InsaneJournal

rp log - scott and seamus
Characters: Morgan Hopkins and Seamus Finnigan
Setting: Backdated to May 3rd, early evening
Summary: Hugs and talks of comfort
Warnings: None!

Morgan had checked up on her father for what was probably the fifteenth time since he’d gotten back. At least that’s what he had said this one last time before giving her hand a kiss and telling her to let him sleep now. But she couldn’t help it. She sat in her room, trying to find something else to do, trying to see what else there was to do around the house but there really wasn’t much. She had tackled cleaning up the entire place the second she had gotten home. And it was like every hour, the anxiety rose up again and Morgan just had to see that her father was still in the house. Now, she sat in her bedroom, gliding a finger along the strings of her cello, meaning to play but everytime she picked up the bow, she put it down again. She just didn’t have the heart to play it anymore... as if it wasn’t in the long list of things she enjoyed anymore. Instead, she sat and waited for Seamus to arrive. He came just around sunset, still dirty and exhausted from the battle and the clean-up afterward. Morgan was first on his list after that - if she needed a hug, Seamus would see to it. He’d left her alone much too long already. He said hello to his aunt and uncle on the way in, gave hugs all around before heading straight up to Morgan’s room. There she sat, running her fingers slowly over the cello’s neck, bow propped against the chair on the floor. Seamus wondered if he looked so sad when he picked up his violin; the fingering still wasn’t coming right, and it was looking more and more like Concertmaster had become a pipe dream. “Knock, knock,” he said as he entered, offering a faint smile. “I hear there’s a need for hugs here?” Morgan looked up at him and didn’t say anything as she bounded off the bed and over to him, hugging him around the waist. She buried her face into his chest and for a moment, everything felt completely surreal. A small voice told her that it wasn’t real and it was all just her dreaming while she was still stuck in Gryffindor dorms -- like her mind had snapped after the confinement in the house for days on end. And everything else -- even the deaths she heard about -- that happened after that couldn’t actually be real either. Finally, she pulled away and smiled up at him. She pulled her mind away from the Gryffindor Tower and back to her bedroom, where her cousin stood. It felt strange to Seamus, too. They’d been pretending to hate each other since Christmas, and then he’d had to disappear, and now it was all over...and still he didn’t like the dark. The sun was coming down, and he kept thinking that he wished it wouldn’t. But maybe he’d worn himself out enough that sleep would come a little more easily tonight. “Good to see ye, princess,” he said, giving her a little smile back. “How’re ye holdin’ up?” Morgan hadn’t really seen sleep since that one hour she’d gone to bed right before McGonagall was rousing them all up. Every bit of news she’d received while sitting in Hog’s Head and then some at home pretty much kept her up. And then the prospect of seeing her father out of Azkaban... how could she think of sleeping through that? But the lack of sleep was starting to take a toll on her and she was pretty sure if she didn’t do it anymore, she’d eventually just fall asleep in her pea soup. “Good,” she said with a nod. “I’m just sitting and read the journal. And just making sure everyone is okay. How are you?” “All right, I reckon,” Seamus replied, an awkward half-shrug going along with his somewhat grim expression. “Been workin’ all day. Helps wi’ not thinkin’.” He’d started thinking earlier that day, with Lisa. Letting himself realize that Susan and Brie and Colin and Fred and a whole host of others were gone had hurt more than he could have imagined. There’d be a lot of funeral services to attend in the coming days, and he’d have time to do more thinking then. In the meantime, Seamus had decided he’d rather keep it out of his head as long as possible. The simple, heavy work of retrieving belongings from the various dorms made that easy - or at least it would as long as someone else was doing the girls’ dorms and he didn’t have to recognize any of Brie’s things, or Susan’s. Morgan had basically been doing the same thing but for the past hours she had been running out of that luxury. Having Seamus here would most definitely help comfort her -- so long as he didn’t mention the war. She stepped back, and went and sat down on her bed, indicating for Seamus to do the same. “How is Lisa? I haven’t... well I thought maybe Scott would need space so I’ve just stayed home. With Dad.” “She’s okay, I think,” Seamus replied, raking his fingers back through his hair. It was a common gesture for him, whether nervous or thoughtful. In this case it was a bit of both - Seamus was still worried about Lisa, and probably would be for a while yet. “I’ll go by tomorrow, I reckon. Been figurin’ the same ye were - that they’d need the time wi’ their family. An’ really, I need the family time too,” he admitted. “I’ve spent way too long barely bein’ able to talk to ye an’ Aoife.” Morgan nodded, feeling the same. Her brother had been pulled out of school right in the middle of the year and it was bad enough already that he was in another House (and that was probably what made it worse for Aoife and Seamus as well). But then a cousin in the same House, who she forced herself not to see -- at this point, Morgan regretted that the most in the entire school year. How could she not have had the guts to take that risk. “You have plenty of time to make it up now, you know?” “Yeah, I know,” he agreed - which seemed like a good time to step forward and give her the hug she’d requested earlier. Not just for her benefit, though - Seamus needed the hug pretty badly himself. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, because he’d been wanting to say that to her and Aoife ever since he started talking with Demelza. “I feel like I let ye down, and...I’m sorry. So I’ll do that makin’ it up thing, yeah?” Morgan was pretty sure she felt instantly better when her cousin leaned over to give her that hug. And truthfully, she almost wanted to curl into his lap and cry, much like she’d done the minute her father had been let out of Azkaban and was back home. “You never let me down,” she said, smiling slightly. “You did what you had to do, Shay-bear. You were only looking out for us anyway.” And then her smile widened. “Still, if you really want to make up for it, I suppose a day out for ice cream might be a good start. Just saying.” Seamus gave her a little smile back, feeling worlds better just by the fact that Morgan was so willing to forgive. It didn’t erase the guilt, but it made that guilt a lot easier to bear. “Maybe this Sunday?” he suggested. “We can go after Mass - take Aoife an’ Connor an’ Wayne along, too. Ice cream for everybody. Sounds good?” Morgan nodded. “That sounds perfect.”