Thanks for the Memories

[Alexander Darling]

This situation was absolutely ridiculous, but somehow, here they were.  Ash had offered one of the back rooms to them after they'd started drinking and he'd realized just how obliterated they were going for (Alexander had caught Sophia and warned her that he didn't know how much more it was, but it was definitely more than thirty years, and she seemed determined to be utterly annihilated before she attempted it; he'd taken that as a hint and followed suit), and that was probably for the best.  From the sound of it, they didn't need an audience for this, though James, Antoine and Taro were already staying close, and James had 'suggested' that Taro let Corinne know that they were trying something.  He didn't have her number, or he might have done so himself (and probably more tactfully), but he thought that she should know.

Who knew?  Sophia might melt Alexander's brain, or something.  Not that James was okay with that idea, but they didn't honestly know what level of success to expect here, or how many years' worth of memories she was supposed to be dealing with.  There was a measure of risk, and after her reaction to Alexander, it seemed only fair that the vampire be informed.

That being said, Sophia and Alexander hit the cups quickly and mercilessly, which was interesting for the changeling to watch.  He'd seen the hunter drink before, but it was always sparingly and never enough for him to seem drunk.  Of course, that didn't mean the man didn't drink, but perhaps that he didn't trust Desmond far enough to get drunk with him.  He needn't have worried, since the changeling didn't have any ill will towards him, though he might have played a few harmless pranks.  Here and now, he seemed to have weighed the pros and cons, only to decide that being totally trashed for this was for the better; he matched Sophia, and he didn't drink girly drinks.  James was impressed, though disappointed that the seriousness of the situation didn't allow him to lighten up all that much and he didn't otherwise look like he was going to embarrass himself.  Damn it.

Fortunately, Alexander's wallet could handle the tab they were working on, and to be on the safe side, he had Anthony run his card in advance.  He had no way of knowing how organized his thoughts would be afterwards.  He sure as hell knew when he'd hit his limit, though.

Swaying a little in his seat, which was a first for him, he finished off his glass and waved off the bottle, shaking his head slowly and looking to Sophia.  "Ready for this?  Any more, and I'm floating away."

[Sophia Kim]

 Sophia had always wondered why the bar had VIP rooms when nobody ever really seemed to use them; honestly, the place was massive as it was, so it wasn't like they needed the extra space. But, the bar was some sort of old warehouse-type loft thing that had been creatively transformed, and they had a large enough amount of clientele that Ash obviously knew they'd come in handy one day - especially with as many times as the guilds had held small meetings there. Having a thick stock of hunters in the midst of other supernatural creatures was unnerving, sanctuary or not.

Tonight, however, it all seemed to make sense. Especially when, in her drunken daze, she glanced across the stylish black table that was positively covered with glasses of all sizes, and realized that there was no way in hell she could ever get this annihilated with her ability and be around a mass of people. She'd have blown her brains to smithereens, and the bullet that would have done it would have been her own half-cocked notion to try and mind-read everyone she came into physical contact with. She was currently running her finger around the overly-sugared rim of a large shot glass, the contents of which consisted of Stoli Blueberi, sweet and sour, Triple Sec, and Bailey's. It was appropriately called a Blueberry Muffin, and Sophia loved them. She loved sweets in general, which was probably why all of the glasses on her side of the table were either martini-shaped or shots. Alexander had, in his wisdom, stuck to the four basic food groups - Jim, Jack, John and Jose. Antoine had attempted to keep up, but after a certain point, he'd gone to the bathroom to puke, then left to get "adjusted" by Ash before he had to go to the hospital with alcohol poisoning. He was currently nursing a Guinness, his eyes still a little bloodshot from yacking his guts up only fifteen minutes prior.

When Alexander prompted Sophia for their actual purpose for being there, she was still playing with her shot, and was sucking the sugar off of her fingers in a way that certainly had James' attention. He had the presence of mind to stay mostly sober, and after realizing that Alexander and Sophia were really going for it, he had cut himself off. She looked up at Alexander, fingers still on her lips, sugar crystals giving her pale pink lipstick a definite sparkle to them. "Hm?" she said stupidly. She had been a million miles away right at that moment. "Oh. Right. Alright, then." And with that, she picked up the last confectionery shot that she'd been sampling, and raised it to her mouth. She made a terrible face as she forced herself to swallow it, then slammed the glass topside-down on the table with a loud clank.

"Wow," James mumbled, unable to help himself.

Sophia only pointed at him, then stood up and walked to Alexander, positioning herself behind him. She took a few deep breaths, then looked up suddenly, fingers still flexing. "Where the fuck is Taro?" she asked.

"We're here, we're here," Corinne said as she pushed the door to the VIP room open, Taro in tow. "Sorry, we got caught up speaking with Ash. What do you need us to do?" she asked, sliding the scarf from around her neck and setting it on the couch with the other jackets that they'd worn in and gradually stripped off due to the heat the drinks had brought.

"He knows," Sophia said.

"On it," Taro replied. He moved around Corinne and went behind Sophia, taking a seat on the couch that was just a few feet from where she and Alexander were. "You, pull up a chair and sit in front of him. He's going to drop like a sack of bricks." And when she uncorks his memories, we don't exactly know what will happen from there, so you may have to use your power on him. And Sophia, actually. But don't tell them that, because it'll probably freak them out. We haven't exactly given her all of the information, and we ourselves don't rightly know the outcome.

"I can do that," Corinne said aloud, though she gave Taro a mental nod that told him she understood her purpose for being called in wasn't simply for Alexander's moral support.

"Okay, everyone," Sophia slurred, throwing out another Jurassic Park quote for the day. "Hold on to your butts."

And in she went. Unfortunately, she hadn't realized just how far back his memories wound, and she found herself sucked back to the very beginning. They had been buried, too - it had that witch doctor's handywork all over it, which didn't surprise her in the slightest. Here she was, worrying about Rakshasa, and it was something far more nefarious. She closed her eyes, knees buckling a little as she let out a whimper - she was pulling out the good stuff, now. When she hit the moment that Alexander had been turned, however, she got too far ahead of herself, and the memories came pouring out at the rate of a hurricane. It was painful, and it wouldn't feel any better for Alexander, either. She felt a pressure building in her head, like it might explode, and her nose began to bleed. When she tried to pull back out for a break, however, she couldn't. Because she was not able to break free, and getting what was essentially a sped-up version of two-thousand or so years, it was highly logical that she would do what came naturally to her: she started screaming her head off.

Taro grabbed her from behind, ripping her off of Alexander and severing the connection. "Now, Corinne!" he barked. The ancient shot her arm forward, over Alexander's shoulder, and grabbed Sophia's hand, giving her a healthy dose of that painkiller ability. It stopped Sophia's screaming, at least, which was good enough, and Taro dropped onto the couch with her and folded her up in his lap, cradling her head against his chest as she passed out.

"I think I speak for everyone when I say HOLY SHIT!" Antoine said. When she'd started screaming unexpectedly (and it was unexpected to him, since he had only seen her put her hands on Alexander's head and then, blam!), he'd nearly dumped the rest of his beer on himself. "Is it done? Are they okay?"

[Alexander Darling]

The four basic food groups were probably going to cause him a hell of a hangover, especially after the mess she was about to make opening up his memories, but she'd be worse off with all those sweets.  He tried, early on, to recommend she try something less potentially nauseating, but she refused and he let her.  He probably should have paid more attention to Antoine trying to pace them, but Alexander didn't really have a very good understanding of the fact that, even human, he had a ridiculous alcohol tolerance.  This was made more apparent when Antoine tried to keep up with them and had to take his leave to go empty his stomach, then seek aid from the triste, but Alexander was already drunk enough by that point that he hadn't really paid it much mind except that it was Antoine leaving and not a threat coming into the room after.

Instead, he'd spent his drinking time trading insults and general conversation with the man he knew as Desmond, which included calling the man out on being completely and utterly distracted by Sophia licking the sugar off her fingers.  Bringing it up hadn't stopped her or really taken Desmond's attention from the act, but it didn't fail to amuse, at least.  Alexander himself would have had to be dead not to notice her doing it, but his control seemed to be better, in this regard. 

When Sophia agreed to get started and approached him, he took a deep breath, pushing his chair away from the table a little and hoping to god that this worked.  At the very least, if it failed, he was praying it didn't fry his brain or something similarly debilitating.  That would suck, though it was likely he wouldn't be aware of it any longer at that point, so it didn't bear putting all that much thought into it.  Rather, he worked at releasing one of those deep breaths and relaxing until she asked about Taro and Corinne entered with the other vampire almost on cue.  He glanced towards the door, flicking his eyes up to Sophia and her hands near his head before he went back to watching Corinne settle herself into a chair in front of him, and he managed some small attempt at a smile over the image he had to present sitting there drunk as hell with his tie loosened and his suit jacket abandoned nearby.  The gesture was barely there, blink-and-you-miss-it, but he also wasn't aware of the instructions she got from Taro.  He'd just heard the warning about him dropping like a sack of bricks, which hadn't ever happened to him (to his recollection, though that was the problem, wasn't it?) and therefore sounded unlikely while also not helping his nerves, but the rest would have made him more worried.  Better that he not hear it.

Then, Sophia got started, and Alexander completely lost track of time, space, everything.  He was thrown back to the beginning right along with her, and it might have been a minute in the real world or all night for all he knew, but it felt like forever.  That made sense, considering she ripped him through a human life that seemed about to end in sickness and then death for him, then was thrust into rebirth as a vampire and then over two thousand years of living life to extremes.  Apparently, he'd been a patron of the arts, which he had a broad enough appreciation of that it included writing, painting, sculpting, cooking and war, though his own 'artistic ability' seemed to revolve around that last one.  If he'd had the ability to consider instead of just experience, he'd have thought that the skills the guild and Dev appreciated made perfect sense.  He'd been everywhere, learned everything he could (especially about weapons and fighting styles), and whatever shred of his revived humanity that remained would at least be proud to know that he maintained some old-fashioned sense of honor and dignity. 

That was especially impressive, considering his insane best friend and what was essentially his sister-in-law. 

'Hold onto your butts' was better advice than Sophia seemed to have realized at the time, though it was too late by the time she did.  As enlightening as reliving over two thousand years in just a few minutes was, it was a pain that even Alexander had never experienced, and since he'd experienced a metric shit-ton of horrible situations in his time, this was serious.  Actually, the amount of horrible shit he'd endured, survived and generally been present for (battlefields were always nightmare fuel, and poor Sophia was getting a LOT of that) probably made that agony worse, and though there was plenty of good to be had because even as a weapon, Alexander wasn't a force of evil, it was rearranging maps over time that stood out.  He didn't start shrieking like she did, but his eyelids were fluttering at a rapid pace and he'd drawn in a breath that he didn't release for minutes at a time just because he didn't have the ability to do it, let alone scream. 

It was like his brain was a huge balloon being filled in his skull, gradually becoming too much for the space and pressing against the bone until it would surely blast bloody bits all over Ash's nice table and the hardwood floor, and it seemed to be starting by causing what started as a trickle of blood from his nose that wasn't quite as serious as Sophia's, but enough to definitely notice.  When Taro yanked her off of him and abruptly broke the contact, she'd already reached the information he could remember and kept going into the past few years, and Alexander gasped for air like a drowning man through Corinne dosing Sophia.  Taro hadn't been kidding about him dropping like a sack of bricks, the pain in his skull so all-consuming that it essentially blinded him; his eyes were open, but unfocused, and he seemed to have no awareness of his surroundings.  His balance abandoned him and he tipped, but whether or not Corinne caught him was the least of his worries. 

Something was wrong.  He didn't know if the rest of the room realized that the air was impossible to breathe, but his heartbeat was frantic, his breathing shallow and labored against Corinne's body.  A tremble built up as this problem didn't work itself out as he calmed down, and the agony in his skull started spreading to his chest, specifically heart and lungs, but soon it seemed like it was everything.  Corinne cried out for help and James was there in an instant, a warm light appearing from his hands where they were positioned against Alexander's chest.

"Fuck, he's not okay.  FUCK!  Get the triste, Antoine!"

His brother was up faster than his condition would have suggested he could at the moment, and with a shout for Ash, he was there at James' side as well.  "What the fuck happened?"

"Haven't the slightest," he returned, pumping energy into the hunter to try to keep his heart pumping and his lungs moving, which seemed to be working well enough that Alexander was hanging on, but it wasn't making any headway.  Ash rushed into the room and took the scene in, and James glanced away from his business associate and sometimes-friend to hazard an almost-panicked look to the man.  He wouldn't panic, because that wouldn't help, but he wanted to.  "He's dying, Leone, help me!"

[Corinne]

 Corinne was sitting in front of Alexander, brows perked as she watched intently. She had her hands folded in her lap, and  though she'd wanted to place her hand on his knee for support, she knew that she may have risked influencing his work with the Kirin. When Sophia looked to be under obvious duress and Alexander seemed to share the same pain, she tensed, unsure of what to expect. When Taro had to rip Sophia off of him, however, because she'd started screaming bloody murder, Corinne knew it was time to step in.

She jumped up, tipping her chair over in the process, simultaneously catching Alexander through the left arm with her right as she reached out and clasped Sophia's hand. However brief the contact was, she pumped the girl full of energy, and let go a few seconds later as Taro pulled her to the couch. She concentrated, then, on Alexander, who she was essentially hugging. He was struggling to breathe, his heart erratic, and he began to practically seize in her arms. She dropped down as his knees buckled, laying him out on the ground and kneeling over him. "James!" she cried. "Something's wrong!"

As Antoine went to find Ash, she nervously pressed her hand to his cheek, trying to concentrate on the situation at hand. When James shouted that he was dying to the Triste, however, it struck Corinne like a sack of bricks - the same sack that must have hit Alexander. Lots of bricking happening in that room. "He's dying," she repeated, though it was spoken more in a soft revelation than in a panicked notion. She snapped her head up to look at Ash. "Of course! He's dying!" she exclaimed. "Ash, you may want to be careful, here - I know you're powerful, but you're still a Triste, and I believe Alexander's body is about to... to 'catch up' to his memories," she explained quickly.

"I know it sounds crazy, but just trust me on this - don't do anything that would hurt a vampire, because I believe he's transitioning right now. Only, very... quickly," she concluded.

"What the fucking fuck," Antoine said, hands to his head. He was never drinking beer again.

[Ash Leone]

Credit where it was due, the triste caught onto the situation extremely quickly for not being well-informed; he knew that Sophia was about to do a memory deal for a hunter, and he knew the hunter well enough from him being there with his partner and from discussions from Dev, but he wasn't informed as to the man's history.  He knew that Alexander was missing some memories because Rashana had been trying to backtrack from the alley his newest hunter had been found in, and Ash hadn't had any information to offer him.  He'd offered to get Sophia, and Dev had declined.  Now that he saw all this, he thought that the man may have known more than he was willing to share, and had been looking to save the Kirin the trouble.  That, or he'd just thought she wouldn't have done it, which was just as likely.

To rush into the room and hear that Alexander was dying from the changeling trying desperately to stop the process, see Sophia curled unconscious and bleeding from her nose in Taro's lap and hear Corinne's warning, someone not as equipped to deal with shitty supernatural situations may have needed a moment to figure out what to do.  Ash merely dropped to the floor beside them, giving Alexander's mind and body a quick sweep with his power and squeezing James' shoulder.  "Let go, you can't stop it," he instructed, and James gave him a truly incredulous look, hanging on.

"Have you all gone mad?  Did you not hear me say he's dying?  What if he's not 'transitioning'?" he demanded, mentally blasting off over what the fuck 'transitioning' even meant.  The man was a human, and his organs were all shutting down.  That didn't sound like a good thing to him, but perhaps he'd been lead astray on basic human bodily functions all his life.  Who knew?

Ash gave him a look, and reached for his wrist to tug his hand away.  "You're slowing the process and making it more painful.  Either he transitions or he dies, but you're not helping this way," he said, as gently and firmly as he could, which prompted James to look disbelievingly from Ash to Corinne and then back down to Alexander before he let go and shot to his feet, looking like he was going to the door before he twisted back around just as quickly because he'd realized he couldn't just leave.  He'd stay, and he'd watch, and he'd hope, but this was all bullshit. 

Ash, for what it was worth, tried to ease Alexander's way, which was a nice way of saying he encouraged his body to stop struggling, which may have been cruel because, even now, he was mentally fighting his damnedest to hang on.  Dying was never easy, Alexander knew that better than anyone what with his ability and having been turned once already, but that he knew he wasn't projecting meant that he refused to just let go.  That was where Ash came in, not lessening the pain of the process because the magic working in the man reeked of Silver and those bastards thrived on a difficult, painful struggle, but he pushed the internal workings to give out.  That wouldn't change the fact that Alexander's will to live was combating his body's inability to do so and damage any power he'd have as a vampire (Ash wasn't sure if this weird situation would allow for that, but he wouldn't risk crippling him), but it would mean that all of that struggle was for naught, and sooner.  He sped up the process.

Unfortunately, James realized that and started bitching all over again behind them.  "Some good you are!  Call you in to help and all you do is kill him faster?  Always knew you Americans were backwards!"

"I'm French," the triste remarked, and James snorted while Antoine spoke up on his brother's side.

"That's worse."

"French from when the French could still kick your ass," Taro pointed out from the couch, and James made some frustrated sound and waved them all off, going to the table for a drink so that he didn't have to actually pay attention to Alexander's last harsh breaths or his heart stopping.  Drink or no, there was no banter or insults, not a word between all of them in the moments afterwards, just nervous looks while they all hoped that Corinne had been right about the transition.  Ash could support her theory because he'd felt the magic, but that didn't mean it was remaining in place and not just escaping.  Anything to do with that voodoo man was an imprecise science.

James froze with the drink halfway to his mouth, not sure he was even still breathing, listening instead for any sign of life or movement, and Alexander sure as hell gave them a scare before Ash released what might have almost passed for a nervous laugh.  "He's coming back," he announced, and if James really reached, he could feel some of that strange power that he'd fought to try to keep Alexander alive returning to the room.  He felt justified in not trusting or liking it.

That didn't change the fact that Ash was correct in his 'prediction'.  More of that power built up, finally reaching a plateau point where it just settled, and the triste looked to Corinne.  He'd correctly, and quickly, placed her age and the age of the vampire being reborn on the floor of his building, and assumed they were well-acquainted.  He was going to ask if it felt familiar, but the look on her face said everything.  When Alexander's eyes refocused, there seemed to be an instant of disorientation (having all of your memories dumped on you and then being revamped could do that to you), but he took in his surroundings both with a quick and basic glance around and a sweep of that significant power of his, and reached his hand up to touch Corinne's cheek.  He was looking up at her upside down from the floor, not a familiar position for him, but he felt as though he'd been gone so very long, and missed so much.  Five years was nothing to one of his age, but being reconnected with a human way of thinking had left its mark. 

"I can't fucking believe this," James cried, finishing his drink in a sharp movement and finally making his exit.  He needed air, because it seemed he'd finally hit his damn limit for crazy that day.