This is not a meal, this is anarchy

Bitterly cold. That was the coffee, not the day. Typically you’d call a day bitterly cold but the day was actually faintly seasonable and promising spring. The coffee was freezing and sat forgotten about as the werewolf pottered around Mrs Higgins’ garden while she sat in her arm chair sipping hot tea and watching Loose Women. Ariel wanted to squish her – and her cat which was mocking him from the garden fence where the infernal thing was sat. There was nothing more that Ariel loathed than a cat. He didn’t trust them, for a start. After that, it was mostly just prejudice that came from being a dog. Plus, he was feeling dreadful anyway.

Shivering in his jacket, not because of the weather but because of the full moon playing tricks again, Ariel was being awkward and imprecise in the way he was painting the fence panels. He couldn’t really bend though Mrs Higgins had lectured him about how he was young and shouldn’t complain. Ariel had sworn at the woman behind her back and wished a gust of wind would blow her wig off but there would be no such luck.

This was part of his rehabilitation, believe it or not. In fact, it’s probably best not to believe it because he couldn’t, either. He was finally being sentenced. Well, no, he had been. It was community service but that qualified as what he already tended to do and was: the odd jobs’ man. The Ministry had seen fit not to imprison him. Apparently it would have been embarrassing if the werewolf slipped from their fingers (again) so they saved the trouble for their Aurors. Ariel was glad of it, really. He wasn’t sure what he was going to tell Ollie otherwise.

“This is bullshit,” Ariel muttered, picking up his cup. He hurled the coffee at the cat and the creature screamed at him, hissing before hurrying to the back door and throwing himself through the cat flap. Ariel quickly wrote a sentence on his notepad and left it on the bench before hanging up his pinafore and his paintbrush. Then, as Mrs Higgins shrieked as her carpets no doubt soaked in the cat-coffee, Ariel apparated out. He wasn’t going to linger there much longer for the bollocking that would ensue. She could take it up with the Ministry and she could stuff herself for all he cared. He was out to lunch.

Well, not really. He’d actually gone in for lunch. He didn’t want to go home since technically he was ‘at work’ or some rubbish and besides that he didn’t want to walk in something Ollice-related he didn’t need to see and he also didn’t want to bother Ollie if he wasn’t shagging and was actually, himself, working and needed a bit of privacy. Instead, Ariel went to the next best place and let himself in, announcing with a slam of the front door behind him that he was there. Only he could make such a grand, dramatic and ultimately ostentatiously loud entrance.

“Darren!” He called out, knowing the man had to be there somewhere. It wasn’t a question, so much as it was a demand that the brunette showed himself. “Have you got any bread?” Ariel pushed into the kitchen uninvited, his stomach rumbling for lunch. He turned the kettle on as he passed, his hands lifting two cups off of their stand before going in search of the loaf. The werewolf shrugged out of his coat as he went, dropping it on the back of one of the kitchen chairs before bringing his hand to his face, rubbing along the cut he’d been picking at since it had scabbed up, and opened another cupboard.

Merlin, all he wanted was a sandwich.

Darren was tired, and it wasn't something that the man usually admitted to, even if it was visible in his stance or his actions. But no, this time he had no choice but to admit it, because when Ariel walked in, the university student was still asleep, laid out across his bed. The sheets had been twisted around his legs and his waist, one arm draped over his chest and the other across the other half of the mattress.

It wasn't that he had stayed up drinking too much, or spent too long studying or taking pictures for the Prophet at some late event. No, he had spent the entire day before trying to come up with ways to throw  his latest subject for a loop. She was an enigma, to be sure, and Darren had promised to try and sort her out - but that didn't mean she wasn't going to be riled up a bit by the psychology student. It had taken far more of his energy than he had expected, but finally a new idea had been discovered, and so he had fallen asleep at around three, not expecting the man who was, perhaps, his only friend. Erika didn't count, after all, given that she was something of a study in his mind. But perhaps one day he would expand that puddle of friends into a pool.

The young man groaned and opened his eyes groggily. Who else would come barging in, essentially unannounced, as though he owned the place? Darren wasn't even surprised anymore. It was almost something he would have done, were it not for his intense dislike for Ariel's roommate. He didn't mind the blonde who sometimes came in - not that much. But he would just rather avoid them. So it worked, Darren supposed, that Ariel found his way into the other man's flat. It was just lucky that Darren wasn't living in a dormitory. Because that would have just been annoying - although, he supposed as he sat up, it might have been fun to watch Ariel get frustrated about remembering how to find his room.

"Why don't you check, you toss?" Darren shouted, pushing the covers back and forcing himself out of bed. He didn't even bother to grab a shirt, instead heading into the kitchen to make sure Ariel didn't destroy absolutely everything. Not that the younger man was particularly tidy, really. But he didn't want to be the one who had to clean it up. "You don't have any food at yours?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow as he leaned against the doorframe.