InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Taste my justice!"

hopalongcharlie (hopalongcharlie) wrote in finnigans_rpg,
@ 2014-09-10 15:13:00

Entry tags:

character: charlie weasley, character: dean thomas, character: seamus finnigan, status: complete

Rewards for doing the books
Who: Charlie Weasley, Seamus Finnigan, ?Dean Thomas, open
What: Doing the book deserves a drink
Where: Finnigan's - Common Room
When: Late afternoon/early evening
Rating: NSFW - language

After spending his 'weekend' (Monday and Tuesday to everybody else) relaxing, Charlie spent his now traditional Wednesday afternoon looking over the books. He had spent time running through and comparing the takings from the bar, the cloakroom, and the door with previous weeks, and looking at the days against one another. It looked like things were on track for him to pay back the small loan he'd taken out from Gringotts to supplement his own investment in plenty of time, which the goblins always appreciated. He noted, with pleasure, that numbers and profits were steady, if not rising slightly after the initial drop off after the opening weekend.

Now, however, it was time for a drink. After all the wrangling with numbers his head was starting to spin slightly and drinking his own merchandise was only going to hurt his profit margins so he closed up the books and warded both his office and the club itself and set off for the short walk to Finnigan's.

Arriving he made his way to the bar and dropped himself on a free stool, feeling the tension of business begin to drop away from him in the cosy surroundings of the pub.

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openbottle
2014-09-11 08:09 am UTC (link)

Seamus nodded, relief lightening his expression to something more genuine. Even without a full time chef he'd never be stupid enough to let the pub run out of chips. He pulled Charlie a pint of his preferred beer before stepping away to the kitchen to shout for some chips. "I know the feeling," he admitted, groaning slightly as he remembered that he had a pile of paperwork waiting for him in his tiny study. He'd get round to it another day. "Chip'll be along in a minute."

He shrugged one shoulder as he leaned against the bar. "And it's not over yet." Technically, his working day was over. He could escape to his flat any time he wanted. It just... didn't really seem worth it. His flat was empty, at least here there were people. "Was it just a general 'fuck paperwork' feeling, or was there something wrong?" he asked. "I could probably help out with the latter. I'm pretty sure I made every mistake going in the first few months here, I worked out how to untangle them all."

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hopalongcharlie
2014-09-11 10:44 am UTC (link)

Charlie picked up the beer Seamus had delivered and took a long draught. He could only imagine somewhere like the pub generated more paperwork than Wingbeat did, simply by virtue of serving food and being open more days and made a face. "Thanks," he said.

"I'm lucky, I guess, only open three days so far, but the paperwork is a fucking nightmare. I mean just in general. The dragons came with paperwork too, but at least that shit was interesting sometimes!" He pulled another face and took another draught of his pint. "I didn't make any fuckups that I haven't already made and worked out how to sort, at least not today."

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openbottle
2014-09-11 12:37 pm UTC (link)

"There are days when I'm in the mood for it," Seamus admitted. "Though not very often." There was, sometimes, satisfaction to be had in sitting down and making all the figures add up, in seeing profit and increased customer base and the growing number of groups and activities. There was even a perverse sort of pride in untangling his own mistakes and making everything come right in the end. That was when time tended to get away from him, when Dean and Susan would appear and ask when he'd last eaten or slept.

The chips arrived and Seamus pushed them towards Charlie before summoning the salt and pepper shakers. After several too-salty portions of chips last week he'd told the staff to stop trying and just bring them to the table plain. "Three days so far?" he asked, interested. "Are you planning on more?" It was nice to have Charlie's still open after he'd finished his shift, and gave him somewhere to send customers who weren't ready to go home.

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hopalongcharlie
2014-09-11 01:44 pm UTC (link)

"I had to set myself a day for it so it gets done. So I decided since my Wednesdays are like Mondays for normal people I could get on with it and the week could only get better," he shrugged philosophically. It wasn't that he found paperwork especially difficult too often, but after a life spent outside it could be incredibly dreary.

He pulled the bowl of chips slightly closer, sprinkled them with salt and grabbed one. "Mmm," he said through a mouthful of hot chip and swallowed before continuing. "I mean, maybe. I'm doing okay, you know? but this three day week plus paperwork and deliveries is a bit shit," he shrugged. "I'm just used to being busy and it's not, well, it's not like dragons." He swigged more of his beer and shrugged again. "But just adding another day seems a bit, dull."

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openbottle
2014-09-11 02:44 pm UTC (link)

Seamus had to admit that sounded like a pretty good system. Far better than his waiting for the mood to take him and ending up working right before the deadline. He wondered, not for the first time, how Charlie was really dealing with his change in circumstances. Seamus was no therapist, but he'd been running Battlescars long enough to know what grief and loss could do to a person. He just didn't feel like he knew Charlie well enough to talk about it.

"Do what I did," he suggested instead. "Add something specific. It'll be a draw to customers as well as giving you something to do." He tried to think of something he could suggest to make his point. He couldn't exactly recommend another gobstones club, or any of the other ideas he had for his own business. "What about specific dance nights? Salsa or something. You could ask Ernie, he's an expert in that sort of thing." He thought of the clubs he'd been to and the various themed nights he'd either seen advertised or attended (sometimes by accident). "Muggles have all sorts of special nights in clubs. Traffic light parties, silent discos..." Neither of these were really things that would apply to the magical world, Seamus realised as he spoke them. "There's always drag night, though that's more in gay clubs."

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hopalongcharlie
2014-09-11 04:10 pm UTC (link)

"Oh, good idea, I like the idea of something specific. I've been to some muggle places, for fun, and for research more recently, but there's not really been anything I thought could work that I've seen, not in the long term. I think I'd like to do something that's constant every week, then add in theme nights every so often on regular nights. Does that make sense?" He frowned. It was one of those things he'd been thinking about, but he was yet to hit on an idea that would work for both him and the club in general.

He ate a couple of chips while letting his thoughts about possible nights drift. "Drag nights could be fun, I've seen a couple, but do you think people would get it? The first time I saw one, I didn't know what the fuck was going on. And as far as purebloods go my lot are pretty into Muggle shit. Though I guess most people are half-blood so they might have a better idea."

"Okay, so tossing aside general ideas, what would you want?" Charlie felt he was missing some angle somewhere, especially since he had no interest in a lot of the hooking up and flirting that most people seemed to want to engage in. It left him a bit at sea if there was some angle there he was failing to recognise.

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openbottle
2014-09-11 04:39 pm UTC (link)

"Perfect sense," Seamus agreed as he scooped a few peanuts into his mouth. It was the way he preferred to work too, regularly weekly activities with one-offs reserved mostly for his friends and their celebrations. He shifted closer to the bar as the rest of his staff started to get busy with after-work customers. He was off-the-clock, and having an interesting conversation. They could do without him.

He shook his head. "Probably not. And with magic it's almost too easy." He had never looked into it, but he was sure there were all sorts of charms and partial-transfigurations a man could use to give himself a woman's appearance for a night. It wasn't quite the same, though he did snort with amusement as he imagined himself foisting that research onto Dominic.

"What would I want?" he said, surprised at the question. It wasn't a difficult one to answer. "A regular gay night. I'm sure there are gay wizarding clubs somewhere, but..." He shrugged. "Your place is convenient. I don't have a lot of free nights to go searching for one." He pushed a hand through his hair. He made an expansive hand gesture. "Not just gay. 'Queer' might be a better word. Or 'LGBT' if you don't mind explaining muggle terminology to people. I've been thinking of starting a group, actually."

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hopalongcharlie
2014-09-11 06:32 pm UTC (link)

"Oh, that's true. Shit, I'd never thought of it like that. All that skill to...huh, there were some incredibly realistic looking women. I'd half forgotten the whole no magic thing," he said, drinking some more of his pint. "Yeah, plus I don't know if there'd be a call for it."

Charlie tilted his head, and began to nod slowly. "That could work. The LGBT thing covers everyone who isn't straight, right?" he said, not quite sure of the exact terms, but familiar with the general concept. It was yet another group where his own preferences, or lack thereof, didn't quite fit in, but he remembered trying to find a man to try sex with and how badly it had gone in a regular club. "You think there'd be enough call for it for every week?"

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openbottle
2014-09-11 06:58 pm UTC (link)

Seamus grinned and nodded. "Not that it wouldn't take skill in the magical world, but... a different kind of skill." Though the putting on an act part would likely be the same. No matter how many magical transformations you'd effected it would all be lost if you still sauntered like a bloke.

"There's enough call for it that Dean keeps prodding me to put up a rainbow flag," he answered with a shrug. "Honestly, I'd be happy with one night a month, or every two weeks." Anything would be better than nothing, and at least in a wizarding club there'd be some hope of going home with someone. Seamus knew that there was nothing muggle that could explain away his scar. "I've seen LGBT+ thrown around as a term," he offered. "If you really want to cover everyone except the broomstick-straight."

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	hopalongcharlie 2014-09-11 07:28 pm UTC (link)
	Trailing one of his chips thoughtfully through a trail of salt he considered the possibilities. "I could do a couple of test nights. Wouldn't take much extra decoration, just a few flags, I remember them," he mused, mostly to himself. "Romi'd be pleased, I bet." (Reply to this) (Parent)

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