[tlc] blended by the lights [#quinn]

So, the Falcons had lost.

Everyone seemed so keen to rub it in and ask them the same questions over and over and over again as if they couldn’t easily have found what they were looking for from their other interviewer buddies. For Merlin’s sake. And however annoyed at the group interviews that she may have been, Sorcha obliged per manager request and showed up. Although ‘all smiles’ with the whole squatty man drawing a smile in front of his face in order to show Sorcha how it was done was entirely not needed.

Admittedly, everything regarding the Falcons team felt like it was slowly falling to pieces. At least that was the case in Sorcha's chaotic mind. And while her teammates were in a cluster jabbering on about whatever, it was also about nothing. Sorcha felt like something was off. Something or somethings were going on around her and she was going to put the pieces together soon enough. But that day was not today. So really, what else was there to do? Oh that’s right, nothing. Bitterness much? Definitely. And the girl needed to break away, just for a bit.

Sorcha pressed her lips together and let out a long breath, arching the airflow towards her bangs and deciding in that moment that she really needed a drink. She stopped mid-stride and pulled a 180 degree turn whilst simultaneously picking out Quinn’s positioning within the group and linking her arm through the Regan’s. She wouldn't mind, she was chill, she was... pretty much the only one who didn't make Sorcha feel like she was a total crazy person. “We have a – important – class meeting.” Sorcha mumbled aloud in response to any potential inquiring minds. She turned her wide-eyed expression to Quinn and stifled back a small laugh by biting her lips together lightly.

Sorcha guided the seeker away, away, away from the pack and instead she turned at a familiar corner! This would most definitely make their walk much shorter and meaningful. “… at The Leaky Caaaauldronnnnn~" Sorcha sang lightly, giving Quinn's arm another playful squeeze before disentangling herself from the other witch. "... with all of the other fine folk there at this hourrrrr!" The girls finished singing for a handful of reasons. A, it wasn't all that pretty. B, to sell the idea more, and three, because it was one of the best ways to introduce unplanned plans, obviously!

The good thing was that it wasn’t that late, but also it wasn't too early. It just may be the perfect time to drink because she wouldn’t get sleepy! “I don’t know about you,” the girl swiped at her bangs with her hand as she peeped the other girl’s abdomen and raised her brows in good fun, “but I could use a drink.”

@Quinn Regan

Third place. Might as well be last; it wasn’t first. Quinn knew -- she knew -- that it couldn’t be her fault but that headline -- Bad Luck of the Irish -- had been repeating itself in her brain over and over and over again. Seekers want all the glory but can’t take any of the blame was the line that annoyed her the most; she would take the blame if it had been her fault. If it had well and truly been her fault, would there also be rumore that she might be captain next season? Of course, she didn’t know what to believe, but she knew for sure that if the rumors were true, she’d be sorting out this whole third place situation.

She supposed the tiniest bit of blame could be placed on her -- for not being there the entire season, for missing the first two matches, because she had the audacity to have a child.

Her publicist was something akin to a miracle worker, managing to convince her that appearing with the team for all these post-loss press gatherings was somehow a good idea. Her face hurt from all the smiling, her mind hurt from refraining from publicly defaming her team. Quinn knew she couldn’t be the first to leave -- her publicist had reminded her of this one too many times -- so there she stood, focusing more on how her heels were hurting her feet than what her teammates were actually saying.

Quinn nearly fell over at the tug on her arm, but she was ready to slap away whatever greedy fan had suddenly latched onto her; but she remained upright and held up by one of her chasers -- one of the better ones -- and she nearly sighed with relief. She assumed she was being dragged away for some sort of personal interview (with the better players) but Sorcha spouted out some other reason. The seeker arched an eyebrow, but she shrugged almost as quickly as she laughed and nodded. “Class, yeah.” That sounded totally reasonable.

“Finally,” she breathed, suddenly on board with the real reason for their departure. She was far too focused on getting away from all that negative energy back there that she didn’t even mind that they were heading someplace else particularly public. She laughed again, throwing up her hands in defeat, only to bring them back down suddenly to swat the other woman’s hand away from her stomach. Still in good spirits, though, she shrugged again. “Merlin, could I use a drink.”

She hadn’t had a proper bender in ages, what with the new baby and her near-crazed obsession with training and getting her body back. But Lula was safe at home, the season was over, she had no national team practices to tend to, and her body was back and quite honestly, better than before. The planets were practically aligning as Sorcha coaxed her toward the bar. Quinn nodded toward the door and the man exiting through it held it open for the pair of them; she stepped in front of her teammate and grabbed her hand, pulling her through the door behind her.

She got straight to the point: “Firewhisky.”

An agreeable drinking buddy was always an advantage! Not that Sorcha wouldn’t have gone on her own, though maybe her locale of choice wouldn’t have been The Leaky Cauldron. More like a quick pop! to one of her familiar pubs off the beaten wizarding paths where the labelling of ‘dive bar’ seemed to fit quite famously. But also… darts! And with her competitive spirit, darts got pretty intense the more bottles she collected and emptied.

Alas, The Leaky Cauldron was no place for darts. The noise and bustle, however, was bound to be a welcome background aesthetic. For Sorcha at least. Something about constant noise made her feel a little more at ease. Too little room for wandering thoughts on things that weren’t so fantastic.

At the sight of a true gentleman, Sorcha beamed in thanks before her expression lapsed into one of momentary surprise as her body was pulled right along through the entry. The end of her trajectory being the bar and the ignition of her immediate purpose being firewhisky. She turned her brown eyes to Quinn and could have kissed the girl for her decisive choice of spirits, y’know, if the seeker wouldn’t hex her on the spot for crossing an obscene amount of personal space boundary lines all within a span of thirty minutes time. Mostly, Sorcha was just happy she had given it all a think before she acted and instead she gave a small whistle to catch the barmaid’s attention. She flipped her hand up and waggled her five fingers in the air. “The bottle – noooooot that –“ Sorcha pointed downwards with a small jab, then another, then – “YES! That’ll do it! And two hard ciders.”

Coins dropped from her hand into a few small stackings on the countertop in payment as Sorcha then leaned over the bar and snagged a pair of shot glasses, presumably clean, for herself and Quinn and the arrival of their dinky handle of Ogden’s Old. She slid comfortably onto the nearest stool and clanked an empty glass down and in front of an equally empty seat for Quinn.

“Well that was bloody awful.” Sorcha commented as she unscrewed the top to their liquid courage, no later accompanied by the sweet cider pairing in pints. She tipped the handle a bit and strategically overfilled the small glasses, for good measure. Lithe fingers gripped the rim of her own shot glass gingerly and raised it up to eye level. “Here’s to all of the future interrogations over how we managed to fall from the top.”

The bottle. The tension in Quinn’s shoulders -- that she had been carrying for days now with many unsuccessful attempts to relieve it -- suddenly lessened when she heard Sorcha’s words. She was thrilled that the chaser had singled her out for drinks and not someone else. While Quinn was the only Irish Irish play on the team, Sorcha was as close to an Irish teammate as she could get. And now her order of the entire bottle really spoke to her soul. Her I’m-not-going-home-until-I’m-well-and-drunk soul.

Sorcha laid out some coins and Quinn blew air out through pursed lips; she’d pay for the next bottle, without a doubt. She didn’t argue about the cider, but she supposed it could serve as a chaser just as well as anything else could. Climbing onto a barstool as gracefully as a short person could, Quinn sighed dramatically, pulling her empty shot glass closer. Her body was angled toward her teammate; she rested an elbow on the bar and leaned her head into her hand.

“Awful,” she agreed, watching Sorcha’s work with the bottle with interest. Awful was a bit of an understatement. If she didn’t count on her publicist for nearly every aspect of her life, she’d consider giving her a demotion for making her endure that miserable press conference. She reached for her own glass -- for once she didn’t protest that she was given enough whisky for a normal-sized person -- and raised it to match Sorcha’s, snorting a laugh. “We, yeah.” She tapped her glass on the bar before knocking it back; she set the glass back down with a little more force than she had meant.

It had been ages since she had a proper shot of anything. Being pregnant, then being the sole provider of nutrients for her child, then training, then having nothing to celebrate -- she hadn’t yet had a reason for it. It was stronger than she remembered, but she wasn’t about to show that she was bothered by it; she was still firmly in her nothing-bothers-me-yet-I-can-do-no-wrong mindset that she needed to talk to the press. “I can’t talk about it anymore,” she added truthfully, reaching for the bottle and pointedly ignoring her cider.

“Thank Merlin Lula isn’t forming memories.” There would be plenty of evidence of the failure, though; at least they had won their championship last year while she was pregnant. Lula was literally there for that win. “Our failure,” she tipped more whisky into their glasses. “Oliver’s failure-- goddamn Wales in the World Cup.” Quinn set the bottle down with just as much force as she meant. She raised her glass again. “Here’s to not possibly being worse next year.” Third place was the worst in her book; she’d quit before being worse worse.

The second shot was much smoother than the first; Quinn set her glass down with a barely audible, “Ah,” and a much louder, “Fuck me.”

Firewhisky glossed the lining of her throat and down, down, down into the empty void of her stomach with a welcome splash of warmth. Sorcha could feel her cheeks rouge in response and she slowly set her glass down on the bar top. Tendrils of warmth worked their way from her core to give her a lovely little hug and Sorcha couldn’t help but curl the corner of her lips upwards in response. Quinn’s words reached her ears and the brunette let out a quick laugh. Oliver being Lula’s co-creator and all that.

“Agreed. Ruddy Wales.” Accompanied by an eye roll beneath block bangs and a small shaking of her shaggy head of hair. Done quite nicely and damn near frizz-free thanks to the whole needing to look presentable aspect of her day prior to this moment. She pressed her lips together to fight off a groan that so very much wanted to exist in the conversation, but Sorcha very much opposed. Instead she welcomed herself to a refilled glass of Ogden’s and slid it across the counter before raising it in another toast to bitterness.

Tipping her head back, the liquid spilled to the back of her throat, though the effects weren’t nearly as tingly and fun as the first go around. The warmth felt stoked enough that Sorcha exchanged her shot glass for the glass of cider and gave a small sip for a little cinnamon apple pie zest. “Double cheers to that.” Sorcha took a larger sampling of the cider before rotating the glass back and forth a few times.

Worthless beater. Sorcha always knew his unsavory antics would catch up to him at some point. She had just most definitely hoped it would slap him in his face after he or she left the Falcons. And definitely not the season directly after their top finish. Idiot. Idiot! “And now we’ll probably get a beater replacement – or even two!” Sorcha imagined Allen being fired or at the very least traded for his ridiculous plays.

Sorcha’s thoughts circle the zebra striped elephant that plagued her thoughts since the rankings were released. It was hard not to be fully consumed by it; it was her job, firstly, but also the girl rather obsessed about the sport at baseline. Taking Quinn’s verbal cue to stuff it for a moment, Sorcha reached out for some more Oggie’s and replenished their supply. Sorcha turned her body to face Quinn’s, propping an arm out to lean on just a bit. “And here’s to a deadly little sin – Lula envy. Why’d we have to adapt to memory keeping in the first place.” She mumbled the last part laced in spite before lightly clanking her tiny glass’ rim against Quinn’s. The void welcomed the company as it evolved to a shallow firewhisky pool.

She spun the glass in her fingers before haphazardly sliding it back onto the counter. Time for a momentary pause or she’d turn into a damn strawberry. A lovely side effect of firewhisky for the girl’s pallor. “You should come down with an illness during the Cup.” Sorcha cracked a small smile as she turned her gaze back to Quinn. “Y’know, as a responsible adult you'd have to protect Lula’s immune system! Surely he’d take care of the innocent babe.” Or one of the thousands of other Regan’s. Disregard the vastness of that family tree. Her point still stood some solid ground.