[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.

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.

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.

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.