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Tweak says, "Its ROSE damn it"

Andy Gallagher is not the droid you're looking for (brain_ninja) wrote in vas_captio_rpg,
@ 2009-04-13 03:18:00

Entry tags:

!complete, andy gallagher, day 04, location: church, luna lovegood

Day Four - Early Morning
Who: Andy Gallagher and Luna Lovegood
Where: The Church
What: Luna tries to make Andy feel better
When: Early morning
Rating: TBA but probably no more than PG or PG-13
Status: Complete

By the time the morning light roused Andy from his drug-induced slumber, he was so far gone, still, that he didn't even remember having fallen asleep at all. The second he realized that fact, his eyes shot open and he sat up quickly, looking around for Luna. Had he passed out on the job or had it been his turn to sleep?

The movement, however, made his stomach turn in protest. He needed more food in there, he thought, to keep the stupid Vicodin from making him feel awful. Go figure the very thought of food makes me wanna puke...why's it always work that way? he wondered idly.

Andy was lightheaded, groggy, and sick. ...but his leg felt pretty awesome, so that was a plus, and he'd all but forgotten the pain in his ear. If only the Vicodin could turn back time and keep Andy from saying and doing stupid things, that would've been ideal. No such luck, though, he was sad - but not surprised - to find.

Without giving himself a chance to really look around for Luna, Andy laid back again and rolled onto his side, moaning, mouth drawn down into a frown of discomfort. "Luna?" he called out pathetically, rather than look for her. She'd answer if she was there and if she wasn't...

Well, he'd cross that bridge when he got there. He just really hoped he never got there.

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luna_llena
2009-04-17 10:38 pm UTC (link)

Used to others simply letting her words wash over them without absorbing them, or purposefully ignoring them, the fact that Andy's drugged brain would not log most of what she said was not even thought. Then again, it was not as if she would quiz him upon it later. More often times than not, Luna was surprised if or when her words were remembered.

"I thought they were called Jellied Babies, a Muggle candy that he spoke fondly of." She smiled absently at the misunderstanding. Muggles surely had some oddly named foods, and still not have a single pudding in sight. "Perhaps if you found some 'Jelly Babies' peace could be brokered?" Relatively simple, an olive branch of candy. Even Luna knew the story of the olive branch, it was about a hat made of flowers and a bowlful of wine, wasn't it?

Behind and beneath her sugary haze of dextrose-loving goodness, real and momentary fear flashed in Luna's eyes. The laws put in place to govern interfereing in the past were quite strict, and rigidly enforced. In fact, they were some of the first and most powerful laws that the Wizarding world had. The paradoxes and complications entailed were vast, and the magical backlash if Merope were to discover who she gave birth to could be enormous. Voldemort could have been destroyed as a child, or even made even more powerful. It could change nothing, change everything, or destroy everything.

"She cannot know why," for the first time, perhaps, since they had met, Luna's soft voice was tinged with both fear and bit of desperation. Not many things stirred her beyond the basic levels of fear, but in this case, it was warranted. "Merope cannot know." She would tell Andy, if he would swear to never tell the girl, but the prospect of accidentally changing the course of the war...

Frankly Luna tended to be a bit confused by Andy, more than anyone else. Unused as she was to compliments, and what could be perceived as either flirting or perhaps just something she was unsure as to translate. "So Vicodin gives you testosterone you might otherwise lack?" At least she thought that was how that could be translated, considering she had spent a good deal of time around men her age, but not in this sort of capacity. "Because testosterone makes you...complimentary?" Really, she was pleased with the compliments, they were very nice to receive. That he meant them, well that just made them mean more to her.

It was a funny feeling in her belly when Andy set his head in her lap, and she was looking down at him. Not just a flowing feeling of forgiveness for his action, but something else entirely. The feeling was...almost...fuzzy?

While Andy moved to sit up, her hand falling away from his hair, as she simply watched him. Surprised, definitely when he leant forward to kiss her, but she did not move away. Deep down, if she had taken the thought to really consider it, Luna was disappointed when it was really only a kinda-sorta-maybe kiss. And then he was looking...sad?

Luna really did not understand Andy, at all.

Still, she felt the need to ask, to try to understand. "Why did you kiss me?" There was nothing but true curiosity in her tone, she was not condemning his action, just looking for why he did kiss her. Although it was as much for the way that he was sending her completely mixed signals and leaving her more and more confused.

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brain_ninja
2009-04-18 12:01 am UTC (link)

Andy gave Luna a facial shrug. "I've never heard of Jellied Babies or Jelly Babies," he told her. "I have no idea what you're talking about." He kind of wished he did, though...because they sounded like jellybeans and jellybeans were the shit.

Surprise registered on Andy's face at the change in tone in her voice as well as the flash of fear he'd just barely caught in her eye. He hadn't meant to freak her out; he was just curious. Well, that and trying to make conversation in his still-slightly muddled state. If he'd known the question would ruffle her like that, he never would've asked. But now he even more curious, so...he shook his head and looked her in the eye. "I promise. Our secret, I won't say anything to anyone." He paused. "But, you know, if you don't want to tell, I'm not gonna be mad or anything...don't feel like you have to just because I asked. Then I'd feel like a dick for asking."

Miscommunication seemed to be the name of the game for he and Luna. Right from the start when he'd thought she was a Psychic Kid like he was. He smiled and shook his head just slightly. "Not exactly. I just feel a little braver when I'm kinda only half with it," he explained. And no, testosterone doesn't make me complimentary, it makes me horny, he thought, but didn't say.

Ducking his head slightly, Andy allowed himself a second to feel like an idiot for having done it in the first place, but then he looked back up at her. "...because I wanted to," he answered honestly. "Shit, Luna, I've been wanting to." He paused and then gave her an apologetic smile. "I just...like you, you know? That was kind of a crappy kiss, though; I'm definitely better than that," he was quick to add to defend himself. "I just, you know, didn't want you getting all pissed off at me, because I like that we're cool." That said, Andy shifted a little uncomfortably. Would she be weird now? Would she treat him differently? Worse, would she decide now would be a good time to get up, walk off, and go find Sam?

"Uh, is it, like...okay that I did? Not that I can, like, take it back or anything but..."

Jesus Christ, just shut the fuck up and give her a chance to get in a word edgewise before you fuck it up worse, dude, he thought and promptly stopped talking.

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luna_llena
2009-04-18 02:04 am UTC (link)

"I am told they are quite delicious," she nodded once to affirm her own statement, as if it were in question. "And not kipper flavoured in the least." Which was good, she would have to try these Jelly Babies some time in the future, as she did not like the taste of kippers and therefore did not trust the Every Flavour Beans.

With a shake of her head, her chin dipped momentarily in thought, and then she met his eyes again. "Our laws on interfering in the past are strict and absolute." The seriousness in her tone faded away, truly covered by a sort of fluid dreaminess that made it easy to distance herself from her next words. "The child she gave birth to, he was the leader and inspiration of the Death Eaters." Her gaze did have an unusual steel to it, along with a flicker of fear, when she looked him dead in the eye for a second, "Merope cannot know that I once met her son."

The first part of his statement would have plenty acceptable, that he wanted to kiss her and that he liked her. But there was no room for her speak just yet, so she waited, thinking that she would have plenty of time to respond. To tell him that there was an inkling of belief that she liked him as something more than a friend. The core of her personality was surrounded by and based on belief, on trusting her instincts.

And yet, his last statement made her brow furrow, mostly in confusion but in the dawning rays of hurt. Likely it would be the exact wrong place in his mind for her to focus, but the fact was that she floundered as if the floor had been pulled out from beneath her and a Devil's Snare lay beneath. That he would want to take it back, take back kissing her, even as innocent as it had been.

Andy finally stopped talking, and her expression crumpling, Luna could only look at him for a moment. "You want to take back kissing me?" The words came out staggered, as if it took effort to get the words into verbal form. The question portion of it was tenuous, more of a statement that was coming together as a possibly firm truth in her mind.

Feeling hurt, the blonde pulled away from him, climbing to her feet sniffed as she headed for the door. First at a walk and then running, not skipping but running to the door. The door latch seemed difficult suddenly, for all of a second, before she was through the doorway and out under the cloudy sky.

Luna needed the sky right then.

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brain_ninja
2009-04-18 02:18 am UTC (link)

Luna's face dropped almost the same way it had when he'd asked to kiss her before and she'd thought he was teasing her. He felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach. What had he said or done wrong this time?!

But, then she said it and Andy's eyes widened. He was in the process of shaking his head even as she pulled away and stood, sniffling, to head for the door.

"No! No, Luna, that's not what I meant at all!" he replied, groping for the crutches as she broke into a run. "Luna, wait a second!" In his haste to get up in spite of the lightheaded feeling overcoming him, Andy nearly fell over entirely, but he managed to get to his feet and, with effort, started back toward the church door as fast as he could get the stupid crutches to go.

She was already trying the door and he thought maybe the Gods were going to smile upon him for a second when she couldn't get it open, but that thought was lost when she got the door open and disappeared outside. "Fuck," he said to himself, gritting his teeth. With that, Andy abandoned the crutches entirely and growled under his breath in pain as he limped as fast as his lame leg would carry him.

"Luna, will you wait?!" he shouted as he finally made it to the door just in time for it to close in his face. Angrily, he threw it open again and followed her out. "Can you just...let me explain what I meant? Please?" he called after her. She had the advantage of two good legs to carry her and he had only one; she had a head start and a speed advantage, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to try and catch her, even if he knew it was a bad idea and he'd regret it for all the pain later on.

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luna_llena
2009-04-18 05:29 am UTC (link)

There seemed to be some wavelength between them that neither seemed to be on at the same time, with miscommunications lying between upon it lurking like asps in the grass. Waiting to bite. It was something that had to change, an adapt or fade scenario, a worrying concept.

It was practically a given that Luna Lovegood was a creature of her own world, not simply the Wizarding world, but a contained and dreamy place within her own mind. A retreat and a safe haven, at times when the actual physical world grew to be too much. Not a place she could stay completely within for any length of time, her attention could be pulled out of it. By people, both friendly and malicious, by the outside world intruding into her own little internal buffer zone.

A quick retreat into the temporary safety, although she did not quite realize that he really was trying to explain, but she was too wrapped up in the thin mental protection to hear.

Instinct had been carved and molded into a shape just a fraction differently than when she had been younger. The forest was what she sought, the sky and the trees. Luckily, for her needs, but not for Andy's, the forest surrounded the church, and it was easy to melt into the scrub bushes and tall trees. Forests were dangerous at night, and the deep forest was never safe, she knew well enough. During the day it was too easy to forget that she was far from the familiar Forbidden Forest or of the long safe forest that grew near her home.

Her mother had brought her there as a babe, and then a small child, and showed her the favorite clearing inside the embrace of the forest. Another that Luna had visited many times lay within the forest around Hogwarts. One close enough to bring back fond but fading memories of a beautiful blonde woman with eyes that Luna saw in the mirror when she looked in a reflective surface. Of the soft smell of blue bells and of the sound of a voice that grew dimmer and dimmer with each use of the fraying memory.

The blonde did not look back at the man following as she slipped into a place far more dangerous than it looked. Long hair streaming behind her in curls that caught the barest hints of sunlight that could fight their way through the thick clouds. Disappearing into the dark treeline.

Luna needed to think, to lick any wounds she might have, no matter how minor, needed to try to understand on her own. Solace, the sky, the trees, being on her own was what she knew.

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brain_ninja
2009-04-19 05:01 am UTC (link)

Andy was only able to make it as far as the tree line of the forest before the same sort of fear he'd felt seeing Tracy standing on the edge of the dam only managed to add to his already slightly crippled state. His own cowardice not only astounded, but infuriated him, because if there was one place he did not want Luna to be alone, it was the forest. Especially if the reason she was there was something he'd said.

Even if he wanted to - which only half of him didn't - he couldn't have navigated through the brush with his leg throbbing the way it was and his brain still muddled from the Vicodin. So, all he could do was stand outside the line of trees with a furrowed brow. "Luna, please come out," he called out pathetically. "I'll do anything, okay? I'll pack up my shit and leave the church, if you want, just please come back out of there."

Whether she could hear him or not, he didn't know, and even if she could, whether she'd listen or not was an even bigger question. But, if anything happened to her while she was off in the woods alone because he had said the wrong thing at the wrong time, Andy didn't think he could handle the fallout that would follow. "Look, you don't even have to talk to me if you don't want to, okay? And I'm sorry that you misunderstood what I said..." he went on, hoping she could hear him. "But I didn't mean what you thought I did. I really, really didn't, because I wouldn't take it back and I wouldn't want to." He paused and ran a hand through his hair in a nervous and frustrated gesture. "Just...come back out, please?"

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