Jack Sloper figured that would happen (rise_over_run) wrote in caged, @ 2013-12-21 21:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 97-12, [ narrative ], jack sloper |
WHO: Jack and Ben Sloper
WHEN: Saturday Dec 21st, early evening
WHERE: Sloper House, Colwyn Bay
WHAT: Jack is listless and Ben is alive
"Oi." Jack turned his head from it's fixed position staring into the heavy, unpainted ceiling beams of his bedroom towards the door, and found Ben standing there, trainee robes still on, thin frame leaning rakishly against the frame. "Why are you lying down in the dark? Above the covers. In your trainers," Ben pointed out with his finger, returning to Jack's face with a skeptical smirk. Jack gave him a blank look, then returned to look at the ceiling. "Shouldn't you be dropping dead of exhaustion somewhere?" Jack replied, throwing an arm over his forehead. 6 beams from wall nearest his head to the wall across. He'd always wanted to hang things from them, like banners or stars or a tent, when he was small. No one to stop him now. At least, not the usual person to stop him now. It was such a large house, even for the family of 6. Each room carefully curated to be a mixture of homey touches and beach-house catalog. In the summer, all the windows and the light made the house seem breezy and bright. In the winter, now, the perpetual gray made the house seem cold and hollow. He could think of a million places he'd rather be than here, right now, in his room, the empty space so oppressive. Something smacked his foot and he looked down the line of the bed to see Ben plop down at the edge. Now, up close, he could see the exhaustion in his brother's face. His dark eyes were bagged and either his cheekbones were sharper than he remembered or he'd lost weight. He looked at Jack with that well-worn, calculating gaze, his mind secretly working behind the shutters of his eyes. That familiar Slytherin quality that infuriated him so, to never know what was going on behind that clockwork, diverted and deflected from whatever truth might be there. "What?" Jack goaded him with monotone flatness. It didn't perturb Ben in the slightest. "What did you do to get that?" Jack, after a moment, sat up. "Something truly terrible," he said dryly, crossing his legs on the bedspread and looking at the back of his hand. You couldn't make out what it said - the slight scabbing from the recent cuts made it hard to read. "I asked after a classmate who'd been locked up for 2 days. He didn't appreciate my persistence." Jack shrugged a little. "I bet he didn't," Ben replied, mouth falling into a small frown. He heaved a small sigh. "Still wish I was back there," he admitted quietly, looking down at the navy bedspread. "Bollocks," Jack said flatly and rolled his eyes. Jack had his father's natural mildness, but Ben was infinitely better schooled when it came to revealing and concealing. The way Ben didn't rise to retort with something wry or with a simple smirk though gave Jack pause. He watched his brother pull a thread out of the button hole of his robe and toss it invisibly to one side. "It's different. It's so..." Jack trailed off, his eyes on Ben. The thin rake of a man, well-liked by all, suave, smooth, smart. Smart enough to keep his mouth shut. Smart enough to not let anyone know what he was really thinking. His mouth pressed into a thin line, heat flaring in his chest as he realized just how much he would abjectly hate that prospect. "No, you'd be fine. Of course you'd be fine. You'd be just like them," he said aloud, then closed his eyes and laid back down on the bed, taking a deep breath. "Deftly justifying why you don't beat some sense into me on a regular basis. Agreeing with the purists that yes, all Muggles should be wiped out by a meteor, and Nightmare Draught is perfectly alright to use on students because, after all, if they have a single disagreeable thought they really are asking for it, and isn't it just marvelous that all of us bigoted, prejudiced, malicious arseholes can really be who we always were deep inside? You could say it with a straight face and everyone would believe it." There was nothing but silence for a good minute, enough silence that Jack opened his eyes to see if Ben was still there. He was still sitting on the bed, still picking at imaginary lint on his clothes, his mouth still a thin line. It was hard to remember that for all of him being out of school, grown-up, Ben was 18. He was 16 and Ben was 18 and no one knew what the hell they were doing. Seeing him pick at his trousers and thinking... whatever went on in his head... "Sorry," he apologized quietly and rubbed his hands over his face, then took a deep breath. "I don't want to die. I... hate all of this but... that's the difference, Jack. You have detention. The things I've seen at hospital... You know, you have no right to--" "I don't want you to die either," Jack interrupted him, again quietly. He'd never stared at the ceiling beams so concentrated, following the whorls and gradations. His words had done the trick, they'd stopped Ben's escalating tone, his plunge into defensiveness. But now they were just sitting in uncomfortable, unsustainable silence. The weight left his bed and suddenly Ben's face was in his field of view, blocking out a beam. "I wouldn't agree with them." Jack's dark eyes blinked once. "Yeah?" If his tone could be read a number of ways (skeptical, optimistic, tentative, depressed), it was because he didn't know how he felt. So many fucking emotions crashing through him, and here he lay paralyzed by them. "You going to be like this the whole break?" Ben asked, one eyebrow peaking in skepticism. Jack reached out and punched him in the leg. He curled up in time to get socked in the arm. "Stop - you self-important twat," Jack called out between returning a few punches of his own. "I'm beating - oh! - sense into you!" Ben announced and landed a blow right to Jack's gut that curled him over. He scrabbled off the bed as his older brother took off out of the room and down the staircase. |