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Tweak says, "You're a hotdog, but..."

D. Malfoy (formerprince) wrote in resurrectio_rpg,
@ 2008-06-16 18:10:00

Current mood:

annoyed

WHO: Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson
WHAT: I’m not entirely certain exactly how to term this, so I’m just going to call it a conversation.
WHERE: The infirmary.
WHEN: A day after this discussion. (I’m giving the date here as Sunday, November 15, 1997.)
RATING: At least a PG-13, we’re dealing with dirty Slytherin mouths here.
STATUS: Complete

Draco had been in a particularly foul mood after the Gryffindor-Slytherin game had ended. He’d snapped at the Chasers, Vaisey included, to stay after, and ‘work on actually catching the Quaffle, instead of letting Weasley snatch it out from under you!’ Or so he’d bellowed at them before stepping off the pitch and making his way through the crowd. He had jelly-fingered teammates, Ron bloody Weasley could celebrate a victory, thanks to said useless teammates, and above all?

He still had to deal with his … with Pansy. Well, perhaps in this case it was not so much deal with, as explain himself. And he wasn’t looking forward to it. It was important that he be clear, and to try and clarify something that not even he was really sure of …

It was going to be interesting, anyway. So after a shower and a change of clothes, he made his way to the hospital wing. He didn’t have a gift this time, but his last one had caused nothing but trouble, in essence.

He approached after gaining disapproving entry from Madame Pomfrey, offering Pansy a half attempt at a smile. “Hello, Pansy,” Draco greeted her.

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ex_parkins800
2008-06-17 07:43 am UTC (link)

Pansy had never missed a Slytherin Quidditch match in all the years that she’d been at Hogwarts. She’d tried begging her way out to the match but Madame Pomfrey insisted that she remain in the infernal prison that was the infirmary. She’d never really wished injury on the players from her house before but she did find herself hoping for anyone that might be able to provide her company and a score.

When she didn’t see injured persons filtering into the room nor people visiting them, she gave up hope on knowing anything about the match until she escaped. Her ears perked at the sound of footsteps and then a familiar voice. It was distant and muffled but it still made her nerves kick into high gear. Draco had actually decided to show up!

She was sitting up by the time he made it into the room waiting on him. She offered a half-smile in return to his but it was hesitant. “Please tell me you are blowing off our victory party to come spend time with me,” she said, glancing him over carefully as if trying to read his mind. There was no doubt Slytherin had lost now. He was there, he was clean and he didn’t look like he’d just won a Quidditch match. A part of her wanted to bury her head into his chest and linger for a while in the scents forever ingrained in her memory just to see if it could bring back memories of happier times. The wall was still there and at the moment it felt unbreakable. She didn’t know what to do anymore.

She wondered vaguely if he was going to jump to the point of it or pretend like nothing had been said in the journals. Were they going to pussy-foot around everything? Her own fears wouldn’t allow her to bring it up. What if they only reinforced the wall between them? She’d make small talk as long as he’d allow it. She nearly forgot she was clutching his bracelet still. It had turned into her worry rock. She carefully slid it on her wrist so as to keep it close but not draw too much attention to it. Her hands fidgeting absently with it in an attempt to work out her nervous energy; She’d only thought she was sick before. This was making her nauseated.

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formerprince
2008-06-18 11:29 pm UTC (link)

"Unfortunately, no." Draco shook his head, blonde strands falling into his eyes. “I’d be more significantly drunk if Vaisey actually knew how to catch the Quaffle. As it is, he let a good lead slip through our fingers.” He hadn’t meant to babble, but perhaps it was easier to discuss Quidditch than talk about what he was really there for. The two of them had never had it so hard as they had over the past year or so, and it was mostly his fault, because he’d been stubborn to the point of obtuseness on pushing everyone away. Even (and especially) her.

He withdrew his wand and flicked it once, the spell pulling a chair neatly to Pansy’s bedside without his having to do the physical labour. Upon taking his seat, he studied her face, the darkened hollows of her eyes. She really had not been feeling well; oh, he hadn’t doubted it. Just hadn’t been quite prepared to deal with that. Draco was not by nature a caretaker, at least when it came to dealing with other people’s physical illnesses. “You’re all right, though, aren’t you?” he asked, despite knowing otherwise. Maybe he needed her to confirm that she was okay, mentally and emotionally. If there was something he could have said or done to have undone all the screw-ups he’d made where she was concerned, he would have done it.

Marriage, however, was out of the question.

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ex_parkins800
2008-06-18 11:52 pm UTC (link)

In the past, she’d have reached to move the blonde hair out of his eyes. She’d never feared him or her place in his life until the past year. Now she no longer really knew where she stood. It no longer really mattered to her who had started the pushing away or the attempts to get back to where things had been. She knew they’d both done their fair share to damage what had once been. She took on her fair share of the blame whether they was merit or not. “I’m sure he’ll do better next match,” Pansy offered on the topic of Vaisey before offering a quiet, “You’ll have the cup before it’s said and over.” She couldn’t remember hearing Draco babbling like that in some time, if ever. The conversation used to flow so easily between them though. Sometimes she used to think he understood her when she wasn’t saying anything at all. Maybe what she’d been mourning for so long wasn’t the loss of her youth but the loss of the closest thing she’d ever known to love.

She did still have enough wits about her to know he wasn’t just referring to her physical ailment when he asked if she was okay. Was she okay? She certainly wasn’t the strong girl she’d used to be. This was just the last strong hold of her strength breaking. The levies were open and the tide waters were crashing in. There wasn’t much she could do but try to keep her head above water. It was swim or drown. “I’ll be okay,” she offered after a moment responding in the only way she knew how. She couldn’t tell him just how horribly he’d hurt her. In her head, she thought maybe that was what he’d been secretly aiming for all along. Maybe he’d wanted to leave her damaged and alone. He probably hadn’t expected her to rise above it all. She was working so hard to become better than what she had been and to find something or someone to replace the gap he’d left in her life. If he didn’t want to be there, there had to be someone who did. For Pansy, it wasn’t as trivial as being just a teenage relationship gone wrong. It would have been a lie to shrug everything Draco had been to her as something as simple as that. Allowing herself to think on it in past tense still stung on her insides. The pain always made her want to strike out and she wanted to tell him that she would be okay because she did there were still some people out there who weren’t going to do these sorts of things to her. She bit her tongue.

"What about you?" she asked cautiously. Where he was in his head did matter to her.

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formerprince
2008-06-19 11:22 pm UTC (link)

Draco had remembered what kind of girl Pansy was. She was a reliable, solid presence, or had been until he'd twisted that. Thrown it away to try and protect her, or so he told himself.

Perhaps in truth it was part fear; he had not known where his own life was going, even before the Malfoys had drowned under the weight of their ties to Voldemort. He was sixteen at the time. Sixteen, and it seemed his whole life was decided for him. Including the marriage which had been in the stars, it seemed, since birth.

But Pansy was a best friend, even more than the closest thing he knew to love. And he couldn't walk away from them lightly - Teddy was impossible. Ernie had been a scar that he still couldn't heal. Pansy ...

He finally met her gaze. "Perhaps. Eventually." The word was sour on his tongue. "Can we stop this, for a moment?" Draco blurted out. "For Christ's sake, Pans. I ... this is just awkward."

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ex_parkins800
2008-06-20 01:24 am UTC (link)

If Pansy had known he had been trying to protect her, she’d have thrown a fit and insisted that she didn’t need his protection. She never had and she never would need it. She didn’t want it if it meant losing all the good things that lay between them. She wished he could see things through her eyes and be willing to sacrifice it all but she wasn’t. She wasn’t a martyr. She was selfish and she didn’t give a damn the cost. She needed him in her life and she wanted him to need her.

She was struggling with the nerve to even look at him. As much as she wanted to know what was going on in his head, she didn’t really. Despite how she wanted things to be, it all felt so hopeless and she felt too fragile to deal with it. She had to deal with this though. The sooner it was dealt with the better. When her eyes did meet his, she felt any real strength she had slipping away.

“This isn’t easy for me,” she said trying hard to not let too much show in her voice but she knew it quivered “Draco – you can’t decide to come in and out when you feel like it. You can’t distance yourself and not want distance from me. It doesn’t work like that.” She looked at her hands for a few moments trying to will them to stop shaking. She had better control of her voice than her body. She gazed back up after a moment, sighing deeply. She could feel words she hadn’t told him in a long time escaping her lips despite herself. No holding back. “I love you -- always have and probably always will but I don’t know how to help you. Things were so good and then you just turned away from me..”

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formerprince
2008-06-21 12:59 am UTC (link)

"I didn't know how not to." Draco had wondered what, exactly, had driven him to leave her the gift, and that all-too-revealing letter. Perhaps it was seeing her faint that had, after all, driven home the point: he couldn't go rushing to her anymore. Not only was he emotionally incapable of playing that role, he was physically incapable of even trying. And he'd done that to himself. He'd put that distance between them.

"I loved - love - you," he added, feeling as if the words tripped over his tongue. "I just - I panicked, Pansy. I could barely keep things up for myself, if I'd had to pretend that everything was all right to you, too..."

He shook his head. "I wouldn't have known how to show you that I wasn't all right," he admitted. "I thought that wasn't what you needed. I didn't want you scared, too. My parents were - my mother sent me owl after owl, and in every one, I could taste her fear for me. I felt I had no choice, and it broke her heart. I couldn't break yours, too."

He'd had no choice, in his own mind, but to cut her off, and he tried without words to tell her that, reaching out to breach the distance between them by touching her hands, delicately, barely the touch of his fingertips to her flesh.

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ex_parkins800
2008-06-21 05:00 pm UTC (link)

“You did break my heart though,” Pansy told him. “Even if you weren’t trying too.” His distance and trying to save her hadn’t protected her or prevented any of this. He had been wrong in thinking that it would have been for the best. Only she could make decisions like that. They could have talked through it together and everything would have been okay. She hadn’t been in his shoes so she found it harder to think of what she might have done. It bothered her that he hadn’t felt as if he could lean on her though.

She felt for him but at the same time she found herself frustrated by it all at the same time. Childish tears threatened to fall from her eyes out of anger and sadness. A part of her wanted to hold back like she always did. She wanted to pretend like it didn’t upset it but she couldn’t. Her eyes were burning and she couldn’t do it this time.

“You could have leaned on me. I would have been there for you,” she told him practically choking on the words. “You didn’t have to do it all by yourself. You didn’t have to pretend. You did have a choice” She meant what she had to say. She would have been there. There would have been fears and anxieties but she would have made it through. “It was the worst feeling I’ve ever felt – I thought you hated me,” she confessed.

Her hand went still, closing her eyes for the briefest of moments at the touch of his fingertips ghosting there. She could remain obstinate or she could embrace this moment of sincerity. Which sent the message she was going for? If she ran from his touch was she really any better than her? He’d not leaned on her before but for whatever reason he was opening up now. She would be there for him now even if it was from an infirmary bed. Her hand turned palm up, her fingers searching for his and lacing with his. This was her silent acceptance.

“You couldn’t get rid of me even if you tried,” she offered with quietly gazing at him. “No one else would have me.”

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	formerprince 2008-06-21 10:45 pm UTC (link)
	"No one I know deserves you," he corrected. "I wanted to tell you. I didn't ... couldn't do it on my own." Only in front of her would his face go crimson with the embarrassment of that, the shame. "I didn't want you to have to be my support, Pansy. I wanted to be strong for you, not the other way 'round. I just ... I buggered it all up. All of it." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

ex_parkins800
2008-06-22 06:50 am UTC (link)

She felt her pale cheeks burn when he told that he didn’t know anyone who deserved her. She didn’t just disagree with it, she knew someone that did deserve her. She was looking right at him and it didn’t matter whether he wanted to see it or not. "I don’t think anyone buggered anything up,” she said solidly, sounding more firm on this than anything else she said. “Maybe things weren’t ideal for a while but you’re here now and it’s all over. We can move on from this – you’ve just got to believe that you deserve to live and you deserve to have the thing that you want in your life.” And with that she included herself.

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	formerprince 2008-06-23 09:44 pm UTC (link)
	Believing all that would certainly take a while. He tightened his grip on her hand to an actual touch, squeezing gently. "If you're still willing to stand with me." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	ex_parkins800 2008-06-23 09:52 pm UTC (link)
	"I'll always stand with you," she told him. She'd never really stopped. They might have been sitting at opposite ends of the Slytherin table but that didn't mean she'd completely lost hope with him even when she thought she might have. She nodded as if confirming the facts in her head. "No matter what." (Reply to this) (Parent)