undergrounds | waves that swallow quick and deep

Silence, okay, she's used to that. Maybe he didn't hear her over the din of the bar. "Sir?" She asked politely, taking another step forward. It's then that she realizes who he is, in the darkness.

Instantly, she stops in her tracks.

"Shit," Nancy swears under her breath. God damn it, Faolan. Dubhan, whatever the fuck he is. She hasn't been drinking- okay, no, that's a lie. She's nearly always drinking, says the flask in her purse that happens to be connected to the bottle of gin in her cupboard. Never runs empty until that bottle does. Handy little item, truth be told.

"Forget I asked." Terse, her lips pursed. She added, because she could, and she was a teenager still: "Dick."

Faolan narrows his eyes at her again. While he does feel like he deserves some of the treatment he's gotten from her, there comes a certain point where he can't help but feel as though he's being treated rather unfairly, all things considered. Sure, he quit his job and because Kenzi didn't have a bodyguard she wound up a vampire. He didn't make her into a vampire, though. He didn't kill Nancy's friend. One didn't automatically spell the other.

"Can it be you've forgotten me so readily?" Faolan has to ask, and he does a surprisingly good job of keeping a straight face as he does.

Nancy wanted- no, she needed someone to blame. Sure, she blamed herself enough for it all- if she hadn't been in trouble, Kenzi wouldn't have gone looking for an answer.

"Fuck off," she tells him. "I didn't recognize you in the light." It's the only reason she'd approach him relatively kindly, and she was doing a damn good job trying to make up for the introduction.

Faolan raises his eyebrows at her. He's had just enough to drink to be able to be successfully belligerent about this.

"So that's still how it's going to be then," he says. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"No, you shouldn't." She crosses her arms. "Why- expecting something calm and rational?" She was never calm and rational where her friends were concerned.

Nancy was really never calm or rational.

Faolan raises his eyebrows at her. Hey, she's the one who said it, not him. Of course he hadn't been expecting calm and rational, especially not when she had gone ballistic on him at Lancelot's party. But expecting it and actually outright stating that he ought to have known better are really two different things entirely.

He spreads his hands wide before her. "I've said my part. I've apologized. What more do you want from me, Nancy?" he asks. "What more is there for me to do at this point?" It's not like there's any saving her friend now, after all.

She wouldn't use the term ballistic, okay?

"There's nothing you can do." She understood why he left Kenzi. But that didn't make it right. That didn't make spying on them right, either. "I'm sure you've already told the Night Council all there is to know about me, on top of it all. Which, whoops, there go nineteen years of living under the radar. Now our government knows I exist."

It's not always up to her how she comes off to other people, especially when she's drunkenly yelling at them at their best friend's birthday party.

Faolan actually raises his eyebrows at that last one. "You're worried about me telling the Night Council information?" he says, incredulously. "You do know what Lancelot is, don't you?" Hell, the whole world possibly knows what Lancelot is, and it's not because his secret got out like it did for Faolan, but because the other man usually comes right out and admits to it instead.

"Yes. I am. Because I don't <>trust you." Her grip on her drink tightens a little.

"Lance has proven I can trust him. What have you done to earn the same?" She crosses her arms. "Lance never lied. " He wasn't up-front about it, but when he realized he had to be, he was. She'd been upset, of course, but he was a good person. And it didn't hurt to have someone in your corner in the Night Council.

'Lancelot never lied.' He huffs out a breath at that. He isn't sure that the other man is capable of it. Not a good lie, at least. And that's why he hadn't been chosen for that assignment. Lancelot is honest and good, and nothing like Faolan himself. Maybe she's right, to be angry at him. He isn't all that happy with himself, all things considered.

He looks back down at his drink himself. "Lancelot is a Guardian," he responds, "the same as I am. The difference between us isn't so much that I lied about it. It's because he believes in it too much to be able to."

"And then what exactly do you believe in?" Lance actually cared. He'd gone out of his way to help her, multiple times. The first time they'd met, he'd avoided giving her any sort of verbal warning all while giving her one. From there, it had been chocolate and condolences.

"It obviously isn't keeping the people safe."

Faolan gives her a pointed look that says exactly what he thinks of her assessment of him. If she'd paid attention to his platform for the Council at all, she would know. But of course she had been too busy feeling betrayed. Just like half the underground world as well, it would seem.

"Justice," he answers, his voice firm and direct. And probably not in the say way that Lancelot would mean the word either. He glances down at his drink once more. "It's why I don't blame you. For being angry with me. But it's like I said before. I didn't have a choice. And I suppose given the options, I'd rather Lancelot have recommended me for the ob than tried to take it for himself."

Truthfully, she'd been busy rigging the election, and hadn't really given Faolan's platform much thought other than this is not the man I know.

Nancy barks out a laugh. "Justice-! Oh, that's a fine thing to believe in. I hate to break it to you, but justice is one of the few things in this world that I know doesn't exist." If justice existed... A lot of things would be different in her life.

It hurts, to have her laugh like that. She had asked him what he believed in, and for once he had told the truth. He tries not to let that hurt color his conversation any further, but to do such a thing is to attempt to hold water in your hands. It will flow out one way or another.

"I know that," he grinds out. "You don't know anything about me, don't think that I don't know that." His family, slaughtered before his eyes. His little sister, taken by the vampires. Him, the lone survivor. Forbidden from rescuing her. Making his attempt anyway. They turned her for it, and she hated him for that. She had blamed him for everything. And he had too. Where was the justice in any of that?

But it was the possibility that he fought for. That he had to keep fighting for or else what was the point of it anymore? What is the point of any of it? There had to be the chance to make the world a better place. Somehow.

"You're the one who asked the damned question," he continues, perhaps a little more defensively than was entirely reasonable, given the circumstances.

Nancy resists the urge to roll her eyes, but only barely. "no, I don't. and I don't want to." It said something that she had no desire to get to know Faolan, when she knew so many that were far, far worse than him.

"Don't get testy- I asked and I happen to think its a shit belief. You'd be better off believing in pigs with wings. You know it doesn't exist, so why even bother?" karma, justice, anything like that and Nancy was hard-pressed to believe it was real. So much had happened to her to convince her otherwise.

"Unless you think that was what it was. Kenzi being turned as some sick form of justice."

Faolan resists the urge to roll his eyes at her in turn, hunching over himself and his glass. "Why should I bother explaining it to you if you're going to make fun of me for it," he retorts. It's not about what he thinks is real here and now, after all. It's about the fact that, with the right people doing the right things, it could be. But of course she wouldn't understand that sort of a belief, too young and hung up on her anger as she is.

"If you had paid attention to anything I had said during the campaign, then you would understand," he says instead, and hunches further over his drink.

"Make fun of you? Bloody hell, how old do you even think I am?" Okay, so she was making fun of him. But it was more pointed and angry then that. "I'm arguing with you, there's a difference."

She took a long drink from her glass, swallowing the gin down without a second thought, or need for a chaser.

"Ah, right, what you said during the campaign. Pity for you, then. I'm more of an actions speak louder than words sort of girl."

Faolan shoots her a long glance before turning back to his own drink.

"Perhaps you should have voted for me then," is all he replies. Not that he really wants to have been elected. Though maybe it would have gotten him out of being a Guardian -- now there's a thought. Possibly the only good one he's had about it since he'd lost, truth be told.

"Perhaps I should have. Pity you'll never know who was on my ballot." She'd actually been extremely busy, y'know, rigging the election against Norrell to really deal with any other candidates. Awful, yes. But she was young and stupid enough to be a one-issue voter.

"Pity indeed," Faolan repeats, in a manner suggesting he really doesn't care what a shallow young girl like how he conceives Nancy to be cares to put her time into.

He turns back to his drink. Well, she'll never have to deal with the thought of him being on the council. Certainly not this go around, and Faolan doesn't know how he'll respond if someone else puts his name up for the bid next tme. He supposes he'll cross that bridge when he gets there. He's already got enough going on these days as it is.

"I won't keep you from whatever trouble you were planning on getting yourself into before you realized who I was," he comments to her, taking another healthy swig of his drink as he does.

"I don't call it trouble," she tells him, picking up what he's putting down. She pushes away from the bar. "I call it making a living."

It wasn't a legal living, but it was hers, and she could own what little comfort that afforded her. "I hope she shows up." Whomever he probably wasn't waiting for. She also didn't hope she showed up, but it was a good exit line

Faolan glances up at Nancy, the implications of her exit line lost on him, considering he hadn't been much waiting for anyone. He'd been drinking by himself in the bar with no intention of having any company whatsoever. He supposed if company found him he wouldn't mind either way, but it certainly hadn't been something he'd been seeking out.

"She?" he asks, puzzled. Had that been a jab at someone in particular?

She gestures at where he's sitting, almost dismissively.

"Whomever you're waiting for. I'd hate for you to be stood up."

Faolan glances up at her, stupidly. Perhaps it's because he's had a fair amount to drink already, but it honestly surprises him that she thinks he should be waiting for anyone at all. She obviously thinks he's got better chances than he does. "Lucky for you, there's no chance of that," he replies. "No one is coming for me."

"What about you?" he finds himself asking. "Who are you looking for, in a place like this?"

Honestly, she's a little happy to hear that. Just a little.

"I'd call you pathetic, but I'm drinking alone, too." She proves a point by drinking herself.

"Anyone. Someone a little lonely, or someone a little drunk with a little extra cash." She finishes off her drink, it's incredibly liberating, in a weird way, to speak so openly about her job. To be able to be bitter about the sort of life she lead.

"Don't even have to have fangs."

waves that swallow quick and deep

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