The air was thin and brittle, sharp edges poking at his skin with needle tips when an errant gust of winter air swirled around the lighthouse or rose up off the water. Fin's feet dangled over the edge from beneath the railing, forearms and forehead resting against the rungs at different heights. The cold metal made his forehead ache, at first, but now it was numb enough that he didn't much care about it. A beanie, a hoodie, and a denim jacket helped to keep him warm, fingerless gloves helping to keep his fingers from becoming useless. Below his perch, a perfectly frozen lick of ice rose up from the base of the lighthouse, helping to provide a windbreak so that he could smoke a cigarette.
The handrolled hung from his lips. Bright orange flared and breathed with the Scot, smoke pouring from his nose on each exhale where it was captured by the breeze, spiraling away from him and up to the stars. Both moons were full, the tide high - something Fin could feel in his bones, now, instead of checking at the docks. Stars twinkled in the clear sky, seeming brighter this season than any other.
Around his cigarette, Fin hummed, his eyes on the water beneath him.
He'd given Fin a seventeen minute window in which to expect him. Rhy'Din's lighthouse island is one of a handful of locales he's thought very little about revisiting. He ties the leaking dinghy boat off at the small spit of driftwood that serves for a dock and looks up at the dark spire of stone and iron. He's never seen it lit.
He can remember the last time he set foot on the shore, crunchy now with the remnants of a late Winter frost. Where he'd walked, and who he'd walked beside. How his boots sunk into the sand beneath him and how he wished he could just kneel down, curl into a ball, and fall off the face of the earth. Fox had trotted alongside them. Shae's concern, and a withering, black-eyed stare clings to the backs of his eyelids as he finds his way up to the thin landing high above. The dark stairs do not creak under his weight. It smells like seawater and fish, musty and damp. He's glad to be out in the chilly, open air when he pops the door to the gallery. He's greeted by humming and the welcome scent of handrolled tobacco.
The Scot hadn't checked the clock on his phone or counted the passing of time. Things like day and night were the most stringent labels he would apply, happy to let things meld together and pass him in a blur. Work, then time that he was alone with his dog. Sometimes there were other people that earned a memory in the monotonous march of days, offered just enough variety to keep him from feeling completely numb.
Movement to his left caught Fin's attention, face turning in that direction to see Cris come through the small door. It had been...Christ almighty, he couldn't even remember the last time he'd seen the Nephilim in person, confused it with previous memories. Even so, Fin offered a warm (but weary) smile, its life expectancy short as he looked ahead to the fractured reflection of the moons on the water.
His gaze finds Fin easily, despite the dark. He pulls the door closed at his back as a breeze propelled by the high tide whistles around them, buffets his hair and the thick collar of his coat. He finds that this year hasn't been kind to very many of the people comes in contact with. Frowning, he follows the gallery's gentle curve until he fills the space next to the Scot. Silently, he crouches. Sticks the length of his legs over the side to match his friend's, and rests both of his arms along the railing in front of him.
With the wind blowing steadily and the waves crashing against the tiny beach encircling the base of the lighthouse, it was loud enough that filling the air with speech seemed garish and obscene. Besides, the water was singing to him and Fin hummed back until the cherry of his cigarette threatened to burn his lips. Two fingers plucked it from his mouth and flicked it out, watching wind catch it before it hit the water.
It was so easy to fall into a comfortable silence with Cris, readily accepting his presence. People, like the ocean, had a certain ebb and flow to them. Some were washed out to sea, never seen again, but many came back with the tide.
By way of greeting, Fin pushed his silver case toward the other man, covering the few inches between them.
He doesn't know that a Warlock sat in almost exactly the same spot. The quiet scrape of Fin's case pulls his gaze from the darkness of the water. Stress in his exhale suggests he could have chuckled. He collects it, digs his thumb into the seam between lid and base. He takes only one, closes it with a click and puts it back where he found it. A cupped palm protects the small flame from a white lighter as he sets it ablaze.
Another lick of ice forms, this time rising higher with a wave of Fin's fingers to help Cris protect his flame and block the wind so the cigarette could be lit. Just watching the small action made his mouth water for another, a Pavlovian slave to his habit, but the Scot decided to prolong the anticipation a little longer.
He had no way of knowing Crispin's last memory of this place, the companions that invaded that memory. He only knew that he liked the sound of the water and the fact that unless specifically directed, no one came looking for him here. He could spend hours lost in thought, listening to the ocean as it whispered its secrets, happy to have a confidante rather than be one.
His brows come together over the flickering light as he watches the growth of ice. A little cloud of blue leaks from his frown around the cigarette. He pockets the lighter, frees the handrolled from his mouth. "You're becoming quite adept at that," given that the last time they'd discussed Fin's newborn abilities, he was still discovering them himself, and seemed reluctant to even use them.
A flick of his shoulders lift them in a shrug. Turning his face, Fin rests his cheek on top of folded hands so he can keep Cris within view. "May as well, aye? They no be goin' away. Lucy has been helpin' to guide me." Smoke flowed between them as he savored the sound of Cris' voice in person, the low and solemn thrum of it through the air. It was good to hear it again.
He does the same, privately marveling at how easily the cadence of Fin's accent unravels a knot cinched around something in his chest. He's glad to hear it, glad to merely be there. Glad that he could. "She's not regained her own abilities, has she?"
Brows flicked together briefly and then smoothed out again. "Aye, she has. Some time ago, after...after Reginald." It had been an ugly business, one that left Lucy grieving all over again for a lost love. Fin had done his best to help prop her up but his own supports had been cracked and faltering for some time.
He nods, kicks some ash off the tip of the cigarette with his thumb. The leather of his coat creaks as he leans against the railing. "I see." He looks over to the other man. "Have you been well?"
Again, there's a slight shrug as he meets the solid hazel with an icy blue. "Well enough, I s'pose." The words word neutral, noncommittal, but the bone-deep wounds showed in his gaze.
Part of his mouth turns up. Easy in its amusement, but Cris mourns the loss of his friend's smile and the, what he had thought, bottomless pit of warmth that endears him so strongly. "We have that in common," he tells Fin, cutting off the other man's obligation to ask.
Fin was all out of warmth to give, not even preserving enough for himself. Not enough to dole out to his friend. All the masks were stripped away, this was all that was left of him. "Where did ye go?" Since the weather wasn't worth discussing and they'd already covered well being
He adds the chilly air to the long drag he takes in, holds it in his chest. The tip of his thumb circles the cigarette's filter. "France, at first."
"Aye?" he asked, brows rising. Fin was impressed, he'd never been much for travel but liked to hear stories of other lands, other cultures. It enthralled him to hear of a slice of life so foreign to his own. "How long did ye stay there?"
"We left at the beginning of December," he tells the water before them, watching the wan glow of the cigarette against the vast black nothing. "Stayed through the holidays."
"We?" wondering who the other person was. Realization dawned belatedly. "Did Leena go wit' ye?"
His nod comes slowly, "Yes, she did. It was her idea. She was born there, it's always been a sort of----" frowning, "comfort-----I suppose, to return. I hadn't in years."
Enough time had passed that the craving peaked, had Fin reaching blindly for the silver case. Muscle memory withdrew a cigarette, more ice forming to nurture the weak flame that struggled to light the thin paper. A quick, deep inhale brought a surge of life to the cigarette, the lighter abandoned on top of the case. "Did ye like it there well enough? Wha' was it like?'
"Quiet," he answers, refusing to entertain the reasons why doing so is so easy. "Quieter, at least, than it's been in town." He brings the cigarette to his mouth. "I spent time often, there, in my youth. Once Leena and I had kindled a tenuous friendship, I was invited to her home in the country. It's beautiful there."
Twin cherries glowed, moving at different paces but sharing life for a short span of time, just like the two smoking the cigarettes. "I miss the quiet. The sort tha' be filled wit' the noises o' sea birds an' game rustlin' in the heather. Waves crashin' below against the base of the cliffs where I lived. They brough' me peace as nothin' else does."
He's relieved that the path of their discussion seems to be on a turning point. "Do you spend time out here often?"
The ghost of a smile flares and dies by the time the cigarette reaches his mouth. "Aye," the word born aloft on a puff of smoke. "When I can. Or when I no' be up at the cabin." With his own car, he still went there without Ketch though usually not alone. Annie liked to hitch a ride and keep him company with her books and her dry laughter.
He hums a thoughtful sound. Mirrors Fin's earlier posture by resting his forearm along the railing, and his chin on his wrist. "I traveled some, through Western Europe. I hadn't thought it at the time, but I regret now that I did not spend time in Scotland."
This time, his smile lived a bit longer for the mention of his homeland. "Why did ye no' make it part o' the tour?"
One shoulder moves, "I do not know. At the time, I was not considering much outside the storm within my own mind."
He guides his hand through the air. The glow of his cigarette follows. "I picked a direction, and followed it through. That is all."
"Tha' be fair," he murmured. Finally, finally, his eyes crinkled slightly at the edges as he let slip a tiny ray of sun through the clouds. "I be glad tha' the path brough' ye back here."
He doesn't mean to snort, but he does anyway. Puts his palm against his brow to support the weight of his head. The breeze disturbs the tips of his eyelashes. "Defiance and regret did that, Fin."
The snort is returned, a gallows humor found in the answer put to him. "It be the same for m'self. This be a place made o' regret an' despair. Everythin' else is a distraction to make ye forget."
He's glad Fin does not ask, either. In the time between Fin's message and his own arrival, he'd thought about how this reunion would go, and it was not like anything he'd presumed it would be. At least, he tells himself, they're speaking. That's a vast improvement. "It makes one wonder why one returns, yes?"
"Mmmm," making a noise around the cigarette as he sucked in a lungful. His fingers were numb, the smoke held loosely between his knuckles. With a shiver, his other hand left the railing to point a finger down toward the ground and slowly spiral outward. An impossible warmth rose slowly to encompass the men, taking the edge off the bitter gusts of wind. "Some of us do no' have the luxury o' leavin'."
"That's ludicrous," he says. "If you've the desire, you have the ability to make it so. It all depends on how strong that desire is, or how much effort you will have to expound." He looks aside. "If you do not wish to stay, you have that freedom not to, Fin."
It was rueful, the bit of wryness that twisted one corner of his mouth. "Aye? Where would I go? To another place where I am no' wanted an' do no' fit?"
One brow arches high. He is in no position to lecture anyone on the reality of their self-worth, and so he resigns to say nothing until the desire to passes.
"I canno' go home, no' truly. Anywhere else be a pale reflection."
They made a rather melancholy pair. "I wonder which extreme is worse. The desire to be somewhere else, or the absence of any such desire to be anywhere at all."
Fin considered the question honestly. "I think the latter. If ye long to go somewhere else, ye kindle hope in yer heart tha' one day, ye will see the place o' yer longin'. Hope can carry ye far, through many trials."
He sucks his cigarette down to death, holding the filter in the curl of his palm.
He continued, not needing a response from the Nephilim. "But hope can be a heavy chain 'round yer neck. It can suffocate ye."
The handrolled hung from his lips. Bright orange flared and breathed with the Scot, smoke pouring from his nose on each exhale where it was captured by the breeze, spiraling away from him and up to the stars. Both moons were full, the tide high - something Fin could feel in his bones, now, instead of checking at the docks. Stars twinkled in the clear sky, seeming brighter this season than any other.
Around his cigarette, Fin hummed, his eyes on the water beneath him.
He'd given Fin a seventeen minute window in which to expect him. Rhy'Din's lighthouse island is one of a handful of locales he's thought very little about revisiting. He ties the leaking dinghy boat off at the small spit of driftwood that serves for a dock and looks up at the dark spire of stone and iron. He's never seen it lit.
He can remember the last time he set foot on the shore, crunchy now with the remnants of a late Winter frost. Where he'd walked, and who he'd walked beside. How his boots sunk into the sand beneath him and how he wished he could just kneel down, curl into a ball, and fall off the face of the earth. Fox had trotted alongside them. Shae's concern, and a withering, black-eyed stare clings to the backs of his eyelids as he finds his way up to the thin landing high above. The dark stairs do not creak under his weight. It smells like seawater and fish, musty and damp. He's glad to be out in the chilly, open air when he pops the door to the gallery. He's greeted by humming and the welcome scent of handrolled tobacco.
The Scot hadn't checked the clock on his phone or counted the passing of time. Things like day and night were the most stringent labels he would apply, happy to let things meld together and pass him in a blur. Work, then time that he was alone with his dog. Sometimes there were other people that earned a memory in the monotonous march of days, offered just enough variety to keep him from feeling completely numb.
Movement to his left caught Fin's attention, face turning in that direction to see Cris come through the small door. It had been...Christ almighty, he couldn't even remember the last time he'd seen the Nephilim in person, confused it with previous memories. Even so, Fin offered a warm (but weary) smile, its life expectancy short as he looked ahead to the fractured reflection of the moons on the water.
His gaze finds Fin easily, despite the dark. He pulls the door closed at his back as a breeze propelled by the high tide whistles around them, buffets his hair and the thick collar of his coat. He finds that this year hasn't been kind to very many of the people comes in contact with. Frowning, he follows the gallery's gentle curve until he fills the space next to the Scot. Silently, he crouches. Sticks the length of his legs over the side to match his friend's, and rests both of his arms along the railing in front of him.
With the wind blowing steadily and the waves crashing against the tiny beach encircling the base of the lighthouse, it was loud enough that filling the air with speech seemed garish and obscene. Besides, the water was singing to him and Fin hummed back until the cherry of his cigarette threatened to burn his lips. Two fingers plucked it from his mouth and flicked it out, watching wind catch it before it hit the water.
It was so easy to fall into a comfortable silence with Cris, readily accepting his presence. People, like the ocean, had a certain ebb and flow to them. Some were washed out to sea, never seen again, but many came back with the tide.
By way of greeting, Fin pushed his silver case toward the other man, covering the few inches between them.
He doesn't know that a Warlock sat in almost exactly the same spot. The quiet scrape of Fin's case pulls his gaze from the darkness of the water. Stress in his exhale suggests he could have chuckled. He collects it, digs his thumb into the seam between lid and base. He takes only one, closes it with a click and puts it back where he found it. A cupped palm protects the small flame from a white lighter as he sets it ablaze.
Another lick of ice forms, this time rising higher with a wave of Fin's fingers to help Cris protect his flame and block the wind so the cigarette could be lit. Just watching the small action made his mouth water for another, a Pavlovian slave to his habit, but the Scot decided to prolong the anticipation a little longer.
He had no way of knowing Crispin's last memory of this place, the companions that invaded that memory. He only knew that he liked the sound of the water and the fact that unless specifically directed, no one came looking for him here. He could spend hours lost in thought, listening to the ocean as it whispered its secrets, happy to have a confidante rather than be one.
His brows come together over the flickering light as he watches the growth of ice. A little cloud of blue leaks from his frown around the cigarette. He pockets the lighter, frees the handrolled from his mouth. "You're becoming quite adept at that," given that the last time they'd discussed Fin's newborn abilities, he was still discovering them himself, and seemed reluctant to even use them.
A flick of his shoulders lift them in a shrug. Turning his face, Fin rests his cheek on top of folded hands so he can keep Cris within view. "May as well, aye? They no be goin' away. Lucy has been helpin' to guide me." Smoke flowed between them as he savored the sound of Cris' voice in person, the low and solemn thrum of it through the air. It was good to hear it again.
He does the same, privately marveling at how easily the cadence of Fin's accent unravels a knot cinched around something in his chest. He's glad to hear it, glad to merely be there. Glad that he could. "She's not regained her own abilities, has she?"
Brows flicked together briefly and then smoothed out again. "Aye, she has. Some time ago, after...after Reginald." It had been an ugly business, one that left Lucy grieving all over again for a lost love. Fin had done his best to help prop her up but his own supports had been cracked and faltering for some time.
He nods, kicks some ash off the tip of the cigarette with his thumb. The leather of his coat creaks as he leans against the railing. "I see." He looks over to the other man. "Have you been well?"
Again, there's a slight shrug as he meets the solid hazel with an icy blue. "Well enough, I s'pose." The words word neutral, noncommittal, but the bone-deep wounds showed in his gaze.
Part of his mouth turns up. Easy in its amusement, but Cris mourns the loss of his friend's smile and the, what he had thought, bottomless pit of warmth that endears him so strongly. "We have that in common," he tells Fin, cutting off the other man's obligation to ask.
Fin was all out of warmth to give, not even preserving enough for himself. Not enough to dole out to his friend. All the masks were stripped away, this was all that was left of him. "Where did ye go?" Since the weather wasn't worth discussing and they'd already covered well being
He adds the chilly air to the long drag he takes in, holds it in his chest. The tip of his thumb circles the cigarette's filter. "France, at first."
"Aye?" he asked, brows rising. Fin was impressed, he'd never been much for travel but liked to hear stories of other lands, other cultures. It enthralled him to hear of a slice of life so foreign to his own. "How long did ye stay there?"
"We left at the beginning of December," he tells the water before them, watching the wan glow of the cigarette against the vast black nothing. "Stayed through the holidays."
"We?" wondering who the other person was. Realization dawned belatedly. "Did Leena go wit' ye?"
His nod comes slowly, "Yes, she did. It was her idea. She was born there, it's always been a sort of----" frowning, "comfort-----I suppose, to return. I hadn't in years."
Enough time had passed that the craving peaked, had Fin reaching blindly for the silver case. Muscle memory withdrew a cigarette, more ice forming to nurture the weak flame that struggled to light the thin paper. A quick, deep inhale brought a surge of life to the cigarette, the lighter abandoned on top of the case. "Did ye like it there well enough? Wha' was it like?'
"Quiet," he answers, refusing to entertain the reasons why doing so is so easy. "Quieter, at least, than it's been in town." He brings the cigarette to his mouth. "I spent time often, there, in my youth. Once Leena and I had kindled a tenuous friendship, I was invited to her home in the country. It's beautiful there."
Twin cherries glowed, moving at different paces but sharing life for a short span of time, just like the two smoking the cigarettes. "I miss the quiet. The sort tha' be filled wit' the noises o' sea birds an' game rustlin' in the heather. Waves crashin' below against the base of the cliffs where I lived. They brough' me peace as nothin' else does."
He's relieved that the path of their discussion seems to be on a turning point. "Do you spend time out here often?"
The ghost of a smile flares and dies by the time the cigarette reaches his mouth. "Aye," the word born aloft on a puff of smoke. "When I can. Or when I no' be up at the cabin." With his own car, he still went there without Ketch though usually not alone. Annie liked to hitch a ride and keep him company with her books and her dry laughter.
He hums a thoughtful sound. Mirrors Fin's earlier posture by resting his forearm along the railing, and his chin on his wrist. "I traveled some, through Western Europe. I hadn't thought it at the time, but I regret now that I did not spend time in Scotland."
This time, his smile lived a bit longer for the mention of his homeland. "Why did ye no' make it part o' the tour?"
One shoulder moves, "I do not know. At the time, I was not considering much outside the storm within my own mind."
He guides his hand through the air. The glow of his cigarette follows. "I picked a direction, and followed it through. That is all."
"Tha' be fair," he murmured. Finally, finally, his eyes crinkled slightly at the edges as he let slip a tiny ray of sun through the clouds. "I be glad tha' the path brough' ye back here."
He doesn't mean to snort, but he does anyway. Puts his palm against his brow to support the weight of his head. The breeze disturbs the tips of his eyelashes. "Defiance and regret did that, Fin."
The snort is returned, a gallows humor found in the answer put to him. "It be the same for m'self. This be a place made o' regret an' despair. Everythin' else is a distraction to make ye forget."
He's glad Fin does not ask, either. In the time between Fin's message and his own arrival, he'd thought about how this reunion would go, and it was not like anything he'd presumed it would be. At least, he tells himself, they're speaking. That's a vast improvement. "It makes one wonder why one returns, yes?"
"Mmmm," making a noise around the cigarette as he sucked in a lungful. His fingers were numb, the smoke held loosely between his knuckles. With a shiver, his other hand left the railing to point a finger down toward the ground and slowly spiral outward. An impossible warmth rose slowly to encompass the men, taking the edge off the bitter gusts of wind. "Some of us do no' have the luxury o' leavin'."
"That's ludicrous," he says. "If you've the desire, you have the ability to make it so. It all depends on how strong that desire is, or how much effort you will have to expound." He looks aside. "If you do not wish to stay, you have that freedom not to, Fin."
It was rueful, the bit of wryness that twisted one corner of his mouth. "Aye? Where would I go? To another place where I am no' wanted an' do no' fit?"
One brow arches high. He is in no position to lecture anyone on the reality of their self-worth, and so he resigns to say nothing until the desire to passes.
"I canno' go home, no' truly. Anywhere else be a pale reflection."
They made a rather melancholy pair. "I wonder which extreme is worse. The desire to be somewhere else, or the absence of any such desire to be anywhere at all."
Fin considered the question honestly. "I think the latter. If ye long to go somewhere else, ye kindle hope in yer heart tha' one day, ye will see the place o' yer longin'. Hope can carry ye far, through many trials."
He sucks his cigarette down to death, holding the filter in the curl of his palm.
He continued, not needing a response from the Nephilim. "But hope can be a heavy chain 'round yer neck. It can suffocate ye."