Who: Emmeline and Pepper Where: Emmeline's place in Camden When: Thursday night, late What: Pepper's drunk, and Emmeline is the appointed counselor of drunk hit wizards with shitty lovelives. Rating: PG-13? R? Pepper. Status: Complete
Pepper was not normally the type to make unexpected drunken house calls at odd hours of the night, really he wasn't. And if he was, normally it would be to Jo, given that she lived so incredibly close to him. But tonight, tonight, he didn't want to go home alone, and he didn't want to talk to Jo, and he definitely didn't want to talk to Aubrey or Aloysius or even Mill (not that it would be at all a good idea to track her down in this state, he was sure), but Emmeline... that, he could deal with. That sounded good. Which was why he was carefully making his way up the stairs to her flat, not bothering to check exactly what time it actually was before locating her door and knocking firmly.
Emmeline had fallen asleep on a page of her report. It might have looked pathetic: a half-filled cup of coffee dangerously close to meticulously-written notes with Emmeline slouched over the whole mess. It was good that she had half the mind to change into decent Muggle clothing before setting to work that night. Horatio, her cat, had taken to sticking his head in the mug of coffee, trying to reach the liquid and occasionally stepped over Emmeline's slackened hands. The knock triggered a chain of events that ended in Horatio being doused in lukewarm coffee. Again. "Ngh," Emmeline grunted, reaching for her wand and muttering a Cleaning Charm half-heartedly. That would be Aubrey. She was so used to having him stagger into her flat, attempt puking at her feet and dragging himself to her excuse-for-a-sofa that she did not even grumble about it anymore. (As long as he cleaned after himself, of course.) The sight that greeted her after she had undone all her security wards, however, was... different.
"Aubrey? Did you dye your hair--oh," Emmeline blinked. This was new. "Pepper?"
Clearly Emmeline had to be either drunk herself or only barely awake to think Pepper looked anything like Aubrey, as it was a truly ridiculous suggestion. He showed this by rolling his eyes, pushing himself off from the door jamb he'd been leaning on as he nudged the door further open with his foot so he could slip inside past her. "Don't mind if I come in, d'you?" he asked, a little belatedly, looking around. Had he ever been here before? He honestly couldn't remember. It was.... neat. And spartan. Rather like his own in that regard, though it had less piles of books littering the place. Either way, it didn't much matter; what did matter was the fact that he was still standing when there was a perfectly good couch right there. Probably, he realised as he collapsed onto it, the same couch Aubrey apparently lay on when he came over and moaned about Pepper. Oh, how ironic. "Up late working?" He tilted his head back lazily, joints feeling loose and easy.
"Oh, go right ahead," she replied dryly as Pepper stalked past her and into her flat. Emmeline watched Pepper survey the room for a moment before dropping into the couch. All the motions were eerily similar to Aubrey's, she noted and went back to closing the door. Emmeline pursed her lips for a moment, trying to think of reasons why Pepper of all people would turn up at her flat at... she checked her watch, three in the morning. Looking at him then, she merely thought he had gotten too drunk and forgot his way back to his own flat. "Yeah," Emmeline said absently, making her way to the kitchen, "I've got my first report due in a couple of days. I need to impress the boss, you know how it is."
Taking out a fresh mug from a cupboard, she hesitated. "Coffee?" she asked, remaining crouched beside the counter. Rolling her eyes, she took another mug anyway and busied herself with making coffee. "What're you doing out this late on a Thursday anyway?" Emmeline asked conversationally. In her world, people did not really go out getting drunk on a (god forbid) work night.
"Very very black." He would have raised his voice so she could hear it from the other room, but the other room was... well, not very far away. His own flat was bigger than this, though admittedly only slightly. Still, the small size was sort of comforting, in a way. "I am..." What was he doing? "Wondering what the hell I ever did to the universe. No, don't answer that. Probably time to start believing in karma, 'm sure I've got a shitload of that stored up somewhere." It wasn't entirely true - well, the bit about having bad karma was, but this week seemed like a rather small return on it, small enough that he didn't actually think it was anything more than just an incidentally shitty week rather than any great cosmic pre-ordained twist of fate designed to punish him for past actions. The universe didn't care if he kicked a guy in the stomach and threatened him with further torture or messed with a friendship to try and get information for a case. The universe wasn't fucking alive.
Emmeline dunked almost four tablespoons of instant coffee into Pepper's cup. Judging by how he was talking, it was probably best if she tried to salvage as much of his ego as possible. "Here," she shoved the mug into Pepper's hands and sat down on the floor, looking at him closely. Emmeline had never really heard Pepper sound this way; he had always been more pragmatic and less... spiritual. Or moral. She cleared her throat and tried to make sense of what he just said. "Bad week?" Emmeline asked, deciding that she should leave it up to him if he wanted to talk about it. Aubrey, for example, preferred it if she asked questions that he'd answer... at length, but she knew that Pepper was different. Of course, she'd be foolish to think that Aubrey and Pepper were ever similar (or they'd deny they had anything in common, at least).
The coffee was black, very black, and he took an appreciative swallow. It mightn't be as good as a proper cup, but given that he'd been downing shots for the last several hours, it was well enough to be getting on with, and that was really the most important thing. Pepper resisted the urge to laugh at Emmeline's question, knowing it would probably come out rather on the bitter end. Really, objectively, things hadn't been that bad. The start of May had probably been worse. But that had been completely out of his control. "You could say that," he replied wrily. "I make a suggestion at work that turns out to be bollocks, I have a fucking huge scar that's still giving me trouble and I've just been quite firmly reminded why I'm practically incapable of having a real relationship. How's yours been?"
"Well..." Emmeline was stuck. She had absolutely no clue how to handle Pepper's rant. Of course, she could be objective and say something brutally honest like "That's how it is" but unfortunately, she had enough tact to know how wounding the words could be. But then again, it was Pepper. Emmeline lapsed into what she hoped was companionable silence, waiting for the coffee to take effect. She could say that there will always be rough patches regarding career paths and relationships but Pepper was a couple of years older than her; perhaps coming from him, the words would hold more gravitas but Emmeline would just end up sounding optimistic. "Er," she dithered before plunging on, "Do you want to talk about it?"
Now he did laugh, eyes sliding to give her a darkly amused look at the question. She actually seemed to be in earnest, which he supposed was only to be expected with Emmeline, but given the fact that he'd just turned up at her doorstep at some disgusting hour of the morning and started bitching, she should be attempting to turn him out or something. "You're very sweet," he informed her, taking another drink of coffee. Oh, coffee. "This... this is why I am complete shit." He sighed, tilting his head back again for a moment to stare up at the ceiling before glancing back at her. "You should've slammed the door in my face."
Emmeline didn't know whether Pepper meant calling her "sweet" a compliment or an insult so she merely shrugged. She was worried now. Pepper was acting in an entirely un-Pepper-like disposition and Emmeline was unsure what to make of it. However, she did ease into familiarity when he said that she should have turned him away. "Reflex reaction," Emmeline snorted, smirking into her cup of coffee, "Or a Pavlovian response? I'm quite used to having Aubrey staggering in and out of the place." She grew quiet again, turning Pepper's words over in her head before saying, in a tentative manner, "Did you mean that you have a hard time communicating what's bothering you and/or what you're feeling? Because lack of interpersonal skills can truly create a difficult barrier in establishing relationships."
Good lord, did Emmeline actually just vocalise and/or? Pepper blinked at her for a moment before actually focusing on her words, rather than the incredibly Ravenclaw syntax and grammatical constructs she was using. "I have interpersonal skills," he replied, slightly irritably - that was almost as bad as Mary asking if he was scared of being vulnerable. "I mean that-- that people let me do things. Do things and say things and they just let me because I have this--" There was no way he was going to be able to express this without sounding like a complete idiot, he realised, and instead just waved a hand vaguely to demonstrate concepts that were beyond words. "I walk over people. I'm not... I'm not a nice person. And you know what, I am scared, I'm scared that one day I'm going to actually hurt someone, not physically, just... being me." No, it was no good, he still sounded like a complete idiot, but if he was lucky this awful word vomit and explosion of honesty would pass with Emmeline thinking he was just drunk and making shit up and forgetting the whole thing.
"Ah," she said, "That." Emmeline pointedly took a sip of her coffee to avoid speaking for a while. It wasn't that she thought Pepper was a bad person for... using his skills to his advantage, but it was, admittedly, an incredibly grey area. She needed at least five to ten minutes to mull things over before she could say something that was both critical but not too harsh. Really, Emmeline thought, she would have made an excellent Slytherin (or one of those ponces at the Magical Law department) if she had learned how to argue both sides of the coin. The issue with Pepper was, she pursed her lips at the thought, while he did not mean to cause harm, his manner of dealing with people would inevitably cause a downward spiral or two. "I think," Emmeline began, sitting up straighter, "That you're a decent person for at least having a strong enough conscience to think about how what you might do to other people." She didn't say this just to assuage Pepper's feelings, of course. Remorse was something that was difficult to muster for other people; sometimes people merely believed that the ends justified the means. "But maybe, er--a little tact won't hurt?"
Tact. That was... not going to fix his problems. He'd been analysing himself since seventh year, trying to fix the worst of it, he ought to know which chasms were too deep and wide to close up. Still, Pepper shrugged a bit at her suggestion as though half-accepting it even though it was a bit like pouring a cup of water on a house fire. "Good enough for friendship at least. Provided they have some decent self-confidence and a thick skin or an unhealthy dose of masochism." Dear god, dear god, do not bring up Aubrey, he was sober enough to stop himself surely? He would never hear the end of it if he mentioned Aubrey, he was certain of it, and he sure as hell didn't need to be going into work in the morning and seeing him and remembering spilling his guts about him to a very very mutual friend. "I just... I don't think I know anyone I'd inflict me on."
Was he trying to go for sainthood? It was Emmeline's first thought as she listened to Pepper but she refrained from mentioning anything frivolous in the present circumstances. Pepper seemed determined to find wrong in himself and Emmeline was not going to tell him half-truths for reassurances. She drank the rest of her coffee for something to do as she brooded over his latest statement. At least he still held himself accountable for personal mistakes, she thought, scratching her head. "Maybe..." Emmeline said slowly, still wording the sentence carefully, "Instead of worrying about how you might hurt other people, why don't you worry about improving yourself?" She looked up at Pepper tentatively, hoping that he won't think that she sounded too chirpy for half past three in the morning. "Stop it at the source, as they say," Emmeline added, trying to inject the conversation with some humour, albeit a little dark.
She did sound too chirpy, really, and Pepper sighed again; aside from getting the bitterness out, this wasn't really helping. But then he wasn't entirely sure what he'd expected, coming here, aside from nothing at all because he was determinedly not thinking about anything more than five seconds in the future. "Yeah," he agreed, trying to sound like he was genuinely taking it on board and miraculously managing not to follow it up with a sarcastic comment. It wasn't that he was trying to find wrong in himself, he was perfectly content and able to find right in himself, but this particular trait was rather staring him in the face right now. He needed not to care. He needed not to make comparisons about drug addicts trying to recover while wandering round with a pill actually physically in their mouth constantly and having to remember not to swallow. "It's easier to do that when you're not expected to live for someone."
"What?" Emmeline raised an eyebrow; now that was an interesting development. "Er - what do you mean?" She looked at him more closely, which was still relatively difficult since the only light on was the one in the kitchen. Emmeline was quite sure she had not seen Pepper this down. Of course, she had only known him for a while but with the war, people seemed to show the stronger and weaker points of their personalities easier.
Emmeline may not have seen Pepper this down before, but it had certainly happened, normally in the dead of the night just like this when things had been building on him for a while, just like this. It was a periodic occurrence, and one that he always wished afterwards had been completely unwitnessed. For now he just waved a hand airily at her confusion, choosing to ignore the impending shameful doom. "The whole - being together, looking out for someone's needs and being close to them and-- loving them;" he enunciated this last as though it were distasteful, out of habit. "You don't have much of your own space there. You can't marry someone and still keep up your own flat and only see them when you're in the right frame of mind."
She was taking a sip of her coffee as Pepper rambled. When it got to the point where he mentioned marriage and independence during marriage, Emmeline nearly choked. Coughing, she tried to disguise the mingled laughter and derision. For one thing, she had not really contemplated the idea of marriage as much as Pepper apparently had, so it was easy for her to become amused by the whole topic. Emmeline could not help but smirk when she heard the note of disgust in Pepper's voice as he said the word 'love'. "It's, uh, a matter of perspective, I suppose," she said, scratching her chin mock-knowingly. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep but Emmeline found herself seeing what Pepper meant. Relationships have always been held up to be these wondrous things that required little to no effort at all. Perfect relationships just swam through the years without any arguments or disputes and so on. In reality, it was much, much messier. "I guess the other person has to be really worth the trouble, you know?" Emmeline said after a while, "You have to know that it'll all be worth it in the end, yeah?"
"Oh, shut up." There was no real venom or strength behind the words, more a tired sort of, 'I know I sound ridiculous, please try not to draw more attention than necessary to it'. He did put a bit more businesslike briskness into the rest of his thoughts though. "Well, I suppose if I ever meet someone qualified to actually deal with me that I actually want to deal with, they probably would be worth it, wouldn't they?" Personally he didn't much think the chances of that happening were very high, but then, he had another hundred or so years to live, didn't he? Never mind that he'd be decrepit for half of them. "I should go home. Check on Cleo. Get a couple hours sleep. Try not to turn up in the morning looking like..... I got drunk and crashed on someone else's couch."
Emmeline's smirk grew wider as Pepper's discomfort become more evident to her. "Yes, clearly," she nodded in assent, pulling herself up from the floor. She didn't say much as she led the way back to the front door... which wasn't much of a walk, really. Emmeline still had that possibly irritating knowing smile plastered on her face as she watched Pepper gather himself to go home. "Well, it was nice talking to you, Pepper," she said, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice. "Take care, alright?" Emmeline added on a more serious note.