Twice thus far, other patrons had approached the shadowed booth in the corner to ask the single occupant to close the window behind his seat.  Cináed Tawse simply scratched his nose with a thick thumbnail and, without lifting his head, rolled his eyes to peer through the curtain of still-damp hair at the intruder.  After some vague, murmured apology, the patron would shuffle off and return to their seat. 

Despite his better judgement, Cináed had entered the nondescript pub and had settled down with his drinks immediately upon his arrival.  It was a year, exactly, since Cináed had fled the Aurors at the rubble that had been his mother's house.  A year of learning and perfecting a whole new level of paranoia and distrust.  Normally, he'd remain in his magpie form, watching the location for hours before the reinstated auror's arrival and for some time after the man had entered, to check for any sign of foul play or trickery.  But, Cináed was tired and weary.  He still had the ever-present escape route, in the form of the open window behind him, but Cináed had skipped the cold, monotonous hours of sitting around in wet, sticky, itchy feathers.

The glass of beer still sat at Cináed's left elbow, undisturbed.  His large hands were wrapped around the warm mug of coffee as he kept a careful eye on the door.  There was nothing special about the little muggle pub the magically-concealed map would lead Jonas Trevelyan to.  It was the type of place that only had a name so the muggle telephone book could properly alphabetize it.  There was an abundance of tinted windows along the exterior - enough to get a good view of anyone approaching the building - but, the tinted window and shadows inside cloaked its patrons from the wandering eyes of passerbys. 

Cináed spotted Trevelyan at the corner as the Ginger approached, his eyes following the man's progress until he reached the booth.  Only when the man was at close range, well within the depths of the muggle-filled pub, did Cináed's gaze leave the man to scan the road and sidewalk outside.  There was no noticeable difference in the foot traffic or energy.  No sudden abundance of long-robed blokes.  No inexplicable dispersal of pedestrians.  Nothing to indicate there was more to Trevelyan's arrival. 

"Not sure whether to be grateful or disappointed," Cináed turned back towards Trevelyan, straightening in his booth.  "Suppose there's a bit of a distraction, what with the unfortunate curtain call."  His usual humor was dulled, slightly, but still present.  It was good, after all, to be speaking with another adult.  Oh, how he missed normal, adult interaction. 

"I'm surprised you did come alone."

Spotting Cinaed Tawse in a pub was a bit like happening across a wild yeti on the Matterhorn; natural environment or not, some things simply stood out.  Jonas shot the other wizard a lopsided grin as he approached, shaking the remains of the dampness off his coat as he slung it over one arm.

It was fair to say that he hadn't put very much thought into security.  Really, if Tawse wanted to ambush him, there were far simpler ways to do it than to invite him to a drink somewhere in London -- and on that note, there were far more visible Aurors to try and kill.  Even more than that, he was happy to preserve this odd line of communication.  There had barely been a rustle from Cináed Tawse over the past year, but the Auror Office had a notoriously itchy trigger finger when the huge Scottish wizard was involved.  He'd rather go in with no back-up -- just a quick text to his wife to ask her to get in touch with Tamis or Archer if he didn't check in within an hour or two -- than risk someone getting antsy.

He took a seat, draping his coat over the back of the chair.  Flashing Tawse a bright smile, he arranged himself so that he was sitting at an angle, still able to watch most of the pub behind him. 

"Let's just say I appreciate the courtesy of an invitation," he said cheerfully.  Which he did -- this had been no ambush while he'd been waiting for Chinese takeaway, his kids drawn in by an Akiva Eleor doppelgänger.  Tawse could have certainly gone that route again, but he hadn't.  Jonas hoped that the lack of familial involvement was a gesture on the Scottish wizard's part; either way, for the moment, he was content to return in.

For their first encounter in several long months, Tawse certainly didn't look as if life on the road had particularly agreed with him.  The big wizard had never been the quiet or sullen sort; Jonas half-suspected that that was the grand reason why Tawse had managed to build the WBA at all, drawing so many others to himself through sheer force of powerful personality.  But something about him seemed different now.  More withdrawn, more world weary.  Maybe his time apart from being a functional and integral member of society was starting to wear on him.

"Believe it or not, they don't give me every case that happens across Raynor's desk," he remarked nicely, leaning back comfortably in the chair as he stretched his bad knee out under the table.  Raising his eyebrows, he surveyed the big wizard thoughtfully.  "So what's on your mind?  Not the Opera, certainly -- that doesn't seem like your work."

As Jonas got himself settled and situated, Cinaed lifted the mug of coffee and cradled it, once more, between his fingers.  There was still a little warmth left in the contents of the mug, but not much.  In short order, it would be cooled beyond use and he couldn't exactly whip out his wand and rewarm it, could he?  He lifted the mug, drained the contents into his mouth before sliding the mug to the side. 

He smirked at the man's cheerful tone.  "Yes.  I can imagine."  Impersonating that Eleor woman had been easy - he'd had some left over hairs from when he'd taken her a couple years back.  But, he hadn't expected Jonas to appreciate the manner of their previous meeting.  "I had more confidence you'd respond to an invitation." 

Cinaed's beard twitched as he pursed his lips and shook his head.  "No."  He answered simply, easily.  It had taken a few days for word of the Opera to reach him but it didn't take a genius to conclude seemingly random mass killings wasn't his style.  "Indiscriminate, pointless killings aren't really my thing.  It was a shame.  Besides, only someone wealthy would think to use the deaths of working entertainers as an extension of their own entertainment." 

Now, had that new pretty Admete Brown been the one dangling from the rafters when the curtains opened...  But, Cinaed kept that particular thought to himself. 

For once, this meeting had little to do with Britain's criminal underworld.  Cinead leaned back against the hard, wooden booth and pursed his lips.  "I've run into a situation and I could use your advise," Cinaed admitted.  For one who could find himself in any manner of crude and distasteful conversations, this was a surprisingly awkward topic.  "Unfortunately, my usual ... social cohorts are not the best suited for this kind of predicament.  They're borderline useless.  We're having an issue with ... bedtime." 

Cinaed arched his eyebrows and peered across the table at Jonas.  "How do you make them sleepy?"

It was a strange relationship indeed between himself and Cináed Tawse.  In another world -- in a lifetime where they'd both made different decisions, or one where Tawse's measures had not become quite so extreme -- Jonas could very easily imagine himself as an ally or friend to the hairy Scottish wizard.  Many of Tawse's criticisms of the Ministry of Magic were dead on: the way it put the privileged first, the way it ostracized those on the outside.  If it hadn't been for the unfortunate fact that he was willing to threaten, torture, and murder to accomplish his goals -- and the whole hatred for Muggleborns bit -- the Auror would have been hard-pressed to disagree with him.

Even now, he found that he was having to constantly remind himself just how far the younger man was willing to go.  Akiva's kidnapping and abuse, the threats against Dreogan and Adon's mother, Robards's murder, the attack on Tamis, the enchantment of Aberdeen Spencer and the kidnapping of her son, even Macduff's crimes from the prior spring: sitting here with Tawse, Jonas had to constantly run through the list in his mind, if only to keep himself from feeling too sympathetic.

It was both a personal failing and a strength, this ability to feel so strongly where an enemy was coming from.  In the end, Jonas hoped that it would be the latter.  Maybe someday, the sort of interaction that he enjoyed with Tawse would provide the key to finishing this.  But even if all that came from it was that it kept him human -- kept him from forgetting that deadly force or not, the other side were people too -- then he was more than willing to bear the burden.

Right now, sitting across the table from him, posing a question that Jonas would have expected from a younger coworker and not a fugitive terrorist who was currently on the run, Cináed Tawse seemed very, very human himself.

Jonas very nearly lost it.  Clearing his throat loudly, he put a hand to his face, though it did not do much to hide his grin.

"Ahhh..."  He coughed loudly into his fist, a weak disguise for the laughter that was threatening to escape.  "Bedtime?" he repeated, with an enormously crooked smile.  "It's not your social cohorts that you're asking after, I hope.  If you are, that's a tremendously important bit of intelligence that you've just handed to the Ministry.  Now we'll know to stage our raid at dawn the next time."

Though both men had come unarmed and under a mutually understood peace agreement, a certain amount of tension and uncertainty was to be expected.  Despite their mutual respect, they were still both on very different sides of a conflict.  Friendly.  Cordial.  But, not wholly without some degree of personal motivations and benefit.  There was a particular dance that came with these types of interactions.  A guarded openness.  A superficially casual interaction where every word, every comment was weighed and double checked for any revealing content. 

This was, perhaps, why Cinaed's question had seemed so out of place and had garnered such a reaction from Trevelyan.  Far from adding to the tension, though, a grin broke across Cinaed's face and he ducked his head and shook it.  For Cinaed at least, the moment of laughter seemed to cut through some of the underlying tension. 

"No, no."  Cinaed laughed, leaning back against the booth.  "I have no problem with such things with my ... social cohorts."  Though, as of late, even 'cohort bedtime' had been suffering from the current state of his social life.  "Though, I don't think our crowd not being morning folks is exactly news to you all.  The hags are the only ones up before ten down Knockturn."  Given the number of pre-dawn inspections Raynor had inflicted on him over the years, Cinaed suspected the Ministry was well aware of that fact. 

All amusement aside, Cinaed shook his head.  "The last month, Fionn's hit this stage.  He gets a hyper streak around seven and I can't get him to sit down, let alone sleep, before ten.  I'm-"  In all honesty, some days he felt a bit out of his league with a toddler.  Whoever thought it could be so difficult?  "I'm not sure what we're doing wrong."

What were they doing wrong?  The answer to the question seemed somewhat obvious -- kidnapping him from his adoptive parents and subjecting him to an unstable life on the lam -- but throwing that suggestion out there was not likely  to aid in building rapport, or increasing Jonas's life expectancy, or any of those mostly nominal things that he liked to consider daily goals.  Instead, the red-haired Auror bit his tongue, turning partway in his chair to glance at the bar.

"You mind if I order something?  You alright with that?" he asked, nodding to the Scotsman's dual coffee-beer combination.

At this point, Jonas thought that he nearly deserved a gold medal for maintaining his composure -- or at the very least, induction into the Order of Merlin -- and so he cleared his throat, leaning an elbow on the back of his chair as he read over the menu that was hanging over the bar.

"Yeah, kids have a mind of their own," he agreed good-naturedly.  "I could tell you some stories.  Me lad, the little one, he went through a period where I can't calculate out how he got any sleep at all.  How old's your boy now?" he asked, peering at Cinaed.  "Got to be coming up on his fourth birthday, yeah?"

"Be my guest."  Cinaed's gaze shifted over towards the bar where it locked on the young lad pouring a beer for another patron.  With a nod and a brisk gesture, the young man abandoned his current task and hurried towards their table.  "Another coffee.  And, whatever's edible," he instructed, without looking at the menu, before gesturing towards Trevelyan. 

Completely oblivious to the moral uncertainty the man across from him was struggling with, Cinaed leaned back against the wooden booth and took a long swig of his beer.  The morals of the situation seemed simple and straightforward to him.  The child was his.  He'd never agreed to any adoption - that auror and her muggle husband had stolen him.  And, the Ministry would never have given the likes of him a chance to claim him back.  His choices had been limited from the start and, now, Azkaban was the only alternative. 

He stood to lose everything and gain nothing.  What were his options?

"Yeah.  Four in May.  The nineteenth."  Luckily, Colburn was able to determine the lad's exact birthdate from basic Ministry records before his cover was blown.  "He's growin' fast and sometime in the last few months he's developed this ... firebolt speed.  Starts racing around the house and then out chasing the goats and chickens." 

Cinaed Tawse took a deep breath and leaned forward, resting his arms against the table top.  "So, it's a phase, then?  Somethin' he'll grow out of?  It'll just ... go away?"