second hand news

Violet looked at his outstretched hand, thinking as she always did about why strangers were always so keen to touch each other. She shook her head and said, “Nothing personal, but I have personal space issues. As in, I like to have it.” She peered down at her sketchpad; the picture was a mess. They all were, since- well, since everything. “Names I can do, though. I’m Violet.”

Fabian nodded as he tucked his hand away into his pocket. It wasn’t an odd request, but most of the time, he found himself hesitating to do so, puzzled by the response. Today, that wasn’t the case.

“Nice to meet you. Officially.”

Sirius looked at him, head cocked to the side, expression very readable: duh. “At the bar, clearly.”

Fabian chuckled to himself and nodded. “Guess we’ll need to see the menu before we make any decisions,” he mused, following Sirius to the bar. “Reckon that red colored one looks good. Wonder what it is.”

“What do you think of the dessert sort first? I’ve a nasty sweet-tooth today.”

Fabian nodded, quick to agree as he swallowed all comments about Amelia looking like a dessert herself. “We could do that, sure.”

Violet looked over at her new companion, recognition dawning on her. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, groping for a smiling and finding, albeit a small one. “Yeah, all sorted.” She tapped the pocket in which her newly purchased wand was housed, a notion that still felt foreign and weird and totally absurd to her. She let her pencil continue its path along her notepad for a beat, feeling a little awkward. “Thanks. You know, for helping.”

Fabian nodded, though he wasn’t really sure that he’d been helpful at all. “Yeah. Yeah, sure, any time.” He looked in her direction, still avoiding her eyes, though he smiled back. “Y’know, I, er--- I don’t think I ever caught your name.” Finally, Fabian forced his nervous eyes to meet hers, offering his hand with humble confidence. “I’m Fabian.”

“You’ve seen the nutters around here, Prewett. It’s amazing that anyone has their limbs still attached at all. Y’know, if we didn’t have magic, I’d say the lot of us would probably pretty janky looking.”

“Yeah.” A small huff of a laugh escaped Fabian as he shifted in his seat, grinning in anticipation of the joke that had sprung to mind. “Judging by how janky we already look with it, I’d say we’re pretty damn lucky.”

The problem with public parks, Violet thought, was that they were public. She shifted along on the bench she was drawing on, moving away from whoever had just sat down beside her, tilting her notebook out of view. “Haven’t heard of personal space, then,” she muttered under her breath. 

When Fabian had seen her last, he had been sure the next time he would see the young witch on the bench would be in the Daily Prophet, beside a gruesome headline. But to come across her so serendipitously on a stroll back to the Ministry after lunch---well, either he had done the right thing by letting her be that day, or made a terrible mistake. Either way, the universe had decided to let him know it.

“Just wondered how you’d got on with the business with your wand.” Fabian spoke without making eye contact, almost as though he was speaking to an imaginary friend rather than the person right beside him. “Found it yet? Or replaced it or---what have you?”

“I’m really not sure it does,” she lamented, a sad shake of her head for punctuation. Suddenly she thought about the reading she’d been putting off in favor of running up bar tabs and aimlessly wandering around London this last week, finding her friends to escape into at every turn. She wanted to be a Healer, there was no doubt about that. But… but she was only just a kid, still. No matter how much she fancied herself grown in her own flat, playing at responsible. It seemed everyone else was doing much better at it than her, or at least wanting to. 

“What do you want this year, Fabian?” she heard herself ask before she could think better of it. “I mean, like, something proper and tangible and maybe material, but probably not. When we’re sitting here next year celebrating another year of your life, what do you want to be different? Or the same, I suppose. Depending.”

Fabian felt his eyes narrowing as he took an indulgent sip of the beer he had kept at his side loyally through their rounds of shots. Birthdays, he realized, were strange in that they marked a singular day, where the celebration itself was what was celebrated. Do you feel any older? someone might ask cheekily. Do you feel any wiser? And then from an equally cheeky smirk came an embarrassing memory the last year’s birthday party, just before they ordered another round and sought to outdo it. No one talked about what they had learned or even of what was coming. No wonder no one ever answered those cheeky questions; no one really knew what they were supposed to feel like when another year came around.

“World peace is a bit of a stretch, innit?” Fabian quipped. He chuckled and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, thinking his answer over for a minute. “Guess I’d like to be on the road to it. I’d like to feel a little more confident that I’d done something to get us on the road to it.” He slipped his finger around the rim of his glass, lips pursed in deep thought. And then, to break the tension--- “A new broomstick might be nice, too.”

“Okay, so you do admittedly have me a bit more curious about one that has fruity notes in it. I’m honestly not too big on stouts in general. More of a wheat beer girl myself. I think it’s the bitterness that gets me, but the one you’re talking about now would have to be a little sweeter, right?” Dorcas twirled her index finger over the lid of her Odell. 

“That’s how they getcha,” Fabian said, pointing his finger at Dorcas in the same motion one might use to snap their fingers. “But it’s the heaviest thing I’ve ever drank in my life. Somehow still one of the sweetest--- ‘Course, it’s a dark chocolate,” he shrugged. “Y’know, that’s the sort of notes, so--- if you’re avoiding something bitter, might be best to skip that one after all.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Guess we’re not meant to be drinking buddies after all, Meadowes.”

“I’m just saying, I don’t stick my fingers where they don’t belong. Not mouths, not holes in doors, and definitely not in bottles. I’m not going to be the bloody tosser that gets his finger stuck or bitten off.”

Fabian’s mouth slid itself into a grimace---the sort that compromised between the part of his mind that wanted to correct Doc and the part that was chivalrous enough to not say anything at all.

“Well, sound logic with the bottle at any rate,” Fabian nodded.

“Right, and if they haven’t showed thus far, is that a kind thing to point out, hmm, Fabian? Take the seat.”

Fabian blew a puff of air through his pursed lips as he followed orders. He wiped his sweaty palms on the obtrusive folds of his empty trouser pockets and looked about the room a bit nervously.

“You don’t have to ask me twice.”

“Hear, hear.”

“See, I hear what you’re saying, but I vehemently disagree with you, so either we can continue this discussion, which is not in your best interest, or we can. Just. Not? I’m feeling generous, so I would seize this opportunity if I were you.”

Chuckling, Fabian shook his head, but agreed. “Yeah, alright. Guess it’s not everyone’s cuppa.” He took a sip of the stout that Dorcas had just insulted, more or less, but his brow furrowed quickly as he thought of another he was eager to hear her opinion on. “There’s one that’s, er--- Merlin, I forget the company, but it’s notes of dark chocolate and orange.”

“Yeah, replace it, sure,” Violet said, clearly distracted. It was only his outstretched hand that caught her attention; she eyed it dubiously and then shook her head, pointedly ignoring it as she opened her mouth. “Thanks, think I’ll need it. Have a good day.”

Fabian’s frown was deeper now than it had been as he watched the woman’s retreating back. Lips pursed, he finally resigned to minding his business, only doing so after a heavy sigh and shake of the head. Was it the strangest interaction he’d ever had? No, but hopefully it would be the strangest of the day.

“Work?” Mary balked, aghast. “Surely that’s not what life’s come to. If adulthood is going in to work the day of or immediately following your birthday, then I’ll have no part in it. I do want to thank you for taking the plunge first, you know, giving me a proper heads up so I can avoid it—the whole growing up ordeal, that is.” She was much more serious about it than she ought to have been. But, then again, Mary Macdonald was only a girl in her late teens. It wasn’t fair that the world expected her, and everyone else, to forget that just because the everything was all out of sorts at present. She signaled for another round, suddenly feeling very sobered by his confession. 

“Eh, it’s not as bad as it sounds.” Fabian shook back the sleeve of his shirt and checked his watch. A quarter to eleven. He had another two hours, roughly, until the morning looked unbearable. “‘Sides, I stayed late today. I’d bet they’re expecting me late tomorrow.” No, they probably weren’t, and even if they were, Fabian wouldn’t dream of being any later than five minutes early. “Although the real adult thing to do would be to request off ahead of time instead of winging it the morning after. Does that give me any extra youthful points?”