Closed Look out

[Zennon Baros]

It had been a very, very long day for Zennon. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat down, let alone leaving the familiar halls of St Mungo’s. Eventually he’d decided he needed a break, and yawning as he waved to a couple of the mediwitch’s Zennon headed to the tried and true and most beloved of cafes near the hospital. He wasn’t even sure if it was beloved because he coffee was good or not, it was just accessible and easy to get to when he was on his way to or from the hospital. But it wasn’t like the brew was anything to scoff at either if he was honest, it was nice when he was able to just, slip into it and get what he wanted right off the bat, it certainly made things easier.

He had a regular order and the people who worked here knew that buy now since he’d been coming to the same place since he’d graduated and started working at St Mungo’s. He used to think it was embarrassing that people knew his orders, but now it was just terribly convenient. And why shouldn’t it be convenient? He had a right to order whatever drink he wished and he wasn’t sure why e was feeling self conscious about it. It was probably because he was tired if he was honest. Though he was no longer as extra as he was in school and didn’t go around with his parselmouth badge pinned to his chest, he did still have his snake bracelet and he wore that very proudly.

It was this bracelet that was going to cause him problems today. As he grabbed his coffee from the woman and stepped away, he got the bracelet caught on his sleeve, which made him look down at it and frown as he attempted to get it uncaught. He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going though, and that caused him another problem as he stepped away from someone else to get out of their way, only to step right into a completely different person, spilling hot coffee all over them. “Oh f*ck, sh!t, I’m so sorry!” his hand was a bit red from the heat of the coffee that had hit his hand, but he was sure the man he’d just assaulted had the worst of it.

“F*ck, I’m a healer, let me just,” but nope, reaching out to touch the man was not the correct response and Zennon shook his head and rolled his eyes, because this was definitely the kind of day he was having. “F*ck me, I’m so sorry, are you alright, here, let’s move out of the way a bit,” they were drawing a bit of an audience and Zennon didn’t want to hold up the line too much.​

 

[Callum Duffy]

Callum had made the decision to move to New Zealand the way he made all decisions: quickly, before he had a chance to get scared. This particular decision had the advantage of being the obvious and only acceptable one. He couldn't live twelve thousand miles away from his son. He couldn't. Jessie had promised, from the bottom of her heart, that Callum would still get to see him every other weekend, the same as always; but Callum had been married to her long enough to know that the bottom of her heart was not very deep. Certainly not deep enough to carry that large a promise. The excuses would be perfectly reasonable, too, so that Callum couldn't argue without turning into the bad guy. Bryan's too tired to travel all that way tonight. Bryan's joined a new club, he'll be away this weekend with all his new friends. Weren't you always saying you were worried he didn't have enough friends?

He wasn't the bad guy. He wasn't. But Bryan was just an impressionable little kid. He'd believe anything Jessie told him. For now, at least, Callum had tread carefully, and if that meant treading on New Zealand soil, then familiarity be damned, he'd do it.

It was the right decision. It wasn't necessarily an easy one. He gazed ahead at St. Mungo's, tracing in his mind the detail of the front steps, the signs of wear where traffic was heaviest, the reflection of the harbour on the windows, all the while apparently oblivious to the witches and wizards having to navigate around him on the street. He hoped he wouldn't need to apparate here any time soon, but he wouldn't be caught out not being able to visualise the entrance if he did. When he finally looked away, he was startled to find himself in the middle of some sort of evening rush. He crossed the road and went into the nearest cafe. The smell of fresh coffee and bacon made him realise he couldn't recall the last thing he'd had to eat or drink. What time was it? He'd been walking around all day.

He was next in queue and had his order poised on his tongue when suddenly somebody collided with him. He hissed in pain as scalding coffee saturated his shirt and burned his stomach. "No, it's fine," he said, withdrawing his wand to dry off the liquid. The stranger's fussing was more uncomfortable than the pain. "Look it's just coffee, I'm fine." He was fine, but the young man looked like he was losing the plot. Callum knew that look. He saw it in the mirror all the time. He turned to the barista and said over the counter, "Can you get another coffee for this man? What was it? Black? I didn't see."

 

[Zennon Baros]

Merlin, could this day have gone worse? It certainly could have gone better he was sure. Knocking into people wasn’t something he liked doing at all, and he wanted to avoid doing it if possible, but apparently the world had other ideas, because as it turned out this man had a much more put together attitude today than Zennon did. It was embarrassing really, because Zennon wasn’t nearly as oblivious as this. He was used to being able to figure sh!t out and not be muddling his way through. He had been so sure he was done with the whole muddling thing when he’d finished school, but apparently today was taking him right back to his clumsy eleven year old days. It almost felt like he was back there, running right into Analei, and it was a disconcerting feeling. His head needed that coffee if only to clear the muddiness of his brain that overtook him from tiredness and general exhaustion.

Zennon steadied himself more and pulled his robes closer to shove his hand into his pocket and pull out a burn cream, quickly popping the top and rubbing some into the skin of his hand before looking at the stranger again, tilting his head slightly to assess him he frowned. “No, not I don’t need, coffee, it’s fine, I’m sorry I ran into you I should have been paying better attention,” he said, looking around to make sure they were out of the way enough to be having a conversation at all. “Please let me buy your drink ti make up for this mistake.” though he didn’t want to force the issue, he did want to let the guy know that he wasn’t usually so careless, he just needed to take better care with sleeping and not taking too much time out of his usual relaxation time.

“It was a cinnamon latte,” he said over the counter though he was sure they already knew that, but then he shook his head because he didn’t need another coffee, not really, well, he probably did if he was this frazzled. “It’s been a really long day, please let me buy you a drink so I can apologise for probably badly scalding you.” he didn’t have to worry about the man’s shirt, as he seemed able to take care of that all on his own, which made sense, they were adults after all. The last time this had happened he’d been in school and not so easily able to scourgify a mess away. “I’m Zennon, by the way, I feel like you should know that given the day I might have inadvertently ruined.”​

 

[Callum Duffy]

Callum knew someone who needed coffee when he saw them. Frankly, he wasn't sure one would be enough. And now the kid was trying to buy him a drink! "Yeah - no," he said. Nobody was buying him anything. Especially not someone fresh out of Hogwarts. Geez, of all the people in the room who could've spilled coffee on him, it had to be probably the only one who'd make a big deal of it. On and on he babbled, while the barista prepared another cinnamon latte as if he got paid on the basis of fewest customers served per hour. Callum felt his patience withering. He couldn't even remember what he'd planned to order.

"You haven't ruined my day," he said, calmly. The family of four sitting down at one of the last vacant tables, on the other hand - that was about to ruin his day. They were not-watching Zennon and Callum with intense disinterest. "All right. OK. Fine." Anything to shut him up. "I'll have an Americano."

 

[Zennon Baros]

Zennon was more than a little relieved when the guy agreed to let him buy him a drink and he quickly went over to pay for them as he observed a little table in the corner that no one had sat at yet. It was clear why, because it was a little claustrophobic, but it was better than nothing in Zennon’s opinion, so he waved the man over, who’s name he still didn’t know, and gestured to the side. He probably should have just paid of the coffee and gone, but he was having a day and honestly some conversation would have done him some good. He couldn’t go home to his son all frazzled like this, it would only worry him.

“It’s not a great spot, but it’s better than nothing, right, sorry again about the coffee, do you need medical treatment? We could go to St Mungo’s or something, it’ll be super quick it’s only around the corner,” he said, laughing a little nervously. Meeting new people had never been especially hard for Zennon, but these days he had so much going on he was often more distracted than he would like to be. “Here’s your americano, did you want it with milk or sugar? I can get that for you.” Merlin he felt like a complete knob.​

 

[Callum Duffy]

It was either the table in the corner with Zennon, or the floor. Callum made a gesture of assent and sat down, but kept his coat on and one leg stuck out in the gangway, as if he were debating getting straight back up again. "I know it is," he said, in reference to St. Mungo's being close by. "I was just there. Sort of." Something Zennon had said after their collision suddenly came back to him. "Did you say you're a healer?" Callum caught himself forming a thought that he looked too young, and then swiftly cut himself off. He was a hypocrite. Age did not equate with capability. He pulled his coffee closer. "It's fine as it is. Thanks."

 

[Zennon Baros]

“What? Healer? Yes, yeah, um,” he sat down across from the guy and takes a sip of his drink, calming a little as he does so. He wasn’t addicted to Coffee or anything, but it was always a better time when he had some. Mostly he liked it as an excuse to take a moment to settle himself and not look strange whilst doing it. “Yeah, I finished my traineeship recently actually, but I’ve been working with healing magic since I was fifteen,” the time he’d spent in the hospital wing in hogwarts had been a lot of fun. Sometimes he missed the simplicity there and working with Agnes as well. He was going to have to find her again and say hi, he hoped she was doing okay these days. After all, he hadn’t just lost a sister that day, she’d lost her world… or so it had been described to him. Not that he realy understood that. “Did you want some of this healing cream? I promise it’s top notch stuff,” he added, holding out the cream he’d been using on his hand earlier. “Sorry, what was your name? I’m Zennon by the way… hold on I already said that.”​

 

[Callum Duffy]

Callum nodded slowly. It wasn't a terrible thing to get to know the St. Mungo's healers. Even if Callum never ended up on Zennon's ward, having a contact inside the hospital could come in useful. "Congratulations. What department?" he asked, tapping the table lightly with his fingernails. Nothing that required good hand-eye coordination, hopefully.

Callum shook his head as Zennon produced a pot of burn cream. His skin stung when his shirt moved against his stomach, but it wasn't worth the hassle of treating it. "I'm... Callum," he said, having toyed briefly with the idea of introducing himself as Duffy. Back home, amongst colleagues, he'd scarcely been known by anything else. Only Jessie and his parents called him Callum. But he wasn't at work. And he certainly wasn't at home. Oh, what did it matter what a blasted stranger called him, anyway?

 

[Zennon Baros]

Zennon was excited to be able to talk about the department where he worked. Creature induced injuries was such a fun path and he pointed to his bracelet which until now had probably been unnoticed by the man. “I work in creature induced injuries! This bracelet, it was given to me to like… I don’t actually remember why it was given to me it was a long time ago now, but it always makes me remember why I wanted to work with creatures. I used to have these two beautiful snakes at home, Snuggles and Cuddles, but unfortunately they died a while back now -” he said, not thinking about the fact that this stranger probably didn’t want to know his whole life story. “Oh… right yes, sorry, um, well, if you don’t want the burn cream, at least, sometime in the next couple of days, please come by the hospital I would like to make sure that’s not a bad burn, okay, because I would feel terrible,” he didn’t even know what this man was doing later today, or anything at all, since it was evening now and they probably weren’t far off the time this place would be closing.

He did miss Sizzles too, but Sizzles had been gone for longer than Cuddles and Snuggles, and he had a great affinity for his snakes, for obvious reasons. “Callum, I went to school with a Callum, different Callum, obviously, but it’s a good name.” he had no idea why he was talking about his name, but it was an easy segueway. “How is your coffee then? You spend a lot of time in the Hospital? You just came from there, visiting, or getting something healed?” obviously he was under no obligation to answer his questions, but as hyped up yet utterly exhausted as he was right now, he didn’t have much of a filter.​

 

[Callum Duffy]

Zennon didn't seem to notice that Callum was staring at him as if he'd grown a second head. Snuggles and cuddles? Did he have an incontinent one as well called Puddles? Callum simply sat in stunned silence as the young man went on, chatting as if they'd known one another for years. Merlin help him if all the healers at St. Mungo's were like this one. He might as well start saving up for a coffin. "Just visiting," he said, deftly sidestepping the avalanche of nonsense that had just fallen out of Zennon's mouth. "Or I thought so. I wasn't expecting to actually need to go to hospital tonight." He sipped his coffee, finally letting his back rest against the chair. "I just moved from Ireland. I'm an Auror. I didn't want to meet the healers so soon..."

 

[Zennon Baros]

The only thing that what he said made Zennon feel was awkward and a little sorry. He hadn’t meant for the guy to get injured in the slightest and hearing he was an auror only made things a lot worse. Zennon had a great respect for aurors, some of his friends were aurors. He wouldn’t say that they were his closest friends or anything, which was probably a good thing because Zennon definitely worried about them a lot when he remembered to think about them, but he felt back that this guy might have just come from some harrowing experience only to get coffee knocked all over him. He didn’t even notice that Callum was looking at him like he might have grown a second head. “F*ck I really am sorry about this. I didn’t mean to like… you know,” he was clumsy on occasion, but the long hours and exhaustion not to mention time spent doing other things had been throwing him off of his game a little bit.

“I thought I heard a bit of an accent,” truth be told he wasn’t actually that great at picking up things like that, mostly because everyone around him had an accent and he did too, sort of. It was a weird mix of Northern American and New Zealand. But it was defined and clear for those who wanted to actually listen for it. Still, his accent disappeared completely when he was speaking in parseltongue, he’d checked. He thought it would be strange to have an accent in parseltongue, but it was a completely different thing. Not only was it it’s own language but it came strong with its own accent as well. It was kind of cool. “I’ll uh, endeavour to make sure you don’t end up there again. Thankfully something like this would be super easy to heal and I’m sure it’s not um… really bad? Does the shirt sting?” knowing the guy might be in some discomfort was a little awkward, but there wasn’t much he could do right now.​

 

[Callum Duffy]

"I'm joking," Callum said. "You know I'm joking? Don't look so worried, you're making me feel bad." As he spoke he scanned the cafe, making a mental note of who was sat where and what they were eating. The family sitting nearby had finally lost interest in Callum's conversation with Zennon, presumably because a large bowl of cheesy chips had just been delivered to their table. "Will you stop asking me about it?" Callum steered his attention back to Zennon, who was starting to sound like a broken record. "Sorry. Look, I'm grateful for the coffee, but I've had a long day, and I'm tired, and I don't want to be the guy that snaps at a healer, so just let it go. It's fine. Everything's fine. Thank you." That had to be enough, surely. Just in case, he added, "Tell me what there is to do around here, other than.. buy stuff."

 

[Zennon Baros]

Zennon felt bad. He was being overly careful and he wasn’t normally this person. He sighed as he registered that Callum was probably having just the worst experience in the world right now and nodded, taking another sip of his coffee, “You’re right, yes, okay, I’ll stop apologising - we’re done, right,” he looked around as he tried to think about what some of the best things to do would be. It had been a while since he’d done anything to be honest, so he really had to wrack his brain for it. It wasn’t the kind of thing he was happy about because it was only proving he needed to get out a lot more. “Um, I’ve gotta be honest a little bit here, I haven’t gotten out much in the last few years between my son and my training, so… I mean there’s the usual kind of things, there’s a theatre outside of town that I’ve been to once or twice, the Daily Prophet has archives you can go to and check out some of the old articles too - if you’re interested in that kind of thing.”

There was honestly a lot of things to do to be honest and he hadn’t done any of them in a long time. “What kind of things are you interested in, maybe I can tailor what I’m saying to the things you like to do?” he didn’t want to sit here and list everything if it wasn’t going to be of interest to the guy after all, that would only be boring for the both of them probably.​

 

[Callum Duffy]

If Callum were being honest, he hadn't got out much either since his divorce. He'd never been the life of any party, but he'd had what he considered friends, once upon a time. Well, they were mostly Jessie's friends, but they'd liked him enough to invite him out to dinners and house parties, and he'd usually gone, because they were good company, and because he quite enjoyed knowing he was the only wizard among a group of muggles. Jessie had poisoned them against him, too. Not that he'd expected to stay best buddies with them after she left him, but he'd hoped they might at least stay in touch, for old times' sake. Now Callum had nobody. He could have tried harder, perhaps should have tried harder, to make friends of his own, but frankly, he was tired of people. People were such a plague. You finally thought you'd found a good one, and they plunged the knife even deeper than the rest.

"Theatre," Callum repeated, nursing his cup. "Been a long time since I went to the theatre." He was talking more to himself than to Zennon. After a moment he shrugged. "I don't know. Museums? Bars?" Those were the sorts of things people liked to do, right? "I'm open to suggestions."

 

[Zennon Baros]

Zennon grinned lightly as he mentioned it had been a long time since he'd been to a theatre. Honestly, same, but Zennon had a lot of others things to occupy him. There was a lot that he hadn't had time for lately, but he was kind of glad that he seemed to be making a friend... if that's what was happening right now. He hoped so, because he certainly didn't want to be making an enemy after all this effort. "Well there are definitely bars around, right here in Obsidian we've got the Cauldron, not a bad place to go for a drink, I've been there a couple of times myself - Makutu has The Medley, which is probably the more popular of the two, though it's a much younger crowd so it depends on what works more for you. More of a club vibe than just a bar though." he said, thinking hard on what else he could tell this guy about.

"There's a circus that comes around on occasion, I keep meaning to take my kid there but haven't had a chance and um... there's a couple of great places outside Obsidian too, in the wider community. There's honestly a lot if you're willing to look. There's a banana museum somewhere I've heard about, though I haven't yet been there myself."​

 

[Callum Duffy]

"My clubbing days are long over," Callum said dryly, when Zennon had finished. "But the banana museum sounds good." He thought about this for a moment and frowned into his coffee. "What do you put in a banana museum? I mean, bananas, obviously. But are there many different kinds of bananas? Have they evolved over time? Who cares so much about bananas that they looked at a piece of fruit and thought, 'You know where this belongs? In a museum.'? Baffling." Perhaps that was the point. Callum couldn't deny he was intrigued. But it wouldn't be keeping him up at night. "Just to be clear... you're not the kind of person that would put a banana in a museum, are you?"

 

[Zennon Baros]

Zennon laughed slightly when Callum mentioned his clubbing days were long over by now. he wasn't sure he agreed, clubbing was a fun thing to do with friends, but he wasn't about to argue with someone he just met. "Okay, that's fair, in that case, let me think," he wasn't really sure how to answer the questions about bananas though, because he himself had never been to the museum, but he was interested in finding about more about it. "I don't know a lot about it, I've never actually been - I've been meaning to go for ages. From what I can gather it's about all different types of bananas you could find around the world, educational and insightful," he said with a grin. He purposefully avoided the last question, because he was sorry to say he probably would put a banana in a museum.​