undergrounds | [open] FAE HUNT

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[open] FAE HUNT

17TH // BROMLEY

The reports come his way in the morning. Losing fae to the vampires is... Unfortunate, but not unexpected. Not with Harris in charge. This is different however, and an urgent call has him making his way down to one of the community centres long before he'd think about leaving the house under usual terms.

Having a couple of fae tell you all about the night they had, being caught by vampires, watching another die, one with bites on their neck, etc. etc. It puts a real damper on your day. At first, he chalks it up to general vampire cruelty and plans to phone in a bounty to Hillingdon, but they just keep coming. Fae with burns from iron cuffs, missing fae, dead. It's like something just happened overnight.

He can be found more than once over the course of the evening, having a hushed conversation in the corner of a bar that looks like it could easily come to blows if not for the way Eames excuses himself abruptly and none too friendly.

Maybe you're curious, maybe he bumps you as he leaves looking fully like he intends to kill someone. Or maybe you just have a weak spot for men with clenched jaws nursing drinks alone at the bar. Either way, he's about.

18TH ONWARDS

It takes a couple days, and even then it's slow to start, but sure enough security starts tightening up around the two Fae boroughs. Anyone with a particularly keen eye for patterns and a lot of free time will notice the patrols and any vampire who enters the area might notice how it feels like they're being followed. Not just watched, like they usually would be.

A week in, it wouldn't be entirely incorrect to assume every other fae is carrying a stake, but that's not the only change in faeville. Eames is powerfully unhappy with this, and he's really not too pleased to speak to anyone who isn't a fae. He doesn't think the handful of vampires he's friendly with are involved, but he doesn't care to see them, and in his estimation humans are a bunch of useless hypocrites. Any conversations are strictly business.

Despite the danger, he's totally unafraid to wander into vampire territory, (though by the 25th he's constantly flanked by a burly looking pair at the behest of another Lord,) and some might say he's actively looking for a fight. There's more than a few scuffles if one fancied joining the fray. Vampires he sees getting a little too close to a fae, or maybe they try to round on him instead.

It wouldn't be silly to assume he's looking out for his people, but really he's just looking to vent some of his frustrations at the source.

29TH/30TH

There may be plans to deal with Harris, but that doesn't put Eames any more at ease in the interim. They're being hunted by vampires, and they're increasingly at danger of the whims of witches as Samhain approaches. It's not exactly a great time to be a fae in London.

He's not been in the mood for sex (shocking, isn't it,) drinking is at a minimum, and he can't exactly fight his way across the city just because he's in a shitty mood. Much as he'd love to. Doesn't leave many outlets to keep his mood even, but there's always a spot of fun to be had with a game of cards.

They're not as numerous as they used to be, (ah, the good old days,) but there's still plenty of back room gambling dens around London if you know where to look. And maybe it's a little unfair to hang out in the ones not frequented by magical types, but on the other hand Eames doesn't give a fuck. He needs to unwind a little, relax himself before the big night that hopefully won't be a huge fucking disaster. If that means clearing a bunch of mortals out, then so be it.

Go ahead, confront him about it. He'd love the fight.

ETC;

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Arthur stares down at the beer he's holding in his lap.

"Yeah, I know," he says, in that resigned sort of way. He knows. He also knows he should try harder at not doing that, probably, but it's so easy.

"What I'm saying is that I know it's not on purpose. Most of the time."

Eames sighs and reclines a little in his seat, and tips his head at Arthur with a light smirk, "or haven't you noticed we don't argue as much as when we met?"

Arthur lets out a soft, amused sound, glancing up at Eames wryly.

"I thought it was mostly the sex."

Eames actually laughs at that, shaking his head. "I won't say it doesn't help."

He sighs, taking another sip from his beer. "I don't want to tell you how to do your job," he says after another moment of silence. "Sometimes I just can't keep my mouth shut."

"You should work on that."

Hot tips from Eames.

Arthur sighs like he's tired. "Yeah," he says, without a drop of sarcasm. He knows that.

Eames sits on that for a moment or two; there's a lot of snide comments he could respond with, but it's a big deal for Arthur to come and admit to being a jackass. As someone who also hates apologising, he can appreciate that.

"In the meantime, there's a lot of decent alcohol out there you can get for under thirty quid."

You know. For apologies.

Arthur nods. "I'll bring something the next time I'm around."

Eames takes another moment, enjoying a sip of his drink with a slight frown on his face.

"Listen," he's looking at the label when he speaks, a bit of that recent tiredness showing around his eyes, "you might be the most frustrating friend I've ever had, but I know you well enough by now that I probably won't punch you in the face for being a prick."

See? It's progress.

"Good to know," Arthur says, nodding in understanding, pressing his lips together as he tries to divine exactly what that statement means. It probably means Eames considers him a good enough friend that he'll forgive him for being the way he is, though it could have been clearer and nicer. Arthur's not about to criticize Eames for that right now.

He sighs down at his beer and looks up at Eames hesitantly. He's about to maybe cross a line herebut he feels like it needs to be asked.

"Are you okay?"

Eames snorts, a short laugh that's really not amused at all as he shakes his head.

"No." He doesn't even have the energy to lie about it right now, which probably says a lot about how he's doing, and he drags a hand through his hair with a sigh, "not at all."

Oh. Arthur was kind of banking on Eames brushing him off because he's really not good at this stuff. He knows what kinds of things people usually say in this situation but he never knows what would actually be the perfect thing to say, and to him that feels like a failure.

"Is there anything I can do?" he says, frowning at Eames in concern.

"Doubt it," Eames says tiredly, though he appreciates the asking given what a disaster Arthur is with anything that even smells like an emotion from someone else.

He waves a hand dismissively, "don't worry about it. I'll... Sort it out."

There it is: the out. Eames is handing it to him on a silver platter, but now Arthur feels like he can't take it. Eames has just told him he's not okay.

"That's not how that works," he says softly. It's empathetic rather than chastising. "I've been out there almost every night; I see what they're doing. I know this has to be hard. I just want to know if I can help."

Eames sighs and leans forward, elbows on his knees and he takes a liberal swig of his drink this time. He's just so tired and it's not the kind he can just sleep off, he's worn out from constantly having to deal with some threat or other just because he made the mistake of wanting to live in his home.

"I don't know if you can, Arthur," he says quietly, and it's not dismissive this time. An admission instead, because honestly he has no fucking idea what he's doing anymore. Right now is rough, but it's not just now, is it? Maybe they get rid of Harris, then what? Some other fucking problem he has to deal with because nobody else gives a shit.

Arthur sighs, genuinely unsure of what to do now. He can see Eames needs comfort, but Arthur's second-, third-, and fourth-guessing himself about how he could provide it, or whether he should even try. They've established that they're kind of friends at this point, but what that means is kind of a mystery.

So he puts his drink down and shuffles just a bit closer, bumping Eames' shoulder gently with his own. "Sometimes just having someone around helps," he says. "I can do that at least, if you want."

Oh. What. Eames turns his head to look at Arthur when he shuffles closer, eyebrows furrowed in confusion about what he's up to here, and he drops his head with a laugh when Arthur bumps his shoulder. Needless to say, he wasn't exactly expecting anything like this from Arthur, he's kinda caught off-guard by the gesture.

"I'm not exactly great company right now," Eames says, "unless you really enjoy drinking in silence and scowling."

Arthur sighs once again and leans back against the couch, but not before he picks his drink back up to take a long pull. He doesn't particularly enjoy drinking in silence and scowling, but it is arguably better than some other activities.

"Being good company isn't the point. If you don't want me here, I'll go, but I do know how important is not to be alone sometimes."

God, is there anything worse than the idea of telling Arthur to stay because not being on his own right now sounds pretty good.

Well, yes. It's part of why this situation even exists to begin with, but it's still pretty awful. He doesn't want to want that, it feels like an admission of weakness. And maybe that's fine for other people, but not for him.

Eames sighs, "I'm not asking you to leave." Which is the best way he can come up with to say it without saying it, "but I'm pretty pissed off right now. You might not want to be around that." He says it evenly, it's not a warning, but Eames doesn't do open anger in part because he knows he's so unpleasant to be around in ways he can't control when he is.

"I'm familiar with the concept of anger," Arthur replies, a little wryly. Maybe that was too much sarcasm, so he reels it back in quickly, barely giving himself time for another drink.

"Listen, unless you're going to wreck your stuff and me in the process, it's fine. I told you, being good company isn't the point."

Well Eames snorts at the comment regardless, a little amused. They argue enough and Arthur's seen him mad enougg that he probably has a fairly good idea what he's dealing with.

His jaw tightens in the next moment though, working it like it takes an actual physical effort at make himself speak, and frowns at the bottle in his hand.

"Thanks," he lingers on it a moment, like he has more to say, but nope. That's it.

"Yeah," Arthur says softly, feeling like this is not the time to say something like 'you're welcome.' He keeps his sober gaze on Eames for a moment and then takes another sip from his beer. He's just going to wait this one out, until Eames either tells him to go or seems to be in better spirits.

It's not that he's scared for Eames - he's sure the man has seen a lot of terrible and endlessly frustrating things in his lifetime and he's managed to make it this far - but he does know how hard it is to go through that alone and he knows how hard it is to think straight in those situations. There's a lot of pressure on Eames to think straight right now. It must be almost suffocating. So Arthur's gonna stay and try and take some of that edge off, because they're friends, and because Eames opened up to him. He feels like that's important.

It's pretty much exactly what Eames said it would be going forward, silent drinking with the odd bit of idle chatter to break things up. He's not feeling especially conversational tonight.

At some point Eames switches to the fae wine, though for the sake of his health Arthur's only allowed the human booze, which eases him up a bit when the sobriety finally starts to slip away. Talking more about nothing important until eventually falling asleep, ending up awkwardly positioned on the couch with his head on Arthur's chest, one foot up on the coffee table, and an empty glass cradled next to him.

It's not comfortable in the least but Eames is too asleep to care.

Arthur drinks consistently enough that he eventually just drifts off, almost skipping full drunkenness all together, barely even registering Eames' head on his chest but ending up with an arm draped around his shoulders anyway. He won't have the worst hangover in the world, but his neck will be rebelling in the morning that's for sure.

Speaking of morning, it's quickly approaching and Arthur might be starting to stir.

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