no (avoidbeingseen) wrote in bloodburn, @ 2011-03-29 00:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | character: matthew selwyn, character: stephen croaker, location: west sussex - chichester, status: complete! |
Who: NERDS. ANGSTY ONES.
What: You respond to an ad for ward inspection, you get this bastard.
When: March 28th, 1982
Where: Matthew's house in Chichester.
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Status: Complete
Arguably, there were easier ways of doing this. As in, there were ways he could have done this that would have resulted in what he speculated would be minimal property damage and a few things that might have been noticed by whoever was in the house if they happened to be looking. Frankly, Stephen could have dealt with that...probably by Apparating away at the first sign of danger. At least, he could have done it now. He'd have more or less removed the "musculature" (as one of his old bosses would have called it) of the middle ward and that would have gotten rid of most of the side effects, leaving only the brittle "skeleton."
That is, if he weren't trying very hard to get through the wards without actually making it look like he'd done anything. This was the sort of thing he supposed a professional thief would have done, albeit not in broad daylight and with a bit less regard for the fucking shrubbery. This had actually been easier the first time, and for the life of him he could not figure out why. Maybe he was a little bit drunk the first time around. That tended to make things go a little bit fucking easier. Stephen crouched down to look at what to others would have been a small amount of gray fog coming off a patch of grass. He stared at it hard and muttered an incantation, and gave the air a thin smile when a small ripple appeared in the fog and shot outward. He ran through and immediately dropped to his knees, filling in the gap he'd created so that the ward wouldn't collapse.
He sat back on the grass for a moment. Perhaps there was something to be said for making the two outside wards a great deal stronger than the inside ward. Maybe it was because this was an old house. Old houses tended to be protected by old wards put up by mad people. Or people who thought of things at the last minute. The thing was that it tended to be just as good as working methodically. It was all well and good to kid oneself and say that putting the strongest protection at the center was the right way of doing things, when in reality you could put your best wards up in any point in the order, they'd still be the best.
The last one shouldn't take long, he reasoned as he started casting the preliminary charms around it. The only trouble was keeping the other wards stable while he worked on it. Keeping everything quiet. He tried not to think of much as the back of his mind whirled around, insisting on making itself heard. Of course it was, he was almost in there. It was getting a little bit anxious. He'd gotten a late start, so he wouldn't have much time to sit around and collect his argument. Whatever his argument was.
That was the whole reason for this, after all. He was going to go in and tell Matthew...something very profound which would make him realize that he was wrong. Or something. Wrong about what, really? What could Stephen tell him aside from the blindingly obvious? Of course physically winning the war and casting aside one's friends was a bad thing. Knowing Matthew, he probably had some kind of rationale that explained why this wasn't a bad thing, or why he could claim the moral high ground once again. And Stephen...well, maybe Stephen did want to hear that. Just to know that all his options were exhausted, and that he could go back to chewing through Elixabaerna's Unfinished Theorem #478 and fixing whatever random little niggle Skeeter had with her dying potion this week without feeling like he'd missed something.
It also helped that he was about three-quarters of the way through the third ward, and was a bit low on nicotine to think about going back. He continued to work through the final ward, and was genuinely quite happy when it gave way and then repaired without a hitch. And that was how Stephen found himself standing on a dead potted plant outside his former friend's house, having a fag before he was due to make some guilt-provoking statement he was sure would come to him in the moment. He stubbed out the cigarette on the windowsill before stepping over to the back door, easily unlocking it, going inside, and sitting down on an overstuffed chair.