RP: Wake Up, Open the Door, and Escape to the Sea

[pb_sam]

Characters: Sam Kennerly, Seamus Finnigan, Cho Weasley
Location: The Junk Shop --- Diagon Alley
Date: July 28, 2000
Status/Warning: Closed/Angst like WOAH
Summary: Sam finally learns the truth and runs into the worst possible person.
Completion: Incomplete

Comments

[pb_seamus]

"Okay -- boy, you know what to do with it!" Sea called back, struggling to hold the alarm clock in his hands; it had seen fit to go into a series of shakes that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards. For a moment there was no more noise from his end of things; then a large crash and enthusiastic cursing as the mechanism dropped from his fingers. For a moment the clock skittered along the floor like a crab, and burrowed somewhere in the doorknob pile.

Seamus sighed audibly, wiping sweat from his brow. "Well, feck that shite."

[pb_sam]

Sam had to wheel around on one foot to avoid having the crab-clock skitter over his feet and into the pile, which since the mirror incident had been moved closer to the front. He'd stopped asking questions like, "what was that?" in the first week and settled with:

"Are you alright?" A more easily answered question by far. At least Sam hoped. "Want me to take over?" The other front shelf was already emptied and packed away, waiting to be filled with other things.

[pb_seamus]

Seamus held out his arms, gesturing. "Take a look at me. Ain't nothing wrong here."

Then a good-natured grin. He waved Sam away good-naturedly. "Dunno. Think it's time for a break, then? If I ain't workin' on our shift seems only fair you wouldn't. Fair coworkin' an' all. We been left the display to change is all, really -- shite back there can wait till Wednesday even. Probably."

[pb_sam]

Sam nodded. The first week or so he would have been dubious about the many 'breaks' Sea suggested but not now. It was early in the day and stretching out the actual work meant staving off the boredom a little.

So of course that was when a customer entered. A rather...nervous, customer, in fact. That in and of itself wasn't strange--the shop thrived on strange--but this was the kind of strange that seemed to come from someone who was mindlessly terrified and trying (failing) to conceal it.

"Ex...Excuse me, but, can you help me?"

Sam smiled. "Er, what were you looking for today, sir?"

A set of spooked, yet somehow incredulous eyes strained on Sam. The man was small and wirey; almost struck Sam as a shut-in, perhaps because he was so so close to being one himself.

"Silver fire poker maybe? Or a knife, you sell knives?" The man asked, wringing his hands and scanning the walls as if searching for something.

"What do you need--nevermind. Sea, I need the key to the front case."

[pb_seamus]

Seamus offered the man a reassuring grin. The key was in the pocket of his (dirty) apron; he held up a finger to the man and to Sam, finally coming up with it a moment later. "I know what this one's on about, yeah. How you doin', sir? Look a bit white, you do -- look like you been readin' too much o' the paper, I tell you, and that's what. You're on de ball, sir, you got the right idea

[pb_sam]

Sam was used to to Seamus's method of pitching merchandise, and for the most part tuned it out--still after months of listening for key words or phrased his heart began to race at even the suggestion of certain syllables, put in a certain order of course.

It was the syllables that came a few beats later that made Sam drop the key as he was handing it back to Sea. 'least he's dead,' the words sounded so strange now that Sam was finally hearing them allowed and not in his own, guilt ravaged head--usually followed by the sentiments 'if only I've been stronger!' or 'If only I'd really looked!

But of course, of course, it was in front of him the whole time...in the stammering man in front of him, in the crumbled brick and the temporary library. About the fact that no one talked about it because really, how could anyone bear to really think about what Fenrir had believed in? What he'd died for?

Sam had, of course, and that alone welled the first horrible sob in his throat, breaking the terrible reverie he'd entered. 'No, no! It can't be

[pb_cho]

The sound of Seamus' calling out after Sam would be lost in the crowd -- because the crowd was real today, and bustling. There were people in the street living their lives, as usual, and if any of them thought of werewolves it was behind the usual smile, the usual scrape of boot and cobblestone. Ice cream was a constant here, Cho noticed; children bobbed along with cones in their hands, and their mothers looked on happily, and that was how the Alley had always been. Cauldrons and books and changing hands. She'd been silly to fear it, before; she couldn't imagine how she'd been blind to see that life continued, inevitably, as far as she could ever reach. It had been selfish to think that her past might be reflected in the faces she met along Diagon; if they echoed anything it was desire -- to be normal, to find what was needed, to meet friends, to allow day fading and night falling forward in its stead. it wasn't a citizen's fault, as to the condition of their streets or the quality of their history; Cho couldn't expect to be different

[pb_sam]

His forward momentum arrested, Sam lost all will to move and only stared, pale, tear-soaked face suddenly sick with shock. Suddenly it was winter and freezing again and he running to meet Fenrir, deliver something, and then the man was slamming him up against the alley wall. 'Chang...Cho I...think!'

Sam felt the air slam out of his lungs again, as if the shadow of the man, the werewolf were right there.

"You..." Sam started, having nothing to say to this woman, nothing that would change anything, or heal the scars that no one saw but her, ever time he looked in the mirror. They were his scars too, of course.

Possessed by some nameless desire to be close to her, Sam shuffled forward, one hand reaching tenuously towards her, as though he were drowning and not sure he wanted to be saved. "I didn't know." Sam didn't know anything. Nothing at all.

Nothing.

[pb_cho]

"Stay away from me."

If they had been alone, Cho would have screamed it; but as it was the crowd still swelled around them, and she was surrounded by strangers, and the only person she recognised -- could name, because this was the Sam she'd thought of sometimes after running from him, shy of predators -- and all she could really do was mumble brokenly, even thoughtlessly. It was a long moment of his hand hanging between them; perhaps they appeared as old friends. But then it was really only a short moment after all, and Cho's fingers went to her wand; her expression shifted, boiling, and all at once twisted angrily. With it her mouth grew sharp -- and it shook for a moment, wavering, but there was something pressing at her throat and temples and after a breath or so she realised it was fury.

She didn't care if Sam didn't know anything. She hadn't had anyone to blame before -- she hadn't been able to blame him, because he'd been so helpless -- but with an apology was opportunity to decline. It was a glorious moment of wanting to

[pb_sam]

He couldn't blame her. Not when Sam wanted nothing but to get away from himself escape the fact that he'd ruined his life, trusted it to fear and mad strangers and echoes of a past he barely remembered. The words still hurt though, because although Sam wasn't really aware of it, he had needed to be forgiven.

But...but Fenrir helped him, saved his life...even if he had been the 'werewolf' that killed everyone aboard The Gallagher he'd spared Sam...saved his life probably, from dying at sea. And maybe, maybe rather than abandoning him because he was useless, Fenrir had not wanted Sam caught up in all that chaos. Yes, that had to be it, Fenrir had protected Sam from his own evil.

Sam didn't reach out again, but forced himself to stand straight; wipe at his eye, futile though it was. "I didn't know...please, please, just try..." Try to what? Believe? Forgive him? Sam wanted and deserved neither. "I never meant, never..."

[pb_cho]

"What?" Cho spat. "You didn't know? You didn't --"

By now they were getting curious looks from passersby; but for once, for the first time in a long while, she found she did not care at all what they thought of her behavior. It was hardly reckless to be angry here, or ball her fists -- even if only to wipe a frustrated tear from her eye a moment later -- and she deserved to take a tone, allow her eyes to harden further. She could not remember being this angry in a very long time; not even at herself, or her hands, or the inability to feel human again. It was difficult to know what to do with all of it. It was difficult to do much of anything for a moment but fume, and quiver with the weight of it. She breathed heavily for a moment -- in, out, audible disbelief -- and met his eyes with every inch of December left, because there was December in everything still. Your fault. It would take years to melt it all away; Cho hadn't cried quite enough yet. Difficult to believe. She had trouble with too much; when it was too much she did things

[pb_sam]

Words; his words being said aloud again, confirming what he'd always known seemed to unfreeze Sam. Something was moving beneath the frozen horror of the accusations and anger being directed at him. The moment Sam realized what it was, he swallowed hard, knowing he had to get out of there or risk letting that writhing thing below his stomach loose.

"Me too." He managed to reply, terror still dominant in his eyes as he backed away from her and dashed off again. The thing welling in his gut wouldn't stay there much longer, but he needed to get away from people to let it loose.

[pb_cho]

"Good!" Cho called out after him; her voice broke. "Good..."

There was a moment she could not move, and only watched him go -- not triumphant, but breathing hard, breathing, and then running.

And she did not stop.

[pb_sam]

Sam ran for longer than he had breath for--long enough to summon again that strange drowning sensation. By the time the doors of the Leaky Couldron slammed open if felt like there were raw cracks in his lungs where the air seeped out before he could fill them again properly

[pb_seamus]

The customer hadn't been happy about Sam running off; it had made him more skittish than ever, and in the end he'd bought four silver pieces. While Seamus could not deny that this was a brilliant scheme on Sam's part, the fact that the boy didn't come back afterward took away from the effect. He waited for him for what felt like forever -- but was really half an hour or so -- and after it grew boring watching the clock skitter under various draperies and furniture, he decided to take his break. It was sad to think that he'd waste it going after Sam (sometimes the boy was plain odd, and that was clear) but he did like the company, and they'd gotten along, and in a small way he was worried about how frightened his friend had looked running away.

Was it something I said? Seamus had some difficulty remembering exactly what he'd told the customer, and thus had little to no idea what could have triggered such a reaction in Sam. Unless -- well, unless it really had been a ploy to sell and the lad was waiting for him to go on break.

[pb_sam]

Sam had moved, stumbled more like it, out of the bathroom and into the main room. He barely saw Sea when he entered and certainly couldn't hear him over the sound of his own--heart break? madness? Surely he was mad, Sam thought.

He laughed harder and reached around his bed for a hidden sketchbook, the one almost completely dedicated to Fenrir. He held it reverently for a moment, not opening it but running fingers over the cloth cover as if trying to remove something only he could see.

Blood. There was blood everywhere. When he looked up again, Sea was bleeding too--Sam's hands were covered with it, and he reflexively wiped them over his face, dropping the sketch book so it fell open.