Who: Felix and Njall Strand-Weissman What: Tension turns into something else When: Friday, August 16, 2019 | around 6 pm Where: The Wyrzykowski-Strand-Weissman house Warnings: Some language, arguing
Today had been monopolized by yet another Reserve meeting about the wards, about the magic issues, about the crazy patches of soil, and yet more questions about what they were doing about it, followed by an hour of debating and arguing and generally getting nowhere. This time, heads had turned his direction more than once when the wards had been discussed, despite them not being his department, and this time he'd called them on it. They were all being careful not to mention the elephant in the room, despite the stares, but Felix was more than willing to throw it out there in the form of a statement: JJ is not behind this.
He couldn't quite say "JJ didn't do this" anymore, which was frustrating as hell—and also, he felt, more a matter of semantics than anything—but that didn't stop his emphatic delivery. It had almost gotten to the point of obstinance, and he didn't care; if no one else was going to support her, then he would do it tenfold.
It was sometime in the middle of this particular defense, during this ridiculous meeting, that Felix happened to think of a healer he'd known at St. Mungo's who'd specialized in mind healing and had had some rather revolutionary experimental ideas on the subject. The problem was that he couldn't remember the wizard's name, and so his first task upon arriving home, barely seconds after he'd dropped his bag, was to start digging through the stacks of parchment and old notebooks that they'd crammed into various spaces on bookshelves and in trunks for holding until they'd figure out a better way to organize it all.
So, apparently, at less than two weeks old, Zarya was still fully capable of being very pissed off at the universe for whatever reason and had been very vocal about it all day. Njall had traded and even coordinated attempts to cheer and console her with Nat, and it had worked to a point—usually when she was finally too exhausted to continue to rage and just wound up falling asleep. The consequence was that it had been a trying day for all parties involved. They'd finally gotten her down again, and Njall had been slogging toward the kitchen to try to pull together some form of food for everyone when he heard the telltale thump of an apparation near his and Felix's living space.
A smile drifted across his face despite his own exhaustion and this dull pinch that had formed behind his eyes. Altering course, he headed in the direction of the noise and found his husband in their sitting room. That smile froze as his head drifted to one side as he watched Felix tear through the room like a hurricane. He leaned against the doorway, and had meant to go for helpful, but it came out dry. "Have you tried a summoning spell?"
Felix heard Njall's footsteps, but didn't turn around as the other spoke, absorbed as he was with his search. "No, because I don't know which one to summon. If I knew that, I wouldn't have to dig in the first place." A couple of leatherbound notebooks went into a haphazard pile on the floor so he could get to the ones that were stacked behind them. When he spoke again, it was halfway to himself. "It was that growth chart with the half torn page, the one that...fuck, what was his name?"
Maybe it wasn't the greeting to which he'd become accustomed, but Njall had seen it when Felix was in the grips of a single-minded purpose. Generally that level of focus was directed at him—a fact that he relished—but he'd been around when it had been utilized for other tasks. He knew that the search for whatever his husband was looking for wouldn't end until either he'd found it, or he'd torn the room apart looking for it. It's not like the place was a model of organization to begin with, but even the current level of chaos was an acceptable one. The idea of it getting worse than that, however, set Njall's teeth on edge. It was an effort to unclench his jaw, to drop his arms from where they'd risen over his chest. "Hey," he said quietly as he edged further into the room. "Let me help. What's this for, anyway?"
There was a part of him that wanted to drop this and let himself become absorbed in the comforts of home, but it would have felt like a deliberate slight to JJ to get distracted when he had an idea that could potentially help her. Still, he paused long enough to throw a look over his shoulder, not quite smiling, but soft at the edges. "I remembered an old acquaintance who was this experimental mind healer, always interested in looking into the weird shite. I think if anyone can figure out these gaps in JJ's memory, it would be him. Only I can't remember his bloody name." He shoved aside a stack of journals that he knew didn't hold the type of records he needed. Behind that was a pile of rolled scrolls, and he groaned a little at the thought of opening each one, then proceeded to do it anyway.
Partway into the room, Njall froze. All that tension that he'd struggled internally to release sprang right back into being. His anger came on so quickly that he was powerless to either stop or temper it. Up until this very moment, he'd kept his thoughts to himself, his feelings about JJ and what she'd done. The time for simple accusations was past. She'd done the things that Felix was still trying to fight against, and Njall simply couldn't understand how his husband could still feel that way after all the damning evidence that had been uncovered. "You're doing this," he questioned slowly and tightly, "for her?"
"Of course I am," Felix said, at least managing to toss each scroll he scanned roughly back to where it had been on the shelf, rather than onto the floor. "It isn't exactly difficult. Just a pain in my arse."
The response had been so automatic that it took him a few seconds to register Njall's tone, and his back stiffened belatedly. He turned slowly, parchment half unrolled in his hands. "I know you don't understand it, but she's my friend. I can't leave her to do this alone."
"Can't you." It should have been a question, but it came out flat as Njall narrowed his eyes. He wasn't even sure when he'd reached this point, but he had. Despite her persistence in the story of her faulty memory, it didn't change the swath of destruction she'd left in her wake. "Because you can. You absolutely can. What I don't understand is why you keep trying."
"What? You think I should abandon her now, when she needs me the most?" Felix couldn't help the hurt in his tone, but there was anger, too, and it was at least halfway directed at himself. It was inevitable, in this moment, that he'd remember how he'd physically left Finn without a word. The situations weren't the same, but it was a vestige of himself that he couldn't ignore. "I don't want to be that person. I'm not that person anymore."
"That's not—" His voice was sharper than intended, so he broke off to take a deep breath. It didn't really touch the anger still roiling inside his head. Njall recognized that it wasn't helpful, but there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it right now. He went on more gently, but certainly didn't stay quiet. "No, you're right. You're not. And you have nothing to prove. To anyone. To yourself, to me, to fucking JJ Monroe. God, Felix, she attacked you! And Kent! And his siblings! And she made the wards go down, trapping Nat and making Zarya come early! She did that! All of it! And it just feels like you're flying all over the face of reason and sanity to still want to take her side!"
Felix opened his mouth to refute the claim that she'd attacked him, but the truth was that he wasn't entirely sure anymore, even if that particular event hadn't been part of any of the discoveries so far. Her physical body, her wand, the spare wands—there was so much evidence that she'd been involved in so many things. But he still didn't believe that she, the JJ that he knew and loved, had done them...and that was a very hard thing to explain. "I know it's mad. I do." His voice sounded desperate, even to his own ears, and he hated it even as he couldn't stop himself from continuing. "But when people accused me of a crime, there was evidence, too. If I hadn't run, I'd probably still be in prison in Zimbabwe. And you know why? Because there was no one in my life who would have believed me, save maybe Eden, who was too young at the time to do anything about it. So, you know what? I don't actually care if I'm wrong. Maybe I am. But right now, there's still a chance that I'm not, and I'm going to be the person for her that I didn't have."
Njall made several attempts to get his thoughts together, to snag the scattered threads of arguments and pleas. If he could just find the right words, then maybe—what? He could make Felix snap out of it? Or garner some sense of understanding for himself? But nothing would coalesce, and the only words that sat on his tongue were fueled by simmering fury. He stood there, staring with his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. The ocean roared inside him, whipped into a violent foam. The room darkened. He shut his eyes tight against it, but it wouldn't be stilled, not by sheer will alone. His hands trembled as he gritted out, "I need some goddamn air."
It was in that inconvenient moment that Felix's brain decided to supply him with the information that he was trying to get from the old notes: Marley Khan. He put the notebook in his hand back on the shelf, perhaps with a little more force than was actually necessary. "No need. I'm leaving." He bent for his bag, but only to pull his phone and wand from it, tucking both onto his person. "Don't wait up for me. I'll be back before my"—he waved his hand toward the direction of Zarya's bedroom—"shift."
It wasn't saying much for how long he'd be gone, given that he usually got up with the baby in the neighborhood of 4 AM. Right now, distance and time sounded like a pretty good thing. Without giving Njall time to respond, he turned on his heel and apparated.
He'd turned to go back through the door, but Felix's clipped words and announcement of intent had a cold shard of fear stab straight through the haze that had settled over his head. Njall wheeled back, his hand actually reaching for his husband right as he disapparated. "W—!" And then, where the shape of the love of his life had been, there was nothing. Course correcting, he shoved his hand through his hair and muttered, "fuck," right as Zarya gave a cry down the hall.