WHO: Rose Knightley & Octavius Pepper
WHAT: Rose has to retrieve something that belongs to her
WHERE: His place
WHEN: Er... tonight maybe?
It wasn’t until she had finished taking off on her knee pads that Rose realized where her missing
writings had gone. At first, she’d simply assumed that with everything going on, they’d gotten misplaced beneath a pile of laundry, or stacked within Eurocup owls, or jammed into the back of her locker at Caerphilly. But, as the days went by and nothing turned up, it became increasingly obvious that her collection of thoughts were not just somewhere, but missing entirely. So, whilst thinking about the last time she had written after practice was over, it
clicked.
Kendall.
Kendall, and his good intentions that sometimes could go awry, because the last time that she had--- before
yoga which they had promptly gotten kicked out of and then she hadn’t much more to say after that so the last time would be--- and he most certainly wouldn’t have--- her hand went to her mouth as she realized that, if looked upon briefly, those pieces of parchments would appear to be something like
letter and--- Rose quickly threw her locker door shut, not remotely bothered she’d only half finished changing out of her practice attire. There were more important things to worry about, like Octavius Pepper reading a collection of thoughts that he was most certainly not meant to read because Kendall had thought he was being helpful, or doing the right thing by
putting them into her ex-boyfriend’s hands. This thought alone spurred her legs to move faster, sprinting to the nearest apparation point in the stadium.
Of course, she wasn’t
completely sure that was what Kendall had done, but swept up in the thought, the moment, the only thing Rose could focus on was ensuring no more
reading was done, especially of all by Octavius. It wasn’t--- no. No.
Out of breath upon arrival, Rose began to pound on Octavius’ front door. She didn’t have much of a choice, did she? There was a chance, she vaguely supposed, that he hadn’t in fact gotten around to reading it, but, even then it would be the best to inform--- and if Octavius had, well, then she had to deal with
that and---
Merlin this had the potential to be a right nightmare.
“Octavius!” she winced, slightly, at the obvious distress in her tone. In addition to all else, her presence here wasn’t exactly keeping to her personal rule of staying away from him. But this, if it were a test, would most definitely count as an extenuating circumstance, so it counted here, she decided.
He had been winding down for the evening. A book, one of the programmes he enjoyed on the Wireless, that didn't remind him about budgets or standards or scheduling, and vague notions of dinner, but only if he could be bothered. The week had been a busy one (and when were they not?) and for the first time in weeks, Octavius felt that it had been a good, productive week, and one he could enjoyably rewind from.
At least, that had been the plan.
When her voice first sounded, Octavius had a not-so-vague notion of leaping over the back of the sofa he was sitting on and crouching behind the thing. He didn't have it in him. Whatever fresh hell this encounter was sure to bestow upon them, he simply did not have it in him to cope. He brought the pillow that was on his lap to his face and buried it there, waiting for the knocking to cease, and then paused. Perhaps… Rose was bringing over more of his things? Octavius seemed to remember having left more of his personal belongings at her place than the box she'd returned to him contained. There had been a scarf, but he was actually fairly certain that it belonged to her… And besides, surely that didn't require so much banging on his door.
The knocking did not dissipate, and as he really listened to the sound of her voice, Rose sounded quite upset. Rapid pounding upon the door meant urgency, and coupled with her tone … That had him tossing the pillow to the side and rising, because what if something was wrong? If she was hurt, or needed help, or—
"Rose?" Octavius asked cautiously, crinkling his brow when he cracked the door open. He performed a quick study of her person and, but for being perhaps a bit flushed, she seemed just fine. "Is every—Are you all right?" He opened the door wider and looked behind her for clues, finding nothing.
She purposely didn’t look at Octavius when he opened the door, knowing if she did then she’d become lost in the reality of actually seeing him, and therefore lose her urgency. So instead Rose craned her neck up in attempt to look over his shoulder and behind him, a quite pointless action since he was rather tall, and it wasn’t as if he kept his mail in perfect view from the front door. Though he
should.
“Have you---” she started distractedly, shifting to balance on one foot to glance through the gap under his arm. That also proved fruitless, and Rose pressed her lips together in something of an unsettled manner. Well...
well--- well! She rubbed her hand on her head, and straightened herself upon deciding that she did, in fact, need to address Octavius now to resolve this.... issue. It wasn’t like she had the luxury of poking through his mail just
because, and if she couldn’t see it from here...
“Um,” Rose finally looked at him, roughly acknowledging this must look entirely strange and feel extremely uncomfortable. She briefly stared, momentarily fighting with the whirling thoughts and emotions that came with seeing Octavius.
Oh this had been a horrible idea, what was she
doing? Had he even--- was there even a way to
tell whether or not he knew what was going on? She frowned, and felt a burn warm her cheeks. This was never going to get easy, was it? Closing her eyes, she quickly sought to smother any and all distracting observations she was quickly making about him.
“Did you receive a owl addressed from me?” Rose blurted, her eyes blazing back open. Yes, that was a good start. “Because I didn’t---” She shook her head, getting ahead of herself. “Did you?”
"Er— "
Octavius's left eye began twitching as she spoke. Not that he dared scrutinise too closely, but if he was not mistake, she had this slightly crazed look about the eyes that had him taking a step back. Being that he'd wedged himself into the crack of the door's opening, however, he just bumped against it rather than properly shielding himself from any wrath Rose saw fit to rain down upon him.
But her question had him doing a double-take, because it was a strange one. Why would she send him something? What was so important that she'd follow-up in person to see if he'd gotten it! Once he'd thought that, he felt panic mixing in with his confusion.
"No?" he said, though it came out more like a question. "I don't—I don't know. Maybe? I haven't looked at the post in a few days." Well, more like a week. Well, perhaps more like a week and a half.
Well, perhaps more like Gebhard had found the post's new hiding place about a month ago, and took it upon himself to filter out the junk (or rather, all of it) with his teeth. The first week or so, Octavius had been quite alarmed and tried to rescue the piles, but as the days went on, he did find something freeing in being released from the torrent of letters, papers, and other post his life called for. He'd thrown some letters on the table if he'd been there when they arrived, but he didn't remember seeing anything from Rose in that pile. Surely Octavius could at least remember
that.
And it certainly didn't explain why she was here, asking about it. "…Wh—erm, why do you ask ?"
The relief of Octavius revealing he had no idea what seemed to be going on came second to her new-found determination of stopping this entire situation from happening.
“Really?” her eyes brightened. That would be wonderful, that would be perfect, that would be at least one thing right to happen in what seemed in a sea of catastrophic wrong--- Rose brought her hands together close to her chest, and shook her head.
Focusing was what was important, and that priority centered around calming and coaxing Octavius down into--- into what? Making him believe that she wasn’t as unhinged as she was appearing? Letting her
inside to physically take it? Surely, she assumed, he would understand once everything was said and done.
“Well---” Rose started, but vaguely trailed off as she couldn’t help but focus in on what could very easily be space for her to squeeze/barge through between him and the door. It wasn’t very appropriate, but at this point, it didn’t seem like anything she did would matter much. She needed to get inside, getting him to retrieve it and bring it back--- too many questions, and even worse, what if he wanted to then keep it? Well-- so-- that---
well....
Was she actually doing this?
She was doing this.
Rose had already inched forward when Octavius fell back, and with that little space she quickly seized the opportunity to seamlessly slipped through the doorway. She frowned, unable to look him in the eye, and her mouth ran as she attempted to semi-force herself by him.
“I think--- Kendall owled you something that he wasn’t supposed to owl because it was never meant to be read, and now of
course now he’s apparently disappeared off the face of the earth which he only ever does when he’s done something bad, and I’m sorry to do this to you but I need you to not read any of your mail so---”
Octavius blinked, staring at what had previously been Rose-filled space. He almost hadn't believed his eyes, or, you know, the both pleasant and slightly bruising feel of her elbowing past him, but she was undeniably no longer standing before him. Spinning around, he followed her into his house, mouth gaping open and shut like a fish's, though no sound escaped from him, escaped perhaps a strangled sort of squeaking noise.
Had she actually been speaking words? Amidst the confusion, panic, steadily decreasing terror, and, yes, he wasn't proud of it but, attraction, he hadn't been able to interpret any of what she was saying to be English. Or rather, English that made any sense to him.
"Wait—" he said when he had recollected his wits minorly, pushing his door closed emphatically with one hand. Enclosing the two of them in a space together may not have been the smartest idea, but he hurried after her, frowning as he tried to comprehend what he thought he had just heard. "Just—wait a minute. You—Kendall did what?"
He blinked again. "Why would Kendall send me—what did I get?" Octavius walked over the the dining table, where some of the letters were strewn that he began to root through. The terror had subsided now that they weren't (hopefully) going to be doing any fighting and would part once again (hopefully) on good terms, but the confusion he simply couldn't tamp down. Or that other thing. Shifting his attention back to the table, he shook his head in frustration. "I don't recall seeing something from either of you.
What is going on?"
“I didn’t send you anything!” she blurted, whirling back to look at Octavius. And she kept her gaze there, as with each passing second she found that the ache of looking at him was at least a familiar, manageable one compared to the gnawing pang that was the realization how fond of, and therefore now missed, his house. She would look at him instead of glancing to see if anything had changed, or moved, or--- no,
no, there was a severely important task at hand, there could be none of
that.
Instead, Rose rubbed her face, and then shook her head. As much as she wanted to explain in full about this awkward situation, she really.... did not. But she’d gone and barged into his house, and he was asking all these questions.... this had seemed like a much better and smarter idea a couple of seconds ago.
“It’s just this---” she brought her hands together, fumbling them like she was holding something invisible. Knowing that was not a sufficient enough response, she dropped her hands to her side. “It’s nothing,” she then shrugged, her eyes wandering to the messy stack to her side. That was a horribly pitiful lie. “I mean---” Rose rushed, then let out a frustrated sigh. She gave the dining table one look at perhaps
spotting the thing and ending this whole ordeal before she had to experience any more of it. But to no avail.
“It’s this
thing,” she started, boxing her hands back together to form a square. “That I--- wrote, that Kendall must have mailed it thinking he was--- I don’t know what he was thinking but, I didn’t--- it’s not exactly--- I need it back.” Rose felt increasingly uncomfortable as she talked, and her face felt hot again. “It would look like---- a thick letter,” she rushed, turning to fully face the table now and look busy in observation.
So Rose had… evidently written something that she certainly didn't want Octavius seeing, perhaps
anyone seeing it, which Kendall then, for reasons he would probably never understand even if he got his hands on the wily, country-fleeing Seeker, because no one told him what was
in this bloody envelope, had decided Octavius was, in fact, the ideal recipient of said letter. Or, rather this… written…
thing.
Right.
He understood possibly less than he had when Rose had first barged into his house.
Which was another thing he was not appreciative of at all. He'd been trying, really trying, with this promise of distance, to get his head screwed on properly. And then she just waltzes in like some sort of forceful natural disaster, and talking about confusing things which he didn't understand, and which she wasn't
really explaining, and then... Well, then he began to wonder if there
was such a letter at all. And what could Rose of all people have written that was such highly sensitive material?
It was a pretty far-fetched story, after all. Rose was a very neat, organised sort of person, and unless Kendall had been, what, rooting around in her personal effects, was Octavius to believe she'd left this letter containing sensitive information just — just lying about? So any snooping dandy could pick it up? And everyone knew Octavius wasn't the most fastidious person alive. It wasn't unreasonable to assume he might leave his post unattended to for a period of days. Or weeks. So if the mysterious letter never turned up, well! Then.
This was the first sensible thing that had happened in the last five minutes.
To buy himself some time, so he could think how to gingerly broach the subject of this fabricated letter, he made the short walk from the sitting room to the kitchen, where the slot to his owl box was. "Rose," began Octavius, trying to remember when the last time he'd checked this post was, "you don't need to—" He stopped short. He'd seen some stacks on the counter where the slot opened, but he wasn't very attentive, and an island blocked his view of the floor. Which was strewn with at least twenty mangled envelopes, one of which his wee devil of a suspiciously quiet goat was placidly chewing up.
"I — er," he called, dropping into a crouch to gingerly pick at the half-masticated pile of paper on his kitchen floor, "I hope that you didn't want it back…"
She could
kiss this precious goat, and immediately Rose withdrew any ill thoughts she had ever had about Gebhard, as he obviously did not deserve them. He was a saviour! A gift! A blessing--- she should make sure what she was assuming had happened actually did before swearing up and down the wholly good-heartedness of this german farm animal, shouldn’t she?
Sweeping past Octavius (again), Rose quickly crouched down to inspect this parchment massacre and it’s instigator. It did not take long for her to recognize her own handwriting (in the process of being chewed, no less), and because of that Rose did not hold back promptly bringing her hands forward for a loose hold of the goat’s face under his ears, followed by a nice pat on the head. But lightly, because Merlin knew how surly Gebhard could become, and to not take her chances further, she speedily retracted her hands and stood up.
The practical joy and relief that had filled her for those few seconds disappeared just as quickly as they had come about; Rose’s sense of urgency dissipated, clearing her mind to the current situation she was now in... because of the... other former situation, and it did not make her feel very comforted. In fact, the face that she turned back spread thick across Octavius was quite.... er... she stared at him wide-eyed as a vague response.
In those few quiet moments, Rose decided that, now, she owed him a better explanation than the one she had given. And it wasn’t that--- her hesitance to explain, it wasn’t that--- she wasn’t sure--- in the lows and lower lows of the past few weeks, she had written down... her thoughts, and emotions, some addressed to Octavius himself and others just... writing down thoughts, but she had never--- staying apart, creating distance and space between them wasn’t done by... having long writings read that divulged rather heavy emotions, so... Rose flapped her mouth for a few moments, then brought one of her hands to the side of her face for support.
Words, she needed to say these things out loud.
“It was--- a letter, about--- us. To you--- well, mostly to you, but not all at the same time, and... my thoughts about everything that had happened. I didn’t mean to--- I didn’t want you to think I was purposely... drudging up...” Her brow furrowed slightly, as she was finding it difficult to explain this casually. “It’s intent was not to... be inappropriate, or make you feel--- I didn’t want you to think I was bothering you because I couldn’t---” Why could she
never just say what she was thinking? Rose rubbed her heel into the ground in frustration. “It was not created with the intent of forcing you to read it.”
Octavius was too dazed to be ashamed to say that the sight of his ex-girlfriend hugging his antagonistic goat, actually
touching the bedeviled creature, had nearly knocked him off his feet and he was now lounging against the island as he didn't trust his legs. When he was able to pick his jaw up off the floor, however, he could speak again.
Well, now he was individually counting out and naming his saints and stars to thank them for stopping him from speaking of his thoughts on the "fabricated" letter aloud, but after he finished that, he was able to.
Only, then, he wasn't quite sure what to say to all that had just been revealed to him, except that this was possibly the one thing that made more sense than an insane ruse to see him again.
Which, he felt necessary to say, was not because he was so desirable, but because he and Rose turned one another into mad, unpredictable people, and that might be a thing one of them could be capable of.
"Well," he cleared his throat, pressing his fist to his mouth. "I will say that, all this time, I've been harbouring suspicions that you were some assassin employed by the Ministry, and Kendall's life was in danger, so he attempted to reach out to someone for saving." Looking thoughtful, Octavius paused, then shook his head from side to side a little. "Rather disappointed that that isn't true, now that I think about it."
He became more solemn as he studied the massacre of papers littering the floor, and said, "I like to think I would have known enough to not finish reading it, if I'd started." Taking a breath, he added, "But I am glad we didn't get the chance to find out."
This was the point where he wished it wouldn't be odd to invite her to stay for tea. It was the reason he had pushed so strongly for them to be friends in the beginning stages of their interminably long break up, because it was so natural to be with Rose. It just wasn't a very good idea anymore. "Good for something now, isn't he?" he asked with a slight grin, nodding to Gebhard who looked remarkably unfazed by the events unfolding around him.
She darkly thought that Kendall
would need such a savior once she got ahold of him, but instead of projecting her disgruntled thoughts, Rose chortled lightly. “Yes, you’ve caught me,” she spoke faintly, privately finding that she thought herself the least capable of all of something like that. Keeping cool under pressure? Unquestioning decision making? The ability to function on a higher level? Oh yes, that was definitely her. “All anti-climatic, I’m afraid,” she eased.
Rose’s lips pressed into something of an awkward smile as Octavius spoke again. What exactly could she say to that? Well, no, it wasn’t that--- there was simply nothing she
wanted to say, because she was very keen on closing this situation entirely. So, instead of responding, she blinked and redirected her gaze to the ground with the intent of enduring an approaching silence between them.
But there wasn’t, for the most part, and Rose suddenly found herself wanting for there to be more. She wanted an excuse to stay, to talk and hear about his day. What fresh catastrophe had happened at the WWN today? And then, the sudden desire to tell him about England,
Eurocup, the definite whirlwind marathon that would be playoffs took over her, and--- Rose quickly snapped her open mouth shut. That wouldn’t be... that couldn’t happen anymore. This self-developed thought saddened her, and she moved her hands to lace her fingers together.
“Yes,” she let out finally, smiling softly. “Where would we all be without Gebhard?” Rose took a deep breath, and exhaled silently. What a horrible person she was, she couldn’t even force herself to leave Octavius in peace.
"I'd probably have a cleaner house, for one," he said with a bit of a laugh. Gebhard had sidled close enough for Octavius to bend and scratch behind one of his horns, so he was grateful to have something to do with his hands. He knew he couldn't just ask her to leave, because he would be a cad if he did so, and he didn't really want to ask her that. If he did what was habitual, and ask her to stay, they ran the risk of doing something they regretted, or of another fight breaking out. And this, if they couldn't have anything more, was how he wanted to keep it between them. Cordial. Nearly even friendly.
But was was quite hard to do when your next sentence was about to be, "Good seeing you, let me show you the way out."
"Well, I'm glad the two of us could be of service for you," he said after a painfully long beat. He straightened and smoothed his hands down his sides. What did Rose want to do? What did she want
him to do? It wasn't like he could ask her, because, well, wouldn't
that be awkward.
"I'm actually… er, I'm meeting Charlie. For drinks." The lie slipped out before he had barely even thought of it. Trying not to wince, he continued, "Conciliatory drinks, in just a little while, so," he glanced at his wristwatch. "I should probably be getting ready." Looked like he'd be the one knocking on his friend's door tonight. It probably wasn't
too much of a lie, right? Surely a person could always go for some conciliatory drinks after finding out his team hadn't made it to the play-offs?
"Congratulations on that, by the way. And, and the European Cup too, that's really brilliant."
Ugh, and look, she couldn’t have been the better person, so now her rightfully-fit embarrassment at practically forcing Octavius to politely kick her out was settling in--- Rose quickly brought both hands to her face in hopes of hiding her burning skin. What was
wrong with her? Could accomplishing her task not be
enough?
“Right!” she blurted, blinking quickly as her legs began to move. “Sorry! I mean--- of course, you have things to do, it’s not like---” Rose shook her head, unsure of where she was going with that statement, but very much sure she did not want to find out. “I mean--- I’m sure Charlie is rather---”
Merlin why in the world was she talking about
Charlie? Now not only was she a rude house quest, but she was also blatantly degrading said owner’s best friend concerning his team’s rather abysmal end to the season--- Rose closed her eyes in a vain attempt to ward off her jitter.
She had made it to the doorway by Octavius’ words, and they made her turn back to look at him incredulously. She hadn’t thought... not that he wouldn’t
care, but what did it matter to him about her professional career? It certainly wasn’t his concern, or even something he needed to say to her. It was nice, very nice of him to notice.
“Thank you,” Rose said simply, wishing there was a statement of equal value she could give to him. Instead, her hand dropped from the doorframe and she stopped fidgeting for a moment. “You’ll be coming to watch, won’t you?” she spoke suddenly. Realizing how that might sound, she quickly sought to amend it. “To Istanbul--- the matches will be... too great to miss.”
He blinked twice, not having anticipated that she'd want him there. Leaning against the open door with his arms folded, he said, "Oh, erm, yes. I will, actually." And then because he felt as if he should explain, Octavius hastened to add, "Charlie's invit—well, and the WWN is doing some live coverage, so I'll be there to direct it."
Octavius smiled then patted at his heart with a wink, "I wouldn't miss it. Someone has to be there to champion my dear Scotland on, and all that." Not that he was Scottish, but living in the country and harbouring a fanboy's crush on its Seeker encouraged a special sort of fanaticism. And having so many strongly-Quidditch-affiliated people in his life, it made said life that much safer by declaring his loyalties for a neutral team.
"Although… I suppose I could find it in me to cheer for good old England as a fallback."
He was going
anyway? Had that been a
wink? He could find it within him to cheer for--- her eyes widened as she suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Too much, this was too much, too much friendliness at once, it felt
quite overwhelming--- she had just said that to be strangely
cordial, not open a flood of, of--- generally warm exchange. Nope, nope, nope. Now her skin was itching disagreeably, and the padding left on her body felt wrapped far too tight, and
logically she supposed she had no idea why she felt so uneasy, but she was, and there was really no stopping it, apparently.
Perhaps it was just the verbal confirmation that even in a foreign country, very far way from home, she could never truly escape her seemingly-constant ex-boyfriend that was Octavius Pepper.
Oh, and now she felt like she was going to be sick.
Rose’s mouth hung open as she nodded vaguely, very much looking like she was operating in a whole other dimension. She blindly reached back for the railing, tripping slightly as she stumbled back down his front steps.
“Oh,” was all she could muster, entirely too dazed to form anything aside from one word at a time. “Great,” she finished weakly, pulling herself together to hopefully form a vacantly pleasant look on her face. What had just happened?
