Jessamine Spinnet (jasminum) wrote in disorderic, @ 2018-04-02 16:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | jessamine spinnet, leon stebbins |
WHO: Leon Stebbins and Jess Spinnet
WHEN: This afternoon, 4/2
WHERE: Jess' house
SUMMARY: Leon makes a confession.
WARNINGS: nope.
`Jess liked that Leon didn’t have to go out and be demonstrative in his dates and he could just as easily spend time around their respective houses, nattering on about plants and medicines, as easily as they could out at dinner or some event. She particularly liked sitting in front of him with Toot on her shoulder, and a pot of French lavender in her lap. “I’m serious. Brittany has some of the best lavender if you’re specifically looking to help people with re-occuring nightmares about drowning. Look, I’ll do a study and everything.” There was something magical (could he say it was magical when they themselves were? He didn’t know what else to call it.) about the simplicity of the quiet moments he spent with Jess. Sitting around like this, talking about plants, hanging out with her bird or his cat — it was exactly what he’d always imagined a life shared with someone would look like. He leaned in to rest his chin on her shoulder, peering over to look at the lavender. “And then you’ll take me to Brittany and show me,” he suggested with a grin. “And I will coast on your laurels.” “Oh, my laurels are uncoastable!” she replied, giving her shoulder a bounce as he settled on it. She laughed and angled the pot toward him, gesturing with her chin. “You’ll just have to settle for collaboration.” Leon hummed softly, pretending to think long and hard about that. In reality, his heart may have skipped to hear her already suggestioning collaboration - even in jest - because his mind had already gone there. He could see it: the two of them with their heads bent over the same plants, examining its properties, conducting experiments… “All right. And after France, I’ll take you to where I studied in Africa. You’d love it. These ancient populations, they knew more than we give them credit for.” The two of them travelling -- not any time soon, not with the war on and with his responsibilities to the Order, but one day. Was it wild to already be thinking about that? Too much? “What would we do with Toot and Apollo?” Jess smiled, considering the boundless energy and innovation of a potential collaboration with this Healer she respected. And, well? Spending time with him was primary amongst her reasons for suggesting it, too. Her fingertips briefly found the tip of his chin. “I want to see it all,” she said, nodding. “And the animals can come with. That’s the ease of wizard transport, of course.” He dropped a kiss to the crook of her neck. “They’d get used to the adventures.” It felt wrong -- like a lie, almost, to talk about this like it was a real possibility when there was so much she didn’t know. It was a nice dream, but was it realistic? His stomach turned at the thought of letting her have these dreams without all the information she needed. “Jess, I -- there’s something I’ve got to tell you.” With a brow arched, she turned to him and sat up, making Toot fly to his perch in the corner. “If you’re going to unzip your person suit, don’t,” was a laugh. “This is too good and I am … happy to be completely in the dark.” Leon laughed lightly, although it came out a little tense, and he shook his head. “No, no, nothing like that.” It would probably ruin this good thing, though, he thought. She was happy, and he was about to upend all of that. It wasn’t fair, but then, it wasn’t fair that he’d allowed her to get involved in the first place. Better now than down the road, after some of the hypothetical collaboration. Better to give her an out sooner rather than later. “It’s --” Leon looked at her and almost chickened out. “About the Order.” “Oh.” That person suit. Setting the pot of lavender on the side table, she turned to him with her arms crossed and managed to keep from cursing on the spot. Perhaps she was going to hear about how the Order helped him out of a jam, or he gave them calming draught one night to help her parents. She sucked in a breath. “Go on.” He felt like wincing at the look on her face. He’d really mucked this up, and he wasn’t sure how he could salvage the moment or their fledgling relationship - if he could even call it that. He wanted to be able to, but now? It was up to her. “I think you know.” Leon didn’t want to have to say it explicitly. “I know I should have told you earlier, before…” Before he spent the night, certainly. “And I'm sorry I didn’t.” Flatly -- “Say it.” The Order of the Phoenix brought drama, danger, death. It was a wonder her sister still lived, a wonder her parents had escaped certain death twice. She look a deep breath. “And don’t be sorry. It was a call you made.” Now he cringed in earnest. She wasn’t happy. Not that he could blame her. While he might not have lied directly, he hadn’t been fully honest, either. Still, he evaded her request for another moment. “I can be sorry for the calls I make when they hurt someone,” he pointed out. “When I joined, I didn’t expect -- I didn’t expect you. But you’re part of my life in a different way now.” He paused, and then added, “if you want to be.” Jess couldn’t fathom a kind response, or one that took a thoughtful review of the facts into account. Like her sister, it seemed, this man thought it expedient to put himself in the way of danger. “Why?” The question took Leon back a little. He didn’t know why, exactly, the other members had joined, but he assumed the reasons were all fairly similar: that they wanted to make a difference, that they wanted to fight back, that they wanted to get revenge or justice or whatever it was. “Same reason anyone else might,” he started, shrugging, “someone’s got to fight back one way or another.” “But it …” She shook her head. These fights with her sister were hard because so often, she felt as though their relationship as sisters came between them. But she and Leon could enter this as equals. “You make a difference healing people every day, Leon. You don’t need to put your life and your career in danger by belonging to a vigilante organisation that --” continues to put my sister, my mother and my father in terrible danger -- “gets people killed!” Leon narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “That’s not what we --” But wasn’t it? Even if it was unintentionally? “We’re not trying to hurt people, Jessamine. You know me, your sister. You know we wouldn’t do something like that.” It felt, honestly, a bit of a personal affront that she thought little of them. “What good is my career if they’re in charge?” he asked. “When I can’t even treat everyone who needs it? When they’re sending people like my grandmum away to prison or forcing them on the run over nonsense. What does my career even matter if my hands are tied and I only watch people get hurt?” She snorted. “I didn’t say you were trying to hurt people.” This discussion seemed to be going about as well as things went with Alicia when they started discussing vigilante activity. Granted, things were getting a bit more desperate that Jessamine had expected. But that still didn’t mean she didn’t think that the next election would come, and that changes would be made, if she could just keep her head down … things would be normal again. “I don’t know what to tell you, Leon. I am obviously not a hero. I just want to survive this.” “I know,” he answered, quietly and a little dejected. “I don’t know what to say either, except that I’m honestly not trying to shuffle off this mortal coil. I know that’s probably hard to believe, but I -- I just wanted to help.” Leon pressed his lips together tightly, trying to figure out how he was going to salvage any of this. He knew that what they had could be good. No, could be great. “You know things aren’t going to get better, right?” Jess thought about her Mum and Dad who knew where, doing who knew what, all while trying to stay in Britain while this whatever was going on. It probably wasn’t going to get better. It would probably only get much, much worse. But her pride couldn’t yet let her admit this. She shook her head. “You don’t know that. The new Minister’s going to get elected.” That idea almost made Leon laugh. “New Minister?” He knew he should try harder to sound more understanding, more kind, but it was really hard for him to see where she got her hope and optimism from. From where he was sitting, he saw a Ministry that had been so ineffectual that it allowed Death Eaters to slip by unthreatened, it allowed a takeover to happen in the blink of an eye. “Who’s the new Minister going to be?” he asked instead. “One of the Lestranges? Malfoy? Avery?” Okay, now he was sounding unkind. He sighed and lifted a hand to scratch his head. “Jess, I don’t think… we’re not going to have a new Minister. Not in the way you think. Not unless someone stops them first. We can’t elect it away. This… this poison that’s infected our society, it won’t disappear even if we elect a Minister that we like. Look at what happened to Gawain Robards. He was trying to do it the right way, and look what happened.” Jess’ brow flattened. “You know, I probably want to say something really horrible right now so I’m going to tell you and let you imagine it.” But it wasn’t to him. It wasn’t to Alicia. It was to every upjumped limpdick Death Eater who thought terror was commerce. Then, she stood, raking her fingertips through her hair. “It’s gone away every other time,” she spoke to the window. But she knew he was right. She knew Alicia was right. “Why can’t it just go away.” She just couldn’t find it in herself to throw her own body in front of someone else’s wand. She wanted to survive. To grow plants and conduct experiments and help people without this threat of violence. Leon gave her a moment to stand there by herself before he joined her, sidling up next to her. He really wanted to put his arms around her and hold on, try to give her some comfort since his words weren’t working well, but he just slid his hand down into hers instead. “It’s gone away because people have stood up against it,” he said quietly. He gave her hand a squeeze and then pulled away. “I’m sorry to drag you into this another way. I’ll understand if you — if you want me to leave.” She squeezed his hand. This war had taken her sister, her parents … it couldn’t take this good thing she’d been waiting on for so so long. “No. Stay.” “Okay.” Leon didn’t believe it at first - not because he thought Jess was a liar, but because he thought he was only hearing what he wanted to hear. When she didn’t pull her hand away, and held his hand in hers instead, he let himself breathe. “I am sorry, you know,” he murmured, turning towards her. His other hand reached up to turn her face towards his, and he leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead. “And I’ll be careful. Promise.” Her hand found his shoulder and though she did not smile, she afforded him a nod. She understood him. Understood why he persisted. She didn’t like it and didn’t for a moment think he would be dissuaded. So she kissed him and pulled back, brow arched. “You better. I didn’t wait this long for it to all go up in smoke.” It didn’t feel like a fix -- far from it, in fact, judging by the look on her face -- but Leon knew he had to take what he could get. He didn’t deserve her by a long shot, but if she was going to stay, he’d do everything he could to make sure he was the right person for the job. She wasn’t smiling, but he was. “You waited a while, hmm?” Her brows arched. “ … so not in the mood for you to be cute right now, Stebbins!” she said, but let her hand rest another moment on his cheek, before she walked back to the sofa, falling into the corner where she could wrap her arms around herself. She wanted to exhort him to look after Alicia, to let her help them get out and be more careful, because they needed to survive. But she didn’t say anything about that either. Instead she smiled briefly. “I feel like I’m on the verge of a breakthrough utilizing calendula extract to develop a potion to counteract the Imperius Curse. It disrupts the pathway of neural receptors … I should show you.” Leon wanted to play innocent and say that he was always cute, but he knew that he was the one who needed to follow her lead here. He joined her on the sofa, though he picked the other end, still not sure what to do with all the distance between them now. He couldn’t wish that he’d never said anything; he only hoped that it didn’t change anything for the worse. Wide eyed, Leon leaned forward. “Seriously?” If she could manage that, then -- that would be groundbreaking. “Yes. Yes, show me. Jess, you’re - you’re incredible.” She bit her lip briefly, then stood, holding out her hand to him. She’d take him to the greenhouse. “Come along, Stebbins.” It’s not over, Leon reminded himself as he took her hand and stood up. It wasn’t over yet, and it felt like more than he deserved. They’d gone from easy and awkward and nervous flirting to this in no time flat, and Leon just wanted some of that magic back. But he could be patient. “Lead the way.” |