Private Finished Ask me whats it like to have Myself so figured out

The first answer Charlie gave him was about the one Lochlann expected and the fleeting emotion that started to cross his face disappeared into a blank mask. But, then, Charlie surprised him.

Lochlann’s eyebrows lifted, then pulled together, trying to comprehend what that must be like to have lived longer than even the recording of time. What he must have seen, smelled, tasted.

Lochlann didn’t know how old he was. Time was a concept that he struggled to learn, and though he had a fairly good grasp on it, he had to apply numbers to the memories of what he grew up with. So Charlie’s description of the ice age and hunting mammoths was more apt than if he just gave Lochlann a vague number.

He had a follow up question, one that came from another sip of liquid home. Something about the whisky made Lochlann miss the ocean. He missed Ireland, Scottland, Wales. He missed the Isle of Man. Things had been a little bit simpler then, but his family needed to move so badly that Lochlann had no doubt that if he stayed, things would have turned out the same, if not worse.

“Is there a time you miss more than others?” Lochlann asked, holding the whisky glass low against his gut. His hands were still slick with sweat and the glass felt glued to them. His pupils were wide in the darkness.

Charlie’s question caught him off guard. It was a question Lochlann had been asked before, in a variety of ways. What are you trying to do, kill yourself? Why are you doing this? What do you think this will accomplish?

He’d given a variety of answers, all of them the truth, but despite his ability to lie being limited by his fae heritage, no one seemed to believe him anyway.

Lochlann was not expecting anything different in this scenario. Hell, the professor wasn’t even the first professional adult that tried to kill him since he’d been here. This whole thing was par for the course.

He sighed.

“My drinking isn’t a problem,” he said, cutting to where he anticipated this was going to end up. “It’s what I’m doing to fix the problem.”

The question made me think suspiciously of juvie, and Lochlann jerked a little bit, thinking that maybe this was enough to send him back there. Breaking into a professor’s office was not exactly a great follow up, but the last time he’d been committed he’d done something much worse, but he had no idea where the line was drawn. But would the professor have offered him the whisky then?

Lochlann swayed and put one hand on the floor, but didn’t push himself up. He stayed sitting where he was.

Lochlann sat back, resting his shoulders against the coffee table while the professor talked. The age difference between them was evident. Though Lochlann presumed to be an adult, Charlie was clearly an actual adult, having lived for centuries. In comparison, Lochlann was no more than a toddler.

Which perhaps made his rapt attention in the other man's stories acceptable.

Whatever the case, Lochlann didn't fight it. He listened, taking an occasional sip from his glass, letting the warmth of the liquid spread up his stomach. Stories seemed more real like this, told in the dark, and being drunk certainly helped.

Lochlann had more questions, that came up easily.

"Is your glamour what you looked like before?" Lochlann asked. "Or is it something you picked?"

Lochlann had no choice in his glamour. He was either a horse or a human, and he couldn't even pick his features. He was handsome because it made him an easier lure.

Lochlann could not imagine even having friends that long.

The question slipped out without Lochlann even realizing he'd spoken: "How do you even stay friends after all that time?"

He felt lonely when he asked, and Lochlann couldn't understand why. His dark brows furrowed. He didn't think too much about his own situation, but Lochlann craved friendship. He always had. It was just that, with the frequent moves, he hadn't had much opportunity growing up. His sister was the closest thing he had to a friend; gods knew Lawrence wasn't the most enjoyable brother. But then, as Lochlann grew older, all his relationships ended in tragedy in some form or another. He'd been alive less than three decades; how did a man centuries old make this work?

Lochlann took a much larger sip of his whiskey.

As for the professor understanding his drinking, Lochlann wasn't so sure.

He tried to imagine that i'd all be gone, but there was a flaw in Lochlann's thinking. He never assumed he'd live this long. He was supposed to have died so many times that he was not really confident that he was really supposed to have a future.

So he tried, and his expression shifted, his eyes lowering and his mouth parting just a fraction, but Lochlann couldn't make it happen.

"I can't," Lochlann confessed.

The professor offered him another glass of the whiskey. Lochlann started to move his glass out to accept it, and then shook his head, just in case this was a test. They tried that before, too. He could stop whenever he wanted, after all.

"No thank you," Lochlann said.

Between being drunk, the rush of adrenaline from the fear, and now the calming taste of the whiskey, the professor had Lochlann in a rare spot to admit things.

They weren't the most pleasant things.

"I hate it here," he said. "This whole island is a giant prison."

Lochlann squinted at Charlie in the darkness, trying to visualize his features in the time periods the man had mentioned earlier. Egypt was definitely a challenge. Lochlann had only ever seen pictures of the country in books, with the hieroglyphics and king tut's tomb. He tried to picture the professor across from him in the outfit.

And then, Lochlann was thinking of mammoths.

And he burst out laughing. He couldn't help it. The thought came on suddenly, out of nowhere, and when he realized he was laughing he tried to stop himself.

He put the glass of whisky on the floor so he didn't spill it and covered his mouth. He swallowed. After a few more failed attempts at controlling himself, Lochlann finally caught his breath.

"Did....did you have to wear....a loincloth?" Lochlann asked. Lochlann could not explain why he found the word loincloth hysterical.

Especially not when the rest of his mood was so grim. But for a moment, he lost himself in the immaturity of laughing at the word loincloth. He even liked the way his mouth moved when he said the word. loin. hah! It was definitely not welsh.

He swallowed, and then he picked up his whisky and took a small sip. He was almost finished.

The comments about Charlie's friendship experience was so very different from his own. Lochlann just shrugged. "It must be something that happens with age then, I guess."

Although, Lochlann did have some amazing friendships. He just fully anticipated he'd ruin all of them. That Charlie was actually excited for change was something that surprised Lochlann, though he wasn't sure why. He tried to relate. He tried to picture himself embracing the fact that he lived in this stupid body, in this stupid island, with all the stupid rules, and the stupid hunger he so hated.

"I don't think I'll live long enough to see mountains become lakes...but it sounds like it might have been beautiful," Lochlann slurred. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his finger tips, fighting off the headache before it even came. He said, 'If you run the world, then why is it so shitty? You don't seem like the kind of guy who would make something shitty. Although, maybe terrifying. What the fuck was that spider thing?"

Charlie's comment about the loincloth sent Lochlann into another fit of laughter, until his lungs ached and he found himself feeling guilty for the warm bits of giddiness that flitted through him. He pulled his knees back up to his chest, folding in on himself, and Lochlann rested his head on his chin. He jerked a little bit when Charlie laid down. He recovered quickly though, picking up the whisky glass and shifting it in his hand, watching the amber liquid move.

The small things.

The metaphors worked, particularly the ones that were suited to the farm life Lochlann was well familiar with.

"Do you still watch the sunrise?" Lochlann asked.

He wasn't sure why he asked that question, either, but he wasn't really thinking. His heart had finally, mostly, slowed down.

When the spider--Clarence, Lochlann told himself, Clarence--came scuttling out, Lochlann eyed it askance, but when it relaxed on the professor's chest, Lochlann looked less like he was going to bolt out the door at a moment's notice and more like he was going to stay seated on the floor with his knees up to his chest just like he had been.

While it was one of the more unusual pets Lochlann had seen, he couldn't exactly judge it. He was in no place to.

He swallowed his last sip of whisky and answered Charlie's question.

"Yeah, sure, suit yourself," he said, slurring his s's a little bit. "It's your office after all."

He put the empty whisky glass back up on the coffee table and Lochlann sighed. He closed his eyes and felt the room spin, and it was satisfying. Maybe, just for a few seconds, Lochlann entertained the idea that he was starting to feel safe here.

Just for a few seconds, because he did remember there was a bone spider that tried to stab him a few minutes ago.

For all the things that could freak Lochlann out, this was not one of them. Seeing Charlie like this was natural somehow, relaxed, sort of like seeing a professor back in the states in the grocery store. It was a little bit unexpected but Lochlann never had the impression that teachers were fixed objects that existed only in their classrooms or offices.

Maybe he should have with Charlie, though, because he wouldn't have tried to steal his phone back if he expected it.

Talking about the sunrise was easy enough. Lochlann nodded. He did watch it, semi regularly, thanks to his odd shift at the bar. He either slept right through it or saw it from his bedroom window before he passed out.

Lochlann ran a hand through his hair.

"Yeah. Is it...err," Lochlann tried to formulate the question he wanted to ask, but struggled through the haze in his mind. "Was it better before? The sunrise?"

He didn't know if the sunrises had always been lovely, or if they were getting worse, or maybe better. These were things Lochlann wondered but didn't know how to ask when he was sober, though he struggled with it for different reasons when he was drinking like this.

For all the way his heart slowed down, Charlie's question about his glamour made it start to pick up speed again. Lochlann closed his eyes and let the room spin.

"It's better for me with the glamour on," Lochlann said instead. His voice was quiet and low. His fingers went to the necklace beneath his shirt, reassuring himself that it was still there. Lochlann hated being human and he hated being a horse. He hated that he was either one or the other. It never reconciled in his mind that he could be both.

He asked instead, "Are people afraid of you without the glamour?"