hh_mirror | Owl to JD (and Lily) (and Agnes)

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Owl to JD (and Lily) (and Agnes)

Hey Newbie,

I've been so distracted by your incompetence that I forgot about it until now, but Lily got me a football a little while ago and I've kind of been looking for someone to play with, so...

Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is, what do you say? Do you want to go toss the ball around with me sometime? Maybe you can bring all your friends down and we could have a game?

Let me know.

-Dr. C

edit:
Red,

Did you put the werewolf up to this?

-Ginger

edit the second:
Nutter,

What the hell, MICE are okay now? What a great idea -- let's infect everyone with the plague.

-Cox

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Between her mock-patronizing and the pointed reference to Jordan, Cox's face had gone red, and there was a vein on his forehead that was starting to pulse worryingly. "First of all," he snapped viciously, "WHAT is with the name thing--you know what, don't answer that, I'm gonna go ahead and assume it's just some passive-aggressive way of punishing me, and if you're trying to do that by making my head explode, well--" He pulled his lips back over his teeth in a savage, mirthless smirk, "You're doing a TERRIFIC job of that regardless.

"Second, if you're so TRIGGER-HAPPY that my pointing out the fact that your werewolf pal is, IN FACT, a werewolf is enough to fire you off then baby, you are SO in the wrong place. You're right, Lily, you're not Jordan -- she never cared if I didn't like her friends because she doesn't feel the need to baby them! Gosh, I wonder what Wolfy McWolfenstein would say if he knew you were playing Big Mama Wolf at me right now." Snarling, he folded his arms across his chest, glaring at her.

Most of him, right now, was just flat-out, desk-throwing, shout-till-you're-blue angry; but part of him wondered what, exactly, she would be doing right now if Remus were the one who had insulted him instead of vice-versa. Would she be yelling like this at him? Hurling threats and calling him by his last name? He wasn't sure, and the uncertainty bothered him even more.

All the color drained from her face and Lily saw red. Shaking with anger, Lily looked for a second as if she wanted to lash out at him. Instead she turned and, picking up a ink bottle that was on a nearby desk, she hurled it at the wall. Her fingers clenched, she turned back, her voice low and rough with barely contained rage. "I'm calling you COX, you prat, because I'm furious with you right now. 'Ginger' is my nickname for you and 'Perry' implies some sort of connection. I don't want to call you EITHER while I'm angry. And you're doing a HELL of a job yourself making me want to HEX SOMETHING." She gave a frustrated growl. Her wand was in her hand, now, though she didn't remember drawing it.

She wouldn't use it on him. There was literally nothing he could do to make her that angry, save actually, physically attacking her, which she had no fear of him doing. But the wand was a comfort and if she really felt the need, she could always hex a desk or something. "Second, I DO realize that you are a great sodding MUGGLE about most things, but it's actually not very NICE to go about referring to people as Werewolves, despite them actually BEING one. There's a stigma on them, Cox," her jaw jutted out in defiance as she continued to use his last name, "and you've no IDEA how deep it runs. I would never WANT you to - you shouldn't have to see that ugliness. But it's there and it's horrible and it pervades EVERYTHING." The fact that she had died as a near direct result of her believing that Remus was a spy (and that belief took root because of the fact he was a werewolf), that she had mistrusted a good mate and it had lead to her and James' deaths and so much heartache, was totally the reason she was so angry. She saw in Cox's words a measure of her own prejudice and it shook her.

"And I'm not fucking BABYING him," she seethed. "Though if you prefer JORDAN'S way of handling things, perhaps I could just go on about how worthless you are and how much better off I would be without you." She fixed him with a glare of her own, visibly tense with fury. "But, see, I DON'T think you're worthless and I WOULDN'T be better off without you. If you'd like me to LIE I suppose I could manage it, but otherwise you're out of luck. You're stuck with me, and this is what I do. Remus is my mate, and I don't like people to PISS all over my mates. Any of them. Even if the person doing it is also someone I care about. So DEAL with it, Cox."

He would have simply continued arguing with her -- he definitely had plenty more to say on the topic of social stigmas and how absolutely not at all he cared about them that would have made Lily's hair curl -- but when she used Jordan to attack him for the second time, something snapped. Like a bull in front of a red cape, he completely lost it.

"That's it!" he shouted, grabbing for the desk next to him. If she wanted to throw things, he would show her throwing things. Picking the entire desk up, he hurled it down against the floor, snarling as the wood easily cracked. "Do you know what that is?" he asked her furiously, pointing down at the now-broken desk. "That is me DONE with this--that is me finished before I get so Goddamn angry that things start shooting out of my ears and you have to me-proof every last fucking thing in this room, your room, my room, the bar, and the entire castle, do you understand me??" Unable to even articulate past that, his mind clouded with anger, he spun on his heel and stormed for the door, clenching his fists to stop his hands from shaking.

She winced slightly as the desk crashed down. Somewhere, beyond all the anger and the frustration, Lily knew she'd pushed too far. And she knew exactly what it was she'd said that had done it. For just a second, she stared, warring internally between just letting him leave and hexing the rest of the room to pieces, and trying to stop him. Because he'd said he was done. Finished.

Like hell.

Turning, moved quickly to stand in front of the door. Her arms folded, she managed somewho to look formidable. "You're not going to walk out and just leave it like this," she told him. Her voice still held anger, but it was calmer now. His extreme had snapped Lily out of her blind rage. There was a touch of worry, of sorrow even, in her eyes. But her jaw was set and she met his gaze evenly. "We're going to stay here until we figure this out, Ginger. If you go storming out, and I stay here and shout myself hoarse, then where will we be? This is a fucking stupid thing to end us on, and I'm not going to let it. Now, if you want to physically move me aside, I probably can't stop you. Doesn't mean I won't try, but you'll probably win. And if you want away from me, from this, that badly, well..." She faltered for just a second, then straightened her shoulders, "Well, then, I'll just have to respect that, now won't I? But otherwise, you might as well just make yourself comfortable, because I'm not moving."

The use of 'Ginger' was deliberate, though she really didn't think he'd notice past how angry he was at her. Trying to let him know that she was still angry, yes, but she was more concerned now than furious. She'd pushed his 'Jordan' button; really, what sort of reaction had she expected? She just...hated to be compared to his ex-wife. That was the end of it. Because she was always going to lose on that comparison. But, instead of simply gritting her teeth and dealing with it, she'd lashed out. Her eyes searched his for a moment, trying to gage how he was going to react.

Cox stopped short as Lily moved to block him and his eyes widened furiously. He grit his teeth and literally snorted like the aforementioned angry bull, his nostrils flaring. "Move," he ordered hoarsely, his voice choked. When she started to talk instead, he growled softly, his hands tightening reflexively, and he quickly folded his arms to keep himself from destroying anything else.

At first, all he really heard was white noise--he was literally so pissed off that the words didn't even penetrate. Eventually, though, it managed to get through to him that she didn't think he was just storming off, she actually thought he was leaving her. It was a little hard for him to respond to that; he wasn't really in any mood at all to reassure her or comfort her, but he had absolutely no intention of walking out on her... although, he realized in a niggling sort of way that would haunt his thoughts later, it would probably be better for her if he did.

For a moment, his eyes met hers, clear and angry, yet troubled at the same time. Then, he turned his head away and stared at the wall, clenching his jaw. "I was planning on leaving the room, Red," he muttered, grudgingly conceding that much, at least, to her. "Not you."

If Perry was looking at her, he might notice the fact that a worry crease in her forehead disappeared at his words and her shoulders sagged slightly in relief. "Good," was all she said, though, and she didn't budge.

"Now, you're angry. I'm not thrilled, either. But we're in a sound-proof, warded room, so now's as good a time as any for us to work this out." Rubbing her face with her hands, Lily leaned back against the door and watched him warily.

"I got angry because you said something that...well, it threw into harsh relief something I hate about myself. And to hear it come from you was... I didn't like it," she admitted. "Then, after I'd warned you that it was a subject I was going to get mad about, you continued. Which made me angrier."

She tried to explain without having to get into the whole 'Rather a hypocrite, thought one of my best mates was a traitor because he was a werewolf, ended in bad things' story. He didn't want to hear it and she really didn't want to get into it. What she realized, on some level, was that he had pushed this fight. She'd practically spelled it out for him that he was poking a huge sore for her, and he'd continued. What that meant in the long term was something she was going to have to figure out. But right now, Lily was immediately concerned with them moving past this fight. She'd worry about the implications of that thought later.

She wanted to say she was sorry for bringing up Jordan, but was unsure if that would make things better or worse. So she simply tipped her head back, resting it on the door, and waited to see what he would do.

He looked back to her when she kept talking, raising an eyebrow incredulously. He had assumed that once he assured her he wasn't walking out on her, he would be allowed to... well, walk out on her. When he realized she wanted to keep talking, he bit back a groan and rubbed a hand over his face in exasperation. Couldn't she see that he needed to storm off, leave them both angry and miserable, and punish himself later for it? That was how he always did this.

"Lookit," he told her, chuckling humorlessly, rubbing the back of his neck. "You re-he-heeeally do not need to tell me what happened five minutes ago -- I know, I was there. Okay? Now as to why it's my fault that you feel guilty about, I dunno, not jumping on the werewolf pride float ten years ago? I have no idea." He held his hands up, eyes wide. "But rest assured there, Red, if you wa~nt I'll go ahead and shoot off a message to your pal and tell him you're twirling the baton and leading the parade now, how's that?"

Dropping the act, he folded his arms again, narrowing his eyes. "For the record? I don't actually care if he's a werewolf or -- whatever -- I care that he's a smug, arrogant jackass who can't seem to climb the hell down from his pedestal and..." He sniffed, tapped his nose and grinned. "You know what, I'm starting to see why."

It was cold of him to bait her like that, not to mention incredibly stupid. But he was still feeling fairly defensive over being called, essentially, a racist (speciesist?) over Remus Lupin of all people, and he felt the pressing need to call her out on it. Plus, it was easier than actually dealing with the reason he had pushed her buttons in the first place. Even he wasn't sure why he had done that; or, rather, he knew exactly why, but he wasn't ready to admit it to himself, much less to her.

Still... he realized he was being a little cruel to her. And as pissed as he was, this was about him, not her -- part of him recognized it wasn't fair to hurt her over this. "Besides," he added in a slightly lower voice, "the guy really doesn't need you to protect him, Lily. He's... well, he might be the world's biggest jerk and-- he is by the way -- but he's pretty damn tough. He's..." Chagrined, he glanced away, pulling a face. "...He's kinda owning my ass right now, actually."

"I'm glad you've got this all sodding figured out, Ginger," she snapped, her eyes narrowing a bit. "Forgive me if I've not your razor sharp intellect." Her gaze deliberately went to the broken remains of the desk he'd smashed. "However, I'm afraid I'm still a bit confused as to what the hell happened here." Taking a deep breath, trying to control her temper, she looked back at him. "And it isn't your fault that I'm a bloody hypocrite and a bigot. It's mine." Another deep breath and Lily closed her eyes, thumping the back of her head against the door slightly. "I'm sorry, Ginger."

A low growl of frustration was the only acknowledgment she gave his obvious baiting for a moment. Visibly attempting to control her urge to start shouting again, Lily kept her eyes shut and her hands clenched. Then, in a low, controled voice, she said, "I'm not going to keep fighting with you about this. I haven't the first idea why you won't just accept the fact that this is something that..." Shaking her head, she opened her eyes and stared resolutely at the far wall, jaw working as she fought to push back a rush of memories and the emotions associated with them. This hurt her to think about, to talk about, but there wasn't really any way to express that to him. He was right - it was her problem, not his. But a part of her wished he'd recognize that it was not a topic she liked to dwell on and let it drop.

"I'm not trying to protect him," she sighed, turning her eyes to his. She looked beaten and tired. "I'm trying to alleve my own guilt. And I'm using you to do it. I know full well that Remus doesn't need me, of all people, to defend him from some silly spat or whatever the hell it is between the two of you. But you calling him 'the werewolf' reduces him to just that - a werewolf. And that opens up a whole ball of shite that I'm not ready to deal with yet. Which is why I tried to let you know that - I knew I wasn't going to be rational about this."

She still hadn't moved from the door. She knew full well that he wanted to walk out and...yell at people or drink or whatever it was he did in situations like this. But, however angry at her he got for it, she had no intention of letting him leave like this. She'd been wrong to lash out at him over her own issues, that was true. But beyond that - perhaps more important than that - was the fact that he had baited her into this. That he was still doing so, in point of fact. She hadn't a clue why, and Lily wasn't naive to think he'd suddenly break down and start sharing the reasons behind his own peculiar brand of logic on this, but she'd had bad experiences with people walking out on her while angry. They needed to reach some form of understanding on this, even if it was both of them acknowledging how royally fucked up they were and finding some way to avoid the hot button issues each had.

He should have just apologized. He knew he should. How hard was it to just say 'I shouldn't have kept pushing it and I'm sorry?' Unfortunately, for him, it was very hard -- too hard. Once again, he felt the sick twist in his gut, the nasty little feeling that reminded him that once again he was being that person, the one that he'd spent the last year trying over and over again to break away from.

He did the best he could. "You're not... a bigot, Lily..." He sighed and looked away again, eyes flickering. "It's hard not to..." Trying to find the words, he sat down on one of the desks, his hands gripping the edge. "Look, we get a bunch of addicts, they come in and out all the time, right? Every damn one, every time, they say they quit, they're off the stuff. And then they try to get methadone, Vicodin, even just money for a fresh start that ends with another fix. Maybe one in... a hundred is for real, but..." He picked at the wood, looking down. "You get so used to it, you stop knowing which one it is. I'm not saying it's right," he added, quickly. "I'm just saying it's hard to know when to, y'know... let someone through."

He so wasn't talking about addicts anymore. He wasn't even talking about werewolves anymore. Embarrassed, he winced, then quickly covered it up. Looking back up at her, he grinned. "So, what, it's okay as long as I call him an asshole instead of a werewolf around you?"

Arms folded, head bowed, Lily listened. She really listened. And somehow, Perry said the exact right thing. Since coming back, Lily'd been carrying around a huge weight of guilt over the events that had lead to that night in Godric's Hollow. It had taken her actually having a conversation (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/645957.html) with Death herself to accept the fact that maybe she didn't hold all the blame for her and James' death, for Harry growing up without a family that loved him. The fact that she'd let herself doubt a friend, that the stigma of 'werewolf' had eventually tainted her view of him, was something she didn't like to think about. It was something she'd hated herself for ever since she'd been thrust into the Sorting Room and realized that all the plans and suspicions she'd acted upon had been wrong.

So to hear him tell her that, while it wasn't all right, it was understandable caused her to raise her head and look at him in a little bit of astonishment. Coming from anyone else, she'd have ignored the words. But from him, for whatever reason, she believed it. She'd made a mistake, yes, but it'd been a human error. It didn't make her evil, it just meant she was fallible.

Also, somewhere in his words, she heard an apology. She even gathered that, in the end, he wasn't really talking about Remus or addicts anymore. All this lead to her simply staring at him a moment, her brain working quickly through a thousand different thoughts. Then, slowly, she returned his grin. "Yeah," she laughed a little, her expression rueful. "I suppose it is. Can't say as I'd like it. Might snap back now and again." She looked for a second as if she wanted to go to him, but hesitated; deciding against it, she unfolded her arms and jammed her hands into her pockets.

Lily's staring made him so anxious and tense that when she finally smiled, he was intensely relieved. It let him relax slightly, and he rolled his shoulders back to relieve some of the tightness in them, his grin widening slightly. "Well, bring it on, baby. I'm not afraid of you." Most of the time. Despite himself, he glanced down towards her pocket, where he knew her wand was.

The banter broke the ice a little bit, but still, Lily wasn't the only one who felt a little hesitant. There was an awkward moment of silence when, like she had, he debated going over to her, but... Instead, he continued to linger on the desk, idly kicking his feet against the legs like a kid. They had both sort of apologized -- or at least, he had come as close as he could to apologizing and she had apologized for as much as she could without heading into tricky territory -- but the atmosphere still didn't feel very comfortable, somehow.

Finally, he hopped down off the desk, feeling frustrated and uncertain. "So... are we done here?" he asked, a shade brusquely, not really knowing what else to do.

Her own grin growing slightly at his response, she felt the tenseness in her spine relax a little. "Good to know, Ginger. I'll not hold back, then."

Then the silence and the awkward and Lily almost just started shouting about...the fact he didn't like chocolate custard or something inane just to break the tension. She shifted slightly and cleared her throat, tucking her hair behind her ears. She couldn't think of anything to say and a sick feeling was growing in her stomach. Suddenly absorbed in scuffing her toe on the stones, she jumped slightly when Cox moved off the desk.

His uncertainty was mirrored in her face as she looked up at him. But, at the end of the day, despite all of her good qualities, Lily was a completly a girl. And having a bloke repeatedly seem all too eager to get away from a bird would, eventually, try any female's patience. At his words a small flash of annoyance crossed her eyes. Stepping aside, she muttered, "Sorry to keep you." A delicate twist of her wand and the wards and soundproofing charm were lowered. Putting the wand away again, she raised one eyebrow slightly and waited for him to leave.

((OOC: Reposted to make more sense.))

It wasn't exactly difficult for him to catch the irritated sarcasm in her voice, nor the annoyance in her expression, and he was torn: he was the one who'd dragged them in here in the first place, but he was the one who was leaving. But Lily could step in here just as easily as he could, right?

Cox started to make a sarcastic comment along the lines of 'No problem, I was just working, nothing important,' but decided, likely wisely, to restrain himself. Instead, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes, to bite back some of his frustration long enough to do... well, something. Finally, dropping his hands, he shook his head and moved for the door, pausing when he reached it to look back at her.

"Look, I'll... drop by later, or send an owl or something, okay?" he asked, as much a request as it was an offer. Halfway reaching out, he tried to touch her and kind of failed midway between them, letting out a faint noise of exasperation as his hand fell.

Her arms were crossed and she barely was looking at him. Sure, she could stop him. Again. For the thousandth time. But, quite frankly, Lily was getting tired of stopping him from leaving. She was beginning to feel like she was forcing him to be with her, and she didn't like that thought. He could just as easily turn around and stay, couldn't he? If this relationship or whatever the hell he was calling it was going to have a grindylow's chance in saltwater of working (and she really wanted it to work), Perry was going to have to at some point decide he wanted to stick around. He could do it - he'd done it the night she told him about the War. So she knew it was possible. It just...seemed like for the one time he'd decided to stick around on his own, there were half a dozen times she'd barred the door with her body.

When he spoke, her eyes slid to him, her expression cold. Until, that is, she saw his hand reach for her and fall. Then her frigid look failed and Lily just appeared sad and confused. "Yeah," she said softly. "I'd like that." Deciding suddenly to meet his effort midway, she stepped towards him and reached up to kiss the corner of his mouth. Her touch was featherlight and she pulled away quickly.

Turning back to the room, she laughed a little, a frustrated, helpless sound. "You'd better get back to work, Ginger, before Madame Nutter skins us both alive," she told him. Giving him permission to leave. "I'm going to see if I can fix the desk and get the ink off the wall." Her back was to him now. She knew he had to leave, knew that for whatever reason he felt like he couldn't stay. He'd made that clear. Didn't mean she had to make it easier on him. Also didn't mean she wanted to watch him go.

The kiss made him feel better and yet infinitely worse at the same time. Better, to let go of some of the tension, and yet... there was a seed growing in Perry's mind, there since the beginning of their relationship and always kind of nagging but really starting to grow roots now, and it told him that it would have been so much better if she'd just left him then and there. The kiss, in making him feel better even just a little, would only make it harder later on to do what he really needed to do.

He knew Lily really did want him to stay, but his mind was too crowded right now, there was too much going on in there. Too much to sort through. With a heavy sigh, he turned and walked out.

Hearing him leave, all the tension and the anger and the frustration just left her and Lily felt suddenly empty. She couldn't help but feel something more significant than a fight had just happened. That there'd been some moment there she'd missed.

Rubbing her face with her hands, she turned to the desk that lay smashed on the ground. Kneeling beside it, trying to focus on whether a repairing charm would do or if the whole thing would just have to be chucked, a lump formed in her throat. She was suddenly struggling not to cry, the pieces of the desk blurring in front of her as tears formed behind her eyes. Scrubbing her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt, Lily refused to give in to the sick knot in her stomach.

For a long, long while she just sat on the floor of the empty classroom, trying not to think, being overwhelmed by thoughts anyway. Tripping over each other, each one shouting for her attention, she replayed the fight again and again and the thoughts kept a running commentary. She didn't cry - tears may have tracked down her cheeks, her sleeve might have been damp from wiping them away, but she did not cry, damn it.

Finally, taking a shuddering breath, she raised her wand and cast the most powerful repairing charm she knew. For a minute she wasn't sure it would work, that the desk was broken beyond repair. Then, slowly, the pieces fitted themselves back together, a bright blue glow showing where the charm was knitting it back to whole. After just a few moments the desk stood there, good as new. Not even a crack to show what had happened. Standing, Lily turned to the ink stain on the wall and the broken bottle. Wincing, she realized that the glass was shattered into a thousand pieces. Not worth fixing. She vanished the mess and tried a cleaning charm on the wall. The ink faded away.

Turning slowly, feeling tired and worn, Lily surveyed the room. Everything was back to how it was. Her bitter laugh was soon choked off as it echoed from the empty room. Sighing, Lily turned and left the room.

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