[FIC] As luck would have it
Author notes: The following discrimination is, unfortunately, a real part of our lives here (and a real social problem), and hence, I felt it needed to be written. This of course does not mean it is right, should be followed, etc., etc... (if it even occurs to you to judge someone by the color of their skin or ethnic origin, then you can consider yourself a... Well, you get my point. Go rethink it.)
On a lighter note, I changed the c in Godric's name to a k, because the whole thing was originally Hungarian, and it stuck with me as I translated.
Characters are J.K.Rowling's.
As luck would have it
It was a late summer night, already dark, and Godrik has just missed his bus, running up from the dirty underground of Metro 3. It was irritating, as has been his whole day at the office: he wasn't the kind of man who took waiting for things very well. Huffing in the empty bus stop, he fished for a cigarette from his hind pocket, lighting it in the half-deserted street, settling in for the good fifteen minute wait.
A homeless muttered not for away, and as he took a drag, Godrik stepped away and casually ignored the poverty. But the sound of the gypsies - the loud, harsh cries - not far away filled him with anger and anguish, and he took another, harder drag, stepping closer to the light. Unlike in his childhood, he wasn't afraid of them, or around this time of night anymore (he didn't feel much afraid of anything anymore, in fact), but this wasn't a part of the city it was good to be around in, after all.
The bus came. He climbed on, sitting by the window behind the second to last door where his place was on the bus he usually took, and glad that finally he'll be on his way home: that was when he got on.
Well, it wasn't like love at first sight, or anything.
In fact, at first, he thought he was a gypsy, as he was walking through the dimness outside, and sighting darker skin, when he got on in front of him, Godrik was already cringing, praying he'd sit as far from him as possible. But then he'd turned around, ... and in the shabby light of the bus, Godrik realized he was a foreigner, a bit tanned, but white. He was also wearing a suit, minus the coat, with a normal bag pack, clean face, and as good a smell as one can have after working all day in this kind of heat. He wasn't one of those thieves, after all.
But he was looking at Godrik a bit crossly.
"Sorry? Is there something wrong?", he was sure he hadn't looked at the man in any way to offend him, so unless he could read his mind..
"Oh, no, I'm sorry.", he said, smiling slightly, with the tiniest hint of an accent, "It's really silly. It's just... you are sitting in my spot."
"Oh." Well, that was really rather stupid in Godrik's opinion, but he wasn't about to say so. "I didn't realize somebody else like this spot too. If you-"
"N-no, stay, that wasn't my-", he began, but the doors closed, and the bus lurched forward like a wild animal, in a last attempt to get into safety before it fell pray, and this threw the small man off balance: out of reaction, Godrik reached out, and before he realized, pulled him into the seat next to him.
"Careful."
The man smiled, embarrassed, as he swiped curls of black hair away from his face, slipping the bag off his shoulders. For a moment, Godrik studied him: he was a few years younger then himself, a birthmark under his right ear and just by his slightly pug-nose: greenish-brown eyes, long lashes. An earring in his left. He took out a book: Habib Cöm...lec... Something, and the...Lamp of the Genie?
The guy smelled of liberal arts faculty. Shit.
A techie sitting with a libie in the back of a bus (made around the 80s when they were born) late at night alone? Sounds like some blood's gonna spill.
He stared out the window. Or at least, tried: there was a scratched graffiti blocking his view, something that frustratingly he couldn't even read: so he settled for letting the ups and downs of the articulated bus lull him into a half-snooze. He only came to once, when the bus stopped, and the warmth at his side disappeared: it was a bitter miss, and he was surprised and angry at himself that he found he wanted it back.
... A stranger, really, Godrik.