Glenna Goyle (glenna) wrote in cultureic, @ 2015-11-26 13:10:00 |
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Jacob took a deep breath as the lift passed another floor, shaking just a little as he let it out. He'd done this dozens of times before, he'd had to; ducking out early on nights of the full moon, then having to come up with a decent cover the next day, and there was always a lingering worry that he'd be caught out, that someone would put two and two together. But this time felt real, from what he'd seen before he destroyed his phone, the night had been a bad one. The fear he felt as the lift finally stopped on the Magical Creatures floor was almost smothering, tight enough in his chest that he swore he might choke on it. As the doors slid open, he hesitated, wondering if he should just come clean. Tell everyone and take whatever punishment came his way, cut the strings and finally let the weight that had been hanging over his head crush him. But he'd committed to the cover up now, he told himself. Smashed his phone and bashed his head against the rocks, hadn't even stopped to patch up the open wound on his forehead (he felt sickly guilty about wanting it to look convincing) before apparating to the Ministry. Stepping through the doors to the department, he stopped and took a moment to scan the people milling around their desks, his breath held and his chest tight as he checked their faces, made sure that everyone was safe, that noone had been hurt because he was too fucked up and selfish to just leave his job and let someone normal take his place. Glenna was still aching from her skirmish with vampires the previous night, so as she limped across the office with a sullen expression, Jacob’s arrival barely even registered at first. She was just aware enough of his presence to offer a mumbled, “Hey Jake,” as she passed him, but it took her several more meters’ worth of walking away before she remembered she was supposed to be annoyed with him. Upon remembering, she stopped in mid-stride, turned, and threw up her hands in disbelief. “What the hell, Sloper? Where were you last night?” she demanded, storming back toward him. Last night had been a clusterfuck enough without one of their best Critters going AWOL. Once she was close enough to properly give him a piece of her mind, however, she noticed the cut on his head and rescinded her scowl. “Shit, dude, what’s wrong with your face?” Glenna asked him bluntly. Jacob's face visibly paled as he took in Glenna's limp and her temper, and he winced, bracing himself for the lie that was to come and the shame that came with it. "I got jumped last night. They knocked me out, didn't really get my head together until this morning." "Are you okay? What the hell happened?" He asked, eyes darting around the office again, trying to see if anyone else was hurt. Fortunately, Glenna wasn’t one to pay too much attention to excuses - they’d jumped him, they’d knocked him out, he’d just begun to recover. Seemed legit. She had no reason to question him further, and every reason to be concerned about that head wound. Her expression went sympathetic. “You ought to sit down, mate. You’re bleeding. Want me to get someone who’s good at healing that up?” she asked him, before slipping back into Critter mode. “I’m fine. They fucked my shit up, too, but not as bad as you. Bunch of vampires in Hogsmeade, two shop owners dead. We had a hell of a stand-off, but we managed to bring four in. The rest of them went to a werewolf attack in North Yorkshire. Thirty-six muggles killed. Heard it was a bloody mess out there. I don’t think any of ours suffered any major injuries, though. Thank Merlin. Are you going to be all right?” "Thirty-six…?" Jacob repeated, ashen-faced as he froze for a moment, trying to process the number. "Fucking werewolves," he spat, with an impressive amount of anger given his dazed state. Shaking it off, he shook his head, Glenna's concern only making him feel that much worse. "I'm fine. Just embarrassed and pissed off, I think it was muggles. When I came to, my wallet and phone were gone, but not my wand, so I feel fucking stupid." “Thirty-six,” Glenna confirmed with some solemnity. “Men, women, kids, everyone. Something about them hunting werewolves in the thirteenth-fourteenth century? I dunno. I can’t really pretend to understand. It’s just sad.” Years of working with the Critters had desensitised her to a lot of the carnage, but a lack of shock did not necessarily mean a lack of sympathy for the unfortunate souls caught in the middle of all this. “Fucking werewolves, indeed.” She did, however, look more than a little surprised when Jacob mentioned that it was muggles - not creatures of some sort - that had roughed him up. Jacob was a big, tough-looking guy, so it was hard at first for her to picture a couple of ordinary muggle thugs looking at him and thinking, ‘I should rob him’. Still, stranger things had happened, and not all criminals were sensible when it came to picking out their targets. Wrong place, wrong time - sometimes, that was all it took. “Fuck, that sucks. That’s insane, dude. I’m sorry that happened to you. What kind of cowards would do something like that? Guess we all had a shit night.” "Yeah," Jacob nodded, a strange sense of numbness overcoming him, "Yeah, I guess we all did." He decided it was time to make an exit, painfully aware of just how awkward and shamed his body language was as he stood there. "Listen, I've gotta go talk to the Head. Report what happened just in case it was connected somehow, so…" Trailing off, he nodded again and then stepped around Glenna, heading towards the head of the department's office. Looking back over his shoulder, he slowed a little, his expression guilty, "But uh, I'm sorry. For not being out there last night." Glenna nodded and watched him go. “Don’t worry about it - it happens. Go get your face looked after when you’re done, yeah?” she said, giving him a reassuring smile as she headed back to the pile of reports she had to fill out. |