Scheming and Socializing at Ravenclaw Bar ((SPN crew, and see note))
((This one's open to pretty much anyone, but Yukimura and Lee are particularly invited to come around before or after Bobby and the boys show up.))Castiel had finally gotten around to investigating the bar in Ravenclaw tower, and found the place to his liking. He could sit quietly and watch people come and go if he wanted to, socialize if he liked
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Lee was remarkably good at just kind of... being places. It came in handy sometimes, like when she wanted to make a big entrance. Or when she wanted to avoid them--suddenly being noticed in a corner and making three people jump a little was a lot quieter than kicking down a door, stomping across the floor (hovering across--she couldn't even stomp properly if she was in cloak mode) and facing everyone down.
And she wasn't big on big entrances when she was at the Ravenclaw bar. Stay in a dark corner and get drunk in a burgundy pile, that was more her thing. Nobody interrupted her binges asking for help here. Nobody much interrupted her at all.
It was nice, in an avoidant way. She downed some more dark beer, concentrating on the taste and not much else.
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Once he had, he left her to it for a time, content to keep her in his peripheral awareness and let her drown her sorrows as she saw fit. At some point, though, he came to a decision, and there was a brief flickering about him as he zapped off to his own room and returned to his place in the space between two heartbeats with the item he'd retrieved.
He got up a moment later and ambled over to Lee's corner, prepared to back off if she wasn't in a mood for company. He did owe her a thank-you, however, and he also thought it would only be fair to offer...
"Hello, Lee," he greeted her, hefting the six-pack she'd sent him at Christmas. "My apologies if I'm disturbing you. But I thought maybe you'd like to share this with me."
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She polished off the last of it, leaned forward and rested her head on one hand. Beneath the shadow of her hood, her face smooshed against her fist. "And I don't think they like bringing refills too much, either. I don't know if it's the booze itself or just me. I try to be nice to 'em, but I think they're scared of me anyway."
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"Are we celebrating an occasion," he asked after a moment, claiming one of the beers, "or just toasting the inevitable descent of the Universe into entropy?" That look of sodden resignation was all too unfortunately familiar, though given their last conversation, she undoubtedly had a lot more practice at that too.
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She swiped one of the beers without asking, opened it, and resumed drinking. "Celebrating? Fuck no. This is a normal... what the fuck time of day is it. Don't tell me. I know this one. Anyway, this is my fucking vacation. Hogwarts is the one place I can go to that isn't Bete Noir now, and... and I needed somewhere new to drink." Her son had taken up her old booth in Furor's, she'd heard, and she couldn't face him. Not now. So, Ravenclaw it was. "The old place was getting kind of stale." She glanced away from her drink back up at Castiel. "How 'bout you? Any particular reason, or just seeing the sights?"
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He shook his head at her question. "I was sorted into Ravenclaw house. I've been waiting for some friends and watching people come and go. It's an interesting place, this Hogwarts. I always knew there were planes of existence beyond my experience, but I never realized how many, or how much sentient life they contained."
Lee didn't strike him as a raging bitch at the moment. She just looked desperately unhappy and very, very drunk. Which, he'd come to know, was a much less enjoyable state when experienced alone. "Do you have friends here?"
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Another swig of her drink, and Lee leaned back in her seat. "Gotta give this place that. I've seen all sorts of people since I showed up. And other crap. You know I saw a talking dinosaur here? How long's it been since you saw a dinosaur? And a couple of talking dogs, and a computer with eyes and legs. Haven't seen that one in a long time. I'm pretty sure there's some aliens around here somewhere, too." Aliens were cool. Even she wasn't cynical enough to think otherwise.
Castiel's question caught her off-guard, and she covered with another gulp of beer. "Oh yeah. Tons. Lots. A few. I'm a party person." The truth was more obvious in her slump.
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Cas wasn't particularly good at reading people, but even he would have been hard-pressed to miss the glaring disparity between Lee's words and her manner. He cocked his head slightly to one side, regarding her thoughtfully.
"I'm not," he said after a moment. "If I hadn't been assigned to rescue Dean from Hell, I doubt I'd have any." He took a drink from his bottle, and added in what appeared to be (but wasn't) a non-sequitur, "It perplexes me why you would choose to hide your face. There's nothing remotely objectionable aboout it."
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Lee perked up a little at that. "So what, this's guy's your charge or something?" That was something she could understand. She'd been a guardian for a really long time--hell, it had been pretty much her sole purpose for a couple thousand years. It wasn't something she could just throw off. "That's cool. I had some nice charges. They didn't know I was there, but they were nice..." And then there was Holly. God, Holly... She downed the rest of her beer and grabbed for another.
She glared at him, though the gesture was somewhat wasted under said hood. "It was a gift. It's kind of a... reminder now. Plus, blood doesn't show much on it and I like the color."
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"Add self-righteous pain-in-the-ass and he'd sound kind of like my son." In more ways than just personality, it sounded like. She sipped. "Sounds interesting, to be sure."
She cradled her head on her arms, folded on the table in front of her. Her hood threatened to smother her, so she shoved it back. "So, this dying thing. How was it?" Being somewhat drunk, it was more longing and less nonchalant than she had intended, and she covered it up with a cough. "Academically speaking."
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"It hurt," he said finally. "Not for long, and not the worst pain I've ever suffered. But there was an intense, enveloping heat..." He drained what was left of his drink and absently shoved the bottle aside, trying to fit words to the memory. "I knew what was happening, and that there was nothing that I could do to stop it. I didn't know what would happen afterward, or if there'd be anything at all ( ... )
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She was familiar with intense, enveloping heat, all right. Though in her case, it hadn't been an ending so much as a new beginning of sorts--if not the beginning that she would have chosen for herself. Rahab had urged her to kill herself right after, pleading, goading. Don't allow the vindictive bastard on high to punish you slowly, as he did me. Withered old bag of bones that he had been, lunging at her, throttling her with more viciousness than should have been left in a walking, breathing mummy. I'd rather see you dead than like me!
She hadn't killed herself out of... what, spite? Inability? Meddlesome need to stick around and watch those around her screw up their own lives (and occasionally interfering, when it suited her)? But it was nice to think about, sometimes.
"Sounds restful. Except for the, y'know, burning and fear and whatever the fuck."
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The house elf brought the liquor he'd asked for, and he thanked the creature, but let it sit for the time being. "Lee. What's wrong?"
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Lee thought about that question for a minute. "What's wrong... other than what usually is? Nothing. You didn't get the memo, right. This is my vacation. Other Magistrates got a day a year to go out and do whatever the fuck they wanted, consequence-free. I get Hogwarts, and nobody in Bete Noir notices my absences. I can't be drunk on the job anymore, so I get it out of my system here. I can't explain it, I don't want to explain it, so I'm not going to look for an explanation. I'm going to sit here and drink until I pass out, and then when I'm sick of it, I'll go back and run things until I'm sick of that. Running the City that Shapes the World... good times." Thump went her head on her arms. It didn't feel quite satisfying enough. She thumped her head on the table once instead, which made a slightly more satisfying noise, and reached for her bottle.
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He wondered if, should he succeed in sorting things out back home, the job would eventually reduce him to a similar state. Not at all unlikely, he was forced to conclude.
"If I'm still sober enough when you lose consciousness," he said finally, "is there anywhere you'd like me to take you?" The bar was nice, but it didn't strike him as a very comfortable place to sleep.
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