Jam (obscenereality) wrote in regulation, @ 2008-03-08 21:16:00 |
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Current music: | "Fall On Me" - R.E.M |
Entry tags: | backstory, ben dunstan, fred holden |
"Before the weight can hit the air..." [cont'd]
Who: Fred Holden & Ben Dunstan
What: Pork flavoured cheesecake, Fred planning to go splat, Ben calling Fred a tramp and a stupid bint.
Where: Scamander Park, then a bakery, then back.
When: July, 2006
Rating: R
Status: Closed; complete. Continued from here
"Sometimes, I wonder if you've got serious anger issues that you need to have addressed. You could bring those up with a shrink, y'know. All this rage and violence brimming under the surface. It's a bit amazing you haven't gone and offed a small village or something." Fred made a tsking sound, her tone make it seem like he was completely overreacting. "A shrink could help you with that. Some feng shui, some healing herbs, maybe even medicinal marijuana and you'll be a much, much happier Jam all around.
"And just for the record, Serviette was bloody ecstatic before you made her into Pile! You completely ruined her dreams of ever being in the lap of some devilishly handsome bloke. She's shattered now. She has no sense of self. She feels fragmented. She'll never be whole again. She's going to end up with multiple personalities and schizophrenia. It's awful what you've done!"
Ben seemed horribly taken aback by Fred actually standing and agreeing to her own challenge. This was a good sign. This meant he might not go and drop his trousers after all. It gave her hope for him backing out because it really seemed like a terribly awkward situation to find yourself in the men's loos with a bloke you generally considered a friend proving himself to be male in a very literal kind of display of such proof. It was like playing doctor gone horribly awry. Really, wasn't she meant to play doctor when she was five? Wasn't she too old for this? Wasn't he too old for this? Apparently they were both still eleven and refused to throw in the towel.
In her mind, Fred burned the white flag as she trailed after Ben. The woman behind the counter gave them a curious look so Fred winked at her and blew her a kiss. Ah, the men's loo. No man's land! It was just like the women's only with urinals. That seemed like a potentially awkward situation. Some bloke just trying to have a piss and some other bloke takes the urinal beside them even though all the others are free and his eyes go wander over to the first bloke to size up the competition or what have you. Fred was suddenly glad women only seemed to compete with breasts, those were easily discerned from the outside of clothing. Imagine if they suddenly decided it was all about who had the prettiest labia?
Fred leaned against the wall, arms crossed and waited with an expectant look on her face. Ben was so going to back out now. Please God make him back out, because she was far too stubborn to not finish what she'd started. That meant it was up to him to finish it.
Ben stared at the off-white tiles off the bathroom for a moment, at the dull grey of the toilet cubicles. He stared at the chipped ceramic of the sinks against the wall, at the broken mirrors that hung there. He glanced out the window at blue sky, littered with more grey clouds than white as was prone to happen in England. He stared down at his shoes, eyes on the laces almost coffee coloured with mud on his battered laces and then at rounded fingernails, short but unbitten, with white marks on the them. He seriously contemplated examining the grouting of the bathroom before he glanced back up at the woman leaning somewhat nonchalantly against the wall.
Her face was set in an expression he recognised, the slight hardness to her jaw that hinted at a stubbornness there. A stubbornness which caused him to glare at her mildly.
"You're annoying," he finally said.
Silence sometimes spoke louder than any words could ever dream of. The longer the silence went on the more confident Fred was that Ben was not going to end up with his pants around his ankles. She listened to the faint sound of his heart from across the room and the way it spend slightly with anxiety. She listened to the movement of his body staring from one place to another but almost never at her. Cars and people and ringing phones and talking all drowned out things like that. Things she could hear just because she was her. Fred mused that she could probably hear them normally anyway but that she just didn't concentrate enough to get through the cacophony.
All that concentration on things he couldn't hear almost made his words too loud for comfort. Fred managed to not actually wince. "Me? What'd I do?" Her expression was pure innocence. "After all, you're the one who led me into the loo."
"You're not supposed to be stubborn, so you're annoying, because you are stubborn. You're supposed to, I don't know, have run in the other direction." He scowled at her. "This is such a stupid position to be in."
There was a moment of tapping his foot against the tiled bathroom floor before he added, "And if you make a joke about positions I shall, er...I shall take away piggy back privileges."
Fred grinned at him, which wasn't likely to make him stop scowling at him. "You already know I'm stubborn, though. You've known that since the first day you met me." She was pretty much stubborn about everything ever, so it wouldn't surprise her if she really did make an impact the first time he met her by displaying her inordinate amounts of obstinate.
"Maybe I wanted you in this position," she pointed out teasingly. She was going to hell, wasn't she? Might as well make whatever ring I land in worth it. Fred was aiming for city living in Dis for her hell placement. After all, that's where sorcerers and seducers both ended up. "Maybe I wanted to offer other positions once I got you in this one. If you were man enough to go through with it." Bye, bye piggy back privileges, she thought sadly. "Or maybe I'm just too stubborn to be the one proving to be too chicken to go through with it and I'm making on you being chicken enough since technically you're the one who has to do all the work."
"I," Ben started and then stopped, his head shaking. "I. Hate. You. Or rather, I hate your stubbornness," he amended. There was a second in which he stared at her and then his head shkaing once more, he ducked it down and his fingers went to the cold metal of his belt buckle, pulling at it with strong fingers.
It was all well and good until his his belt buckle. She could tease him and smile at him and generally be a right cunt, but that was all when he was wearing and Ben not wearing his clothes was an entirely different situation. The sound of metal and leather echoed in Fred's ears as she weighed the options of possibly being scarred for life or being the one to back out. It was so hard to throw in the towel, though! It was weak is what it was. As a sort of compromise between the two she said, "You do realise if you do this I'm going to be picturing you naked every time I see you after this, right?" That might dissuade him, right? After all, she was obnoxious enough without that, wasn't she? "You'd be completing an already half formed image." Hello mental nipple!
Ben's head tilted to one side as he glanced her over, his eyes catching hers for a moment before he smiled, wide and showing nearly all his teeth--or attempting to, anyway. "An already half formed ima--?" he started to ask and then cut himself off. "You know what? I don't want to know. I really don't."
Jumping slightly when the loud sound of the door being flung open echoed around the room, Ben made a bee line for the sinks, hands turning the tap and shoving his hands under the flow of cold water just as three burly men stopped talking loudly among themselves, eyes flicking between Ben and Fred before trailing slowly up her figure. One of the men, in particular, seemed to be particularly enamoured with the idea of a female in the men's bathrooms and he leered at her.
"What're you doing here?" he asked, his voice low and soft. Ben rather thought, given his expression, that he was trying to talk in a sexy, alluring voice to her; to Ben, at least, the voice made him sound like a sloth.
Fred had been leaning on the wall right near the door so when it came flying open she got the force of it at her shoulder. She was scowling and rubbing her shoulder when the three men came in. God, and there just had to be the one who thought she was here just waiting for him, didn't there? It was the dumbest question on earth, wasn't it? She was standing in the middle of the men's bathroom with a man and no one else inside. Shouldn't it be obvious?
If it wasn't for the fact that big and burly's hands seemed to be migrating toward her Fred would have stood her ground with her explanation, which of course wouldn't be the truth. She didn't take kindly to people putting their hands on her without invitation, though. Fred liked touch, she liked contact, but she liked it from people she knew and preferably from people she liked. In answer to his oh-so-sultry question Fred went over and hopped up on the edge of the sink next to Ben. "Naughty things, of course," she answered as her fingers hooked under Ben's still mostly undone belt buckle. She gave the man a coy pout, "But then the three of you went and ruined all my fun." She tugged on Ben's belt and bit her lip, the pout and a sly smile battling to win dominance over her features. "Next time we use the women's loos." There was a pout in her voice to make up for it having lost to the smile, a smile which may have suggested she was currently picturing Ben in all manner of inappropriate situations.
Eyes travelled between Fred and the men, the expression on his face somewhere between amusement and an odd kind of horror that Fred had actually said that. He wasn't quite sure why he was surprised, but he was and then his lips were quirking upwards and he was trying hard not to burst out laughing. The fact that the woman sitting there seemed to be trying not to smile broadly didn't help him whatsoever.
"Yes, dear," Ben murmured, the laughter only barely pushed out of his voice. "No more men's loos. Only women's." He turned the tap off and stepped back sharply, hand tugging on Fred wrist and pulling her out of the loos, weaving between the men, ignoring the glares, scowls and managing--somehow--to not get elbowed in the ribs a million times. Grabbing his jacket from where he had forgotten it at their table, he paid quickly and then left the bakery.
It was only when he was outside that he allowed himself to laugh and the laugh was twinkling in his eyes, making them seem brighter. A hand lifted and he pushed it through unkempt black hair, head shaking just ever so slightly as he stared at the blonde. "You are unbelievable," he murmured, with no small amount of awe in his tone.
Fred had winked at the one who had been trying to badly flirt with her as she let Ben lead her through the throng and out the door. His expression only darkened when she did it and she half expected him to do something really stupid like follow them out and challenge Ben for the right to shag her or something like that. Thankfully, he only glared at Ben's back, even as they walked out of the door of the bakery.
"What?" The question was genuinely innocent for once. "He was going to touch me," Fred made a face. "You at least have permission to touch me, he doesn't. Besides, it's not like it's really that hard to act like I want to shag you. Just because you'd either die at the mere thought or think it was some sort of drug induced hallucination doesn't mean other people can't believe I'd want you having naked, sweaty time with me." Alright, so she phrased it like that just to see if he'd go either pale or pink from it, to be honest. Most people were easy like that. Men were either the sort in the loo who leered and would pin you against a wall at the mere hint they might get laid, or they were like Ben who was most likely to blush and sputter Fred was willing to bet.
The cold of the wind bit at him and Ben pulled his jacket on, slipping long arms into the denim easily before patting down the pockets, making sure everything he wanted was there. It took him a further minute afterwards to realise that his belt was still half undone and he sighed heavily, fixing it with quick, deft movements, mumbling, "Aye, I bet you're the kind who wouldn't even tell me if my fly was down. Git." But he laughed with the words, his tone easy and amiable.
For the most part, he paid no attention to her next words, shrugging and saying, "Fred. Sometimes I think you wouldn't protest against having naked, sweaty time with quite a number of people." Ben's grin was wide and friendly, even if his face was twisted slightly, nose scrunching against wind and cold.
Fred reached up and without hesitation smacked him upside the back of his head. "First of all, you already knew your belt was undone seeing how you undid it. Secondly, I'd have to be staring at your groin to even realise if your fly was down so, no, I probably wouldn't tell you because I wouldn't bloody notice. I'm not so short that I'm crotch height. Thirdly," her face darkened and Fred scowled, "I'm not a fucking tramp, thanks Ben." Fred was a lot of things, and a fair few of those would suggest she didn't exactly have discerning tastes, but Fred wasn't easy. Her standards were, perhaps, a little unconventional because how many people rated the way a person smelled as serious criteria? But she did actually have standards.
Fred's nose wrinkled unhappily for a moment before she started walking, legs moving quickly despite their length. A short person shouldn't have moved so quickly but Trent and Ford were about a foot taller than her each and she was used to keeping up with them when they ran. Tall lycanthropes weren't exactly easy to keep pace with in general, but those two were in exceptional shape which made it harder. Fred was more than just a little offended by Ben's words. Even though there was no reason for him to understand why she'd be so offended she couldn't really just not be offended because it was an "innocent" mistake to make.
A hand rubbed at the back of his head and he blinked at the short woman who was currently walking away from him. "What'd I do?" he asked, lamely, fingers still rubbing the sore spot at the back of his head. "I didn't call you a tramp. What the hell?"
"It's one thing for me to joke around about sleeping with you and it's another for you to joke about how I'd just gladly open my legs for a whole lot of non-specific people," she explained without slowing her pace. "You know, I don't generally care what people think of me or my lack of insane amounts of clothing. I'm not going to wear more clothing and just die from the heat every day so people can think I'm so lovely little conservative girl." There was a note of disgust in her voice at the mere thought of having to play such a part, though the layers of suffocating clothing contributed to the reaction. "I really don't care that most people think I'm an easy little girl who will open her legs for anyone because those people couldn't recognise me from the neck up anyway. Oi, but it's a bit different to have someone you see nearly every bleeding day hold the same opinion you git."
It wasn't that she was assuming Ben truly thought she was easy, there was truth in jest. Even if the thought had absolutely never entered his mind he could have chosen a lot of other retorts. Instead he chose that one and it was the only one that got to her. "Just because I'm friendly or I flirt or I sit in someone's lap doesn't mean I'm going to shag them or I even want to. It's sort of amazing to think, but some women don't exist for the sole purpose of getting laid."
"I don't--you what?" He wanted to call her insane; he thought it fitting. "When the fuck did I say that? Circe, Fred. I was joking when I said that. You know ha ha ha? That thing? Yeah. That's what I was going for." Ben's hands pushed themselves down into his trouser pockets, fingers pushing his wand and several stray pieces of paper out of their way as they attempted to burrow themselves as far into his pockets as they could go. "It was meant to be funny. Whether you see it or not it was meant without any malice whatsoever. It was a flippant comment, for the love of Merlin."
Scamander Park loomed in the distance and he stared at it, at the dark windows along the side that looked like eyes into the large structure. "A joke is a joke. Sometimes I don't find things you say funny. I do not flip. If you are offended by people saying such things--as a joke--then do not make any sexual jokes yourself and the topics avoided, is it not?" It seemed rational to him.
"And, crap, woman. Just because I say something doesn't mean I think it."
"I think I have a right to have a sense of humour about sex without needing to have a sense of humour about me sleeping around," she said pointedly. "There is, amazingly enough, a difference between the two. I'm a bit tired of the whole thing where a woman's a slut or a prude. I'll deal with it coming from strangers but not from people I know, not even as a joke. You think I'm overreacting? That's fine. You know when I said that guy was going to touch me? You stop to think where he was going to touch me or why he'd think that was okay, Ben? Just a guess, you didn't." Fred had done damage to men on numerous occasions for their assumptions and acting on them. They didn't exactly expect her to be able to handle herself or to be as strong as she was. They were always too embarrassed to consider how such a small girl could handle them physically. The rest of the time Trent or Ford had made the point for her; they were good brothers.
Fred chewed on a lock of hair, strands being ground between her teeth. She wasn't really articulate enough to explain why it bugged her so much. She wasn't meek, demure and shy so she had to be a slut, right? It got old fast, even just in jest. If some random person had said it she'd have made some snarky comment about how she wouldn't sleep with him, but it was different coming from someone she knew. If Ben didn't see the difference between a joke about sleeping with him, someone she knew, and a joke about her sleeping with "quite a number of people" then he wasn't going to understand it even if she did explain.
"I do not think you are a slut. I do not think you are a prude. I think you are a Fred. Or a Winifred, whatever. That's why you are or rather that's who you are and I don't give a stuff about all the labels people like to sling around. Frankly, it's the same as attacking a person because they like ice-cream and you don't. And that's the stupidest thing I've heard of in my life." The word's didn't make a lot of sense arranged together as they were but in his head they did; it was the transition from thoughts to words that he failed at. Taking a deep breath and then blowing out, his cheeks puffing out as if he were a blowfish, Ben wondered at how he was supposed to say what he meant in a way that wouldn't offend. It seemed impossible, now, that one bloody sentence had made her blow up and it was such the stupidest bloody thing ever.
"I saw him leer, I did not see him touch. My viewpoint wasn't all that great. Aye, and of course I know where he'd have touched you, the same way you should know that I would not have let him. No matter what perceptions you think I may have of you they are nothing like that
"You're just...bouncy is all. Not slutty." Again he tried for the imitation of the blowfish. This, he decided wasn't going well. Never again would he drag someone off for cheesecake.
Fred stared at him for a few long moments, letting silence stretch out and hang between them like a spiderweb. "Don't call me Winifred," she finally said quietly. She was wrinkling her nose at herself. Stupid Ben going and being nice. She couldn't stay all surly if he went and did that, could she? "You didn't see him touch because I moved first and, um, just a reminder but you definitely had your back to us. You wouldn't have stopped him from doing anything because you wouldn't have seen. But I wouldn't let him touch me either, that's why I moved. He didn't have the right." She knew he wouldn't intentionally allow anyone's hands on her because he still had that silly, noble Gryffindor streak in him and it was obvious. She also knew that he'd never react quickly enough to stop someone if they tried it, even with him looking. It wasn't his fault, he was just human.
"Sorry, it's just a sore point. Just because I'm used to it doesn't mean it doesn't set me off sometimes because I'm sick of being used to it. That whole piece of meat thing they all seem to cause? It's not really my preferred way of feeling in general. So sometimes it gets to me. Sorry for flipping out on you." Fred added her lip to the hair she was chewing. "I knew you didn't mean it like that really." Now if only she could do that thinking before reacting thing. Sometimes you're too much cat, Fredly. And sometimes you're not cat enough.
"You can call me Benny," Ben said quietly, lips quirking slightly, the words a peace offering more than anything. "If you wanted to. Only maybe not. But I felt I may as well throw it out on the table for you to grasp a hold of if you wanted it, you know?" He didn't comment on anything else, felt no real need to. It was over and done with, the past in a way even if it had only happened seconds before.
Her entire face scrunched up like Fred had eaten something sour and disgusting. "I think I'm going to pass on the Benny. It makes you sound five or like a pornstar." Fred gave him a half smile and hooked her arm through his casually. "Besides, I like Jammy." Immediately she started to giggle. "It's stupid and makes you sound three, but no one else calls you Jammy. Mostly because no one else is that stupid. Someone somewhere is bound to call you Benny. It sounds like a girlfriend name. You know, that nickname no one else uses except for the girl you wake up next to some days? So, really, I can't call you Benny." She thought if he dated a girl that called him Benny the girl should be smacked, actually. You did not give people you shagged stupid, immature nicknames like Benny or Jammy. If you were shagging them you should definitely call them by something a bit more grown up at least most of the time.
"Oh, Merlin help us all if anyone ever actually calls me Benny. Those anger problems you mentioned would become all too apparent,' he said, almost cheerfully, letting her link her arm with his. He walked at her pace for a moment, long stride deliberately shortened before he started forwards, almost running towards Scamander Park. He was half-dragging Fred along with him and it took him a moment before he realised he had not informed her of the reason of the rush.
"Sorry, I just want to get there before anyone else. There's this bint who wanders into my office smoking if I'm not there and I can't stand the smell," he explained, words coming in between breaths that were faster due to the effort exerted. Reaching the doors that led back into the building, Ben's shoulder slammed against it and he felt a twinge in his shoulder but ignored it, practically racing down the hallways and skidding to a half in front of his office.
As he had said there would be there was a dark-haired woman in there, a fag in one hand and Ben opened the door with force purposely. It hit against the wall and she turned- before he let her speak he said, "I've bloody told you. Don't smoke in my office. Circe." He was tempted to pluck the smouldering butt from her fingers and fling it out of the small window but didn't, instead letting her leave before he collapsed back into the same position he'd been sitting in when Fred had arrived: sitting comfortably in the chair behind his desk, feet up on it. Smiling widely at Fred he said, half sarcastically, "Oh, it's good to be back, innit?"