undergrounds | Five Years Later...

Five Years Later...

A lot can change in five years. Students who were at Redbright have now started their careers. People have moved out, moved in, started a new life together or apart. Some move on from the city while others return to it. But while the lives of its residents continue to grow and change, London remains as it has ever been: a focal point for magical power.

A tentative peace
The last five years have not been without conflict, both internal and external. The vampires have played with the politics of in-fighting and backstabbing. The werewolves have overthrown their leader and chosen a new alpha. The witches have suffered one scandal after another. And the fae have quietly engineered a small change here, a personal revenge there, until finally with Redbright and Hillingdon acting as neutral parties a peace agreement was reached between Circle Daybreak, the Islington Nest and the East End Pack. Their territories are still beholden to the same rules (e.g. vampires are still forbidden to enter East End territory and vice versa) but they are no longer in open conflict. Small steps, perhaps, but positive ones.

A delicate balance
The year is 2022. The balance of power in the city is now evenly split between the East End Pack, Islington Nest and Circle Daybreak, thanks largely to the rise of the werewolves and the new President Laura Roslin who simultaneously holds the post of Werewolf Representative.

Samantha Okeke lost her position as Witch Representative following allegations of corruption, and has been replaced by Diphylleia "Dee" Absin, a much more co-operative member of the Night Council. While Samantha has retained her title of Mother of Witches, there are rumours that she lost her powers during a confrontation with a powerful fae. Circle Daybreak firmly denies all such speculation.

The connections between the Redbright Institute and the Hillingdon Clan have grown stronger since the former is now perceived to be a more neutral force rather than tied to the Night Council, although Hillingdon certainly still has the less clean-cut image of the two.

Meanwhile, the Seelie and Unseelie Court have largely withdrawn from public life in the mortal realm except in isolated corners, though they claim the right to go where they please throughout the city. Consequently, there are no barriers preventing travel between the realms, which seems for now to be an acceptable compromise.

And after all, politics is the art of compromise.

Looking ahead
All in all, the vampire and fae presence in the city has reduced as the vampires move around and the fae decide that if they're invited it can't be that great a party anyway. The number of witches has recovered thanks to an amnesty allowing those who were once members of Circle Midnight to return (though the faction itself has not reappeared).

The biggest change that has been noticed first by staff at the Redbright Institute however is the increasing number of meta humans, in particular young meta humans, being discovered in the city. Often these are humans with no knowledge of the supernatural developing their powers for the first time. The reason why has yet to be discovered...

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Nancy looks up at Eames with glistening eyes. The touch was unexpected, unappreciated. It's not a gesture she'd ever expected from Eames.

Boxer's whine sends a dagger through her heart. She can't even bend her knees to pet him before Eames orders him back. she watches the dog retreat, the way he hangs his head, guilty.

"Eames- please!" She cries, sticking her foot between the door and the frame. "I need a place to stay. Just for the night, tomorrow I'll be out of your hair. I'll be quiet as a mouse you won't even know I'm here. please!"

"You've got a phone. Google for shelters."

He looks down at her foot like it's personally offended him, waiting for her to move it. As far as he's concerned, she's not getting in this house. The last time she was welcome here was years ago.

Nancy holds up her shattered phone. No, no googling here. her magic wasn't good enough to fix broken technology yet.

She doesn't dare move her foot.

"just for the night. I'll clean your whole place, even."

It takes Arthur a while to wake up once Eames' body heat has been removed, but he eventually rolls over and finds an empty spot where his boyfriend would be and it wakes him up. He'd usually wait but he hears Eames bark at Boxer and he decides to get out of bed and wander downstairs, squinting and hugging his arms around himself.

"Who's at the door?" he ask firmly, though his voice is clouded by sleep.

"Nobody of consequence," Eames answers, still looking at Nancy's foot with a scowl. If he was wearing shoes, he'd push her foot away, but he's not about to break his foot.

He can't bring himself to actually hurt her, or he'd just slam the door and break her foot, but he does push it against her some.

So she was nothing to him. Okay then. But she still meant something to Arthur.

"Arthur!" She calls over Eames' shoulder. "it's me- Nancy." Please let her in, Arthur. "I need help."

Arthur's not about to overrule Eames' decision in Eames' house, but he sighs and fixes Eames with a look.

"Should I make some coffee?"

She's not going anywhere, and truthfully Eames would probably give in sooner or later if she didn't leave. Arthur coming down kind of crumbles his resolve, looking aside at him and then to Nancy with a scowl.

"I'll do it." He turns to walk through to the kitchen, calling Boxer to come with him. It's basically a 'you deal with this' to Arthur, which might be unfair but also Eames is really fucking pissed off right now.

Nancy doesn't waste time. She moves inside the second Eames relents, reaching for Boxer. But the dog is off with his master and Nancy's leaving a puddle of rain and blood in the middle of their entryway.

"I'm sorry for the late call," she admits, looking at Arthur. It's the first time he can see how badly this has been effecting her. She doesn't have a spot of magic on her face and the makeup is long gone. "I didn't have anywhere else to go."

Arthur has his arms crossed across his chest, shoulders hunched against the cold as he gives Nancy a tired look up and down and sighs. "Let me go find a towel or something. You can sit down in the living room once you get dried off a bit."

He disappears for a moment and comes back with a big towel that he wraps around Nancy's shoulders. Then he gestures to the living room, hoping that he's not going to have to wash the couch cushions but already resigning himself to the idea that he might have to anyway.

Eames stays in the kitchen while the coffee maker goes, Boxer standing next to him. The time serves as a way to outwardly calm himself down instead of being two steps away from a temper tantrum about Nancy showing up at his door.

He'll leave Arthur to deal with her for that little while, instead kneeling on the floor and beckoning Boxer over to cuddle him a bit. He's not mad at the boy, he's a good and excellent young man.

"Thank you." They both hate her, she can tell. She doesn't blame them. They've got every right to hate her. that's all she says as she takes the towel and wraps it around herself. She's lost weight, another sign of the toll Bill has taken on her.

Wordlessly, Nancy waits till she's a bit dry before going to sit on the couch. Immediately, she sits in the corner, curling in on herself. She's so small, so scared as she sits there, shaking and crying.

she didn't expect sympathy. She never did anymore.

Arthur sees that she's sitting down and then goes to the kitchen, wondering where Eames is on that coffee and wanting to just be away from this whole situation for a moment. He's still tired and now he's stressed which means he needs Eames' arm around him doubly so, and he hopes that he can psychically communicate this as he wanders into the kitchen.

Eames looks up when Arthur comes in and stands up, frowning apologetically at him.

"You okay?" He grabs a pair of mugs from the cupboard first before he puts a hand on Arthur's back and tips his head to bump his forehead against Arthur's.

"I'm fine," Arthur says, leaning in. It still feels cold because he's no longer in bed and he wishes he was because he hasnt't had coffee yet. He's basically still asleep. "I can tell her to go if you want."

"Don't bother." He sighs and lazily wraps his arms around Arthur, "you can go back to bed, I'll deal with this."

Somehow. Whatever dealing with it means. Probably continuing to pretend seeing Nancy's face bruised and bloody the way it is right now doesn't make his heart feel like it's being wrung out by an ogre.

"I'm up now," he says. The coffee maker beeps and he sighs, pulling away to get some mugs. He grabs three, because he's a good person, and fills two of them up. "I'll set her up in the living room," he explains before he leaves and goes back out to Nancy with a cup of coffee for her and for himself. He figures she's sleeping here probably.

Nancy doesn't even try to listen in to what they're saying. She can hardly hear it anyway, as she buries her head in her hands and cries. Everything is still so fuzzy, but she can still see Bill's eyes flickering yellow, the growl at the end of his words and the sound the door made when it slammed.

"thank you," she says when Arthur returns. She accepts the cup of coffee without complaint. She should probably sober up. Nancy shivers, and rubs at the back of her nose with her free hand "I'm so sorry, Arthur."

Arthur doesn't reply to her, just setting down the mug of coffee on the coffee table and collapsing into one of the armchairs. It takes a moment but after that first sip of blessed coffee he looks up at her tiredly.

"What happened?"

He probably still has some clothes of hers, so he can at least give her something clean to wear. Eames sighs, watching Arthur go back to the living room, and then heads off himself to get a bundle of clothes for her.

He'll be back down soon with a jumper and some trousers that are either Nancy's or roughly her size at the very least. He doesn't interrupt the conversation when he does, just drops them on the couch and wanders back to the kitchen to get his coffee.

Nancy just holds on to the hot mug, looking across at Arthur. She nearly laughs when he asks.

"I... I don't know, Arthur! Can you believe it? He was in a sour mood when I got home, we'd been drinking- I tried to calm him, but-" She cuts off in order to choke out a sob. "The last thing I remember was he was throwing me out into the hall." She shakes her head, trying not to imagine how he had bodily picked her up.

"I didn't even know how I got here."

The clothes Eames' brought were once hers, by she hardly notices the arrival of clothing.

Edited 2017-10-18 23:16 (UTC)

Arthur sighs. It's too early in the morning for this and he just wants coffee. "I guess somewhere in the middle of that is when this all happened."

He gestures to all of her.

Edited 2017-10-18 23:29 (UTC)

Eames sighs at what he overhears as he cones into the living room, sipping on his coffee with a deep frown on his face.

"Obviously she realised I'm still dumb enough to take her in despite everything." His delivery is casual, rolling his eyes.

Nancy shrinks further into the couch.

"no- this- this was before." She gestured at her face. "He threw me out." She'd be back tomorrow, begging him to let her back in. And he would and they'd have sex and they'd pretend nothing ever happened.

When Eames enters, Nancy doesn't look at him. Instead she looks at her coffee cup. "--no I don't--" she practically whispers. But here she was.

He feels for her, he really does. But he's so tired and this isn't exactly that out of the blue that he can't muster the proper level of compassion that he knows he should show at this moment. He thinks about it for a moment and then sighs, looking down at his coffee.

"Just get yourself dried off," he tells her, trying to give her something to focus on.

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