That's me, I'm knocking at the door (Costin)

[Gwyn Locksley]

She stood on the ground looking up at the dorms, counting the balconies first from the ground up, then from the corner over. Knowing where his room was inside, that should place it right about... “There.”

Approaching the building, Gwyn started to scale the wall. It had been a month since she had seen him, and while Costin probably wasn't exactly a 'friend', nor did she imagine he considered her one, he was... something, and right now she needed something. She had gone home a month ago and had her world turned upside down, and now that she was back she still couldn't escape. Solitude sucked as all she could do was think, and the few friends she had here would ask questions and be all sympathetic and just just didn't want that right now. She needed a distraction, someone who didn't know much about her, and who didn't care enough to wonder why she hadn't been around. Who else fit that bill that someone who seemed to care only for himself?

Okay, so she hoped he had at least maybe realised she was gone. If she was going to be a legend someday she had to make some sort of impression.

Reaching the window she had counted, Gwyn pulled herself over the railing to drop noiselessly onto the balcony. From there she hesitated; she hadn't exactly thought through the next part, had only focused on the getting here. Oh well, what else was there to do? Brushing her hands on her trousers, she rapped on the balcony door.

[Costin Dracula]

Nothing had been going right for Costin for a while now. Although...well, that had been a pattern for a long time, and maybe it had only been lately that he’d grown so weary of it. He was getting older, he was being forced to consider the fact that he would graduate university at this place and he would have to go and get an actual job or do something adult-like. That had never, ever been in his plans. He assumed his occupation would just be whatever Dracula and Tulio considered themselves. Vampire Noble, conqueror of worlds, something like that. Now he was studying statistics, which was without doubt the dullest thing he had ever had the misfortune of encountering.

To make matters worse, the only person he’d decided was tolerable in this place had been strangely absent of late, and he was too stubborn to say he missed her, so instead he just got irritated whenever she crossed his mind. Costin Dracula didn’t need friends, especially not women, and he wasn’t-...was someone knocking on his balcony door? He paused, looking up from his hideous statistics text, and realized that yes, there was definitely someone there.

His first assumption was that it was one of his fathers. They had no business being here, but...who else would be able to get up onto his balcony but someone who could fly, and who else would have a reason to? Apparently the answer to both of those questions, he realized as he pulled the door open, was Gwyn Locksley. He stared at her for a good five seconds, trying to figure out what to say and how she’d gotten up there both at once.

“Gwyn,” he said, stepping out onto the balcony with her, peering over the edge just to make sure it was in fact as far down as he remembered. He decided it was farther, made a face to himself, and stepped back. “You were gone a good while. I was...perfectly fine. But as I am quite observant, I noticed. What brought you back here? To the school, that is, not my balcony, although I will welcome that explanation as well.”

[Gwyn Locksley]

Thankfully she had the right window, not that Gwyn had ever doubted it, and she smiled when Costin opened the door to greet her... a smile that faltered slightly when his 'greeting' was to just stare at her. Apparently he was surprised to see her, which she chalked up to the fact that he must have noticed her absence.

A moment later he acknowledged her by name, but instead of inviting her in he stepped out with her and peered over the side of the balcony. Gwyn was inclined to do the same, though it wasn't like she was followed or anything. Seemingly satisfied, he finally spoke to her, confirming her assumption that he had, indeed, noticed her absence. Her smile returned, though she wasn't sure why he pointed out that he had been fine. Maybe to save her from asking if he had been well. “I came back because I never intended to stay away,” she answered. “Just something at home that had to be dealt with that required more of my time than I would have liked.” Her lips curled up in distaste. Normally she loved going home, loved seeing her parents again, but this trip had been far from enjoyable, and had done nothing but put her behind in her studies. She was already struggling with the academic part, being far more interested in the physical training, and now it was going to be very difficult to catch up when she had already been behind.

“And I am on your balcony because the new warden of your dorm did not think it appropriate to let a girl inside,” she rolled her eyes, clearly thinking that was a very stupid rule. Besides Meredith, all of Gwyn's friends were boys, so why shouldn't she be able to visit her friends? It was dumb. This place was supposed to be more advanced than her time.

[Costin Dracula]

Costin wasn't going to gush about how much he'd missed her, or how glad he was that she had returned, but she was saving him from his statistics assignment, and he was undeniably grateful for that. He gave her a slight smile as she explained where she'd been. "Anytime I have to go home, it takes up more time than I would like," he told her, leaning against the wall of the balcony, crossing his arms over his chest. "Parents can be tedious at times, as I'm sure you know."

If he had been polite, or even honest, he would have told her he was glad she was back, but stubborn pride kept his lips sealed on that front. Instead, he moved back towards the door, and pushed it open wide. "Do you want to come in?" he asked, gesturing towards the room. "It's not bad out here, but...I didn't know you weren't allowed to be here. That's nonsense. It's not as if we'd be doing anything."

There was an annoying little voice in the back of his head, prodding him to be nicer, to say something to make her feel more welcome, to make her want to stay and not hop right back over the edge of the balcony she'd come up from, but Costin had spent so long suppressing irritating social instincts that he was trying to ignore it. Instead of saying anything, he let himself smile at her. The expression felt foreign on his face; he had done so little smiling of late, but somehow, it was much easier standing next to her. "I've been working on a stupid assignment," he said, stepping through the door himself. "I hate every one of my classes this term, but I suppose that's the way life is when you're getting an education you're never going to use."

[Gwyn Locksley]

Of course Costin would commiserate, even if his reasons were completely different than hers. Their first meeting he had spent the majority of the time whining about his parents, so she had the feeling that even a day home would probably be too much for him. Honestly, she was a little surprised he didn't find a way to take a shot at her about her 'lovely' parents not being so lovely all the time. It was nice.

He pushed the door open and invited her in, and Gwyn snorted at his assessment of her roadblock in visiting him the normal way. “Honestly,” she agreed, looking back over her shoulder at him and catching his smile. It was pretty funny. Really, did these people think that was the only reason that girls visited boys in their rooms? And why didn't they care about girls visiting other girls, or boys other boys? It could be for the same reasons. Maybe it was about preventing pregnancies or something. “I didn't recognize him, I think he's new. Probably trying to show dominance or display his power. It probably makes him feel important denying people.”

When Costin spoke of his classes she let out a loud groan. “Ugh, me too. I'm going to be a soldier, I'm going to defend the innocent and my country. I don't need to know science and maths and... I'm English. I speak English. I don't need an English class.” Looking around the room, she took a few steps toward the sofa before stopping, her mother's voice in her head reminding her that she should wait to be offered a seat. Stupid manners.

[Costin Dracula]

As if he would be doing that in his room with any human girl. Although...if he were going to, and he had to pick a girl...well, that wasn't relevant. Costin wasn't inviting any girls into his room for that purpose.

"He's probably one of those ones who gets his books paid for by monitoring the halls or some such thing," he speculated. "I think they let people do that now. If my parents weren't paying for everything, I might have...well, no, I wouldn't," he amended, smiling slightly. "I would have found some other way to supplement my income, but I suppose they wouldn't have those posts if someone wasn't applying for them, hm?" He watched her for a moment, wondering why she wasn't sitting down, then realized that perhaps she was trying to be polite.

"Do you want a drink?" he offered, gesturing towards the cabinet of various things that stood in the corner. "Or...a seat? That couch is honestly an embarrassment to the name of couches, but it's better than standing, most of the time." He made his way over to the cabinet, where he perused his small collection of soda cans and various bottles of juice, along with the one bottle of liquor and two bottles of wine he had pilfered from his fathers' useless collection at home. He grabbed two glasses, one of the bottles of wine, and came over to the couch, where he sat down himself, looking up at her expectantly.

"What do you suppose would happen," he mused, going to work opening the bottle of wine, "if we failed all our classes? Do you think they'd send us back home, tell us never to come back? Or do you think it's a matter of money? If my fathers paid them enough, do you think they'd just let me stay here and keep failing classes?"

[Gwyn Locksley]

Gwyn hadn't heard about that particular job, but she hadn't been interested in it either so probably just hadn't been paying attention. It did sound like a decent deal for someone of limited means, though, even if that person was a power hungry little jerk. “It sound like an easy task, though boring,” she stated. If she needed a job she would prefer something along the lines of helping people train. Archery, sword fighting, combat; she would be an excellent teacher. Well, she would probably make a lot of people cry, but sometimes they needed that.

When he offered her a drink and a seat, she accepted the latter. “At least it's not pink,” she said, sighing and sinking into the cushions. His choice of wine didn't faze her, as it was quite common back home to drink wine or mead as fresh water wasn't always easy to obtain. Being here at Tintagel she found she preferred pure water and rarely drank anything else, but one glass would certainly not hurt. Again, it was polite.

He posed an interesting question, and Gwyn considered it. If his parents had sent him here to get rid of him then perhaps enough money could keep him here, but would it? “Depends on how much integrity this place has. If they offer books for hall monitoring then money may not be much of a concern,” she said, pursing her lips. “My parents would not let me stay, of that I am sure.” Nor would she let herself fail so miserably. All she wanted was to make her father proud and to live up to his legacy, and if she failed her classes he would be so disappointed in her. The thought was too difficult to bear.

[Costin Dracula]

"I think I'd be good at it," Costin decided, settling in and filling up his glass. "At least, I would be good at it by my standards, but they probably wouldn't appreciate me very much. I'd make up my own rules, and they would change, frequently. One day I wouldn't allow anyone in the building if they were wearing a blue shirt. The next day I'd forbid them from coming in unless they were carrying a plant of some sort. You know, just to keep things interesting."

He took a slow sip of his wine, savoring the taste for a moment. Wine wasn't one of those things Costin enjoyed because it was cool or made him feel like an adult (which he technically was now, anyway), it had just always been sort of comforting to him. As much as he wanted to subsist on blood, he couldn't, but drinking red wine felt sort of like practice, somehow. He left the other cup and the bottle close enough that she could reach them if she wanted to.

The thought of Gwyn having to leave because of silly academics was not a pleasant one, and Costin found himself momentarily distracted by it. She'd been gone a month and he had spent more time sulking over it than he cared to admit, because whether he wanted to or not, he found her interesting. She was capable of carrying a conversation that didn't bore him, and he was undeniably a little impressed that she'd climbed up a wall and onto his balcony just to see him. That was...unexpected, and not unpleasant.

"I don't know what my fathers would do," he admitted. "I know...well, Papá would be disappointed, I think. Father would...you know, I truly think he just wants me gone, and lately I want to be gone. I was home this past weekend, and...things are not good between us, I don't know if they will be again. I hope your parents would be better about it than that."

[Gwyn Locksley]

As Costin described how he would tackle the job, Gwyn found herself laughing for what felt like the first time in weeks. She wasn't a fan of bullying, but what he was describing was light, fun, and wouldn't hurt anyone. She could just picture confused students wandering the campus looking for plants just so they could get back to their rooms. “So you would hold the job for, what, a week before they replaced you?” she replied, still grinning. She almost wanted him to actually try just to see how long he would last, but there were other people that actually needed the job so she didn't dare suggest it.

Following his lead, she took a glass of wine for herself as well, taking a small sip and lounging back in the cushions. This was actually kind of nice. She hadn't really had a plan for coming here, nothing past getting to his balcony, and now she found herself actually wondering why she didn't do this more often. Having a friend wasn't really so bad, and it wasn't like she couldn't spare an hour from her training, right? Besides, it would set her mother's heart at ease if she wrote home about a new friend. Marian had made lifelong friends while here at Tintagel, and while now Gwyn's friends were the offspring of those friends, it was nice to have someone that was just hers. Not Eddie's, not close to the family, just hers.

She listened to Costin's assessment of his family's reaction, and his recount of his time spent home. She still wasn't sure she believed that one of his fathers hated him, but she was relaxed and didn't want to spoil it by making him get all uppity. “My parents would accept me back home but would be severely disappointed in me,” she said, frowning into her glass. It was the worst possibility for Gwyn, to actually disappoint those she tried so hard to impress. She wanted them to be proud of her, and she would rather they be angry with her than disappointed. “Did something happen while you were home?” she found herself asking, his words seeming to allude toward an unpleasant altercation.

[Costin Dracula]

Making Gwyn laugh, Costin discovered, was strangely gratifying. He had the urge to keep inventing other ideas for his imaginary stint as dorm supervisor, or whatever the position might be called, but he decided to restrain himself. Best not to beat a good joke to death, after all.

"A week maximum, I'd say," he speculated. "And that's being generous, I think." He took another sip of wine and ran one fingertip along the rim of the glass. He slightly regretted having brought up his visit home; there were a lot of distinctly unpleasant words he'd exchanged with his father that were still burning in the back of his mind, despite all his attempts to forget about them. She was asking for details, and for a moment, Costin deliberated over whether to tell her the truth or brush the moment off like he would have with anyone else. She didn't know, he realized, all the problems he had with his parents - the biggest, most glaring problem. It was his greatest shame, his worst failing, and he tried so hard not to talk about it, but...here Gwyn was, seeming genuinely interested and maybe even a little concerned, and...

"There are some things I haven't told you about my parents," he said, glancing at her over the top of his glass. "Some...fairly dark things." He held his glass in both hands. "That I don't talk about, so this is...You probably don't want to hear about this." He was suddenly stricken with a dilemma. Usually, Costin did what Costin wanted to do, and he gave very little thought to how others might feel about it. Only in this situation, he wasn't sure whether he wanted to talk or keep this information to himself, and because he wasn't sure, he was genuinely waiting for her reaction to decide how to proceed.

[Gwyn Locksley]

The joke was nice, it made her feel good to laugh, to forget her worries if only for a moment. “That is kind of sad, you know,” she replied, though she was still grinning. “Being fired from a job that, for you, would essentially be volunteer work.” It was funny to think how much Costin had got under her skin when they had first met, when he had been in full on diva mode and she had been unwilling to accept his ridiculous reasoning. Even then, though, he had intrigued her, and he had certainly been more interesting to converse with than anyone else she had met at this school.

He was also very mysterious, which at times was really annoying like when he spoke cryptically, but certainly never boring. She didn't want to speak about her own time home, but that wasn't the only reason she showed interest in his. He had alluded so much to his strange upbringing and his tumultuous relationship with his father, but had never spoke clearly on the subject, and Gwyn hadn't pressed. Now, though, he seemed ready to talk, and she was ready to listen, especially when he played up the mystery of it by talking about 'dark things'. Were they murderers? Thugs? Religious cult members? He said he didn't talk about them, so it wasn't completely lost on her that this had to be an important step in their friendship that he was offering to tell her. “You know about my family.” Well, most of it. “You've even met my brother. Why wouldn't I want to know about yours?”

She did want to know, though she was rarely one to show interest in anyone and did so awkwardly.

[Costin Dracula]

“Gwyn,” Costin said, giving her a wry little smile, “my inability to hold a work-study position is not even close to the saddest thing about me.” He didn’t even say that in his usual disaffected-jaded-youth sort of way, it was much more tongue-in-cheek self-deprecation than anything. Why wouldn’t she want to know about his family? Well...and here was where he came dangerously close to confronting a few of his own issues. Costin put on a lot of airs; he held himself like nobility, he talked as if he’d seen every corner of the universe, he was sophisticated, aloof, and not easily impressed. And maybe every bit of that was some means of concealing how very little he actually thought of himself.

But it would probably be at least another half decade before he was close to being ready to admit that, and instead, he leaned forward, setting his glass down on the table and resting his forearms on his legs.

“My parents are not, by most definitions, good people,” he explained hesitantly. “They’re...well, how good can you hope to be when you have to drink human blood to live, really...they’re vampires. Very old ones, and...that probably explains a few things there, but...” He found himself struggling to vocalize so many things about his upbringing; now that he was finally trying to actually be honest with someone, he wasn’t sure how. “I am quite convinced that one of them - the one whose name I bear, that is - truly would prefer that I never bother him again, and that was made very obvious when I last went home.”

[Gwyn Locksley]

Costin seemed different than when she had last spoken to him. More confident somehow? Less miserable? Or maybe he was just more relaxed in her company and didn't feel the need to whine about everything. Whatever it was she returned the smile and continued the joke. “No, just one more thing to add to the list,” she said. She wasn't sure how far she could push it without him getting upset; it was something she had never been good at determining. More often than not she ended up upsetting people, she'd gotten used to it honestly.

After that he set his drink aside and took up a more serious posture. Unconsciously Gwyn leaned forward a bit too, as if this was a huge secret and someone might overhear it. It certainly started out sounding that way as he confirmed her assumptions. His parents were bad people. How bad? She was betting on religious cult that sacrificed people, that would give anyone reason to be as surly as Costin was. When he revealed they drank blood that only seems to confirm it. Then he stated that they were vampires.

Did he mean metaphorically? Like they sucked the life out of people? Drained them of all happiness? He couldn't really mean honest to goodness vampires like in those silly horror films Eddie tried to make her watch, the even worse ones in the stupid book her roommate had tried to make her read.

Costin was being so serious, though, seemed to even be struggling to put all this into words, and not in the way like he was trying not to laugh. He truly seemed to believe everything he was saying, even seemed very distraught about it all. She certainly couldn't laugh in his face, that was for sure.

“Vampires,” she said the word once, unsure what else to say. But was it really that unbelievable? Merlin was a wizard, there were dragons in Camelot, but people from her home seemed to think these things fantasy. Was it so hard to believe that perhaps the fantasy of one world might be the truth of another? The ideas had to come from somewhere, right? “Was it something he said?” she eventually said, choosing to focus on the human part of his confession while she pondered the other bits.

[Costin Dracula]

Costin also wasn't quite sure how far Gwyn could push him without upsetting him, without pushing the wrong buttons, but she hadn't hit one quite yet. Granted, he was in his own space, which gave him a little more sense of security, and the wine helped him settle a bit, made him less on-edge and likely to snap when something did get on his nerves. He was really not sure, though, why he was bothering to tell her all of this. It wasn't as if they were going to be best friends, walk each other to class, eat all the meals together, throw pennies in the fountain or whatever people around their age were doing these days. Why was he bothering with this?

Because, he realized, after the past weekend, he wanted to get all this off his chest. Things had gone so wrong from the moment he'd set foot on the other side of the portal back at home, and keeping it to himself was only making him stew over it. He wasn't sleeping well, and as much as he hated to admit it, he did still need to sleep. Someday, he thought, he could just...stay up all night and think about the things that made him angry. His fathers were old enough that they hardly even needed to sleep during the day anymore, that he'd seen anyway.

She went directly past the vampire thing and on to the terrible-father thing, which was surprising at first, but less so when he thought about it. She had been irritatingly curious about his motives when they first met, or at least, she had certainly prodded him about them a fair bit, and this seemed like it could be a continuation of that.

"It was things he said, it was things he didn't say. Things he's never said," Costin shrugged. "It's...If I'm very honest, if I look back on my whole life, every bit of it I can remember, I cannot tell you a single time when I felt the slightest bit of affection from-" He hesitated, because even as the words came out, a memory came to him suddenly, one that almost felt like it had been planted there to be called up when he thought the very thought he'd just had. It was something fleeting, a moment he couldn't pin down, just an echo of a feeling. You have felt loved. You have felt wanted. It didn't feel right. It felt as if that thought itself had been put there, just like that, those words, and he frowned, reaching for his glass of wine again and taking a large sip.

"My fathers love each other very much," he said, his tone quiet, unsettled. "And I have never understood entirely why they brought me into their home. I think...if I had to guess, I would say that Papá - that's the nicer one, I know it's confusing - wanted to rescue me, and Father did it to please him. I don't know why either of them would bother. If I were immortal, I certainly wouldn't bother with orphaned children. What a horrible inconvenience, you know?"

[Gwyn Locksley]

She didn't like reading fiction, so had never gotten into any of those silly fantasy novels. She didn't really watch movies either, though she preferred horror over sappy romance as well. Who wanted to romance a vampire? Were they not essentially dead? And now here was Costin, telling her his parents were vampires...

Ah. Well, that certainly would explain some of his weird crypticness when they had first met. Talking about wanting something they wouldn't give him and all that. Did he want to be one too? She had to admit, she could see the appeal. Immortality, strength, speed; all things that would certainly come in handy on the battle field. At the same time, though, there was much to give up. Sunlight, food, not to mention having to watch those you care about grow old unless you made them vampires too. That, and she prided herself on perfecting her skills, it would be cheating to add in some sort of super powers.

Forcing herself to leave it for now, she focused on Costin as he told her of his father. He faltered when he tried to claim he had never felt loved by his father, clearly this was not entirely true, but she stayed quiet, letting him continue. Then he finished and she pursed her lips. She knew she should be supportive, he was opening up to her after all, but... Gwyn was Gwyn, and she was logical and blunt to a fault.

“Helping those who cannot help themselves is one of the greatest things you can do in the world,” she replied. Honestly, she was the daughter of Robin Hood. What did he expect? “My father made a name for himself doing just that, and I doubt he ever found it an inconvenience.”

Realising how harsh she may have sounded, she tried a little softness, giving his knee an awkward pat. “I am sorry your father has been so cold toward you.”