Jam (obscenereality) wrote in regulation, @ 2008-03-08 21:10:00 |
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Current music: | "Fall On Me" - R.E.M |
Entry tags: | backstory, ben dunstan, fred holden |
"Before the weight can hit the air..."
Who: Fred Holden & Ben Dunstan
What: Pork flavoured cheesecake, Fred planning to go splat, Ben calling Fred a tramp and a stupid bint.
Where: Scamander Park, then a bakery, then back.
When: July, 2006
Rating: R
Status: Closed; complete
Fred was having a slow day. There wasn't actually anything for her to behead or dematerialise or bury alive or stake or rip from limb to limb to scatter. She'd only had one and he'd been in one of the cells downstairs so she hadn't even gotten to travel for it. It was an immense killjoy for her. The life of an executioner, how unglamorous. Most of her day had been spent with paperwork. Crime of the Executed. Species of the Executed. Time of execution. Method of execution. Number of unsuccessful attempts. Length of time to pass. Injuries inflicted upon the executed. Injuries inflicted upon executioner. Description of execution. Name of executioner. Date. Sign. Stamp. Repeat. It was going to do her head in. Tedium and Fred just didn't get on.
In a desperate need to get away from her desk, Fred went wandering about. Most of the doors were closed or the offices were empty with people in the labs or out in the field. One, however, was occupied and the door was cracked open. She grinned despite the jerky that was clasped between her teeth. Pushing the door open, Fred entered without invitation and perched herself on the edge of the unoccupied desk "Blow anyone up lately, Ben? I saw bits of a suspicious looking type outside and I thought, 'look, Ben's doing such a grand job at this explosion thing.'" Tearing her jerky she grinned at him.
There was a sliver of bright light that came in through the window, so bright it almost seemed white and Ben had speculated a few times in the past it was the only light which was not artificial which his office received. While he knew this wasn't exactly the truth, he enjoyed grumbling about it on occasion, though truthfully he quite liked things the way they were, he in his office with the tiny sliver of light. Occasionally it provided him with something to focus on when concentrating.
This was, of course, what he was doing. Or it was what he was telling himself he was doing, anyway. A pencil was clamped between his teeth and he was chewing idly on it, one hand drumming a pen repeatedly off the surface of his desk. There were a few vague drawings tacked up on the other side of the room which he knew he was supposed to be concentrating on but right now his concentration was fleeting, erratic.
Sighing, he blew air out of his nose and almost jumped out of his seat when a woman waltzed into the room, her voice loud, her smile as bright and loud as her voice. He smiled back at her after a moment of blinking rapidly.
When he spoke he completely ignored her own words at first. "Oh, Merlin. A human. An actual living, breathing human. It's a miracle." He stood from behind his desk, stretching and nearly barrelling through her as he made efforts to leave the small cubicle. "The people in here aren't humans. Only imitations of them. You've no idea how happy I am to see someone who knows what living is like."
He tugged at her elbow, pulling her after him as he left the office and began to walk down the hall, long legs eating the ground. "Aye, I did, actually. There was someone down the shops that did my head in earlier. I don't know what her name was, but I dragged her back here and we blew her to smithereens." Glancing out of the corner of his eye at the blonde woman, Ben smiled widely at her, his eyes dancing ever so slightly.
And people said she was demented? She maybe killed people and/or things for a living, but she did not run in circles. And to think they trusted him with munitions. "Remind me again why we let you near the things what go splode?" Fred poked him in the side. Well, she aimed for his side but he was about a foot taller than her so it was about his waist height. It really was a bit awkward to look straight at a person and be chest heigh. Of course, it got more awkward when she pictured most people naked because clothes were strange, foreign things and that would leave her staring at his nipples. Not that Fred had ever seen Ben's nipples, but she had mental nipple to stare at. He had very nice mental nipples. It always made her want to reach out and tweak his nipple but that wasn't really appropriate workplace behaviour. Especially when Fred wasn't likely to use her hands to do it.
"You really do make me feel like the brightest light in your life, Jammy. I mean, you don't splode me and you get all mental and hyper when you see me. It sends my heart all aflutter." She pretended to swoon, back of hand to forehead, before jogging slightly to catch up. Ben was not short people friendly. "I should put you on a leash just so I can slow you down. Wee legs, Jammy! Wee legs! S'not fair. You're showing off that whole legs the length of my body thing." Fred pouted, making a face like a disgruntled six year old. The jerky that was once again being gnawed on killed the effect.
"Because I like blowing shit up," Ben said cheerfully, swatting slightly at the hand poking at his side. Really, there was only so much poking and prodding one was willing to put up with. Fortunately for him, Fred didn't seem to be in let's-poke-Ben-to-see-if-I-can-possibly-b
Tossing a glance over his shoulder, Ben purposely lengthened his stride and started humming softly to himself as he walked, almost as if he was ignoring her but not quite. "My legs aren't that long. If they were I'd be about another foot taller than I already am. That'd be worrying. I'd hit my head off ceilings and I quite like my head where it is." Stepping around a gurney filled with something which looked faintly akin to many pairs of pliars stuck to one another, Ben pushed open a set of double doors, watching them swing wide open before he walked through.
It was only when through the doors that he paused and waited for her, eyes on the jerky in her mouth. He sighed slightly, breath exhaled through his nose loudly. "Do you eat anything else? Ever? Once in the history of the planet?"
"I like gnawing on your shins but that doesn't mean they pay me to do it." Fred hadn't ever actually gnawed on Ben's shins. At least not that she could recall. They didn't look very appetizing, to be honest. Cannibalism was just not one of her quirks or kinks or whatever it counted as. Psychosis maybe? Fred shrugged and ripped off her jerky with her teeth again. "One day I'm going to come to bug you and you'll not have an arm or a nose or four of the toes on your left foot or something. Then where will you be? Well, St. Mungo's, but that's not the point. Actually, I'm not sure I had a point. Can I watch you blow people up? Oooh, it could be a spiffy new method for me on the job! Death by splode. You get test subjects, I get hands off and annoying clean up. But I also get to watch, thus it's totally a win-win situation. Mmhm!"
Fred wrinkled her nose. "You'd be freakish. Erm, more freakish and you already are. I've always wondered, does the weather feel different all the way up there?" She was smiling and purposely being a pest since he was walking faster and her little legs were starting to resemble Velma's just to keep up. "Wanker," she muttered as she tore off another piece of jerky.
Fred saw his plan with the doors and paused before the doors could swing back and smack her in the face. While they were open wide on her side she went scampering through. "Huh? What? I like jerky! I eat other things. You know, there's beef, pork, chicken, fish, crustaceans, veal, lamb...lots of options. " What was so weird about jerky?
Ben's head was tilted to one side, his ears slightly pricked as he only half-listened to what she was saying. The tone of voice, the bounce in her step and he was fairly sure she was rambling on nonsensically. In fact, half-listening proved that point as she jumped from topic to topic. His head nodding slightly as she spoke, hands pushed deep into pockets he only really turned his head back towards the woman when she mentioned watching him blow people up. "You do realise we don't actually blow people up, don't you?" he said in a very gentle voice, the tone suggesting he was breaking the news of a loved one's death to their family. "We are research and design. We research and design things. The clue's in the name."
Lifting a finger, a very solemn expression on his face, he licked the tip of it and held it up as if it a high altitude, testing temperature. Ben suspected it wasn't the right way to do it, but the old comics always showed people testing temperature with their finger stuck up in the air so he figured it was perfectly acceptable. Frowning, he nodded a bit. "It is a little, yeah. It's much chillier up here than it is when I'm sitting. Hmm, odd. Never noticed that before." The sarcasm was ripe in his tone, a slight bite to it.
"Jerky, beef, pork, chicken, fish...the list is endless." Ben's eyebrow quirked upwards slightly. "Is there anything on that list that say, isn't meat?"
Fred's frown pulled her entire face down with it. "Say it ain't so! God, you're such a disappointment. When I thought you blew people up you were hot. You've lost all your appeal now, Jam. All of it. Just...poof," she made a motion with her hands as if something had exploded or gone up in smoke. "Someone has to test it though. You are not so good as to research, design and then ohmygoditworksperfectly, y'know?" She looked at him expectantly and pointedly tore another strip off her increasingly dwindling jerky.
While she may have just barely reached, Fred did, indeed, reach up and swat Ben across the back of his head. "You do that to check wind direction you twat, not temperature!" She shook her head and started walking away from him, head shaking.
"Sometimes I eat a vegetable. Maybe a starch once a year. Why?" She liked meat, what was wrong with that? Fred had never eaten much in the way of vegetables or carbohydrates. Her body didn't need or crave them like protein. She'd been like that all her life though so it wasn't very odd to Fred at all. People and their pasta, now that was odd
Ben's expression wavered between faint amusement and a slight hint of disbelief. Really, there were some people who would be impossible to describe in words, people who words couldn't do justice to simply because there were plenty out there who wouldn't believe such a person existed. He knew well enough that, like as not, Fred was one of those. Occasionally he attempted to try and explain some of the people he knew to Stella and she shook her head, a light in her eyes telling him she simply didn't believe most of what he was saying. He hadn't attempted to explain the woman walking beside him at the moment to her; he suspected she'd attempt to institutionalise him.
"Okay, so maybe we test the things out," Ben admitted, words slow and drawn out. "But that's not the main part of what we're supposed to do." A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he said, "It may just be my favourite bit of it too but that's a secret."
Rubbing at his nose, Ben shrugged. "Wind direction, temperature...whatever. People in the magazines advertise falsely! I feel betrayed." He clucked his tongue. "In a short amount of time one of the effing editors will get a letter of complaint. Publishing cartoons to deceive us all."
"Have you ever heard of, you know, sweet food?" Ben asked, almost managing to sound complete serious. "Cheesecake, for example. Cheesecake is lovely. Heavenly. The best food on earth." He gazed expectantly down at her.
Fred's energy was building, which was always a bad sign for her when enclosed. She'd actually tried to scale the wall of the building once. Trimble hadn't been overly thrilled with that. Though, Fred expected it was more because he wasn't sure if she could sprout claws at times other than around the moon and then the side of his building would be torn up like an over large scratching post. Please. Like she needed scratching posts. That's what trees were for! Domesticated, pfft! A small hop was building into her step. She'd be skipping down the hall in no time at all. Poor Jammy, pulling her out into public view. Ish.
"Seeeeee?" Fred's eyes lit up and she tugged on Ben's arm like a little kid who wanted her dad to buy her a toy. "Look at that, still hot. No, seriously. I wanna see you blow stuff up. I mean, hello? Splody? Coolest thing ever." She wasn't tugging on his arm anymore, but she did still have a hold of it and was swinging it about mindlessly. "I might consider forgiving you for the non-people splody if you let me waaaatch." It was then she broke out the puppy dog eyes, even though it felt like a mild betrayal of her species, but cats just didn't do cutesy begging well. Mostly they didn't do begging at all.
"That's right, Ben!" Fred gave him a firm nod. "You write those editors. You give them a piece of your mind! But don't right 'effing' it completely destroys the moment and makes you seem a bit like a little boy." Her smile was one of those insincerely sympathetic ones as if she didn't understand his position but was willing to pretend she did.
"Cheesecake, huh? I've never actually had cheesecake before. Doesn't it come in flavours?"
"I could probably pull off letting you see me blow something up." His voice had dropped to almost a whisper, the sound of it hushed and loosing volume as he continued speaking, eyes darting around the room. They were currently passing a large group of people, several of whom waved at them and Ben smiled, nodded, generally did the polite thing that was required of him. "It'd likely not be at work. They might kill me. I could try for clearance.
"Or I could show you something outside of work. There's one spell we've been working on that can blow up something from the inside. It's marvellous." His eyes were lit up slightly with delight, blue becoming brighter at the thought. A slight frown, though, tugged his mouth downwards and he sighed. "Unfortunately, it only works for small things. So it'd probably be something like a clock we used."
Feet kicking one another, his shoulder pushing against the large wooden doors that led outside, Ben took a large, deep breath. "I miss air sometimes," he said morosely. "It's stale in there. Always, always stale. Makes my lungs feel like old bread. And what's wrong with effing? I guess I'm not comfortable with swearing unless it's called for. And it's not yet. Thus they'll be effers until they deserve I worse title."
Blinking slightly, he nodded. "Yes," Ben said, once more drawing his words out longer than was strictly necessary. "Lots of them. I'm partial to the strawberry ones, myself."
Fred blinked at him, then blinked a few times more in rapid succession. "Really?" Her grey eyes widened to saucers and lit up until they seemed to glow silver. "Reallyreally? Splody?" Hey, who didn't like a good explosion? Definitely only crazy people, that's who! Fred grabbed Ben with one hand on his far cheek and one on the back of his head so she could pull him down to Fred level and planted a big, firm kiss on his cheek before releasing him just as suddenly as she'd grabbed him. "You, Benjamin Dunstan, are very possibly the most amazing person in all the world if you did that. Love of my life, really." Fred was grinning from ear to ear. Clocks were okay. There were still bits that went flying and the lick.
"Effing's a cop out. It's wanting to curse without having the bollocks for it. If you don't like to curse then just don't. It's pretty simple, innit? Don't call them effers or effing idiots or whatever, just find something else. You sound like an idiot actually saying 'effing,' just so you know." Yet she had the sweetest smile on her face when she finished saying that. She bounced down the few steps to the grass and tension that hadn't been obvious before leaked out of her back, immediately making her look more relaxed. "It's not just stale in there, Ben. It seems funny. It smells of burnt flesh, old blood, metal and strange potions. I do not approve." It smelt like other things as well, but those were the ones that invaded her heightened sense of smell the most often. Fred endured only because she grew used to the scents that mingled in the air.
"Strawberry?" Fred peered at him curiously, head tilted. "I'd not have thought you a strawberry man. Maybe a blueberry or a chocolate. Just how many flavours does cheesecake come in?" Her smile looked sneaky for a moment before breaking into an amused grin, "Does it come in pork flavour?!" She wore her most dedicatedly enthusiastic expression possible.
Laughing, he nodded. "Really, really. I don't mind. Clocks are fun to blow up, because all the wires and springs and cogs go flying. You've to stand back, of course, because they go everywhere but it's ridiculously fun sometimes." Ben started slightly in surprise when hands gripped the sides of his face and pulled him down, eyes blinking furiously as Fred firmly kissed his cheek. The speed at which he was released sent him stumbling backwards slightly and he only managed to keep on his feet because his hand pressed against a wall and straightened his body.
"You're a horrid person," he told her, nodding resolutely. "Just because I think it sounds fucking awful." He said the words with a smile and eyes dancing slightly. "Burnt flesh. Lovely. No wonder it sometimes feels ridiculously stifling in there."
There was a moment during which he had been about to answer her seriously when the words "pork-flavoured cheesecake" made him splutter, his eyes widening slightly. "Pork. Flavoured. Cheesake." He blinked. "No. No, there is no pork flavoured cheesecake! Why would anyone want to do that!"
Fred, of course, completely ignored the part where he nearly fell over. It wasn't her fault if the Jammy couldn't recoup from a woman having a random bout of kiss. Really. He was just lucky she wasn't testing his balance, which was already clearly not great, by running and pouncing him. Oh the horrors she spared him. "I'm completely in favour of clock death! I'm not overly fond of the buggers anyway, to be honest. Always yelling at me and chiming at me and making me leave my warm, happy nap to go do something stupid like work or errands or other ridiculous, yet necessary, things. Alas!"
She stopped with her arms crossing under her chest and pouted at Ben. "I am not a horrid person! I am a lovely person. Completely brilliant, you hear me?" She made a higher pitched "huh" sound in the back of her throat that was at once squeaky and indignant. "Don't you ever go see what it is they do downstairs? Like walking into the barbecue from hell, it is."
Fred was looking at him as innocently as possible. Her eyebrows began to pinch together in the middle, innocence gone worried. Very seriously and innocently she said, "Because they really like pork?"
"The wee button on the side, the snooze one. It doesn't quite work the same as not having one of them about, does it?" A lengthly, slightly melodramatic sigh followed the words and Ben plastered a pensive expression on his face to go with it.
"What do they do downstairs?" Ben asked, head tilting to the side, curiosity in his tone. His stride was slower now than it had been inside, shortened to match Fred's pace, far more at ease outside than in. There was something soothing about nature and simple fresh air after sitting in a lab and then at a desk for a few hours. Sometimes he wondered how he managed to avoid going stir crazy, or coming down with a bad case of cabin fever.
Blinking a few times some more, spluttering still, Ben's head shook. "No. No. No. No. No. No. You can't have pork cheesecake. Pork is not an acceptable cheesecake flavour. It is a meat product--I know milk and all are too but they animal is still alive. You're not killing some poor animal and sticking it in my cheesecake!"
"I lack a snooze button. If I had one then I'd hit it over and over and over and over and over and then I'd never get anywhere because, let's face it, if you had the choice between being all warm and snuggly and napping and anything else, non-pork flavoured cheesecake aside, wouldn't you choose napping too? All nice and toasty in the sun napping, even! The great tragedy of life is that other things interrupt nap time." Fred sighed and made a very sad little face as if someone had stolen her favourite toy.
"Er," Fred made a face and shrugged. She stuffed the last bit of her jerky into her mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully, refusing to continue speaking until she'd swallowed. "They do stuff. Experimenty stuff sometimes. You know, on the critters we keep down there. I walked in on what I could only assume was electrototure a couple times. Then I stopped going down there when I wasn't actually requested to be there. It's kind of macabre."
Poor Ben. He was so very, very offended by the idea of pork-flavoured cheesecake and Fred would be such a liar to say she felt sorry about that. It didn't even sound appetising to her, but it was worth bringing up just for his reactions. "It doesn't have to be your cheesecake with the slaughtered pig in it. It could be mine. Though, I don't think cheese-pork is really the best idea ever."
"Oh thank God," he said, on a relieved sigh. "First off, that sounds entirely unappetising. Like eating dung, really, and giving it a fancy name. Did you know that Muggles use actually human poo as fertiliser, not simply animal manure? I read that the other day. Fascinating." His nose scrunched, face twisting slightly and he cleared his throat. "That was unnecessary but regardless."
His brows furrowed for a moment before his entire face lit up as if he'd just found out something extremely interesting. "Secondly...I'd not have eaten it. Making a mockery of cheesecake. Honestly." Ben clucked his tongue and shook his head, a slightly mournful expression on his face.
"Oh, poor, sensitive, little Jammy!" Fred hugged him around the middle and then reached up to pat him on his head. It was sort of the upper part of the side of his head though because she couldn't reach any higher without relinquishing the hold her other arm had on his waist. Top of the head was not so important for that. "And why were you reading about fertiliser?! And since when do they use human faeces? I thought they just used cow or something. Not that I know anything about farming, but still. Also? Gross." Fred scrunched up her nose and let go of Ben, feeling vaguely dirty now for having been in contact with him while he talked of faeces.
"Mostly I was making a mockery of you, does that make you feel better?" Fred grinned broadly at him. "I don't know cheesecake so it'd be right rotten of me to go around mocking that, wouldn't it?"
Patting the top of Fred's blonde head, a slightly amused look on his face, Ben shrugged. "I don't know. I wasn't really. I was just reading some magazine left lying around and it was interesting." He felt slightly odd telling someone that he found reading about fertiliser interesting. "So did I, actually. Although I always thought it was just horse manure. Apparently not, though. All kinds of chemicals are added into the stuff, of course, but still they use it. It's rather interesting. I keep wanting to read more about it."
He laughed, then, realising he was starting into rambling about what was perhaps on of the more odd things on earth to want to read about.
Apparently Fred was quite fond of making him want to splutter everytime cheesecake was mentioned. A slightly determined look on his face, Ben glanced at his watch and said, "Right. Early dinner. Come on. I'm taking you to this marvellous bakery that does the best cheesecake in the whole world. You will love it."
Turning to look straight at her he said, in a vaguely and teasingly threatening tone, "Or else."
"You are a strange, strange man, do you know that? I mean, really. Fertiliser. You want to read about fertiliser because you think it's interesting. Jesus, Ben, you need a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a fleshlight or something. I mean, seriously. Blowing stuff up? Total points. Fetiliser? Killed all those points and sunk you into the hole." She was shaking her head and very seriously considering buying him vast amounts of pornographic material because something wasn't write in the bloke's head and that'd shift him back to bloke-mode, right?
Fred eeped at him when he or elsed her. "If you're going to drag me around and force cheesecake on me then can I have a piggy back ride?" She grinned with big eyes. Hey, he was tall and she was short and it wasn't like she actually weighed much. "C'mon, there are twelve year olds who weigh more than me." Fred was so tiny because she was nearly all muscle. Someone who had a more normal fat ratio on their body who was her size would weigh less than she did. Most people poked at her and told her to eat more because of her size and she had to point out if she ate any more than she already did she would never be able to speak.
"A bomb with fertiliser in it would be really cool," Ben pointed out. "Imagine. A bomb goes off and people get showered with faeces. They'd not be the happiest people ever, sure, but what does that matter? It'd be bloody hilarious. And I think it might get me points with some people."
Head tilting he said, "Not sure about Trimble though. Might not be all that impressed with a shit bomb."
Eyeing the short, slim woman he blew out air in his cheeks, making him almost resemble a blowfish and then nodded, turning around and jerking his head. "Come on, then, you. Up."
Fred squeed happily and bounced. "You. Rule." It was sad, she thought, how easily she was turned giddy. Not many people would give her a piggy back ride, though, wee or not. She placed her hands on Ben's shoulders and hopped up on his back much more easily than most people would have managed. Her legs wrapped around his waist and she hugged him around his shoulders. "Jammy, you are the single most amazing person in the entire world. Seriously." She kissed his cheek and then perched her chin atop his head.
"Whoa, it's totally strange up here. Perspective is amazing. Hey! I can see over things! I could see the tops of people's heads!" For Fred this was a truly astounding thing. Normally she could tell you what the underside of a person's chin looked like, not what the top of their head did.
"Also? Can we not encourage you toward shit bombs? Especially not when I'm around? I'd feel bad because if I got caught in the kill zone of one of those things and got covered I'd have to kill you. I'm kind of fond of you, I don't want to have to kill you. Also, the smell would be something awful."
Both arms grabbed her, hoisting her up slightly and only when he was sure she was securely on his back did he let one of the arms drop and reached up, hand hunting around to lightly smack her around the back of the head. "Stop bloody kissing me. Someone will think you're being untoward." The words sounded extremely odd coming from his mouth, he thought, especially given the fact that he'd worked with Fred for a rather long time and, on top of that, had spent about a year being consistently bugged by her. He was not, however, all that saddened by such a fact.
He tried not to laugh at her next words, the surprised exclamation that she could see the tops of people's heads but it was hard and his shoulders ended up shaking, the woman sliding down slightly on his back. Whilst she wasn't heavy, not by any means, that didn't mean it was exactly easy to give a fully grown adult a piggy back. Frankly, walking wasn't the easiest thing.
"Would you yell my head off if I ran a bit?" he asked.
Heaving a large sigh, Ben said, "I suppose I can put thoughts of shit bombs out of my head for the moment. But only because I don't mind you."
"Aww." She slouched a little, then her legs crawled up from his waist to his ribs so she could pull herself over his shoulder and stare him nearly full in the face. "Maybe I am being untoward. I could even be more untoward." Her eyes flicked from his cheek to his mouth and back again. "It's not much of a distance to close, really. C'mon, your mouth is practically begging to be taken advantage of." Fred was, of course, kidding. Ben was more like a big brother to pester and unceremoniously steal the lap of than a bloke to go off and fancy. For one thing, he didn't eat meat and that was just wrong. Humans were kind of carnivorous. She was sure there was something, like the chemicals in his brain, that must have been off because of his lack of meat eating. Still, for a vegetarian Ben was damn cool. In a familial way. Like Trent. And Ford. Only Fred didn't think Ben would ever be okay with naked, group nap time like them. Pity. Ben would've been comfy for napping with.
His laughter had her sliding down his back again until she was peering over his shoulder and she'd dipped below his waist. "Not if you warn me first." Fred was climbing her way back up his body to a normal level again, her legs walking up to his waist once more from the lower part of his hips where they'd slid to when he laughed. She had the leg muscles and the arm muscle for it, Fred could have held herself onto him without his doing anything. She was pretty sure that was abnormal, though, so she didn't hold on quite as well as she would have needed to in order to accomplish such a thing.
"I've been worked up to 'don't mind'? Lovely! In another five years I'll reach 'fond.' Though I appreciate the not minding and the lack of faecal bombs."
Ben blinked slightly and then nodded his head slowly, his expression completely serious as he said, "Perhaps they are begging to be taken advantage off. However, the only thing they want to get taken advantage of by is probably my brain. Occasionally it tells it to just move and say what I'm thinking, which I reckon would probably count, don't you?"
His stride lengthened slightly, changing from a slow, meandering pace to a fast walk and before long he was practically jogging. It was easier, in all honesty, because he was covering more ground in a shorter amount of time. The effort exerted wasn't catching up with him at the moment and Ben felt rather glad for the fact that he'd decided to stop sitting about on his arse and do something.
Still jogging, Ben made it to the street proper before he slowed his pace and went to drop her down off his back. "C'mon, I'm not walking down the street with you sitting on my back. Too odd."
"Nope! Doesn't count." She would have pouted for effect but he couldn't see her anymore anyway so she didn't bother much with it. "Proper taking advantage of requires way more action than a bit of talking. Your brain is falling down on the job, love."
Fred was ducked down behind his shoulder so only her eyes peered over it. It helped to balance her because having your head bouncing about when someone ran with you on their back was a little awkward. Not to mention she didn't fancy the headache that'd come from it. When he started to drop her Fred's legs clamped tighter around his waist so she didn't go anywhere. "Thanks for the ride, Jammy love," and she kissed his thus far neglected cheek with a big grin. "I enjoy being untoward with you."
Her legs released and dropped from Ben's waist and was then quickly followed by her arms letting go of him and the small body dropping to the ground gracefully. "You're much odder than you think. You could have pulled off having me ride around your shoulders in the middle of a shopping centre if you wanted."
Ben grumbled slightly, half-heartedly, his elbow knocking against hers as he walked across the road, pushing open the door of the bakery and walking in. The smell hit him instantly, the almost comforting scent of baking bread filling his nostrils and he grinned over his shoulder at Fred. Maybe he would be able to convince her to actually eat something other than meat. He hadn't realised before he'd never really seen her eat anything but dead animals.
"I don't think so. You'd probably have whacked your head on the ceiling or something going in and ended up with a concussion. It'd be right awful, I bet. You'd have such a bad concussion you'd never ever be the same again. You'd probably come out of the thing so drastically changed you'd be a brunette and a big, hulk-like figure." Although he didn't turn his head this time to see her expression, Ben said, "Don't pull faces, it could happen!"
He waited until the woman being served had cleared off before wandering up to the bakery counter and ordering a cheesecake. He had come here with a purpose and damned if he was going to walk away without it being no longer being a purpose, but an achievement.
Fred wrinkled her nose when all that sweet hit her nostrils. Her inner cat had never changed her DNA so that she couldn't taste anything sweet like actual cats, but it did give her a serious preference for things that weren't sweet. Fred had, in fact, never met a sweet she liked. They were always just too sweet and it was unappetising.
The face she was making only got worse with the word "brunette." She swatted Ben's arm when he told her not to make faces. Maybe he knew her a little too well from all her constant bugging she always did. "I'd be dead sexy," she said without conviction. Fred had nothing against brunettes, of course, she just thought she'd be something sickly looking as one herself.
While Ben set about accomplishing his cheesecake acquisition Fred poked about staring at the stuff through the glass of the display case. Most of it just looked so...boring. And bready. Why on earth did anyone need so much damn bread all the time?
The cheesecake was passed over the countertop and Ben reached out, grabbing a hold of it and thanking the woman there. Ushering Fred down to the till, paying for it, and then tugging her over to one of the small tables in the corner of the bakery. He sat down, long legs stretching out almost instantly and cut into the cake, before handing a tiny piece over to the woman across from him.
"Here you go. This is cheesecake." Lifting his own slice, he bit into it, enjoying the taste and texture, smiling broadly at the blonde
Fred was an obedient little circus cat for the moment, being ushered and tugged and generally directed until she finally found them at a table. She wanted to perch on the back of the chair but people always got mad at her for that. Too bad because this low to the ground thing wasn't as much fun.
"I'm not an idiot, Ben, I knew what cheesecake was. Though, really, a giant cake made of actual cheese could have been cooler." Fred, of course, had to inspect it first. She sniffed at the top. She sniffed at the side. She sniffed at the crust. She gave a tentative lick. Only after deciding it wasn't going to be an awful experience did she finally take a small, experimental bite. Chewing was slow and deliberate so she could analyse the texture and the flavour. She wasn't sure if she liked this whole cheesecake thing or not.
"Why would anyone want to make a cake made out of cheese?" His face twisting with the thought and his head tilting slightly to one side he started to contemplate exactly how that would work out. The taste, to his mind, was absolutely disgusting. He'd bet they'd not even use cheddar which was one of the least disgusting cheeses, but instead go for one of those awful French cheeses his mother had been so very fond of. "Cake and cheese just do not go together. It's like lumping ice-cream and steak into one category and having someone eat them both together." Ben attempted not to dwell too long on that thought as it made him feel vaguely ill.
The woman's wariness was faintly amusing and he ducked his head down, trying to hide the grin that was teasing his mouth. Ben held the cheesecake slice over his mouth in his lousy hiding attempt, eyes dancing with mirth.
"It's not going to eat you, you know," he pointed out. "And I promise it's not poisonous either."
"Because cheese is good, of course. Good things become cakes, right? Chocolate and carrots and, erm, whatever that yellow stuff was. But I could pass on the chocolate cake. Blech." Fred made a face at the thought like she'd eaten something awful. She was not a fan of chocolate, it tasted like cardboard to her. Whatever effect her inner kittycat had on her taste buds was overwhelming where chocolate was concerned. "I'd eat ice cream and steak together," she pointed out quite seriously. That wasn't an awful combination necessarily. A little non-traditional, but there were worse combinations of foods out there. Like chocolate-covered fried chicken. What a waste of chicken that would be!
Fred eyed the cheesecake slice defiantly. "It's not predator enough to eat me!" Then she snapped her jaws at it, taking a larger bite. She was still considering as she chewed it. It was kind of cheesy. She liked cheese. And it wasn't overly sweet which was good and the crust was minimal so her bread-type loathing was at bay. "It doesn't suck," was the best conclusion she'd come to so far.
"You wouldn't." The disgust in his tone was apparent and Ben's head shook slightly, a mournful glint appearing in blue eyes. "That's horrible. Really awful." His hands pulled a serviette towards him and he started twisting it between them, fingers tearing the corners of it and piling the ripped pieces in front of him just slightly. His hands pushed at it, arranging the pieces into a perfect pile while he did so, but he barely noticed.
"You have a low opinion of cheesecake," Ben sighed. "You realise this means I can't talk to you again, don't you?"
"I'm not done deciding on cheesecake yet," she pointed out and raised the small piece still left as proof of this. "I'd be horribly distraught, you know. If there was no more Ben I'd throw myself off the roof of Scamander Park, and splat I'd be all over the pavement. All because the Ben's got no more love for me." Fred pouted quite severely and slouched down in her chair until she was nearly falling off it.
"Also? Chocolate-covered chicken fried steak. Now there's an awful combination. Makes ice cream steak sound lovely, doesn't it?"
"Don't do that!" Ben instantly protested, voice louder in the bakery than he wanted it to be. A few odd looks from those surrounding them were garnered and he lowered his voice. "Trimble would kill me for causing such a mess." A grin tugged his lips upwards and he leaned back slightly in his chair, making it rock backwards on its legs, a teasing lilt in his words. "I quite like living, aye, and I'd be horrified if it was cut short because you decided to go all scary and suicidal on me." He mildly glared at her. "Besides, why throw yourself off a building when you can do things which are much more fun?"
Ben blinked then and said, "Of course, I don't know many fun ways of killing yourself but I'm sure one could be thought up."
He gagged at the sheer thought of chocolate-covered chicken fried steak, a vivid picture of aroma, taste and its look coming to mind. It was quite frankly the most unappetising mental picture he had ever had. "Oh, Circe, why do you have to ruin ice-cream like that for me?" he moaned, pitifully.
Fred's head tilted a little, ears listening to the sound of the chair's legs rocking on the floor. She wait waiting to hear the beginning of the scrape which would signal Ben's untimely fall to the ground. She was certain there was a possibility of such a thing coming and she didn't want to miss out on the amusement of witnessing it. Hey, you could be a mate without being all whiny and stupid over things and laughing at friends instead! At least Fred thought so.
"Fun suicides? I suppose I could jump off a cliff and free fall for miles before impacting on the razor sharp rocks. Or I could get eaten by a werewolf," she said mostly for the irony that Ben was completely unaware of. "A vampire could suck me dry, that could be hot if it's anything like the movies. Or, I could have death by shagging. Friction so intense we're set on fire and combust!"
Fred gave Ben a wide grin and ate the last of her slice of cheesecake. "It's not my fault you're so easy and squeamish, Jammy. If you had a pair you could handle it."
"You would like to free fall for miles?" Ben repeated. "Are you completely insane? No offence meant to you, just a question." A snort escaped him and he lifted a hand to his mouth, covering it as he laughed. "Death by shagging. Is that possible? People have had heart attacks during sex before but is it actually possible to be shagged to death?" Ben's fingers drummed off the table, still tilting the chair back slightly and when the chair wobbled his hand shot out, long fingers curling under the underside of the table, grabbing at the ridge there and pulling himself forwards.
Clearing his throat he mumbled, "That didn't happen," before hurrying on.
"I don't know anyone who would want to handle that. Perhaps through it back up, aye, sure, but just not handle it." His face twisted bizarrely with the words, eyes wide and nose seeming to spread until it obscured half of his face.
"I don't know if it's possible. I could try." Fred waggled her eyebrows at him and propped her chin up in her hand as she stared at him. There was a sly little smile curling her lips that hinted she was inviting him to try with her. She wasn't. Mostly Fred was just pretty sure Ben would be scared, creeped out or run like a girl at the suggestion which is why she was making it silently. She just liked to see people squirm. "Also, why wouldn't I want to free fall? It's got to be a sort of freedom in the air, hurtling toward the ground. It's only the impact that's actually a problem. Otherwise it's just like flying."
Fred heard the scrape she was waiting for, wood on linoleum, and her eyebrows perked up. She watched, neck craned, but then Ben saved himself. Her shoulders drooped and her arms crossed over her chest. With a heavy sigh she confirmed, "No, it didn't." There went her cheap entertainment of the day.
"Ben, you're quite a girl sometimes, you realise that?"
"Well, there's the knowledge that the impact comes at the end of the fall, isn't there? While free falling you know you are going to crash into that ground and for most people a lot of fear would rise up in them, they'd be bloody terrified and start thrashing about like a mad thing. Do you not think that would alter it somewhat from the perception that it's almost like flying?" The questions poured like quick lava out of his mouth, eyes flashing slightly with curiosity and interest with each one, completely ignoring the first words the woman had spoken. After all this time he had somehow slowly began to get used to it.
"I'm not a girl. I have the equipment to prove it."
"People ignore all sorts of things. They ignore affairs and murders and racism and prejudice and wars. Hell, Ben they ignore the bloody Holocaust! Some people are still claiming it never even happened. You're telling me I should worry about a little impact? Close your eyes and ignore it just like people ignore all sorts of other things. It wouldn't really be that hard. Besides, it probably wouldn't even hurt," she pointed out. "If you jumped from high enough when you hit the ground you'd die on impact. You wouldn't have time to feel it before you were gone. Though, it doesn't eliminate the panic margin. You know, people slit their wrists or swallow a bunch of pills and then a minute into it realise they don't want to die so they call someone or get themselves to A&E. If you're going to jump there's no going back. There's a sort of beauty in that, isn't there?" Fred was completely serious about the beauty of it, even though they were talking about suicide. Fred wasn't pro-suicide though, not by a long shot. She was very, very pro-Fred, especially pro-Fred living. Depression was overrated. Suicide was entirely overrated.
"I have no proof that any such equipment exists. For all I know that could be balled up socks in your trousers."
"The Holocaust was that thing were they killed all the Jews, wasn't it?" Ben murmured, knowing that for the truth before the woman confirmed it. "I read they ignored it. I also read that anyone who ignored it was completely bloody stupid, but I think that may have been my scrawled notes in the margin. How something that big could be ignored, I can never guess at. It'd be like people saying the Dar--that Voldemort didn't exist, wouldn't it?"
Ben frowned. Ben sighed. And then Ben shook his head. "Why wouldn't they just use the Killing Curse on themselves? It's quick, it's painless. Do people slit their wrists out of a want for attention? Even if they're truly depressed, I can't imagine doing that. There's no guarantee someone isn't going to find you, something isn't going to happen. You're going to have a window of time during which, no matter what, you can be saved. It's medical fact. Do people honestly, on some level, crave attention? What's wrong with jumping? Or slipping a noose around your neck and--" Ben stopped and shook his head once more, hands waving through air. "Never mind."
Snorting, he said, "I'd not do that. I'd, um...I'd be sure to provide proof for you, if you wanted." And then he burst out laughing, snorts and giggles erupting from him as he tried to picture how that would go over.
"People are astoundingly dense, of course." Fred nodded sagely. "If you incinerate or bury a lot of the bodies in mass graves and generally think not too highly of the people affected by it, which also included gypsies and gay people, then it's easy to look the other way and say there's no way they were tortured or killed or whatever." She shrugged and let out a deep breath. "People's capacity for apathy's kind of amazing, actually. It's like if someone did that to werewolves." Fred wasn't big on werewolves herself, and for reasons over than dog versus cat issues, but it was the most vivid example that came to her mind. "If someone rounded up the werewolves and did all sorts of experiments on them and killed them en masse people could easily claim it never happened. Out of sight, out of mind and they're happy there's fewer wolves wandering about when the sun starts to set near the full moon."
Tilting her head to the side, Fred stared curiously at Ben. "Does that even work? I mean, I know there's this whole intent thing that factors into things, but don't you have to see the spell through? Would the Killing Curse even work if you tried it on yourself. Besides, you need to remember, there's a huge, overwhelming population on the planet who don't have wands and so they can't curse themselves. Besides, hanging yourself is only truly effective if you fall from enough of a distance to snap your neck. Otherwise you suffocate to death and someone could still find you. Also, it would suck."
Did Ben just offer to whip it out? Maybe he wasn't thinking of it quite in those terms, but he definitely had. Fred blinked a him and then gestured with her hand as if in invitation. "Alright then. C'mon, prove yourself right."
"The less wild, blood hungry werewolves out there the better," Ben murmured, his voice low and his head ducked. His fingers twisted around one another and he swallowed slightly, memories of the tales his parents had told him, his grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, everybody and members of what that lot had done to Sharon and Brian years beforehand coming back to him. He could almost smell the blood, taste the copper tang of it in the air years later and it unnerved him, sent a chill crawling up his back. Ben shuddered with it and then turned the slight shudder into a massive coughing fit.
"I don't know if it would work on someone who did it to themselves. I assume it would. It works on intent, after all, and if you're that intent on killing someone, killing yourself, it should, shouldn't it?" Ben's head tilted to the side. "It seems logical, anyway. For those that have wands, that is. So many of them do things the Muggle way." Another serviette was lifted and he began tearing that one into pieces, the movement quicker and more vicious than the last time he'd done this.
Blue eyes widened in surprise and then he blinked frantically at her. "Did you just say okay to that? No fucking shit?"
"Not arguing." Fred had no love lost for uncontrolled animals. Wild animals were wild animals, but she didn't think werewolves were exactly natural like a bear was. Even then, bears only attacked what went into their land and threatened them or they attacked prey for food.
That was it. The more legendary werewolves roaming about the less safe it was for Fred. The less safe it was for her family and for anyone else wandering about under the moon like that. She didn't take kindly to threats against her family and some nights she had to be convinced to not go out hunting werewolves instead. After all, a leopard could take down a wolf, couldn't they?
"I don't know, it's easy to cast something on another party than on yourself. I mean, have you ever tried to levitate yourself or transfigure yourself? Aim alone could be a bit off. It'd be like when people put a gun under their chin to kill themselves but they don't end up dying, just destroying their frontal lobe or whatever and they end up drooling on themselves for the rest of their life where as if they'd just put the barrel in their mouth they'd have blown out the back of their head and they would be dead, not drooling. Could be the same sort of thing, yeah?" Watching his hands, Fred stared at all the little bits he was creating. "What've you got against that poor, defenceless thing?"
Fred was trying really hard to wipe that cat-got-the-cream smile off her face, but she was failing gloriously. "I did. Got a public shyness thing going on or something?" She didn't expect him to do it, which is why she had decided she was going to demand proof. "We could go somewhere more private, better lit, maybe a bathroom stall somewhere."
Ben stared down at the serviette, the torn white pieces lying on the table and shrugged. "Nothing. Nothing against it at all." He pushed all off the ripped pieces into a pile sitting on the middle of the table and then patted the top of it saying soothingly, "You've done nothing wrong, little pile. Don't worry. I still love you."
After a moment, he nodded and then said, "Pile and I have reached a conclusion, Fred, and that is that I still love Pile and Pile still loves me but Pile understands that occasionally I need to give it a good ripping to take out my nervous habits, see?"
Ben eyed the blonde for a moment and then stood, kicking the chair back slightly. "Alrighty, then. If you want to disappear into the men's loos with me and be forever stared at in an alarmed fashion by people 'round these parts--well, this cafe, really, the up you get."
Fred shook her head. "I really hope you never love me because I'd be damn pissed if you took to trying to shred me up because of nervous habits. Don't you need to be nervous to have a nervous habit? Are you perpetually nervous, Jammy? Do you have an anxiety disorder? Do we need to get you on medication so you're calm and you don't one day try to explode the entire bakery because you think there's pork-flavour in your cheesecake? Do we need to send you to the mental ward? Do you just need restraints or do we need to get you a padded room with a self-love jacket? You do realise Pile is only Pile because of your nervous habits and was likely perfectly content being Serviette before you came and changed its existence forever, don't you?" The questions all came in rapid succession without stopping for air once until she'd finished.
Oh, Fred hadn't expected that. See, Ben was supposed to tell her she was mental or threaten to report her for sexual harassment or something. She was willing to bet he'd back out. When she stood or at the door to the men's room or something. Somewhere between here and there he'd chicken out. He had to. So she stood up and gestured for him to lead the way. "There are loads of other reasons for me to be stared at in an alarmed fashion. You know that. This is really fairly mundane. Even if I faked incredibly loud orgasm sounds."
Ben's face darkened, a scowl twisting his features into a grotesque mask. "I would do more than explode this place if they put pork flavouring into my cheesecake. I would burn it down to the ground. Burn it so that the smell of baked goods filled the air for miles, burned it so that I could come and make my toast on the flames and people from Alaska could come here to be warned up. Bombs would be too good for people who put pork anywhere near cheesecake."
His feet shuffled against one another and then he said, "You know, those medications sound like a good idea. I've been thinking of visiting a shrink. I think I might really, really need one sometimes. And don't be silly! Serviette was never content. It wanted to become Pile. You lie, woman. You lie big time."
She was standing and her arms were waving. Ben wasn't sure what that meant here but usually that meant go on ahead. Except that wasn't right because she was meant to gape and sit there and tell him he was insane and she wasn't moving because such a thing would be bad. She was meant to tell him to stop being such a div and that she could see he was a male already, due to the toned muscular but lithe frame he maintained. Okay, so perhaps not that last bit specifically but she was supposed to at least tell him that she knew he was a man already and there was no need to go ahead and drop his keks to prove it.
She was not supposed to stand. In any universe.
Still, after a moment of staring at her, a moment of debate, he turned and walked towards the bathrooms, pushing the door open and walking straight in without looking back. All the while a war waged in his head, stubbornness and sheer stupidity left over from those apparently Gryffindor traits he had pushing against the sense he'd acquired that told him that what he was doing was immensely stupid.
Part two