Post by Emily on Nov 6, 2015 15:20:04 GMT -8
CAST: Isla Byrne (wistfultempest@aol.com), William "Will" Byrne (anyothertale@aol.com)
SUMMARY: Isla seeks out half-brother Will, who thinks he's meeting an investigator or a reporter interested in gathering information on Alistair Byrne. It goes south quickly.
TW: language
[Isla] The rain that fell Thursday night was a drizzling sort; breaking in through the thin layer of fog that settled over the Thames and often drifted up over it's banks to the glistening streets of London. It was November though, and not even rain or fog could keep people from their Christmas shopping. Traffic was heavy by way of both auto and foot, and Isla Byrne watched the headlights cut by, and the people of varying colors and sizes with their bags of the same stride along the sidewalk outside of Joe's. She had arrived a good half hour ago, a bit fearful that she'd miss him if she took too long to get there. They'd not set a time, just a day, and she'd not wanted to push just in case he was the sort that might be scared off if she did that. The voice that had greeted her missed call had not been a happy one given the subject of her call. Not that she could blame him. No, the blame was left on the wide strong shoulders of their father, a blame he carried four times the weight of. The thought had her shifting uneasily in the way she sat; ramrod straight against the soft leather cushion behind her back, her hands carefully folded in her lap, and the brilliant top of her crown raised. She sat as if it were the keys of a piano in front of her rather than a table set with sugars and napkins and a singular cup of French Roast that had barely been touched and left to find room temperature. The woman was varying shades of gold, from dark to light. To the tawny of her skin, to the bronze of her stare, and the gilt of pillowy curls about her impeccably set shoulders. From the tables edge she could be seen in a simple black turtleneck sweater, though the slim trousers and red-soled heels of the same color were hidden beneath it. So she waited, lost in thought to how she even wanted to approach the matter of her call, and watched the street in the direction she knew the university to be for the tall bearded dark haired fellow that she'd spied more than a few times on Samhain night. Nerves were getting the better of her -- she shouldn't have come so early -- and damp fingers untwisted from the way they rested in her lap so tightly clasped together, and were rubbed against the outer lengths of trim thighs.
[Will] He'd stared at Joe's red neon sign and white-gold exterior bulbs for a finnicky ten minutes or so, hidden away behind one of the concrete pillars that held Shepherd University's main gate to the Earth and picking at those little fuzzballs that develop on braided nylon -- like the kind gym bag straps is made of -- like the fate of the galaxy depended on their removal. Man up, Byrne. Just get it done. Who knew what this Isla Edelstein wanted, right? Maybe she was a lawyer. An estate lawyer! Maybe the old man had stuck his foot in the bucket and Will was due some ridiculous amount of money! It'd be the first form of support he'd ever seen out of dear old dad, right? He was owed that much, right? Daydreams and wishful thinking won't get you across the street, you big fuckwit. Try your feet. The blare of some asshole laying on their horn as he stepped out into the crosswalk may have startled a few passers-by. It startled him, too, which prompted the slam of flat palms onto the hood of an older model Jaguar, shiny wet black. "Hey, fuck you, it says walk, not drive!" He followed the aggressive gesture up with a universal one, punching his left fist out into the air between he and the driver's windshield with his tattooed middle finger raised. Then he went on his way. Drizzle settled into misty sparkles in the curl of dark hair that didn't give a good God damn which way they fell, and truly, it didn't matter, because the burgundy sweater he'd pulled over his head prior to having left his last class for the evening was just as much a faerie shimmer. Faeries. 'The F-word' had taken on a whole new meaning for him since early September. Say fuck all you want, but don't say faeries. He finally shouldered through Joe's front door, sending the brass jinglebells tied to it into a tizzy. When you hang out somewhere two or three nights a week, you notice pretty quickly when something is out of place. If ever there could be anything more out of place at Joe's than an American with a beer thing, it would be a classy blonde dish in red-soled shoes. He nodded a greeting at Andy, and after a few long-legged strides, lifted a brow at Isla as he dropped his gym bag onto the floor beside the booth seat opposite her. "You're not wearing a red coat," he noted aloud. Thank you, Captain Obvious.
[Isla] "No, no, you dolt, don't step off the curb now," words of protest fell onto deaf ears, as they were simply muttered beneath her breathe, and Isla almost lifted a hand to send a gust of wind to knock him back -- but even before her hand could fully raise from her lap, he was abusing the Jag and it's owner. Lashes fell and Isla swallowed a little, laying her hand on the table, where her fingers softly moved on their own accord -- a weird tick she had, barely there movement that were there an instrument beneath those fingers it'd make so much sense as to why she was doing it. When her vision rose, he was filling it up, face to face, and stating the obvious. The high set of stunning cheekbones filled with that very color in an understated version of it, and she stole a glance to the space next to her thigh and the wall that lined the booths, where her red coat lay. She'd forgotten to leave it on. Maybe it was the nervous sweaty pits that had her taking it off. It was safe to say that meeting your brother for the first time, who didn't even know he had a sister, was out of the realm of Isla's comfort zones. "Sorry, I do have it though. It does count for something, no?" There was no escaping the accent that riddled each carefully enunciated word spoken in obviously practiced English. The words were too well formed, not the in a naturally lazy way that someone who had learned it as a first language, grown up with their parents cooing it to them, might do. He was quite tall, she realized, as he stood there, and because he was just standing there, she realized maybe he might want a handshake or something. So she slid from the booth, and came up to her own full height. It was above average, that. Made more so by the heels that boosted her length up -- in fact, she more than likely was closer to eye to eye to him than anything in this moment. "I'm Isla, it's lovely to see you." Her hand came out, and a portion of her bottom lip caught between her teeth a moment in the pose.
[Will] Even if he'd heard that little utterance of concern for his well-being, he probably would have waved it off with some comment or another about 'let them hit me, hooray for socialized healthcare' and gone on his merry way. Oh. Uh... yeah. Handshake. That was... definitely what he had been waiting on. He hadn't spaced out, staring into eyes a disturbingly familiar color. Every chocolate, caramel, champagne; so like... huh. Nope, hadn't spaced out at all. (Yes, he had.) "Will," he cleared his throat. "You, uh..." His hand wrapped itself around Isla's for the kind of handshake that said 'I have no idea how hard to shake a woman's hand,' and just as he began to pull away, a gust moved across the table between them, blowing sugar packets every which way. Needless to write, his pull back was quicker than he'd intended for it to be, after that. Something either alarmed or suspicious settled into his gaze and stayed there. At least he waited for her to sit back down before he parked his caboose as well. "Sorry. It's always gusty in here. Old building or something. Anyway, you wanted to see me about Byrne. What for?" Leather-patched elbows on the table in front of him, hands folded and fingers interlaced under his beardy chin. "I mean, we share a last name, but I don't have much else in common with the guy." Just a little DNA. No biggie.
[Isla] He was staring. There was just a minute lift of one brow, curious as to what exactly it was about her that he saw that was enough to illicit a stare so intense that he seemed to forget what he was doing. Just as her lips parted, however, to prompt him into doing something, anything, he stuffed his hand into hers and gave it an awkward shake. Then came the wind; she could feel it pass over their hands and leave the back of hers with a chill that was as familiar to her as breathing. He pulled away fast, but Isla simply drew her hand back at it's normal pace to raise it up so she could toy with the thin white gold chain about her neck, where a pretty pendant of a cluster of three diamonds sat in a small circle. He was looking at her, for a moment, as if she'd brought the wind. She hadn't, so she said nothing, and let him think what he wanted. Sliding into the booth, she moved the untouched coffee from the middle of her side of the table to it'd end; abandoning the thing and leaving her attention on the man who sat down across from her. "Mm, that must have been it," she mused quietly, and with it the corner of her full mouth perked up. She chased away the threat of a smile with the way she wet her bottom lip, nodding blonde crown along with his words. "But do you know anything else about him? About who he is?"
[Will] Oh, he didn't think she'd brought the wind. He was afraid he had. Sometimes things like that just kind of happen around him. That was why he'd brought an excuse for it, too. Will scritched at the side of his face and pulled back on the left side of his bottom lip with white top teeth. The nose that wrinkled was pierced through with a silver ring on the right side. "I know that he's some kind of musician, that he's got a house big enough to start a third world country in and that he's a crazy dick. What else you got?" Very informative. Veeery informative. Will glanced at Andy, who didn't take more than a few moments to put a cup of black coffee down in front of him. "Thanks," he mouthed at the barista, who just kind of shrugged, like 'it's my job, dude.' "Why are you so interested in him?"
[Isla] Crazy dick. A breathy laugh escaped before she might stop it, and she covered it up with a bit of a clearing of her throat, and lifting a hand up to her face like she was pushing a pair of glasses up her nose -- and she totally was, out of sheer habit, and a forgetfulness that she'd slipped in contacts that morning. "A lot, actually." The barista came over then, with a cup for Will, and before he left, she subtley asked for a warm up on hers -- though it was far too long since she'd had a fresh one, it was probably a better idea she just get that one replaced, a thing our wise Andy was aware of. "I'm not interested in him. I know all about him. I'm interested in you. When he came to you, in your dormitory, what did he tell you?" Curious, wasn't it, how she knew that? Alistair had given her the abridged version of that revelation, waving Isla's questions away when she peppered him with them, until Eugene had just laughed and told her she was better off questioning a KGB agent during the Cold War. She'd get no real information out of the wizard. Which lead to this moment, right here.
[Will] "That he was my father." Will lowered his voice and his eyes, deciding that just then he absolutely needed to count every single piece of coffee ground that had found its way from the coffee filter into the coffee pot into his cup. "That the 'scholarship' I got was a set-up. He's been paying my tuition and board." He lifted his head suddenly, and the maybe alarmed, maybe suspicious I mentioned earlier, it became decidedly more suspicious. "Why? How did you know he...? Some shit about... wizards. Faeries. Things that aren't supposed to exist. I don't know. What the Hell do I have to do with anything?"
[Isla] "True," she cut in after his first part of the response; and they both seemed to pause then for entirely different reasons. Will to stare into his cup, and Isla because Andy had come back to the table with a fresh cup for her. She sent him a grateful, closed lipped smile, and wrapped chilly fingers about the warm mug. Outside, beyond the thin fog, there where if you looked just right you might see the very tip of Big Ben, the sky lit up with sparkling colors. Her gaze was on it, brows knitting, when Will spoke up again. Then she remembered -- remembered the fifth of November. Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night they called it here. It must have cleared up enough for the display of fireworks that sprayed above Buckingham, but Isla had more important things to pay attention too. "True, again," because all that suspicion on his face made it seem like perhaps for a moment he might have chosen to not believe anything that Alistair had said when it came combined with things such as .. wizards, and faeries. There, she let a rather unladylike snort escape her. "That is it? He told you about the Fae, but not about your siblings? Figures. Vain old man." The Icelandic beauty, shook her head, and finally lifted her cup to her lips; sipping at the black French Roast carefully given it's heat.
[Will] The cup he'd been counting coffee grounds in finally found its lip between his just in time for Isla's utterance of the word 'siblings.' Will inhaled sharply, sucking java into his lungs. A violent choke and cough cleared up the problem soon enough, but it was still not anything pleasant. "Are you telling me that you believe in all this wizardyfuck nonsense? You think the guy is made out of magic or something?" You think I'm made out of magic or something? Don't mind him; he's torn between two worlds. The one he knew and the one he found himself slowly dissolving into, where pagan ritual felt more like home than city streets did. Balance called to him where he was stuck in the muck and mire of his mundane foster care system youth on those nights, imploring him to hear and to listen, which he had recently come to understand are not the same thing. So what? So he was exploring his spirituality. Lots of people delve into witchcraft as a spiritual path; doesn't mean they're really witches. Not really real ones. His face fell, dark eyes suddenly hollow, dark circles under dark eyes somehow more shadowy. "Siblings, huh? So it wasn't just me he threw out with the trash and let rot?" The look on his face was almost a plea. Tell him yes, it was. Tell him nobody else had to grow up like he did, shuffled from house to house that he couldn't call home, from social worker to social worker who was too overworked to cut through all his bullshit and find him somewhere in it, to pull him out, to help him find the air. "Figures. He's probably got kids all over the place. Seems like that kind of guy." Hello, bitterness.
[Isla] "Not just him," she said quietly, having watched him cough and sputter, and wishing she could have eased that suffering -- but she didn't have that sort of power. How cool would that be though? A snap of the fingers, and all would be well. Unfortunately, that just wasn't realistic. What she could do though? There was a spoon laid atop a napkin that she'd pushed over towards the wall when she'd sat down, and she picked it up now; casually dropping it into her coffee -- but that was the only touch she gave the thing. Still, it started to move, slowly circling within the cup; following the path her finger made several inches above it; using the air in room to generate just enough wind to sent the spoon in it's slow carousel spiral. But she watched him, not her trick, frowning when his face did that thing. She was quiet for a few moments too long when he finally, and bitterly so, addressed what she'd said. "There's only five. But all over, já. What happened to all of them, I can not say, as he's not been very forthcoming. I know your name, that you're American, that you're here, and he's found you. I know you have two brothers, and two sisters." There, she let the thick of her lashes hide eyes so similiar to his then, and her hand came up and fell half over top of her cup, stopping the track of the spoon. "Edelstein is my professional name. The one I was born with is Byrne." More fireworks flashed outside, closer than the ones across the Thames; brilliant reds and blues and whites in the flag colors of Mother England.
[Will] He shoved back from the table after Isla revealed her birth name, until that point hypnotized by the way fireworks reflected in the handle of the silver spoon that seemed to stir of only a breeze's accord. A breeze that followed her fingertips. Such an eerie game of follow the leader. Suspicion turned harsh, and he was grabbing up his gym bag and backing toward the door before he even began to speak. He left his coffee on the table, and would likely forget to pay for it in his storm off, but he'd make evens soon enough thereafter. Andy knew he was good for it. "He sent you, then? Well, you can tell him the same thing I told the last one he sent to tell him. You tell him to fuck off. I don't need him." The last one? The doppelganger. The one from the library. He didn't know the whole story behind it, and the only way he could make sense of it was to assume he had some look-alike not-twin half-brother out there, somewhere, who did Alistair's bidding. Nevermind that neither of his half-brothers looked so much like him; he doesn't know that. "I don't need him or his magical fucking hoodoo guidance, or his money. I'll make it alone. Always have; always will." They were hurt, angry words, but there was something softer toward the end, there. It sputtered out into, "I'm sorry. But I don't know you. Maybe we have the same eyes, but I don't know him, and I don't know you." And the door slammed shut behind him. His pace back across the street was a confused, infuriated hurry.
[Isla] "The last one?" Well, if the way he'd moved away from the table like he'd been burned by it hadn't been enough to get her attention ( it had ), the way he phrased his words certainly did. "I'm the only one," her funny little accent a bled confused, but confident, statement there. "He didn't send me, he doesn't even know that I am here." Cautiously, as one might approach an injured bird, she pulled out of the booth's cushions and came to stand, while he continued to back away to the door and spat hurt words at her, until they weren't so hurt, and carried with them a needless apology. Fight or flight, a thing she wished she could understand. It hadn't been fair, the way Alistair had spread his seed and left what came out of it up to the mothers of his five children. Why had it only been hers who had made the choice to allow her daughter to know her father, Isla couldn't begin to know. It hadn't been fair, but it could be fixed. For a moment, as the door slammed shut, she thought about giving chase -- but she didn't know where he was going, and in these heels the last thing she needed to be doing was running amuck on wet pavement. She'd give him time, to mull over what she'd dropped on him tonight. Give him time. She'd had twenty seven years of knowing who, and what she was. He'd only a handful of weeks. Sighing, she watched until he was gone from plain sight, and turned back to the table. Gathering her things, and collecting enough cash out of her wallet to pay for the two mostly untouched coffees. A wistful sort of smile was given to the barista as she shrugged into the red trench she'd said she'd be wearing; the outburst of Will Byrne had certainly brought attention their way. But she said nothing, only slipped out into the night, heading the opposite way her brother had gone. Brother. Sorry, Will. You've just earned yourself a mama-bird in the form of a golden girl with all your DNA.
SUMMARY: Isla seeks out half-brother Will, who thinks he's meeting an investigator or a reporter interested in gathering information on Alistair Byrne. It goes south quickly.
TW: language
[Isla] The rain that fell Thursday night was a drizzling sort; breaking in through the thin layer of fog that settled over the Thames and often drifted up over it's banks to the glistening streets of London. It was November though, and not even rain or fog could keep people from their Christmas shopping. Traffic was heavy by way of both auto and foot, and Isla Byrne watched the headlights cut by, and the people of varying colors and sizes with their bags of the same stride along the sidewalk outside of Joe's. She had arrived a good half hour ago, a bit fearful that she'd miss him if she took too long to get there. They'd not set a time, just a day, and she'd not wanted to push just in case he was the sort that might be scared off if she did that. The voice that had greeted her missed call had not been a happy one given the subject of her call. Not that she could blame him. No, the blame was left on the wide strong shoulders of their father, a blame he carried four times the weight of. The thought had her shifting uneasily in the way she sat; ramrod straight against the soft leather cushion behind her back, her hands carefully folded in her lap, and the brilliant top of her crown raised. She sat as if it were the keys of a piano in front of her rather than a table set with sugars and napkins and a singular cup of French Roast that had barely been touched and left to find room temperature. The woman was varying shades of gold, from dark to light. To the tawny of her skin, to the bronze of her stare, and the gilt of pillowy curls about her impeccably set shoulders. From the tables edge she could be seen in a simple black turtleneck sweater, though the slim trousers and red-soled heels of the same color were hidden beneath it. So she waited, lost in thought to how she even wanted to approach the matter of her call, and watched the street in the direction she knew the university to be for the tall bearded dark haired fellow that she'd spied more than a few times on Samhain night. Nerves were getting the better of her -- she shouldn't have come so early -- and damp fingers untwisted from the way they rested in her lap so tightly clasped together, and were rubbed against the outer lengths of trim thighs.
[Will] He'd stared at Joe's red neon sign and white-gold exterior bulbs for a finnicky ten minutes or so, hidden away behind one of the concrete pillars that held Shepherd University's main gate to the Earth and picking at those little fuzzballs that develop on braided nylon -- like the kind gym bag straps is made of -- like the fate of the galaxy depended on their removal. Man up, Byrne. Just get it done. Who knew what this Isla Edelstein wanted, right? Maybe she was a lawyer. An estate lawyer! Maybe the old man had stuck his foot in the bucket and Will was due some ridiculous amount of money! It'd be the first form of support he'd ever seen out of dear old dad, right? He was owed that much, right? Daydreams and wishful thinking won't get you across the street, you big fuckwit. Try your feet. The blare of some asshole laying on their horn as he stepped out into the crosswalk may have startled a few passers-by. It startled him, too, which prompted the slam of flat palms onto the hood of an older model Jaguar, shiny wet black. "Hey, fuck you, it says walk, not drive!" He followed the aggressive gesture up with a universal one, punching his left fist out into the air between he and the driver's windshield with his tattooed middle finger raised. Then he went on his way. Drizzle settled into misty sparkles in the curl of dark hair that didn't give a good God damn which way they fell, and truly, it didn't matter, because the burgundy sweater he'd pulled over his head prior to having left his last class for the evening was just as much a faerie shimmer. Faeries. 'The F-word' had taken on a whole new meaning for him since early September. Say fuck all you want, but don't say faeries. He finally shouldered through Joe's front door, sending the brass jinglebells tied to it into a tizzy. When you hang out somewhere two or three nights a week, you notice pretty quickly when something is out of place. If ever there could be anything more out of place at Joe's than an American with a beer thing, it would be a classy blonde dish in red-soled shoes. He nodded a greeting at Andy, and after a few long-legged strides, lifted a brow at Isla as he dropped his gym bag onto the floor beside the booth seat opposite her. "You're not wearing a red coat," he noted aloud. Thank you, Captain Obvious.
[Isla] "No, no, you dolt, don't step off the curb now," words of protest fell onto deaf ears, as they were simply muttered beneath her breathe, and Isla almost lifted a hand to send a gust of wind to knock him back -- but even before her hand could fully raise from her lap, he was abusing the Jag and it's owner. Lashes fell and Isla swallowed a little, laying her hand on the table, where her fingers softly moved on their own accord -- a weird tick she had, barely there movement that were there an instrument beneath those fingers it'd make so much sense as to why she was doing it. When her vision rose, he was filling it up, face to face, and stating the obvious. The high set of stunning cheekbones filled with that very color in an understated version of it, and she stole a glance to the space next to her thigh and the wall that lined the booths, where her red coat lay. She'd forgotten to leave it on. Maybe it was the nervous sweaty pits that had her taking it off. It was safe to say that meeting your brother for the first time, who didn't even know he had a sister, was out of the realm of Isla's comfort zones. "Sorry, I do have it though. It does count for something, no?" There was no escaping the accent that riddled each carefully enunciated word spoken in obviously practiced English. The words were too well formed, not the in a naturally lazy way that someone who had learned it as a first language, grown up with their parents cooing it to them, might do. He was quite tall, she realized, as he stood there, and because he was just standing there, she realized maybe he might want a handshake or something. So she slid from the booth, and came up to her own full height. It was above average, that. Made more so by the heels that boosted her length up -- in fact, she more than likely was closer to eye to eye to him than anything in this moment. "I'm Isla, it's lovely to see you." Her hand came out, and a portion of her bottom lip caught between her teeth a moment in the pose.
[Will] Even if he'd heard that little utterance of concern for his well-being, he probably would have waved it off with some comment or another about 'let them hit me, hooray for socialized healthcare' and gone on his merry way. Oh. Uh... yeah. Handshake. That was... definitely what he had been waiting on. He hadn't spaced out, staring into eyes a disturbingly familiar color. Every chocolate, caramel, champagne; so like... huh. Nope, hadn't spaced out at all. (Yes, he had.) "Will," he cleared his throat. "You, uh..." His hand wrapped itself around Isla's for the kind of handshake that said 'I have no idea how hard to shake a woman's hand,' and just as he began to pull away, a gust moved across the table between them, blowing sugar packets every which way. Needless to write, his pull back was quicker than he'd intended for it to be, after that. Something either alarmed or suspicious settled into his gaze and stayed there. At least he waited for her to sit back down before he parked his caboose as well. "Sorry. It's always gusty in here. Old building or something. Anyway, you wanted to see me about Byrne. What for?" Leather-patched elbows on the table in front of him, hands folded and fingers interlaced under his beardy chin. "I mean, we share a last name, but I don't have much else in common with the guy." Just a little DNA. No biggie.
[Isla] He was staring. There was just a minute lift of one brow, curious as to what exactly it was about her that he saw that was enough to illicit a stare so intense that he seemed to forget what he was doing. Just as her lips parted, however, to prompt him into doing something, anything, he stuffed his hand into hers and gave it an awkward shake. Then came the wind; she could feel it pass over their hands and leave the back of hers with a chill that was as familiar to her as breathing. He pulled away fast, but Isla simply drew her hand back at it's normal pace to raise it up so she could toy with the thin white gold chain about her neck, where a pretty pendant of a cluster of three diamonds sat in a small circle. He was looking at her, for a moment, as if she'd brought the wind. She hadn't, so she said nothing, and let him think what he wanted. Sliding into the booth, she moved the untouched coffee from the middle of her side of the table to it'd end; abandoning the thing and leaving her attention on the man who sat down across from her. "Mm, that must have been it," she mused quietly, and with it the corner of her full mouth perked up. She chased away the threat of a smile with the way she wet her bottom lip, nodding blonde crown along with his words. "But do you know anything else about him? About who he is?"
[Will] Oh, he didn't think she'd brought the wind. He was afraid he had. Sometimes things like that just kind of happen around him. That was why he'd brought an excuse for it, too. Will scritched at the side of his face and pulled back on the left side of his bottom lip with white top teeth. The nose that wrinkled was pierced through with a silver ring on the right side. "I know that he's some kind of musician, that he's got a house big enough to start a third world country in and that he's a crazy dick. What else you got?" Very informative. Veeery informative. Will glanced at Andy, who didn't take more than a few moments to put a cup of black coffee down in front of him. "Thanks," he mouthed at the barista, who just kind of shrugged, like 'it's my job, dude.' "Why are you so interested in him?"
[Isla] Crazy dick. A breathy laugh escaped before she might stop it, and she covered it up with a bit of a clearing of her throat, and lifting a hand up to her face like she was pushing a pair of glasses up her nose -- and she totally was, out of sheer habit, and a forgetfulness that she'd slipped in contacts that morning. "A lot, actually." The barista came over then, with a cup for Will, and before he left, she subtley asked for a warm up on hers -- though it was far too long since she'd had a fresh one, it was probably a better idea she just get that one replaced, a thing our wise Andy was aware of. "I'm not interested in him. I know all about him. I'm interested in you. When he came to you, in your dormitory, what did he tell you?" Curious, wasn't it, how she knew that? Alistair had given her the abridged version of that revelation, waving Isla's questions away when she peppered him with them, until Eugene had just laughed and told her she was better off questioning a KGB agent during the Cold War. She'd get no real information out of the wizard. Which lead to this moment, right here.
[Will] "That he was my father." Will lowered his voice and his eyes, deciding that just then he absolutely needed to count every single piece of coffee ground that had found its way from the coffee filter into the coffee pot into his cup. "That the 'scholarship' I got was a set-up. He's been paying my tuition and board." He lifted his head suddenly, and the maybe alarmed, maybe suspicious I mentioned earlier, it became decidedly more suspicious. "Why? How did you know he...? Some shit about... wizards. Faeries. Things that aren't supposed to exist. I don't know. What the Hell do I have to do with anything?"
[Isla] "True," she cut in after his first part of the response; and they both seemed to pause then for entirely different reasons. Will to stare into his cup, and Isla because Andy had come back to the table with a fresh cup for her. She sent him a grateful, closed lipped smile, and wrapped chilly fingers about the warm mug. Outside, beyond the thin fog, there where if you looked just right you might see the very tip of Big Ben, the sky lit up with sparkling colors. Her gaze was on it, brows knitting, when Will spoke up again. Then she remembered -- remembered the fifth of November. Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night they called it here. It must have cleared up enough for the display of fireworks that sprayed above Buckingham, but Isla had more important things to pay attention too. "True, again," because all that suspicion on his face made it seem like perhaps for a moment he might have chosen to not believe anything that Alistair had said when it came combined with things such as .. wizards, and faeries. There, she let a rather unladylike snort escape her. "That is it? He told you about the Fae, but not about your siblings? Figures. Vain old man." The Icelandic beauty, shook her head, and finally lifted her cup to her lips; sipping at the black French Roast carefully given it's heat.
[Will] The cup he'd been counting coffee grounds in finally found its lip between his just in time for Isla's utterance of the word 'siblings.' Will inhaled sharply, sucking java into his lungs. A violent choke and cough cleared up the problem soon enough, but it was still not anything pleasant. "Are you telling me that you believe in all this wizardyfuck nonsense? You think the guy is made out of magic or something?" You think I'm made out of magic or something? Don't mind him; he's torn between two worlds. The one he knew and the one he found himself slowly dissolving into, where pagan ritual felt more like home than city streets did. Balance called to him where he was stuck in the muck and mire of his mundane foster care system youth on those nights, imploring him to hear and to listen, which he had recently come to understand are not the same thing. So what? So he was exploring his spirituality. Lots of people delve into witchcraft as a spiritual path; doesn't mean they're really witches. Not really real ones. His face fell, dark eyes suddenly hollow, dark circles under dark eyes somehow more shadowy. "Siblings, huh? So it wasn't just me he threw out with the trash and let rot?" The look on his face was almost a plea. Tell him yes, it was. Tell him nobody else had to grow up like he did, shuffled from house to house that he couldn't call home, from social worker to social worker who was too overworked to cut through all his bullshit and find him somewhere in it, to pull him out, to help him find the air. "Figures. He's probably got kids all over the place. Seems like that kind of guy." Hello, bitterness.
[Isla] "Not just him," she said quietly, having watched him cough and sputter, and wishing she could have eased that suffering -- but she didn't have that sort of power. How cool would that be though? A snap of the fingers, and all would be well. Unfortunately, that just wasn't realistic. What she could do though? There was a spoon laid atop a napkin that she'd pushed over towards the wall when she'd sat down, and she picked it up now; casually dropping it into her coffee -- but that was the only touch she gave the thing. Still, it started to move, slowly circling within the cup; following the path her finger made several inches above it; using the air in room to generate just enough wind to sent the spoon in it's slow carousel spiral. But she watched him, not her trick, frowning when his face did that thing. She was quiet for a few moments too long when he finally, and bitterly so, addressed what she'd said. "There's only five. But all over, já. What happened to all of them, I can not say, as he's not been very forthcoming. I know your name, that you're American, that you're here, and he's found you. I know you have two brothers, and two sisters." There, she let the thick of her lashes hide eyes so similiar to his then, and her hand came up and fell half over top of her cup, stopping the track of the spoon. "Edelstein is my professional name. The one I was born with is Byrne." More fireworks flashed outside, closer than the ones across the Thames; brilliant reds and blues and whites in the flag colors of Mother England.
[Will] He shoved back from the table after Isla revealed her birth name, until that point hypnotized by the way fireworks reflected in the handle of the silver spoon that seemed to stir of only a breeze's accord. A breeze that followed her fingertips. Such an eerie game of follow the leader. Suspicion turned harsh, and he was grabbing up his gym bag and backing toward the door before he even began to speak. He left his coffee on the table, and would likely forget to pay for it in his storm off, but he'd make evens soon enough thereafter. Andy knew he was good for it. "He sent you, then? Well, you can tell him the same thing I told the last one he sent to tell him. You tell him to fuck off. I don't need him." The last one? The doppelganger. The one from the library. He didn't know the whole story behind it, and the only way he could make sense of it was to assume he had some look-alike not-twin half-brother out there, somewhere, who did Alistair's bidding. Nevermind that neither of his half-brothers looked so much like him; he doesn't know that. "I don't need him or his magical fucking hoodoo guidance, or his money. I'll make it alone. Always have; always will." They were hurt, angry words, but there was something softer toward the end, there. It sputtered out into, "I'm sorry. But I don't know you. Maybe we have the same eyes, but I don't know him, and I don't know you." And the door slammed shut behind him. His pace back across the street was a confused, infuriated hurry.
[Isla] "The last one?" Well, if the way he'd moved away from the table like he'd been burned by it hadn't been enough to get her attention ( it had ), the way he phrased his words certainly did. "I'm the only one," her funny little accent a bled confused, but confident, statement there. "He didn't send me, he doesn't even know that I am here." Cautiously, as one might approach an injured bird, she pulled out of the booth's cushions and came to stand, while he continued to back away to the door and spat hurt words at her, until they weren't so hurt, and carried with them a needless apology. Fight or flight, a thing she wished she could understand. It hadn't been fair, the way Alistair had spread his seed and left what came out of it up to the mothers of his five children. Why had it only been hers who had made the choice to allow her daughter to know her father, Isla couldn't begin to know. It hadn't been fair, but it could be fixed. For a moment, as the door slammed shut, she thought about giving chase -- but she didn't know where he was going, and in these heels the last thing she needed to be doing was running amuck on wet pavement. She'd give him time, to mull over what she'd dropped on him tonight. Give him time. She'd had twenty seven years of knowing who, and what she was. He'd only a handful of weeks. Sighing, she watched until he was gone from plain sight, and turned back to the table. Gathering her things, and collecting enough cash out of her wallet to pay for the two mostly untouched coffees. A wistful sort of smile was given to the barista as she shrugged into the red trench she'd said she'd be wearing; the outburst of Will Byrne had certainly brought attention their way. But she said nothing, only slipped out into the night, heading the opposite way her brother had gone. Brother. Sorry, Will. You've just earned yourself a mama-bird in the form of a golden girl with all your DNA.