- VII -

* * * * *
         "Ah, Tristian, it's about time someone showed up!" Will exclaims to Tristian when he steps into the door. He seems relieved to see Tristian, though he could just be injecting false cheer into every word he says, for Tristian's sake. Not that he could blame Will, he's lucky that any of them even talk to him anymore.
         "How've you been doing?" he's asking Tristian and pressing his hand into Tristian's, shaking it in as friendly a gesture as he can manage. Tristian avoids looking directly into his face, fearing that he might see something real there, something that can't be hidden by voice or gestures or posture. It's all in the eyes, it always has been.
         "Pretty well, lately," Tristian finds himself answering to Will's retreating back. They're going up the stairs now, their footsteps dense echoes in the narrow stairwell. He hears the door slam behind him with a metallic clang, and Brown's footsteps right behind his, dueling echoes. Brown has said nothing so far, probably waiting for Tristian to introduce them. Oops. He always forgets things like that. He's remedy that in a second.
         Will reaches the top of the stairs, saying over his shoulder, "People generally come in a trickle right in the beginning and then everyone comes in one solid lump. Drives me nuts, but as long as everyone shows up, I guess it all works out the same." He opens the door, and the music washes over Tristian, like someone has just removed cork from his ears.
         He follows Will up and in, Brown still following behind. As they step in, Tristian says, "Will, this is Joe-"
         Will turns as Tristian is saying this and his eyes suddenly get very wide. "Oh. My. God," he says quite slowly and clearly, then steps forward to clasp Brown's hand. "Joseph Brown . . . what the hell are you . . . where the hell did you come from . . ." Will shakes his head, as if figuring Brown to be some figment of his imagination that might vanish any second if he says the wrong thing. "After high school you just . . . where the hell have you been?"
         Brown gives an easy grin, taking the proffered hand firmly. Tristian envies how easy he can be about the whole thing.
         "Oh, well," Brown begins, glancing with one eye at Tristian, "after school I joined a quasi-temporal paramilitary organization headed by a billion year old robot and in the years since, I've managed to rise up and become his second in command." He shrugs almost offhandedly. "In a nutshell, really."
         Will gapes at him and then laughs, clapping Brown on the shoulder. "Goddamn, man, you haven't changed a bit. You been talking to Tristian on the way here?" After he says that, he stops, as if he has said something very wrong and glances almost nervously at Tristian, as if the other man is going to cut him in half. "Sorry," he says quickly and quietly, as if ashamed.
         Brown stares at both of them and cuts through the situation. "Yeah well, I figured the hell if I'm going to let this bastard here outdo me, you know?" He turns to Tristian, "You may have traveled in space my friend, but what do you know about Time?"
         Tristian smiles back, feeling the tension decrease markedly. "You've got me there, Joe." He can only admire how casual Brown is about all of this, how can he can basically tell the truth and craft it to fit whatever thinks of him. Good ol' Joe, always making up stuff to make people laugh. He could never figure that talent out, it always lay just out of reach, he'd have to dislocate something to grasp it and even then it might not breach the extra quarter inch he needs. He doesn't know if even then he'd make it but he'll never try, either. A nebulous feeling inside of him that there just might not be any point to it. Total lack of concern. Perhaps.
         Will is just shaking his head slowly, out of astonishment, like waking from some weird dream where he had completely expected the world to have become totally awry. He's looking at Brown like he should be some sort of ghost. "I really don't believe it," he's saying, and probably the very act of repeating it makes it more true, more real for him. Words are like that. "We always wondered what had happened to you."
         "Yeah, probably not one of my smarter moves to just vanish like that . . ." Brown is telling Will as they all move in a group toward the bar. There's a couple people sitting at a table set up toward the corner of the room and they look up at Brown and wave a bit. Brown gives a cheery grin and keeps walking, keeps speaking. Tristian hangs back a bit, not wanting to interrupt this moment, secretly glad that nobody in the world is paying attention to him. It's a private closed in feeling, this feeling that he could just curl up inside a box and no one would miss him and no one would want to find him or look for him or anything. There's a deep swell of something rising up within him and it's making breathing a little hard and he can't figure out why it's affecting him this way.
         "But," Brown's saying, his voice coming to Tristian like a beacon in thick fog, "I really needed to have some time to myself, you know? I don't think I was really that much fun to be around after high school ended."
         "I know, I know," Will replies, pouring Brown a drink, filling a glass partway with the same thing for himself. "I mean, after your parents . . . died . . ."
         "That's right, I found myself Joe Brown, boy orphan right when I was trying to figure out what to do with myself." He raises the glass to the air, as if toasting someone, or something. Perhaps his parents, in whatever heaven they might reside. Tristian's not sure if he believes in something called heaven, even after all he's seen, all that he's been through, it's still too abstract a concept for him, too foreign. He always wanted to believe that heaven was what one made of it on earth, in this life, in the time you were given, but he's not even sure about that anymore. The world seems to be a counterforce, friction, working against you and the harder you push, the more you try to create that simple paradise, the harder the world pushes back. The more you want it, the better the chance it'll get taken away.
         Stopit, he thinks to himself. You're at a goddamn party. At least pretend to enjoy yourself, even if the one thing you want to do is just the hell out of here and sit somewhere by yourself and think meandering, meaningless thoughts and pride yourself on the fact that you think it all means something. That a thought can affect anything. Not your thoughts. Not anything you could do.
         ". . . so after a while I wound up joining the military and, you know, it really suits me . . ." Brown's still talking, he's already finished his first glass and in between pauses he's eyeballing the bottle again. Will gestures that he should pour himself more and Brown complies, saying as he pours, "Really, I figured I was the last person for that kind of life, but I've never felt more at home." His eyes get far away for a second. "I've seen so many things, stuff I never imagined I'd see."
         Will takes a sip of his drink, easing himself onto the stool, nodding. Tristian makes note of music going on in the background, and of the various rumblings and mumbling of conversations fluttering around and behind him, words randomly spit into the air, mixing and merging together until it's just different pitches of sounds, nothing coherent. There's a lesson for him in there somewhere. He's perfectly content to stand here, off to the side, listening to this conversation, lending his ear to others when one doesn't hold anything for him anymore, getting a feel for the room, getting himself invisible, until he could stand near a group of people and they wouldn't even notice he was there.
         "I know what you mean," Will's saying to Brown. At some points they feel so far away, like he doesn't even know them, it's just two strangers talking about things that mean nothing to him. For some reason it scares him just a little bit.
         "A year or so ago, I went to China," Will continues, "you know, just for a trip and eventually we made it to the Great Wall and you just stand there and . . ." his eyes are wide, calling forth memories, the wall stretching on forever in his mind, "and it was a beautiful day and it felt like you could see around the planet and there was just this . . . wall and it's going as far as you can see in both directions." He leans forward onto the bar, laughs a little, perhaps thinking that he's having a silly reaction. "And you sit there and think, God, someone built this, and I mean, you remember it from textbooks and crap but . . ." small laugh again, "there you are. And there it is. You can't make yourself believe that people actually went and built this thing. It's real and you just don't know what to say."
         "Amen to that," Brown responds, raising his glass a little in that toasting gesture. "The things I've seen . . ." he shakes his head, shrugging finally at the end, a futile gesture that he's not ashamed of. "There just aren't words."
         Tristian knows that he's talking about things that Will can't even comprehend, things that a million writers trying to think of the most amazing and outlandish ideas for a year couldn't even come close to matching. He knows, he's seen many of the same things, he's walked on alien planets, fought for his life cast under harsh foreign light, made decisions that people couldn't even imagine being given the choice. All out there. And yet he's here, standing at this party and feeling sorry for himself for no good reason. He thought that this was the night he tried to change, just a little, just for one night, just try to do something different. A drink perhaps might do him some good, loosen him up a bit and he'll start to enjoy himself. Talk more, socialize, like Brown's doing. Without any trouble at all, he is.
         The buzzer sounds again and Tristian hears Will excuse himself to head for the door, muttering something about how the host shouldn't have to answer his own door at his own party. Tristian would offer to volunteer but the words just aren't there for him. Moving sometimes just isn't an option.
         After Will leaves though he shifts over to Brown, who is eyeing the rack of liquors decorating the counter, probably deciding what order he's going to try them in. One of the lesser known perks of a regenerative metabolism, Tristian figures somewhat wryly. All you can drink.
         Brown tips back his own drink and starts picking drinks to mix together. He glances over at Tristian, "Want anything?"
         "In a minute . . . give me a second to decide," Tristian tells him.
         Brown's face lights up. "Well, well, well, about damn time, if you ask me." His grin becomes broad, like a friendly shark. "Of course now that you've said that I'm not letting you leave this area without a drink in your hand, right?"
         "Hey, I'm driving tonight, remember?" Tristian points out, already expecting the counterarguments.
         "Don't give me that," Brown interjects almost before Tristian has even finished his sentence. "Not only am I pretty sure I'll be in decent shape to drive, but worst comes to worst, I'll just call for a teleport to get us out of here and take your car with me while we're at it."
         "You've got all the exits mapped out, don't you?" Tristian responds mock archly, raising an eyebrow.
         "Before we even got here my friend," Brown replies without even looking up, neatly pouring his own drink like something out of a movie on bartending. "Now what the hell do you want from here?"
         Tristian takes a moment to decide and realizes that all the bottles look the same to him and chances are they'll probably all taste the same when you come down to it. All the same to him. "Just give me whatever you're having," he says quickly, before he has a chance to change his mind. Why the hell does he feel like he's doing something utterly daring, has he gotten that bad, are even normal things bizarre and exciting to him these days. He's not sure what the reason is, not even sure that if the reason presented itself directly in front of him he'd even know what he was looking at.
         Almost immediately Brown slips him a glass already filled. "Figured that you'd ask for that," Brown tells him with a grin.
         "That predictable, eh?" Tristian asks, hefting the glass in his hands. Seven different ways to use it for a weapon, with or without the liquid suddenly leap unbidden to his mind and he almost drops the glass in surprise. He finds himself staring at it like it has just come to life. Where the hell did that come from?
         "Geez, Tristian, you're not supposed to have that look on your face until after you down the drink," Brown states, giving Tristian a strange look.
         Tristian blinks, feeling a bit confused. "Um, I-"
         "Joseph Brown!" a voice calls out and Tristian spins to find that the door has swung open and about ten people are pouring in, filling every available space. Several of them have immediately seen Brown and are heading toward him, both guys and girls. Brown looks up, a bit surprised and then grins and moves to greet people that he probably hasn't seen in years.
         You said they might not remember you, Joe. That's pretty funny. Tristian detaches himself from the crowd and slips away, leaving Brown alone by the bar covered by a mass of people, all talking at once, all asking him questions. Tristian wonders if he'll repeat his quasi-temporal comment. He had liked that, it was fairly funny. Not for the first time, he wishes he could come up with off the cuff witticisms like that, just once.
         Slipping away takes him to the other side of the room, by the stairs. There's a cool wet sensation in his hand and he looks down to see the glass there, as if it had just appeared there from the brink of nowhere. He has to admit that he actually forgot about it, though the memory of other potential uses for it lingers in his mind, taunting him, prodding at him like something alive. Goddamn conditioning. It occurs to him that he hasn't taken even a sip of the drink yet, it's just sitting there in the glass, slowly evaporating into the gently heating air. He stares at it, seeing his wavery distorted reflection rendered beyond recognition on the top of the liquid. Someone else's face, belonging to another person. A person with social skills, who knows what to do here. Just spinning his wheels, thinking that kicking himself mentally in the butt will get that same butt moving. Do something. Take the goddamn drink at least.
         But he's afraid, and he's not sure why. There's no reason in the world not to drink it and yet he won't. The arm muscles just won't work. It'll loosen him up, relax him. One drink won't hurt. And yet. And yet. He prides himself on his self control, on his ability to remain calm and rational no matter what the circumstance and maybe that's just illusion coupled with the smoke and mirrors in his head but he does believe it's one of his few good traits. And for the life of him he can't do a damn thing that would strip away even an iota of that control. That person wouldn't be Tristian, it'd be someone else. And maybe that's what he should do, but he can't. He won't. The drink might as well be boiling lava to him. Dammit.
         "Excuse me."
         There's someone standing near him on the landing of the stairs, apparently wanting to get through and past. Tristian of course is in the way. Tristian glances over at the man, mutters something vaguely apologetic and slides over a step to let the man through. The other man starts to move past him but then takes a look at him, seems to be looking him up and down without even moving his head. And then he just stops. Stops and stares at Tristian.
         "Hello there," he says, as if Tristian has just appeared out of midair right in front of him. Cocking his head slightly to the side, he adds, "I don't think I've ever seen you before."
         Which is perhaps the strangest greeting Tristian has ever received. Will does have parties here often enough that there are probably a good number of regulars, so chances are that this guy is one of them and is just surprised to see a new face. Or maybe not. Tristian's not really sure, but he finds himself taking a step back, feeling the wall rubbing up against his back, feeling an air conditioner breathing by his legs, blowing cooled air past him. Bring the chill of winter into your home. No extra charge.
         "Probably not," Tristian replies gamely, at the very least determined not to hide from conversation the entire night. He can at least promise himself that much. "I don't find myself making it to many of these." As if apologizing again, he gives an awkward shrug. "Not really a party person I guess."
         Something about that statement seems to catch the other man's attention. His eyebrows raise slightly but he says nothing else. He stands there for a while, slipping his hands into his pockets. For some reason Tristian gets the impression that he's standing there observing the party, not really cataloging but filing information away. His eyes run up and down the room, finally stopping at the bar, where a shout is going up as Brown leads a toast, apparently to himself. Whimsically, Tristian wonders if anyone will challenge Brown to a drinking contest. That would probably be fun to watch.
         "That guy over there . . ." the man says to Tristian, "everyone seems to know him pretty well."
         "Yeah, he went to high school with most of them," Tristian replies, not sure where this is leading. "He's . . . been out of circulation lately, I think most people thought he had either vanished or was dead." Tristian's got a need to talk tonight, a need to tell people things, as if he's leaving pieces of himself behind so that people might remember him. In case. In case of what? He can't say. "I went to the same school as the rest of them, but me and Joe never really were friends. Ran with different crowds I guess, but . . . we ran into each other about a year or so ago and turns out that we have a lot more in common than we thought." He can't speak plainly though, he has to color everything with modes and methods. There are layers and lines of meaning woven into his speech. If you know enough you can unravel it and figure out the truth, if you have the time and the patience and the inclination. This man appears to have none of those.
         "Hm . . . name's Joe, you say?" The man appears to be considering something. Tristian is starting to realize just how wedged into the corner, he is. He's starting to feel closed in, where the walls are pressing and the heat is cloying and thick and the bodies are whichever way he's trying to get to. And it's so early yet, there's hardly anyone here. How much worse can it get?
         "Yeah . . ." Tristian nearly gasps out. He still has his jacket on and that shouldn't be that way. Take it off and throw it upstairs, join the club, stay a while. Why can't he do that? Why can't he let himself be part of this group, even for just one night.
         "Hm," the man says again, musing, thinking. Suddenly he turns to Tristian and holds his hand out. "Oh, my name's Carl, by the way. Sorry about that, didn't mean to be rude."
         "What . . . oh . . ." Tristian takes a second to catch on, then returns the handshake, having to switch hands with his glass to do so. The man's hand is slightly sweaty, a little clammy, an interesting combination. "Tristian," he tells him, by way of returning the favor. Names have this tendency to mean something.
         "Tristian," Carl says, as if running the name over his tongue to gauge the taste. Tristian has always imagined it to be a rather bitter name, fraught with strains of hopeful sweetness. Bursting at the seams some days with the need and desire to feel something, anything. Just something different. "And you say that you don't normally come to these things?"
         "Yeah, Will had to really twist my arm to get me to come here," Tristian replies in what he thinks is friendly casual conversation. The statement only makes Carl's eyebrows go up again and a searching expression crosses over his face, a cloud passing over a field of stars.
         But finally he just blinks and says, "See you around then," before turning to head away, probably to the bar. Tristian can't say he's all that sorry to see the man go, but still seemed decent enough. These days, Tristian really can't be a judge of how ultimately strange a person is. He's seen too much, he's gone so far beyond that he's inside, he can see all the motives, realize all the rationales. It's not a place he really wants to be.
         As Carl heads for the bar, as he's weaving his way through a room that seems to get more thickly crowded by the second, a head pops up and turns in their direction. Upon seeing Tristian, the face lets out with a broad grin and shouts over to him.
         "Tristian! Wondered where the hell you were!" the man says, nearly shoving his way out of the crowd to get to him. "How the hell you been doing, still hanging around with aliens?"
         The question, thrown out casually and loosely, barely even heard over the numbing roar of music and chatting, still seems to catch Carl's ear. It must, because the man turns sharply, violently and stares directly at Tristian. The eyes seem to be boring into him, as if trying to beyond an illusion, see something that he thinks should be there but isn't. Tristian's immediate instinct is to look away, to act meek and unassuming. But right now, he doesn't really feel like it. This is only a person, a regular human being and Tristian has faced down beings of unimaginable evil, stared into the eyes of terror and death and never flinched. Drawing himself up slightly, he returns the stare evenly, until Carl at least turns away, his face expressionless, and finishes whatever journey he starts.
         Tristian begins to revise his opinion of Carl. Part of him feels just a little sick over that for some reason, a edginess in his stomach that he can't get rid of. Hasn't even had the goddamn drink yet.
         The square jawed, cheerful gentleman is still coming toward though, talking happily and loudly. "Geez, Tristian I thought you were really going to make yourself a stranger. How've you been, really?"
         "Oh, I'm good . . . thanks . . ." Tristian remembers that this man's name is Brad, not someone he normally hangs around with, but friendly enough. He wasn't at the restaurant the night it all happened, but he's probably heard about it a million times since, from various sources. And what he's heard absolutely fascinates him. So much that he wants to hear as much about it as he can.
         "You look pretty good," Brad tells him, an honest enough appraisal. In a quieter voice, he leans over and asks Tristian, "What you been up to lately? Still saving the universe and stuff?"
         "Ah, well . . . no . . . no, not really . . ." Tristian is taken aback by the question even so much as he was expecting. Brad means well, and he's curious but he thinks that Tristian can provide all the answers to his questions even when Tristian finds that all this time he's been asking the wrong questions, that all the answers he even wanted could be bundled up and set afire for all the good it ever did him. The smoke from their ashes just raises more questions, things he doesn't want to know, things he never wants to even think he knows. These questions are making him wince from scratching at the surface of his honesty, revealing more about himself than he really ever wants to know.
         He has to get out of here. The nameless feeling is surging within him again, seething within him as he's standing there talking to Brad in what feels like the longest, most lonely tunnel ever. The party is an echo in a cavern, a cacophony with no source and no end. It's all happening to someone else and he just happens to be along for the ride. He wants air, he needs to breath something other than this alcohol soaked, heat sink of oxygen.
         "Excuse me, I'm . . . I'll be outside for a few minutes . . ." he mutters and stumbles in his speech, stepping past Brad with a sudden grace that makes him remember just what he can do. What he's capable of. Being among these people, being assailed by these nameless feelings, he forgets that. Part of him wants to forget such things forever. He can't blame that part of him.
         "Oh, hey, I was just going for a cigarette, I'll go with you," Brad says in what he probably feels is a helpful manner. It's of course the last thing Tristian wants but once committed there really isn't anything he can but continue on this rather straight course.
         Giving no sign that he ever heard, he dodges his way through people, launching himself out the door and back into the hallway. How the hell long have they been here? A half hour? Forty five minutes? Already he's searching for the false peace of solitude, it's rather pathetic when he thinks about it, to break away from the solace a group can give you to strike out on your own alone. Story of his life, unfortunately. The message that sums up every single goddamn chapter.
         He doesn't know if Brad is following him, he really hopes not because then the man will probably corner him outside and question him incessantly about things he doesn't really want to talk about. What is it like? Where have you been? What have you done? Fortunately no one ever asks the one question that he can't even ask himself, that he can't even face.
         Have you ever killed anyone?
         Goddamn. Yes. And I hated it. But not as much as I thought I would.
         The door is finally closing shut behind him, cutting off all sound but his rapid, sure footsteps on the stairs, lonely clangs.
         ". . . don't feel like Satan, but I am the Lamb, so I try to forget it any way I can-"
         and then the music is cut off.
         He's reached the door now, his escape to the outside. At some vaguely rational portion of his mind, he recalls at some point setting his drink down but for the life of him he can't remember when or how. Little things like that cease to bother him anymore. He wishes they would bother him very much. Without even glancing ahead, he just grabs the handle and throws the door open
         nearly running into a short slim girl who has been reaching for the handle herself
         who jumps back and obviously suppresses a shout at his sudden appearance, even as he takes a step back himself, the world blurring and refocusing into something that once again briefly makes sense
         and she then stops and checks herself and realizes who she's standing in front of, her eyes wide, her stance taut, unguarded, caught unaware in the flux of events
         while, a distance down, he sees three others coming up the stairs, oblivious to the silent drama unfolding and then curling back in on itself.
         "Hey," the girl says to him, her voice cautiously neutral, the tone blandly friendly, cheerfully ignorant.
         "Hi," he says
         and something jumps in his chest.