Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was not that long after they had texted that he showed up, that bottle of tovaritch tucked under his arm while he knocked. Jeremiah had said he had one and so he brought it with him. After all, they had not talked for the longest.

Not since the ball.

This was probably overdue but sometimes he did so enjoy being fashionably late.

Jeremiah snorted, leaning and scratching at Laika as she came closer. "The vodka always saves me."

Shoes were toed off as well because that was simply the way of the world everywhere that mattered.

"I prefer your good graces, so it is always the best vodka."

Jeremiah laughed, a warm sound, following Aleksy through the house and settling into the chair that was his. It was familiar and comfortable.

"I did." The shot glasses certainly were too as he opened the bottle and poured them each a shot. It was set on the table. "Krasnya is officially," a twitch of lips, "now Adelaide Tatton. It'll make things easier for her."

Jeremiah downed his first shot a moment after Aleksy, letting out a breath once it was emptied. It was good vodka. Another was poured for them both while he chuckled again. "She had a list of names to choose from, so I claim no responsibility for the coincidence." The name suited her but that was not said. "... and there's already a story floating around town as to why that's the case." Her accent, he meant.

That coming from Aleksy, of all people, had Jeremiah pausing. The shot glass was emptied again almost immediately afterward. "You weren't in the hall when that happened, were you?" When it had all come to an end.

The gloves, ones he recognized with a small smile, were a poignant reminder of the change. That Aleksy was no longer quite so human. The flex of his hand and what was said had him nodding. Friends that were more like him than they were like Jeremiah.

At the mention of the kholotz, he leaned and plucked up a piece to eat. Aleksy had no need for food, not this kind. "It is," he replied, "and I am glad that she is here but not so much that you cannot truly have her back entirely."

As she was no longer truly Tatiana Spektora. Not the one that the world had shaped while the true one had been in other ashdown and shaped as well.

"I gave her my mask because I believed it would save her, yet that apparently did not truly matter." Not with what he had learned from Algie. That even with a mask she had still been one of the tithes. "Algie made a better choice than I would have."

"I imagine she would like it if you did." Jeremiah remembered her face he had handed her the document. That slight twist of her features that faded quickly. "As this is probably hard on the both of you." To have her so close yet so far away.

His finger tapped against the rim of the shot glass, Jeremiah still not quite used to this reserved Aleksy. To the one that did not contain him, the one that was there and a presence to be around. This Aleksy was muted.

"The gloves look good and you're looking better." It was obvious what he truly was getting at. Just as Aleksy had opened the door, Jeremiah did the same.

Jeremiah kept the glasses refilled as necessary, though his finger would tap the rim of it every so often.

"If you say that's the case, then it is." His head tilted, shot glass raised and thrown back. "Especially when people are willing."

Jeremiah reached forward, taking Aleky's hand slowly into one of his own. His fingers curled around his wrist, gently having it face palm up. With his other hand he dragged a finger from palm towards the tip of the pointer finger.

"I'm sure you are, Lisichya." A smile was given as he glanced up at black eyes and back down. That he had been sapped of so much when he had first found Aleksy was not held against him. Not in the slightest. "It's the other way around. You are careful and others are not."