We seek those out that can help us ...

[rose_caliga]

The mood at the Inn was too quiet, too somber, for Euan to stay there for long, but he could not face another night in London. Not another night, there. Early the next morning, after going out for a run with Maggie, he left the Inn and Aberdeen behind. It was only after he reached Britain's capital that he realized he wasn't exactly sure where she'd be. It was either her flat or the stadium. Both were worth a shot, but he'd try the stadium first.

Holyhead Stadium put him at ease, instantly. It wasn't like the one he had grown up with, but the feeling of Quidditch permeated it nonetheless. So in a way, it was like coming to a home that wasn't exactly his.

Arm wrapped around Dolly's, Fabriana laughed as they exited the locker room and made their way through the tunnel and back towards the pitch. "It wasn't my favorite dress."

"Probably not, but now it's a dishrag," Dolly said, flashing a bright grin at her teammate.

"If I did dishes," Fabriana said, joining in when the beater laughed again. As they walked onto the grass, brown eyes landed on the messy-haired Auror friend of Rose's. "Hey! I know you!" she called out, waving, pulling Dolly in Euan's direction.

Euan smiled at the pretty chaser. "Hallo, Ms. Resiyat, is Rose about?"

"Rosie-Posie went home already," Dolly answered for Fabriana, grinning broadly at the younger man, "but we're going out if you want to join us."

"Hey, he's Rose's, best leave him be," Fabriana chided, though she smirked at the beater a second later. Turning her attention to Euan, she shrugged her shoulders. "She probably went home," she offered.

He blushed at the offer and shook his head. "Thank you for the offer, but I was looking for Rose specifically. I have to decline. Thank you." Tipping his head, Euan turned on his heel and hurried past the wards so he could find his way to Rose's flat.

Standing in front of the familiar door, he raised his hand to knock on the door, praying that she was here and not somewhere else.

"It's open!" Rose called to whoever was at the door, hoping they heard her from the bedroom. It was spring, almost summer now, and her closet was in dire need of a thinning. Her steady income from the Harpies had allowed her plenty of extra sickles to spend on outfits, and it was only when she couldn't even close the closet door that she realized she had a problem.

The Harpies worked with several charities, and Rose had arranged to donate her unwanted clothing to a local women's shelter, but was finding it rather hard to weed out exactly which shirts, pants, shoes, skirts and dresses wouldn't be making the cut.

Hearing what he thought sounded like open, Euan prayed that he wasn't interrupting anything private, one never knew with Rose, he slipped into her flat. "Rose?" he called. "It's Euan. Do you have a moment?"

"Euan?" Extracting herself from the closet, stepping over several bright colored pieces on the floor, Rose made her way into the living room, smiling at Euan when her green gaze landed on him. "Hey! The Ministry let you out to play for a bit?"

Euan found himself returning the smile. "They have to give us weekends off or they'd find themselves out of trainees." He was dedicated, but not that dedicated. Reaching out, the auror trainee tweaked a lock of brightly colored hair. "Found myself needing a bit of distraction so naturally I thought of you."

Smile brightening at the welcome touch of familiarity, not used to it from her usually stoic friend, Rose's smile brightened. "I am good at distracting," she agreed, "especially you. You're particularly fun to distract, did you know?"

"You are very good," he conceded. "So what are you up to on this lovely Sunday? I tried the stadium first, but they said you had already gone for the day."

"I'm attempting to tame my closet and decide which outfits are needed, and which I can part with," Rose said, wrapping a hand around Euan's and leading him back towards the bedroom. "It's much more difficult than I thought it would be."

Euan's eyes widened, not because they were going to Rose's bedroom, but because it sounded like he was about to be asked about clothing. He didn't make very many choices when it came to his clothes, as long as they were clean, he was pretty much happy.

"See the problem?" Rose asked, gesturing to the overflowing closet. "I've been at it for an hour already and I've barely made a dent. I could use a break, though," she said, turning to her friend with a hopeful glint in her eye. "Maybe we could distract each other?"

Euan nodded. "I'd like that," he confessed. With Rose, he didn't feel the pressure of his father's death quite so heavily. He could just be Euan with her, not Euan, Tate Abercrombie's tragic figure of a son.

"Well, then, let's go to the kitchen and see what we can find," she offered, hand tightening in his as she started in that direction. "I actually went shopping," she said with a gasp, knowing it would be shocking to her friend, "and think I still have some ice cream if you're in the mood for something sweet."

His stomach grumbled, reminding him that he had forgotten to eat that morning. "I think I'm in the mood for just about anything, really." Euan looked down at their joined hands and his smile widened. It was so easy, so natural, for her to show affection.

"Well anything is a pretty easy order," she said with a laugh as they entered the bright colored kitchen. "Have a seat and we'll see what I can scare up for you."

Euan took the seat, but raised an eyebrow. "Isn't this a nice role reversal? Usually I'm the one feeding you."

"I think we're in opposite-land. I'm feeding you... you're showing up instead of me hunting you down. It's pretty different," she agreed, opening the icebox and taking a long look inside. "Strawberry or Butter Praline?"

"Strawberry." Euan scratched his chin. "Opposite-land, huh? Does that mean I have to dye my hair?"

Rose turned back to him with an excited look on her face, carton of strawberry ice cream in hand. "Oh Helga, please don't be joking with me! That would be..." She tried to search for the word but came up empty, instead finding two spoons and taking the seat at the island next to him. "It would be more bizarro-land than opposite-land, actually."

"And we wouldn't want that." He took a spoon from her, but ever the gentleman, waited until she took the first bit of ice cream before getting his own. "I think it's safe to say that I won't be dying my hair anytime soon."

"It's a shame, really. Color can be so fun. I've been thinking of going blonde," she confided, licking the sweet off the end of her spoon, a thoughtful look on her face. "It'd be different, for sure," Rose said, "but different is sometimes good, right?"

It was a silly conversation, but he said he'd needed to be distracted. Rose was fairly sure talk of cosmetically changing hair colors wasn't exactly what he had in mind, but if it worked, great. The question of why he needed her distraction was at the back of her mind, but at the moment she'd do her duties before wondering overly about the reason.

"It can be, yeah." Euan licked his spoon clean, twirling it between his fingers. "Sometimes you get stuck in the same rut and you can never get out of it." Was that what happened to his father? Tate just got stuck in a hole and just dug himself deeper and deeper until he could no longer see the helping hand?

"I wouldn't say never," Rose said, digging her spoon into the softening ice cream, shrugging, "but sometimes it takes a little push."

Euan wondered if Rose knew about his father. She didn't seem to be acting very differently towards him. "Sometimes you can't see that push. Or at least don't want to see it."

"Willing blindness," she agreed, spoon sliding past her lips as she nodded. "But that's not you," she added, spoon jutting in his direction. "You have people that won't let you be that blind. I'm too bright to ignore," Rose said with a large grin, offering the carton to him for another bite.

"But what if I am?" he queried. "What if I come from that? A weak man who'd rather see darkness than light?"

Rose's grin dimmed, concern bleeding into her eyes as their conversation took a turn. "You're not weak, Euan," she said, certainty in her voice as she looked across the space at him, "and where you came from doesn't define who you are right now."

She'd hoped his surprise visit had been a spur of the moment type thing, but the look on his face spoke volumes. Something bad had happened and he was reminding her of when his mother had died at Halloween.

"I could be." He hadn't meant to tell her his secrets, to burden her with his own truths, but it seemed that the weight was too great him to bear alone. "Tell me, Rose, do you read the paper?"

She shook her head, bright hair brushing against her cheeks. "No, why?"

"Then you didn't see the story in Friday's paper, the story about my father." Euan looked at the empty utensil in his hand, dropping it onto the table. "My father used to play quidditch, until his drinking got the better of him." He coughed, clearing his throat. "He killed himself on Tuesday."

"Oh my Gods," Rose said, ice cream forgotten in her hands as she looked at him, pain on his behalf filling her eyes. "Euan, I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

"It's okay. Really. It was nice to actually be able to tell someone rather than a stuffy, half-rate reporter spreading it around." Euan didn't even try to hide the bitterness in his voice. If he ever met Ticky Boxman...well, he would do something out of character, damn the consequences.

Spoon forgotten in her left hand, Rose reached out with her right and placed it in Euan's bigger hand, squeezing. "I'm sorry," she repeated, not sure what else to say. He'd just lost his mother a few months ago, and now he would have to deal with losing his other parent. She knew that his grandparents were just as influential in his life as his mum or dad had been, but it was still a loss she knew he'd feel.

Euan managed a small smile to return her hand squeeze. "Dinna worry about it, Rose. Really. I just wanna forget it for awhile."

"A distraction," Rose said, the reason for his visit clearing a bit in her mind. "What do you want to do?"

Euan shrugged. He just wanted to forget his anger, his sadness, everything. "I dinna really care. Just somethin', ya know?" Else he was liable to crawl into a bottle he didn't want in the first place.

"Out? In?" Now, her ice cream and closet seemed a little lack luster.

"Either. Or. I'm sorry. I'm na much help am I?" Euan scratched the back of his neck. "We could always drink a'course. Though it never solves a thing." But it wasn't bad if he was drinking with someone else, was it? Only if he drank himself to sleep alone.

"It helps you forget things for a little bit," Rose offered, shrugging her shoulders. She wasn't sure what to do to make him feel better, or if there was anything you could really do in this situation. Time seemed to be the only real softener for things like this.

"It does." Euan stood. "What do you have here? Or am I goin' t' have t' run down t' th' corner store?" He was more than happy to. If he was drinking her alcohol, he should have to pay to replace it.

Humming, unsure what she had left after the girls had come over a couple weekends ago, Rose pulled open cabinets. "We've got some rum... some blue curacao... hard lemonade... are you feeling anything in particular?"

Euan eyed the blue liquid with distaste. Foods should not come in that particular color, no matter what it might be. And hard lemonade, just no. "Rum should be fine."

"Rum it is." Grabbing two glasses, Rose brought the bottle of rum for him, and the curacao for her to mix, and nodded in the direction of the living room. "It's probably better out here. There are a lot of edges to fall into in there, and I'd rather the Auror department not send people out because they think I abused you."

"I've survived a lot worse than a few sharp edges and bruises," Euan confided as he followed her into the living room. "And we aren't going by code names this time, are we?" He couldn't quite remember what they had settled for him back on his birthday.

"No. We'll just need a safe word." She looked over at him as she collapsed on her bright sofa, smirk on her face.

"Armadillo." Euan sat down next to her, a perfectly straight look on his face. "Or is tha' t' many syllables? And why do we need a safe word in th' first place?"

"You never know when a safe word will come in common, and how do you pull 'armadillo' out of your arse as the safe word? Have you ever even seen one?"

He shook his head. "No, do they even exist?"

"I saw one when I went to the States with my brothers," Rose said, pouring herself a liberal amount of rum before mixing it with the deep blue liquid. She'd never had the colorful alcohol before, but found the hue agreed with her greatly. Handing him the bottle so he could pour himself a glass, Rose looked over at him with a small smile on her face. "They looked like an armored rat, really."

Euan did not even try and measure, just poured until the clear liquid threatened to spill over the rim. "Well tha's just silly. Why in Merlin's name would a rat need armor?" It made no sense, really.

"Why do we need to know how to turn a rat into a tea cozy?" Rose queried, hand gesturing in the air as she took a large drink of her colorful alcohol.

The boy considered. "To keep the tea warm, of course."

"Yes, but why a rat? Why not a... mitten, or a sock? Of course, you could just use the mitten or a sock as a tea cozy in the first place and forget about transfiguration all together." The bright-haired chaser had never been particularly interested in her studies, scraping by with just enough NEWTs and OWLs to leave Hogwarts after seven years instead of eight, and often didn't use her wand unless it occurred to her.

The auror trainee had received an O on his NEWT, but the reason behind choosing rats was escaping him. "I'm very good at paperwork and research," Euan told his friend. "I could look it up for you if you want."

"Research and paperwork were not the distraction you were looking for when you sought me out, Abercrombie, and I think I would lose my privilege as 'friend' if I let you do it anyway," Rose said, fairly certain in her logic as she finished what had been in her glass and began to pour herself another.

"Not now," he exclaimed, in a tone that could easily be characterized as a squawk. "Later. When there are different distractions to be had." Euan lifted his glass. "One in which rum is not related."

Rose snorted but clinked her glass against his. "I don't think research and paperwork should ever be a distraction. You need better distractions."

"Well, maybe not paperwork," the Gryffindor amended. "But research can be fun. Especially if it's a topic you're interested in. Like the development of the golden snitch." Euan's face became quizzical then when he caught sight of the look on Rose's own face. "Just me then?"

"I'm a chaser. I'm much more interested in the quaffle," she answered with a 'hmph' and a raising of her nose.

"There's a retort on the tip of my tongue...somewhere." Euan took a drink from his glass of rum. "I'll get back t' ya on tha'."

Grinning, Rose laid back against her couch, lifting her legs to drape them across his lap, situating herself on the bright pillows. "That means this is particularly good rum."

"Is," Euan agreed, not that he had any real standards to compare it to. He patted her legs. "Comfy?"

"Getting there," Rose said, a lazy smile on her face as she continued to sip on her blue drink. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, she looked over at him. He was framed by the bright walls of her flat and the brighter still furniture she'd filled it with. He didn't do bright often, she knew this, but he always made the effort for her.

"You're a good guy, Euan," she finally said. Rose had never had a very large filter when it came to voicing her inner thoughts, but the addition of alcohol only added to her boldness, "and you're not weak, despite you thinking your father was. You're an Auror, one of the most non-weak professions there is. You stand up to bad people every day and refuse to be afraid. That's not weakness."

His immediate thought was to counter her argument. Trainees didn't see the bad people, just generally the drunk and disorderly, but he thought against it. She was trying to make him feel better. "Thank ya, Rose."

Rose shrugged her shoulders against the pillows below her head. "I'm a very good judge of character." Her face screwed into thought. "Most of the time, anyway."

"Most of th' time?" Now it was Euan's turn to study his chaser friend. "Is there someone I need t' hex in defense of your womanly honor?"

"Womanly honor?" Rose laughed, the sound echoing off the walls, a little too loud in the small room. "Oh, Abercrombie," she said, reaching out to rest a hand on his shoulder. "You're about five years too late and about five inches too short for that."

Euan's face screwed up in confusion. "So ya had sex with a man double your height?" He shook his head. "Tha's na what I meant, though. Ya cannot loose your womanly honor, even if ya are na a virgin."

"Hey, I am taller than three feet, thank you very much. That's Flitwick height!" Feigning indignation at the thought that she was shorter than she was, Rose shook her head. "My honor is safe, Mr. Auror, it just took me a little bit to see him for what he was and what he wanted is all. But it's mostly over and done with. Years ago now, even."

"Still." Euan shrugged. "I dinna like it when people hurt my friends. I get...upset."

"It was actually the other way around," Rose said, shifting a bit with a small frown on her face, "so no reason to pull on your Auror pants."

"Oh." Euan took a long sip of his rum, letting the alcohol coat his throat as he let himself fall into silence for a few minutes. "I dinna think ya are th' hurtin' type, Rose. At least, most of th' time." For the most part he was happy and relaxed when he was with her and Merlin knows that's what he needed most right now.

"I didn't know I was hurting him," she murmured, draining what was left of her glass. "But it doesn't matter." She wasn't sure why she had said anything in the first place. Euan had come to her for a distraction, and while talking about herself could be plenty distracting, she also didn't want to delve into a story that might, possibly, change how he thought of her.

Lifting her legs from his lap, she stood. "We're almost out. Let me go see if I can find some more hidden away."

Sensing he might have hit a nerve, Euan nodded silently. It wasn't his intention to make her upset. "If ya dinna, it's alright. I may be able t' imbibe tha' blue... stuff."

"I get the feeling you don't do 'blue stuff'. Which is really sad. Some of my favorite things are blue."

"I like blueberry pie and jam!" He protested. Though both were really more purple than blue. "And like what are your favoritest things?"

"The blue acid pops, my brother's blue modified Strat that he takes on tour... Oh! These knickers!" Pulling down the side of her sweat pants, Rose flashed him a bit of the lace on her hips. "But blueberry pie and jam are good, too."

Euan blinked. "I dinna think I needed t' see your knickers."

Rose looked up at him with a large grin. "But it was distracting, right? I only give you what you ask for, Abercrombie. Be right back."

Euan threw back his head and laughed.

Summary: Euan seeks Rose out for a distraction.