Normally Vacant [Avery/Lazarus]

[Lazarus Carter]

8:04AM
FEBRUARY 25TH, 2012
AN AMPLE PORCH
135 BRIGHTON ROAD
SOUTH LONDON
ENGLAND

Why the fuck was he even awake?

This was a solid sixty minutes before his usual time of rising, only made worse by the fact that it was winter, which meant that, at roughly eight in the morning, it was colder than a witch's tit outside. But some supernatural force had dragged him from his blissful slumber half an hour ago or so and caused him to grumpily awaken; and so he had rose to his feet and sluggishly comprised the first round of his day's liquid meals. Coffee. Tall. Black, instant. Shot of cold water to put it at a drinkable temperature. With that down, the next order of the day was a shower.

Yuuko was nowhere to be found: which was nothing special, she preferred early-morning trips, usually trying to avoid him, so he figured either shopping or in Inferis. Of her many qualms with his living area, one of them was that Laz didn't really eat anything aside from... well, shit. Chips, snacks, ready-meals, Pot Noodles; he could cook if he put his mind to it, but normally he found himself so engrossed with other activities - either drinking or studying - that adopting a proper diet really started to drop rung after rung on the priority ladder. His impromptu "teammate" had many an issue with living with the redhead - which he'd preempted - but that was possibly one of her biggest problems.

It was halfway through his warm shower that he realised that today was, infact, Saturday, which only perplexed him further. She usually left at daybreak; and came back around ten or so, which was when he woke up - Laz ever the deep sleeper, Yuuko, even through her callous disregard for his current state of consciousness, slamming doors and tutting at the collage of clothing he oft left strewn across living areas, he managed to stay contentedly drooling into his pillow in his own bedroom, and firmly asleep. It was a natural quality of his, by all means. But waking up this early on a weekend was truly perplexing. And for some reason he found himself, even through only three or four hours of sleep, lying in his bed, eyes wide open.

The shower finished all too quickly and he made all the necessary steam-draining setups in the bathroom - opening the window, switching on the extractor, closing the door behind him abruptly - so it didn't set off the fucking smoke alarm again, but after an impromptu drying he cast the towel aside and pulled on a fresh pair of boxers, some simple, worn track pants - comfortable as they were - and a tee. Checking the clock again as it read barely a few minutes before eight, he shivered almost instinctively, looking at the misty expanse beyond his bedroom window, and second-guessed himself to don that notorious black and orange Superdry bomber, zipping it up tight and snatching a shoddily-hidden contraband package from within his sock drawer, locking up behind him and descending the stairs not a moment later.

Seven minutes later, he'd decided that the most ample place to sit, with Yuuko inevitably gone - he knew how hard she'd chew him out for smoking when she found out - was the building porch. The apartment block was mainly inhabited by his fellow Southbank students - the oddly amicable unemployed drug dealer aside - and there was no chance of them being conscious at this hour. So, shrugging, he dropped to the mantle of the porch and pulled the latest chosen instance from a pack of half-smoked Pall Malls, and propped it up between his lips with a sigh, producing a shitty, battered, disposable lighter from the very same jacket pocket, which had somehow endured two full months and remained a staple of the more jovial aspects of his life without getting lost ever since his New Year's rendezvous with the swordsman.

With a reminiscent grin he rolled back the flint and all too quickly lit the cigarette with a contented sigh, knocking back his head to rest it against the ample porch of the nondescript apartment block, and took a slow, laconic, though elongated drag, taking the glorious morning smoke back before hissing the remnants back out as the ember glistened amongst the morning mist. "Why the fuck am I awake?" He murmured in drowsy reiteration of a prior, looping thought, as if it would help anything, yet knowing that it still wouldn't. He was tired. But he wasn't going to sleep. It was like his January insomniac days all over again; but no apparitions of pathetic Aviaxes haunted him now, just... some unknown disturbance. Probably an occupational hazard with a sleeping schedule that would make even the hardiest and most fucked-up of students gawk and sit with their jaws agape.

[Detective Ave]

Vacation. The Hawaiian shirts, babes in bikinis, waves tearing them off, cleavage, hot rays, lounging in beach chairs, sand between toes... Fuck, it wasn't working. Clinging to himself, Avery Sax had just about had it with winter. Europe was definitely colder. It was a wet cold--the kind of unpleasant, bone-eating, sticky, grey-clouded kind of wet that never seemed to go away. Gloves, scarf, his trademark navy coat, a black turtle neck, and underarmor all were doing nothing for him, but making him more of a goddamn snowman. Fuck Europe, fuck London, and fuck this fucking job! Not only was his plane delayed, but here he was standing outside in the frigid temperatures that were probably lower than his stupid-ass piece of shit refrigerator back home where there was a heater...and blankets. Shuddering and rubbing his arms for haphazard comfort, he attempted to not keep his cool. Why of all places did he have to come to London to renew his effing badge!? IT WASN'T EVEN IN THE SAME COUNTRY. But noooo his boss was here (of all places) so, of course, Ave would have to go to him, sign some papers, and leave. THAT WAS IT. He wasn't really one to complain that much--usually the type to bite the bullet and flip off the world under the covers, but seriously... what a time waster this was. Couldn't he just mail the damn things? It wouldn't kill them. What was he going to do, cheat the questionnaire or something? His boss knew him better than that--he was the best detective they had. Still, protocol. WELL, FUCK PROTOCOL.

Regardless, he continued to stand, waiting for his plane to unload, cowering over the lonely flicker of his old lighter. Lighters were the savior of all! He cupped his hands around the flame and bowed over it, nearly lighting his long hair on fire. Eventually, they went through the entirely long process of standing up, getting everyone to get off, unloading the luggage, and everything was better because flight attendants. He grabbed his transferred luggage and that was it. Extensive journey over, Avery booked it to the international Headquarters and got that shit over with. Then, bar. Ninety-seven million people asked him about his accent and made him say weird things, but the bar scene wasn't so bad. He was celebrating another yearly contract with the American FBI. And, oh, was it something to celebrate! The bartender was sick of refilling his beer, empty glass after empty glass, but Ave was the life of the party, man! And he would have taken one of those pretty ladies home with him, except he had no home here; home was far away and not worth buying another plane ticket over. No way, not unless shit got serious, and there's no way he'd believe in any of that. A hotel room would do for a quickie, still, it wasn't worth risking sleeping in and missing his early flight. He cringed at the thought, nursing another.

Well, there was that one time he pulled it off. Brought a girl back and made it just in time before his flight, however, it was totally cutting it close. And he had to run, drunk...with a suitcase. Now, that was hell. He barely made the cut off, and he smelled like sex the whole flight home. People were giving him weird looks and his sex hair was not as attractive as he'd like to think. Blah. So instead, he spent the night getting hammering off his ass, was kicked out of the bar at three in the morning, and wandered the streets trying to find his hotel until--he glanced down at his foggy old-style watch--5:04 AM. Oh. His flight was in a few hours. Sobering up a bit, he stared at the ghostly moon, counting the stars he could see that weren't blotted out with the many streetlights. The sun was peeking through the buildings when he finally found the right street. Wandering about the city certainly intoxicated was one of Avery's strong points. Skilled to a T with drunken behavior, he was certainly famous for wasting his life and throwing everything he earned away. Having no real aim while also facing the truth of what he knew about the world that others didn't, he was a rather lost cause, and honestly, didn't give two shits about it.

Sober now with a blistering headache, he staggered past a certain ample porch where a certain waft of smoke enticed him to stop. He turned with blue, beady eyes upon the unsuspecting citizen of London, hair practically standing on end. THAT WAS WHAT HE NEEDED. "Why the fuck am I awake?"

"I don't know, man, but can you spare a cig? Some bastard stole mine." Classy New York accent applied, he tried to look as innocent of a passerby as he could. Nothing dangerous here; just a guy who really needs a fucking smoke. Oh, and maybe directions.

[Lazarus Carter]

"I don't know, man, but can you spare a cig? Some bastard stole mine."

Lazarus aimed his head sluggishly up from the porch and blinked at the guy first. Coat, turtleneck, gloves, scarf... and he was sat here barely wearing a jacket. Christ alive, what part of the homeland was he from? The accent had been a dead giveaway to start; guy was a countryman of his own, certainly, but he was still a little rusty on picking through accents other than New York, D.C., or Montana. Speaking of which: why was he wearing so damn much? A childhood on the border of Canada made a British February morning feel like fucking barbeque weather. "My mother told me not to talk to strangers," He retaliated with a grin, taking a long drag of his own and looking the guy up and down.

"Haven't seen someone out here from the homeland in a while," He shuffled up along the porch and idly jerked a thumb to the improvised - though highly uncomfortable - ass-worth of tile the guy could take. His hair was weird; a light, orange-tinted colour, though streaks of blonde perforated through. Under the pale morning winter light it looked almost a vibrant ginger; nothing quite like his bold, objective crimson, far more spectral depending on what angle the sun chose to dance upon it. "You look like your balls are freezing off." He stated objectively. He really did.

The guy looked fun enough. And uniting with a man with common kin and country, if it was only for a few moments, was almost nice; let him get a taste of home, which was really all his trip to D.C. had been. A breath of fresh air and a reminder of what had once been. And if the cost of that was one of his cheap, shitty Pall Malls, expensive as they were over on this side of the Atlantic, he'd gladly oblige the orange-blonde shivering guy, coat and all. "Where are you from?" He took another simple drag, and moved his hand over to a small, dying, patch of pale green grass already littered with ash, and tapped the smoky flecks that had accumulated away in a gentle rain of white-grey shards. "Way you're shivering, figure you're not from too far north. Up in Montana, we'd go swimming in this, grey skies or not."

Shit, where were his manners? The lack of caffeine and the buzz of the day's first cigarette was overwhelming him, stopping him from piecing one fact together in anything vaguely resembling a logical manner. He'd forgotten the typical conversational prerequisites; he extended a hand with a sigh that reeked of smoke and grinned at his fellow American. "Sorry, bro, forgot," He conceded quietly, the broad smile fading somewhat. It was genuine enough. For all the snark and grumpiness his groggy persona was, at least, by Yuuko, renowned for, there were times when that oddly... content Lazarus managed to shine through, morning or otherwise. "Name's Carter, Lazarus. Call me Laz, though." He took another short drag and waited for the guy to accept the shake. "Everyone does."

With that all taken care of, he cast his gaze back over the road he lived on, and admired the dull tarmac brainlessly for a moment, taking another repetitive drag as he rested his elbow on his knee, and held his hand out flat to cup his chin. It was a comfortable enough solution, if clearly not permanent for the fact that his bony elbows were boring into his femurs with the weight of his head. Probably all that grey matter sitting up there. Damn, he guess brain mass did correlate with intelligence after all... "What brings you over to this miserable, grey, depressing shithole of a city, anyway?" There was a certain converted London pride that, as a citizen of England's capital, he had to embrace, publicly at least; but another American was clearly going to sympathise. "Business or pleasure?" God knew for him it was a mixture of both. Though when didn't the two get tangled up? So much for the age-old adage of not shitting where you ate.

The callouses on his face, the presumable pricetags on his clothes, and the experienced manner in which he walked all pointed to this guy being upwards of a few years his senior; he was either a tourist or working a hell of a way from home, he certainly wasn't a student. He didn't quite have enough grime around his face for being awake at this hour, and his eyes were very much far from being as bloodshot as they deserved to be. "I'd imagine you're missing wherever the fuck you're from already, either way," He took another glance at him and wrinkled up his brow, scowling with a look of no real disappointment, but more just a sense of morbid, curious scrutiny. "Miami?" Nah, he didn't look like he was from there. Too warm; he would have made a crack about the weather earlier most likely. "L.A.?" ...nope, not nearly acquainted enough with the city layout. The so-called City of Angels was a hellhole in its own right. "Detroit?" This could go on for a while.

[Detective Ave]

"My mother told me not to talk to strangers." BASTARD! Avery hissed under his breath, and prepared to stamp off whilst flipping the fucker off, but he sensed that this was not the unfortunate end of their encounter. No, it was to continue for the one and only hint of a grin plastered all over the guy's face. Avery froze (well, he was already frozen to begin with). It was all he could do to avoid strangling the fellow American-accent-donning citizen with his icicle fingers. "Haven't seen someone out here from the homeland in a while." Hah, he must have missed the pair of jabbering tourists who passed like five minutes ago. The woman was a blonde and wouldn't shut up about comparing London to Philadelphia while her husband kept disagreeing with her and trying to persuade her into thinking otherwise. Wasn't like it mattered or concerned him any, but it was interesting all the same.

"Must be a far trek from Montana." His expression simmered into his own cocky grin. Even though he was flat-out guessing, it didn't mean that he would end up wrong. Mys well put something behind it if he was gunna make a gamble since the guy's accent was a bit vague. There were a lot of places in the U.S. where the same sounds were made, but there was just a wisp--a small little inkling of a sound that suggested to him that he might be from the beautiful, square state of Montana. If he was wrong, whatever; he still got a cig out of it. Gratefully reaching for the bum, he placed it between his chapped lips and lit it up without a moment's hesitation. That was definitely what he needed. "Thanks man, I owe ya one." The guy looked about 18, 19, or 20ish, but he wasn't in school or anything--just outside smoking?

"You look like your balls are freezing off." It would take a lot more than that.

"You look like yer head's on fire," he retorted back, eyeing up the red tones of his hair. Together, they looked like they were going to go to a goddamn circus. It pissed him off. Speaking of circus, finally he was asked where he was from, but usually people were able to pick up on the flat New Yorwk-ness of his words. Maybe he hadn't said enough? But the slur and lazy lack of R's at the ends of his words were a dead give away to most native Americans. He waited to answer, letting the other guy talk. Maybe he'd figure it out if Avery started showing his impatience and acting like an asshole? Nah. He leaned heavily against a railing and took another long drag.

"Way you're shivering, figure you're not from too far north. Up in Montana, we'd go swimming in this, grey skies or not." In response, he cringed. Just imagining going anywhere near water right now seemed like so much suicide. He pulled his trench tighter around himself, basking in the little warmth that the smoke brought him. It was cold in New York too, but he didn't live in that state anymore. He was all too used to D.C. at this point and honestly, he didn't give a flying fuck where people were from if it was this goddamn cold out!

"Stop reminding me," he muttered. But at least he had predicted right. Man was from Montana: mountains, flowers, and apparently crazy-ass mother fuckers who went swimming in sub-temperatures. He flicked off ashes away into the winter-beaten grass, and glancing up at the barren sky. God, his flight couldn't come sooner.

Movement caught the corner of his eye, and he glanced back downward, seeing a hand extended out to him. He took it without thinking, shaking it firmly like business man to business man, except neither of them were that so it was kind of empty...and gloved. "Sorry, bro, forgot." Dude just called him bro. "Name's Carter, Lazarus. Call me Laz, though."

"Alright, Laz. They call me Ave--short for Avery Sax." He shed a crooked smile, letting show that he really wasn't only in it for himself. Letting the cigarette hang languidly from his mouth, he plopped down next to the stranger who didn't really feel so much like a stranger. Oddly enough. "I'm a detective. Just here to renew my badge. Bastard made me fly all the way out here. So I guess I'd call it business--nothing pleasurable about it." He sighed, smelling his own unbrushed breath with a tinge of wet smoke. He took a final drag and snugged out the very end before it burned him. There was no need to leech too much from Laz if the poor guy was stuck living here. Not that he had any right to judge. "Yeaah...probably," he said, lacking any kind of enthusiasm. It wasn't like he missed anything or belonged anywhere really. He kind of just...

"Miami?"

"No." Seriously. Miami?

"L.A.?"

"Man, you suck."

"Detroit?"

"No," he laughed, "New York--I'm from New York!"

[Lazarus Carter]

"Must be a far trek from Montana."

Lazarus arched his eyebrows in scrutiny. Either this guy was an accent expert or he'd taken a random stab in the dark and come up somehow successfully. One in fifty wasn't great odds, but put the redhead's distinct lack of shivering and relatively casual clothing choice, and something close to the Canadian border was a smart enough choice. Or, he was being stalked. Which he'd never really minded so long as it was a more detached stalking. None of that "it puts the lotion in the bucket" shit, no Silence of the Lambs-style pits before he was skinned and used as a lovely flesh suit. "You look like yer head's on fire," That made him smirk.

"Genetic condition I'm afraid," He grinned. He'd always wondered what his family had looked like - now his parents were dead and he only had Maeve and what meagre pictorial evidence she had, but one look at the pair of them and the simple tint of their hair colour gave it away. A striking natural crimson - somehow. "Asked the doctors, nothing they can do about it," He shrugged idly. "So apparently I'm stuck looking like a traffic light 'til I go grey," The Hunter cocked his head and idly mused. Huh. Adoption was weird at points like this. He wondered how old his parents had been when they'd gone grey. Fifty? Forty? Twenty?

The Montanan's name went out and he got a reply fro the enigmatic mystery statesman not moments later. "Alright, Laz. They call me Ave--short for Avery Sax." Avery Sax? Helluva name. And he thought "Lazarus Carter" was extravagant in the first place, though he just put it down to his adoptive parents and their subtle little Sunday biblical readings. Catholicism was never... strong in the Carter household. Just... there. His parents weren't exactly devout - a far cry from practising - and whenever he asked his mother why, she would simply reply with a smart, insightful statement about having something in the big picture to turn to when life got a little more wearing.

Avery Sax, though. "Avery Sax," He reiterated in a murder, forgetting to bite his tongue before... "Sounds like the sort of name you'd give to the actual identity of a terrible 90s cartoon superhero." "By day, he is Avery Sax, enigmatic world traveler, by night, he becomes vigilante Frozen Testicles!" That wasn't the most endearing of superhero names. Maybe something to do with his haircut. Or that accent he still couldn't fucking place. It was really starting to annoy him, too. "Pleasure to meet ya', all the same." He hoped that the little genre savvy jab wouldn't get on the guy's nerves. Ave seemed good enough. Everyone he had to meet just had to accustomed to the occasional exhaustive brevity of some of his comments, and the quirky, sarcastic, yet not malevolent tone of them.

"I'm a detective. Just here to renew my badge. Bastard made me fly all the way out here. So I guess I'd call it business--nothing pleasurable about it." Okay, so he was a detective stateside. Which meant his jurisdiction lied there. As would most of his bureau's administrative offices. So why, in the name of whichever of multiple deified prophets one's particular fancy falls upon, was he in London to renew his badge? Unless... HOLY SHIT HE WAS IN THE CIA. Lazarus blinked and tried to subtly gulp down the thumping of his heart. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He was sitting with a government-sanctioned assassin. "Detective". He wasn't an analyst or anything boring. He was a field agent. Though if Laz asked him, disclosure agreement would come into action...

But, still, he had to question his logic as any normal person would, tilting his head quizzically. "So... renewing your badge in London?" The redhead blinked twice slowly, half-feigning a sense of vexation. "Unusual procedure. Guessing you're with an agency of some sort?" He had half a mind to start shouting them out at random, but that was never healthy. Spies and loudmouths didn't seem to get on. "Not a spy or anything, are you?" Lazarus chuckled in a painfully false and completely forced matter, the query infact entirely serious, watching intently for Avery's response so he could pick it apart and try and figure out if the guy was a CIA asset.

Accent guessing came next. He was half-still convinced that Ave was a spy, but all the same, he'd managed to temporarily forget about it for... "No." Fuck. "Man, you suck." Fuck! "No," FUCK! A chatter of laughter later and he gave the game away. "New York--I'm from New York!" New York, huh? The accent sounded pretty cohesive from there - but then again these internal affairs types could mimic anything. Lazarus could only sit there and nod, hoping to God he wasn't CIA, to start with, and even if he was, that he wasn't being investigated for one reason or another. For a moment, he'd forgotten about his genealogy, too; was... this a setup? Was Langley looking into Nephilim!? Did they know about Inferis?!

FUCK.

[Detective Ave]

They still looked like a pair of clowns to him. That image wasn't going anywhere quickly, and it certainly didn't help that Laz was spouting that it was a genetic 'condition'. He was making it sound like they had escaped from the insane asylum now. Seriously? Avery couldn't help but look agitated; his was natural too, dammit. They were both fucked with screwy genes. 'course he wasn't complaining when it came to the ladies. From their prospective, the bright, arid colors were dead-on magnets for their eyes. So, really, what else about it mattered? He just wished the guy wouldn't call it a 'condition'; it was way cooler than that. Should call it an asset or something else with a little spark. Besides, that's all it would t-- "So apparently I'm stuck looking like a traffic light 'til I go grey."

"Man, that sucks." He paused a moment, blue eyes getting that terrible light which usually meant trouble. "Maybe it'll help you stop some chicks?" Always the optimist. Fuck green grass on the other side, just get some fucking fertilizer!

He wasn't really liking the guy's reaction to his name. Though, he did get it enough. All the are-we-sure-we-can-trust-you-with-a-name-like-that's and the you're-a-detective-with-that-name's, followed by, of course, the who-the-fuck-named-yous and the you-must-like-jazz's. God, he'd had enough. Fuck it, he was changing his name back. He may have killed his father in cold blood and was in hiding, but maybe it wasn't worth the name change. He really wasn't complaining though (even though he was); he was just sick of the weird looks and the "Sounds like the sort of name you'd give to the actual identity of a terrible 90s cartoon superhero." He sighed, loudly, giving Laz a mean, old glare despite the growing smile on his face. What? He couldn't help his sense of humor. He kind of laughed even though he was trying to be angry. The mix of emotions was weird, but hell if it wasn't happening.

"If that was my actual identity, the hell would be my fake one?" He blurted it out before thinking, realizing only ten seconds after that he had just indirectly revealed that his name was a complete sham. Though it had become him over the years, it still wasn't really his name. It was a false identity--the new him he had taken up after murdering his father. A shiver dragged down his spine, but he let it slide, blaming it on the cold. He wasn't thinking about that right now. Right now, he was just joking around about a potential 90's cartoon superhero who had his name, that was all.

"So... renewing your badge in London?" Oh sweet change in topic! He welcomed it with open arms.    

"Yeep." Not really much of a new conversation-started, however...

"Unusual procedure. Guessing you're with an agency of some sort?" Or wait. THIS GUY WAS FISHING. Avery grinned sheepishly. Oh, he'd have fun with this.

"Some sort."

"Not a spy or anything, are you?" Man, he was trying so hard, and he sucked so bad. It was so obvious what he was trying to figure out, and it was practically painful to watch. Instead of answering his question right away, Ave slid over closer, and threw a hand on Laz's shoulder.

"Listen buddy, you really need a class in how to dig for information without letting on that you're even asking questions. How do you think I figured out where you were from?" A cocky daredevil look glistened across his eyes. "I'll tell you anyway though since I'm such a nice guy. I'm FBI, and my boss is a dick. Made me come all the way out here even if I am based out of D.C. Makes no sense, but welcome to America."

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