Pansy Wisteria Parkinson (pugmylife) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2016-12-11 21:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !completed gdoc, ~2016 december, ~25 points, ~~pansy parkinson (pugmylife), ~~~neal caffrey (caffreynated) |
WHO: Pansy Parkinson and Neal Caffrey
WHERE: Pansy’s apartment
WHEN: Dec 5
WHAT: Pansy doesn’t know there’s an issue
RATING: PG
STATUS: log; completed
The Madeira was Pansy’s version of an olive branch. Despite the very thoughtful and personal gift Neal and given her for her birthday, there remained some tension between them. He wanted more; she didn’t. Or, rather, she didn’t want to commit herself to him when she still didn’t trust him entirely to be faithful to her. It wasn’t entirely his fault. He didn’t help his case by flirting with everything that moved, but Pansy’s distrust had deeper roots. Everyone she’d loved had left her in some way, even if they claimed to love her in return. Draco, to appease his family; her father, who’d chosen death over incarceration; her mother, who’d turned to potions for comfort rather than her own daughter, who needed comfort of her own. Pansy had come to expect everyone she ever loved to do the same - so why leave herself open to such pain? A fling was well and fine; but commitment, attachment, and love...that was for other girls. Girls who didn’t have to bear the stigma of having been on the wrong side of a war. Even so, she’d missed Neal in the weeks of their odd estrangement. So she’d invited him over, and he’d agreed. Perhaps she could convince him that a fling was a perfectly good option for them. After all, they’d been enjoying themselves perfectly well without adding anything more to it. *** Neal arrived at seven as Pansy told him. He didn’t bring anything, which was odd for him, but she had ordered take-out so at least there was that. He hadn’t planned on staying very long anyway. Their last encounter left a bad taste in his mouth, and while he still had some feelings for her he was beginning to see that a full-fledged relationship with her was probably not in either of their best interests. He had to move away from it, those feelings, if he wanted to keep things casual between them. He knocked on her door, and stood there with a small smile on his face as he waited for her to answer. It was easy to pretend that he was happy when he wasn’t. The perks of being a con man, he supposed, and he was a damned good one. Those were habits that he’d never break away from. *** He may be a damned good con man, but Pansy was damned good at seeing through the con. It was what she did: see beyond the facade people presented to the world to see the secrets and hidden emotions underneath. It was how she'd so easily needled the Gryffindors and kept control of the den of snakes at Hogwarts at the same time. It was how she'd managed to hold her own with the cutthroat men in her father’s line of business. So while Neal smiled prettily at her, she immediately noted his lack of a gift - something he'd always brought, even if it was as small as a box of chocolates - and the strain behind his eyes. She remembered his lackluster reply to her invitation, and knew it wasn't just because it was hard to convey his enthusiasm on the network. The network had never stopped him from saying just the right thing to make her smile before. She stood at the door, deliberately studying him for a moment too long just to show him that she wasn't entirely convinced by his act, and then she smiled graciously. Pansy could do gracious extremely well when she wanted to; she wasn't an unpleasant bitch all the time. “I hope you're prepared to show your enthusiasm,” she said as she stepped back to let him in. “I'm trying something new for takeaway and it smells delicious.” *** So the con didn’t work with everyone. It was a hazard of the job, and maybe this was a sign that he was out of practice. Neal shrugged it off (mentally) and allowed her to study him. It was hard meeting her gaze, but he forced himself to do it. He had to if he was going to teach himself to get over her. When she stepped back he followed her in and managed another quick grin in her direction. Neal wanted to be playful. He wanted to smack her bottom, give her a kiss, and pretend like everything was back to normal with them. But it wasn’t, and as good as he was with pretending he couldn’t do that. Not with her. “Oh I am,” he said brightly. “It is wine, after all.” He took off his jacket, and laid it upon the back of a chair. He took a deep breath to smell the food she had bought, and nodded. “It does smell great.” He sniffed the air purposefully, and raised a brow. “Kebabs...lamb. And Moussaka?” He laughed. “At least that’s what it smells like to me.” Definitely Mediterranean - at least the spices told him as much. *** It was all very nice, very pleasant. For a moment, Pansy considered continuing like this. Light conversation, good food and good liquor: there were worse ways to spend an evening. But with Neal, Pansy didn't want just light conversation. She wanted him, present and engaged and not hiding behind his easy charm. It was contrary to what she'd told him, she knew. If she wanted casual, this was exactly the kind of interactions they should be having: easy, effervescent, unaffected. But for some reason, it set her teeth on edge. “You know,” she said conversationally as she levitated a wine glass to him. It already held an aperitif, ready for drinking. “My father used to bring me along to some of his business dealings. It amused his clients greatly: bringing a little girl to something as important as the kind of dealings they got up to. Sometimes they were offended; they thought he wasn't taking it seriously. But he did it anyway. Do you know why?” She lifted an eyebrow at him, but didn't give him a chance to reply. “Because I am very, very good at seeing past what people present and into their true thoughts and feelings. And you, Mr. Caffrey, are not as entirely happy to be here as you're pretending to be.” *** Nice and pleasant Neal could do. It was so much a part of him that when he needed to turn it on it was there. He was acting in a way that Pansy wanted, what she said she wanted out of him. If it bothered her he chose to ignore it because he needed to be this way to keep from talking about what it was that bothered him. He grabbed the glass of wine from the air, and nodded his head toward her in thanks. He took a sip, a small one (since Madeira needed to be savored) and made a small mmmm sound as it touched his tongue. He smiled at Pansy, and was about to thank her for the invitation over when she started to mention her father. It was curious, he thought, since she had never once mentioned her family to him before, and it was with that same interest that he listened carefully to her story. And then came the question, and the answer before he even had a chance to reply. It soured the taste of the wine, but he did not react outwardly. Instead he raised a brow, and turned his body to set the wine glass on the counter. “Considering how we left things,” he started to say, and he would have said more if he just didn’t give up entirely. He sighed and shook his head. “I’m not exactly sure what you want from me, Pansy. I made a gesture that you didn’t like. You said you wanted to keep it casual. I’m keeping it casual. No, I’m not entirely happy. It’s good to see you, but it’s not the same.” He picked up his wine glass and took a bigger drink this time. If this was how the entire evening was going to go he was going to need it. That or he needed to just leave. Being around her brought forth too many feelings, ones that he was trying so desperately to suppress. *** And there it was again: what he wanted from her, but wasn’t convincingly offering the same. Although he’d professed to have feelings for her, Pansy didn’t trust in them. People had loved her, and they’d managed to break her heart anyway. She wasn’t at all interested in repeating the experience. But this...what he was giving her now wasn’t what she wanted either. She didn’t want this sad, resigned Neal who gave her empty smiles and hollow charm. She wanted her Pistachio, who challenged her and laughed with her and made her feel like being stuck in this awful town wasn’t so terrible after all. She didn’t reply immediately. Instead, she took a sip of her drink as well. “Have you ever had your heart broken?” she finally asked, staring down at her wine. “Let down by those who claimed to love you most?” *** He laughed at her question because it was absurd and only gave him insight as to how little she thought of anyone other than herself. He smiled, sad as it was, and let out a sigh. “Do you think you’re the only person, in this entire world, that has had their heart broken?” There was an incredulous look on his face as he asked his question because how could she not see that she had broken his? It wasn’t quite the same sort of pain that came with full on heartbreak, but it was enough. He had lived through being betrayed, and lived through seeing the love of his life dying in an explosion. And yet he never gave up on love or connecting with someone. It was the one thing he knew he could not live without. “Do you think you’re the only one who’s afraid of trusting someone...giving yourself to someone… being vulnerable to someone? Is that what you think because then you’re a lot more egotistical than I thought.” He laughed, and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ve lived through more than you can imagine,” he said, eyes burning with anger. “And yet I still take chances on love. I took a chance with you, didn’t I? Told you my feelings only to have you dismiss them like a child that just got a toy it didn’t like?” He looked away for a moment, and shrugged. “Still not giving up on love,” he said to her. “Because sometimes loss is a part of life. Sometimes you do get betrayed and your trust is broken, but that doesn’t mean you close yourself off to feeling anything for anyone ever again. You want to keep living life without pain? Good luck because that’s impossible. You have to know pain to appreciate happiness.” Neal grabbed his coat, and slung it over his arm. “I thought I could do this,” he said to her. “Thought I could keep it casual. But I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you what you want, Pansy.” There was sadness in his blue eyes. They were brimming with tears that he bit back. “And I can’t pretend to not have feelings for you when I do. I tried to get over it.” He shrugged. “Didn’t work. Even went out on some dates to see if that would help. It didn’t. I know you don’t have a problem moving on, though, or moving back I should say.” Neal slipped his jacket on. “I hope you’re happy with Draco. Really, I wish you the best. And I really hope he doesn’t let you down this time.” He wanted to give her a kiss on the cheek, but decided against it as he turned on his heel to leave. He had opened the door, and was halfway out of it when he stopped. “Goodbye, Pansy,” he said sadly before he walked out completely. *** For a moment Pansy couldn't move. She was overloaded, both with information and emotion. Her question hadn't been asked because she thought she was the only one who'd had her heart broken. She knew, somehow, that he had as well. And yet, as he'd said, he kept on. She wanted to know how he did it. She wanted him to share his experience and teach her to do the same. But he'd taken her question as a purely egotistical one, like she didn't know that other people had gone through loss. A flash of anger coursed through her: obviously he didn't understand her, either. And he'd tried dating other people? Her anger flared hotter, coupled with possessiveness. How dared he try to date other people when he'd said he wanted to be with her? This was exactly why she had trouble trusting him. On the heels of all that came confusion. What did Draco have to do with any of it? He ought to know that she and Draco were over, and that she'd never go back to him. All throughout this river of emotion, though, was a bedrock of sadness. Something in her ached to see the I shed tears in his eyes. And then she was yanking the door open, wand forgotten, and she ran in her painfully high heels to catch up to him down the hall, where she caught his elbow and turned him around to face her. “I don't know what you're on about with Draco,” she said. Her words came out in a rush, as if they weren't quite aware that she'd already stopped him and they were still racing to catch up. “But I want to know how. How do you do it? How do you open yourself up again, because I haven't the faintest.” Her voice broke on those last words. She'd tried so hard not to feel these past years, and now the dam was threatening to crack. *** It was amazing that she played off the incident with Draco. Neal looked at her incredulously, and though he was angry and upset he managed to be gentle when he released his arm from her grip. “I saw you kissing Draco,” he said. “I went by your apartment the day after our…” he waved his hand. Argument? Disagreement? He didn’t know what to call it. “I was going to apologize. But then I saw him going in, and then I saw you two kissing.” He bit his tongue to stop himself from saying anymore, and took a step away from Pansy. “I just do it,” he said. “Life’s too short or too damn long to live without love. You get hurt, so what? That’s a part of life. You get stronger. You don’t curl up and die. You don’t live your life barely touching on emotion.” He took another step away from her just out of arm’s reach. “That’s barely living at all.” He shook his head, and stuffed his hands into the pocket of his jacket. “You take a risk on love because you won’t know if you have it if you don’t. Love… it’s a choice, Pansy. You choose to love, or you choose not to. It’s that’s simple, and I’ve always chosen love. I’ll always risk it. And if it doesn’t work out then it wasn’t meant to be, but that doesn’t mean forever. One day I’ll find someone that will want to risk it for me.” And he had, in Kate. She risked it all, and what did it get her in the end? Death at the hands of a madman. And as much as he was scared of losing someone like that again he was willing to take that leap. Neal was hurt, and little did he realize that as he spoke tears fell from his eyes. He wiped them away as he stared at Pansy. She looked frail standing there, pleading with him for an answer that he wasn’t sure he could give her. He lived his life the way he told her, but he didn’t know if that would work for her especially with how closed off she had been. As much as he wanted to be with her Neal knew that it wouldn’t work, not if she didn’t want it to. “Take some time and figure out what it is you want,” he said to her after a few moments. “All I know is I can’t do this.” He gestured between himself and her. “I’m not the guy that you keep on a string whenever you need to feel good about yourself. And I can’t pretend to not have feelings for you just because you want to keep things casual. I wasn’t even proposing marriage when I gave you that key… it was a gesture. Saying that you were always welcome in my life, and when you rejected it you told me that you really didn’t want to be in mine.” *** “I got scared, and I panicked.” The blunt admission came out through a tight throat. She started to lift her hands, as if to reach up and wipe the tears from his face - because she wanted to; because she didn't want him to hurt - but he'd already done it for himself, and she ended up just crossing her arms and turning away. It was hard to look at him, so hurt and yet so stalwart. It made her ashamed that she was hiding under all her layers of emotional protection when he could bare himself to her and still come out as the braver one. Pansy had always known that she wasn't brave. That had always been perfectly all right with her, because bravery was for Gryffindors, and heroics got people killed. She was a survivor. She kept going when the Weasleys of the world were being buried. She kept her head high when whispers of her father’s suicide followed her around. No, she didn't curl up and die, but neither did she put herself out there, because that was just asking to be hurt. But here was Neal, who did put himself out there over and over no matter how much it hurt, and she couldn't help, in that moment, but to admire him. And envy him. And want him. She expelled a long, steadying breath. “Shutting myself off was how I managed to survive these past few years. It's how I've always managed to survive. You threaten that, Neal. You make feel, and that's terrifying. When you gave me the key, I saw myself taking it, and coming in whenever I wanted, and you waiting for me, and us laughing and talking and being happy, and I didn't trust it. I've gone so long not being happy I was scared to open myself up to the possibility because it would hurt that much more when I lost it. So I retreated by asking you to keep things casual. You make me feel more than I ever had, like the world is bigger and brighter just because you're in it. And I didn't know how to handle that.” She stopped for a moment, struggling with her next words. Finally, she lifted her gaze to meet his. “But I want to learn.” *** Neal looked at Pansy with sad eyes. He wondered how exactly someone got as closed off as she was. How much bad shit had to happen for them to not trust anyone at all. But then Neal remembered that she had trusted someone - Draco. And that the day after he offered her the key he saw her kissing him. She obviously had no issues learning to love and trust him, and the sadness that he had suddenly vanished. “Bullshit.” He paused after he said it, and shook his head. “You obviously had no trouble learning to trust and open up to Draco. It was easy for you to go back to him, wasn’t it? And that’s fine, Pansy. Really. I want you to be happy. But you don’t get to keep me around while you still have feelings for him and he’s here. That’s not fair to either of us.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I honestly don’t think you want to be with me,” he said with resignation. “I think you like the idea of me. You like how I make you feel. But when you think about it, you don’t really have feelings for me.” *** “No, hold off a minute.” Pansy unfolded her arms to wave them in a sharp, negating motion. He’d mentioned seeing her kiss Draco, and she hadn’t explained that yet - but obviously that was the first thing she should have addressed. Of course he’d be upset that, after they’d had a disagreement, she’d apparently gone back into the arms of her ex. But that wasn’t what had happened at all, no matter how bad it looked. She blew out her breath, trying to get her thoughts together. How had it become such a terrible mess, when she prided herself on being able to manipulate events and people? But that was the problem, wasn’t it? She’d never been able to manipulate Neal. He’d disarmed her from the start, set her back on her heels, and now she found herself in a position where she couldn’t see a way out of it. There was a part of her - the part that shied away from being hurt again - wanted to just give up and walk away, so she wouldn’t have to feel this fear, this regret. But a stronger part of her, the one that’d laughed at his antics and curled up against him at night, didn’t want to let go. What they had was too good, even as casual as it had been, and maybe...maybe if it was more, it could be even better. “Draco and I were fighting,” she finally said. “I know it probably didn’t look good from where you were, and you probably don’t have any reason to believe me right now, but that’s the truth of it. I invited him over to talk because I couldn’t figure out what to do about you - about us - and we ended up shouting at each other, and that ‘kiss’ was just a terrible attempt to shut each other up. But there was nothing behind it. You said that I like the idea of you, but that’s not true. I like you and how you make me feel. I like the kind of person I am when I’m with you. It was the idea of Draco that I liked, and that other night? It made me realize I never actually loved him. It was what I thought he was that I loved. And even that, I don’t love anymore. I’ve moved on, and you make me want to move on with you. I’ve just been too scared to, before.” *** It was hard to take stock in anything Pansy said. He knew what he saw through the window that night. Granted, he didn’t hear the conversation, or the argument she said she had with Draco, but he saw the kiss. He saw what he thought was passion and lust. He had kissed people in the same way before - a near animalistic hunger. As if you couldn’t get enough of the other person. That’s what it looked like to him, but now he wasn’t sure because of what Pansy told him. Or, she could just be telling him things to keep him on a leash. Neal let out a sigh, and reached a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. This was a right mess they were in, and in all truth he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He only knew that it wasn’t going to get fixed that night not with the both of them so heated about the situation. “If you care about me like you say you do then you’ll give me time,” he said to her finally. “I just… I just can’t believe that if you really felt these things for me that you would have waited so long to say anything to me. You called your ex to talk when you really should have called me to talk it over.” Neal closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. “I just need time, Pansy.” *** Pansy’s face went blank. The anguished plea that had had her wanting to reach out to him was gone now, but neither did she retreat back behind her wall of anger and disdain. It felt like a slap in the face, for her to open herself up so much to him, only to have him pull back anyway and ask for more time. And what was more time? More opportunities to leave altogether, that was what. But if he did decide to put an end to it altogether, that was better than clinging onto him when he didn’t want to be in that relationship, when he felt like he still couldn’t trust her. Pansy was through staying with someone or making him stay with her just to keep him. That, more than simply letting someone in, was what would lead to another fiasco like she’d had with Draco. So when she spoke, she actually managed to sound contained. Reasonable. “I didn’t say anything before because it’s not easy for me to open up about my feelings. But now I have, and you’re welcome to believe me, or think of me as a lying liar who only wants to keep her toys. Go on and take your time. I’ll wait, but only for so long. So be sure to tell me when you’ve made a decision one way or the other.” *** Neal wasn’t sure what to think about it all. He didn’t quite believe her, and yet she seemed so vulnerable standing there in the hallway as she bared her heart to him. This was what he had wanted from her, but not like this. Not when she was pushed in a corner. He had wanted it to be natural and something she wanted to do, not something she was forced to do. He was glad, however, that she relented to giving him time and for the first time that night he offered up a genuine smile. “Thank you, Pansy,” he said. And then he was quiet because what more could he say? His emotions were still running high, and so were hers. They both needed time after they had both bared their hearts to one another. “Goodnight,” he said, and with that he turned on his heel to leave. It was hard to not look back over his shoulder at her, but he kept his resolve. For his own sake really. His heart couldn’t take any more hurt that night. *** Pansy kept her gaze on the hallway long after he’d disappeared down the stairs. There could be a chance he’d come back someday, but Pansy wasn’t going to wait for it to happen. |