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| Can't Fight the Feeling | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 12 2012, 10:47 PM (359 Views) | |
| Calleigh Bancroft | Aug 12 2012, 10:47 PM Post #1 |
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There’s a boy, isn’t there? Calleigh knew that there was something more to her friendship with Jude. She knew that they were meant to be friends, perhaps the best of, though there was always something niggling in her mind about the state of their friendship and how it always seemed so natural even when they were two strikingly different people. He was reckless, laidback and rugged in dangerous kind of way. And she was careful, high strung, and straight laced. But, they always just accepted each other and blended into each other’s live; so easy and effortless… It wasn’t until she received a return owl from her sister, Bea, that Calleigh began thinking that this thing with Jude, this friendship she had grown so fond of, might be something more if she would acknowledge that he was a boy – a real boy with a handsome face and a nice, lean and toned body. The sort of boy that did more than cause mischief and laughter. The kind of boy that made her giggle and blush. There’s a boy, isn’t there? Over and over and over, she read one line in a two foot scroll of parchment. Over and over and over until Calleigh thought that her eyes were going to explode and never be able to read the words again. There was a boy, wasn’t there? There was a boy; a very different boy from all the rest of the boys. He was a boy. So there was a boy. Was that what her sister was trying to tell her? That this boy wasn’t just a boy like the other boys in her year. He was a real boy, like the kind that her sisters had all grown attached to; boys that held their hands and smiled at them when they weren’t looking. Was that Jude? Could she replace the word and fit his name? There’s Jude, isn’t there? Yes. There’s Jude. He was rushing warmth and, and, and, things she couldn’t even comprehend. Breathlessness. Giddiness. Laughter. Coyness. How did she not ever realize all of those times alone, in dangerous situations, the monster that was swelling and shouting inside of her that this boy was meant for her, was becoming bigger and louder and more uncontrollable? How could she ignore it for so long and look him in the eyes and say goodbye and not mourn the loss of him from her side? For so long, Calleigh had smiled back at him, not flirting or trying to gain his attention, but true smiles from his ability to make her feel genuine and beautiful and loved… without ever realizing what those things meant to girls. There’s a boy, isn’t there? Yes. Unequivocally, yes. Tossing her scroll of parchment to the side of her bed, ignoring that it fell down the cracks between the poster bed and the wall, Calleigh leapt from her bed and sprung down the stairs. She ignored the curious gazes as she bounded from one end of the common room to the other. Hell, she was wearing the Chudley Cannon fleece pajamas that Sebastian had bought for Christmas, but didn’t care… she had to… Well, she wasn’t exactly sure. Nerves started to make her second guess herself. She discovered her feelings for Jude… but what if they weren’t reciprocated? What if … what if it was just her? What if to him, she was just a girl, but not the girl like he was her boy? Calleigh paused in her steps. Even as she backed away from the portrait door, feeling like a right arse, it swung open. There he was. The boy. Covered in dirt, twigs in his hair, shirt ripped up the side and hanging from his body, scratch across his nose and remnants of sweat still visible at his hairline. If it was anyone else, Calleigh might have turned her nose up, walked away, not thought twice about the smell of the earth wafting from him, the subtle red glow on his face that blended so oddly against his tanned skin. She might have passed him by because, even though she was in her jimjams, with her unbrushed hair and makeupless face, the two people facing each other right at that moment were very different from one another. She was order and he was chaos. If it was anyone else, Calleigh might have considered that there wasn’t a future for the pair of them because the contrast was too great. But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Jude. She couldn’t speak and even though she was searching her vocabulary for one, simple word that might break the silence of the moment, she stared at him not speaking or moving. Just staring at him and his disheveled state, wondering where to go from here when she knew that regardless of how he may feel towards her, the way that Calleigh felt about him now had changed the dynamic of their relationship as friends. It wouldn’t be the same, not ever. And there was no word she could find that would ease her into that reality. |
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| Jude McFadyen | Jul 14 2013, 03:12 AM Post #2 |
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To say the evening had gone well would have been like saying Voldemort had just been throwing a temper tantrum when he tried to take over the world that one time. Jude couldn’t remember an evening that had gone less well, in fact. And given his track record with well-deprived evenings, that was . . . really, really saying something. Several things. Several painful, achy, bruisy, won’t-be-able-to-walk-properly-for-a-month-or-so things. He was beginning to think he should go into medicine just so he wouldn’t have to pay hospital bills when he got older. ‘Course, it had all started out fine enough (they always do, though, the sneaky tossers), with a rollicking good time at the Hog’s Head. Sure, they’d gotten kicked out for somehow nearly starting the Second Great War between the banshees and the vampires (there’d been a lot of fighting words thrown around, mostly of the “SHRIEKY HAG!” and “POINTY-TOOTHED MAN-BITCH!” variety – also, who even knew there’d been a first one of those?), but they cut their losses and decided to go on a spending free-for-all at the joke shop like the not-even-remotely-secret six-year-olds they actually were. Toy wands were purchased and used liberally on the trek back to the castle. They were harmless, really. Mainly just shot out hissing sparks and whirligig flares and whistle noises at random. Well. Until one of them went rogue just as they were passing the Care of Magical Creatures holding-pen area, anyway. Because of course it did. Probably became aware on some base atomic level that it had entered Merry Men territory in the fabric of reality and just acted accordingly from there. You could hardly blame it. Anyway, one second, they were having a grand old time pretend-dueling and singeing the hell out of each other, and the next a crazed rocket of red, sparking whizz-bangery fired off into the night before hitting, with a rather shocking amount of accuracy, the latch to one of the nearer pens, which then turned promptly into a lizard. The latch, that is. Whereupon it looked around in startled, unexpected, reptilian sentience for a bit before skittering wildly off into the darkness to live a life blessedly free of creaky ups and downs. (A truly impressive feat of Transfiguration, honestly, which basically just meant that it never in a million flipping eons would have happened had it actually been on purpose.) It . . . also meant that the animal currently residing inside said pen (a particularly bitey, one-year-old Crup that looked like a cross between a dirty mop and a fork-tailed Jack Russell terrier) now had every reason in the world to make a long sought-after break for it. Which it did. Spectacularly. The trio could only watch in dumbstruck horror as the thing burst from its confines and crashed off like a speedy little hellfiend into the treeline, making an alarming amount of noise for something so pint-sized. Shocked silence reigned in the incident’s aftermath. Though, it didn’t really take long for the three boys to break it by erupting seemingly all at once to hurl accusations at each other and argue loudly over whose wand had been the actual culprit. Predictably, this got them nowhere and cost them precious time that really should have been spent chasing after the jailbreaker, since it probably wouldn’t last long in the hostile environment it had just rocketed off into. The whole thing reeked of an obligatory rescue mission. Plus, it was their fault, so. Dammit. Thus, utterly predictably, the three idiot young men, in the heroic meddling tradition of their shared Merry Men history, hastened to said rescue by diving without further hesitation into the Forbidden Forest’s murky depths. It took a while, but eventually they found the bugger digging a hole near the base of a tree in an otherwise deserted clearing. Actually physically catching it turned out to be the real hard part, since it then proceeded to freeze and eye them distrustfully while looking milliseconds away from lamming it again, and no amount of thigh-slapping, whistling, or high-pitched cooing could convince it to get within snatching distance. To be fair, the cooing had been legitimately frightening, so you couldn’t really fault it for that one. Desperate measures called for, Silas decided to take an uncharacteristic amount of initiative by grabbing a handful of puce-colored berries from a nearby bush and attempted to use them as bait in one outstretched open palm, which he wiggled a bit in what he surely hoped was an enticing manner. Apparently, Crups were notorious eat-anything-ers, but all he got for his troubles from this one was a probably-unrelated, dirt-nosed snuffle and a decidedly blank stare. For those following along at home, it should be noted that the moment that followed marked the exact point the whole evening went completely arse-over-tit. Because Silas then got it into his head that all the little guy needed was a demonstration of sorts and, before Jude or Seb could stop him, popped the whole bloody handful of yet-to-be-identified berries into his own mouth. In a stroke of unheard-of good luck, they didn’t turn out to be poison. In a stroke of intimately well-known bad luck, however, they did turn out to be hallucinogenic. Five minutes, and he was careening off into the wilderness like a flaily-limbed, newborn giraffe-gone-mental, yelling things like “I CAN SMELL COLORS!” and something about needing to find a Centaur immediately, because he was one with the universe now and wanted to join his fellow star-loving, half-horsey brethren. Which would have been sufficiently terrifying on its own had he not also decided to tack onto that statement another, even more terrifying one. “Plus, I’ve always wanted a pony!” The poison would have been better. Either way, he was unquestionably going to die. So, in the end, they had to chase two things. Jude the animal, and Sebastian the Silas. And yes, Jude was very, very aware that he’d probably gotten the better end of the deal on that one. Although, by the time he eventually caught up with them later, Crup tucked securely under one heavily scratched-up arm, Seb was trying to coax their balls-tripping friend down from a tree. Which . . . didn’t bode well at all. Because guess who had to climb up after him. By the time they got back to the castle a good, solid two hours later, all three of them looked like they’d just recently been exhumed. Or spat out of a debris-laden tornado. And they couldn’t even technically call it a night yet, because Silas was still higher than a hippie in a goddamn helicopter, and some duty-driven act of friendship had them making a temporary pit stop at the library to see if they could find out whether whatever he’d ingested was life-threatening or not. Apparently, the effects would wear off after about six hours or so, though. Then again, the side effects did include things like sentient earwax, phantom diaper syndrome, and gills. Bit worrying. Afraid to look themselves, they asked Silas if he was feeling particularly gilly, but all he did was giggle and tell them that the bananas looked like “yellow smiles” – an answer just bizarre enough for them to deem any more conversing a lost cause. Especially since there weren’t any bananas in sight, at the moment. Kind of hard to come by in a library, weirdly enough. Only then did they go their separate ways. Seb assured Jude he’d lock Silas in their dorm room for the rest of the night, where he’d hopefully wear himself out and sleep it off. Which pretty much meant Jude was 100% convinced he’d wake up tomorrow with aching limbs and news of the Dungeon’s overnight, unexplained flooding. Probably the gills. It was bound to happen. At this point, he was so exhausted he couldn’t find it in himself to care much. It took the entirety of what was left of his energy to shamble his way back to his common room, looking like what he was sure was hell embodified. And smelling like sweat, dirt, and something uniquely Merry Men-esque, which was basically just a combination of utterly spent adrenaline and idiocy. He hadn’t really bothered taking an inventory of his injuries yet, but from what he could tell, he was bloody-well covered in cuts and bruises and tree, and if the persistent stinging sensation was anything to go by, there was definitely a fairly sizable scratch covering the length of his side. It would explain the draft. Shirt was ruined for sure. Bugger it. He’d really liked that one, too. No wonder he was always broke; half his money went into replenishing his apparently suicidal wardrobe. Grimacing and barely withholding a sigh, he finally arrived at his destination and trudged through the portrait hole as it swung noiselessly open for him into the Common Room’s warmth, where he was greeted by the sound of distant chatter and— Calleigh. He halted instantly. Their eyes locked. His heart did that stupid flip-floppy thing he’d never once experienced in all his years of thrill-seeking lunacy. And all he could think was: I’m pretty sure there’s a leaf in my ear. Also: Great. It figured. They were clearly doomed to a fate of ludicrous, accidental meetings. Ones where he just had to look like he’d just come back from insulting the Whomping Willow’s mother, while she looked like . . . that. All mussy-haired and bright-eyed and wearing a pair of oversized Chudley Cannon jimjams that made her look endearingly younger and unreasonably adorable. Stop that, his brain chided instantly. It was becoming a daily mantra, at this point. Stop staring at her. Stop trying to make her laugh. Stop grinning like an idiot. Look, there’s a Troll over there. Go poke it with a stick. Distractions seemed to be essential where Calleigh was concerned anymore. They also never worked. Probably wouldn’t now, either, he suspected. His shoulders slumped a little. Might as well meet it head-on, then. “Let’s be honest, this isn’t the worst state you’ve caught me in,” he pointed out, in way of greeting. Rather reasonably, he thought. And as if to discredit everything he’d just said, a few stray twigs chose that timely moment to dislodge from the disaster-zone that was his hair and plummet to the ground with faint, but highly incriminating plink-plink noises. He glared at them. Traitors. |
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| Calleigh Bancroft | Jul 15 2013, 01:22 AM Post #3 |
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Instead of an awkward hello, Jude eased her into their usual, casual encounter greetings. (And to be fair, these casual encounters typically led to some bat-crap crazy flailing through darkened tunnels, closets or basements.) Somehow, it calmed her racing heart almost immediately. “Let’s be honest, this isn’t the worst state you’ve caught me in,” he declared with a boyish, been-caught-in-the-act smile. When he lowered his gaze to stare at a couple of twigs that plunked to the floor, a sprinkling of pine needles followed suit. Calleigh laughed through her nose and glanced down at the ground as her shoulders lifted and fell with very poorly contained amusement. “I’m starting to believe that I’m not the disaster-attracter in this friendship,” she teased him with a trace of her laughter lacing the words. When her eyes rose back to his, she was distracted by a feebly-moving piece of leaf sticking out the side of Jude’s hair. She stepped forward to retrieve it, trying not to let her eyes convey that she was nervous by their nearness. Bugger off, she silently scolded her reddening cheeks and jittery heart. “How in the world do you manage it?” Calleigh mumbled under her breath as she plucked a crunchy, half-leaf from just above Jude’s ear and held it up in his line of vision before dropping it to the floor to remain with its twig and pine needle friends. Thing was, Calleigh wasn’t sure if she meant the unruly mess of decorative forest atop his head or the fact that she simply didn’t mind plucking stray leaves from it. Anyone else, and her first reaction would be to spray him down with a hose and disinfectant. Not Jude, though. And it momentarily baffled her how he could be so bloody different to any other bloke. She breathed in unsteadily and tried to reclaim her focus. Defining Jude’s smell required a certain immeasurable adventuring vocabulary; earthy, fresh-air-ish, tree-bark-like. It was entirely and uniquely Jude and it was safe to say that it juxtaposed the sweet, delicate scent that often wafted from her. How opposite could they possibly be, that their natural aromas were so distinctly different? Calleigh smiled softly at him, more in wonderment than anything else. How in the world did this boy challenge her to find her inner adventurer so easily? Wasn’t that what she wanted to do from the first time she’d watched Quidditch? She couldn’t even do that without risking that pesky little girly reputation that she had earned through the years (‘lest her friends admonish such crude behavior that is so determinedly for boys and girls with muscle and no brain)… blast her older sister Bea for talking her into such propriety. But now, through all her crazy escapades with Jude, she’d tasted something she’d always longed for but could never quite bring herself to try. Did that mean something? As her head began to tilt while she sussed out exactly what it was about Jude that made her want to throw herself headlong into the Forbidden Forest and wrestle bucking wildebeests, Calleigh realized that she had just been staring at him, quietly trying to figure him – this – out. Coughing to throw herself out of the daze she’d been tangled up in, Calleigh quickly tried to draw Jude’s attention away from her not-so-well-hidden ogling. “I’m going to assume that you tackled a manticore in the Forbidden Forest with your fellow Merry Men?” She jested with bright, unreadable eyes and an easy smile. “Trying to save a first year’s pet toad and it all went fiendishly wrong when Silas decided it would be fun to lick the toad, develop toad-pox and go mental through the forest leaving you to track the toad and Sebastian to handle warty-Silas?” She had to be close, at least. Calleigh couldn’t count on two hands the number of times she’d watched Jude limp through the portrait hole and reek of both exhaustion and merriment only to hear the three boys reliving their tales the next day. Manticore came up way too often in those retellings. As did Silas’s tendency to advance the night into insanity by way of his overactive imagination, and her darling brother’s propensity for acting as Silas’s protector – or warden, whichever you prefer. The explanation began, but Calleigh cut him off as her eyes darted to the tear in his shirt that was suddenly turning a nasty shade of crimson. Blood made Calleigh feel weak in the knees and a bit nauseous. Probably the reason she never wanted to be a healer. Still, the red was seeping through his shirt, staining the ruined material at a faster rate than a simple scratch or cut on the surface. “Jude,” she whispered and stepped forward, bringing them toe-to-toe. Worry furrowed her brows and transformed her lips from a smile into a slight sloping frown. Her fingers gently pulled at the material that was sticking to his side and lifted it slightly so that she could see the damage. A long, deep gash covered his taut torso and stopped just shy of his shoulder. “You’re hurt,” Calleigh informed him with wide eyes as if he couldn’t possibly feel the pain or the stickiness of his blood against his skin. “Why didn’t you say?” She grabbed his hand without further comment and dragged him rather clumsily away from the portrait hole, marched through the common room with determined grace in her step (though grace was hard to achieve when you wore oversized Chudley Cannon fleece pajamas), and tore up the stairs with Jude in tow. Calleigh had never been to the boys’ side of the dorm suites before, so when she began barging into rooms, she really had no idea which was Jude’s, and he wasn’t saying much of anything to help her determine which was his. Or, perhaps the thudding heartbeat in her ears was drowning out any noise he was making. Either way, when she popped her head into Jack Reilly’s dorm room and realized that he slept in the nude, she had to control her urge to scream “fire drill”. How did she know Jude’s room when she finally found it, a full three minutes after she charged up the stairs with Jude’s hand crushed in hers? The smell of him; it permeated the air from where he slept and dwelled when he wasn’t gate crashing the Forbidden Forest with his lunatic friends. She barged into the room and was ready to bark orders for whomever occupied it to leave, but a quick glance around was all it took to realize that they were all alone. In a shockingly warm, inviting, boy dorm. In Jude’s room. Alone. Calleigh immediately dropped Jude’s hand and glared at the floor while her face heated up to an unprecedented scarlet color. Perhaps the plan wasn’t the best. She turned to leave the way that she charged in, but just as she spun on her heel, her eyes met Jude’s chin while her forehead knocked against his nose. A sickening crunch filled the space around them. |
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| Jude McFadyen | Jul 25 2013, 04:20 PM Post #4 |
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Another shift in movement brought down a fresh rain of pine needles at his feet. Jude wondered, idly, just how much of a walloping he’d be giving Silas in the morning. An acorn, this time. It bounced off his shoe. He scowled. A big walloping. The biggest. But then, a catch of laughter, soft and poorly stifled, and Jude found his glower dissipating right along with his revenge fantasies the second he looked up and caught sight of Calleigh’s shaking shoulders, the way her eyes glittered with amusement in the torchlight, the smile that had found a secret corner of his heart to crouch in. Even at his expense, her laughter was balming, a sound that layered itself around him lightly and comfortingly until it coaxed a similar pull at his own lips’ corners, a similar glint in his stare. Fine then, he thought, feeling suddenly merciful. Silas was safe. For now. “I’m starting to believe that I’m not the disaster-attractor in this friendship,” she told him teasingly, tone almost lyrical with the lingering notes of her laughter. An easy opening to the sort of banter they were used to, by now. Had down to an artform. A dance. A tango. Well, I’m a disaster, and you attracted me. A trainwreck. Fuck’s sake, did he really just think that? No wonder he couldn’t have nice things. Friendship, McFadyen. Friendship. Operative word here, remember? Honestly, he wanted to take a shovel to his brain. Lacking one, he simply rushed headlong into denial mode (which included the violent shoving away of certain mutinous thoughts) and gave what he hoped was the ghost of a convincing, answering smile in return. Perhaps it was all the practice he’d had lately that made it so easy. “What gave it away?” he countered, tone just this shy of deadpan. Humor was good. Humor, he could handle. Especially when he looked like a hermit who’d just climbed out of the tree he’d been living in for the past ten years. Or fell out of. Probably more accurate. Then again, this strategy only really worked when Calleigh wasn’t closing the much-needed distance that separated them and lifting a tentative hand to his hair, reaching for something he couldn’t see and likely wouldn’t register even if he could. Because humor couldn’t shield him from the strange little signals her nearness sent shooting up his spine. It couldn’t keep her scent – soft and feminine and delicate, the part of the petal so thin the light shines through – from making him heady. Two steps, that’s all, and every last one of his defenses had just been rendered entirely useless. Two steps, and he knew, with painful, painstaking clarity, that being near Calleigh Bancroft had not lost a single ounce of its potency in all these months of – sing it with me now – friendship. Did he say he’d gotten a handle on those mutinous thoughts of his? Well, he was walking the bloody plank now. Into shark-infested waters. Who bore a suspiciously strong resemblance to a certain blonde-haired Slytherin. Bugger all. “How in the world do you manage it?” she murmured in wonder, a question only half-heard in the daze her proximity still held him in. Even as she pulled the leaf away from his ear, Jude couldn’t find it within himself to spare a glance for it - could, in fact, do little else but hold her curious gaze, try to decipher the way it flicked from one angle of his features to another, like it was shuffling around pieces of a puzzle, picking him apart. Decoding some mystery. Or maybe he didn’t need to decipher it after all, because wasn’t it the same one he’d sent across sunlit classrooms when he knew she wasn’t looking? The one he’d chance in the middle of dinners amidst the noise and bustle of the Great Hall, thankful, for once, that he and Sebastian shared different Houses? I don’t, he wanted to say, the part of him that had heard her words pushing the thought to the surface, even as it answered a very different question altogether. I can’t manage you. Because things like this happened whenever they were around each other anymore. Because there was something new between them now, a flow of awareness and intimacy that rippled underneath it all, some seismic power that threatened every day to bring it all crashing down around them. Because no matter how hard they tried to stay apart, they’d find themselves together, his rough edges snagging on her soft curls, inseparable. Because this was way out of his skill range. Out of his league, too, he knew, in a way that superseded even the obstacle that was her brother, his best friend. Jude was a scraggy, trouble-finding mutt of a teenage boy, after all, who wouldn’t know sophistication if it ran up and bit him in the arse (and then hung there a bit, waiting, until he could get a good look at it), and Calleigh . . . hell, Calleigh practically exuded the stuff. Calleigh was grace incarnate, poised and perfect and disarmingly lovely. Calleigh was artful. Well-spoken. Every single thing he wasn’t. And even that wasn’t stopping him from looking at her like this. Like he had something to say that would undo it all, rip apart the façade that they were friends and nothing more, no matter how far the divide that spanned between them, how impenetrable the obstacle that was their shared and treasured relationship with Sebastian. He looked at her, with her wild hair around her face like a blurry halo, and the words stirred a little. . . . and subsided, slipped back down, sank and settled in the pit of his stomach again, because Calleigh had shuddered suddenly out of her intense study of him, issuing a cough that broke the spell in the air, a jolt back to reality that hit Jude like a sledgehammer. A welcome one, no less. Maybe he should switch to pain. Seemed to be doing a hell of a lot more for him in the way of defense than humor had. Suddenly all those emo kids who dyed their hair crazy colors and sat at the back of the class looking morose while they drew demons and Dark Arts symbols on their arms were starting to make sense. “I’m going to assume that you tackled a manticore in the Forbidden Forest with your fellow Merry Men?” Calleigh breezed onward, her tone lighter now at the shift in topic, her smile wider. “Trying to save a first year’s pet toad and it all went fiendishly wrong when Silas decided it would be fun to lick the toad, develop toad-pox and go mental through the forest leaving you to track the toad and Sebastian to handle warty-Silas?” He blinked, processing this version of events and marveling at how uncannily similar it was to what actually happened. Well. All right, so the real story was even more mental than that, which was sad, but Merlin, she was close. “Blimey, that is . . .” he began, impressed, “shockingly accur—” Her gasp cut him off instantly. “Jude.” Alarm filled the stare she’d fixed upon a point somewhere near his ribs, but he didn’t have a chance to follow it before she surged towards him, eliminating what was left of the already limited space between their bodies. After that, it was hard to follow much of anything, the rush of heat from her thisclose form so blindsiding most of his brain just up and shut down. He felt it when she reached for him, though. When her fingers brushed against his skin to pull away the torn fabric of his shirt, and how it hitched a breath in his throat—not out of pain, but something else. Restraint just barely held in check, the wild firing of synapses in his head, lungs robbed of air and knuckles dotted white at the tops. The world narrowed. He went utterly, utterly still. “You’re hurt,” Calleigh breathed, visibly worried as she continued her fussing. A notch formed between the dark wings of her brows, her eyes darting to his in mild reprimand. “Why didn’t you say?” “I . . .” he attempted, voice suddenly husky, its rhythms erratic. He’d forgotten, truthfully. The wound had long since been made a footnote by her presence. Calleigh didn’t wait for him to finish—not that he would have been able to if he’d tried. Charged with purpose and set-jawed determination, she grabbed his hand and towed him briskly in her long-strided wake, heading for the boys’ dormitory stairs. Jude didn’t protest, no longer trusting the thought-to-speech processors of his brain. He could only marvel, distantly, at how small and sure her hand felt in his, how boneless it made him, how effortlessly it seemed to anchor him to this exact spot in the universe, like a tethered balloon, trailing after her wordlessly, unthinkingly. If he had given a thought to what was happening, he might have been smart enough to object. Or at least realize just how monumentally terrible an idea it was to be carted off to a less public space by the very girl he secretly wanted to be carted off by. But of course that particular epiphany didn’t happen until he was actually in said less-public space. His room, no less. His very . . . empty room. Shit. Shit. The door clicked shut behind them. There had to be a way he could put an end to this diplomatically. Or at least bloody control himself instead of very manfully making a screaming run for it out of the building and into a cartoon rocket ship aimed towards the moon. It was Calleigh, this was fine; they’d been alone together countless times before. Okay, so never in his bedroom, or even in the remotest vicinity of a bed, but . . . His throat tightened. Calleigh stilled. The tension probably would have killed them both if the very next second wasn’t filled, simultaneously, with three things: 1. Jude opening his mouth to say something that, in all likelihood, would have been incredibly stupid. 2. Calleigh whirling about unexpectedly. 3. A nuclear-grade explosion of blinding, excruciating pain. “Bloody—” Jude’s world erupted in stars. His hand flew to his face, where he could already feel a warm trickle of blood streaming from the almost certainly broken nose he was now sporting. The pain was so white-hot it felt like someone had cast an Incendio at it. Or crushed it with their forehead. Calleigh started panicking almost instantly. “It’s okay, it’s fi—agh,” he hissed, gritting his teeth against another wave of pain but attempting to comfort her through it, anyway. He had his head tipped back, hand still trying to stem the bloodflow, and it was then, torn and bleeding and broken-nosed, after a night so ludicrous only this could have been the way it ended, that he finally began to laugh. Not hard – that would have hurt too much – but it was enough for his shoulders to shake with it, for a pained grin to pull rebelliously at the corners of his wincing mouth. And for a revelation to spill out of him that was almost as absurdly humorous as the situation itself. “You’re not going to believe this, but this is my first broken nose.” It was true, as impossible as it sounded. Through some bloody miracle, after all his years of roughhousing and beast-wrangling and general, peril-prone Merry-Men-ing, somehow, unbelievably, he’d managed to elude that particular injury. Every other kind, sure. But this one was new. And of course it happened now, in the quiet safety of his own bedroom. Of course it would be Calleigh. Anything less unlikely wouldn’t have suited them at all. “All things considered, I’d be feeling pretty proud right about now, if I were you.” |
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| Calleigh Bancroft | Aug 24 2013, 06:19 PM Post #5 |
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Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God… Calleigh panicked, hand flung to her forehead to manage the dull ache that thudded against her skull. Of course she’d break Jude’s damn nose with her head. That’s what any girl in love would – Wait. Love? Was that… no, not love. Strong, positive feelings. More than friendly feelings, sure. But, love? Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, god. The panic was something entirely different now. It wasn’t that she’d just essentially smashed Jude’s face like an overexcited Judo wrestler. No. The very thought that this best friend she had wasn’t actually her best friend at all, but someone that she had mild strong positive more-than-friendly love feelings for. “Oh, bloody—“ Her curse mixed with Jude’s and everything was suddenly silent in the small dorm room. Calleigh dared a look at him, wanting to make sure that she hadn’t completely dislodged his nose from his face. Because, nothing said, “I fancy you” quite like breaking bones and massacring faces. Calleigh stepped toward Jude with shaky hands but stopped when his strained voice broke the silence. “It’s okay, it’s fi—agh.” Was he… did Jude really just comfort her when he was the one with the broken nose and in pain? Was he daft? Did she cause brain damage, too? Calleigh put a hand to her stomach and pressed hard into her body as if it would suddenly help her breathe. The air around her was thicker and breathing was getting more difficult by the second. Thumping from her erratic heart filled her ears and it felt like she had a pound of cotton shoved into her head. Everything was fuzzy. She didn’t need comforting. Calleigh needed Jude to not have a bloody, broken nose. Her wild, wide eyes sought the door. She could leave and… pretend it never happened? No, that wouldn’t work. Clearly, it happened. The fleeting idea of fixing his nose and obliviating him ran through her head. It brought a tiny bit of clarity to her otherwise hazy thoughts. And a tiny, almost non-existent huff of laughter. The feeling of it calmed her immediately. There was an instant levity to the moment, an ease about the situation that allowed Calleigh to find her breath and quell the nausea that had her gripped in a vice. It wasn’t until she heard Jude’s soft laughter that Calleigh’s worry came to a complete halt. Her eyes strayed from the door she was thinking of jetting out of and focused on Jude. The way his head tilted back, neck stretched out and the muscles tensing under his clenched jaw – it struck her in an entirely inappropriate way. No, she shouldn’t look at him like this, not now. Hell, as far as he was probably concerned, not ever. Swallowing a thick lump in her throat, Calleigh forced the corners of her lips into a smile. “Are you alright?” She asked softly as his genuine grin pulled across his face. “You’re not going to believe this, but it’s my first broken nose.” A heavy breath left her, aided by the pressure she was putting on her stomach with her hand. She found that it was working much like an extension of her lungs. When she needed help remembering how to breathe, it just did the work for her. She stared at him, a little confusion in her blue eyes. How had Jude McFadyen, defender of the Merry Men, who was practically promised to get into a scrap whenever he left Gryffindor Tower, never suffered a broken nose? Merlin, even Calleigh had gotten a broken nose once. Stung like Hell, too, she remembered. The free hand that wasn’t currently regulating her breathing went to her nose and rubbed the spot it had been snapped all those years ago. It had been Sebastian’s fault, an accident. He thought he could teach her how to ride a broom. He couldn’t. It ended badly. Calleigh had a broken nose, Sebastian had a broken arm. Dad had a fit. Mum grounded them both. Never happened again. But, she would never forget the blinding pain. And then when they’d had to fix it. God, the pain was even worse than when it was broken. And that was when she realized what she’d have to do. Her face paled again. Not only had she discovered her feelings for Jude, but she’d broken his nose and now faced the idea of having to fix it as well. Blimey, by the end of the night he would probably hate her and her deadly friendship. “All things considered, I’d be feeling pretty proud right about now, if I were you.” Calleigh’s eyes moved from the hand he was pinching his nose with to his closed eyes. She let the sentiment linger for several seconds, maybe longer, and then forced words from her throat. “How is that possible?” It was a breath, barely a whisper. It was several questions all in one. There wasn’t an answer that could satisfy the question, either. It just hung there, more serious than she intended. Then, without another word and barely another breath, Calleigh fled from the room and left Jude with that awkward, nagging question. As soon as his dorm room door shut behind her, Calleigh leaned against it for a moment and stole all of the oxygen that she could into her lungs. It allowed her to think. To plan. To help. Things that she couldn’t do when she was looking at Jude, vulnerable and laughing about something that was her fault because she was thick as a bloody troll. Why did she drag him off to his room in the first place? She should have taken him straight to the hospital wing where the Healer could fix him up right and proper without having to worry about other bones being smashed in the process. Jude probably would have protested, she reasoned, but wouldn’t it have been safer at least? Pushing herself from the door, Calleigh launched herself towards the loo. She fumbled around for any spare Healing supplies she could find, knowing that the Healer tended to give out small things to the students for ailments they could fix on their own. She found toilet paper, green paste that bubbled when she picked up the vial and a little pink potion that she’d never seen before. There was a small cup on the sink and she filled it with warm water. When all of the supplies were gathered, she ran back to Jude’s room and paused only for a moment outside of the door. The shaky, panicky feeling had passed. She no longer needed her hand to help her breathe. Her mind was focused on stitching Jude up and then going off to her room to send Bea a response that would be lucky not to turn into a Howler. With a tentative click, Calleigh opened the door to the dim dorm room. Jude was no longer standing, but instead was laying on (what she assumed to be) his bed. A soft smile, not forced like the one before it, touched her lips. She sat on the edge of his bed and placed everything she’d collected from the loo onto the table next to his bed. “Sorry about dashing off.” She reached over and pulled his hand away from his nose, and didn’t even think about letting it go. “Blood sort of makes me light headed and I needed a minute.” It wasn’t a total lie, really. Blood did tend to make her feel queasy. But that wasn’t the reason she ran from the room as if a herd of stampeding unicorns were chasing her and preparing to gore her with their horns. “Sit up,” she instructed him, using her free hand to hold his elbow and offer him leverage to lift himself without much effort. They were very close now, only a foot of distance between their faces. “All the rags in the boys’ loo were dirty, so I only have bog roll and warm water to clean you up,” she told him in her steadiest voice. It was hard to concentrate with his warm breath fanning her face. Calleigh didn’t feel very steady at all. So close. She could have counted the dusting of freckles on his face. If she moved just a couple of inches, Calleigh could kiss him. Her eyes darted down to his lips. Bugger. Very slowly, she brought her gaze back to his eyes. She never realized just how green they were. Her mouth went dry. “Earlier, I wanted to tell you some great revelation I had about you and then I end up breaking your nose. The complete opposite…” Calleigh shook her head, letting the words fade away. It didn’t matter now. How could it possibly? She broke their eye contact abruptly, terrified that her gaze would travel down to his lips again and she wouldn’t be able to not confide her feelings to him. She reached into the waistband of her pajama bottoms and pulled out her wand. Part of her wanted to warn him what she was about to do, the other part of her thought that it might be best if he just didn’t know what was coming. She waved the wand in front of his face and let him draw his own conclusions. “Episkey!” Edited by Calleigh Bancroft, Aug 24 2013, 06:28 PM.
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| Jude McFadyen | Feb 3 2017, 08:46 PM Post #6 |
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With his head tipped back and eyes closed tight, Jude was only distantly aware of the compressive silence that had fallen in the wake of his admission – and even when Calleigh broke it with a murmur gone inaudible under the ringing in his ears, he didn’t really register it as something to be overly worried about until the distinctive click of a shutting door snapped his senses back into perfect focus. His eyes shot open, stare flying to the dorm’s entrance – not really comprehending what had happened until his attention fell on the empty patch of floor where Calleigh had stood only moments ago, abandoned so quickly if it weren’t for the blood he could still feel trickling down his face and the pain from his nose blooming ever incrementally wider, he might have sworn she’d never been there to begin with. Just another vision his mind had conjured up, the way it seemed so fond of doing these days when it came to the girl ever fringing on the periphery of his thoughts. Right. He sighed, head dropping abortively between his shoulders as he ground the heel of a hand into the back of his neck, brimming over with regret. This time his wince had less to do with pain and more to do with just the general, overarching fact that he clearly had issues with learning. Stop being yourself, Jude. That was what always got him into these messes. The stupid amount of leaves and twigs he dislodged when he ran a hand through his hair a second later were proof enough of that. He didn’t even have enough energy to glare at them this time, just barely repressed an eyeroll instead and made his stiff, shambling way over to his bed, where he flumped down in a graceless, boneless (brainless) heap. Everything ached now that the night’s antics were over and his adrenaline had faded, muscles protesting against movement, the beginnings of bruising. He could feel the sting of cuts scattered across his skin (the one on his side, in particular, clamoring for attention), and he knew eventually he’d have to somehow find the strength to drag himself into the shower, but right now all he could do was shut his eyes and wonder if his case of stupidity was terminal or just debilitating. He sort of hoped it was the former, because otherwise he’d have to go find a nice, deep-sea trench to fling himself into and Apparating sounded way too bloody exhausting at the moment. Turned out that happened when you were Jude McFadyen, Misadventure’s Magnet and Moron Who Doesn’t Listen to His Own Warnings. Honestly, had anyone in the history of the universe been so inconceivably idiotic, ever? How did he manage to walk around and breathe at the same time without falling over and drooling on himself? He might have been alright with it all if the night had ended the way it usually did (or at least within acceptable fumble to fuckup to fireball parameters – you know, standard), but then Calleigh and… And that was it, really, wasn’t it? Three words that had wedged their way right into the center of his life with all the stopping power of one of those concrete traffic barriers capable of reducing full-speed Mack trucks into a thousand, shiny, skittering pieces. Jude thought he was smart, but then Calleigh. Jude knew exactly what he was doing, but then Calleigh. Jude was fine. But then Calleigh. “Shite,” he cursed lowly. There was no coming back from this, was there? She’d pulverized him. And now he’d chased her off – which, what did he expect? Did he really think someone like Calleigh would be willing to sit around and humor a dirt-covered mongrel of a boy who couldn’t step foot outside his common room without being slingshotted into some kind of ludicrous disaster? He was hopeless. Always would be. Even now, when he really should have been glad to escape this latest encounter with naught but the complete loss of his dignity and a busted nose, he couldn’t stop the waves of regret, or thinking about her, or daydreaming about the sweet oblivion of death until it sounded like a viable, nay, preferred option. At this rate, the school counselor was going to have to print him out one of those So You’re Having Some Feelings, It’s Probably Not Great To Send The Person They’re For Sprinting From The Room, Also It Would Really Be Best If Said Person Is Not Your Best Mate’s Sister pamphlets. God, Sebastian was going to kill him. What was he doing. Maybe if he just kept lying there with all the charm of a corpse, he’d eventually turn into a real one. The door opened. Jude found that his brain had far too many things to turn over, worry about, and tackle to the ground and pummel to pay the sound much mind or attempt to identify which of his dormmates it was (he swore if he could physically fight the things going on in his head right now they’d end up rolling around on the floor in a whirling ball of fists and enough flying expletives to make a pirate weep.) So, you could probably imagine his shock when the edge of his bed dipped and a familiar, lilting, feminine voice stopped that fun party right in its tracks. “Sorry about dashing off.” Every muscle in his body went still. His lungs locked up. “Blood sort of makes me light headed, and I needed a minute.” A hand found his, the touch sending little shocks of electricity skittering across his skin as it drew his own away from his face, and only then did he open his eyes to finally take her in, his gaze landing on her features and anchoring there, unblinking. She almost didn’t look real, in the dim light of his room. She looked chimerical, instead, far-away like a figure in a painting, all rich tones and perfect composition, a play of light and shadow. Only the faint wingbeats of her pulse betrayed her, a reminder that she still hadn’t let him go. “Sit up,” she prompted, voice pitched soft, and because her first touch had already left him dumb and pliable, he obeyed the second instantly, the hand at his elbow helping his ascent until he was level with her. Closer. Their thighs touched. It was the worst thing that could have happened. Because suddenly he could remember – in perfect, devastating clarity – how that thigh had felt on a long past afternoon when it had been naked and pressed against his own, how the weight of her atop him had been a solid warmth that had knocked him so entirely out of orbit he still felt like he hadn’t come back down. Like he was still spinning off into space. Towards some great unknown. Maybe just towards her. She had to be exerting some kind of gravitational force with the way he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. “All the rags in the boys’ loo were dirty, so I only have bog roll and warm water to clean you up,” she told him, catching his gaze for a moment before her eyes drifted lower, sending a wave of heat rolling over him like a housefire. The planes of his throat constricted. His hand formed a slow fist at his side. And then there was silence. Only it was not a silence, because Jude was sure that everyone in Gryffindor Tower could hear his heart beating like a thousand angry drums, and the sticky, dry sound of his throat as he tried to swallow the furry creature that had died in his esophagus. Even his well-tested and long broken-in nerves weren’t a match for it. Apparently, a prolific history of life-threatening situations had nothing on one truly, unfairly beautiful seventeen-year-old girl. It was almost a relief when her stare lifted to meet his again. Sure, it made him feel like he was seeing the entire universe for a full three or four seconds, but at least it stopped his imagination from gearing up and gunning it. And now that she was speaking again, he should really try and pay attention instead of dwelling on emotions that were doing something far too profoundly stupid to probe too closely. “Earlier, I wanted to tell you some great revelation I had about you, and then I end up breaking your nose,” she said with a not-quite-laugh and small shake of her head. “The complete opposite…” Revelation? He felt his glassy gaze sharpen in the few seconds it took for her words to register, and even then, he didn’t know how to take them—and anyway, it didn’t matter, because in the next second he found himself with a face full of wand. Again. This was starting to become a habit with them. “Episkey!” she cast with a sharp flick of her wrist. It hurt more than her forehead had. His nerves actually whited out for a second. Only the back of his molars grinding together stopped what probably would have been a very unmanly cry from escaping his throat at the shock of it, although he did hiss a little, and he couldn’t quite keep his face from screwing up in pain. Thankfully, it only lasted a moment. After that, the sharp throb eased into a mere sting, like someone had rubbed it with alcohol: a familiar sign of the spell’s healing taking effect. He lifted a cautious hand to check the outcome. Still there. Probably less crooked. It was hard to tell without a mirror. Still: “Thanks,” he husked out, when his brain rebooted enough to speak again. Everything else felt normal, all critical reflexive functions maintained—he breathed, his heart beat, his hair was still ridiculous. But then his eyes opened and sought hers and he felt time slow to a molasses crawl. Felt something hitch in his chest. Dance on the edge of his tongue. A confession, probably. He swallowed. And attempted a faint smile instead. “Well?” he wondered, breaking the quiet. “What’s the verdict? Am I going to have to wear a bag over my head?” It was one thing to know something, know it with the kind of certainty that could knock you right off your feet in the middle of crossing a busy street and get you splattered on the asphalt. And it was quite another thing to say it. |
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| Calleigh Bancroft | Feb 4 2017, 07:25 PM Post #7 |
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It just wouldn’t be their typical interaction if somehow, someway, Calleigh wasn’t inflicting some type of pain onto Jude. Hell, even in the Great Hall during breakfast, she’d managed to scold him with hot coffee or nearly cut off his finger with a butter knife. It was amazing that he hadn’t asked her to sit far away from him yet, honestly. Not that he would have been safe; they were currently paired together in Care of Magical Creatures, and on more than one occasion she’d managed to nearly butcher him with the horns of a graphorn. Their fellow Gryffindors had made it a point to sit far away from the duo who seemed to attract pain and hazards like magnets. So habitual. So Calleigh and Jude. Though the spell she used was of the healing variety, Calleigh shouldn’t have been surprised to feel that same dread sparking tingles up her spine the very second that Jude tensed under her wand work. Despite what anyone would believe, she didn’t like causing Jude pain. For a moment, she thought Jude might actually faint from the pain. She’d steeled herself for an outcry of pain, for something more than the so Jude tense of the jaw and light hiss that escaped through his lips. She watched him in that second, not much else for her to do while he eased himself back into a painless existence. His lips were tight and so uncharacteristically void of a cheeky grin. His jaw, still clenched, was covered in spattering of dirt. It trailed down to the neck of his shirt and, she noted while cautiously allowing her gaze to linger on the broad plane of his chest, would have covered his body if not for the once-white shirt that protected him. She lifted her hand as if she were going to touch the shirt, or rather the body beneath it, and caught herself only an inch away, pulling her hand back down to her side. She made a tiny fist to ground herself, and pulled her lip between her teeth, eyes scrunching as if every fiber of her being went into not touching the boy next to her. It was Jude, Jude who was possibly her best friend, Jude who she had undeniable feelings for despite the fact that he was her overprotective brother’s best friend, and completely out of her league. She was far too straight-laced for a boy like him, really. He was danger and adventure embodied, and she was basically a frightened girl in comparison. Not quite up to par with daring, and dashing headlong into precarious situations with all of the panache of a renowned swashbuckler of the Wizarding World. And she was… dull, unless they happened to be in the same room under some strange spell that somehow hindered her ability to be cautious and careful and… mundane. It never would work, would it? Between her brother, who would likely put an end to it before it began, and their stark differences, they would begin at a handicap and would likely end by Calleigh losing the most precious friend she had. She made her mind up then: never act on the feelings she harbored for the roguish boy sat next to her. She’d be smart. She’d be careful. She’d leave immediately once she knew that he was okay. She nearly crumbled to bits when his gruff voice fanned warm breath on her forehead. “Thanks.” Calleigh couldn’t respond, swallowing a thick lump in her throat instead. Her eyes traveled back to his languidly and again taking in the dirt and grime of the boy who had obviously spent the better part of the evening running through a wet forest with his mates. As she took in every detail of his face - handsome, strikingly so - her stomach flipped and flopped and if she had eaten a single thing at dinner, she worried it would be lost all over his lap. Calleigh finally found his forest green eyes staring back at her and all logic seemed to pour out of her like a cauldron set upside down. She stared, unmoving. Or, perhaps she should leave now before tossing herself at him. His lips lifted. Shit. Her brain felt like sludge. “Well?” his voice broke through somehow, very dimly, and slowly pulled her back to reality where they were alone and she was sitting on his bed, and they were soclose, and she could feel the body heat rolling off of him and were those goose pimples along her arm? Shit. “What’s the verdict? Am I going to have to wear a bag over my head?” She tried to mimic his small, brief smile. It might have fallen short; she couldn’t really feel her face anymore, in any case. There was buzzing in her ears and the only sound to really break through the silence after Jude spoke was the rhythmic thudding of her heart in her chest. What did she say? What was appropriate? She couldn’t very well tell him that even a bag over his head wouldn’t detract from how absurdly dashing she found him, nor could she pull off a lie. What would Jude say? What would he do? How would he pull himself out of a situation that threatened him with danger? With an intense gaze, she stared into his eyes and it was like tunnel vision but she refused to look away. Merlin, she was sure she’d faint with the way her breathing had stopped. Pull it together, Bancroft. A steady breath in, and out. Only a moment had passed, though it seemed to stretch an eternity. Embodying Jude’s spirit, she finally managed a wry quirk of the lips. “That depends,” she started, trying to make her voice its normal silvery tone, instead of the low, almost hoarse sound it was threatening. She raised one dark eyebrow, as if punctuating her mockery. “How attached are you to your sense of sight?” A tinkering chuckle escaped her then, and the weight of the world fell off her shoulders. And with all of the death-defying that she and Jude typically endured, Calleigh always could fall back on the radiant lightheartedness that found its way into their friendship. Like the new bright star after a devastating supernova; after each collision with disaster, they were always more carefree, exuberant, closer. Her laughter stopped naturally, the sound fading as she finally drew her eyes away from his and down to the angry wound at his side, barely visible through the wrecked shirt dangling from his torso. Calleigh’s brows knit together, a little notch of skin between them as she considered the wound and how to approach it. She had warm water, green paste - likely Essence of Dittany - and a pink vial from the medical kit she’d found in the loo, which she assumed was something useful. Start with cleaning the area, she decided, as her hands gingerly sought Jude’s side. Upon contact with his torn shirt, she lifted the material and immediately pressed her lips together. She’d never really saw what was underneath all of the clothing; a tan and hard body. A sharp breath left her nose, and she hoped that Jude would attribute it to her dislike of blood more than her definite fondness for his fit body. “Hold your shirt up for me.” Try as she might to reign in the tone of her voice, Calleigh couldn't be sure that the hitch in her throat was silent. She dare not look him in the eyes now, ‘else she’d lose whatever control she had over herself. His fist closed around the material and left her with two very anxious hands to clean his wound. She briefly wondered if he minded being tended to this way, as usually he went off and fixed his wounds out of sight. She also wondered if he knew that it would be over her dead body to allow him to do so. Her skin against his, porcelain against golden tones, caused minute trembles in her hands as she pushed around the wound to judge just how deep it ran. No sutures needed, thankfully, but it was still a nasty piece of work. She had to wonder how he’d managed not to cry out while she pulled, however gently, at the area. Without taking her eyes away from the wound, and Merlin forbid her to look into his eyes even if she could feel them upon her while she tended to the cut, she reached for the loo roll, unraveled a bunch, and dipped it into the cup of warm water before bringing it down onto the wound to clean it. She tried to be gentle, tenderly pressing into the cut, but the long slice from his hip to his shoulder had deeper areas than others, and the pieces of dirt really didn’t want to come out easily. Once or twice, Calleigh swore she heard Jude hiss, but never more than that. When she was satisfied that the wound was free from debris, Calleigh began rubbing the dittany into the cut. When she could take no more of the painful breaths leaving Jude or the thumping of her heart in her ears, Calleigh decided to slay the silence in favor of very careful conversation that would tread far away from the realm of how stupidly gorgeous he was even with a freshly broken nose. “Does it hurt much?” she asked, a sincerity to her voice that she couldn’t have faked if she’d tried. Merlin, I don’t ever want to hurt you. She’d seen what Sebastian and Saoirse were going through, what Bella and Silas had done to each other for a time, the things that happened to teenagers in relationships; she didn’t ever want that to happen to her and Jude. She blew out a steady breath across Jude’s skin, and told herself that the goosebumps that appeared were for purely biological reasons. Nothing more. Her fingers rubbed circles around the wound with the dittany, feigning very intense concentration on taking care of Jude. Realistically, she didn’t trust herself to pull away from her ministrations; being this close to him, feeling his breath on the back of her neck as she ducked under his chin, could truly make her forget all of the reasons she could never tell him how she felt. After a few more minutes, the entire abrasion was covered in bile-looking green paste and it took Calleigh longer than necessary to pull her hands away from Jude’s side. She liked the warmth she found there, and was afraid to leave the niche she’d created for herself as his healer and nothing more, if only for a moment not having to face her ever-growing feelings. Of course, Calleigh knew she couldn’t hide forever with her head ducked away from him, so when she brought herself back to eye level with Jude, she bottled all of the flustered feelings away and steeled herself to meet his gaze. “You’re going to need to change your shirt,” she informed him steadily, eyes again unable to sway from his - what is it with his eyes? She held up the pink vial between their faces; there was shockingly little distance between them. It took all of her willpower not to look down at his lips again. “And then you’ll need to take this potion, and then I swear I’ll leave you alone before I cause any more damage.” Finally, she managed a smile. “Merlin forbid I accidentally transfigure your dormitory into a tentacula garden.” Let’s be honest; it was more likely than not. |
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| Jude McFadyen | Mar 27 2017, 09:37 PM Post #8 |
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Jude was starting to think that even if he wasn’t horribly disfigured he might start wearing a bag over his head anyway. It would solve almost all of his problems. He’d never have to get his hair to behave again. He’d run into trees, instead of being pressed to climb them. He could probably even get away with sleeping through Divination, for once. Or be in Calleigh’s presence without acting like an utter, spellstruck moron. Oh, he’d still be one. A bag couldn’t change that, unfortunately. But at least he could be one in secret. At least his eyes wouldn’t stray to her lips when they took on the beginning curve of something vaguely impish, or the way the echo of it in her glinting, clear-sky gaze made the blues places to frolic and revel in – places that made him feel warm inside, like he’d just won something. He shouldn’t win anything. Least of all this. “That depends,” came her musing reply, one elegantly-sculpted brow rising above its twin in teasing query. “How attached are you to your sense of sight?” Clearly not at all – or perhaps too much (definitely too much) – if he was genuinely mulling over the merits of acquiring a bag to keep over his head, but that was before a small laugh lifted free from her throat, reminding him that there were other senses to be just as worried about. He loved her laugh. She had a wonderful one, light and throaty, as if she had been drinking champagne, with the added, magical ability of making him feel like champagne – fizzy and bright and golden – a sound that curled around and within him in a joyous symphony of sparks. There was a reason he was always trying to get her to do it. A wry comment in Care of Magical Creatures, a mischief-laden look across the table at dinner. She’d laugh and he’d smile, and their gazes would meet in a moment of warm connection, a bond that only ever seemed to get stronger—that spread through him like water, touching roots, making them grow. Like the way they did now. He forgot about bags, busted noses. Anything that wasn’t her laughing stare, which he met with a smiling, fern-soft green one of his own, thinking if this was wrong, then it was a stake he’d burn at—all the way to ash. And if that wasn’t proof he needed to be exiled to an eternal life of darkness, nothing was. The only reason he snapped out of his trance was because he felt his shirt being lifted, the cool air a jolt to his senses that finally made him aware of her diverted attention. She was staring down at his wound with a gathering frown, a twitch of worry appearing between her brows. A wound he’d forgotten about entirely. “Hold your shirt up for me,” she murmured, and because his boggart was probably logic, he found himself mindlessly complying, taking hold of the torn material he’d likely end up burning later. The thing looked like a refugee from a Downy commercial. How it didn’t bother her, he had no idea. The wound itself should have been enough to scare anyone off, let alone someone who’d already claimed an aversion to blood, but every time he tried to get his throat to work, to tell her it wasn’t necessary, that he could tend to it after she left, that she should leave, it just knotted further, like a rock had lodged in it. She was too focused to notice. Long, artistic fingers ghosted around the gash’s angry, crimsoned edges in careful study, measuring its severity. A tentative touch that had him tensing more than the pain did, the contact intimate in a way that sent a tingle of electricity zinging across his skin like a net of sparks. It was almost a relief when she turned to grab the loo roll, almost preferable to feel the material’s damp, stinging pressure as she cleaned the wound gently, but even the pain wasn’t strong enough to distract him from her nearness, the soft lines of her features, the pale slope of her nose, the plush fullness of her lower lip. She was so mesmerizing he felt pulled out of focus, and every time reality intruded—when a boisterous shout would echo up from the Common Room, when the wind rattled a nearby pane—he felt startled, like the world and everything around him were the ghosts in the image, and Calleigh was the only clear thing in the photograph. Something told him the itchy sensation in his chest had nothing to do with the dirt she was so carefully removing. It felt like a need that had nowhere to go, trapped within the hands he’d clenched so tight the muscles of his forearms and wrists stood out, like the pressure alone could bank the fire beneath his skin. He tried to brush it aside. Tried to cling to the occasional flare of pain when she dug a little too deeply. But every uneven hiss that unconsciously escaped him had as much to do with her as it did with his injury, and if he didn’t find a way to willfully cool his blood, a flesh wound was going to be the least of his worries. She was probably going to have to defibrillate him. “Does it hurt much?” For a heartstopping second, he thought she’d read his mind. But then— Oh. She meant… “It’s fine,” he somehow managed, more a croak than an answer. Somewhere out there, Sebastian got a migraine and didn’t know why. He really should be thinking about Sebastian. He definitely should not be thinking about Sebastian’s sister, or how she was so close he could feel her breath rushing against him, drawing his eyes to the workings of her smooth throat, the lifting of her collarbones under milky skin. He shouldn’t be thinking about what ifs. What if he lifted a hand to brush that strand of hair away from her cheek? What if every encounter with her sent his heart into these Emotional Wronski Feint freefalls? What if his pulse never found its normal rhythm again? What if he didn’t want it to? What if this was just it, now – a struggling to adjust to a brand new metronome, a pace set by the beats in her laughs, the tempo of her smiles, the mere measure of her existence. Something that began before he even knew it was happening, a domino fall set in ever-quickening motion with one clumsy collision in the Shrieking Shack, the close quarters of a linen closet, a masquerade dance, his bed. It should have scared him. There were still so many unknowns, so many yet-to-bes, and maybe it did, a little, but it also felt like standing on the precipice of some grand, new adventure, his biggest yet. With her. Calleigh Bancroft, who he’d had to redefine entirely, who’d become someone irrevocably altered. Now he didn’t know what to make of her at all, except that there was an open space in his heart for her. Open, but not empty. It felt like an embrace waiting to happen. “You’re going to need to change your shirt,” she said, startling him again. He blinked, gaze clearing, and realized she was staring right back at him, apparently finished. He hadn’t even noticed. “And then you’ll need to take this potion, and then I swear I’ll leave you alone before I cause any more damage,” she went on with a half-smile, lifting the vial in her hand indicatively. “Merlin forbid I accidentally transfigure your dormitory into a tentacula garden.” He almost laughed—just a huff of amusement and a curling at the corners of his lips—inwardly grateful for the way it dissipated most of his tension. This was safer ground, harmless banter he could ease back into. His brain needed all the redirecting it could get at the moment. “Still better than Halloween decorations,” he said, reaching back to drag his soiled shirt over his head, only wincing a little (the dittany was helping.) Giving the shredded thing one last rueful glance, he tossed it into the bin beside his nightstand and went to his trunk to retrieve another, his wry voice continuing as he riffled through its contents. “Think I’ve shed enough blood today without an animated scarecrow lusting after it.” Finally finding one at the bottom (Merlin, he was really going to have to buy replacements soon, wasn’t he? Ridiculous), he was about two seconds from tugging it out so he could toss it on when he heard a sound that made him go completely rigid. Distant, high-pitched cackling. Rapidly getting closer. Oh no. He didn’t have time to think, he just lunged—around the bed, straight for Calleigh, whose startled form he only caught the barest glimpse of before he was tackling it with his own, literal milliseconds before a crowing Peeves zoomed above their heads fast enough to throw their hair into disarray. By the time another beat passed, the poltergeist had already careened his manically screeing way around the room, disappearing through the wall again to go terrorize some other dorm, presumably. The air went quiet. Jude looked down at Calleigh. Who he was on top of. Shirtless. In his bed. A situation that barely qualified as ‘harmless’ at all—‘hazardous’ would have been more descriptive, though ‘the worst possible thing at that particular moment’ would have done it, too. He swallowed tightly. “Sorry,” he attempted, voice coming out a little throatier than usual. “He does that.” Peeves’ unpredictable nighttime visits were notorious in the boys’ section of the dorms, mainly due to the mischief-maker’s complete disregard for any bodies that might happen to be in the way of his personal NASCAR ritual. Just last week, he’d knocked a boy getting ready for bed off his feet hard enough to give him a nasty knot on the back of his head. Jude had just acted on instinct. Instinct. Right. Is that why you haven’t moved yet? A flush ran over his cheeks beneath the shadow of stubble. And he would have moved – really, he would have – if a strange smell hadn’t chose that moment to announce its presence, prompting the narrowing of his stare and turning of his head. Behind him, a swirling, pink plume was rising from the ground at the edge of his bed, which bewildered him for a moment before his gaze strayed to Calleigh’s hand. Her... empty hand. Call him crazy, but he was fairly certain healing potions weren’t supposed to do that. His gaze flicked back to hers. “That’s not good.” |
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| Calleigh Bancroft | Apr 8 2017, 07:56 PM Post #9 |
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Calleigh was actually worried about something going wrong; the longer she stayed, the more likely an apocalypse would start. It was inevitable whenever they found themselves together. Alone. Like the universe made everything fall into place, realized its mistake, and then chose the most random and deadly hurdle to push them apart. Joke’s on the universe, though. Calleigh felt closer to Jude than ever before. Almost startled at his brief breath of amusement, Calleigh forgot her determination to keep her eyes from Jude’s lips and found herself glued to them once again. Another eventuality; Jude would laugh and Calleigh would seek out the familiar and make-her-heart-soar smile. That curl of his lips had become one of her favorite parts of the day. Over their months of friendship, the desire to see Jude’s cheeky smile had less to do with the fluttering in her stomach and more to do with the burning curiosity that made her heart pound when he was near. Less about seeing the smile, and more about feeling it. That train of thought was going to derail completely into inappropriate places if Calleigh couldn’t compose herself. She swallowed, hard. Forced her eyes away from his lips and followed the movement of Jude’s hand over his shoulder. “Still better than Halloween decorations.” Perhaps his wry comment was a chance at levity, to break whatever spell had enraptured her so thoroughly. The next second, however, all of the oxygen fled from the room. Calleigh struggled to draw in a breath. His tattered shirt lifted from his body in one smooth motion, revealing his paste-covered wound and more of his sunkissed skin than Calleigh could hope to ignore. Her eyes darted from his sides even as he stood up, and found an interesting spot on the floor to fixate on. Her face flushed, the sound of her shallow breaths echoing in her ears. If she couldn't pull herself together, her heart would hammer straight out of her chest and lay bare for Jude to see. And yet, she couldn't ignore him for long. His voice pulled her attention and with it, all of her composure evaporated. “Think I've shed enough blood today without an animated scarecrow lusting after it,” he added dryly, that familiar brand of humor lost on Calleigh as she compared herself to a bloodlusting scarecrow. She wondered, briefly, and filled with crimson-faced shame, how he'd feel about something far prettier than a scarecrow lusting after him. Her eyes watched the taut muscles of his back as he dug around in the trunk. Impressed that he could have such a definition for a boy who didn't play sports, in fact rather considered pub brawls as a legitimate form of exercise. She wondered how someone as relaxed as Jude McFadyen could ever be so tense, ready to spring into action without a moment’s notice. Calleigh let her gaze crawl slowly over his wiry build, lingering on the definition she'd never noticed in his arms, his torso even appeared firmer from this angle on the bed. As Jude’s body stiffened, sinew nearly visible in the tight skin of his shoulders, Calleigh realized she'd been holding her breath, hadn't uttered a word or laughed at his dry remark, had done nothing except stare, and with the subtlety of a brick to the face. Alarm bells rang in her mind, screaming at her to drop her gaze, to turn away, to run from the room. The sound grew louder, and louder, and Calleigh had almost pushed herself up. Almost. Testament to her thoughts about Jude being a coiled spring, ready to act at any moment, Calleigh felt herself being pressed back into his mattress before she even noticed that his body collided with hers. Before she could consider her position, Peeves appeared in the dorm, zipping over them, almost removing their heads in the process. He would have, if Jude hadn't grabbed her around the waist and crashed atop her seconds before. Calleigh blinked, and Peeves was gone, leaving the breathy students pressed against one another in his wake. All of the thoughts she'd had moments before flooded into her mind like tsunami of torture. Winged brows rose as Calleigh’s eyes found Jude’s stare above her. Suddenly she could feel every inch of him, hard and heavy on her smaller frame. She should scramble, move, run. Anything other than staying utterly still. Instead, she stayed, and committed the feeling of him to memory. Something to drive herself crazy with, to keep her from sleeping, to remember and grin stupidly about when she thought no one was looking. “Sorry,” he offered, and she could think of no reason for him to apologize. “He does that.” “S’okay,” she reassured him, though Calleigh wasn't convinced the words actually left her throat. It was dry, suddenly restrictive. And somehow she knew it had nothing to do with an overexcitable poltergeist or another instance of Danger With Jude. It was just Jude, with his wind whipped hair hanging over his forehead, ghost of his ever-present smile still there, the twitch in his jaw as his nostrils flared. Calleigh wondered if he knew that his fingers had curled into her sides protectively. While Jude sensed the danger immediately, Calleigh didn't realize until the pink smoke began billowing from the edge of the bed. Honestly, if she was on a ship in danger, she'd never know until it was already sinking and she was being mauled by sharks. She should have put two and two together and known that the pink healing potion was no longer in her hand, so it stood to reason that the pink streams of smoke were from the pink potion and it was most definitely not of the healing variety. Still, Jude beat her to the inevitable conclusion. His eyes warily meeting hers. “That’s not good.” “I almost poisoned you!” Calleigh’s words fought through her dry throat and exploded from her lips. “Bloody hell. I swear I thought it was a healing draught. It was in with the first aid potions.” Really, she was doing a grand job expressing her feelings, between the broken nose and nearly feeding Jude what appeared to be poison, he'd never know she was harboring these feelings at all. As if on cue, the pink smoke expanded like a supernova, encompassing the entire room and leaving the two Gryffindors in a thick, pink fog. There was no use in holding her breath, the room was saturated in the stuff, but she did cover her mouth with a hand just to be sure. Foul in odor, the pleasant taste on the tip of her tongue was a surprise. Like sugar quills, sweet like honey. “I think it's safe to breathe?” The statement was more curious, deferring to Jude in dangerous situations was second nature to her now. As if to test the theory, she sucked in a deep breath and smiled up at him to confirm she was still alive. Nothing wrong whatsoever. “Harmless,” she breathed a mildly surprised laugh, happy for once that the universe had given them an easy obstacle to tackle. Calleigh lifted her hand to Jude’s hair and pushed the locks back and away from his face. She hadn't meant for her touch to feel so intimate, but as her slender fingers traced his stubbly jaw, she realized therein was her mistake. Any touch of Jude would never be innocent. Her face flushed as her hand lowered back to the bed. The apology was on the tip of her tongue, but never escaped her mouth. She wasn't sorry, not really. And, at that moment, her eyes lost their focus in Jude’s. Above his bed where he ceiling had once been, was the velvet night sky littered with sequin-silver flecks twinkling down at them. It was as if they'd been transported outside of the castle itself, which she was sure was prohibited by a number of safeguards and spells. But as she let her gaze wander from the sky, the rest of Jude’s dorm was still in place. Calleigh’s hand found Jude’s good side and curled gently into the skin. Her stricken mouth fell open, eyes darted back to Jude’s as she used her other hand to guide his chin in the direction that she wanted him to look. She dropped her hand from his face, but the other didn't budge. Somehow, the contact made her feel safe. You know, until the sparkling diamonds in the sky began to plummet toward them like fireball torpedos. Luckily, when the first star landed next to her face, it was the size of a mini-marshmallow, and also was an actual mini-marshmallow. But, it didn't take long for the deluge to start. Calleigh shrieked as the downpour started, mini marshmallows pinging her and Jude relentlessly. She shimmied her body further underneath Jude’s to try and avoid most of the sticky puffs that were blasting them from the heavens. What she didn't avoid, however, was the feeling of Jude flush against her. She knew it was inappropriate, but Calleigh gripped his side harder and kept him pulled close. She wasn't going to let him move, not now, and not until they could figure out how to make this stop. “Did… did I break Hogwarts?” she whispered, very aware that there were a dozen mini-marshmallows in her hair. Clearly the universe realized its mistake. |
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10:18 AM Jul 11