"Ayden wants to see you. I'd say don't keep him waiting but... you need a bath," the older man commented, eyeing him with some distaste. Fionn found himself gazing down at his uniform for the first time and the various things that splattered and stained it, sniffing his skin as well. He’d had a bath yesterday so any sweat on his skin was today’s, not likely to stink. All the boy could smell was salt. For anyone else, he would have been inclined to shrug it off. If it had been Fred then he simply would have gone, dealt with whatever needed to be dealt with and then gone off to wash.
However, the blond remembered quite clearly just how particularly the older passive was about cleanliness. Perhaps that was part of the reason why he’d allowed himself to become so darn slovenly in the last number of years. That being said, the one habit he hadn’t lost and perhaps the most important one in Ayden’s book was clean hands.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t intended to wash, he’d just come back to the dorm to drop off some things, namely the tiny bit of kojala oil he’d gotten from the kitchens and a piece of paper that he’d found in a trouser pocket while he’d been in the laundry. Both had their uses and the paper in particular was exciting because while someone had scribbled some little note on the top of it, most of it was blank. It wasn’t very big, but it was his.
Slipping into the dorm, he stashed away his stolen articles, hiding the kojala oil in Jamie’s bed and finding an alternative place for his paper before he left the dorm, heading for the baths.
There was actually a cracked mirror in the bathhouse, which when he wiped it gave Fionn a view of his face at least, a feature that he otherwise wouldn’t be able to see. It let him see that it too hadn’t escaped the mess that the rest of him had experienced. He seemed to have smeared something dark on his forehead and there appeared to be flour trailed over one cheek. His hair was a chaos of spikes, each strand appearing intent on diverging from the others. Presumably when he’d worked laundry much earlier, it had gotten more than a little damp and every time he’d shoved a hand through it to push it back, it had obviously ended up in serious disarray and then dried, now set like that.
A dunk in the bath soon sorted him out, his various messes washed away and leaving the water cloudy behind him. Hair was towelled dry and then combed with his fingers, the boy making some effort to keep it down before he left, dressed in a clean uniform that for once he wore in its completion, the shirt neatly tucked in and everything. Even so, he still managed to look untidy somehow, more than likely caused by his demeanour as he slouched along hallways with his hands in his pockets.
He opted to head to the canteen to grab something to eat, deciding that he wasn’t going to go hungry on Ayden’s account and not wanting to be distracted in any case. So by the time he was standing outside his patron’s door, he felt a little more comfortable in himself, enjoying his little rebellion of not having come as soon as possible. All the same, it was difficult to feel quite so confident when he was standing in front of the portal though, working up the courage to knock and well aware that he couldn’t stand there indefinitely; his hesitation would be seen by others and he couldn’t afford to seem afraid, especially as he was.
The blond forced himself to take a breath, resisting the urge to drag a nervous hand through his hair before he knocked. He heard the steps on the other side, the sound of a lock popping open and then the door opened, Ayden filling it as he looked down on Fionn.
"Oh it's you, I was wondering when you were going to show up. In you come then," the patron ordered, stepping aside to let the younger man in. Fionn did his best not to come too close to him as he stepped in but discovering that the patron had given him enough room to step past him but their arms brushed, even though he had to turn sideways. The door was shut behind him with a definitive sound and then Ayden stuck two short pieces of metal into the keyhole and re-engaged the lock with surprising quickness.
Passives weren't meant to be able to lock their doors. There was no such thing as privacy for them, an illusion, but the doors still had locks. In theory, it was possible to lock passives in but they didn't hold such keys. It was a risky thing to do, especially as Ayden still had superiors, still had people who could come to check on him and discover that their access was barred. Lock picking, whether to lock or unlock, was not a skill that he'd known that the older passive possessed. He could only stare at the lock with some degree of panic bleeding into his features for he was trapped in here, unable to leave until the older man said that he could.
"Now, we'll have a bit of privacy, won't we?" the patron remarked with a chuckle, clapping him on the shoulder, blue eyes reading his expression. "Make yourself comfortable."