April 5, 1894 — Alley beside Dervish & Banges

Wren had been tinkering on a personal endeavour for the past couple of days. He had more space to do so now that he was renting a room in Pennyworth. He was still getting to know his housemates (though he had yet to actually see George and was beginning to wonder if he even existed) and liked what he experienced of them so far. Even if they sometimes perplexed him a bit. He was sure they must think the same of him though so he figured that was par for the course. After all, his own family had sometimes perplexed him.

His creation was complete and ready for testing, he felt. So he had headed into the alley beside his shop. He had climbed on top of some empty crates and settled his goggles over his eyes. "Commencing test one," he muttered to himself as he flung the small spherical projectile onto the ground, just in time for someone to also come into the alley and get engulfed in a rather thick smoke screen for their troubles.

Oh crud. He scampered down to make apologies but was stopped short when some of the smoke cleared enough for him to realize he recognized that face. As if he could forget it... considering. As well as the fact the other still played a starring role in some rather sensual dreams.

Maelstrom Crumb

  

"You," Mael voiced, startled by both the circumstances and the recognition.

---

The labyrinthine corridors of Magical London were as familiar to the detective as the back of his own hand—not a part of his body he paid an overabundance of attention to the particulars of, but it was his, and that fact alone came with a great deal of knowledge and understanding. In contrast, the rather more sensibly laid out roadways and walkways of central Hogsmeade were somehow more of an incomplete puzzle to Maelstrom Crumb, what he thought to be a shortcut often leading to the wrong destination altogether. It was a matter of where one spent one's time, he supposed: he lived in London, he worked in London, and he'd lacked his sister's schoolyear forrays into the village. It was usually business that brought him to the bustling Scottish town, rather than pleasure or simple errand, making today an anomally.

Tempest, bless her, had been moaning about not being able to find a particular and decidedly out-of-print book for weeks now. Mael, to his credit, had put his detective skills to the test, and had managed to find a retired librarian in Hogsmeade who was happy to sell—the impression the detective had been given was that the man was rather drowning in piles of books in is Hogsmeade home. All Maelstrom Crumb had to do was arrive at the residence, coin in hand, and make the exchange.

Alas, the shortcut.

One moment, he had a clear eyeline down the length of the alleyway, and the next, it filled with smoke. It was only the speed of the onset that reassured Mael there probably wasn't a fire (he could not put it out if it was, as his 'wand' was mostly just for show), but there was enough of it that he brought the collar of his jacket to his mouth, his other hand waving the air in front of his eyes in an effort to dispell it. Fortunately, it dispelled rather quick enough on its own.

In it's wake, him.

---

The last time Mael had seen the man before him in the flesh had been in all of the flesh. Mael had fallen asleep exhilerated by the prospect of something, and woken up alone and vaguely foolish. His face had cropped up everywhere in the weeks since, in that way one's brain played tricks when one wasn't paying attention, but when two months had faded into three, three into six, Maelstrom Crumb had written the other man off altogether as a lesson on not investing too much into something untested.

It had been long enough since he had last thought he glimpsed the man for Mael to be certain he was really there, not just a figment of the imagination.

He was not entirely sure what to do with this discovery.

Wren Banges

  

A thrill went down Wrens spine. He recognizes me. That had been so long ago though, he had supposed the other to have forgotten all about him by now. "Good job for you that my experiment failed or you would be blinded," he blurted out instead. Not at all the first words he'd have chosen to say in a reunion with the other. But he had not planned on such a thing in the first place so he really was quite at a loss as he scooped up his device and hid it within the folds of his many pockets.

Maelstrom Crumb

  

The detective was not certain what he had expected to come out of the other man's mouth, if anything at all, but it wasn't that.

"One wouldn't expect to risk blindness in a public area," Mael retorted, expression decidedly incredulous.

Merlin help him, he'd just wanted to take a shortcut and buy a damned book, but instead he was here and he had the gall to suggesst Maelstrom was out of place—or worse still, an inconveience, a problem.

Wren Banges

  

"Well, it's an alley and usually no one really uses it," Wren explained. Otherwise he would not have been conducting his experiment there. He was a bit dismayed as the other seemed to be misunderstanding him.

"So... how have you been?" He asked awkwardly.

Maelstrom Crumb

  

"How have I been," Mael repeated incredulously, the end of the phrase not tilting up in a question, but falling flat as a ruptured balloon.

"Perhaps you might be more specific? Or perhaps—is that supposed to be bubbling?!" the detective was distracted from his (righteous, in his opinion) indignation by a suspect-looking puddle upon the cobblestones.

Wren Banges

  

This was not going well at all and Wren supposed he only had himself to blame. The other did not seem at all happy to see him.

"More specific?" Wren parroted cluelessly before turning his attention to the bubbling. Oh! He peered closer and got his journal out again, scribbling down this new development. "How interesting, perhaps too much newt tail."

Maelstrom Crumb

  

"I am sure," Mael stated, rolling his eyes, "that you and your newt tails will be very happy together. Might I pass, and leave you to it?" The man had no desire to become one with the ooze upon the cobblestones, but Merlin, would cutting through the alley save time.

Wren Banges

  

"Oh but wait," Wren said plaintively, reaching out to grab the other by the hand. And just like that night, he felt like a sort of electrical tingle had gone through him. He cleared his throat, his cheeks flushed.

"Want some tea first?" He could kick himself for how daft he sounded, even to himself.

Maelstrom Crumb

  

"Tea," Mael repeated, as though he hadn't heard the other man quite right.

He was perceptive. He was sharp, was clever, was not altogether terrible at predicting human behaviour. The detective had not expected the wait, per se, but it was well within the realm of likely outcomes. What came after, though, was not even out of left field. The field from which it came was somewhere in Australia or Antarctica or some other distant an inhospitable place.

"Tea?!"

Mael was angry now, or at least indignant, and the fingers of one hand ran through his hair in frustration and disbelief.

"Your little experiment might have killed me just going about my business, and tea is your solution?" And that was not, of course, accounting for the rest of it, the reason they shared this... acquaintance at all.

Wren Banges

  

As he expected, the other was having quite the reaction to being invited for tea. Wren was self-aware that this currently wasn't his finest moment. He had just not wanted the other to leave so quickly. He winced a little.

"You wouldn't have died," Wren said in what he felt was assurance. "What do you take me for? It just would have blinded you, perhaps." Probably not the thing to say to his almost-victim and to someone who really did not know him all that well.

Maelstrom Crumb