#AVMRX03

[eddapoetic]

vinternatt // 02

@philtatvs​

It’s not a bad turnout - sure, the world had seen greater and grander feasts elsewhere, somewhere, but he’s not so spoiled by old reminiscence as to go unappreciative of the present. It’s pretty clear someone around here put the effort in, and any function that manages to turn navigating a room into a labyrinthian process checks the mark in his book; Smooth in step, Havar for his part maneuvers through the crowds like a scaup through water, swimming with the stream, avoiding elbows and precariously swung glasses with what can only amount to either practised experience - or ludicrous luck.

Possibly both.

Ultimately it doesn’t really matter, seeing as either and each of the two then choose to fail him spectacularly the instant he moves free, having braved the masses only to immediately turn into a lone figure in the hallway --

[eddapoetic]

philtatvs​:

Chief. How, how could his luck be so rotten that he would run into one of them at Alfred’s— their party, of all places. As per usual, his anxiety runs like an unmanned chariot, and in the midst of trying to remember when they had last seen each other, he wonders if any of his brothers were around too, and— christ. Did Al know at all?

“I can’t get off.” Luc flatly observes, sounding far more cynical than he had intended. Could this night have an end in sight, already? He looks mildly exasperated as he tucks his phone back into his pocket, warily glancing up and down the corridor as though he feared what else (or who else) might pop out of the crowd to corner him. 

Well, he at least had to figure out why and how his ‘old acquaintance’ had shown up at the event. Did he know Alfred? Someone’s plus one? Merely led in by the promise of food and free booze? At the very least, it seemed like the mischief king was just as surprised to see him. 

“How did you…” Hm, how to phrase this politely. “Did Alfred invite you?”

That earns him a snort, genuine in its buuddingly curious amusement, shared by a gaze first looking and now seeing the man in front of him for what he were. Been a while since last - decades upon centuries of memory starting to stir from idle depths as the face of this stranger seemed to grow all the more familiar by the seconod. It’s always in the oddest of places, oddest of ways, and for all that he likes to consider himself the very patron of the unexpected, he could only really hope claim credit for a handful of those. The rest were for the fates - back at it again at Krispy Kremes, evidently. Should be interesting.

“The lad? Sure, not much of a party without a clown or two, is there?” He chuckles, waving a hand before slipping it into his own pockets and adapting a more leisurly lean - were there ever an easy indication that he’s not thought to go anywhere anytime soon, this’d be it. Oblivious or otherwise unbothered by the seemingly less than thrilled reception of his company, he regards the other’s darting sight with a growing curve to his lips, brow primed to rise the next time his eyes fall back on the trickster.

“And for your part? Friend of his? Snuck in through the backdoor?”

[eddapoetic]

philtatvs​:

It’s Rissa on the phone. It’s so late there, but for some wild stroke of luck she is still awake when his message pings on the other side of the Atlantic, and in a couple of minutes she is ringing him. He welcomes the excuse to seek quietude, winding his way through the guests, phone pressed to his chest until silence is found. He can hear his thoughts now, and the young woman’s dulcet voice on the line. He’s sorry he couldn’t call during the day; you see, everything had been a little hectic leading up to the big event. Of course, he shouldn’t worry — Seredith has recovered from her cough, and work abounds during the holidays, as usual. All running smoothly. Rissa asks about Al, then about the dog; Luc delivers and tells her he misses her. It’s time to head back to the party.

Both hesitant to disconnect, they weave down a ‘bye, take care, stay warm’ back-and-forth as Luc peels away from the wall and blindly turns the corner, coming within a hair of bumping into one of the guests. Startled, he drops his phone, which bounces off the man’s shoe. The call dies. Shit. “Sorry, didn’t see you—” He scrambles to pick up the device and promptly step aside, only getting a proper look at their face once he straightens back up. In an instance, Luc pales enough to blend into the muted backdrop of the wall, assaulted by the inexplicably strong sense that he knew them, he knew them, but how— oh, oh no. His immediate instinct would be to presume it was someone he had bound before, which would certainly explain the ghostly, slightly sickly feeling at the pit of his stomach (when one’s most horrendous memories have travelled through you…) but he’s been around long enough to recognise one of them when he sees them. And he’s seen enough.

“You, again.”

“Aye, again--!” Hands raised, he exclaims before he’s even the chance to get a good glance at his incidental speedbarrier, the deep-woven instinct to play along taking over well ahead of rhyme or reason; Let it be said he’s nothing if not a decent improviser at the drop of a phone. Having briskly stepped back and slightly around in much a mutually awkward dance (as you do), curiously amber eyes flick back up from where they’d trailed the path of the fallen device, landing rather on an unfamiliar face looking somehow even further dropped  than the object itself - and presenting a quite specific mixture of horrid shock which stikes him as reminiscent of someone who has just has spotted a ghost in the dark. Maybe they had. His own wave of recognition is not far behind.

Ah.

He knows this soul, if by any other name.

“Fancy running into you here, chief. Been around the block once more I see?”