Impatience

[touchedinthehead]

Aldaras doesn't bring up the knife with Annie again, nor his sister, or various ways she could be hurt. Annie has homework, so she doesn't stay at his apartment too long. He goes back to having nothing to do - there's some more pacing, some quiet freaking out over Annie and her safety, and then he distracts himself with obsessive preparation for taking care of the knife.

He'll - pack with the assumption that he can save his sister. There's lots of non-perishable food, packing as much as possible with the least amount of weight. Water, too, but that one's a bit harder. It's always heavy. Whatever, that's fine, he'll just - obsessively pack some more things. Pack, pack, pack.

Predictably, he runs out of things to do. Except think. Which has become something of a minefield, lately. To keep him from doing something stupid. He can't think about Zevaia, can't think about the knife, can't think about the Dean and how insanely long it's taking him to get the smallest tidbits of information out of him. He can't think too much about obsessive ways to make sure Annie's safe, for fear of becoming some kind of psychotic, controlling stalker or something.

But trying to not think about Annie is a recipe for failure or insanity, so he distracts himself with - what ifs. What would have happened if he'd met her without the necklace's and tracker's side effects combination, what he would have done if she'd asked him to kiss her...

That helps the time pass by faster.

Comments

[touchedinthehead]

"I'm glad."

[keep_busy]

"What's the phone number you're calling from? Will you hang around it for long enough that the department can reach you there if I go tell them what's going on?"

[touchedinthehead]

Aldaras searches for the phone number, finds it, and rattles it off. "I can hang around here so the department can reach me. Should I?"

[keep_busy]

"Only if they ought to be able to call you that way. I really don't know what's going to happen next, I just vaguely imagine some of it might look like calling you to give you directions through a cleared area to an unattended boat."

[touchedinthehead]

"Fair. All right, I'll hang around."

[keep_busy]

"Okay. Bye."

Annie hangs up.

About thirty minutes later, the department calls. The highway patrol is going to block off a route for Aldaras and other necklaced knife escorts to travel to the seaboard, fortunately not that long a walk, and there will be a motorboat left there for their use. They're to wrap the cemented knife heavily in plastic to prevent the cement from wearing down anytime soon, tie it shut, and then drop it forty miles off the coast and then turn around and come back to collect their rewards.

[touchedinthehead]

"Bye," murmurs Aldaras, softly.

He agrees with all of these arrangements, and then goes off to retrieve his sister. He finds out pretty quickly why she was busy - she hasn't fallen in love, but that's not stopping her from wanting to have sex. Somehow, in the span of however long he'd been talking to Annie, she managed to sate that urge. Aldaras doesn't want to know the details. At all.

They scrounge up a large amount of plastic to wrap the cemented knife in, and then head back to Sintre.

[alicornucopia]

Sintre's there, where they left him. He wraps up the knife in supplied plastic and off they go. They don't see anybody on the way. He offers to drive the boat.

[touchedinthehead]

Yup, that's fine by all other knife-handlers involved.

They go out to the agreed upon spot forty miles off of the coast, and then quite unceremoniously - the knife gets to go for a bit of a swim. Forever. No one is going to be particularly sad about it.

The department was kind enough to leave several buoys to mark the area to warn against any sorts of divers or people going underwater in any capacity in this area. The knife's range won't reach to the surface, but Aldaras suspects people are going to give it a wide berth anyway. Up the buoys go, arranged around where they dropped the knife with a very large berth, and then - they're done.

"Do you," asks Aldaras of Sintre, "want me to grab the reward for you and bring your half to you so you have less of a chance of experiencing the creepy love necklace's side effect?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah," says Sintre, dusting off his hands as he watches the knife sink in the murky ocean. "I have the place in the woods already, just didn't have a way to support the lifestyle without taking up eating questionable mushrooms and chopping my own firewood." He describes the location.

[touchedinthehead]

"Okay, I'll drop it off."

[alicornucopia]

That's all Sintre has to say for the duration of the trip back to shore.

[touchedinthehead]

Both Aldaras and Zevaia are similar. Harrowing experiences: it draws the silence out of people.

Aldaras is the designated reward collector, so he goes and does that. There are multiple people giving out rewards for taking care of the knife - Aldaras has to do a bit of legwork to collect them all. And then, he has a large sum of money. Even when halved, it is a very large number. Well it looks like Aldaras can make large-scale economic changes happen, after all. That's - really nice to know. As promised, however, Sintre gets his half dropped off without much ceremony, and then it's back to Drofnfjord.

[cut_and_dried]

"So," says Zevaia, flopping on the couch in their apartment when they get home, "you have zero excuse to skimp on a present for me next New Summer's Day. I expect something snazzy."

[touchedinthehead]

"That's what you want to talk about," snorts Aldaras. "Really?"

[cut_and_dried]

"Yup, really. Get me something awesome, embrace your creativity and shit. You have a fuck ton of money to burn, go burn it. On me."

[touchedinthehead]

Aldaras starts snickering. "I'd be broke within a year."

[cut_and_dried]

"But think of all of the cool stuff I'd have!"

[touchedinthehead]

"Of course. That is our priority."

Aldaras is reminded of his actual priority and looks - sort of longingly at the phone. He could call Annie. Annie could be over at his apartment. He missed her so much.

[cut_and_dried]

"Pretty much." Zevaia eyes him. "Hey, dork."

[touchedinthehead]

"Mm?" He looks up from his longing phone contemplation.

[cut_and_dried]

"The phone is not going to eat you, promise. Go call the - you never actually mentioned, is your creepy love necklace lover a man or a woman, or is it secretly a turnip that you happen to be in love with? Whatever, go call him, her, it, or them."

[touchedinthehead]

Aldaras snorts. "She is not a turnip. Also, not my lover." (He tries very hard not to look dejected about this fact. It only sort of works.) "Regardless. If you're not fine with me inviting her over, or if you want some time alone after - everything, I'll give it to you. Okay?"

[cut_and_dried]

"Yup, got it. Cool, thanks. Now stop eyefucking the phone and call her, if that keeps going on any longer I'll start selling tickets to a phone and brother peep show."

[touchedinthehead]

Aldaras is - not going to justify that with an answer.

But he does call Annie.