You know what I want ((Closed RP))

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

With a parting admonishment and a vote, Claire had been set loose on the halls of Hogwarts. Outside the small stone room there were stone hallways, stone stairs, and even more stone rooms. She felt lost in a maze of hard slabs and blocks. When she noticed a tiny maiden in a picture waving to her, she waved back, and asked for directions. That was how she found herself in Hufflepuff, in an empty room, sitting on a mattress that was now hers.


The detachment that she'd worn around herself like her jacket was beginning to wear off, and now she was cold, lonely, and confused. She hadn't been whisked away to endless delights or damnations. She wasn't at the mercy of forces beyond her control. Everything was back in her hands, now, and with no parties, no pills, and no entertainment, she found the idea of being in charge of this life as uncomfortable as it had been in her last one.

She tried sleeping, but was as unsuccessful at it now as she'd always had been. It was late, and the hallway was quiet outside of her door. If this was her new life, Claire wanted to start it with something. She wanted to be numb again, rushing from one experience to the next. But if she had to feel something, it wasn't going to be this restlessness and helplessness that she felt as she tossed and turned on the bed.

There was a card in the pocket of her jacket. Claire read it over once again, then left it and the jacket on her bed. She wandered the hallways, but it was too late for dinner, maybe even too late for drinks. The ambient light from the torches gleamed on her bare shoulders and gold dress. The portrait people were very helpful again, directing her down to the dungeons. A few more questions, and she found herself at the right door. Without hesitation, she knocked and waited for it to open. She had always slept better in somebody else's bed.

Comments

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

Claire found a chair and made herself right at home. When she pulled off her flats and curled her legs up under her, she didn't mind that her short dress was riding up. "Are you out of cereal, too? You don't have much on hand for late night visitors!" All could be forgiven, though. She held out her hand. "But if you have another cigarette, that might make do."

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

He moved to a side table and opened an inlaid wooden box atop it. He passed her a cigarette from a top tray; beneath the tray a pistol and a small velvet drawstring bag were visible in the bottom of the box. Then he approached her with a gold lighter in hand.

"I wasn't really expecting to entertain." he replied, and opened the lighter for her. "At least, not quite so soon. I had planned to lay in a supply of caviar first thing in the morning."

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

She took the cigarette, hesitated before she let him light it. She could continue the playful banter. She was enjoying it quite a bit. But caviar and kind words weren't what she had come for.

"I didn't want to spend my first night alone," she said, head down. Claire brushed her black bangs out of her eyes and looked up at him. "And I didn't think I would have to."

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

Reilly met her eyes, then scanned the rest of her, his face carefully blank.

"You're welcome to stay here with me, of course. More than welcome." The corner of his mouth twitched. "And my damned past pretensions to gentlemanliness compel me to add - under any terms you wish."

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

She blew her smoke out away from him, still looking at his eyes, even if her weren't looking at hers. "Past pretensions? Not current?"

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

He shrugged and fiddled with his lighter. "It hasn't seemed to matter much since I arrived here," he explained. "Reputation seems far less crucial for women in this day and age than I remember. And the small degree to which I ever gave a damn what anyone thought of me seems to have vanished since..."

The thought trailed off into another shrug.

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

She didn't bother prompting him to finish his sentence. "You would be doing me a favor. Isn't that what a gentleman is supposed to do?"

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

"Well, they're expected to do something or other for damsels in distress. Whether what we're proposing to do qualifies as a favor depends on one's point of view, I suppose. Though it's a point of view I quite like, I daresay."

He ran a hand through floppy brown hair and gave her a lopsided grin. "Just for tonight, with no strings? If you like, we can revise those terms later."

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

Clarie ran her hand through her own hair, except that it came off in her hand, revealing a massive mess of blonde curls pulled back in a bun. She pulled the bun out, and shook her head until her frizz enveloped her shoulders.

"That's a point of view I quite like, too, Mr. Reilly," she said. "No strings."

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

Reilly raised an eyebrow appreciatively. The curls softened the shape of her face.

He held out a hand to her. "In the circumstances, I think we might graduate to 'Sidney' and 'Claire,' don't you?"

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

She rolled her eyes. "I thought you would never get there!" She dropped the wig on the floor and took his hand. "I think you should break out the brandy, Sidney. We have gotten the serious matters out of the way."

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

He laughed and pulled her up from the chair. "Such a relief it is, too!" He caught her other hand and drew her close. "The brandy is in the bedside cabinet. Care to head for more...comfortable...environs?"

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

Claire was already halfway out of his arms by the time he told her where it was. Now that she was back on track, she was like a locomotive, unable to stop herself. She grabbed the belt of his robe and pulled him along.

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

He laughed again and shook his head, then settled her on the edge of the bed and produced the bottle and two snifters from the cabinet.

"Anything you'd particularly care to drink to?" he asked, handing her a glass and pouring.

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

[[An end to sleepless nights,]] she said in French, with a smirk. It wasn't going to happen tonight. Mostly likely, it wasn't going to happen at all. She had been running form her nightmare for so long that she wasn't surprised that it had followed her here. But she could hope that on the first night of her new life, she might find some rest, even for a few brief hours.

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

"Tres bien," he replied, and clinked the edge of his glass against hers. "I'll try to be as dull as possible. Bore you to sleep, perhaps."

He was no stranger to nightmares himself, since finding himself unexpectedly alive at Hogwarts; and in his, he was always freezing to death. Perhaps some company would keep the cold at bay for a while.

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

"Oh, don't worry about that. I've slept with boring men before, and it never works." She took a sip. "I plan on getting worn out tonight."

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

He grinned and sipped lazily at the brandy. "I can do that, too. As you like."

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

She settled back against the headboard, resting her drink against her knees. "Then I would like it if you took off that robe."

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

Reilly complied, face going carefully blank again. He was no longer as gaunt as months in prison had made him when he arrived at Hogwarts, but his torso still bore some faint marks of the beatings he'd been subjected to there.

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

He needn't have worried. She wasn't going to comment, for fear of ruining the mood. Two arms, two legs, and one head were all she wanted. The rest wasn't any of her business.

"Good," she said. "Now stop being so serious and take off the rest."

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

He smiled and relaxed, pleased to be past that hurdle - a new one for him - and took off his pajama bottoms, which was all that constituted "the rest". He reclaimed his brandy glass and sat down on the edge of the bed, and raised an eyebrow at her dress in challenge. "Your turn."

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

She obligingly turned around. "Help me with the zipper." She lifted her curtain of hair out of the way to make it easier. Never mind that she could have slipped out of the dress on her own.

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

He leaned forward and opened the back of the dress. His knuckles grazed the ridges of her spine all the way down, then back up to slip the straps from her shoulders. "Better."

[monde-finis.livejournal.com]

She held the dress to her chest and stood up on the bed. Claire giggled as she wobbled on the mattress, then dropped the dress to her feet. Like Reilly, she was only wearing one layer. She stepped out of the dress and walked across the bed. Kneeling behind him, she wrapped her arms around his chest. "Now then, where do we begin?"