[open/active] I have been bound by the shackles of love

[godofcologne]

Characters: Thomas, Open.
Time: Nighttime
Location: Bar at the Blackstone Hotel, some time after his spectacular network privacy fail
Content: Booze and Thomas' best Angel impression (someone feel free to smack him out of it)
Format: Poster's choice
Warnings: Beware of Thomas. In this case, symptoms may also include tingling, numbness, innuendo,

Comments

[huntingmemory]

"You sharing?" Sam slid onto a bar stool, rubbing his face. Sleep wasn't any harder to come by of late, but he hadn't exactly slept well since he'd gotten his memories back.

Just his luck, really. The nightmares that plagued everybody stopped and he ended up with his own.

[godofcologne]

He wasn't brooding, precisely. Just... thinking. And not liking where his thoughts led him. So when Sam approached, Thomas stopped the shotglass mechanically and shrugged. "Only if you get the next bottle," he answered, turning his attention towards the familiar voice. "And since when did you start boozing with the rest of us?"

[huntingmemory]

Sam made a motion to the bartender for another bottle. "I'll regret it in the morning," he replied, turning to Thomas. "And boozing is an old Winchester tradition. I just didn't have a lot of reason to until recently."

[godofcologne]

"Careful, there's a lot more you could regret in the morning," Thomas answered as he poured a measure of scotch into the shotglass and slid it over to Sam. His words were laced with his usual insufferable humour, but the grin that accompanied it didn't quite reach Thomas' eyes.

"Should I say be careful what you wish for or is that all played out?"

[wantsaporsche]

It was probably inevitable that the tiny, black-haired girl would find him. After that debacle on the network, she had been intent on finding out what really was going on with Thomas and one of the newest additions to the city. After it all, it screamed of relationship troubles and if there was anything that Alice loved to solve, it was relationship troubles.

She entered into the bar, looked around for all of two seconds before spotting Thomas and working her way over to him.

"Hopefully you're not drowning your sorrows~" she chirped.

[godofcologne]

At the sound of the all-too-cheerful voice, Thomas winced and pointedly did not turn around to greet Alice. Instead he kept his attention on the shotglass he was spinning around on the table. "Just drowning the sound of lecturing pixies, Tinkerbell."

[wantsaporsche]

Alice rolled her eyes before slipping gracefully into the chair next to Thomas, waving her hand lazily to flag down the bartender. Quickly ordering something that sounded dangerous to any form of life under the sun, she turned her attention back to Thomas, resting her chin in her palm. "Who says I came here to lecture? There's only so much that I can deduce from your whole network failure and I figured I'd rather actually talk to you face-to-face than chide you over the phone."

Her smile became devious, and a wicked gleam sparkled in dark golden eyes. "Besides, I do love a good relationship puzzle~"

[godofcologne]

"Great. Nosy pixie." Thomas caught the shotglass on its roll and set it right again. He rolled silver-shot eyes at Alice's smile and filled the glass with scotch.

"Congratulations, you've managed to make it even less appealing."

After Alice

[godofcologne]

His conversation with Alice still stubbornly lodged in the front of his brain, Thomas headed out of the Blackstone Hotel's bar and into the trendy white sports car he'd pressed into service. He'd needed to think, to sort through his own thoughts, the words that had surprised even himself when Alice asked her far too observant questions.

So he did what he always did when he needed to think. He drove.

The drive was meandering, taking him through most of Chicago, counting on speed rather than the weapons in his front seat to keep him clear of any trouble. Eventually though, Thomas noticed that the scenery was familiar, that he was pulling up past Cabrini Green, to his old apartment where Harry now stayed. He killed the engine on the car and sat, hesitating for a good ten minutes, before he climbed out of the car and headed up to his old place.

He knocked on the door, expecting that the doorbell had died a painful death sometime during the first week of Harry's tenure there, and called out, "Justine?"

[thefeelingsburn]

Somehow, the apartment was still mostly in one piece. Temper-tantrums had been kept to a minimum, and Justine had spent plenty of time picking up after Harry to busy herself. That was what she told him, anyway. A lot of it was keeping an eye on the wizard. She had promised Thomas, after all.

The knock at the door was unexpected, and Justine's approach to it was tentative until she heard Thomas' voice. Then she moved to it as fast as she could, opening it wide enough to make sure it was him before pulling it open the rest of the way.

"I'm alright," she said quickly, in case he was coming to check on her. And, in case he was looking for Dresden, "Harry's not here right now."

[godofcologne]

A part of him had hoped she wouldn't be there. That there would have been no answer and he could walk away on an excuse. But that would have been too easy.

Thomas took a deep breath, cringing inwardly at her quick response, as if she'd expected a warden... well, he supposed he couldn't blame her. Not after all he'd been doing. "Good. I was hoping to talk to you, actually." He hesitated, and offered Justine an uncharacteristically tentative smile. "May I come in?"

[thefeelingsburn]

She smiled back at him, perfectly normal for once instead of half-crazed. "You have to ask?" He seemed on edge, more so than usual, and she wasn't about to make things difficult for him. Not today, at least.

Justine stepped back away from the door and nodded him in, then closed it behind him. "Do you want some water?" The perfect hostess. He looked like he could probably use some.