author's note: this is for the I DARE YOU thread over at the NEXT GEN FANATICS FORUM.
warnings: trigger warning for suicide. please DO NOT READ if this could be triggering. if you want to talk, i'm always here for you.
credit: credit for the majority of rose's characterization goes to the lovely BECCA, THEPAPERBAGPRINCESS. her story, WITH AESCHYLUS INKED ON HER ARMS, is fantastic. you should go read it.
title: is from a quote in OEDIPUS REX
She's sitting on the counter in the back room of The Three Broomsticks, her fiery red curls meshing with the gold lettering on the cover on a thick black novel. Her lips are pursed, legs crossed. There's a tray of four butterbeers she was supposed to be delivering to a table approximately four minutes ago.
She sighs audibly and shuts her book slowly. It's old and dog-eared—she's paged through it at least a dozen times. There's dust in the pages and there's wrinkles from where she set a glass of water on a page last summer. A few pages near the front are ripped out and she wonders to this day who might've done that.
She picks up the tray and one of the butterbeers spills a bit onto the tray and she pretends not to notice how the handle is sticky now as she makes her way over to a table of her cousin and a bunch of his friends.
"Here, James," she saying, sliding one of the drinks across the table to him. She sweeps her hair behind her shoulder casually.
"Sexy," one of the boys calls to her.
She turns away, letting it roll off of her slowly. It doesn't bother her, not really. It never has.
James thinks it bothers her. He follows her back into the back room and hops up onto the counter. "Sorry, Rosie." She shrugs, not all that concerned. "They can be real jackasses," he continues. "Don't know why I hang out with them, really." His eyes are wandering around the room, searching for something that might get her to talk. "What are you reading?"
He picks up her book and squints, trying to decipher the calligraphy on the cover. "What the hell…? What is this, Rosie?"
"Euripides's Medea," she says, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She knows that he has no idea what she's talking about.
In a split-second, James's confused look turns to one of mock-understanding. "Oh, yeah! Medea! And… Euripides, oh, he's great—"
"James."
"I'll read it Rosie. I promise." He pockets the book and walks to the door of the room. "I promise." He walks out.
Rose sighs.
/
He comes in a week later, grinning ear to ear. He looks like he hasn't slept in days, and his hair is messier than usual. "I finished Medea, Rosie."
She squints at him, as if she's never seen him before. "Really?"
"Really, Rosie. It was… amazing. Do you have any more of these?"
"What? You mean you really liked it?" She's completely and utterly stunned.
James smiles at her, "Yes, I really did. Do you have any more of these?" he repeats.
"Yeah, James, tons. Come over after work."
She smiles to herself and follows him out of the back room, carrying another five butterbeers to a group of Hogwarts students. Just last year, she thinks, it was her sitting there with her friends, just waiting for the moment she could walk through the school's double doors for a final time. Her friends had big plans—Healers, Aurors, Professors… Rose had no plans. Not really, anyway. Which is how she ended up here, working at The Three Brooksticks waiting until August for her term at the University of St. Andrew's to start. She's going to major in Greek literature, which, she thinks, is perfect.
She hurries off to the back to place another order.
/
He's over at her flat when the call comes. He's picked out Oedipus Rex, the classic from Sophocles.
"James, do you even know what that's about?" The book is on his lap. They're sitting an inch apart on the sofa in her living room and she's trying not to laugh out loud at his choice.
"Sure, I don't, Rosie." James grins.
Rose laughs, "Then I'll let you figure it out on your own." She twirls a piece of her red hair around her right index finger, smiling. "You'll find it… interesting, I think."
The phone rings, breaking the comfortable silence. Rose stands up and stretches. She walks leisurely to the flat's kitchen and takes the phone off the holder. "Hello?"
James sits in the living room, opening the book. He can't wait to pour over the timeless writing. And then he notices markings in the margins. It's Rose's—
Clank.
James turn's around in time to see Rose drop the phone tears pouring down her cheeks. "Fred… He—killed himself," she manages between gasps. "He's gone."
/
Rose hears a knock on her door while she's pulling on her black stockings and her black high heels and her black dress. She hears it open—she knows it's James, in his black dress pants and black tie and black everything.
He walks into her bedroom and drops her copy of Oedipus Rex on her bed. Rose sits down and flips through it and notices he marked in the margins near where she did. She wishes she could read it, but her eyes are too clouded with tears to do that.
"You liked it, didn't you?" she says.
"Yeah, Rose. I did."
"It didn't bother you?"
"Nothing can bother me anymore."
She leans into him so that her head is in the crook of his neck. He can feel her hot tears in the crevice of his neck. "I miss him so much."
"Me too, Rosie. Me too."
/
When the burial is over and Fred is six feet under James takes the long way back to Rose's apartment and pays for their cab. The rest of the family is off to the Burrow, but Rose couldn't think of anything more sad that she could possibly do.
The second the door shuts and the rain in blocked out, she pauses for half a second before she kisses James on an impulse. And maybe it's because she needs something (or someone) to fill the gaping hole in her heart and maybe it's because she's read Oedipus too many times that she can't be bothered with morals or whatever.
And apparently neither can James because his hands are roaming up and down her body and he's biting her lip and she's moaning his name and he can't get enough of it.
And then her clothes are on the floor next to the couch and so are his. But that never mattered, not where holes in the heart are involved.
/
So James keeps reading ancient tragedies and so does Rose and she goes to St. Andrew's and studies them and travels. And sometimes James goes off with her to Greece and sometimes he doesn't and sometimes she cries about Fred and sometimes she smiles about how they used to talk on the roof of the Burrow during the summers before his eighteenth year. And sometimes James thinks he likes Rose more than anyone really should, and sometimes he knows he loves her and it doesn't even matter. Sometimes she misses James when she's off at St. Andrew's and sometimes she pictures them as the star-crossed lovers in the plays she studies. Sometimes James thinks it isn't worth it waiting for Rose to come back for Christmas and running away liked they planned and sometimes he thinks he should just let it happen, so it does.
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