[frank's] 7 deadly sins just to get my bread leavened | roderick

Clem was in London with her sister. She tried to get time off from the shop and come with her sister each time Jess was there for an event, because 1) fun, and 2) it would be better for her to get a decent lay of the land before she assumedly moved here. Clementine’s preference obviously would have been an English team, but even more than that, she was interested in a top team--and London seemed like one of the best places to make connections, even if she wasn’t scouted for first string her first go at tryouts.

It was the summer, and she was mildly drunk, and extremely hungry. The Gryffindor wasn’t quite sure how she’d ended up in Hackney of all places, and especially not strolling through the door of a delicatessen crammed between a bank and a laundromat. She wondered whether or not it smelled like dryer sheets during lunch hour.

Upon seeing who was working the counter, Clem almost turned on her heel and walked right back out. Roderick Macnair was not the first, or literally last, person she would’ve liked to see on any given day. She’d seen him pick on kids--kids, actually kids--plenty of times, and paid attention to the way he’d rallied a bunch of nasty Slytherins who were dumber to do his bidding. He wasn’t stupid, and she didn’t think as much, but she didn’t view him the kind of person to follow the golden rule.

If he was here, working in a deli in Hackney, though, she couldn’t imagine his life was going that swell. Could be an opportunity for learning for each of them, and she was really starving and neeeeeeded another drink.

Hesitating feet finally trudged forward and she slid clumsily into a booth, pretending to look at the menu. “Hello,” She halfway-grinned, halfway-grimaced when he came to take her order, and he looked less than thrilled. That was comforting, for whatever twisted reason. “Roderick.” Clementine emphasized the first part of his name, tipsy-telling him that I’ve got your number. That was a muggle figure of speech, and she’d never really been able to figure out what it meant except that she knew it communicated she was in the know. Or, you know, whatever. With it.

“I need a reuben. Chips if you have them, lots of vinegar, potato salad if you don’t. Aaaaand. A firewhiskey, please.”

The hours on the door of the deli said ten till late. Really helpful when trying to schedule shifts, it was. Tonight he was on late shift  - eight hours, staff meal, six in the evening until about two in the AM. It was the best shift on the weeknights - dinner rush was over by nine or so and he could just work on his entrance essay at the counter until it was time to clock out.

Working in London was slightly less annoying than Hogsmede, and Frank was much less insufferable than Honey Flume had been. The man’s demeanour was growing on Roderick, but the kitchen was not. The panini maker, in particular, seemed to have it out for him.

Tonight was front of house, and it was blissfully empty at 1am on a Tuesday. There was old man Joseph in the far booth, nursing his coffee and working on the puzzle in the Prophet. The kitchen staff was listening to some Quidditch garbage on the wireless, and Roderick was leaning over the counter, trying to remember how to spell “contrition”. He looked up idly when the door opened. “Seat yourself,” he yelled. The blonde girl seemed startled, but after a moment staggered into a nearby booth. Great. A drunk. Wahoo.

He took his time coming over to the booth - it wasn’t like he was getting paid to wait on people more than was absolutely necessary. “What can I get you-“

“Roderick.”

Rod looked at the girl in the booth, really looked at her. She was wasted, and also very clearly Clementine Russell, Gryffindor, pain in the ass. He didn’t understand while Lionel let her hang around him; she was loud, brash, irritating, and right now his goddamn problem.

“Russell,” he said after a moment, just so he wasn’t just glaring at her over his order pad. “Vinegar is right there.” He pointed to a bottle next to the salt and pepper. “Are you even of age?” Not that it mattered, Frank never carded or whatever. He just didn’t want to get jackshit for Clementine Russel that he didn’t have to. The sheet with the rest of her order folded itself into a bird and flew to the kitchens - someone in the back must think he was doing Rod a favour. “The hell you doing in -“ he nearly said my deli, caught himself. “The hell you doing here?”

Seat yourself. Exemplary, shining customer service, she thought to herself with an eyeroll, even though nobody could see it because she’d already clambered into the booth (complete with telltale cracks on the slippery fabric, these booths were well worn) to skim the menu that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the place opened. Clem wasn’t judging, though--sometimes that made for the absolute best food. And she wasn’t a pompous prat. She enjoyed a few germs on her food sometimes, gross as that seemed. She thought little places like this had character and charm. Ugh, she was sounding like her grammy. Character and charm? Get a grip.

“Oh! Lovely,” Clem responded regarding the vinegar. Lovely indeed. She could slather on as much as she liked to her food. That was one thing this American joint had going for it, anyway. The English girl really didn’t think they knew their way around food in general, but she would give them the gold star when it came to burgers and chips. Calorie and carb-laden, that was food America did well.

Are you even of age? He asked. Clementine rolled her eyes very visibly this time, completely in his direction. “If you must know, no. But I’ll be seventeen in a month, and I’ve already had a few, so what’s another? You gonna narc to your boss?” Nobody liked a narc, after all. The kitchen staff would probably throw banana peels at him or something if he went back there to tattle on her about one fucking drink.

“Believe me, I had no idea you worked here, so don’t get a big head,” Clem pointedly slid her menu over to the edge of the table where he could grab it. “Was just wandering around town, you know. Trying to find something to occupy myself with while my sister’s busy. What the hell are you doing here? You sound bored and sad.” The Gryffindor pulled a completely sarcastic, pretend-sympathetic face and gestured toward the empty booth seat opposite her.

“Listen, why don’t you just bring me my food and sit down and have a drink too? On me. Might help you pull that tree branch wedged up your ass right on out. Great social lubricant and all that.”

Russell had a good point. Frank took a sort of loose approach to enforcing drinking rules: none for really small kids, none for belligerent drunks, and that was about it. Roderick sighed. "Yeah, whatever." He jotted down the girl's drink order - technically they didn't have firewhiskey on the menu out front, but realistically nobody cared if a drink from the "secret" bar wandered out into the main dining area once in a while.

And she was still talking. Roderick grabbed the menu and stuck it in the little holder at the end of the booth, where Clementine would have probably put it back if she wasn't drunk off her ass. "I work here, obviously," he said, gesturing widely at the empty dining room. "Can't imagine why I would be bored, what with all this business." At the other end of the room, Old Man Joseph coughed, just to remind the world that he existed. 

Roderick raised an eyebrow at the witch's offer. Well, it wasn't like there was much else going on, and Merlin knew he could use a drink too. But it was a weird proposition from the Gryffindor Quidditch player, even taking into account the characteristic insult. Blame it on the drink. Roderick sighed. "Whatever," he said, and walked off.

He refilled Old Man Joseph's coffee and water cup and got two glasses of firewhiskey ready in the time before Clem's order came up. He brought it over with the bill in hand. "Said it was on you, he reminded her, tossing the sandwich and chip basket onto her side of the table and slid into the booth seat across from her. What a strange tableau they made. "Cheers, or whatever."

“Yeah, no problem.” Clem’s lower lip jutted out as she acknowledged, faithfully, what she’d said. Yes, she’d agreed to pay for the drink--she’d pay for more, if they made him more tolerable to be around. “I work too, you know. Not in London, though, so I can’t imagine it’s at all the same.”

The customers in Suffolk were better than the customers in London. She didn’t need to land a job here to know that was objectively true. The type they got where she lived were suburbian or farmy types--usually families, or children who wanted to pick a pet before they went off to Hogwarts. A lot of kids did their shopping in Diagon Alley, but somehow her parents had managed to perfect a business model that made them comfortably middle-class and able to afford everything Clementine and her siblings needed.

Clem held up the glass of firewhiskey and practically forced her unlikely partner in monotony to clink his with hers, and then, of course, took a huge drink. “What’s your favorite drink, Macnair? Surely you drink.” She wasn’t sure at all, but it would open up an interesting dialogue for conversation--even if the conversation was her poking fun at him for not drinking.

He wasn’t all that bad looking either, and though she was surprised initially as she studied him from across the table, the longer she thought about it, the more that made sense. Attractive men were more likely to get away with being assholes, weren’t they? The unfortunate throes of biology.

Her sandwich came next: she opened wide and took a bite, making a comically astonished noise of approval as the flavor hit her tongue, “This is good,” She commented, rudely, still with her mouth half full. “Almost as good as the firewhiskey.”

Not in London. Roderick resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. There was some truth in that business was all about location - the speed and pace of work here was generally way faster than Honeydukes had been, or his odd summer jobs around wizarding Glasgow. He couldn’t really imagine Russell working in a shop, or whatever.

She was basically shoving the glass in his face. Roderick sighed - was his half-assed cheers not enough? - and clinked his against hers. He eyed how much she drank at once. Seemed like a lot pretty fast for someone already hammered. Roderick resigned himself to a slow delicate sip. He was technically working, even now.

“Course I drink.” This time, Roderick did roll his eyes. “Just because I’m not vomiting on the Quidditch pitch doesn’t mean I don’t drink.” He had heard about that, of course, though at the time he thought it was strange that a fifteen year old was apparently an alcoholic. Maybe he would have been the same, if he hadn’t seen how Dad had turned out after the war ended. Well, Warner hadn’t exactly been sober before, either. It was a warning, one that kept him sober until right before the redhead had turned seventeen.
 
He thought about it. “Scotch, generally,” Roderick said after a minute. “Absinthe, sometimes.” It was a bit monosyllabic, but Roderick didn’t have brands on hand or anything - generally these drinks he was being gifted or were available at a function. Not like he was filling his shelves with anything but cheap beer. Not even - Dad would probably nick if if he did.

It was unattractive to watch her talk with her mouth full, so he stared at a point about half a meter beside her head. “I’ll pass on the praise,” Roderick said dryly, taking another sip of firewhiskey. Side effects: burning sensation, feeling of courage, and a loose tongue. “You said you were in town with your sister - where is Jessica, anyway?” He got the name wrong on purpose - he knew Jessalyn Russell’s name, and Clementine’s name, as a side effect of being friends with the Sterlings.

“Damn, ouch,” Clementine’s jaw went slack as Macnair pulled up a memory from the depths she rather would’ve forgotten. She had no clue how that had gotten out into the school as a rumor--a true rumor, but one she was unsure how anyone could’ve verified, anyhow. Creepy spying eyes on the Quidditch pitch seemed like the only viable explanation, but if she didn’t let it go now, she’d be poring over all the details in her mind to try and figure it out. It didn’t matter anymore, anyway. She was-- well.

Clem understood it would have been ironic to say sober right now, but she was sober-ish. Ish enough to not be struggling to get out of bed day after day, and enough that she was keeping up on her work and only drinking when it felt like fun. If that was all a trick she was playing on herself, too, time would tell.

“We Gryffindors,” The blonde took another swallow of her amber drink and made a crisp, refreshed noise-- “We tend to do things in extremes. Live on the edge,” She emphasized the last several words. “That’s why you don’t like us, isn’t it? You prefer to drift around in the middle. Pick whatever side that suits you whenever it does.” Clem thought this psychoanalysis was pretty smart, but she was aware that Slytherins had this horrible propensity to end up with burrs in their asses, so Roderick wouldn’t likely appreciate her wittiness to the same degree.

“Absinthe?!” She exclaimed with a comical expression, which frankly insinuated she either didn’t believe him and did--subsequently kind of thinking he was a freak, as a result. Not that that changed her opinion of him. She’d held the same one since before coming in here. “Jesus.”

It astounded Clementine how a person could be so wrong in so many ways, but he firstly interpreted her praises lauding him and then butchered her sister’s name. “Well, I wasn’t praising you, so it’s good that you’ll pass,” Clem nodded curtly and finished her glass. “And her name is Jessalyn. She’s fine. She’s working right now, she told me to buzz off.”

You prefer to drift around in the middle. Pick whatever side that suits you whenever it does. Roderick just shrugged. There was something to that, sure. It just seemed smart. "Better than stubbornness without reason," he offered, then, "Not that it should fucking matter. Everyone is just looking out for themselves, end of the day. Some people just include more stuff in what they want to protect." Was this a reasonable philosophical tact? Didn't matter. Didn't care. Did she think she was being smart, with such a baseline analysis of house attributes? His eyebrow was creeping up despite himself - Roderick was vaguely amused.

"What's wrong with absinthe?" Roderick asked. Merlin, her face was like a caricature. Was that on purpose? "Absinthe is fucking fine. Fuck do you drink?"

She was also clearly having trouble processing English. "To the cook, I meant." How drunk was she? He nodded. So Jessalyn wasn't around. Good. Not that he had a real opinion, but he was due to visit Kay soon and that would just be a mess. He took another long sip of his drink, finally dragging his gaze down to look Clem in the eye. "So. What's your plan then. For next term." Was he meant to be making small talk? Fuck it. He was tipsy and a Russell was buying him drink. Why the hell not.