Once you're lost in twillights's blue

[knightscode]

Closed to Faolan: Night-time Walk
If he has meant to or not, Lancelot has found himself associating more and more with people like him.

People with abilities, or knowledge of them. People who know about witches and ghosts, fae and doorways. People who know these things exist not just in films and TV shows and books, but in the shadows around them.

Lancelot had never expected to be anything special, to be anything other than what he is. After all, what qualities does Lancelot have? He's a Community Officer, he loves his dog, he goes to work like anyone else and comes home and goes to bed. His life is hardly rife with excitement and adventure.

Or at least, it hadn't been.

He's thinking about this one evening, having belatedly realised he'll need to run back out to the shops to get a few things. He leaves Lily behind, not meaning to be long, and cuts up a few side roads to get to the supermarket before it closes.

That's when he hears the sound. It sounds like a dog distantly, he thinks, the clack-clack of a big dog's claws on pavement. He glances back idly, but ignores it, expecting someone was out walking their dog late.

Something makes his hackles rise, some sense telling him to run. Making his pulse pick up.

He starts to walk faster, and the animal does too.

That answers the question. Lancelot breaks into a run, and tries to remember the quickest route to somewhere with a gate he can close.


Open: A Day-time Investigation

Lancelot is bruised, a little jumpy, but he's alive -- and now he's somewhat determined to prove what was chasing him.

He's dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt, sleeves pushed up as he re-walks the path from the night before with his Lily at his side. The fluffy white Samoyed may not be the world's best hunting dog, but she has a good sense of smell. Far better than his by any estimation. He frowns at the ground as he walks, looking for anything -- fur, blood, scraps of something from the fight. Anything that might help him work out what attacked him, if it was truly a werewolf. Anything that might help track such a thing, or that might tell him if it was alone.

Pausing at the sight of something he crouches down, frowning at a dark patch on the pavement and trying to replay the scenario in his head. Perhaps if he could get someone to run a trace -- would such a thing even work? Could the blood of a werewolf be traced? Would it match the human before they shifted? Would that even help? He lets out a sigh and reaches out to ruffle Lily as she sniffs at it. At the rate they were going, it was most definitely going to be a long day.

Comments

[reticence]

Faolan raises both eyebrows now, at that explanation. As faltering as it might have been, it does give him a lot more than he had known before. And honestly, surprises him. Whatever he had expected of the other man, it had not been that. "Sealed away from you...?" Faolan questions. For such a thing is not done naturally, not normally at least. What more is there to this story that Lancelot has not yet told him?

"What do you remember, then?" he pushes, before realizing it might be a personal question and continuing on to add, "If I may ask. Perhaps there are more things than werewolves that I might be able to explain to you better."

[knightscode]

His eyes dart to one side uneasily, weighing up the pros and cons of telling Faolan, then Lancelot takes a slow sip of his drink.

"Blood," he says finally. "The memories are... old, I was a child at the time, and they have been locked away so long they seem... detached from me. At the time I did not understand what was happening. Yet now..." He swallows, winces and tries to retrack what he's saying. "It must have been a turf war. I was too far too young to help. There were... wolves, running through the streets. My parents forced me to hide, left me to try and do what they could. They weren't... witches, weren't anything more than humans themselves -- although I think.. I think they knew what was going on. By the time I came out... everything had gone quiet."

[reticence]

Faolan takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he does, forcing himself to sit quietly and listen to the other man's story. To live through something like that as a child -- to lose the memories and then gain them back, after all these years -- Faolan can only imagine. He notes that Lancelot is using the past tense for his parents and he knows enough from his own personal experiences, having lived through the horrible massacre of his own family before his eyes, not to ask him straight to his face whether they had been killed by them or not. But he's willing to bet that the answer is yes, all things considered.

"Werewolves are... Incredibly violent. Fast. Strong. As a child, you wouldn't have stood a chance against them. If your parents knew anything about them, then they would have known. Done their best to protect you from it." Inwardly, Faolan wonders at the idea of regular humans knowing about such things, wonders whether they were hunters themselves. But that is neither here nor there, he supposes. And he falls silent, waiting for the other man to continue. Something tells him there is more to the story than that.

[knightscode]

Lancelot nods at that, fidgets with his glass a little as he thinks.

"And they did. I cannot be sure exactly what the faction clash was, but... it seemed like whatever side the werewolves were facing lost. It was... summer, I think. Bright and hot. I went looking for anyone who might be alive, who might be able to help, but... the only thing I found was a fae. I suppose they might have been involved in the battle, or... just curious. It took me back to the Other Realm. I must have been there some years, my memories are... fuzzy still. Why they brought me back here I cannot say. Perhaps they tired of me. For most of my life, however, I did not remember a thing about my childhood. I suppose it was safest for them if I could not tell people what I knew of the Other Realm."

Could not share any secrets, any plans, although what secrets or plans there might have been he still does not remember. That, he supposes, may be for the best.

[reticence]

Faolan weighs that all over in his head. Family killed by wolves. Taken into the Other Realm by the fae. Well, a fae, but taken in with them nonetheless. Living with them there, beyond the world that they live in now. Being cast out, eventually. Having memories suppressed for it.

"How old were you?" he asks, raising an eyebrow slightly at the other man. "If I may ask? How old were you, when you returned here? Without your memories? What happened from then, that you should have not discovered such things until now, you said?" Not that it matters, of course. It's just that Faolan knows what it's like, to be on the cusp of adulthood, with nothing to speak of, nothing of his own. Having lost...everything he had known to be his. If it should have been even remotely similar for this other man, well then. He understands. He understands anyway, of course, but he understands even more for that.

[knightscode]

"11, nearly 12. I hadn't any living relatives here, so... I was put through the adoption system. It wasn't bad -- everyone was very kind, of course, it... well, is just a little disorientating. To have so much of your life missing. I suppose everyone thought that... I had blocked it out, perhaps something terrible had happened. Perhaps that is why I had been missing for so long. It is a strange thing, to have so much uncertainty and... then to have it all removed. There--"

He hesitates, winces a little.

"Did you hear of the children going missing the other month? They were being taken through fae doors. I was... investigating, as a Community Officer. I happened to fall upon a door being closed. I suppose... it was enough of a push to begin undoing my blocks."

[reticence]

Faolan takes in another deep breath, letting it out slowly. So. Not quite the same as things had been for him. In some ways, that's better for Lancelot. The system isn't... Well. It isn't perfect, nothing is. But it sounds like Lancelot had a fairly good experience of things. Possibly better than he did himself, at any rate. At 18 years old, you're legally old enough to take care of yourself -- and with no family left, that's exactly what Faolan had had to do.

He hesitates at the question, before nodding slightly. "I'd heard about it," he says, before admitting, "though I hadn't really done any looking into it. Sometimes there isn't a lot that we can do, in terms of the fae..." Short of starting another war. And Hillingdon was rather against the idea of such a thing, so. "It's that recent, then?" he asks, sitting forward in his seat slightly, before gesturing vaguely at the other man. "Your memories coming back, I mean. Only a few months...?"

[knightscode]

Lancelot nods sadly, dropping his eyes to his drink.

"June. There are still... gaps. Things are still blurry. Things I see job bits and pieces, the... what we saw tonight cleared some things in my memory too. I suppose it will all take time, although... sometimes I wonder. If it would have been better to not remember, if... some things are better left closed."

He'd been happy, after all, before this. Will he still be happy, if all his memories come back? Lancelot honestly cannot say.

[reticence]

Cleared some things... With the wolf chase. Ah... Faolan purses his lips slightly for a moment, looking down into the glass in his hands, feeling guilty at that. Wondering whether he should feel guilty or not, but feeling guilty nonetheless. Especially as the other man suggests that it might be better not to remember these things. Ah, well. Too late now, he supposes.

"It is up to you, I suppose," Faolan says. "Whether you would rather be more content to have been left wondering, rather than have your answers and simply not like what you've gotten. I am sorry that you did get wrapped up in tonight. Sorry that I can't take it back. That wolf, his master... They were after me, not you. I'm sorry you got mixed up in the middle of all of it." Sorrier than he can say. Lancelot barely knows him, to have nearly died or to have been bitten because of the simple fact that they had been in the same place at the same time -- because he had happened to stop and help him on the street that one night? "They must have assumed you were working with me. Must have seen you with me and decided to try a different route for getting back at me, I suppose."

He wonders how angry the vampire is going to be, at the loss of his pet. Wonders whether he's going to let it go or seek him out somehow another way. He supposes only time will tell. He only hopes that he hasn't just gotten Lancelot wrapped up in the middle of this, in doing so.

[knightscode]

"You are hardly to blame, Faolan. You did not seek me out. It was my choice to help you, and my own efforts that drew attention to me."

He shrugs, sips his drink and offers a thin smile.

"Perhaps that is the real reason I feel so ill at ease," he offers, a fraction more lightly. "I am not used to so much attention, let alone people chasing me down the street. I suppose I should be flattered."

[reticence]

Faolan lets out a rough bark of laughter. "Flattered? For nearly being eaten? All because of your vague association with me? If you say so..." He raises the drink himself, taking a healthy swallow -- definitely more than the sip that the other man had. He sighs heavily, leaning forward on the table in front of him, reaching a hand up to run across his face, scratching his fingers through the stubble there. God, he hopes he hasn't just led anyone straight to this man's door. Wouldn't that be just his luck.

"I would ask if it should make you think twice about the next time you might stop and help a stranger on the road, but..." He sizes the other man up. "From what I can tell about you, I don't think even this would keep you from such things." He lets out another slightly self-deprecating laugh. "This might be the only drink I get to share with you though, if this is the luck I bring you."

[knightscode]

Lancelot is about to carry on his idle quip about positive and negative attention when.. when Faolan sighs, rubs his face, and something about his tone takes all the attempt at humour from him.

This might be the only drink I get to share with you though, if this is the luck I bring you.

He frowns at that, a touch guarded, and flexes his fingers around his own glass.

"I'd rather think of it the first of many," he counters, "and if you're to bring me bad luck we can make a habit of stopping for a drink afterwards. A little more cheerful than thinking it'll be our only chance."

[reticence]

Faolan glances up at the other man at that, uncertain in that moment himself. He's certainly never had a home insist on being friends with him, associating with him at least, especially not after nearly having gotten killed for it. At least, not that he can recall, at any rate. "That depends on whether you would welcome such a thing, I suppose," he says, shrugging after a moment. "And if you would like for it to be a drink," he adds, after a moment's pause. He quirks something of a smile at the other man again. "You keep suggesting such things, and yet. Something tells me you are not nearly as much an enthusiast as that."

He raises his eyebrows at him over the rim of his glass as he raises it to take another sip. Over the rim of his glass of amaretto. Amaretto that Lancelot had found in the corner of a cooking cabinet, for that matter. He figures his point will be made as well as it can be, in that gesture. "You needn't keep offering such things, if it's only on my account." Though he has to wonder what had him offering such things to him in the first place. Simply because it was done? Or did he simply seem the sort to appreciate such a gesture? (Possibly because in truth, he was.)

[knightscode]

"Well, perhaps not on my own. I prefer to do such things with others. I like company. Especially company that understands me."

He shrugs a little, offers a tiny smile.

"It isn't on your account, I assure you. Why would I pretend such a thing? I needn't have invited you in if I didn't want to. I did. You listened. Surely that is enough of a reason?"

[reticence]

Faolan raises his eyebrows slightly. It's possibly obvious that he's not used to this whole 'making friends' sort of a thing. "I will leave that decision up to you," he says. "I'm certainly not going to tell you to turn me out now." He quirks the corners of his mouth up in something of a smile. "Not before having finished my drink, at least."

He thinks that the other man might be a little bit too nice. That he may be a little bit too forgiving, and that if he's not careful, that's going to get him into a lot of trouble with the supernatural community. But it's been a long time since Faolan's had anything he could even remotely consider friendship, so he's certainly not going to turn this opportunity down. Even if there's a little voice in his head that says he'll be nothing but trouble for the other man.

[knightscode]

Lancelot drops his eyes at that, nods as he toys with his drink.

"Well," Lancelot says quietly, "you are welcome to stay long enough to finish your drink, and for another if you wish. I will not say no to the company."

He lifts his eyes, smile fading to something a little haunted still as he studies Faolan. Lily shoves her face into his lap and he drops a hand to her, soothes fingers through her fur as she considers him with doggy concern -- tail swishes over her back almost questioningly. Something is wrong! Can she help? She will help, if she can!

"Not that Lily is not good company," he amends, "but her conversation is somewhat lacking."

Lancelot takes a deep breath, lets it out in a heavy sigh and offers another weak smile. No, Faolan can stay as long as he wishes. Lancelot is glad of the distraction, and Faolan is not bad company. Having someone who understands such things to talk to is a welcome thing, and Lancelot does not think he would like to be alone with his thoughts right now.