Aedan seemed to receive him better when he was not putting on airs and he felt a little more at ease even though he still perched like a bird on the edge of the offered chair. It was comfortable and his body wanted to sink into it, but he wouldn’t let it. He needed to be alert in case the need to run for a door or a window suddenly arose, not that any of that would help. He was on high alert even if his body asked him to relax, unused to the excessive amount of nervousness he felt. He struggled not to let his unease show on his face knowing that any amount of weakness might set the man off down a path darker than just harsh words. He had mentioned many things that were perhaps only half-truths. It was easier to lie around something that really existed, bent like an illusion of scattered light around the real truth. The off shore accounts he held were not difficult to acquire funds from, this part he felt was the cheapest part of his fabrication. He did not want to be parted from his home, even if it made things more difficult. He may might never have been able to come back had he left and continued his work elsewhere. He might not have been able to visit his parents burial site ever again. The thought of it stung him deeply.<br/><br/><br/>Another fabrication? The research he had ‘hidden’ was not of a physical nature, but he would need to convince his employer that it needed to be retrieved in case this whole ordeal was just an elaborate federally organized plot to have him reveal his every hidden secret. It was a highly paranoid perspective to have, but it was the only way that anyone could gain a case against him and he had to cover all options. If he were allowed to leave and discovered that any of his many storage facilities or family held properties were broken into, he would know that someone had gone snooping. He would run were that the case, escape the country while he was still a free body. They would find nothing of worth there... all of the information was tucked neatly away in his profoundly organized mind. Part of the reason that Van always looked so distant was that he was constantly sifting through all of the information that was trapped in near picture perfect recollection in his memory. It gave him many advantages in life, but it also took away a great deal of it as well.<br/><br/><br/>Govannon thought he saw, in Aedan, all he had been searching for through his many years of toil and failure. A survival instinct strong enough to overcome even the most wretched of circumstances. A powerhouse of rebellion and a deep resolve to persist even against nature itself. It was a backwards flow, a tide pushing against the current of a vast immaterial ocean. The ocean of time. The ocean of inevitable death. This man knew he was worth more than just sustenance for the earth to fed on. He was worth a life worth living, even if that life ultimately ended with old age. He craved it at least, or why would he try so hard to push forward against what Van thought was a hopeless situation? Given current medicine’s lack of power to help him overcome it, his prospects looked rather grim. He was only borrowing time, and from the looks of it, repayment was eminent.<br/><br/><br/>Aedan was strong. He could perhaps become Van’s piece de resistance, his crowning jewel. He could be the one that changed both of their dreary fates... if he could be trusted. Van knew that he was currently in a very precarious position. If these men were not working for the agency then they were in fact criminals of some sort. The lonely property, the weapons hidden everywhere (according to Raff), the disinterested way in which Aedan spoke of the black market or how Raff had revealed his nonchalance at taking a life, his life. He knew that the possibility of his escape, if unwanted, was very slim if not completely impossible. He feared they might wish only to use him for his mind only to toss his own lifeless corpse into a refinery furnace somewhere (if they wanted to completely obliterate his remains) as some morbid repayment of equal exchange. One death for one life. It wouldn’t have been unheard of for someone of a more deific inclination.<br/><br/><br/>As he pushed the man with his questions he noticed the willful look he was given in reward for one of his rather annoying habits, to question everything. To want to know even the most minute details with which he could formulate a list of criteria. He needed to know how the man before him functioned and even Aedan sitting there in his defiant silence gave him some answers. He was guarded, good. It would take time to chip away some of that exterior, but Van felt certain that it would have to happen at some point in the future if they were truly meant to work together. It was just a preliminary observation he wished to complete in the moment, something to keep his mind off of his nerves as much as possible. The way that his maybe-employer watched him gave him pause. He felt that this miserable castaway was trying to analyze him in quite a similar fashion. The glimmer in his eyes was of some flavor of lividity but also curiosity and the former doctor found it to be eerily similar to his own in some aspect.<br/><br/><br/>Govannon blinked when he was accused of madness. The thought had never occurred to him that he would be invited here only to be insulted so vehemently. This man was barely one haphazard breath away from being a rigor-riddled corpse laying across Death’s doormat, fighting an invisible war with the very same intangible concept that Van himself sought to overcome, an anomaly pushing back against the forces that bound him... and he had the nerve to call anyone else crazy? “If you seek to wound me, you are reaching in the wrong direction Aedan.” The man’s name rolled off of his tongue like the slip of a dagger. “The world around me has likely already called me out of my name in every possible way you can imagine, it was quite a feat, I must admit. If you mean to cause me true harm by what you think of me, send me away from here. Let me rot away out in the world with the rest of the visonless fools and you may continue to die in peace.” Various blue screens loomed in his mind’s eyes, full of hate filled comment sections, bemused tv journalists, and vile text messages.<br/><br/><br/>The sudden showing of scars had Van leaning forward with his critical eye. He had caught a glimpse of them at the door and under the soft light in the entrance hall. Even as they sat there in the roomy parlor, the edges of them had poked out from Aedan’s loose and disheveled collar, but he could not have analyzed them freely without the man noticing immediately. Now, he let his eyes lead him on a journey. Each mark told a portion of a story, the age of the scarring, the way it manifested. They were angry and horrific in nature, telling of a crime of passion, though what kind of passion was up for debate. Two things were certain to Van in that moment. One, Aedan’s attacker or attackers had relished in their chore. They had done it willingly and with great care to cut in a way that would provide maximum suffering without killing the man right away. They had wanted him to suffer and they had worked with very skilled hands. The other was that Aedan was perhaps stronger than he had given him credit for at first. As the man opened up about a portion of his medical history and divulged information about his past, Van finally settled back into the chair fully, pressing his back firmly against the soft backrest, keen to listen with all of his attention lest he miss a detail. When the man waved dismissively in regards to his current ailment, Govannon spoke without thinking, “Accute Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis due to a complication from cancer treat- ...apologies... I gathered as much from your more apparent symptoms and what little bit of information your ... coffee barer told me. Please, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” He nodded for Aedan to go on, fearful of the look he received in response for talking over the man in his momentary lapse of judgement.<br/><br/><br/>The former doctor marveled that Aedan had made it as far as he had, and even then he was still so young, almost a decade younger than his current guest. He spoke of struggle and survival, all valuable experiences in some form or another. Everyone experienced their own trials, Aedan’s just happened to be of a more tragic leaning. He didn’t blame him for his disregard for decorum or piss poor attitude about other’s feelings. It fit the mold that his life had created for him, and even then he sought to break it still. He should have been long dead, probably many times over at that, and yet, here he sat.<br/><br/><br/>The blonde found himself in a den of lions. Another apparent killer in his midst, not merely a wealthy, overly paranoid, gun toting agoraphobe, but a full fledged murderer. Van had a feeling far before then, but it was confirmed now by Aedan’s own lips. Raff joined them again carrying coffee and cups on a pretty tray. Van couldn’t help but to think that Aedan looked like a villain he’d seen in one of the mysteriously rented movies on one of his service provider’s prime networks. The way he sat in his chair and blew over his steaming cup of coffee made him look one ugly smash-faced cat away from a full-blown malevolent mastermind.<br/><br/><br/>Govannon nodded to Raff with a polite smile when he was offered coffee second in line. He did not accept it because it would have been rude not to, or because he particularly liked coffee... he didn’t. He accepted it in order to show a measure of trust between them. Raff had spent a long while in the kitchen brewing, and it was likely good as Italian’s tended to know their way around a coffee, even when it was made in the American style. Or however Aedan liked it (probably with a spike of smooth whiskey). It could have been laced, however, with some orderless, tasteless drug. Van himself was not above such acts, and so they became a possibility of anyone, these two men in particular. It was worth the chance in his eyes. He was done for either way at this point. He could see no benefit in fighting it.<br/><br/><br/>There wasn’t any sugar or cream to be seen, of course the man liked it black. Van would have preferred to ruin it with condiments, forming it into a cloudy sweet concoction, an offense to them both, likely. He just preferred things that were sweet. He blew softly over the steamy surface as well once it was handed to him and looked over to Aedan as he brought it to his lips which were smiling handsomely from the other side of the mug, “So, we have an agreement then.” he purred before taking a tentative sip. He grimaced at the bitterness but pushed through another gulp before settling the warm mug in his lap. He tilted his head a bit and a stray ashen lock fell across his face. “Speaking of killing... what exactly is it that you do for a living, if I might ask? You know a great deal of me already, and now I have some picture of the story you propose to me. It leaves me in a place, curiously unfulfilled. What type of life does one generate under such dire circumstances? You have some medical background, obviously, but you did not follow in your late father’s footsteps entirely. No, you’re somewhere else. Something in between the light and the dark. Am I close?” He asked rather bleakly though his face retained its relaxed amusement as he lifted the dark acidic liquid to his lips once again.<br/><br/><br/>“I have no desire to cross you so long as you are able to supply me with the things I need. My research in question is secure and would undoubtably give you a more precise picture than anything I can tell you now. I’m sure that you would rather see it anyway, than listen to me go on about my dreams and aspirations. You have a lovely home here, but I am in need of a sterile and unencumbered environment in which to work. I suspect now that you may have something like this on hand? I would like to see it at some point, to better assess my needs. There is no need to be lofty with expenditures, the equipment I need it quite available and I can make do with the bare minimum until you begin to see desired results. We can renegotiate then.” He paused his rambling and looked briefly to Raff, “I only assume that you will have to keep me under watchful eye in the beginning, but I do hope to impress upon each of you my interest in bringing forth results in a timely fashion. The time may come when I require my privacy, and I need to know that I will not find myself in disagreement...” Again his honey colored eyes shifted to Aedan in his squishy leather chair. “I will likely need as much cooperation as you are able to give when I ask difficult things of you and your man here. If you are, as you say you are, these requests may prove to be a bit more ... ordinary.” He was being intentionally vague at this point. He couldn’t lay all of his cards out on the table just yet, but the suggestion was laid bare in any case.<br/><br/><br/>“How shall we move forward, gentlemen?”