Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession,
Euan wasn't one for spontaneity. In fact, he took comfort in routine, had ever since he was small, but ever since bumping into one Rose Zeller nearly a year prior, he was finding that it was worming itself more and more into his life. With the thought to seek her out and surprise her for once, the auror in training made his way through Harpies Stadium.
Dodging out of the way when Fabriana flicked a towel at her arse, Rose let out an exaggerated gasp as she gaped openly at the much taller chaser as they made their way across the pitch towards the training rooms. "How dare you, Ms. Reziyat! I am a very delicate creature!"
"Delicate? My nicely tanned and toned arse," Fabriana answered, throwing an arm around Rose's shoulders. "You should come out with me tonight. I'm meeting someone at Posh."
"Meeting someone, you say?" Rose asked with a raised eyebrow, looking up at her teammate. "Would this someone be a boy?"
"Maybe..."
"Slag."
"Oi!"
Grinning when Fabriana reached out to pinch her cheek, Rose grabbed the hem of her training jersey and pulled it over her head.
"Rosie Posie?"
"Hmmm?"
"Isn't that your Auror?"
Green eyes blinked as she looked towards the entrance tunnel, face brightening as she spotted Euan. "It is indeed. I'll have to take a raincheck on the club."
"Yeah, sure. Rain check," Fab said, rolling her eyes as she watched Rose job across the field.
Jersey draped over her arm, Rose let out a large breath as she finally approached Euan. "Abercrombie! What are you doing here?"
"Figured I'd borrow some of yer sponteneiity, Rose Zeller." He grinned down at her. "Unless ya object? Oh, I got something for ya." Euan suddenly remembered the shrunken bouquet of Gerbera daisies he had run across on his way over. "They reminded me of ya."
"Euan!" Rose pulled the flowers from his grasp, grinning. "They're very bright," she said, looking up at him, bringing the daisies up to her nose and taking a deep breath. "Spontaneity looks good on you, I think."
It had been a while since she'd seen him, and even longer than that since she'd seen the lightness in his eyes and the smile on his lips. Rose was very glad he looked... better. "How ya been?"
He shrugged. "I've... been," he settled on finally. "Livin', learnin', existin'. And you?" Euan liked to see her smile, glad that someone could be so happy with such a simple thing as flowers. "Lookin' forward to th' second half of th' season?"
"You have no idea," Rose said, exasperation in her voice. "I am so ready to start playing again. Not that the time off wasn't great. It was. I got to stay with my brothers for a bit, spend the Holidays with Regan and Gwen and Tess, but I need to be flying, you know?"
Laughing, Rose reached out and pinched Euan's cheek. "Well, obviously you don't know exactly what I mean, but you can understand, I'm sure. I'm just... restless."
He knew who Gwen happened to be, that was easy and he remembered Regan as the girl he vaguely remembered from the Pier that summer past, but the third name escaped him. "Tess?" Euan questioned before waving the pinching fingers away.
"Yes, restless. I know all abou' tha'." How often had he felt restless himself? As if he was just waiting for the next big thing?
"Tess is Gwen's adopted little girl. Adorable. Endless energy, and when I get tired, you know that's some endless energy."
Slipping her arm through his, Rose turned him around, directing them towards the locker rooms. "How's work? Work-like?"
The young man laughed, enjoying the image of a tuckered out Rose with a child still raring for more. "I hadna known about tha'," he shrugged. "But yer captain's more than entitled t' her privacy." And the little girl was more than entitled to grow up a little girl. "But yes, t' answer yer question, work is 'work-like'. Still lots of paperwork. I dinna think it'll ever end."
"Most likely, no. I'm awful with paperwork, 's why I became an athlete. My handwriting is horrible," she confided, grinning when they'd entered the tunnel leading inside. Once her heart had stopped pounding and the adrenaline had stopped coursing through her, the chill had forced goosebumps up and down her arms.
Rose grinned as she looked over at Euan. "So, was this a quick visit, or was there more sponteneity in your future?"
"I dinna have anythin' planned for th' rest of th' day. So feel free t' be as spontaneous as ya feel." He ducked his head. Euan figured ducking out early every once and awhile more than made up for all the times he stayed late. "Does anythin' strike yer fancy?"
"I have quite a bit of fancy, but nothing that strikes it currently," Rose answered, looking over at him. "I need to change quickly, just a few seconds, but then I'm yours, okay?"
He nodded. "Take yer time. I'mna in any rush. Do whatever needs doin'." His intention for the day was to enjoy her company, not to disrupt her schedule. Taking up a spot leaning against the wall, Euan waited, going over legal procedures in his head as he did so.
"Where you headed, Posie?"
Stuffing clothes into her bag, Rose looked over her shoulder, grinning at a freshly showered Fabriana. "Don't know."
"With the Auror?"
"Yep," she answered, hopping as she pulled on a pair of jeans. She grabbed her shoes, taking a seat on a bench to pull them on.
"He got you flowers," Fabriana said, fingers reaching out to brush along the petals of the daisies.
"They're pretty, right?"
"Mmmhmmm."
Quickly pulling her hair into a ponytail, not wanting to leave him waiting long enough to take a shower, Rose grabbed her bag and the flowers, waving at her teammates as she rushed back to Euan.
"Alright. You'll have to deal with me smelling like Quidditch, but I think it shouldn't be too bad."
He blinked at her. "I grew up, partially, at th' Montrose stadium. I dinna think th' smell of 'quidditch' is goin' t' bother me much." Euan grinned. "So we have th' rest of th' day t' do whatever. Th' day is yer's."
"Hmmmm," Rose said, dropping her bag on the ground beside them as she thought. "Well, I'm hungry, first of all. Training, obviously. I could eat. Could you eat?"
"I could always eat. Did ya have anywhere in mind?" He wasn't a particularly fancy sort. Pub fare was good for him. "The Leaky? Sticks?"
"Oooh! I haven't been to the Sticks in so long!" Throwing her bag over one arm, she wound the other one around Euan's, leading him towards the exit. "They probably won't have a band, but the food was always good."
"It's a bit early in th' day," Euan agreed. "But th' food is good." Not as good as his gran's of course, but that was a hard order to live up to. He had been spoiled as a child. All the food he had was good.
"Ready?" he asked just before he apparated them to the sleepy Hogsmeade village. He hadn't been here since... that night, but from the looks of things, the town was rebuilding. Good. Hurrying past the spots he thought he had seen people fall, Euan held the door open for Rose. "After ya."
The echoes of the darkness that had descended on Hogsmeade on Halloween had faded, but there were still marks. Rose's gaze traveled over a violin case on the mantle above the fireplace, a single candle burning next to it.
Looking over her shoulder at Euan, Rose gave him a small smile as she slid into a booth, hands brushing over the worn tabletop.
Taking a seat with his back to the wall, Euan let out a small sigh. Small steps turned into long journeys, he reminded himself, sounding suspiciously like his grandfather. "So practice has been goin' well?" he asked. "I'm lookin' forward t' the Holyhead-Montrose game, though I think we'll be trounced easily, but I shouldna admit tha' t' easily. Need t' keep th' faith in my team, yes?"
"I know you're a Montrose man. I won't hold it against you, promise," Rose said, grabbing a weathered menu from the edge of the table, green eyes bright as she browsed the items. "Practice is good. Tiring. My muscles have been aching something fierce, but nothing that I'd want to whine about."
"I wouldna expect you t' whine." The whole concept seemed very foreign to Rose's personality. He honestly could not see her doing as such.
Euan began to drum his fingers against the wood tabletop, having already decided on fish and chips, with extra salt and vinegar, for his meal.
Rose reached out, stopping his hands' movements with hers, a small grin on her lips as she looked at him. "Restless indeed. They not working you hard enough at the Ministry, or did you just have some extra energy you needed getting rid of?"
"Dinna tell th' Ministry tha'," Euan returned her smile. "Else they'll find me some poor sod's paperwork t' do as well in between Auror Jones' and my own trainin'. Then I'd never get t' be spontanteous."
He fell silent. "I think tha' was a long answer t' havin' some excess energy that I need t' get rid of. Any ideas?"
"Well, my methods don't work for other people as well as they work for me," Rose said, giving his hand a pat before sitting back on her side, "but I hear running until you can't feel your legs anymore works. I could always use the endurance training. We could make it a weekly thing, or more. Whenever you needed it. You know I'm here."
He nodded. Euan liked to run. In fact, wasn't that what he was doing when he and Rose became reintroduced? "I run sometimes. Out in th' field behind th' Inn." He had run that so many times since he was young he knew ever rock and root. "But tha' isna always th' best in th' winter or after it rains. Do you have any ideas?"
Rose opened her mouth to respond, but waited until after the barmaid had taken their orders. Once the woman had left, she looked across the table at Euan, shrugging her shoulders lightly. "I don't know. You have to find something that makes your blood pump, takes your focus away for a bit. Something that... centers you. Quiets the noise."
Shrugging her shoulders again, not sure if anything she was saying made sense to anyone but her, she wrapped her hand around the bottle of butterbeer that had been set before her and took a drink.
"Some would say I'm too quiet," Euan observed, taking a drink of his own butterbeer. "Tha' I would need the opposite in my life. Somethin' tha' shook it up, but tha's why I have ya, yes?"
He cocked his head to the side, considering. More often than not he had been accused of getting lost in his own thoughts, shutting out the rest of the world around him. Perhaps he needed just the opposite of what Rose was suggesting. That was a thought. Of course, he didn't know where to start, besides spending more time with Rose. She always brought more color into his life.
"Tango lessons," Rose said after she'd swallowed her mouthful, grinning across the table at him. "Or... dragon taming. Oh! I got it! Wrestle a cockatrice! Those things are a menace."
"I was lookin' for excitin', not suicidal," Euan pointed out with a small smile. "I could just spend more time with ya, not tha' tha's any hardship."
Rose smiled, cocking her head to the side as she looked at him. "You think I could shake you up enough to get that extra energy out?"
"If yer captain's little girl hasna stolen it all, yes." Euan could remember being small and being accused of energy usurpation.
"No, no," Rose assured him, "I've got stores of energy. Besides, I'm not there all the time." She had been spending a great deal of time at White Chapel lately, but it wasn't her home. The fact that her flat didn't really feel like her home either didn't bother her. She was a wanderer, no real reason to hold her to one place too long. "I could find some energy for you, if you wanted."
"Found energy. Ya could market tha' and make a fortune. What do ya think?" Euan grinned.
"Help me channel it and you've got a deal," Rose answered, nodding at him as their food was set before them.
Summary: Euan tries spontaneity on for size, with Rose along for the ride.
Dodging out of the way when Fabriana flicked a towel at her arse, Rose let out an exaggerated gasp as she gaped openly at the much taller chaser as they made their way across the pitch towards the training rooms. "How dare you, Ms. Reziyat! I am a very delicate creature!"
"Delicate? My nicely tanned and toned arse," Fabriana answered, throwing an arm around Rose's shoulders. "You should come out with me tonight. I'm meeting someone at Posh."
"Meeting someone, you say?" Rose asked with a raised eyebrow, looking up at her teammate. "Would this someone be a boy?"
"Maybe..."
"Slag."
"Oi!"
Grinning when Fabriana reached out to pinch her cheek, Rose grabbed the hem of her training jersey and pulled it over her head.
"Rosie Posie?"
"Hmmm?"
"Isn't that your Auror?"
Green eyes blinked as she looked towards the entrance tunnel, face brightening as she spotted Euan. "It is indeed. I'll have to take a raincheck on the club."
"Yeah, sure. Rain check," Fab said, rolling her eyes as she watched Rose job across the field.
Jersey draped over her arm, Rose let out a large breath as she finally approached Euan. "Abercrombie! What are you doing here?"
"Figured I'd borrow some of yer sponteneiity, Rose Zeller." He grinned down at her. "Unless ya object? Oh, I got something for ya." Euan suddenly remembered the shrunken bouquet of Gerbera daisies he had run across on his way over. "They reminded me of ya."
"Euan!" Rose pulled the flowers from his grasp, grinning. "They're very bright," she said, looking up at him, bringing the daisies up to her nose and taking a deep breath. "Spontaneity looks good on you, I think."
It had been a while since she'd seen him, and even longer than that since she'd seen the lightness in his eyes and the smile on his lips. Rose was very glad he looked... better. "How ya been?"
He shrugged. "I've... been," he settled on finally. "Livin', learnin', existin'. And you?" Euan liked to see her smile, glad that someone could be so happy with such a simple thing as flowers. "Lookin' forward to th' second half of th' season?"
"You have no idea," Rose said, exasperation in her voice. "I am so ready to start playing again. Not that the time off wasn't great. It was. I got to stay with my brothers for a bit, spend the Holidays with Regan and Gwen and Tess, but I need to be flying, you know?"
Laughing, Rose reached out and pinched Euan's cheek. "Well, obviously you don't know exactly what I mean, but you can understand, I'm sure. I'm just... restless."
He knew who Gwen happened to be, that was easy and he remembered Regan as the girl he vaguely remembered from the Pier that summer past, but the third name escaped him. "Tess?" Euan questioned before waving the pinching fingers away.
"Yes, restless. I know all abou' tha'." How often had he felt restless himself? As if he was just waiting for the next big thing?
"Tess is Gwen's adopted little girl. Adorable. Endless energy, and when I get tired, you know that's some endless energy."
Slipping her arm through his, Rose turned him around, directing them towards the locker rooms. "How's work? Work-like?"
The young man laughed, enjoying the image of a tuckered out Rose with a child still raring for more. "I hadna known about tha'," he shrugged. "But yer captain's more than entitled t' her privacy." And the little girl was more than entitled to grow up a little girl. "But yes, t' answer yer question, work is 'work-like'. Still lots of paperwork. I dinna think it'll ever end."
"Most likely, no. I'm awful with paperwork, 's why I became an athlete. My handwriting is horrible," she confided, grinning when they'd entered the tunnel leading inside. Once her heart had stopped pounding and the adrenaline had stopped coursing through her, the chill had forced goosebumps up and down her arms.
Rose grinned as she looked over at Euan. "So, was this a quick visit, or was there more sponteneity in your future?"
"I dinna have anythin' planned for th' rest of th' day. So feel free t' be as spontaneous as ya feel." He ducked his head. Euan figured ducking out early every once and awhile more than made up for all the times he stayed late. "Does anythin' strike yer fancy?"
"I have quite a bit of fancy, but nothing that strikes it currently," Rose answered, looking over at him. "I need to change quickly, just a few seconds, but then I'm yours, okay?"
He nodded. "Take yer time. I'mna in any rush. Do whatever needs doin'." His intention for the day was to enjoy her company, not to disrupt her schedule. Taking up a spot leaning against the wall, Euan waited, going over legal procedures in his head as he did so.
"Where you headed, Posie?"
Stuffing clothes into her bag, Rose looked over her shoulder, grinning at a freshly showered Fabriana. "Don't know."
"With the Auror?"
"Yep," she answered, hopping as she pulled on a pair of jeans. She grabbed her shoes, taking a seat on a bench to pull them on.
"He got you flowers," Fabriana said, fingers reaching out to brush along the petals of the daisies.
"They're pretty, right?"
"Mmmhmmm."
Quickly pulling her hair into a ponytail, not wanting to leave him waiting long enough to take a shower, Rose grabbed her bag and the flowers, waving at her teammates as she rushed back to Euan.
"Alright. You'll have to deal with me smelling like Quidditch, but I think it shouldn't be too bad."
He blinked at her. "I grew up, partially, at th' Montrose stadium. I dinna think th' smell of 'quidditch' is goin' t' bother me much." Euan grinned. "So we have th' rest of th' day t' do whatever. Th' day is yer's."
"Hmmmm," Rose said, dropping her bag on the ground beside them as she thought. "Well, I'm hungry, first of all. Training, obviously. I could eat. Could you eat?"
"I could always eat. Did ya have anywhere in mind?" He wasn't a particularly fancy sort. Pub fare was good for him. "The Leaky? Sticks?"
"Oooh! I haven't been to the Sticks in so long!" Throwing her bag over one arm, she wound the other one around Euan's, leading him towards the exit. "They probably won't have a band, but the food was always good."
"It's a bit early in th' day," Euan agreed. "But th' food is good." Not as good as his gran's of course, but that was a hard order to live up to. He had been spoiled as a child. All the food he had was good.
"Ready?" he asked just before he apparated them to the sleepy Hogsmeade village. He hadn't been here since... that night, but from the looks of things, the town was rebuilding. Good. Hurrying past the spots he thought he had seen people fall, Euan held the door open for Rose. "After ya."
The echoes of the darkness that had descended on Hogsmeade on Halloween had faded, but there were still marks. Rose's gaze traveled over a violin case on the mantle above the fireplace, a single candle burning next to it.
Looking over her shoulder at Euan, Rose gave him a small smile as she slid into a booth, hands brushing over the worn tabletop.
Taking a seat with his back to the wall, Euan let out a small sigh. Small steps turned into long journeys, he reminded himself, sounding suspiciously like his grandfather. "So practice has been goin' well?" he asked. "I'm lookin' forward t' the Holyhead-Montrose game, though I think we'll be trounced easily, but I shouldna admit tha' t' easily. Need t' keep th' faith in my team, yes?"
"I know you're a Montrose man. I won't hold it against you, promise," Rose said, grabbing a weathered menu from the edge of the table, green eyes bright as she browsed the items. "Practice is good. Tiring. My muscles have been aching something fierce, but nothing that I'd want to whine about."
"I wouldna expect you t' whine." The whole concept seemed very foreign to Rose's personality. He honestly could not see her doing as such.
Euan began to drum his fingers against the wood tabletop, having already decided on fish and chips, with extra salt and vinegar, for his meal.
Rose reached out, stopping his hands' movements with hers, a small grin on her lips as she looked at him. "Restless indeed. They not working you hard enough at the Ministry, or did you just have some extra energy you needed getting rid of?"
"Dinna tell th' Ministry tha'," Euan returned her smile. "Else they'll find me some poor sod's paperwork t' do as well in between Auror Jones' and my own trainin'. Then I'd never get t' be spontanteous."
He fell silent. "I think tha' was a long answer t' havin' some excess energy that I need t' get rid of. Any ideas?"
"Well, my methods don't work for other people as well as they work for me," Rose said, giving his hand a pat before sitting back on her side, "but I hear running until you can't feel your legs anymore works. I could always use the endurance training. We could make it a weekly thing, or more. Whenever you needed it. You know I'm here."
He nodded. Euan liked to run. In fact, wasn't that what he was doing when he and Rose became reintroduced? "I run sometimes. Out in th' field behind th' Inn." He had run that so many times since he was young he knew ever rock and root. "But tha' isna always th' best in th' winter or after it rains. Do you have any ideas?"
Rose opened her mouth to respond, but waited until after the barmaid had taken their orders. Once the woman had left, she looked across the table at Euan, shrugging her shoulders lightly. "I don't know. You have to find something that makes your blood pump, takes your focus away for a bit. Something that... centers you. Quiets the noise."
Shrugging her shoulders again, not sure if anything she was saying made sense to anyone but her, she wrapped her hand around the bottle of butterbeer that had been set before her and took a drink.
"Some would say I'm too quiet," Euan observed, taking a drink of his own butterbeer. "Tha' I would need the opposite in my life. Somethin' tha' shook it up, but tha's why I have ya, yes?"
He cocked his head to the side, considering. More often than not he had been accused of getting lost in his own thoughts, shutting out the rest of the world around him. Perhaps he needed just the opposite of what Rose was suggesting. That was a thought. Of course, he didn't know where to start, besides spending more time with Rose. She always brought more color into his life.
"Tango lessons," Rose said after she'd swallowed her mouthful, grinning across the table at him. "Or... dragon taming. Oh! I got it! Wrestle a cockatrice! Those things are a menace."
"I was lookin' for excitin', not suicidal," Euan pointed out with a small smile. "I could just spend more time with ya, not tha' tha's any hardship."
Rose smiled, cocking her head to the side as she looked at him. "You think I could shake you up enough to get that extra energy out?"
"If yer captain's little girl hasna stolen it all, yes." Euan could remember being small and being accused of energy usurpation.
"No, no," Rose assured him, "I've got stores of energy. Besides, I'm not there all the time." She had been spending a great deal of time at White Chapel lately, but it wasn't her home. The fact that her flat didn't really feel like her home either didn't bother her. She was a wanderer, no real reason to hold her to one place too long. "I could find some energy for you, if you wanted."
"Found energy. Ya could market tha' and make a fortune. What do ya think?" Euan grinned.
"Help me channel it and you've got a deal," Rose answered, nodding at him as their food was set before them.
Summary: Euan tries spontaneity on for size, with Rose along for the ride.