RP: A night at the World's End

[tt_sirius]

Date: 14 Aug 2002
Characters: Sirius Black, open
Setting: World's End Pub
Content: TBD
Status: Public : Complete



Sirius let himself into his house just after 5 pm, tired and with a head full of magical incantations from debriefing Kingsley. He took a long, hot shower and dressed as he normally did in jeans and a dark t-shirt, only running his fingers through his hair before locking up again. The walk to the World's End cleared some of the clustering enchantments from his head, the fresh air soothing and cooler as the sun began to set on the horizon.

He found a table near the windows and took a seat, content to wait until the barmaid came by to take his order.

Comments

[tt_remus]

Remus was looking forward to a night of just hanging out with whomever showed up. It seemed like ages since Sirius, James, and himself had got together. He wasn't sure when Sirius would be there, but decided to wait until the dinner crowd had left before showing up.

Upon arrival, he scanned the pub quickly before finding Sirius. "Hey Padfoot. How are you?"

[tt_sirius]

Most of the loud, boisterous dinner eaters had long since moved onto either the night clubs, the beaches, or back home when Sirius looked up to see Remus enter the pub. He'd had his own meal in relative peace. It seemed the younger refugees really didn't make the connection between Sirius Black, formerly convicted of murder, and the man who sat amongst them now. Possibly due to the fact that he'd gained a decent amount of weight back living in the colony, so he didn't have such a gaunt look about his face.

"Moony, good to see you, good to see you. Pull up a seat, mate," Sirius offered with a low grin, gesturing to one of the chairs opposite him. "I'm doing all right, happy to be back here. How are you holding up?"

[tt_remus]

Remus pulled out a chair, and sat down, "I'm doing well. How was the trip? How rough is it over there?" Remus had wondered about the other continents, wondering if traveling there was a possibility as well as inhabiting them. He wouldn't mind setting sail for another continent, as long as he wouldn't get ate by some giant sea monster.

"Have you heard from anyone else?"

[tt_sirius]

"It's not bad if you're on the settlement or the docks - we've got wards in place to keep the animals away from those areas. Its still rough as hell if you go off the settlement, though. The bigger ones - velo-something or others - they are canny buggers, always watching from the bushes outside the settlement. We lost a security bloke two weeks ago. He thought he was out of their territory and got out of his Rover to take a piss. All we found was the Rover, keys still in it," Sirius explained, then he took a long draw on his beer.

Sirius shook his head. "No, I imagine James and Lily are dealing with their own things. I've been gone awhile. They'll come around when they are ready."

[tt_remus]

Remus' eyes widened. "That's rough," he murmured and ordered a beer for himself. "You plan on being around for a while this time or are they sending you back out?"

[tt_sirius]

"True, but I blame the lax training over here. These two islands couldn't be more different and yet, so few of the people here know that. Australia isn't tame like Zealandia is," Sirius replied grimly. He didn't like losing people, but that was the truth. Zealandia lulled people into a false sense of paradise that wasn't reflected on Australia.

He gave a non-committal shrug. "I should be here more consistently, now that they don't need me to get over there. Haven't a clue what I'll do. How are you doing? What keeps you busy here?"

[tt_cecilia]

Though Cecilia hadn’t exactly gone out of her way to steer clear of Sirius in her endeavour to regain some of her clarity of mind, she hadn’t done anything to put herself in his path either. She had missed him, sure, missed his company and the friendship they had had – if nothing more – so when she found herself replying to his datapad post, she wasn’t entirely surprised. Then again, she wasn’t completely certain what it was she would be going to see him for, but after spending most of the day in the field trying to figure that out, she simply gave up; she wanted to see him and spend a bit of time with him and that would have to be all the reason she needed to go down to the World’s End this evening.

Jamie, it seemed, had been in a sharing mood tonight, and they had had a nice time talking about the chores he did at the Ark and how he was using what he had learned in school to make the best of it while having their dinner. So it was quite a bit later than Cecilia had thought, before she changed into her khaki skirt and white tunic and had made her way down to the pub.

It took her a few moments to spot him, and when she did she had another decision to make; Sirius wasn’t alone, and while Cecilia had no problems with Remus, whatsoever, she didn’t want to interrupt their chat. Instead she waited until Sirius looked up, and sent him a small smile along with a brief wave and went to take seat by the bar. She could wait, and if it got to be too late before he was done, she would go see him another day.

[tt_sirius]

His visit with Remus went longer than he expected, but Sirius was glad to see Cecilia was still at the bar when Remus finally called it a night. Even though Sirius was older, his friend's condition put far more of a strain on his body then Sirius's age did on his own. He walked Remus to the door, carrying his beer, then headed to the bar to take the seat next to Cecilia.

"Thank you for waiting," he said quietly, unsure of how to proceed. He was tired, but not that tired and the fact that she'd come to see him and then waited this long told him that she was still interested in him in some manner. Now it was time to make a decision of his own in this regard. Did he try to respark their chemistry that was clearly still between them or did he let her go? She was young and beautiful, with so much potential ahead of her. He had no business trying to keep her. "How have you been? How's Jamie doing?"

[tt_cecilia]

“It’s good to see you,” Cecilia smiled up at Sirius when his voice caught her attention. And it was good to see him, regardless of what had happened to them or where they were at this point. He looked tired, sure, but he also looked healthier, stronger than the last time she had seen him, and back then he had looked a great deal better than the first time they had met. Like Jamie, it seemed that Sirius was if not thriving, then at least doing well here.

“I’ve been… working,” she said with a soft chuckle, because even to herself it sounded like a lame excuse. But it was what she had been doing, and she had done so to keep from considering how she was doing and what she was feeling. “And Jamie’s well too. He turned into a teenager one night a few months back, but he’s good.” With a small sigh she shrugged slightly; there wasn’t anything she could do about Jamie growing up or the fact that it was happening in quick intervals. It was just the way it was.

“You look well,” she told him, changing the topic back to him. “Are you?”

[tt_sirius]

"Working, right," he agreed neutrally. He couldn't really say anything about that given that he'd just been on Australia for nearly a month straight. "They grow up so fast," Sirius commented, nodding thoughtfully. "I only have experience with Harry and that really wasn't for very long."

He tilted his head and turned to her, meeting Cecilia's gaze directly. "I want to make things... right between us, Cecilia. A lot happened on Australia, a lot that I keep thinking about, a lot that I can't help but think about. You're... important to me."

[tt_cecilia]

“I only have experience with Jamie,” Cecilia chuckled softly. “And he went to bed one night, just being the big boy that he was, and the next morning a teenager joined me for breakfast.” It was the best she could explain it, because it had been the same Jamie, of course, he just seemed… taller, bigger, older, like he had grown sharper angles overnight.

Looking up into Sirius’ eyes, she tilted her head slightly. She worried her lower lip as she listened to him, missing him more than she had in months, even if he was sitting right there. It was as if while they had been apart, she could pretend that they were at least still friends, but hearing him searching for words like he did now made her think that it really only had been pretending she had been doing. “You’re important to me, too,” she said quietly, rolling her hand to the side to brush her knuckles against the back of his hand. She swallowed down, a myriad of questions popping into her head, though she didn’t want to shoot them all at him at once and risk pushing him further away than she already had. “What is it you keep thinking about?” Moving just a little closer to him, she wanted to keep their conversation between the two of them. This wasn’t any of the other patrons’ business.

[tt_sirius]

"That sounds about right," Sirius replied with an echoing chuckle himself as he thought about Harry during the time he'd been able to talk to him, even through a Firecall to Hogwarts.

The brush of her knuckles made his hand unclench and Sirius reached out to take her hand in his gently. Something about the way she said that, it bolstered his resolve for a moment, then put him on caution again. It seemed he wasn't the only one confused by all this. She moved closer and Sirius adjusted on the bar stool to give her room.

"Our time on Australia, that's what. Can you tell me honestly that you haven't?" Sirius replied, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.

[tt_cecilia]

Cecilia watched their hands, watched how easily her own fingers closed around Sirius’ warm ones. It felt good to touch him again, even this small, almost innocent gesture. While it didn’t make the words flow, from either of them, it didn’t bring back the memories of what they had gone through together.

Idly she caressed his thumb with her free hand, looking up to meet his gaze when he finally spoke. Slowly Cecilia shook her head. “No,” she said. “I can’t honestly do that.” Licking her lips she drew in a deep breath. “I think about it… quite a bit, actually.” The brush of her fingers against his continued, even as she looked away from him. “What about it?”

[tt_sirius]

He didn't miss the way her gaze dropped to their joined hands, or the way her own fingers closed around his, accepting, not pulling away or distancing herself from him. That was promising.

When she finally lifted her gaze to his, Sirius couldn't have guessed what she was going to say. The only woman he really knew these days was Lily and she had always been an open parchment to him. "What about it? Merlin's beard, woman, what do you want me to say? I gave you space, whatever that bloody well means."

Sirius sighed, swallowing hard. He wasn't the kind of guy who put his heart out on his sleeve. He wasn't even sure it was his heart that was doing the primary talking here, but he knew he missed her. "I miss you. I think about what we couldn't... do, when there was no magic."

[tt_cecilia]

With a sigh Cecilia rubbed her forehead. She hadn’t meant to upset Sirius, little less make little of the fact that he was still thinking about what had happened on Australia. “I just meant what about it is it you’ve been thinking about.” Aside from the obvious point that they had been stranded hundreds of miles from the nearest people with no magic, the fact that they had managed to navigate a predator filled, hostile landscape with no injuries worse than scratches was something she could imagine would fill a lot with everybody. And then there was the tension that had been there…

…which apparently was also what had been on Sirius’ mind. Or at least the physical aspect of it. “I miss you, too,” she whispered and swallowed down. “So fucking much you wouldn’t believe it, especially with the way I’ve acted.” Even she could see that. “I think about that, too, and about how I’m grateful that if it had to happen, there’s nobody else I could imagine to ever have gone through that with but you.” And then there were all those other thoughts that kept coming to her. Like how she wanted to tell him everything but hadn’t and couldn’t because it was not how she did things. It wasn’t how she had ever done things. This was her problem, her business and it was hers alone to deal with. Nobody else’s, and she would never expect Sirius, or anybody else for that matter, to help her with it. Wasn’t that what she had experienced her whole life? Life was tough, but you dealt with it, and if you really needed help it was your family that helped you, and in lieu of those you dealt with it yourself. You didn’t pry in other people’s life and in return they didn’t snoop in yours. Oh, but how she wanted to tell Sirius everything right now. “I asked you for space because I needed to… to deal with some things, come to terms with them. I’ve no secrets, Sirius, I just don’t know how much I can or should tell you, because they're my concerns to deal with.”

[tt_sirius]

He shifted a bit closer as a sudden flare-up of noise happened in the pub, which wasn't unusual. Sirius caught what Cecilia said, feeling a wave of relief that his little outburst hadn't closed her off again.

"Cecilia, you can tell me anything you want to tell me," Sirius stated firmly, giving her hand a squeeze just as his datapad starting beeping frantically. "Son of a... dammit," he growled, pulling the datapad out and glancing at it before sighing in frustration. "Look, I have to go. There's been an incident at the dock. But this isn't over, all right?"

He lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a quick kiss there, before standing, waiting just long enough for her nod of understanding before he disapparated.

[tt_cecilia]

Cecilia looked at Sirius, once again not saying anything while she tried to find the right words. She wanted to tell him everything, but didn’t know where to start or even to what end, other than to show him that she really didn’t have any secrets. She got as far as her lips parting, when his datapad started beeping, and it was with equal parts relief and regret that realised that anything she wanted to tell him would have to wait until later. “All right,” she assured him with a soft smile.

She swallowed down when he kissed her hand, holding his gaze for a moment before she nodded. She could do this, she understood that he had to go, even if she didn’t want him to.