gretchen watkins is the spice of life (swashbuckley) wrote in wished, @ 2010-11-05 20:45:00 |
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Yawning, Gretchen burrowed deeper under the blankets, enjoying the feel of Natalie against her. She wasn’t really ready to be up, but she knew that she should be heading back to the house soon. She’d been spending quite a bit of time with Natalie lately and she'd noticed Trevor's disgruntled response, even though he tried to hide it. Even worse, she understood it; she'd wanted to slap Delaney when the woman had been going on about sleeping with Trev. This emotion was new and she wasn't sure she liked it, but that didn't change the fact that she'd rather avoid a grumpy partner.
She momentarily debated what to do before sliding out of Nat's arms. Leaving her crown where it was hanging over the post of Natalie's bed, she glanced around the room. Apparating into the bedroom of the woman she was going to fuck wearing nothing but a birthday crown was a good idea until you woke up and wanted something to drink. She crossed the room and plucked a Quidditch jersey off the back of a chair that had been pushed into the corner.
Leaving Nat sleeping, she pushed out into the hall in search of the kitchen.
Roman wasn’t the best of morning people. He’d had to force himself out of bed. Sure, it was a tad bit earlier than he’d normally get up on days the shop was closed, but he wasn’t actually falling back to sleep. Instead he’d started some coffee before heading to the bathroom for some morning business.
He was on his way out when he’d practically bumped straight into someone in the hallway. Since he was still in a half sleep zombie mode, he muttered, “Sorry, Nat.” with a long yawn. It took a few seconds to register in his head that that wasn’t his roommate.
Now, he or Nat running into strangers into the morning wasn’t a completely rare occurrence, but his eyes narrowed slightly at this girl. It took him a few a seconds, before said eyes unnarrowed. “Holy fucking shit, Gretchen?” He asked a bit uncertain before glancing down at the Quidditch Jersey. “Man, I’m going to need whiskey in my coffee.”
It wasn’t the first time Gretchen had been caught wearing very little by a housemate of one of her conquests. Nor was it the first time said housemate had recognised her. It was the first time she hadn’t known them, though. She narrowed her eyes, mirroring his expression without realising it before shaking her head slightly.
“I’m sorry,” she started, even though she wasn’t. The man could’ve looked familiar, or maybe it was just that he’d recognised her. She shrugged and decided not to play coy. “You are?”
Well she hadn’t told him he was wrong. He could have been for all he knew. He had the vaguest of recollections of his older sister. For all he knew this chick just resembled her and nothing more, so he wasn’t unsurprised when she had no idea who he was. He wasn’t going to go cry in his coffee over it either. He didn’t do annoying emotional displays. “Roman.” He said simply, before continuing like nothing was wrong. “Small fucking world, eh?” He said yawning again.
That actually stopped Gretchen. Very few things did, but finding out that the girl she’d been shagging was living with her brother was one of them. “Roman?” she echoed, hoping her total surprise hadn’t come out in her tone. She took a half step back and looked at him. The last time she’d seen him, he’d barely been able walk or do much more than cry and be utterly annoying. Several responses flitted through her head as she studied him, none of them seemed apropos, though and she resisted the urge to comment about his outgrowing diapers, instead opting to say nothing, allowing her arched eyebrow to say it.
Roman for a fraction of a second was actually kind of afraid her mind just stopped working. “That’s what I said. R-o-m-a-n.” He spelled out, looking at her as if he didn’t understand the confusion. Sure, it was a shock, and she was the last person he ever really expected to see randomly in his house. He tiredly rubbed his eyes with another yawn. “Do you need coffee to process this?” He offered. Although part of him was wanting to wake Nat the hell up.
Quirking her lips to the side, Gretchen arched her other eyebrow, finding herself liking the man almost against her will. Apparently her snark was a hereditary trait, which surprised her. Their mother had never been more than soppy and selfish. She glanced back at Nat’s door, then shrugged. Trevor could handle himself (perhaps literally) for a little while longer. “I could go for coffee,” she answered, gesturing towards the direction she assumed the kitchen was in.
Roman didn’t know about it being hereditary. He’d say that you didn’t grow up with the mother they had with a patience for idiotic overdramatic things. Roman quirked his head for her to follow him, and he led them into the medium sized kitchen off of the lounge. He was sort of at a loss for what to say, but silence didn’t tend to be something that actually bothered him either. He pulled down two mugs as the coffee finished brewing. “Forgive me if i don’t have some ridiculous, soppy reunion scene.” He deadpanned. “How do you take it?”
Tugging the back of the jersey down, Gretchen settled herself at the kitchen table, wondering if she ought to feel a bit more embarrassed about meeting her brother for the first time in over a decade wearing very little. Briefly, she longed for a shirt of Trevor’s; they were huge on her, long enough on her that she wasn’t in danger of exposing anything she didn’t want exposed, yet she still felt quite sexy in them.
“Two sugars,” she responded, with a shrug. “I’m not much for soppy anything. Emotions are well useless.”
He yawned again. Although it was through a bit of a chuckle when she said she wasn’t much for soppy. Gretchen’s sudden appearance did little to quicken his habit of being the slowest wake up person on the planet. He poured two cups dumped some sugar in each and slid a mug over to her as he plopped down at a seat across from her at the table. “I’m glad we agree. That’d just be awkward as hell.” He didn’t think emotions were useless really, just that he didn’t have the energy to waste them on everyone.
Twisting her legs around themselves, Gretch leaned forward on the table, gratefully accepting the cup he passed to her. She sipped the coffee, studying her brother (her brother, Salazar that was weird) for a long moment before saying anything. “I reckon I ought to ask you what you about yourself? What you do and all that?”
Is that what people in this position did? “I own a shop in Memorial Alley.” He said as he took a sip of his own coffee. “Small hole in the wall place, sells comics, books, games, and shit.” Not that he really thought it was shit, just that there was a bunch of other little randomness in his shop. “You?” Yes, Roman welcome to the most surreal morning of your life having coffee with your sister.
Natalie rolled over, waking up just enough to realise she was alone. She kicked out of the sheets and blinked the sleep from her eyes, looking around as if Gretchen would just be hanging in her room from some reason. She laid there for a moment wondering if Gretch was in the bathroom or if she’d just left when the delicious aroma of coffee registered and wiped all else from her half awake mind. Deciding to investigate, she grabbed a pair of pajama pants and a tank top from a drawer and pulled them on before padding out toward the kitchen.
“Hey,” yawning, Natalie look back and forth between her best mate and Gretchen, slightly surprised to find the pair sitting there together. She’d assumed the coffee was the work of Roman but Gretchen she was sure had already flown the coop. She helped herself to a mug and yawned again as she sat down next to the other woman and slumped against her resting her arms and chin on her shoulder. “Why are we up?”
Taking a sip of her coffee, Gretchen twisted, slightly uncomfortably, in the chair. “You didn’t tell me you were living with my brother,” she responded, after a moment, the words sounding weird coming out of her mouth.
Natalie sat up abruptly, brow furrowing slightly at Gretchen’s comment. She looked back and forth between the other two for a moment, wondering for a brief moment if she was actually up. “Brother?” She spun in her seat to look across the table at Roman, mouth hanging open slightly. “You never said you had a sister!”
Roman had taken a rather long sip of coffee from his mug, figuring that a Natalie sized smack to the back of the head would probably take place at some point today. He shrugged at his friends reaction. “It never came up. She’s like a nonentity.” He said waving his hand in his sister’s general direction. “No offense of course, before right now you were just some abstract being hanging out somewhere in the universe.”
Shrugging, Gretchen didn’t take offense at Roman’s assertion. She knew that she was much more than a nonentity. He just hadn’t been travelling in the right circles. “None taken. I hardly expected to run into you in the hall after shagging your roommate.”
“That’s not the point!” Natalie insisted, waving her hand to dismiss Gretchen’s joking. “You could have said you had a nonentity sister,” she shook her head, honestly surprised that in all their years the fact he had a sibling had never come up. That was worth at least one pet goat.
He leaned forward with, shockingly enough, a bit of an amused smiled on his face. “What was I going to say Nat? Pass the sugar, by the way, I have a random sister out there somewhere in the world.” He was a bit curious, because Nat new he really didn’t talk to his family often at all, and he talked about them even less. He honestly wasn’t seeing the big deal here. “If this hadn’t happened, I doubt I would have seen her anyway.” He picked his coffee back up with another shrug. He knew how Natalie was. She was his best friend, but they had vastly different thought processes sometimes.
Rolling her eyes, Gretchen set her coffee down on the table. “Well Roman, we must do this again sometime,” she deadpanned, before twisting to face Natalie. The last thing she needed before going back to a grumpy Trevor was to get caught in the middle of domestic drama. “I’m going to go...” she trailed off and arched an eyebrow at Nat. “Get my crown and be off.” Pushing herself to her feet, she waved at Roman. “Ta.”
Natalie looked between Roman and Gretch, conflicted about whether to continue the conversation or chase after Gretchen to her room. It wasn’t that she was looking for Roman to tell her all about his dear sister, just that he wasn’t an only child. She didn’t know who her parents were, as far as she was concerned they were the ones she had, but he still knew she’d been adopted! “This,” she gestured between the two of them, “Isn’t over!” She turned her head to watch Gretchen retreat to her room and shot Roman one more ‘Serious Look’ before grabbing her coffee and following after. There was a time and a place, after all.