Who: Pepper and Jo Where: Jo's flat When: Saturday night, lateish What: Jo doesn't want to be alone so Pepper comes to keep her company. Rating: P for Pepper. And Jo. Status: We're writing it now!
Pepper did not go straight to Jo's flat from the office; two stops were necessary first, one to a liquor store for a bottle of Firewhiskey, and one to his own place to drop Cleo off in her tanks. He was still angry and he doubted that would be calming anytime soon, and it would be best if she stayed warm for the night. That down he trotted back down the stairs to knock on her door, bottle swinging from his free hand. He really had no idea what shape she'd be in, but liquor soothed all ills.
Jo was, for her part, holding it together far better than she thought she would. When the knock heralded Pepper's arrival, she moved slowly to the door and swung it open. "If you ever condescend to die on the job, I will be very angry. Come in."
"Justifiably so," he agreed. "You'd be quite right in doing all sorts of unspeakably heinous things to my body." That was possibly too flippant for the situation at hand no matter the deeply serious tone he said it in, but right now that was really the only way he could think to react because this, this. Pushing it from his mind he came in, kicking the door shut behind him as he held up the whiskey. "Thought we might need this."
Though her smirk seemed to condone his behaviour. Brushing gently by, she threw a few cubes of ice in two shot glasses and re-entered the sitting room with a wan smile. Pepper know what was required. She held out the glasses, waiting for him to pour out their libations.
The bottle was already opened by the time she returned and it was with the ease of long habit that he sloshed a decent amount in each glass - no good being a functioning alcoholic if you couldn't pour properly. He set the bottle down on the nearest surface before taking his glass from her, though when it came to a toast he had a mental block against the obvious 'to Edgar'. Instead, he shot her a feral grin that was perhaps a little incongruous to the situation and raised his glass with a, "To catching the fucking bastards and making them wish they'd never been born."
"To tasting their blood," she said, knowing that her more civilised inhibitions were not necessary around Pepper. Taking a long, slow drink, she sank into the nearby sofa and let the alcohol do its work softening all her limbs and hazing her consciousness.
Pepper was more inclined to just seeing and feeling and smelling the blood, personally - if he ever actually consumed someone else's bodily fluids it was generally in bed - but he could definitely agree with the sentiment. He and Jo were good like that, he didn't have to moderate his speech or act like he was joking around her. Settling in next to her, he made sure the bottle was in easy reach for refills. "This kind of makes me want to subvert the vigilantes into an actual decent force," he admitted after a moment. "It'd be a damn sight harder than locking them all up though."
"Does it seem ridiculous to you that it is not so much Edgar as it is anyone?" she asked quietly, leaning against him with a small sigh. "We're mortal now, in ways that we have never before been. And it frightens me for the rest of you."
"The rest of us?" Pepper raised an eyebrow at her. "What about you? You're in this too, you know." He didn't say that they'd have to be more careful now. They all knew that. Edgar was careful, they just hadn't expected-- They'd thought they'd be safe for one afternoon.
"I've survived thus far..." The heel of her hand hit his chest where she knew that fateful scar resided and she pursed her lips. "I think you could say Lestrange has taken a shine to my bloodthirsty ways."
The blow wasn't that hard, but it hurt, and Pepper glared at her for it. "Doesn't mean he won't kill you if you annoy him too much. I doubt they're too happy with what I did to Georgina, and that was plenty bloodthirsty." Not as bloodthirsty as he wished it had been now. If he'd only waited he could have done it now, getting information out of her before bleeding her out and leaving her dead.
... and she apologised by offering a soft kiss in her hand's stead, sitting back to nod and take another sip of her beverage. "Do you think they know it was you?"
"If they did I doubt I'd be here still." He shrugged, leaning forward to pour another glass and offering the bottle to her for a top up wordlessly. "After Mill reamed me out I used some judicious mind-games to give them the idea it might've been one of their own. Hopefully they've taken the bait."
"In that we hope that they don't start asking one another what they know about that tall, pasty fellow with the dissheveled hair." Laying the glass aside, she took the bottle from him and tipped it up for one long swallow. She wiped her mouth of the back of her hand and continued. "Your parents need to join my family on sabbatical."
Ah, they'd got a whole ten minutes before retiring the glasses, not bad for them. It was a wonder they ever bothered, really, it was hardly like they worried about catching germs or anything. "I'm going to talk to my mother in a couple of days. Get her and Mags the fuck out of here. I've got the money saved up if they need it, they can go terrorise Teresa and her husband in Denmark or something."
"I've sent Mama, Papa and Julian to Asia. Lucky for us, I guess, that she can get a position at the college teaching on weekends, if it comes to that." She shrugged. It didn't matter what they did, just as long as they were out of France and far flung from England's poisonous influence.
"Then it'll just be friends at risk. And... job security." As understanding as Mill could be, he still had no doubt that she'd fire him if he went too far. Jo had it even tighter under Rufus - though that was arguable, as she didn't necessarily feel the need to tell him about any of the questionable things she did. "I need to ask the vigilantes to look into Evan Rosier again. And any other names we can come up with. It'd be interesting to see if they actually co-operated."
"...instead of being cannon-fodder?" she replied, knowing that it was crass in the wake of Edgar's death, especially when some of those suspected vigilantes were at the fateful party. "Rosier keeps his nose clean. But he runs with questionable folk."
"They do like to be cannon-fodder." He sighed, knocking back more of the whiskey. It was starting to fuzz the edge of his mind, and that was very good. "That he does. God, this is... such shit."
"Mmm?" She missed the comraderie that came from sharing the same space with him, even though there was merely a few feet of wood and plaster separating them. "Tell me why it's shit."
The why seemed fairly obvious to him, though admittedly everyone probably had differing places of importance for each of the main points. "The DMLE can't do jack shit. Everything that keeps the justice system fair is working against us and if we act on our own, we'll lose our jobs. Either way the public hates us and the Death Eaters are even worse. It's ridiculous."
"We're waiting for a redemption that's never going to come." With a sigh, she slid the palm of her hand along his cheek to bring their gazes to one another. "An impossible victory."
He was used to Jo touching him, a casual intimacy that no one else ever used with him, so he didn't pull away from her hand. "Yeah. The public's always hated the law, especially the lower classes. It's Crouch and the Death Eaters that are the biggest problem." He could almost see the appeal of a vigilante group at the moment. At least they didn't have so many restrictions. "Tempting to just go out in a blaze of glory and take as many of them done with us as we can."
"Tempting," is agreed upon, as is "rash, foolish and a little stupid. I thought you were a survivalist, Pepper, and I was the borderline fatalist."
"Didn't say I'd do it," he pointed out, turning his face a bit to press a kiss to the centre of her palm. "I like my plots and plans better. Harder now that they probably have safe words set up for identification, but I'll figure out a way around that." If he managed to figure out how to use Georgina's blood and hair to do that he'd be extra happy.
Smiling, she let her hand fall to the soft hollow of his neck. "If anybody can..." A beat. "Would we have been friends if we hadn't met at work in the middle of a war?" And that's what it was, really, even if no one but journalists cared to use that specific rhetoric.
"God knows." If they hadn't met at work, where would they have? A bar, maybe, but Pepper didn't exactly strike up lasting friendships in bars. Those relationships tended to end the next morning. "What ifs are useless, though. 'If I had jam I could make a jam sandwich, if I had bread.'" He rolled his eyes a bit; his mother had used to say that.
Though she'd argue that tonight, of all nights, seemed more fit for what-ifs as she looked back, wondering over Edgar Bones's life and the legacy he left. It made her want to find Rodolphus Lestrange and skin him with absolute delight. Half an idea began, in that moment, to form in her head as she leaned her cheek against Pepper's shoulder. "My Mama says 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.'"
"I like that one. I didn't remember church being so violent. Well, you know, apart from the nuns." Absently he raised his free hand to stroke her hair, feeling the strands moving against his fingers. He could do that still. He was lucky.
"The nuns!" She shivered, hiding her face in faux-horror before giving a short laugh. "Mama believes in the glory of God, you know. We were raised on it. God would smite the people, he would open up the earth and swallow the sinners he wasn't too thrilled with. She said that's what happened on Bastille Day. God forsook the nobles and raised up the peasants. Wonder if it'll happen again."
"The nuns." Pepper grinned; his short stint of Catholic school was something that inspired laughter now. "I prefer to believe in free will. Humanity's evil enough without great invisible forces directing the outcome of war." It was difficult enough to understand even yourself without thinking about gods and demons. Pepper knew; he'd tried.