step back from the counter, surveying the store again for what must have been the third or fourth time. The humming had grown low and subtle and stopped only when Margot turned, hands on the counter, to stare again and ask him in that awkward stuttering tone.
"....talk to you?"
"About?" He offered in return, that same small smile creeping up onto his features. The baggy he'd received crumpled in a suddenly tightened grip.
Margot
The expiration on the prescription didn't go unnoticed. She was distracted, but she was sharp-minded all the same. She'd only been doing this a couple of months but she worked at a pot store for christ's sakes-- she knew the warning signs for people trying to buy when they weren't supposed to. The fact that he'd snatched the order up off the counter and now held it tightly were all key signs of suspect.
There were cameras at the doors and on the registers, but they didn't record audio at least. They would only know that Margot put her hands on the counter to lean forward over it. Her eyes were like bright lanterns, her expression nervous and serious both, and when she answered her tones were hushed so whoever was currently working in the back couldn't possibly overhear.
"What happened to you that makes me feel like I can't breathe with you here."
Ned
...It is not the question he was anticipating.
Which suggests he was aware and expectant that Margot might call him out on the expiration and patient name.
Which makes his sudden deadpan reaction all the more absolute. She leans across the counter and he is about to rear back at the possible implication here, when she says something completely different and he...blanks for a moment. Stares at her fully now, without glancing in any particular direction at all. Meets her gaze and tries his best to...what? Shrink into something smaller? Back peddle in obvious alarm? Fumble for an excuse?
None of the above he just. Stares. Comprehending if his face is any clue, but stares nonetheless.
"Car...accident. Or so they tell me...." He touches the side of his head, hair pushed aside to reveal the thin line of a scar crossing beneath the longer follicles. He's still staring, the pot forgotten in his static hand.
"...Why....How-" he clears his throat. Difficult to breathe now. "...That's not right." He's frowning now. Frowning and-...staring.
(Perception 3 + Awareness 1)
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Margot
He didn't notice it before, but now that he really stopped and looked at this otherwise unassuming looking young woman, there was something else there. She had a very intense look about her, the prominent eyes and brows saw to that. Her tone was pale, but not unhealthy as much as the consequence of the season, as she looked healthy enough. There was a small silver hoop for a piercing in one nostril, and if he really paid attention he'd notice the shadow of a bruise around her throat, hidden under make-up that was starting to fade away as her day had worn on.
But more than that, more than what he could see, was what he could sense. The air felt tacky and tense and over-sweet like something was rotting. He could almost taste copper mist in his sinuses and on his tongue. The room felt unsettling and unsafe, like the scene of some grisly crime, or a promise of things to come.
It intensified around the girl working the counter. She was the center of it. It bloomed from around her. Much like when he'd stepped back, it lessened some when she straightened up from leaning on the counter. She scoped out the scar when he pushed his hair back to show it, and pressed her lips into a thin grim line afterward. She knew the speechlessness he was feeling, wasn't she just there herself a couple of minutes ago? Matter of fact, she felt a little bad, and that showed in a small grimace on her face.
"I don't know. Not really. But, uh... look." She was glancing around, anxious about being overheard (as though anybody cared what they were talking about). "I've got a break coming up. Can you wait?"
Ned
"Depends-" He offered, lips tightened up and eyes regarding her fully now. He didn't say anything further, but tapped the baggy in his hand suggestively. Knowingly.
You gonna say anything?
Margot
The silent question was answered with an incredulous look. One eyebrow rose above the other on her forehead. "Really?" She asked him, then tapped another few keys on the computer in a way that seemed final.
"There's bigger fish to fry than that."
Then, to follow up, a gesture of her head to the side.
"The smoking bench around back, in about 10 minutes?"
Ned
10 minutes later.
* * * *
He's sitting on the bench, wrapped up snugly in a thick sweater. He'd been carrying it tucked down the back of his scrub pants, a loose article that served to warm him up now; navy bue, logoless and simple. He squinted in the tight winds that swept around the dispensary, eyeballing the couple of others who had once been on hte bench when he arrived. Who had moved away to smoke their 'joint' when his presence had prompted a few more coughing fits and uneasiness than they had seemed wiling to cope with. 'Fucking with their high' was the phrasing used.
He blew on his hands, left exposed in the air, a slim pipe, nothing fancy, dancing on his fingers, the bowl packed with a small nub of his freshly pilfered substance. He produced a lighter, one hand hovering and holding the miniscule bowl of the piece, awkwardly, while the lighter flicked to life over it several times.
Margot
True to her word, Margot came walking around the side of the squat brick building to where she promised the smoking bench to be. She was wrapped up from the cold in a brown tweed coat, with a scarf around her neck and hat left somewhere inside because she didn't want to waste time hunting for it.
The bench was up against the building's wall, some ten feet away from the trash and recycling dumpsters. Across the tar drive that led to parking in the rear was a stretch of grass lawn beyond the curb. It was nice but small, quickly interrupted by chainlink where a credit union stood beside.
She didn't sit beside him on the bench, but stood in front of it facing him instead. Her hands were in her pockets and she hasn't shaken that look of uncertainty. Clearly she had no idea what she was doing here.
She was quiet at first, then said. "I'm different from other people, like you are. I think. I've only met one other person who..." Unsure of how to describe the smothering feeling of being around him, she instead concluded: "that's different too."
Ned
"Different seems about as logical and helpful as "Weird" at this juncture..." He chuckles, smoke climbing out of his mouth with the sound. He squints, resisting a cough in the process, before, wiping at his mouth with the back of a sleeve. Without much pretext, he lifts the pipe up in one hand, offering the still smouldering bowl toward her for a toke of her own.
"The doctors told me I was in an accident. Pretty bad. Same time, they told me it could have been a lot worse and I probably should have come out a lot worse too and why I didn't, was one of those miracles folks are always talking about." He tucks his hands into his pockets again, legs clinched together rather tightly, eyes watching the small gang of smokers on the other side of the lot, with squinting scrutiny.
"I came too and everything looked different. Weird. Same difference. I thought I was insane. Or going insane. I actually sat down at home one time and said 'this is what it feels like, Ned. Going insane. It really isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be"..." He's shaking his head, smiling again. Oddly accepting.
"So what do you see? What do you feel when you're alone?"
Margot
When the bowl was turned toward her, Margot looked grateful. She shouldn't, she had to get back to work, but they were going to be closing before too long and she's never fucked off on the job before. One night performing a lackadaisical close couldn't ruin everything. She accepted the gesture and the pipe, and took a hit for herself.
The smoke was blown out into the air and she coughed twice before handing it back. She'd turn down any further offers (if any came) with a small wave of her hand and not much more. Stood and listened while he told the story of the car accident that he was told was a miracle he survived. How things looked different.
While he was chuckling at the thought of insanity not being so bad, Margot finally settled down enough to sit next to him on the bench. Kept her hands in her pockets and her elbows tucked near her sides.
"Nothing... Not really." She seemed like she was going to let it end there, but just before the pause could lapse into finality she continued. "It's when I dream, though. I'm supposed to be doing... something, and I feel like I'm being a big disappointment by not figuring it out or doing it yet." When she looked to him next she offered a small smile. "Ned, huh? I'm Margot."
Ned
"Hello Margot." He says it without meeting her smile, continuing to squint off into the distance. He isn't shivering in the cold, the sweater seems to be doing it's job but he is curled up pretty tightly where he sits, leaning forward to keep the worst of the winds out of his core. He seems all the paler out here, jaw clenched around some hidden tension. Or maybe just to keep his teeth from chattering.
"So you have fucked up dreams and that let's you see the weirdness I've been getting from people for ages. The same weirdness that...hovers around me whenever I'm solving..." He trails off, head ducking, eyeballing his converse, toes nudging at a piece of concrete loosened from its crack.
"Well it's nice to know there's someone else out there, three sheets in with no clue how to get down." His head comes back up. He isn't smiling. It's almost like this whole situation might well have been something...he was looking forward to? Or anticipating? Or...clarifying? Instead, it's a girl and a boy on a bench, talking about the things in their lives they both can't explain to anyone else. He tucks his lips between his teeth, biting down gently.
"Dreams are telling you to do something and you don't know what-" Another laugh at that. "Sounds Jungian...or Freudian. I could never keep track of those two." He finally turns to glance at her. The Pot bowl had vanished back into his pocket, the contents emptied onto the bench, Margot's haul one of the last in the bit worth taking. "...Best advice I've got though is next time, ask what it is they want you to do. If this is weirdness and you and I are choking and someone's around to ask, do it. Maybe the dream'll have an answer...or it'll turn into a Clown...or some weird kid riding a tricyle. Or some other dream sequence. I dunno..."
He looks like he's about to gather himself up to stand and head out.
"Different and Weird. Doesn't work out to many answers. Figured you might actually get this better than I do. Sounds like maybe we're just running the same race on different schedules."
Margot
The smile wasn't returned. The fellow with the naturally messy hair tapped his bowl out and spoke thoughtfully, at length about what he'd perceived and what he thought about the fact that she didn't see things differently, but that she was having dreams. He was curled around his own chest and stomach and was keeping warm enough from this. Margot tugged her scarf up over the back of her neck a little more, then drew her legs up so that her heels were on the edge of the bench and her knees were up under her chin. Arms wrapped about her legs and her head rested upon them chin-first.
"I should." Ask the force in her dreams, she meant. She was scared to say anything to the bloodied entity that appeared to her, afraid of what punishment could come for stepping out of line and questioning the demands that were being made. Maybe she'd ask the Hare instead. That seemed less risky.
"I get that I can... tap into the world like I couldn't before. You said that you see things? Sometimes I see, but mostly I just..." She paused, moved a hand to tap a finger against her chest where it barely peeked above her knees. "feel it, and know it."
She licked her lips thoughtfully, then went out on a limb.
"It doesn't just happen, though. I have to... make it happen. Convince it to. Give a little to take a little. I think it's magic."
Ned
"....Magic's just a word we use to describe something we don't know more about yet." It sounded like a reprimand. A dismissal. Reasoning to call her out on an excuse. Instead, he lifts his head and turns toward her, smile on his face. "I'll take it for now."
He pulls up to his feet, shaking forcefully as if he could dispel the shivers running through his system.
"I'd like to keep in touch if you're open to the possibility. Hear more about your dreams and this...convincing you go about doing. Might help me sort out some stuff of mine. I'd also like to hear about this 'other' you know or have met. If there's more of them that feel and know like you or me-...like we do. Then I'd rather know more than less."
Margot
"I mean, I can't go giving out her phone number or anything but..."
He got up, and Margot did too. He wanted to stay in touch, and she was glad he said something because she had never asked for a boy's phone number in her life let alone a man in a city she'd transplanted to six months ago who apparently suffered major head trauma of some kind and made her breathless but not in the way that romance stories wrote about.
She'd wait for him to get his own phone out and give him her number so he could plug it in directly. Or she'd take his number and send him a text to provide hers as well. There's any number of ways the information could be shared, but ultimately they'd end up with ways to contact one another.
"I'll call my friend too. See if maybe we can all hang out or something." After being informed that magic was a word to make up for ignorance she felt a bit self-aware, and scuffed her sneaker toe against a stalward weed stalk that was growing up through a crack in the pavement.
But she had to get back to work, and he had to continue on his way, doing whatever was next on his agenda now that he got away with filling an illegal prescription. That was two people in the span of a week that she'd met that disrupted the grain and flow of everything else now. At least this time around he didn't get caught in some strange haunted parallel dimension trap as she did when she met eyes with Makayla across a room.
The delay in strange wasn't reassuring though. It just gave her plenty to think about, and a hundred 'what if' situations to consider between cashing out her register and finally getting into bed that night.
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