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It started with 'omg weird day' pinging on his phone, from Autumn. A few exchanges later and he was limping to her apartment door, still having trouble getting around with his balance being so off. Lucas could only smile to himself, wondering what had happened to her, because boy, did he have a story to tell her. A story about neighbors and open windows that he still wasn't sure had actually happened in the light of day.

With his hair in a half-tail, wearing a nice tank top and comfortable, if not slightly well worn jeans, he wasn't exactly dressed to impress but he came over as soon as he could. He was hoping she'd forgive him, since the first time he'd been a slob, the second he'd been cleaned up and now...he was somewhere inbetween. She, on the other hand, was always impeccable.

He knocked on her door (he hoped it was her door), an oblong bag tucked between his elbow and side. Lucas was not the type to show up without a gift, especially if she'd had a strange time of things. As weird as his interaction with Thorne had been, he could only imagine -- no, he probably couldn't imagine what she was going to share with him.

He was far from graceful as he was all but yanked into the apartment, stumbling a little but catching himself with a laugh. "Nice to see you too, Princess--" But she was gone, a whirlwind of energy and zest that he wasn't quite familiar with. It was refreshing.

Lucas shifted the bag into his hand, chasing after her at a slowed gait, gently taking her arm, "Hey, hey, take a minute. Hi!" He fixed her with a smile and leaned in to kiss her cheek in friendly greeting before putting the bag on a clear spot in the kitchen. "Tea, please, wine would be a poor choice on an empty stomach." He chuckled, adding, "And this is french bread. There was a cute bakery I passed on the way and it smelled amazing. Hope you like it?"

He slid back out of the kitchen - he had no way of knowing if Autumn made it her domain like his mother did and god knows he wasn't going to test those limits - then taking a moment to look around her apartment. It was...smaller, than he had anticipated, but Princesses were supposed to have castles after all. Noting the flowers, he carefully took a heavy seat on the couch, looking around for Rosalinde.

The kiss on the cheek and the bread were welcome gifts, and Autumn found herself delighted. Lucas, despite their awkward first meeting, was a true gentleman. She offered him a hug and went back to the kitchen, working on a pot of tea for the both of them. Definitely white- it was too late in the day for too much caffeine. Besides that, the little bit of earthen tones sounded good right now.

Rosalinde suddenly emerged from the bedroom with a yowl, brushing past Lucas with little more than a tail flick and bolting for the door. Autumn blinked, her eyebrows raised, and then BEAMED EXCITEDLY.

"Pax is here!? No way!" She set the teapot down, and went for the door, only to stop in her tracks. Even in their more normal form, Pax was...

"Okay. I need you to take a deep breath for me," She explained to Lucas, suddenly very serious. "Pax is from Other Ashdown. And is kind of a monster. But they're not a monster, they just look like one. They've been my magic tutor since everything went to s**t. So... don't freak out. Okay? Okay."

With that, Autumn threw the door open and pulled Pax into a hug.

"Pax! I wish I had known you were coming! This is so great, I have a friend for you to meet!"

Pax bent down to hug Autumn, but also to scoot through the door. Without its antlers, it was a perfectly reasonable human height (just above six feet) but with the antlers, just about any door below eight feet high was a hazard. It also had to turn sideways to scoot through.

Life was hard.

It said, "I came. To see flowers, but. You are here," and it smiled, and then it turned to look at the friend. "Oh! It is. A short-hair human. Hello. I am Pax."

"Well! Don't I feel special, comparing with the flowers," Autumn giggled, clearly pleased with the compliment (be it unintentional on Pax's part or not.) She scooted away to let Pax in, and turned to say something to Lucas, only for her words to die in her throat as he toppled over the sofa and onto the floor. Autumn watched in muted horror as he scrambled around like a trapped animal, clearly piss terrified of Pax. She was not frowning at Lucas, per se, but at the fact she had inadvertently caused this mess. Also, she was kind of starting to realize... maybe Pax WAS scary? Her first exposure, she'd thought it was a dream. Since then, Pax had just kind of been something Autumn had accepted. But if she stepped back and really, REALLY thought about it...

A six-eyed deer person was kind of scary?

"Pax. Will you watch the tea for a minute? There's a timer that's gonna beep when it's done. Just pour the tea into the cups, and then hit the button on the timer." Hopefully, that was enough of an explanation. Autumn turned her full attention to Lucas, and s**t, she felt REALLY bad. Moving slowly, Autumn sat on the sofa, turning to look at Lucas sympathetically.

"Deep breaths, Lucas. I promise, it's okay. I wouldn't let Pax in if they were a threat." She sighed out her nose, trying to figure out how to explain this.

"I met Pax- The Peaceful One, is their full title- on my first trip to the Other Side. I thought it was a dream, so I interacted... pretty chill-ly with them, admittedly. Only I figured out later it wasn't a dream, and we just... kind of kept meeting up. It's okay though. I promise, Pax won't hurt you."

...If you didn't threaten Heliodora. But Lucas didn't need to know that.

He tried to look at Autumn, he really did, but -- but that thing and it's EYES WERE WATCHING HIM.

STARING.

Lucas would have bet both his limbs that the eyes had literally just shoved off to one side of the thing's face to watch him.

Holy. ********. Ballsacks.

He gasped for air like a man drowning, his real and prosthetic fingers both curled into the wall as if he'd seize it and crawl right up it. Trying to swallow around the tight lump in his throat and the dryness of his mouth was proving to be difficult. He choked a little on the effort, eyes darting between Autumn's calm, worried face and the back of the giant dark thing.

"Autumn," he half whispered, half hissed, air in short supply, "what -- the ******** -- is a giant antlered potato doing in your house? What the <********> are you talking about?" And for a moment, the skittish movement of his eyes came to a halt, desperately seeking her pretty face for answers. "Autumn when we met you told me to get out, and now you're -- you're hugging? The Silent Hill? Things?!" His voice hinged an octave higher on the last word, on some special sort of cusp of being unhinged.

It wasn't until she started to walk away that he found his voice, words spilling with a touch of anger and more than enough fear that he didn't like the sound of it. "How do you know?" he asked, tense, pressed close to the wall still.

Lucas drew in a sharp breath. Autumn was his friend, and now -- now he was going to pick a fight. Because she was his friend, and she needed to hear him. "I'm not there in that -- that place, but ********, Autumn, I'm here. I met you, tired and frayed, warning me -- and now -- now you're like, the speaker of this place? How do you know? How do you know what's good and what isn't?"

Slowly, unbeknownst even to himself, he moved from the wall and gripped the back of the couch. "Because they -- they told you? Did you find them or did they conveniently find you and neatly explain just enough for you to be on their side? I -- Autumn, I'm not a soldier anymore but I've been on both sides of following orders blindly and questioning what I'm told."

He clenched his jaw, his good hand nearly white knuckled in its hold. "How do you know what you're doing, what you're letting into your life and embracing - how do you know it's right?"

That Packs was there was only a dim thought in his head. He was gripped by fear for her, fear what this could mean if he was right. Lucas didn't mean to shoot her down for all she said, but...before he could even look at the antlered thing, he had to know what proof of safety there was. From all he knew about her, their limited time together...everything in him was screaming against this. He really, really didn't want to lose her to this nameless place of nameless things.

She'd completely missed his point. That, or she really believed what she was doing was 'righteous' and...and there was nothing he could do to reach her. Lucas had seen enough of that conviction in his unit and those he'd met out on his tours to recognize it. What he couldn't say to Autumn was that 'the bad guys' never viewed themselves as bad - and they were just as dedicated as she was.

He felt like he'd been hit in the gut, winded and heartsore. Trying to pick his way over the couch, he stumbled a little, caught himself and winced. "Look -- Autumn, this -- this is beyond me, I've -- I've got my own s**t going on and I'm clearly not...supposed to be here, or be a part of this. I'm not Alice. You're not the Mad Hatter. I'm a guy who cares about this girl who has me at arm's length because of this invisible war she's dedicated to and I can't -- I can't deal with that right now."

His words were raw and more than a little hurt, trying to straighten his posture but it wasn't working. ********. His little spill had brought back his ache, thrown off his balance again. He couldn't straighten himself out, how the hell could he deal with this? He couldn't. Lucas knew his limits, and he was nearly there. "If you need me - for normal s**t, remember? s**t you're against now? - you have my number. But I've gotta -- I have to sort out my head." Lucas swallowed hard, his expression one of injury.

"So -- be safe." He wasn't listening anymore. He was at the door and he was leaving and there was nothing left to be done for it. "Have fun with your -- friend."

And he was gone.