davies; ROGER (rgrd) wrote in lazarustheic, @ 2017-06-20 12:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | !thread, character: daphne greengrass, character: roger davies |
who ? daphne greengrass and roger davies
when ? tuesday morning, 20th june
where ? daphne and roger’s house
what ? daphne wakes up teenaged
status ? complete
Like most work days, Roger woke before Daphne. Careful not to disturb her before her alarm went off, Roger got out of bed and headed for the shower, sticking the coffee machine on beforehand so when he returned to the kitchen half-dressed for work, the place was already filled with the smell of coffee. Usually, though, Daphne was up by the time Roger got out of shower, so he frowned slightly when she wasn’t in the kitchen. Either Daphne’s alarm hadn’t gone off or she had turned it off, because she was still in bed when Roger went to investigate. Sitting down at the side, Roger gave Daphne’s shoulder a light shake.
“Daph, you’re going to be late for work if you don’t get up,” he told her gently. It wasn’t quite true, she still had at least an hour before she actually needed to be at work, but they normally had breakfast together. “Are you poorly?” Roger asked with a frown and then his frown deepened because Daphne looked... off. She didn’t look ill just... “Young. You look young,” Roger commented dumbly, pulling his hand back automatically. She definitely looked much younger than she had last night. Roger was quite sure this was not what they meant by ‘beauty sleep’.
--
Daphne remembered very little more than going to sleep. Going to sleep at sixteen-years-old, of course. When she was awakened by someone old and calling her name, she blinked blearily at him. He didn't look familiar and he was talking about her looking young. "Who are you?" she asked, only realizing then that her surroundings didn't look familiar. Not only was she with some strange man, but she was in what could only be his bedroom. Not just in his bedroom but in his bed.
A sense of horror rushed through her veins and she pulled the covers up over herself as she backed away from him toward the headboard in a panic. "Where am I? How did I get here?" She wasn't even sure where her wand was or how the hell she managed to get herself into the position she was in.
--
It really shouldn’t have been surprising when the much younger looking Daphne sounded much younger, but it did still startle Roger unexpectedly. “You’re home,” Roger replied but just as he was saying it he realised that it was unlikely Daphne would agree. “Um,” was about as much as Roger managed, before stepping aside from the bed, not wanting to look... well, he had no idea, but presumed that waking up in a stranger’s bed was a pretty distressing experience for a teenager. “How old are you?” Roger asked with a frown.
“I’m Roger,” he added. “I think something’s happened? Last night you were twenty seven,” Roger explained. “It’s twenty seventeen.” Not that Daphne really needed to believe him, Roger realised. “Do you want to get dressed and I’ll make some coffee?” Roger offered. “Your clothes are in that closet,” he added. “Look around, you’re not--I’m not--like I’m not going to hurt you, okay?” Roger hoped Daphne would believe him, because he had no idea how else to convince her. Also he really needed coffee.
Leaving her behind in the bedroom, Roger walked back to the kitchen to almost down a cup of coffee before refilling it. This was not how he’d expected his morning to go.
--
When he asked her how old she was, she blinked at him. "Sixteen," she told him as if it wasn't quite obvious. When he went on to give her his name and tell her that she was home, she decided he was either confused or lying to her. At the very least, Daphne thought that this Roger person must have lost his mind because she was not twenty-seven. She also was decidedly not at home.
The next thing he said, though, that it was twenty seventeen had her eyes widening. The mention of her clothes in a closet and something about coffee got him a nod and she watched him as he left the room. How any of this was even remotely possible was beyond her. Once she was sure he wasn't coming back into the room, she got out of the bed and went to the closet. Sure enough, there were clothes there. Clothes that looked like things she'd buy. The sizing wasn't off too much so at least she hadn't spontaneously ballooned to twice her size if she really was twenty-seven in this world. Maybe she'd somehow jumped into an alternate reality or time traveled. It was possible.
But Roger's presence still didn't make much sense, especially if it wasn't an alternate reality. She was a lesbian. Would she really be married to some man? Was she married? There were so many questions that Daphne didn't really know where to start.
Once she'd found something to wear, she carefully poked her head out of the room. It didn't take long to find this Roger person that she'd been woken up by. He was in the kitchen looking about the way she felt. "Are you my husband?" she asked him. "We don't have any children, do we?" Maybe she had gotten married. Her mother would never hear the end of it if she didn't, obviously.
--
Sixteen. Roger honestly wasn't even sure what Daphne had done when she'd been sixteen, though he was trying to figure out the timeline of the war in his head. It hadn't happened yet, not the Battle, not many of the things. But they weren't yet in the heat of the war either, thankfully, because Roger felt that that might be even harder to explain, how suddenly everything was fine. Not that he had much of a clue how to explain this at all, since he didn't really know how this had happened. Briefly, Roger worried that Daphne just wouldn't come out of the bedroom, as he tried to figure out who he could owl. Astoria probably, but then, when Daphne was sixteen, Astoria would've been fourteen and she definitely wasn't now. When Daphne did emerge from the bedroom, albeit cautiously, Roger gave a small sigh of relief.
"We're not married," he told Daphne. "To your mother's great disappointment," he added as a small joke and only afterwards wondered if that was really the best idea right now. "We don't have kids," he assured Daphne, suddenly struck by how weird it would be if they did and Daphne woke up sixteen. "I'm your boyfriend. We've been together for... eight? Nine months?" It probably would've been helpful if Roger remembered how long they'd been together, but it hadn't really seemed very important until this very moment. "But you're sixteen so you're... gay?" He asked unsure. "Shit," Roger sighed. "I don't know how great I am at explaining this." Especially since Daphne's sexuality wasn't something that Roger thought even Daphne would find easy to explain.
--
Daphne snorted because she couldn't disbelieve him much when he said what he did about her mother. That was accurate. It was also a relief to know that they hadn't had a child. The thought of being a mother, though something she thought she wanted in the very distant future, was terrifying at present.
As he explained that he was her boyfriend, she just arched her brows at him. He kept right on going and mentioned that she was gay which she hadn't told a soul save for the obvious girl that she made out with on occasion, but she wasn't going to discuss that with her boyfriend from the future. If he knew she was gay, that led to a whole other mess of questions that she wasn't sure which to choose to start with.
"You know I'm gay?" she asked him. "But you're my boyfriend? That doesn't really make much sense."
--
“No, it doesn’t,” Roger agreed. He wasn’t sure how to explain. Mostly, Roger assumed, that no matter how he tried to explain, Daphne was unlikely to believe him. Roger wasn’t sure he’d believe someone from the future telling Roger he was their boyfriend when he’d never felt sexual attraction towards men. “I know you thought you were gay when you were sixteen,” he settled on. “You’re dating... Gretchen?” Daphne had told Roger about her dating history, so Roger knew there hadn’t been a great deal of women she’d dated. Roger certainly had dated far more, but he’d never had the same level of feelings for them as Daphne did.
Pouring some coffee out for Daphne, Roger offered her a mug before frowning. "Or I can make you tea?" He commented. "Or we have juice? Milk? Water?" They also had booze, but Roger doubted it was appropriate to give a sixteen year old alcohol before eight in the morning. "I know this is weird for you," Roger commented. It was plenty of weird for him, too, but probably for different reasons. "It must sound impossible," he said with a small sigh. "You came out as gay early last year," Roger told her. "And then we met and, well, it turns out you're not as gay as you think?" Which sounded ridiculous and Roger realised he was literally sounding like he turned Daphne straight and that wasn't how Roger thought about it, but he knew that plenty of other people did.
--
It was all very confusing for Daphne. The more he spoke, the more confused she became because he knew things that she wouldn't have told someone unless they were very close to her. At the point in her life presently, she hadn't even told Astoria how she felt about girls. Roger knew, though. It was terrifying, but it also sobered her enough to believe that, at least in this world, he wasn't lying about who he was to her.
It was scary to hear someone say Gretchen's name aloud and tie it to her with the word dating. She swallowed the uncomfortable lump that formed in her throat and the urge to deny that she was dating anyone, especially a female. The offer of coffee or tea or any of the number of other things he offered her got a shake of her head. She could drink the coffee he'd given her. Maybe it would shock some warmth into her system that presently just felt very cold.
She wrapped her hands around the mug and worried her lower lip. "So you know my sister, then?" she asked. "I mean, if you're my boyfriend, of course you would." Maybe seeing Astoria would make her feel better. "Do you know where she is?" The realization that Astoria would be older than her was kind of frightening as well, but at least she knew her.
--
"Yeah," Roger nodded. "Astoria lives near by," he explained. "I'll owl her?" Roger commented. He would've offered to just take Daphne over to Astoria's place, but he wasn't sure whether Daphne's sister would've already gone off to work, or was at her boyfriend's or any one of those things. Owling seemed easier, so after taking another sip of his coffee, Roger set about doing that, scrawling a note to Astoria explaining the situation and asking whether she'd be willing to come over and if not, whether Roger could drop Daphne off at her flat. As much as Roger wanted to be able to deal with this, he wasn't really sure what he could currently do for Daphne.
Once he'd returned to the kitchen, Roger offered Daphne an apologetic look, unsure what he was even apologising for. "I know this is weird for you," Roger offered. "It was weird for you last year, too, if that helps?" Which it might not, but at least it wouldn't seem like Daphne had just gone mad by deciding to date Roger. "We're happy," Roger offered. "You're an editor. You finished your first book recently," he told her. "You're looking at maybe getting it published." Those were good things, right?
--
"Please?" Daphne said. Roger needed little pleading, though, and went about getting an owl sent off to her sister. She was relieved once he had done it. Maybe Astoria would be able to fix this. Find someone who could turn her back or at least tell her what was going on. Maybe it wasn't as terrifying as it seemed. Maybe she'd go right back home where she belonged soon. She hoped so. Whatever was going on wasn't something she wanted to continue dealing with. Thinking about it just made it worse.
When he started to tell her about her life now, she tilted her head and listened. She'd written a book. She was an editor. She'd done things that she only dreamed of doing. It was fabulous, really. Even if she'd somehow accidentally ended up with a boyfriend. The thought alone was still so strange to her. She found herself looking over Roger's features, wondering if she could understand why she'd fallen for him. He was attractive, she could at least admit that. Even if he was older. Of course she was older, too. Or at least that was what he said.
"How did we meet?" she asked. He wasn't someone she knew so surely she had to have met him at some point after she was sixteen.
--
"We met in a pub," Roger told Daphne honestly. It was hardly the most romantic of meetings, nor, really, had it in any way pretended to be either. Roger tried to figure out how to best retell the story that didn't upset Daphne, because at least part of their meeting had been down to Daphne's failing relationship (or not-relationship at that particular time) with her current girlfriend. "We started talking, about ourselves, then about you, about being gay," Roger settled on as an explanation. "You came home with me," Roger said with a small shrug.
Roger hadn't, as far as he recalled, ever challenged Daphne's sexuality, not even after they'd had sex. They'd both kind of accepted that she just wasn't sure and that had been enough. Still was enough because they were happy together. "I don't think I really have the answer for you," Roger admitted. "Like there is no reason why meeting me made you question your sexuality," Roger commented. "Not apart from the fact that you never had before." Which Roger had no idea whether at sixteen Daphne would've known how, not when she was in love with a girl. That realisation felt weird low in Roger's stomach - the fact that Daphne loved someone else.
--
Meeting in a pub wasn't really romantic, no, but it wasn't uncommon either, she supposed. Plenty of people met other people in pubs or shops or something of that sort. It was believable. Hearing that she'd met him and gone home with him on the same night confused her a little. Especially because he said she'd told him about being gay. It was confusing, but she supposed that everything about the situation was going to be.
His admittance that he had no explanation or reasoning for why things had happened the way that they did was actually quite comforting. At least she wasn't the only one who seemed confused and uncertain. "What if I can't get back to who I am for you?" she found herself asking. "What if I'm stuck this way?" She wondered what that would mean for him. Hell, she wondered what it would mean for her to be stuck at sixteen in a world that was not where she'd come from.
--
“You’re not going to be stuck like this,” Roger said before Daphne could even finish the question. “It’s probably just a magical thing. There’s been a few of those lately and they tend to go away within twenty four hours.” Honestly, Roger thought that was safe to presume, but even if it wasn’t he didn’t really want to entertain the idea of Daphne not returning to her actual age. He wanted to tell her how she’d be fine, Astoria would look after her if that did happen (however unlikely the scenario might be), but honestly, Roger couldn’t bring himself to even consider that scenario.
Instead, he finished his mug of coffee and then looked around the kitchen. “Do you want me to cook some breakfast for you whilst we wait to hear back from your sister?” Roger asked because that was easier to think about than the idea that Daphne would never remember their relationship. Roger, honestly, had no idea what that’d mean. It was hardly like they could try again, not when Daphne was sixteen. “I’m sure this will all clear up,” he said with a small shake of his head.
--
The thought of being stuck, remembering him or otherwise, was a frightening one for Daphne, too. She hoped, for both of them, that Roger was right and that she'd be back to herself, whoever that was, within a day or two. She worried her lower lip again, uncertain if she could count on that, but not wanting to entertain the horrible idea that she might be stuck any longer than she had.
"Okay," she said, nodding. Maybe breakfast would somehow make her stomach stop churning. She could hope, at least. "Astoria will know what to do," she said. "Maybe." Astoria was only a teenager in her world, but maybe in this one she would have all the answers.