Mid-morning

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Most people in their right mind would just head home after a twelve-hour shift, but Cassidy had different goals in his mind than having his body hit his bed in an exhausted collapse. The day had only just begun, with the sun having hit the sky recently, promising that it would be a warm spring day. Aside from that, Cass really hadn't been sleeping much as of late, so rather than tossing and turning for a few hours, he decided to steer clear of sleeping altogether and take advantage of the morning.

First things first, of course, he was going to have to find a way to energize himself - a task which landed him outside of his favorite coffee shop, Alohomocha. Before entering the establishment, Cass caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the window, and could have scoffed, he looked so disheveled. Though dapperly dressed (in his humble opinion), the young healer was not looking so young: there were circles under his eyes from lack of a good sleep, a bit of stubble had shown up along his jaw, and Cass swore he saw the beginnings of a few creases in his forehead from furrowing his brow too often. His shifts at the hospital were always rather long, between him being on call some days, working doubles or covering for colleagues other days. Lately, though, they'd been taking even more out of him than usual, and Cass had been doing his best to not let it show.

Swinging open the door, the wizard let himself into the café and was immediately enveloped in the aroma of ground coffee beans - a welcome scent to Cass, as it brought with it the promise of waking him up. He frequented Alohomocha often enough that he recognized the staff and even some of the other regulars; he certainly went there often enough to have a usual drink that he ordered every, single time. Cass was truly a creature of habit, and so his preferred drinks were certainly no different.

He approached the counter to order his usual, taking a glance around the place as he did so. "Tall drip with a shot of hazelnut," Cass requested, not paying full attention to just who he was talking to. In truth, the healer could not pay much attention to anything, as his senses were not currently at their full potential. His mind at the moment was in a half-zombified state, which he was hoping would be fixed by a bit of caffeine and reading the morning's Daily Prophet.

Lexus had woken early to get a head start on a few of the potions she needed to stock up on. She had been in her cellar brewing when the sun actually peaked over the horizon and was just setting the potions to simmer when it was full in the sky and the town around her began to awaken. The many brews she had perfected that morning needed many hours to settle which gave her plenty of time to get out and get some sustenance before she had to open her shop later. Thankfully being a Saturday she didn't open her shop until noon. Unfortunately the only places in Knockturn that offered anything close, were the pubs and even they weren't open at this hour. So instead she had to venture into Diagon to find what she was looking for.

Lexus donned a nice breezy spring dress, placing a knitted bolero over top to cover the scars on her back (which there were now much more of after her unfortunate potion explosion the month before) The day before she had thrown some muggle made wash out dye into her hair to soften the silver and gold streaks in her hair, turning them her usual honey. She had made sure to slip her coloured contacts in to cover up her glowing ember eyes and coated her blood red lips in a softer pink. The only part of her permanent transformation she was unable to hide was the fangs that liked to peak out over her lips.

She slipped into Alohomocha, a coffee shop she wasn't entirely familiar with. She waited for the bloke in front of her to order his Tall something or other with Hazelnut before she approached the counter, "Large Double-Double please." She spoke in her natural tongue.

The server looked at her puzzled for a moment, "I'm sorry?"

Lexus looked confused herself for a moment before she realized she had used an exclusively Canadian term, "Umm sorry. Large coffee, two cream, two sugars." She smiled at the bloke who had ordered in front of her, "You look like like death warmed over, luv."

After paying what he owed, Cass stepped to the side to allow the young woman behind him to order. Cass had not noticed her approach, had not heard her footsteps or looked behind himself to see her, so he was a little surprised when she spoke to him. Despite his half-asleep state, he took the sight of her in, trying to decide if he knew her from somewhere. Though his memory could not place her, Cass did not exactly trust his mind at the moment. Perhaps she was simply a friendly stranger.

A small smile touched Cass's lips in return. "Well I don't feel much better than that, to tell you the truth," he replied, feeling a yawn coming on but fighting it back so as not to appear rude, "A bit of caffeine will help me look less dead, I'm sure." Despite his best efforts to stop it, a yawn escaped his mouth clumsily, and he brought his arm up to stifle it somewhat. "Sorry about that," Cass gave the woman a sheepish smile, "Side effects of a twelve-hour shift with no breaks, I s'pose." It had been a busy night in Magical Bugs and Diseases, with plenty of people coming in for illnesses that they assumed were serious, but were really just small cases of colds that could have been helped with any number of potions that most magical folk kept in their medicine cabinets. All were easily treatable, but a waste of time when Cass had more terminal patients to attend to.

The barista behind the counter set a cup of steaming coffee on the bar, which Cass scooped up immediately, raising the cup in thanks to the one who had prepared it. He foolishly took a gulp of the drink, regretting it greatly as the piping hot liquid scalded his tongue and the roof of his mouth. A rookie mistake, which he blamed on his mostly-sleeping state. Although he wanted nothing more than to set down the coffee and drink a gallon of water to remedy his burnt taste buds, Cass simply looked at the cup of coffee with his brow furrowed. "Merlin's beard, that's hot," he sighed, his mouth still on fire despite how calm he was being, "but it does the trick." Sure, he wasn't going to immediately be revived by the caffeine, but he'd get there eventually.

A smile was pretty steady on Lexus' lips and she began to realize just how much she missed interacting with normal people. True this man was nothing more than a stranger but he wasn't a customer or a criminal mastermind or an angsty Auror which made him the singularly most intriguing person she could have been talking to that day, "I'm sure." Lexus echoed taking a cursory sip of her own drink and deeming it a little too hot to take much more of. She looked him over and almost wished she hadn't said how bad he looked. Despite the tousled hair and bags under his eyes he was actually rather cute.

"Long night then?" She pushed a honey lock behind her ear, "Haven't seen shifts like that since I worked at The Lunar. Though you don't really look the bartending type."

She looked away politely when he yawned not wanting him to feel embarrassed and felt herself fight one off as well. The coffee would do them both well apparently. She hadn't really thought about how early she had woken up to get to work and it wasn't like she had gone to bed at a decent time the night before either.

She chuckled softly as he discovered just how hot his coffee was. She hadn't taken any further sips of her own feeling that it needed to cool down a little bit more. She could just imagine how much his tongue felt burnt after taking quite the swig, "What would we do without coffee, eh?"

Cass immediately regretted not getting anything to eat - some sort of small pastry would have gone perfect with his coffee, but since he had been standing there, a couple more people had gotten in line to order and he was too impatient at this hour to wait. Aside from that, it was rather refreshing to talk with a stranger who wasn't one of his patients. It meant that he could talk about something other than illnesses and symptoms.

"I'm a healer at St. Mungo's," he clarified, silently agreeing that he didn't look the bartending type. His customer service skills were too dreadful for such an occupation. "Which means plenty of long and often overnight shifts, but I enjoy it, as long as I get my coffee in the morning." Cass gave her a small smile, before bringing his cup to his lips - this time in a much more cautionary manner. The roof of his mouth still stung and he was quite certain that his tongue wouldn't be healed properly for a few days.

Smirking at her coffee comment, Cass realized that the two of them were quite in the way of others getting to their drinks. A particularly short witch was eyeing Cass in disgruntlement, as though he were being positively inconvenient. He attempted a friendly smile at the old woman, who merely hobbled her way past him to grab her drink. Cass looked back at the young woman he had been talking to. "It looks like we're a bit in the way," he chuckled lightly before glancing around the coffee shop to choose an empty table, "Would you like to grab a table with me?" A bit of company over coffee was almost always welcome, and hopefully she felt the same way. 

Lexus gave him a wider grin than her previous smiles, showing off her fangs, at the mention of his profession. She had a great deal of respect for Healers even if she rarely used one these days. In what felt like someone else's life now she had aspirations once of being a healer. She had always been an extraordinary potioneer and had integrated herself into a native tribe in order to further her teachings into shamanic magic all in the hopes of being able to use such expertise as a healer but fate had other plans for her.

"I can imagine. It's definitely a far cry from Bartending." Bartending hadn't been her job of choice either but it was work, work the government had allowed her to do while on parole, giving her some semblance of a normal life.

Lexus seemed to realize that they were causing a bit of a traffic jam around the same time that Cassidy did. She nodded in response and allowed him to lead her to and empty table. She took a seat and another cursory sip of her coffee, "you'd think with all the magic in the world, they'd invent some sort of spell that would last longer than coffee." She gave him a smirk. As convenient as that sounded she doubted she'd benefit much from it. Her werewolf resistance to magic only seemed to be getting stronger and she had a hard time performing even stronger spells on herself, "then again, I think some people have just gotten used to the taste." Company was definitely a good idea but Lexus realized she needed to get out more often or at least brush up on her small talk.