Who: Sean and Joshua
When: mid-morning, riiiight after Joshua/Lullaby
Where: on the road, their apartment

Joshua didn't want to go back in the house. Even though she wasn't in there, she was still down by the water where he'd left her, he didn't want to go back in that place. Not yet. Maybe he'd send Sophie and Oz a thank you card or something later, but right now? His dumb ass was staying outside. He was almost tempted just to start walking home on his own, to give himself some time without somebody's eyes on him, but he knew that if Lulu went back in without him, Sean would likely freak out a little, and he didn't want to deal with that today. So, standing out by their car, he thumbed a message into his phone and sent it to the angel.

have to leave, just got dumped. out by the car, you coming? - J

Sean had been attempting to nap upstairs when the phone buzzed and he blurrily reached for it. Nobody ever phoned him, unless it was Joshua. And he hardly ever did, given that they lived together. It wasn't like the angel really knew anyone else in this damn town, people in the house here excepted, of course. He read the message and blinked, then read it again, wondering if he had that right. Getting out of bed, he pulled on some clothes, but left everything else as he headed downstairs and out to the car, walking straight up to Joshua. "What was all that about?" he asked with a frown.

He cursed a little internally when Sean walked out without any of their stuff. Not that they'd had a lot, but they'd brought some changes of clothes and bathroom shit during one daylight-lull. Dammit, he should've put something like that in the text, because he really didn't want to go back in there. It was a weird feeling of shame, like everybody would know that he was a shitty boyfriend and had paid the price for it, even though that was probably irrational. He wondered if Dean knew she was going to do that, but shoved the thought aside. "She broke up with me, we have to go," he told Sean, looking pained. At least the urge to bawl had died down enough.

"Okay - get in the car then," Sean said, not hesitating anymore. "Or did you want to go get our things? Wouldn't take but a few minutes - or I can go if you wanted to stay out here." He didn't question that they should leave right off the bat. This wasn't their home, he'd heard on the news first thing that apparently the worst was over and, if he was being totally honest, getting Joshua out of the reach of the undead? Yeah, that really worked for him.

He glanced at the house and shook his head. "I don't wanna go back in. If you don't mind getting it, that'd be ... good," he said. In the meantime, he did indeed get in the car, crawling into the passenger seat and shutting the door behind him. He put one sneaker up on the dash to hug his leg, and waited. God, this just ... sucked. He was still trying to sort it out in some capacity in his head. Dumped by the first girl he'd ever loved -- though of course she still wanted to be friends -- because she didn't feel like she could take care of him anymore. How fucked up was that? He felt sick.

"I'll be right back then," Sean promised, heading back inside and upstairs, quickly throwing things in bags, before heading back out again. He found Sophie on the way back down and told her they were leaving, feeding her a line about how the vampires were gone and he was keen to get back home and assess the damage, thanked her for their hospitality and everything, and then walked back to the car, throwing the bags onto the back seat before climbing in on the driver's side and starting up the engine. "So, you wanna talk about it?" he asked, looking over before pulling away down the driveway.

"She wants time to sort herself out without having to worry about bein' my ma, is basically what it comes down to," he said, and was a little surprised by the bitterness in his tone already. "She feels like she's gotta hold my hand every second and can't really talk to me, though I've been beggin' her to, and sayin' it's okay and I can be strong for her and do whatever I can to help her through this shit, but she doesn't believe me. And so who wants a loser with the emotional maturity of a six year old hanging on her skirt when she's got massive insanity to try and work out? ... but she still wants to be friends." He laughed a little, unsteadily, and wiped at his eyes with impatience, turning his head to look out the window. "Fuck."

"Ouch," Sean cringed, looking over at Joshua with sympathy. "Gotta hate it when they say they want to be 'friends'. Can never work out whether they mean it or they're just trying to soften the blow, y'know," Sean said. There was a distinct possibility that he wouldn't be in any way at all encouraging that friendship, whether the girl had been sincere or not.

Joshua thought that she meant it. It was Lullaby, of course she did. She was friends with almost everybody. It was just that he was now relegated to those ranks -- diminished as they were because of her death and all. Probably lower, seeing as how he'd apparently fucked it all up anyway. Not anything special to her. Hell, now it was hard to believe he had been in the first place. It had started out as just one of those fun teenage relationships, hadn't it? And then he'd started to fall for her like an idiot, and then she'd died and everything got so magnified and now he really didn't know what to do. Because she was back and he could be there for her and love her, but she didn't want him to because he wasn't any good at it. His mind was all over the place, swinging between being pissed and self-pitying, and the lump in his throat was too big to talk around. He didn't say anything, just stared out the window and bit the inside of his cheek as the world kind of went blurry.

"Well, we'll get you home," Sean told him, concentrating on driving. They were best off out of there anyway, keep Joshua as far away from any potential badness as he could. This was one headache he'd be glad to leave behind, that was for sure. "Did you hear the news - apparently the vampires have gone, so the worst is over with now. Course, the town's still a fucking mess, but time'll clear that up," he said as they past a burnt out house.

"Yeah," he said after a moment and a throat-clear. It was entirely unenthusiastic, though, which he felt kind of bad about. Personal trauma aside ... at least everybody had survived that he knew. And they were gone. That was something good, right? Maybe -- once he'd slept some, he was godawful tired -- he could throw himself into helping with the clean up or something. It seemed he would suddenly have a lot more time on his hands, and as much as he might want to just lay around and stop breathing, that was ... yeah. Probably a bad idea.

Sean looked across again, noting the lack of enthusiasm, though not entirely unsurprised by it. "Lad - if you just want me to shut up and drive, leave you in peace, you should just say so," he suggested.

"I want you to stop by wherever's open and get us a case," Joshua said before he could really think better of it. He wasn't old enough to drink in this stupid fucking country, but they could take it home and he could drown some things and maybe sleep for a couple of days. "And maybe a couple of whores, if you see any. Twins. Tall blonde twins with tits 'til Tuesday," he muttered in a pissy sort of way.

He raised an eyebrow, but looked back at the road. "The girlies I think you're shit outta luck on," he said, easily. "But I can do you the beers - any particular type?" he asked, understanding the real need to get shitfaced right about now and fine with supporting that. He started looking for a store that'd be open and selling at his time of day, but he also knew they have a few in the fridge at home. Assuming that their place hadn't been trashed. It shouldn't have been - it was secure enough and the blessings always helped dissuade the average criminal.

Joshua looked over, a tiny bit surprised. He'd of course been smashed before, back home with his mates, but he hadn't really thought that Sean would let him drink. But now that the idea was out there, he was all for it. "Whatever you can get a lot of," he said, not even caring right now that American beer was shit. He started glancing around for open stores himself, glad for the distraction.

"You that good at holding your drink, lad - or you just looking to pass out?" Sean asked him as he pulled into the parking lot of a promising-looking place, wondering if by some miracle he'd be able to get ahold of some Guiness. He doubted he would be that lucky, so it'd be shite they'd be drinking, but sometimes you took what you could get.

"Door number two," he said, thinking that was obvious. It wouldn't take him but maybe three or four, but they might as well have it around. He didn't think he'd be any less eager to pass out tomorrow. He stayed in the car while Sean got out. From everything he heard about the US, it was just smarter to stay in the car, since he was considered 'underage' here. Which was just stupid. But still, to save Sean any trouble, he waited.

The angel didn't take very long about it, picking up a case of random beer and paying for it with a few words for the guy behind the counter, before heading back out to the car, adding the case to the bags on the back seat. "Look," he said as he pulled back out. "Don't think I didn't caught the surprised look back there. You're eighteen - far as I'm concerned, that makes you legal. Not my problem they screwed up the laws over here. When I was your age, I was drinking, no reason why you shouldn't. And I'd prefer you to do it where I can keep an eye on you as you make your way to oblivion - long as you don't make a habit out of it. We all have days where it's needed and it never did a man any harm."

"Fair enough," Joshua said after a minute. He decided not to mention that the last time he'd been drunk -- which happened to be his going-away party before he and September left -- he'd ended up taking a fall off of somebody's front porch. The only reason he hadn't broken anything was the beer, most likely. But yeah, that was what Sean was for, to watch for things like that. Even though it wasn't even noon yet, he was looking forward to it now. At the very least, it'd help him sleep. He glanced over again. "Thanks."

"Not a problem," Sean told him. At least at home it'd be contained. The house had already been proofed by September, it was blessed to the hilt - there was really very little Joshua could do to hurt himself. And hopefully he'd be a down, depressed drunk, rather than a hyperactive drunk. Whichever way, Sean'd be keeping a close eye. And Sean could hold his beer, so even if he matched him - which he intended to do, at least at first - they'd be good.

He fell silent for the rest of the drive back to Tourville, eyes ticking over the destruction they passed. The fuckers had really done a number on Marquette, that was for damn sure. He wondered in a vague way whether or not the people who'd fled would end up coming back. Some part of him murmured that this would be the perfect opportunity to move. Just pack up their shit and go somewhere else, maybe back home, because this town? Was fucked. However, even though Lullaby had just broken up with him? The thought of leaving her here was still not a good one. No, that'd be too much like running. Still, he kind of really wanted to call home at the moment. He got out as they parked, opening the back to help carry stuff inside.

Sean turned off the engine and grabbed one of the bags and the beer from the back seat, hefting the first onto his shoulder, carrying the box under his arm as they headed towards the apartment block, which looked thankfully intact. "Good to be home," he muttered under his breath.

Joshua fished his keys out, since he was the one with a free hand, and unlocked the door. Which didn't look like it'd been tampered with at all. If something like this had happened in a bigger city, he would've bet money that every apartment in this building would've been looted. But not here. The apartment was just as they'd left it, a quiet sort of mess. He dropped the bag near the door and toed out of his sneakers, heading for the fridge first thing. "It is, yeah," he answered.

Sean dropped the bag he was carrying by the door and crossed to set the case of beer on the table, before looking back at Joshua. "You sure you just don't want to go try and get some sleep?" he asked, offering that get out.

Looking in the fridge reminded him that they hadn't actually solidly been here in quite a few days. Not that most things in there could be trusted even when they had been, but still. He abandoned the want for food and went to the table, starting to tear into the case. "If by sleep you mean 'lay around and torture myself', no thanks," Joshua said, pulling the first can out. Because that would be what would happen, no doubt.

Sean sat down on the couch, assuming that Joshua would pull him a beer out as well. "You're not taking this very well," he said, clearly stating the obvious and meaning to - it was an opener, if nothing else.

He got the angel one too, since he'd gone on and sat down. Joshua shot him a glare as he handed it off. "What, I'm supposed to? It happened a fucking half hour ago. Did I fucking miss when they started handing out How To Deal handbooks? Because you're the second person today to tell me I'm doing it wrong, and it's not even noon yet." He flopped into an armchair and popped the top on the beer. It tasted not great, but it was cold.

"You're doing it wrong?" Sean asked him, opening the beer. He didn't rise to the barb, nor would he. And he knew that what he'd said had been potentially rattling, but that was part of the point. He didn't mind pissing Joshua off if it meant he'd talk - talking was the goal, no matter how he got there. And if Joshua needed to let off steam, then Sean didn't mind sparring at all.

"Apparently," Joshua said, still sounding kind of pissy. God, this shit was going to be a rollercoaster, he could tell already. And still half of him wanted to go back to the house to see her again. "She said I don't deal well with things. Well tell me, how am I supposed to be dealing with a girlfriend back from the dead? That's totally a new one on me, y'know? I mean, I want to be there for her, I tried to be, I told her I didn't care that she was something different, it didn't matter, she was still herself and I wasn't going anywhere and it wasn't like she had to be fine right off the bat, I didn't expect that at all. God, what kind of bastard would? But that? Was apparently not good enough, not what she wanted or needed ... none of which she would tell me, of course, until she fucking wants it to be completely over." He drank some more and looked generally miserable.

"If you'd know how to deal with that - you'd have one up on me," Sean agreed, willing to give him that. "Not something you expect to ever come across - there's no way you could be expected to know how to deal with that kind of thing. And of course you didn't expect her to be fine, but she shouldn't have expected you to be able to just hit the ground running after all - especially not after what you've been through. Maybe she was asking too much of you," Sean suggested, lightly.

"I mean, yeah, there were a couple of ... snags," he said, making a vague gesture. "And they were my fault, but I owned up to that. Told her I was sorry. They're friends and that's great, but who wants some other bloke doing everything for his girl all the time? Like 'hey Lu, how about I do this for you?' and then she's like 'oh, Dean's got that covered.' But then I try to tell her that and I get accused of bein' like ... insensitive enough to ask for a list of shit to do, or nothing'll get done and that's bullshit, Sean, it is. And I mean, I know she's got too much to deal with, I understand that, but if she'd just ... talked to me. But she said she didn't feel like she could, 'cause she thinks I'm this huge fucking infant. But you know? Fuck that. She died in my fucking arms and that's supposed to just ... be gone? She comes back and I'm supposed to be absolutely perfect with it and not screw up at all? What kind of goddamn relationship can you have without some fuck ups here and there that can be like, worked out and forgiven? And I wanted her to talk to me, I wanted to help her, I wanted to be support, and I fucking tried and she kept me blocked out and now she can't deal with holding my hand?" He knew that he was sort of ranting all over the place and it probably didn't make any sense, but he couldn't help it.

Sean let him rant, because he was of the opinion that it was good for him to get it out, air it in the open - whether it made sense or not wasn't the point. He let the silence drift for a moment, before speaking, once it was clear that Joshua had finished. "Turning to some other bloke's not good," he pointed out. "You sure... I know it's not a nice thing to think, but you sure they're not..." He left that drift, fine with planting the idea that there may be some other reason for the break up in Joshua's head. Really, the further he talked himself from this girl, the better in the angel's opinion. Sean had no problem with sullying her name, her memory in Joshua's head.

"Oh he's totally got it bad for her," Joshua said with a little bitter chuckle. "He more or less told me so. Said I didn't have anything to worry about, though, that she wouldn't ever see him like she saw me. Bullshit. But for his fuckin' sake, I hope he's right." He sucked down some more of the beer, most of the way through the can already. No, he didn't honestly think that Lullaby was cheating on him. What he did think was that now he was out of the way, it would be a lot easier for Dean to play the good friend there for her in her time of need. It wouldn't surprise him at all to hear that they'd gotten together. He finished off what was left and stood up to get another. He was feeling it a little already, maybe it wouldn't take but two.

"Sounds like the guy's just poised, waiting in the wings," Sean observed, chugging his way through his own beer. "Nothing like having an understudy, ready and waiting," he suggested, crumpling his now empty can and gesturing that he'd have another, if Joshua was fetching. "Course, if that's the case, you really are better off out of there. Girl that can replace that easily... I'd worry about that type, seen it before. You always fall for them more than they fall for you - whatever they say," Sean mused, knowing he was largely playing a guessing game here, but still, the odds were fairly good, as long as he didn't over do it. There was an opportunity - more than just making Joshua mad and getting him to open up, which had been his original plan. No, there was an opportunity here to make sure he never wanted to go back. And that, at the end of the day, would be the safe option.

That assessment hit him like a ton of bricks and he had to stop over at the table, back to Sean, as his face silently twisted. Always fall for them more than they fall for you. She'd liked him just fine when things were light and they were just kids being kids. But when everything got heavier, and he wanted to stick it out with her, she didn't. She'd never told him she did, but he knew for sure now that she hadn't loved him, and probably wasn't ever going to. Love wouldn't give up that quickly, wouldn't keep communication so closed. Yeah he'd been guilty of not wanting to talk about certain things when he knew he was being stupid, but she'd just ... pretended. To be okay, that things were fine with them. They weren't nearly as close as he'd thought they were. And that just broke his heart all to pieces and made him feel like an idiot at the same time. So she could have her time, she'd get all the fucking time she wanted. He hoped she worked out who she was and what she wanted, because he was pretty damn sure it wasn't going to be him again. Joshua took a quiet breath and pulled his t-shirt up to wipe his face with. Then returned with a beer for each of them. He didn't have anything to say, or any voice to say it with, so he just opened his up and drank again.

"I'm not going to push you for what you want to do," Sean told him, after a while. "Take some time, figure out your head. But do figure it out. Remember the talk we had - I'm here for you. Whatever you want to do, we'll do," he added, casually reminding Joshua of that, putting it into his head that, if he wanted to, they could always leave. The world was a big place, after all. Sean was easy - he wasn't much attached to this place. He wasn't much attached to anywhere. His attachments were to the Barclay family, and to Joshua. Everything else was just where they happened to be.

Joshua had a feeling he knew that Sean was talking about leaving. Which made sense; what was there to stay for? Neither one of them even had a shitty part-time job to hold down, they were just ... there. Who was left that he could even really call a friend anymore? He couldn't see out of the black hole he was at the bottom of, and knew that right then wasn't a good time to be making decisions anyway. So he nodded and tilted his can up again. " ... I was talking about going to university here, before September left," he said, to kind of randomly put it out there and see. Not that he really genuinely wanted to do much more than get trashed and sleep right then, but still.

"Education's a good thing," Sean agreed, not saying that you could, in fact, get education anywhere. "It's worth considering. But, like I said, not pushing you for any decisions. Just wanted to put that out there. You're the boss, remember," he added. Course, Sean wasn't above pushing a few buttons to get the 'right' answers occasionally and he figured he'd helped the cause a little here today. "You interested in anything in particular?" he asked, pursuing that line.

His pasty white Irish ass, he was the boss. But he did remember the talk, and he knew what Sean was saying. Joshua stared into some middle distance and took another drink. "Maybe. I dunno. I can't think right now," he said, though it was without defensiveness now. The unfortunate part was, he could think just fine. It was just about all the wrong things. He'd have to really give it consideration later. After he'd given himself time to be fucked up about everything.

Sean chuckled a little. "Yeah, my head always goes to fuck when I've been drinking too," he agreed. "And your da was always the same way - one pint and he was away with the bloody fairies. Quite literally, one time. Fucking fae..."

Joshua looked over, that sort of half-surprising him into paying attention. He arched an eyebrow. "I am sensing a story here I've never heard. You and Da and fairies? Something tells me it's against my better judgment to want to know, but ... what the hell, man?"

"Lad - half your life is stories you've never heard," Sean joked. "But fine - when your da was about your age, he went on a trip with some friends of his and yours truly got to go along. Course, nobody actually expected anything to happen - was just a weekend's camping, but what with the curse and everything, you can never be too careful, and someone had to go, didn't they? Course - never ask a Barclay to put up a damn tent - is amazing the trouble you can get up to with a simple length of string," he joked, toasting Joshua with his beer and downing a good deal of it.

He laughed a little, because he could think of a billion things that could go wrong trying to put up a tent. He slugged back quite a few swallows himself, looking attentive now. He knew only vague things about the fae existing, probably mostly old wives' tales. He definitely never thought his da had any contact with them. "Yeah?"

"Oh yes - none of which have anything to do with the story you want to hear, of course," Sean told him - but when did the point get in the way of a good story? Well, true, but he should carry on with what Joshua wanted to here. "Anyways, we got them all set up, and, naturally, what do a group of young lads want to do after an afternoon's work? Why, there's only one answer to that - so we went down the pub. Which was easier than it sounds, since your da and his friends had picked a field in the arse end of nowhere, I can tell ye. So we walked. And walked. And walked a while more - all good for whetting your appetite, of course. Was good and dark by the time we reached the White Stag. Fine pub it was though and a warm welcome we received on top of that. So, we settled in for the night, got in the first round and your da gets talking to this lassie - fine figure of a woman she was too."

Grinning a bit, Joshua settled back into the chair, hooking one leg over the arm of it to listen. Now this? Felt like home. He'd spent a great deal of time as a younger kid sitting around on the floor, playing with action figures and pretending he wasn't listening to Annora and Calix and Sean and September sit around and relate stories to each other. They were all old enough to know a ton and be good at the telling. He sipped on his beer and listened, trying to picture his da at his own age.

"Course, this was a long old time before your da ever set eyes on your ma, naturally," Sean added, giving Joshua a look which suggested that there'd been no straying from that very moment onwards. "He was just a young thing, and his head was ever easily turned in those days. But still, she was a fine woman - tall and slender, with hair as black as midnight and a gaze you could lose yourself in. I swear, we was all under her spell, if she'd've just looked our way. He'd not been talking to her for five minutes when he drags himself away and declares to me that he's leaving and he'll follow her to the ends of the earth if she wants him to. Course, the problem with that was that she didn't - want him to, I mean. Heartbroken, he was. Poor young lad," Sean told him, shaking his head.

"So what did she want?" he asked, looking amused. Trying to see the man as a lovesick teenager was difficult, but he thought that probably always was true when it came to your own parents. But hey, maybe it ran in the family, and he had something of an excuse. "Just to mesmerize a group of blokes on their way to the second round?"

"Looking back, I think what she wanted was to be left alone," Sean said, wryly. "Course, at the time, that never occurred - all women want something, right?"

Joshua arched an eyebrow. "So how do you know she was fae?" he asked. "Maybe she was just beautiful and all of you were just drunk and Da was overly romantic?"

Sean smiled at that. "Ahh, now you see, that was the story of the next night. Seems that your da and his friends had pitched up right next to a gateway. Anyways, the moon was shining down round midnight the next night and all the boys were wrapped up asleep, save for me and your da, when the girlie turns up. She's walking across the other side of the field, see and when your da spots her, he's on his feet as quick as you like and going after her. Naturally, I go after him, cos what kind of guardian would I be to let him go off by hisself that way? I swear, if it hadn't been for the curse kicking in then me holding him down, he would have followed her right through that there gateway, but instead he tripped arse over tit on a molehill and went flying. I reached him as he was getting up and we both watched the girlie go. Only time I've ever seen a gateway used."

He had to laugh a little. Yeah, that sounded about right. He could most definitely see his dad doing that. He took a few more swallows of beer and looked interested. "So how'd that look? May not surprise you at all to know that I've never had anything to do with the fae." Though if there was a place to? Marquette seemed like it.

"Looked strange-like. Hard to describe. Otherworldly, not something I think we really have words for," Sean told him, remembering that night. It seemed like so long ago now. Well, it had been. More than a fifth of his lifetime ago. "I haven't had much to do with the fae either, and from the sounds of it, that's a good thing. Tricksy types they can be, some of them anyhow. Course, you may know some and not know it - they use glamour to cover what they really look like. Much like I can hide my wings, they can hide their faces, seem human to you and I. There's lots around that's something they don't seem to be."

Joshua contemplated that, going over the people he knew here, and who might be Something Else and him not knowing about it. It was probably a fruitless exercise, 'cause the whole point of hiding what you were was to, well ... hide what you were. But hell, it was better than thinking about everything else. His brain was kind of fuzzy anyway, and to help that along, he finished off the beer in his hand. "S'a good story," he said comfortably. "Wonder if ma knows she almost lost 'im to a fairy woman early on."

"Dunno - never asked her about it," Sean admitted, finishing off his beer and getting up to grab another couple. "Actually, we didn't much talk about what happened that night afterwards. Probably for the best."

"Prob'ly," he agreed, taking his ... third? when it was handed to him. He was going to go with third. Joshua was feeling pretty good, heavy and floaty at the same time. He realized that he hadn't thought her name in about ten minutes, and that was good. Even though it set him to thinking about her again. "Shit works," he muttered, leaning his head back.

"Feeling better?" Sean asked him, starting in on his next beer, feeling a slight buzz, but nothing more. He watched Joshua, carefully, but without seeming to. The beer definitely seemed to be going to the teen's head, which was good - that was the plan, after all.

He nodded around taking another long drink. After a certain point you hardly even tasted it anymore, and that was where he was. Though the 'better' part of that might not've been totally accurate. "S'just ... sucks," he assessed. "But at least ... y'know, she's got life back. She can like ... figure it out. Told, y'know, God or whoever ... when she died, that it didn' matter if she was mine or not, y'know? If it'd just be ... fixed." He smiled faintly, gaze about ten thousand miles away. "... she don' know I did that." Not that it mattered now.

"Ouch," Sean said, sympathetically. "But probably best unsaid - something like that, what difference would it make?" he shrugged, still working on his opportunity to make sure that Joshua was nice and safely away from the girl. There were other girls. That's one thing he knew from his long life - there were always other girls. Especially when you were eighteen.

"Wouldn'," he agreed, looking down into his open beer. "Prob'ly just make her apologize s'more." Which really didn't mean anything, did it? What did it matter? He heaved a sigh and sat up straight, tilting the can back to chug the rest of it down. That heaviness was settling over him again, square in his chest. He'd avoided it until now, but it was time for some privacy. And possibly music to cover up his noise, because he needed to cry. Stupid, but he could admit that to himself. Wincing a bit as he put the empty down, he stood up. "M'takin' a piss an' going t'bed," he told his angel, turning to plot a course to the bathroom that would hopefully be somewhat steady.

"'Kay. I'll be right here," Sean told him, making no move to get up - though he would when Joshua was out of sight. He'd be doing a hell of a lot of hovering for the next few days, that was for sure. Because whether Sean thought it was for the best or not, Joshua had still lost his girl and Sean knew how much she'd meant to him. So, yeah, he'd be hovering.

Something occured to him belatedly and he retraced the couple of steps he'd taken, clumsily fishing his phone out of his pocket. "Here," he said. He'd meant to hand it to Sean, but it more or less crashed down on the coffee table instead. He didn't care. Joshua pointed at it. "Don' let me have it back 'til tomorrow," he said seriously. Because he knew himself, and he was fairly drunk now, and he'd be texting her in ten minutes if he went in there by himself. "An' don' answer it." Just in case. And now, pisser. He turned and started off again.

"Sure, no worries," Sean told him, picking up the phone and pocketing it. He wondered if he could ensure it had a little 'accident' between now and then, but figured that may look dodgy. Or possibly he knew her number anyhow. If Joshua wanted to contact her, he'd contact her - but he'd get no encouragement on that front from his angel. None whatsoever.