Taking a beating
"You took your hits with the bruises on the soles of your feet,"
William Jahrhaus did not know at what point his glasses had slid so far down his nose; Certainly they had obtained some opportunity by way of a spare few seconds to descend, but he had not noticed this because he was far too busy answering to his superior. The young man's eyes were emotionless, colorless, this he had been told a million times over and over; There was nothing that lay behind them, no great secret, no glimpse of the soul. Just ghastly paleness. Despite this he felt somehow as if the squash-faced man standing in front of him should have been able to easily delve into his mind by way of his presently contracted pupils and rip apart what thoughts were crawling through the empty space inside his head until finding that singular thread of weakness, whereupon it would undoubtedly pull and pull until it ripped away that singular plug which keeps the insecurities, fears and frailties of all Jahrhi (and indeed perhaps all men) tucked out of sight, in order to unleash a torrent of uncharacteristic emotion- and equally uncharacteristic defeat like a backwards shower drain of self pity.
It was his luck that those supposed hands found no purpose, there was a great deal of substance to the notion that the fellow castigating him had no intent other than spilling out all of his hatred and criticism upon the unluckiest employee he had, whose misfortune it was to cross his path before anyone else that day. At this early hour, the only one who could have been around in the first place was William. Thusly he had been grabbed by the brooch of his cloak with such force that he genuinely worried the silver ears of the cony or the less compact body of the fox should be entirely ripped away with some portion of metal laurel, a blasphemy upon his family wreaked through damage done to its crest. To his great fortune Mr.Jahrhaus found that it was not the brooch which should snap under the brute force of Achim Wently, instead it was his great reserve of self control and to some extent his heart itself. It was a great offense for him to be so rudely treated and even greater for his work to be brought up, his hours of effort picked at by someone he considered to some extent a lesser man. The urge to put his hair into order, to count the tiles below him and above him, to throw the lights on and off crept up from the back of his psyche; it was with great difficulty that he shoved those impulses away, his pale adam's apple bobbing with a thick swallow as he did. Oh god, he wanted so badly to press his glasses back into place. At present, however, he was too surprised and too distressed to move.
Between snarls of "Do you know in debt we are?!", (which he did, being the Treasurer insinuated some amount of knowledge on these things) and "Benny ran away last week with how much money? One hundred fifty thousand, right under your nose," William garnered that the problem at hand was not the debt (which he had actually managed to reduce since beginning his job, halving it within a year) and that it was not Benedict either, the fool had long since been suspended as a Ministry financier and had been caught attempting to transfer the money to a private account of his without ever completing the action in the first place. Instead, he realized, it was the muggles. William had known this day would come in eventuality and it saddened him to have to bear both witness to it and the weight of his superior's fear-curdled anger, but what could he do? So the man was upset that they were being taxed as an institution that hired Wizards; what did he expect with the recent crackdowns on magic? It was not as if this was wholly unheralded, it had long been implied in both street-talk and official document that the hiring of Wizards and Witches would not come without both monetary and social price. Yes, they would lose money over being an institution which used a labor force that was one-hundred-percent magic, they'd lose power too. Surely Wently realized that this would all fade away with time though, only a fool would sputter and flail at something out of his control. But then, that would be why he was sputtering and flailing at William in particular; somehow he felt that William did have control despite the fact that he had no more power to refuse than Wently.
When finally the Head of Corporate deflated with a sigh and a bowing of his spine, the Jahrhaus recognized the danger had passed. Having allowed most of the rant to go right over his head, choosing to try to ride out his own anxiety in silence and introspection, William wasn't entirely sure how to respond. The best course of action was to be profound. he decided. With great confidence that there was a fifty-fifty chance this would work, William reached out one black-sleeved hand to clasp Wently by the shoulder and give the shorter man a reassuring squeeze, half-lidding his inexpressive eyes in the best look of empathy he could manage. "It'll be alright," he promised, taking the liberty of pressing his glasses back up his nose.
Apparently the reassurance worked, because with a nod and a resigned mutter his fellow Bursar met his eyes, looked to the ground, met his eyes again and slowly turned away to disappear down the hallway with a zombielike shuffle. "Well," William murmured, continuing only in thought; 'That was weird as all hells', a sentiment that still rang between his ears when finally he fell into the wheeled chair of his office. The Treasurer gave himself a moment to recline and decompress, to shake off the feeling of failure and replace it with a more suitable outlook: why worry about the muggles? They'd realize that magic was a racial trait like any other and that there was nothing to be done, they were reasonable and civil nowadays just like anyone else and would most certainly come to accept and perhaps even integrate Wizards into society. With the shove of one polished shoe against the corner of his desk, William began to spin around and around in his chair. The ceiling above swirled above him, a much calmer thing to consider than magic-nonmagic politics.
It was this sudden inactivity that left him defenseless for the next thought, a declaration that came as loudly into his mind as if it had been spoken.
By Merlin, I need a friend.
_________________________
Nicolae
Arriving at work
"Well I know why you hang around, you see it in me."
Something felt especially pleasant about October this year, a feeling of unusual... god, but what was it? Freedom? Anticipation? Revival? All of those were words of far too much meaning for the enjoyable smell, sound and sight of this year's fall. A second or two of consideration left Nick deciding that he simply liked October now and that was all there was to it. It was a nice walk to work for this part of the route, leaving his part of town with its tall trees and few inhabitants in exchange for that corrupted place where city suddenly and violently meets forest in a mess of dead or dying trees, discarded plastic bottles and unconscious drunkards half disrobed and lurking in the bushes. For now the canopy overhead was thick and the sidewalk only bearing dirt of the most natural and literal sort, Nick was inclined to take the simple pleasure as it came; it was such a temporary thing after all. It was that sudden thought that left him lifting his hand to feel one shoulder, perpetually sore as it had been over the last few months; he couldn't help but twitch a little as he ran a finger absently over the keloid scarring there.
Soon the clean sidewalk gave way to slightly less clean sidewalk, suddenly transforming thirty feet farther down into a dark and gritty mess. That reminded him of something, but for the life of him the Barman just could not place it, feeling slightly uncomfortable and compelled to speed up just a little in his walk. Both of his hands were now tucked safely in his jacket pockets, his scarf- an ironic little thing which had been given him by a much beloved girlfriend in his highschool days, spun from of curly gray yarn into the shape of an oblong irish wolfhound whose shaggy woolen muzzle rested just under his chin with its jaws pressed snugly to his throat- had been drawn tightly over both his collar and his chin. Finally the canopy broke above him, autumnal leaves gave way to gray city sky; for every branch there was now a phone line, equally (if not more) populated by birds as its natural counterpart. Speed walking away from the comfort of the park-path and his little home tucked away in the trees, a mile back the way he came, Nick passed building after building; they were both noteworthy and mundane, as individual and similar as any two trees. For all of his more nature oriented activities he had never been a hater of the city. Quite the opposite, his role as a lawyer had kept him for more than three fourths of the day in both cramped apartments and equally packed courtrooms; he was gifted with a natural appreciation of the manmade. Even with that appreciation, the farther from the trees he went the more he felt as if the pleasure of this year's Autumn was receding. Being a man of few whims and little serious thought regarding his own emotions Mr.DeMorgan made a point of ignoring this feeling and pursuing a half-smile (as well as a matching attitude) while he walked.
By the time he made it to the bar he could no longer feel either his nose or his ears; for all the chilliness of the outdoors and the length of his walk through both clean air and smog, Nick seemed just as unbeatable as ever with a crooked grin across his face as he literally threw open the round-handled front door and spread his arms wide, declaring to the bar (in which sat only two people, both of whom were men and both of whom were his coworkers) in his usual upbeat tone: "Miladies, weep no more, for I have arrived!"
The older of the two men didn't find this very funny, ignoring the curling grin of the other as he stood up from his place at the bar and set down bowl of peanuts he'd been shelling, grabbed away the dishrag from his fellow and approached the bemused Nicolae to thrust the gray cloth at him. "Madre de dios, every day you live to see is another day I die inside." he grumbled, adjusting his name tag and pretending not to see when Nick, who presently stepped on past him, vaulted over the bar in order to avoid going around it.
Only as he picked up the first dirty glass of the day, flipping the sink on with the meat of his palm and adding a few squirts of dishsoap to the roiling water inside the stein, did Nicolae finally understand why the magic of October had so suddenly left him. Maintaining his cheerful expression, Nick tried to keep his eyes from watering as he mumbled to himself; "All the leaves were red,"
