undergrounds | [OPEN] I'VE SEEN TROUBLE ALL MY DAYS

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[OPEN] I'VE SEEN TROUBLE ALL MY DAYS

A. WORKING HOURS
It's a slow day. With no clients booked for the afternoon, Faolan's finding himself with an unusual amount of time on his hands. Not one for being idle, he finds himself roaming the streets, rather idly, hands tucked in pockets, looking as nonchalant and unassuming as one can. Which isn't hard, considering the fact that he's a wiry little Irishman, standing 5'6" at full height. Looking a bit like he'd rolled out of bed only hours ago (perhaps he had, in all honesty), with a healthy growth of stubble on his face, curling into his rough brown leather jacket despite the warmth of the sun above him, he doesn't exactly make himself look approachable either for that matter.

It's going to be a long night. A long night after a long night the night before, and as he blinks up at the sky above him -- is that really the sun though? -- he decides that coffee is in order. In desperate order. Stopping in the nearest shop he can find, he orders himself the simplest drink he can and sits huddled against the counter, curling over it and willing the caffeine to do its work and snap his brain into functioning as well.

B. PREP WORK - HILLINGDON
Despite the lack of clients for the afternoon, Faolan's got a job that evening. As people start to get out of work and shuffle home to their normal families and their normal lives, Faolan decides to head over to Hillingdon House and see if he can find anything interesting to use on his hunt that evening. If there's anything that can be counted on, it's the fact that if anyone's at the "Hunter's Retreat", as they call it, then they might have some goods to share. Or to at least show off, if nothing else.

It makes the fact that he has no one to go home to and nothing but the hunt ahead a little more bearable than it otherwise might be.

C. ON THE HUNT
Faolan should have known that the tip had been shady. McCoy was good for some things, but details certainly weren't his strong suit, and Faolan had been less on the ball about his research than he probably should have been. He should have known that getting a lead on the location of the vampire he'd been after for the past week was too good to be true, that he wouldn't be alone, but he hadn't been thinking too hard about it. He'd killed four children, three of them under the age of ten, and Faolan wanted him dead.

So he'd gone in alone and unprepared for not one, but five vampires to greet him. He's a good shot and he'd made every one that he could count, but as his gun clicked empty and two of them still advanced on him -- two of them with their pet werewolf for that matter -- Faolan knew that he had a problem. So he ran, throwing himself down the stairs, through the closest window and off the fire escape down one storey to the alleyway below. He has just enough time to assess that the damage from the fight before, breaking through the glass, and falling from that height isn't too bad that he can't go on, before he hears the sound of the wolf scrabbling after him from above. Making a split second decision, Faolan stows the gun behind a dumpster nearby -- hoping the thing will be in the same spot when he comes back in daylight, since it won't do him any good now -- before he takes off at a run towards the nearest open area he can find. It won't follow him out into the lights of the street and the lingering evening crowds around, will it? God, he hopes not.

D. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE
What it says on the tin!

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Heiji leapt down several feet to the ground and squeezed through a crack in the door. It was easy; this body was small. He knew Faolan had seen him, and so the only question was whether he'd follow Heiji through or not.

Faolan could take a hint. He threw a glance behind him at the flunkies wading through the crowd, trying to get a reading on him, knowing he disappeared in there somewhere and that he couldn't have gone far, not yet. So Faolan made another split-second decision and stepped forward, examining the door, before pushing, pressing, squeezing himself through the crack as well. It was harder for him to do himself, since he was certainly larger than a fox. But he was still a small man and this was one of the times where rather than cursing the fates for that fact, he was grateful for it, as he slipped through the space and completely out of view of his pursuers, and beyond to where the fox had led.

Once Faolan was inside, the noise of the crowd fell away. The inside of the building was abandoned, just as it had appeared from the outside... and yet somehow, it was different. The wood paneling inside was rich and dark; there was a table there, shelves with odds and ends there. On one side of the room was a window, old but not covered with cracks or graffiti. What it looked out on was not a fire escape, but what looked like a cobblestone street.

"Bit of a sticky situation," said Heiji. It was safe to talk now, though maybe not entirely safe from Faolan's pursuers -- they might still follow their quarry throught he doorway, after all. "You with Hillingdon?"

Faolan blinked at their surroundings. Whatever he had expected, it hadn't been this. Something was off, the view out the was is all wrong, and where did the noise from the people beyond go? The sounds of the city? He suddenly wished that he had his gun back with him. Maybe it wouldn't have helped but it certainly would have made him feel safer.

He turned wary eyes at the voice, everything about him tense and on-edge. Wouldn't it be just his luck that he had jumped right out of the frying pan and into the flame. Still, there was no point in trying to deny it. "I am," he replied. "Who are you?"

Heiji stepped out of one of the room's long shadows. "Just your friendly neighborhood watch," he said, brushing a cobweb off of himself. "I'm Heiji. Sorry to butt in. But it looked like you were in kind of a jam."

Might still be, actually, if they managed to find the entrance.

Well, that pretty much confirmed Faolan's suspicions that the fox was now the person in front of him. 'Friendly neighborhood watch.' Faolan let out something of a laugh at that, although the sound was somewhat bitter and pained. Mostly because, now that he didn't feel like he was running for his life, he was free to realize how much everything hurt. Jumping out the window, while necessary, definitely was going to come back and bite him in the ass later on.

Faolan was wary of strangers, and had his reasons for feeling that way. He cast a suspicious glance in the other's direction. "Why would you help me?" he asked, not bothering on niceties (yet, anyway -- just be patient with him, Heiji).

Be sure to pick each broken piece of glass out of yourself, Faolan...

Heiji considered the question. "Well, I ain't too crazy about vampires. And it'd also be nice to be on Hillingdon's good side. But the alternative was sitting back and watching -- and that's just not something I was willing to do."

Certainly, there were those out there who wouldn't have particularly cared if one human lived or died. But Heiji was not one of their number.

Faolan nodded slightly. He supposed that it was as good as any answer. He glanced around at the building around them, not exactly offering up his name or any such friendly gesture quite yet, but he was making progress at least.

"What is this place?" he asked. The fact that the view out the windows didn't match anything of what they had come from was certainly throwing him for a loop. Cobblestones? Last time he'd checked, there'd been pavement on the ground outside, not to mention the fact that they'd come in off of a fire escape.

Heiji blinked; for a second, he'd forgotten that the humans here had forgotten most of what they'd once known about the Other Realm.

"This is Faery! That door took us through to the Other Realm."

Faolan blinks at that revelation. "The Other Realm." Truthfully, he has heard of Faery, but he has never been there. He has never really gone looking into it either, for Faery isn't generally his area of investigation. Perhaps he has been ignorant thus far for having neglected to look into it further, for not knowing more. But he's had his hands full with other, more immediate concerns.

He glances back at Heiji. "What does that make you, then?" he has to ask. Considering he had followed a fox into this place, it only stands to reason that the question should follow such a reveal, after all.

Hmm. Not the most polite way to word that question, but Faolan had just had a near disastrous run-in with a bunch of vampires.

"Fae, basically. Know anyone else that can open Doors?" Because if he did, Heiji would sure like to hear about it. "Don't worry. I ain't here to kidnap you or anything. You can get back out that door... only I don't think you've been here long enough for them to have moved off yet."

Faolan shakes his head. He hasn't really done a lot of networking in the city. He probably should do more, considering how long he's been there, but that's neither here nor there.

He's certainly not going to go out the door if it means running into his pursuer any time soon. He'll take the man in here with him above the creature outside any day. So he does the only thing he can think of, and asks Heiji to continue. "A Door. I'm guessing you don't mean..." He gestures vaguely. Anyone can open a door, after all.

Heiji looked mildly surprised. He knew, of course, that the fae here were significantly more hands-off than they'd been where he came from. But the question still threw him for a bit of a loop.

"An opening to Faery, I mean. You walk back through that entrance, it'll take ya back to London. Oh, but if ya find one of these somewhere else, you shouldn't really try and waltz in on your own. Might not be all easy to get back."

Faolan nods, obviously processing things quickly and competently, storing them away where they should in his mind.

"Implying that one might be able to stumble on one on their own. You mean to say that they are both naturally occurring and that there are those out there, like yourself, who can open them wherever they like?" Look, he's trying to get this, really he is.

Balem had been right; it was frightening how much people didn't know. "It's possible one could be naturally-occurring, but it's way more possible someone just opened one before and forgot to close it for some reason.

He fiddled idly with the brim of his cap. "Either way, you shouldn't wander into Faery; ain't everyone always friendly in there."

Faolan nods. He figures as much. People aren't generally friendly anywhere, however, so he hardly expects to be welcomed everywhere he goes with open arms. Although he does have one more question.

"And what sort of an opinion do they have of hunters in such a place, then?" he has to ask.

"Depends on what you're huntin'," said Heiji with a smile. Certainly if said hunter's target was fae, they would probably not receive a very warm reception.

"Some people might try to help you, others might try to hurt you. Kinda like London." Especially for someone like Heiji, who had to watch out every once in a while for vampires and the like. "Anyhow, never really a great time to get lost in there, but I guess if ya had to, right now is probably the best time."

Faolan shrugs slightly. "I'm grateful for the escape," he says, since he knows that that's what Heiji means. "I don't particularly fancy being killed tonight. Not by that wolf out there, and not if I can help it. I guess this means that I'll owe you one." That's how it works, isn't it. What he'll owe and how he can repay it Faolan isn't exactly certain, but fair is fair.

"If ya know a good place to get some Moroccan lamb, that'd go a long way!" said Heiji, who probably shouldn't have been thinking about food but absolutely was.

"Anyhow, I bet they're off your scent by now. You wanna check?"

Faolan can't help the laugh, although it does surprise him slightly, to be joking around like this, considering what sort of a scenario he was in earlier that night, what with running for his life and all. "There might be a place in Wandsworth I could recommend, if you're interested," Faolan says, casually.

At the suggestion of checking, however, he looks towards the door. The window, after all, hardly is going to show anything of what he needs to see. "Do I just... Open it?" he asks, realizing it sounds a little dumb and feeling a little dumb for asking, but ask he must.

He laughed and made his way over to the door, cracking it open to look outside. The noise of the street returned, somewhat far off. The smells of the street, though, were what Heiji was mostly interested in.

"Coast's clear. Unless, of course, vampires stopped smelling in the past ten minutes or so."

Faolan shakes his head, taking a step forward towards the door and peering out of it. It's odd, especially in this angle, how he can see both out onto the modern streets of London, and glance back inside to the windows with their entirely different view. He shakes his head again.

"I'd be interested in learning more about these doors sometime," he says, turning to the other. After a beat, he digs out his wallet and pulls out his card. It just has his name ("Faolan O'Neill"), phone number and email address on it in black letters on a white background -- clean and classic. No mention of being a hunter or of his job as a PI. It's easier not to have to worry about different cards for the separate jobs. He holds one out for Heiji, realizing in that moment he's not entirely certain if he'd even introduced himself before then. Ah, well. Running for your life will do that, he supposes.

Hmm, an actual card. Maybe Heiji needed to get some of those printed -- although that would mean remembering to carry the things around. And feeling like a nerd when he went to pick them up.

He took the card with both hands, as this was only the polite (read: Japanese) thing to do, and tucked it away in his jacket. After a moment, he produced a small notepad, scrawled his first name and number on the page, and tore off a section to give to Faolan.

"And I was tryin' to persuade you to not get too interested," he said with a smile. It really could be quite dangerous, after all. "Be careful out there."

Faolan glances down at the name and number on the piece of paper, before turning towards the door. "As careful as I always am," he promises, which he realizes is hardly a comforting statement, but it's as good as anyone's going to get out of a man like him. He raises the small paper to Heiji in something of a salute.

"Thanks again," he tones, before sticking it in the breast pocket of his jacket. "I'll be seeing you around, then." And with that he turns and heads out onto the fire escape, into the darkness, and the sounds and smells of the London air.

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[OPEN] I'VE SEEN TROUBLE ALL MY DAYS

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