closed RP: Stephen Maturin and Remus Lupin: In vino veritas

[conriocht]

After finishing up his grindylow study, a sodden Lupin shuffled off to his private quarters for a hot shower and a change of clothes. He was starting to nurse a perverse fondness for Stephen's hideous coat - it was comfortable and smelled rather nice, and certainly was no more appalling than some of the clothing he'd worn in the 1970's. (That

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[estebanmd]

Since River was off somewhere doing something (it had better not be with that emperor fellow!), Stephen was able to wash off the lake in a fairly timely manner, having deposited Nemo safely back at his dorm. He dashed off a preliminary sketch of the hatching grindylow. Hm. Something wrong in the horns. Notebook under his arm, he went to find Lupin. He resisted the temptation to bring along his treatise against the grog ration. Knocking at Lupin's office door, he reassured himself that after a long and cold morning devoted to the service of science, a pair of researchers could perfectly well consider themselves to have earned a good stiff drink.

[conriocht]

"Come in!" Lupin called. "I see you've recovered from our watery adventure. Do sit down... I've just been looking over my notes." He peered at his notebook, which was filled with extremely untidy handwriting and uncharacteristic useage of multiple punctuation marks. ("Grindylow hatching!!! Grindylow neonates engage in cannibalism?? Oh, the carnage!!") All the excitement of seeing the hatching and using the gillyweed must've gone to his head. Or perhaps it was just due to insufficient oxygen.

"You'll notice I've been making good use of your magnificent birthday present." He indicated the desk, which Stephen had given him to replace the one he had accidentally destroyed during their Transfiguration lessons. "And do help yourself to the rum... it's good stuff. A bit unusual, but good." He took an eye-watering swallow of his own rum, feeling the warmth penetrate into his still-chilly bones.

[estebanmd]

(( "Oh, the carnage!!" hee! ))

Stephen closed the door behind him and, sitting, poured himself a tot of pirate rum. He was not opposed to alcohol in general, really, only to the effects of overindulgence in it, particularly on hapless sailors. This rum was ... odd, especially strong. He decided it would be impolite to comment on his host's choice of liquor, and anyhow the stuff was not unpleasant. In fact, it had a certain je ne sais quoi.

"I am afraid my own notes may not be of much use," he admitted, giving Lupin the notebook to look over. Most of the notes had more to do with general observations of the lake's flora and fauna, not so much to do with the grindylow, and he was still unsatisfied with his preliminary sketch of the hatchlings.

[conriocht]

Lupin wasn't as interested in the flora and fauna as he was in the grindylow, but he had to admit that Stephen took meticulous notes. "That drawing's very nice. I didn't know you could draw." He examined the sketch. "See, they've got those very powerful hind legs to move about with, and their tails. The horns are used for courtship displays - I saw them fighting when I did my previous study. And they've got the big eyes to see better down there. They're very well-adapted to their environment."

He took another drink of rum and pushed The Origin of Species across the desk to Stephen. "This book explains how species become more suited to their habitats over time, and it explains why the grindylow lay so many eggs. It's so the babies can compete and pass their survival traits on to the next generation. I really recommend you read it. It's one of the most important scientific texts of all time. It changed everything. It was published in 1859, so I suppose it postdates you a bit... when were you born, anyway?"

[estebanmd]

"Of course, any naturalist must be able to draw. We have not got those boxes, the one you had, the camera." Stephen suspected he would be consulting the professor of Muggle studies rather a lot in the near future.

He looked at the Darwin with interest. "Charles Darwin? I had thought for sure you meant Erasmus Darwin, fine man, wrote the Zoonomia. 1859 would put him rather out of my range, true. I was born in 1775; my contemporaries are all, at the moment, in the year of our Lord 1816, with the exception of myself and Jack."

The book was very, very interesting. Pirate rum was not conducive to understanding the finer points of evolutionary theory, to say nothing of reconciling said points with one's Catholic sensibilities. "I may need to find a copy of this in the library, I think. Forgive me." More rum!

((I've had to fudge Stephen's chronology a bit for the reason that Patrick O'Brian had more plot than he did time, and therefore set a whole slew of books in the year 1813 each of which probably ought to have taken a

[conriocht]

"Yes, I suppose drawing would be a necessary skill if you don't have cameras. I've never heard of Erasmus Darwin - he must be some relation, though. Feel free to borrow my copy of this, if you like. I know you'll take good care of it."

He looked at Stephen curiously as he poured himself another glass of rum. "You were born in 1775? I was born in 1960. I suppose that would make you my great-great-great-grandfather. Or something." Maths and geneology were not his specialities. "That must be very strange for you, being here. And being in a relationship with a woman from the distant future, no less. You must be having to learn a million new things."

[estebanmd]

Made more amiable and voluble by the influence of pirate rum, Stephen was more than happy to expound upon the virtues of Erasmus Darwin. "The Darwin of whom I was thinking died in 1802. He was a physician, an inventor, quite an innovative thinker in all. The idea of the Zoonomia is not all that different from this book," holding up the Origin of Species, "insofar as I can tell at a glance. I wonder if they were relations of a kind? Perhaps a cousin or grandson or some such, this Charles to the earlier Darwin."

Stephen thought the idea of himself being Lupin's many-times-great-grandfather was extremely amusing. "I do have a daughter. Rather not think about her becoming the ancestress of anyone at the moment, though. She is but fourteen. Well, she is fourteen in 1816." He laughed helplessly. "It is extremely strange, I'll grant you that."

[conriocht]

"Yes, being around all the magic here must be strange for any Muggle, but goodness - you've never even ridden in a car or listened to a record. And the language is different, and customs and mores and everything... I used to think it would be brilliant to go back in time, but I never really thought about the culture shock

[estebanmd]

"Customs and mores, yes, well, they are different here than anywhere, are they not?" Stephen wondered whether Lupin's remark was an indirect comment on his marrying an eighteen-year-old, and in another context might have bridled at it; between the morning's exhilarating research and the present conviviality of rum, he was disinclined to take offense

[conriocht]

"Indeed," Lupin agreed. His comment about customs and mores had been directed more at Stephen's complete lack of concern in flapping his private parts around in a public area - he'd had the vague idea that Stephen was a proto-Victorian prude. It was odd to think that people were more Victorian in the 21st century than in the early 19th.

"Yes, we're well rid of that bastard Voldemort. I'd warned Miss Tam to stay away from Snape, and then I found out she'd sought out Snape's master instead." He shook his head. "She told me she could take care of herself, and I certainly believe her, but I was very worried about her." He wondered why Stephen had gone a bit pink. Perhaps... never mind. He didn't want to know. "I think that learning discretion and learning to control her abilities are two separate issues. I should think you would be a very good teacher in the art of discretion."

[estebanmd]

"I should think them to be two separate issues. She, on the other hand, has developed something of an idiosyncratic code of ethics for herself. I should not sit in judgment on the matter; I can hardly imagine what it would be like, to be in such a position as the one into which she has been forced. She never asked for these powers." He took a swallow of rum. "Rather than my teaching her discretion, she seems to have made me more indiscreet. Could you believe, I actually took part in that thing, that secrets board." Stephen had to chuckle at his own foolishness. "I suppose those things should really be left to the younger students."

[conriocht]

"I... erm, I took part in the secrets board as well." Lupin looked down at his glass of rum, which was inexplicably empty all of a sudden. He refilled it and took another drink. "Which was foolish of me. I think the object of one of my secrets figured out that it was me. The object of the other one, however..."

... was sitting right in front of him. Keep your bloody mouth shut, Lupin, he told himself. But with a goodly amount of rum inside him, he couldn't help making one more confession. "That was you, wasn't it, that I was talking to on that board? You said that... love is different every time, but it's always painful. And the only thing more painful than love is its absence."

[estebanmd]

Stephen looked at Lupin curiously. " So that was you. I had my suspicions."

[conriocht]

"So it was you. I knew it. Nobody else talks like you." Lupin smiled ironically. "You know, if you want to be discreet, you've got to learn some 21st-century idiom. But how did you know it was me? I was trying not to say 'oh my goodness' at all - that would've given me away immediately."

[estebanmd]

Stephen chuckled again and helped himself to more rum. Pirate rum was starting to grow on him. "I did make an effort to keep my language more modern in the actual secrets I posted, but I am afraid in the more involved conversations that resulted from answering some, I became more interested in the conversations than in concealing my identity particularly well. And, too, River knew which ones were for her anyhow. There were still one or two that no one guessed, so I am likely safe for now." He did not address the question of how he came to think the secret he'd commented on was Lupin's. It seemed indelicate to comment on the fact that they were the only two men in the school currently involved in, if not quite May-December romances, May-September at the least.

[conriocht]

Lupin noticed that Stephen had evaded his question. Was there some verbal tic he wasn't aware of? Or maybe the comment about "young women" - which he'd made to show Stephen that he was aware of Stephen's identity. Well, whatever. More rum!

"Yes, I was rather relieved that nobody guessed my other one. It would've been quite embarassing... well, the incident that inspired it was equally embarassing, so no harm done, perhaps, but..."

Dammit, why couldn't he just spit it out? Both of them had danced around the subject ever since the incident occurred. He was right, they really WERE awfully alike. Too alike, perhaps. He took another swig of rum, sighed, and stepped off the cliff, so to speak. "The secret was about you. About April Fool's Day."