InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Jerk. Bitch."

After the past week Jason really needed an outlet. He had cried, wanted to punch something, and say far too many unkind things to people he considered his friends and colleagues. However, he kept that all inside, pushing it further and further down until it couldn’t be ignored. The one small piece of mercy was getting to see Wimborne destroy Chudley, and then convincing Dawn that they needed to get drunk.

Training plans and bedtimes be damned if he didn’t do something he was likely to erupt at an inappropriate time and he couldn’t be afford to be written off as the angry black muggleborn. But tonight? Oh tonight all bets were off.

Mandela was staying at home.

Jason had hung around for a few press rounds, tonight wearing his ‘The only thing I steal is quaffles’ neon pink shirt. It wasn’t hard as things started to wind down at Ellis Moor to lure Dawn away with a bottle of whiskey and a desire to break something. She would get it.

More importantly she would get it, and not judge him for it.

They were perhaps a bit tipsy for their flight, but it helped to clear his head and more importantly find someplace quiet where they could both just let out. This was not the Jason King that the world saw. This was not even the Jason King he normally was, but it was just all too much, and this was exactly who he was tonight.

Sure, flinging spells was rewarding, but there was something to said about taking the empty beer bottle in his hand and throwing it at the wall. “Fuck everything right now.” Jason was generally not the type to swear. “Fuck Wimborne for being guilted into wearing pink. And fuck everyone who still doesn’t get it.” And he was angry. Especially after seeing Wimborne, and Kennamre, and doubting that he wouldn’t get the same because after it was all said and done, he was alone. The odd man out.

“I need another drink.”

On cue, an outstretched hand offered him a beer bottle. Dawn had a stack with them, both full and empty. Today was that sort of day.

She was a weird mix of exhilarated and angry herself. Smashing the Cannons was always satisfying, and getting to fly out with her team in all pink had been something else. But she couldn't help but think back to that team meeting where she'd suggested it. The players who had been there for the infamous Wasps vs. Harpies match which had ended with her in Azkaban were for it. But for the rest it had taken imploring, pointing out how widespread the pink was now that it wasn't a risk, and of course a reminder of how her 97 season had ended. Snatchers rushing the pitch to take her down in full view of 2 teams and the public, nobody could forget that, and Dawn carried it with her every day. It was a traumatic stain on the Wasps history and there was no real forgetting it.

"Fuck all of this. You know that damned new manager we have had the fucking audacity to start to say that we weren't one of the more affected teams?! He saw my face and shut the hell up but even Fofana gave him such a look. What does it take anymore?" She took a final swig of her beer, before throwing it hard enough to get a satisfying smash against the brick wall. "What the bloody hell is wrong with people?! "

Jason took a pull from his new bottle. How many was this now? (Florrie would be disappointed, but extenuating circumstances and all that.) “They’re all a bunch of cowards who want to forgot the war every happened.” He chuckled at the thought, as if it was even possible. Even the first war left scars. Jason wasn’t sure he could survive a third. “Or worse they think we’re pouring salt in wounds as if we’re not the ones still bleeding.”

“Although my favorite explanation? They are afraid to disappoint their death eater purist asshole parents like they aren’t the problem.” This wasn’t reasonable, compassionate, respectful Jason. He wasn’t sure he could respect that stance anymore. “Fuck maybe that should happen. Maybe they need to have spent one day in Azkaban to even start to understand.”

Dawn laughed, it was humourless and cruel, but that was the only way she could react anymore to all of this. Salt in the wounds? They were stabbing themselves and swimming through the bloody ocean to try and be heard.

"The worst part is they're being cowards when it isn't even brave anymore to do this. The war is fucking over, pink isn't some new thing, and nobody is going to be the first person, or entire fucking team to do this. It's not niche anymore, it's everywhere and yet-" Dawn ground her teeth and shook her head. She should be happier, her team had just had a big victory. But this wasn't a celebration, tonight was about giving into the anger and frustration and grief that had been building up since their whole Pink Movement had started. She needed it certainly, and Jason needed all that much more.

"After all that, you know what we are to them? We're just an-" Her voice broke a little-"we're just inconvenience to them. Oh, so sorry you spent all that time locked up having your joy and life sucked from you daily, but you see wearing a measly colour might make bigots frown at me and we can't have that!"

"Fuck-" She leaned down to pick up another empty bottle to throw, keeping a death grip on its neck as her blood boiled from the anger and heartbreak more than anything. "How can we still be worth so little to people?"

Jason squeezed the neck of the half empty bottle in his hand. Rather than test his strength and risk glass shard in his hand, he slammed it into the wall, creating a shower of glass and beer. “It’s like we’re pets to them.”

“Interesting things able to do a trick. Dawn, it’s so amazing that you’d make English National. King, I can’t believe someone like you was able to finish the race. No one says that shit about anyone else.” At another time he might try to work through the argument that it took time to change hearts and minds, that he wouldn’t be able to reach everyone. Still, he expected better of people.

“I really didn’t think it was too much to ask my team to show they cared.” Jason shook his head and picked up the whiskey bottle from the ground. Beer was good, whiskey was better right now. He wanted something that burned.

"It's barely anything to ask."

She dug around her leather jacket and pulled out some matches, yes she could've used a wand but this wasn't that kind of night, struck one and held it for for Jason. "Whatever the fuck your team ends up doing, be big and Okeke about it." Big, bold, and impossible to miss.

As Dawn pulled the matches out, he ripped a piece of cloth, soaking it in some of the whiskey, a high proof and perfect for ignition. Jason took one last pull from the bottle, before shoving the cloth in the neck. This was not his brightest idea, but he didn’t want to be smart tonight.

“Or maybe just burn it all down.” He held out the bottle to allow her to light the cloth, watching it catch quickly. Jason waited a few seconds before hurling it at the wall with the speed and accuracy of any of eight hundred plus points this season. The bottle broke creating an impressive fireball.

Dawn can't help the grin when the bottle explodes into a fireball, imagining it as this whole stupid biased system. "Some things just deserve to be burnt down to ashes."

“I’ll drink to that.” This time he stole her beer bottle and knocked some back. Tomorrow there would be time to consequences, time to better pull together a plan of action. Tonight, Jason was going to keep at this until his hunger got the better of them.

Then, finally, when hunger got the best of them he would rally the muggleborn contingent to take over a chip shop in London and confuse a group of non-magical folks as to why there were so many fit people in bright pink crammed in around a table, arguing over food.