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Tweak says, "Try the curried goat!"

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.

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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.

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