Pepper is the sword-arm of crazy (pickledpepper) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2009-06-04 15:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! [1980-06] june, josephine pepper (née savage), octavius pepper |
Who: Pepper and Jo
Where: Their room at Gairloch
When: Wednesday June 3
What: Jo is back (back again)
Rating: PG
Status: Done
The evening sun set low and heavy over the Scottish lochs, giving every pine needle a distinct and effusive glow. Jo could have waxed poetic for hours about the rippling water, the rolling heather, her garden, but there was something far more important that she had to see to. Being free, as she was, her dark hair loose and her eyes clear for the first time in months, she walked into the camp grounds and went straight to her old door, barging right in (if Pepper was, indeed, in their room) with her hands on her hips.
As it happened, today (and the last several days), Pepper was present, his cauldrons sitting empty and neglected in Mill's old room where he'd been working. Too difficult to focus on potions, not when it was becoming increasingly hard to sleep through the night and the weariness left him restless and slightly muddled during the day. At the sudden noise of Jo's entry he startled visibly, the noise almost sounding threatening in the quiet of camp, and one hand curled in the covers on the bed as he tried to relax from the jolt of adrenalin. "Fancy seeing you here," he greeted her, somewhat lamely perhaps, considering.
"Octavius Pepper," was gentle, concern wrapped up in feigned amusement as she sat upon the edge of the bed and cupped her palm around the angular plane of his cheek. "You're a mess -- " and "Sit up so that I can see you properly."
Though he wasn't entirely sure how sitting up would make him easier to see, he obeyed, propping himself up against the wall behind him. It felt strange to have someone else so close to him and something at the edge of his mind tugged at that thought as though it was wrong, but... he hadn't exactly been socialising much lately. "Is Aloysius okay with you running off?" he asked, remembering the Unspeakable's penchant for anxiety when one or the other of them invariably did something mad and dangerous.
She shrugged. "There isn't a lot he can say, Pepper. I'm not a prisoner or an invalid - I'm healthier than you."
It was probably true. He was thinner than he should be, he knew, and ached more often than was really good for him. Both of those, though, were easier to think about than his growing unease about whether or not he could really trust his emotions or memory anymore. Reaching up, he wrapped a hand around her wrist to tug her down next to him, wanting her closer where it didn't feel so much like she was scrutinising him. "If you go crazy and try to kill me I'll ward to someone," he teased, forcing his lips into a half-smile. "I'm sure there's someone still around here somewhere."
"It's absolutely ghostly out there," she said, insinuating herself into all of the familiar angles of his body. They fit as well as before - perhaps there were spaces left where she had thinned out from the confinement, where he in his illness had lost some muscle - but it was perfect for her. He was everything she had missed, and she tried to tell him that with her temple gently laid upon his shoulder. "Should I ask where they've all gone?"
Pepper paused a moment, trying to remember where they had all gone. Mission. Something he'd not volunteered for. Right, that was it - taking people hostage. "They're at the--" His brain stalled, trying to recall the word. "Foundation building thing, can't remember which one. I think they have some of the purist girls locked up in there." He tilted his head to the side to rest against hers, fingers twisting the covers edgily. He wished he could drink. "Waiting to hear back about demands, probably."
Her hand rested comfortingly on his chest. "If they need us, they know where we are," she said, though her heart skipped a beat. She didn't like to see Gairloch heading down this road of which, she knew, there was little return. Where would they all come out ... ? Pepper seemed so much more fragile. She feared for him.
"As long as they don't get stuck there too." He remembered the days in Hogwarts, vaguely - stuck in bed but aware of everyone's tension. Camp felt a lot more secure. He wasn't sure when it had started to be comfortable there, but then he had lost track of how long they'd even been there by now. Months. "Least it's not as many to cook for... I dunno how we're doing for meat though. Might have to go hunting again sometime." That, at least, was something easy to think about, and simple to do. There were only so many things to keep track of, going up against animals. If they did get out of this it would be nice to have a place out in the country somewhere where they could just live off their own stuff and not have to worry about civilisation.
"Good Lord, meat," she joked, "I should have vegetables aplenty by now. Leave the deer alone, Pepper, and eat some beans."
He managed a smile at that - hadn't there been some fuss about... no, not the deer. Something else. He couldn't remember, only that some of the girls hadn't wanted it and the guys had thought it amusing. "Yeah, okay. People will mistake me for a hippie soon. My only vices will be weed and sleeping draughts." And violence on a massive scale, perhaps, but best leave that one alone. That was because he had to, not a personal choice. He might as well blame the Death Eaters for breathing.
"I can think of worse things," she murmured, tilting her chin up to kiss him softly upon each eyelid before reaching her arms about his waist. "Far worse," was mumbled into his chest and she sighed, all too happy to push away what was happening around them for the moment in which they now lived.
It was, at least, still natural to run his free hand through her hair, though the familiar motion made his chest hurt, somehow. He didn't have any injuries there. "We're alright," he said, though he wasn't entirely sure it was true. It was true enough, at least. "And no one can get us here."