To Get Out for a While (Hayden, Damon, and Sean)

[T. Vega]

T yawned as he continued to restock the shelves in the library. He had been there for a while now, maybe 24 hours or more restocking and organizing the books. (And of course, a couple hours of distraction once the new books came through yesterday.)

He knew he needed to go home and sleep, but there was a couch upstairs if he really wanted a nap. His stomach growled and T realized he didn't knowwhen the last time he ate was.

He left a "went to lunch" sign on the desk and made his way to the Hot Panini to order himself some lunch, yawning yet again and wondering if he should have just gone home.

((I figured the guys would probably just run into T, he wouldn't think to owl them...))

[Damon Dearborn]

The best thing about not having a job was the ability to come and go as he pleased, without having to deal with a rigid schedule. If he wanted to leave in the middle of the afternoon and get a sandwich, no one could stop him.

So it was that Damon was on his way to the Hot Panini for a snack. He'd gotten bored of sitting by the pool and reading magazines, so he got dressed and came into town. He was just passing the library when he saw a familiar figure coming out.

"Hey, T!" he called, grinning at the sight of his friend. "What's up?"

[T. Vega]

T looked up quickly when he heard his name and saw Damon comming his way. "Hey Damon," T said with a grin. He was still sleepy, but it was good to see one of his freinds, so he tried to be a little more awake.

"Nothing much, getting lunch," he said. He stiffled another yawn, making a note to drink something cafinated. "It is lunch time right?" It could have been breakfast or dinner for all he knew; T didn't wear a watch.

[Damon Dearborn]

Damon shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I only rolled out of bed an hour ago, so who am I to say? But you know what I always say, any time is lunchtime. Unless it's breakfast time, or dinner time."

He let out a laugh. Damon never had been good with schedules. He liked to make his own rules. Of course, it made it particularly hard for him to hold down a proper job. But then, that might be changing if this thing with Mr. Santino worked out...

"Anyway, mate, what have you been doing? You haven't been collecting dust in that old library, have you?"

[T. Vega]

"Rolled out of bed an hour ago?" T raised his eyebrows. "Lucky, I've been upp all night." He assumed by all the people in town that it must be afternoon, which meant that, yes, it was indeed lunch time. They reached the Hot Panini and took a seat to look at the menu for a moment. "And I haven't been collecting dust..." T said with a little laugh. "Just working, you know like my job..." he teased Damon, the ever jobless buddy. "You know what that is right?" he joked, knowing that Damon would know he was kidding.

"So have you seen Hayden or Sean? I haven't in a while..." The four of them, Damon, Sean, Hayden, and T, had been friends since they were all sorted into Ravenclaw together and shared a dorm for seven years together. They were T's closest and most trusted friends.

He wasn't sure about Sean, but he had read in the papers about the whole Fererra extravaganza that was going on, and knew Hayden must be caught up in all of that.

[Damon Dearborn]

Damon pretended to think deeply. “A job…. I think I’ve heard some ugly rumors to that effect… I hope they aren’t contagious.” He laughed again, then his expression grew serious. “Actually… I might have a job. I don’t know much about it yet, but this guy I met asked him to do odd jobs for him. Said the hours were flexible, and I would have a lot of free time… sounds perfect for me. So I guess I’ll see if he contacts me again.”

He shrugged dismissively. There wasn’t much else to say about the job at this point, because he still didn’t know exactly what he’d be doing. And if it wasn’t exactly on the up-and-up… well, the less he said, the better.

“I haven’t seen Hayden or Sean lately… I figured Hayden was busy with family stuff. And Sean’s been busy, too, I hear.”

[T. Vega]

"Odd Jobs?" T raised an eyebrow. "Lot's of free time? sound's right up your ally Day. Good for you." The way Damon talked about it, it sounded a little flakey, but T trusted Damon's judgement. He had offered Damon a job at the library, but even for a Ravenclaw, T knew the job wouldn't have interested him.

"I feel like I haven't seen you three in ages," T said. It was probably true. He had the tendancy to drop off the face of the earth for periods at the time. Between work and the mysterious letter he had found on his door not long ago, T would forget to contact his friends to show he was alive now and then.

[Damon Dearborn]

"Yeah, I really haven't seen anyone in a while, either," Damon admitted. "Like I said, you're all busy being responsible members of the work force, and I've just been lying about, drinking and flirting with girls. You know, my specialties."

Unlike the other three, Damon had always been the goofball, the one who just got by with a good name, as well as a wink and a smile. A part of him felt a little guilty about that, but not enough to really change things. Even this little "job" offer he had didn't seem like much of a commitment to Damon. He had no idea what to expect from it, but he had been assured that he would have his free time, and there weren't many other jobs that could promise that. T was a perfect example of that.

"We really should plan something, just the four of us guys. I could probably get you guys all hooked up, if you wanted..."

[T. Vega]

"Your life sounds so difficult Damon," T said, shaking his head. He wasn't just working though. he was researching too. Looking into any clue he could get from the mysterious not he found on his door. You would have made him proud. kept traveling through his head like a muggle's broken record and he still didn't know what to make of it.

"Too bad they don't just happen to walk in here at the same time like you and I did," T joked. Hey, stranger things have happened.

[Damon Dearborn]

Damon laughed. "Yeah, it's a real burden being rich, handsome, and charming, but somehow I'm dealing with it," he replied.

He would never admit it, of course, but there was a part of him that actually felt a little inadequate compared to his friends, all of whom had good, respectable jobs. He knew he should be working a regular job, and that the job offered by Mr. Santino was probably not the "respectable" job he should be looking for.

"That'd be convenient," he agreed. "Unlikely, but convenient."

Looking around, he added, "How about that table over near the waitress station? You know how I love to flirt with the waitresses..."

[T. Vega]

T smiled at Damon but didn't say anything immediatly. He'd always been a little jealous of Damon's way of living. Hell, he was jealous of all his friends. Every school holiday he'd stay with either Damon, Hayden, or Sean, and he loved how Hayden had more siblings and cousins then T thought was possible, and how loving Sean's family was always great and kind to him, and how Damon was rich and could have basically whatever he wanted. And T? he didn't have a permanent family. the closest he had was two months with one family in Italy, but then he neversaw them again.

"Why not? If anything, it's always entertaining," T joked, leading the way to the table's by the window.

[Damon Dearborn]

Damon led the way to the table near the waitresses’ station, pausing to wink at a cute waitress along the way. To Damon, flirting was like breathing, and it was almost impossible for him to stop himself from doing it. It was the one thing he had always been good at.

But despite the fact that he was rich and charming and good-looking, Damon would not say that his life was ideal. The conflict in his family still bothered him greatly. Constantine was an auror, and Cassius and Anton were both death eaters. Damon suspected that Quincy was on the side of the death eaters as well, and there was no telling with Cadence, but it was unlikely that anyone would try to force her to join. Sexist as it might have been, they were most likely to let Cadence do whatever she wanted, just because she was the baby and the only girl.

Since everyone else had pretty much decided where their loyalties were, that just left Damon, forever stuck in the middle of a war that he had no desire to fight in. He just wanted his family back together, but it seemed very unlikely that Cassius and Constantine were ever going to get over their differences.

Damon smiled at T as they sat down. “So, seriously, man. You’ve got to stop locking yourself in that musty old library all the time. You’re going to get library atmosphere disease.”

[T. Vega]

T had to chuckle at Damon as he winked at the cute waitresses. T never really was the dating type. He kept to himself a lot and was pretty shy. Occasionally, Damon or the other guys would drag him out and he'd meet someone, but it didn't last long.

"I don't lock myself in, the doors are always open," T laughed. "That's the thing about libraries," he grinned. To be honest though, T actually had spent more time in his apartment, staring at the note he recieved more than working at the library.

[Damon Dearborn]

Damon rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, sure,” he said, waving his hand. “But you don’t get out much, either, do you? Seriously, I never see any of you guys… I don’t know which one of you is a bigger stick in the mud. I think I’m going to have to make it my personal mission to get you and the other guys out more often to do fun things. I mean, talk about a bunch of crazy workaholics….”

If he was honest with himself, that was one of the reasons why the idea of getting a regular job was so offputting to him. It seemed like everyone became so obsessed with their jobs that they forgot to get a life. Damon preferred to do the opposite… he had a life, but not a job. But the two should not have to be mutually exclusive, so he was going to have to find ways to keep his friends busy, so that they weren’t just working their lives away.

[Sean Leviner]

Sean, ever the Ravenclaw at heart, was so much the workaholic that Damon was just talking about. He hadn't told Daniel, but he was getting more and more visions lately, and there was still the matter of the girl they found murdered a couple of weeks ago. Whoever did it was clean, and it frustrated Sean. His visions weren't clear enough to be of much help, either, so that lead him to the library. Naturally. When in doubt, check a book. That was practically the Ravenclaw motto, afterall, and it rarely failed him.

He read about certain murders that shared patterns somewhere, and while they only found one body... well, Sean just had a bad feeling. So he wanted to see what the library could tell him, see if he could find anything that might help him figure out who did it. Because people who did these things were often proud of themselves and always left a calling card.

But he didn't get very far before he spotted two very familiar people.

"Hey," he said, before he remembered being in a library, and walked over to T and Damon. "Is this where we all meet now?" he joked, but he barely smiled and he just looked tired. He wasn't sleeping much lately.

[Damon Dearborn]

Damon turned at the familiar voice. "Sean?" he said in surprise. He assessed Sean's appearance and frowned deeply. He knew that a lot of the Ministry employees were under a lot of stress these days, but seeing Sean now really hit home with Damon. Things weren't the way they were when they were kids anymore. Two of his friends were fighting against the forces of evil, and he was just sitting on the sidelines, drinking butterbeer and flirting with girls. Suddenly he didn't feel so good about himself. "Man... you look like hell."

[Sean Leviner]

Sean's hand were buried deep in his pockets and he sighed deeply, at least until Damon's comment. That made him smile, and he shook his head. Talk about honesty, Sean thought, and leave it to Damon to throw it out there so bluntly.

"Thanks, Damon. Good to see you, too," he commented wryly, and he nodded at T to acknowledge him.

"I'm just tired. Work's been... rough. You both are looking pretty good, though. Life been treating you well?"

[Damon Dearborn]

Damon grinned and shook his head. "Oh, you know me. I'm doing fine. If nothing else, you can at least say I'm well-rested." He laughed lightly, even though he actually wasn't all that proud of himself. He had his reasons for not choosing sides in this fight, but now that he could see the toll it was taking on people he cared about, like Sean and Constantine, he was wondering how much longer he could remain neutral.

"And this one here," he added, jabbing a thumb in T's direction, "has been inhaling a little too much book dust and not getting out of the house. Seriously, you guys should come with me to the club one night. What do you say?"

[Hayden Ferrera]

Hayden had been known to check on T from time to time. He had to make sure that his friend was alright. Things were somewhat calming down. Roland was back and things were going alright for the time being. Hayden had started to make appearances outside work and his apartment a little more frequently. He wasn't sure the exact reason as to why he was making a few more trips out, even if it was just to take a walk or go down to Stu's for a drink.

Today was one of those days that Hayden happened to be out. Coming up on three very familar people, Hayden walked up to the with his hands in his pockets. "What's this about a club," he asked.

[Damon Dearborn]

If Damon believed in fate, then it would be this moment. For him to show up outside the library while T was walking out, that was luck. For Sean to show up right after, that was coincidental. But for Hayden to show up after that... well, it could only be fate.

"Hayden!" Damon said, giving the fourth member of their little group a clap on the back. "What is it with you guys? Were you all just psychically drawn to the power of my presence?"