Lawrence's remaining hand rapped heavily on the door of 2B. Despite the warm weather, Lawrence had a hooded jumper on of Muggle origin, and the hood was drawn up over his mop of curly black hair to try and disguise his appearance to the casual glance. His left arm, devoid of hand, was shoved firmly into the pocket of the jumper, the sleeve drawn over, trying to draw attention away from the fact it was missing - one of his most distinguishing features.

It was late afternoon, and it would not be long until several of the residents in the block returned back from their 9-5 jobs. He did not want to be stood in the hallway when they appeared, he had no idea who might recognise him, or worse still, live here. Aurors who liked to swindle their money on drink or worse might scrape by in a cheap room here for all he knew.

When the door finally came open, Lawrence looked directly to the face the other side of the door.
"Don't ask, just let me in. I need to call in a favour." He told Arrow in a hushed voice, putting gentle but persistent pressure on the door, and sliding his foot in the way should Arrow try and throw it shut.

Arrow had just grabbed a beer from his fridge, he liked muggle alcohol, it didn't seem to have the same effect on him as the wizarding stuff, when he heard a loud knock on his door.  Grumbling to himself he opened the door a bit and rubbed his free hand over his face.  It took him a second to realize who it was, "Musgrave, what ye doing here?" he asked, a bit of his Irish lilt coming out as he was surprised.

He didn't talk much to Musgrave, he counted him in his vast array of shady friends, but rarely saw the man.  He thought for a moment at what the man said, knowing he could get himself in a spot of trouble for letting the man in, but then again, Arrow was never one to let that bother him, so he opened the door wider and gestured for him to come in quickly.

Before Musgrave could say anything Arrow started first, "Don't want to know mate, don't care really."  He rubbed his hand over his face and then through his hair before he smiled and asked, "Want a beer?"

"Musgrave, what ye doing here?" Musgrave raised his finger to his lips at the mention of his name.

Either way, Thatcher let him in the flat without more questions. Lawrence took a look back behind him out of the door before Arrow shut it. He was already paranoid, and he had to get some sleep and calm down if he was going to figure out what to do.

"Go on then." He mumbled in reply to Arrow, taking in the flat behind the front door, and paced across the room, eyes busy checking that everything was in order and there was nobody hiding there. He pulled the hood down, taking a proper look at the colour and realising it was probably more suited to a woman, though he'd not been choosy when he'd swiped it from the back of a chair outside a cafe. The owner was more likely to wonder where they dropped it than why some scruffy bloke had stolen it.

"You going out tonight?" He asked, drawn to the window to stare down at the street below. Acquiring a wand had proven more difficult, but the odd stupid teenager still left them in their back pockets while stuffing their Gringotts galleons into their pockets and couldn't take a surprise punch to the kidneys. He'd had to risk recognition going to a busy wizarding area, but Muggles didn't carry wands. The boy would probably have to report it, but with luck his description of Lawrence would be pretty vague - even if he remembered the lilac hoodie.

Arrow watched as the man entered his apartment and looked around as if Arrow had other people stashed behind the couch or something.  He took a sip of his beer and acknowledged the man, "I had no plans as of yet." he smirked, "But depending on what I do later, that could change."

Arrow leaned against the wall and told him, "Get some sleep mate, you look horrible." he downed the rest of his beer and walked into the kitchen to put the bottle in the trash.  "If you're hungry, the kitchen's full, so have at it."  He went to the door and locked it and then sat down on the couch in the living room.[1]

1.	It's horrible... so short.

"Thanks, you're none too gorgeous yourself, sweetheart." Lawrence quipped back irritably, eyes red with lack of sleep. The drop of his shoulders after saying it was enough indication to his friend that he didn't mean it poorly.

The door locked and Arrow slumped down on the couch.
"I owe you, mate, I do." Lawrence found himself in Arrow's kitchen without any hesitation, helping himself first to a glass of water, and then another. Despite being in a dry swimming pool all night, he was desperate to drink.

"Wouldn't look so bad if I hadn't snatched a woman's sweater." He remarked, hauling the thing off over his head to reveal a grubby t-shirt that had lost the hem where he'd been trying to stop a bleeding axe wound on his niece's arm earlier that day. "Scourgify."

Shoving an apple in his mouth he ran his arms under water and rubbed at the scratches and smears, feeling as if he was caked in three layers of dirt.

"Look, if someone does ask you about me, you haven't seen me." Lawrence told Arrow through a mouthful of apple, "You've not seen me since last we spoke. Hang on, when was that?" He shoved the apple back into his mouth a moment to free up his hand and raked his hair back out of his face.

"Weren't we trying to set you up with those women, and I ended up with a drink over my head?[1] Did you take her home in the end? I never saw you to ask."

1.	An incident that happened 'off page' - I'm assuming they've been out a few more times than we've written threads for

Arrow's eyes were watching his friend as he got a glass or two of water and then registered that he was talking to him.  Arrow took a deep breath, "You know I won't tell anyone you were here, if that's what you want."  He thought for a moment, "Although if you are asking me that, it means that I definitely don't want anyone knowing you were here cause that could get me in trouble as well."

He sat forward on the couch, his elbows on his knees as he shrugged his shoulders, "Not that I care."  He listened to his friend talk for a moment and then laughed, "No, we haven't talked in awhile, and no, I didn't take her home.  Her fiance came up and put a stop to things after you left."[1]

Arrow rubbed his shoulder, "I wasn't exactly fond of his method of persuasion, but it was effective."

1.	I'm assuming that he left, and that this was one of those occasions where Arrow was physically persuaded to stay away from a girl.

"Bah, I don't get it. You've not got a face like the back end of a pig or anything. You should have them hanging off your arm!" He tore another bite out of the apple and shook his head at Arrow.

"I got someone torn to bits by a werewolf, but no, we really should go out again, find you a woman."

He tossed the core into Arrow's kitchen bin and grabbed another from the fruit bowl. Apples had never tasted so damned good. He was probably lacking in vitamins or anything that didn't have mould, really. Tossing it in his hand as he left the kitchen he dropped into the armchair and shoved the second apple into his mouth, pulling out the wand he's acquired for a closer look.

It was much longer than Lawrence's hawthorn wand which was presumably being held hostage by Knox Greyfriar. Perhaps Hannah might acquire it, along with his coat which he'd had to leave behind when he was thrown out.

Hit bit another chunk out of the apple, holding both wand and apple in his only hand.
"Arse," he sniffed the wand and then gave it a lick to confirm his suspicions. "Black walnut. Why do only the people with rubbish wands have them in their back pockets?" He shoved it back into his jeans pocket as best he could, but it stuck out.

"I know," he spoke suddenly, looking up to Arrow properly, apple rotating between his fingers, "you're going to tell me you actually like wizards which is why you've no luck with the witches."

"I probably would have them hanging off me if I cared to treat them right, which I usually don't." he commented as he watched Lawrence demolish an apple and grab another.  "I just have no desire to settle into a relationship, it's too much work."

He heard the werewolf comment and was concerned for like a second before returning to his usual self, "So, who's the lucky werewolf now? Did the person at least deserve it?" he said leaning his head on the back of his couch.  Arrow wasn't a bad guy, but he was just on the borderline between good and bad, he'd just never crossed over it yet.

With Lawrence's last comment, Arrow felt his face heat up, "I assure you mate, I have no inclination towards the male population, I like women, and that's all there is to it." He threw a pillow at him.

"… it's too much work." Lawrence's lip curled as he agreed with that sentiment. Though he'd not had that opportunity for a decade.

"So, who's the lucky werewolf now? Did the person at least deserve it?" Arrow leaned back on the sofa and Lawrence's hand twitched at the question, the smirk vanishing.

Lawrence declined to answer, and Arrow threw a cushion at him instead, which bounced off Lawrence's greasy hair as he was preoccupied with thinking about his niece and the state she had been in when Knox had thrown him out of the house.

"Good." Musgrave replied, a little belatedly to Arrow's assurance. His eyes drooped for a moment, but the nagging anxiety beneath his exhaustion kept him going. He wondered where that coward of a boy was, and whether he'd inform that Lawrence had blown his father into the claws of a werewolf.

He squashed the cushion with one hand, and tossed it into the air, grasping at the stolen wand from his lap and batting it across the room back to Arrow with a spell, displeased at the way the wand responded to him. It definitely wasn't a good match.

"There are no lucky werewolves." He told Arrow. "I wouldn't recommend one for a date, twice the grief every month." He stretched his legs out. "What's you're type then, if it's definitely not one with meat and two veg between the legs?"

Arrow barely caught the pillow as it soared across the room back at him, and managed to grab it between two fingers and put it back on the couch.  "Breathing is my type mate." he joked.  In fact, Arrow wasn't sure what his type was.  He'd never actually thought about women in a relationship way.  They were just pretty toys to play with and toss aside to find something new and shiny to play with.  He knew it was going to get him into trouble one of these days, but he didn't care to think about that.

"So, you want to crash here?" he noticed that his friend looked a little worse for wear and it wasn't like Arrow needed the whole apartment.  He rarely brought people back here, his friend Jack had only been in it once or twice.  "Make yourself at home."  Deep down, Arrow knew that it was a bad idea, but he couldn't bring himself to care.  Musgrave was a friend and he wasn't going to toss him out on his ear because of who he was.

"Breathing is my type mate." Arrow assured him, and Musgrave gave a quiet hrrmph at this wide playing field. Thatcher was desperate.

"If you can stand me a while," Lawrence replied "though if I vanish and don't come back, don't take offence."

On seeing he was able to stay a while, or at least the afternoon, he lurched out of the armchair and sought out the bathroom, or a sink at the least, to scrub away the dirt. Spells were never quite the same as soap and hot water on the skin. If he was lucky there might be something to treat his scrapes with.

Being antisocial, and exhausted, once cleaned up a bit, Musgrave spent the next couple of hours fitfully sleeping in Thatcher's armchair. Ever since Azkaban he'd never slept well. The place did things to you, and after being out in the middle of the North Sea for a decade, if clung to his subconscious.

At about half-past six, he shouted out in his sleep and woke himself up, leaping from the armchair with stolen wand brandished as if someone had burst in to attack him, when in reality it was just the owner of the flat he held at wandpoint. 

On coming to his senses, Lawrence sank back down onto the edge of the armchair and puffed out his cheeks, the wand dropping to the floor out of harm's way.
"Shit, I could have blown your head off there." He told Arrow, gesturing with his hand, "Azkaban, does weird things to your head. You leaving here tonight?"

Arrow, in truth, was a little freaked by his friend's outburst, but he'd deal with it, after all the man had been in Azkaban.

"No worries mate." he said and brushed himself off, "And I don't know, I'm not sure if there are any chicks to flirt with anymore, most of them give me a wide berth nowadays.  Or they're carted off by their mothers or brothers.  It not as fun anymore."

"Why may I ask are you so concerned with me finding a girl anyway?  If there were a girl here, you wouldn't have a place to crash." Arrow said with a smirk.

"I'm not," Lawrence replied, "I just know how the absence of a woman can drive a man mad." He raked his hand through his lank hair. He'd missed the soft touch of a woman, the curve of a breast while he'd been locked away. Arrow in contrast was younger, free and with the whole world at his fingertips.

"I more meant, if you were going out - generally." He explained, reaching for the stolen wand again. "I don't want to blow the head off you." He shrugged, landing back into the armchair, intent on falling asleep again if he got the chance. It felt like he hadn't sleep in a century, and even though it was an armchair, it was the most comfortable thing he'd slept on it quite some time.


End