we're helping each other escape [gabby]

The town of Chatoeil glowed upon the French shoreline as the night overhead grew darker, shadows of midnight clouds whispering through the sky with stars winking down at the souls who were still awake given the lateness of the hour. The cobblestone streets were washed in a pale gold light from streetlamps that had lit themselves hours ago. For much of the town, it was quiet, a night just like any other. But in a small section of town where some of the streetlamps had gone out and had not been repaired, where a bunch of young witches and wizards gathered often on nights like these, it was anything but quiet. Girls and guys spilled out of a townhouse, cups in hand, music thumping from within, and luckily, someone had had the forethought to charm it quiet so as to not disturb the neighbors and risk the party shutting down early.

A shadowed figure with long legs that hung over the side of a half wall where he sat was shrouded in smoke, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. Jeremie Pêcheur was a Chatoeil native and no stranger to this house, this type of party, and this kind of crowd. Even though he had been living in London recently, scraping together any knuts he could so that he could be out on his own, he found that family was hard to push away. Especially when your father was ill, when your family business was now depending on your younger brothers, and when you were the oldest in your family. The weight of responsibility that fell on his shoulders felt like a slap in the face. And he hated it.

Jeremie needed a night like tonight to take the edge off even though it wasn't a complete cure to the restless, trapped feeling snaking around his throat. He took another drag of his cigarette as he smirked and shook his head as one of the guys made a crude joke about a girl he had banged two days ago. Jeremie was half-convinced he had made it up. Antoine wasn't that smooth to get a girl in his bed, at least not a girl like that.

A shimmer of silver caught his eye and he glanced up, his eyes not tracking for a second as the smoke caught in his lungs for a second too long. That falling sensation even as he sat still was so familiar it ached. "Gabby?" Jeremie called out her name, recognizing the Papillonlisse , and watching as every guy in the group had to pick up their jaws from the ground. Jeremie almost smiled. "What are you doing here?"


@Gabrielle Delacour

“Hotdog or tacos?” The intrusive voice came from someone who’d just appeared at her side and was obviously already drunk. He looked about eighteen; she wondered if she knew him from school. Was that a euphemism? Ugh. Gabrielle gave him a withering look and continued walking into the throng of people with her older friends.

When she’d been thirteen years old, Gabrielle had convinced her older sister to apparate her to an older teenager’s birthday party. She went with a friend, didn’t drink anything and everything was perfect. Now she was fifteen. Only two years had passed since her parents had thought of her as their perfect little baby, but now - suddenly - she was allowed to go to parties. Her father didn’t really like it. She remembered her parents arguing over the idea in the other room, but recently there were other things they’d been arguing about - behind closed doors and away from her, of course - so she’d used that against them and managed to manipulate the situation to her liking. She’d been lucky. She’d been clever.

So here she was. Tonight’s party had a mix of older students, recent graduates and a few younger students like her. Not a lot of the latter, though. Gabrielle liked that fact; it made her feel special. The blonde walked into the room with a couple of her older friends and she felt numerous eyes turn her way. She was special.

Gabby. The blonde had long since given up on trying to deter people for using that nickname. When she was younger, the girl had felt like it made her seem less serious. Nowadays she used that to her advantage. She didn’t want to be serious and cool and collected all of the time. Or, well, she didn’t want other people to perceive her like that all the time, she corrected internally. The blonde caught sight of the person who’d spoken “Jeremie?” One of her friends offered to get her a drink, so she agreed and then took a few steps over to her old… friend? Acquaintance, at most, she thought. One of his friends had tried really hard to date her two years ago. “What am I doing here?" she asked, a slight smile and a slight eyebrow quirk gracing her expression. "How are you? How's graduated life?” She asked.