notes: written for two of my most favourite people, Pearl (PrincessPearl) and Mad (chasingafterstarlight) on account that I lost a bet. I forget what the bet was all about, but I do know this pieces is entirely overdue, my apologies!
-also written for the nail polish member challenge over at the nextgen's.
pairing: teddyvictoire
prompt: rockstar skinny
the dark nights are drawing in
and your humour is as black as them
miserable lie – the smiths
He meets her every day at four o'clock at the ice cream parlour in Muggle London.
Everyday she's sitting there, eating her cold purple dessert, daintily sitting on the soft wooden chair that's adorned with a blue and yellow plaid cushion. He'll stumble over the stone path that's laced with ivy and has dandelions poking out the cracks, knowing her eyes are trained on him the entire time.
He'll sit himself down on the chair across from her, moving the old brown leather bag that's overflowing with old books that are dog-eared, and spare bits of parchment. He'll order his own ice cream, and the wind will tug at their hair, as though prompting the other to speak.
They'll sit in silence, staring at the horizon, or the people around them, until someone breaks the silence to play their game.
He's not too sure who came up with their little game. He's not too sure why they began meeting, either. He just remembers passing her on his way home from work and stopping to sit with her. It's all sort of stored in the part of the brain where dreams are kept – hazy, confusing, and yet it's there, not completely forgotten.
Actually, if he's being completely honest, the day he sat with her, the day it all began, was two days after they broke up.
They don't tell their family.
They hardly tell themselves.
She starts today.
"I'm not eating blueberry ice cream." Her blonde eyebrow raises just a tad higher on her forehead, as though daring him to contradict her as she licks her cone. He never does.
Teddy smirks. "I'm not leaving for Africa in three weeks for Aurora training." He searches her blue orbs for some of emotion, but she keeps it mostly well-hidden. She keeps her face as straight as a china-doll, although he's sure he's spotted something under her glitter mask.
Something like pain.
Victoire clears her throat and finishes off the last of ice cream.
"I don't want to quit my job," she says. "I don't care what my family thinks of me." She flips her blonde hair over her shoulder and walks over to dump her napkin in the trash, with her skinny jeans and rockstar boots. She sits back down and clasps her hands together, ignoring the boy who's eyeing her up a few tables down. She lifts her chin towards him, and Teddy often wonders what frost drifted over her eyes to make them look the way they do.
His answer always begins and ends with himself.
Teddy tries to keep a straight face as the realization of how much Victoire carries on her shoulders dawns on him.
They sit there after that, drowning in their spoken and unspoken lies, of their actions and of their feelings, until Teddy thinks that he cannot handle one more second of the heaviness. He reaches for her hand but recoils, resting it on her arm for the smallest of seconds.
He goes the same way he comes.
"I don't care about taking risks," says Victoire, one week later, as she eats her blueberry ice cream. She finishes her sentence with a small frown, giving Teddy a look beneath her mask, beneath their game of lies.
Today the clouds mist over the sky like fog, combining light grey and dark grey and in-between grey together, with no sort of division of where black ends and white begins.
The wind tousles their hair, the smell of wet stone fills the sharp wind, and yet they continue to eat ice cream as though it is July. It is as though time does not exist in their small corner on the left hand side of the ice cream parlour patio.
Teddy searches her face, the one that belonged to girl he had fallen in love with, and thinks maybe he still loves her.
She sits with her eyes downcast today, possibly reflecting on her pervious statement, on the fact that she was trying to test the age-old theory of two wrongs don't make a right.
Or, in their case, two lies don't make the truth. Although, they've told more lies than two, trivial or otherwise.
"I don't want to start fresh," says Teddy.
Every lie is a window to the heart.
Every lie tells a story.
"Me neither," agrees Victoire, as she squints her eyes against the wind. "I want to grow old in this chair. I want to experience nothing but blueberry ice cream and people-watching for the rest of my life."
"Me too," says Teddy, giving her a small smile.
Victoire sighs and leans back against her chair, and Teddy catches a glimpse of her old spirit returning as her eyes laugh at the thought.
"I don't leave for Africa in three day."
"Nope."
On the day he is supposed to leave, Teddy walks over to the ice cream parlour one more time.
His stomach drops with dread when he sees she's not there. He still stumbles over to the path, heading up the small step to their table. He fingers her chair, when his eyes catches a small note in the middle.
Carefully, he lifts it, and listens to the wind crackle it as he opens it.
'Dear Teddy,
I'm eating blueberry ice cream.
Love,
Victoire'
He arrives at the African Wizarding Ministry with his mind swirling from the meaning of her note, wondering whether he should be upset and sad that he never got to say goodbye, or happy that she's decided to move on.
He signs in and grabs his bag , following the other witches and wizards to the remote village where they will be staying. The hot, humid air sticks to his skin, and the sun beats down on him. He longs for a familiar face as his shoulder grazes a tree. The dirt underneath is feet is hard, and a bug trails behind him.
Teddy opens the door to the small hotel-looking building, and the Head Auror assigns them rooms. He dumps his bag and walks outside, standing underneath the shade of a tree, when he spots s girl running toward him, with a familiar laugh, and a happy spirit.
She launches herself at him, and he finally realizes who he's holding. Her smile is bigger than all the continents strung together.
"Victoire?"
"Teddy, oh, I have so much to tell you, but first, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for whatever happened to us, and please, Teddy, I think we can make it work. And, I'm sorry for all the lies, and I'm sorry for the big mess, okay? I just – I had to tell you before it was too late, and I hope you'll forgive me. I transferred here to be with you, I can take my courses at the Ministry here, and it's just, well, we're living Teddy!"
He shuts her up the best way he knows how, and she feels like everything right as he holds her. He feels the rough cloth of her plaid shirt, and the sand in her hair gets caught between his fingers, and she tastes like freedom.
She pulls back first, speechless, before laughing and taking his hands in hers. She drags him off to show him colourful scarves a woman was selling in a nearby village, and Teddy looks at her free from her lies, no longer bound by dreaming, but set free in reality.
She's forgiven them both, and so has he, and now they're ready to start new, their past buried with the sand, and washed away with the wind.
notes: please drop a review with thoughts! Don't favourite with reviewing, please.