Buisness as usual (Orion)

[alton steven scott]

Steven looked up from his paperwork to see that it was 5:26 PM. Realizing that he was supposed to go home, or at least leave work, about 20 minutes ago, Steven started packing some papers into his briefcase. As he gathered things, he started thinking about what he wanted to do for the rest of the evening. He could always go home, but he had done that all week and it was Friday. As he thought of and discarded a few other ideas he finished packing up everything he needed from the office.

He picked up his coat, locked up his office, and headed out of the building. He waved to Beth and was on his way out the door when an idea struck him. He hadn't even thought about trying Lucky's until a moment ago.

Seeing it was a nice evening, Steven decided to walk to Lucky's. He was able to enjoy the lovely sea breezes he went down the way. He got into Lucky's and sat down at the bar. He ordered a Scotch and Soda and some nachos.

[orion amadeus abdiel]

Orion had been spending a suspicious amount of time at Lucky’s recently and, quite honestly, people were beginning to notice. That particularly obnoxious, Spanish bartender had even pointed out that Orion had become nothing short of a regular. Regular, however, was not to be confused with drunkard, because that was not something the dark haired professor would allow himself to be deemed. No, he was a regular—a refined tasted, abstract human being who just happened to enjoy the broad array of taps and vino this particular bar had. He had already been at the bar for about an hour now, the tavern bodega in front of him scattered with an array of his papers. At the moment, the young professor was poised, his back straight and one leg folded over the other, with a red pen in hand. He was grading papers of his students, of course, a nearly empty glass of vintage absinthe verte on the rocks pushed to one side. It was not a practice of many professors to be drinking while grading their student papers, but in the matters of Orion, well, he was not your traditional professor, after all.

His dress shoes idly bumped against the bar side, making a soft tap as he thought and engorged himself on the abysmally written words of his students. The run-on sentences brought a physical wince to the otherwise blank stare of the young man. That rather vexing bartender with the perplexing name disturbed his reading, and Orion promptly ordered a refresh of his verte. After all, he was going to need considerably more alcohol if he was ever going to get through all these student papers. He severely doubted that the North Shore produced enough of the fine Absinthe to make reading the papers pleasurable, but at least it was sufferable. Again, his reading was disturbed when the atmosphere of the bar changed. He sighed a little, inclining his head back when he heard the sound of the newest arrival to the bar rustling about.

Much to the professor’s surprise, he recognized the face that just entered. The face that had just entered belonged to none other than Alton Scott, someone that Orion actually found some interest for. There wasn’t many people in the world that could captivate Orion’s attention for long, but Mr. Scott was one of those people. Perhaps it was his line of work, or perhaps it was that Orion enjoyed the way the man’s cheeks moved when he talked. Whatever the matter, the brunette quirked an eyebrow, returning his rather stern glaze back to the papers in front of him, “Hello, Mr. Scott,” he said, reaching over to retrieve the refreshed glass of Absinthe and take a small sip, letting his tongue slip across the corner of his lips to taste the last droplets of the bitter alcohol, “The cat always drags in the most interesting specimens.”

[alton steven scott]

Steven looked over to see none other than Orion Abdiel, a professor at OIU that he seemed to cross paths with very regularly. Neither he nor Orion ever seemed to plan outings with one another, things like drinks after work and the like, and yet it was not unusual for them to be found in the same place.

After meeting Orion officially, Steven had found him to be a peculiar type of person, the kind that most people didn't get along with. Some how though, Steven didn't seem to find himself very frustrated nor did he ever feel like he was being overly ignored or brushed off. In fact, Orion seemed to spend more time paying attention to Steven than he spent paying attention to anyone else in the world.

Hearing the greeting and the colloquialism Steven puzzled over what the phrase could have meant. Discarding it at meaningless Steven replied, "Mr. Abdiel." Steven tilted his head in greeting. "You know you can call me Steven right?" Shrugging he asked, "How is your evening going so far?"

[orion amadeus abdiel]

Orion didn’t particularly see Mr. Scott as a friend; he was a good acquaintance, at best. There lives tangled frequently, mostly at bars like Lucky’s, and their pleasantries were kind enough and he quite enjoyed the presence of the other gentleman, but Orion didn’t consider anyone a friend and he wasn’t about to change his mind just because there was someone who could deal with his rather cold demeanor. The dark-haired man lifted his glass tumbler and rested it against his knees, sighing a little, and allowing the other to take a seat next to him, if he so wished. He didn’t bother to move any of his things to make the spot more welcoming to Alton, he wasn’t going to make the spot at the bar any more or any less comfortable for him. That’s what made Orion so hard to get along with—he was never willing to go out of his way to be friendly, but he also never did anything that could be deemed as antagonist, either. He inhaled a deep breath of alcohol, letting the silence settle between them.

“Do I know that I can call you Steven?” he echoed, the rim of the glass resting against his lip as he spoke, taking a sip shortly thereafter. It took him a moment to respond to the statement, as if he had to ponder the proper way to explain himself, “If I was so inclined, I could call you son of a bitch,” he said cooly, “But what fun would that be?” Although he usually used Steven, he did occasionally call him Mr. Scott, just for the sake of it. In response to how his day was going, he merely shrugged, finding no need to verbalise an answer to such a question. He didn’t care what anybody else said, but to him ‘socialising’ was just an excuse to talk about oneself and pry in to other people’s business and nothing more. As such, he was not a willing participant in “tete-a-tete” chatter. Instead, he turned and began to straighten out the papers in front of him. Most of which were still ungraded, but he was, ever so slowly, getting them completed. The university would probably be outraged to know that he did most of his grading while drinking, but such was the life of Mr. Abdiel.

He ordered a third drink from that bumptious, Spanish-speaking bartender and jingled the ice cubes against the glass when the refreshment arrived. “Is it really only six o’clock?” he spoke aloud, but in a way that was more meant to be a thought than a question. He expelled a soft snort through his nose, “I’m nearly drunk and it’s only six o’clock, what a shame,” but that didn’t stop the young professor from taking another sip of his alcohol. He was going through the alcohol a little bit more quickly than he’d like to admit, but he had found it such a magical cure for the horrible migraines he was so susceptible to these days.

[alton steven scott]

Steven chuckled a bit at Orion's comment. "I will never understand you." The bar tender came over and put down the plate of nachos. Steven looked at his large plate of gooey, cheesy, messy nachos and then the papers spread out around Orion. He settled the plate/bowl thing in a spot least likely to do damage to the papers.

Staring at his dinner he felt a feeling not unlike extreme happy. In the mix of the cheese and beans and meat was the personification of Yum. He took a sip of his drink feeling the scotch tingle down his throat.

As he dug into his food he heard Orion mention the time. He looked down at his watch. "Oh. I guess it is." He slowly chewed another bite of nacho-goodness. "Well what kind of papers are you grading while getting drunk?"

[orion amadeus abdiel]

The corner of Orion’s lip twitched a little, perhaps with slight amusement over the comment. “That’s probably for the best, Mr. Scott,” he replied flatly, looking quite composed. He picked up his drink and swirled the liquid around the bottom of the glass, making a soft clinking with the icecubes as he did so. Six o’clock or not, he was going to keep drinking regardless. In his mind, if he drank more, perhaps he wouldn’t have one of his memory loss spells. The logic was counterintuitive, but it was more than that. Orion was drinking because he was afraid of his own mind. Afraid of what he knew it was capable of and what it was doing to him, and any chance he could subdue it, even just temporarily, he would. Some people might call it ‘alcoholism,’ but Orion simply referred to it as ‘self medication.’ After all, he was experiencing days-long blackout episodes and doctors weren’t going to be much of any help.

Orion inspected the plate of nachos and quirked his eyebrows, “My, my, Steven, that is quite the platter you have there,” although the dark-haired professor was quite partial to his liquid, alcoholic evening meal, the smell of the cheesy chips made his stomach clench with queasiness. Perhaps it was best to be slowing down on his beverage consumption and he put his drink down in response. “Mm, I am not getting drunk,” he corrected, “I’m merely making these papers more tolerable, and they’re student papers,” no one could say that Orion was particularly moral. He did grade his students’ papers in a timely manner because he drank until it was a bearable project to do. One could not mistake his immorality for being a bad professor, because it was quite the opposite. Professor Abdiel was actually quite a good lecturer and professor that ground proper grammar in to his students no less viciously than if he was using a pick ax.

“It could be worse, I could be doing cocaine while grading papers,” although using drugs and grading wouldn’t be necessarily above Orion, he didn’t do drugs, so, that wasn’t a matter to worry about. His eyes shifted back to the nachos for a moment, before returning to Steven, “And what, by God, has made you depressed enough to be willing to eat—that?” Orion made a soft tsk, although Orion wasn’t the picture of health, he made a point to not eat things that looked like it could cause a heartattack in one seating. Even more so, he did take enjoyment in teasing other people for their meal choices.

[alton steven scott]

Steven took another sip of his drink as Orion swirled his glass, Orion's ice cubes clinking as he swirled. It seemed as though Orion drank a bit to much. Steven highly doubted that it was a healthy habit.

"Are you insulting my meal?" Steven asked, faking a slightly insulted tone of voice. With a small smirk, Steven followed his questions with a statement of fake fact. "For your information, occasional meals consisting of bar food are healthy so long as they are far and few between."

"Are the papers really all that bad, that you need to be drunk to read them?" Hearing his statement about doing drugs while grading Steven felt a little put off. "You haven't tried to grade while high, have you?"