| Details for Broomsticks and Broomsticks |
| Summary: | Idle chat at the Broomsticks |
| Date: | 2 Dec '38 |
| Location: | Three Broomsticks |
| Related: | — |
| Characters |
  |
Jocunda has accomplished what she set out to do. Birthday greetings for her siblings, a few days off the Quidditch Pitch and a few days to think about exactly what she wanted from life. She's had her own room, which Fabia refused to charge her for, caused more than her own fair share of fusses and now, is going to enjoy one last quiet night before she goes home. Rather than go straight to bed, or cause havoc out in public, Jo decides that she's more in the mood for a drink. Somehow, this journey has meant missing Frid, thus far - And without her leathers, or her broom, or her scarf, she could actually pass for a normal person. She wanders into the pub late of an evening, and goes to stand at the bar.
Frid looks up from his seat at the end of the bar, where he's currently totting up the accounts for the week. It being a quiet evening, he's keeping an eye on the bar for Tessa for now, so she can sneak out for a cigarette. "Miss Sykes," he greets cordially, dipping his head. He sets his quill down inside the books, keeping his page with it, and rises to his feet. "What may I get for you?"
"Anything other than a Martini. Surprise me. Fred, wasn't it?" Jocunda smiles kindly across the bar, with a nod of her head as well. It's a genuine mistake. When they'd last met she was highly hungover. "I swear, I will never understand how Mrs. Fairfax can live on that drink. Not unpleasant, it's just… A bit much." A delicate little laugh follows. "So. What's your day held, good barman?" With the students gone, there's some semblance of order to the small, wizarding town. And much less excitement.
"Horse's neck?" Frid suggests, not actually correcting her as he moves behind the bar to find the brandy. "It'll keep you warm on a cold night. Ah, my day's much the same as any other, ma'am. Stealing a moment to keep the finances up to date before Mrs. Fairfax is up and about and needs me." Yes. This late in the afternoon, she's still probably bumming about in a dressing gown. "And Tessa's the bar staff today. I'm just a hanger on."
"Good 'hanger on' loses far too much flow." Jocunda responds, smoothly. "But it sounds ideal for fighting off the chill. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed London. Chances are I'll fly back home as a snowball, half-frozen to my broom." She taps her lips for a moment, watching the man move. Little else to do with her day than talk, it seems. "Do you fly, Fred? You look like a firmly planted person; but then again, so does my dear sister… Can't stand quidditch, but give her a broom and she'll lose hours to the sky."
Frid tips the brandy into a glass, topping it up with ginger ale and a strip of lemon. "I don't, ma'am," he admits, "although it does seem like a rather splendid thing to be able to do. I do have a penchant for speed, I admit, as Mrs. Fairfax will no doubt tell you with undisguised glee, although I don't get to take the car out very often from here."
"I could imagine. Our use for muggle vehicles is limited, allowances for them even moreso. Between apparition, flying, spells and floo, there's not really a big place for them in our world." Jocunda tents her fingers while she waits. The brandy finally arrives, and she wraps her fingers around it, sipping gently. "… Excellent. Well, I will admit, that's one thing about the muggle world worth keeping." The alcohol, that is. Not the car.
"Floo is all very well, but you hardly get a thrill from jumping in a fireplace, hm?" Frid notes amiably as he moves round to resume his seat. Tessa soon reappears from her smoke break, and Frid gives her an amiable nod, too, gesturing to Jocunda's drink so Tessa knows she doesn't need to make another. Yet. "Have you a new adventure planned now, then, Miss Sykes?"
"Perhaps." Jocunda agrees, swirling her drink gently, and then sipping again. "But Apparition is fun. Flying is amazing. I'd say that, given the right conditions, better'n sex. And unlike a car, anything that goes wrong is squarely my fault." The woman turns to face what seems to be an off-duty Frid, after all. "Not really. Go back to London. Hit the pitch with a vengeance. Might be I'll try and fly up Everest next year though. We'll have to see.
"I'd say you're having the wrong kind of sex, ma'am," Frid quips drily, opening his books again and finding his place.
"Short of having it on a broom. I'd say you're not flying anywhere near often enough." Jo's first love will always be the sky. "Or you're using something horribly outdated. What broom do you use?" Her curiosity has been piqued by the man, and he's slowly taking her whole interest, while she drinks.
Frid scratches another figure into the book, admitting quietly, "I don't fly, Miss Sykes. Floo or car for me, I'm afraid, only."
Jocunda puts two and two together in her own profound, ACME anvil fashion. "Then you're either poorly co-ordinated or magically void." A nice way to put being a Squib. "And from how you handled my bottle, I'm guessing that the first just isn't true. I can only imagine how well that goes down, this close to Hogwarts." Talk about open to ridicule.
"Or a muggle, ma'am," Frid offers up the third option, resting his elbow on the bar and looking her over. "My work doesn't require me to be a wizard, and Mrs. Fairfax was kind enough to see that I was permitted to come here with her when she inherited the pub. It's certainly been eye-opening."
A 'Muggle!?' "Well now. That changes everything." Jocunda looks vaguely amused now, rather than open pity. "You must be in an incredibly amusing position with the whole Grindelwald thing then." A muggle? She knew of them, even worked with one or two, but still. "One must wonder how that'll change things for you, when the Wizarding World controls the Muggle Government." When.
"I live in hope that it won't happen, ma'am," Frid admits, looking her over and offering a wry smile. "If muggles learn about wizards, and the powers they have, there'll be worse than riots. It'll be revolution, and I'm not too sure either side will come out smelling of roses." He shakes his head. "But politics is hardly a discussion to have at the bar. No politics, no religion, it's only polite."
The brandy is finished, and the empty glass is slid back across the bar, with coins for the replacement. "I'm not so sure. Domination through overwhelming force generally encourages complete obedience. I'd love to show you sometime." Jocunda states. There's no blush on her cheeks, it's hard to read whether it's innuendo, joke or fact. "Then what would you discuss, Fred?" Still uncorrected.
"Under usual circumstances, I'd say the local sports team," Frid admits, looking her over once more. "But given that you can no doubt outfly them all, I'll leave that subject well alone, too. Do you care for music, ma'am?"
"One on one, or as a team?" Jocunda jokes, admittedly a little bit drily. Tessa refills her drink, and Jocunda goes back towards getting nice and slowly inebriated. "I've been a fan of a few different things I've heard throughout the years. Some music… Well, it's either terrible or it passes me by altogether." A sip. "I would assume you're a fan, or at least have some wonderfully strong opinions on the subject."
"I am," Frid confesses easily, flicking her a small smile. "Particularly the jazz and dance bands coming out of America at the moment. I have to say that if I'd flown over there on a broom, I don't think I'd have come back."
"The flight;" Jocunda admits. "Is over-rated. As for the destination; I've no desire to start my own branch of the Sykes family, much less there. Perhaps with time our people will have more a presence." Our - Sykes? Or Wizards, "But until then, I'm happy enough where I am.
"You didn't stay long there, then?" Frid queries, resting an elbow on the bar. "Oh, I don't mean to start a family, but to see the sights! To hear the music! I can't believe for one moment that you'd fly all the way there, catch a nap for the evening, then start flying home again."
Jocunda frowns at Frid. "I'd just spend god only knows how many hours clinging to a broom, fighting sweat, snow and sun. The only thing I cared about was getting back to bed. That's the problem with heroic acts. Sometimes you don't feel too much like a hero straight after. Need time to get into it.
"Well, that much I can imagine," Frid agrees, digging in his pocket for some coins to offer over. "The Lagavulin, please," he asks Tessa quietly. "But surely once you'd slept, no? Or was it all press conferences and people wanting autographs until all you wanted to do was crawl home and hide?"
"A Sykes doesn't hide." Jocunda speaks, immediately. "And I don't mind the publicity. I did it to prove a point. I have no desire to visit the America's - They have nothing to offer. I felt like I'd overstated my argument." A more bold sip of brandy. "The difference between being a hero and an idiot that day was whether or not I ended up in the water. I'm not saying I couldn't, or wouldn't do it again, right now, if I wanted to. But if I did; who would care?"
"And so now you're pondering Everest," Frid notes. "To prove it again." He shrugs, shaking his head. "How many points do you still have to prove, and still end up back at Hogsmeade?"
Jocunda shrugs. "Depends when people stop provoking me to prove them. And I have a finite number of siblings, Fred. Sooner or later, they'll run out and Hogsmeade and Hogwarts; short of me finding a suitable guy and putting my dreams on hold.
"Never put your dreams on hold, ma'am," Frid insists, taking up his whisky for a long, savouring sip before fixing her in his gaze. "We're not worth it, and life's far too short."
"You don't need to tell me, hon'." Jocunda laughs outright, at hearing that. Just the other week the story broke, in Hogsmeade, that she was single again. "I've met enough career obsessed asshats to know I am one. And there's nothing that'll change that." It does bring to mind a curiousity, though, "How go your own dreams?"
Frid half smiles. "I'm… content, ma'am. I enjoy my work, I get my little perks, like the Lagavulin there, and it's an interesting life. Mrs. Fairfax would never allow it to become dull, after all. I'm not sure it's all I ever dreamed of, but I'm content."