There were things that Nick didn't tell him either, he knew that; things that the other man might have felt could change his opinions or catch him off guard even though Isaac like to think it wouldn't be the case. And even if it was he also liked to think the worst of Nick still had reasons, and the worst of him was in the past. He saw more often than he liked to admit the glimpses of it in the paranoia and the heavy lines Nick would draw when it came to safety, uncertainty; haunted little things.

So for many of those stories Isaac just listened, the same as he just listened then while Nick explained another part of his history that had taken place in a time before Isaac, a time he wouldn't have known what to do himself because it was a different world.

Just like that world, the one that was so familiar to him because it was what he had been born into wasn't quite Nick's world; and it wasn't very often the divide felt obvious but every now and then with little things he saw it.

"I guess it feels a little different now then, being you officially," he noted, although he didn't actually press about how much of his real name Nick had used or opted not to; the world had always been difficult for Magicks who weren't human and still was in a way that was outside the things he'd experienced.

Most of the life that Nick had lived was far outside of anything Isaac had experienced, but he didn't do a lot of comparing because Nick never made him feel like there was any reason to compare.

The legalities he knew were also complicated, Belle had stepped in to help untangle those along the way but even he wasn't sure what it actually was going to mean being an elf recognized under Mundus laws.

It was another of those things that felt like something they were figuring out along the way.

"Have you talked to your mom about it yet?" Nick had only just gotten the ID so that wasn't quite what he meant, more if he had talked to her along the way, because she was probably one of the few people who had as much insight about it all from that point of view.

The name part mattered less, partially because he had only a loose attachment to his name. He'd been Nick for the longest time proportionally compared to many of the other names he'd used over the years. But names were like clothing fashions, he picked them up and shed them as the moment required.

Frankly, his van had more of an attachment to its name than he did. It had kept the same one for the last 50 years.

"I mentioned that I was working on this in one of the emails." He paused and chuckled. "She told me to report back as she'd never dealt with the process and was curious how it worked. Almost a shame I took the short cut instead of going through all the bureaucracy."

He paused one more time. "I haven't thought about what to say to Al. If he notices."

After al, that was still technically Nick's place of employment. He was half tempted to quit before the update processed in Al's system so he simply wouldn't have to deal with it, but it wouldn't change that the man would find out eventually.

The mention of Al was something Isaac knew would come up but he wished otherwise. Nick's worries weren't unfounded in that case and Isaac wanted to optimistically think it wouldn't matter and Al had known Nick long enough to not let his opinions about Magicks be a problem. But that optimism felt dismissive in the moment.

"Let him figure it out on his own time maybe?" Isaac suggested, giving Nick's shoulders another squeeze, "it may end up being something less than you think. But it's not the case let him approach you; you have reasons for being cautious in the past. He'll either understand that or he won't."

That was a tiny guilty feeling too; Nick's relationships potentially being strained because of the change.

"People already know you, and if they're going to have a problem with it they already know the reason why you weren't open about it before." Which didn't make it any better, not the way he wanted to make everything okay. "I don't really know how to make that easier for you, but you know I'm here, whatever you need."

The water helped, Isaac supposed, since Avery was quite literally in his element there and far more comfortable.

"Nice to meet you Gary, and you too Sadie," Isaac smiled, briefly shaking that man's hand before he relaxed again. One thing he missed with his new job was the parents; for the longest time teaching he was a little outside their world but now that he was a parent himself he missed the conversations with others at the primary school.

He nodded, he had no doubt it was for the sake of polite conversation but it still felt nice to hear his name instead of Mr. Morey, which seemed like a formality people at Town Hall stuck with no matter how often it was fine to call him Isaac.

"Do you make it out to the lake often? I feel like I'm here so much in the summer I have most of the faces practically memorized," he laughed, glancing at the kids to check on them but they were busy splashing around near the shore.

"My girls do, but my wife usually takes them," Gary explained. "I'm very busy in the Hollow with my work there."

No use explaining what a head dust-talent does, so he didn't.

He nodded though, not sure he was familiar with Gary's wife since he still didn't know everyone at the university when the campus was so large.

"I'm running into that myself there; this is one of the few afternoons that I have off a little earlier than I expected."

Avery wasn't paying as much attention to the adults, too busy trying to explain that water really wasn't all that scary. "I don't think you can sink in those," he noted the water wings, since they were made to float, but maybe that wasn't quite as good in the water as having fins.

Only a few years ago he had no doubt Nick would have disappeared from town whenever the whim hit him to do so, because that had simply been the life he lived. He'd explained it to Isaac, how the wind and that impulse always called to him, like it was some underlying fear that somewhere out in the world there was some bigger story he was missing out on If he remained too long in one spot.

At the time, so early in what would become their relationship, Isaac had taken it as a subtle way of Nick telling him that there could be nothing serious between them, that there would always be something out in the world that called to him with more strength behind it than anything he found in that town. Or anything he found in the people there.

Isaac had accepted it for a while, because he couldn't imagine getting past his own history to want anything stable with anyone else. But what he did want was stability in other ways; he'd never been able to fully understand the way Nick looked to the wind to lead him to new tales and adventures because Isaac was a different sort of person. His own adventures had led him back home and that was where he was happy.

And even years later there were times he felt the little guilt at wondering if Nick being happy there was still really as happy as Nick could be, or if he was just holding back for the sake of what they had built.

It was just an ID but it also wasn't; because Nick had always been a million different people but he never quite been himself in the way that that little document solidified he was.

He glanced over Nick's shoulder at the ID, standing there behind him, leaning against him some and running his fingers through the other man's hair, sifting streaks of subtle teal through the brown strands with his fingertips.

"You don't have to be," he voiced, "fine, I mean. It's a big thing."

There were times he felt too much like the Wind he'd followed - a collection of leaves and seeds and dust being blown together into a loose sort of shape by air currents and the moment, held together by chance and just as likely to fall apart again. Built out of what had fallen away or been shaken off, the drifting chaff of greater beings. Words and thoughts blended until it wouldn't take much to blow him apart. Sometimes he wondered what that would be like.

But that little touch provided a focus point in the swirl until it felt like it could touch down again - the seed that would become rooted, the leaves that would become mulch, the dust that would hold other plant life. Grounded. At least until the next strong breeze came through.

He let out another sigh, slightly more audible, and leaned back into the touch.

"It's just. Odd. When Mom and I first came here, we didn't have any ID. We didn't even know what that was. But we were poor enough it didn't matter - ID really only became useful if you wanted to go somewhere else. When you were working under the table and avoiding the cops to keep ahold of your housing anyway, it didn't matter. It was years before I needed an ID for anything, and by then everyone I knew had fakes anyway."

He let out a small laugh. "Even then I didn't use my real birth date on it. I was already too old."

There were things that Nick didn't tell him either, he knew that; things that the other man might have felt could change his opinions or catch him off guard even though Isaac like to think it wouldn't be the case. And even if it was he also liked to think the worst of Nick still had reasons, and the worst of him was in the past. He saw more often than he liked to admit the glimpses of it in the paranoia and the heavy lines Nick would draw when it came to safety, uncertainty; haunted little things.

So for many of those stories Isaac just listened, the same as he just listened then while Nick explained another part of his history that had taken place in a time before Isaac, a time he wouldn't have known what to do himself because it was a different world.

Just like that world, the one that was so familiar to him because it was what he had been born into wasn't quite Nick's world; and it wasn't very often the divide felt obvious but every now and then with little things he saw it.

"I guess it feels a little different now then, being you officially," he noted, although he didn't actually press about how much of his real name Nick had used or opted not to; the world had always been difficult for Magicks who weren't human and still was in a way that was outside the things he'd experienced.

Most of the life that Nick had lived was far outside of anything Isaac had experienced, but he didn't do a lot of comparing because Nick never made him feel like there was any reason to compare.

The legalities he knew were also complicated, Belle had stepped in to help untangle those along the way but even he wasn't sure what it actually was going to mean being an elf recognized under Mundus laws.

It was another of those things that felt like something they were figuring out along the way.

"Have you talked to your mom about it yet?" Nick had only just gotten the ID so that wasn't quite what he meant, more if he had talked to her along the way, because she was probably one of the few people who had as much insight about it all from that point of view.

And even if he hadn't assumed that Drakken himself so often claimed some boast about his insight or intelligence that it wasn't a far stretch.

Isaac retrieved a glass from the shelf and made a quick detour to the fridge, and he was just as afflicted by that little unintentional prompt as any parent would be.

"I think we're getting close to the point of getting him into some actual art lessons, he cycles through things he likes to do but painting has been one that's stuck," Isaac mused, and as inclined as his own magic was to artistic endeavors he wasn't terribly artistic himself. He could certainly change colors and had an eye for that sort of thing and how they fit together but was hard pressed too to do the sort of sketching and drawing that Avery gravitated towards without it looking messy.

"I thought he was going to end up spending too much time watching TV as he got a little older but he really seems to like the quieter things like his books and his painting; so I'm sure the house will be just covered with whales and fish drawings by the time he's in secondary."

Which certainly wasn't a complaint.

He set the glass down in front of Drakken before picking his own coffee mug up off the counter and joining him at the table.

"And who knows, maybe by that point his cousin Luca will be a bigger influence and he might be interested in science more; you never know with kids."

Drakken was quite used to this song and dance. He, too, was a teacher after all. Even if he didn't think of himself as one and still saw it as his cover for the person he was pretending to be in this town– but he never really could do anything in halves. He was an all or nothing sort of person, always had been.

It's why he was still gunning for the same thing he had been going after since he was 17. He didn't know how to do anything at any other level than 100%. The whole reason he had shown up today at the Mayor's house was because he was trying to do his Board job, wasn't it?

Anyway, the point was, he had sat through enough parent-teacher conferences and had many-a phone calls home to parents about kids and listened to other teachers as they talked about students to hear this sort of thing. Granted, it was different with Morey's kid just because of the age demographic he sat in. They weren't discussing uni acceptances and exam marks– they were just talking about him developing into a person still.

"He already spends half the summer talking to the locals in the lake, or at the beach when we take trips outside of town." Isaac couldn't say he wasn't looking forward to that just a little bit more that year because it had been a long one. "I'm just dreading the day he asks if one of the sharks he meets can come home with us," he chuckled, but it was always a possibility.

Isaac hoped the world moved in that direction in time and magic and science didn't have such a strong divide, maybe by the time Avery and Penny were old enough to go out into the world themselves.

He'd seen the prejudice firsthand when he'd lost his job teaching in Camden; it was still a wall for some.

"So, what's on you mind?" Isaac voiced, taking a sip of his coffee; if nothing else it was almost a guarantee that any conversation with the other man was going to be an interesting one.

"It's not hard," he confirmed, "you just gotta practice. You can swim with me." Nobody had ever really asked before but Avery wanted to help, that was what you were supposed to do.

He did swim closer though with a few flicks of his tail though, so she wouldn't have to go out into the deeper water.

Isaac watched the kids for a minute, offering Gary a spot on the blanket so he wouldn't have to sit on the ground.

"Don't worry, she'll be fine; he can breathe in the water but he knows other people can't, he'll make sure she doesn't go out too far." Isaac mentioned to Gary, but it was also because he knew Avery wouldn't venture out into the center of the lake all by himself anyway. If he and Nick had been in the water possibly so, but he didn't like to go that far away from them usually.

"No promise it'll be an easy time getting them back in though, he'll try to stay out there all day," he laughed.

"Once she's made a friend it'll be hard to drag her out, too." Gary said, sympathizing with the other parent.

He sat down at the spot offered and then offered his hand.

"I'm Gary, that's Sadie, my youngest." He said. "You're Isaac, right?"

The water helped, Isaac supposed, since Avery was quite literally in his element there and far more comfortable.

"Nice to meet you Gary, and you too Sadie," Isaac smiled, briefly shaking that man's hand before he relaxed again. One thing he missed with his new job was the parents; for the longest time teaching he was a little outside their world but now that he was a parent himself he missed the conversations with others at the primary school.

He nodded, he had no doubt it was for the sake of polite conversation but it still felt nice to hear his name instead of Mr. Morey, which seemed like a formality people at Town Hall stuck with no matter how often it was fine to call him Isaac.

"Do you make it out to the lake often? I feel like I'm here so much in the summer I have most of the faces practically memorized," he laughed, glancing at the kids to check on them but they were busy splashing around near the shore.

It was still a bit jarring to have to switch to having a guest so suddenly but he'd manage.

"Well, we have coffee for sure," his own favorite vice, "and tea and a few stray sodas in the fridge," mostly because of his brothers' preferences and his tendency to keep things in hand for them, "and Avery has a little bit of a fixation on orange juice lately."

Kids were like that; zeroed in on a certain preference until they moved on to the next one.

The kitchen table was still littered with a few pages from Avery's sketchbook and the variety of sea creatures he'd been busy with his watercolors painting early in the afternoon. Isaac gathered the pages carefully to move them to a counter so Drakken could have a seat at the table.

Drakken's face wrinkled in disgust at the word coffee. Eugh! He had no idea how people drank that stuff. It smelled like it was akin to some of the chemicals he worked with, in his opinion. And tea was like its watery cousin. The both of them bitter and nasty. How it was that there were whole industries built around those drinks was an absolute mystery to him.

(...and also did get him thinking that maybe he could use that to his advantage, a new idea for a take over the world plot blooming...but not right now!)

Soda's made his teeth from the sugar, and his chest hurt from the carbonation. Also a no. He shook his head to indicate.

His hopes were dwindling, when– ah! "OJ! Sure, I'll have that. Thank you."

Drakken watched the mayor remove paper from a surface, turning his head a little to look at what was on them with no thought for decorum or privacy. Not that it mattered anyway, since they were just drawings. Nothing of importance, other than showcasing developmental and artistic capabilities.

And even if he hadn't assumed that Drakken himself so often claimed some boast about his insight or intelligence that it wasn't a far stretch.

Isaac retrieved a glass from the shelf and made a quick detour to the fridge, and he was just as afflicted by that little unintentional prompt as any parent would be.

"I think we're getting close to the point of getting him into some actual art lessons, he cycles through things he likes to do but painting has been one that's stuck," Isaac mused, and as inclined as his own magic was to artistic endeavors he wasn't terribly artistic himself. He could certainly change colors and had an eye for that sort of thing and how they fit together but was hard pressed too to do the sort of sketching and drawing that Avery gravitated towards without it looking messy.

"I thought he was going to end up spending too much time watching TV as he got a little older but he really seems to like the quieter things like his books and his painting; so I'm sure the house will be just covered with whales and fish drawings by the time he's in secondary."

Which certainly wasn't a complaint.

He set the glass down in front of Drakken before picking his own coffee mug up off the counter and joining him at the table.

"And who knows, maybe by that point his cousin Luca will be a bigger influence and he might be interested in science more; you never know with kids."

He couldn't say he didn't miss when Avery had still been small enough to carry, maybe a little; he'd seen his students' parents go through that struggle every year but it felt different when it was your own baby growing up.

Even right then he was next door playing with Penny rather than running around the house and Isaac was wondering where to find a larger size of one of Avery's favorite shark shirts while it still was a favorite.

He finally headed downstairs, laundry basket in hand as he paused in the hallway, spotting Nick.

"Hey," he spoke up; the room was nearly silent so it was dull and only a bare wash of hues but he didn't need that to see Nick was lost in thought. After all that time he didn't need magic at all to pick up the subtle signs or, in that case, the very obvious ones, "you okay?"

Most of the time, it was nearly impossible to surprise Nick. His reflexes had been honed under the assumption that Danger Was Always Present, and he'd been proved right over and over again. Even deep in thought, some part of his awareness was always set to listen for changes tot he environment in case he needed to focus.

The rare occasions where he'd learned to filter out those sounds was when they had been integrated to his core as being connected to something 'safe'. It meant his mother had the ability to surprise him. The kids often did because they never brought danger with them.

In this moment, Nick didn't hear Isaac's footsteps which meant he was surprised. it also meant he was safe here. He couldn't ignore the twin sensations and the ways they unsettled him in other ways.

"Yeah. Yeah I'm fine." He paused. "New ID's here."

Only a few years ago he had no doubt Nick would have disappeared from town whenever the whim hit him to do so, because that had simply been the life he lived. He'd explained it to Isaac, how the wind and that impulse always called to him, like it was some underlying fear that somewhere out in the world there was some bigger story he was missing out on If he remained too long in one spot.

At the time, so early in what would become their relationship, Isaac had taken it as a subtle way of Nick telling him that there could be nothing serious between them, that there would always be something out in the world that called to him with more strength behind it than anything he found in that town. Or anything he found in the people there.

Isaac had accepted it for a while, because he couldn't imagine getting past his own history to want anything stable with anyone else. But what he did want was stability in other ways; he'd never been able to fully understand the way Nick looked to the wind to lead him to new tales and adventures because Isaac was a different sort of person. His own adventures had led him back home and that was where he was happy.

And even years later there were times he felt the little guilt at wondering if Nick being happy there was still really as happy as Nick could be, or if he was just holding back for the sake of what they had built.

It was just an ID but it also wasn't; because Nick had always been a million different people but he never quite been himself in the way that that little document solidified he was.

He glanced over Nick's shoulder at the ID, standing there behind him, leaning against him some and running his fingers through the other man's hair, sifting streaks of subtle teal through the brown strands with his fingertips.

"You don't have to be," he voiced, "fine, I mean. It's a big thing."

For her, this was a small matter after all. Relatively ordinary and every day.

He was the one who had collapsed in his seat and simply stared into space after she'd gone, staring down at the document in his hands. It was such a little thing. How did it mean so much?

There was so much he should be doing. He should probably start dinner. He should pick up the living room. He should...

The thoughts drifted away again as he stared back down at the identification in his hand.

He couldn't say he didn't miss when Avery had still been small enough to carry, maybe a little; he'd seen his students' parents go through that struggle every year but it felt different when it was your own baby growing up.

Even right then he was next door playing with Penny rather than running around the house and Isaac was wondering where to find a larger size of one of Avery's favorite shark shirts while it still was a favorite.

He finally headed downstairs, laundry basket in hand as he paused in the hallway, spotting Nick.

"Hey," he spoke up; the room was nearly silent so it was dull and only a bare wash of hues but he didn't need that to see Nick was lost in thought. After all that time he didn't need magic at all to pick up the subtle signs or, in that case, the very obvious ones, "you okay?"

Avery had already removed the shoes he didn't like to wear, and now that it wasn't cold anymore he could get away with not having to as much even if he wasn't going to be swimming, while Isaac found a spot on the bank to spread out a blanket to sit and the backpack that held snacks in case Avery's appetite couldn't hold up until Nick showed up. He'd just disappeared into the water when Isaac spotted the little girl come running over.

Avery surfaced, unglamoured skin a trailing gradient of yellow, violet, blue and teal from his head to toes, turning his attention towards the voice. His scales, which he was always quick to point out were fish scales and not lizard, caught the sunlight with a hint of iridescent as the elf treaded water with the lazy sway of his water salamander-like tail and a few kicks of his legs.

"Hello," at first he glanced at his dad to make certain it was okay, then nodded. He hadn't fully grown out of his tendency to be shy but one on one with people he could usually manage. "I'm Avery," he introduced himself and then lifted a web fingered hand that direction, "and that's my dad."

Sadie, still stood at the shore, tentatively dipped a toe in then pulled it back out, making a face. But she did want to play with the little boy! So it was time to be brave, yes. Very brave.

"Hi Avery! I'm Sadie, and that's my baba." She pointed at Gary, and Gary nodded to the kid, then to the kid's father.

Gary introduced himself and offered his hand to the kid's father while the kids shouted to each other across the lake.

"It's not hard," he confirmed, "you just gotta practice. You can swim with me." Nobody had ever really asked before but Avery wanted to help, that was what you were supposed to do.

He did swim closer though with a few flicks of his tail though, so she wouldn't have to go out into the deeper water.

Isaac watched the kids for a minute, offering Gary a spot on the blanket so he wouldn't have to sit on the ground.

"Don't worry, she'll be fine; he can breathe in the water but he knows other people can't, he'll make sure she doesn't go out too far." Isaac mentioned to Gary, but it was also because he knew Avery wouldn't venture out into the center of the lake all by himself anyway. If he and Nick had been in the water possibly so, but he didn't like to go that far away from them usually.

"No promise it'll be an easy time getting them back in though, he'll try to stay out there all day," he laughed.

With the warmer weather, the girls (mostly Hattie Rose) were begging to go to the lake to swim. Not all fairies knew how to swim, but Gary insisted his daughters learn since they go to human school, have human friends, and might do human fun activities like, yes, swimming. Better safe than stuck trying to learn how to tread water when you needed it.

Hattie Rose ran into some friends and went to hangout with them, and that just left little Sadie, who hadn't been swimming but once or twice before.

"Baba, I'm scared," she said, looking up at him.

Gary crouched down next to her. "That's okay, you can still do things if you're scared. But you don't have to right now. Do you need a minute?"

"No, I can do it."

Except, she clearly wasn't ready, because she stood at the edge of the lake a long while before turning back around to look at him.

"Maybe I do need a minute."

Gary gestured to a group of kids about her age playing together. "Would you be less nervous if you asked them if you can play?"

"I don't know them." Sadie pointed out.

"Fair point, fair point." Yeah, he didn't much care to join random groups either.

Avery had already removed the shoes he didn't like to wear, and now that it wasn't cold anymore he could get away with not having to as much even if he wasn't going to be swimming, while Isaac found a spot on the bank to spread out a blanket to sit and the backpack that held snacks in case Avery's appetite couldn't hold up until Nick showed up. He'd just disappeared into the water when Isaac spotted the little girl come running over.

Avery surfaced, unglamoured skin a trailing gradient of yellow, violet, blue and teal from his head to toes, turning his attention towards the voice. His scales, which he was always quick to point out were fish scales and not lizard, caught the sunlight with a hint of iridescent as the elf treaded water with the lazy sway of his water salamander-like tail and a few kicks of his legs.

"Hello," at first he glanced at his dad to make certain it was okay, then nodded. He hadn't fully grown out of his tendency to be shy but one on one with people he could usually manage. "I'm Avery," he introduced himself and then lifted a web fingered hand that direction, "and that's my dad."

It was not that Drakken didn't hear the comments about him showing up unannounced. He fully acknowledged them! He just didn't really care. In his mind, this was a perfectly normal thing to be doing and not at all rude. Morey was the Mayor! Surely he knew what he had been signing up for then he had signed up to be voted on for the position. He was a public servant! That meant he was always at the disposal of the citizens of this town, didn't it?

Now, if anyone were to do this to Drakken, they would be booted out to the curb. And he didn't see himself to be under any obligation to always be ready to take an audience with...well anyone, really. If they wanted to talk to him, they would be doing it on his time.

But, as everyone who had ever spoken to him had surely learned by now, Drakken was the biggest hypocrite on that side of the Atlantic.

It was still a bit jarring to have to switch to having a guest so suddenly but he'd manage.

"Well, we have coffee for sure," his own favorite vice, "and tea and a few stray sodas in the fridge," mostly because of his brothers' preferences and his tendency to keep things in hand for them, "and Avery has a little bit of a fixation on orange juice lately."

Kids were like that; zeroed in on a certain preference until they moved on to the next one.

The kitchen table was still littered with a few pages from Avery's sketchbook and the variety of sea creatures he'd been busy with his watercolors painting early in the afternoon. Isaac gathered the pages carefully to move them to a counter so Drakken could have a seat at the table.

Since it wasn't Cruella's shop that was wrecked, that meant she was most likely one of the injured. She could be just a concerned citizen, but he would guess injured just for her to care enough to take up Isaac's office like that.

He still kept up the easy massage working at the knots. "It won't change cases like Chief's, the police were involved in that case from the start. But could look into the posted speed limits around town."

Not that he necessarily thought those needed to change, he thought they were fine. But if they were going to look at making changes and to seem like they were responding, that was the easiest and most public approach. Plus could be an easy argument that it was lowering the posted limit to cater to tourists and children or something like that.

Nick smiled as Isaac began to truly relax and melt against him. "I think we've avoided that particular one, but it'll be something soon. He's decided he wants to learn to cook better so he can cook for us sometimes. I'll keep an eye on things, but we might want to get ready for some interesting meals for a little while whenever he hits his experimental phase."

He leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of Isaac's head. "Oh really? What are you feeling inspired towards?"

It just made him want to try harder though; maybe somewhere in the mix there was a solution that was a little closer to even ground in some things.

"You forget how many siblings I have and how many of them learn to cook growing up; I have suffered some truly questionable attempts at food and survived." He chuckled; that was definitely a lot of creativity when it came to kids cooking, sometimes not in the best ways. But that was one of the more interesting parts of parenting; trying to navigate creativity that boarded on the line of horrifying.

The question earned Nick a side-eyed look, but an amused one. "Well it certainly isn't discussing my shortcomings of the day."

Jun definitely didn't hear a no. In fact, it sounded like Isaac agreed with him. Littering was a different matter. Now, why Isaac might be able to do something about littering and not about the parking issue made no sense to Jun...

Perhaps Jun needed to review the rules himself, so he could teach Isaac Morey how to do this job. And yes, one might call this a condescending line of thinking, but to be fair to Isaac, he was new to this position! And he was very busy, just keeping things running, he just might not have time to really sit down and realize...

At least, Jun wanted to be generous in this way, because otherwise, he had voted for a nincompoop.

"Ah, so you WILL raise the fines?" Jun exclaimed. "That's great to hear!"

"Even fines are a discussion, Mr. Moon; and not just something I decide entirely on my own. But we can have that discussion."

He was already foreseeing The next few years of his life everyone working in Town Hall growing very tired of the amount of discussions he had to have, although to be fair not solely because of Jun and it was also part of their job so he didn't feel like it was asking an absurd amount from people who had stepped into those roles knowing that.

He said in the past that if people brought concerns to him he would look into them, the fact that Jun probably had a long list of concerns to wade through didn't escape him, but how could he do less for him than he said he would do for anyone?

"This is why I ask people to bring the things to me they feel need to be addressed; as you can imagine it's difficult for me to see every single potential problem and to weed out nuances versus things that require more attention."

Did he think every single thing June brought up was going to be a problem? No. He had a feeling a lot of what Jun brought up were bound to be things that just crossed his mind to be irritated over, but that was one of the more challenging parts of his job.

Jun Moon was going to be one of those people that made the next few years of his life very busy.

This was not the first time he had crashed into something. It had been state side and in Montana - which had its own set of rules and careless repercussions but it was not his fratirnaties responsibility to pay for anything - it was his own insurance and his own funds. So he was going to push back on that - even if it was the mayor.

"I do have insurance through Town Hall when it comes to my work rig and on the job incdentals but Sir you do understand that Hidden Canyon Ranch is an operating cattle ranch and farm with our own insurance." His town was condecending but at this point he was annoyed. This raindbow schmuck really knew nothing about it. "My team will get the bills settled and ensure my rates don't go up. So please I'd prefer if we don't cross the lines between personal and professional."

The conversation did move to the topic of his actual job thankfully but it sounded like again this man was nothing like Hades. Was was he skirting around the topic. "So sir are you saying that you want me to go to rehab or something? Like I have an issue? I made a mistake and it won't happen again." Chief looked across the desk in disgust. "Is this the expectation of anyone who has a mishap? I feel like you are judging me for my mistakes and not remembering who I am or what I do for this town."

It wasn't related to a magical disaster so very likely it would still come down to Chief dealing with it, but it was worth mentioning because of the gravity of that accident; it could have easily been much worse than it was.

The other man's words were tinting the air with a swampy green hue, frustration bubbling through him and streaked heavily with flares of brighter red like a warning light flashing. Isaac didn't know him well enough to know exactly how the colors pertained to him but some things were a bit more universal and easy enough to read.

"I'm not judging you, and I'm sorry if it comes off that way; I have every bit of sympathy if there are things that are going on in your life that aren't easy," Isaac sighed, "but unfortunately you work for Town Hall, which means you represent a part of this town that people do have high expectations of. I know at times in the past that representation has involved a lot of mistakes, not by you but by other people; I'm not trying to make an example of you but my expectations are higher, yes. Not just of you but everyone who works here, myself included; and I would be doing a terrible job if I didn't do that."

But it didn't mean he didn't struggle with it; Isaac wished there was some happy medium where repercussions didn't have to feel so large over what really might have been a one time issue. "I assure you I don't want to remove you from that job; and that's why I want to give you every opportunity to avoid it."

But Isaac couldn't back down on that, he wasn't going to; he wanted to help the man but Chief bristled at the notion of responsibly for what he'd done.

"You did make a choice to get in your truck knowing you'd been drinking and were speeding across town, you damaged a building and you injured people; it might have been a mistake but it was one that could have ended very badly for several people, yourself included." He kept his tone even, not wanting to stir Chef's anger more, it was likely a lost cause but he tried anyway to keep the conversation steady rather than accusatory. "So yes, Mr. Slade; that's going to require more than just some community service to show you're working to resolve why you made that choice; be that rehab, therapy or whatever other outlet is going to help you the most. Like I said; if you need help finding those outlets we can do that, I'll look into it myself if you want. I'm not condemning you for a mistake; believe me, I want to help you in this situation as much as I do everyone involved. But at this point, yes, keeping your job is going to mostly depend on you making an effort here."

But he changed his mind because the second knock was a bit odd even for Nick, and it wasn't like he could just unlock the door anyway. He did get that tiny little anxious twinge, just for an instant, that was a lingering flutter of discomfort at times at opening his door not being sure who would be on the other side.

But, he reminded himself firmly, there was nothing to be anxious about now. Nobody to show up trying to catch him by himself.

He certainly didn't expect to see Drakken standing on the front porch when he pulled the door open. The man's sense of timing was good at least because Nick probably would have found a way to run him off when there was an unspoken agreement about work not overlapping the end of the day family time.

Normally Isaac agreed, but said family was currently elsewhere and he didn't think it would hurt; probably just a quick question or something of the sort.

He didn't mind really, over their shared time on the Board Issac was convinced he and Drakken had slowly gone from being a bit at odds to not always agreeable about topics but at least rather agreeable with each other. They did share a fair amount of opinions on things, regardless of going about how to accomplish them different ways

He liked to think they got along rather well anymore, although Isaac was often an optimistic soul and was rather determined to be friends.

"Oh, hello," he smiled, "I wasn't really expecting company." Then he noticed the binder tucked under Drakken's arm and maybe it wasn't going to be quite as brief a question as he thought. "Everything alright?"

It was true! When Drakken had first met Isaac Morey he hadn't liked him. Back then, he had been a person standing between Drakken and something he wanted. Now, that was barely a memory in Drakken's head. An unusual thing for someone who would no doubt be taking hundreds of petty grudges with him to the grave. But Morey had done little to annoy or act as an obstacle to him in recent years.

And, most importantly, he had won the role of Mayor and ensured that the loser would be no where near the town's politics (for the time being) or Drakken, for that matter. How he had even been permitted to run for such a position of power after the stunt he had pulled was infuriating, but it didn't matter now.

What did matter was that the Mayor had opened the door, and Drakken smiled. It was genuine, too, as he was pleased to see Morey. (Moreso in the sense that he was home so this endeavor hadn't been in vain than anything else.)

The quesiton was a bit puzzling though, his expression falling slightly.

"Uh, thank you," he pulled the door shut behind him, a step behind the other man. "Oh, I wasn't really expecting visitors," he explained, but couldn't really make too much of an argument about it when he didn't mind much. "But that's fine; Nick and Avery probably be back for a while and the house gets too quiet."

He was going to make the best of it, and he certainly couldn't leave the man just standing in the hallway.

"Would you like a drink?" He offered, still having no idea what Drakken was there for but if it was just a friendly visit, even though it was a bit intrusive, he couldn't say he minded company; people were what lit his world up with color after all.

Although it was hard to imagine a lack of it as he led Drakken down the blue-toned hallway towards the rest of the house where each room seemed to have a different flow of color to it; the kitchen where he headed first was vibrantly yellow of course, his own favorite color. It was quite the cheerful little spot with open windows and a kaleidoscope of appliances, splashes of more subtle hues from Avery's watercolor pictures stuck to the fridge and wall around it and the mismatch of dishes he'd been in the process of putting away when Drakken had shown up; but Isaac loved to cook so little surprise the space was so saturated with energetic hues.