Patrick stopped walking as soon as the side of the road came into sight, hanging back to allow the short fellow introduce himself to Big Mike. However the man did not seem like he intended to stop and chat, instead waddling slightly as he approached the other half of the comically disproportionate pairing, with a flick of his wrist, he pulled a cigarette from the pack poking halfway out of Big Mike's pants, followed by patting his coat before successfully coming up with a battered flip lighter with which he managed to light a spark, and with much apparent pleasure, began to vigorously take a drag, all without Big Mike even acknowledging his presence. Now that may not have been too unusual, but just yesterday he saw Big Mike nearly snap a man's arm in half for trying to take one of his cigarettes. And while the oversized man never seemed to speak in more than a grunt, that didn't mean he was slow or unobservant. Big Mike had eyes that kept track of anybody moving around him, and always managed to make sure his back was never turned to a door or a person in motion, instincts you tend to pick up when spending too much time in violent, enclosed living spaces where your reflexes and wits are all that stands between your kidney and a shiv. Like prison. Or high school.
Yet Big Mike was acting as if he couldn't see the haggard little man in that had such a pungent aroma that he nearly had visible stink lines rising off of me. As if the anomaly in question could sense the look of disbelief that had appeared on Patrick's face, he took the cigarette out of his mouth, waved his hands in front of Big Mike's face without any response, then turned and offered a wink with his overgrown eyebrows.
Thoroughly starting to freak out, and rethinking his mother's offers to go see a therapist if this turns out to be some type of anxiety/boredom fueled hallucination, Patrick closed his eyes, rubbed them with his fist, and when he opened them back up, he let out what a squawk like a chicken being strangled as he fell backwards onto his ass at the sight of the height-challenged enigma that had silently crossed the twenty feet between Big Mike and himself in the seconds his eyes were closed.
"That’s better, breathing some clean smoke instead of this filthy fresh air, and good to see you are courteous enough to continue this discussion at a more civilized height. Never did appreciate you man beasts and your habit of looming over everything. You may be weak and scrawny but at least growing up in the wild seems to have improved your attitude. But look at me, where are my manners. Seamus "Adh" Mac Madra at your service, professional seeker of the lost and redistributor of the hidden."
Patrick managed to scramble back to his feet, drawing a quizzical grunt from Big Mike, who glanced over previously before his eyes unfocused and he went back to spearing old beer cans with his issued poker.
He glanced over at Seamus, who had begun brushing leaves from his oversized fur coat after his self-introduction. "What the hell did you do to Big Mike? And what are you doing out here?" Patrick managed to yell after his brain had managed to catch up to current events.
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"Woah laddy, nothing at all to do with Hell, just a simple Fae glamour, nothing to get your knickers in a twist over. And have you never seen someone sleeping off a blackout before? Kids these days. The more important question though, would be why you can see me, since that lumbering oaf over there proves my glamour is still active, it would imply you aren't the run o' the mill scrawny human child you appear to be at first glance." Seamus circled Patrick as he talked, the oversized bear coat dragging a trail behind him as he went. "Out in the forest, but you don’t have the fresh scent of a dryad, too meaty. Could be a changeling, but they generally don't grow to be so old before maturing. Too scrawny to be any breed of giant, although your friend over there might have some distant ancestors from Muspelheim. Obviously too tall and unlucky to be one of the finest of the Fair Folk like myself…." Seamus words trailed off into a unintelligible mumble as he held his chin and stared at Patrick.
Patrick shook his head as he tried to make sense of the words coming out of Seamus' mouth. "You didn't happen to escape from a mental institution did you? Cause you sound crazier than a cave full of bat shit." The red haired teen turned away from the obviously crazy height-challenged fellow and began walking back towards the county appointed supervisor who stayed near the bus parked further down the highway. Patrick figured they were professional handlers of the criminal and disorderly, perhaps they could use their mysterious bureaucracy based powers and make this creep go away.
"I would imagine my target should be nearby when I woke up, so it could be him. But he seems more like a favorite of that shite blinded trickster Odinson than one of those rigid fuddy duddy planks…" Seamus continued to follow Patrick while looking at him from different angles, and even occasionally taking a sniff. Patrick tried not to freak out and start running, but when he heard the words "target" he began to get a bad feeling and started to pick up his pace. When the two of them were almost around the bend of the road and back in sight of the bus Patrick was driven here on, Seamus abruptly cut off his half mumbled monologue and lifted his nose in the air. "Hel's frozen left tit, never a good sign to be smelling sulfur this early in the morning. Might I kindly suggest we rapidly retire to anywhere the fuck not in that direction?"
Patrick glanced back at the foul mouthed short man that he had been somewhat running from, to see he stopped several paces back with a look halfway between disgust and fear painted on his face. Patrick was going to respond telling him to just leave, since that was his goal in walking this direction in the first place, until he heard a shout from what sounded like his community service supervisor in the distance. "What the fuck are you ugly ass punks supposed to be dressed as?" Patrick couldn't hear whatever the response to the man's question was, though he started to laugh, before his voice abruptly rose several octaves into a hair raising shriek of pain. Patrick started to turn towards the unearthly howls, even if he couldn't quite see what was going on with a few trees in the way, he felt a natural and somewhat morbid curiosity, even as very real fear started to creep up underneath it.
Before he could try and look, Patrick felt more than heard a dull thumping sound that echoed through his head and deep into his chest, before a wave of heat and pressure exploded in the distance and rushed over him. He wasn't able to even finish the motion of turning around before his body was flung off the ground and towards the fur draped Seamus whose mouth was moving in what was likely a very colorful curse that was wasted on Patrick's busted ear drums. Unfortunately for Patrick, despite Seamus opening his arms and acting like he was willing to attempt to catch him, given their height differences, Patrick made a full tumble through the air, passing over the short figure's head and outstretched arms and careening towards the tree behind him. Before Patrick head impacted with the tree and he lost consciousness, he could see a silhouette of a giant figure looming through the roiling mass of flames that had replaced the patch of woodland and highway where the bus had previously stood.