Closed: Susan

[gabetate]

There were some days that Gabriel declared done by noon. He'd mentally checked out at his terribly tedious Muggle job before lunch and never actively checked back in. At least, he didn't have to actually be all there to do it. As long as he could read a script and hit the right buttons when a call connected for him, he was good. If he let answering

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[susanbones_x]

Susan behind the bar on Wednesday afternoons into the late evening, giving Hannah a bit of a break on the slowest night of the week. It didn't make much sense for her to waste her time refilling bottles, rearranging the bar table configuration (as Susan liked to do when she was bored), or make polite but long drawn out conversation with the less than desirable clientele.

Actually, she was just edging her way out of a back and forth (it was really mostly just her throwing whatever he offered back at him, the older man just not getting the hint) as politely as possible when a familiar face caught her eye.

"Tate!" she grinning, bouncing over to the other side of the bar to greet him. Susan pressed her palms to the edge of the bar and pulled herself up, leaning across the bar to press a kiss to Gabe's cheek before settling back down. "Your timing could not be more perfect."

[gabetate]

"Bones," he answered with a small, crooked smile. Susan was always more vibrant than Gabe, but that was part of why he liked her so much. It was hard to be too disinterested in everything when she was around.

"Did I accidentally just save you from something?" He asked, head titled slightly to the side to glance at the man she'd just abandoned. He did look, well, smarmy or something. Of course, he doubted Susan needed saving from anything, especially from him.

[susanbones_x]

While Susan had already perfected the art of excusing herself out of less than savory situations, especially when it came to her shifts behind the bar. The Leaky attracted every type of crowd and some weeks were much better than others.

Either way, Susan would have pulled herself out of a conversation with Viktor Krum for Gabe, no questions asked.

"Yes, you did," she grinned, resting against the counter now. "Can I get you a drink as a thank-you?"

[gabetate]

Gabe wasn't going to call her on it, but he smiled a little, appreciating the sentiment.

"You can get me a drink for any reason. As long as there's alcohol involved." He wasn't much of a drinker, really. One, sometimes two, and he was done. It was the act of being somewhere else for a while, though, that usually had him bothering to go out for a drink sometimes. The Leaky in particular also had Hannah and Susan, so that made the decision easy enough.

[susanbones_x]

"Good. I'm making it a double," she told him, winking before turning back to grab to bottle of fire whiskey.

Susan grabs two glasses, already have decided that she was going to join him the moment he walked in. After all, it was slow enough and she could make a good cocktail in her sleep. If Gabe was going to kick back then Susan was going to join him.

"How was work, love?"

[gabetate]

"I sold some stuff no one actually wants to people who are really gullible." Gabe sighed as he took the glass she offered him, smiling his thanks.

"So you know. The same as always." His job was kind of awful, but it was the most recent in a line of meaningless jobs that all had one fantastic thing going for them: they were boring and average.

"How are you? Not too bored?"

[susanbones_x]

It actually pained Susan to see Gabe filter through meaningless job after meaningless job, surviving in the muggle world without the muggle education. She would never question his motives or his choices considering what the Wizarding World had put him through all those years ago but she wanted so much more for him than this.

"You're never actually bored behind a bar, not if you know what you're doing," she told him, pulling a knowing smile onto her lips as she bit her tongue.

"Though, it is sort of lonely when nobody wants to chat or flirt with the bartender-"

Lonely. Well, that was the story of her life.

[gabetate]

"Don't people always want to flirt with the bartender? Isn't that kind of half the point?" It wasn't exactly something Gabe was good at. Awkward, absolutely. Flirting, not so much.

He definitely knew a thing or two about loneliness.

"Guess it's a good thing I showed up. I might be a bore, but I'll at least chat." He didn't have to be self-conscious with Susan. They'd known each other forever, so long that being self-conscious was just silly since she'd seen him when he'd been ridiculous at 11.

It was a habit Gabe hadn't been able to break, though, over the years. Somehow, some people found it cute and charming. Those people were usually too forward for Gabe's liking.

"Anything new in the world that I've missed?" Gabe, admittedly, missed a lot since he hid about 75% of the time.

[susanbones_x]

"Are you telling me that you didn't come here to flirt with me?"

Susan pouted playfully, batting her big blue eyes at him over her glass of firewhiskey. She was pretty sure that Gabe didn't even realize that half of their conversations ended up in the more flirtatious range of things, though that was usually more because she steered the conversation there than anything else.

Maybe it was because she flirted with everybody or maybe because Gabe had the most gorgeous pair of eyes she'd ever seen but when it boiled down to it, Susan felt comforted being so close to him.

"Me? Nothing exactly exciting?" she shrugged, swirling the dark liquid around in the glass.

"You know- keeping Hannah from daily nervous breakdowns and searching for the meaning of life-"

[gabetate]

"Yes. Flirting. Exactly what I'm doing here." Gabe chuckled into his glass. There had been a time when Gabe had been vaguely flirty. He'd made a good attempt at it, anyway. Now it just seemed like too much energy.

"Hannah break down management is kind of a full time job." Gabe was literally zero help in that department partially because he wasn't around a good chunk of the time and also because he was only three steps out from a meltdown himself usually. "And the meaning of life is sort of a fairy tale, but if you find it? Let me know. It might give me better career options."

[susanbones_x]

It amused Susan to no end that Gabriel was so clueless to the effect he had on women. And not just her, though he did have a very powerful effect, most women stopped to spare him a second (or even third) glance when they passed him in the street or at the bar.

"Maybe that is my greater purpose in life- keeping my best friend's head from popping," she joked, her hands on the side of her hand, hands balled up into fists before expanding out as if they were exploding.

"Or you know, if I find something else and become a super hero you can be my sidekick."

[gabetate]

"Noble cause." He honestly respected that. Hannah had always been high strung, but it had gotten worse after everything. Gabe, apparently, had missed out on most of that when he was off having a breakdown of his own.

But he refused to think about that. There was a whole year of his life better served as not even a memory. He'd thought about seeing if he could have it wiped out of his head, but that seemed like a disservice to himself.

"Do I have to wear spandex if I'm a sidekick?" Gabe asked as if that was the important part. "I could see you kicking ass, but if I have to do it in costume, I might have to just be tech support."

[susanbones_x]

Susan scrunched her nose up, mouth smooched over to one side of her face as she took his request into consideration, briefly letting her mind wander to the image of him in a skin tight spandex suit and realizing that it would be a shame not to eventually try to get him into something like that. But then again, Gabe spooked easily and she needed him to have her back.

"Fine," she sighed dramatically, her lower lip falling into a pout.

"We're going to be really modern superheroes then. More like spies than anything else- all those cool gadgets."

[gabetate]

"I'm totally cut out to be a spy." Gabe gave her his most serious look. "I'm covert and everything."

Gabriel Tate was actually far from that. He could disappear in a crowd now, but he hadn't been able to when it counted. When he'd needed to be invisible, he'd been just obvious enough to have everything he knew ripped away from him, and his entire life shattered. Even after that year had been over, when he could start putting the pieces back together, Gabe had been irreparably changed.

He wondered if there would be a day when that wouldn't touch his life in some fundamental way.

"We're going to need superhero names, you realize."

[susanbones_x]

"Oh, well that's easy," she told him, shrugging as if she had thought all of this out a long time ago and it wasn't a bit deal at all. Susan paused for effect, taking a long sip of the smooth, dark liquid.

After everything that he had been through Gabriel had most definitely changed and Susan saw it in the way he had switched directions with his life, favoring the muggle world over the wizarding one. There had been a time when she feared she'd go as far to shut her out.

Susan would have been heartbroken.

Every time he walked through the doors of The Leaky she breathed a deep sigh of relief, happy to see that she was still apart of his life.

"Obviously you'll be Arc Angel. As if you would be anything but-"

[gabetate]

"Obviously." Gabriel snorted into his drink. That had always been a fun little joke with his name. With most people he interacted with, he rolled his eyes and sighed like it was the most annoying thing ever.

With Susan, it was just funny.

"Since we're going with the obvious here," he went on after taking a drink and letting it burn. Whiskey really just was better here, in this place and this world. "Does that make you the Incredible Masked Bone-y?"