gilbert rosier (rosace) wrote in enemies_rpg, @ 2013-03-11 12:55:00 |
|
|||
Sure, he had to get his robes tailored because he was growing, but Gilbert Rosier should probably also get a haircut. But today, the hair that would usually fall in front of his eyes was held back by him wearing his clean, dried underwear on his head. The laundry was in a concerted movement, getting sorted, scrubbed, rung, dried... something or the other. He just did the spells, and he was getting better at it. And it helped that he had an older student with him. "I think you should just party for a month straight after you're done NEWTs," he was telling Reuben, and trying his best to sound sage while doing so. "I went to just one over Christmas." Gilbert just scrunched up his face and nodded to indicate how fun it was. Reuben was waiting for the laundry to finish. The charms were simple enough if you were good at wandwork and he was one of the best in his year at Charms. The chores would be done soon enough and he could go back to his weekend. That was a relief. He liked Gilbert enough. Potentially enough to let him have a try at a relationship with Enid, if Gilbert wasn't already taken. He thought he was all right, and in truth Reuben didn't really have a huge problem with Slytherins in general. Just ones that took an angry and public stand against Muggleborns. So there he was, sitting with a pair of pants on his head as he watched the laundry swirl ahead of them. "Party for a month straight. Huh, well, that's a good idea. I'll probably take at least a week for it. Leaving Hogwarts will be both sad and happy, but in the end there's, well," he said, putting his arm around Gilbert and pointing out at the expanse of the laundry room. "There's a big wide world out there that I'm going to conquer." His eyes following wherever Reuben was pointing, Gilbert surveyed the laundry room, which — indeed — had been a strange new world for him when he first entered a few days ago. A shirt lifted to be wrung, and it briefly obscured his view. While Gilbert didn't mind being touched, he also liked Reuben enough to not shrug off the other boy's arm. With a straight face, and without the urge to point out they were in a cleaning room, Gilbert nodded like he completely understood. Then he frowned. He pulled away slightly from Reuben to peer up at him and ask, "Are you going to war, too?" He shrugged. Reuben really didn't know the answer to that. He didn't know if there would be conscription or not. In the end what really mattered was that he did his duty. he wasn't craven. "If they want me to, I'll go," he said plainly. "But it's not what I really want to do." He took his arm off of Gilbert's shoulders and leaned against the wall behind them. "What about you?" he said. "If you were old enough, would you go to war?" "Helena's going," Gilbert said before re-applying one of the charms that he had set. He said it in a plain manner, rather than sounding longing or regretful or mystified. The idea of participating in someone else's war wasn't too weird to him, but it wasn't something he would do. "If we enter it, I would do something. Otherwise... even conscripting the house-elves seems excessive." "Is she?" Reuben said, eyebrows raised. He hadn't really thought of her going. In fact, she wasn't at all someone he would expect to go. But he thought that it was reasonable for her to go, and so he didn't know what else to say about it. "Huh." He nodded. "The house elf thing surprised me. But I supposed we should at least be helping people with supplies if we're doing nothing else. Seems to me we should be doing something else but I'm going to wait until things are organized to make plans to go myself." "I think we're doing enough." Satisfied with the charm, Gilbert leaned against the wall too. Instead of looking at Reuben, he was watching the laundry go. There was a sense of accomplishment, but watching it was also slightly hypnotic. While some more bland, non-committal statements were in his head, he instead proposed, "Let's talk about something else." "What else? How about girls? You're seeing... Parkinson, right?" Reuben winked at him. "She's quite pretty. Good on you. How long has that been going on?" He hadn't had a relationship for awhile now, what with Miranda breaking up with him. And things with Rosie... Well, he had a handful of regrets right there. "Let's be like birds and talk about relationships." Gilbert tilted his head back to laugh and ended up having to readjust the pants on his head as well. He had his eyebrows raised as he grinned, as if silently asking Reuben, Really? But when he was done talking, Gilbert replied, "I'm seeing her. It's been..." He paused, trying to remember the exact date, since it was an issue the last time he dated Ophelia. Still, he could only come up with, "Over a month. What about you? Are you dating anyone?" A month, huh? That was probably better than most blokes could manage when it came to birds. Especially ones as flighty as the Hogwarts gals. Not that Reuben had any experience with girls who didn't go to the wizarding academy. But still. He knew. He was sure he knew. "No, no one for me. But that's all right. It's better to know what you want and then get it instead of being wishy washy about it. So I'll wait till I know." "What's there to know? We're young. It's someone to share stuff with, and to spend time with, and snog." And despite his words and his attempt to look and sound blase, there was something in Gilbert's voice that indicated that what he had meant more than just those things to him. "Hah, no. Not any girl worth having in my opinion," Reuben said. "Sure, that's all fun. But what's the point if they're going to run off with someone else? Or try to dangle you from a string? No, it's better you know what you're getting yourself into. Most birds aren't happy with just a snog here and there. They want the whole thing and even if it doesn't start with it, spend enough time with a girl and there'll be that expectation, mark my words." He did, in fact, note what was Gilbert's undertone as he spoke, but chose not to remark on it, the edge of his mouth tugging in a smile instead. Whatever Gilbert's feelings for Ophelia were, it didn't stop the fifteen-year-old from politely telling Reuben, "I don't think you understand girls." Reuben opened his mouth to protest but then he shut it and looked up at the ceiling. "No," he agreed quietly. "I don't think I do." As Gilbert straightened, he had to push the underwear band up and off his forehead. "It sounds like you've had rotten luck. A lot of what you said isn't necessarily their fault." He made a slight face, like it was the weirdest thought that had come up in conversation yet. "So are you going to be celibate if you never figure out what you want?" "Hell no," Reuben said. "I'll figure them out." He thought of Augusta, who he was sort of set on now. Talking with Gilbert had only served to make him unsure that he could actually pursue her with any amount of success. He still, of course, felt guilty about Rosie and what he'd done to her. He hadn't seen that trainwreck coming. The look on Gilbert's face didn't change. "What if you don't?" "Well. I'm handsome. They'll still throw themselves at me," Reuben suggested. Gilbert didn't convey any scepticism beyond hesitating before nodding politely. He stepped a little closer to reapply some other spells of his first. While he was good at Charms, and better when he decided to apply himself, he wasn't as good as Reuben. He didn't shirk laundry duty, but it didn't get the same attention as something he loved doing either. "You can snog people at the party. Are you going to any parties over Easter?" Reuben checked over his spells but they were still going well, so he didn't bother fixing them. Things were going a little slower now but that wasn't any real problem. "Not sure yet about parties. And yeah, I might snog. But the last time I tried to just snog a girl it blew up in my face." Gilbert gave him a mildly sympathetic look. "Ahh, that's really shitty." He left it at that, letting Reuben to continue talking or to pull some brooding, stoic, Manly thing. Gilbert wasn't nosy, and he wasn't overly invested in any of his friends' relationships either. He did like seeing them happy, however. Reuben might've been closer to the "really good acquaintance" category, but the situation was as Gilbert said. He shrugged. "Well, it's done and over with," he said. At least he hoped so. He didn't think Rosie had anymore hard feelings... But one never really knew, did they? They could be lurking under the surface. "Onward and upward, right?" Well, Gilbert didn't want to blindly agree. There was a slight pause again, but he looked and sounded neutral otherwise. He wasn't judging. "How long ago was this?" "The day of the Quidditch match Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw," Reuben said. He didn't know why he was telling Gilbert, but there it was. He adjusted the pants on his head after shaking his head. "One day of victory soured by one big mistake." Gilbert let out a sympathetic groan, and then nodded. That was plenty of time to start moving on from whatever it was that happened. "Onward and upward," he repeated. "So is that why you're so protective of your sister?" "I'm protective of her when it comes to little shites," Reuben said, thinking of Dieter Lestrange. After all, he had been giving him the most trouble when it came to Enid since the term had begun. But he had a feeling that the boy had realized that it was not a good time to mess with Reuben Longbottom's sister and had backed off. "She's a strong girl. I trust her to have a boyfriend. But nobody better just casually snog her. And she should let me know who's she's seeing." Before Gilbert could say anything, he continued on. "I let her know who I'm seeing too." When Reuben used the term "little shites", Gilbert thought of some of the Gryffindors in his year, rather than Dieter. So at first, he looked slightly perplexed, then a bit understanding. While he believed his own sister could date whoever she wanted, and she had the good sense and taste to not date the likes of McKinnon, he could sort of see where Reuben was coming from. "What if she wants to casually snog?" "Well, then she'd better talk to me about it. Because I don't trust most boys at Hogwarts and she knows it. There's a lot of them that would take advantage of a sweet girl like Enid. And while I know she's going to have troubles if she dates at all, I'm not going to let someone use her like that." "So if your sister weren't your sister," Gilbert began, using hand gestures in an attempt to keep his question straight, "would you let her date you?" The question gave him pause. Would he? He frowned for a moment as he thought. It was hard to separate Enid as not his sister, but he managed it just long enough to... "Well, yeah," Reuben said. "I'm not a bad guy. I treat my girlfriends well enough. I'd not hurt her on purpose and I'm sure I'd be good to her.' Gilbert just stood there and gave Reuben a weird look. Realising the face he was making, he said, "Sorry, I was just wondering what the fuck happened to go from that," he gestured to indicate he was talking about Reuben's most recent words, "to... that other thing." The vagueness was his attempt to be polite and refrain from trying to describe it. He also shrugged a shoulder to show he didn't really need Reuben to explain himself either. Reuben sighed at Gilbert's answer. Obviously the boy didn't believe him. And maybe he was right. He put his fingers together and moved them back behind his neck and stretched. "Well," he said. "I don't think either of us are pretty good boyfriend material with pants on our heads." |