lay down your weapons, boy {open}

[Ezio Olympus-Thatch]

Well, here he was. Three days into this new teaching gig, and he was no less stir-crazy than he had been at home, he felt no more like he belonged, no more like he was fulfilling some grand purpose. Ezio gripped the rail at the side of the pier tightly with one hand, knuckles white with the pressure and the cold of the autumn air. His other hand held a cigarette between two fingers, and he lifted that one to his lips, inhaling slowly before lowering that hand next to his other on the rail. He breathed out a cloud of smoke into the grey afternoon, obscuring his view of dark water lapping at the posts thirty feet or so below him. 

He was here because Altair was here, there was really no sense in pretending otherwise. Because being at home alone with their fathers while Altair went off yet again and did glorious things and came home with a thousand stories of his grand adventures, that was just something he couldn't stomach any longer. He was going to see the world, he was going to see the road and all the places all his favorite writers had written about, but he had never done it, he'd sat at home and he'd written about the things he imagined himself doing. And now Altair was going to go off and change the world with the power of education? No, he wasn't getting left behind again.

Except...why did he still feel like he was being left behind, even now that they were here in the same place, even doing similar jobs? He was pretty sure none of his students appreciated what he was trying to teach them, and it wasn't as if he even believed in himself. He couldn't even have gotten this job if his parents hadn't pulled some strings, probably. Sure, he had some kind of certification, but they had to have had better candidates for the job, people like Altair, gifted, intelligent, driven people who weren't self-absorbed and with more bad habits than good ones.

Ezio jammed his free hand, now freezing cold, into the pocket of his leather coat, and lifted his cigarette to his lips for one last drag before tossing it into the water. This was the exact kind of thing he had to stop doing - coming out here, brooding at the ocean, feeling sorry for himself, freezing his ass off because it was better than sitting in his barely-furnished apartment pretending like he was going to write the next great novel of his generation. He turned away from the water, and walked back down towards the end of the pier. There was a little hotdog stand there near the end, one of those places that probably did much better business in the warmer months, and struck with a sudden impulse, Ezio dug a few crumpled bills out of his pocket and bought himself a hotdog. 

"Hey," he added, handing over a little more money. "Give the next person one on me, okay?" As if a free hot dog could make up for all the things he had done wrong or hadn't done right...but somehow, as he walked away, it did make his heart a little lighter.   

[Mordred Le Fey]

A thrust... the soft resistance of sword entering flesh... the slow blossoming of blood spreading across cloth... the girl's face, fear and surprise in her eyes as she looked at him...

She's on the ground, surrounded by people, angry faces pointed his way, eyes full of hatred and loathing, shouting at him. He can't make out the words but they're all there, they all hate him. The blood... so much blood... He spins, looking for a friendly face, anyone who is still on his side, who doesn't hate him - but there's no one. He looks back to the girl on the ground but she's not there - no one is there...

He's standing on the roof of the castle, the wind whipping through his hair. He struggles to keep his balance as a gust of wind hits him. There's a boy nearby, on the edge of the parapet. His eyes are full of fear - the same fear that was in the girl's eyes, aimed at him, it's his fault, he's caused that fear in both of them. But still he presses forward, still he shouts unintelligible words at the child who shivers and shakes, and laughs cruelly as the child takes a step back, nearly losing his balance on the edge, so high, so far from the ground.

And then he's gone, a scream echoes in the silence, rushing to the edge of the roof and looking down he's lying there, such a long way down, broken and bleeding... it's his fault. It's always his fault.

The nightmares had started the night after the intervention, and even though Mordred was drinking again, trying to drown them, to stop those faces haunting him every night. But it wasn't working; every night Mordred found himself waking with a cry, the faces taking too long to turn back into shadows and then hovering on the edges of his subconscious, refusing to leave him alone or give him even a moment's respite. He was back in his own personal hell, memories from his childhood he had spent a lifetime trying so hard to repress were taking hold of his every waking and sleeping moment. But there was no one he could turn to, no one he could unload his fears or his memories onto. Even those who no longer hated him, who had allowed him back in their lives - he couldn't tell them this. It was his greatest shame, his darkest secret, and he couldn't drag anyone else into it. He couldn't put them in danger from the one person he was truly afraid of. He didn't know what she'd do, but her threats ten years ago had been dire enough to keep him silent and afraid, all these years later.

He'd taken to walking, just aimlessly wandering - it was better than sitting alone and letting the fear clutch at his chest. It was easier to push the memories away when he was walking, cold and tired. Today, his walk had taken him down to the shoreline and onto the pier, and as he passed the hotdog stand, lost in his thoughts, he didn't see the guy walking away from it until he had walked right into him. Forced out of his reverie and into the present, he frowned for a moment, till he realised what had happened.

"Shit - sorry." He muttered, taking a step back and glancing at the hotdog stand. He hadn't eaten in a while; he moved towards the stand, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. "Ah, fuck." The wallet he'd left on his nightstand earlier that day.

[Ezio Olympus-Thatch]

Well, this was awkward. Ezio wasn't expecting someone to come along quite that soon, not when he was still within earshot of them getting the hotdog he had paid for. If they could track him down and talk to him about it, that took all the anonymous goodness of spirit out of it and whatnot. He could just keep walking, pretend he didn't know what was happening, or scarf down his own hotdog as quickly as he could and hope that the guy didn't notice. That was definitely not cool, though, and Ezio definitely did not want to do anything to ruin his reputation as the cool teacher. He assumed he had a reputation as cool teacher, how could he not? He was teaching them how to express themselves and all that jazz. If there was one thing that movies had taught him, it was that there was nothing cooler than a teacher who enabled you to express yourself.

In the time it took Ezio to think all of these things, the someone approaching had run into him, and he had nearly dropped his hotdog, which he pulled back towards his chest and cradled protectively. "No worries," he said, shrugging and pulling his sunglasses down on his face. He didn't need the sunglasses. It wasn't even remotely sunny. But they were cool, weren't they? He was still trying to think of how to make a speedy escape when the kid pulled out his wallet and cussed at it, and...well, he was just going to have to come clean here, wasn't he? All the signs were pointing to it.

"I wouldn't worry about it," he said, nodding towards the hotdog stand. "I have it on good authority that they've got one banked over there. Courtesy of the creative writing department." As if the department wasn't him and only him, like there was an actual budget for buying students lunches when they forgot their wallets.

[Mordred Le Fey]

He'd turned to walk away from the hotdog stand again, cursing himself for his stupidity. Apart from anything else, without his wallet he wasn't going to be able to buy a drink when his hipflask ran dry, which wasn't going to be much longer. He was almost considering going back to the house, but that would involve facing Aiden, and things had been a little weird between them since... well, since they'd done something they really, really shouldn't have done. Things would sort themselves out there, he was sure of it, but for now staying out of each other's way seemed to be the best solution.

He realised the guy he'd walked into was speaking to him and he looked up at him, frowning slightly as he tried to register what he was saying. "Creative writing dep... I'm sorry, what?" His confusion showed on his face as he stared at the other guy, but then the hotdog vendor was holding out a hotdog to him with a smile, and, still in a sort of daze, he took the food and stared at that instead. "Wait, did you just buy me a hotdog?" He asked, things finally starting to register. He looked up at the guy, who was now wearing sunglasses for some reason - although Mordred had to admit that wearing sunglasses when they weren't needed was inexplicably cool and something he did himself on a regular basis.

"Erm... thanks. I don't take creative writing though, can't write for shit, actually - does the budget extend to students who don't take the subject?" He asked with a raised eyebrow and a small smirk. "You're a teacher then?"