Placebo song titles for threads, this one's actually quite melancholy, and sort of fits, but some less than PG lyrics.

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The walk to work from Colin and Johann's shared flat had been filled with drizzle which had dampened Johann Storm's hair and hung onto his wool coat like his mood.

The weekend had been laid low as possible since he'd been sent home from St Mungo's[1] which had been a week he wanted to forget. He was no closer to working out who had found him at the Ministry and brought him to the hospital[2], and he'd not exactly made many friends at the hospital[3] after desperately confessing to months of thievery from the pharmacy. He still feared they'd decide to prosecute him for it, and that would just be tiresome to deal with. Hopefully Hollingbury and Torret would have just ensured his face was plastered to enough walls in the pharmacy that they were satisfied enough that they could spot him miles off. He'd save the blushes of the young pharmacist by never returning, hopefully she'd keep her job.

Instead, Johann joined others reaching a safe point to enter the Ministry of Magic, keeping his head down, avoiding eye contact. He didn't rejoice in observing the atrium traffic and the headlines on the morning paper, he didn't exchange pleasantries or quips with strangers. He headed straight for the lifts, which rumbled up to the fifth floor, and continued to his desk, without raising his head or speaking to anyone.

He could feel their eyes. Hear them whisper.

His in-tray was surprisingly empty. Devoid of any work entirely. There was no smudge of ink on his desk, but a strange stain was on the floor beside his chair where someone had clearly tried to remove something... brown... dark crimson...? Without realising, it was what he hadn't vomited over Hamilton, his unknown rescue party.

Johann stared at his empty in-tray like he'd never seen it before. Actually, he hadn't. It had been bulging and busy ever since he'd been hired. Hamilton used to drop all manner of dead rats or other nasties in there between trading standards documents. Where was the arse, anyway? Johann afforded a glance in the direction of the team his thorn usually sat with, but saw his desk empty. It was then he noticed the postcard spellotaped to the intray. A muscular man in some sort of excuse for underwear on a beach.

Glad you aren't here.

Idiot was on holiday. Johann's shoulders drooped with relief. That was one less thing to think about. With luck it would all have been forgotten by the time Hamilton got back.

Smack

The memo sailed into Johann's sunken cheek and bounced onto the desk. Rubbing his face, he opened it, and slowly raised his eyes to Gabrielle's office door, and then to the corridor back to the lifts. Drumming his fingers on the desk, he slid off his damp coat, curling it over his chair, and walked slowly to his senior's door, and knocked before opening it, closing it firmly behind him.

"Good morning." He greeted his relative and boss, staring at the back of the visitor's chair before him, anticipating a bollocking.

1.	Pure Morning
2.	The Innocence of Sleep
3.	Protect Me From What I Want

Talk about getting things done at lightning speed.

Johann was coming back this morning to work and well, she was more than adequately prepared to give him the lecture of the new year. True, she had not found out everything from St. Mungo's and the visit with Hollingbury, but enough research had come back to her. All the secrets he had been keeping, all the little lies were now boldy exposed inside her brain. There was pity and remorse, but mainly rage and sheer disappointment in the idiot. Sending him packing back to Wolfgang was hardly something she wanted - he would ask questions and that would lead to the exposing truth that his son had an addiction. A damn addiction that Johann had not kicked until entering St. Mungo's.

So. The memo had been sent and well, with only moments to spare, she transformed into her falcon form, soon siting on the desk, the eyes flashing the very feelings she had coursing through her body. Oh, he was going to get more than a lashing of tongues. He was going to have himself confronted by a falcon form that equally wanted a piece of him. A scratch or four would surely get his attention, right?

"Good morning."

Her eyes stayed focused on him. Let the bollocking begin.

The absence of response made him look up properly. Instead of Gabrielle, was a bird. Johann's expression changed from an attempt at being apologetic to confusion. That was before the bird took off and headed straight for his head.

He ducked, protecting his head with his arms and flailed, wondering why the hell a bird was in Gabrielle's office, and why it suddenly took an interest in him. Was this some crazy new security she'd put in place? Was it a joke a trick? Or was this just a pet that was very very hungry?

"Aaargh!" Johann moaned, reducing in height and heading towards the door, the bird still attacking and his arms over his head, trying to protect his face and ears from the claws and beak.

A new security measure that was hungry for revenge, even if it meant he had a few gashes to go the work day through. His long standing reign of trickery and deception were now going to catch up with him as the falcon continued with its wrath, its shrill cry screaming at him.

She rather enjoyed this, but of course, why wouldn't she? Dishonest boy, meet retaliating boss in animagi form! The final scratches to his suit, hands and tugs to hair occurred before flying out of the room, leaving him battered and no doubt bloody. He deserved what came his way and this time, his cousin felt proud of her handiwork.

She flew off to the conference room, transforming back to her normal height, shaking off any detection that she had been his assailant. Strolling back was particularly amusing in wondering what was going on in Johann's brain. Probably an implosion at best, but again, all deserving for that deception. Her head peeked into the office, smirking at the back of his head.

"Good morrow, cousin. Glad to see you back amongst the living." Hell hath no fury like this... Until today, eh?

Was this another hallucination?! Johann flailed continually now crouching into a ball on the floor - and then suddenly the bird vanished. He didn't see where it went, but he was glad whatever it was - real or hallucination, had let up.

"Good morrow, cousin. Glad to see you back amongst the living."

Merlin! Johann was still crouched on the floor, and Gabrielle's cordial way of greeting him suggested she'd not noticed, or she knew why he was that way. Inspecting his hands hurriedly, he smeared blood down the back of his knuckle with a grimace.

"Morning," Johann greeted, a little unsure, and brought his long, spindly legs straight beneath him once again, standing up. He instinctively sucked the bleeding knuckle after he spoke, then shook out his hand and thought about putting it in his suit trouser pocket, then thought better of it.

"I got your memo." He carried on, as normally as possible, and then looked to the door, and then back at Gabrielle.

"Ok then, when did you get the bird?" He asked, gesturing to the doorway. "Because it doesn't like me." He sucked his bleeding knuckle again, only to find his ear was bleeding too. Merlin!

"The bird?"

A faux but convincing innocence look came across Gabrielle's features, even as she was in full awareness of who the falcon was.

"Oh, you mean the falcon that I recently acquired? Hm. Are you certain you didn't engage it in an aggressive manner? You know falcons don't like that," she mused in possible explanation, biting back the smirk that was so desperately trying to surface. "I'm glad you're back home, more or less. It's been rather lonely without you." Godric, wasn't she being malicious suddenly? Yes, yes she was and frankly, Johann, she loved it. Rising from her chair, she poured two cups of steaming tea, handing one over to her cousin.

"Have you any plans for Christmas?"

"No... I don't think I did, I just walked in here." Johann replied cautiously and received the cup of tea, arranging it gingerly in his hands as it was hot.

"Christmas? Well, uhm, if I'm honest I'm not that far ahead." He shook his bleeding hand and gave the knuckle another firm suck beneath his lips, and the cut began to settle, and he patted at his ear which was already clotting.

"I'll be here in Britain, work what I can, take Christmas Day, Boxing Day off at the least, Colin's with his parents on the day, but we've plans to catch up together on Boxing Day. Why, why would you be interested? I thought ..." He sighed with some irritation, voice a bit more suppressed than his usual chatter, "That you'd had me in here to shout at me, or something, for the last week or so."

He didn't meet her eyes, but stared at the tea in his hand.

"Well, you are family, no matter the distance in between."

And speaking of family, say....

Gabrielle continued her efforts in watching Johann sit there wounded in more than one way while she lifted the cup to drink her tea. Gabrielle was livid; after all, she felt as though now her department was dwindling away. Az wasn't about anymore (she had lamented that rather well a few nights prior) and so, in fear, she wanted ensure her grip on Johann remained firm like a mother's tough love.

"I am disappointed in you and rightly have the chance to use what temper I have against you, Johann. I know your work results - they're truly some of the best this department has ever had. However... your ethics from these past few weeks are less than ideal. Think what would have happened if Hamilton hadn't found you." Gabrielle visibly shuddered as family emotion rose over boss-employee jurisdiction and her nose crinkled in thinking. "I am angry also. You're a lucky boy and I say boy because that's what children do. Knicking items when parent and person aren't looking."

A sigh.

"I won't make you swear to it, but please. Johann, don't do this to yourself, to your family here who care about you - after all... I could have written to your father. So, be a smart man and don't bugger it up again or I'll make sure the next time you muck up, the falcon isn't the only thing to leave marks."

Here it came, what he'd anticipated with a heavy heart that morning.

"Hamilton?" Johann was distracted more by that revelation than Gabrielle's threat of worse than an attack from a falcon if he made a similar mistake again.

"But he's on holiday, what do you mean, he found me?" The cup of tea found its way onto the nearest edge of his superior's desk.

He blinked and shook his head in confusion.

"No, of course I won't do it again - you'd only sack me, and I … Hamilton are you sure? They didn't know at the hospital who brought me in, they didn't leave a name. I don't even remember what happened.. I…" He met his relative's gaze and sat back again dejectedly, digging himself a hole all over again.

"I'm sorry Gabrielle, it won't happen again. I'll make up the time, and I can't even go near the apothecary anyhow, Hollingbury's made sure."

His fingertips collected the tea again, and he sipped thoughtfully, confused at how Hamilton could have been there so late, he'd left to go on holiday. It would be just right that the irritating idiot would have claimed to have been a good Samaritan. He was quite sure the idiot would have left him there to perish if he'd actually been the one to find him.

"What did I miss, anyhow?"

With that behind them, Gabrielle was only too happy to list out the enormous pile of work for him....



End