bitterguardian | Crashing a (tea) party

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Crashing a (tea) party

It's funny how quickly Balthazar and Horvath have become fast friends again. They were almost brothers, once upon a time, and without the nasty complication of being on opposite sides, or Balthazar being insane, they've fallen straight back into old ways.

So it's not all that unusual for Horvath to be visiting the Arcana Cabana, leaning casually against a counter and playing with a little stone statue of a bird while Balthazar rummages in a stack of cardboard boxes nearby, regaling him with stories of his travels, punctuated by the occasional sneeze from the dust he's stirring up. Horvath's hat and coat are still on, but only because he's just gotten there a few minutes ago, and they haven't moved to the back room for tea yet. Both the old sorcerers are looking forward to a peaceful afternoon of nostalgia, tea, and cookies.

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"That's funny, Maximus, I was about to say he seems pretty well suited to your sense of humor." Balthazar smirks at his friend. "I'm out of napkins, do you need a handkerchief?"

He raises an eyebrow at Dave, though. "You can't pull out one of your own hairs? Is your scalp that sensitive? Because I don't want you to haul off and punch me."

Nevertheless, he gets up and comes closer, trying not to look at the ring on Dave's finger.

Horvath is not even going to try coming over there, because he knows Dave is still giving him jumpy looks. He can watch the show from here, anyway.

"No, thank you..." His own handkerchief comes out, and he gives another cough into it. "I'll allow you don't have that kind of ego..." Neither does Horvath, really. Or Dave, but he opened himself up for teasing.

So. Weird.

Dave resists making a face at the pair, then pouts at Balthazar. "Dude, you have no idea how squeamish I am. Just... be gentle."

Or as gentle as Balthazar Blake can be when pulling someone's hair out.

"And I'm not gonna punch you. I'm not stupid."

That garners him a long, thoughtful look, because Balthazar does not care for the implications. But it is not his job, currently, to badger the Prime Merlinian about his history. He cranes his neck to get a good look at the back of his head. "No gray. I can't have been that bad a teacher."

He singles out a likely spot and makes a quick move, aiming for just a single strand. It's possible he'll get two or three, since he's going for speed rather than gentleness. In any case, he's quick to back away. It's not that he actually expects to be punched, but there's no need to bring extra discomfort into the process.

Meanwhile, Horvath rests an elbow on the arm of the chair, and his cheek in one hand, watching them with quiet amusement. Perhaps if he keeps Dave distracted, it'll make the whole process easier.

"Squeamish?? I thought you were the Prime Merlinian. He'd better train that out of you..." It's mocking, but gently so.

At least he can take solace in the fact that this Balthazar is still very much Balthazar. "Maybe I dye my ha—ow!"

And for that, Horvath gets a halfhearted Look. "There are many things he's trained out of me, but I'm still not a fan of things like blood or pain. No matter how many hairs he yanks out of my head..."

He rubs the sore spot with a frown, mumbling. "Reasons why I will never get anything waxed..."

He really doesn't know how Drake does it.

"I fully support your decision on the waxing process," Balthazar says dryly, and carefully retrieves a paper coffee cup to put the hairs in for safekeeping. "But I am curious why he yanks hairs out of your head so routinely."

He sets the cup on the counter and moves off to a shelf in the corner, pulling out first one cardboard storage box, then another, and rifling through the contents. Tracking Dave's world should be easier with a ritual, and that will require some supplies.

"Why, is there a little bald spot?" He asks casually, then sits up and pulls himself to the edge of the chair, watching Balthazar.

"Where do you want to set up the circle?" He clearly intends to help, because at least he can do the ritual itself without looming over Dave or otherwise setting off his defense mechanisms. He glances back at the boy thoughtfully. "Where exactly did you find yourself, before you came crashing in the door?" It would help them to know where the magic-gone-wrong landed him.

"It's a thing," Dave vaguely explains, shrugging a shoulder as though dismissing his Balthazar's... er. Unorthodox methods.

He toys with the cap of his water bottle while replying to Horvath. "In my lab-slash-training-grounds. It's an old subway turnaround in Greenwich Village. Which... I don't remember how far it is from here. The last time I was here—"

Dave cuts himself off by literally biting his tongue, then flinches. "Uh. Nevermind."

Balthazar responds to Dave first, a little absently as he pulls chalk, salt, and some unidentifiable liquids in jars out of the boxes. "I can't recall ever pulling an apprentice's hair before. I suppose you're a special case. We're actually not far from Greenwich Village right now. Sounds like you moved through time more so than space."

If he's noticed the near-slip, he's not giving any indication of it yet.

To Horvath, he adds, "I have a permanent circle in the basement. Just the basic. It helps to anchor the wards."

"...The subway...?" His eyebrows rise a little, but that doesn't sound quite like an alternate version of his home, although it might be close. "You should be careful who you give pieces of yourself away to, you know..." He seriously hopes Dave's Balthazar has covered that.

Still intending to help, Horvath shifts to the edge of his chair and picks up his cane, but he hesitates with a glance at Dave as if he's afraid so much as standing up will send the boy cowering.

A Balthazar that doesn't pull hair and a Horvath who isn't out to destroy the world. Dave looks between the pair, relaxes considerably, and wonders if staying here would really be so bad.

And then promptly realizes yes, it would be. Oh, well.

"You don't know what a subway is?" he asks Horvath, blinking. When Horvath glances at him, he shakes his head and holds his hands up in a 'please, be my guest' motion.

"Sorry, dude. I'm not gonna freak out again."

It's a safe bet both Balthazar and Horvath have plenty of unsettling habits to pick up the slack of not pulling hair. And there are always people looking to destroy the world.

Plus, if Dave stuck around, they'd expect him to destroy Morgana. Again. Maybe even twice more.

Balthazar stands up to head to the basement, then gives a soft, sputtering laugh at Dave's question. "He's familiar with the subway system, I think."

He's not going to give away the location to Horvath's bat-cave, but he can't help but be amused. And then wonder how the locations of the boy's lab and Horvath's home would match up, were they in the same dimension.

Horvath rolls his eyes, levering himself up. "I'm not that badly out of touch, thank you. I was merely... struck by a certain synchronicity..." He's not eager to explain he lives down there, himself, partly because Dave might get the wrong impression. His home looks very little like the lab, and more like a gentleman's club from the 1920's, but that's not the first assumption most people make.

He follows Balthazar, but pauses and makes a little gesture, to let Dave go ahead of him. Considering how bad that might look, he adds gruffly, "I'm not going to hurt you, but I'm slow on the stairs..." He's embarrassed about it, in fact, but trying to give the boy a little trust.

Dave hadn't thought about the Morgana thing. Truth be told, he hasn't thought about that for a while. Call it a defense mechanism.

He makes a face. "Well, I don't know what it's like in your... world..." He falters on the word, the realization of what's happened hitting him all over again. "Give a time traveler a break, jeez."

He then follows after Horvath, bottle of water still in-hand, with the most understanding look he can manage plastered on his face. "It's cool. No rush."

"Fair point," Balthazar takes the stairs down to the basement in a series of bounds, two at a time. Which he really shouldn't do, because his knees aren't that great.

At the bottom, he flicks a few switches, revealing the layout of the place. A couple crickets scatter at the sudden glow. There's patches of old carpet, and some side rooms are curtained off, and it smells like mildew and sandalwood (odd combination, that), but compared to the shop, it looks very prosaic. There are wine bottles, several file boxes on high shelves, and what looks like some out-of-date Christmas decorations. Also a battered rolltop desk along one wall, and a broken rocking chair.

In the center of the room, engraved into the floor, is the Merlin circle. The grooves around the outermost ring seem to be set with metal.

"The odds thus far seem to be in favor of close parallels, unless there's something truly outlandish in yours like..." He pauses to wave a hand, "The aliens appointed Elvis world dictator or something." His progress down the stairs is careful, using both can and the railing, but he's not as bad at it as he thinks he is, and soon enough he's glancing around and studying the circle with professional interest.

Dave gasps theatrically.

"How did you know that? Did you just read my mind? I thought that sort of thing was frowned upon." And then he chuckles, falling silent once his feet leave the final step.

It's a nice place, but what really has his attention is the circle. He steps over to it slowly, bending down to get a closer look. "Whoa. Fancy."

"Which aliens?" Balthazar asks cheerfully, but he's setting things out on the desktop, businesslike. "The grays or the reptillianoids?"

...what? He doesn't watch television, but he does listen to the radio and frequent independent bookstores.

Following Dave's gaze, he looks subtly pleased. "The outer circle is mostly silver. It has a stabilizing effect, without cancelling any spellwork withing the ring."

Horvath just rolls his eyes, and leans on his cane to study the ring more closely. "The tripods. Mostly silver? It's very nice... hard to find a good metalsmith for these things, sometimes."

He's watching Dave in his peripheral vision, relieved that he seems to be relaxing a little. It struck him as a terrible start, considering he may someday be teaching some version of the same boy.

"The grays," Dave answers promptly, happy to play along.

(And let's not mention how his little nerd heart is so thrilled that Balthazar knows they are grey, not green.)

He reaches out and runs a finger along the metal, pressing his lips together in thought. "I always wondered what was down here. Is this where you live?"

"There's a very fine thread of gold in the center," he explains to Horvath. "There were more smiths around when I bought the place."

Balthazar probably has a few boxes of sci-fi pulps and back issues of 'Weird Tales' in his attic. A guy can go through a lot of books in a few decades.

He's mildly surprised by Dave's question. But then, he did imply he hadn't been here in a while. Something may have happened. But then, Balthazar wasn't planning on running the shop forever. "Well, not in the basement," he says. "There's an apartment in the floor above the shop. And a small attic."

It's all a bit oddly-shaped and labyrinthine, much like the way he packs inventory into the shop itself. One gets a distorted sense of physical space.

"I feel out-voted." Horvath sighs. "I used to have one with copper, but it was less stable as a conductor..." Someday Dave, too, may find himself discussing the finer points of crafting a permanent magic circle. There's an art to it, after all.

"We do sleep in beds, you know, and eat, and do all those normal sorts of things. Even if we do count as ancient artifacts." He's a little amused by Dave's questions, as if he's got that grade-school kid mentality where they think their teacher just sleeps in the classroom at night.

"Mine... is also carved into my floor," Dave offers, lamely.

He then looks at Horvath, wrinkling his nose a little. "I didn't mean it like that! I just—I mean, come on. You know Balthazar. He's like a... tall, walking enigma. We don't usually have conversations like this."

"In your lab?" Balthazar glances at Dave with curiosity, but quickly gets distracted by the description of himself. It's not what he would have expected to hear.

Particularly not the tall part. He's not the tallest person in the room. Not the shortest, either, though.

"I'm an enigma?" He looks comically confused...and slightly flattered. He glances at Horvath questioningly.

To be fair, Dave is meeting him under vastly different circumstances. And he has no reason to be professorial, or mysterious, just now.

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