closed;

[reticence]

WHO: Faolan & Laurent
WHERE: Their (Laurent's) swanky apartment
WHEN: Various dates throughout the month
WHAT: Several moments throughout the month between their trips to their respective team locations.
WARNINGS: Laurent's mouth is not PG and neither are the dubious consent implications in regains


WEEK ONE
It's been one hell of a day, Faolan thinks to himself as he stumbles down the street to the apartment that he shares with Laurent. His shirt and jacket are covered in blood and hanging off of his shoulder where the wolf had bitten him, though there are hardly any people out on the street and those that are apparently have seen enough trauma today themselves they are paying the sight of it little heed. Which is probably for the best. All he wants is to get back to the apartment and make certain that Laurent does too.

It's only once he's riding in the lift up to their door itself that he realizes he probably might have sent the other man a message checking in. But if he was in the middle of something he doesn't want to distract him and risk his life with a text. Who knows what Laurent had encountered down in the depths of those subways. Perhaps Laurent has made it back before him -- perhaps he will not make it back for a while yet. Faolan laments the fact that he will have to get used to not being able to perform his full duties, as he carefully sets the key in the lock in the front door and lets himself in.

Comments

[anguinous]

Laurent is tired, ruffled and somewhat frustrated. He knew at least one person in the small group Retrospec assigned him, but that didn't make the whole situation any easier. It was ridiculous, and Laurent didn't feel at all useful or prepared for the situation. Faolan, he reasons, likely was. Faolan was a bodyguard, after all. Whatever situation he ended up in, likely he adapted easily and made progress rather than flailing about with a mop and then watching people pointlessly argue.

The streets are somewhat quieter, but Laurent's building is at least still populated with some security staff. He makes his way in and calls the lift, finally unlocking the door somewhat later and half-stumbling through it. He throws his keys down into a bowl near the door, and begins tiredly toeing off his shoes and wrenching his jacket off and his stumbles across the room.

[reticence]

Faolan glances up at the other man as he enters, from where he has been sitting at the kitchen island. He might have found a more comfortable seat on the sofa but he couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't get blood all over it, and somehow he thinks Laurent would take offense to that. He had been halfway to taking a shower, dumping his jacket over the back of one of the stools as he'd entered, when he'd ran his fingers over his shoulder and discovered a roughness to the skin beneath. A roughness of scar tissue that had not been there before, in the exact shape of the bite that had flashed through his memory as he'd fought those wolves, and it had all been a bit too much.

Faolan had poured himself a glass of the strongest alcohol they'd had in the apartment and he'd sat himself down on the breakfast island to wait for Laurent to return as well. So lost in his thoughts that once he does he stands up so fast he nearly trips and spills his drink at the same time.

"You're back," he says. Realizing only after the fact how the comment must sound to the other man, and how he must have looked while saying it for that matter.

[anguinous]

"Yes," Laurent replies absently, and he's unbuttoning his shirt when he turns and finally takes in Faolan's appearance. His fingers freeze on the buttons and his eyes widen a little.

"What happened?"

Since clearly something did, Faolan looks an absolute mess. A fight, presumably? Has he had it treated?

[reticence]

The look on Laurent's face clues Faolan in on the fact that something is off, though it takes him a moment to connect the dots and realize that that something is him.

He shifts awkwardly for a moment, though there's nothing to cover himself so he stops fidgeting once he realizes that. Glancing at the newly-appeared scar on his shoulder, the same shoulder that is still largely caked with blood from his earlier bite, he stares at it for too long before looking back at Laurent.

"I was... Attacked by a wolf," he says. Though whether this is from the shadow wolf or the wolf in his -- dreams? His mind? His memory? His past? He cannot say for certain.

[anguinous]

"A wolf?!"

He abandons fussing with his shirt and crosses the space quickly, frowning at the mess of blood and -- scar tissue? That must be older, then, but still.

"Have you cleaned it? You'll need a rabies vaccine, I should think."

Since a bite from a wolf is not likely to be a clean affair. He crosses around to the cupboard anyway, begins digging for something to wash the blood off with so he can get a better look.

[reticence]

"There was a man who was with us," Faolan says, after a stunned moment of watching Laurent cross to him and examine his shoulder. He supposes he really should have cleaned it off himself, but he'd been. Preoccupied, he supposes. He had understood the theory of former selves, or separate selves, depending on who you listened to, but he'd never really had such an immediate encounter. Not like this, anyway.

"He healed it," he continues, coming back to his point. "With -- magic, I suppose. Or I thought he did. It stopped bleeding and it stopped hurting and I suppose that I just assumed..." He trails off, glancing down at his shoulder again, slightly alarmed at it himself.

[anguinous]

"I don't trust magic; I trust science."

Laurent returns a moment later with a small bowl of lukewarm water and a clean cloth, wets it and carefully begins to clean off the dark blood so he can get a better look at wound (or scar) itself.

"I can't employee a bodyguard who cannot use their arm, nor one who has rabies. It may not exist in France but it does out here, you will get this looked at and you will make sure you are vaccinated."

[reticence]

Faolan nods slightly. "I'm not certain whether these creatures could even carry the disease, they were... Made of shadow? Or something like it. They were able to pass in and out of existence as they desired. But I can get the vaccine. Just to be safe."

He watches as Laurent cleans the blood away. It's not the first time he's been injured on the job by any means but the way it happened and the fact that he cannot understand whether this came from the wolf today or the wolf in his mind leaves him feeling slightly unsteady.

"What about you?" Faolan asks, his eyes dark as he searches Laurent's face as he works. "Are you alright? What happened down there?"

[anguinous]

"I hit faceless monkeys with a mop and watched people argue with Retrospec employees. Nothing bit me, at least. Is this from the bite? Did the man tell you it would scar?"

He hasn't particularly examined Faolan closely, but Laurent thinks he would have noticed a scar of this size before had it been there. Did magic leave scars? Does it depend on the wound? Not knowing what is normal and what is not bothers him, leaves him uneasy as he cleans the area. How would he know if something had gone wrong?

WEEK 2

[anguinous]

Laurent is exhausted when he gets home for the day. His muscles ache, but a hot shower gives some relief and by the time he's draped on the sofa flicking through his phone Laurent at least feels cleaner and a little more human. He's dressed down into a loose t-shirt emblazoned with Now That's What I Call Edgy and a pair of boxers, blandly reading through posts while he waits for Faolan to return from whatever experience he has ended up having this time. Less wolves, hopefully. He's barely aware that he's even falling asleep, although he is aware eventually that it's dark and there was an odd sensation of grogginess--

there had been an ambush, he was underground, and since his body didn't feel as if it had been transported for days, that meant—

He opened his eyes and met the flat-nosed stare of Govart.

"Hello, Princess."

When he startles awake, for what feels like a second time now, Laurent still isn't fully sure if it's real or not. Everything is dark, and he finds himself flailing off fabric that he doesn't remember being there before. He scrambles to his feet, cursing in French until the little home device finally responds and the apartment is flooded with light. The blanket, which Laurent doesn't remember picking up, falls into a tangle on the ground about his feet.

[reticence]

It has been...a long day for Faolan. Though there were no more shadow wolves to battle (thank god, he is not certain how many more fights with those creatures he can handle) there had been a long bout of wandering first around the woods and then around a large church with a lot of puzzles and riddles to have to solve, conversations to have, and personalities to field. By the time Faolan makes it back to the apartment it is late and he is exhausted.

As he lets himself into the apartment he is relieved to find that Laurent has made it back first himself this time. He takes a long moment to regard the other man from where he has passed out on the couch -- he must have been tired, for that -- before he quietly pads across the room and across the apartment to fetch a blanket and gently drape it across the other man. Fetching a bottle of water from the refrigerator and making sure the door is locked, Faolan does his best not to disturb Laurent as he switches off the lights and retreats down the hall and into his room.

Stripping down until he is only in his boxers, Faolan tabs around on his phone, attempting to uncover what he can of these founders they will apparently need to deal with. Being so new to the city, he had hardly heard anything about them before now, but everything he's finding they seem to have already proven wrong. Frustrated, Faolan sets his phone aside and allows his eyes to begin to droop shut. Finding himself just on the edge of sleep, when all of a sudden the lights flash on, temporarily blinding him and waking him up in the flash of a second, and Faolan finds himself up and out of bed and into the hallway even before that, his gun in his hand as he readies himself to face down whatever intruder had managed to find their way past the security system. Blinking across the living room as he quickly finds the culprit.

"Laurent...?"

[anguinous]

Laurent has backed himself against one of the low wooden tables and is, very slowly and carefully, trying to move so his back is against one of the glass walls instead. The blinds are down, at least, so he doesn't feel too exposed in that regard, but there's still a slight wild edge to his nerves.

"Check the rooms," he snaps quickly, "all of them."

The face in his memory isn't one he recognises, and there's always a chance it could have been a dream but -- but, equally, there's always a chance it wasn't too.

[reticence]

Faolan does not need telling twice. This is what he has been hired to do after all. Perhaps not in his boxers, but this is certainly what he has been hired to do. Nodding, he steps forward, and leading with his gun he makes a quick and thorough sweep of the main area of the apartment, the room where Laurent is and the kitchen before disappearing into the hallways beyond. Making a quick and thorough sweep of every room beyond as well. Bathrooms, bedrooms, Laurent's and his own, even going out onto the balconies, methodically making his way out from the center point where he had left Laurent.

What he finds on this sweep are a lot of empty rooms, with all of the lights turned on but otherwise unoccupied. By the time he makes it back through the apartment to where Laurent is, he is fairly confident that they are the only two in the apartment together, enough so that he lowers his gun when he speaks to the other man. "All the rooms are empty. Nothing out of the ordinary." His eyebrows furrow at the wild-eyed, nervous edge to the other man, before he continues to ask, "What happened? What did you see?"

[anguinous]

He inches away from the glass after a moment, warily picks his way to a chair and sits down with conscious deliberateness. Laurent is reining himself in, body language closed off as much as he can. The quick rise and fall of his chest has been reduced to something slower and more controlled, and he knits his fingers together into his lap.

"You're sure?" he prompts. Whoever that man was, he wants no trace of him in this apartment. For all Laurent knows he could be laying in wait somewhere, although for what he cannot say. The thought makes him uneasy regardless, while also making Laurent feel awkwardly childish. As if he's sending his bodyguard to hunt down monsters under the bed.

Only monsters seem to be very real. They've both seen them.

[reticence]

Faolan wishes he knew what he was looking for, but he nods his head once again, casting a glance about the apartment around them with his gun held loosely but still somewhat at the ready (just in case he had been mistaken) before turning back to look at the other man.

"What happened?" he repeats again, for it bears repeating. All he knows is that he was almost asleep when all of a sudden the lights came on, there was crashing in the living room, and then Laurent has him searching the whole place. He steps forward, doing one more thorough pass around the kitchen and main area of the apartment before turning back to Laurent.

[anguinous]

Laurent studies Faolan as he walks around, thinking. What happened, Faolan asks, and Laurent doesn't want to just say I had a dream.

It sounds childish. Laurent doesn't want to sound like a child and risk being treated like one.

He's silent for a long moment before, staring at his hands, before he lifts his eyes and regards Faolan with a hint of unease.

"I don't know," he admits finally. It might have been a dream. It might have been a memory. It might have been... both? Something else altogether? Laurent's sense of reality is shaky at best, given everything happening.

[reticence]

Faolan frowns at the lack of a reply from Laurent. 'I don't know' is hardly an explanation. But he's obviously bothered by whatever it was, and he's obviously not not going to elaborate on it further, so after a long moment of watching Laurent watch him he gives in himself.

"Are you alright?" he asks, because its the only other thing he can think of to say. Laurent seems shaken, and Laurent being shaken like that unnerves him. Especially after everything he's been through, these past few weeks.

WEEK 3;

[reticence]

Faolan wearily trudges home after what feels like a week's ordeal but what he knows must have been only a few hours'. He hasn't heard from Laurent yet which he hopes is a good sign, though in truth he doesn't know whether the younger man would reach out to him or not if he were in trouble. What good would he be anyway, after all, not being able to get into the subway area himself. There are traces of berbere in most of the cracks and crevices of his jacket, and it's in his hair, under his fingernails, just about everywhere that it could have gotten after having filled the air with the stuff. He has to remember to keep his hands away from his face if he wants to keep the stuff out of his eyes, he's already had enough of that for one day thanks.

It's fairly late when he finds himself fighting with his keys to let himself in the front door. He wonders whether Laurent is still up or not, supposing there is only one way to find out. Cracking it open, he steps inside and glances around, wondering whether it would be better to remove his jacket and shoes there at the door or in the bathroom, and where it would be easier to clean up the mess.

[anguinous]

Laurent is lounged on the sofa once again, wearing his Now That's What I Call Edgy t-shirt and a loose, grey pair of sweatpants with a book up across his lap. His hair is a little mussed in a way that suggests he may have recently had a shower and changed into this outfit, and as he looks up his eyes go from curious to... faintly alarmed. He moves the marker to his current page and snaps the book shut, swings his legs off the cushions and sets his reading material down on the table before warily crossing closer to the other man.

"You look terrible."

Well, he does.

[reticence]

He feels pretty miserable as well, truth be told, and he doesn't think his eyes will really stop burning until he's taken these clothes off and gotten a proper shower. Still the look of concern that Laurent gives him as he crosses the room to him stops him in his tracks for just a moment. Laurent stops him in his tracks, for a moment, with his hair so charmingly tousled and that ridiculous tshirt and those loose sweats that hang low on his hips and the fact that Faolan knows his anatomy underneath it all rather intimately now. Even if apparently they are choosing not to acknowledge that it happened, Faolan remembers, and it takes him a moment longer than should be necessary to focus again as the younger man crosses to him.

"It's --" he starts to explain, but then shakes his head. "It's better left unsaid." He glances across the apartment in dismay at all the white furniture and light flooring and wonders how in the hell he's going to get to his room without needing to clean the whole apartment as well. "I... I want to check in with you but my eyes are burning. If I don't shower some of this off I might actually hurt myself."

[anguinous]

Hurt himself?

Laurent frowns a moment, then takes a hesitant step closer and... sniffs at Faolan cautiously.

"You smell like a curry house," he muses. What on earth has be been doing to get in such a state? Laurent's concern begins to slowly change to something more along the lines of bemusement, now that he's established Faolan... might not be injured, at least?

[reticence]

There is a tear in his jacket (his new jacket, god he hopes this will be over sooner rather than later because he's tired of going through clothes he likes so fast) from where the bullet from the gun of his shadow self had grazed his arm, but Ardyn had been right there and it had hardly been a thing... He really should check on that and see if his hypothesis about Ardyn's magic versus memory magic is correct but he's tired and irritable and his eyes and nose are burning and now Laurent seems to be sniffing him, to boot.

"It's berbere," he replies. "There was... A spice closet. And that's about as much as I'm sure you'll want to know about that particular incident." He moves to start removing his boots, shucking his jacket off and dumping it with them in a pile at the door. It doesn't save him much but at least it's better than nothing. "What about you, no more monkeybars this time I hope?"

[anguinous]

Berbere? A spice closet?

"No monkey bars, no," Laurent confirms, and be backs up a step to give Faolan a little more room to get dressed. "Are you hurt?" he ventures finally, because he doesn't want to walk off if Faolan is actually bleeding underneath all the... spice or whatever it seems to be.

[reticence]

Faolan reaches a hand up to his arm where the bullet had grazed, leaning to look at it as best he can, but the area looks unmarred as far as he can tell. He runs a hand over the spot, feeling for any hint of a scar or scabbing of any sort, before he shakes his head slightly, dropping his arms to his side for the moment.

"Not anymore, no," he replies, which. Does answer Laurent's question. Perhaps it creates further questions besides but it certainly answer the question posed of him. After a moment's hesitation which he might not have had if not for the tension between them, both before and after their activities of last week, Faolan reaches for the hem of his tshirt and pulls it over his head, dumping it in a pile with his jacket and shoes by the door. He thinks about offering for Laurent to make a thorough inspection if he likes, but wisely holds his tongue instead.

[anguinous]

"Not anymore? I don't find that particularly reassuring."

Is it that person, again, who used magic to heal him? Laurent doesn't trust magic, still, especially so the magic of someone he has not met yet healing injuries on his bodyguard.

"Where was the injury? Tell me it wasn't wolves again."

Are wolves even meant to be this common in built up areas of America? Then again, he's quite sure faceless monkeys and obscure sentient sweets aren't common either.