I Don't Belong Here (Peyton?)

[seamus]

Seamus groggily took in his surroundings, rubbing his eyes as a look of confusion came over his features.

"What the hell...?"

The last thing he could clearly remember was popping a few pills and washing them down with rye at Rae's club. This, he assumed, had taken place last night, and judging by the sun filtering through the window, it was about noon the day after. However, the time between the night previous and the now was one giant blank for his mind to draw.

Slowly managing to get to his feet, he put his hand to his forehead, and the world spun.

"I need a 'pick-me-up-in-the-mornin''," he muttered to himself with a pained groan.

How he had managed to get from the Cave to an empty classroom at the Academy was completely beyond him.

[Peyton Howard.]

While Peyton definitely wasn't the brightest bulb in the shed, she wasn't terribly slow on the uptake either, or the piecing-together-of-really-important-tell-tale-signs; like a strange man in her AP English class.

The honest fact of the universe was that Peyton was born to accomplish something outside education; not above, certainly, but outside. In her list of F grades, the consistent D's and the occasional, but rare, C's, Peyton was a pro at English; she reckoned that it had something to do with her freakish inclination toward spelling and grammar and those quixotic little curly things ;
otherwise known as punctuation. It was because of this, and how AP English was easily her most second favorite subject, behind Religious Studies where the incense, wine and talk of brimstone and plebeians was always irresistible, that she actually bothered to return for her forgotten text.

It had been sometime during the previous week that she had remembered about the class assigned reading, and how she had been suspiciously absent from the lesson where they had all gotten distributed. A passing student from Edengrowth had helpfully commented that it was something like a couple of credit points and a significant part of their semester work, and then not so subtly; 'yes, Peyton, you need it. I think there's going to be some comprehension and essay questions for it.' The sound advice had only come back to her that day, and so she found herself actually traveling to class unnecessarily. This was why and when she discovered the strange man.

She gasped, and said, "you bastard," on principles sake, genuinely offended by the man's presence. Man, not a boy and not a teacher that she recognized. This guy was some rebel pervert, maybe a runaway convict; it was hard to tell.
"Don't move," she ordered, looking intimidating in her Pharrell blessed hoodie and bright blue skirt, "otherwise I'll totally scream."

[seamus]

^<3

Luckily for Seamus, he didn't look like a convict, and he was also lucky enough to have not lost any of his more important clothing throughout the night previous; all that he was missing was a sock, even the shoe was there. In fact, he actually looked pretty good; he was dressed to the nines from last night and even his messy hair looked like it could have been styled that way.

When Peyton entered and basically freaked, in a composed manner, he took a second look around the classroom to make sure he hadn't been mistaken as to his surroundings and actually ended up in a bedroom. Because by the sound of things, the girl really wasn't happy to see him there. However, it turned out his soggy mind had actually got it right; this was just a classroom. He'd have to mull over the puzzle of why she was so affronted to see him at a later, more clear-minded, time, though.

He swayed slightly on his feet but otherwise remained stock still, not even moving his hand from his forehead. "Please..." he said, and there was almost a hint of desperation in the word, "don't scream." If there was one thing the Irish man couldn't handle at that moment in time, it would be a scream. He was absolutely sure hearing a noise of that volume in the state he was in would split his head right in two with more efficiency than an axe could ever hope to manage.

He thought, in his current hazy state, that there was something familiar about the girl, and although he would normally chalk it up to having seen so many girls roughly her age at clubs and whatnot that they all began to look alike, there was something about this one that seemed a little more unique than usual.

"I don't know you, do I?" he hazarded, not sure at this point which possibility would work out better for him.

[Peyton Howard.]

"Hmmph, I would hope not," the girl replied in a snooty manner, turning up her nose and all together looking presumptuously insulted, though she wouldn't have been surprised if he did know her somehow; maybe he was a pervert.

Despite her attitude and answer, Peyton couldn't help trying to identify the man. The guy definitely wasn't from Vietnam, or part of the Vietnamese circle she kept in close touch with; he wasn't Thai, and he wasn't from the East coast; she didn't know him from her New Orleans group, although she couldn't be sure for certain; and while she had suspected him to be a convict, she had to admit that she didn't know him from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, where her older brother Nick had spent a month in while her parent's lawyers tried to clear him from charges of assaulting a police officer and being in possession of illegal firearms.

He did seem somewhat familiar though, but Peyton was never said to be a sleuth, or a quick thinker, or a thinker at all really, so she brushed it all aside.

"Ok, buddy," she said, maintaining her stance but thanking God for her great vocal range and that she was close to the door, "this place is kinda exclusive, so you need to explain real fast what you're doing here, otherwise I'm gonna call security and tell them you tried to paw me under my skirt "

[seamus]

It was just his luck that he would run into someone like this hungover and somewhere he'd really rather not be. He hadn't been having a good couple months, why not put a cherry on top of it? If the girl did decide to wrongfully accuse him of whatever it was she was going on about, he was quite sure they'd take her word over his in following with how everything else had been going. It wouldn't be the first time he'd been to jail recently.

"Well then, listen lass, I don't need any convincin' to be on my merry way. But for some rye and a couple pills, I'd be right out your way, sleepin' at home. Now, I was partyin', you gather? Ent up here Lord knows how, likely followed some fast friends back from the club and got lost on my way out."

He tried to shake the haze from his head at this point, but all this served to to was make his dizziness and nausea worse. The headache, he was convinced, could not possibly hurt any more. He considered asking if the girl had a pint handy, but she seemed to be in a somewhat less than accommodating mood and he figured he shouldn't push.

"But if you must be callin' security," he muttered under his breath, "the lads'll probably still remember me anyway. Bit of a trouble-maker in my time here. Hasn't been too long, I'd imagine they're still kickin' around." He chuckled quietly, remembering the trouble he and his friends used to get into, but the though of the twins, now dead, caused a sort of wave of depression to wash over him. This was the very same reason he preferred to be blacked-out drunk.

"Well then, do what you must," the defeated Irishman resigned with a shrug. "But if I've got to be waitin' for security to fetch me, I fancy I'll sit."

He made to do so.

[Peyton Howard.]

It wasn't too difficult to explain; Peyton was an airhead, and so it made every sense that as soon as the guy started saying whole sentences, the first thing she could focus on was just how cool his accent was, and if she could have, she would have boxed it up in a little wind-up musical box to hear whenever she wanted to. Idly, she remembered that Andrew was Scottish or something, and while she couldn't tell the distinction, she did wonder why he didn't sound as adorable. Probably because of the amount of cuss words the boy spoke and the permanent scowl he seemed to wear whenever he was sober, or not sober :/

Focusing, or trying to, she realized that it didn't matter, because either way, she couldn't really understand anything he was saying. He said something about God though, she could guess, and that was a redeeming quality for him if nothing else.

"You used to be a student here?" she asked, grasping what she could understand from the mix of arr's and aye's. The fact didn't make much of a difference, but she hmm'd anyway, thoughtful, an arm around her stomach and the other on her arm, almost protectively; the guy still gave her the tingles, like a possible predator would have and she really couldn't ignore her gut. He was a stranger, or maybe she was just uncomfortable because of her suddenly too revealing attire, but at the same time, he was trying to appeal to her that *he was harmless. Trying to be rational, and failing, she then thought of what her more smarter friends would do in her situation; probably run, or not. More likely cause a fuss and get the guy kicked out; or, yeah, hear him out.

"I don't know," she admitted, after a long moment, visibly unsure so early in the morning; she needed a relaxation session or something.
"I should let them know you're here anyway. They might let you see the nurse or somebody even. You look like shit."

[seamus]

"That I did," Seamus answered from a position seated on the ground. "Not too long ago, either. Not a bad place..."

He may have gone into more detail, if not for the fact that school reminded him of happier times, happier times reminded him of Harmony and the twins, Harmony and the twins reminded him of their respective disappearance and deaths, and those events, in turn, reminded him why he was constantly so depressed and alone. Suffice to say he didn't really want to talk about it, but his general amicable nature dictated that he respond if asked a question. It was only polite.

"Well then, sure, you tell them I'm sittin' hungover in a classroom. Just ask them not to storm in here too loud-like. I've got a headache so splittin' it'd make a bananar in a bed of iced cream jealous."

He didn't actually want to deal with security, or anyone in authority for that matter, but he figured what he wanted counted for very little at this point, and he was counting himself lucky that she seemed to have calmed down. She wasn't screaming, at least, and for that he was eternally thankful.

"Th' name'd be Seamus, by the by," he said, raising his head a small amount so that the smile he'd forced onto his face to be polite could actually be seen by Peyton. "And you've got my apologies if I've caused you any undue amount of worry. It weren't my intention to startle you or anythin' like that."

[Peyton Howard.]

She almost cracked up when he said bananar, mostly because it sounded a lot like 'banana' and she couldn't really figure out how the word was relevant to anything else he'd said. Keeping a straight face became easier when she was reminded of the severity of the situation, which wasn't all too severe actually; she was just flighty around people she didn't know, or couldn't trust. It killed her to be so serious, and so she tried to force some reason into her thoughts.

"Uhm, nice to meet you then," she said to him, a tiny wave in greeting.

His apology was definitely mollifying, even though she was a mad fan of crime shows that proved that 'sorry' could also be a prelude to something more sinister. She shook her head, getting back on track, and offered him the most amount of sense since she'd met him.

"Look, I only came here for a stupid book. So, I guess I'll just get it and go. And you know, pretend like I never saw you, if it makes things easier?"
Because she liked authority figures just as much as he did, by the sounds of it, and if it wasn't really necessary to get them involved, then she wasn't going to. She wasn't doing him any favors, or so she liked to think.

[seamus]

"Likewise," he said, not bothering to ask for a name that he might meet her properly. He wasn't normally a very prying person, and he wasn't about to push his luck now of all times. In fact, she looked ready to believe him, or at least leave him to his own devices, and he couldn't possibly ask for more than that after how she'd initially reacted.

He stood, shakily, as she spoke, and after hearing her purpose for being there, he moved to one side of the room, mostly away from her, and leaned on a wall. Not only did this serve the purpose of holding him from falling over again, but it also got him clear out of her way if she wanted to grab the book, instead of sitting in the middle of the room where she'd have to skirt around him.

He made eye contact here, and although his face was pale and slightly clammy looking, a sort of warmth that hinted at the bright person he might normally be, free of a hangover and the underlying depression, shone through. "That'd be wonderful, miss. Thank you for everything."

He waited until she made for her book to head for the door, trying to keep a respectful amount of distance between them as he did so. The lights in the hallway nearly blinded him, though, and he was left leaning on the wall just outside the door, even more disoriented and his headache even worse.

[Peyton Howard.]

If she was being nice about it, she would have to say that watching him stand up and walk was like watching a baby deer or a giraffe take its first steps. If she had anything else to say, it would be that he looked like he had ten too many to drink and that it was slightly concerning how a man of his stature, whatever stature that was, had come back to a school as the place to pass out at. But she didn't say any of this, instead grinning quickly at his actions and moving even quicker to the back of the classroom where all the texts were kept.

She appreciated his gestures, like really appreciated them; not many people were conscious of others or other social norms that would make coexisting easier. Her retrieval was over before he even got to the door, the book she was after sitting plain as day in the middle of the drawer as it was the only one in there, as she was the only one in class without a book.

Book in hand, she watched him exit the classroom, like an alien or something, staring all bugged at the lights. Shaking her head, she followed him out at a much more sedate and wary pace. She made sure to keep the distance between them as it was, at a distance, and tried to figure out her next course of action.

Friends, well wishers and Andrew were prone to tell her what to do and what not to do, for example; she wasn't meant to walk the streets at night in one of her more adventurous outfits because of the chance she could get picked up for public solicitation, and generally other forms of common sense that she lacked. Almost distinctly, she could hear Draco's voice inside her head; 'you do not touch a hobo, Peyton!' But he wasn't really a hobo, she tried to justify, and eventually, she came to a compromise.

"I think you should go see the Doctor man," she told him, keeping her voice light and even; she sounded rather smart that way.
"I think he's a local practitioner or something as well, so he'd check you out, no problem."

[seamus]

"I appreciate the sentiment, lass," Seamus said, chuckling lightly from under the hand that shielded his eyes from the harsh light. "But it don't take a doctor to tell me to take a handful of painkillers and a glass of water, and stop drinkin' so much."

He patted himself down with his free hand, and was happy to find out that his aviators were miraculously still in his breast pocket, and even better, they weren't crushed. Enthused by this stroke of good luck, he placed the accessory over his aching eyes and flashed Peyton a smile that looked much better on the Irish rocker's face than the previous sickly looks. That was the look had got him famous, as opposed to the look famous had got him.

"And it don't take a genius to figure out that's one piece of advice I'm not takin' any time soon."

Taking stock of his surroundings, Seamus was pleased to see that he was in familiar territory. In fact, he was pretty sure he'd had a class in the very room he'd just left, once upon a time. He would have been even happier if his phone hadn't disappeared, but he would make due with what he had.

"I guess this is goodbye, then," he said, leaving behind the support the wall had offered him and managing to just barely find his centre of gravity.