#roxian

There was nothing unusual about Ian leaving Benbow apartments in the late evening hours. Generally he would have stayed the night but he had wanted to do a few things at his mom's house before morning and, being that he never really went to sleep before practically morning, leaving when Tony was headed to bed wasn't much of an issue. He didn't even mind the walk; most anything that cleared his head lately was welcome.

The fresh air, the quiet of the dark; it really wasn't such a bad night as he reached the walkway outside the apartment building and started on his way towards the nearby neighborhoods. He realized as an afterthought that he should have brought Blazey, she would have enjoyed the walk, but not much to be done about that. He'd mostly been lost in thought anyway when his mental checklist for the night ahead was suddenly interrupted as he nearly crossed paths with someone familiar. But not in the real sense.

Ian wasn't the type to start encounters, he didn't care much for approaching people; but he slowed that time, feeling a wash of almost memory from those dreams over the man who had, surprisingly, been what he considered a very good friend in that strange dream.

It wasn't real, but the person was.

"Ah...Roxas?" He called out, knowing full well that the other could keep walking, ignore him, and that would be that. But honestly, he had to try; after discovering that more came from those dreams than expected that felt like the very least he could do with people who felt like he already knew them, even if he didn't.

Normally, Ian could handle nearly anything even the largest of the dogs at work could throw at him; spending the afternoon in the dog park seeing to it that the rescues had time to burn off some energy was, generally, one of the easier parts of his day. Even with Apollo, who was for all his charm a bit clumsy and overly excited at times, but that wasn't much of a problem. But lately, well, very little seemed to be typical; between strange exhaustion, disjointed reflexes and a slew of other building oddities (some of which his mom had been concerned enough about to claim she needed to speak to Nick about and that was concerning), something was wrong.

Ian just didn't know what. And that was actually more stressful than anything being wrong in the first place.

Apollo, however, knew nothing of those concerns. And, as happened at least once or twice nearly every time Apollo was let out to run, the dog had gotten himself into a mess. It wasn't exactly his fault, depth perception wasn't a strong point for the one-eyed dog.

Ian had spent a good few minutes redirecting Apollo out of one of the tunnels where the husky had decided to turn around and startled himself with the small space. True to husky form; he started yowling about the matter and Ian had to go rescue him. But, lately it wasn't as easy; picking up the larger dogs didn't require much effort...except the last couple of weeks it had. Even Yoda had been more of a stubborn challenge at home.

"Come on Apollo," Ian coaxed, keeping one hand on the dog's collar and using the other to keep braced at the edge of the tunnel as he tried to urge the confused husky out. "You're okay, almost there." He had to practically guide Apollo's head down to keep him from hitting it on the wall of the tunnel, and when the dog was free he bolted.

Problem was Ian still had a hand on his collar and what he usually would have been able to react to fast enough to let go in time ended with him being thrown off balance, tripping and ending up in the dog pond with a husky bouncing around him thinking the whole thing was a game.

Admitting defeat for an instant, Ian just sat there with a sigh; he really had no idea why his balance was all off centered but something was clearly off, had been since graduation. Apollo decided to cheer him up by flinging himself once again at him, nearly knocking the both of them over, again.

When the dog jumped up to shake wildly Ian realized there was someone close enough to be caught in the spray. "Sorry!" He quickly apologized, lifting an arm to cover his own eyes from the water cast off by the excited dog.

His friends had the best of intentions and that he appreciated, but it was getting harder to deal with that painful spot buried in his chest when they were so worried.

Most of them had seen him cry far too much the past handful of days as it was; seeking out solitude felt like he was doing everyone a favor, himself included, because just wasn't the type to leave emotions ignored or unfelt. It hadn't been easy, and he figured everyone was tired of his weariness, even if they were too kind to say so; Ian was used to dealing with things on his own. He still wasn't really certain how good he felt about subjecting other people to his problems, as ridiculously hypocritical as it was when he was so quick to reassure everyone else he wanted to help with their own.

Being a hypocrite was the least of the things bothering Ian the last few days.

At least night was relatively quiet in town, vampires and nocturnal creatures aside, he supposed, given that he'd never really run across any of those in his habit of late evening walks that had become more and more frequent even before the breakup.

Ian was restless lately and he wasn't sure why; but something was off.

Maybe he just was a nocturnal creature himself, he mused inwardly as he slipped out the doorway of the apartment complex and headed into the dark, shoes scuffing a bit on the sidewalk as he dragged his feet.

At least the moon was bright; that was oddly comforting as he let his thoughts wander and his feet do as they wished, navigating the walkways and turning the corner towards campus for no real reason other than to avoid circling back to the lake; he never went there at night now.

He wasn't the only nocturnal creature out and about though, Ian spotted the familiar form and, for a weary instant, almost changed direction. But it was pointless, wasn't it? He couldn't very well avoid anything or anyone that reminded him of Riku forever, could he? Besides, Roxas knew his habit of being out late, and where he tended to go; if he had decided to show up around the time Ian was usually heading out?

Likely it wasn't just a chance meeting.

"Hey Roxas," Ian trailed off, not wanting to be rude. Even though he had been for the last week, purposely not making an effort to wait around to see if the other man would show up after dark; Ian knew perfectly well that their friendship had nothing to do with Riku and he liked spending time with Roxas when neither of them had much to do in the late hours, but still, he had selfishly been avoiding that.