Light slides smoothly and expensively onto the wooded lane where Kristopher Hekas lives. The house is close to the park. In fact, it is across the street from the park, a long narrow brick building, looking more like a converted apartment building than anything else, albeit an expensive one.

It's also rather a big house, three stories with more than one exit besides the front. This is how three people can live in the house without two seeing the third.


Late morning, early afternoon. Kristopher, smelling of sex and cigarettes and too sluggish to shower yet, has been lying around in the bed in Tam's adopted room all morning; the boy is out, doing whatever he does when he's out, and the weather outside is muggy and languid and for all the house's luxury it hasn't got AC.

It takes the girl about an hour to drag herself out of bed and into the kitchen, long white body incompletely concealed by her undies and a teeshirt (it isn't even a loose teeshirt), to stick her head in the fridge and think about orange juice and toast.

Pedestrian travel is a fairly simple concept. Here, to there, on foot. However, the return journey to Kits' residence was nothing short of astounding. While his life was only threatened by vehicles twice, Torrance became hopelessly lost. It's really a miracle he found his way back at all. But he did.

He'd left the door unlocked when he'd gone, and apparently being last one out the door, he manages to slip inside without a key. Looking both tired and wide awake, he'd politely locked the door behind him and listened. Moira had sorta dropped him off without much fanfare or explanation; Torrance is half-hoping she will magically appear (though he doesn't believe in magic, not at all) and pull kittens and relief out of A Bag of Answers. No such luck.

Trekking idly through various rooms, there wasn't really a destination. He'd eaten 'take out' when deposited, and then slept; there hadn't been time for an inquisition. Now, it's all one big exploration, and with three floors, there's a lot to explore. The white figure leaning into the 'fridge' (which he calls an icebox) isn't noticed when Torrance walks in, not right away, but a second later he's noticing a lot of leg and scoots back and practically yells, "Good God!"

Kristopher runs through a rapid-fire series of reactions: she yelps, hitting her head on the top of the fridge; withdrawing with one hand on the top of her curly brown (and now bruised) noggin and closing the door with the other, she begins to say, "Fuck, you startled me-" and when it isn't Tam and it isn't Andrei and it certainly isn't her mother, but in fact a stranger wearing tattered clothes, she actually screams and drops the eggs she'd taken out of the fridge.

Kristopher is not a screaming sort of girl, it's worth mentioning, but she is a girl and there is a frankly homeless-looking guy in her kitchen. She instinctively ducks her head, sliding ungracefully on egg-slimy tile to put the island counter between her and the intruder.

At some point Torrance has clapped one hand over his face, but he's peeking through parted fingers, caught between honoring the modesty of maidens, reflexively, and wondering what the hell is going on. There's the sliver of a second thought of, 'I could get used to this', but it's quashed by 'I'm married!' and 'What the hell is going on!'

"What are you doing!" It's not his house, but he's backed up towards a wall and is pointing with his free hand. Looking at the eggs, he adds bombastically, "You have gone and made a mess!" He's doing a lot more reacting than actual thinking.

She has gone and made a mess. There's egg on the bottom of her feet and it feels awful, basically, and makes her feel like there's egg all over her and it's awful.

She isn't prepared to concede the point, however, instead screwing her face up (and holding her hands away from herself, as though they have egg all over them, which they don't) and shouting, "You're in my /house!/"

Reduced to loudly observing even semi-relevant facts, Torrance retorts, "There is egg on the floor!" He twists his lips vividly and finally arranges then in a huge scowl, trying to crossing his arms over his chest. The gesture only half-works, because he's still got one hand splayed across his face.

Then, "/Your/ house?! Where's Moira! What have you done with her!" With his one revealed eye he's looking at Kits like she's a kidnapper, and he inches away from the wall a bit, as though he's going to chase her. Perhaps this was the new style for burglars and other modern fiends -- underclothes! Effectively shocking their victims long enough to bound and gag them.

"Egg on the- you're fucking crazy, I'm calling the police-" Kristopher, still talking incoherently, makes a slide for the doorway (which Torrance is closer to), faltering when the burglar or murderer or whatever mentions a name. The viscosity of the egg betrays her and she slips, landing on her ass but managing to get a couple of hands behind her to absorb shock so she doesn't fuck her tailbone up.

"What the fuck are you talking about, 'Moira?'" she snarls- Kristopher, who has little sharp kitten teeth and looks a little crazy anyway, snarls very well- "What the hell are you talking about, she doesn't live here."

"Crazy!" His tongue explodes around the word, mainly because Torrance has considered this alternative time and time again, but hearing someone else say it is a new level of offensive. "Me, crazy! You, with your eggs, and what are you /wearing/ --" He sounds like a hyper invasive father. Young lady you are not going out dressed like --

When Kristopher falls, he comes even closer, the pointing hand now extended in a clear 'I'll help you up' gesture. There's still a hand on his face, and he's still talking loudly and with bluster. "What! What do you mean she doesn't live here!" There's a few seconds of silence, before he asks, "Did she just -- /leave me here/!" Hand still out, and waiting.

The girl, alarmed or belligerent, knocks away Torrance's hand and his offer, scrambling away.

"Stop /saying/ that," she almost wails, although he hasn't been repeating himself, "she doesn't! You fucking liar, you didn't see her, what are you doing here!"

Mention of her mother alive and making things awful for everybody induces more of a panic than finding a stranger in the house; she's actually freaking out, shaking and just this side of hyperventilation. Shamefully, she wishes Andrei were here, then moreso when she remembers she's supposed to miss Tam, and then forgets both of them when she remembers she's got teeth and nails and kind of a mean right hook, if the hobo or madman seems to want some of it.

The knocked away hand just bounces back, and he beckons with his fingers, riled by the idea that he's been abandoned in his time of need. Especially after being baited with generosity! "I did too! She brought me something called take-out and said, Sleep here. So I did! I did and she's gone, isn't she!" He briefly withdraws the offer of a helping hand to run it through his hair. Which he needs to wash, badly. Still bits of dirt in it.

Determined to prove himself, just like with Moira and the cemetery, he demands, "Why would I be here then? How would I know her name?" The gap in his fingers widens as he adds, "She looks like you. A little. With longer hair. Much longer." Torrance has the sense to stay out of swinging and clawing distance. "Tell me where she is, so I can find her."

Kristopher, addled and distressed and also half-naked, is a tougher sell than Moira. Crouched in the doorway, ready for fight or flight, her face hardens and she stands up straight. "Fuck off. She didn't, you didn't- she's /dead/-"

This is a theoretically untrue statement, but it's basically Moira's fault and not Kristopher's problem. "Get out, get the fuck out, she never did-" Kristopher is kind of yelling now, five and a half feet and change of barely clothed cranky teenager. She's also blocking the exit into the hallway; the other leads into a smaller hallway which more directly (albeit obscurely) accesses the maze of rooms on this floor.

Shouting matches are not Torrance's strong suit. He can only shout boisterously for long periods of time after he's had some drinks, and while he's a little scared and certainly anxious, it's not enough to maintain the volume he's been going at. Looking a little cowed by Kristopher's shrieking but not backing down, he insists, "Then how do I know? If she's dead, how could I have met her? How could I --" He clears his throat, finally drops his hand from his face, and looks ready to explain himself.

Then the yelling gets louder, and since he can't go through the girl, he is shrinking towards the fridge, hands in front of him as though he's soothing a wild animal. "Listen, listen, I was just brought here very late, and told to stay, that's all, that's all. I'm sorry if I startled you. Miss...?" He's trying to remember the name Moira gave. Finally, it comes. "...Hekas, right?" He looks more prepared for more screaming than a pat on the head. He's getting dangerously close to the remainder of the egg.

Torrance is also getting dangerously close to a couple cats, which have already gone to work licking up the spill. A few more, of varying sizes and colour and shabbiness, spill into the room from both doorways.

"Dead, as in not alive, dead," she's shouting, and then shuts up, watching him warily. Kristopher possesses all the same feline qualities as her mother- moreso, in some ways, since there's something aethereal about Moira which in Kristopher is quite visceral. She's rather a lot like a wild animal.


"Hekas, yes," she says after a while, almost grudgingly.

Torrance effectively trips over a cat, still backing away because Kits still looks ready to leap at his throat, and there were eggs, not cats, last time he checked. The result is a hissing feline and Torrance tripping into the island and just staying there. It's less risky than moving about.

"Yes, Miss Hekas," he continues, starting to ramble, wanting to escape upstairs but not knowing any other way than the route the girl is blocking. "I'm, um, Torrance. I was dead." He offers this hopefully, as though it will be something they can bond over. "I really am sorry for scaring you. I just didn't know this was -- your house." He's going to avoid saying 'Moira', it clearly produces a bad reaction.

Kristopher, ignoring the cats and evidently processing the information, stares at him blankly.

After a while, and long after he's quit saying things, she says, "You're fucking crazy. I need. Um, I need a shower. And coffee. You- uh, stay here- don't touch /anything-/ if you go into the bathroom while I'm in there I'll fucking kill you-" Despite the supreme disjointedness of the conditions of their truce, she sounds absolutely confident around the threat. Not that she can recall ever killing anybody, but she's fairly sure she could right now.

She backs out of the doorway, eyes on Torrance, and sidles out of sight down the hallway.