sirius black (heraldofdeath) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-05-26 10:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | ₴ inactive: sirius black |
WHO: Sirius Black & Eliot Waugh
WHERE: Vallo: Dog Park
WHEN: May 25th, 2021 (Backdated)
WHAT: Eliot meets Padfoot, then he meets Sirius.
WARNINGS: Death talk
It had been a few days since finding the twins doing magic in their nursery with Bonnie and Sirius felt lighter. He had been lucky, over the last few months, honestly. Luckier than a lot of people. He had a family, he had his sister, he got his best friends back and Harry. There were still a few people he wished he could see again, of course, but maybe Vallo would be kind one day and bring them? Still, his mood could not be dampened. That day found him in a dog park, where leases weren’t required. Pluto and Kabir were off with other dogs, but Sirius had made himself at home on a bench overlooking the park, watching as his dogs ran around and played. Sirius was, of course, in his Padfoot form. It was his preference whenever he was out with the dogs in someplace where they could all run free. So anyone that was observing Sirius at the moment, would see a large black wolf-shepherd mix laying on that bench. His ears perked up when he heard someone approach, but didn’t bother to look at who it was when they sat down next to him. Just kept on relaxing, as he quietly observed his two favorite dogs. Eliot was supposed to be looking for a job. Instead he went on a walk, day drinking with his flask and when he finally got tipsy, the bench with the strange dog looked oddly inviting. It was the dark floof. Eliot looked over Sirius fondly and breaking every rule of strange dog etiquette, placed his hand first in front the dog to offer it for a sniff before just barely stopping himself from petting Sirius’s head. “You look like a good boy,” Eliot sighed. “Or girl. Honestly, I didn’t bother looking.” Eliot opened up his coat and removed the flask to take another swig and keep himself in a happy, intoxicated state. Things were better. Confusing but better. As long as he didn’t think about his future, the television show, the books, Quentin, the quest he’d left behind, his crown-- as long as Eliot didn’t think about any of those things, he was fine. “Don’t feel like playing with the other good boys and girls?” Eliot asked. If this was Fillory he might have worried that the dog could hear him. Vallo was magical but just modern enough that the thought of talking animals hadn’t really occurred to him. “Yeah, me neither,” he said. Just a man having a normal conversation with a dog he’d never met before in his life. Nothing to see here. Eliot, Sirius thought fondly, as he lifted his head to actually get a look at the Magician in question. He has heard him first and recognized the deliberate way Eliot always spoke. It was unique to the Eliots he had come to know and this one seemed to follow in that trend. He knew that this Eliot wasn't either of the versions he had known previously. Bonnie had explained that when the Magician had shown up in this world. But it was still good to see any version of this man, so long as he was not of the Monster variety. Sirius probably should have stopped the man from talking so openly with him, but he was charmed with the way the man was speaking to what he assumed to be a regular dog. When it seemed like Eliot didn't have more to say, he decided to transform back into his human form - the black furcoat melting back into blue jeans and a regular white t-shirt, with a brown skintone to the bare arms and face that came into view. His hair was still fairly long for a human, down past his shoulders, but at the moment it was tied up into a top knot. His mustache and beard matched the colour of Padfoot's coat and his brown eyes twinkled knowingly. "I was actually taking a break from the rest of the boys and girls out there. An old dog like me can't keep up like I used to." Sirius sounded amused and much older than the mid thirties he was actually in. Eliot made a sound. It almost sounded like words but they drifted off before any of them had fully formed. He looked back at the dog park, and to the man sitting beside him. Eliot had read some of the books but skipped the larger volumes at the end of the series. The Sirius he had read about did not look like Gary Oldman, but hadn’t taken much shape at all in his mind's eye besides at least a decade younger than some of the actors they had cast. So he hadn’t made the connection yet between Harry Potter is real to the man sitting next to him. Instead he glanced back and forth between Sirius and the other dogs in the dog park and asked, “Are all of you shapeshifters?” Because a dog park for shapeshifters sounded exactly like something Fillory would have, if Fillory were more like Vallo. Either that or perhaps he was Vallo’s version of a Questing Creature. Eliot sincerely hoped he was not about to be selected for another quest. He was not nearly sober enough. Sirius laughed, as he leaned back against the bench in a comfortable sprawl. He looked entirely too pleased with himself for making Eliot question his life. “No, as far as I know, the rest of them are actually dogs. I just prefer to be in my Padfoot form when I’m at this park with my boys.” The boys in question - a bullmastiff and a pitbull - came running over at the moment. Pluto, the bullmastiff, jumped up on Sirius as Kabir followed at a much slower pace to where they were sitting. Sirius laughed again, scratching Pluto behind the ears, before shoving him gently off him. He reached over to give Kabir a scratch as well, before sending them off to play again. When the two men were alone again, he reached over to offer Eliot his hand. “Sirius Black. I didn’t mean to startle you.” “Sirius Black,” Eliot repeated. Eliot took his hand but he also wasn’t sure how to process the name he was hearing. The Magicians being a TV show in some other universe? He could get behind. After all, he’d been to the library under the Neitherlands and seen the books of people’s lives there. There were other people he vaguely recognized from various media he could also get behind being an actual world somewhere who also had very meta TV shows about their lives. Harry Potter was just a little A list for him at all. And, well, Eliot also had eyes. Sirius Black was much prettier than about 99% of his fanart on the internet, or at least what Eliot used to scroll past when he used tumblr. “The Sirius Black?” Eliot thought repeating it would clarify things somehow. He was feeling a little too Quentin Coldwater in that moment and was grateful none of his friends were there to witness him flounder a little. He hadn’t had too much experience with people actually recognizing him from the books or movies. Mostly because most people had always imagined him, well, white. So he usually managed to fly under the radar with most people. Eliot’s reaction, though...that was new and it amused him. The corner of his lips lifted a little in a smirk. “Well, no one’s ever put a The in front of it before, but yes, that’s me. So I’m guessing you’ve either read the books or seen the films. Maybe even met another version of me in another universe?” Not as uncommon as one would think, in their situation. “Is everything real?” Eliot would be okay, but he would need a moment for the existential crisis to fly just over his head and sail onto the horizon. Should Harry Potter have really surprised him? When the Fillory books were real? The Fillory books being real made some small amount of sense. Somehow having two beloved children’s book series be real seemed… more impossible than it logically should. “A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B,” Eliot confessed. He hadn’t seen all of the movies, either. He still looked slightly exasperated. “Have you met other versions of you?” Eliot asked. Was that possible? “I know there was another version of me here before but…” But. Eliot had purposefully not thought about it too hard. Only a few people mentioned knowing him before and he refused to admit he was afraid of somehow falling short to some better Eliot out there. “How does everyone not completely lose it here?” Oh, oh no. It looked like maybe Sirius had broken Eliot’s brain a little bit more than he had intended. He forgot that Eliot could occasionally be a mess of a person, depending on what nonsense from his world he was dealing with. Sirius took his hand back from the other man, but put it on his shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting gesturing. “It’s a lot, I know. I’ve never met another me, but I know there’s been other versions around. I try not to think about it, can’t be worried about what’s not going on, you know? Too much in the here and now to figure out.” He squeezed Eliot’s shoulder. “You’re going to be fine, Eliot, promise.” Eliot found a gorgeous, fan favorite character gripping his shoulder very comforting. Like Rupert Chatwin, only Sirius was real. Except… Rupert was also real, just probably long dead. Maybe it was better if Eliot didn’t try to compare two very real, not fictional people he didn’t particularly feel he would ever live up to or compare to, so instead he put on a smile. “My general life experience up until this point would suggest otherwise, but I appreciate your vote of confidence.” At least Eliot had his humor, no matter how fucked up things got. He watched the dogs playing in the park. Dogs knew how to live in the moment. Humans were not nearly so wise. Eliot’s brows knit together in thought. “...So when you transform, you can transform with all your clothes… How you are you still?” Magicians like himself had ways to transform into animals, except it was always a pain in the ass. Animal instinct overriding common sense, the lack of transforming clothing… Pulling away completely and crossing one leg over the other, as he propped his head up with his now free hand and leaned in closer to speak. “Very much still me, but I’ve been accused of being a dog in a past life, so maybe it’s a little different from other people’s experiences.” The grin suggested he was joking around though. “How have you been settling in though? I saw that you arrived here pretty recently. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to say hi yet, so it’s fortunate we ran into each other like this.” Sirius wasn’t sure that Eliot knew about the other Eliots people might have known, but he was fairly sure that wasn’t something Bonnie or Margo would let go on for too long. “Fine,” Eliot said. It was so unconvincing it almost sounded like a question. “After I arrived, everyone else was sucked into the past so, it’s understandable if people were on the preoccupied side.” Eliot may have been a touch insecure about people who knew the previous him. What was that relationship like? Would they expect anything from him? Would they want nothing to do with the new him? He heard names, but Eliot had not tried to seek them out on the whole. Brigitte seemed nice. Bonnie too, though that conversation drifted apart once she realized he wasn’t the Eliot she’d known. It only took him a few moments to piece together what Sirius was saying. “...Why would you say hi to me?” The man was Sirius Black. Was he not famous around Vallo? Despite being a TV show Eliot did not feel famous, or if he was it was C-list vs A-list for sure. Did Vallo not give people book deals or guest appearances on the local news? “Yes, ancient Vallo wasn’t a joke. I had to be on bedrest for a couple of weeks after. But I’ve been friendly with a couple versions of you. I know that sounds strange to hear, but I’ve grown fond of your face.” Sirius was completely oblivious to the turmoil in Eliot at the moment, at the thought of other versions of him existing in this place. He supposed he would have some of that same feeling, if he felt like anyone was comparing him to another version of him. But he had been lucky in that everyone just seemed to accept him as Sirius and not fuss over differences in time and faces. Everyone adapted to that particular bit in different ways. Each one was valid, as far as Sirius was concerned. Eliot’s brows shot up in concern about bedrest, but it was hard to address when Sirius Goddamn Black just said he was fond of Eliot’s face. It was strange to hear. It was also the best kind of strange to hear. Eliot was going to carry that bit of knowledge with him for the rest of his life. “Thank you?” Eliot waited to see if Sirius wanted to regale Eliot with any other parts of him he might also have been fond of, but when that didn’t happen, the magician cleared his throat and focused on finding his inner chill. “I’m glad you got out of there alright,” Eliot said. And he was sincere. “I suspect there would have been a number of upset people if you hadn’t.” And if he was low-grade fishing to figure out what Sirius’s current commitment status was, well, could he honestly be blamed? Merlin, his days of sleeping around so easily really were over, weren't they? It didn't even occur to him that Eliot was sneakily asking about his relationship status. So he responded to what he thought was an innocent observation with a wry, "I suspect my sister would have resurrected me only to kill me again. Bonnie would have helped. Marina probably wouldn't have cared much, might have sent a flower arrangement to the wake. Remus would have been used to it. Not the first time I would have died on him." His death. It wasn't something he thought of often, but when he did, he treated it lightly. He had enough years to get used to the idea of the inevitable by this point. Eliot nodded with interest and made a note to look into some of the names later. He didn’t remember Sirius having a sister in the books but then, Eliot hadn’t read them all that deeply. There was probably quite a bit he missed. “That sounds like Marina from my world,” Eliot observed. He smiled wryly, but that faltered when Sirius mentioned Remus and his death. “Are you alright?” Eliot asked. Because as fucked as his situation felt, it sounded to him that someone like Sirius had more reason to feel lost or… any other unpleasant emotion someone would rather not. "She tolerates me as best as she can," Sirius explained fondly. Marina might not consider him a friend, but that wasn't the case for him. He'd be there for her no matter what. From a distance though, perhaps. It's how she preferred it. He was a little confused about what Eliot was asking, before he remembered that death wasn't exactly an easy topic for most people to talk about. "Oh that? No, it's fine. I've had nearly three years to get used to the idea. At this point, I've accepted whatever's waiting for me back home and decided to make the best of the here and now. Because I've gotten another chance here and I don't want to squander any of it away on unneeded melancholy over what may or may not happen." He reached over again, this time to take the flask that Eliot had been drinking from. "Do you mind?" He asked, before taking a swig. Death talk always had him wanting to move on quickly from it and day drinking would help. “Please,” Eliot said. The flask was filled with a sipping tequila Eliot had a fondness for. Day drinking with strangers was the best way to make new friends, really. Eliot was quiet for a moment, trying to be as evolved as Sirius was, as the rest of his friends were, for this extra time they were given. It was hard not to think about the mosaic. “Well, if we’re making the most of our time here,” Eliot said. “We should get churros and then you should tell me more about the animagus spell, because the spells we have for turning into animals back home are mostly just obnoxious.” And well, if that required them to spend more time together and become very good friends, with benefits or not, Eliot found he wouldn’t mind that at all. Sirius' lifestyle has changed considerably over the last year. He didn't go bar hopping anymore, stopped sleeping around, and could be found wearing ridiculous shirts proclaiming him to be the world's best dad. So the day drinking wasn't new for him, but it wasn't so common for him these days. Too many responsibilities had him more thoughtful of his actions these days. But a little tequila and churros didn't sound half bad of an idea. Passing the flask back to Eliot, he agreed to the idea. "Sure, I don't have a class to teach today and the boys had enough time to get their energy out. Plus, I can't let you go around thinking the whole Animagus process isn't ridiculous." He picked up the leashes that had been sitting on the bench next to him this whole time and then put two fingers to his mouth and whistled loudly. Immediately, Pluto and Kabir came running. It didn't take long to get them to settle down and leashed again. Soon, the little group was making it out of the park together. “Ridiculous I can handle,” Eliot said. “I’ve been to Fillory.” Eliot almost mentioned being its monarch, but that wasn’t true anymore, was it? And, from what he was told, would never be true again. It only really upset him out of ego, but ego or pride were sometimes Eliot’s best defenses to getting along when things were rough. He should have been glad to be free of the responsibility. Sirius knew Vallo better, so Eliot followed him out of the park. “Do they not have publishing houses here? Why has no one given you a book deal?” he finally voiced out loud, the question had been plaguing him as soon as he found out who Sirius was. Today was going to be a good day. |