Relapse

[Alistair Greene]

Alistair shook his head a little bit as he walked down the street. Work had been about the usual. Kelly and the others were going home... they had to at some point, after all. The only good news was that January in New York had been reasonably calm, so there wasn't as much there to worry about. Problems were at sort of a minimum. He hiked the collar of his jacket up a bit against the cold, and stuffed his gloved hands into his pockets. New York in the winter... almost as bad as his native Michigan. The buildings made some truly ugly winds whipping down the streets.

So he'd given people a night off, on something of a lark. If there wasn't some level of downtime, eventually people were going to pop. That much was an absolute truth, and while he might not have had the greatest of all possible leadership skills, he could muddle through that much. Generally. Oh, he was a good enough leader that he had ARMA following him, but hey... there was that whole Ceasar 'only a man' thing. He tried to keep that in mind.

So, before he went back home, Alistair went on a walk. Took the long way home - the song playing in his head off and on and everything, though he could frankly not remember the lyrics to all of it. That was the problem with earworms... it was never the whole stupid song. Just the hook. And unfortunately, earbuds were a no go for him, for several reasons.

1. His power tended to be murder on anything sensitive, like small speakers.
2. Walking around the city, not paying attention to your surroundings, was kind of a no-no for someone in his situation.

Really, the worst part was #1. The squealing noise they made as soon as he lost focus on suppressing his own electromagnetic interference... it was painful, to say the very least.