Russian roulette is not the same without a gun

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*Electricity is a funny thing. It can do so much, and yet it's so very easy to disrupt. Such are the woes of the proprietors of Maurice's, an upscale café that tries to look more edgy than fancy, and fails. It can't quite shake the air of snobbery infecting the area, the taint of We-Have-Too-Much-Money. Maybe it's the silk ascots; maybe it's the disproportionate number of Italian shoes. At any rate, no one thinks to notice the young man slipping out of the alley next to the building, in his new wingtips and old waistcoat, his button-down a bit rumpled and his trousers mended here and there. By the time anyone notices the breaker box on the back wall sparking and smoking, he's vanished into the crowds.

He takes the long way 'round back through some side-streets, timing it so that he walks up to Maurice's - again - about five minutes after he's agreed to meet Amrita there. Perfectly late, perfectly nonchalant, as he strolls up to the café, pretending to be unaware of the frustrated owners and the 'closed for maintenance' sign now hanging on the door.*

Comments

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

- Well, it's worth asking, hang on -

*He makes a good show of it. Tapping on the window, he flags over a hassled-looking waiter and has a quick, through-the-door conversation regarding outages and the power company and 'closed for the rest of the day at least.' It's with a small shrug that he returns to Amrita, looking regretful and playing his cards carefully. He's got a very specific target here, but it won't do to put too fine a point on it.*

No luck, they don't even know what's wrong with it. I would suggest my flat, but it's a bit of a hike to Southwark, I'm sorry. Is there anything else around here?

*There isn't. He's already checked into that.*

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*She fiddles a little awkwardly with her purse as Remus talks to the waiter, and by the time he turns around she's already made up her mind. It'll be fine; the flat is warded and safe and Evan is out so there's nobody to surprise. Anyway, she isn't too keen on meeting Mrs. Lupin The Muggle, whoever-she-is, and she knows Evan wouldn't be all that keen on it, either--*

Don't be ridiculous. We'll go to the flat, it's only just 'round the corner. Do you mind?

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*Like taking candy from a baby. The sharp satisfaction is hidden beneath the edge of a slightly surprised look.*

Oh - no, Amrita, I'd hate to impose -

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*But she's already walking, with a sisterly little tug at his sleeve so that he'll follow her.*

Psh. It's very close. You can meet the bar.

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*He follows obediently, thinking that Sirius is probably having a fit right about now - they'd discussed this plan, and the fact that it is probably a stupidly dangerous plan, last night. He doesn't have to fake his little double-take at her, though, certain he's heard wrong.*

- Meet the what?

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

The bar. It's very nice, you'll see. And I can show you that book I was telling you about, that plays music for you as you read-

It's not far, just there, see?

*She points at the rather majestic building they're heading towards. It hails from when factories were built more like temples or castles--but it obviously hasn't been a factory in quite some time.*

And how've you been?

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

Fine, thanks. My wrist is - well -

*He holds it up a bit; with his cuffs rolled back to the elbow, the bandage is plainly visible.*

I had a bit of a go at it this time but it's not too bad. And other than that I've been well. Hazel's good, too. You?

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*At once, she makes a small and sympathetic little noise, her brow creasing. Perhaps he hasn't got a contraption like the one she once used--and if his wife, Hazel apparently, is a Muggle she can't be any use at all helping him. It hadn't been often that her own measures had failed, but she remembers vividly what it's like to wake up bleeding and gashed open from hip to knee.*

Oh, how awful. Don't you have a thing you can use, stop yourself biting?

It's just up here.

*They're in the building, now, and she leads him into a bronze-latticed lift much like the one they shared the day they met.*

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*Following, he shrugs and gives a little vague gesture.*

I do, it's just not fool-proof. I don't handle restraints very well, I'm afraid, I nearly broke my own neck once as a child. Usually the alternative works out, though, this is as bad as it ever gets these days.

*Sirius can't very well pin him to the floor the entire night - appealing as that prospect might be under other circumstances - and accidents happen. This month he'd just gotten distracted from play-fighting and (as usual) frustrated at the lack of exits. He'd been calmer back when they'd been able to roam free; the wolf doesn't respond well to captivity, and it's more of a constant struggle to keep it occupied in close quarters. Sirius's presence still helps him keep some of his sanity, but it can't undo the drive to get out, to run, to hunt.

He smiles, dryly, and fingers the fastening on the bandage gently.*

Believe me, I've had worse.

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

I believe it. I'm a mess all down my side here, and it only failed once or twice when I was younger. I've always used it, since, you know. It cut down on most of the, ah, messier bits. So I'd stay presentable. I only really would bounce off the walls, and that isn't so bad, considering.

*Amrita is very conspicuously avoiding the word muzzle; still, it's easier to talk about when she's looking ahead at the lift shaft crawling evenly downwards on the other side of the bronze lattice. She speaks softly, now, almost inaudible over the clanking of the old-fashioned lift.*

It's difficult, isn't it, for the wolf be held back from what it's meant to do?

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*He isn't acting now. Watching Amrita, the way the shadows shift across her face as the lift rises past floors, it's too easy to remember why they connected in the first place. She's literally the only person who understands what it means to have this thing in you that at once is and is not yourself, to remember after waking the lust for tearing and ripping and blood. She's the only one who gets that the problem isn't the pain, unfathomably hellish as that is. The problem is the fundamental schism in your sense of self, and the knowledge that you aren't wholly yourself, aren't even wholly human, and the baggage that comes with that. Something sad settles in his face as he watches her; they could've helped each other so much, and it's hard not to mourn that. His own voice is no louder than hers.*

Agonizing. And they have no idea.

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

Oh, none at all. Evan's just wonderful. He does so much. But-

*But fascination and solicitousness and love and generosity don't quite add up to a full understanding, either. It's good to have Remus back.*

Ah, here we are.

*There's no complicated wandwork, no tell, no glow or chime or showy magical flourishes in the way she undoes the wards to the flat: they are truly top-of-the-line, and that shows in the way it doesn't show. She simply presses her right palm flat to the door and fits the key into the lock with her left hand. It was clumsy, at first--damned Evan and his cack-handed apasavya way of doing things--but now it's second nature to her. The door opens willingly, and she leads him inside.*

And here's home.

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*He pays close attention about the wards; touch-sensitive, then, so probably specific to just the newlyweds. That's potentially problematic.

Shaking off the pensiveness and refocusing on the job at hand, he follows Amrita into the flat - if you can even call something this palatial a flat - and takes it all in as innocently as possible.*

It's - lovely, Amrita, really, this is beautiful.

*And such a very far cry from the flat on Borough High Street, with its cracked walls and old wooden floors and draughts. It's home, and it's pleasantly unpretentious, and he loves it, but he's never felt the class difference between them quite so acutely as now.*

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

It's home, is all.

*She shrugs, a little awkwardly. And of course to Amrita, now, it is. But the first time she'd woken up here it'd been blinding and startling and alien: high ceilings and a wall of windows and an awful lot of white, and peculiar art and artifacts everywhere--never mind how many times her little room at the Leaky could fit into it.

And it hasn't changed much since then: a few more bookshelves by a little chair for her to read in, an idol in one little nook that's probably the brightest thing in the room, and a circle of carpet that's almost-imperceptibly worn. And of course there's a handsome iron hook suspended from the ceiling, holding only a blameless plant in a hanging pot.

She drops her purse onto a table and crosses the room to the bar.*

Make yourself at home, now. It can get you just about anything--it actually made me coffee once but I was awfully upset, don't know if a repeat performance is in the cards--Iced tea for me, I think, please, with cardamom--

Remus?

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*A semi-sentient bar. Fancy bit of spellwork, that, and Remus can't help but be rather impressed.*

Ah - darjeeling, please, if you have it.

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*The bar clinks and chatters into activity before she's even spoken to it, and it produces a gently steaming cup of flawless tea--evidently anxious to make a good impression on this new friend of Amrita's.*

That was fast. Bit of milk and sugar, isn't it?

*She returns and extends the cup and saucer to Remus with the easy and workmanlike grace of someone who's served for a living--you can take the girl out of the pub, but--and settles into an armchair.

For all her blatant dismissal of his Muggle wife, Amrita's still obnoxiously lovesick. She can't help asking.*

You'll have to tell me how you and Hazel met. Was it very very romantic?

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*Damn. He never should have given her a name, it humanized her, and now he's got to invent things - he's always been good off the cuff but it doesn't mean he likes it just now. The stakes are too high. So he just dives in, spinning out the kind of silly schoolgirl fancy she'd probably believe, too aware that it couldn't be less like the reality of his relationship with Sirius, from the framework up.*

She seems to think so. It was all a bit of a whirlwind - I was just at the market, you know, the open-air one by my old flat, and she tripped over a loose paving stone and dropped her shopping. Oranges everywhere, eggs broken, it was a right mess, and I happened to be passing and helped her, and - well.

*He puts on a small smile, trying to draw on real memories to make it look convincing - the nights spent up up in the Astronomy Tower with Padfoot, out of bed long after hours just to have a bit of time alone together. Or the smiles across the Gryffindor table at breakfast, layers of hidden meanings in them that everyone else was oblivious to, or the night of his eighteenth birthday, in the library - they were purely, truly happy memories, and good fuel for faking newly-in-love. Back at Hogwarts, the end of seventh year when they'd just finally figured things out and the war hadn't consumed their lives yet, when it was all stolen kisses and muffled laughter and tangled sheets on narrow beds. Remus wouldn't trade what they have now for anything - they're so solid, now, so steady and it's safe and it's home - but there's no denying that things were simpler, before. Happiness without the edge of fear. He tries to draw on that.*

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*She sees it ever so vividly: oranges rolling everywhere on the cobblestones and poor hapless Hazel-the-Muggle (a pretty if slightly dumpy brunette, in Amrita's mind) fretting all over the place. And Remus, of course, to the rescue. The story is enough, but the little smile he's wearing clinches it, and Amrita lights up like a Christmas tree, right on cue.*

That's just wonderful. Ever the white-knight, I could just die.


I don't know about you but I'm a bit peckish, I was sort of counting on a pastry or two from Maurice's. Let me get us a little something, we've got fruit and scones and things--won't be a second--

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*The smile vanishes the instant Amrita's gone, and he's off. He's only got a moment, he knows, so he makes it count - the place is too spotless to afford many hints as to where he might look for anything incriminating, so all he can do is start with the obvious. Tea cup still in hand in case she comes back early, he quickly crosses for the nearest thing with drawers - an old and expensive-looking credenza sitting tastefully off to one side. There are curios spaced attractively on top of it, but Remus spares them barely a glance. As quietly as possible he pulls open the first drawer, careful not to actually touch anything.*

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*The credenza gives a little mutinous creak at his touch, seems to twitch a bit, but that's all. The drawer would certainly have bitten, or worse, if anything incriminating was in the drawer--but it contains only a pair of smooth and intricately-carved wands.*

So do you have a flat together?

*Amrita didn't do much more than help out with kitchen prep at the Leaky--the cook was an ancient and horrid woman she was obliged to call Miss Fletcher who was in the habit of complaining loudly about 'it' touching things when Tom wasn't around. But she remembers some, and makes short work and neat slices of a few nectarines and tangellas. But that won't do on its own, so she keeps on rummaging and calls over to Remus.*

In London, or--?

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*So Sirius wasn't the only one to think to get secondary wands. It's hardly surprising - honestly, what Crouch thinks he's going to accomplish by these absurd regulations....

Shutting the drawer gently, he moves onto the next, setting his teacup down to open two at once this time. As long as he can hear movement in the kitchen, he reasons, he's fine.*

A bit out, yes, in Croydon.

*Sufficiently pedestrian and boring and lower-middle-class. He hopes.*

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*The first drawer opens smoothly, revealing a dozen or so more wands, each carved and inlaid with infinitesmal chips of mirror. But it appears the credenza's had enough, because the next refuses to open at all. The wood gives another long creak, and it sounds more like a growl than anything else.*

Lovely. Did you have a housewarming? Goodness, I've really missed so much. Do you have all sorts of Muggle things in the kitchen?

*She's babbling, but a charming little fruit plate has taken shape, and the scones are busy toasting themselves, and where is the chocolate--*

I won't be a second, sorry!

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*More sentient furniture? Why can't they just have a nice boring non-living side-table? If it won't open willingly, that's fine; he pushes the first drawer shut and slips his wand out a pocket stitched inside his waistcoat. First is a silencing spell, then a more forceful attempt at gaining entry.*

No, it's quite alright - and we do, there's a toaster and a blender and a coffee maker and everything. She can't very well do without them, I mean, so -

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*The drawer opens, almost too-obediently--and then it snaps abruptly (and silently) shut, with sharp brass teeth that seem to have come out of nowhere.

For her part, Amrita is still rummaging, muttering to herself in a low undertone.*

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*His eyebrows shoot up; it has teeth? Well, fine, there are more than one ways to skin a cat, and he hasn't got time to muck about with this. Crouching, he levels his wand at the drawer and tries simply vanishing the front panel of the wood itself.*