He expected that he wouldn't be turned down. A few times already he'd rethought this, but hell, drinking until he was about passed out sounded like the best option (well, not 'best' as in 'most logical', but 'best' as in 'feels right').
The Doctor had an impeccable ability to be either exactly on time or very, very late (by, say, a few centuries). Having little better to do than glance at his watch and find that only five minutes had passed since the last time he'd looked at it (all right, he could've apologized to Sarah Jane, or to Jack, or to everyone else, but most of all to Sarah Jane), this time he was on time--slipping into Ravenclaw at exactly eight. One of these days, he figured, something would happen to make people actually close it, but he supposed that if the only ones that took the opportunity to enter were people that caused very little trouble, that was the reason it seemed nearly perpetually open (at least when there were parties going on).
He took a seat at the bar (yes, at the bar this time, though one can be certain that he'll pop behind it multiple times during the night to do his own mixing). It was a bit odd to see the common room so empty, no party going on this time around. No groups of people chatting, no music, nothing loud. All for the best. Less chance of seeing other people he knew. Maybe he ought to talk to Lily...though with his luck with women lately, he'd probably get a smack. Or a hex. Best stay with the booze.
Wandering down, his expression one of mild boredom, Robin scanned the room for the Doctor. In fact, the Puck had been feeling at loose ends and generally just frustrated as of late. He'd spent a week or so in the Forbidden Forest, but had gotten restless and returned to the castle, only to find that the feeling hadn't faded. Studying in frantic bursts of energy and then lying around, drinking by himself in his room, Robin had welcomed the Doctor's owl. At least he'd have someone to bitch talk with while he attempted to prove that Pucks couldn't ruin their livers.
Heading over to the bar, Robin nodded in greeting and grabbed a bottle of Scotch. Silently pouring a glass, he tossed it back. "How've you been?" he asked, more out of necessary courtesy than anything else. But his opener of 'Gods, humans get annoying after awhile' seemed a bit of a downer. Pouring himself another drink, he turned around and rested his elbows on the bar. "Quiet," he grunted. "Good. Damn parties every night, you'd think that Bacchus himself was a student here." Right. Bubbly and uplifting, that was him. (There were very few things on earth worse than a Puck in a funk.)
He nodded at Robin, grabbing the bottle for himself and pouring a drink. "Me, oh, been just peachy, yeah." Dripping with sarcasm, of course. "Almost surprised Bacchus isn't a student here. Turn around, and there's someone else, a god or demon or angel or something, someone that just ought not to exist. Huh."
He slid the bottle back at Robin and instead summoned his own from behind the bar. "Best have our own bottles so we don't end up fighting over it. Gonna be a lot of drinking tonight. Nice lot of drinking, good and drunk and stumbling around like an idiot. Sounds fun, that. Don't normally do that; usually telling other people not to." With a sigh, he downed his drink, refilling it eagerly.
Robin snorted. "Right. Gods, and angels, and fucking demons. But for every one there's a hundred humans, all wandering around and self-important and short-sighted." Staring at his glass for a moment, Robin shook his head and tipped it back, swallowing the Scotch quickly. "Yes, absolutely, my dear Doctor. Lots and lots of fucking drinking."
Another drink was poured and drunk and the glass was refilled before Robin looked over at the Doctor. "You first. I'm guessing you didn't owl me out of the blue for a nice drink," he held up his glass in salute, "because you are, in fact, 'peachy'. And for someone who would usually be warning people away from the wonders of drinking 'til you can't stand, you seem awfully hellbent on getting that way yourself." Pouring another drink down his throat, Robin gestured with the empty glass in a 'bring it on' gesture. "Spill. And then we'll both get so damn drunk that we can forget." He finished off the bottle of Scotch with a flourish and carelessly chucked the bottle against the wall. Grabbing another bottle of whatever alcohol was close at hand, Robin filled his glass and stared at it morosely. "Male bonding and all that. Wonderful."
He stared at his bottle for a while, hardly noticing when Robin's shattered on the wall. And for a while after that, when he resumed drinking, nothing was said. He summoned over a few more bottles (damn magic was handy sometimes), different liquors, different flavours, might as well sample everything it had to offer.
When he finished off another glass, he turned in his seat to face Robin. "You ever think that there are people in the universe who are just so unlucky that they're better off alone?" Shaking his head, he started on something different--he didn't even care to look at the bottle, just grabbing whatever was sitting there. "Like they're meant to be that way? That whatever forces are at work out there have it out for certain people? Sounds a bit like rubbish, but..."
Nodding emphatically, Robin gave up on his glass - didn't hold enough and he wasted valuable drinking time pouring - and took a swig directly from the bottle of whatever this was. It was damn strong. Good. "Welcome to a Puck's life, my dear Doctor," he laughed bitterly, bowing slightly. "Didn't used to be that way, at the beginning. But then the damn human race exploded, wiped us all nearly out, and I've been alone ever since. And every time I try, I get close..." He made a derisive motion with his hand and took another drink. "Well, what's fifty or eighty years in the grand scheme of things? Ha! Fifty would be nice, actually. Since most of the fucking humans I tend to fall in with have some sort of fucking hero complex."
Glaring at the bottle, Robin tipped it back and gulped down the alcohol. "The problem is," he continued after a moment, waving the now-empty bottle around as he ranted, "is that most of them are so damn short sighted. They piss and moan about things that we know will resolve themselves, given time. And they act as if everything is so damn new and they have to rush off and save the fucking world or some damn foolish thing."
"Gotta admit," he said between drinks, "it's pretty noble, and really, it's more thought than some races give. But the problem with it really is that they muck it all up anyway. They think that everyone ought to see things their way, all the time, that they know exactly what they're doing all the time, and that anyone who disagrees is wrong or strange. But it only works in their own little society. That's what I always tell people, take 'em somewhere new, different planet, different times, new sets of morals and laws and thinking, but no, they're a rather close-minded bunch, for the most part. And that," he added, pointing at the lack of glass Robin was using, "looks like a better idea. Not like these bottles are going to stay full for long anyway, no sense in thinking something's going to be saved when it's not going to."
So away with that, then, and took a long draw from whatever bottle he'd started on. "Credit should be given to their wonderful ability to make all sorts of tasty alcoholic goodies.
"Ahaha, yes, I think I know what you mean. I mean, might not've lived nearly as long as you," it sounded odd to say for him, "but then, time travel, you can see someone when they're six, ten minutes later for you, and then you see them when they're sixty. Humans," he scoffed, though perhaps he hadn't meant to sound so bitter. "What can you do with them than watch them get older, get more fragile, until they finally wither away, and then you've got to pull yourself back together and move onto the next person. I suppose that's another way I'm a coward, always dropping them off, or maybe they leave beforehand, never have to deal with someone living their whole life around me. Beyond the ones that die, anyway." He slammed the now-empty bottle down on the bar. "Gotta be alone because everything else gets mucked up, things happen, and people die, or things change and they're not the same, or something you do just happens to cause a little pebble to roll down a very big hill. Humans..."
"Noble? It's insane, that's what it is! They charge about, get all heated up over what? Land or religion to some god who they don't even remember or sex or some high and mighty ideal that doesn't even make sense." He slammed the bottle on the bar, fingers gripping it tightly. "They have so little time - just a moment, a breath, a fucking second - and they waste it. Throw their lives away on things that don't matter. They are so eager to destroy themselves, these humans. So fucking willing to lay down everything, for no real reason at all."
Angrily grabbing another bottle, he took a drink. "Like this woman - woman, ha! Barely more than a girl - I know here. Got herself killed in some silly war that she was never going to win. The kicker is? She got to come back. Bully for her. But, gods' honest truth, I think she'd do it again if she had the chance! Damn crazy humans, all of them. Why wouldn't she learn her lesson - live whatever amount of years she can squeeze out of this world with her head down and her nose clean?" Shaking his head in genuine bewilderment, Robin looked over at the Doctor.
"I know what you mean. It seems...pointless, almost. Cruel. They resent us, you know. It's better to be alone, really. Better than seeing that look in their eyes when they realize what 'immortal' really means." Another drink, this one tossed back violently, Robin's head tipped back as he stared at the ceiling. "We can't ever be with them. We aren't one of them. As much as we look like it, as much as we can blend in, we're apart. Separate. Alone always, really, in the end. No amount of companionship and friendship can save us from that. Just the way of it. They hate us because we're not one of them; they love us because we represent something they think they want. In the end, it just comes down to the fact that we will always leave them behind. Always."
"...Well, yeah, when you put it that way... I meant other things that they do that's more sane, like the ones that stand up for rights and equality and environment. But then, they wouldn't need to do that if they didn't muck things up to begin with. They're such a young race, barely learned how to walk, and then they look at the stars and think they're superior to everything. See," he continued, pushing aside his empty bottle and opening up another one, "some of them get it. But it's always a small amount. It's true throughout history. They want to control everything, impose their laws on everyone, and things are always the same. People fighting over everything. A hundred years at most, really, and what do they do? Bicker and squabble and kill each other."
He spun the bottle around on the bar, idly glancing over the label. "I know a guy who came back when he died. Hell, I just...had this whole argument with him. That isn't supposed to happen. I mean, I've made some friends here like that, the last they know, they were dead, and it's gotta be such a new experience for them, seeing the world in a new light, but sometimes I think it might just be better to be dead and stay that way. No second chances, no coming back. Bad it happened once, yeah?" He took a big swig at that--no, dying wasn't a very pleasant thing at all. "I guess it all depends on the circumstance. If it was the very same thing, and it was something...I don't know, heroic, something that let others live or something, then yeah. But most of the time in those silly wars, maybe it'd be better to hide. Circumstance. Can't just judge her because she died once and would be willing to do it again."
Nodding, he clapped a hand on Robin's shoulder. "Might be better to either act like 'em or look completely different, I've decided. I like the blending in. Sometimes like the look on their faces when I say I'm not like them, I don't know, sometimes it just gets old. And then they want so much out of you, but they don't understand that it's not the same. But it's certainly not fair, outliving them. I mean, me, what have I done, taken a few little Humans along for the ride. That's nothing. It means nothing. And they'll never know what 'alone' means, either. Let's see, early twenty-first century--somewhere around six billion people, on such a small little world. Alone is when you go unnoticed by six billion people or so and know you're not like any of them." By then, he'd just about finished that bottle off as well. This was a very good idea.
Listening quietly as the Doctor talked, sipping at his - what in Bacchus' name was this, anyway? No matter. It was alcohol and it was one more step to drinking himself into oblivion. Seemed like a wonderful idea. "This girl, she's just one example. But she's a good one. Barely into her twenties, she dies. Whatever the reason, doesn't matter, just one blip in the grand scheme of things. And maybe her death makes a difference...maybe it doesn't. Hard to say, really, if her dying changed the course of history any more than her living would have. But then," he chuckled mirthlessly, "she comes back. And you're right - it shouldn't be. Fucks everything up. Humans, they aren't equipped to deal with such huge second chances. But, anyway, she lives again. Isn't handling it as well as she could, but better than most, I suppose." He took another drink and stared at his bottle. "She'd do it again. All over. She's told me so. So young and ideal and full of spitfire - like she could change anything. Like she's anything more than dust. She should just fucking live. Instead she's fighting the same battle that killed her, over and over. She could run and hide - that'd be the smart thing to do. She could chalk it all up to a bad experience and move on. But no. Wanders the halls with her wand out, still talks like she hasn't seen hell." Pausing a long moment, Robin finally snorted again and shook his head. Finishing off the bottle, he grabbed another.
"Alone, yes. Both of us. Not the same, but at least not one of them." Sighing now, Robin scrubbed his face with one hand, the other still clutching tight to his drink. "As much as I've tried, can't become one of them. Thank Bacchus and all the goddesses I've ever known. They are so...yes, thinking themselves superior. I walked with gods, I sang under the stars before they were a thought, I taught them so much...and now, they've forgotten my race ever existed. Or we've been regulated to the goat-legged trickster in their fairy stories. Bah. Whole lot of them are running around like chickens with heads cut clean off. Claiming they rule the world, acting like children." Robin's eyes were sad and angry and filled with some deep longing. "They've forgotten where they came from."
"Most people don't get a second chance," he agreed with a hint of disgust. "Or if they do...it's just at living, not the things they've done. Not like those stories they make up, go back and see what it's like without you there and all your friends are miserable, and you come back loving life and all that. It's all crap. I've said it before, I'll say it again--the ordinary person, that's the most important thing ever. But damn if they don't go around wasting their time and their lives." He paused in his drinking and peered over at Robin with a bit more interest.
"Now, this woman you're talking about, she sounds like someone I know. We talking about Lily?" A sly little grin appeared on his face. "Yeah, well, I think she probably scared the devil himself if she was in hell. I think of all the people in this school I wouldn't want to piss off, she'd be in my top five. Rather like her as company. Don't rather like her boyfriend." With a scoff, he drank again.
"Oh, yes, turning into a story, I've been there and done that. Ghost stories. Conspiracy theories. I pop up now and then. Try not to. Never really wanted to be known. It's how I work, pop in for a good time, end up fighting off evil beings, run off before I've hardly had any time to be recognized as the one who saved 'em. They only act like children because they are. They need a little guidance. But they'd never accept. Got to develop on their own anyway. Sooner or later, one of these decades, I keep thinking they'll learn. How can you go around killing each other over who believes in god through this religion or that? How can you go around killing one of your own kind like that? Self-defense, they say. Insanity, they claim. Gets to be that nobody gets blamed for the nasty things they do near daily, no justice, no punishment, no anything, get to walk away. Except for the weight on their conscience, but people are willing to pay that. Most cultures in the universe seem to go through this kind of thing. Bit of savagery before it all gets sorted out. You'd think they'd learn from their own movies and experiences and the like."
Pausing on that thought, he hopped the bar and browsed some of the other bottles before taking out one or two. He disappeared a moment and reappeared with a pint (why waste a small glass when something larger would work just as nicely) of some kind of mixture. "They only think they understand the big picture, but they miss everything obvious right under their noses. It's a shame, a damn shame."
The Doctor had an impeccable ability to be either exactly on time or very, very late (by, say, a few centuries). Having little better to do than glance at his watch and find that only five minutes had passed since the last time he'd looked at it (all right, he could've apologized to Sarah Jane, or to Jack, or to everyone else, but most of all to Sarah Jane), this time he was on time--slipping into Ravenclaw at exactly eight. One of these days, he figured, something would happen to make people actually close it, but he supposed that if the only ones that took the opportunity to enter were people that caused very little trouble, that was the reason it seemed nearly perpetually open (at least when there were parties going on).
He took a seat at the bar (yes, at the bar this time, though one can be certain that he'll pop behind it multiple times during the night to do his own mixing). It was a bit odd to see the common room so empty, no party going on this time around. No groups of people chatting, no music, nothing loud. All for the best. Less chance of seeing other people he knew. Maybe he ought to talk to Lily...though with his luck with women lately, he'd probably get a smack. Or a hex. Best stay with the booze.
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Heading over to the bar, Robin nodded in greeting and grabbed a bottle of Scotch. Silently pouring a glass, he tossed it back. "How've you been?" he asked, more out of necessary courtesy than anything else. But his opener of 'Gods, humans get annoying after awhile' seemed a bit of a downer. Pouring himself another drink, he turned around and rested his elbows on the bar. "Quiet," he grunted. "Good. Damn parties every night, you'd think that Bacchus himself was a student here." Right. Bubbly and uplifting, that was him. (There were very few things on earth worse than a Puck in a funk.)
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He slid the bottle back at Robin and instead summoned his own from behind the bar. "Best have our own bottles so we don't end up fighting over it. Gonna be a lot of drinking tonight. Nice lot of drinking, good and drunk and stumbling around like an idiot. Sounds fun, that. Don't normally do that; usually telling other people not to." With a sigh, he downed his drink, refilling it eagerly.
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Another drink was poured and drunk and the glass was refilled before Robin looked over at the Doctor. "You first. I'm guessing you didn't owl me out of the blue for a nice drink," he held up his glass in salute, "because you are, in fact, 'peachy'. And for someone who would usually be warning people away from the wonders of drinking 'til you can't stand, you seem awfully hellbent on getting that way yourself." Pouring another drink down his throat, Robin gestured with the empty glass in a 'bring it on' gesture. "Spill. And then we'll both get so damn drunk that we can forget." He finished off the bottle of Scotch with a flourish and carelessly chucked the bottle against the wall. Grabbing another bottle of whatever alcohol was close at hand, Robin filled his glass and stared at it morosely. "Male bonding and all that. Wonderful."
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When he finished off another glass, he turned in his seat to face Robin. "You ever think that there are people in the universe who are just so unlucky that they're better off alone?" Shaking his head, he started on something different--he didn't even care to look at the bottle, just grabbing whatever was sitting there. "Like they're meant to be that way? That whatever forces are at work out there have it out for certain people? Sounds a bit like rubbish, but..."
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Glaring at the bottle, Robin tipped it back and gulped down the alcohol. "The problem is," he continued after a moment, waving the now-empty bottle around as he ranted, "is that most of them are so damn short sighted. They piss and moan about things that we know will resolve themselves, given time. And they act as if everything is so damn new and they have to rush off and save the fucking world or some damn foolish thing."
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So away with that, then, and took a long draw from whatever bottle he'd started on. "Credit should be given to their wonderful ability to make all sorts of tasty alcoholic goodies.
"Ahaha, yes, I think I know what you mean. I mean, might not've lived nearly as long as you," it sounded odd to say for him, "but then, time travel, you can see someone when they're six, ten minutes later for you, and then you see them when they're sixty. Humans," he scoffed, though perhaps he hadn't meant to sound so bitter. "What can you do with them than watch them get older, get more fragile, until they finally wither away, and then you've got to pull yourself back together and move onto the next person. I suppose that's another way I'm a coward, always dropping them off, or maybe they leave beforehand, never have to deal with someone living their whole life around me. Beyond the ones that die, anyway." He slammed the now-empty bottle down on the bar. "Gotta be alone because everything else gets mucked up, things happen, and people die, or things change and they're not the same, or something you do just happens to cause a little pebble to roll down a very big hill. Humans..."
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Angrily grabbing another bottle, he took a drink. "Like this woman - woman, ha! Barely more than a girl - I know here. Got herself killed in some silly war that she was never going to win. The kicker is? She got to come back. Bully for her. But, gods' honest truth, I think she'd do it again if she had the chance! Damn crazy humans, all of them. Why wouldn't she learn her lesson - live whatever amount of years she can squeeze out of this world with her head down and her nose clean?" Shaking his head in genuine bewilderment, Robin looked over at the Doctor.
"I know what you mean. It seems...pointless, almost. Cruel. They resent us, you know. It's better to be alone, really. Better than seeing that look in their eyes when they realize what 'immortal' really means." Another drink, this one tossed back violently, Robin's head tipped back as he stared at the ceiling. "We can't ever be with them. We aren't one of them. As much as we look like it, as much as we can blend in, we're apart. Separate. Alone always, really, in the end. No amount of companionship and friendship can save us from that. Just the way of it. They hate us because we're not one of them; they love us because we represent something they think they want. In the end, it just comes down to the fact that we will always leave them behind. Always."
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He spun the bottle around on the bar, idly glancing over the label. "I know a guy who came back when he died. Hell, I just...had this whole argument with him. That isn't supposed to happen. I mean, I've made some friends here like that, the last they know, they were dead, and it's gotta be such a new experience for them, seeing the world in a new light, but sometimes I think it might just be better to be dead and stay that way. No second chances, no coming back. Bad it happened once, yeah?" He took a big swig at that--no, dying wasn't a very pleasant thing at all. "I guess it all depends on the circumstance. If it was the very same thing, and it was something...I don't know, heroic, something that let others live or something, then yeah. But most of the time in those silly wars, maybe it'd be better to hide. Circumstance. Can't just judge her because she died once and would be willing to do it again."
Nodding, he clapped a hand on Robin's shoulder. "Might be better to either act like 'em or look completely different, I've decided. I like the blending in. Sometimes like the look on their faces when I say I'm not like them, I don't know, sometimes it just gets old. And then they want so much out of you, but they don't understand that it's not the same. But it's certainly not fair, outliving them. I mean, me, what have I done, taken a few little Humans along for the ride. That's nothing. It means nothing. And they'll never know what 'alone' means, either. Let's see, early twenty-first century--somewhere around six billion people, on such a small little world. Alone is when you go unnoticed by six billion people or so and know you're not like any of them." By then, he'd just about finished that bottle off as well. This was a very good idea.
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"Alone, yes. Both of us. Not the same, but at least not one of them." Sighing now, Robin scrubbed his face with one hand, the other still clutching tight to his drink. "As much as I've tried, can't become one of them. Thank Bacchus and all the goddesses I've ever known. They are so...yes, thinking themselves superior. I walked with gods, I sang under the stars before they were a thought, I taught them so much...and now, they've forgotten my race ever existed. Or we've been regulated to the goat-legged trickster in their fairy stories. Bah. Whole lot of them are running around like chickens with heads cut clean off. Claiming they rule the world, acting like children." Robin's eyes were sad and angry and filled with some deep longing. "They've forgotten where they came from."
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"Now, this woman you're talking about, she sounds like someone I know. We talking about Lily?" A sly little grin appeared on his face. "Yeah, well, I think she probably scared the devil himself if she was in hell. I think of all the people in this school I wouldn't want to piss off, she'd be in my top five. Rather like her as company. Don't rather like her boyfriend." With a scoff, he drank again.
"Oh, yes, turning into a story, I've been there and done that. Ghost stories. Conspiracy theories. I pop up now and then. Try not to. Never really wanted to be known. It's how I work, pop in for a good time, end up fighting off evil beings, run off before I've hardly had any time to be recognized as the one who saved 'em. They only act like children because they are. They need a little guidance. But they'd never accept. Got to develop on their own anyway. Sooner or later, one of these decades, I keep thinking they'll learn. How can you go around killing each other over who believes in god through this religion or that? How can you go around killing one of your own kind like that? Self-defense, they say. Insanity, they claim. Gets to be that nobody gets blamed for the nasty things they do near daily, no justice, no punishment, no anything, get to walk away. Except for the weight on their conscience, but people are willing to pay that. Most cultures in the universe seem to go through this kind of thing. Bit of savagery before it all gets sorted out. You'd think they'd learn from their own movies and experiences and the like."
Pausing on that thought, he hopped the bar and browsed some of the other bottles before taking out one or two. He disappeared a moment and reappeared with a pint (why waste a small glass when something larger would work just as nicely) of some kind of mixture. "They only think they understand the big picture, but they miss everything obvious right under their noses. It's a shame, a damn shame."
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