spelleton | IC INBOX

He thinks he's seeing things at first. A movement out of the corner of his eye, a few hours spent up too long, his mind's last futile attempt to make him go to bed at a reasonable time for once.

Then he actually looks and he's torn between the thought that he's actually fallen asleep at his desk or that Ekkehardt's finally getting him back for all those pranks he's pulled over the years.

More than he usually does.

"Can I help you?"

"Not particularly," Ekkehardt says, in a cheerful sort of way. There's a lilt to his voice that isn't usually there, playful and almost bouncy, or what passes for bouncy with him. He leans back against the window's frame, content to recline there since Avery hasn't seen the need to tell him to leave yet.

"But I thought that I'd come and bother you for once, instead of the other way around. Just for a change of pace. It's almost the new year, so I thought perhaps I'd do things differently."

The rhythm of his words, the way he speaks, is far less taciturn than usual, looser and more relaxed. His body language is far less stiff than it usually is.

Avery narrows his eyes, scanning the nooks and crannies of Ekkehardt's soul--if that's who it really is.

It is.

Our only confuses Avery more. "Something's wrong with you," he says bluntly. "Is someone around here doing weird magical experiments again?"

Ekkehardt swings his legs over the sill so he's sitting there facing Avery, properly, because...manners. He still feels the need to be polite, even though cracking the window to someone's room and just sort of sitting there unannounced until they notice is, in fact, a rude thing to do.

That statement from Avery gets a surprised look, a freeze that clearly runs through his entire body language for a moment, like a deer in headlights. Then he relaxes again, with a short laugh.

"Oh, you're so harsh," he says, his tone clearly amused as he waves a hand. It's almost vaguely fond, in its own way. Terrible. "I'm just slightly drunk. Somewhat intoxicated. It's hardly an emergency."

He crosses one leg over the other, apparently content to make himself comfortable.

He relaxes a little. A little. About to his usual level of tense anyway. "You can get drunk?" he asks next, and leans slightly to make sure Ekkehardt isn't drunk enough to fall out a window.

Sure, he climbed up here on his own, but Avery could do that too if he wanted.

"Oh, not usually. But Grimm had some alcohol and I had some alcohol and we decided to do some drinking and it turns out - Grimm also had something that can affect people who can't get drunk, and, well, here we are. Here I am, at least."

He laughs a little, grinning as he notices Avery lean over slightly. He leans forward in response, elbows resting on his knees; even drunk, Ekkehardt is still sharp.

"Are you planning to push me off?"

What he lacks that he usually has is a filter, apparently. But his tone is lighthearted; the possibility of it doesn't seem to bother him at all.

Avery's gaze snaps back to Ekkehardt. "Hardly. Not yet, anyway." He was always open to the possibility.

Still. This is probably a once in a lifetime chance. Might as well enjoy himself a little. "Although... I can't say I pinned you as the sort to commit breaking and entering when drunk. Hobby of yours while sober?"

"Well, I'm glad we can be honest to one another about that much," he says entirely too cheerfully for the subject being whether Avery's going to push him out the window or not.

He waves a hand at Avery's next question, a little smile on his face. "Oh, I'd say it just depends. I wouldn't call it a hobby, per se, but it's not out of the question entirely. If I need to, it can happen, and that's really all. No need to think about it too much."

He leans against the windowframe with an expression on his face that is sharply amused, eyes aglow behind the mask's darkness, his attention entirely fixed on Avery without distraction.

"Are you going to tell me off, now?"

Avery snorts and waves a hand, sinking down into his office chair to relax. "Not unless you plan to stop me from getting blackmail if you do anything funny," he says, grinning ear to ear.

"Surely you wouldn't be so cruel as to deprive me of that."

Another laugh. Ekkehardt appears to be much easier with them when he's intoxicated.

"Cruel? To you? Perish the thought. I'm not so heartless as to derive you of entertainment that way."

He cocks his head to the side for a moment, as if in sudden thought. "Well, I'm not metaphorically heartless. Literally is another thing entirely," he says, apparently finding it funny enough to correct himself.

He leans forward again, pulling one leg up to his chest and using it as a support. "I'm surprised you're being quiet for once, though. You're really doing work?"

That earns another snort. Easier with laughter and easier with jokes... He should find whatever it was that got Ekke drunk and make sure he had it again sometime. "Of course. You don't think I sit around doing nothing all day, do you?"

He jerks his head in the direction of the chair. "You can come in, you know."

"I thought your job was to be a professional nuisance, at least half the time. Two-thirds, perhaps. Especially since you neglect your paperwork so much. Is that giving you too much credit or too little, I wonder?"

The smile on his face is a grin, all teeth, but not in a particularly dangerous way. (Or if it's in a dangerous way, which it could be, it's not directed towards Avery specifically.)

"Are you sure you should be inviting an intruder into your room?" His voice is teasing. But he takes up the offer with no hesitation whatsoever, occupying the nearest available seating space like he's meant to be there.

He replies with a dramatic shrug. "All the better to be a professional nuisance to you." To what part of what Ekkehardt is saying, Avery will never tell.

"Of course, that just makes it a challenge as to who will out-nuisance the other, doesn't it?"

"Is that something you really want to challenge me for?" Ekkehardt is really not using this chair properly. He's curled up on it more than he is properly sitting on it, arms folded on the back of the chair as he props himself up that way. His eyes are bright red slits in the eyeholes of his mask. Attentive, despite his intoxicated state. "I thought I bothered you enough as is."

A slight laugh. That smile is still there, and not leaving. "Though that's not a no, mind you. I wouldn't mind at all."

Good lord. He's even sitting on it like Avery himself would. This is incredible.

"Ha! If you think that's going to intimidate me, you've got another thing coming. I know just how to get under your skin. That you don't have, but details."

In some ways, they're terribly alike, for all their contrasts and clashes. (Maybe they'd get along more amiably if they'd met a lifetime ago, but it's impossible to tell; both those people are now, for all intents and purposes, dead.)

"You do have a talent for it," Ekkehardt admits, in a way that might be classed as lazy, for him. The mention of skin, or lack thereof, gets another sharp laugh. "But I know how to irritate you right back, so at this point I do believe we're evenly matched. Don't you?"

We're a pair is something he almost says, but he understands enough even like this to know how it might be taken. He's feeling nice, and Avery is enjoying himself, and he doesn't want to ruin it.

"Only if we stick to theory," Avery shoots back, and catches himself, smile faltering a little. "I don't see you pulling many pranks on me. Only up for it when you're not sober?"

"You get yourself into enough trouble as it is," he retorts, though being drunk makes him unable to hide the fact that his expression changes more than a little when Avery's smile falters. There's an uncertain worry to it that isn't usually present; concern about what he doesn't want to get wrong.

It smooths out, of course, but not fast enough to excuse it away.

"It would just be making more work for me. And I don't have to prank you to annoy you." That sharp, almost mischevious smile is back. "I just have to needle you until you slip. So much more efficient, don't you think?"

What was that look? Did he manage to get to him?

It couldn't be concern. Why would it be concern? There's nothing concerning about this at all! It's just banter! Nothing more, nothing less!

"Pffft... Efficiency. What's the point of it without a little fun? Try a little style and flair sometime! You know, as much effort as you put into those outfits of yours." And that was just fact.

Seriously. Anyone who didn't think the man dressed well was just plain wrong (nevermind that Avery himself had a similar fashion sense).

"Oh, I'm even getting compliments from you, now? Perhaps I need to get drunk more often, if this is how you're going to be about it." He props himself up on one arm slightly, mostly so he has room to gesture empathetically, which he does in his next few sentences.

"Besides, you have altogether too much fun between the two of us, so efficiency suits me just fine. You need...planning, and preparation, and long-term goals, so when you do something it goes flawlessly and nobody ever sees it coming. That's more fun. To me."

He sort of waves his hand around, here and there, like visual punctuation for his sentences.

"Though I suppose more flair's not so bad," he admits, after a moment.

So he requires long-term planning to rile up, eh? Isn't that just a boost the old ego?

"Well then... Maybe one day we'll flip the script. I'll give efficiency a shot and you go for something a little wilder. Seems fair enough, doesn't it?" Like Ekkehardt wouldn't enjoy it. Look at him now, gesturing about like that, smiling, posing. The old bonehead really did need to let loose once in awhile.

Poking and prodding at him is entertaining, certainly, but sometimes well-laid plans are worth the trouble, even if they do take time to pull off. It's worth it, spending the time to see the look on his face. (He doesn't examine that thought any further.)

"I can't imagine what that might look like," Ekkehardt says, half thoughtful and half in jest (though most of the things he says seem to be in jest, given his tendency to laugh and how he is right now). "But I can't say I wouldn't like to see you try my methods for once. I don't know how well they'd suit you. I don't know how well what you do would suit me, either, but I suppose there's time for a little variety now and then."

He adjusts his position again, head on his now-folded arms as he continues to watch Avery. His gaze hasn't wavered, which might be flattering or unsettling depending on how it's taken.

Truthfully, it's a little of both, and while Avery knows exactly why that is, he has no desire to delve too deeply into it. That he even feels this way at all is wholly unacceptable.

It'd be easier if Ekkehardt didn't know about his damn past. Easier to deal with, easier to fix. He could put things back to where they should be without Ekkehardt wearing sone dumb, smug (worried) look on his face.

At least Ekke's drunk now. Any misstep Avery makes can easily be blamed on alcohol-tinted memories.

"Of course there is! Makes things nice and interesting. Can't do the same thing all the time. It'd get boring."

He doesn't remember when it started, this attachment. (He doesn't name the feeling, out of some vague, superstitious thought; funny when he could be the stuff of superstition himself. But it's terribly obvious what it is, even to other people, and he'll probably be teased until the end of time for it.)

Maybe it was talking about the scarring, or maybe it was earlier than that, or later than that; he'd put up with the man for years already, after all. A constant thorn in his side, always a nuisance, an ever-present thought, someone he falls in step with unthinkingly now despite the distance between them that feels less and less like any distance at all.

"Ah, is that why you tolerate my company, then? For the difference I provide, rather than all the people you already know who will encourage you? I suppose that makes as much sense as any other impulsive thing you choose to do."

He looks surprised to hear himself say the words, but in his usual stubborn fashion, he doesn't take them back or excuse them. It's always been one of his defining traits, never to say anything he doesn't mean to say; he has lying by omission, that dance of technicalities in speech, refined to an art.

He doesn't know. He does know. It's both at the same time, and he hates it so, so much. He knows better. He learned better. So why can't he make it stop? The feelings, his actions, they all feel completely out of his control. He's falling deeper and deeper into a hole he can't get out of. A prison. A dungeon.

He'll never learn.

"I could say the same for you. No matter how deep I drive that thorn into your side, you keep coming back. Most people tend to walk away when someone drives a letter opener into their neck, you know."

(What do you want with me?)

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