Number of fucks given in this post: 5
Jack and Levi had arranged to meet at Jack’s pool hall to give her familiar surroundings. As you might expect, the “Trick Shot Pool Hall” is a bit on the worn and seedy side but the pool tables are well maintained and the drinks are cheap.
Jack is sitting nervously at the bar as Tius walks through the door. He has come dressed down in jeans, and a long sleeved t-shirt. Jack scans him with her Auspex and can see the signs of his various accoutrements underneath his clothes.
There are a few customers playing pool and focused on their games and there is nobody else here from her clan or the court.
Levi Tius: Nice place you have here.
Jack smiles nervously, “Yeah, it’s all right. Just somewhere a bit casual to meet people. There is the function room at the back.
Tius gives a warm smile back, “I was gonna ask if you come here often but I think that sets a very different tone.”
Jack laughs a little, saying “Yeah,” and gestures at a door, “This way.”
She waves at the barman to indicate that we are going through.
Jack: I’d say the place is mine, but not legally if you know what I mean
Levi Tius: I get you, I own a few places dotted about but nothing really that would warrant another holding it in my stead.
Tius follows Jack into the back room, you’ll notice that he does his best to not touch anything.
Jack half-smiles as she sees you dodge a chair, “Ah right, good plan. Safer.”
Can you still do.. other stuff… like that?
Tius gives half a smile, “Yeah sorry about that. Since the arrival of Carter and Doyle I’ve had to ramp up my personal security.”
He raises an eyebrow, “Other stuff?”
Jack walks in to the back room, “I mean, if this gets a bit too intense… can you still stop me doing anything I’d regret? Should be okay without it… as long as you don’t push me if I want a break or anything. But I have to consider it.
The function room is pretty much identical to 90% of the function rooms in Glasgow pubs, with the faded seating and slightly sticky polished floor
Jack closes the door once Levi passes through the doorway.
Levi Tius: Oh yes don’t worry about that. I’m very capable of interacting with the world like this.
To demonstrate Tius pulls a chair out and sits on it.
“So, where would you like to start?”
Jack nods and pulls over a chair as well, but is too unsettled to sit in it straight away.
Jack: Ah fuck… this is harder than I thought.
Levi Tius: “It’s alright, we have as long as it takes.”
“Would it help to share experiences? A back and forth rather than a one way flow?”
Heather Jackman: Dunno. uh, maybe I give you a rundown of what I think started it off any maybe you ask questions? Kinda see where it goes?
Levi Tius: “OK, that sounds like a good place to begin.”
Jack looks at the chair and realises she’s still standing so sits down, a bit abruptly.
“Uh yeah, so, I guess this all started after the clusterfuck of a thing that Alexander dragged me in to, with Pettit and Feldman.
Were you about when they found the mages that were hunting the demon?”
Tius‘s forehead wrinkles in thought, “I think so, was this the mechanical bird mages? You’d have thought I’d remember the specifics of which demon did what but we’ve had a few in quick succession.”
Jack: Yeah, this was a few years ago. The mages had been following people, kidnapping and doing stuff to ghouls to spy on them.
Anyways, Feldman, or maybe Pettit, had tracked them down to some building site with half-build apartments and shit.
Alexander had called me while they were standing at the front door basically saying, “We’re going in now, wanna be backup”
Whole thing didn’t get any better… one of those situations where you end up having to kill or capture everyone for the masquerade is fucked completely.
I mean, Pettit was stealing blood across the open ground in front of anyone who might have been looking out a window nearby for fucks sake.
Tius shakes his head at that last, “He should really know better than that. I think this was when I was fresh back from my re-education in Vienna so wasn’t allowed out to play. It sounds like a really rough situation they thrust you into, never easy when it’s kill or subdue all present.”
Jack nods, “So we get to this point.. one mage has escaped, I’ve got two guards wounded, bleeding but alive and captured. I’ve taken the head off another who had almost escaped. Back in one of the building is another guard I’d had to kill so that I wasn’t leaving someone behind me when we had to go chase the guys that were escaping.”
Jack isn’t really focused on you as she recounts the story.
“Except that I’d forgotten about the guy in the same room that Alexander had fed from who’d collapsed.”
Jack stares a bit more into the distance and her right-hand starts tapping twitchily on her knee.
Levi Tius: “Take a moment if you need to.”
Jack starts to continue then, a little startled at the interruption, looks up and focuses on Levi.
“Uh, yeah, thanks.”
Heather pauses and rubs her palms on her jeans as a kind of calming gesture.
After a minute, she continues in a slightly less intense tone, “I bring the two guards back into the building with me so that we can get out of sight and maybe start getting anything cleaned up that might be another masquerade breech.
Like Alexander’s boot print embedded in the steel door!
Anyway, turns out the the guy Alexander had fed from had not only woken up, but that had picked up his machine gun and had it pointed at the first person who walked in the door.
I was a bit pissed off at Alexander and the rest of them already by this point and getting sprayed full of bullets was pretty much the last straw.”
Jack pauses again.
“Yeah, was a bit messy at that point.
Lost it at Alexander a few nights later when he pissed me off again. Pretty much exploded his head with a stake. Took 2 clan mates to stop me.. and even then it was pretty close.”
Jack puts her head in her hands, hunched over to hide her face.
Levi Tius: “It sounds like a combination of bad things happened then. Firstly you weren’t able to exercise the constraint that you would normally, needing to be callous and practical over human life. Secondly in such a situation it turned out you couldn’t trust those you to have your back. They were sloppy and yet you was the one who paid the price for their mistakes.”
Jack straightens up, quickly wiping a smear of blood from one eye and composing herself.
“That sounds accurate enough. Still gave me nightmares for a while afterwards.
I tried to find out who the guards were… I dunno.. to help their families or something. Could never find them, though.”
Tius nods, “I tried to do something similar, I couldn’t stop someone dying and tried to get some closure for the parents. I don’t know if it worked or not.”
“We can’t always do the things we want do, sometimes we need to do things we detest and that make us angry. Angry at ourselves, the world, others, God. There are a lot of outlets that can take.”
“The fact that you even thought to reach out to the families of those affected is a good sign. I’ve known many who wouldn’t even have given it a second thought.”
“So, there was a bumbled operation in which you had to be heavy handed and the sloppy behaviour of others lead you to get badly hurt.”
Jack: But not so good that when I recently killed a bunch of urban explorer types whose biggest crime was to panic in an enclosed space with me… I still haven’t quite got around to finding out what happened to their friends a families who’ll never know what happened to them. But hey, it’s on my list to do, right?
I know I’m not as nice a person as I used to be.. but the biggest thing that’s stopping me from clawing my way back is going about looking like everyone is a threat. Checking out everyone in the room. Do they have weapons? What are they doing? Stuff like that.
When your brain gets stuck like that then people are either threats or victims.
“Even my clan are calling me psycho” says Jack, sounding a bit upset
Levi Tius: “Your own clan are? These people who don’t know anything about you decide to judge you? They are supposed to support you, not label you a monster.” This has also touched a nerve with Tius. He pulls himself back on topic.
“When everyone is either a threat or a victim it alienates you from society. There’s no room for trust, for friendship. I can understand why you have that barrier, survival. You can’t be on edge like that all the time though.”
Tius gives a pensive sigh.
Jack nods, “Yeah, that’s the problem. Doing it all the time instead of when it’s actually needed.”
Jack then tracks back through what Levi said, “So to give me a break here… I thought that you guys were supposed to be pretty good at supporting each other. Strength together and training and shit like that?”
Tius gives a sigh, “The pyramid has two sides which are at odds. One side rewards staying in your boundary, operating as prescribed in the system. The other rewards results despite the methods. My first little hiatus was a re-education as I acted outside of standard procedure. I was taken away for a year to re-learn my lessons. That I understand, no matter how much it hurt it had a purpose. It’s what came before I don’t understand. I had my hands and feet cut off, my eyes gouged out, and my tongue severed. This was by Feldman and Pettitt. As far as I can tell it was for pure spite and their own catharsis.”
“Some lessons must be learned the hard way, that time I learned that some people will want to hurt you.”
Tius is quite matter of fact about this, not exhibiting much by way of anger.
Jack looks taken aback, “Really….? That seems way more… calculated than anything I ever saw them do! Fuck!”
Tius shrugs, “They were in a position of power and chose to exercise that power. They knew as I was already in trouble they could get away with it.”
Jack: Yeah, but still…
Jack shakes her head, speechless.
Levi Tius: “It’s OK, I’ve forgiven them their actions. They were afraid of me and what I represented. I have spent a long time building an actually supportive structure in Glasgow. My students have a chance to learn they don’t need to be like other Tremere to get ahead and acknowledgement for their accomplishments.”
“The irony is that because I’m the boss I need to be strong and supportive for them. I can’t benefit of the same when in times of trouble.”
Jack: Yeah, I’ve got some good guys in my scourge team… but I can’t talk about this with them. I tried to get McGregor to tell me when I got too twitchy but I think they’re so used to me being like that they don’t notice when it gets bad.
By the end of the court, I’m half ready to start patting people down for weapons if they get within 2 feet of me.. or the Prince.
So uh.. what now?
Levi Tius: “Well, I’m not an expert in this by any stretch. I’ve done a bit of reading on the matter prior to meeting and there are some methods of therapy we can explore.”
“The literature suggests that rather than become inured to the fears you have experienced you’ve managed to engage in a kind of, mental feedback loop.”
Jack: So we need to break the feedback loop?
Levi Tius: “Essentially yes, re-calibrate your sense of danger back to a normal level.”
Jack: “Okay….” she says, sounding a little suspicious. “What might that entail?”
Levi Tius: “I would suggest a two pronged effort. One is a meditative one, train your mind to gain control over itself. We can start with some rudimentary practices and introduce more elements. Like maybe have me moving around and such you try to put me out of your mind as either victim nor threat. Maybe something like an animal, something which isn’t actually a threat but will perhaps take some time for you to get used to.”
“The other avenue is more on the other end, give exposure to that which stimulated the issues in a controlled fashion. Where you aren’t in danger but you are exposed to it to a degree. I’m more sceptical of this but from what I read it has very positive results.”
Jack: Yeah, the first one sounds much safer. You might need to be a bit more.. solid.. though. To make it feel real.
Levi Tius: “I agree with you there.”
Jack: I can kinda see how the second one might work… but pretty risky. I mean, the first time I tried to even just talk about the frenzy with you I had to walk away.
Maybe we could go past the building site… see if its still there.
At least, that’s a better idea than shooting a machine gun at me again.
Levi Tius: “OK, I have a couple of places we can do it and be as secure as I think it’s possible to be. However there is something to be said for familiar surroundings. Which would you prefer to start with?”
Jack: I don’t really have a properly secure space I can take you to. Could probably find some unused warehouses or some shit but that doesn’t count as familiar.
We.. the Brujah that is.. used to have a place we used for training but its pretty much rubble now.
Levi Tius: “OK, I can take you to my secure space then.I have spent a lot of money and a lot of time building this places defences up so I guarantee you are safe within its walls.”
Jack: Heather winces, “So my first challenge is walking in to unknown territory. This’ll be great fun!”
Tius smiles, “Indeed it will be. There will be students there but they shan’t bother us. We can begin in my own quarters so they won’t stumble upon us.”
Jack looks a little wild about the eyes thinking about it, “Just as well I’ve spent enough time with you as Prince to trust that I’ll get to leave the place intact.”
Levi Tius: “You have my word there will be no funny business or shenanigans. I’ll only use my abilities to transport us and to pacify you should that be required.”
Jack nods, “Thanks”.
So what, next week same time? Not tonight anyway!
Levi Tius: “Sounds good to me, gives you time to think about it a little more. I will need to speak to the Regent as well but I doubt that will be an issue. I can come pick you up if you’re happy with that?”
Jack: I’d prefer to get there under my own steam if I can… picking me up to go there would be okay, but I bet coming out I’ll want to get straight onto the bike.
Levi Tius: “Well, if you are going to want the bike I’ll get the address sorted for you. I don’t tend to use normal transport these nights myself.”
Jack grins, “the transport isn’t normal the way I do it.”
Tius smiles and shakes his head, “Just don’t get pulled over.”
Jack: They’d have to catch me first!
Jack stands up, “Look, thanks for this. I’d shake your hand but… “
Tius stands up too, “That’s alright, I know it can be a hard existence and I’m happy to be able to help someone out. Looks like I’ve got my own issues to work through as well.”
Jack: Well, I’ll have your back if you need it.
Levi Tius: “I appreciate that, it’s nice to know there’s at least one friendly face at court. If ever you’re in trouble you can always call me. “
Jack smiles.
“Damn, I can’t even ask you if you want to stay for a game of pool and a pretend beer.”
Tius ponders a moment, “In the interest of trust.” He turns the watch he had on so that the watch face is on the outside of his wrist rather than the inside. “I am now corporeal. Still want the game? I’ll do my best to not cheat.”
