WHO: Cecilia Hooke & Evan Rosier
WHAT: They need to have a little talk.
WHEN: This morning
WHERE: Evan's apartment


No matter how used she was by now to waking up to the feeling of wanting to go die somewhere, Cecilia would never get over how fucking painful it was. Groaning loudly, she slowly cracked her eyelids open and thanked Merlin that the blinds in the room were closed, and--wait.

She didn't have blinds in her room.

And her bed didn't face any windows.

... this wasn't her bed at all. This wasn't her room. This looked like--oh shit.

Cecilia shot up, then yelled in pain and grabbed her head--damnit, she had forgotten the hangover for a second. Her heart was beating fast when she finally managed to look up again, to take in the very familiar bedroom of her best friend. Except it wasn't just Kalista's room, it was Kalista's room at Evan's apartment, and if she was at Evan's and she wasn't in his bed and she had a hangover, that meant that something--

--it all began to drift back then. The party, the running into her boyfriend, the coming back here, the argument, and Cecilia groaned once more. Damn it, damn it all, she thought. That meant that this was the infamous morning after that she had had enough sense to fear even when she was smashed, and that Evan was probably waiting somewhere out there, waiting for her to come out so that he could rip into her and call her an idiot and why had she stayed again? Oh right. Because she cared that much.

Several long moments more of mentally beating herself up was what it took for Cecilia to finally pull herself out of bed, to creep silently out into the hallway, listening for any sign of him... nothing. She tiptoed into the living room, glancing up at the clock on the wall and--ten o' clock. Somewhere she remembered that he was going to be out this morning--she was supposed to meet him for lunch, before last night had happened--and relaxed a little, going into the kitchen with less fear that she was going to run into him.

Cecilia had been ready to rummage through the cabinets for a hangover cure, but there was one already out on the counter. Fuck, why did her stomach drop at the thought that he had put that out there for her? That he was anticipating her to get up and need it so that he could yell at her when she wasn't too distracted to listen? She downed the whole glass of it quickly, however, not about to stand for this splitting headache any longer than she had to. After all, if he did show up and start yelling at her before she took it, she was just going to be in a whole new world of pain.

Thankfully, the mixture took effect quickly, but even as she was overcome with the relief of the ebbing pain, Cecilia couldn't feel relieved in her thoughts. She leaned against the counter and let out a deep breath, wondering if she should just leave before he could come back. She could still apparate back home, see him later once she'd had the time to gather her thoughts, but just as that was sounding like a better and better idea, a pop filled her ears.

Well, fuck. So much for that.

The meeting he had been to seemed to take much longer than it should have. Or perhaps that was just because he was so fucking tired, and every minute seemed like an hour. He had almost translated a very important transaction in Italian with a French politician. Yeah, he was really on his game today. But he couldn’t help but keep thinking about what he was going to say to her when he got back home. Would she even be there? He couldn’t be sure, but he had a feeling that the longer they waited to talk about everything, the worse it was all going to be. It was just going to sit there and build, and build over time, until it was brought up randomly one day and would surely explode. Perhaps it would be the next time he caught her completely smashed.

When everything was over, he shook hands with everyone, gave a courteous nod to the group and apparated back home, bringing himself to be situated in the doorway of his living room. He didn’t see her at first as he made his way inside, but once he caught sight of her still standing in the kitchen, he froze for a second.

Everything was quiet. A little bit too quiet as they looked at each ther from across the room, neither moving or speaking but just…staring. It wasn’t until the silence got to him that he took in a nasal breath before he began to unbutton his jacket, walking towards the closet to hang it up. “Are you going to stand there or sit down?”

"I don't know. Is it worth it to sit down, or should I expect to be told to get out of your sight within the next ten minutes?"

Okay, so someone didn't sound pessimistic at all. But she decided that she really couldn't help herself. Things like this were big, and things like this never went over well with people like Evan--respectable, responsible people. And what about when she told him that she had been doing this kind of thing for over four years now? That she didn't know how to stop and she couldn't promise him that she would be able to no matter how much she wanted his approval? If she had been him, she would tell her to leave and not come back, she would tell her that she didn't have the time or patience to deal with some fucked-up kid.

She didn't have a lot of hope in her for how this was going to turn out, and yet she had no idea what she was going to do in that ten minutes once she it was all over. After trying her relationship with Adamina to the point that they barely even knew how to act around each other anymore, after realizing that her relationship with her parents was completely fake and conditional, after alienating almost everyone that she knew at Hogwarts, after Nick--how was she going to deal with losing Evan now, too?

He glanced over his shoulder at her as he opened his closet door, sighing lightly as he shook his head, happy to have something to distract him for a moment or two as he thought. “I don’t know.” His fingers worked to place his coat on the hanger, placing it back inside before he shut it and turned back around, walking over to the couch. He didn’t care if she sat, but he needed to. His hands laced together as he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his legs as he stared down at the floor. He wasn’t trying to be quiet to build suspense, but he honestly didn’t know how he was supposed to start this.

“Was this the first time?” He looked over to her, knowing that if she was going to try to lie about whether or not she had gotten completely smashed before, he would know about it if he were looking at her. Honestly, he didn’t know how much she had drunk. He didn’t know how long it took her to get like she was, because he hadn’t been there.

I don't know.

Well, that was better than 'yes,' right? She still didn't go to sit down, but she did come into the living room, slowly, quietly, and stood on the opposite side from him just as he turned his head up to watch her. Cecilia knew why, too--he wanted to know if she was lying to him or not, not that she was certain that the truth was going to make a lot of difference. If the truth were that last night had been the first time, it might have made all the difference in the world to her case, but the real truth was much nastier than that. And yet, if she didn't tell him, he would know, and she was going to be in an even worse position than she already was.

Cecilia took a deep, shaky breath. Time for him to find out just what a well-guarded mess that he had on his hands.

"No," she answered, breathing out as she said it. "This wasn't the first time. This wasn't even the second or third or fourth time... and if you asked me to count back, I wouldn't be able to do it. I--" Cecilia hesitated for just a second, then slumped her shoulders slightly and stared down at the carpet at her feet. "--I was fourteen, when I started. It's not something I do for fun anymore, either, I---I'm an alcoholic."

There, she'd said it. Amazingly, she felt a little lighter for it now, but as she dared to look up again into his face and remembered who she was admitting this to, that fleeting lightness washed away instantly. This wasn't a moment for feeling good.

Evan let out a long sigh as she answered his question, leaning forward as he rested his elbows on his legs rubbing at his eyes as she continued on. He would have never even suspected it, but that was the point, right? That was why she was able to keep it hidden for so long. He was seeing a completely different side of her, a side he didn’t like, which was a first. She was irresponsible, and that only made him worry. Dropping his hands back down, he leaned into the couch, crossing his arms over his chest. “And, when exactly were you planning on telling me about this?” A brow quirked up slightly with curiosity. It wouldn’t be surprising to him if her answer was ‘never’, it would just be another disappointment. Another thing that made her seem even more childish.

Cecilia took in a deep breath and held it as she tried to find the answer to that question within herself. Would she have told him? Her first thought was 'no,' but what about if they had gotten serious? She would have wanted to, she knew that much--at least he would have deserved to know, but would she really have done it? After all, if she was this scared of losing him to this secret this far in, wouldn't it have been worse a year, two years from now?

She finally let out her breath and spoke. "I don't know," she answered honestly. "I never wanted to keep something like this from you, Evan, but if I didn't, what the hell was I supposed to do then?" Cecilia shook her head--this felt like it was going south very fast. "I knew you'd be pissed off, and it would be over something I don't know how to control. I---I don't know, honestly."

He was listening to everything she said, keeping himself calm by constantly reminding himself that there was probably a perfectly good explanation that was coming up. That she really wasn’t going to use the fact that she couldn’t control her little problem as an excuse.

But, she did. That was her final answer. Her final excuse for not telling him that she was an alcoholic was because she couldn’t control it and she knew he’d be ‘pissed off’. So, he had to think again. Taking a deep breath that was exhaled as a light sigh, he groaned and placed his head in his hands. “Something I don’t know how to control…” he repeated this quietly to himself before he lifted up his head and turned to face her again. “So you’re telling me your solution to all of this was to keep it a secret, not let me know you had a problem, and risk getting hurt because you had to much fucking pride to let me help you? You honestly thought that was a better option?”

"It's not a---Evan, it's not a matter of you helping me or not!"

Cecilia's sudden outburst surprised even herself, but she didn't find it uncalled for. He didn't get it, he just--holy shit, did he really think things were that easy? She pushed off the wall and took a couple of angry steps towards him, until she was standing right over his seated form. "It's not my goddamn pride that stopped me from telling you, it's my fucking fear--and don't act like you don't know what I mean, Evan, don't act like you don't know the way that people in our society would take this kind of thing! Don't act like you're not one of those people, like I shouldn't be afraid that you'd react just the same way! You may be my boyfriend, but you're still one of them, and Hell would freeze over before I tell you anything that threatens to make me lose you!"

There were tears in her eyes now, and she had to fall silent a second to force them back. This situation was bad enough without letting him see her cry over it--it was the only way this could get more humiliating at the moment. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her voice, but all she could dial down was the volume. Her tone was still unbearably frustrated. "I know what it's doing to me and what I'm risking, fuck, after four years, I know, so don't you dare talk to me like I'm stupid to what this means. If I knew how to stop, I'd do it in a second, but I can't tell anyone, for the same goddamn reason I couldn't tell you."

He didn’t flinch or withdraw as she yelled at him, but sat back in his seat, tilting his head back to get a better look at her as she went on and on and on with how he was ‘one of them’. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, to yell at her maybe, because her reasoning’s were just…ridiculous. The pause she took to try and calm herself down made him notice that his hands were currently clenched at his sides, even though he was sure that she wasn’t paying much attention to anything but his eyes at the moment, since they were set right on her own. The tears in her eyes did have some effect on him, but not the effect he thought they would have. Not the effect that they had on him in the past.

After she was done talking, he swallowed and narrowed his eyes again, his lips curling into a sneer. “Fucking hell, Cecilia, you’re going to lose everyone if you don’t. Everyone will find out. Everyone will know, everyone will see, and everyone will think less of you for it.” He rose up to his feet now as he spoke, standing in front of her, taking steps towards her so that she had no choice but to back up as he spoke. “Whether you expect me to pity you or not, I’m not sure, but that sure as fuck isn’t going to happen. I don’t feel sorry for you Cecilia. This little problem of yours is only going to get worse as time goes on. It’s going to get worse when you’re around it all the time, it’s going to get worse when you don’t have a safe school to hide behind, it’s going. To get. worse.”

By now, her back was against the wall, and it was his turn to stand his ground. “It’s going to take over your life, it’s going to become impossible to hide, and everyone will find out. Everyone will know when you’re too fucking hammered to stand up straight, everyone will know when you can’t even talk anymore. That is how you’re going to lose everyone. That is what it’s going to ‘do to you’. It’s going to leave you alone, and pathetic, because you were too much of a coward to say anything about it.” He paused for a moment just to regain himself.

“If I were one of them I would have thrown you out 5 minutes ago. You have no idea what kind of man I am, Cecilia. You know nothing about me, and I obviously know nothing about you. For all I know this isn’t the worst of your secrets. So, if there’s anything else you want to tell me, I suggest you do so now.”

Cecilia opened her mouth several times during his speech to retort, to yell at him because so many things he said were wrong, they just--he didn't get it, and he wasn't going to get it, and that was all becoming more clear to her now than ever. He thought she wanted his pity? His pity was the last thing she wanted. He thought that not saying something made her a coward, because she gave too much of a shit about him to want to jeopardize that? Fucking honestly, were these the words actually coming out of his mouth? No, he wasn't going to get it, and the only one thing he did get right was that he didn't know anything about her, although maybe not in the way he was thinking.

He sure as hell didn't know anything about her.

"And how the fuck was I ever supposed to know that you weren't one of them, Evan? In case you haven't noticed, we both do a pretty shit job of actually sitting down and talking about ourselves. I learn more about you from your sister than I do you, holy fuck, you don't talk to me!" And now this had gone off onto a whole other problem. She hadn't meant to bring it up now--she hadn't even known she was thinking it, honestly--but it was out there now, and it was the truth. "You're so--so guarded, and you don't let me in unless you're laying on a couch fucking dying or something's just happened and I happen to be there when you just can't handle it anymore. Even then, we don't talk, we don't--just. We shag, we shag and we don't talk and tell me how the hell with all that I'm supposed to figure out that you, this perfect pureblooded son of this great pureblooded family, would take a second look at me after something like last night.

"Tell me that, Evan," Cecilia challenged. "And if you can do that, I'll admit that you're right."

Evan furrowed his brows slightly as she mentioned Kalista. What the fuck has his sister told her about him? Was it something she wasn’t supposed to say? Not that Kal knew anything of great importance…or at least, nothing that Evan knew about. He let her go on about how guarded he was, and how he didn’t talk to her about anything, which made his mind go from one place to another, even though he was determined to keep this conversation focused on her. But she wasn’t letting up. No, no, she wouldn’t stop there, she would go on and place him in that category of people.

“Perfect?” He asked with a raised brow. “I am far from perfect, Cecilia. My family is far from perfect. You should have told me before this went too far, but you didn’t. If I was one of them, if you thought I wouldn’t be able to handle that, why the fuck did you even bother with this? Why the fuck did you stay with me when you had to know I’d find out about it eventually?” There was a beat, and suddenly his voice got a little quieter. “And don’t you even dare compare what I keep from you to what you’ve kept from me, because they are not even close to being similar. Do you honestly think I wouldn’t be completely honest with you about things if I had a choice? I don’t even know what he would do to me if he found out you knew as much as you already do…what he would do to you.” Whether or not she was sure who ‘he’ was, Evan wasn’t sure. “I can’t fucking risk you getting hurt, Cecilia, which is why I can’t tell you where I’ve been, or where I’m going when I suddenly leave. I don’t know what you expect me to tell you. I don’t know what else you want to know. About my childhood? My past? What I’ve been through, to know why I am the way that I am? My deepest apologies for not giving you the whole story when I usually only see you once every month.”

Cecilia made a sound of genuine frustration. "I don't mean just that thing, Evan, Merlin's fucking beard," she said. "I want to know what goes on inside your head, what you believe--and yeah, I would like to know why you are the way you are, but even more than that, I'd like to know the way you are so that maybe I wouldn't have been so bloody deathly afraid to tell you about this. See me once a month or not, we've spent ample time together for you to let me in at least a little." She took a deep breath and ran her hands back through her hair. Her voice was calmer when she spoke again--she forced it to be that way. "It's clear to me that you don't and won't understand this, but I'm asking you to take a step out of your own shoes for five seconds and try for me--knowing what I did about you before this moment, I did not feel like I had a choice to tell you or not." Her words were slow and deliberate, her tone hopelessly willing him to understand, for the love of God, understand.

"And you want to know why, when it was inevitable, and why I didn't leave you before this got this far? It's because I love you, and as much as I would have loved to just let you go and avoid this argument we're having right now, I could never just willingly give you up. I've known for almost a month now that this was going to come out, I contemplated picking up and running, and every time I couldn't bring myself to do it."

She really wasn’t the only one getting frustrated by the entire situation. It wasn’t like he wasn’t trying to understand what she was saying, or her logic behind everything, but it just didn’t make any sense to him. He wanted to get it, and he wanted everything to make sense to him, but it just didn’t. There wasn’t one possible explanation she could give him that would make it alright that she kept this from him.

And then she said that. She said that word, and it made his insides twist uncomfortably. It was probably a bad thing that he remained so quiet after she spoke, not saying anything as he tried to process everything, his brows furrowed together as he stared down at her. “No…you don’t. You don’t love me when you said it yourself that you know nothing about me.” He paused again, letting his eyes fall to the floor before they were brought back up to her. “I don’t know what this is becoming. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, and…I don’t know anymore, Cecilia. I can’t just-…I’m not the type of person to-…” Oh fucking hell, why couldn’t he form a sentence? Why the fuck was this so hard? He sighed heavily as he pushed back some of his hair, avoiding eye contact by looking at the wall behind her before he looked back to her, letting his hand drop back down. “I can’t do this right now. I can’t just suddenly tell you everything you want to know. Not now. It’ll take time. Whether or not that’s a good enough answer for you, I don’t care, because it’s the only one I can give you.”

Fuck, why did she have to say that…?

"If this isn't love, what is it then?" she challenged, trying her best to fight past the stab that was his doubt. She knew she must have sounded desperate, pathetic even, but she also sounded convicted--this was what she believed and there was nothing that he could do or say to make her believe otherwise. "Do you think I really would have even considered sticking around for this for anyone else? Do you think I would have stayed last night if I had an inch short of love for you?" She kept her gaze on his eyes the whole time, even as he seemed to try to be avoiding hers. "Through all that you won't tell me, all that I don't know, and how fucking frustrated I am with you right now, I still can't manage go get around the fact that you're the only person whose opinion I've ever cared about and that I have no fucking idea what I'd do without you."

She took a deep breath, letting her words settle in the air between them, and then let the breath out. For the first time in the course of this conversation, her voice was calm, collected, and sure. "If you don't want to accept it, then fine. But I do love you, and that's why I'm going to tell you that I'm willing to wait for you if that's what it takes for you to open up. If you ever forget why I do anything, that's why."

He was sure that this was the one and only conversation he had been in with someone where he didn’t even have an idea about what he wanted to say. His words were caught on his tongue and even if he wanted to spit them out, they would sound like nothing more than vowel noises. It was strange to him, since he always knew what he was supposed to say. He always had the perfect comeback, and was able to string words together in the most eloquent of fashions…but he couldn’t even think of one word. Not one. And this was starting to annoy him. He was annoyed that she had thrown all of this at him, and had used it to justify her actions, and he was annoyed that they had actually cut through him. She had to stop saying that, she had to stop telling him how much she loved him because it was just…it was making his head hurt, and it was making his chest hurt, and she had to stop.

He had never given her a reason to love him. They were intimate, yes, and he gave her nice things, but did that equal love? Wasn’t there supposed to be trust involved? She didn’t trust him, but he never gave her any reason to. She couldn’t trust him enough to tell him about everything, so why should she trust him with anything more than that? Weren’t you supposed to know things about the person you loved? Or maybe that was just his own personal definition of the word. Perhaps love had no rules, and perhaps he had always just used them as an excuse. He wasn’t sure anymore, but he knew damn well that he wasn’t able to say it back. He would never say it if he wasn’t definitely sure that he meant it, and now was not that time.

His eyes focused on the floor again, still quiet, even though his jaw kept moving slightly, his mouth still closed. It seemed like forever passed by before his lips parted, and his voice was heard, a lot quieter than it had been previously. “I need time to think.” His eyes still didn’t go back to hers, but focused on the floor between them. It was his way of saying ‘I need you to go now’, because he really just…needed to think about things. To think about how he was going to deal with her problem, to think about how he could possibly ‘open up’ when he had been nothing but a closed book his entire life. It didn’t help that he was exhausted, and it had been a long night without any sleep, and…

She couldn’t do this to him. She couldn’t fucking say those words, because even though he wasn’t even close to being ready to say them, he sure as hell wasn’t ready to hear them either.

"Alright."

She wasn't going to fight him about it. If he wanted her to go, she would go, and if he didn't want to say anything of substance back to her, then he didn't have to say anything of substance back to her. It didn't matter, not with the way that she noticed the change in his voice, the change in his demeanor. The way he barely said anything, like he was uncertain--something she'd said had gotten to him, and she didn't even know if it was all the times she'd just said 'love', but it was something, and that was something. It wasn't as if Cecilia was anything less of eager to get out of the flat anyway, as well. That he wanted her to go--but wasn't like, throwing her out in a rage, because that would've been really bad--and she wasn't storming out, or he wasn't storming out was better than she'd expected, and there was no question that she was going to take the chance while she had it.

Cecilia moved forward an inch to kiss him on the cheek, then stopped herself. A reflex reaction, which wasn't appropriate now. Instead, she saved the motion and nodded, muttering a soft 'goodbye,' and slipped out of the small space between his body and the wall which he'd cornered her into. She apparated a second later to her room, and immediately sagged back into a chair and cradled her head in her hands.

Ugh.