Intro
John and Andy lived in a crooked, dusty, dim apartment on a third floor in an offshoot of Diagon Alley. The place was bursting with things- their possessions and the possessions of the previous owner who had left all of their stuff behind, for some reason or another. Every dark corner was packed with jars and decaying books and old furniture, odd instruments whose purposes were only somewhat understood, and general objects.
The day was cloudy- the sort where there would be an occasional vein of sunshine that passed into grey. Andy was in the front room wrestling with an unruly astrolabe that shot away when you wanted to use it and caused you to break other objects with it if you did in fact manage to catch it. It had been causing quite a problem for some time now.
Enough was enough, really.
John dozed on the ancient couch that seemed be woven with images of some magical creatures such as a rather grumpy griffin, an apathetic acromantula and a sleepy sphinx, to name a few. The creatures would often interact with each other, which sometimes made napping on it difficult. Not today, John was too tired. He heard Andy swear every now and then. Sometimes light would pass over John's body in strange shapes and then pass into afternoon grey again. He could really go for some tea, but he was far too comfortable here to make it. He slept.
John awoke to Andy setting a tray on the short table in front of the couch. It was late afternoon by now, barely evening.
"Tea, John."
"Thanks," he muttered.
Andy had a real way of knowing what John wanted. John could also only assume Andy had been the one to put his favourite blanket over him, but sometimes it did have a mind of its own.
John stretched big and yawned, sat up a little. Andy handed him a cup.
"It's really cold in here," John said.
"Aye. Cursed desk over there's sending off some cold aura. Plus I should really stoke the fire."
Andy scrubbed John's hair with a hand and stood up to go tool around with the fire. John sipped from his favorite cup, the one with the busty witch in neon colors riding a broomstick with a cat perched on the back across the black glaze surface, reading "Good Luck!" in Hungarian. It was a little chipped and dull, but it was one of the few things from his life before he moved in here that he still knew the whereabouts of. His few previous possessions had mostly been absorbed into the living vortex of junk he happened to now reside in.
John drained the mug, watched the witch swoop about for a few moments and the cat yawn widely at him, and then put it back on the tray. He'd almost begun to doze again when Andy returned to his side. Only half-conscious, he pulled Andy down on top of him and wrapped the rest of the blanket over Andy. The warm weight, the warmth of the fire now spreading, and the warm tea inside him lulled him into the next dream.
