benjy fenwick, terrible idea. (![]() ![]() @ 2016-04-01 04:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | benjy fenwick, rabastan lestrange |
WHO: Rabastan Lestrange & Benjy Fenwick.
WHEN: Backdated to Wednesday, 30 March.
WHERE: Fortescue's, Diagon Alley.
SUMMARY: Benjy and Rabastan run into each other and manage to be civil, then things become very uncivil.
WARNINGS: Discussions of torture & death.
With the burgeoning warm weather that haunted all of London that week, Fortescue's currently boasted the most happening locale in of Diagon Alley. Who didn't want a nice, cold cone of ice cream to go with that warm, spring day? Undeterred by the hustle and bustle, Rab installed himself in the line and chatted to the people surrounding him as he waited patiently. He was content to do this for as long as it took to get his ice cream cone until he spied an all-too familiar face a few feet away: Benjy Fenwick. Rabastan pondered, very briefly, whether he should acknowledge the other man and say something. (He shouldn't.) He also wondered, even more briefly, whether he could stand to wait another day for the ice cream. (He couldn't.) "Hey, Fenwick," he sighed. Benjy went still at the too familiar voice, composed save for the minute widening of his eyes and the rigid set of his jaw. His grip on the bag in his hand tightened, as if Rabastan possessed x-ray vision, as if Rabastan would be able to divine what had brought Benjy out to Diagon Alley in the first place. He turned his head toward the door, as if he was simply going to walk out (and he considered it.) But he didn’t. He opened his mouth to respond with a ‘fuck off,’ then shut it on a tight smile that was more of a grimace. There were children about, and, in any case, his Lestrange problem would be dealt with soon enough. “Lestrange,” Benjy replied, his tone surprisingly casual. “Of all the ice cream parlors, in all the towns, in all the world…” His attention turned back to the ice cream display. He didn’t expect Rabastan to catch the reference, and he had no interest in explaining it to him. The answering smirk suggested Rabastan did indeed catch the reference, though he didn't respond to it with any verbal confirmation. For all Benjy knew, he might've just been smirking out of pure smugness that Benjy had acknowledged him at all. And while Benjy focused his attention on the ice cream display, Rabastan contemplated the significance of the quote as well as a dozen and one ways to respond. But when he failed to come up with anything he deemed witty enough and nothing too eager, Rab shook his head and sighed. "Well? What flavour are you thinking?" “Raspberry ripple,” was Benjy’s dry answer. His eyes flickered briefly over to Rabastan before he looked back at the ice cream, though his gaze was unfocused. “It’s nice and red, yeah? Like the flash of the Cruciatus curse.” The tall blonde man shifted his weight from jone foot to the other, visibly uncomfortable in his movements. The smirk had vanished, too, and the muscle in his jaw went taut with tension, making his expression suddenly much more grave. Laugh lines around his mouth now morphed into a distinct frown. It didn't suit him much. But neither did ignoring Benjy completely. "Benjy…" His voice was low, only just audible between them. It wasn't quite a warning. More like a pleading. “Yes, Rabastan?” Benjy asked, raising a brow. He flashed him a sharp smile over the heads of children with their faces pressed to the glass. “Did you want to debate the finer points of that particular Unforgivable, because I reckon we’ve both got a lot of experience with it now.” "Nah," said the fairer man, who suddenly looked disinterested in the conversation and rather wished it would end sooner rather than later, "debate's not really my style." They both knew he was lying. For as much as Rab loved using his fists or his wand to express himself, he certainly loved to use his mouth, too. And who loved to talk as much as Rabastan Lestrange? Perhaps only Bellatrix, and she wasn't here. "But if you reckon I know something, you should probably take it to the Auror Department." The line shuffled along as Benjy carefully considered his next words. Rabastan looked distinctly uncomfortable with the topic, and he wasn’t above taking an opportunity to get under his skin. It’s what a Lestrange would do, after all. “That’s a good idea,” was his eventual reply, his tone as mild as his words. Benjy regarded the blond with the same sharp smile, and pointedly ignored the flickering warning sign at the back of the mind. Needling a Lestrange — even the one that seemed fond of him — was dangerous. But the bag of potion ingredients in his hand instilled him with a renewed sense of confidence. “We could go together, if you like. I’m sure you’d have a lot to chat with an Auror about.” Rab burst out into loud, raucous laughter, grinning widely at the man near him. "If you wanted to take me on a date, Fenwick, all you had to do was ask." Then he turned away, his shoulders shaking as he chuckled to himself. He donned the northern Irish accent, mimicking Benjy's voice perfectly as he said, "We could go together. Oh, mate, I really missed you." Rabastan’s laughter was met with an eyeroll. “I’ve not yet had to resort to those sorts of tactics to get a fucking—” A harried looking mother of two gave Benjy a murderous look, and he quickly lowered his voice, “—a date.” Anyway, I’m seeing someone now was the natural continuation, but Benjy suspected that line of conversation would go nowhere good. And, in any case, he didn’t want the news to get back to Effie before he had a chance to talk to her himself. “And, in any case,” he continued, smiling down at the two children who seemed magnetically attracted to the glass, “I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble with your sister-in-law. She seems like she’d strongly disapprove of you going on a date with an upstart halfblood.” "Fair point," Rab agreed in a droll tone. "She'd probably kill me." Those foreboding words, thrown out there between him and Benjy Fenwick with such indifference, only seemed to highlight the difference between their two separate (yet constantly intertwining) lives. Where a promise to kill Benjy ended with his father dead, as far as anyone knew all that would amount for Rabastan was a sour look from Bellatrix and more passive aggressive prodding about his love life from his brother, his sister-in-law and his Inner Circle mentor. The threat for Rabastan was an exaggeration and they both knew it. He added, "But I reckon if you still daydream of bending me over my desk, you could still give me a ring." He winked, attempting to bring back some levity to their conversation. Rab never could be very serious for long. Benjy’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, and the mother shot them both venomous looks before she she shuffled her sons along. “Nah, I’ll have to pass,” he said, lightly. “And that’s no way to talk when there’s wee ones about. For shame, Lestrange.” Completely unabashed — he'd said far worse within his nephew's hearing and had worse said to him in return — Rabastan merely shrugged. "Your loss." The queue shifted again: Benjy placed an order (raspberry ripple on a waffle cone) and drummed his fingers on the counter as he waited for his ice cream. “My da’s been dead for two months now,” he said after a moment, and his tone was more resigned than accusatory. The other man whipped his head around and stared at Benjy, hard. “If you do know something, you should be more open with the DMLE. You’d be doing me a favour.” Rab cast his gaze to the ceiling as though the beams had parted and the face of god shone above them. As though he were seeking some kind of strength that only a higher being could give him. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. "Would have done already, if I did." He looked at Benjy again, his blue eyes sad. "I'm sorry about your da. When my mum died, felt like somebody'd sucked all the air out of the room and all that could be done was drown." He swallowed, hard. "The most miserable I ever felt. Never wanted to feel that again." And yet he'd felt it again when his own father was murdered. Benjy considered Rabastan for a moment, his conflicting emotions plainly written on his face. There was anger, but there was empathy, too. Beneath that, anger for feeling empathy for a Death Eater. How many mothers and fathers had Rabastan killed, he wondered. If the answer was zero, how could he rationalize what Bellatrix and Rodolphus did? All the things he wanted to say were tangled up inside him, a painful Gordian knot lodged in his throat. “Then why… I mean, like, how are you—” “One raspberry ripple cone,” said the chipper looking girl from behind the counter, presenting Benjy with his ice cream. Benjy blinked, then handed over the money in exchange for his cone, and glanced at the door. He should leave. This was not a conversation for Fortescue’s. He should end it before it went too far. Instead, he turned to face Rabastan, and he let his anger flow out in an exhale. When Benjy spoke again, his voice was a low rumble, like the warning of an avalanche. “If you know how it feels, then why do you do it? Do you really think it’s going to be worth it, in the end?” Rabastan shook his head. "I'm not—" "Hi! How can I help you today?" Exasperated, Rab turned toward the counter and fixed his harried expression upon the young witch. To her credit, her smile didn't waver. She was as prepared as ever to ensure that he had a good day and a good cone. "I'll have the honey jalapeno pickle, please." "Oh good choice!" Chirped the girl at the counter before she whisked off to get it for him. Meanwhile, Rabastan drummed his fingers on the countertop and pointedly ignored Benjy as he collected his thoughts. This was not something they could talk about. This was something he would not talk about. For one thing, it was dangerous. For another, it was stupid. And Aunt Di would never let him hear the end of it when she got wind. And she would. Only once his ice cream was in his hand and his gold in the register did Rabastan say anything more to Benjy. "Want to get a table?" Not exactly riveting, but… Benjy’s grip instinctively tightened on the bag on his hand, which was currently full of ingredients for a deadly poison. A poison he intended to use on Rabastan’s sister-in-law and best friend. “Sure, why not?” As he usually did, Rab chose a window seat that looked out onto the busy streets of Diagon Alley. An agitated goblin pushed past the window, glaring at his pocketwatch as though it had personally offended him. Perhaps, Rabastan thought as he nudged a wrought iron chair out for Benjy, it had. Then he helped himself to his ice cream, which was already starting to melt a little. It was sweeter than he expected (that would be the honey) and yet the pickle kept it grounded from being too sweet. As usual, Fortescue's had created another slam dunk flavor. With one arm holding his cone near his mouth and the other crossed over his chest, Rabastan slouched down in his chair a little. He gave Benjy a look. "I'm surprised you said yes, to be honest. Since, like, you hate me and all." “I mean, I’m not fond,” Benjy said, scratching at his jaw. He slouched idly into the chair as if he was planning on sitting around for a while — which he didn’t intend to do — and gave Rabastan a level look, one that clearly said: do not try to bullshit me. “But I want to see if you’ll actually answer me. "Answer you? Which question?" Rabastan chuckled to himself. "There must have been half a dozen questions you asked me in those ten seconds." He ate more of his ice cream. "Ask me again, if you like." As Benjy’s ice cream began to drip onto his hand, he was struck by how stupid he was being. If he posted to the Order about it — hey guys, what’s up, just had ice cream with a suspected Death Eater! — they would be well within their rights to let him have it. Still, curiosity kept him tethered to the chair, some small hope the part of Rabastan that wanted to be friends would stop fucking around. “If you know how it feels,” he repeated, slowly, “then why do you do it? Do you really think it’s going to be worth it, in the end?” "I have been doing fuck all," declared Rabastan Lestrange with the air of someone who reveled in his laziness and didn't care who knew it. "I told you that." He jabbed his cone in Benjy's direction as a mode of emphasis on his words. "That's not me." “Maybe that’s true,” Benjy replied, though his expression made it very clear he wasn’t going to give Rabastan the benefit of the doubt, “but what about Bellatrix?” He wanted to sound clinical and detached, but he couldn’t quite manage it: “I know it was her. She’s not subtle. You made all this noise about how we should be friends, then let her…” Benjy’s jaw tightened. “She was laughing.” Discomfort wormed its way into the expression on Rabastan's face but it was not immediately discernible whether he was uncomfortable at the mental picture of Bellatrix laughing over Colm Fenwick's dead body or just the mere conversation placed before him. His face went pale as he turned to look at Benjy, eyes narrowed. "How do you know? I thought she was on a dinner date with my brother. I had their kid at my place, I didn't make that up." “I reckon dinner and a murder sounded like a grand anniversary outing,” was Benjy’s cold response. He determinedly turned his head away; a muscle in his jaw worked. “They’d no idea he was going to be there. It was going to be just me.” I wish it had been was left unspoken. He refused to give a Lestrange the satisfaction, though some small part of him knew it wasn’t the sort of thing Rabastan would feel smug over. Still, he could pass it along to his brother. “Even if you’re not one of them, you know.” Benjy forced himself to meet Rabastan’s eye. “And I know you’re not going to admit it, but you should think long and hard about what you’re doing, ‘cause it’s not going to work out for you in the end.” "And what you're doing is?" Suddenly, Rab was all sarcasm and spitfire. He wanted to slap Benjy upside the head for his supposed involvement in the Order of the Phoenix. Bellatrix and Rodolphus and all of the Inner Circle had Benjy Fenwick pegged as more than a simple nuisance. He was an enemy and a problem that had to be eliminated. The thought still made Rab's blood run cold. "How's that going to work? You keep pissing in everybody's breakfast cereal until maybe one day they try it again. And this time, your da isn't there to distract them. It's just you. You think you're gonna walk out of there? You think you're coming out of that alive?" Shivering, Rab shook his body a little. "You're the one playing games, mate, not me. I wish you wouldn't, because I like you and I'm tired of losing my friends." The words were out of his mouth before he could even think about shutting up. Rab shoved his ice cream cone in his mouth. Again, Benjy’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Aside from that, he remain frozen in place, the expression on his face locked into one of pure incredulity. There was a kernel of truth in Rabastan’s words, though it wasn’t as if he could give him an honest reply: he didn’t expect to come out of this alive at all. Not anymore. But Rabastan didn’t deserve his honesty, and, as his disbelief gave way to anger, the small part of him that wanted to hear what Rabastan had to say was effectively stamped out. Benjy rose from his chair, his mouth a straight slash in his face. “We’re not friends,” he told Rabastan, biting the words off. “Because I’m not friends with Death Eaters.” And with that, he binned his barely touched ice cream and stormed out of Fortescue’s. He had a poison to make. |