Charlie Weasley wants to fly. (seekingweasley) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2017-12-04 16:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, charlie weasley (ex), jo harvelle |
Log; Charlie (ExO) & Jo
Who: Jo Harvelle & Charlie (ExOblivione)
When: Thanksgiving Day
Where: Weasley Thanksgiving
What: Talking & mild flirting.
Rating: Low
Status: COMPLETE.
Charlie had started his summer with a funeral and apparently ended it by ending up in a different world, with a different family, and skipping September, and October to go straight to November. To say he didn't know what he was doing quite, was a bit of an understatement. But he felt like he was beginning to get his legs under him - or so he hoped. The Prewett Cottage was still rather large for just him, but he'd been to the Burrow - and that hadn't been as difficult as he'd thought it might be - and he'd seen his Mum and she'd seemed to like him even and he'd found a bar he suspected he could spend some evenings with and he'd found a few people that he could talk to a bit about some things - at least as much as he needed to about anything. And if he'd spent his evening moving back and forth between the Charlie that was the Cannon's star seeker, and easy going at parties, and the one who put his foot in his mouth far too often, well it was only to be expected, wasn't it? Especially under the circumstances. But one of those people he'd enjoyed talking to thus far was sitting on his Nephew's - his nephew! - couch, and Charlie picked up a cup of juice before heading her direction. "It's not the best beer in Texas, but Helena was raving about it earlier," he gave her a cheeky grin and extended the cup towards her. "You can see if the youngest critic is right or if she should save her reviews for the under ten set." By the time she made it to the Harry Potter meal, Jo was fairly tapped out when it came to eating, but she still put in a decent effort to at least take a little bit of most items. The nice thing about such a large group was that no one really noticed if you only took a couple bites of something before moving on to the next item. It was still a little strange in general to be in the middle of it all. For someone who hadn’t trusted magic way back in her own world, and who had grown up in a saloon as an only child, finding herself in the middle of a huge magical family was a little jarring - but living at the Burrow had helped with that somewhat. She and Charlie had gone from it being the two of them and Bobby to just the two of them, and to a house half full of people, and then back down to a couple. Now, the place was getting full again, and as she sat on the couch at the home of one of the others from that universe, she was a little bemused as she watched her roommates and everyone else just spend time together. After stretching a bit, her dark eyes shifted when she spotted the newer Charlie walking over to her, and Jo sat up and offered a friendly smile when he reached her. Taking the cup, Jo lifted it for a small sip, then tilted her head as she pretended to consider it. “Well - I think we may have the makings of a bonafide drink critic on our hands.” She sat back with a grin and nodded to the spot beside her. “Wanna join me?” Charlie's lips turned up in a quick grin at her response and her offer. So far he had to admit that Helena, the niece he'd never have at home, had wrapped herself around his little finger. She was feisty and enthusiastic, and definitely part Weasley. He was going to talk to Albus about taking her up on his broom as soon as he figured out the ins and outs of how Quidditch worked here. But for the moment his focus was on Jo and he sat down beside her, taking a sip of the cup and pretending to consider it as well. "You know, I think you're right," he affirmed. "I'll pass on our gratitude to her." Jo had been one of the first people to talk to him when he arrived here, and while he was still making sense of this world and the different oddities in it, Charlie had pretty much always put 'pretty girls' at the top of the list of things he'd sort out in a new situation. And Jo was certainly that. But more than that, she'd offered him a warm welcome, answered his question about where to go to get drinks, and even better, invited him to her bar. Admittedly, that meant he also wanted to be careful, cause he'd enjoyed his visit to the Roadhouse and he'd prefer not to cut it off as an avenue for future long boring winter evenings. "I've decided Thanksgiving is like Christmas, only minus the tree and presents," he quipped easily. "I assume we do something like this for Christmas too? Which means two large dinners in a month of each other? This place isn't all bad." “Sounds good,” Jo replied with a smile, shifting so that she could face him a bit more as he sat. She was curious to learn more about him since she liked to think knew his other universe counterpart pretty well, after having lived with him for so long. Letting out a laugh at his words, Jo gave a nod after a moment. “That’s a good way of describing it, yeah. Welcome to America, where there’s a holiday almost every month, and food is generally involved. Food and shopping, since capitalism reigns supreme. And yeah - I imagine there will be a big thing like this next month. Last year there were a different mix of people around, so I didn’t spend the holidays with too many from your universe, but if it’s like this? I’m kind of looking forward to it.” Jo shot another amused glance around the room, still amazed that everyone had actually fit, before returning her attention to Charlie. “How are you doing with all this craziness?” "A holiday almost every month with food, sounds good," Charlie laughed back. It was nothingness, but nothingness sounded surprisingly good to him after the insanity that had happened earlier in the week. He supposed there were worse things than showing up in another dimension just in time for a holiday. He shrugged, looking around at the group. "This is sort of what I remember as a kid," he offered. "It wasn't really like this when I was older cause it was just my brothers and I and my Uncle's but it wasn't bad either." There had been some good holidays in there. In all honesty, he was kind of grateful he wasn't trying to navigate the holidays at home. Considering he'd had a fall out with his Uncle Gideon, he hadn't really even given thought to what Christmas would look like. This was definitely preferable. Charlie tilted his head at her question. It was a more serious one - less nothing, and more something. But he supposed he could handle a bit of something. "You know, I think I'm settling," he shrugged. "I don't know if I'm really at ease with it, mind you, but I think the idea has sort of settled in my brain so it's not quite as mad sounding as it did before, you know? It's still a little weird to think this world has two of me. Seems like one ought to be enough," he paused and then chuckled. "I'm guessing he'd say the same." "Yeah? I was an only child, and after my dad died, it was just me and my mom. We didn't go all out for the holidays, but they weren't bad. Just nothing this..." She waved a hand to indicate the room in general. "Elaborate." Jo gave a shrug, then shifted her attention back to Charlie. "I think you're right, he probably would - though he's gone through it before." Jo lifted her cup for another sip of the juice, and smiled faintly at him. "You know you don't have to get used to it right away, right? You can take your time. Nothing says you need to be okay with it overnight. It can take some getting used to, the whole alternate universe thing." "Yeah, I know," Charlie smiled, trying not to let his mind run down into the darker places it had been threatening at points this week. It had helped to talk to himself - and by himself, he really meant not-himself - earlier But it was still strange, and that was putting it mildly. "I'm trying to figure out the likelihood of me ever really getting used to it," he shook his head. "And having a little sister and brother that I don't know? That's strange too." But he didn't need to talk all about himself, in fact, really it was easier to not do so under the circumstances. So he took another sip of the drink and glanced over at her. "What's it like where you grew up? What's your mom like, or family? You said your Dad had passed. Were you young?" “You probably will eventually, if you’re here long enough. Most people do, as they adjust and settle into this place.” Jo could empathize, because she had gone through that initial adjustment period herself - and then she’d had to deal with friends she cared about at different times coming and going as well. It wasn’t easy. At his questions, she gave a nod. “I was ten. I grew up in a saloon in the middle of a dust bowl, basically. I’m from Nebraska.” She paused for a sip, then went on. “Had this one friend who was sort of like a brother. His name was Ash. And my mom - she was...tough. And kind.” It was weird to even talk about her mom or Ash right now, but she found that considering how much time had passed...she was a little bit more okay with it than she used to be. She still missed them, but some of Jo’s ache had faded over time. “I was an only child, though.” Nebraska didn't mean that much to Charlie, but he figured it was someplace in the states and he could look it up. He'd do that later, but for now he listened. Ten wasn't a lot older than seven. A bit, but still too young to lose a parent, even if it was only one. He sobered slightly, face offering an empathetic smile. "Was it the same saloon you've got here? The Roadhouse?" “Yeah - there were some differences in how it looked. The one here is, you know, cleaner and newer and all. But it was the Roadhouse. It was burned down a couple years before I showed up here, and my mom and I went on the road for a little while.” One shoulder lifted in a shrug as she finished off her juice and set the cup down, then looked over at him again. “It’s still home, though.” "It's a good place," Charlie grinned at her, tilting his cup just slightly towards her as if in a toast. "Or at least I have to say that I'm finding it a nice place to be in the evenings. And the company is good too." It was certainly better than being at his place in the evenings. He was finding there was a fairly significant difference between being alone at his apartment in London, close to everything, and being alone at the cottage he'd grown up in - without anyone else around and much further away from anything happening. Probably he was missing the camaraderie of the practices and other Quidditch professionals more than he really wanted to let on to. Charlie wasn't great at being alone. At least, not in this way. "Obviously you're in with my family, do you have other people here that you know? “Thanks. I’ve put a lot of work into it, and I’m proud of what’s come from it.” Jo smiled a bit, relaxing more into the couch. She was definitely more comfortable with this conversation than she had been with the one about her family. “I do - I’ve been around for a while. There’s one person from my world right now, Sam Winchester - he and his brother and I go back a few years. I’m also friends with his wife, Kate. Plus, there’s Damon, the Roadhouse’s co-owner, and Snow White. She’s a good friend, too.” There was history with pretty much all of them, but it was a lot to go into right now, so instead Jo kept things light. “Snow is actually how your brother and I ended up living together. She’d invited us to stay in her place back in January, when it was feeling kind of empty to her...and then we all went to space. We got back a couple months later, and then in May she disappeared, along with her house. The Burrow was here, and my stuff somehow ended up there after Wolf Manor was gone, so Charlie offered me a room.” Lifting her shoulders in a shrug, she grinned a bit. “And here I am.” Charlie nodded, following through the different pieces of the story best he could. They weren't any of them people he'd met yet - at least he didn't think they were - other than himself. Or the other him. But he was going to have to catch up, get to know people, and people besides the other version of his family. Jo was a start, and really that had more or less been what he'd always had to do, right? Being a Quidditch player had meant meeting lots of people and some of those people had stayed around in his life, but most had been somewhat transitory anyway, the major exception being that family. Well, except for his parents - long ago. "That sort of thing happen often? I guess," he paused, wrinkling up his nose. "Guess my Uncle's cottage hasn't always been here has it? It arrived with me more or less? Is there any end to the bizarre aspects of this place?" “Sometimes, but not too often, thankfully...which is good, because it’d draw a lot of attention to us as a whole if people started noticing houses randomly disappearing. And that’s exactly right - the cottage didn’t show up until you did.” Jo gave a shrug and shook her head. “Not really. Just wait until random things start showing up to mess with you, or gifts from home drop out of the sky in pods. One time, it rained and whoever got caught in the rain was forced to tell the truth. You never know what’ll happen around here.” That was a point Charlie hadn't even considered, but he supposed that was true. Maybe the place had some sort of magic, the ability to keep Muggles from noticing too much, or, well, the non-displaced types. Since obviously Jo sitting next to him was a Muggle, but she was sitting here in the Burrow, and that seemed perfectly normal. He supposed in a way the non-displaced types were the Muggles, and the Muggle displaced were their own sort of non-Muggles, cause they got it. And he'd about given himself a headache with that logic. He took a sip of the drink and laughed as he glanced over her. "See, truth serum rain sounds like the sort of thing that'd get me in hot water. I'd be standing next to some pretty girl and tell her I want to kiss her or something, and then were would I be?" Perhaps it was a bit too flirtatious, Charlie wasn't sure. Jo was pretty and she'd been awfully nice to him and he didn't really want to mess up his place to drink at the Roadhouse, but he supposed it was worth seeing what her reaction to it was. If she flirted back then even if she wasn't interested exactly in anything too much, they could maybe have that sort of flirtatious maybe relationship for a while. Then again, he didn't really want to mess up since she was friends of the family and living at the Burrow. He might be an idiot, but he kept his gaze on her anyway. In all honesty, Jo tried not to think too hard about she or anyone else being sent home. For her, it was a literal death sentence, so she focused on Tumbleweed and in the middle of the night, she’d hope and pray that nothing ever happened where one day she’d be sent back to her world. She also tried not to analyze all the weird things too often, because there were so many that if you thought too hard about them, they could drive you crazy. Rather, they were basically a part of life these days - for better or worse. At his words, the blonde grinned a bit and arched a brow. It was definitely flirtatious, but for someone who hadn’t been flirted with very often lately - and hadn’t been focused on anything romantic in a while - Jo didn’t think it was too much. “That would depend on whether or not the girl you told that to appreciated the honesty and was the sort to act on it or not.” Charlie grinned, eyes sparkling at the response. It wasn't a shut down, and she didn't seem uncomfortable, both of which felt like good signs for moving forward. He leaned back against the couch, still watching her, and tilted his glass slightly towards her. "In other words, it could get you kissed, or could get you kicked, depending on the woman?" Which, did seem to be about right in Charlie's experience, although usually he managed to get kissed not kicked. Usually. “Isn’t that always how it is? One way or the other.” Jo gave a casual shrug, then glanced over at the kitchen as his mother stepped out with yet another plate of food. Shaking her head with a faint laugh, Jo returned her eyes to Charlie again. “We should probably get over there before we get dragged, you know - though I’m starting to feel like I’ve eaten enough for three people.” "Well..." Charlie considered this question, but really it did tend to be one way or another. Occasionally just brushed off, which he could be offended by, but generally tended not to be. If someone wasn't interested, they just weren't interested. It was hardly the end of the world. "Yeah, probably pretty much." His gaze followed Jo's to his mother and then he shook his head. "Well, if you can't eat any more, I do have like a decade plus to make up for, so I'll take a hit for the team." He paused, then laughed self-deprecatingly. "I play for the Cannons, I'm used to taking hits," he added. "But word to the wise: you should try the pie, if nothing else, try the pie." Charlie pushed himself to his feet, and extended a hand down to Jo if she wanted it. “I can manage a few bites, and plus there’s always dessert, at least. And sneaking down in the middle of the night for leftovers.” Jo grinned at his words about taking a hit, shaking her head a bit. “One of these days I’ll try Quidditch for myself just to see what it’s all about.” She watched him stand, then gave a nod. “I can very rarely say no to pie,” she replied with a smile. Sliding her hand into his, Jo stood and followed him over to the main table that honestly she was amazed hadn’t collapsed in on itself, with all the food present. "You should do that," Charlie welcomed. There was nothing better than Quidditch in his mind, and if they could figure out a way so everyone could play it, then he knew he'd be happy to teach Jo. He finished off the rest of the juice he'd brought as he turned towards the table: "Pie then, and whatever else we can find the space for." |