[closed] Stitch in your knitted brow
Who: Verity Kindle (calamitousnaiad) and Remus Lupin (lumenrelegandus)
When: Um... todayish. In the evening.
Where: The street just outside the clinic.
Format: Prose!
What: It's a blind date! Even though both of them already have... ahem... complicated relationships.
Warnings: Probably nothing except Lupin's state of mind?
( Trying to catch your breath but it always beats you by a step, all right now )
When: Um... todayish. In the evening.
Where: The street just outside the clinic.
Format: Prose!
What: It's a blind date! Even though both of them already have... ahem... complicated relationships.
Warnings: Probably nothing except Lupin's state of mind?
( Trying to catch your breath but it always beats you by a step, all right now )
When he woke up that morning to find a grey string on his finger, he didn't think much of it. River had run out of flowers before he saw her, perhaps this was an oblique substitute gift. Perhaps Shirley was trying to make a point about something and he'd find out later. Perhaps it was a pixie's revenge for interrupting its sleep. When he tried to take it off, he was interrupted by the appearance of a staff member, and forgot all about it.
He'd been unconsciously trying to work it off his finger all day, but never able to pause and absorb the fact that he was failing to do so.
He'd also been feeling an increasingly palpable pull to go outside.
This also seemed fairly natural. He hadn't left the Clinic in days. Not since Tonks came back.
He still had no intention of leaving.
What was strange was when, in lieu of nothing, in the moment of a minute of calm, nothing to trigger an aversion response or overwhelm, the pull became unrefusable.
(Maybe the moment of calm had done it-a moment to remember and experience the horror at what had been done, and his failure to immediately undo it…?
Maybe the magnet of the charm grew more forceful as its two points became geographically close.)
In any case, he put down the papers he was holding on the nearest desk and walked out; straight out the door, and down the steps. As he glanced down for one more attempt to untie the string, he collided with her.
"Oof… no, I'm sorry, my fault entirely…" He knelt to help her collect her books.
As he was handing her forge back to her, their raised hands between them displayed the matching grey strings.
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Odd, too, that though he didn't really bear any resemblance aside from the mustache (which was actually rather straight on this man instead of slightly crooked), he was somehow very strongly reminding her of Ned. He was older and looked much more worn and not quite as jaunty and adorable, but somehow she felt drawn to him in almost the same sort of way.
And perhaps that was why, on a whim, she had chosen to visit the clinic on this walk instead of a hundred other places she still had yet to see, because she knew she would find him here. Magic was still very much a foreign concept to her - as a reality at least it was unfamiliar, though obviously she'd seen a few rabbits come out of hats in her time - but having read over a great many books and old documents she was aware that it was a real, natural concept that exerted its influence o the populous from time to time. And she had to assume that was what this was. What else could have drawn her to collide with an absolute stranger in such an odd part of the city? What else could make her feel as if she was meant to meet him, though she was certain Ned was doing all he could to come for her even as she stood here?
"Someone seems to think we might make a good match." She laughed, light and a little nervous. Standing up, she offered him her hand, combination hand-up and handshake (she had to hope he was not from a time where it was inappropriate for a woman to shake hands with a man, because she had no better clues than his clothing). "I'm Verity Kindle. My apologies again for running into you."
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"I'm… sorry, good match?" Searching his unconscious memory for things he may have overheard but not registered. …Blind. There it was. "There must be a mistake, I never entered my name."
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She withdrew her hand, recruiting it instead to join the other to support the pile of books and her Forge.
"Nor did I. I actually haven't any need for a matchmaker but it seems my name was put in regardless. Others on the network are saying the same. I suppose the company thought it might help business to shanghai some of us into participating." She tried another smile, though this one was slightly more cautious and reserved.
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Except that his hand his rather obviously shaking.
"…I'm sorry." Third time. Maybe he always started his sentences with an apology. Maybe not. "This isn't… the best time for…"
A less-than-happy laugh and he glanced away.
Anatole. You don't get bored, do you. Or is the problem that you're always bored.
He raised his head again to look at her. Took her in very intently.
…Of course, of course, she would be so strikingly like the woman who'd once overrun his dreams. Intelligent eyes. Kind mouth. Red hair.
His own motives are impossible for him to parse any more. Is it her resemblance to Lily? Is it the compellation charm on their fingers? Is the ridiculousness of the situation?
Whatever it is, he goes full throttle for honesty, possibly beyond the pale.
"Ms. Kindle… if you'll pardon my assumption that you're new here, I'll risk being patronising."
He pointed at the building behind them.
"That's the Clinic. I work there. I just came from the bedside of a woman I'm treating. On my world, in my time, she was my wife. In her time on that world, we'd only just met. Just as we were getting acquainted in this world… something very, very terrible happened to… was done to her… by someone who hates us both, all the more so for getting married, and took it out on her entirely here and now.
"I tell you all this to impress upon you how absolutely it's true when I now say: pardon my obvious displeasure at this situation, I truly need no convincing that it's no more in your control or of your choosing than it is mine, we are at times quite literally toys to the gods here; and it's not you, it's me."
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The explanation itself, however, was something she could not have foreseen. A complicated web of timelines crossed and emotions tied up in the threads. She frowned, her eyes round with sympathy. It was easy, maybe too easy now, for her to imagine how painful it must have been to be cut off from his wife, to have her but only from an earlier time, reset and not knowing him. If Ned were to come here from a time before he'd met her... Well, Verity of all people knew how delicate timelines could be. And how possible that was in a place like this. It was enough almost to make her cry.
"No, of course. I understand absolutely." She nodded, biting her lip. But those few words didn't seem sufficient. This man was clearly suffering and though she didn't know him or his wife or the third party who had tried to destroy them, she did feel an inexplicable connection to him. Maybe it was the string tied between them, maybe it was something of herself or Ned she saw in him, maybe it was just that his pain had struck a cord in her heart, but it didn't really matter to her what the reason was because the feeling was there. And the well of sadness and compassion she felt which seemed to have sprung out of nowhere was rather too much for her to ignore.
Still she fumbled. Not sure what to say, how to express this sympathy and unable to tell if he might really need it or if he would rather be left alone.
But she couldn't help but try.
"I know we've only just met, but if there's anything at all I can do, I'd be glad to."
A clumsy effort, but she wouldn't have felt right not making it.
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He opened his mouth to speak. Then, involuntarily, from some release of pressure, instead burst out with a laugh.
Shaking his head, he held out his hand near to hers and looked at the strings.
"A self-defeating system," he said. "Succeeding in bringing together people who would indeed find a startlingly immediate level of compatibility, and could well be welcome company, yet doing so in a fashion that causes undeserved aversion and the worst first impression possible."
Turning over his hand, he offered it to hers to shake.
"Hullo. My name's Remus Lupin. I haven't been out of the Clinic in several days. If I haven't completely ruined your day, and you don't mind the possibility I could ruin it further… I would welcome a walking companion for a little while."
Sometimes it was good to take a cue. He needed out from the Clinic and from everyone he knew-but would be grateful indeed not to be alone.
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She extended her own hand to take his and shook it, firm despite her delicate hand and hopefully not too energetic.
"You haven't ruined anything at all, Mr Lupin. And I would be very pleased to accompany you. I happen to have nothing much to do and I am very good at walking."
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