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He falls into a chair with a creak of aged leather and the clink of buckles against wood, this hobo in leather and wool and too many years.

He'll order tea in a minute.

First he's going to enjoy being somewhere Dave isn't. Somewhere Horvath isn't.

He imagined this all being... easier. Or at least more straight forward. And involving fewer duels in bathrooms.

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That grin is startling, and Autor finds himself smiling back. It's a small smile; he's finding he's giving away more than the other man, which is aggravating. He could ask if Balthazar loves her, but the answer is obvious, and so is Autor's. Hmm.

"How old are you? I'm seventeen, I think. Technically I've been seventeen for years, so I don't know how old I really am."

"I am forty-six, I believe, and have been so for some centuries." Balthazar has a pretty good idea how old he is, but he's never sure if he should include the ten years in an urn. They were pretty... dull.

"Centuries," Autor breathes, blinking. "What is your current occupation? I am a student."

"I am a teacher." Well, a teacher short one student, at the moment, but he's confident that will be temporary.

By one way or the other.

"What do you teach?" Autor asks, sipping his tea. He's beginning to really like this game. "I tutor piano." Then he tips his head. "Are you human? I am. Are you immortal? I'm not."

"I teach personal development." Hey, he lived through the nineties, in New York City. "I am, and I am not."

"What the heck is personal development?" Autor asks, cocking his head. "That's a question I can't answer." At least, he thinks he can't.

"Well, no wait, I'd think my own personal development is what Sunshine has taught me: namely, how to trust. How to..." he starts. He'd say love, but that's a little deep for a prickly teenage boy. "Make friends. That sort of thing."

Edited 2014-10-15 05:40 (UTC)

"Then it sounds as if you already know the answer I will give." Balthazar observes. "After all, why are we put on this... or any Earth if not to improve ourselves?"

Autor furrows his brow. That seems like b.s. to him. He wants to ask why Balthazar lives for centuries, but can't figure out how to phrase the question so that it's something he himself can answer. "Is there magic on your world?" he says. "Not really, on mine."

"Not really, but you have been a teenager for how long?" Balthazar raises an eyebrow - the answer does not count as an answer if it is not true.

Oh, crap! Autor thinks. He didn't mean to lie, it just came out that way. "Well, um," he squeaks, swallowing. "See, that's not exactly magic? It's... something else."

"Something that isn't immortality. How many options are there?" Plastic surgery? Goodness, that would make it a world he really doesn't want to ever visit.

"Aren't I supposed to be asking the questions?" Autor squeaks, flailing a little. "Does Sunshine know about your secrets? She knows about mine."

"She knows more about me than anyone has for a hundred years." Balthazar replies calmly in the face of the boy's flail.

Autor stills, blinking. "Why? I found her too easy to talk to. She got past my defenses before I was aware she was there."

"She is the closest to what I might call a relative, given my way of life." A Blaise was Merlin's master, once upon a time, and Merlin was his master. It makes a certain amount of sense.

Autor tilts his head at that. "What? Are you a baker? I try and bake things occasionally but I'm not that good. Or a vampire hunter? I'm not," he says. "Or a magic user? I'm... That's really complicated. Not yet."

"No, no I am most emphatically not, and again no, and... you know, that is a very complicated question." Does he use the magic, or does the magic use him?

Or does he just feel like dodging the same questions the boy does?

...

Possibly just that last one.

"How complicated?" Autor says, smirking lightly as he picks up on what Balthazar is doing, the tricksy man. "Extremely."

He shakes his head with a small smile. "Thank you for suggesting this game. It's highly amusing."

Edited 2014-10-15 06:21 (UTC)

"Excruciatingly." Balthazar returns, with that grin again. "It does seem to pass the time, even if you aren't earning yourself much of a story."

"Oh, I can make it work," Autor says, sipping his cooled tea. "I wouldn't be worth my salt if I couldn't, though I confess to a bit of irritation at my giving away more than you."

He hands the empty cup to a wait rat with instructions for it to be refilled. "Have you been in many battles? I've only been in one."

"More than I can remember, or care to." There are so many he'd like to forget, to erase the scars from. Sometimes he wonders if Veronica will recognize him if he does ever reach his goal.

"A little different than personal development," Autor says quietly, inclining his head. "Are your rings magical? Mine is."

"On the whole, no." He has nine rings - only one of those is magical. That means the vast majority of his rings have no magical properties whatsoever.

"On the whole? What magic do they possess?" he asks before thinking about it. "Mine is a poison immunity."