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The incident was long enough passed that Connor was more than prepared for life to take on a sense of normalcy once more. With final exams finished and only one part time job to speak of, he had found himself with a lot more free time on his hands.

But with not much by the way of money, he was pretty much forced to spend that free time at home, bored out of his ******** mind. It wasn't all bad, though. He had his video games, and his guitar to pluck away at in an attempt to learn more than just a few basic chords.

However, both of these things were much more interesting with company, whether it be somebody to game with or someone to jam. Tonight, he picked the latter, and had extended an invite out to Jack, whom he hadn't actually seen since the whole job fair fiasco. So, sitting on his couch in his two bedroom apartment, Connor sat waiting for what amounted to his closest friend to arrive, flicking through channels on his television while taking long, slow drags on his cigarette and sipping on a glass of whiskey.

With the knock at the door, Connor set his controller down on the seat cushion next to him, and his glass of whiskey on the small table to the other side, butting out his cigarette in the ashtray next to that as he stood up and stretched before turning and striding towards the door, drawing it open with a ready half smirk on his lips.

"Heyyy, Jack-a**. See you brought your usual date." He nodded down to the guitar case, and stood back to let the giant man enter, while letting out a scoff.

"What kind of ******** question is that? I've got vodka, too, now. Took it home from the fair. Figured I'd earned it."

Even though he didn't even drink the stuff, which explained why he still had it.

"So, what'll your poison be?"

He reached around the other man as he entered and shut the door behind him.

"I procured it from the wine bar where everything went tits-up a**-sideways. Was going to use it for disinfectant but the occasion to do so never really arose and so...I kept it." He shrugged, and with his door safely shut, began to make his way towards the decent (for an apartment) sized kitchen so that he could grab Jack his drink.

"Okay, I guess." He began. "s**t, I don't know, honestly. How the ******** are we supposed to hold up after that? I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around it."

He reached up to open a cupboard, and was about to grab a glass, when there came a loud knocking at the door. Frowning, he turned around and headed back towards his door. Who the ******** would that be? He hadn't invited anybody else over.

Not bothering to take a peek out the peephole, because he almost never did, Connor opened the door.

There was nobody there.

His frown deepened, and he leaned out to look down the hallway in both directions.

Nothing. <******** s**t head punks." He grumbled, stepping back inside and slamming the door, which clicked shut just as a loud crash of broken glass came from the kitchen, causing him to jump in alarm.

"What the s**t!" He hissed out, rushing back to the kitchen, to see that several glasses had fallen out of the open cupboard and onto the floor. "Fuuuuuuck. Are you ******** kidding me?"

Those glasses were crystal, and expensive.

Even as Connor stared down at the broken glasses on the floor, he shivered, goosebumps breaking out over his skin. The air was suddenly cold, as if a draft had just passed by, and he took a step back, feeling suddenly uneasy.

Jack's voice made him blink, and he turned his head towards him. "Oh. Ya, sure. <********>." He said again, giving his head a shake. "Weird ******** s**t, man, I swear to ******** god, s**t like this has been happening for about a week now. Well, not like this." He gestured towards the mess of broken glass on the floor. "But just...sounds. Things not being where I last left them. I assumed it was just stress, but I'm starting to get a little ******** freaked out."

He sounded more frustrated than scared, however. "Brooms over there." He pointed to a tall pantry in the corner of the kitchen, before taking careful steps around the glass and to a separate cupboard, where his non-fancy glassware was kept.

Moments later drinks were poured, and once the floor was clean, they were able to move into the living room. Connor relaxed at his usual spot on the couch, and held Jack's drink out towards him.

"Cheers, man." He said, before taking a sip of his own glass.

"So, how've things been for you? I didn't get to see you for long, after everything. You get pretty beat up? Bitten? Can I expect you to go furry in a few weeks?" He scoffed a dry laugh, and gave his head another shake. "********."

Connor was seriously trying to avoid thinking about his most recent weird activities as anything to worry about. If the thought that he had his own personal ghost in his apartment, those thoughts were quickly shut down, lest they make him even more ******** paranoid. As he had said to Jack, anyways, it was really difficult as it was to wrap his head around the s**t that they'd already seen, let alone adding more into the mix.

"Wow, Jack. You got a fancy hat and long trench coat to go with that bad-a** Van Helsing monster hunting?" He grinned, and took another sip of his whiskey, before swallowing it much too fast and burning his throat at what Jack had to say next.

"s**t, what? Really??" Spontaneous? "That's...well, that's ******** crazy. So one day you just wake up...like that. Oh ********, like in those shitty sparkly vampire movies, with those native werewolves." Not that Connor had ever watched or read Twilight, but he knew the gist of it from people (mostly women, some men) that would not ******** shut up about them.

"Christ. I wonder if there's some kind of prerequisite. Like an ancestral gene of some kind that got passed down."

As for this "magical" Ashdown, at that point, Connor just rolled his eyes and gave his head a shake.

"Oh, of course, why the ******** not. Do you get there through a ******** wardrobe?"

Now the whole might be haunted thing was actually starting to become increasingly more plausible, no matter how much he wanted to ignore it.

"I heard a guy talking about how he could see through the eyes of a bird, called himself, oh, what the ******** was it? A warg? Jesus, I'm starting to think I live in a ******** weird mashup of too many science fiction and fantasy novels."

"You know, as a kid I imagined s**t like this and probably would have thought it was all rad as ******** if I'd found out it was real. Terrifying, but rad as ********. Now it's just god damn terrifying. I saw what those half-animals did to some people, up close and really ******** personal. One guy was lucky he wasn't mopping the floor with his insides when he came down those stairs." Connor shook his head, and took another drink from his glass.

And then nearly choked.

"Wizards." He wheezed. "Now we've got twilight, narnia, game of thrones and Harry ******** Potter covered. Anything else?"