Just when his life slowly started getting back to normal (well, 'normal' was probably not the right word), Rosier had to make things difficult for himself again. The scene was typical - the tall, middle-aged wizard sat on the floor, under his desk in a messy pile of parchments. It was late afternoon so anyone could have walked into his office and witnessed this sight for themselves. But this was never a concern in Cameron Rosier's book. He was a messy, disorganized, chaotic person, but he was the only person for the job - he was efficient even while depraved of sleep, intoxicated or simply not in his right mind. At least that's what he told himself, regardless of the Minister's complaints about his strange methods and work ethics.

He buried himself in work and this helped him end his unhealthy obsession with the Corpus case and everything he went through in Morocco. He also learned to ignore his mentally unstable nephew Rascal who still lived in his house, spent his money and invited his awful faux-bourgeois friends over for 'tea'. He even tried to come to terms that after four failed marriages and disappointments beyond count he probably functioned best when he just wouldn't bother with women. He decided the liked himself best when he was all alone, possibly in this office - his little kingdom of paperwork, old books and spilled ink.

Rosier came to these 'life-altering' realizations once he decided it was time to start drinking again. He knew the Minister frowned upon drinking during office hours, but she had bigger problems than a slightly-intoxicated Senior Undersecretary. Not many things  in this world were as great as smoking and sipping gin while sitting under a desk - he was sure of it. He went though a messily-written file once again, then added more messy notes. It was getting dark down here and Rosier now squinted though his reading glasses. Reports, briefs, memos, minutes...all condensed in a huge messy pile. Why were wizards generally so disorganized? Rosier was disorganized too, but at least he made sense of his chaos - it was his style.

Maybe he should stay here overnight? He still had plenty of work here and the prospect of meeting Rascal at home brought him no joy at all. But he dismissed the idea almost instantly because he would run out of gin pretty soon. A sober night at the Ministry was a grim prospect.

It was late and he was sober.

Balfour, in wrinkled shirtsleeves and unfastened robes, was hardly a common sight as he casually strode down the corridors of Level One while strangling the neck of an especially expensive bottle of Firewhiskey. But it wasn't unusual in these days of illness[1] to see a member of the fourth floor meandering about with either liquor or a dark look in their eye.

He was not one for dark looks and so, when Balfour rapped the open door to his good friend's office, he wore an expression of weary kindness. But lo - what was this?

Parchment and ink and notes. Lost paper planes and scribbled envelopes and frayed quills. Laying amongst the general dishevelment, at least, he recognized his friend. Not only underneath the mountain of paper but also  underneath the desk. Cameron Rosier had a marvelous way of dealing with overwhelming paperwork: gin and tobacco.

"Need a light, friend?" Approaching, Balfour sat against the desk - upsetting sheets of parchment - and leaned in with his wand to cast a gentle Lumos. "You can't work and drink by moonlight." He commented, setting the Whiskey down on the floor with a thud. "Eyes or liver, not both. We're old men now."

In a manner of speaking - some days much like today he plainly felt older than they were.

1.	Dragon Epidemic

As things in Rosier's life usually go, someone interrupted him just when he went over a crucial document. Sitting under the desk, in his own little world he even failed to notice someone entered the office. It was only when the other man spoke, Rosier realized he was not alone. He flinched and then unsurprisingly hit his head on the wooden desk above him. "Balfy!" he greeted his colleague while trying to ignore the headache. His workspace looked a lot different after Balfour's illumination spell. Why didn't he think of that - he could even see the tiniest, messiest scribbles now. A small smile appeared on his usually grumpy face when he noticed his colleague brought more alcohol. Whiskey wasn't his favorite drink, but currently his gin supplies were running dangerously low.

"I'm old. You're just delusional. How old are you, thirty?" Balfour even looked significantly younger than Rosier who was constantly gaunt and frowning. "Get down here, I have a spare glass for you!" Some people might call Rosier eccentric, but he thought there was nothing odd in inviting a friend under his desk. He did not even attempt to clear some paperwork out of the way; there really was no point. But what else could be expected from a middle-aged wizard who was so disorganized he most likely didn't know how to fold a shirt or make his own bed.

"So, what brings you all the way to Level One?" Opening a drawer on the side Rosier found a pretty, crystal glass and passed to his colleague.

"Thirty four but a hundred at heart, really."

Balfour clambered to the floor, folding up his legs like a collapsible stand to fit in what was a fortunately hefty desk. Honestly. Sometimes Cam was as eccentric as his bow-tie loon of a nephew, although it would do nobody any good to point that out. Ever. He narrowly avoided bumping his head to settle on a bed of crumpled parchment but finally, there they were.

Two grown men hiding underneath a desk in the middle of the night.

"A floor Librarian wanted a copy of my monthly report," Balfour replied as he accepted the crystal graciously. "Thought I would come to see how you were. We're rather pressed for cheer upstairs, you know." There was a long-standing supposition by the Ministry staff that everyone working in his Division was effectively in partial mourning. "I required an escape."

Where could you escape the dread that came with an epidemic? Not in offices or homes, and certainly not in the great wide expanse of Dragon sanctuaries, where tamers were becoming familiar with that cryptic scent - that vile perfume of drooping scales, of decaying meat. Cameron's desk was as good a place as any to stow himself away. Balfour poured the Whisky.

"Et vous, mon ami?" he raised his brow while indicating a salut. "Are all your nights spent under this cover, or is our Ministry's highest office in exceptional trouble tonight?" A curl of a smile hardly hid his opinion that their wizarding government was quite possibly always in trouble.