shake off the weight of the world [sebastian]

[Leo Robins]

The smells of caramel, chocolates, peppermint, and various other types of sweets permeated the air around Leo as he wandered through the aisles of Honeydukes, on the lookout for any stray customers that might need his help. Summertime was always rather slow around all Hogsmeade shops -- the students weren't visiting every weekend, most of the teachers were home as well, so it was really just the residents and shopkeepers at Hogsmeade these days, along with the few random Hogwarts graduates who missed their old snogging spots and favorite shops. Not that Leo minded -- although the slow business got a bit boring sometimes, it was still steady enough to guarantee him a nice paycheck. Plus, the customers they did get tended to be more fun than the usual overly-enthusiastic third years on their first dates.

Leo stopped in the middle of his favorite aisle -- the chocolates, naturally -- to admire a new selection of white raspberry truffles that they had just come out with recently. They looked utterly delicious, almost worth the hassle of sneaking a few out of the back room to try with his friends. He was just mulling over this terribly sneaky plan when he noticed a flash of blue and brown near the front of the store.

As he approached the customer, his salesboy smile already on his face, he realized this boy looked vaguely familiar, and also around his own age. Memories of his time in Hogwarts, ended only two years ago, filled his mind as he tried to scan his memory for a name to put to the rather handsome face now in the store. Sam something? Sean? No, he had the impression the name was a lot longer than that.

"Hello," he greeted the customer as soon as he was within earshot, "can I help you look for anything?"

[Sebastian Nott]

Sebastian Nott was a man now. An adult. A Ministry Worker, even. That meant, of course, that he was mature and clever and could wear a suit and sunglasses whenever he wanted to. However, everyone knew that even the most sophisticated of Ministry workers needed their fill of Honeydukes sweets, so after work he'd decided to stop off at the sweet shop. It was rather a warm summer indeed, and the air was quite muggy, so Seb had loosened the tie he'd insisted on wearing and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and his sunglasses were perched on his nose as he pushed his way into the shop, beaming around at it. In Seb's humble opinion, his family should've just bought Honeydukes. He'd have quite liked to be a sweet shop owner, actually. After Minister of Magic - his ambition in life - it was practically the perfect life. Although, he thought fairly, with his looks he could be a model. Easily.

The service had to be remarked upon as well, because no sooner was he in the store had a shop assistant greeted him. He looked young enough, but frankly Seb had a hard enough time remembering who he had shagged and who had been in his year, let alone anyone else. Plucking his sunglasses off his face, he said breezily, "Very chivalrous of you, sir, but I happen to know this place like the back of my hand. I'm very passionate about sweets," he nodded solemnly and slid the sunglasses back on, as though underlining his point with this action.

[Leo Robins]

"Chivalrous?" Leo repeated incredulously, because was this guy for real? He had to smile at the sunglasses posing, though - it was sparking some vague recollections of his years at Hogwarts for him. He had definitely been at Hogwarts with him, judging by their similar ages, though the guy seemed to be a bit younger than Leo himself. But he was rather strikingly handsome, and Leo was fairly certain he wouldn't have forgotten a face like that.

"You can't be that passionate if I don't know you," he said teasingly, clasping his hands behind his back and issuing the customer a challenging look and a raised eyebrow. "But, by all means, give me a shout if you need any help. My name's Leo, I'll be around the store if you want something. I have a partner, too, but he seems to have ditched his shift, so I'm afraid you're stuck with just me."

He shot the guy (Soloman? Spencer? Stephen? Nothing seemed to click...) a grin and made to move back to his examination of the best chocolates money could buy.

[Sebastian Nott]

Seb heaved a deep sigh and, adjusting his sunglasses, said, with extra emphasis on every word, "Chivalrous; adjective. Courteous and gallant, respectful, considerate. Yada, yada. You're welcome," he added, with something akin to a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. "I don't often invest time in expanding others' vocabulary. Obviously, you're a special case."

Enough was enough with the natter, however; Seb had serious business to attend to, and that business happened to be food. Chocolate in particular. He'd had a real craving for chocolate that entire day, and he was going to hunt down all of the best chocolate, load up and heave it all back to the Manor to gorge on in his room. Preferably with a couple of glasses of wine. But, as he was readying himself to purposefully stride towards the chocolate aisle, what the guy was saying clicked in his head.

"Did you just suggest that my passion for this shop is second-rate?" Seb demanded, genuinely rather offended by this. "Leo," he added, with a wrinkled-up nose, as though the name personally offended him.

[Leo Robins]

Leo paused in his steps to turn around and stare in disbelief at him. Did this guy seriously just saunter into his workplace and 'expand his vocabulary' for him? How old was he, anyway? He sounded rather teenager-y, from Leo's own personal experience with his younger siblings. In particular, he seemed like he was Cassie's age, which, well. Leo couldn't quite tell if this was a good thing or not.

"Thank you, Random Customer, for so very kindly expanding my vocabulary," Leo said dryly, repositioning some askew cases of chocolates as he spoke. No reason to let this guy interfere with his job, after all. He had to tread carefully, though, there were certain rules against being rude to customers. No matter how annoying this guy might be, the sale was what was important here.

So, when he next spoke, he did it with his most charming smile, the one that always worked incredibly well to get impressionable young Hogwarts students to buy up all their stock. "All I said was, most people who are as passionate about sweets as you certainly are tend to get jobs here. But in any case, I'm sure you can find your way around, then, yeah?"

He probably should have left out some of that snark from his tone of voice, but oh, well. His boss wasn't in today, anyway.

[Sebastian Nott]

"You're welcome," Seb said in a very regal fashion indeed, wandering towards the chocolates, although still very much near the bloke. Merlin, Seb loved chocolate. He intended to stuff his face when he got home. He was going to eat enough chocolate for a roomful of people and he wouldn't give a single, tiny fuck about it. That was how life ought to be lived, in Sebastian Nott's humble opinion. Lots of chocolate and absolutely no fucks.

At the guy's next comment, Seb realised he was being snarky, and it quite amused him. Generally when he got someone's back up, he found it terribly entertaining and would eagerly push their buttons until they exploded. And so he sauntered nearer to the guy again, saying smugly, "Mm. Because, you know, the dream is to work as a shop assistant. Ministry of Magic Official, mate," he informed him. "Not to mention the best looking Ministry of Magic Official. You impressed?"

[Leo Robins]

Leo rolled his eyes when the guy's back was turned at his words. Definitely a teenager. He sounded ridiculously like Cassie whenever she and Leo were bickering over something stupid, all snark and sass and the incessant need to have the last word. Leo liked to pretend he was above all that. And he was. Mostly.

"Oh," he said in deliberate, drawn-out surprise when the guy started in on him, slowly turning around with both eyebrows raised, "I'm sorry, did you think this was all I did? Actually, I have another job - I took this one alongside it because I was, in your own words, very passionate about sweets. I think it's working out pretty well for me. After all, I get free Honeydukes candy whenever I want."

The words which is more than I can say for you went unsaid, but he made sure the guy could read it in his smirk. There was no way some little pureblood prince - and he must be a pureblood, with an attitude like that - who most likely got a Ministry job because of his family connections was going to get under Leo's skin. After all the trouble he had dealing with Cassie and her friends over the years, he was more than used to her generation's special brand of ridiculousness.

"I'll be impressed when you have some statistics to back up your claim," he told him with a grin, because damn if he hadn't taken Arithmancy in school solely to sound smart when discussing things like statistics and math.

[Sebastian Nott]

"Oh! Do you work at a pub part-time or something? Dream big," Seb said mockingly, despite the fact that he knew quite a number of people who worked at pubs or cafes and that it didn't really bother him in the slightest. But still, a dig was a dig, and if you wanted to make a dig, sometimes you had to be a little hypocritical to make it work. A fact of life he'd already familiarized himself with. "And...I get paid more than you," Seb reminded him, one eyebrow quirking.

"Statistics?" Seb scoffed. "Look at me. Nobody could be better looking than I am, they'd explode..." eyeing the shelves speculatively, he decided that he probably ought to get his mother something as well. A fancy box of chocolates, perhaps. No matter how Seb acted, he was a regular mother's boy and could think of nothing better than showering her with love and affection and chocolates, despite how sickening it could be for the people around him.

"Actually," Seb said very suddenly, turning sharply and gesturing towards the shelves. "I've decided you're useful. What are your best chocolates? And I do mean best," he plucked a small polka-dotted box off of the shelf, inspected it for about three seconds, and then slotted it haphazardly back into its place. "They're for a very special woman."

[Leo Robins]

Leo raised an eyebrow, mildly affronted on behalf of his friends who actually did work in pubs. "There's nothing wrong with that," he informed the guy. "Pubs are great. But no, actually, I do something else. And you might make more than a Honeydukes employee, but I'm pretty sure my other jobs provides me a higher paycheck, all considered." This wasn't exactly an exaggeration, either -- Leo had gotten various deals to illustrate book covers and children's picture books that paid him quite handsomely indeed, particularly in the muggle world. Unless this guy was the Minister of Magic himself, which he highly doubted, there was no way a random Ministry kid got paid more than him with his two jobs combined.

"Hmm," he said noncommittally, electing not to pursue a point that his boss would certainly frown upon him for continuing. It's not like Leo really cared how highly this kid thought of himself. He had much better things to care about. "I do so pride myself on being useful to customers," he muttered, adding only a touch of sardonicism to his tone of voice. "Seeing as that happens to be my job."

He heaved a sigh as he reached over the guy to adjust the box of chocolates. Teenagers. None of them had any idea how to behave in this store. He'd practically had to give Cassie lessons when she'd first visited him after he started working here. "All right, well, we got in a new shipment of the ever popular caramel-drizzled chocolate hearts just yesterday. They're our best sellers, and they come in all sorts of chocolate. This special woman of yours got a preference?"

[Sebastian Nott]

"Pubs are great when you're getting smashed at them, not serving people," Seb said dismissively. Working at a pub sounded downright horrific to him. He wouldn't be able to get drunk on the job, and if the place was busy he wouldn't be able to squeeze in flirtation with any of the girls because they'd be off with the blokes actually buying them drinks. "Ooh," Seb said, sounding deeply bored. "Well, you've really put me in my place, haven't you? Although, just so you know, no amount of money you're being paid will make you richer than me," he shot the guy a dazzling smile. "One of the perks of being part of one of the richest Wizarding families in Britain."

Seb wasn't quite certain why he was insisting on being such a massive bitch about the entire thing, but he was bored and restless and sort of enjoying annoying someone. He didn't get to be annoying in work that much, because someone could complain about him, and he wanted to radiate sophistication. Hearing the guy's mutter, he said cheerfully, "You're not doing a great job of it now, though, are you mate? I've been in here a decent ten minutes already and all you've done is get shirty with me," he leaned against a shelf, smirking. "That's very rude. I should write the manager a strongly worded letter about you."

Thoroughly delighted by how much he appeared to be annoying this bloke, Seb cast the caramel-drizzled hearts a critical glance. They looked delicious, but he wasn't going to let this guy off the hook so easily. He'd see if he could get him hunting for another half-hour at the least, just to piss him off. And then he could always elect to not buy anything, and come back later when it was someone else's shift. "Bit tacky, aren't they?" He mused. "I'm sure you can do better than that." He ignored the question about the preferences, giving the guy - Leo - a smug little smile.

[Leo Robins]

Leo was honestly one hundred percent done with this guy as soon as he started on about being from one of the richest Wizarding families in Britain. Despite the fact that he came from an old pureblood line, his father was a muggle and he'd had to deal with a fair few amount of snotty rich pureblood brats in his time. He was not in the mood to deal with another one, nor was he ever, to be honest.

However, the snottiness did spark something in his memory. "Ah," he said, rolling his eyes. "You were in Cassie's year." Sebastian Nott. Go figure. Cassie's entire year seemed to be full of ridiculous teenagers, so he wasn't even remotely surprised. "Well, you know what, kid," he began cheerfully, more than ready to leave this guy and his purposefully annoying smirk behind, "I do believe my partner's just arrived. Enjoy annoying him instead."

It wasn't a lie, either; the guy he was supposed to be working with had just run in late. Figuring he owed him part of his break, Leo mock-saluted to them both and sauntered away to the back room as his partner hurried over to the two of them. "See you around," he called over his shoulder and then headed off to the stash of chocolates kept in the back room for the employees. He didn't think he'd ever needed chocolate more, except maybe post-hangover. Dealing with this guy kind of felt like a hangover, anyway.