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Alg had been occupying himself as much as possible since they'd gotten back. Any time he was alone was spent writing or reading, poking something digital, or working on school work to avoid any sort of inner reflection. Eventually he'd simply live himself through the memories of Ball and what it meant, because so far as he could tell nothing about the world had changed.

There was a voice on the other side of the door distantly, something like 'In a Minute!' and after a few moments the professor appeared in a cardigan sweater and his socks. He peered curiously around the edge of the door before straightening and opening it a bit more briskly, "Thorne-"

A hand ran through his hair, straightened his shirt and sweater, and adjusted his belt a moment before he smiling and waving him in, "Come in, I'm sorry I didn't know you were coming."

The entry to the house had an umbrella bin, coat hooks, and a particular chair that seemed to be piled with various bits of the older men's clothing that had been shed coming in or going out of the house.

"How are you? Should I put some tea on?" The airs weren't forced, he was a polite man, but in the wake of everything that had happened they seemed to be made with a bit more effort.

Alg smiled a bit crookedly, "I was just writing." There may have actually been a t-shirt on under that cardigan. How casual of him.

The put together facade that everyone saw when Algie was out of the house was carefully curated. Each clothing selection, each tie and pair of shoes and waistcoat, all a selected piece of armor for the Algernon that got presented to the public.

"Never apologize for baked goods," Alg laughed and glanced over his glasses with a finger wag, "Though Jeremiah is very possessive of my consumption of sweets. Hopefully they meet his standards- then he won't be so cross." Alg winked casually and moved into the kitchen.

"Relax, take off your blazer if you'd like," He could sense the slight anxiety, the search for safety, and perhaps he could help him with it once they settled. Alg did have a touch for it.

The kitchen was clean, bright and open with all the warm signs of living. Dirty gardening shoes by the back door, cat bowls tucked against a wall, used tea cups in the sink, and a kettle seemingly always at the ready by the stove. Jeremiah's organized kitchen sense and state of the art appliances mixed seamlessly with Alg's slightly lazier messier ones, cat and teaching themed mugs or a slightly saucy looking apron chucked across a chair.

A particularly long white cat was sprawled in the middle of the floor in a patch of sun. Violetta lifted her head and yawned at Thorne.

"I'm glad you've got one another to help get through it," Gay Gay Gay. Alg was making a kettle anyway. He happened to be ready for a cup of tea at any time of day.

"Ah-" Questions to himself were met with a pause and Alg turned away from the water on the burner to move to the table, "I think I'm more uncomfortable with what others may think of me, than I am about any decision that was made." It was honest if nothing else.

Violetta rose from the sunny patch with an arch and a stretch. She seemed stretchier, larger, and more pliable than her siblings. What Hellbine and Bergamot had in energy, she seemed to make up for in size. He nose twitched at the air before she approached Thorne, sniff-sniffed him, and then purred and flopped across his foot.

"Well the new Red Herring book is out in the beginning of the year, if you follow-" He wasn't sure if Thorne read them, "But just short form things.. and a bit of this and that." Alg hadn't shared his grimoire with anyone with Jeremiah and even his husband found little use in it. Since the ball though he'd spent extra care going over the writing, the dialogue inside, the back and forth that he was now positive was with Noeh - Mina - The Sorrowful One.

"Well I'll take liver failure over coffee anyday," Alg chuckled as he leaned against the kitchen counter and the kettle heated, "You know I doubt you need to bribe him, Thorne." There was perhaps a bit of a smile there, an encouragement for whatever it is worth, "I'm sure you do as much for him as he does for you."

The change in the young man's demeanor was glaring. The posture, the manners, and it hurt a bit as much as it was impressive. He hated to think that the other maybe had needed the learned structure, that the benefits would help him in the long run, but he also knew they had also come at a great price.

"Pleased?" The older man himself, and his husband, held themselves to a higher standard of behavior and manner in public, also long ago learned and in some cases beaten into them. But time had softened it. Still, it had been obvious at the ball that Alg and Jeremiah both knew how to handle themselves in court. "I'm satisfied that Adoelle chose the end she wanted."

"Thank you for that," He nodded to Thorne's assessment. "I just wish I knew if it was the right action. There's too many pieces scattered, too much powerplay that I don't understand." He sighed and rubbed his face, "I just wish I knew more and could be sure we'd all settled on the right decision.. Or at least something beneficial to us."

The professor straightened a bit and approached the table to go through what Thorne had brought, producing the bottle and baked goods and setting them down. "So you- You're alright with what happened to you?" His brow furrowed. Of course it couldn't be reversed but Thorne seemed very calm about it, "You've a new.. bearing."

"I think you're right," Alg watched Thorne seeming to shift and struggle with living in this skin now, this new version of himself that he was still learning to be.

The older man sighed and pushed his glasses up his nose a moment, "About there not being a right and wrong choice. We could have chosen anyone to die, or no one, and we'd still be standing here wondering what it all meant and there would be blood inevitably anyway.."

Sometimes it seemed hopeless, the need to understand all of this and put the pieces together.

The kettle interrupted, a shrill whistle that made Alg jolt before huffing and turning to it. He pulled it from the heat and brought down mugs and the tea. The professor motioned to a chair for the still lingering young man. Sit. Relax. This isn't court. Have a breather.

"You know," Alg glanced softly at Thorne over his glassed. The older man's eyes were remarkably green, an uncanny shade that usually hid behind his glasses and his husband often told him to 'put away', "Being alright doesn't mean being the man you were before. It just means finding your place how you are now." He smiled, "I'm sure you'll be fine. You're strong."

He set himself in a chair, adding quite a bit of sugar to his cup and garnering the attention of his cat who rolled off of Thorne's shoes to pad over and beg for whatever she could get from Alg. Nothing.

The question of powerlessness was a heavy one. It was a feeling he was overly acquainted with, but Alg was usually protective of his emotions, held them tight in little boxes, filed away for a later date.

Something in his jaw tensed as he thought of it, "Yes."

He'd only ever felt impressive with Jeremiah. Even as younger men. He'd only gotten the gall to fight his own battles when spurred by the other. Without him he'd sunk into himself for years, closed himself up and disappeared.

With Jeremiah he could always fight for something... alone he knew he was weak. Disappointing.

"You have to admit there seems to be a depressing futility to it all sometimes," Alg said seriously. "I saw Heliodora you know, in a vision months ago. Slit from ear to ear, like the Survivor said. Like Adoelle," There was a pause and a sip of his tea, "I knew it would happen, these kids dying. And I was told that the more we knew, the more we tried, the more likely we'd fail."

What was more powerless than feeling like you failed before you started?

Alg listened and stared into his tea a moment. He had nothing to compare with what Thorne had gone through and he knew the reality of it had to be worse, leaps and bounds worse, than what the young man could rally to tell him.

Broken to be rebuilt. Smashed together and re-pieced as something else with the same general appearance, but taller and straighter, polished over the cracks until they disappeared on the outside.

"If it hadn't been Adoelle or one of our people," Alg admitted, some steel lurking behind his normally dulcet tone, "Melany.. Sunny.." There was an unexpected hardness in how he said her name, "I would have done it."

Those green eyes glanced up again. "What does that say about me? I would not have hesitated. Would not had worried about people's opinion of it..."

Perhaps he'd be happy to murder a doppelganger knowing it wasn't human. Was the professor, under the paunch and sweater armor, really a killer? To not differentiate even when he knew humans could be inherently harmful and supernatural things weren't all bad. He still would have hardly flinched when the knife was pressed into his palm and one of their throats were bared to him.

"I hope that if we'd lost it wouldn't drag things out," Alg frowned and ran a hand through his hair, giving him a mild cowlick, "Which perhaps means that we haven't."

He knew Thorne was right and there was some shame of his own that the younger man had to reassure him. Alg hadn't given up hope. If he had, Alg would just knock Jeremiah out and load them both onto a plane never to return. But it was hard for him, had always been, to find his niche - his place - the comfort (or even pressure) to improve and grow.

He smiled at Thorne to hear him want to fight for all of them and the older man nodded, "I do..."

But it was clear from Alg's tone that he just didn't know how.

Alg couldn't help but think of his grandfather, lecturing him on how certain things belonged in their proper place. He remembered his mother, ever middle class with the her group of higher caliber friends. Being told how to properly speak, and stand and act. What was appropriate and what was not, to give and give of himself for the sake of appearances. He remembered Jeremiah's father reminding him, reminding Jeremiah, that Alg wasn't one of them. Even if Jer had battled it, fought it and rejected it and gave Alg something to stand up for, he remembered the way the other boys in their school looked at him for being lesser or different.... He'd never quite been good enough. Even now it lay there at his core, buried and unspoken, that things didn't come as easy for him. He wasn't quite enough.

Alg smiled lightly, "And I'm here as well. If you need anything. Besides we've got those-" Chris. Jeremiah. He shrugged, "That we've got to be better for." Because they deserved better.

Alg touched his chin and mouth a moment, rubbed his hand along his finely stubbled jaw, "Can I ask you something?" A pause, "Did you meet Noeh when you were on that side?"

Alg was pensive, as if he was unsure just how much he should share.

"She and I... are connected. Somehow." It wasn't as if he had been given any clear definition but he'd met her before, spoken to her, and he knew she was definitely related to he and Jeremiah. His conjectures about her identity, only made him more adamant. "And I'd met her before the ball."

Her glasses, those familiar blue eyes and the quirk of her smile that rang in him poignantly, her curled brown hair, her accent and oxfords.. the rings she clutched protectively at her breast. It made him strangely happy to know she'd been a help to Thorne, a sweet person and a positive influence.

"I want to help her. I want to give her the court back." He looked up at Thorne firmly.