08. Take a look around baby, yeah my whole crew's ugly

[dogbane]

CHARACTERS: Sirius Black, William Tsang, Sally Malik, Charles Xavier, and others TBD
LOCATION: Level 4 Lounge
WARNINGS: PG-13 for terrible language, inane violence, etc.
SUMMARY: After the lights come back on, a mild-mannered wizard is going for a quiet drink in the lounge when a medical doctor goes apeshit on him. The punchline apparently involves mutants and ghosts.
NOTES: Now also includes William in the brig.


The fourth floor lounge is one that William has almost actively avoided before. Four is an unlucky number, and he lets superstition get away with him more often these days than he did before. One of the many odd and unusual developments, post-reconnaissance, that he does not dwell on. Still, eventually, dwelling in familiar territory gets old; even for William Tsang, who prefers to be afraid of anything new, anything too old, and most of the grey shades in between.

The whisky bottle is slimy with cold condensation in his fingers. He is already fostering a mild but novel hangover headache.

The Chief Medical Officer is off-duty when he stumps into the lounge, too drunk to care for grace or a collected air, but far from off-balance, something pleasantly dead-eyed about the stare he sweeps through. He squints at the cracked mirrors, the chic luster of carpet and the glitzy vertebrate of stairs leading up to the empty stage. Each of the passenger levels' drinking establishments have a slightly different aesthetic and layout, but there is a remarkable sameness about everything, generally. Not much to be afraid of at all. He swivels his sights to the bar.

Comments

if any of this is not okay lemme know! i know you mentioned her kicking his face

[unmakes]

Charles's greeting is about as unexpected as they come, but as soon as he mentions Sirius she's no longer all that surprised. So she follows him - hurries alongside him really, just slightly behind because she doesn't actually know where they're going.

'A bar' turns out to be the answer to that one. A bar with broken pieces of shit on the floor, and shouting as two figures roll off the bar and into the liquor shelves behind it. She didn't catch who the hell was even brawling, but at this point it's a safe bet that one of them's Sirius. So when Charles stops to verbally object, Sally ducks past him at a jog, hopping up to vault-slide over the bar not far from where they landed. This lands her a few feet away from their heads, and the other guy - William, Charles said William - William's on top, and she doesn't think, she just takes a step toward them and swings her foot up hard toward his face. If he flinches to the side, it might just bruise his jaw or black the side of his eye. If it hits head-on, it could even break his nose.

In case it's the former, she's already dropping down to grab a decent-sized piece of what was formerly glass shelving, holding it pointed-end out in William's direction.

"Right, excuse you, back the hell up." It's a warning, because as much as she'd rather this fight just stop being a thing right here and now, she's ready in case it doesn't. In fact, in the meantime here, she's nudged a broken bottle closer to Sirius's reach just in case.

[dogbane]

The best part is, Charles' intrusion already has William looking up in some confusion about the new arrivals to the scene. This places his face in a great position to intercept Sally's foot.

Thunk.

It takes William a split-second. "Ow fuck," does come though, after his head rocks back into place, along with processing what the fuck everybody is talking about. Right. Backing the Hell up, for God's sake. Which seems like a bit of a spiritual conflict, really, but nobody is interested in your narrative garbage, William-- and William himself isn't interested in getting stabbed with a bottle. That's deadly force, that is. Well, it would be, if William were a little further into the normal human being spectrum of things. As it is, it's a brilliant reminder he is mortal.

He rolls off Sirius then, probably catching a thump of a fist or a wand up his chin in the process, although he's quick about it. "Fuck," he repeats, not really noticing when he puts his hand own on some sharp glass until a moment too late, too. "Balls," he adds, peeling his fingers up with a scowl. "Sweet cunting Christ." Charles can tell that he's preposterously distracted-- by his increasing headache more than the numerous warnings and exasperated epithets issued his way, although he does glance back at the others then.

Ooooooh. People. "Shit."

[doggedly]

The tangled part of the fight is quickly over, at the entrance of the scene's new participants. In the moment, Sirius hadn't registered much--more voices, but he was concentrating more on getting at least one good punch in on his assailant.

And then Sally kicks his assailant in the face, and the assailant rolls off. Not quite caught up on current circumstances, Sirius lunges after him as best as he can, for a punch or something, Merlin, and then ow fuck balls indeed, his head feels incredibly bad, and he slumps back into the broken glass and spilt liquor with a mumbled, "Merlin's fucking--" and a seethe of breath through his teeth. His wand is not broken, it's still clutched in his grasp. He shoves the heels of his hands against his eyeballs and rolls sort of onto his side--and then, very quickly, back again, as little bits of glass prick at his cheek.

"Fuck you," he manages, dully, at William, "what the hell was that about!" and in a moment, maybe, he'll get up, and do something about the attack, but for now he's so dizzy that when he pulls his wand hand off of his face to flick his wand in William's direction, the spell hits a miraculously as-of-yet not broken bottle instead. The bottle instantly shatters. Sorry about your luck, bottle.

[forgodssake]

Jesus Christ.

Charles is on a delay to chase after Sally, kind of stuck in a pause of incomprehension because his chosen back up looks like she just kicked someone and seems to be waving broken glass around and-- he's moving, alright, an important jog carrying him around the bar because he'll leave the heroic vaulting over it to the youthful. It brings him around to William's side of things, relieved to see some separation has occurred in the last five seconds. All due credit to Sally, but--

"Put that down," he barks, of the broken shelving-- just as a bottle explodes, flinching back with an arm folded over his face. Fucking. "Black, bloody hell, enough."

His tone kind of expects people to listen to him. There's grey in his hair and he's had to reprimand reckless children before now too, not to mention adults. In practice, he doesn't expect it, and he can feel his own impatience bristling, as he hasn't been good at this for quite a while. He thinks he can answer Sirius' question.

A hand kind of hovers down to lightly touch William's shoulder, as if to prevent any further action being taken.

[unmakes]

Fortunately, she's dropping the glass about as soon as William backs off, and it's lucky she does. Sirius doesn't seem to process that the fight's well and done, lurching forward to fire off some kind of magic before Sally can get an arm around his shoulders from behind, her other hand reaching out to snag hold of his wand wrist.

"Hey - slow down, he's not worth it," she's quick saying, her eyes lifting to Charles now to non-verbally touch bases that now that nobody's directly getting pummeled she's 100% with him in breaking this shit up. The hand around Sirius's wrist is bleeding a little from her grip on the glass, but nothing all that bad.

[dogbane]

By then, William is half-sitting up. The touch of Charles' hand stays William pretty well. I mean there's an abortive forward-jerk when Sirius explodes a bottle and starts yelling rude things-- a flash of anger in William's eyes, arm swinging forward like he's going to propel himself right back into it. The weight of Charles' palm, though, reminds him that this is over and then he sees the blood beginning to seep out of his sleeves where his arms are full of glass. The floor moves slightly too.

"I'm really drunk," he informs everybody. He jabs a forefinger in Sirius' direction. "And you're a fucking tit."

Realistically, William knows that he's been a tit, too, but it feels good to say-- and it's not as bad to do as hitting Sirius with a bottle was, even he knows that. He subsides after that, his face creasing up as he glances at Charles. Charles looks so responsible. Even aside from the fact the mutant managed to escape being covered in a fine sheen of broken glass and his own blood with one side of his face beginning to swell. William is the worst at explaining anything today; he sits in the wasted mess of the lounge and looks ornery instead.

[doggedly]

"Me?" Sirius snarls, incredulously, "exactly how have I been a tit, when you're the arsehole that came stomping in here--"

The loud pitch of his own voice makes his head ache, and he cuts himself off again with another sharp intake of breath, sagging back against Sally a little. He does not, as a note, appreciate the intervention, or the fact that she's holding him back. He especially does not appreciate Charles bloody Xavior shouting at him like he's some disobedient kid. And his head hurts, and all the little bits of glass prick at his skin, ow fucking ow, and he struggles, vaguely, to get free of Sally, to try and heave himself to his feet.

This somehow changes the angle in which he's looking at William, and it's then that he puts it together. "Oh, god--" It comes out more of a groan than anything else. "You're CMO."

As in, Remus' CMO. Love potioned or mad--absolutely mad, that's terribly obvious after this encounter--also made of stone, sometimes, and shrinkable, and-- "Get him out of here, before I-- nghfkh," and , argh argh argh, Sirius sinks back against Sally again, dizzy.

[forgodssake]

Glance with Sally settles those hackles, a minor nod of understanding and thanks, and Charles can concentrate downward while Sally keeps a hold of Sirius. There's glass and booze everywhere, the whole place stinking like paint stripper, all individual notes of subtlety washed out into pure chemical stench.

"Can you stand?" he asks of William, somewhat privately, shy of using actual telepathy to do so. "Careful--"

But he is admittedly distracted, a look sent Sirius' way, an icy, splintery sharpness in his regard that he usually reserves for more personal conflicts. He can see it plainly, that William attacked him like a crazy person out of nowhere, that William is very hammered, that Sirius could have done a great deal worse than he did. These are all points in his favour.

An image cuts through Sirius Black's dizziness -- it's a memory shoved to the forefront of his mind as abruptly as an open palmed slap. Black paint, white paint, the tip of his knife dragging lines through the face shape of Severus Snape's mural in deliberate crossing etches. On Xavier's end, he of course sees it too. He also feels it. Whatever steadying hand he has on William digs fingertips in, briefly.

"Before you what, exactly?" is sharp. Now that no one's hitting each other.

[unmakes]

She lets Sirius shrug free, decently sure by now that he's not going to do any more lunging. Not in the shape he's in. In fact, she's standing up just after him and she can already spot the blood in his hair - from the first mug to the head, though Sally herself has no idea what went down. Just that it ended up like this.

When he sags back into her, a foot slips back to brace against his weight, but she doesn't grab hold of him beyond setting a hand on his shoulder blade like 'I've got you' because if it's any kind of solid grip he'll just be an ass and shrug it off again anyway.

The brief telepathic exchange is lost on Sally, but Charles's sharp tone isn't. She gives him a look, like 'he can barely freaking stand up, are you seriously going to pull this shit right now?' (which, ironically, is probably exactly what he picks up from her head, little does she know). What actually comes out of her mouth is, "Not to undermine exactly how important half-drunk dick-waving actually is, but can this wait?" There's something a little sharp in her own tone, but it's less threat and more of a quiet urgency.

[dogbane]

William stands shortly after he's asked. He looks incredibly unsteady, and that would appear to be partly from trying to parse too many things at once (increasingly lumpy belly, also the thin rivulets of blood soaking through his shirt, not high-pressure enough to be arterial flow) as well as because he's drunk. Brain damage remains debatable. He does have regeneration, you know. Physical injury of any kind shouldn't really last very long, especially not as long as he's fancied Snape.

He stops examining himself after a few seconds. The pain is a dull, rhythmic roar beyond the fog of inebriation, and his hangover hasn't improved, in case anybody is concerned. "I'm the bloke who kicked your arse," he informs Sirius, not very informatively. "Kind of doubt the whole healing profession's got any relevance right now, you floppy prick." The look he shoots Sally isn't very kind either; has a curl of a sneer to his lip, offended by her lame hair and hard shoes and skeezy support of unequivocal idiots, a look which is terribly uncharacteristic for people who know William day-to-day. So is breaking bottles on cute boys' heads, though. Busting and cute boys' heads usually involves

i'M SO TIRED GUYS B U TI'M TAGGING ANYWAY. LIKE A HERO.

Fortunately for everybody, Charles Xavier is here. Onto you, Charles.