Who: Pepper and Jo When: Sunday 16 November Where: A field in France What: Jalapeno reconnect, mourn Agnes and get high. Rating: PG-13 for drug use and sexuality Status: In progress/maybe finished?
There was absolutely no logical reason for Pepper to feel anxious, which was why he did not. It wasn't as though things had changed drastically between them with his career shuffling, and there were perfectly reasonable reasons for why they'd seen so little of each other lately, so Pepper was perfectly calm as he blanket over the ground. He couldn't quite pull off jovial, after the way he'd spent the night before and the continued place of Agnes in his conscious mind, but a lighter mood could be achievable, surely. "You know," he commented, settling the picnic basket above the blanket and dropping down onto it to sprawl out, "I suspect getting high in the middle of an exposed field isn't really the best way to attempt to end my streak of complete and utter idiocy. If Death Eaters come you would probably be quite justified in using me as a shield. Though I would prefer you didn't."
It wasn't that Jo was so angry with Pepper that she never wanted to see him again (or, for that matter, would consider using him as a human shield), but that all of her fears and anxieties seemed to spill out into tension with the one person she knew could take it and keep coming back. Pulling her hair out of the messy bun that held it at the base of her neck, she let the provençal air fluff it out over her shoulders.
"I don't think that will be necessary, young man," she replied, letting one corner of her mouth draw up into a smile as she observed him all splayed out on the blanket. He couldn't help looking wanton, it seemed to simply exude from his pores. She dropped to her knees, fishing through the basket for the two wine glasses and the good bottle of Burgundy she knew lay within. "French light suits you," she finally said, turning back to him as she began to pull the cork out of the bottle.
Normally that was the sort of comment that would tempt him to tug her down to his level, arm around the curves of her waist, fitting her neatly up against him. Unfortunately the bottle of wine was abundantly sufficient armour. Quite aside from the waste, he did not fancy being covered with the stuff. It tended towards stickiness. "Many things suit me," he replied in a low drawl instead, settling for cockiness over possession. "I'm very suitable, it can't be helped."
Though it was true that the weather and sky were different here - it was warmer, and more... golden, somehow, than the thin light that permeated England. It was possible that that was psychological, that he was imbuing it with good qualities because he knew that they had a whole day here with nothing to bother them except the possibility of running out of the nice cheese, but still it seemed worlds different from London.
Handing him a glass filled full of the dark, velvety liquid, she settled for the bottle and let her legs fan out before her. "So ..." She threw her arm over his waist. "Shall we commence with the awkward conversation or get straight to the heart of the matter?"
Carefully balancing himself on one elbow, Pepper gazed scrutinisingly at her as he sipped at the wine, eyes squinting slightly against the light. Talking. He supposed that was one of those things one did in a relationship to make sure things didn't fester. He'd heard festering was bad. "I'm not a huge fan of awkward," he pointed out though; they were talented, he was certain there was some kind of middle ground that wasn't horrendously painful and stilted. "I just... like this better than fighting and avoiding each other. If I could do it all differently I would, but I can't, so." Sighing a little, he set his glass down slowly enough to make sure it wouldn't tip before reaching up to slip his fingers into her hair fondly. The sun shone on it in pleasant ways and part of him wished they didn't have to go back to England at all.
Smiling softly, she leant her cheek into his palm and gave a brief sigh. "I know, me too. I'm very self-destructive when I'm out of your sight." With a shake of her leg, she pulled the hem of her flowing skirt over her knee and let it drape somewhere mid-thigh so that the sun had more bare skin to warm the remnants of England from. "It wasn't about you not having a job - we've both got enough money, with how we live - I guess I felt abandoned. Then everything happened with Agnes, and some part of me just lost ... "
"Yeah, I was going to ask exactly which bit you were pissed about. I figured it wasn't just the fact that I pissed off Crouch." He traced his thumb over her skin for a moment before picking his wine up again. God, he could live like this. At least, right now, he liked to think he could, though undoubtably it would only be so long before he started aching for something active again. "I will never leave you. Not unless it's what we both want, for real, not in the heat of the moment. And even then if you need me you just have to say the word."
Carefully setting the wine aside, she took his precious face in both of her hands and lowered herself within bare milimetres of his lips.
"Nor I, you."
It was too easy to lean up slightly to catch her mouth with his, tasting wine and sunlight on her lips. They hadn't done this in... far too long, really, probably the longest since they'd actually gotten involved. Part of him-- most of him, actually, wanted to give up on this talking thing and just revel in this, but there was still niggling at the back of his mind that told him it wasn't quite that easy. He indulged for just a few moments longer before pulling back slightly. "You know I'll probably get called in on more stuff like that, yeah? Even though-- I'm not a hitwizard anymore, I'm still. I still have the skills. Even if they didn't need me I couldn't just spend my life behind a desk." It was not exactly what he wanted to say, but even Jo, who he could say more to than almost anyone else, he wasn't completely comfortable baring his whole soul to. He didn't know how to express what it was that had actually been troubling him.
Kissing Pepper was something she could do without thinking; it was instinctual, the way they moved together, or how her teeth raked along his bottom lip before he began to speak. She sat again, draping herself over his waist.
"I'm sure you'll be a jack of all trades."
Well, that was distracting. Pepper dithered for a moment, good sense (or nonsense; actually the more he thought about it, the surer he was that it was nonsense) telling him he ought to make sure they were completely and utterly on the same page, but... well, they probably were. They'd never had to hash out all the tiny details before, it had always just been, 'hey, let's be in a relationship', 'hey, let's move in', 'hey, I'm living off your money while the fuckers upstairs don't pay me'. Really, that was probably why he'd never felt trapped or in over his head in this. Shoving away the last lingering threads of his misgivings, he decided he should do just what they'd always done - trust in each other. "You know, you're like, at least twenty percent sexier in France." He smirked at her, pulling her in closer to him so he could slide his arms around her. He liked how she fit like that.
He was silent in all the right places, tangible at all the right times. She didn't really want to talk (even if she thought she did). There was here, now, warm skin, sweet wine, golden heads of barley. There was a curve for every angle. And her mama always said perfect love would cast out fear ...
"Feet on the ground, Pepper," she murmured playfully, letting her breath buzz around the hollow of his neck. "Head in the clouds." There was no point being anxious; they could both die tomorrow, laid open like Agnes, with all their silent parts shiny for the world to see. Being angry or hurt or betrayed was just a waste of the time they were losing, one grain of sand at a time.
"Well, I am very tall," he replied, voice low and amused, and leaned down to kiss her again with intent. He could do this all day, he could forget that tomorrow was the start of a new week, or that they had a basket full of food to eat and weed to smoke and wine to drink. "I estimate we have at least four or five sins here. What order should we indulge in?"
"I'd say," she replied, pursing her lips with mock concentration, "we shall endeavour to sin altogether, at the same time. If we're going to do it, we might as well do the job thoroughly."
Jo's mock concentration was met by faux solemnity, as Pepper nodded in grave acknowledgment of the philosophy. "So, we should get drunk off this very good wine, smoke a joint, and then get naked and indecent and do imaginative things with picnic foods and hope no one comes to till this field or whatever it is farmers do at this time of year? Or. Well. Depending on the farmer." He grinned wickedly, lifting up his glass in a toast and tilting it to her lips.
While she had ideas of where to spill the wine so that it would taste sweetest coming off his flesh, she smirked and let her self-control take charge as she sipped like a good girl. "Ah," was a sweet sigh .... "And now," was the segueway so she could fish two joints and a Muggle lighter out of their picnic basket. Once found, she lit one and held it out to him between her thumb and forefinger.
He leaned forward to take it in his mouth, breathing in before reaching up for it. He didn't do this often, drugs had never been one of his addictions, but it was still dizzyingly pleasant to take that first hit and remember how very much it was not like cigarettes. The taste, the smell, the texture of it were all so much smoother, and as rough around the edges as he normally was, he could certainly appreciate that at times. "Mmm. To vice. So much better than the real world."
Taking a drag on the joint she lit for herself, the heavy smoke rolled off her lips, mingling with Pepper's as it twined sinuously into invisibility. She smiled, already feeling the limb-loosening effects stealing in on her nervous system.
"This is the real world."
And the implication that the war was a dream-- no, a nightmare? God, how he wished that could be the case, especially when he was coming off the night at Grady's and they were skipping Agnes' memorial. He could, at least, make it seem like it was a dream, though. That was the allure of weed, wasn't it? Weed, and Jo, more responsive than she'd been all week, and the soft curve of her neck. He kissed her smile, lightly, and leaned his forehead against hers. "Then let's make the most of it."