Becca Dunstan (furtive) wrote in disorderic, @ 2017-12-31 00:05:00 |
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Layla slid into the booth hurriedly, pulling off her coat and gloves. Her hair was matted with wet, melting snow, but she didn’t seem to mind given the warmth of the coffee shop and the crackling fire nearby. She gave Becca a sheepish grin. “Sorry, got held up at work. People actually want New Year’s metal charmed.” Which was ridiculous to her, but it kept her gainfully employed. Before Layla could say anything else a server pointedly came to the table and asked to see her ID card, which the Gryffindor presented after fishing it out of her pocket. Relieved, the server took her coffee order and disappeared. “How’s you?” “Glad to not be outside, to start. You look cold!” Becca replied, picking up the mug she’d already ordered. It hadn’t been that long though. Layla would catch up soon enough. “I’m glad you got away though. Everyone deserves a break right now.” Especially, she thought, herself, since everything was terrible. “It’s the fact I look like Rudolph, isn’t it?” Layla joked, but then grimaced and pawed at her nose, red from the cold. “Right?” Layla agreed easy enough and looked enviously at Becca’s warm beverage. “Did you manage to get more time off for the holidays, or…” Was Umbridge even terrible in the boss regard as well. “A little bit. Not as much as I’d like, but as long as I check in periodically I can be free to occasionally do things like this!” Small mercies, she thought. It was a slight break from trying to send snatchers away from people without actually acting like she was sending them away from people. The balancing act didn’t feel very good. “You do look a little like Rudolph though.” “Some of us can pull off red.” Maybe not as good as Richenza, Layla admitted mentally. The retort sat there as the server put down a mug of steaming coffee in front of Layla, which the woman eagerly warmed her hands on. “Good, I… well, good.” She didn’t really want to think about muggleborns being hunted down. That wasn’t something she’d ever wanted. “And how’s… everything else?” She brought the mug to her lips, hot or not, and take a long sip to heat herself back up. “Everything is terrible!” Becca admitted, taking a sip of her coffee. That was good, at least. “Though everything is always terrible, I guess. Do you think it might get better in the new year?” “It sure is,” Layla agreed with a sigh, drumming the fingers of one hand on the table and looking a touch melancholic. “Do you want me to be optimistic or realistic?” “Well realistically we both know it probably won’t, right? I wonder how many more of our classmates will turn out to be Death Eaters,” Becca said, referring to all the classes between hers and Layla’s. She sighed, propping her chin in her hand. “Probably not.” Layla knew there was little chance of anything improving for those who didn’t settle down, which didn’t really include Becca so there was some hope there of better things to come in her case. The question posed was one Layla knew the answer to. “Merlin, I hope none,” she said earnestly simply because she didn’t ever want her darkest secret to come out. She took another sip. “No one really seems to be like Montague.” She eyed Becca appraisingly, not asking, but asking all the same. “Graham’s an idiot,” Becca said sullenly, looking down at her mug. She didn’t really want to think about him or how disgusted she was — at him, at herself. She knew she was doing a lot of questionable things, but making out with a murderer felt exceptionally gross. “Like I knew he was all slytherin-y but now he’s all lol murder’s cool though, and ugh.” Layla took another sip. “He sure is.” To all of it, really. Her feelings on Graham Montague were complicated due to all the history he and her friends had, but also now their straining working relationship. “You didn’t actually go wine tasting, did you?” A flash of embarrassment flitted across Becca’s face, but she shook her head anyway. She didn’t see the point in admitting her terrible, terrible lapse in judgement. A part of her wondered if the whole thing had just been a way to punish herself for staying at the MRC, even though she knew perfectly well that what she was really doing was staying out of Azkaban. Things were too complicated. “But I guess I didn’t hate his face, but now I think it’s pretty ugly!” Layla grimaced at the admission even if she was already fairly certain, but she didn’t admonish her friend. Everything was such a delicate balance -- more than Layla had ever wanted in her life -- so she had to be careful she didn’t admit to hearing a bit more about this from Montague. “I guess it happens, you know?” Evil tended to be just as hot as good, after all. “Well Death Eating isn’t a good look, so it was bound to make him look a lot uglier!” Becca frowned, a finger lightly tracing around the rim of her mug as she thought about things. “Things would be a lot easier if none of this was happening. It’s dumb. It’s all dumb.” Layla nodded, “There’s not a cosmetic in the world that helps with that.” Unfortunately, beyond the physical Layla knew that if her affiliation came out she too would be that much uglier to a lot of people she cared about. And that was hurting more and more these days. “You’re telling me. I can’t believe someone actually rebirthed that idiot.” Becca sighed. “Can we talk about something else? I don’t really want to talk about what’s happening. I get enough of that at work. And I don’t really want to talk about Graham either, because I really didn’t think he was a Death Eater and now I feel like one of the biggest idiots.” The Dark Mark felt oddly itchy. “Yeah, okay. Sorry.” She ran a hand through her wet hair to try and tame it, and also because she’d lead that conversation down worse road. “I wanted to see if you were, well, how you were.” Becca had been quiet during the other entries on the network. “What are we doing for New Year’s?” “No it’s fine!” Becca said quickly, looking at Layla and catching her gaze. “And I’m fine! It’s just not a very happy topic, you know? I’m managing. We’re all managing.” She paused and then offered up a smile. “I think for New Years we should get very, very drunk.” That was a good way to surmise their situation. Everyone was managing, one way or another doing the things they felt they had to do or what was right for the world. Right or wrong. Layla didn’t want to dwell on that anymore than Becca did at present, and she raised her mug of coffee into the air. “Annnnnd do something stupid, I assume?” she prompted. “Or at the very least, something fun,” Becca finished, raising her own mug and clinking it against Layla’s. “Here’s to that!” |