phillipa flint (pippips) wrote in reduxpitch, @ 2016-04-06 18:23:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !bingo, !thread, character: phillipa flint, character: terence higgs, location: diagon alley |
who: phillipa flint & terence higgs
where: pippa's flat
when: 6 april, after work
what: terence is bringing a kitten for a visit
status: complete
warnings: swearing, probably
bingo: the kitchen
The plan had been to go over and see Pippa after work on Tuesday evening but then a call at work had come in and Higgs had ended up needing to postpone his seeing of Pippa. Tonight was different, though. Higgs had managed to leave work at exactly five pm with no emergencies and pop home to pick Pushkin up. As much as Higgs adored the three legged kitten, he was still sensible enough to realise that taking a kitten to work was not something one should be doing. Pushkin had been great, though, spending most of his days curled up on Higgs’ pillow when he wasn’t home, sleeping away. It seemed, to Higgs, like quite a nice life. “Let's go see Auntie Pippa, yeah?” Higgs said to Pushkin as he picked him up after having a quick bite to eat. It was easy enough to apparate just outside Pippa’s flat, Pushkin securely sat in his pocket. Despite what Ashleigh said, Higgs felt that if the kitten was happy sitting in his pocket, there was no reason why Higgs shouldn’t, in fact, put him in his pocket. He knocked lightly on Pippa’s door, shuffling slightly as he awaited for her to open the door. It would be good to see her, Higgs thought. It had been too long since he had seen her last, even if he had kept sending her food. Higgs felt a bit guilty over his insistence on hat buying and therefore Pippa’s imminent marriage to Gemma. It wasn’t like he actually expected the two women to marry, he just would have preferred if they did. -- It was better their plans for the previous day had gotten pushed. Phillipa had quickly fallen into a horrible mood, thanks to finding out Lucas was in Portugal and the conversation that had followed between her and her younger brother, and wouldn't have been able to properly appreciate a visit and a kitten. When the knock came on her door, she moved over to answer it, a rush of relief washing over her when she saw him standing there. Maybe she's known it was going to be him, but that didn't change the fact that she hadn't seen him - or really, anyone - for weeks. She offered him a smile but then her gaze dropped to his pocket, and her eyes widened. "Hi-- oh look at it!" - Higgs gave Pippa a wide smile, taking literally no offense that Pushkin got a much more excited response than he did. Pushin was adorable, so it was only fair. Pulling the tiny ball of fur out of his pocket, Higgs handed him over to Pippa. “He’ll warm even the deadest hearts,” he told her honestly. Acquiring the kitten was one of the more exciting things that had happened to Higgs lately, especially with how unexciting he was still finding his job. Walking into the flat, Higgs took off his jacket. “It looks nice,” he commented looking around the flat. Higgs could definitely understand the feeling of going stir-crazy, rearranging furniture, in his experience, was one of the biggest signs that you were, in fact, going a bit crazy. At least Pippa was aware of it. “You at a stage of repainting all your walls, yet?” He asked almost teasingly, heading for the kitchen. -- Had he not immediately handed over the kitten, Phillipa would have simply retrieved it from his pocket herself. As it was, she gratefully accepted the little kitten and held it in both her hands close in against her chest as she let him inside. She wouldn't steal it from him, but she was definitely going to monopolize it while he was there. "Thanks," she replied, nudging the door closed and following him back inside. "I don't want to paint my walls, thankfully. I'm quite fond of the color." Her fingers idly stroked through the kitten's fur as she watched him disappear into the kitchen. "Thank you again, for the food. It really was so helpful." - Sticking the kettle on, Higgs glanced through the door to where Pippa was with Pushkin. “It’s no problem,” he commented in regards to providing her with food. It hadn’t actually been a bother at all, since Higgs had just made slightly more whenever he cooked, putting it into sealed containers and sending them off for Pippa to eat. “Wouldn’t want you to starve to death,” he added jokingly. Well, mostly jokingly since Higgs really wouldn’t want her to starve, but he did also think that Pippa was more than capable of looking after herself if needs must. “So how annoyed are you at Lucas?” Higgs asked recalling that Lucas had said as much yesterday. Running off to Portugal without telling Pippa was, frankly, just really dumb. The running away was probably pretty silly, too, but Higgs had a lot of sympathy for that. Not telling Pippa? That was just not a very smart move, certainly not the way Pippa was about Lucas. Hell, Higgs didn’t think he would dare to run away without telling Pippa first. No one needed that sort of pressure in their life. -- "What horror that would be," Phillipa replied dryly, moving over toward the kitchen and leaning in the doorway. Without the food deliveries, she probably would have forgotten to eat, honestly. Plus it had helped her not have to think about leaving, which was what she'd really needed. She was glad he'd understood, and not questioned but rather helped. Her expression faltered when he mentioned Lucas. "Annoyed is but one of the many ways I feel about what he did," she said after a moment, pursing her lips as she thought back to that morning. "How hard is it to send an owl? Or write a note? Or... anything? He could think to ask off work but not to tell anyone else he was leaving the fucking country?" - Higgs did hum in agreement even if Pippa’s tone had been mocking. Fetching a mug and some milk, for this was not the first time Higgs had made himself tea in Pippa’s flat, he proceeded to lean against one of the counters as he watched her, listening to Pippa’s reply about Lucas. “He’s young, Pippin,” Higgs offered. It wasn’t an excuse and Higgs certainly wasn’t attempting to use it as one, but it was a reason. “And he has never had to worry about anyone the way you worry about him,” he added because it was true. The danger of being Marcus and Pippa Flint’s baby brother was that Lucas could always rely on the fact that Marcus and Pippa did not require him to worry about them. “So how much bollocking are you planning to give him when he returns?” Higgs asked with a small smirk. Whatever Lucas’ reasons were for running off - and that’s what it was, they could all acknowledge that - Higgs strongly doubted his sister would let Lucas get away with it, excusable or not. Whether she should, Higgs didn’t necessarily think he was in a position to decide. -- "Right, young," Phillipa replied, rolling her eyes. Lucas was young, and that was starting to be synonymous with stupid, brash, and a great many other words that may have been unfair in the long run but not on that particular day. Her fingers moved in absent patterns through the kitten's fur, grateful for the distraction of something warm and cuddly in her hands. "I don't know." She looked down to the kitten and bit the inside of her lip, shaking her head. "I went, this morning. To Portugal, to find him." Maybe that hadn't been the right thing to do, but it was all she'd been able to think about doing and she had a hard time sitting still when action was within her grasp. "So I guess we'll see when he gets back, whenever that is." - “You went to Portugal?” Higgs repeated despite having hear Pippa the first time around. “Jesus, Pippin,” he added with a sigh. “You ever going to let him make his own mistakes?” Higgs asked with a shake of his head. He did understand why she worried, didn’t even think that there was anything wrong with Pippa worrying about Lucas, but going off to Portugal to find him because he had decided to go off without telling her first seemed a bit... extreme. The kettle came to a boil and Higgs gave another small shake with his head, turning around to fill the mug up. “And was he in a desperate need for your intervention?” Higgs asked turning back to look at Pippa again, raising his eyebrow as he did so. It wasn’t like he had any idea why the youngest Flint had decided to go off to sunnier parts of Europe, so perhaps he really did need an intervention and Higgs was just complicating the matter by suggestion that maybe Lucas was old enough for Pippa to stop lacing his shoes. -- Mistakes were exactly what Phillipa was worried about. She knew Lucas wasn't perfect, none of them were, but going off somewhere that far without telling anyone, to her, had indicated something was wrong. It wasn't so much him making mistakes that made her concerned, it was the potential of something happening to him and none of them knowing, or knowing where to find him to be able to help. Still, her friend's words made her bristle. "I wasn't being ridiculous," she replied, a sharp edge to her tone. "I was worried about him." Maybe she worried too much about her younger brother, but someone had to. "And no, he wasn't. Maybe it wasn't the right thing to do, to go, but I had to see him and make sure he was okay. If that makes me a horrible person, so be it." - “I never said you were being ridiculous,” Higgs pointed out with a small frown. He wouldn’t say she was being ridiculous even if he did think so, which he didn’t. If anything, Higgs felt that Pippa was being too overprotective. Seeing how she had gone off to Portugal to find her wayward brother, Higgs didn’t think that would be an uncalled for thing to state she was. It just seemed, from an outside perspective, that Pippa was slightly mollycoddling Lucas, but even that, Higgs wasn’t too sure he felt comfortable point out to the woman. Her last comment, though, made Higgs frown even more. “You’re not a horrible person, Pippa,” Higgs said almost automatically, conscious of using her actual name (or an abbreviation more common to it). “Nothing about you makes you a horrible person,” he assured her rather confident in his words. -- It might not have been in his actual words, but that was what it had felt like he'd said. Or maybe Phillipa was still thinking too much about her visit with Lucas. It was hard not to, all things considered, and she looked down to the kitten in her hands and let her thumbs stroke gently over the top of its head. "What about..." she started, then paused to think over what she wanted to say. Terence was a safe person to ask, she thought, because he had been perfectly understanding before, but after the morning she'd had she didn't necessarily feel at ease anymore. "What about me shutting myself away like I did - does that make me a horrible person?" - Taking a sip of his now ready tea, Higgs tilted his head slightly as he watched Pippa play with Pushkin. When she half-started a sentence and then stopped, Higgs waited patiently. Pushing her seemed rather silly and Higgs was glad when she actually did ask her question. “No,” he replied bluntly. Placing his mug down on the counter, Higgs walked over to where Pippa was, reaching out to run his own fingers gently over Pushkin’s fur, before reaching up to put a finger under Pippa’s chin, lifting her face up lightly. “You needed time to yourself, that doesn’t make you a horrible person, Pippin,” he told her gently, offering a small smile. “Lucas running off to Portugal because he needed time for himself doesn’t make him a horrible person either, does it?” Higgs asked despite being rather convinced that Lucas could probably murder someone and Pippa would still not ever call her baby brother a horrible person. -- Phillipa let him lift her chin, her gaze moving up to meet his. That was exactly it, she'd needed time without having to deal with anyone, and that included her brothers. And Terence. And Gemma. She hadn't let any of them in while she was shut away, because she's needed to be alone. It had felt like what she needed to do, and she didn't think it was the wrong choice, even still. "No, it doesn't make him a horrible person," she replied easily, because despite her irritation with not being told he was going off, nothing about Lucas' trip could qualify him as horrible. That wasn't the point. "What if I'm the reason for it, though? Him running off." - Giving a small tap with his thumb against Pippa’s chin, Higgs let go, frowning at her slightly. “Why would he run off because of you?” Higgs asked genuinely confused. Sure, Pippa locking herself in a tower could probably be considered unhealthy, but if it was, then it was unhealthy for her not for anyone else. Why that would make Lucas run away, Higgs wasn’t particularly sure. Walking back to where he had been before, Higgs retrieved his tea, taking a sip thoughtfully. “You’re allowed to find things difficult sometimes and to still want to protect Lucas, you know?” Higgs said finally. He really wasn’t too sure why she thought that any of what had happened made her a bad person, or why anyone else would think as much. To Higgs, Pippa’s reactions seemed, maybe if not necessarily acceptable, then certainly relatable. -- "Because I didn't trust him," Phillipa said, her brow furrowing as she turned her gaze back down to the kitten once he wasn't touching her chin anymore. "Which isn't true, but that's what he said. I didn't trust him not to judge me. That's what he said when I asked him what happened. So yeah, because of me." She gave a shake of her head and looked over at him. "Sorry, you didn't come over for this." Stepping away from the doorway, Phillipa walked over to where he was to tuck his kitten back in his pocket so she could get herself a glass of wine. "Anyway..." - At Pippa’s explanation, Higgs almost gave a small growl. It seemed rather unfair for Lucas to tell her that she had been the reason he had gone, especially since if that was the reason, Higgs didn’t feel it particularly acceptable. Running away because you didn’t want to interact with anyone was somewhat different than running away because you didn’t want to interact with one person in particular. Maybe Higgs should talk to Lucas, he thought briefly, but then, Higgs wasn’t sure what use that would be to anyone involved so perhaps not. Instead, he sighed softly when Pippa apologised. Putting his mug down again, so he could tuck Pushkin into his pocket better with one hand, Higgs reached out with his other to wrap his fingers around Pippa’s wrist. “I came over to check how you’re doing,” he told her honestly, tugging on her arm slightly as if hoping that that would emphasise the point. “What are friends for if not to be a bit sad at sometimes, eh?” Higgs teased lightly but meant exactly what he was saying. He would hardly object if Pippa needed to talk, they were friends, that was kind of the point. -- Phillipa glanced up at him when he took hold of her wrist, frowning - not at the action but rather because she was a bit sad. If she were being honest, she would say she was a lot sad. "Maybe one day I'll be able to be helpful for you," she said softly, giving a tug back like he'd done to her. "After all your food sending and letting me be sad at you, I feel as though you don't get as much as you give." She brought up her free hand to pat him lightly on the chest, offering him a hint of a wry smile before nodding her head toward the living room. "Come on, I want to sit down. And take your kitten back." - At her words, Higgs gave a small shrug. “Being useful to you is a reward enough,” he told her honestly. There had never been a time when Higgs had thought he didn’t get much out of his friendship with Pippa. Having her presence in his life was helpful, it grounded him somewhat, the same way his other friendships did, perhaps more so, since Higgs felt that him and Pippa often thought in the same way. They weren’t the kind of people who were going to exchange friendship bracelets and chat about boys, but there was still plenty that Higgs felt their friendship was. “You only like me for my kitten,” he teased her but let her lead them to the living room, making himself comfortable on Pippa’s sofa, before picking Pushkin up again. He petted the kitten softly before obediently handing it over to Pippa again, she seemed in a need of more cat pets than he did anyway. “I could ask you for advice if that’d make you feel better?” He offered with a small smile. Higgs wasn’t sure whether he needed advice but he could probably still find it useful. Alternatively, he also hardly objected to just listening to Pippa. -- Phillipa felt like she should roll her eyes at what he said, and she would have had the words come from anyone else. From him, they were genuine. So instead she picked up her glass of wine and walked with him to her living room, settling on the couch and taking a sip of her drink before putting the glass on the coffee table so she could take the kitten from him again. "I don't just like you for your kitten," she corrected, sticking her tongue out at him. "You didn't have it until now and I've kept you around for far longer." She set the kitten in her lap to free up her hands as she looked over to him. "Yes, ask me for advice. I'm far better with others than I am myself." - “Maybe you were just expecting the day there would be a kitten,” Higgs reasoned with a small laugh. Pushkin certainly felt like he had been worth the wait, but that might have mostly only been to Higgs rather than to everyone else. He’d never really had a pet that he could call his own, always having either shared them or having someone else own it, so to Higgs it really was very pleasing to be able to call the little ball of fluff his. If Higgs had been smarter, he thought, he would have asked Pippa for an advice that would apply to her, too, but as it was, Higgs didn’t think he knew how to do that. Instead he shrugged slightly, trying to decide what it was he even wanted to ask her. The temptation to take the offer back was there but it felt a bit too late now. “Alicia’s decided to be friends with her ex,” Higgs said because stating the fact seemed the easiest way to go about things. “Which as a thing doesn’t bother me at all,” he added because Higgs could see how it might seem like it did. “But I know she has feeling for him, it would be stupid of me not to expect her to, since it’s been barely a few months since they broke up. That, too, doesn’t bother me,” and it didn’t, mostly because Higgs thought it would be unreasonable for him to expect Alicia to not have feelings for Weasley. The thing that did bother Higgs, though, well. “I guess,” he continued slower this time, taking a sip of his tea before carrying on. “What does bother me is that she won’t talk to me about it,” Higgs admitted, looking at the cat rather than Pippa. “And I feel rather unreasonable for being bothered by it,” he concluded because at the end of the day, that was probably what was the main issue. That and Higgs’ uncertainty for what it meant for their marriage if Alicia wouldn’t talk to him about how she felt. Last time it had been what ruined it. -- Keeping one hand on the kitten, Phillipa retrieved her wine with the other and turned her attention to her friend. She could wait much more patiently for him to come out with it than she had her brother earlier that day, but the situations and stakes were entirely different. At his first statement, she raised an eyebrow but merely took a sip of her wine as she waited for him to go on. She gave a soft hum in response as he did, because being able to pinpoint what did and didn't bother him about that particular situation was important. "I think out of all the things that could bother you about that situation," she began slowly, mulling over her words, "it's interesting that is what does. That's not bad. I can see where she would feel weird talking to you about it. Have you told her it doesn't bother you? And I don't feel it's unreasonable, for the record." - “It is, though,” Higgs disagreed. It was unreasonable, and whilst Higgs did appreciate Pippa saying that it wasn’t, it hardly made him feel better about it. Alicia didn’t have to tell him anything. If she wanted to go to her brother for that sort of advice, she was perfectly in her right to do so. Higgs just wished she’d come to him instead. That wish, to him, meant a degree to which he was being unreasonable. The question, though, made him shrug slightly. “I’ve tried,” he told her. Higgs did honestly feel like he had, too. They’d had plenty of conversations about being open and honest. They knew that their marriage had suffered greatly in its first run because Alicia had kept her feelings from Higgs and he had been too slow at picking up on them on his own. It was rather frightening to imagine that that might happen again. “I don’t want to be the guy who demands things off of her,” Higgs said honestly. “I’ve never wanted anything but her. As she is.” There was another slightly shrug and Higgs reached out to pet Pushkin almost as if that would distract him from the thoughts in his head. “I’m not sure what else I can possibly do to make sure that she knows that,” he admitted softly because in many respects that was the core of Higgs’ current problem. -- "No, it's not," Phillipa argued, shaking her head. "The subject matter doesn't make it unreasonable for you to be bothered your wife won't talk to you about something. Communication is important and all that. It's not as though you're out there demanding she never have a secret from you and for her to tell you absolutely everything the moment she gets back from someplace." If that had been the case, she probably would have whacked him upside the head with a throw pillow and told him to stop being such a controlling prat. But he wasn't and that was what made it reasonable for him to want some open communication from his wife, in her eyes. "Terence, you're a good guy. You aren't demanding, and I don't see you turning into someone who is." She chewed at her lip for a moment before sighing. "I don't think it's unreasonable for you to want to know about how your wife is feeling. If you've already told her it doesn't bother you, I don't know, maybe it bothers her. Either way, maybe turn the conversation away from the ex of it all and toward something more general. Maybe then she'd be more open to it." - It didn’t seem worth fighting over whether Higgs’ feelings were or were not reasonable. He was happy to accept that Pippa didn’t think they were, but would doubtfully manage to accept that they actually weren’t. And no, Higgs really wasn’t demanding that Alicia never had secrets from him or told him everything, he just kind of wished for those things. But maybe feeling guilty for wishing that, was what made it okay. At her suggestion, Higgs sighed. Sighing, it seemed, was the go to response he had when talking about emotions. “I feel that I’ve tried that?” He offered unsure. To Higgs it felt like he had told Alicia, had assured her and reassured her and repeatedly told her that her feeling mattered to him and that he wanted to hear about them. If that wasn’t enough, then what was? “I dunno, Pippin,” Higgs finally settled on because there wasn’t actually much else he could think of saying. “Maybe I just need to accept the fact that whatever this marriage is, isn’t what I’d imagined it to be in my head,” which was a rather painful realisation to have, but perhaps it was for the better. -- Phillipa knew she didn't have all the answers, or even all the information. All she knew was that she was there to try and be helpful, and supportive. If Terence wanted to make his marriage work, she would do whatever she could to help. If he didn't, she was there to get him drunk to forget about it. So far she knew he was wanting it to work, so that was what she was going with. She couldn't make Alicia talk about anything, so she had very little to work with. "It's not a one way street, Terence," she said softly, reaching over and squeezing his hand. "You can give and try and do everything possible, but if the other person isn't doing the same, it doesn't do much of anything. You can't make Alicia do anything, or say anything, or want anything... and that sucks, but that's how it works." - Higgs knew the truth in Pippa’s words, had known it without needing her to say it, but it was somewhat reassuring and genuinely helpful to actually have her say it. Maybe that was what he had wanted, more than any actual advice. There wasn’t a fix-all that would make this easier, he knew that and maybe hoping for it had been rather silly to begin with. “Do you think locking myself away and having you indirectly feed me help?” He asked teasingly. It wouldn’t help him, Higgs knew that, but that was mostly because this was where him and Pippa differed rather than it not being helpful at all. “I’m sorry for being pushy about you marrying my sister,” Higgs said almost out of the blue. He wasn’t sure what else he could say about his own problems and going back to the reasons why Pippa wasn’t doing great didn’t seem particularly appropriate either, even if perhaps indirectly that was what Higgs was doing. The intention certainly wasn’t there. He did feel bad for potentially being the cause for any distress Pippa might have experienced, especially when originally Higgs had mostly just found the whole thing rather amusing. -- A soft smile turned up the corners of Phillipa's mouth and she gave his hand another squeeze. "If you do, you'd best be prepared for not much homemade food because Merlin knows I'm a horrible cook." She stopped mid-sip of wine at what he said after that, nipping at the inside of her lip as she set her glass down again and shook her head. His insistence on them being married was really far down on her list of problems, even when it came to that situation in particular. "Yes, well, we all have dreams," she said after a moment, sighing. "I suppose I can't be mad at you for believing so fully in yours." - -- “I’ll keep that in mind,” Higgs assured her with a grin. If he was to lock himself away, Higgs wasn’t sure he’d even need food deliveries. Maybe groceries. That could work, since then he could just cook things himself. Still, it was hardly as if this was going to become Higgs’ go-to plan. He’d probably go stir-crazy much quicker than it had taken Pippa. At Pippa’s reassurance, Higgs gave a laugh. He had made it pretty clear, he thought, that it was, in fact, a dream of his that one day Pippa would marry Gemma and they’d make each other extremely happy. The wedding wasn’t even that important, really, despite Higgs’ insistence on hats, for as long as the being happy bit was there. “You and Gemma doing alright, though?” He asked. “In a non-marry, non-hat-buying kind of way?” Higgs clarified. It had been a while since he had spoken to either of the women but usually they seemed to cope pretty well on their own, so Higgs never felt like his intervention was needed or in any way expected. -- It was good to make him laugh after how heavy their topics of conversation had been up until that point, and Phillipa smiled, turning a little more in how she was sitting to face him. Feeling he might be a bit more in need thanks to the whole Alicia situation, she carefully shifted the kitten over onto his lap, pulling her legs up beneath her as she settled in. "I think so," she replied after a moment. "When shit goes down, you never really know what to say to someone, or how to be when you see them." She paused, nipping at the inside of her lip. "I helped her find a dress for the gala on Friday, and that was nice, so I think we're alright. I hope so, at least." - Higgs accepted Pushkin when Pippa moved him over. Personally, he wasn’t too convinced which one of them would need the cat more, but for now, Higgs was quite happy to alternate whose lap the kitten ended up in. Pushkin seemed rather happy for as long as there was any kind of petting involved. “That’s good,” Higgs said in response. He liked to think that he knew both his sister and Pippa well enough to presume that they’d always come out okay, but it was still nice to have it confirmed. “And I’m always here to support you with food for when shit goes down,” Higgs added with a grin. He would be there to support Pippa in whatever way he could and she needed, but Higgs hoped that Pippa knew that anyway, not needing him to spell it out. This time she had asked for space and food and Higgs had been more than capable of providing both, but that hardly meant he wouldn’t be willing to offer other support, too. “And bring you kittens to pet,” he assured her glancing down at Pushkin. Between food, hideouts, talks and kittens, they’d be alright. |