Save a life [Elias]

Someday Zach would have a desk job. What he wouldn’t give to sit around like these idiots all day. But as it was, he was up, around, everywhere in the damned building and occasionally Diagon Alley, delivering papers and fetching lunch and being a general workhorse. He didn’t really care to be promoted, he had no interest in international wizarding affairs any more than he did preparing tea, but if it got him off his feet, he wouldn’t mind.

It was the time of day he started getting achy and jittery and started counting the minutes until he was home. There were at least two hours worth of minutes, more if things ran late, which was likely. He had been sent across the office to retrieve a report.

“Dörfler,” he said, leaning over the cubicle and rapping his fingers on the edge, “You’ve got papers for Weasley.”

Zach liked working with foreigners. They didn’t have the history he had with most of Hogwarts. He’d never liked living in such a closed community, going to school with the same people he’d played with as a child and would work with for the rest of his life. Never having the chance to reinvent himself, never being able to live anything down. Elias Dörfler was around his age, generally pleasant, but not Justin-style, annoyingly so. Zach wanted him to like him.

“So,” he began casually, unsure what really people said to each other, “got plans for the weekend?”

@Elias Dörfler

The week so far had been an over-packed one for Elias. The weekend had been filled with drinking and socializing with friends, which had felt like a good chance to relax a bit until he had returned to work on Monday and remembered how overwhelming his workload was getting. Now, as he sat here in his bustling office on Thursday afternoon, he couldn't help feeling that he should have come in on Saturday or Sunday to get more done. His inbox was filled to the brim with all manner of memos, applications, and updates and just the sight of it was making his head hurt. He closed his eyes for just a moment, trying to remember what had been next on his to-do list, but his mind was so full at the moment that he couldn't rearrange his thoughts into any kind of productive pattern.

He opened his eyes at the sound of his name, knowing to expect a British colleague at the way it was pronounced. Zacharias Smith was leaning over the edge of the cubicle wall, looking expectantly at him. It took a moment for him to register which particular document the messenger was probably looking for, but then he bent over to open one of the side drawers in his desk. He pulled out the report he expected Smith was looking for and handed it over with his best attempt at a smile. At least this was one thing taken care of -- he needn't be bothered now to make the delivery.

Elias didn't know the other man well; he seemed like the type to generally keep himself to himself. He did have a bit of a reputation among their colleagues as being rather unpleasant, but Elias had never found him all that bothersome. All the same, he was surprised when Zacharias asked him about the upcoming weekend, but he took it in stride, not doubting for a moment that the man meant the question genuinely. "Probably coming in to the office," he replied with a slight sigh. He enjoyed his work, but it would be nice if he could just go out with friends without having to feel guilty about abandoning his responsibilities. He gestured at the state of his inbox to prove his point. "Things are piling up."

The thought of the insane length of his to-do list was so intimidating at the moment that Elias pushed his chair back from his desk. He needed a break before he could focus on anything more in this cubicle. "I think I need a coffee. If you have time, you are welcome to join me," he told the other man cordially. He didn't really expect Zacharias to accept the invitation -- he had never shown much interest in becoming friends in the past -- but he knew it was the polite thing to do. Besides, it would be nice to have someone to talk to for a bit to help him clear his head.

It had been an attempt at casual conversation, maybe two minutes to make himself more likable and then back to get his work over with as fast as he could. He liked to kid himself that work could be done quicker, even though he didn’t always have set tasks to do and his job was mostly just to be at Weasley’s beck and call. But it helped him get through the malaise until he could get back home, get what he needed.

Zach had been prepared for a few moment’s banter and then walking away. But then Elias invited him for coffee.

He couldn’t hide his surprise at being invited someplace. “Oh,” he said, nodding, “yeah, sure.” Then, of course, he remembered he was supposed to be working. But he’d been invited someplace. That was a once-in-a-blue-moon thing. It trumped everything. Even though he was probably an inch away from getting fired, even though he might have to stay longer, even though he could feel himself starting to go a little manic and he’d probably make a damned fool of himself, even though he didn’t even like coffee, he was going to go get coffee.

Waving the papers Elias had just handed him, he smiled. “I figure Weasley can wait a bit for these.”

Zacharias looked a bit amazed at the extension of a casual invitation, and Elias wondered whether the man simply expected to be treated with dislike all the time. After a moment of hesitation, though, his colleague agreed to join him. Surprised at the acceptance, but pleased that he might actually have a chance to talk to the mysteriously distant man for a bit, Elias stood up and smiled genuinely at his new mate.

"After you, then," he replied, gesturing a bit formally toward the set of doors that led out into the main hallway. The pair walked across the large office, Elias nodding and smiling at the colleagues he passed with whom he was on friendly terms, which was quite a few of them. One woman raised an eyebrow at him as she took in who he was walking with, but Elias simply explained cheerfully, before she could comment: "Grabbing a cup of coffee. We need a break from the office!"

Once they had stepped out into the hallway, Elias having politely held the door for Zacharias to pass through, the German led the way toward the lifts. He already felt a bit more relaxed now that he was away from the bustling and stressful workspace, and was relieved to feel that some of the tightness he had been feeling in his chest was lifting. As they waited for an elevator to reach their floor, he turned to Zachary. "So, what about you? Big plans for the weekend?"

Elias smiled at him, and Zach’s lips twitched up in response. He wanted Elias to like him, but wasn’t sure that he liked Elias. He hated people who smiled like they meant it. No one ever meant it. Zach sure as hell never meant it. It was a gesture to an acquaintance, to curry favor, to make them think of you a certain way, that was all. It wasn’t as if they knew each other, understood enough about each other for the sight of the other to actually make them smile.

As they passed the other cubicles Elias smiled at everyone. It had meant nothing for certain.

Zach preferred to just forgo these coworker non-relationships entirely. They were meaningless and wastes of time. But he needed someone on his side and desperately. Someone well-liked who could stand up for him, maybe sway public opinion a little. Someone to make jokes to under his breath during meetings. Someone to make the day a little more bearable.

He nodded as Elias held the door for him, stopped in front of the lift and tapped his foot quickly as he waited. “Yeah, right,” he said. “Nothing.” He never had plans for the weekends, though that was a plan in and of itself. He’d be pissed as hell if his doing nothing was interrupted for some reason. But you couldn’t just say that to somebody. People didn’t tend to understand.

Elias raised an eyebrow at Zacharias's rather cold response, wondering whether the sarcasm was coming from a place of regret or genuine humor at the prospect of having no plans for the weekend. He was still a bit baffled by Zacharias and his on-and-off attempts at friendship with him. If he was annoyed by Elias, why had he agreed to get coffee with him? Or, even talked to him in the first place?

Rather than being turned off by his companion's behavior, however, Elias grew more intrigued and determined to figure him out. He was rather accustomed to getting on well with everyone and getting a general sense for how others ticked. Despite the challenge that Zacharias was turning out to be, he was not one to give up easily.

"Just a weekend of relaxing at home, then?" He did his best to sound as though he was sympathetic to the idea, but the truth was that spending an entire weekend alone sounded pretty dreadful. "I usually prefer to keep moving, be out and about, you know," he admitted. "But then again, I suppose some unwinding time could be good, what with the week we've been having."

The elevator bell chimed and the lift doors slid open. Elias stepped in and pushed the button for the atrium before turning back to look at Zacharias, wondering where all of his resentment came from. He had always found it easier to be friendly than grumpy, but perhaps it wasn't true for everyone. The elevator carried them to their destination and the doors slid open. The atrium was fairly quiet; it was too early for anyone to be heading home, but well past the usual lunch hour. He stepped out and waited politely for his officemate to join him.

Oh, hell, Elias was looking at him funny. He should have made something up. Some plans to have, something boring and plausible to get them off the subject. But he was a terrible liar. It was already hard enough to come up with anything that wasn’t I’ll be spending the weekend laying about on heroin and draught of peace and that he’d managed to deflect the question was frankly pretty impressive, whatever Elias thought. He could think whatever he liked; screw him.

Only not screw him, because the entire point of this had been making a friend, an ally, and he was running out of prospects. Zacharias smiled back at Elias’s pleasant query. “I like my me time, I guess,” he said. That was true. He valued his time spent on his own, or with people too messed up for him to have to put on a front around. Putting himself through this was draining. Hopefully something would come of it this time.

He wondered whether he could make Elias befriend him for real, truly care about him. No one really had, save his mother. Close friendships were something that eluded him, always a mystery. The sort of thing he ached for but couldn’t create. He studied the man beside him. He didn’t feel anything much for him, a vague dislike maybe just because of his friendliness, but if he cared? Zach thought he could care back.

Merlin, the desperation of it all. It made him ill.

Turning his head back to stare straight, he stiffened his spine. "Maybe I should get Weasley something," he said as they exited the lift. “Pretend I’m working. I’ve probably had my head on the chopping block for months now, I shouldn’t be running off like this.”

It was difficult to imagine spending a weekend alone, doing nothing, and finding that satisfying. Elias tried to picture himself sitting in a chair in his apartment, feet up, reading a book or listening to the Wizarding Wireless Network, but it gave him a feeling of discomfort rather than longing. His imagination immediately filled the room with laundry to be done, dishes to be cleaned, friends sending invitations, and file after file piling up on the desk at work. No, Elias was not one to spend hours upon hours unoccupied, not when there was always so much to be done and so many people to check in on.

"To each their own, I suppose," he responded, offering a gentle smile to assure Zacharias that he wasn't judging him -- he knew not everyone craved constant activity the way he did. He was still unsure what Zacharias' agenda was in this sudden increase in communication (or whether Zacharias had any agenda at all), but he wasn't too concerned. If the younger man wanted something from him, chances were he would be happy to provide it.

Elias toyed with the idea of inviting him to a Quidditch match. Quinn had already offered him tickets to a game, and he was sure Oliver wouldn't mind either, but he had no clue whether Smith even followed the sport. He usually assumed most wizards did, but then again, Zacharias had already made it clear that he wasn't much of a people person. Besides, Elias still was unclear on whether or not Zacharias was interested in a friendship.

"Breaks are very important for productivity," Elias reassured the other as they walked across the hall. "But it probably wouldn't hurt." Elias was lucky that Weasley wasn't really his supervisor, not when it came down to it. Although Elias was a responsible worker, it was nice to have only a few superiors from the German Ministry around to constantly be checking on him.

His daily visits to the coffee stand had made him familiar with the staffers, and he dropped a few knuts in the tip jar after ordering an espresso. He stepped aside so that Zacharias could give his order and offered a nod toward the glass case displaying the various baked goods for sale. "The sugar cookies are good. Those are usually a safe bet." It was hard to imagine that Weasley wouldn't like a simple cookie.

Most of the tables around the stand were unoccupied, so he gestured toward a clean one with two chairs. "Shall we sit?"

Zach had to restrain himself from scoffing. His whole life was a break. He spent his hours at work trying to figure out how to do nothing as creatively as possible. Luckily, there wasn’t much for him to do even when he was working. Deliver things, fetch things, duplicate things, mindless work that even he could complete. He wasn’t sure why he was so determined to avoid it. Principle, he supposed. He disliked being subservient. He disliked being told what to do and preferred to do the exact opposite. But his independent life was hanging in the balance here. He had to start focusing a lot more about what was at stake if he lost his job. He’d have to move back in with his mother, and he couldn’t do that now. Not with what his lifestyle had become.

So he ordered the stupid sugar cookie along with his coffee.

Following Elias to the table he indicated, Zach sat. He pondered what to do about his coffee. He hated the dreadful, bitter stuff, but had been too embarrassed to get a hot chocolate in front of this man he was trying to befriend and/or impress. He decided to take a small sip and suppressed his grimace.

He knew he’d already asked about Elias’s plans for the weekend, though he’d forgotten what they were by now. Searching his brain for other questions, he managed, “Er, so—so what do you think of England?”

Zacharias obliged him, and the two men sat opposite one another at the small table Elias had indicated. Zacharias had bought the cookie that Elias had suggested, which he decided to take as a good sign. Maybe Zacharias just wanted to be pleasant around someone for a change. Personally, he found it exhausting to be angry with anyone and much preferred to keep his relationships as positive as possible. He couldn't imagine how stressful it would be to have most of the office annoyed with him all the time, whether he deserved it or not.

As Elias set down his small cup back onto the saucer, he noticed his companion eyeing his own beverage with a poorly-concealed look of distaste. He deliberately lifted his own cup again when he caught the expression on Zacharias' face as he took the tiniest of sips, eager to give himself something to do so that he could pretend he hadn't seen. Why Zacharias had ordered a coffee if he didn't like it was beyond him, but he wasn't going to point it out and embarrass the man. Maybe he just needed the caffeine or something.

He couldn't help but smile at the man's next question. He had been living in London for nearly three years now, not counting the year and a half that he had worked at the Ministry before the war. "I like it very much. I've made a lot of great friends here, and I get to visit home often enough that I don't miss my family too terribly. I was eager to come back after I spent a year at Hogwarts. Have you traveled much?" He tried to give the other man a lot to work with, sensing that he was struggling to keep the conversation going. Hopefully Zacharias would find something in there that he could talk about, whether it was his own family, school, or time abroad. Elias was flexible.

He nodded as Elias talked about how much he enjoyed England. What else could he have expected, really? Elias seemed to like everything. Surely there could have been someone less perky to befriend in the office, he wondered glumly. But it was too late to turn back now.

Personally, he found England sort of dreary. He refrained from saying so, however. He didn’t want to contradict Elias, that was the sort of thing that got him in trouble with other people. And he didn’t want to come up with an excuse why he hadn’t traveled. All he had was laziness, that he wasn’t motivated enough to go to another place. He really should leave, he thought. Go someplace where no one knew him instead of trying to start over with foreigners in the Ministry.

Zach nodded again blankly as he realized Elias had been there for the Triwizard. He preferred not to think about what had happened then. Couldn’t even think of the dragons or the Yule Ball without that kind dead boy rising up in his mind, making him breathless and ill. He would pass right over that direction of conversation. “Er, where—where is home, exactly?” he asked instead. He’d never known, never really thought to ask. All he knew was that Elias was from not here.

Nothing. Elias was getting nothing from Zacharias; no hint that any of the subjects he was offering were of interest to the other man. He wasn't used to forced conversation, being generally quite happy to talk about whatever was of interest to his colleagues or the strangers he was chatting to in bars. Elias just wanted Zacharias to feel comfortable,  but he had a feeling that the other man wouldn't really appreciate him saying it. He was learning, slowly, that other people didn't necessarily like being babied, and he worried that Zacharias might interpret his flexibility in a bad way. He would just have to learn to be more subtle about it.

When Zacharias changed the topic, Elias obliged, changing tracks quickly. If Zacharias didn't want to talk about Hogwarts or the Ministry, then they wouldn't. Besides, he was always more than happy to talk about his home, of which he was extremely proud and loved dearly. "I was born in Hannover, in Germany," he told him pleasantly. "Pretty dreadful weather there, too," he added with a smile.

His instict was to ask if Smith had been there before, but he had not answered his question about travel, so Elias assumed that was off the table, too. "But I went to Durmstrang, so I've been spending time abroad since I was a school kid. I have always enjoyed meeting people from around the world, and learning about the differences between the magical communities." Elias lifted his coffee and took a sip, giving Zacharias the chance to say something if he'd like.

Unsurprisingly, his companion still seemed a bit lost as to where he should take the conversation, so Elias kept going. "Of course, the one thing that seems to be common no matter where I go is Quidditch. It's popular everywhere I've been, which is nice. It means there's always something to talk about if you meet someone from somewhere particularly distant. Do you play at all? Or do you have a team?" Bringing up Quidditch was close to his last hope, at least when it came to the typical conversation-starters. If Zacharias wasn't into the sport, they might be forced to chat about the office. Elias wasn't entirely opposed, but he had a feeling that Zacharias wouldn't be thrilled.

The man was a bloody saint. Zacharias was finding it incredibly difficult to latch onto anything he said, find any similarity he could use to build a friendship. He was afraid it was showing. Probably he was coming off as haughty, as if he thought himself too good to engage in the conversation, but he was just too lost on how to interact with a decent man. Not that indecent men were any easier. Even in the underbelly of London he could find no friends. He was too soft, too sheltered, nothing in common with their lot either.

He ached desperately at that moment for anyone, a single solitary person in all of wizarding Britain who was like him at all, with whom he could moan and groan and share his life and his wants and fears.

Fidgeting restlessly, he gave a quick smile at the quip about the weather. Listening to Elias talk was impossible. Merlin, this man. Actually interested in culture and everything. Though that was to be expected, he supposed, from the Department of International Magical Cooperation. People with real jobs had an interest in their work. Maybe he should be getting cozy with his fellow drudges instead of people with ambitions.

He was an inch away from just giving up when Elias made a clumsy transition into quidditch talk. Zach had roadblocked him at every turn, he was clearly grasping at straws. But he’d gotten lucky on this one. Quidditch had always been something of a sanctuary for Zach. At least, in school it had been. He hadn’t gotten on a broom in at least a year now, probably longer. “I played at Hogwarts,” he said, making an effort to make his smile more genuine this time. “Of course, that’s been a while.” Sometimes it seemed like school was another life, sometimes it seemed like yesterday. “Never made a point of following it, though,” he admitted. Sports weren’t really interesting to him unless he was playing them, though he could hardly say that, so he remained silent. Instead he looked at his watch. Astonishingly, some time had managed to pass since the time he’d last looked.

“I should get back before the end of the day,” he said, though the temptation to leave from here was awfully strong. He couldn’t wait to get home and throw himself into bed, for this attempt at socialization to be over.

A hint of a smile crossed his companion's face and Elias felt a wave of relief. Of course Smith liked quidditch; it was the most consistent element of wizarding culture across Europe and something they could all talk about. He should have known to try this route from the beginning. Elias finished the last of his espresso while the other man talked, and Elias offered him a genuine smile in return when Smith mentioned playing in school. "I did as well, beater," he offered. "I've only recently started following the leagues here. I still am more invested in the Germanic league, for obvious reasons."

This was the point in the conversation when Elias normally liked to casually drop the name of one of his professional player friends, but he had the feeling it might make his companion uncomfortable. The poor man seemed a bit miserable, despite the fact that he had been the one to initiate their interaction. Some people just had a hard time socializing. He could understand that, sort of.

Zacharias looked at his watch and started making his excuses to leave, so Elias stood up with him. No need to push their first coffee together even farther into discomfort when they both did have work to get to. "Absolutely," Elias agreed, and he waved politely back toward the lifts. As they crossed the hall, a thought occurred to him. "If you ever want to go to a match, I have tickets for some of the upcoming Falcons games. Just let me know if you would be interested." As he walked with Smith back toward the office, he realized he didn't really expect Smith to accept, but Zacharias had surprised him a number of times already that day.

Elias seemed willing to leave, to his relief. Zach picked up his coffee and gathered the things he was supposed to bring Weasley, though he was pretty sure, after consideration, that he’d just eat the cookie himself. He and his boss weren’t really up to the level of friendliness at which one could bring another unsolicited baked goods. He had no idea what he’d been thinking.

As they headed out of the atrium, Elias offered him quidditch tickets. “Er, thanks,” he said. “Maybe sometime.” He hadn’t been to a match since school, didn’t really have the desire to, and wasn’t even sure where precisely the Falcons played out of. But far be it from him to pass up free stuff. The offer itself seemed like a good sign. Elias didn’t have an apparent problem with sitting by him at a sporting event, which was a step up from where he was with most people.

He dropped his coffee, still three-quarters full, in a rubbish bin as he left, cringing at the heavy thump. It had been worth it to kill time for a while.