Drinks

I went out "drinking" with Spencer the other night. Discussion was had.
It's been pissing down here for the past few days, and that night wasn't any different. I'd given Spencer a meeting place.

It may surprise some to learn that I don't like surprises, and this was no exception. I'd show upa little while before. And I was waiting for Spencer to arrive. Thunder, lightning, window, torrential rain, the works.

Spencer looked like walking death. You might think this is exaggeration, but I'd be willing to guess he hadn't slept in a fortnight, and that was the least alarming part of his condition. I told him as much.
"If you're saying that, I'm going to believe it."
We went to a pub, we got to talking. I don't drink myself, but pub fish and chips are quite good.

Out of self-protection since I don't want to transcribe my half of that conversation, and politeness, since I'd rather not transcribe his half alone, I'm going to summarize it.

We discussed Raven, for starters. Spencer has been getting emails from Raven, or Corwin, assuming they're the same person. Steele and August went to deliver a package from Raven to Opal. More on that later perhaps. Spencer was quite paranoid. Actually abominably paranoid.

So, for those of you who don't know, dear Spencer used to work for the other side. Went by Teller, he had a partner, bastard by the name of Writer. It didn't take much reading between the lines to know that someone had broken Jake out of the Loop he'd been in. Spencer apparently put this "Writer" character into a loop, and he broke out. It's not a terrible leap in logic to assume that Writer broke Jake out as well. He's been dogging Spencer, like some sort of abominable heckler with a knife.

We swapped backstories, for a bit. No, you don't get mine. I'll say this, the man has issues. I'm not a psychologist, but I'd certainly say survivor's guilt in there somewhere.

After that we sort of went our separate ways. I seem to remember someone saying that just about all of us are in deep need of psychiatric help. Well it's true. We don't get to talk to people all that much.

Now, I have a bottle of Bailey's and several mugs of hot chocolate waiting for me. See if that helps sleeping at all.

I've left documents and instructions with Spencer in case something happens to me.
There's only two kinds of paranoia after all.