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The meeting had been weighing on his mind for some time. His brain turned in circles of hows and whys and wow, let's not kill anyone's. But he alone was not enough. Horace needed other input. Logically, he would bother Shiloh, who knew the most about things. But Shiloh was also two fries short of a collapse.

So it brought up the question of who else Horace could trust. And the answer was surprisingly obvious. He had to marvel for a second about how many friends he'd made in such a short space of time, but, ultimately he was here - at a certain apartment looking for one to two blondes. It sounded like a terrible craigslist ad.

Horace knocked.

Oliver was sitting further inside, his body situated at the kitchen table rather than the comfortable couch, the letters opened up in front of him. He seemed to be comparing the two for some reason, but they were undoubtedly the same. The tea he had been nursing all morning was starting to get a little cool. He had half a mind to ask Shiloh about it (there was no doubt he was going crazy with it), but they were still on awkward terms and Ollie hadn't answered any of his brothers calls.

He only noticed the door was being knocked on when Pascal started his delicate boofs, but Elliot was already om the move. He was inviting them in, whoever they were. This did not narrow down the list.

Elliot loved people. It could be anyone.

He took a sip of his earl grey. "Who's at the door?" He asked without looking over his shoulder.

"Sugar?" There was a deeper curl his lips. Of all the nicknames Horace could've chosen, that one didn't quite feel like it fit him. It was funny, really, and it brought a small, glittering amusement back to his eyes. "You're fine, don't worry about a thing." Pascal, of course, was equally pleased if not more so. Probably more so.

"It's Horace," he told Ollie, shutting the door behind them. Or Batman, but Eli wasn't privy to that particular introduction. "We just made coffee and tea," he looked back at Horace, "Would you like a cup?"

"Oh, do you prefer honey? Or 'you are my candy boy?" He snorted. "Mm, a cup of coffee might be nice." He moved into the kitchen, one brow winging up at Oliver's reaction.

"Hi, Oliver." Are you okay, Ollie? "Did you guys get the letters, too, by the way?" Horace was trying hard not to stare at Oliver's lips. He liked to pretend he was successful.

Oliver heard the mental ping, but he didn't say anything in return, not internally. "Yeah, we both did." They were behind him on the table. His lips were pursed as he mulled over his words. "I'm assuming you're probably invested in this debacle, right?"

His phone vibrated from the counter near by. Probably Shiloh, but he ignored it.

"I'm honestly not sure what to even do about it." He sipped his tea again. Geeze Oliver, don't have too much motivation. The banter shared between the two of them had his face giving them looks, raised eyebrows, curious in the 'killed the cat' way.

"I've gotten a bit of a rundown already, but it probably wouldn't hurt to hear it again." Finally he sat, taking his own mug between both hands. The coffee was pale with creamer and sugar, but Eli didn't bother to take a drink. "I'll be honest, as well. I don't know how much help I would be. If any." And it was honest, if not a touch self-depreciating. "I'm not even sure what my own abilities are yet."

Now he took a drink. "But I did promise to help you, didn't I?" It had been a promise over a totally different subject, but that was a minor detail. "So if I can..."

Despite knowing just as well that Oliver's text was probably from Shiloh, he didn't say anything, just looked between the phone and its owner. It had been like this for some time now.

"You did." He smiled at Elliot, even though this wasn't the same thing at all. He took a deep breath, then faltered when Ollie grabbed his wrist. "Is your hand okay?"

And then he frowned at Oliver's sudden words. "He's kind of involved whether he wants to be or not, Ollie. He deserves to at least know as much as possible..." Maybe the words meant that Oliver was awakening his true, secret feelings of love for Elliot. Augh. No, no, that was good. His expression shifted for a second, looking kind of stricken, but he covered it up.

"Anyway, there's three magic symbols, sigils. This one is the charter and it put into place a lot of weird rules and restrictions. And they kind of dragged an innocent girl into it as a component. So there's the paper,,,, and then there's Melany. And everyone voted to destroy the charter, but I need to find out how to do it without killing her." There, that was succinct.

"Fine." He huffed, thumb still kneading his wrist, "I haven't been minding my stretching when I play. Bad habit." Which, anyone who knew how zealous Oliver was about his hands, would know that was an utter lie. Still.

"I guess if that's what you want though..." He was relenting, but it was obvious his heart still wasn't completely into it. Magic was something he always felt one step behind in, and Oliver hated being second best at anything (despite his long monologues about how talent is a myth, practice makes perfect, the works). "Isn't the deal with Melany that... she has the charter inside of her? Surely there's a way to separate it without killing her, right?" He tapped his chin, "Though I suppose if you merely separated it, that still doesn't mean you've destroyed the damn thing..."

"Are you sure we should be doing this? We barely know anything. We'll probably just make it worse." His tea was growing cold. Oliver hated cold tea, but he was sipping it again anyway. "It'd be better if we talked to someone more knowledgeable before we end up slaughtering half of Ashdown on accident. I feel like once we've involved ourselves into something like this, then there's no backing out."

Then again, Oliver had apparently gotten involved a long, long time ago.

"Are you willing to accept that, Elliot?" He raised an eyebrow curiously. Magic was innocuous at first—subtle—but once it took hold of you—really sunk its roots into you, really dug its claws into you—it snowballed more and more and more into the realm of bizarre and unmanageable.