Ficlet/Drabbles
Lost In Translation
"I believe I saw this first," Hermione says, her fingers brushing his from the spine. It's a second edition of Bartleby Traver's Angelicus Compaendium and she needs it desperately. This is the first place she's even come close to finding anything remotely affordable.
The man smiles. "Oh, I can safely say that I saw it first. From a certain point of view."
She dismisses his claim. "I need it for a paper," she says, wheedling a bit. If he is any kind of gentleman, he'll fork it over. Besides, he doesn't look like he can afford it even at this rate.
No such luck, then. "Is that supposed to negate any claim I might have on it?" he says, pulling the book from the shelf and opening the cover. He licks a finger and thumbs through the pages. "What sort of paper could you possibly use it for?
She can't tell him that it's for a paper in comparative situational magics. "Uhm, early Christian mythos blending with pagan cultures," she says feebly. That might cover it. She fingers a strand of hair and wonders if she might have to start over, find another text, or change her thesis altogether. "You?"
He snaps the book shut, showering his jumper with dust. "I like the pictures."
"The pictures."
"Yeah." He flips open to a page and turns it around to show her a woodcutting of a man beheading another with a sword. "Bloody, no?"
She turns the page to another cutting, this time two people-oh my. "Is that supposed to be his...?"
"Oh yeah," the man says. "Woodworkers were notoriously pervy. All that time working with, you know, wood."
The man who'd recommended the book at Flourish & Blotts hadn't mentioned this. "Huh," is all she can muster. And then: "You don't think that showing me some risqué prints is going to scare me from wanting the book, do you?" She raises an eyebrow and uses her best 'Oh Harry and Ron, when will you ever read Hogwarts: A History?' look.
The man's eyes avert elsewhere. "Oh I guess I was," he says jovially. "I really kind of need the book. all joking aside."
She puts her hands on her hips. "So do I. I don't suggest that we fight for it."
"I cheat."
"I aim for genitalia."
"Could we, uh, time-share the book?" he says.
***
"A witch?" she says skeptically, and for obvious reasons. "Are you sure?"
Methos smiles and feeds her a strawberry. She runs her hand up one of his thighs. "Of course, what else could I be?"
She turns onto her stomach and presses her face into the pillow. Methos's bed is like a vacuum, sucking in everything and holding it. They'd been there for hours, and she feels no need to leave. In fact, sleeping here tonight is starting to sound like a fabulous idea.
"I thought guys were called wizards," she says, searching under the sheets for him, and well, the rather more entertaining parts of him. Except for the mouth, and the eyes. And well, pretty much everything anyway. Hungh.
Methos scoffs. "What would you know? You're not a witch are you?" He stretches and reaches down to the floor to snag another pillow. Why any man had that many pillows had been beyond her earlier, but now she sees how useful they can be if one wants to live indefinitely in the bed. "I can't imagine anyone other than a witch wanting that book."
"Oh, no, not a witch. A slighted girl doomed to walk the earth forever."
"Cutting off heads?" His eyes gleam and she rolls backwards to snag the book from the nightstand.
"Of course," she says, opening the page and showing him the same woodcutting. "Cutting off heads. It's what my kind do."
"Well, that, and this."
"Oh, yes, that. Huh."
"I'm glad we got that all out of the way, then."
END