InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "meh."

wiped (ex_alluringl235) wrote in anon_rpg,
@ 2012-06-20 15:59:00

Entry tags:

!06/1981, !complete, !thread, c: hestia jones, c: regulus black, p: axie, p: jackie

Who: Hestia Jones and Regulus Black
What: Reunion.
Where: Knockturn, then her home.
When: 20/6
Rating: Ridiculous (PG-13)
Status: Closed and complete.

He wasn't coming back.

It wasn't possible. No, it wasn't, not at all and she knew that waiting was just going to make that feeling worse - her stomach was in knots and for a moment, Hestia felt like she was going to throw up, everywhere, possibly with a few hearts and rainbows stuffed in because her world was just wonderful; funny how days can be absolutely perfect before you saw a ghost (that disappeared). Funny, funny, how you could also find yourself sitting on the stoop in Knockturn Alley, being stared at by two men who you most certainly thought that you were available for a price. She sneers but doesn't speak; instead, Hestia pulls herself off of the stoop, brushes off her backside and slips them a friendly gesture before taking off, her hands tangled up in her hair.

But he had those eyes-
That frown was so familiar-
NO. No, no, no; but her eyes were red.

She started to run through the alley, her arms now crossed against her chest like a child who forgot their coat at home. She was just tired, exhausted, ate something funny; there was no reason good enough for what just happened! It took her twenty minutes to get home. Ten seconds to round the corner. A split-moment for Regulus to become aware of her presence across the street and fix her with an unwavering gaze, unblinking, face a Viennese mask; wiped blank.

He raises from her doorsteps quite dignified, back straight and posture postcard-perfect… and waits for her. Calmly. Without a word. Waits for her to cross the street with his hands inside his pockets, leaning his hip against the railing in such a casual posture that one may believe it was perfectly natural for him to be there, doing evening visits to her door every Wednesday, as if it was their thing.

But, you see, Hestia Jones and Regulus Black never had a thing of any sort.

"Jones." He acknowledges, and the word breaks apart the illusion that somehow, she might just be a touch mental. That somehow, she might have been driven just a touch around the bent over the past--

"May I come in?" His tone is extremely proper. His voice is smooth, and calm; unhurried. As it has always been. He is very polite, and he refrains from mentioning I knocked and no one was home. There are many, many things Regulus refrains from doing, really. Like asking her not to burst into hysterics. Like explaining why he had disapparated, and yet chose fit to return. Like his thoughts.

Hestia stares at him, not because he's there (or is it?) but because she was watching as she crossed the street to her stoop, recognizing instantly that hair, the posture, the way that his clothing fit - there was no doubt. She could not run, she could not sprint - she contains herself in a strangled and tortured gate. Move too fast, he'll not be there, as he's still an illusion.

She cannot answer him, so there she stands - ten feet away from him with her hands loose at her side, an awestruck gaze meeting his cool demeanor; her mind was not sending the proper signals. She was not computing, this was not computing, and if he thought that she could even gather the proper resources to properly freak out on him, he was surprisingly incorrect. Hestia Jones often has mini-meltdowns but this, this moment, it is not even begging for a minor dent - this is far, far beyond that.

Vaguely, past the blue of Hestia`s eyes and the expressions running wild across her face, Regulus realizes that he is doing a shitload of catching up with acquaintances, nowadays, and perhaps more than he likes. It seems that one is trapped in a maze of relationships even when one is supposed to be dead. It's hilarious, because he had always thought that Death should be stronger than social niceties, than in Death you could shove your middle finger into the face of those terribly boring dinners and soirees, that Death would cast some sort of veil over you -- now you see them, now you don't. But apparently, life is stronger than Death.

Or it is simply his own choices.

(Regulus tells himself that he really had no choice in this, and that bothers him.
He also half-expects her to go into hysterics.

Why not?)

After what seems like forever, Hestia turns to her door and unlocks it, not a word uttered to him. She sighs and then turns to him, blue eyes flooded with a mix of anger, relief and something else that she'd not try to put a finger on.

"Of course you may, Regulus," she whispered, holding the door open for him.
Hestia still does not believe.

---

"You have to help me understand," she mumbled softly, brushing hair out of her eyes. It was a sign of tension, definitely not that she wanted to see him more clearly. "It may not be pleasing, but I need to understand, Regulus."

"I missed you so much," whispers, all whispers but they are desperate to understand. He is alive, he is not dead and he is in her home.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

ex_alluringl235
2012-06-21 04:33 am UTC (link)

Pictures fade, so does trust - as they stood there in her flat, she feels her willingness to bend start to dissolve - he was exhausting. Her head and heart hurt; hands raw from mentally rubbing them over and over in her head.

If only she could fall asleep, talk about it there - it would be far easier.
Instead, this.

"It's about everything," she argues, a rather frustrated presence welling up inside of her. Does it matter who it is about? And why, why, why Regulus, are you not showing her your arm? This is, undoubtedly, the most irritating part of her day - she asked for a confirmation, it wasn't that she was asking him to chop it off and give it to her! The tears were angry, not sad - certainly not filled with relief. No, she was entirely too invested in him, perhaps even the part of him that was central to her.

Perhaps this is the time to note that Hestia would, if she were someone else, grab him and smack him for being so rude, but she lets it slide every time with him - forgiveness was her biggest weakness, because she wanted to be angry and scream at him, push him and tell him how frustrating he was, and how he.. He didn't care if he hurt her, and well, that was never something that she wanted to talk to herself about. See, in her head, everyone loved to be loved - that was a joke, a horrible one, because as she stands there in that room, it's all wasted.

"You can't... You can't talk about a mark, and how it hurts, how it burns and then tell me that this isn't about you," but her words were not broken, they were not choked - her resolution was fading - the heavy pangs of sadness were starting to puncture her and she wants to run away. Away from him? No, maybe. She wasn't sure - this wasn't what she wanted, what should be.

"For the record, Regulus," ... "If I am such a chit, perhaps some explaining would help me - since obviously I'm too daft to put thoughts together myself."

"Regulus, I can't move. Why can't I move?"

"Wake up, Jones."

(Reply to this) (Thread)

writtenblack
2012-06-21 04:50 am UTC (link)

Regulus knows that Jones is not a nitwit. He would not put up with her, if she was, and yet put up with her he has -- for so many years. How long has it been now? Seven? Eight? Do you disregard the pauses, brush them aside, or include them all the same? Is it valid, to claim a relationship -- of any degree; acquaintance, friendship, what have you -- as yours, even when it has only been pursued in your head for months? That is a long, long time to put up with an idiot. (Almost half of his lifetime, and that is a strange thought.)

But there is no doubt that she is being an idiot, presently.
And that makes Regulus incredibly angry. Again.

This time, he shoves the emotion down his own throat, and it gets stuck there, an uncomfortable ball of--

There is no need for her to run.
That is a skill he has perfected.

The glass is set back down onto a hard surface, and he turns to her with the same unreadable expression. It is not void of emotion; there is simply too much for there to be expressed, from different ends of each spectrum, and thus, they all clash together, negate each other. And thus, his face is calm.

"I think I better leave, now." He says simply, grey eyes lingering on her and then dismissing her to sweep across the room, in an unhurried glance. They catch something, and he takes a few steps forward. Not to her. He merely bends down, and picks up the end of a cigarette that he had so carelessly discarded.

He used to have better manners than this.
What in Merlin's name is wrong with him?

"..Sorry for the mess," he adds, a touch more quietly. As if that would ever serve, because suddenly they are thrust into abstracts, and he is not referring to the ash on her floor.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

ex_alluringl235
2012-06-21 04:53 am UTC (link)

Being passive-aggressive was not a skill that she enjoyed, and yes; it was a skill - sometimes you use it to get your way and then others, you do your best to let things slide in a natural motion, like a landfall or light dusting of snow. Unfortunately for Hestia, this was an avalanche and she wants to scream at him, throw her fists into his chest and scream - why is it that is has to be like this? Why does she have to get hurt in order to get answers? Or a lack of answers! It was awful, this situation, she hated it. She hated how one look, one glance, one smirk - it was impossible.

See, for as angry as he got, she got more desperate.

Sometimes, when you push people away, they do go away. This is not always the desired response and then you are left feeling hopeless, disappointed and discouraged.

In this moment, she felt everything and nothing at all; it was punishment for the most innocent of crimes - being human.

Reverting in age can happen so fast when you aren't aware of what is happening - suddenly she is a child, a poppet.. For what it's worth, she should have been in a sundress with a pretty bow on her head but instead, no, instead she stares at him with her palms flat against her sides, resisting any temptation to move or touch- she doesn't really want to even have contact with herself, for those moments of his hands on her shoulders are years past now and they.. She, is back to acting.

"I don't think you should," she says softly, trying her best to be careful, to not push away more, as she ruins everything. "I think you'd be leaving me in danger," she continues, brushing a bit of hair over her ear, the uneasy starting to sink back over her, the words starting to break - his arm, your arm, show her the arm.

"Because he might come back, and if he does, I don't think that I can't not look at his arm."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

writtenblack
2012-06-21 05:04 am UTC (link)

Warum so einfach wenn es so schõn kompliziert geht?

Regulus wants to laugh, because the maxim comes to his mind much too effortlessly for the circumstances at hand. He is aware of what Jones is asking of him, what her true meaning is. She does not need to speak the words because her eyes scream at him from across the room. After all this time, he likes to think that he is still rather decent at reading her, and he had never pretended otherwise. He had not lied about it.

But people change, Regulus. No. None of his do. If Regulus is to be stuck suspended in time, so will every single person of his acquaintance. They will all remain very static, for as long as he remains static. This is what we call 'perspective' and 'point of view'. A terrible bias.

He merely refuses to acquiesce. He is not in a generous mood, and he was certainly not going to be frightened nor blackmailed into submission. She had asked. He had delivered. She had done it with her own hands, and he couldn't, wouldn't, just no. No!

"You used to say you're not a child anymore. Don't act like one now." His speech is hardened. The lazy apologies are gone (but what good are apologies without explanations and expression of desire to change the offending behaviours, anyway? ) and this is the replacement, as he stands there, staring at her for a few moments (long moments. Tense moments. But Regulus does not exist in tension because tension is built upon the wait of what one wants to do. Of what one can potentially do, but probably won't.)

He knows exactly what he means to do.
And does it.

(He realizes how hypocritical this is; so hypocritical when-- just previously--)

Don't go missing, Jones.

It's as simple as that, and at core, it is egoistical -- but she's not hysterical anymore (there is no need to have a fit, Jones), and she has made promises which he doubts she will keep... but it will have to do. In retrospect, they had spent half-an-hour speaking of nothing and everything, and that is wholly unsettling, because they had not traded many words. This whole situation was absurd. All he had wanted, this evening, was to get some bloody books. Perhaps this is the moment he should offer her a small token of comfort. Sketch a smile; but even as the corner of his mouth tugs upwards, he cannot bring himself to it. There is nothing about the situation that makes him smile, and he is not the one to add flourish and romanticism to a moment that is anything but.

(When had he ever bothered to attempt to not make her cry?)

The familiar walls of his own flat meet him a small 'pop' (what do you take him for, a house-elf? ) and he falls into a chair and slouches and runs an angry hand through his hair in a comical imitation of brother-dear.

Fuck.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Read comments) -