Gaius 'no more Mister Nice Gaius' Travers (excelsior) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2009-08-15 03:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! [1980-08] august, gaius travers, james potter |
14/15 August 1980.
WHO: James Potter and Gaius Travers
WHAT: The honeymoon gets cut short.
WHERE: Still in Vegas. At Ceasar's!
WHEN: 14/15 August 1980; approximately 2 hours after this.
STATUS: Complete.
James wasn't ready to face Lily yet. He'd journaled to let her know he was fine, and he'd journaled his mum very first thing with flashing lights and buzzers to tell her to get out of Charlus's house, but that left him with no where to go except the house where Gaius was currently trapped. It had been two hours... two hours in which he wandered around the town of Godric's Hollow under his cloak, thinking. In the last three hours he'd seen several sides of himself he never wanted to think about again, and as he walked past the cemetary where his father was buried he felt nothing but shame. It burnt through him, knowing what was waiting for him in the house Ira Potter had grown up in. A whole life devoted to a son who was no better than the Death Eaters. The guilt stung his cheeks and against the vindictive nature that had sprung up in him. He found himself walking back to the house and he let himself in, pausing outside the door of the room where he'd left Gaius, forcing himself to be brave. Forcing himself to be James Potter. Having never been on this end of the prisoner/confinement thing, Gaius was feeling unsurprisingly sorry for himself in the basement where he'd been left for the last two hours, which had felt like much, much longer. He needed to use the loo and his wrist was still throbbing in spite of James having somewhat mended it earlier and his sisters were likely worried for him (he only hoped that they didn't do anything stupid in his absence) and most of all, he was hungry. He had no way of telling how much time had passed -- for all he knew, the two hours he'd been trapped were days. He'd tried counting the seconds to distract himself from thinking about what was happening outside or what was going to be happening to him inside soon enough, but once he'd lost track, there didn't seem to be much point. So he'd occupied himself with breathing -- listening to the whistle of the air coursing down into his lungs and back out. There was nothing to do and nothing to distract from the hopelessness of this situation, so Gaius did the only thing he could see to do once he'd exhausted himself from struggling against the ropes -- doze. When James entered, he wasn't sure what he was expecting, but at least Gaius wasn't dead or anything. He didn't even look that beat up. Just a smidge. He used his wand to shake the chair under Gaius to wake him, unsure what he could say really. He was going to let him go. He would make his father proud, and then he would write to Lily and apologize and he'd get to the rest when he could. "You did this to me," he said quietly. "You have to know that, whether you want to confess that you do or not. You got me all mangled up till I was acting like a Lestrange and the only reason I'm bothering mentioning that is because I want you to see and know that I've undone it," he said. "I'm letting you go. Because I'm going to be a good person about this. I'm going to be the real James, who doesn't cast unforgivables, and doesn't break arms and doesn't tie people to chairs." Without the energy to be disappointed in the fact that his hard work on James seemed to have gone completely to waste (and now very much awake), Gaius breathed a long sigh of relief when he told him he'd be let go and presumably not hurt anymore. How he was going to handle this when he was actually released was not at the forefront of his mind -- he wanted to get out first, before he started wondering about the further consequences of yet another failure. Maybe he hadn't been cut out for running a rehabilitation centre, but he'd given it his best and now he just wanted it to be over. He wanted to go back to bill collecting. It was safer. Easier. And far more pleasant. "You never acted like a Lestrange," he said in a mumble. "You acted like a terrorist." Gaius lifted his head to look at James with narrowed eyes. "Just let me go now. I want to go home. Please." "I won't go back on my word," James said, moving closer to Gaius. "Can't send you back to your sisters looking like you've been hit by a train. Livi has been nothing but gracious to me," he said, ignoring the remark about behaving like a terrorist. He wasn't sure even he knew the difference anymore. "If Uncle Charlus has questions you should point him to Avery and Mulciber... that is if he wasn't in on it," he said. "It's one thing to be betrayed the first time round, but being betrayed a second time by the people who offered to help you in the first place-- that's just mind-bending, ya know?" James asked conversationally, between healing anything he saw wrong with Gaius the best he could. He didn't imagine Gaius would be so stupid as to try anything with freedom looming so close, but he minded his distance and had no intention of untying Gaius until he had nothing left to say or do. "You're one to talk about betrayal," Gaius said, glaring even as James mended him. He wasn't about to retaliate and give James a reason to change his mind about letting him go, but he certainly would have liked the ropes around him to be untied so that he could shove him or punch him or do something to channel the indignance at having been completely fooled. He didn't think that James had been pretending to be his friend all this time, but the thought had not taken long to dawn on him while he'd been trying to decide what his fate would be. "You had better make sure none of us see you again, James. I doubt they will be as concerned for your life as to send you to the rehabilitation centre a second time around and I've heard nasty things about Azkaban, if they even let you live that long." "I'm worth as much to them as you," James snapped, evidence that the brainwashing job Gaius had done wasn't completely undone. "What has the Travers family ever done for society? Your sisters aren't even engaged. Your father is a disgrace. They've got you put away doing bitch work. I'm every bit as--" James caught himself. Merlin damn... it was all in his head. "You are really good at what you do," James said wearily. "And all I want is to be rid of you. I think we probably could've made decent friends, is the saddest part of all. I liked you," he said irritably, before pointing his wand at Gaius. "Any last words before I knock you out and drop you off somewhere?" he asked. Rather than respond with anything coherent or intelligent, Gaius stared at James with his mouth gaping. He'd spent his whole life trying to overcome the insignificance of the Travers family -- that his mother had been a tart or that his father was completely useless, not to mention that they were poor (something he hadn't been able to improve upon just yet). And maybe the rest of his family had not contributed quite as much to society (not that James had any room to speak about contributions to society -- what had he done?), but Gaius felt a surge of indignant pride at the implication that he had done nothing. He tried to comfort himself with the fact that he knew all the hard work that he'd put into his station, even if James could not see it. In spite of reassuring himself, Gaius was still stunned to silence by the comment and rather than say any 'last words', he shook his head at him, looking somewhere between hurt and furious. James gave the slightest of shrugs, as if to say have it your way," before he stunned Gaius. It was easier then, to remember that he was doing the right thing by hauling Gaius out of the house and then apparating the both of them to an alley in Wandsworth. It seemed appropriate. He still had Gaius's wand and journal, and for the time being decided it would likely be wiser to keep the wand. He could owl it later. He sat Gaius against a wall and cast the spell to wake him back up. He tossed the man's journal in his lap and then gave him a half smile. "It was nice knowing you," he said, and then in a blink, he was gone. Gaius was too disoriented to care that James had just disappeared -- it wasn't until he realized that he didn't have his wand that he noticed James' absense. How was he supposed to get home without it? His journal couldn't apparate him home. With a heavy sigh, he got to his feet, feeling slightly light-headed and otherwise miserable as he made his way out of the alley to try and figure out where he was. And once he found out, maybe his journal would come in handy after all. But he needed a quill. So, off he wandered to find a quill -- some one would take him home and he hoped there was a pie or some such awaiting him. He was famished. |