The Bauer/Douglas Family (bauerandcompany) wrote in weddedto_sonora, @ 2013-10-25 15:02:00 |
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Current mood: | busy |
The Short Version
Every day, Alicia had noticed, Jasper unwrapped his turkey, ham, and cheese sandwich exactly the same way, then folded the wax paper exactly the same number of times before placing it on exactly the same spot on the surface of the cafeteria table. She had speculated often about the origins of this habit, too: OCD? Excessively strict mother right in the middle of giving him a complex? Just a habit? Proof she was excessively bored or at least perhaps a shade too attentive to details? The possibilities were nigh-endless.
When they sat down together for breakfast and he executed the exact same procedure, before the coffee even arrived, on the wrapper of the grilled cheese he had bought for his first meal of the day, Alicia decided it must be one of the first two options. The dark circles under his eyes, unwelcome additions to the already less-than-aesthetically-pleasing sight of his face, didn’t really allow for him doing anything he did not feel in some way compelled to do, such as coming in at the same time Alicia did to meet with her about the last phases of the game.
“Why are you awake?” he grumbled, finishing his wrapper preparations.
“The early bird gets the worm, Jas,” she scolded mildly. “Plus, my first cup of coffee is always sitting on the nightstand when I wake up, so I’m already on about number four.”
Jasper looked up at her blearily. “You get your coffee in bed?” he asked, and Alicia nodded. “Can your parents adopt me?”
Alicia laughed. “I doubt it, but trust me, I would swap my brother for you any day,” she said, and he blushed, though she suspected it was mainly a lack of knowledge about Isaac which made it a compliment. Anyone who had to live with the brat would quickly discover that she was merely being practical rather than excessively fond of her lieutenant, much less working with the fact of Jasper’s slight crush on her.
Things had gotten interesting in the past two weeks. Crowley and Cohn had both been courting her, in their own ways, Crowley by flirting with her both at work and on the social occasions he must have had something to do with her being invited to and Cohn by appealing to her intellectual vanity and taste for argument, and they had recently both started moving toward making use of the progress they thought they had made, trying to extract information about what the other was planning. They were both hoping, for Merlin alone knew what reason – the best she had been able to come up with was Crowley sensing a kindred spirit and following his gut while Cohn just reckoning another girl, particularly one who could carry on a reasonably intelligent conversation, had to be sympathetic to her position – to use her to get ahead, and offering her something she was mildly offended to even have mentioned by anyone she wasn’t already friends with: second place.
She had decided to take a third option, one she wasn’t sure they had ever thought of: sticking to her original wand, so to speak. Jasper was neither pretty nor charming, but other than that, they had a lot in common, and he was willing to split the risks enough that she could handle it, so together they got things done. How their plans of the moment might affect things in the very long term, she didn’t know, but right now, the goal was to win, and she was taking the only route to that which she could see.
“So, the plan’s still the same, then?” he asked.
“Yep. You’re sure of Grant?”
“Yeah,” Jasper said. “He’s convinced I just followed you, that I still want to call Crowley out as much as he does.” He chewed thoughtfully on his sandwich for a moment. “Or curse him in the back, anyway. I’m pretty sure no one is a good enough liar to convince someone who knows both of us that I want to duel Crowley. I’m not technically a fourth year yet and he’s one of those guys who’s good with the curses that’re just technically legal.”
“Good things to know,” Alicia said. “Not so good to show off so a third year knows about it. He really doesn’t quite get discretion, does he? Knows the words, but can’t sing the tune.”
“He could use some work,” Jasper acknowledged. “I hinted a few times – to Grant, I mean – that you’re still not averse to that, either, but I don’t know if he caught on, or believes it. I really don’t think he’s the type for infiltration.”
Alicia giggled at the image of sweet, blunt Grant infiltrating anything. Of course, if he could seem like that and not really be, he’d make the perfect agent because of it, but she had to agree with Jasper’s assessment here. “No,” she agreed.
“How did things go with Kenneth?” Jasper asked.
“Well enough,” she said, thinking of last night’s party. Her feet still hurt from the dancing, but she had achieved, she thought, the objectives she went there to achieve, along with having a lovely time. “I think he might have stopped trying to look down the front of my dress long enough to hear a few things I said.” Jasper turned red and she laughed again. “You poor boys. I’d be crazy by now if I had to go to a school with nothing but girls in it.”
“You’d just hook up with each other,” Jasper said matter-of-factly, no doubt hoping to regain some ground and seem as worldly and unfazed as he thought she was. “It happens a lot at school.”
“Really? I should start a hysterical political movement,” Alicia said dryly.
She had never really understood why people got so upset about that kind of thing. If society sons and daughters hooked up with someone undesirable and tried to take the relationship public, then either the family found a way around the problem or else they disowned the disobedient scion, and she didn’t get why the undesired lover being another boy or another girl was worth getting up in arms over but more direct assaults on bloodlines – alliances with Muggles and Muggleborns – were matters to be handled quietly. She thought Muggleborn-magical marriages were a much bigger threat to society than gay people, and frankly that what people did in their bedrooms, so long as they fulfilled their social obligations first, was their own business, unless they were stupid and careless and let it become hers, and then it was a matter of relationships. If Henny decided she liked girls, Alicia would be supportive, if still not interested in participating in all of Henny’s activities personally. If Evan decided he liked boys, Alicia would pretty much take her cues from Thad, but by default, she would be outwardly supportive and keep it in the back of her head as something she could whip out if she ever needed to apply some pressure to him. If Isaac decided he liked boys, Alicia would hold it over his head from the day she found out until the day one of them died or it became more expedient to out him than to keep his secret in exchange for him doing whatever she said. Nothing personal in any case; it made sense to her that people who swung that way could no more help their attractions than she could, but a girl had to use the tools she had available and had the will to use, and only her closest friends were exempt from having such a juicy secret used against them if she deemed it necessary. It was hardly her fault that society had its thoughts on things.
“I’ve never done anything like that,” Jasper was quick to point out.
“Of course not,” said Alicia soothingly, patting his arm and making him blush again. “Just a joke.”
They managed to review the rest of their plans and hammer out a few more contingency arrangements before Alicia finished her coffee and checked her watch. “Time to go make Crowley Major’s breakfast tea,” she observed. “We’re good?”
Jasper nodded. “We’re going to Hell,” he observed.
“Was there ever any doubt?" She smiled. "See you later."