The Bauer/Douglas Family (bauerandcompany) wrote in weddedto_sonora, @ 2013-10-25 16:29:00 |
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Current mood: | angry |
Confrontation
When the votes were read out, Alicia almost felt bad for one moment when she saw Jessica Cohn’s face go white with shock. Before she had time to either fall into that error or correct it, though, she noted the more pressing problem of Geraint Crowley’s going red with fury. She thought Crowley would do well in the world, eventually, but he really needed to work on controlling his reactions more. She would have been emotionally distancing herself from this room and hurting herself discreetly for minutes already, reducing the chances of giving herself away like that. Involuntary reactions were close enough to what they were labeled as for the name to be permissible by her standards, but with practice, she had discovered that they could be minimized or partially faked well enough to get by with.
They had both just given her what she needed, and she had just put a knife in both of their backs to do the same for Jasper. If he had betrayed her, she would have had to come up with something truly awful to do to him in the next few days, but he hadn’t been so stupid: he had stood by her, she had stood by him, and now they were the two walking away with the best results of the day. The plan had worked. Now she just had to get out of here without betraying either jubilation or nerves or getting cursed in the back.
As the meeting broke up, it took most of her self-control to carefully pick up her papers and slip them into her satchel as though nothing were wrong, then turn her back on everyone glaring at her and walk out calmly. She didn’t know if it was because of that or not, what would have happened if she had handled the situation differently, but she got as far as the water fountain in the atrium before the inevitable confrontation began.
“What just happened in there, Bauer?” Crowley demanded angrily. He’d followed her up, and it had taken a supreme effort of will not to look back; she supposed there were some upsides to the code of chivalry among pureblood men, at least when they were in public. “Based on what you told me about what Cohn was planning – “
“ – Things should have gone differently,” Alicia finished for him. “They didn’t because I lied to you about what Cohn said to me.”
His color turned darker. “You Muggle-loving tramp,” he said, and Alicia reached for her wand, only just catching herself in time. He had just crossed a line, but she didn’t have to follow suit. Reacting that way to the insult would do her no favors, and might well get her in trouble. There were penalties just for using magic out of school, if one got caught, and cursing the great-nephew of a Councilor in public was one of those things she was pretty sure no one got away with, from a magical family and in a magical structure or not. She could not take that route.
“Really?” she asked contemptuously, looking him up and down. “Is that really the best you can do?”
She straightened her jacket slightly. “I lied to her, too,” she said. “As you would have realized if you’d taken two seconds to pay attention after you were disappointed. The two of you both came to me. The two of you both made it obvious you hate each other. And since I was playing to win a game, I exploited that. I’ve been almost as open about my primary alliance than you have this whole time, and I made sure my side came out on top. It’s not my problem if you and Cohn picked the wrong friends in week one and then decided to try to use me in week four.”
“She got a lot more of what she was after than I did,” he snarled.
“That wasn’t my fault, or my intention,” Alicia said shortly. “I couldn’t control everything and everybody. Just the two of you. Because neither of you could get your heads in the game. You were so caught up being ideologues that you stopped playing to win. In the real world, I would have done a lot of things differently, because I think I like certain people just about as well as you do, but here, the rules were different and I played to win. If you’ve got a problem, take it up with the adults.”
This time, she was unable to exert enough effort to keep herself perfectly under control as she walked away. Her hands were shaking and her knees trying to and her face was mask-like, though her eyelids began to twitch, too, tiny invisible muscles fluttering uncomfortably, as he called out behind her, "You can be sure I will."
"You do that," she said. "You do whatever you want. Except ever call me that again."
"Or what?"
"Or you'll answer for it somewhere else," she snapped, and headed for the flooplace.
Once she got home, she walked straight past the usual inane questions about her day from her family, closed the door of her room in her mother’s face, and did take her wand out as she went into the bathroom, though she was pretty sure that had nothing to do with why the mirror abruptly leapt from the wall, falling to the tile floor with a crash. She waved her wand at it to fix it, then began heating water for her bath, as hot as she thought she could stand it and then a little more. Then she began crying even as she poured it over her head, again and again, reheating it every time it stopped stinging, hoping somehow she could scald it all out.