Happy belated birthday, Pip!
Ron pulled on the collar of his work robes uncomfortably, feeling stifled by them, as usual. Around his neck he could still feel the tie he'd been wearing earlier, though in fact it was crumpled in his pocket, an abandoned pretext. He could still feel it chaining him in. Choking him. But he'd torn it off, as usual. He was unkempt, as usual. And as usual, he'd come home from work, only to stand there in front of that familiar house, unable to go in and greet his wife and kids.
.
Pansy sat in front of her chipped-with-age full-length mirror and applied the same rouge red lipstick she'd used since she left her husband. The rest of the make-up, too, was the same, and this was the same careful getting-ready-routine that she'd always had. The only variables were her clothes and her hair: elegant or a bit more revealing? up or down? The second question had an irony to it that was only ever apparent when she chose 'up', but tonight she'd chosen the more truthful option. The dark hair spilling over her shoulders framed her face like the ornate, wooden frame surrounded the mirror she stared into every single night.
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Ron stared at the crumbling brickwork of his house and imagined walking up the steep driveway, opening the heavy front door and confronting his wife. He didn't want it to be a confrontation, but the tired realist in him made it so. "You're late." - the accusation - "I know. I got held up... but I'm here now, aren't I?" - the defensive question - "Have you been drinking again, Ron?" - the accusation - "Oh, I don't know, Hermione. You seem to know everything, so why don't you tell me?" - the defensive question - "Don't you dare shout at me!" - the beginning of an argument that would mean a slammed door and two pairs of red eyes in the morning.
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Pansy rarely went to the same place for more than a few days in a row, not because she wanted a variety, but because she'd always pitied the people who went to the same bars, clubs and pubs again and again and again and again. She had too much pride to accept pity, and as for variety, every drinking establishment in the world had the same basic, primal air, no matter what it looked like, or what drinks it served, or how loud it was, or who went there. So it didn't really matter to her where it was she went, so long as the chairs and the glasses and the men she picked up changed every so often. "What do you want?" - the bartender's script - "Whatever you want to buy me." - a sentence that ended any script but her own, the only one she'd ever wanted to follow.
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Ron sometimes managed to imagine another scenario. One where there were no accusations or arguments or vomit on cracked pavements. One where he walked up the driveway, opened the front door, and into Hermione's arms. But that dream - that beautiful exaggeration of by-gone years - was even more intolerable than the harshness of reality: at least there was an honesty and directness in shouting, unlike embracing a warm-honey-life whilst all the while wanting to be elsewhere. Because he didn't want to go inside. Because he was sick of lying. Because the bottom of a glass had somehow become more transparent than the smiles of the cornered man staring through it.
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Pansy took her time with her first glass of wine tonight. The bartender hadn't wanted to play, but she was old enough and wise enough not to get insulted and be made self-conscious or annoyed by his refusal. Too old to be here, really, but she didn't like to think about that. It was true that she looked nowhere near forty, but she was forty, and desperation is like a scent hanging heavy in the air. She didn't actually understand what it was that she wanted, what she was so desperate for, but it surrounded her nonetheless. Because everyone in her old little circle of friends was settled, together, at home with their partner and/or children in the evenings... not out every night, entering a door to a room neither of the people in it really cared about. A rouge red room where nothing but sensation mattered. A room you left as soon as you entered it.
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Ron could take his time getting to the bars now. When these problems had started, when his mother died, and Hugo got so ill, and his marriage started to fall apart as he fell apart inside, he'd go to the apparition point quickly, not giving himself time to feel the guilt. But now he walked. His secret was out, this self-destruction had become routine, ordinary, and he could no longer act like such a child and bury the wrongness of what he was doing under the same old excuses. So he let himself feel what he was doing, gave himself time to reverse it - though still stubborn, weak and knowing the firewhiskey would wash away the sin for a blissful while, he never did reverse it, never did stop moving away and turn around. It couldn't happen that way, because this situation was inescapable. (But was it, really? - Shut up.)
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Pansy knew that the thing she was looking for every night couldn't be independence, because she'd come to depend on two strangers being honest. It couldn't be fulfilment, because emptiness wasn't satisfying, no matter how good it felt. It couldn't be her age, because she didn't feel or act her age. And it couldn't be loneliness. She'd been lonely with Marcus, but she'd left him; he wasn't here anymore. (But who'd left whom, really? - Shut up.)
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Ron didn't feel lonely when he reached the bar, so far away from all the promises he'd made in his life. Ron didn't stand on the other side of the street thinking, considering. Ron didn't imagine how it would be. Ron didn't hesitate at all, rushing into the bar as soon as he'd arrived. And inside, he collapsed onto his usual barstool without even a glance over at those sitting near him.
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Pansy did look over, though.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and anything related to it don't belong to little old me. The title of this fic comes from the last three lines of the Kuroda Saburo poem 'I Am Completely Different': and glimpse then, inside me/one beautiful white butterfly/fluttering towards tomorrow.
Additional prompt: firewhiskey from the prompt of the day at Hogwarts Online, January 13th.
Thanks to: tat1312, who is, as ever, absolutely amazing.
A/N: The poem that the title of this fic draws from was my original starting point for the story. Things were supposed to move on to redemption, to freedom - to tomorrow. But the characters, it turned out, weren't ready for that sort of thing. And so it was instead about being caught in a rut, about losing hope.
I won't lie and say this was easy to write. It wasn't. But hopefully, my struggle to capture such difficult circumstances won't have had too much of an impact on the quality of this piece. I don't write because it's easy, I write because these ideas won't leave me alone.
If you read it, please review it! I'd love to hear your thoughts.