Matt Cavanaugh (pray_in_bullets) wrote in regulation, @ 2008-03-12 09:09:00 |
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Current mood: | cranky |
Current music: | "Black Star" :: Radiohead |
Blame it on the satellite that beams me home
Who: Matt Cavanaugh and Mila Macnair
What: When lost, Mila decides to kick ass. Natch.
When: Late December 2006
Where: London, near Charing Cross Road
Rating: PG
Status: Closed, complete.
This was a bad idea. A very, very bad idea. It was one thing to go into the muggle world with someone she knew – someone she knew who understood how their lives worked, but alone? Mila had never felt like such an idiot in her life, nor had she ever felt more out of place, and it had been ages since she had been so frightened. Her clothes, the jeans and t-shirt she owned but only wore around the house, felt so revealing that she was sure someone was going to say something about how exposed she was with every curve of her body outlined. It was like walking into the street in only her underwear, and Mila wondered if the muggles rushing by her would have been wearing nothing at all if it wasn't so cold out. It was so crowded, too, and every few seconds someone would brush by her causing Mila to startle slightly and resist the urge to turn around and slap them for invading her personal space.
She was lost, she realized with a sinking feeling as she looked up and down the street with no sign of the pub she had left from in sight. She had no idea what to do now – there had to be another entrance back to wizarding London, and she could only hope that she would recognize the aura of magic when she passed it. If she passed it.
"Fuck," she muttered to herself, standing in the middle of the afternoon rush before deciding to go forward in hopes of finding another entrance or a deserted alley she could disapparate from. With quick, long strides she moved off the cement and onto the darker colored pavement, where at least no one was walking. She managed to get a few steps further before she heard someone scream, "look out!" She turned, and had just enough time to see one of the fast, metal machines coming at her, roaring in a way that was entirely unnatural. But before she had the chance to do more than scream in reaction her body was slamming to the ground, the force of someone pushing her out of the way causing her to fall to the ground as the car sped through the place she had been standing not even a second before.
"Close," Matt said quietly, maybe quietly enough that she couldn't hear him over the sound of the traffic, and held out a hand to help her up. "Were you trying to do that, or just didn't see the car?"
He hadn't been the one to get her out of the way - that person was gone, maybe Superman or something, given how quickly he'd moved, as if it was totally normal to save women from getting hit by cars, but he'd been the closest on the sidewalk when she'd screamed.
Since he'd, you know, been standing there paralysed by the thought that someone was about to die in front of him and he couldn't move quickly enough to save her.
Mila looked up at his hand and blatantly ignored it before pushing herself off the ground. There were tiny flecks of pebbles, glass, and dirt on her palms, and it took all of her willpower not to use a cleaning charm to get rid of them. How did muggles survive if they had to deal with little things like this - what would they do if they were stabbed, or had been hit by cars. "Why exactly, would I try to get run over by that thing?" She asked him with a huff. "And where's the man who pushed me to the ground? Does he not know that it is rude to just... barge into someone like that? I do not even know him, he just..." she paused and glanced at the American in front of her. "Why am I even talking to you?"
She walked back onto the sidewalk, away from him swiftly before something made her stop. With a heavy sigh, she turned back to him, "Do you live here? I am completely lost."
"Well," he said, sticking his hand in his pocket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes, "the general idea could’ve been that getting hit with about two thousand pounds of metal would kill you. But it looked more like an accident to me. That you stepped out, I mean."
A flick of the lighter and a pause to inhale and he smiled and said "Don't live here, really. I'm staying sort of near by, but I'm not from England. Nor are you?" It was a question, at the end, but a good guess based on the way she spoke. "And I can at least help you get un-lost, if you tell me what you're looking for. I'm kind of familiar with the area, a little."
"Clearly not," she answered in response to her origin. She hated the stupid conversations that people had for no reason. "Oh, where are you from? Really, that's so interesting. Blah blah blah." Because, really, they didn't care if you were from Bulgaria or Bristol, they just wanted you to ask the necessary "And what about you?" question. People were so boringly predictable, and every single one loved to go on and on about themselves - their woefully tragic pasts, their hopes and dreams that never got past the point of fantasy because they were all too lazy to try and go after them.
She looked down the block, basically forced to rely on him for help. "There is a record shop on Charing Cross Road where I should be meeting a friend, but I forget the name of it."
"Depends. Steve's Sounds is sort of on Charing Cross, between the two Chinese shops, on the end toward Tottenham Court Road, but there's a bunch've other shops on the same road, same direction. There's also Cheapo Cheapo Records and Sister Ray Records on Berwick nearby, and a shop that only sells soundtracks on Dean Street, parallel to Berwick. Any of those ringing a bell?"
Berwick wasn't in the best part of town, if she was looking for those. He thought of warning her of the clip joints and the red lights, but doubted that she was the sort to be tempted into bars by women. Or, maybe, anyone.
And if she was, then she would learn better by getting into trouble at a clip joint.
But even as he thought it he sighed inwardly and eyed her narrowly. Part of him didn't care, but another part didn't want to be the sort to let someone who didn't have the sense to stay out of the street wander off to Charing Cross.
"Ehh... not really. Well, Tottenham," it was one of those words that sounded so strange with her accent, strangled almost as she tried to move her mouth around it. "That sounds like it might be it. If you could just point me in the right direction, that would be great." She scrunched up her nose in thoughts before adding, "It might be the Sister place though. I am sorry - I only just moved here a few days ago, and I have not even left my flat much because of painting and things."
Well, it was one or the other, and at least now she had another shop to ask for directions to if the first was wrong. "So, Tottenham?"
A mighty internal battle waged, visible only in the flick of his eyes, and finally he flung the cigarette down and stepped irritably on it
"Fuck. Fine. I was going that way anyway. Come on, I'll show you. And you needn't say anything at all if you don't want to."
He watched her again, wondering if she would take the offer, and added "Going to Muji. In case you're curious. I've need of some tabi socks."
Need was the wrong word, since it made him sound like he was about to be a geisha in a Moss and Hart revival of The Yellow Jacket, but he liked the feel of the toe separation. And he grinned again and set off, wondering, half caring, if she would follow - or if she would punch him.
Either seemed possible.
"Merlin, do you really have to say it like it is so painful to show me?" She asked as she walked next to him, refusing to fall behind even one step. "I only asked for you to move your finger and point, nothing more. This is entirely your idea, and while I am grateful, I would appreciate not being treated like a burden."
She huffed and shoved her hands into her pockets as they traveled along before asking grudgingly, too curious to keep the question in, "What are tabi socks?"
"They're socks with toes. For sandals, you know? Japanese." No pause as he changed the subject. "How was I to know that you wouldn't try to hit me or something for showing you the way? You weren't thrilled to be pulled out of the street, however you got there. For all I know, you're running a scam. And you don't care what politeness is."
This time, there was a pause. "Or you want people to think you don't. Either way, it seemed unlikely that you'd want me to walk with you - and that you might think I was trying to pick you up. Which I'm not." He flailed a little with his hands, awkward, stuck suddenly with knowing that she could take that so many ways, very few of them good, and that it was going to be hard to explain.
It would probably be easier if she did just hit him and walk off.
"You must be American," Mila told him with a glare. "You're the only people who automatically assume everything is related to either crime or sex. Maybe I am just lost, and that is all."
"You're just now catching on to that? Where are you from, Mongolia?"
"You could have been Canadian," she pointed out before walking on without answer to his question. Maybe she was from Mongolia, it was interesting enough and if it made him happy to think that, then she might as well keep him amused.
"No I couldn't," he retorted. Then he realised she'd walked ahead, and he had to hurry to keep up.
He hated being short.
"You couldn't make me eat poutine," he added, when he was finally abreast of her. She was near to his size, but had a wicked fast stride when she wanted. "Or watch hockey, or anything else."
He subsided into silence, though - everything he said was only going to come right back to him as a retort, and nothing was going to get answered - and watched the passersby.
"What is hockey?" She asked curiously, her cocking to the side slightly as she slowed down her pace to make it easier to keep up with. She was used to walking quickly, and it was strange to have to slow down for someone who wasn't a child. "Is it a play? I do not think I have ever seen that one before."
"It's a...game," he said slowly. "A sport, really. You're serious that you've never even heard of it?"
That was a surprise, on balance.
Stupid Muggle culture and her lack of knowledge when it came to anything having to do with it. Mila visibly winced at the mistake and tried to play it off with a shrug. "No," she told him quietly. "Should I have? I mean - it is not all that popular, correct?"
"Mostly in Canada," he offered. The wince was strange. "Seriously, where are you from?”
"Bulgaria," she told him casually. It was different now that he had asked. "But Romania, too - and well, Latvia, technically. I moved around a lot." To say the least. "But, I am hoping to stay here for a while. Even if, well - I do not care for it very much so far, if you care to know."
Mila kept walking, glad that he didn't press her about her ignorance when it came to Muggle games. There were plenty of reasons why she didn't want to talk to this man, but at the front of that list was the fact that she didn't know how to. Anything she said might be wrong, or unwise to mention around a muggle. At the very least she would look like an idiot again.
"How much further to the shop?"
"Not far. A few blocks." They were passing one of the clip joints he'd been worried about, but the girl in the doorway didn't make a move. "Why stay somewhere you don't like?"
She shrugged, "Why stay somewhere at all? The world's a big place, you know, it should be explored. I do not think that people are meant to be rooted - or at least I am not."
"Why are you in England anyway?" She asked him, keeping up with the conversation that she detested so much. Although, if Mila was being honest with herself, it was nice to talk to someone.
"Where I've landed for the moment." He shrugged and turned down a smaller street. "I don't know why I left, but I know why I'm not going back home, and England's a place as good as any - I speak the language. But home's kind of...not really somewhere I want to be. The president," he added. "I don't agree with him."
It wasn't the whole reason, but right now he wasn't sure he knew the whole reason anyway. It was enough to be going on with, at least.
"The President of what?" She asked curiously, following where he turned.
"Of the United States," he said. There was no mistaking that this was something anyone should have known, though, and he wasn't sure what to say about the woman who walked beside him.
A few beats and he turned into an alley that went nowhere, but gave him a chance to turn to her and say "What's your game, lady? You don't know things you really should, even in Bulgaria. Are you fucking with me or something?" His eyes darkened as the possibility occurred to him - odd, it was usually the first to come to mind.
Mila's mouth opened but not to explain, it merely dropped out of shock. Instead of even thinking about a possible explanation, all she could process was the fact that this stranger had brought her into an alleyway. Alone. With no one else. And his eyes had suddenly taken on a menacing quality. And so, she did the first thing she could think of, which was reach for her wand. In the next ten seconds, the man who had tried to trap her in an alleyway was the victim of a stinging hex and a jelly-legs jinx, the latter which caused him to fall on the ground. Stomping over to him, she promptly kicked him in the side, her wand outstretched and glared, "That is what you get for trying to attack me."
Whatever she'd done, it didn't affect his hands.
He was on the ground, and the metal was cold against his back, where the gun ground against his skin. It was taking a little effort to roll over, but he made it, using his hands - whatever they touched, it didn't matter, what mattered was that she was...doing something. Apparently, with a stick.
None of this made sense, he thought, as he drew the gun. Before he had it aimed - he didn't really fancy shooting her - he said "You're the one kicking me. What the fuck did you do?"
"What the fuck is that?" She asked in response, her eyes wide on the gun before she disarmed him, jumping out of the way as the thing flew past her. She didn't want to touch it, since obviously, whatever it was, wasn't good. Mila growled and kept her wand outstretched toward him. She had spent six years fighting off Lestrange, this Muggle had no idea who he was trying to take on.
"Who the hell are you, and what were you planning to do?"
"Find out who you really were was all," he said quietly.
He couldn't process what he was up against; it was like trying to see something you'd no context for. In Matt's mind, it didn't work. She'd done something to take the gun away, because whatever he'd seen clearly was not to be trusted and couldn't be real.
"Look," he added, as feeling started to come back to his legs; he made a cautious move to sit up but watched her, ready to move if she made a move of her own, "everyone's heard of George Bush, president of America. It's possible there are people who've never heard of hockey, but when you said you didn't know that, I thought you were setting me up. Like I was to act all surprised about that so that you could," he gestured vaguely, "bash me over the head or get some friend to wallop me while you distracted me. This isn't the best area of town, and nothing you're doing makes sense. Unless you were planning to rob me. Which I really wouldn't have expected here. More likely in Barcelona or something."
He paused. "I'm not planning to rob you or assault you or whatever you think. That's not me. Which, fair enough, you don't know, but it isn't."
"Why would you even assume that?" She asked tightly, her voice still low although she allowed the hex to wear off instead of recasting it. "I was lost, and I never asked for your help finding the place, but you were the one who led me there. And then you brought me to an alley, why? Because I am not knowledgeable when it comes to mug-American politics?"
She summoned the gun from the ground while keeping her eyes on him, catching it in her palm. "What the hell is this thing, anyway? And like I asked earlier, what were you going to do with it?"
That settled it.
What it settled it into, he couldn't say, but she was...not human or something. "Mug-American" wasn't a word that he'd ever heard, and she'd not had that much trouble with English before. He couldn't see it as a slip.
And not knowing what a gun was...wasn't that practically a crime in the age of television?
He slowly, one step at a time, gently, small steps to keep her from attacking him again, backed away. The fact that she had a gun - that she had no idea how to use - didn't exactly reassure him any further.
"You assumed it of me," he said finally. "I didn't know where you'd laid a trap, or if you had. And we're barely in the alley anyway. Also, you now have my gun. And frankly, you can fucking keep it."
Mila pointed her wand at the gun, and with a slashing movement and purple light melted it. "I do not want your... gawn."
"I am very sorry for this," she told him honestly, because in truth what she was about to do wasn't something Mila condoned or approved of under normal circumstances. But the things he had seen weren't to be known by people like him, and it was her duty to take care of that. "But I am going to have to obliviate you. I can not have you telling anyone about the things you have seen."
"I don't even know what I have seen," he burst out with, and nearly slapped himself for it. If she'd already decided to kill him, there wasn't much more he could do, but that probably wasn't the smartest thing to say. "What are you, an alien or something? What is that, magic? What is going on?"
He stopped to stare at her, part of his brain wondering if he could make it down the alley and over the wall - it was only about eight feet high – before she could kill him, or if he was better trying to go past her and out the open end.
Neither seemed good, but if he was about to die – he smiled at the thought - it was probably better to go account for yourself when you'd done something like get shot with a magical stick after trying to scale the wall like a character in a John Woo film than after falling on your ass when you ran straight into a little old lady with a walker and a bobble hat on her way to the liquor store.
End of the alley it was. If he could move fast enough she might not be able to target him as he ran.
"Stop running!" Mila called out, and she didn't even bother chasing after him. She had already performed magic in front of the man and apparating wasn't going to hurt matters much. She was already fairly certain that she was going to be deported - and she had just gotten here, too. Appearing several steps in front of him, she immediately caused him to freeze in his tracks - not totally immobilized, just his legs. If he wanted to speak, she would let him.
"Look," she explained, exasperated. "I am not going to hurt you, alright? I just - I need to alter your memory so that you forget about this. You will not even know the difference."
That got his hackles up, even more than being frozen - even if it was just his legs - did. "What, you get to alter my memory? That's slightly better than killing me, but I don't think so. I've done nothing; you're the one that's cocked up. I'm not really inclined to pay the price for your mistake." He reached for another cigarette.
"Why do you think you have to alter my memory? And what the hell are you even doing?" His voice was exasperated - still there were no answers, and he was, apparently, about to forget the questions.
There wasn't much he could do like this. Not unless she was dumb enough to come in range, and he doubted that. But he watched for it anyway, because apparently the poets were right and hope fucking sprang eternal.
"Look, sir," she told him. "I made a mistake, but you will actually never know that. You will not even know that you met me. As far as you know, that girl who almost got hit by the... well, I suppose you have assumed by now that I do not know what that is either, but she will not exist."
Mila took a step toward him, reluctant to do this and stalling for time. "What is your name anyway?"
"Matt," he said, willing her to come a step closer. "Matt Cavanaugh. Not that I know yours."
She took the step and he grabbed for her, a move made awkward by not being able to move his legs to balance himself, but his hands closed on her, and he did the only thing he could think of, punching her in the chin, the stick flying out of her hand as she went down hard.
Not that it solved anything, since he was still stuck, but he hoped that it might wear off. Whatever it was. Like the other thing had.
And that it would wear off before she came to.