Who: Davy Gudgeon & Ralph Frobisher
What: Ralph tells Davy he is alive!
Where: Davy's flat
When: Now!
Davy was siting there, staring at his most recent creation. He scratched his nose, not realising there was paint on his finger which left a small dob on the side of his nose. He wasn't quite sure if he liked this painting, it was definitely more colourful than anything he'd done in the past few months, but it was a recent thing lately. Not liking his work. Davy was feeling a lot better now that Vinny as back, he was less on edge (a little less, at least). He still felt ridiculously spastic on some days and one of those days was today. He had gotten up around four, he just couldn't sleep any longer, and painted quietly until Ellie was getting ready and he cooked her some breakfast. After she was gone, Davy had started painting again, and now it was finished, but he still didn't quite like it.
He reached to turn the canvas on its side, in case that is what was wrong, when he heard a knock on the door. Since he hadn't bothered (or had forgotten) to put any music on, it echoed throughout the flat. Usually he could hardly hear it over the music, but he was hardly ever expecting anyone that couldn't just apparate inside. Looking around to see if there was anything that needed to be picked up, Davy made his way to the door. Not seeing anything, Davy pulled the door open to reveal the one person he probably shouldn't be seeing there.
"Uh," he said stupidly, blinking a few times to make sure he was actually seeing what he was seeing.
This was awkward. Though then again, Ralph had never been hard pressed to find awkward moments in his life. Actually, his life
was awkward, if you had to put it into one description. So, by second nature, Ralph's hand went to the back of his head in an embarrassed nature, scratching it quickly. This had seemed like a better idea at the time that he had decided to go visit Davy. And when he said visit, he meant let him know that he hadn't been dead as previously thought for the past year.
"Hey," Ralph started slowly, his hand inching up from the back of his head to the top of it, resting on the fabric of his baseball cap. He had gotten so use to wearing them before, and every muggle friend that he had wore them, so now it was sort of a thing. That he wore. To cover his head. Wow, did he mention how
awkward this was, seeing Davy for the first time in a year? Granted, they hadn't been best friends in school, but as dorm mates they had gotten close over the years.
He looked like he was seeing a ghost--- Ralph should be use to that look by now, but he wasn't.
"I'm not dead," Ralph blurted suddenly, his hand dropping to his side in a defeated manner. There was an awkward silence for a moment, then Ralph continued. "I can prove it," he stated just as suddenly, figuring his friend probably wouldn't believe it was actually him, especially during these times.
Hearing Ralph's voice, and that was certainly Ralph's voice, Davy felt like he'd been socked in the gut
really hard. By a mad as hell Vinny. On Pepper-Up and other things. Suffice it to say, that was a pretty hard gut punch. To see your friend, former roommate, who had been dead for the past year and whatever, standing there in front of him.
With black hair.
And a cap. An odd cap, but a cap nonetheless.
Speaking at him.
Davy stuttered a moment, thinking about shouting for Ellie or something, but no. No one was home, he was all alone. With not-dead Ralph. Standing in front of him and probably expecting him to say something. Intelligible, at least. Davy stepped aside to let Ralph inside. "Uh, no, you don't need to prove it. I can kind of see that."
There were more than a thousand things running through his mind and he could hardly grasp any one thought, but they all swirled around the major questions. What, when and most importantly
why, but he couldn't help but blurt out, "Has Miranda seen your hair? Did she yell at you? You know it's black, right?"
Ralph leered for a moment, caught off guard that Davy wanted no proof that he was in fact himself. He had been completely ready to start spewing off answers to any question Davy demanded, so to just be automatically believed was a bit off setting. The thought that maybe this wasn't the real Davy passed through Ralph's mind, but left quickly as it had came. There would be no reason for a death eater to impersonate an artist. Honestly, he was probably just too paranoid for his own good.
"Yeah, she hates it. I think she manages to say something about it every time I see her," Ralph responded slowly as he walked inside. A laugh managed to escape him as his hand went up to the back of his head again. "You know what color looks good on you, Ralph?
Red," Ralph repeated in a higher tone, his best impression of Miranda's voice.
"But Frank said it was a better idea to keep it this way for a while, so..." Ralph trailed off, figuring mid sentence that he probably shouldn't have said that, or mentioned Frank. Though he supposed that a relationship with the older Auror wasn't completely out of left field: they had all been in Gryffindor, and in school Frank had referred to Ralph as his legacy protegee in quidditch so...
plus he was an Auror. They were like lawyers, you always needed and referred to them for one thing or another.
It was still surreal to see Ralph there standing in his flat, looking like. Well, a black haired Ralph in a cap. He didn't look rotted or dead, or crispy, really, or anything like he would expect a dead person to look when they came back to life, but considering the types of dreams Davy had from time to time and what his artwork consisted of, well this was kind of on par. He was pretty sure he'd be waking up any minute now to Ellie coming home. He should probably start dinner or something before that.
"Do you want some tea?" Davy asked, rubbing his forehead again and smudging some more blue paint and not realizing it. "I have some tea. I don't usually drink it after lunch but um yeah. Because it keeps me up and I already have enough trouble sleeping," Davy started rambling, as was his usual discourse with dead people. It was awkward not to ask what the hell was going on, but it was hard to come up with the words.
"This is my flat. I dunno if you saw it before. Vinny got it for me, before. And stuff and um, Ellie lives here, but she's at work. This is the living area," Davy moved into the studio flat, pointing out the living room with couches and a telly that was sort of recessed into the floor like a cozy pit. "Kitchen is there," he pointed at it, just beyond the living room, but there were really no walls, just a couple of large posts that had been painted and had fliers and posters and such attached to them. "And here's my studio slash dance studio," Davy said, referring to the area in front of their bedroom that had his art table and easel and dozens of canvasses stacked against a wall while the opposite wall had mirrors and a balance bar for Ellie to practice on.
"And so yeah. That's kind of, my home. And, er where are you staying? I've only seen Miranda a handful of times and stuff. It was kind of. Hard to see her, you know?"
Davy definitely thought he was a zombie back from the dead. Ralph awkwardly followed him around the flat, opting to stay quiet. His opinion, or voice for that matter, might throw his friend off into a whole new level of... whatever it was that Davy was.
Once Davy was finished, however, it was necessary to say something. So Ralph replied in the softest tone possible without appearing to do so. "It's a really nice flat." And, a few seconds later: "No, no tea for me thanks." Like either of them needed a reason to be more awake? Their states now were enough to handle.
A strange feeling swept over Ralph as he tried to decipher Davy's cryptic response (it was hard to take him seriously when half his face was painted blue). "I'm staying away from everything," he nodded, "Out of sight." Yep, and that was all he was going to say about that.
Ralph's mood quickly changed once he focused on the end of Davy's sentence. "Look, Davy---- I'm sorry about that. I should have let you know sooner, or at least--- everything has been really messed up lately."
"Out of sight, so, you don't see Miranda? She knows you're not like," Davy waved his hand at Ralph indicating his living nature. "So if you're staying away from everything, what do you do all day? Wander around the muggle world? Do you have a job and stuff? A new girlfriend?" If Ralph had this whole other life Davy didn't know about then, well what did he know? Nothing really.
"Um, no I can understand not wanting to tell people about not being dead. Not a lot of people would believe it you know? And yeah, things are kind of messed up, but also not. Anneliese had her baby and Iris got married and um, oh well, Emmeline's boyfriend died, that was sad. Vinny's back though," Davy fidgeted slightly, not sure what to say or look at. "I asked Anneliese advice about rings to ask Ellie to marry me but then Will cornered me the next day and told me it was best not to ask Ellie, even though I wasn't really planning on it, I just wanted to have an idea or two you know? So yeah, that's on hold."
Wait--- Ralph blinked quickly, suddenly finding himself perplexed. Had he not---- he had mentioned Miranda just a few minutes ago, hadn't he? And even if he didn't, did Davy
really think that Miranda wouldn't have known he was alive, if he was here talking to Davy? Maybe it was just him, but Ralph assumed that everyone knew Miranda had this unseen tracker on him.
His eyes closed to a squint for a second, barely listening to Davy's story. How could he be one
hundred percent sure that this was the real Davy, again? The more Ralph thought about it, the more he realized there was no way to tell. Davy could be under imperious, or a death eater in disguise... but--- no one knew he was alive, except the Order. If Walden had known, he would've attacked him already in one way or another. Ralph crossed his arms over his chest,
wanting to trust that this was in fact his friend he had known for years that he was talking to, but with everything that had been happening lately.... for now, he would go with benefit of the doubt, Davy had always had a spotty memory.
He would just be more alert, that's all.
"I'm at University," Ralph started slowly, thinking carefully now what words to use. "Muggle student," he supplied as an after thought. "Miranda was there for a while, but now she's in W.A.D.A, so I don't see her as much." That technically wasn't a lie, before she was a constant presence in his life, now she had to leave him some time to go to class.
"That's great your cousin is back."
"University?" Davy asked, his voice sounding a little faint. He knew Miranda was in W.A.D.A. which was really cool, but Ralph, going to muggle university? That didn't make much sense, most people, even muggleborns didn't go on to university. They usually worked in the wizarding community or something with magic. But oh, yeah, Ralph was dead. It made perfect sense for him to be a muggle student and going to university.
"I think I need to sit down," he said, moving to sit down in his chair by the painting but missing and falling on his rear. Normally he might have laughed it off, but well, his friend coming back from the dead was not all that cool nor funny. "I don't think we're thinking the same thing, you being alive and all. I don't think this dream is very funny and maybe I should wake up now."
Maybe if he said it out loud again, it would be even more true. "I mean it, I'm okay to wake up now," he said, a little hysterical.
He couldn't help it; Ralph's eyes went wide as he watched Davy basically fall to the ground, then go on about how he was in some dream. Or something. Ralph wasn't really sure, he was beginning to understand Davy less and less by the minute. So he should help him--- wake up? Ralph's mouth opened, finding it extremely hard to call this a normal situation any longer.
Tea was a no, water, maybe? Water wasn't very 'wake-up' worthy... Ralph continued to stand (and stare) awkwardly for another few minutes.
"I--- er--- lunch?"
Lunch? What? What was that some kind of--- actually. That wasn't too bad of an idea. Lunch. Lunch was good. Anything could be discussed over lunch. Because it wasn't complex. "Here---" he offered, offering a hand to help Davy up. "We'll eat and--- you can tell me why you're listening to some Slytherin about Ellie." Ralph mustered a smile, guessing that maybe if he got Davy thinking about something he was sure was real, then he wouldn't pass out again. Though who knew.
