undergrounds | Every single holiday, a head in a box

"I'd feel badly if I didn't try and you ended up not finding who was behind this. If there's any chance I'd rather take it than not."

He lofts an eyebrow slightly, hesitates before dropping his eyes again and sipping the water.

"Although you may want to glue anything breakable down or move it elsewhere, just in case."

Faolan huffs something of a laugh at that. "I'm afraid I'm all out of glue, but I've got drawers in my desk that should do nicely. Unless you've learned how to open them as well?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. Has he? Faolan honestly doesn't know how well Lancelot can control his ability, it's been a while since he's seen the other man use it, really.

He nods to the water. "Take your time. We'll go back when you're ready. I'm certainly in no rush. Unless you'd rather be done with it sooner rather than later." He shrugs slightly. "You said this was the first time you had ever done something like this?" It meant of course that he had no idea of his limitations as far as it was concerned either.

"Yes, although -- forgive me, I am not sure I did anything. Not on purpose, at least. It simply... happened."

Lancelot winces a fraction, drops his eyes.

"I know that does not sound... good, that things happen of their own accord, I will understand if you choose to stand a little further away next time."

Since he's clearly not exactly in control of it.

"Well," Faolan says, with the quirking of a smile, "I've yet to see you levitate anything heavy enough to fear for being levitated myself just yet, so I think I'll take my chances if it's all the same to you."

It might be safer to stand closer to him after all. Like being in the eye of the storm, although he's not sure that he wants to make that sort of a connection to the other man, especially when he's still feeling so self-conscious about the new ability.

"I've given you a good shove, though."

He sips the water again, lets out a heavy sigh and sets aside the glass. Lancelot isn't fully convinced he couldn't do Faolan some damage accidentally, but equally he thinks (hopes?) the likelihood of that happening is low. It's just the possibility being there at all that makes him nervous. He was just beginning to get used to floating things, after all, this other aspect to being able to sense magic -- well, he has no idea how it might change anything else.

Pushing to his feet he shoves back his hair and presses his lips together, nervous but rather determined all the same.

"May as well give it a try," he says finally, if a touch unconvincingly.

Faolan honestly isn't so certain that this is a good idea, but if the other man insists... Well, he probably could stop him, to be honest, but then Lancelot would regret not trying harder. The least he can do is be there for him and make certain that he doesn't hurt himself, or perhaps be there for him in case he hurts himself would be the more accurate way of phrasing things.

"Alright," he says, moving to stand himself and pushing through the door into the hall again. He pauses just as they get to the door of his office, turning to the other man, the look in his eyes perhaps the first sign he's given that he's actually concerned about this going sour. "Just. Be careful, yeah? Of yourself, I mean, not the office. Anything in there that gets damaged, I can just replace." Everything but Lancelot himself.

He gives him a long searching look before he turns and opens the door, leading the other man back inside the mess his office has already become.

"I can't replace you as easily as all that. Nor your evidence, for that matter."

He lofts an eyebrow at that, slips past Faolan into the room and pads slowly over to the box to examine it. What is it he'd done last time? He isn't sure he'd done much of anything but focus, in truth, but some part of him wants there to be a process to such thing. Magic should surely be cast, not just happen without warning.

(Perhaps if you're a witch it's like that, fae magic is a little less precise of course -- unfortunately for Lancelot.)

Faolan doesn't know quite how to respond to that at first. The look and the comment combined. He could care less about the evidence, really -- Lancelot is something of a last hope as far as that's concerned. If they find something they find something and if not he's not going to waste time being upset about it. He's given enough to go on thus far anyway. And he recognizes that Lancelot values him, of course he does, but to hear it said aloud so plainly is another matter entirely.

He slips in quietly behind the other man, taking up a guard what he assumes is far enough away but not too far that he won't be able to get to the other man's side quickly, if it turns out that he needs help. "Take your time," he coaxes Lancelot. "No one's in any rush." The woman the head belongs to -- whose murder they're solving of course -- least of all.

Lancelot nods once, takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly as he closes the last of the distance. Did he touch the box before? He can't remember, but it seems a logical way to be better in contact with whatever is going on. He hesitantly places some fingers on the outside of it, trying not to focus on the head so much as the general feel of magic. After a second he closes his eyes, trying to better block it out so he can think. Fae magic, there's fae magic on it. Seelie magic. Yet not all of it feels that way and... there it is again.

Something, an angry twisting sort of feeling. Was she angry? Was someone angry at her? Both make sense. He feels a shiver run down his spine as it nags at him, as the anger and panic begin to claw at him. Around him, some of the things already scattered on Faolan's desk begin to twitch again.

Faolan keeps his eyes trained on the other man, at the way his eyes close and his brow furrows as he concentrates. Or perhaps it's because of what he's feeling? It's hard to tell, since he's not really giving anything else away. That is, not until the things on his desk start to vibrate back into life again. Faolan glaces towards the desk itself and wonders whether he really should have hidden anything that might wind up as a sharp projectile in the right scenario, supposing that it's too late now and besides, anything could be a weapon when wielded in the right way.

He doesn't speak up to interrupt Lancelot's concentration, but he does take another step closer towards him -- just in case he needs to grab him and hit the floor very suddenly. One can never be too careful, especially not now that the thought is planted in his mind.

He doesn't even notice Faolan has taken a step closer, so focused as he is, but he does suddenly speak up.

"This isn't good."

Which, perhaps, obvious considering the decapitated head. He looks up suddenly, eyes widening a fraction just before everything dropped. Did it again, then. Wincing, Lancelot takes another breath and lets it out slowly -- gives a full body shiver as he tries to shake off the feeling.

"I suppose it makes sense that a head would hardly give pleasant feelings, but I don't think this was a peaceful death -- just in case there was any doubt."

Faolan jumps slightly himself at the sound of his office once again answering to the gravity it should have, but he stays right where he is, close but not too close to the other man's side.

"No," he says, "this is useful though. Short of involving a medical examiner, there is no way to know for certain that the decapitation is what caused the death. But... From what you're saying, it would seem that would be the case. And from the look of it, it was hardly a clean blow at that." He isn't sure whether Lancelot got close enough to observe that much himself, but Faolan certainly did, both when Eames was waving the thing around and again when he'd taken it back to his office later.

"Are you alright?" he feels compelled to ask, because the last time the other man had done that, he'd needed to excuse himself. He's somewhere on the edge of readying himself for something worse or standing down, figuring that Lancelot's getting more used to the ability.

Every single holiday, a head in a box

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