Henry Westergard

"It is," she agreed and breathed in, turning to admire the good weather. It had been a rather long winter in her opinion, but that had more to do with have to trudge through school and the holidays and daddy's death-aversery.

But all that was over! They were in the best part of the year, the three months she and her sisters shared a name with and then it was their birthday month. It was also finally like the town had gained a heart beat, the events finally having some umph! to them– and speaking of those events!

Prom. He felt his chest puffing out a little more. He was flattered, of course, but had been more than willing to go without a date. He had never quite understood why some people obsessed over having someone on their arm to awkwardly cramp their style! Why not go with your friends and actually have fun?

Still, if an attractive blonde was going to ask... it would be rude to say no, right?

"Oh, well, I know that people get pretty into it, all that King, Queen, Rulers stuff you know," he waved one hand. "I'll probably be there, I hadn't given it much thought yet."

A lie. He had had to talk himself back into the idea of attending, after his initial fury at having not been nominated, but he wasn't about to show that.

"Are you planning on going?" He asked,trying to offer May the opportunity.

But that was probably thinking it through too much. "Oh well that's really lucky then!" Taehyun replied. He wasn't sure how he would react if Robaire or Jesse asked him to clear out for something like this. Especially Jesse... it was best not to think that direction at all.

He waited for Henry to unlock the door, stepping inside once there was space for them both to do so. "Oh gosh... um... four? I mean there's two bedrooms but it's still... it's a lot," Taehyun admitted with a small laugh. "House and all even that can feel crowded. But that's what makes coming out like this even nicer. Get away for a while."

At least that was what he was telling himself. Maybe his new alter ego he'd named Jimin was all about going out. Maybe this was the more fun way to spend every day.

Still, Henry was not going to be as tactless to say that out loud.

"Yeah, I can see why you maybe need to get out from time to time," Henry smiled, turning to close the door and sliding the bolt across that they rarely used. Just in case.

Then he kicked his shoes off.

"Make yourself comfortable," he added, gesturing to his half of the room. "Did you want anything to drink?"

@nobody-like-taehyun

She picked up another one of those stones, brushing her fingers over its face, before she paid attention to Henry's motions, especially how he held his arm. She was surprised that it wasn't more in the wrist flick. Maybe that's where she was going wrong.

She laughed a little-- gently-- when he scowled.

"Oh, that was good! Don't be so hard on yourself!" She exclaimed, then geared up to throw her own. She squinted one eye closed, then tossed the rock.

Once, twice! Plop.

"Oh hey, got a second skip!" She went searching for another stone, eager to try again.

But it wasn't the moment for that sort of competitive edge to be working its way to the surface. No, instead, he ought to be enjoying the way that she laughed a little, and knowing that it was all points being stored up in his favour. Maybe he could even leverage all this to make that ever-looming Agent Shiftwell see that he was perfectly capable of being nice to Magicks?

"Very nice, very nice," Henry acknowledged with a nod and a smile as he picked out another stone for himself, and this time tossed it up and caught it in his hand again feeling for the weight before he let fly again.

"You'll be skipping them for threes and fours any minute now, I feel like I've been hustled," he teased.

Henry who looked positively embarrassed about being caught in that nightmare and the fear that trailed from it, something that Sorrel could smell in the air but didn't point out when the other man was already upset enough and rather sensitive about those sorts of things; as though fear wasn't as normal and natural an emotion as any other.

He had no way of knowing the shape of those horrors in that dream but he saw their grip very clearly in the way his usually so put together roommate was left in a cold sweat and mess of wild eyes and mussed hair.

"It's alright, I'm the only one here," Sorrel tried to reassure him, in the dark where he could so easily Henry struggled so he didn't move at first while the mortal was so skittish, aside from the slow blink of his eyes with the words. "You sounded distressed, I didn't mean to startle you but you weren't waking up."

In hindsight he should have found a less intrusive way but Henry's anxiety had been so obvious it felt more important to break that dream's hold quickly.

Henry couldn't help but think about those empty hallways and rooms, once so packed full of people whose footsteps he could still hear but who he couldn't seem to find.

Bitterness roiled in him like a cornered snake.

Sorrel being the only one there was no comfort. Henry didn't want him there.

Henry was counting down the seconds to the day when he would be allowed to move out of the dorms and have a room to himself again finally, maybe then he'd be able to sleep peacefully.

"I was fine," Henry grumbled, pulling his sheets up around his chest as if they were his armour. "You didn't need to do that."

He couldn't have been making that much noise, right, that it would have woken up Sorrel? He didn't feel guilty. No, the feeling clawing its way inch by horrible inch up his throat wasn't guilt. It was the hot breath of fear that someone might have seen him, tossing and turning and afraid.

"Now you'll get them in the grinder," he said. Which, aside from the kettle, was Hatter's most favored piece of equipment. Not because it was fancy or because he enjoyed the sound (it was could be rather annoying when trying to have a conversation and the person manning it had bad timing on when they fired it up), but because he used to not have an electric one who did it all by itself. Back when he'd first started all he'd had was a very slimmed down menu, a manual grinder, and arms that had gotten a work out every morning during prep.

Hatter did not say any of this aloud because– who cared? Honestly, comparing the ease of what they had today seemed rather pointless when the job was...well it wasn't like they were saving lives or anything, but it could be a bit stressful and confrontational. Always was, dealing with the members of the public.

"Oh, uh, I'm thinking a latte? Something standard," Henry nodded. It was the sort of order he usually went for if he was indeed having to order a coffee. "I always think that's the best way to go," he added with a small shrug. "I don't tend to go in for all of the super exotic kind of drinks that some of the chain places do."

Better to have a solid coffee that tasted nice; besides, he couldn't possibly be seen drinking some iced frappe-whappe-fruiticcino or something.

"If I can get the basics right, then maybe it's best from there, right?" He smiled, almost genuinely.

Those were the sort of habits he'd had to adjust to with his band too. And the fact that he was sharing with two people rather than just one. It got a bit crazy sometimes. Or at least it had until Jesse had started spending more time around Sid than in the dorms. But... no. He couldn't let himself dwell on the Jesse of it all. He was here to forget about all that! And he was going to!

He followed Henry up the stairs toward his dorm room quickly, debating on how to describe his situation without somehow making it obvious who he was. "It's a shared house so it... can also be really loud and chaotic honestly," Taehyun admitted with a shrug. "The worst really is the shared bathroom situation for me. Some of my housemates hog the bathroom which can be such a pain. I've had to run out and try to find the nearest business to go sometimes which... I'm really bad at directions so it becomes a whole other adventure," Taehyun explained. Was he talking too much?

Were his nerves showing too much here? He was really trying to keep it cool. "Your roommate get warned then? I can't imagine bringing anyone to the house. It'd be too awkward."

He liked to be able to take his time in the morning, to feel relaxed and calm and to take the time over his hair and skin and teeth until he was confident that everything was exactly as it should be. He did not like spending his mornings waiting for the moments where he could judge from the shutting of doors when he'd be able to get a brief spell in the bathroom without pissing anyone off too much.

"Luckily he doesn't take much warning," Henry shrugged, looking a little confident. "He's a great guy, but yeah, he spends a lot of his time over at family's, so it's pretty easy for me to let him know."

Henry fished out the keys from his pocket and opened the door to the flat, feeling glad that nobody else seemed to be in the corridor, so he didn't have to make any awkward small talk.

"So how many do you live with?" Henry asked.

@nobody-like-taehyun

But when your heart was broke, you didn't jump to those kinda thoughts. You let yourself be unfair instead, and Linnet reckoned that Henry's words-- as inaccurate as they were-- still comforted her, like getting a nice rub on the back. Her mouth twitched again, even if she couldn't manage a big smile. She watched him skip the stone instead, her ears delighting in the stone singing on the water.

She picked up a stone, first smoothing her thumb over its face. It was nice and smooth, a rock polished by that very water. She wondered how long it sat in this very spot. Now she was gonna return it to the lake.

She flicked her wrist and the stone traveled out to the lake, but only skipped once.

"Dang. Wait, show me what you did," she said.

"Gotta try and get the side-arm action," Henry pointed out sagely, even if anyone could tell it was not the first time Linnet had skimmed a stone. "So that it travels nice and flat and is more likely to bounce." He had had good teachers. He had had a lot of teachers, in the form of older brothers who could always somehow managed to throw their stones further, make them skip more times, make it all look so easy.

"Then it's just about finding the right stones," he shrugged, picking another one out and frowning at it critically when he saw that it was a bit thicker and lumpier than he would have liked.

He still managed to get it to skip a couple of times, before it sank beneath the surface of the lake. "Ahhh, not perfect though," he hissed through his teeth.

There was so much to be done and so little time– but May von Drake thrived under pressure.

Her sister had expressed two wants. The first was the Prom Queen crown, with the added bonus of a victory over the girl who had decided that some boy was worth trying to harm her for. The second was a suitable date for the dance. Both of which May was going to procure for her– because whatever her sisters wanted, she would get them.

She had spent a precious afternoon observing the candidate who would serve as a date for June. He was...an interesting specimen, wasn't he? But he was tolerable looking and seemed to have more of a brain between his ears than the hockey player alternative. (Even if hockey was in these days with all of those book-to-television serious these days.)

Now, as he diverted courses from the friend he'd walked out of his last class with, May saw her opportunity to approach. Having been standing by the exit to the building she joined him at his side, falling into step flawlessly as they pushed through the doors into the open air of a sunny spring afternoon.

"Hello there, Mr. Westergard," she greeted him. "Mind if I walk with you? I believe we're headed the same way."

"Ms Von Drake," Henry replied smoothly and charmingly, with a polite but curious smile. May, right? The other of the siblings, the one he knew least well at this point. What did she want with him? It was intriguing to think. They certainly weren't on the sort of terms that would have him expecting her to come saying Hi.

"You can call me Henry, by the way," he added with a bit more of a grin. Mr Westergard felt ... wrong.

That was his grandfather, the one he had barely ever known because he lived in Norway. Mr Stafford, that was supposed to be him. Was supposed to be his father and his brother and his brother and so on almost forever before you got to him.

"But sure thing. It's a beautiful day out, right?" He commented, wanting to keep a little small talk flowing before he tried to work out what this was. May would give herself away soon enough, he was sure.

They needed to pair up, and luckily their friend Henry was still available after people started to pair up. (If it looked like everyone else had deliberately paired up to avoid him, they were ignoring that thought.)

"Hi Henry! Are you ready to go find some source of inspiration around town?" they asked cheerfully, nearly bouncing on their toes.

Thank god! Soon, Henry would spend 8 glorious weeks free from the expectation to go along to their little meetings and hem and haw about his creative block and how he wasn't quite happy with his latest piece before the year started again. Maybe by then he could have bothered to make something worth showing and could coast off that for a while.

In the meantime though, well.... ugh. He had to take part in this farcical little treasure hunt for inspiration.

"Oh, oh yes," Henry said, hoping that Luca's brimming enthusiasm would be enough for the pair of them to get by without them realising that Henry really could not be bothered. Still, he did - dutifully - have his paints with him ready should something actually strike him with the muse. "Well, I mean, I don't know what sort of thing you're most drawn to, but maybe we narrow that down and uh, start with that?"

But he still wasn't the type to sleep soundly, not when he was so used to being on guard for any noise and shift; so while he was comfortable in the blanket-lined comfort of his hammock he still kept stirring as tiny shuffles and breaks in the silence disturbed his rest.

He didn't need to lift his head, before he'd opened his eyes to peer into the dying darkness he knew Henry's dreams had turned restless, uneasy; wrapped around him in the tight grip of nightmares.

He felt that soft electric edge in the air and the way it bled into the room; it was best to allow those things to unravel themselves rather than disrupt them but earlier said than done when the moments ticked away and the tension grew more apparent. His roommate's voice became the breaking point where Sorrel couldn't help but let his sympathy get the best of him; he didn't quite thrill at the taste of fear in the air the way some did.

He called out, softly at first, but there was no response to his name so, after a quick debate with himself, he abandoned his bed to get a little closer.

Sorrel couldn't twist a nightmare into something calming, couldn't lance the wounded dream and drain away the horror in it; he'd only ever had the ability to poison dreams rather than ease away the infection of terrible visions. A bit blasphemous for an Unseelie to think so but Sorrel regretted his inability to do so in that troubled moment.

"Henry?" Closer he saw the degrees of that distress more clearly, the scent of it acidic in the air, the restless motions that of a cornered animal. So he chanced a touch, lightly at his shoulder and only an instant because he could feel the twitch of the sticky darkness of that nightmare stirring under his fingertips and didn't want to encourage it as he spoke a bit louder, "Henry; wake up."

He found himself in the library again, spinning and wheeling until it felt as if the shelves were looming over and above him, threatening to swallow him completely in their heavy old tomes-

Somewhere he could hear someone calling him; was it his father? The stern familiar voice telling him to do something that could never be argued?

Was it William? The one who always filled those shoes the moment it was needed, who always sounded a little exasperated with him?

The touch on his shoulder had him spinning, spinning down and round and-

-

Some creature loomed over him, eyes wild and staring in the dark so blue they were like ice themselves.

Henry gasped for air, sitting bolt upright and scurrying himself back against the wall before he knew what was happening, before he realised that the face in the dimly lit room was that strange angular one of his room-mate. He was in the dorms, not the Hall.

"I'm awake," he blurted, prickly and harsh as he tried to catch his breath. Sweat had his t-shirt clinging to his skin and his eyes were still darting about the room.

"What?" He said, defensively.

"Oh, no, nothing," he shook his head, "Except, well-" Henry paused, smiling a little more genuinely, and trying to pick himself up and rebuild the body language.

"I don't suppose you've got any recommendations for where to get the best cup of tea around here? Only I've been hearing a lot about the best places for a coffee, but it's not really my drink," he added, trying to shake off some of the awkwardness.

She felt like she made a breakthrough. Maybe not a big one, but — a first step. That was important. Many small steps lead to bigger changes. Holley was a firm believer in that.

“Ask for the Unbirthday Blend. It’s absolutely divine.” She held out her hand to give Henry a shake. “And if you need anything at all, before our next check-in, please don’t hesitate to reach out.” 

Somewhere deep inside his mind, Henry knew that. His feet ran for too long along the passageway, and when he burst through the old oaken door, it opened into the wrong room, with the wrong view plastered behind the windows. And it was empty, empty again, just like the room before, and the room before that.

He could swear he heard laughter drifting down from just behind the next door, or was it the one behind him? The one he'd just come from?

Henry wheeled on his heels again, feeling the panic rising as something tight wrapped itself around his chest and threatened to swallow him. No, no it couldn't have been that door, he'd just been-

And yet it sounded like music, like voices echoed through the old cracks around the frame. His fingers closed around the doorknob again, so cold that it almost stung, as he wrenched it open once again-

-----

Henry twisted in his bed, the sweat beading on his forehead, a faint whimper caught in the back of his throat. His hand clutched against thin air, face flickering with discomfort as he raced down the corridors, his feet catching on splinters that betrayed him with every step. The half light of the morning crept through the dorm room windows, but he knew none of it.

Hatter watched the kid as he went, mostly oblivious to any inner turmoil that was going on. Since he had never spent time studying emotional reagents (like he probably should have, despite his chosen specialty) he didn't see anything amiss. Though, he knew in general that job interviews and trial runs were where anxiety and nerves tended to float to the surface. Even in the most confident of people, like this kid seemed to be. Hell, it made him nervous– and he was the one that was supposed to be the authoritative figure.

For some reason people tended to think he knew what he was doing.

(Almost as if he had owned and worked in the shoppe for over three decades now...hmm...imagine that...)

What gave it away was the little comments. The first one, he would have written off as just talking, a simple reaction to what had been said. It was the second one that had Hatter's eyes moving from what the kid was doing to glance at his face.

Henry wanted to chew the problem over and work out what it was he'd said wrong, how he'd misdirected something or overplayed his hand, but there was no time for that now. He also knew he had to keep his hand seady as he weighed out the beans and then set down the bag so that it wasn't in their way anymore.

"So, what's next?" He asked, wanting them to keep getting on with the process in the hope that that might somehow ease the uncomfortable grating rasp of this entire conversation and make him able to breathe a little more easily.

Though Linnet didn't always feel like a sweetblossom flower. Sometimes, she wondered about the concept of reincarnation, which Samira's family believed in. She felt as though she had had a long, long, long life so far, and there were still many more years to go. It got downright exhausting in the fall and winter; those years piled on top of her like feet of snow.

Now, at least she had the sunshine warming her face and reminding her of how pretty life was-- and so what a treat, to live long and experience joy with the pain.

"Shore does. Never gets easier," said Linnet, smiling ruefully at herself.

Then again, was that true? This was not the same heartbreak she'd felt when Jeremy left or when she and Paul said goodbye.

"I take that back-- I think each one's just different," she said. "This one stings cuz I just feel like a big fool. It's better when it's requited, even if one day it don't work no more."

Henry could have sworn it did. But what did he know, in the end? Who in this whole wide world had he ever actually let close enough to hurt him like that? Those were the questions he didn't ask himself. Instead there was simply a string of appropriate girls with whom he'd flirted for a while, before he got bored, or they got bored, or moved on to someone else and he sulked for a week and used it as an excuse for a party and moved on.

"Yeah," Henry agreed. "I mean, I guess it's more ... personal when they don't feel the same way, feels more like a sting. But stings don't last so long as the real deep stuff, you know?" He said, hoping he sounded wiser than he felt.

"You'll feel better soon," he said, with a confident smile. "Not least because that guy will realise he's a total idiot, sooner or later." Not that he'd necessarily change his mind, but ... well. You could still be an idiot and realise you were wrong, right?

Henry picked up a pebble, turning it over in his hands. A good flat skimmer, that he cast out into the lake without even thinking about it to see it skip twice before it landed with a plop and sank.

That was right. Taehyun had to get used to the fake name that he had chosen. He'd have to focus in on that so he didn't slip at some point during all of this. That would be awkward.

"Yep! That's me," Taehyun agreed with a smile, taking off his sunglasses and stepping into the dorm building. "What's it like staying in the dorms anyway? Is it as chaotic as I imagine it?" He supposed he was still basically living that sort of experience with his band members sharing the house. But it was still different to a floor with a bunch of different people.

"No, I mean, honestly most of the time you kind of get used to the weird rhythms," Henry added, trying to sound super nonchalant as he led the way up the stairs and towards his dorm. "Like who is always up early, versus who is only having their breakfast when you get back from lectures, or what nights people like to go out with their clubs," he went on, knowing that it was all completely true, if dull. "But occasionally someone will throw a spanner in the works and you'll come to get ready in the morning and find half a football team camped out in your bathroom."

"So you live off campus, how're you finding that?"

@nobody-like-taehyun