[open] I've found that just surviving was a noble fight

[reticence]

Faolan doesn't really have any particular agenda for the day. In between cases, no clients on the book for the afternoon, he finds himself with free time and well. He's never really much cared for the idea of such a thing. Mostly perhaps because he doesn't really know much what to do with himself when it happens. Not really having that many hobbies, not really much for staying idle, he finds himself wandering. Coffee at this shop, breakfast at another. Finding a seat to sit and enjoy both before wandering more. Idly staring in shop windows. Finding himself lunch. He supposes that this is time that people who had friends might call some of them up and get together to do something, but that would require having any, a luxury he had not been afforded. Not since moving to London, at least. Besides all of that, these last few days especially he's been feeling rather odd...

A. COFFEE
Being a man with a varying schedule, often pulling late-nights, Faolan has developed a particular affinity for coffee. Another man might call it a caffeine addiction, but that is perhaps neither here nor there, and anyway, he really only ever indulges in the coffee version of the drug. Which is why he finds himself seated in a shop early that morning, a mug of it clutched in both hands as he sits at the counter by the window and stares out the window at the passers-by. He might not have normally chosen this seat. There are occasions where he'd rather opt for a table by himself in the corner, where he can pull out his tablet and get some work done. But there's something about today where he feels compelled to watch. Feels compelled to sit there and observe, poised silent and still on the stool as he surveys the people on the street in front of him. There's a tension in the way he's holding himself, and if he didn't pause every once and a while to take a sip from the coffee, it would probably be a little painful to watch him at it. It's probably a little painful still.

He knows what he's doing, so after a while, he forces his eyes away. And that's when he spots it. A fly. It must have come in the shop with one of the other patrons. The place is nice and clean enough, he doesn't think that they're likely to have an infestation, especially since he's seen only the one. But now all of his attentions are focused on it, and try as hard as he might to just sit and enjoy his coffee, he can hear it. Buzzing around, doing its dirty fly business god knows where. He manages maybe five minutes of valiant efforts to keep his mind away, before he gives up and rolls up the paper he has sitting in front of him. That fly is dead.

B. PARK
Faolan sits on a bench in the park, nursing his second coffee of the day, this one in a cardboard cup. He's been trying to relax and enjoy the quite, natural atmosphere around him, something that usually works to soothe his ragged temper. Today, on the other hand, he's having no such luck. Too many sounds keep happening around him. People passing by. Walking their dogs. Going out for a jog. Taking a quiet stroll with their children. And it's distracting him. He finds himself honing in on every conversation being had, every laugh, every sound being made by the noisy life around him.

And that's nothing compared to the distraction that the nature itself is causing him. He finds himself fixating on a squirrel across the way, staring it down until the small, bushy-tailed creature gives up the contest and absconds itself into the nearest tree, where he can still hear it, scuttling around up there. And that's nothing compared to the duck that keeps leisurely swimming by, expecting him to have some sort of treat for it as apparently all visitors to this spot must have had in the past. As the web-footed creature circles closer and closer, Faolan finds himself wishing for a stone to throw at it. Or perhaps his gun. No, what is he kidding, that's crazy. He sits forward on the bench and runs his hand over his face. Maybe the whole park thing was a bad idea after all...

C. BAR
It's been a long day, from start to finish, and since no amount of coffee, fresh air, or sunshine has done anything to cure Faolan's odd mood, there's only one more direction that he can turn. Well, there are probably more, but since he's not looking to break any laws tonight, that means alcohol. It means getting himself a drink or three or as many as it takes until whatever it is that's wound so tight within him settles down and allows him a moment's peace.

He should have known that the sort of slow burning fury building within him had no business mixing with drink, but that's neither here nor there, and it isn't until he left to go take a piss and comes back to find the seat he was in otherwise occupied that he realizes he has a problem. Because that something within him is just as raring to go as ever. And rather than calming that, if anything the only thing the alcohol has calmed is his sense of reason, which is not good. Fists clenched tight at his sides, Faolan doesn't really make all that menacing of an image. Not at first glance. But the sound of his voice clearly means business as he manages to grind out at the newcomer, "That seat's taken."

D. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

[ooc note: this log takes place during the HUNTING SEASON event, and as such is loosely dated between the 20th and the 25th! faolan is a human and a hunter in the hillingdon clan, and if you want to get into trouble with him of a supernatural, hunting sort, by all means choose your own adventure or contact me and we can work something out. THANKS!]

Comments

A

[knightscode]

The last time Lancelot strayed from his normal coffee shop he ended up having a conversation with a ghost.

In a way that's a particularly good argument for not doing so again, but it hadn't been a bad conversation -- quite a friendly one, in fact. One that had informed him on a few things to do with the nature of ghosts, something he was wholly ignorant on since so much cinema contradicts each other on how this works.

So it is that he decides to risk it, and picking the first decent looking place that allows dogs he pushes up his sunglasses into his hair and shoulders his way in. Lily pads beside him curiously, and it's only after he's placed his order that he spots Faolan. The man looks... well, Lancelot is hard-pressed to pick a kind word. He looks utterly murderous, truth be told, but he feels somewhat strange ignoring him. So after a moment he approaches, hesitates as he realises he has Lily in tow. Well, he hadn't reacted poorly to her before -- it should be all right, then? He hopes.

"You look like you need something stronger than coffee, truth be told."

Lancelot offers a small, slightly lop sided smile as he pauses near the man's table. Either his company will help or hinder, and if it hinders -- well, he can always claim he intended to take his drink and head somewhere anyway, avoid it becoming awkward.

[reticence]

Faolan tries not to jump too much at suddenly being approached by the other man, but he is forced to admit that his attention was elsewhere, and he had not noticed the man nor the dog approaching him until they were right there. Ah well, at least he knows the pair of them. Sort of. If by knowing he can say that he's met them once before, which is more than he can say for a lot of other people.

Faolan glances down at the mug in his hands, giving a stiff shrug, before looking back up at Lancelot. "I probably do," he says, honestly. "I'm fairly certain that that sort of thing is frowned upon at this hour of the day though, so." He motions to the shop around them, as if to say, 'So here I am instead.'

[knightscode]

"It isn't frowned upon if nobody finds out," Lancelot quips, before gesturing to the table with his coffee. "Do you mind? I might not be alcohol, but I might be able to ease things regardless. Myself and my companion."

He tilts his head down at Lily, who is flitting her eyes around the coffee shop uneasily. Her tail swishes across the floor regardless like a brush, just in case. She does want to be friends! Just perhaps not with so many people all at once!

[reticence]

Faolan wonders for a moment at the fact that a PCSO is trying to convince him into day drinking, before he shakes himself out of it, shaking his head. "Yeah, no, it's fine. Go ahead." And no, he hasn't missed you Lily, although he isn't sure if he remembers your name. You're very pretty though, and he's starting to wonder whether this guy really does go everywhere with the dog, or whether it just seems that way because of Faolan's luck in the matter.

"I can't promise that I'll be much of a conversationalist, but something about your constant choice of companions tells me you don't seem to mind that," Faolan says, taking a sip fro his coffee and glancing between the pair of them.

[knightscode]

"Not at all."

He smiles as he slides into a seat, encouraging Lily to sit beside him gently and looping her leash around part of his chair. Just in case.

"How's the arm?" he prompts, nodding toward it before taking a sip of his drink. "It looked painful. I hope you had it looked at."

Stitches, he thinks. That wound definitely needed stitches. Part of him still wonders exactly what kind of dog did that, even more so now than before.

[reticence]

Faolan nods, before shrugging up the sleeve of his jacket. Like showing such things off to other people is something everyone does. It definitely looks a lot better, the injury. And there are definitely signs that he had gotten stitches for it. "Got the stitches out not too long ago," he says, though he doesn't elaborate that he had to keep them for longer than necessary because he kept forgetting about them and breaking them before it was properly healed.

He shrugs his sleeve back down over the cut, moving to take up his drink once more, cradling it in both hands for lack of anything else to do with his hands. "I hate hospitals," he says. "You must have been awfully persuasive, to have gotten me to go to one."

[knightscode]

"I've been told I can be very persuasive," he agrees, and leans over to frown at the injury. It does look like it's healing cleanly, which is a small but significant blessing. "Haven't had another run in with your friend and his dog, I hope?"

He settles back into his seat, frowns in concern at Faolan as he takes another sip of his coffee. The fly dives past and his attention flits to it vaguely in irritation. It better not land in his coffee, that's for sure.

B

[rules_winter]

A cool breeze stirrs behind Faolan and a moment later someone sits down next to him, smelling of fresh snow on a cold day. Mab sets her hands in her lap after depositing a small flat paper bag down on the bench on the other side of her, her hands settle on top of a small clutch that holds a few small items such as the phone she still really doesn't know how to use and some of her business cards, and the duck flaps away as though frightened. She tended to join the hunt at night and so she had some time to let the excitement of the hunt sieve away.

The young man next to her looked like he was just about at his wits end. The park is rather busy today, though they seem to be set apart from most of the activities currently engaging a number of mortals among the trees and lakes. "Perhaps caffine was not your best option today?" She asked him mildly.

[reticence]

Faolan takes in a deep breath, letting it out slowly and glancing sideways at the woman who had joined him. He doesn't miss the smell that accompanies her arrival, and while it is odd, he still doesn't have all that much experience with -- well, Faery, as Heiji had called it. Though he knows enough to be able to assume she's no werewolf or vampire. At least, he's fairly certain about that much.

What was that? Oh, right, about his coffee. He looks down at the cup in his hands, shrugging slightly. "Normally it's not such a bad idea," he says. He's not quite sure what's made the last few days the exception. But part of him had wanted to go after that duck, had been excited by its fear, and that's not normal. Maybe she's right. Maybe the second cup hadn't been a good idea after all. He runs his hand through his hair, trying to calm himself down. Trying to think of something to say to her that wouldn't make himself sound like a lunatic. When he finally does he settles on -- "I hope I'm not in your seat, or anything." He can't imagine why else she would have chosen to sit with him, after all.

[rules_winter]

It takes Faolan a few moments to come back to the mortal plane. Mab waits patiently for his brain to catch up and then for him to look at his coffee and shrug looking disconsolate. "Normally?" She asked almost gently. Mab could pass as human in the general sense so long as the glamour was in place and they weren't discussing pop culture or technology.

Even bit of him seems tense. Keyed up, his muscles are tight and she can see that much from here. He seems to be trying to relax himself. Her hand slips out to touch his and if he doesn't pull away it will be cool on a level that might even slip up his arm like it's cooling his blood before she pulls it back to return to her lap. "Nonsense, this is a public park. You are entitled to sit anywhere you please." Her answer doesn't help explain why she chose to sit there when there are other, perfectly good benches nearby.

[reticence]

Faolan glances sideways at her again. How much should he be admitting to a total stranger like this? How much should he be keeping to himself. He's just about to say that it's nothing when she places a hand on his and he's so unused to other people doing such things that of course he doesn't pull away. And he does feel how unusually cool her skin is against his, although he can't be sure that it wasn't just. Well, was he imagining that? He's been getting strange vibes from pretty much everything the last few days, why not people as well.

"I, uh," he says, trying to figure out the right words, the right excuse for his behavior. "I've been feeling a little off, lately." Well, it's not untrue?

[rules_winter]

Mab always felt it was best to hold your cards close to your chest. But she certainly benefited when others were less circumspect. She crosses her legs as she considers his answer, staring out across the lake. The answer is vague but true. Such a fae answer.

"You seem quite tense for such a nice day." She remarks, turning her head back to look at him. "This time of year does seem to set people on edge." Be it the customer in the store screaming at an employee for not having something in stock, or the lone human at night checking over their shoulder because they are certain the feel something coming. And to those who hunted naturally, the fae's bloodlust might rub off a little when the hunt rides through the mortal realm as it had recently. She suspected he was suffering one of the latter two, feeling like prey, or feeling like hunting.

[reticence]

Feeling like hunting was certainly the truth of the matter. Whether it was wanting to go after ducks in the lake, flies in the coffee shop, or rats in the alleyways at night, Faolan feels like a man on edge. And not unlike a cat on the hunt, the accuracy of the statement not lost on him, for hunting is what he does, but hunting is what he feels the urgency to do now. He has always prided himself on discrepancy in the field, on the fact that he does not go after creatures indiscriminately. That he has morals. But the urgency of this feeling within him is leaving him hard-pressed not to literally chase anything that moves.

He finds her words curious though. Curious enough that he turns in his seat slightly, studying her face curiously. "This time of the year?" he asks.

[rules_winter]

She wouldn't be surprised to hear him grinding his teeth the way tension sang around him like a plucked bowstring. But she's caught his attention fully now. She considers how to play this. And it is a game, somewhat.

She lifted a pale hand, indicating the general state of London. "The heat and humidity alone can press in on people." She really does not like heat. It's not in her nature to like heat. It drains her and her powers are only beginning to wax now that solstice has passed. "And some say the fair folk hunt at the end of July." She looked at him steadily, cool green-blue eyes watching his to see what he takes from her statement. "Or perhaps it is the coming full moon." She doesn't think he's a werewolf, he doesn't feel like wolf magic. But the Full Moon even effects humans. It changes magics as well, of course.

B

[detectiveofthewest]

"Take my advice," said Heiji, sitting down unceremoniously next to Faolan with a crinkly paper bag and a thermos.

"Go bag yourself a nice vampire or two. Or go out and get yourself a nice BLT, heavy on the B." He'd been feeling that itch himself, and had been contenting himself with small satisfactions just to stave off the craving.

No one ask him about the chickens.

[reticence]

Faolan jumps slightly at the sudden appearance of the other, but upon realizing that it's Heiji and that he's met the other man before, he calms down slightly. It's not that he knows him per se -- he certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that. But he's a familiar face and it's better to have a familiar face suddenly appearing and joining you on a park bench than an unfamiliar one. At least in Faolan's books.

"Heavy on the B," Faolan echoes, and then glances sideways at the other man. "You know, I thought I was just starting to go off the edge until someone mentioned to me the idea of this 'Hunt'. You wouldn't know more about that...?" Congratulations, Heiji, you've just become his newest source of fae information.

[detectiveofthewest]

Heiji grinned. "Not too much. I'm kinda new to the area, still gettin' used to all the weird holidays. For you what it means is you're gonna have a little more luck on the hunt. The antsiness should go away near the end of the month."

It was hard to nail down exactly when, of course; the whole point was catching that White Hart, and that sort of thing you couldn't just schedule ahead of time. He leaned back on the bench, put down the bag, and took a sip of water from the thermos.

"Stayin' out of trouble?"

[reticence]

"As best I can," Faolan answers, which is hardly an answer at all, but it's the best he's got. He sighs slightly, before reaching forward to pull up the sleeve of his jacket, revealing a freshly healing scar on his forearm. "It would seem that luck does not always run in my favor. The wolf found me again and decided to give me a little present for it. 15 stitches worth of one. With his claws, though, so I suppose I was lucky."

He shrugs, rolling his jacket back down and toying with his coffee in his hands. "Could have been worse." Probably would have been, if he hadn't run into that PCSO, to get him cleaned up and all. To guilt him into getting the wound taken care of for that matter. But that was neither here nor there, he supposes.

"What about yourself?" Isn't that what one's supposed to do in polite conversation, after all? Turn the question around on the other speaker? Faolan's never been very good at this, though that's probably hardly a surprise.

[detectiveofthewest]

Heiji looked at the wound, frowning a little at the puckered appearance of the wound. Fifteen stitches. Being a human really was inconvenient, if not outright dangerous. Not that he was a stranger to grievous bodily harm, but at least he healed quickly. "You could probably get one of them witch doctors to look at it for ya." Assuming Faolan had the funds, of course. He couldn't do much about it himself, since he didn't know Faolan very well.

"Kind of a twist of fate, huh? Considering your name and all." Which had actually been unusual enough that Heiji had looked it up, wondering if Faolan had some Chinese ancestry. Nope, apparently a perfectly good Irish name.

"Me, I'm survivin'. It affects me, too, so I'll be glad when all this is over." What was the big deal about a big white deer, anyhow? Not much, in Heiji's opinion.

[reticence]

Perfectly good and terribly Irish, that was Faolan. It went with the accent, though, so Heiji shouldn't be too surprised, all things considered. He has to raise an eyebrow at the suggestion of seeing a witch doctor.

"I was hesitant enough to see a physician," he points out. "Let alone someone who could just as easily curse me as cure me with a snap of their fingers. No, thank you." Okay, so it doesn't exactly work that way and Faolan's well aware of it for that matter as well, but still.

[detectiveofthewest]

"Don't like doctors?" Heiji himself felt fairly comfortable around them, though why anyone in a white coat holding metal implements should be comforting at all, he had no idea.

"Well, you gotta do you, I guess. But ain't it gonna be a pain if someone picks a fight with you while you're still stitched up like that?" Did hunters of the supernatural get paid time off? Probably not.

C

[mygame]

"It was snowing in there."

The human that had taken Faolan seat looks sick for lack of a better term. His pale skin is sheened with sweat that stinks of fear, eyes gone bloodshot as if he has been crying. Small tremors shake his fingers as he clutches the drink that had been the hunter's. For all that this stranger could be mistaken for a street transient, but the man wears a bespoke suit that has to be Savile Row. A tiny red stain is a bright accusation on his right shirt cuff's underside.

"The snow was swirling around," he mutters to himself, unfocused eyes rolling like a sheep's in the slaughtering pen. He doesn't look at Faolan, doesn't look at anyone really. "He was the bad thing in the dark places when people dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood of the executed."

A tiny jagged laugh escapes his lips as he clutches Faolan's drink hard enough that the glass groans on the edge of splintering.

The Nogitsune himself leans against the brick outer wall of the dive, still looking as ugly pale as always despite the human's blood warming him. He has no idea who Faolan is or who is even inside. He had set the human off with mental commands like a wind-up toy just to see what could happen. For now, he's only watching, listening through his prey.

[reticence]

Faolan raises his eyebrows at the man. At first he'd been annoyed -- not only is that his seat, but that's his drink as well. But then the guy starts spouting nonsense, and -- though it's hardly the first time Faolan has heard a man go off his rocker, it certainly is a first for a man who's dressed like this, in a bar such as this one. Surely they wouldn't have let him in if he was this mad, would they? And what the hell is he talking about? Is he having some kind of fit? Some kind of vision?

"Hey," Faolan says, his tone a bit more placating than it had been a moment before. "Are you alright?" Of course he isn't, but Faolan needs more from him, some sign that there's anyone home, something. He notices the glass groaning and swallows hard. "I think you should put that down," he says, indicating the tumbler. Hoping that he will. Breaking such a thing in your fist, while impressive, is liable to give a nasty cut as well. And provide you with one hell of a weapon to boot.

[mygame]

The stranger's fingers shake as he obeys, letting the tumbler out of the grip of his hands. Soon enough his fingers thread together in a parody of prayer, clenching tight enough that his knuckles go white.

His head turns to Faolan, and all the misery of a badly frightened human is in his wet eyes. The monsters aren't supposed to come out of the closet or grab one's ankle from under the bed in this businessman's world.

"No, I'm not all right. I saw the thing in the Park. In Greenwich. I was thought I could use some company and..."

He trails off there, swallowing thickly.

Outside the pub, the Nogitsune watches them keenly. Listening to them over the rest of the noise isn't difficult for one of his age. No one really bothers him beyond the occasional odd glance. Who's going to bother with a teenager dressed like him at this hour? For now, he lets the human babble on to the other. Neither seem special to him. All he intended to do was deliver a warning, let the word pass among the humans. It would likely filter to the werewolves after that.

Stay out of Greenwich.

"You have to stay out of Greenwich," the man says sharply to Faolan, eyes going empty with what could only be mind control. "The Beast has returned, and it isn't for any of us."

[reticence]

Well, at least there's no broken glass to potentially contend with. Small miracles, Faolan thinks to himself, as he sets the tumbler aside and meets the other man's wide eyes.

"The Beast," Faolan echoes in return, once the other man has said it, narrowing his eyes as he does. "What do you mean? Who's returned?" Or perhaps the better question would be what, all things considered. Where he had once been concerned for his own safety from the other man, he's starting to wonder if maybe he should be concerned for the other man instead.

Although now he's got this hook, he's not letting go of it. As a hunter and a private investigator, this sort of thing is right up his alley, after all. He just hadn't expected it to present itself to him in such a way.