Snapshot written with Niobe

8 February 2012
8:15 am
Beast Division kitchen

The word had come down unceremoniously. Balfour Spectre had asked Vincent Fournier if he’d be willing to take on the Beast Division as interim head and Vincent said, ‘why not,’ and then joked that anyone else would be a disaster. There were no applications or interviews. Vincent had just bent over Mrs. Lanningham’s desk and signed a scroll, and that was that. The Ministry beaurocracy knew how to handle the maiming murder of a department head; just a quick shuffle then sort it out properly later.

Vincent hadn’t slept properly in weeks, but he never did and no one else was sleeping well. He came in early, left late, and tried to sort out his new mess of responsibilities. Werewolf murders or not, beasts were beasts and needed regulation and control. He was still working out of his desk in Dragon Research and Restraint while people moved offices, which kept him on his feet most of the day.

The first order of business this morning was in the large common kitchen. It looked like half an old tunnel with a huge arched ceiling and mismatched cookery and furniture. There was no way Vincent could survive what would be another long day without proper caffeination, and seeing as how the coffee usually on order here was sludge, Vincent brought in some good stuff. 

He’d anything that smelled off in the icebox, including a carafe of something pretending to be coffee or had once lived a rich full life as coffee but was now rotting uncoffee. All of it was replaced with something actually drinkable.

Bruce Ballentyne appeared to be a living zombie as she limped into the kitchen, relying heavily on the cane in her right hand. Her features were pale and almost a sickly green, and her damp hair had already started to dry and protrude in all odd directions. Too focused on her task, she didn’t pay any mind to the other person in the kitchen, and made her way straight to the icebox to find the coffee she’d prepared for herself the day before. Always look after the future you, that was the motto for preparing for hangovers, as it was for preparing for your regular run of the mill werewolf transformations.

With the door to the fridge open, Bruce could only stand and stare. It wasn’t there.
“No.”

“Hm?” Vincent looked up from the cold take-out he’d saved from late last night. Bruce Ballentyne from the Werewolf Wing was judging the fridge.

“There’s coffee,” he offered helpfully, his voice gravelly from the late night.

She could see the coffee. It wasn’t her coffee. It wasn’t the coffee that she’d prepared with the pain potion and pepper-me-up potion inducing overnight. Her flask was gone. Bruce looked up from the fridge, turning around to see the stocky wizard.

“Not my coffee.”

Vincent had never worried over tone; he was rough enough himself. He nodded to the coffee maker where a kettle of the good coffee was keeping itself warm and happy.

“My coffee’s better. Ethiopian yirgacheffe,” Vincent said and lifted his mug into the air in a toast, an offer.

Bruce would have thought she was having some unpleasant dream if she didn’t feel so sick and exhausted. This was too real. She closed the fridge and stared at him with tired blue eyes.

“I don’t care if it’s made from Brazillian heffalumps.” she muttered. Who was this idiot with his Ethopian yiyigagachef? “Where is my flask? The red one. Says my name on the bottom.” She found herself speaking to him as if he were a child. Who even was this wizard who drank Ethopian hellalump coffee?

Vincent returned her pissiness. “Why’d you put your name on the bottom? I threw it out. It was rancid.”

The look Vinvent Fournier now received could have frozen molten lava. Bruce’s knuckles went white on her cane and she took a deep breath. It failed to calm her.

“You...you did what?” He wasn’t that stupid. Couldn’t be that stupid. “It was supposed to be pissin’ rancid.”

Vincent set down his breakfast and leaned forward to give his full attention. He didn’t know what she was on about with her bad coffee. True enough, an old roommate once threw out sage butter Vincent had spent a while making thinking the green color was mold, and he’d been a baby about it. But he’d been twenty.

“Sorry,” he said without contrition, “that I threw out your intentionally rancid coffee. Give my coffee a few days and you’ll be good to go.”

He fake-smiled. The rumors about Bruce Ballentyne being a hot-head were not exaggerations.

Bruce took another deep breath. She was going to lose her temper soon and that wouldn’t be pretty.

“Do you know what day it is?” she asked, stepping a little closer, her limp extremely evident as she winced in pain.

He snapped his fingers. “Wednesday. Division meetings later.”

“...and last night?”

Something was dawning on Vincent. He sat back and let out a long breath. He’d stepped in it.

“Bugger me,” he said to the werewolf on her morning after.

There it was, the moron had finally realised. Bruce took another step forward.
She spoke really slowly and quietly, save for winding herself up even more, “That rancid coffee you proudly threw out had enough pain and pepperup potion to get a crippled werewolf whose stomach can’t handle wolfsbane through a day post transformation. You can shove your Ethopian piss where the sun don’t shine.”

Vincent sat fully back and scratched at his stubble. “Right,” he mumbled. “Not my best work. Can I make you a sausage?”

He felt quite bad about what he'd done. Werewolves had it rough. People said it was like a hang-over delivered with bludgers and intestinal parasites.

“A sausage?” she was aghast, appalled, astonished, amazed. What the hell was a sausage going to do to enable her to walk on her leg? Prop her up? It would need to be a bloody big sausage.

“For breakfast. Fortifying. Protein. Salt. Fat,” Vincent tried to explain. “Good for a hard night.”

It was clear to anyone that Vincent had many a hard night. He didn’t eat meat usually, but people swore by it.

“A hard night?” Bruce retorted, still stunned. “I haven’t got a hangover!” This was far worse and no sausage was going to fix anything. It was with awkward movements that the witch made her way over to the coffee on the side and her now shaking hand reached for a mug from the cupboard. The hand continued with it’s noticeable tremor as she reached into her pocket for a small vial that she unstoppered and poured into the mug.

“A @*$&ing sausage. Trust an idiot wizard.” Her already bad mood was starting to hit record badness.

Vincent wiped his hand over his face. Sometimes you tried and sometimes you failed. She had a right to be angry. His next impulse was another suggestion, but that seemed like the wrong move. Bruce would know better what she needed.

“I’d offer to make it up to you,” he started as she proceeded to help herself.

“And then throw it down the drain after?” she responded, shoving the empty vial back in her robe pocket and pouring coffee into the mug. “No thanks.” She turned with the mug in hand and leaned back against the counter.

“You new?” She’d not seen him before, and someone who knew her would know not to throw out something of hers the day after a full moon.

“No,” Vincent replied not fighting the sudden change in topic. “Vincent Fournier,” he said. Four-nee-eh, he said it.

“I’m taking over for Spectre.” A battlefield promotion.

“@&$*.” The witch cursed. “Great start.”

With that, she turned on her heel and hobbled out of the room.