davies; ROGER (rgrd) wrote in reduxpitch, @ 2016-06-08 08:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | !thread, character: celia wood, character: roger davies, location: diagon alley |
who ? celia wood and roger davies
when ? early wednesday morning
where ? diagon alley
what ? morning run ins
status ? complete
There weren’t many things Roger was good at when it came to his job, but the one thing he did usually manage was getting to work early. This was mostly down to the fact that he liked going running in the mornings. Or well, he hated running but he still did it and when he happened to do it, it was in the mornings. For one, there tended to be less people around and for another, and far more important, Roger knew that Arran liked to run in the evenings. They had been friends long enough for that information to be burned into Roger’s mind. Seeing how close they lived together (what a great idea at the time), Roger tried not to put himself in situations where he might run into his (ex) best friend.
What Roger hadn’t quite planned for was accidentally not running into Arran’s family. In the year he hadn’t spoken to Arran (a fucking year), Roger had been shockingly efficient at avoiding all and every Wood, despite living so close to at least three of them. He’d ran into Oliver a while back, but Oliver Wood was possibly the world’s easiest person to distract, for as long as you knew to ask about quidditch. The others might be slightly more difficult. Which he was about to find out, because just ahead of him on the pavement was Celia Wood and Roger was hardly going to be rude enough to ignore her.
“Hey,” he greeted, slowing down slightly to match her speed. Would running off after the greeting be more acceptable? Did it count as fulfilling the social niceties required?
--
Celia had given herself two full days of doing absolutely nothing. No work, no training, no anything but getting out of bed only when it was completely necessary and unavoidable. It had been glorious. It couldn’t last though, or she’d go insane, and while she wouldn’t have minded another day of sleep she had work to get to, and that meant back into the full swing of things. Running, working, flying, then sleep. A normal day. So she’d rolled out of bed, regretfully, put on some running clothes, and set off to start her morning like she’d been doing for months.
She’d heard footsteps behind her, but that wasn’t unusual - a lot of people did things like run in the mornings and she usually saw at least a few others. But then she heard a familiar voice, still familiar even though she hadn’t heard it in a good while, and that was what made her look up from where her gaze had been focused on the path ahead of her.
“Roger!” She beamed up at him and kept running at the same pace, since he seemed to be running with her. “Hi! How are you? It’s been forever!”
--
Well, that was certainly a much cheerier greeting than Roger had expected. Not that he was particularly sure what he had expected. Roger had no idea what Arran had told his siblings. He knew they were close, so he had expected--but then, if Arran had, it was doubtful Roger would have been greeted as kindly by Celia. If he had been greeted at all. “Not too bad,” he offered because what the fuck else was he going to say. Oh, so you don’t hate me because I slept with your brother’s not-quite-fiance? Probably not.
“What about you?” He asked because that, too, was the polite thing to do. “I think last time we spoke you had just started your medi-witch training?” Or Roger certainly remembered talk of it. Celia always had felt much younger than Arran and Roger, mostly probably because she hadn’t even been at school when Roger and Arran were already playing for their respective House Quidditch teams. It was odd to even think of her as out of school.
--
It was kind of nice running with someone! Celia always ran on her own, which was fine, but it made her feel like she needed to push a little more to keep up with him - his legs were much longer than hers, which meant a longer stride, and faster gait, and it didn’t matter he was slowed down to be at her pace, it still felt like he was ahead of her a bit. Maybe it would be a good idea to get a running buddy for the future, to help her not get complacent.
“Oh, I’m almost done!” She raised her arms up victoriously for a moment before dropping them back down how they’d been before. “A few more weeks and then I’m an apprentice no more! The whole poisoned chocolates thing kind of made last week crazy, but hopefully nothing like that pops up over these next ones.” Her head tilted as she looked up at him for a moment. “You didn’t have any of them, did you? The chocolates that made everyone all wonky?”
--
Roger was slowing down to match Celia’s pace, but that in itself was quite challenging, so he didn’t feel that he was like, missing out on exercise or anything. Not that Roger would ever feel like he was missing out on exercise, he fucking hated exercise. The way Celia raised her arms made Roger give a small laugh. “Congratulations, Little Celia,” Roger said, the nickname falling from his lips almost too naturally. He had spent summers upon summers at the Wood house with Arran and the way the nickname came so easily to him sent a sharp pang down his chest. Which was both stupid and unfair. Roger had no right to feel saddened at not speaking to Arran any longer.
“No,” he shook his head at her question. “All chocolate free.” Which was, by the sounds of it, extremely lucky. Roger had no idea what the things people were feeling and experiencing were like, but it didn’t see exactly pleasant. “What about you? Also safe from confectionary, I hope?” Roger asked, honestly hoping that this girl, who he hadn’t seen in over a year, wasn’t affected by whatever was going around. Not that Roger particularly would have wished it on anyone, but especially not Arran’s baby sister.
--
Celia laughed softly at what he called her, scrunching her nose a bit in protest but it didn’t make the smile disappear from her face. She was glad he’d stayed clear of the chocolate - she felt bad for anyone who hadn’t. Reading about what people were going through on the journals was bad enough, then seeing it at work had been worse. There had been no explanation until there was, and it had been very difficult to reassure anyone when the cause was unknown and there was no way to fix anything.
“I didn’t have any,” she replied with a quick shake of her head. “I saw plenty from people coming into St. Mungo’s, though, and it was awful. I don’t know what world all that stuff was coming from,” she went on, motioning up toward her head as if to indicate the visions and thoughts people had been having, “but it for sure wasn’t a very nice one. I’m glad I didn’t have it happen to me. I don’t want to know what bad things happened to me wherever that place is.”
--
Roger felt almost foolish when Celia said that seeing people come through St Mungo’s because of what had happened, hadn’t been easy. Despite asking after her medi-witch-ing, Roger hadn’t quite considered that of course she worked at St Mungo’s. He had read the papers, seen the reports come through work. St Mungo’s was busy, so of course they’d be working their medi-witches as hard as their healers, in-training or not. “They’re lucky to have you,” Roger said honestly. He admired anyone who took up such a caring job. Roger certainly wouldn’t have been able to do it.
At her words that she didn’t want to know what bad things would have happened to her in whatever alternate universe people were remembering, Roger frowned. “Does it have to be bad?” He asked almost curiously. “I guess, everyone’s been saying it’s nightmares and so such, but do you think it’s like that for everyone?” Not that Roger was curious enough to be jealous of the experiences or anything, but it was still quite fascinating.
--
Celia didn’t really know how to respond to that. Of course it was nice of him to say, and she was good at her job, but were they really lucky to have her when she wanted to leave? That was her goal, after all - not to work there. It made her feel bad, knowing they’d put all that work into training her, but she’d also given them a lot of work in return so it was still fair, right?
“Thanks,” she said, shrugging a shoulder. “I mean, of course we saw all the bad stuff. I don’t think people would be coming in if they were fine and happy.” They’d seen what was beyond just nightmares, too. Symptoms of curses never received, incapacitating symptoms they couldn’t pinpoint or help, and oddities like missing fingers, lost hearing, scars from wounds never gotten in the first place. “I hope someone got a nice dream out of it.”
--
Well, yes, of course, Roger thought, Celia wouldn’t have seen anyone who had had good experiences. At least not at the hospital. Still, Roger did hope that there were people with good experiences. Whatever this alternative universe had been, it couldn’t have been all bad, right? Not that anyone currently knew much about it. “Well,” he said instead, because pondering over the bad stuff wasn’t going to be a very cheery conversation. “I’m sure that if there are nice experiences, you would be a prime candidate for having some,” Roger assured her.
Obviously, Roger didn’t know Celia very well. He knew her about as well as anyone knew their best friend’s baby sister. She had been little and cute when Roger had been growing up and frankly she still was little and cute, if perhaps in a slightly different fashion. But even without knowing Celia well, Roger recalled her always being sweet. He liked to imagine that bad experiences didn’t happen to those kind of people (even, though, he did know he was probably wrong). “So how come you’re out and about so early? Morning shift?” He asked since that was maybe a better topic, even if it did still link to Celia’s work.
--
“Aw, thank you!” Celia said, beaming for a moment. It was nice to think that maybe even in a world that was clearly not fun for a lot of people she still might have a nice, happy life. She’d like to think she could make the most out of any situation, so surely that would apply to other worlds, right? That was assuming she was the same in it, anyway. She didn’t have much time to dwell on it before it registered he was asking a question, and she blinked a couple times before realizing what he’d asked.
“Oh! Well, yes,” she started, tucking some loose strands of hair back behind her ears. “I have to go in, but I try to run before work. I’m in training,” she went on, biting her lip for a moment. Celia didn’t know why she was nervous to tell people sometimes. Well, she knew it was because if people knew and then she failed again, it would be that much worse. But she was feeling confident enough that maybe it shouldn’t have made her that nervous, and it was Roger so it wasn’t like she was telling some random stranger. “I want to try out for Quidditch, so Oliver made me a training schedule to follow and this is part of it.” She looked over at him and grinned softly. “So yeah! But you’re out here early too - what’s your excuse?”
--
Roger sort of recalled hearing that Celia had tried out for teams just after Hogwarts, but obviously that hadn’t worked out. It wasn’t surprising to him at all that she wanted to try out again. With the exception of Lottie, the Wood kids had always been obsessive about quidditch. Amazing at it, too. Roger himself hadn’t ever been bad or anything, but in comparison to Arran, Roger really might have just walked around the pitch instead. He might not have seen Celia play, or at least not recall seeing her play, but there was no doubt in Roger’s mind that she, too, was excellent. “Your family must be very excited,” he commented honestly.
At her question, Roger shook his head slightly. “Staying fit and healthy?” He offered her. It was the honest answer. Roger hated running but it did serve a purpose. “Nothing as exciting as trying out for quidditch,” he added slightly more teasingly.
--
Her siblings knew, that was true, but Celia hadn’t quite told her parents what her plan was. They would be excited, but it was that whole concern about not being able to pull it off. Better to surprise them with good news later than let them down. She gave a nod, smiling all the same. “They are, and helpful. Arran’s going to help me some when Oliver’s too busy!”
Celia bit her lip with a bit of a grin at his response. “Well not everyone can have something that exciting,” she replied. “What do you do again? I forget.” Maybe she hadn’t known in the first place. If it wasn’t something fun, she wasn’t likely to remember even if he told her again.
--
Of course Arran was going to help her, because Arran was a great brother and Roger wouldn’t say anything different even if he could. “You’ll be excellent with those two training you,” Roger said honestly. He might not have spoken to Arran in over a year but he did follow Arran’s games. This season had been the best he’d ever played, which would have been funny if it hadn’t felt so bittersweet.
“I worked at the Ministry,” Roger replied. His job was not exciting. In fact, it wasn’t even particularly easy to explain. Roger probably would struggle to give her the actual title of his job if pushed for it. “I mostly do paperwork,” he explained. It wasn’t exactly what he did, but certainly a lot of it involved paperwork. Then again, it was also probably generous of Roger to use the word ‘do’, since even he knew he was crap at his job. “So, as you can tell, a lot less exciting than Quidditch,” he assured her.
--
“Yes, because they’re the best,” Celia agreed, her response automatic but still genuine. She knew her family was quite talented when it came to Quidditch, and her brothers were great. That was why she considered herself so lucky when it came to her training, because she didn’t have to go far at all to get advice from people who had succeeded where she wanted to as well.
“Ew, gross.” Those words came out automatically as well, and Celia brought up a hand to cover her mouth for a moment before she gave him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, I just… paperwork. I don’t think I could do anything like that.”
--
“I wouldn’t dare to disagree,” Roger nodded. Even if he hadn’t spent a decade being best friends with one of the Wood brothers, it would be foolish of him not to acknowledge the fact that the Wood family had and still was producing some of the best Quidditch players the league had ever seen. And he really had no doubt that Celia would be able to join that long list with some ease.
At her exclamation, Roger couldn’t help but laugh. She wasn’t wrong, it was quite a lot of ‘ew, gross’ kind of work. Which was why Roger did so badly at it. “I don’t think I can do anything like it,” he told her and whilst it managed to sound rather a lot like a joke, Roger didn’t particularly try to hide the fact that he was, in fact, awful at doing paperwork.
--
“You’d better not, or I’d have to kick you,” Celia warned him, though her words may have been slightly undermined by the smile turning up the corners of her mouth. She would, though, kick people who said anything bad about any of her siblings. They were wonderful people, and sure had their faults like anyone else, who deserved to be thought of well.
“Well why don’t you do something else then?” she asked, her brow furrowing. “If you don’t like it or anything like that, you can always find something else to do. Even something at the Ministry that isn’t just paperwork all day…”
--
Celia’s question was certainly fair. If Roger had been in her position, he probably would have asked the same thing. Except he wasn’t in her position, because Celia was training to try out for something she absolutely loved and Roger didn’t think there was a single thing in the world he cared enough about to try for that hard. “It’s complicated,” he said because there was no better answer he could give. Because my dad wants me to, probably counted as an even worse one.
“Listen, it’s been great having a running buddy,” Roger told her rather than continuing the career talk. “But I must rush off so I have time to shower before work,” he didn’t say ‘before my boring work’ so that was a pretty good achievement. “See you around, Little Celia,” he told her before picking back up on his faster pace and literally running away from the conversation.