Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really, want!

Lester Blackwell's head rolled backwards, as his thin lips stretched first into a smile and then into words, and his tongue rolled out the lyrics of the song that suddenly blasted into his ears thanks to the wonders of modern technology. The world was a blurry haze of colors that didn't quite seem to construct any familiar description of what London should look like at five in the bloody morning with the sun just barely painting its lighter color against the darkness of the night's canvas -but who the shit cared? The sounds he yelled out into the early morning traffic -which was barely existing this early on a Monday- came out with little rhythm and even less of an ability to carry a tune, but the eighteen year old couldn't make himself give a flying rat's ass. Only one thing mattered: the 90's.

Music was an important part of Lester's life, as primordial as making sure his heart didn't stop beating or his fingers didn't lose their magical prowess. Every age had had its identifiers, and from each decade one could find samples of perfection. But it was in the 90's that Lester Blackwell -son of two, brother of five, and only squib in a family otherwise built entirely of wizards and witches- found himself most identified. It was amongst the likes of Oasis, REM, No Doubt and so many more that a young boy had found comfort when all he'd found else wise was solitude.

And so he sang, as he struggled to straighten his head and fish a pack of cigarettes from his pockets. "If you want my future," he belched out into the atmosphere before placing the fag between his lips, his throat still humming the Spice Girl song. As he pulled it away, he thought he heard a crunch behind him -a sound he at first considered to be nothing but a product of his drunken imagination. Then, however, he heard a loud smack, felt searing pain stress through the back of his skull and down his spine.

And then everything went black.

It was the crack of almighty dawn when Lala found herself facing the mother of all deadlines for a lot of work she hadn't even started on, because Jason. That pretty much explained her life at the moment: Jason. And it was disturbing to say the least, but at the moment she had five illustrations to finish for the crappiest book in the history of crappy books and she neither had coffee nor cigarettes. So who cares it was barely the crack of dawn, she picked the closest clothes in reach and went out to face the cold and arm herself with the necessities for a long and tiring day of work.

Thing was, the closest shop to home that was opening 24/7 wasn't exactly close, and she lived in a muggle neighborhood,  and it wasn't even five in the morning... So it took her about five minutes to completely regret her decision of taking the pair of shoes at the entrance, as they had high heels. But this was her living, and rent day was fastly approaching, so she pulled through, got to the store only to find that the one cashier that completely hated her guts was on shift. After many glares and burns and stings, she finally exited the store with a bag of energy drinks, coffee, a pack of fags and a sandwich. Yes, she wasted money on the sandwich, but she also saved time.

Walking up Barrington, with her jacket held tightly against her she was muttering something about the cold ass weather when the god awful sounds of a dying cat, whale, monster... something suddenly cut through the dead silence of the neighborhood. After her first instinct to get the hell out of Dodge, Lala realized it wasn't in fact a dying whale, but someone singing. And misery of all miseries, a Spice Girls song. Oh, what the world had come to. After a few more steps, she identified the source of the noise as coming from some dude in front of her, and by the way he was walking - barely standing- Lala deduced he was completely leathered.

As the distance between her and the dude shortened, Lala became increasingly more panicked, but as the song of the dying whale continued, she thought the voice, of the whale, was a little familiar. And when she was able to make out the hobo chic haircut slash concentration camp couture haircut she realized it was none other than the little shit that constantly ruined her life... Les. "Oi, fucker, wait up" she yelled after him, trying to speed up her pace, but heels. "Les! Lester! I know you can hear me!" Or maybe he couldn't, but he didn't usually get so completely wasted... After a few more minutes of Les having no reaction and she still trying to catch up, with a glare and a dead serious expression Lala froze.

Leaning down to get her shoe off, she took a step back and swung it with all her might toward the little shit. When the shoe hit bull's eye she took a moment to smirk smugly at herself, but it was seconds after when the figure ahead crumpled to the ground and her face fell off. "Oh, shit" was about how she assessed the situation. Making a run for it, or well, hopping on one foot until she reached him, she knelt next to him only to realize he was wearing headphones. Oh... Well, oops. Shaking him a few times and getting only grunts in response Lala let out a long sigh and took her phone out of her pocket.

"Good mooorning, McGrumpster. This is Lala, your favorite neighbor slash best friend.  It is now almost 5AM, I'm on Barrington, at the end of the street and I may have just killed your brother. Ugh, yeah, call me when you get this. Toodles." And with that she got the phone back in her pocket and carefully looked around before getting her wand out and whispering Rennervate under her breath. "You little fuck" she punched him hard in the shoulder. "You gave me a flipping heart attack. Get up!"

It was incredibly late. Or depending on how you looked at it, early. Either way, Shamera was awake and wandering through a rather empty area of London. After having closed up The Underground for the night, she didn’t much feel like going home. Most of her time was spent outside and trying to be as quiet and stealthy as possible.  This early morning, she was doing that. Climbing around taller buildings, seeing how far she could get without touching the ground. General training that she liked to go through. Even though she had magic for getting around stealthily, she preferred knowing how to case she found herself without it.

While it had been rather peaceful, that feeling was interrupted by a sound in the distance.  Hopping onto a fire escape, she found her way towards the noise, curious. A lot of what Shamera did would involve investigating things that were happening. She enjoyed watching people and seeing how they reacted. Following the sounds, she found a young man singing loudly to some older muggle pop music. Raising an eyebrow, the redhead was going to continue on her way when she noticed a girl who started trying to get the guy’s attention and ended up knocking him out by throwing a shoe. Nice arm and aim Shamera though, moving a little further down to the ground.

Then it was obvious the two knew each other. And that the female wasn’t too fond of the male. Sham watched the rest of the incident play out before hopping off the fire escape and walking over. Usually she didn’t get involved, but this wasn’t exactly something you saw every morning.  Plus she felt like having a little something interesting to end her morning.

“Just make sure he doesn’t have a concussion. Unless you wanted to give him one. Quite the arm you’ve got there.” Sham said, giving a nod at the girl. “Referring to the shoe-throwing, not the punching. But that was a nice touch too.”

Sneaking up on people may or may not be one of Shamera's favorite things. Perhaps not the nicest, but seeing people's reactions was usually worth it.

"Holy shitballs!" she jumped out of her skin at hearing another voice in the dead silence of the street. "Where the hell did you come from?" she said glaring at the girl, one hand on her chest to settle her thumping heart. "Warn a person, Jesus Christ" she muttered around a scowl. What was it with people just popping out of nowhere? And why the hell was anybody else awake at this time? She didn't look creepy, but then again, she didn't know how a stalker looked. Well, maybe she did. There was that whole Luke O'Neill incident in kindergarten... A misunderstanding, nothing else. They didn't need to suspend her.

She blinked a few times, once the chick's words registered and she grinned brightly. "Yes, well... I'm quite used to throwing shit after him" she said with a snort and proceeded to give Les another shake. "And I'm pretty sure he was born concussed" she added with a straight face, and pinched his arm hard. He couldn't be dead. Nevermind Sander, but she did not want to have the wrath of Bran or the triplets upon her. "Lester Evan Blackwell! WAKE THE FUCK UP!" she leaned down and screamed into his ear. There, that should do it.

"So... I'm Lala" she said apropos to absolutely nothing, shoving her extended hand in the girl's face. Meeting strangers, on the street, at five AM... as people did.

An amused smile graced Sham’s face when the other girl jumped and cursed.  Definitely one of the better reactions she’d gotten lately. She did feel a little bad, given the girl’s current condition and the fact that it was around five o’clock in the morning. But it was always good to know that her skills were still doing well.

“Apologies. I was raised to be stealthy.” She offered, deciding it was probably best. She then watched as the girl continued to try and get the boy to wake up.  This would be quite a show. Then the girl thrust a hand at Shamera.

“Shamera. Pleasure to meet you.” Doing the polite thing, she accepted the handshake and introduced herself. “Now I’m not completely sure, but it seems he was fairly intoxicated when you so forcefully threw your shoe at him and knocked him out.  There’s a chance that he may require a bit of time to revive. A revive potion might be more effective, or just waiting.”

She would usually have one, as they were quite helpful in both of her jobs.  Unfortunately she wasn’t expecting that she would need one this time and left her supplies at the bar, or at home. Though this wasn’t exactly high on the list of things she would use the potion for, Sham did feel a little sorry for the boy who was still passed out on the floor.

"Raised to be steal—what actually? Are you a ninja? Is your familiy a ninja family? Oh my shit, do you have shurikens?! Is that an actual thing?" Lala started rambling, high on the dose of adrenaline the scare had gave her. "That's a mouthful" she, unwillingly commented out loud with a loud snort. Her eyes grew big and her body froze as she turned to look at the girl, Shamema-mama... something. "By which I meant, obviously, that it's quite an unusual name—unusual, but... pretty! Of course. Err, is there a shorter version to that?" she asked, smiling sheepishly.

"Psssh, Les is also in a constant state of intoxication" she said, glaring in her mind, because what was wrong with drunk? "He also doesn't sleep, eats all the crap ever and chain smokes, so I so won't be surprised if he actually drops dead one of these days. I threw a Rennervate at him, but fat lot of good that did" she scowled and failed to mention her wand, her current wand, wasn't exactly the most trustworthy of wands. "And we're not using potio—" it was only then that Lala completely shut down because wait... what? "You—you're a witch?" she said swallowing tightly around a knot in her throat, because oh fuck.

"Shit, man, don't tell anyone I drew my wand in a normal peeps area, err—you know, muggles" the word came stilted and the twitch of her nose, clearly showed how much she was bothered by that word. Muggles shmuggles... People. There were only people. "But, err yeah, Les' a squib, and he has issues... so we tend to keep magic in Les in separate equations. Should I call an ambulance? Oh wow... Sander's gonna kill me." Panic and realization had finally dawned upon Lala, and she was two seconds away from completely flipping her shit.

Somehow, Shamera managed to run into one of the most interesting people that could be out at this absurd hour of the morning. But it was highly amusing to her to watch the girl as her mind worked. Especially when there was still the young man passed out on the ground. But she was sure they would get back to him soon.

“Sham. And it was a travelling circus.” Might as well match an unusual name with an unusual way to gain talents. But it was better to say than the truth. The poor girl didn’t need to know of Shamera’s darker past.

“It’s all right, I won’t tell anyone. And yes, I am.” The next part that Lala revealed was another twist on the morning. A squib who had problems with magic wasn’t exactly rare, but she wouldn’t have quite guessed it based on the company of the girl.  Though she wasn’t sure Lala was that close friends with him considering she did throw a shoe at him, and rather hard at that.

“Sanders? A relation?” It was a good guess she figured. “You could call an… ambulance. Or find somewhere a bit more comfortable for him to be until he recovers. Since Mungo’s is out of the question then.  But being drunk plus a hit to the head, who knows how long he’ll be out for. I’m sure he’ll be fine though. If not, he can suck it up and go to Mungo’s and get a quick fix.”

Probably not the best phrasing, but even if one didn’t like magic, if they knew the world, St. Mungo’s was way better and faster than muggle hospitals. And as much as Shamera tried to stay out of other people’s drama, it seemed as though she’d gotten herself somewhat stuck in this girl’s.

Lala stared for a second with her mouth agape and her eyes skeptical before she finally let out a loud snort. Traveling circus... What? Was she for real? "Of course it was" she eventually said, disbelief in her tone and an arched brow to match.

"Thanks dude" she replied with a blinding grin that faltered momentarily. "Err... dudette? I use it as a unisex—thing. Hah" she ended on an awkward little laugh. "But yeah, thanks. And that would be Sander—Lysander, his older brother and flatmate and my reluctant BFF and upstairs neighbor" she said with a big sigh, biting a little at her lip. Shit, man... she couldn't have killed Les. "Actually, we're like right around the corner. I was just out to get fuel for more power-working, This little shit—I guess he was just getting home. Of course" she said with a mutter, implying that it was a natural occurrence.

"Could you help me drag him or carry him? It's literally four buildings away. If it's—you know, not too much to ask. I mean... I kinda completely ruined your morning. Night? Crack'o'dawn? Ugh, anyway, Yeah... so sorry" she stumbled through her particular gift for human socialization. She'd teach them the language of her people, if they'd let her tho. Tha'd make everything so much easier.

"I can grab his legs, so if he wakes up screaming like a little girl you don't throat kicked... And—err—you can grab his skinny shoulders and hope to god he doesn't smell like a distillery?" she smiled apologetically and gave Les another punch in the chest for good measure. Well, she tried.

Whether the girl believed her or not, Shamera didn’t care too much.  Sham wasn’t even sure that past this day they’d see each other again. Of course, it was always a possibility, but it didn’t matter.  She usually didn’t really make friends or keep acquaintances that weren’t work related. Life was a bit easier that way.

She nodded her head along with what Lala was saying. The girl had a very interesting way of talking. Perhaps it was more muggle-inspired? It didn’t matter, but she did take notes in case she ever needed to use it in a disguise.  Sham often observed people for that reason. Plus, watching people was a very entertaining way to spend time.

“You didn’t ruin anything.” Which was true, it was only made more interesting. “I can do that.”

She helped to pick up the unconscious body and laughed at the comment of him possibly smelling like a distillery.
“The smell won’t bother me. I’m fairly used to it.” One of the pluses of running a nightclub was that you grew immune to the smell of alcohol. And also learned how to carry heavy things. With the body of the boy picked up, she nodded to Lala. “Lead on. I’m not sure where it is we’re heading.”