I haven't fallen in oblivion - just got a new job and engaged. ;) Life is very much back on track now, though. I hope you enjoy.
The Pureblood Prince 31
Submerged
Toby Snape stood outside a very different variety of inn that very night. Quivering fingers manipulated the wad of cash that he had accumulated in his pocket over the past hellish week.
That bloody Parker mustn't have wanted his money all that badly if he chose to meet him inside the Lion's Head. Snape outside a pub, having not had a single drink in three days, and with thirty pounds painfully available at his fingertips, meant one thing: Parker was after limbs, not notes.
He brushed a soaked palm over an equally soaked forehead. He kept his back to the dusty window as much as he possibly could; if the very thought of what lay inside of that pub was enough to saturate the back of his shirt, he shuddered (quite literally) to think of what would happen were he to actually catch sight of the stuff. He rested his head against the window, closed his eyes and let out a jittery puff of air, trying in vain to quell the pounding head spins – the dark figure opposing him, lit only by the flickering amber light of her cigarette, completely overlooked.
"Yeh should probably sit down, love," she finally called out.
You should probably shut your trap. He thought.
He lowered his head and glared into the nightfall at her instead. The woman smiled through the rolled white butt still lingering on her lips. She was quite a pretty young thing with her blonde curls and pink cheeks, he supposed... though he wasn't sure. To any other man, she may have brought him to his knees; to him, she was just another woman that wasn't his wife – one without any alabaster skin and pitch-black hair to catch his eye. It was Toby's greatest weakness and greatest regret: that he was incapable of appreciating conventional women. Life would have been so much easier.
He chose to remain silent - which might have been a slight misstep as he heard the sound of four-inch heels rapidly cross the damp cobblestoned street and the flick of a fag lighter.
"Here, looks like you need it."
Toby clutched the cigarette from her offering hand and nodded a casual thanks, trying not look completely desperate as he took the first drag. He waited desperately for the smoky cure to wash away the edge, and almost screamed just as desperately when all it did was provide a mere alternative use for his money-fondling fingers.
"Ta," he mumbled, taking two or three quick puffs before he flicked it away and stamped it out over the wet pavement. He began to edge away toward the door of the pub when it was apparent that the woman had not yet finished her business.
"I'm Harriet," he heard her voice follow him, whispering into his ear. It was the first time he stopped and turned to look into her eyes, properly; he wondered if she was selling him something – hoovers, insurance, sex – he wasn't all that sure of the situation.
"Urhm… Toby." He cleared his throat and replied as swiftly as he could. Where in all fuck was Parker? Bleeding little git. Did he want to clear this debt or not?
The woman named Harriet looked him up and down and smiled. "Looks like yeh need a good heart-to-heart, Toby. Yeh can buy me a drink and tell me all about it."
The hairs on Tobias's neck went simultaneously static. It wasn't that he was not used to getting attention from ladies (ladies… what he really meant was the more spirited sort who hung out at all the locals, dancing on tabletops until dawn; the only real Lady he had ever caught the attention of was a certain Miss Prince back in the day), but the attention had certainly trickled to a complete stop as of recent years along with his rising temper, crushing disappointments and a physical appearance that was nothing more or less than tired… exhausted. It felt good to know he still had his looks; though despite this he intentionally swept a wedding ring clad finger over his ear, hoping the gleam would catch her keen eye.
She seemed to get the hint… he hoped. He did not get a chance to find how she'd take it as a dynamic smack collided into his backbone.
"Didn' think yeh'd show," came Parker's greasy voice from behind.
"Thought I'd rather yeh come to my home and burn it down with my pregnant wife inside like last time, eh?" Tobias countered underneath his breath. "Always knew yer brain was full of grass."
"I'm sorry; what I mean to say was I expected to find yeh lifeless in a pool of yer own piss… certainly not upright and capable of tryin' ter get up that tart's miniskirt."
Harriet looked on from the shadows of the streetlamp with a highly tickled smirk on her face as she observed the two men sizing one other up. Toby ended up being the first to make a shove at other… though the other anticipated he might have done as much, and moved aside to prevent the attack.
"Can we get this over with? Believe it or not I don' really want to spend my Saturday nights with a drug dealing loan shark or that miniskirt." Toby spat.
Parker motioned toward the door of the pub. Tobias bit the inside of his mouth hard enough to foster ensuing scar tissue, but he did not one word of verbal protest: Parker was looking for that. He didn't even whimper when he was practically dragged right in front of the bar – right in front of the glimmering golden, amber and ocher bottles and pints that he so dearly needed… needed. He wiped away the rolling beads of sweat that were dripping from his forehead and curving into the nape of his neck.
"Yeh alright, Snape?" Parker queried with a glint in his eye.
"Can we sit somewhere a tad quieter?" Tobias cracked under his breath. "I don't want the entire continent knowing about this if we can help it."
He wanted to get away, as far away from this as possible. He looked around for a booth in the direction of the exit.
"All yeh you got ter do is shove the brass in me hand and I'll be on my way," Parker said. "No need to make a song n' dance 'bout it... pint of lager, please…" he instructed Greg the barman who was eyeing them with familiar distrust.
"Usual, Toby?" Greg prompted with a thin sigh; he had already half-poured the bottle of vodka into a shot glass before he could even speak. Toby held out his palm.
"No, no. Nought fer me."
"W-what?"
"Don't be silly Tobe," Parker interjected. "S'one's on me. Double anything?"
Tobias's knee gave a slight jerk. His pounding organs screamed yes… his dignity whispered no. "I'll… I'll be right, ta. Gotta go home soon."
Parker's eyebrow arched rather high, in what only could be construed as the look of someone who was very resentfully impressed. "Just the larger then."
As soon as Greg turned his back to them, the notes had scrunched themselves into Parker's left hand.
"Done. I'm going."
Tobias was half way across his Kingdom when he heard the inevitable shout of protest.
"Eh, eh, eh!"
He looked back to see the gold toothed man about two feet behind him, shaking his head with a bemused smirk.
"I think yeh missed about seventy pounds there, this'll barely get me a bus home."
"I told you!" Tobias mouthed under his breath but his face now burning red. "I don't have a hundred pounds! I don't have five pounds! I don't have ten fucking pence! You'll get your fucking brass no matter where you try to make me lose it, because I won't lose it. I'll see you next week behind the Lion's, a'right?"
"Perhaps. I might just see yeh sooner than that, Snape, just yeh see if I don't."
"Yeh'll get your seventy, yeh good-for-nought son of a bitch," Toby gave Parker as much of a violent shove that he could muster in his state (surprisingly the much more violent looking of the two did not retaliate to this), and stumbled against a table on his way out catch some cherished air. He did not notice the smirk radiating from the face of the man he left behind… even if he did he was in no state to comprehend its significance.
Three days without oxygen would leave no human survivors… three days without a drink left a grossly dependent alcoholic in a rather similar situation. As soon as he pushed upon the doors of the pub, Tobias came face to face with the muddy, wet pavement; if there had been any trace of booze trickling down into the gutter amongst the grim and the dirt he would have placed his entire tongue upon it and soaked it in – but it was merely water. Water was not so vital to his survival.
He began to stable himself, placing his hands upon a window of the next door shop and pushed himself up, his heart still pounding in his throat. He did not know quite how he got there but one second the world was a haze and the next he was standing under the bright, unforgiving lights of the local off-license the next block down. He grabbed the first three bottles of liquor his shaking hands could reach and threw them upon the counter in front of the terrified looking young shop clerk.
He searched through the very same pocket in which he had pulled out Parker's payments and handed twenty pounds to the clerk. He clutched the clinking bottles of liquor close to his chest and left without a thought.
Getting far enough away from any lights and voices, Toby half-ran into an empty alleyway and ripped off the lid of the first bottle… it was a completely clear liquid: vodka. Not that Toby had given a rat's arse about what he drank for years now.
"You'll do," he whispered desperately to himself as he took the first swig of the stuff. The moan that escaped from his wet lips as the burning hot liquor seeped into his oesophagus was entirely that of a man on the brink of orgasm. He felt his heart return to its steady lub-dub and the panicked heat escape from his skin and evaporate into the air - as if someone was caressing every inch of his dry blistering body with icy cold fingers. He took the first bottle in a matter of minutes with no thought but life or death… the second bottle was much harder to stomach as his body returned to its usual functioning. That was when the shame hit him. Bang on queue, as usual.
Another twenty pounds to steal, to keep her safe. Twenty pounds that you could have given him, to leave you alone, to stop making you sick with worry that some day he will come back and hurt her again. I needed it to live. I would have died tonight without that drink. Perhaps… but you bought three drinks. I'll need it to live again tomorrow, and the next day. I'll need it every second of my life to be able to look Eileen in the face. Eileen...
Somehow the sweet familiarity of drunkenness made him see the world far more clear. He suddenly understood what Parker must've been smirking about, what he must've been talking about when he said that he'd see him sooner.
I've sentenced her to death.
The third bottle smashed upon the cobblestones, giving the rats something to celebrate over, as he staggered in the direction of Spinners End.